El hombre de Villa Tevere. Chapter XV

For a person to be able to 'fly' high, i.e. to reach ideals, especially of service to God, h needs to be dettached from anything that could distract him from his goal. St. Josemaria lived poverty, not meaning not having things, but in spite of having the required instruments, living free from them.

And he took care so that he could always keep that freedom by never 'possessing' things, never considering anything as 'his', never thinking of anything as 'essential'. If we have it, good, because we are able to do things better, if we don't have it, OK, we'll do without it.

His brother Santiago, knowing this, thought very hard of what to gift him. Once he gave him a walkie-talkie which he thought would be very useful. St. Josemaria received it with a lot of gratitude and enjoyed seeing how it worked, but as soon as he could, he gave it to somebody who needed it more (his daughters). Similarly, once he was gifted a table clock which he liked a lot. A few days afterwards he gave it to somebody else becauase he noticed he was grw
owing attached to the gift.

However, he was very generous, and lived justice to its maximum. Once, a worker who had saved for various months, so that his to-be-born child could be born at a nice clinic and would have a nice bed, lost all the savings when he got drunk in a bar and was robbed. St. Josemaria asked that the worker be given by the boss the full amount lost plus an extra bonus so that he could fulfill the dream for his child.

He had only two cassocks, one to see visitors and go visiting people, and an old one which he would wear at home. The old one was always very clean, but was very old (lasted 20 years) and had been fixed so many times that it had various shades of black.

When he died it took just 6 minutes for two people to put all his belongings in just one box.

He was always taking care of te material things of the house and teaching others to do so: not slamming doors, closing windows carefully, etc.

Toy Story

Article published by IEEE Spectrum

How a B student landed an A+ job in the toy industry.

This is part of the dream jobs yearly seres of the Spectrum magazine of IEEE, Feb 2009.

• Age: 38,
• What he does: Evaluates toys for reliability and safety;
• For whom: Wild Planet Toys;
• Where he does it: In an office cluttered with toys, old and new, in San Francisco's financial district;
• Fun factors: Gets to play with all the latest toys made by his company and competitors, works with children to evaluate product designs.

Shannon Bruzelius graduated from mechanical engineering in 1995, but it was not until 1999 that he got his 'dream job'.

Throughout those four years he had 'boring' jobs, on engineering but which were not really fulfilling, mainly because he was seriously looking for his job at a toys company.

It took him many daily 'cold calls' to all companies which manufactured toys, getting no response. Until one day he met somebody by chance in a flight who gave him the right contact. After a few months of dealing with that contact, he finally landed the 'dream job', which he loved from day one.

Other jobs may pay more, but this is the right one and he would not change it for anything.

From unemployed to business man: how does an entrepreneur think?

Title: From unemployed to business man: how does an entrepreneur think?
Type: Article
Author: Unknown
Published by: www.cccapt.com (in Spanish)

To be an entrepreneur is required to have certain personal skills. Essentials are: creativity, risk taking, perseverance and patience. We must be ready and comfortable to be under situation of change, uncertainty, crisis, pressure. Be able to delegate responsibilities, trust in others.

To think as an entrepreneur must manage future, be ambitious, foresee and anticipate economic difficulties.

The path for an entrepreneur is not easy. It is important to define clearly what we want to do, set the limits of our objectives and develop the business plan. The clearer the path, the higher probabilities not to get lost.

Objectives must be specific, clear, reachable and motivating (encouraging).

It is better to think big but from our context... encouragement to reach objective is linked to how reachable it is. Business plan should describe activity to be developed, product, sector, innovation and technology to be incorporated.

El hombre de Villa Tevere. Chapter XIV.

St. Josemaria was (is) a man in love, in love with Jesus Christ through and through. He is completely given to Jesus and doesn’t keep anything for himself or anybody else.

“I had not thought of becoming a priest, but Jesus came to my soul, as love comes: ‘sicur fur’, as a thief, at an unexpected moment. He said: now you are mine, meus es tu! […] Those were inklings of Love”. He said.

He would count his age by years of love to God. Once he said he was very old: “seventy three!”... but then he rectified: “No! I’m young! I’m just a little above 30, those I’ve been serving Our Lord Jesus Christ” (1965). He is respectful with women, but always keeping distance; he would never be alone with a lady (young or old); even though he is a good observer, he would avoid looking at them in such a way that he would not even know the colour of their eyes. He would tell his daughters that he love them very much, with the heart of a father and mother, but only when many of them were together, never when only one of them was present. He would never go alone to a Center of women.

