Intuition, India and Steve Jobs’s Genius


Excerpt:

So was Mr. Jobs smart? Not conventionally. Instead, he was a genius. That may seem like a silly word game, but in fact his success dramatizes an interesting distinction between intelligence and genius. His imaginative leaps were instinctive, unexpected, and at times magical. They were sparked by intuition, not analytic rigor. Trained in Zen Buddhism, Mr. Jobs came to value experiential wisdom over empirical analysis. He didn’t study data or crunch numbers but like a pathfinder, he could sniff the winds and sense what lay ahead.

He told me he began to appreciate the power of intuition, in contrast to what he called “Western rational thought,” when he wandered around India after dropping out of college. “The people in the Indian countryside don’t use their intellect like we do,” he said. “They use their intuition instead ... Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion. That’s had a big impact on my work.”

Mr. Jobs’s intuition was based not on conventional learning but on experiential wisdom. He also had a lot of imagination and knew how to apply it. As Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

Einstein is, of course, the true exemplar of genius. He had contemporaries who could probably match him in pure intellectual firepower when it came to mathematical and analytic processing. Henri Poincaré, for example, first came up with some of the components of special relativity, and David Hilbert was able to grind out equations for general relativity around the same time Einstein did. But neither had the imaginative genius to make the full creative leap at the core of their theories, namely that there is no such thing as absolute time and that gravity is a warping of the fabric of space-time. (O.K., it’s not that simple, but that’s why he was Einstein and we’re not.)

Einstein had the elusive qualities of genius, which included that intuition and imagination that allowed him to think differently (or, as Mr. Jobs’s ads said, to Think Different.) Although he was not particularly religious, Einstein described this intuitive genius as the ability to read the mind of God. When assessing a theory, he would ask himself, Is this the way that God would design the universe? And he expressed his discomfort with quantum mechanics, which is based on the idea that probability plays a governing role in the universe by declaring that he could not believe God would play dice. (At one physics conference, Niels Bohr was prompted to urge Einstein to quit telling God what to do.)

Both Einstein and Mr. Jobs were very visual thinkers. The road to relativity began when the teenage Einstein kept trying to picture what it would be like to ride alongside a light beam. Mr. Jobs spent time almost every afternoon walking around the studio of his brilliant design chief Jony Ive and fingering foam models of the products they were developing.

Mr. Jobs’s genius wasn’t, as even his fanboys admit, in the same quantum orbit as Einstein’s. So it’s probably best to ratchet the rhetoric down a notch and call it ingenuity. Bill Gates is super-smart, but Steve Jobs was super-ingenious. The primary distinction, I think, is the ability to apply creativity and aesthetic sensibilities to a challenge.

In the world of invention and innovation, that means combining an appreciation of the humanities with an understanding of science — connecting artistry to technology, poetry to processors. This was Mr. Jobs’s specialty. “I always thought of myself as a humanities person as a kid, but I liked electronics,” he said. “Then I read something that one of my heroes, Edwin Land of Polaroid, said about the importance of people who could stand at the intersection of humanities and sciences, and I decided that’s what I wanted to do.”

The ability to merge creativity with technology depends on one’s ability to be emotionally attuned to others. Mr. Jobs could be petulant and unkind in dealing with other people, which caused some to think he lacked basic emotional awareness. In fact, it was the opposite. He could size people up, understand their inner thoughts, cajole them, intimidate them, target their deepest vulnerabilities, and delight them at will. He knew, intuitively, how to create products that pleased, interfaces that were friendly, and marketing messages that were enticing.


Excerpted from:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/sunday/steve-jobss-genius.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all


NYTimes: Cartoonist Lynda Barry Will Make You Believe In Yourself

A renegade cartoonist discovers her inner creativity guru.

Excerpt:

“Kids don’t plan to play,” she told her class in the first day. “They don’t go: ‘Barbie, Ken, you ready to play? It’s gonna be a three-act.’” Narrative, Barry believes, is so hard-wired into human beings that creativity can come as naturally to adults as it does to children. They need only to access the deep part of the brain that controls that storytelling instinct. Barry calls that state of mind “the image world” and feels it’s as central to a person’s well-being as the immune system.

To explain, she told a story about the neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran, who helps patients experiencing phantom-limb pain. Barry discussed one patient who felt that his missing left hand was clenched in a fist and could never shake the discomfort — could never “unclench” it.

So Ramachandran used a mirror box — a compartment into which the patient could insert his right hand and see it reflected at the end of his left arm. “And Ramachandran said, ‘Open your hands.’ And the patient saw this” — Barry opened two clenched fists in unison. “That’s what I think images do.

“I think that in the course of human life,” she continued softly, “we have events that cause” — she clenched her fist and held it up, inspecting it from all angles. “Losing your parents might cause it. Or a war. Or things going bad in a family.”

The only way to open that fist, she said, is to see your own trouble reflected in an image, as the patient saw his hand reflected in a mirror. It might be a story you write, or a book you read, or a song that means the world to you. “And then?” She opened her hand and waved.

