Yagna: An Indian Ikigai
Ikigai, the Japanese way of living that involves finding your life's purpose. It seems like a simple Venn diagram where you constantly seek the intersection of what you are good at, what you enjoy doing, what makes you money and what the world needs. It helps you discover your passion, your mission, your profession and your vocation, and if all these things align, you live the perfect life-or at least that's how it has been presented.
It is a great model that can help us clarify our thoughts and understand where we stand in the world. What is often overlooked, however, is the larger context of this model.
Ikigai is, in some ways, like Zen Buddhism-ideas that emerged from Japan in the post-war period, to whitewash Japan's dark imperial history.
Today, when we think of Germans, we remember the Nazis, but when we think of the Japanese, we do not recall their atrocities in Korea, China and Southeast Asia. Instead, we think of Zen Buddhism, Ikigai, and their excellent industries, or Japan as a tourist destination where tradition blends brilliantly with modernity. We rarely discuss the fact that Japan is a xenophobic society, resistant to immigration and set on doing things its own way.
Or the hierarchical Bushido code of Samurai. It's a society where men are considered superior to women, and we hear stories of how the queen was not allowed to visit her parental home until she had borne an heir.
When Ikigai uses the phrase «what the world needs,» which world are we talking about? Does this world mean our family? Does it mean our neighbourhood, our community, our nation, or the entire world? That changes everything. A community's needs may not be compatible with the world's needs, especially if that community believes the