He would speak of celibacy as “the most precious jewel of the crown of the Church”.

He would avoid any attachment from other people to himself: in 1954, a worker was told that the Father had praised his work. The worker replied that he would do ‘anything for the monsignore’. When told about this, the Father said that it was a pity that it had been done for himself and not for God.

God in the Indian Medieval Philosophy - Introduction

Book by Mariano Iturbe, Kala ACharya and others

This is a point-wise summary of the introduction chapter to the book "God in the Indian Medieval Philosophy" published by Eunsa in Spanish. The translations and the interpretations of the text are mine and may not be fully accurate.

• Philosophy is called Darsana, from sanscrit, meaning intuitive vision or immediate vision of reality.

• It is an activity that originates from the concrete experiences that require a systematic explanation and that finish by understanding and reaching the summum bonum of life.

• Not possible to distinguish clearly between philosophy and theology.

• It begins during the first 1000 years before Christ, with the Upanisads and the development of the various philosophical schools.

• For this book we concentrate on centuries VIII to XVI A.D.

• All the philosophers chosen here are from the school of Vedanta and each of them is founder of a different branch.

• Vedanta concentrates exclusively on the contents of the Vedas, mainly referring to the material universe and the Supreme Being (Brahman).

• From philosophy point of view, outstanding: Sankara, Ramanuja and Madhva. Also will see Nimbarka and Vallabha.

• Here we will analyze the relation God-world-souls.

• We will analyze quickly the concept of God and the problem of knowledge of Supreme Being during this period.

1. God during the Vedic Period

• Indian philosophy is based on the Vedas, a collection of sacred books.

• The vedic gods are associated with the powers of natures.

• There is a progressive tendency to consider the universe as something which emanated from an original being, sometimes immanent to the universe, other times transcendent.

• There is politeism and henoteism.

• But there is a tendency to simplify the many gods into a unique principle that holds and shapes all the others.

• This is explained with various terms that are explained by the vedic visionaries. E.g. rta.

• The Rg veda contains a hymn of creation... an emanation of a universe from a first principle, which is not a divinity but something impersonal.

• Slowly, the hymns were evolving and the sacrifices ended up being an end more than a means to worship.

• Los Aranyakas are a decisive moment in the India of the Vedas, is a tendency towards knowledge, reflection, philosophy... this is developed completely with the Upanisads.

• In the Upanisads is where there is an attempt to affirm and explain the true nature of the Supreme Being.

2. God in the Upanisads

• Upanisads are the last part of the Vedas.

• They are not a unique system of thought, but the seed of the future schools of Indian philosophy can be found there.

• There can be found the questions about the origin of the world with respect to a Supreme Being.

• The immutable, last and supreme reality is expressed in the Upanisads as Brahman.

• It suggests the idea of a fundamental relation between man and the Supreme Being.

• Man wishes to reach God and that wish is rooted in his own nature.

• Through knowledge, man understands that God is within him and identifies with him. It is a process of discovering human nature through which he realizes that it is identical to that of the Supreme Being.

• Consideration of the origin of the universe takes to the existence of a first principle... called sometimes, ‘non-being’, meaning that it is different from all what we perceive as existing. It never dies and is part of the external world.

• According to the Taittiriya Upanisad, the knowledge of God is a process by which the Supreme being penetrates within the deepest substance of the soul.

  • Brahman is everywhere, but resides in our hearts.

  • The one who knows Brahman knows that the first thing emanating from Brahman is eter and from there all the other elements.

  • Brahman is truth, knowledge and infinite.

  • Brahman is not matter, life, intelligence, but happiness. This discovery represents the moment in which the person reaches the Supreme Being, i.e. when perceives the unity behind all the inferior beings of the universe.

  • This comes from intuition, not from dialogue: human understand that his own nature is also divine nature.

  • The free soul that has understood his own nature, is conscious of his unity, of being one with everything that exists.

• In Chandogya Unpanisad the possibility of reaching a knowledge of Brahman through reason from senses is rejected. Only through yoga, helped by his own Maya.

• Svetasvatara Upanisad is a reflection about the phenomena of the cause and human destiny.

  • There is no emphasis on Brahman, as absolute, but on the personal God Isvara, that is omniscient and omnipotent, and the manifestation of Brahman.

  • It teaches the unity of the souls and the world in a supreme unique Reality and represents an effort to various points of view of that time.

