Behance’s 99% blog shares “8 Counter-Intuitive Ways to Improve Your Well-Being & Creativity.“ As if we didn’t know it already, they remind us that sadness is a prime catalyst for creativity, though I would also argue it’s probably the main reason that creative ideas don’t come to fruition. After writing my last post on feeling like an outsider, my mom sent me something on “The Upside of Being an Outsider.” It’s interesting how Lisa explains that these feelings often begin in childhood, asking the so-called deep questions and pondering life’s big mysteries, while most kids are riding their bikes, blissfully unaware.

On the Harvard Business Review Blog, Tony Schwartz explains ”How to Think Creatively,” which to me conjures amusing imagery of CEOs in gray suits doing modern dance to a prompt like “feel the space around you.” Nonetheless, he presents (quite logically) the stages of creative thinking–slightly removing the sexiness from any ideas you may have about the creative process.

But I quite prefer Oriah Mountain Dreamer’s deep exploration of the creative process, where she shows that it’s not all that one imagines it to be. I was particularly struck when I realized that even hit songs don’t just magically appear, and that master artists and writers hone their skills through relentless activity. I guess the “practice makes perfect” lesson is only just beginning to hit me.

As I posted last week, I organized #SocialGood Day. It was great to see all the enthusiasm, and it was a really encouraging start to the Netsquared Jaipur chapter. Since the global 350.org event is happening on 10/10/10, it was a push to start getting ourselves organized.

So I went to Jaipur Rugs Company and Foundation on Monday, to learn more about their work and coordinate the event: tree planting and technical help that our Netsquared group will offer. I had a wonderful experience there and stayed for several hours. Kavita Chaudhary, Head of R&D, showed me all around.

I was not only impressed by their cutting edge designs for some big buyers in the US & abroad, but in their commitment to sustainable business. They have a number of eco-friendly rugs using jute & hemp, and are innovating new ways to use the waste from not only their products, but even tools used in the production process. (They create large printed, laminated versions of the rugs for the weavers, which they are trying to re-use in different ways).

The commitment to sustainability goes further, though. Four years ago they started the Foundation to ensure that their 40,000+ weavers benefit from the employment. Here’s more info from a recent article, “Reviving the swadeshi looms“:

Artisans Forum which is being created by the Jaipur Rugs Foundation (a top name in the carpet industry) and the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (Irma). The purpose is to create an entrepreneur out of every artisan, giving him the dignity he deserves and not forcing him to migrate to cities for low-skill jobs.

The model involves taking weavers from households to a neighbouring production centre which doubles their earnings. About 300 production centres are then aggregated under a common facility centre, located within 25 km, according to Jaipur Rugs Founder and Managing Director N K Chaudhury. The common facility centres, where all the dyeing and other supplementary work gets done, will be aggregated under Artisans Forum. The first common facility centre has already come up in Alwar.

Jaipur Rugs has been following this model among the 40,000 weavers who have been supplying products to it in the last three decades, and has seen their earnings go up. Jaipur Rugs Foundation recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Irma to take this model to carpet weavers across the country and, gradually, to other crafts as well.

Will share more about the event as it happens! Are you planning to attend a local 10/10/10 event?

Those with more local experience shared some examples of what they had been doing in this space. We were also able to address many of the newcomer’s questions, and to help them build a clearer roadmap for their own projects: objectives and strategies they can start to implement.

One participant was beginning an internship with an organization focusing on HIV/AIDS, and raised issues about the problem’s lack of visibility in India and abroad, as well as her organization’s reluctance to use social media. I encouraged her to begin explaining social media to her colleagues before diving into more detailed plans.

I took this day to be the inauguration of the Jaipur chapter of Netsquared, a global network of communities dedicated towards using technologies for social change. Our next meetup will most probably coincide with 350.org‘s Global Work Day. Thanks to Amy for providing the support!

of cars, thoughts and rats.

