Success Through Opposites

SUCCESS THROUGH OPPOSITES

By

N. Muthuswamy

Copyright 2009 N. Muthuswamy

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved — N. Muthuswamy

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THINK

IN

OPPOSITES!

Dedication

I dedicate this book to the billions of people around the world who instinctively know how to be happy and feel successful in whatever conditions (educational, economic, cultural, social, and political) they happen to be in.

And to those who are striving to find happiness and a sense of personal success in their lives in spite of the far superior conditions (educational, economic, cultural, social, and political) they have been fortunate to be in.

To those thousands of students, industrialists, businessmen and directors and managing directors who have said that I was talking about something different, new, and of great practical value, and thus encouraged me to write this book.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Muthuswamy N has a bachelor of engineering degree (Guindy, Chennai, India), a post-graduate diploma in Systems Management from Jamnalal Bajaj Bombay, and more than 16 years’ industry experience (IBM India, Voltas) prior to 34 years of consulting experience. He was executive director, Baroda Productivity Council that grew seven times in nine years under his stewardship to become the largest local productivity Council in India, ahead of the productivity councils of all Metros. Muthuswamy is the creator of original products in Management and Managerial effectiveness that have actually been proven in the field. He has guided over 100,000 students in career selection, guided companies from rags to riches as Management consultant, and is presently Chairman of Quest Systems Pvt. Ltd., a general management consultancy firm he founded.

Table of contents

Dedication

About the Author

Introduction

Introduction to the Second Edition

Chapter 1: The Law of Opposites—A Fundamental Law Governing All Systems

Don’t cross the threshold else you are in for a reversal!

How Nature Creates Opposites

Threshold in Systems Designed by Human Beings

Summary of Chapter 1

Chapter 2: Human Beings as Energy Systems—Are We Not a Tank-Tap combination?

Which is more critical –Your tank level or your tap position?

Summary of Chapter 2

Chapter 3: The Negative Effect of The Tap in Us: Why Do We Close the Tap Often

Is your tap stuck?

Summary of Chapter 3

Chapter 4: Getting Over the Negative Effect of Our Taps

Vaccinating the mind

Follow the mind to beat it and become a master.

Summary of Chapter 4

Chapter 5: Global Opposites That Plague Mankind

Are you over convinced by one of any of these pairs of opposites? If you are, you have surrendered your own mastery!

Individuality vs. Totality

Independence vs. Dependence

Synthesis vs. Analysis

Tangible vs. Intangible

Long Term vs. Short term

Certainly vs. Uncertainty

Ruling Party vs. Opposition

Prosecution vs. Defense

The Intelligence System

Top-down vs. Bottom-up

Summary of Chapter 5

Chapter 6: Individual Specific Opposites That Plague Our Personal

And Official Minds

Do you have strong convictions about one of any of these pairs of opposites? If you have, you have become a slave.

Individual Specific Pairs of Opposites

Religion vs. Religion

Language vs. Language

Ism. Vs. Ism

Theism vs. Atheism

Materialism vs. Spiritualism

Celibacy vs. Marriage

Truth vs. Lie

Allopathic vs. Other Systems of Medicine

Work vs. Leisure

Ambition vs. Contentment

Order vs. Disorder

Endurance vs. Lack of Perseverance

Self-confidence: High vs. Low

Self-image: High vs. Low

Trust vs. Suspicion

Concern for Others: High vs. Low

Feeling free to do what we like to do vs. doing what we have to do.

Summary of Chapter 6

Chapter 7: The Opposite of The Body

Have you ever thought about the opposite of your own body? Without the opposite how can there be balance?

What is the opposite of the human body system?

Summary of Chapter 7

Chapter 8: The Third Element

Have you thought about what preserves any system e.g., your own body? We should think about our third element in our own interest of self – preservation!

The Third Element And Its Role

The Third Element in a human system

Summary of Chapter 8

Chapter 9: Tuning The Third Element—Vaccinating The Mind!

Do you want clarity in your decisions concerning future i.e., decisions under uncertainty?

Tuning The Mind

Tuned Mind And Thinking in Opposites

Tuned Mind and The Success Tap

Orienting One's Potential

Summary of Chapter 9

References

Appendix 1: The Human Energy Field

Appendix 2: On Re-birth

Appendix3: Mindfulness

Introduction

Don't we often wonder why our sincere, genuine, out of the heart and immense efforts result in failure? In other instances, we achieve unexpectedly large success with relative ease? Why, despite a modest educational background, do some individuals experience great success, while some others, who are highly educated, do not? And why individuals after attaining name, fame and success in a given field fail in the same field? Why affluence does not ensure happiness?

I have seen that all successful people are happy. So if want to be happy, we should become successful. But people become successful only if they are effective in the field or the role they are in. Because only by being effective, they achieve something worthwhile that they are internally proud of and so they are happy. Also we tend to think that we ourselves have played a role in being effective and getting that success. We don't normally think of external factors beyond us and beyond our control, though they may have played a major role, to be as much responsible for our success as what we did ourselves. This feeling of our being responsible for success gives us a sense of self-worth because of which also we feel happy. So I thought that the path to success is to become effective in whatever role we do.