• It is not possible to analyze completely each of the Upanisads. But we see that their main aim is the search and knowledge of the nature of this principle or Being... Brahman.

• Brahman is the complete reality, the essence of everything that exists.

• Brahman is eternal, creator of everything, legislator of the entire universe.

• The only possible way for man to describe the supreme Being is through negative terms.

• It has an essence that is beyond our intellect.

• Creation is just an overflow of the supreme Being, which is present in all things of the world

• Identification between Atman and Brahman

  • In Rg Veda, Atman is the ultimate essence of the universe and the vital breath in each human being.

  • In Upanisads, Brahman is the first meaning, and Atman is the deepest essence of man

  • But the oldest Upanisads clearly identify both terms with the supreme reality.

    • Atman is the same Brahman individualized in corporeal structures due to karma

    • Atman is the immutable essence of the human being, beyond limits of change

  • Atman is not the same as the soul in the West.

  • Atman is a spiritual reality covered by various layers of material origin.

  • In the later Upanisads there is a different point of view about this. There is an individualization of the finite being.

    • Brahman is within the being as ‘Another’ being.

    • The relation Brahman-Atman is a relation of identity.

    • Atman is the same reality from a subjective point of view, while Brahman from an objective point of view.

    • They end up being synonyms in the Upanisads to express the eternal origin of the universe, material and spiritual.

    • This combination of subjective-objective is the specific teaching of the Upanisads.

    • Posterior schools try to analyze the reach of this identification.

3. God in the Darsanas

• From the Upanisads and within an attitude of search for liberation, came various metaphysical systems that originated the philosophical schools of India.

• Not possible to speak of one, but various.

• There are two main groups: nastika (heterodox) and astika (ortodox)

• Nastika-- Do not consider the Vedas as infallible and don’t derive authority from there.

  • Carvaka--- materialist and atheist

  • Buddhism

  • Jainism

• Astika – Base their teachings on the authority of the Vedas. They say they are the authentic interpretation.

  • Sankhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisesika, Mimamsa and Vedanta.

• In almost all of them the concept of God is very much present.

• Except for Carvaka, all the schools have as ultimate end the liberation of the individual being from all kind of suffering.

• This takes usually to reach happiness and God.

• But for exceptions, the general tendency is to accept the theory of God although proposing different interpretations about his nature and relation with the material universe and the spiritual souls.

a) The Sankhya and Yoga Schools

• Frequently considered as two branches of the same system.

• Sankhya gives the theoretical and metaphysical foundations. Yoga, assuming those foundations, develops the practical aspects.

• However, they differ at a very fundamental topic: the existence of God.

• Yoga acknowledges it as Isvara, as different from the individual being or atman. It emphasizes the task of achieving liberation through mystical and body and mind control practices (with effort by the human being)

• Sankhya rejects the existence of Isvara and considers philosophy by itself (as source of truth) as the right way towards final liberation.

• The oldest Indian philosophy, although only are kept texts posterior to buddhism.

b) Buddhism

• Buddha strays from the traditional teachings of hinduism and the sacred texts.

• It has its own philosophical and religious system.

• Reality is the succession and concatenation of microseconds called dhammas.

• For Buddha there is no ultimate reality or essence of things... the soul is not a metaphysical substance.

• Life is a going and coming back of manifestations and extinctions.

• There is nothing permanent.

• For Buddha everything is in a continuous flow. The immutable being of man is a deception.

• Everything is change and every change implies pain.

• Five fundamental principles of Buddhism:

  • Existence is painful. Every important and common moment of life you feel pain.

  • Origin of pain is in wishing... wish to be or to die. This wish takes to reincarnation.

  • To defeat pain you must defeat wish.

  • The route for salvation... avoid the extreme of pleasures and a rigorous asceticism. It has 8 demands: right belief, right wish, right word, right action, right way, right desire, right thought and right self being.

c) The Purva Mimamsa School

• One of the oldest schools.

• Concentrates on the first part of the Vedas, the Samhitas y Brahmanas.

• Deals with the nature of the external world, the world, the perception and the inference as valid means of knowledge.

• The school concentrates on the study of the dharma.

• Analyzes deeply the parts of the Vedas that are a command (for execution or abstinence)

• Doesn’t give importance to the rest.

• The sutras were written by Jaimini. Sabara and Kumarila Bhatta (and disciple Prabhakara) wrote different comments that gave origin to two branches.

• This school does not accept God as creator.

