Wednesday, December 31, 2014

In(E)ternal love

Its easy to imagine loving someone so much that you want to internalize them. You want them completely. 
What if this subtle wish of yours was granted to you in the past life ?
What if someone whom you loved deeply in a past life became truly your internals ? 
What if they became your present life organs ? ....

Maybe your heart that you have now is your lover from the past, maybe your lungs are your parents whom you loved a lot.. maybe ..! Maybe..!

Then..

Then.. would you smoke cigarettes and cause damage to them ?
Would you eat oily junk food making it difficult for your heart to pump ?
Would you drink so much alcohol to cause damage to your liver ?

Would you not then, work on improving them, improving their strength ?
Would you not then, try to concentrate, observe and feel their presence in you ?
Would you not then, take immense care of this body , your temple made of love ?

Look at these organs not as if you posses them but as your loved ones choosing to be inside you because they loved you so much.

And maybe that's why its said - "Love is your very nature." 

 

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

PK movie + Alternative ending

Gita says " Don't be attached to anything as attachment causes misery." Yet people are so attached to religious rituals & idols that they are frustrated or upset about it being made fun of in the movie.

If one believes and has faith with proper understanding, then no external factor can shake it. Its only because we do certain things like a machine without thinking that we are shaken up.

Idol worship is a form of bhakti yoga - devotion , concentrating your mind on god, expressing pure love for god without desire for material things. Just this understanding is enough to sit back and enjoy the movie or for that matter anything because you cannot be shaken with this strong foundation of understanding.

Rituals too have a purpose, be it strengthening your will power & determination through Roza, Upvasa & yoga or be it teaching you equanimity in pain.

But all these are done, not for obtaining a material thing but to grow spiritually, understanding the mysterious forces & infinite cosmic intelligence called god.
Whereas
In the entire PK movie, Amir khan is looking for his Medallion i.e desiring a specific result while trying everything that different ignorant people tell him.

Now, I have an alternative ending to the movie - It doesn't seem to have a happy ending on the outside but surely PK will be happy inside, within.

PK was suffering because he desired something that was taken away from him. He had his reasons to suffer or to feel that he was in misery. If he had approached  true religious men, not the fake ones he encountered but true enlightened men, then ?
They would tell him to sit and meditate :P . Everything happens for a reason. It was gods will or universe conspired that his medallion be stolen. Maybe there's some purpose in this event and so be unfazed my dear PK - Know thy self (jesus), know the divinity within (Advaita) or Know the impermanence of everything (Buddha). Practising these words of wisdom diligently (He is one sincere alien!) he would then be a transformed enlightened man or alien , and be happy where ever he was irrespective of if he got the medallion or not, peaceful forever.

Maybe he would be in a cave meditating and come out sometimes to spread the true wisdom, to say all religions are one,etc.. Its well known that enlightened persons have no desire for material things and then, someone might, out of his ignorance gift the "Medallion" to PK guru/swami . It was all he had desired , it had brought him misery but it had brought him enlightenment too. PK smilingly refuses the gift - his passport to his world. The End.

Anyways, concluding the point,

If only we understood the true meaning of rituals and idol worship, we would never be affected by anything external.
Two types of buildings survive in an earthquake - the buildings with strong base foundation and the ones with base isolation (i.e kind of detached with the base, slides over it), So either read, analyse & think to develop a deep strong foundation of your belief's or don't care about these things. Both will keep you unfazed in the even of an external calamity. Peaceful, calm and cheerful.

I enjoyed the PK movie a lot. So maybe its true - Knowledge brings joy, Ignorance brings misery!  :D

Friday, December 26, 2014

True courage

Facing your fear wishing it to be over soon is just one small step towards true courageous act.

Most common act of bravery is to jump off a cliff into water or bungee jumping or sky diving. For some its the giant wheel, a roller coaster, etc..



People scream, close their eyes or do both while performing the fearful act. They are brave and have the courage to do it, no doubt. But it is one step towards true courage. Why only one step closer ?
Because people involved in such an act realize that fear isn't permanent, it passes away once its done.

This is a valuable realization of impermanence of everything in life. But this realization hasn't sunk deep enough in the doers, for if it had been ingrained, people wouldn't have to scream, shut eyes, etc..
They would then face it with full awareness and equanimity knowing that this too shall pass.