In Barry’s class, every writing exercise is a repeated ritual. At the beginning of each one, for example, students slowly draw a spiral on a sheet of paper. While everyone did that, Barry recited a poem. It’s the same poem every time, by Rumi, and Barry recited it quickly, her head down, her fingers tented before her. “You’re in your body like a plant is solid in the ground,” she intoned, “yet you’re wind.”



Amma’s Europe Yatra 2011

Amma to visit 10 European cities from Oct 7th. She will conduct Bhajans, Meditation, Satsang and Darshan starting in Milano, Italy. 

 

Milano, Italy

October 07-09

 

Winterthur, Switzerland

October 11-13

 

Helsinki, Finland

October 15-16

 

Holland

October 18-20

 

Paris

October 23-25

 

Munich, Germany

October 27-29

 

Toulon, France

October 31- November 02

 

Barcelona, Spain

November 05-07

 

Mannheim, Germany

November 10-12

 

London, UK

November 15-17

 

Bliss of the Self: Hardcore Q and A

Cease thinking of the non-self; then blank prevails; the knower or the witness of this is pure knowledge without any modes; such is the Supreme Knowledge (Para Samvit). This is full of Bliss and therefore the highest goal (purushartha). This state is one of solid Bliss. The reason is: Misery is the result of upadhi (limiting adjunct), which is totally absent in the Self. This samvit is the condensation of the sum total of bliss, consequent on all the forms of enjoyment by all living beings put together. For samvit is desired by one and all living beings. 

Q.: Is it not pleasure from objects that is thus desired? How can it take the form of the enjoyer? 
A.: Since it is desired by all, the Self must be of the nature of Bliss. Otherwise it will not be desired by all equally. 

Q.: If it be the Self alone that is desired by all, how can the desires be various, e.g., for the body, wealth, woman, etc.? 
A.: The desire is not really for objects since it is for one’s own sake. Hence those desirous of heaven, etc., undergo fasts, etc., and willingly leave their bodies, etc. So the Self is never that which is not desired. Therefore it must be Bliss itself. 

Q.: Pleasure is obvious in the enjoyment of objects, whereas the other bliss cannot be proved to be so; therefore the Self cannot be admitted to be Bliss. 
A.: The agamas (holy texts) declare that all sensual pleasures are but fractions of the Bliss of the Self. This means that just as ether is not itself visible, yet it is known to yield space or room for a pot, etc., and thus seems divisible by other adjuncts, such as actions etc. So also Chit (Consciousness) though not visible, yet appears divided by objects seeming to be the source of sensual pleasures (which in reality are only fractions of the Bliss of the Self ). 

Q.: Your statements prove only the desire for pleasure by the self, and not itself being bliss. 
A.: Only the natural bliss of the Self prevails at the instant of relief of one’s burden and in deep sleep. This means: As soon as one is relieved of one’s heavy load, one surely feels refreshed; this cannot be denied; but here there are no objects to give pleasure, and how could it be felt unless it is from within, i.e., from the Self? 

Q.: It is due to the strain of load being removed. 
A.: Removal is negative; how can a negation yield a positive result such as pleasure? It must therefore be admitted to be of the Self. 

Q.: Relief from strain amounts to relief from pain. And this seems to be the source of pleasure. 
A.: But in deep sleep there is no strain to be removed and yet there is the bliss of sleep. This cannot be denied because there is the recollection of the bliss of sleep after waking from it. This bliss cannot but be of the Self. 

Q.: There is no such bliss of deep sleep. 
A.: Why then do all beings desire to sleep and also prepare for it? 

Q.: If the Self be bliss, why is it not always apparent? 
A.: Although there is noise constantly produced within the body, it is not usually heard. But if you plug your ears to prevent the intrusion of external noises, the noise is distinctly heard from within. Similarly with the bliss of Self. It is at present obstructed by the pains generated by the fire of desires and other latencies. These latencies lie dormant in their sources at the time of deep sleep and then the bliss of the Self becomes apparent like the internal sound on plugging the ears. While bearing the load the pain caused by it overpowers the common misery of current vasanas and thus predominates for the time being. As soon as the load is thrown down, the pain relating to it disappears and in the short interval before the rise of the current vasanas [latent tendencies], the bliss of Self is felt. Similarly with the other sensual pleasures. Innumerable vasanas always remain in the heart, pricking like thorns all the while. With the rise of a desire for an object the force of it overpowers the other vasanas which await their turn. When the desired object is attained, the immediate pain of its desire is at an end; in the short interval before the other vasanas manifest, the bliss of Self prevails. Hence it is said that what all always desire, is only the Bliss of the Self. 

Q.: How then do all not understand that the sought for pleasures are really only the Self?
A.: Owing to their ignorance of the fact that only the bliss of the Self manifests as the pleasure of sensual enjoyments, their attention being on the objects which are transitory, they believe that as the enjoyments are transitory, their bliss also is coeval with them. [coeval: of the same age, date or duration; contemporary]

From the Hindu text Tripura Rahasya: