 “Hearing the words of the king, Vishvamitra complimented him in return. The sage then discussed dharma and his reason for coming there.” (Janaki Mangala, 23)
kausika suni nṛpa bacana sarāheu rājahiṃ |
dharmakathā kahi kaheu gayau jehi kājahiṃ ||
While it’s nice to have peers to share your experiences with, it is more beneficial to be in the company of authority figures who are capable of assertively identifying and revealing the real religious principles, remaining unafraid to discuss them with whoever is worthy. Our friendships are formed for our own immediate satisfaction, as it is beneficial to have people around whom we consider to be equals. Just being able to share experiences with others, to let them know what you are feeling and not have them judge you in return, is such a contributing factor towards mental health that people who lack this association often have to resort to approaching trained professionals to hear their problems.Dharma-katha, or discussion on religious topics, is a primary benefit coming from the brahmana community, and in this interaction the relationship is one between teacher and student. Hearing about dharma is so powerful that even a famous king like Dasharatha stood by quietly and listened attentively while such words came from Vishvamitra, an exalted sage who visited his community.
 What would a king have to gain from listening to a person with a long beard who lived in the woods? Can a homeless person give us advice on how to live our lives, which are dependent on technological advancements and involve the constant pressure of having to meet the monthly bills? What would they know about raising a family, tending to matters at work, or maintaining a sound financial footing? The brahmanas of ancient times weren’t poor without cause. They voluntarily accepted a meager lifestyle so that they would have a wealth of knowledge. From distractions in activity, through the feverish pursuit to best our fellow man in competition, a loss of rational thought results.
The first thing to go is proper identification. The country of origin, religious tradition, bank balance, skin color, gender, and so many other factors get used for identification, when in reality such attributes are transient. The bank balance can change quickly, as can the country of residence. Our physical abilities gradually diminish over time, yet we still remain vibrant living beings. Therefore identification must come from something besides the body or external attributes.
A brahmana earns their distinction by knowing Brahman, which is pure spirit. Strip away external appearances and conditions and you’re left with a vibrant energy, a spark of life if you will. Since that spark pervades nature, it can be thought of as a singular collective energy. The Vedas give a name to that force: Brahman. The living beings are all part of Brahman, which means that their identity comes from pure spirit and not external conditions.
Hearing about Brahman is easy, but actually realizing it is a totally different matter. To maintain the proper identification, to not get sidetracked by illusion, the Vedic literature institutes dharma, which can be thought of as religiosity or religious law codes. Dharma actually means an essential characteristic, so when it is used in place of religiosity, the guiding principles are meant to maintain the essential characteristic of Brahman within the living being.
Dharma is flawless, so even the person not willing to accept any philosophy at all can progress in knowledge through following the guiding principles. Not everyone you meet will be up for philosophical discussion. They will sometimes be guided by emotion, the problem of the day. The worldwide news media exploits this tendency. Television news especially caters to emotion rather than intellect. The latest murders, shootings, rapes and statements from politicians are presented as important events, but if you looked at the entire picture from a mathematical point of view, these incidents are trivial. For instance, yesterday the majority of the world lived peacefully, didn’t die, and didn’t have anything horrible happen to them. Yet if only one tragedy occurred, it becomes the most talked about event due to the influence of news providers and their consumers.
 Following dharma maintains sobriety of thought within the living being. Each personality type is provided their own religious principles to follow, with the idea being that eventually, maybe even in a future life, full enlightenment will be reached. The brahmanas are already at this stage, and their occupational duties call for teaching others about virtue and how to follow the proper principles. A wise king like Dasharatha was already a devoted soul, so he didn’t need a lecture on dharma. He was a wealthy king, but this didn’t mean that he somehow took his identity from his wealth or his standing in society. Rather, he viewed everything within the framework of his purpose, what role he had to play in upholding dharma for the good of everyone else.
Vishvamitra, a forest-dwelling brahmana, once visited the good king. Dasharatha received him nicely and offered him kind words of praise. The sage complimented the king in return and then discussed matters of duty, or dharma-katha. He also revealed the purpose of his visit. Brahmanas don’t need much for their maintenance. As their aim is to behave righteously and stay connected with Brahman and its source, the Supreme Lord, they can get by with a small amount of land and basic food. In Vedic rituals held by pious kings, the brahmanas were always gifted things so that they didn’t have to work for a living. Gold, jewelry andcows
Vishvamitra didn’t need any of these things from the king, however. He required expert protection, for the terrorist-like night-rangers in the forest were disturbing his adherence to piety. These creatures would appear in the dark with false guises and then attack just at the moment that a fire sacrifice was culminating. In the Vedic tradition a religious sacrifice is known as a yajna, which is another name for God. A sacrifice didn’t have to involve an animal being killed or offered up. A sacrifice generally consisted of a fire, with clarified butter offered as oblations. With a fire sacrifice, the component actions are pure and the presiding deities of creation are pleased. AsLord Krishna
 Krishna, or God, is the enjoyer of sacrifice. If one isn’t worshiping Him directly, the Lord still must be present for any of the worshiped personalities to receive their share. In this way sacrifice is very important. It is the backbone of a life dedicated to dharma. In the modern age the most effective sacrifice is known as thesankirtana-yajna, where one regularly recites the holy names: “Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare
To try to picture what Vishvamitra was going through, imagine sitting in meditation in your room and then getting attacked just as you started to think about God. This was basically what the sages in the forest were facing, as the night-rangers weren’t just attacking but also killing them and then eating their flesh. Dasharatha had jurisdiction over that part of the forest, so Vishvamitra came to request special protection. What the king didn’t know was that the sage had a special protector in mind, He who protects all the fallen souls.
Dasharatha’s eldest son Rama was the same Krishna, the Supreme Lord, in the guise of a human being. Though quite young at the time, Rama was an expert bow warrior. He played the role of a fighter to give pleasure to Dasharatha’s family line, the Ikshvakus, and protect the surrendered souls, the pious brahmanas, living in the forest. Dasharatha would rather die than part with Rama, but since he lived dharma, since he swore to uphold it, since he praised Vishvamitra with the sweetest words, he had no choice but to agree to the request.
From that acquiescence Rama and His younger brother Lakshmana
 Vishvamitra would also impart on the boys confidential mantras to be used in fighting. Rama is the creator of the universe and Lakshmana His eternal servant, so they don’t require any aid in fighting. Nevertheless, to add to Vishvamitra’s stature, to prove just how important discussing dharma and teaching it to others is, they listened attentively, as if they were ignorant on the matter. Maintaining that veil of ignorance, the boys would enter King Janaka’s kingdom on the day of a grand sacrifice, where Janaka’s daughter would wed whoever could lift the extremely heavy bow given by Lord Shiva
Vishvamitra didn’t need to provide a reason for his visit to Ayodhya, but he did so to let Dasharatha know that he wasn’t just taking his son away without cause. Moreover, Dasharatha didn’t need to worry about whether or not the request was appropriate, for by hearing about dharma, the king was reminded of his duty to uphold it. The most elevated brahmanas live bhagavata-dharma, or devotional service
In Closing:
About dharma the brahmana speaks,
Others about purpose in life to teach.
These discussions attentively hear,
Cycle of birth and death no longer fear.
Praise and honor Vishvamitra earned,
The kind words of king he did return.
Sacrifices of sages night-rangers did harm,
Thus needed Rama, He of mighty arms.
Because King Dasharatha finally did agree,
Splendid marriage of Sita and Rama world to see.
 |
Friday, February 10, 2012
Dharma-katha
New insights into how to correct false knowledge
The abundance of false information available on the Internet, in movies and on TV has created a big challenge for educators.
Students sometimes arrive in classrooms filled with inaccurate knowledge they are confident is correct, indicating it is deeply entrenched in their memory.
According to Duke University researchers, educators might be able to help students overcome their misconceptions by correcting inaccurate information then having the students practice retrieving it from memory.
"Errors that are deeply entrenched in memory are notoriously difficult to correct," said Andrew Butler, a post-doctoral researcher in Duke's Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, who led a recent study of how students correct false knowledge. "Providing students with feedback is the first step because it enables them to identify the error and learn the correct information."