Thats true courage!

PS: I was scared as hell doing it, probably shut my eyes mid-air, not fully aware of what was happening, wishing it to be over soon and celebrating it later to have done it. True courage is light years away for me, but I am light (:P to keep hopes alive :P)

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Invention of Jataka m

I overheard my mother say "If they don't like the girl, they can say Jatakam did not match! "
Jatakam's are an astrological calculation sheet produced by Hindu pandits based on ones birth location, time, stars, etc..

And then I thought .. Wow ! Maybe thats why this Jatakam concept was invented !
It makes so much sense now.

In arranged marriages, The boy's parents approach a girls parents or it happens the other way, doesn't matter. Now it is very rude to reject a proposal pointing defects in physical appearance or behavior of the other person. Though the act of rejecting would be rude and bad , it has to be done when necessary.

How can this rejection by either party take place without being rude ? It can be done by pointing some fault outside a person and thus they invented Jatakam/Jataka, which is made as soon as the baby is born. No person has control or any role to play in the preparation of his/her Jatakam.

Now there was another problem. It would be wrong to find faults with Jatakam's as it can spoil the chances of that person to find future matches based on his Jatakam which has been recognized as having a Defect/Fault in it.

Thus was invented another way - "Jatakam's did not match" .. Wow! so wonderful! There is no defect/fault in anyones Jatakam , its just that they did not match and hence it would be wise decision of both the parties to call off the marriage.

Hmm, Im impressed ancient hindu pandits ! This is a cool way to deal with some problems that arise in arranged marriages. Kudos ! But obviously there are some issues like Manglik , etc.. I do not want to go deep into it, partly cuz I believe I do not have much knowledge about it and partly because I think it is the result of degradation of old rules/rituals as with many others in Hinduism.

Also it is said when two people fall in love, Checking if their Jatakam's match is not required. Based on the logic discussed in this article, I second this opinion.

What if no party wants to reject the other but their Jatakams do not match ? I think there are provisions made to allow such a marriage provided some extra rituals / yajna's / Pooja's be performed. Haha , Another cool trick that doesn't harm the marriage but also results in extra income for pandits who devised all this.

Respect. _/\_  

Thought Layers

I caught myself drifting away into other thoughts rather than concentrating on the task at hand.. Then I questioned myself, what ? who caught whom ?

I caught myself ? doesn't make sense..
Its actually one desire catching another desire in the mind.
Then I started analyzing why and how I drifted off ..

The task at hand was not so important as the old important ingrained task of analyzing and understanding my mind or myself. Thus I seemed to be a little happy somewhere deep inside to have caught the drift off and seemed quite happy to analyze it not thinking much about the present task at hand.

We have many layers of desires or necessities , inline with which are our actions. While doing a certain action, a "just a little deeper" dominant desire/necessity thought arises and grabs the attention of consciousness. As this is happening, I'm reminded by some senses still involved in the old action to come back to present task.
Thus one thought catches the other. And when this sudden shifts from one thought to other, rather than seamless shifting occurs, another thought arises which says "Hey wait! what just happened? What was that jerky thought process ? How did it happen? "

This analysis is the fresh thought that I'm drifting into knowing very well that there's a task at hand. But this gains more importance, as knowledge of working of my mind is more important to me than some menial task.

So one of my deep desire/necessity seems to lie in understanding how my mind works.

When the consciousness is working/acting on the deepest layer of thought, it doesn't drift off as there are no more layers below it, No thought disturbs it. But, is analyzing or understanding myself/mind the deepest thought layer of me ? I don't think so. Peeling thought layers, one after the other I must go deeper to understand the deepest desire/necessity thought.

But why to even understand it? Lets work with whatever arises in the mind till it passes away and then hold onto another thought till it passes away, lets jump randomly ? Naah I'll stick to peeling layers, seems like a organized systematic logical thing to do but I have no clue whats under the last layer.

Monday, December 22, 2014

True Seva & Honest prices

Why don't we see constant improvement of service or product in India ? Why are we offered poor service compared to service in the west where customer is the King ?

Population could be one of the answers. It definitely is difficult to serve such a huge population.
What about Bargaining ?