Continuous comparison,

city life of crowds and competition

no space to hear yourself think

others breathing down your neck

the heat grit smoke dust

choking all life around.

The seat of government and diplomacy,

madness and no mercy.

To thrive: a miraculous task;

most just barely survive.

The dream and drive of making it big,

the unbeatable will to stay alive.

Against all odds the craze continues

rewarding few

crippling many.

Delhi, do you have any idea

of where you’re leading the country?

You are an unsettled head

in an aching body.

You are trying too hard to keep up,

to prove yourself to the world,

and leaving too much behind.

Delhi, in my belly, on my mind:

are you aware of what you’re doing?

Isha has been highlighted in Huffington Post Impact section (what a great surprise!):

For today’s Volunteer Spotlight (and since Earth Day is just a week away), we want to recognize the incredible achievement of the Isha Foundation, who organized over 400,000 volunteers to plant two million trees on a mountain in India in just 25 days. This group of volunteers also set the record for most tree seeds (850,000) planted in a single day (a record they plan to continually break in the years ahead).

Sadhguru seemed surprised when I asked him about how to encourage people to volunteer their time. He replied that people should be even more selfish than they already are; after all, taking care of our environment and others helps improve our own lives.

“We’re not saving the planet,” he told me. “We’re saving ourselves.”

Sadhguru does not believe that this volunteer effort should be the work of a select group of activists.

“It’s everybody’s work. All of us breathe, all of us eat, all of us walk on this planet. This is not somebody’s work, it’s everybody’s work. Unless we get it into people’s minds that this is everybody’s work, you will not accomplish much on this planet.”

In addition to the wildly successful environmental initiative, known as Project GreenHands, Isha’s Action for Rural Rejuvenation works to address economic, agricultural and social mobility problems in rural India.

“Sadhguru is mystical, insightful, beautiful, funny, wise and grounded. I have taken two of his Isha programs, in Los Angeles and Tennessee, and strongly encourage you to explore this program for yourself–it’s not to be missed.”–Anjelica Huston, Inner Engineering Intensive flyer

From an interview with Huston in Vanity Fair:

She is being helped, she told me, by an Indian guru, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, whose name she spelled out for me like a conscientious schoolgirl. “He reminds me of my husband visually. He has the same lovely brown skin and liquid brown eyes. Very handsome. He’s a modern guru. He plays Frisbee on the beach with us.”

“Do you meditate together?”

“Yes, there are about 70 of us, and you sit cross-legged on the floor for about three days and feel like calcification itself. And then, somehow, you feel a little better. Maybe even get thinner and smarter. We go through a series of exercises, which were kind of familiar to me,” she added, and began to laugh. “I had an Italian grandfather on my mother’s side who became a yogi, and whenever we visited him as children we had to stand on our heads and sing, ‘Oh, what a beautiful morning. Oh, what a beautiful day!’”

Mr. Geithner has his work cut out for him, economists and policy analysts in both India and the United States say. Reaching economic agreements between the two countries has traditionally been an arduous task.

“On principle, they both agree on everything,” said Jahangir Aziz, chief India economist at J. P. Morgan in Mumbai. “It always comes down to the nitty-gritty and that’s where things get stuck. Part of the problem is neither of them wants to give the other side an inch.”

Shouldn’t the US go a little easier on India, given the size of its market?

It took nearly 20 years for the United States to lift a ban on imports of Indian mangoes, for example, and a deal to allow energy-strapped India access to American nuclear technology, agreed to in principle four years ago, still has not cleared all the legal hurdles that would let American companies sign contracts here. The two countries remain far apart on American farm subsidies and India’s unwillingness to open its markets to foreign farmers, because they both want to protect their agricultural sectors. The countries’ disagreements there helped to scuttle global trade negotiations in 2008.

A funny & relevant tweet from Sadhguru’s public talk yesterday:

When you start thinking only I am right and everybody else is wrong, this is the first step towards madness.

