Now that I have settled on a relatively standardized daily routine with large chunks of focused task time it is now my turn to turn my attention to the next thing which is my reading. I have an immense problem with reading in that I like to start multiple books at the same time leading to not finishing any books and constantly context switching. This is proving to be problematic because at any given time if asked what book I am reading I don’t have a clear answer.

The irony is if I finished one book then I could turn to the next one and the one after that with relative ease. I just need to focus on a book at a time. So I am going to be instituting a new rule for myself to read one whole book before moving to the next. Some rules;

1. One book to finish at a time. At any given time I should have a title for the book I am finishing.
2. A book should be completed before moving to the next one. I should ever only have the one book I am reading with me and all other books should be put away until I am ready to read it.
3. There should be a book queue that is organized for next book to read.

Right now the prime book I want to finish is Chanakya Neeti. The book after that are the gardening books.

I am simplifying my schedule yet again. One of the issues I realized I had was that I keep jumping. Sastra to work to sastra to gym and I am not getting depth. I am continuously moving here and there. This prevents any sort of depth from being formed and is causing a bunch of issues.

This is actually doing the opposite of what I want which is stilling of the mind. I am continuously moving about never getting into the depth. Some issues I found:

My morning was all over the place as I was trying to do both Hanuman Chalisa recitation and cleaning and reading. I want to just focus on cleaning without additional distractions. Cleaning itself should be a long meditation if there is nothing to clean then reading would be a good use of time. So mornings will not be distracted there will be a singular task which is cleaning the home. This also includes spending time with Naga.

I meditate and read Bhagavad Gita but don’t get into depth and don’t have time to contemplate. It is continuously moving about. I study Yoga Sutras but then get hungry so also don’t have concentration. My morning work routine is half hearted and lazy. So having a solid block of time to study the sastras is good for studying and reflection. Also focusing this time completely on Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Sutras and Hatha Yoga is likely a good way of getting into the depth of things. This period my goal is to solidify my practice with a focus on meditation. Of course I will have work calls and what not but my goal is to return to my study of the sastras. I will keep my focus on just the three texts. Gurus and what not will be studied during the Artha & Kama periods so I can also attain depth.

My work schedules will incorporate both Artha & Kama. So focusing on deep work and study focused on accomplishing the most important tasks first. This will allow me to spend time both in study and work. This means I can focus completely on improving my daily routine and finishing my tasks as fast as possible. I can also incorporate this on weekends for deep reading during this same period.

And my 4-8 is focused on Garden & Cooking. This time will be to garden and practice cooking. While it is time to spend with Naga as well but it is in relation to these two.

So the day is focused:

• Cleaning
• Mind & Body
• Artha & Kama
• Garden & Cooking
• Artha & Mind

I am splitting the day again into yama and the other limbs. I realized that I was mixing things that was making it hard to separate actions for work with others with actions of the soul. Things that are related to the soul don’t require others. Things that are under yama are largely related to dealing with others.

The goal is to incorporate each of the Yogas into everything I do. Karma Yoga for the work, Bhakti Yoga for love of Bhagavan, Raja Yoga as the framework, and Jnana Yoga as core understanding. However, the day needs to be split into frameworks where we fully engage with the world. The purushathas are means to achieve those objectives. These let us fully enjoy the world without denying the world.

Furthermore I realize that I can simplify my yama into the purushartas. This means a focus on Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha. The work becomes simpler. Work belongs into each of these buckets.

So a combination of yoga and purushartas is required.

bramacharya is interesting as it mean’s celibacy. But celibacy is actually limited to the monks. A householder is not expected to uphold celibacy. Forcing this is a big failure of the spiritual path as it is repression. It is celibacy in terms of the extremes. So have a middle path for artha and kama.

yama contain the principles of behavior in the world while seeking the purushārtha of dharma, artha, kama, and moksha. As Hindus we are not limited to just going after Dharma and Moksha. We can and should strive after wealth and pleasure as well as those are part of life. We should just constrain them with the practices of yama.

