On October 6, we had the 123rd WiseViews Leadership Conversation with Mr Vishwanath Alluri, Founder of IMImobile.
An evening with Mr Vishwanath Alluri
Before his involvement with the Krishnamurti Foundation, Mr Alluri had a successful career in the tech industry. He founded IMISoft in 1988, a tech company specializing in designing telecom infrastructure assets. In 1999, recognizing the importance of data in technology, he founded IMImobile, a CPaaS (communication platform as a service) provider.
Through strategic acquisitions and expansion into the UK market, Mr Alluri helped IMImobile become a leading global provider of cPaaS services. Under his leadership, IMImobile achieved a turnover of more than £172 million during 2019-2020, a five-year revenue CAGR of 26%, and over 1,200 employees. The company was eventually acquired by CISCO in March 2021.
Throughout his tech entrepreneurial journey, Mr Alluri has received numerous industry accolades.
In addition to his tech career, Mr Alluri has also been involved in film production. He produced a feature-length biography in 2013 and served as the executive producer of a portrait film in 2018.
Mr Alluri is not an investor. Instead of putting energy in evaluating proposals and making investments, he prefers to spend time propagating JK’s teachings.
Mr Alluri feels that people should not become entrepreneurs simply because they are inspired by others. It is good to have role models. However, we should know not only about the possibilities but also what we can do. If we simply try to imitate others, we may land up in trouble. Inspiration is transient. It is like a drug. What will help us to move forward are our own strengths and capabilities.
We should love what we are doing. But this is not as easy as it sounds. How do we find out what we love? Work is largely psychological. Not physical. When our child wakes up in the night we wake up and comfort it without feeling irritated. But we do get upset when our neighbour makes a noise in the middle of the night.
About Mr Jiddu Krishnamurti
Jiddu Krishnamurti (JK) (1895 - 1986) was a renowned spiritual teacher, and writer. His teachings revolved around the exploration of human consciousness, self-awareness, and the nature of truth.
JK emphasized the importance of self-inquiry and self-awareness. He encouraged individuals to observe their thoughts, emotions, and actions. He believed that a true understanding of oneself could lead to personal transformation.
For JK, true freedom and self-realization could only be achieved by breaking free from conditioning and exploring one's own mind independently. For him, true meditation was a process of silent self-observation and mindfulness.
JK stressed the importance of harmonious and non-dependent relationships. He believed that true love could only be realized when individuals had a deep understanding of themselves and their conditioning.
JK challenged the idea of relying on external authorities, including religious leaders and gurus, for spiritual guidance. He encouraged people to question their beliefs and seek the truth through direct experience rather than blind faith. He believed that truth was not something that could be taught or transmitted by others but had to be discovered by everyone.
The three immutable laws
Quick action
When strategic decisions are involved, we may need time. But in daily situations, we should be able to take quick action. We should make a distinction between activities and action. Answering emails, social media posts, etc represent activities. It is easy to get lost in such activities.
Facts
Actions must be based on facts. There is no question of accepting or denying facts. We must live with them. Facts, not senior leaders, make the decision. Senior leaders should allow the facts to emerge on the decision-making table.
Clarity
Clarity is not the opposite of confusion. Realizing that we are confused is the beginning of achieving clarity. Without clarity we will be in turmoil. If we are confused, we will go all over the place, without any direction or in circles.
Q&A
JK’s teachings cover the field of human existence. They are essentially focused on the internal structure of our mind. JK’s main theme was how to live a life of order.
JK never positioned himself as or pretended to be a guru. He wore normal clothes. His approach was to investigate a problem along with others. He believed that each individual is her own guru and shishya. If we are looking for a guru to solve our problems, it means we are confused. Only when there is order inside us, there can be order outside.
One of JK’s important tools is the mirror of relationships. Relationship is the mirror in which we can see ourselves, we can discover what we are, our reactions, our prejudices, our fears, depression, anxieties, loneliness, sorrow, pain, grief, love.
In his writings, JK has raised some fundamental questions: How can we live with another without conflict? Why are relationships difficult? What is awareness in relationship? Do we really know what love is? What does it mean to learn in a relationship? What is the role of thought and memory in relating to another?
Another important tool is self-negation. This involves understanding ourselves by asking who we are not rather than who we are. By asking fundamental questions about the nature of the self, we can unravel the layers of conditioning that limit our understanding.