I also found that when we meet with failure, we have been ineffective in the role we are called upon to play. When faced with failure, we have a tendency to blame factors beyond our control and throw up our hands and say "What can we do?", so that we are in a way able to digest our failure without much mental trauma. Look at recession being cited as a reason for failure of organizations and for closure of nine out of ten organizations, though during the same time, one out of ten organizations in the same industry may have two years of their order-book full.

My first finding was that factors outside our control do not play a significant role in explaining our effectiveness and ineffectiveness, success and failures, as factors well within our control do, that is, ourselves. If we let the laws of energy- that are inviolable- function on and through us, we become effective and successful; on the other hand, if we block the laws of energy to operate on and through us, we block our own effectiveness and so success too. In other words, we are the main reason to become effective and successful; and we are the main reason to block our own effectiveness and success as well. So success is automatic, so to say, if only we do not block the energy laws from operating on and through us. That is why we strongly believe effectiveness and success is our birth-right - a human being is born to be effective and successful. And yet we find very few instance of success and the majority of instances are failures. Why?

In this process of incessant questioning over a lifetime, and seeking key factors that contribute to effectiveness and ineffectiveness, success and failure, I have not been satisfied with superficial explanations or causes that are mere possibilities. Instead, I have attempted to find the real source or root causes, using laws of energy and of Nature, which itself follows these very laws of energy. So these can be generalized across cultures and applied to all horizontals and verticals -across diverse fields that pertain to all arts, sciences, medicine, engineering, functions of management, career selection, child rearing practices, and our own personal lives and relationships. In other words, what we present in this book is applicable to the whole life of any human being.

I believe that the root causes yielding success or failures in these seemingly diverse fields relate to basic laws of energy. I argue that we humans are as much energy systems as any other system and are, therefore, subject to the same fundamental energy laws. The same fundamental energy laws that operate through us therefore decide our effectiveness and success. These fundamental laws of energy are simple to understand. They are intuitive, though sometimes deep. To make these laws even more easily comprehensible to practically any individual interested and committed to becoming successful, (which I strongly believe is our first nature), I have given simple and relevant examples in the book from both official and personal lives. I attempt to cover the broad spectrum of our lives today by presenting concepts in the context of our home, office and society. So any one of us can relate to these instances and we can tune ourselves and our mind to experience success, regardless of our social, national, educational, economic, religious, cultural and professional backgrounds.

In short, anyone can become effective and successful by following these fundamental laws of energy and putting them into practice. Once we understand how the fundamental laws of energy operate to yield effectiveness and success, we may not only apply these concepts to analyze the past in a postmortem way, but also proactively utilize this knowledge to shape our future. If we subject ourselves to the laws of energy, and know how to avoid creating blocks or obstacles that thwart the free flow of energy through us, we will find that, over the course of our lives, the definition of success will evolve rather than be defined prematurely by us. Nature follows the same laws of energy. So Nature evolves. We do not let ourselves to evolve, because we do not follow the laws of energy; instead we plan! So our success gets terribly restricted. Evolution is a few million times faster than growth! If man had to create human beings from the earliest micro-organisms, man would have taken a few million times the number of years that Nature has taken to do the same job. We can grow much faster and be much happier if we evolve rather than if we plan.

But how to evolve and become effective? Are there a set of thought processes and actions that we can follow to become effective? And I discovered that there are and also we can follow these processes and become effective and successful. So effectiveness and success need not be as much a chance phenomenon as we think. Success is neither evasive nor enigmatic as most of us assume success is!

My discovery was that, even being effective is governed, made or marred, by the same fundamental laws of energy that govern the entire Universe. Although these laws have been known to science for a long time now, what is striking is how we missed linking these laws of energy and Nature to ourselves, the systems around us, and to effectiveness and success! Because we human beings are energy systems, the same basic energy laws operating through us also decide our effectiveness and so success.

If we understand how these fundamental laws of energy operate in any system, and how their operation is pivotal to effectiveness and success, we can use these laws proactively in order to position ourselves in the evolutionary path of success. Using the laws of energy to enhance our likelihood of becoming effective and experience success is in our hands alone.

Over the last four decades, I have had the privilege of meeting and sharing my thoughts on the linkages between effectiveness and success and the fundamental laws of energy governing these, with thousands of students, industrialists, businessmen, directors, managing directors and parents who have implemented these laws in their own unique situations. I found the basis of successes and failures are a set of energy laws. When I disclosed these findings to them, they confirmed that they did follow these laws that I am talking about, every time they were successful and violated these very laws when they met with failures. They admitted, though, at the time they experienced success or failure, they did not know these energy laws; they felt, what I was talking about was extremely valid, refreshingly different and new (even though they have followed one or the other inadvertently and got success and happiness, failure and unhappiness); they also said that these laws I am talking about are of great practical value for future decisions and actions, if these are structured and presented. This I have done in this book. I present the findings that emanate from these actual examples of successes and failures. The concepts presented in this book are therefore derived from practice to theory, and not vice versa. At the end of the book, we will have acquired a way to orient our thinking or we will have acquired a thought-process that will lead us to a strategy for success. Though there is no foolproof insurance against failures, the strategy that comes as a result of such a thought process will significantly enhance our chances of success.