Recent research in cognitive science has shown it is possible to correct false knowledge with feedback -- a phenomenon known as the hypercorrection effect. When students answer a test question wrong, the more confident they are in their original answer, the more likely they are to remember the right answer if corrected.
However, the hypercorrection effect seems to contradict our common experience that it is very difficult to correct deeply entrenched false knowledge. For example, anyone who has changed phone numbers knows how hard it is to learn the new number because the old number keeps coming to mind.
The Duke-led study helps to resolve this paradox. The study showed that false knowledge held with high confidence is more likely to be corrected in the short-term, but also more likely to come back in the long-term if the correction is forgotten.
"The hypercorrection effect is an interesting new phenomenon that seemed to contradict much of what we know about how people's memory works," Butler said. "The findings from our study show that this apparent contradiction is really just the result how the dynamics of error-correction shift over time."
Along with co-authors Lisa Fazio, a psychologist at Carnegie Mellon University, and Elizabeth Marsh, an associate professor in Duke's Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, Butler wanted to better understand how the relationship between a person's confidence in a response and his ability to correct errors changes over time.
The researchers gave 50 Duke undergraduate students a 120-question test on basic science information, with questions including: What is stored in a camel's hump? How many chromosomes do humans have? What is the driest area on Earth? After answering each question, students rated their confidence in their response, and then received the correct answer as feedback. Half the students were retested six minutes later, while the other half were retested one week later.
Students who were retested immediately corrected 86 percent of their errors. As expected, their responses showed a hypercorrection effect -- they were more likely to correct errors that they had made with high confidence relative to low-confidence errors.
In contrast, students who were retested one-week later also showed a hypercorrection effect. However, these students only corrected 56 percent of their errors, indicating they had forgotten many of the correct answers that they had learned from the feedback.
When students forgot the correct answer over the one-week delay, the opposite of the hypercorrection effect occurred -- the higher their confidence in their initial error, the more likely they were to re-produce that same error on the final test.
"Although high-confidence errors may be easily corrected in the short-run, our findings suggest that one presentation of feedback is not enough to produce a long-lasting correction of deeply entrenched false knowledge," Butler said. "Without further practice, high-confidence errors seem to be more likely to return over time."
Does this finding indicate we are doomed to retain deeply entrenched false knowledge? Perhaps not. The authors suggest we should view the hypercorrection effect as a valuable opportunity.
One idea they propose is to capitalize on the hypercorrection effect by providing students with additional opportunities to retrieve the correct information.
"Giving students repeated practice with retrieving information has been shown to promote long-term retention of that information," said Butler, who has also conducted research on using testing to promote long-term retention of information. "If students practice retrieving the correct information, then they may be able to avoid reverting back to their deeply entrenched false knowledge."
More information: The study, "The Hypercorrection Effect Persists Over a Week, but High-Confidence Errors Return," appeared in the December print edition of the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
Provided by Duke University
"New insights into how to correct false knowledge." February 7th, 2012. http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-02-insights-false-knowledge.html
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek
Robert Karl Stonjek
Research finds children with social phobia are judged less attractive
(Medical Xpress) -- A recent study from the Centre for Emotional Health, Macquarie University, has found children with social phobia are judged as less attractive and are less liked by their peers, than children without anxiety disorders.
The study conducted by M Barrow, J Baker and J Hudson had children watch video footage of their peers delivering a brief speech. Children with an anxiety disorder, specifically those with social phobia, were less liked and perceived as less physically attractive than non-anxious children.
According to the study, perceived attractiveness was highly related to poor micro social skills, and it is possible that this may have lead to the harsher judgment of attractiveness.
“Perceived physical attractiveness accounted for a significant degree of variance in peer liking,” says Dr Jess Baker. “Once physical attractiveness was considered in analyses, observed anxiety or having an anxiety disorder was no longer significant determinants of peer liking. This suggests that physical attractiveness is a stronger predictor of peer liking than the child’s anxiety”.
Social phobia is common among both adults and children with around seven per cent of the population experiencing a marked fear of negative evaluation from others in social or performance situations. Social phobia typically begins in early life with approximately half of socially anxious adults experiencing symptoms before the age of 11.
The findings highlight the specific relationship between social phobia and peer dislike and demonstrate the importance of observed anxiety and perceived physical attractiveness in determining peer dislike.