JK stressed the importance of observing oneself without judgment, interpretation, or identification. Through careful self-observation, we can understand our thought patterns, emotions, and conditioned responses. We must be fully present in the moment and observe our thoughts and emotions as they arise without attachment. We should be attentive to the mind's activities without trying to control or suppress them.
How do we do anything spontaneously without being told to do so, without expecting anything in return? Self-interest often makes us move. But can we move without self-interest? Movement with self-interest represents a state of decay. Movement without self-interest represents a state of flowering.
It is difficult to separate the two. If we are angry, we should not consider ourselves separate from the anger. If we are jealous, we are not separate from the jealousy. Only if we realize this, we can control our anger or jealousy. We must observe and experience these emotions rather than try to “manage” them as if they are separate from us.
Mr Alluri referred to the concept of Tatwamasi, Non-Duality and the Advaita philosophy. The key insight of Advaita is that the apparent duality we perceive in the world (subject and object, self and other) is an illusion. The ultimate reality is non-dual. The perceived distinctions are due to ignorance (avidya). Through spiritual practices such as self-inquiry, meditation, and a deep understanding of Vedanta, we can realize the non-dual nature of reality.
JK’s studies are not scholastic in nature. If we are serious and sensitive, and approach JK’s ideas with an open mind, we can understand them. The teachings are focused on helping our subconscious mind to function more effectively.
JK never pretended to be a guru. He wore normal clothes and encouraged people to find their own solution.
JK’s teachings are universal and eternal. But we need humility to appreciate them. It is incorrect to talk of “applying” JK’s teachings. If we understand and internalize them, they will become a part of us.
What JK taught is not philosophy. It is eminently practical. He taught us how to watch our conduct with others. That is what will influence our children. That is the environment in which our children are growing.
Technology is based on knowledge and aims at bringing order. But to bring order outside, we first must bring order inside. Mathematics is pure order. But there may be disorder within the mind of the mathematician. The outer world is not separate from the inner world.
Technology is only one side of the equation. Self-exploration must keep pace with technology. Otherwise, the cart will be driven by two horses-one lame and one fast. Unfortunately, in our educational system, there is not enough emphasis on self-exploration, i.e. understanding ourselves and our mind.
Observation, thinking, and attention are important for self-development. Our education system is focused more on science and maths and rote learning. It does not teach children enough about life. We need to orient children about life and the importance of creating order within ourselves.
JK discusses how the brain could respond when computers take over. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qfda11Nv_0
JK was of the view that right education was about preparing people for their whole lives and not just part of it as conventional education seeks to do through knowledge and skills. Education was meant to help people understand themselves and awaken intelligence and sensitivity.
JK felt that the current education system prioritizes specific mental faculties rather than the finer aspects of a human’s characteristics. Intelligence comes from consciousness. For this one has to understand one’s entire psychological processes. For this the teacher needed to be free from pre-existing thought patterns, cultivate a spirit of inqury and encourage the student to think independently. They must help the student overcome the tendency to compete or rival and to mitigate the negative effects of examinations on the mind.
Mr Aluri has created a course to orient teachers. The different modules are:
- The history of education
- Competition and comparison
- Authority, order, and knowledge
- Value and limitations of knowledge
- Observation, thinking and attention.
He has also developed an app that will answer all our questions.
These are very important for India. Unfortunately, the mindset of prestigious educational institutions is not in favour of vocational education. Parents are also not in favour. They prefer to send their children to professional courses such as engineering, medicine, management, and law. With vocational skills, people can be employed and also generate jobs.
Suffering comes when we try to escape it. We should stay with suffering. Then only we will get on top of it. So, we must stay with failure, not accept, or reject it. Unfortunately, we try to escape failure or rationalize it. That is like jumping from one ditch to another rather than getting out of the ditch.
Refer to this JK video where he enquires into failure and the discussion on what desire is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQT7fgzuT78We cannot become good managers if we do not understand our own mind. Only if we learn to manage our minds, we can manage other people’s minds. If we do not manage ourselves well, we will only be a drag on others. We will mismanage things. A manager is like the conductor of an orchestra. As managers, our job is not to do things but ensure that the team is performing.
Here are some key points to note:
- Knowledge and silence go together.
- We should not depend on pundits or gurus to solve our problems.
- If we do not have order within us, we cannot have order outside.
- We must train our subconscious mind to channelise our thoughts.
- The observer and observed are the same.