• Rejects the possibility of rational proofs of God’s existence. But admits the existence of diverse deities.

• It is considered atheistic although accepts the authority of the Vedas, as eternal and without author.

• The topic of God is not something important.

• What really matters is to know well the dharma, i.e. the obligations that originate from the Vedas.

d) The Nyaya and Vaisesika schools

• They are also two schools which are a unique thought system.

• Their sutras have the same essential topics, with slight differences.

• Both are realistic with respect to things, properties, relations and universals. They are also pluralist and teists.

• Nyaya are mainly about logics and Vaisesika about metaphysics and physics.

• God is a supreme being, different from the individual being. Is everywhere, eternal and omniscient.

• Is a personal God, whose existence can be proved rationally:

  • The world points to the need of an efficient cause... for knowledge and power to create it

  • The order of the universe implies the existence of a being organizing it and controlling it

  • The moral order of the world calls for the existence of a being that is a judge.

  • There is no logical argument that proves that God does not exist.

• This is the only school that accepts the possibility of reaching the knowledge of God through reason.

e) The Vedanta school

• Vedanta means end of the Vedas.

• Due to the unsystematic writing of the Upanisads, Badarayana tried to explain them writing Brahamasutra o Vedantasutra.

• But this was also very laconic and confusing.

• There have been many attempts to interprete the Brahamasutra and from each a different school has come up... Sankara, Ramanuja, Madhva, Nimbarka, Vallabha...

• The main topic of research is the nature of Brahman and its relationship with the material and spiritual universe.

El Hombre de Villa Tevere. Chapter XIII

Freedom, it is a right, a virtue which St. Josemaria defended with a lot of energy, because he knew that freedom is essential for people to serve God well.

In 1961, Fernando Valenciano asked openly in the get-together to Dick Rieman from U.S.: "Have you voted for J.F.Kennedy?@ The father, with energy and conviction cut the conversation, there and there, making it clear that that was Dick's own business. In Opus Dei's centres people never speak politics so as to make sure that nobody's freedom is cut short at any moment, and any person is aable to choose whatever political ideollogy he may want to follow, as any other Catholic may do, just following the broad guidelines of the Church.

St. Josemaria asked Father Javier Echevarria if he wanted to be his secretary when he was just 20 years old. This request came just a short time after he had repriminded him strongly for a small-importan fault in which he had slightly 'betrayed' his trust (he took a visiting-card from his desk without permission when he had been told to take nothing from there).

To non-Catholics and non-Christians he always told them that he thought he was right and they were wrong. But he told them that he would even give his own life for the respect of their freedom.

Respecting freedom is very important for people who may want to join Opus Dei. Javier Cremades before joining Opus Dei was 'taking care' of himself because he thought they were 'after' him. Once he met St. Josemaría and he spoke so much about freedom that Javier realized that nobody was 'after' him and he decided to join the Work.

Talking about himself and everybody's freedom, St. Josemaria said:

If I wear this "umbrella cover" [referring to his black cassock] is... because I want to! I told once to God: "I give you my freedom". And with his grace I've been able to keep the promise.

The World is Flat. Chapter 11

How companies cope

The companies (as well as people) who will succeed in the flat world are those that are most prepared to change. Without attempting to be a "how to succeed in business" sermon, in this chapter, Friedman gives a few rules which he observed out of the successful companies:

1. When the world goes flat and you - and you are feeling flattened - reach for a shovel and dig inside yourself. Don't try to build walls
2. And the small shall act big. One way small companies flourish in the flat world is by learning to act really big. And the key to being small and acting big is being quick to take advantage of all the new tools for collaboration farther, faster, wider and deeper.
3. And the big shall act small... One way that big companies learn to flourish in the flat world is by learning how to act really small by enabling their customers to act really big.
4. The best companies are the best collaborators. In the flat world, more and more business will be done through collaboration within and between companies, for a very simple reason. The next layers of value creation - whether in technology, marketing, biomedicine, or manufacturing - are becoming so complex that no single firm or department is going to be able to master them alone.
5. In a flat world, the best companies stay healthy by getting regular chest X-rays and then selling the results to their clients.
6. The best companies outsource to win, not to shrink. They outsource to innovate faster and more cheaply in order to grow larger, gain market share and hire. More and more different specialists -not to save money by firing more people.
7. Outsourcing isn't just for Benedict Arnolds. It's also for idealists... i.e. not just to make money, but for helping people as well.