“It’s important to recognise the impact that social phobia can have on children. Children with social phobia are less likely to have close friendships, are more likely to drop out of school and can experience real issues in later life,” says Baker.
Provided by Macquarie University
"Research finds children with social phobia are judged less attractive." February 7th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-children-social-phobia.html
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek
Robert Karl Stonjek
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BREAKING: MOST UNEMPLOYED YOUTH SINCE WORLD WAR II
The ability to build wealth is usually only feasible with a steady income. Yet every year a new class of young adults graduate from America’s universities to find a tough job market and frequent unemployment. This new group dubbed the “jobless generation” will have trouble building wealth from the get go as is often recommended. Get the statistics on the situation here!CNN Money shares…
The share of young adults with jobs has hit its lowest level since the government started keeping records just after World War II.
By the end of 2011, only 54.3% of those between the ages of 18 and 24 were employed, according to a Pew Research Center report released Thursday. And the gap in employment between the young and all working-age adults is roughly 15 percentage points — the widest on record.
The Great Recession hurt the young more than most other age groups. Their employment decline has been steeper and their median weekly earnings fell by 6%, while holding steady for others, Pew found.
Only part of this can be explained by the growth in college attendance. While a greater share of 18- to 24-year-olds are in school than ever before, the employment rate has fallen regardless of enrollment.
For those in college, only 40.7% had jobs last year, down from 47.6% in 2007. And the employment rate for young adults not in school dropped to 65%, from 73.2% in 2007.
The jobless rate for 18- to 24-year-olds was 16.3% last year, compared to 8.8% for the overall population.
Nearly half of 18- to 34-year-olds say they’ve taken a job they didn’t want just to pay the bills, while another quarter have accepted unpaid work in order to gain experience. Nearly a third postponed getting married or having a baby. One in four moved back home with their parents after living on their own.
But the young have maintained their optimism. Some 88% of 18- to 34-year-olds say they either have earned enough money now to lead the kind of life they want or expect they will earn enough in the future. Their older compatriots have a much darker view, with 28% of people over the age of 35 saying they will never earn enough
Get the entire story at CNN Money!
FIVE FACTS OF LIFE THAT MATTER IN BUSINESS
5 Simple Business Truths From Mom
Essential lessons about life turned out to be lessons for business.
By Paul Spiegelman | @paulspiegelman| Feb 8, 2012
In my speaking engagements, I often get asked how I decided to focus on culture and employee engagement as the most important drivers for my business. Did some event trigger this approach? Did I work somewhere else and then decide that this is the way I wanted to do business? The answer is neither. Beryl has been my only gig (at least for the last 27 years). I guess I just didn’t know any better.
The credit goes to my mom and dad.
My parents are terrific people who managed to keep three boys from killing each other in a very rambunctious household. And while we may have battled as youngsters, the unifying values my parents instilled in us enabled my brothers and I to all go into business together and build a successful enterprise. I’m the only one still involved in the business, but the key principles remain the same.
Since we knew little to nothing about running a business and had no real professional experience, we decided to build our company on what we did know…and that is directly related to how we were brought up. And like many parents out there, ours had a few go-to sayings that ended up well beyond the Spiegelman house and directly in the culture of our business. Here are some of my favorites and why they’ll be important to your success.
1. “Always Be Nice”
It seems so simple, but I’ll never forget my dad telling me that. When I was a child and my dad would run into an old business colleague, that person would pull me aside and tell me that my dad was one of the nicest people he had ever met. I always hoped people would say that about me one day. (And I’m still working on it.) Being nice and having kindness in your heart will get you through almost any situation.
2. “Listen”
Stop telling people what you can do for them and listen to what they’re saying they need from you. You can’t learn what your customer needs (and what they will buy from you) if you’re too busy talking about what you can give them.
3. “Eat Your Vegetables”
The same way it’s good for you to plow through your vegetables as a kid, you’ll find enormous benefits in reading to improve your business. Even the artichokes of business books. You can never read too much.
4. “Stop Picking Your Nose”
Be aware how you conduct yourself out in the world. People are watching you and your business. And not only should you avoid them catching you doing something questionable, don’t do that questionable thing in the first place.