For example, in terms of artha we should not perform violence when achieving wealth. We should be truthful while getting wealth. We should not steal while getting wealth. We should have self-control when accumulating wealth, the wealth should not control us. We should not covet wealth but do the actions that will lead to its growth. This above example can be used across all the purushārtha.

Artha and Kama are not to be avoided as they are a part of life. But they are to be sought after with the five yama principles.

What this means is that Artha and Kama need to be studied as much as Dharma and Moksha. If there are four aspects of life and we ignore three of them because we want to be monk like we will face difficulties in life as we are denying ourselves these other paths. And even monks aspire for artha and kama in their own way.

I’ve structured my personal and business into two distinct things. I have my business study and I have my personal study. This is a bit of a problem as I don’t have a framework I am optimizing my business around. I have the Yoga Sutras as a framework for life, but we live life within a society. Our work and our output into the greater civilization matters. As part of my study and practice I had largely ignored this larger framework.

I was chasing from different frameworks and figuring out different ones from Amazon, Toyota, Koch, Apple, etc. The problem is that it leads to a scattered approach to improving business processes. A business framework is just as important to find and stick with as a religious system of thought. While I do love various aspects of Christianity I don't usually apply them into my religious thought processes. This is because having multiple systems causes a lot of issues as the theological basis and models are completely different.

My scattered approach to business is because I don't have a standardized framework that I use. This leads to continuously changing track and not having a cohesive system to fall back upon. I do things that are fun and heroic, but may not be effective. I need a comprehensive business philosophy that I follow through on and base the foundation of my business around.

This foundation will be Lean and the foundational text will be the Toyota Way. The Toyota Production Method and the Lean system tie in well with the continuous improvement aspect of Yoga. The nature of these two being similar is quite important. It is based on long term thinking and process over heroics.

It is because of this I am going to standardize on The Toyota Way as the primary business guide. In most ways Lean has become a part of society and how things are developed. Build and reduce waste through processes. But the shorttermism of MBA programs are still a massive driver. The nice thing about our business is we are not driven by short term but can focus on 5-10 years in the future. This allows us to think in much longer timeframes. The way we survive for the long term is to focus on what we are good at and gradually eliminate all forms of waste.

However, I think Toyota has still one of the best processes in the world to gradually build out new consistent features. This seems to also be incorporated into Apple, Amazon and Koch as all three have taken huge lessons from the traditional lean method. Amazon seems to have forgotten it though. Further, So the Toyota Way seems to be a practical guide for implementing the type of company I admire in the first place. A company built on slow continuous improvement which ties in with what the Yoga Sutras say.

One can say that the Toyota Way is not timeless like the other texts I have. That is true, it isn’t but it does have a practical implementation based on modern technologies and operationalizing the current world. Not everything has to be timeless, technology changes and business adapts. Lean is built for the world that we currently inhabit. It may change as JIT may lose relevance once American power wanes, but for the time being it is the text that we have.

I am merging all my activities into a single repository so that it can be easy to manage. This is because there is a failure that I am experiencing and that is my attention is split between personal and public. This is proving to be a pain as I am not addressing the needs of the personal or work well. I am not delegating well and all of it is resulting in a failure.

This also means I am doing all the work instead of giving the appropriate team member the appropriate tasks. This is also proving problematic since I cannot integrate AI into the workflow to accelerate the development even further.

I need to actually delegate as much as possible the tasks that I have. So what will be wrong with this approach:

1. Everything is public. No privacy.
2. No hiding my personal and public. They are one and the same.

The good:

1. One daily checklist to go through versus several.
2. Delegate as many of those flywheels as possible.
3. A clearer setup of personal, OpsZero and the world.
4. Deeper integration into GitHub and AI.

After taking this Vedanta class with Tadatmananda I have decided that the primary focus of the lineage I will be focusing on will be Dayananda as it seems the one closest to the Shankara lineage with Ramakrishna and Vivekananda to complete it thus simplifying my reading quite a bit.