Surely the US qualifies?

India as a culture has invested more time, energy and human resource toward the spiritual development of human beings for a very long time. This can only happen when there is a stable society for long periods without much strife. While all other societies were raked by various types of wars, and revolutions, India remained peaceful for long periods of time. So they invested that time in spiritual development, and it became the day to day ethos of every Indian.

The world looking towards India for spiritual help is nothing new. It has always been so in terms of exploring the inner spaces of a human being-how a human being is made, what is his potential, where could he be taken in terms of his experiences. I don’t think any culture has looked into this with as much depth and variety as India has. Mark Twain visited India and after spending three months and visiting all the right places with his guide he paid India the ultimate compliment when he said that anything that can ever be done by man or God has been done in this land.

So definitely as humanity, today we have reached many peaks in terms of science, economics or technology but if we do not heal the inner damage then all the power that technology has given us will only be used destructively. We are already on the verge of threatening the extinction of the planet. If human beings are not tempered from inside there will always be conflict.

I don’t know about the other gurus traversing the globe, but my endeavor is and theirs should be also, to aim at the political, economic and other areas of leadership. If some element of spirituality enters the life of these leaders, it could change the complexion of the world in a very short time. It is a priority and is beginning to happen but not significantly.

From Kavita Chhibber‘s interview with Sadhguru.

India

She wore a raiment of so many a hue An unfamiliar eye would think she is madness true Her children are such multi-flavored stew This amalgamation of culture a heady brew Isn’t man just an outcrop of the land that his forefathers slew It’s antiquated history of blood & beauty knew A faraway visitor here saw what man or god could ever do Now it is time that you & me blow life & breath anew. –Sadhguru

The guru is constantly taking his disciples or devotees for a ride, because if you really tell them what they are supposed to swallow, they will just say this is impossible and run away.             –Sadhguru

[youtube EETLYZnTSWc]

From an interview with Kavita Chhibber:

Q: So what is the role of the guru, what should people be looking for? I see most of them churning out old wine in new bottles.

A: I know all the people you have in mind. I know you are a journalist and you will put it everywhere but I have to say this. I will be ashamed to be grouped with them. Guru means one who is the dispeller of darkness. By reading and translating two chapters of the Bhagwad Gita does not make you a guru. There was a time when interpreting a book was important because only one man in the village could read. Now every body can read as we continue to try and create a literate world around us. So why do you want to interpret that book for the people? Let every one read the book themselves and understand it the way they want to. A guru is not here to interpret scriptures and books. He is here to bring out the possibilities within you that by yourself, you may not be able to explore because it may be in a totally different direction from the way you may be looking.

I’m an uneducated guru. I don’t know the scriptures, I have not read the Vedas and I didn’t bother to read the Bhagvad Gita. I’m about life-I’m not about heaven. Its not a popular thing to say, but I believe that the whole effort of the guru should be to help the seeker deepen his seeking, not to give him answers.

If I give you the answers then the only option you have is to either believe me or disbelieve me. If it is me you believe then you are not getting any closer to finding answers to your seeking. If you don’t believe me, you aren’t getting closer either. All you’ll have will be an interesting story that I told you, to tell others, who in turn will tell others and it will all continue to be distorted and add to all those distorted stories that have been going around for years and have messed up people’s lives so badly.

If a human being says I don’t know something, then the possibility of knowing is open in his life. When a man believes he knows something that he does not know he is a mess because he believes something he does not know.

I come from only my experience and the only thing that I know for sure is this piece of life. I don’t know anything else. I don’t know what Rama said or Krishna said. Whatever bits and pieces I heard from my grandmother didn’t make any sense to me. For me Rama was the son of a king who became a king. Beyond that I don’t see anything. The guru should not be talking about Rama or Krishna but about the means by which to deepen the human experience. A human being today lives on the surface of life and the guru’s effort should be to take him to his innermost core.