Continue reading this article at INC.com after the break!
3 WAYS TO BE TAKEN MORE SERIOUSLY
Appearance in the workplace is everything. If you believe otherwise, you are kidding yourself. If you have your sights set on that promotion, make sure you are acting the part. These 3 tips will help you snag the job you deserve. Get the tips here!INC recommends…
1. Hire a Copy Editor
There’s no denying that business communications have become increasingly casual as people more frequently use email, messaging, blogs and so forth. This creates an opportunity, because you can now create an aura of superior professionalism simply by communicating with error-free text … especially if your competition is winging it.
If you’re not capable of writing perfect copy yourself, though, hire a copy editor to go over your most important documents–even emails. It’s surprisingly inexpensive. I’ve had good experiences with PureText, but if they’re too busy, it shouldn’t be too difficult to locate an alternative.
2. Speak More Clearly
I’ve interviewed hundreds of top executives, and the most successful (like Larry Ellison and Michael Dell) have well-modulated voices and tend to speak slowly and clearly. The wannabes, on the other hand, talk fast, say “uh …” or “like …” in the middle of their sentences or, worst of all, have that annoying little uptick at the end of a sentence that turns it from a statement into a question.
To sound more professional, record your voice when you’re talking in person and on the telephone, listen carefully to the playback, become aware of what you’re doing, then try again. Repeat until you’ve learned to slow down and speak more clearly. If necessary, hire a vocal coach.
3. Sanitize Your Online Persona
I’ve written about this in the past, but it bears repeating: Don’t buy into this nonsense that you should meld your business and personal life.
Unless you’re running for political office, publicity about your family distracts from your professional image, even if you’ve got a trophy spouse and perfect children. And if you’re into anything at all unusual or weird, I guarantee you that it will come up in some business situation that makes you wish it hadn’t. So troll through the social networking sites and make your personal life private again. If this means creating a separate Facebook page for your working life, so be it.
Get more great tips at INC!
TIPS TO RECRUIT THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST
How I Find and Hire the World’s Best Employees
It’s no secret that great people build great companies, so it’s baffling that more companies don’t treat recruiting as the most critical job.
By Joe Reynolds | @RedFrogEvents |
A five-piece mariachi band, a cake with a hidden message, and more food than you’d believe, were all delivered to our office—resume in tow—to help an applicant stand out from the other 2,000 monthly hopefuls who apply for a job here. People do crazy things like this because they, with all their hearts, want to work at Red Frog Events.
It’s no secret that great people build great companies, so it’s baffling that more companies don’t treat recruitment as the most critical department. Red Frog has treated it this way from day one with spectacular results: We currently hire just one out of every 750 applicants.
How to attract great applicants:
- Positive work culture. It’s flat-out fun working at Red Frog. I work with 130 of the nicest, smartest, and most fun people I’ve ever met. The pure fun and excitement of an ordinary Red Frog day never gets old. New recruits notice.
- Incredible benefits. Our benefits package includes unlimited vacation days (see Give Your Employees Unlimited Vacation Days), a sabbatical every five years, a 10 percent 401k match with no vesting schedule and many more great perks.
- Office environment. We have an award-winning camp-themed office environment that includes a tree house (see Your Employees Need a Treehouse), zip-line and rock-climbing wall, among many other fun surprises. It makes coming to work exciting.
- Heavy recruitment. We could simply let the applicants come to us, but we don’t. Long lines and raw excitement to meet the Red Frog crew at nearly every job fair within six hours of Chicago is the norm.
How to interview them:
- Resumes are mostly garbage. This completely deviates from status quo, but it works for us. We look for nice-to-the-core, passionate people and a resume simply doesn’t communicate that. We just make sure the basics are in place and move on.
- Cover letters. The cover letter is where passion shines. Our hires submitted passionately written cover letters.
- Passion wins. The best employees, assuming some vitals are in place, are the most passionate ones.
- Untraditional interviews. It kills me that businesses still ask standard interview questions. “What’s your biggest weakness?” surely won’t get you an answer of value when the answer has already been rehearsed. Get creative.
Continue reading this article at INC.com after the break!
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