Instead of going broadly I am focus my energies on a few teachers. The nice thing about this is that these teachers are well covered in their teachings and we can read what they wrote over and over.

• Swami Dayanananda Saraswati. Pramana based teaching. His teachings will be the core Jnana texts.
• Swami Vivekananda. Vast covering all the Yogas. But his complete volumes are a lifetime of study.
• Sri Ramakrishna. Gospels of Sri Ramakrishna cover everything in one spot.

Anyways, this vastly reduces my teachings and teachers I use and what my core study will entail. This also means that certain teachers I have will be moved to a secondary scope.

• Sivananda. While the teacher of all the teachers I follow. He has been superceded.
• Chinamayananda. His teachings are still useful even if they are not completely correct as they inspire the Hindu in me.
• Satyadananda. He will be used primarily for Hatha Yoga and asanas.
• Aurobindo. Not in this life.

All this means that my study simplifies a lot. And the teachers that are left exist for me to experience.

I have most things for my spiritual journey set and now the long march starts.

1. Sastras. I have the sastras that will be my focus. Hanuman Chalisa, Yoga Sutras, Bhagavad Gita, and Bhaja Govindam. All other sastras will be in relation to how they support my understanding of these four. My goal is depth over breadth at this stage. These four texts I can take with me whatever state of my life. If I internalize them by memorizing them then well they become a part of me.
2. Gurus. Swami Dayananda, Swami Vivekananda and Sri Ramakrishna will be the primary teachers I will follow. These three will be the core of the philosophical study that I will focus on. Others like Chinamayananda will add clarity to this but added sparingly. But my core focus is on the three teachers who give a complete Bhakti, Karma and Jnana.
3. Sanskrit. I will be focusing on language learning especially to read the sastras. My goal with Sanskrit is to eventually read Yoga Sutras and commentaries, Bhagavad Gita and commentary, and Upanishads and commentary without English. This will be a consistent and continuous process.
4. Routine. My day is split into the appropriate blocks of time with the goal of getting work done, time with family and home, and spirituality divided into Raja study, Jnana study and Bhakti study. I also have Karma study. This is all structured around the 8 Limbs. The purpose is to use the appropriate times to study and perform the appropriate things. I don’t want it to become like I am only ever studying one thing. I want to study and work on worldly things as well as spiritual things.

So I did the easy part. A structure to my life. A core set of scriptures and a core study. What I am missing now is depth. And depth will be the rest of my life. There won’t be anything to add to this list the routine is largely set.

It will be a long tail of practice and concentration and fighting and disciplining my brain. This will be work. It won’t be easy and it will be continuous.

• continuously improve each of the limbs. My simplified setup means that there are only six that I need to work on. If I improve one everyday then I have a 6 day cycle of wha to need to improve.
• No more addition of texts. Just a long term study to get into the depths of the four.

You have weak agency. So any small amount of alcohol is going to pull you in. You are not strong enough to have a small amount and then stop. You will end up having more and more and it will pull you down. (Hmm AI wrote the previous.)

So I need to avoid it completely. So I will no longer

I am changing the method again. The Yoga Sutras and multiple translation has been working but the same has not been the case with Bhagavad Gita. I am going to change the method to reading the Gita from Chinamayananda's commentaries since his teachings are shorter and then ending with Dayananda at the end of the evening.

I will read th Bhagavad Gita as is a chapter at a time during the evening. So an update.

• Hanuman Chalisa in the morning and continuing with the memorizing.
• Yoga Sutras analyzing the multiple texts and doing analysis.
• Bhagavad Gita read the Chinamaya translation and append with Daryananada in the evening. This may run into the first part of the Outer time but it is okay. The evening is largely devoted to study anyways.
• Read a chapter of the Gita in full and study and contemplate a singular verse of the Narada Bhakti Sutras or Bhaja Govindam in the evening.