Here’s an interesting quote from Steve Job’s biography. Thank you Marcus Anthony for alerting us to it.
“Coming back to America was, for me, much more of a cultural shock than going to India. The people in the Indian countryside don’t use their intellect like we do, they use their intuition instead, and their intuition is far more developed than in the rest of the world. Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion. That’s had a big impact on my work.“Western rational thought is not an innate human characteristic; it is learned and it is a great achievement of Western civilization. In the villages of India, they never learned it. They learned something else which is in some ways just as valuable, but in other ways is not. That’s the power of intuition and experiential wisdom. Coming back after seven months in Indian villages, I saw the craziness of the western world and its capacity for rational thought. If you just sit and observe, you will see how restless your mind is. If you try to calm it, it only makes it worse, but over time it does calm, and when it does, there’s room to hear more subtle things – that’s when your intuition starts to blossom and you start to see things more clearly and be in the present more. Your mind just slows down, and you see a tremendous expanse in the moment. You see so much more than you could see before. It’s a discipline; you have to practice it.Zen has been a deep influence in my life ever since. At one point I was thinking of going to Japan and trying to get into the Eihei-Ji monastery but my spiritual advisor urged me to stay here. He said there is nothing over there that isn’t here, and he was right. I learned the truth of the Zen saying that if you are willing to travel around the world to meet a teacher, one will appear next door.” – Steve Jobs
It’s interesting that Jobs, who became a Buddhist, spent months in India among a primarily Hindu population, rather than in Japan, the stronghold of Zen.
Since it’s not visible from that quote and the comments below, I want to say something. There is a difference between Zen and other forms of eastern mysticism (but, like all things eastern that often disobey the yes/no logic, they are at the same time similar). Instead of calming down your mind and senses, Zen is about intensity and tension (and sharpened senses). Satori is (at least how I understand it) is more similar to a temporary nervous breakdown and epileptic seizure than to nirvana. It’s for people actively participating in the world (using one’s mind like a sword) rather than for hermits.
Thanks for the clarification, Aleksandar. Satori sounds…well, kinda unpleasant!
My eldest son works for the “cult” Jobs established.
I was just thinking that when Jobs passed over he must have got a shock to realize that the pearly Gates wasn’t there yet .-)
It’s not a cult, it just has fantastic products. Maybe Jobs will bring wifi to the pearly gates!
Darren, Trish didn’t catch your tongue-in-cheek Gates comment, but I did. lol
I thought most people would get it was Bill Gates I was referring to in my Pearly Gates joke above,but maybe I was wrong assuming that ?
Here’s a news story from today’s news in Australia about Apple –
“Apple has released its first transparency report on the demands it gets from governments for access to people’s information, and Australia is near the top of the computer giant’s list.
Revelations by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden have sparked a worldwide debate on the scale of the surveillance state.
Increasingly the giants of Silicon Valley are publishing information on government data requests as part of their fight to remain trusted by their users.
When you are using your iPhone or other Apple products, information is being logged about everything. It could be stored on the phone itself or it might be in the cloud, when personal data like photos or contacts or calendar information are uploaded.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-06/apple-received-hundreds-of-requests-for-australian-user-data/5074636
I think there have been deliberate program’s to cut us off from intuition which in my experience is always right,even when or especially when it flies in the face of the rational.the subconscious mind has access to information the ego mind shuts out,the subconscious is non local & can make decisions seeing the bigger picture,even aware of events that have not happened yet.
I like his quote: “Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”
I like that quote, too. Interestingly, this is the guy who, as he was dying, supposedly said, “Oh wow, wow, wow!”
Trish,
In India he went to the source of buddhism, he also spent time in Tibet. Japan just refined its approach to buddhism. But, he was very close to Soichiro Honda, the founder of Honda. I would say he took it all in, and in a sense you and I are the beneficiaries of his mind set. We are Apple family! Been since 1984 for me, mac tech since 94.
Be well
Laurence
We are definitely the beneficiaries!