When success evolves and is linked to the basic laws of energy known to science, success cannot be associated with random and non-scientific explanations of chance or luck. When we avoid setting boundary conditions on what being successful means, we avoid limiting the definition of success to only what we can see. Just like science converts the unseen or not-yet-seen results into something tangible, we have the capability of envisioning success, and translating this idea into reality. Success, therefore, involves the tuning of the mind, which, in turn, visualizes triumph and experiences immense thrill when an idea becomes a reality.

In this sense, there is no dichotomy between science and non-science. Science converts the unseen or not-yet-seen results of the fundamental energy laws into something visible. That is, science converts the intangible into tangible. Scientists discover by removing the cover between the visible and the invisible. For example, Newton's laws of energy, gravity, Einstein's law of equality between mass and energy (E=mc²), or any law for that matter makes us see what had not been seen earlier. Mothers for example do the same thing. Take the root word in the Sanskrit language, Ma. This means, to give form to. Mothers give form to what is otherwise not seen. This is the reason why most languages have ma or mo in the word for mother. And so, what is non-science is not nonsense, but something yet to be revealed by science or to be converted by science from the intangible to the tangible. Likewise, we human beings have the capability of visualizing in our mind what is not yet seeable. However, what is important is that we conceptualize success based only on the fundamental energy laws. If we do so, we are capable of embarking on a process of making these intangibles (ideas in our mind) a reality, and experiencing the same thrilling process that a scientist enjoys when he or she makes a discovery or a mother feels when she gives birth to a child.

In this book, I explore the processes that are involved in making the intangible tangible; I explain how our understanding of and readiness to accept and put into practice one fundamental law of energy—the law of opposites— is the beginning of this chain of thought processes. This law of opposites is also critical to keep any system preserved, healthy and effective. I describe the process that begins in our early childhood, because of which most of us become a slave to one opposite and resist the other opposite and develop mental blocks to success. I explain in detail this continuing and unavoidable recording process that our mind experiences, further precluding the likelihood of success. In addition, I detail a practical and effective method by which our mind can be tuned and the mental blocks can be overcome. In essence, "Success through Opposites" talks about the first pivotal steps needed to achieve success. This book prepares us to understand and remove the mental blocks - a minimum and necessary step to make us eligible for success. The book helps us tune our mind to ensure that energy flows through us freely, without getting blocked, so that we are comfortable in using any one of a pair of opposites to ensure success.

Any non-fiction book, such as this one, can be one of three types: 1. Repack the already known content cosmetically 2. Fine-tune an already known concept or 3. Present a completely new concept. This book is largely of the type 3. If we are presenting new concepts, we should resist the urge to present the concept too pre-maturely; we should wait and present the concept only after putting the concept to thorough test in actual practice. That is the reason why I wrote my first book-the first edition of this book- when I was just 67 years young!

Introduction to Second Edition.

The main reason for going in for the second edition is to make this book available to as many people as possible. This was not possible with the first edition hard cover costing $ 25 per copy, which is beyond the reach of most people to whom the contents of this book are very relevant. The only option available was to self-publish the book myself so that I can decide the price myself and to publish in an e-format, to keep the prices down. So here I am with the second edition. I have stopped the publication of the first edition. And the price of the second edition e-book is just about one sixth of the original hard copy version of the book.

Secondly, I thought I will use this opportunity to make the book less dense and more easily readable, by substantially changing the style of presentation from introduction to the end and by including more examples to make the central theme, which remains the same, easily understandable. This effort of mine, in effect, has outdated the first edition. My hope and wish is that people who read this book will benefit immensely by practicing what I have attempted to explain and enjoy the success and happiness that is theirs for the asking: the result is a far more successful and happy life for the reader- practitioners.

Muthuswamy N.

18-10-2013.

Chapter 1:

The Law of Opposites—A fundamental law governing all systems

Don’t cross the threshold else you are in for a reversal!

In Nature, an extremely subtle yet all-pervading phenomenon takes place: Two opposing forces or two opposites always co-exist as a pair within any single system. If not, the two opposites exist between two or more interdependent systems. Nature follows this fundamental principle of creating mutually contradictory forces within a system or between interdependent systems, in order to ensure that the system is kept in balance, is healthy and functional, and is preserved. Take, for example, the human cell as a system. There are two contrasting energies in every cell. One form of energy is responsible for the growth of the cell, and the other prevents the growth of cells or kills them. For our purpose, we may call the former energy growth or motive energy and the latter, brake or check energy.

Another natural system namely,