Yes, we r used to bargaining - I realized that, at least for me, its a game, its an ego issue, its a satisfaction to win a good deal and disappointment when you don't get it. We enjoy it if we get it after lot of bargaining than if we get it soon, as getting it sooner would mean there was more scope to bargain and you misjudged the actual price of the product/service. Bargaining is all about what we believe to be its true worth based on past purchase, material used, sellers location. etc.. A complicated analysis! 

To eliminate bargaining, fixed price is a rude solution, how about honest/transparent pricing ? Be honest about price of all raw materials used, tax, rent and leave the fruit of your effort to the consumer or mention your charge honestly..
Seva.. Free is also a little harsh on the doer.. His effort is seva not the raw materials.. They were effort of the farmer/supplier you cannot pay for it and give for free.. Seva is giving your service freely, in case of cooking, it would be the effort you put in, everything else should be charged until you are being charged for them.
Lebtop shouldn't have been free for the same reason.. Misunderstood form of seva doesn't last long as seen with lebtop.. I should not charge for my efforts or energy put in but with honest pricing i shall definitely charge what it costs me from other service/product providers..

As the chain of people involved in the good action become aware of true seva, they too will start doing it.. It will have a profound impact and only through this way can the whole world based on seva or gift economy can be realized or established, every other way will be set aside as charity or will see gradual death..

Incase of honest true seva restaurant, if I open one, with every order should be given ingredients used, electricity/gas consumed, tax, cost of paper printing these details :), basic money required for you + employees per month divided by 30 + no of expected consumers per month... Calculating this way cost of items should drastically come down.. N donations shall have a specific use ( They could fund different types of honest true seva ventures), They shouldn't be used as extra income/profit.
The whole purpose of this seva is to spread the message of true seva business.. All contact points of business will learn from it by example and the world will become a better place..

Ideal true seva world will have people doing the work they like as a seva, free, as they no longer have to pay for basic services or products they want such as food, clothing, water etc. Even luxury would be free if someone has desires. Nothing can be claimed as mine as everything is the fruit of others effort, even the luxurious car if you take it. 

Saturday, August 23, 2014

Launching myself

I dreamed of launching various startups but today, Im launching myself.
Hmm, what ?

I have revealed the long held desire of taking a long leave/break to my bosses and they are fine with it.

Its really tough to do that, very tough. I had to conquer my fears, muster courage and go tell them that Im confused, let me go for a while. (As if I was chained by them/office)

Yes chains existed, but mostly in the mind. But, some chains do exist - as HRs leave rules. For some, chains are family's need for money.

I'm a little excited/anxious/happy or all today, as I finally did the thing I waited for so long.
Now I have prepared the ground for my temporary exit here, thats exciting and also scary.

I will be launched soon into the world outside, to absorb everything in, to learn as much as possible, to understand, decode and try new things.

If I could set an example that with free time and a little money, one can do wonderful things and attain peaceful state of mind , it would be worth the effort.

Its important that now, I think through about how I wish to spend the next 6 months which is just 180 Days. Maybe I'll extend it to 9 months which is 270 Days !
What is the objective of this break ? What do I want from it ? Why am I taking it ?

I want fresh air, I want to be at peace, I want to discover my calling (cliched !! Boo booo )
I want to do creative innovative things that solve problems and add value.
I think I should not lay too much importance on this phase .. as one thing leads to another..
So I shud just congratulate myself right now on taking the first bold step.
Keep doing what you feel at faster pace and one thing leads to another and the divine power shall lead you.. Don't be in a hurry to tick off check lists just to go back and show people what all you have done and boast about it. Just take it slow, eliminate the need to justify or seek approval or convince..

3..2...1... GO!

Saturday, August 2, 2014

Enough books stories n talk!

A random side thought:
We should do an experiment.. calculate the weight difference of a man before and immediately after death. That, if any, would give the energy of a persons soul, if anything like that exists. crazy! i know.

Main thought:

Why should we preach Vedanta, instead it should be sought !
The reason being that practically a man can survive in this world by working & creating value, and at present work and value addition are in the industrial and IT field. In the olden days a person who meditated , had great knowledge and did tough tapasya's would have certain powers, or lets say they had a way to add value to the society. They had special skills or divine gifts.. Then people would try to acquire such knowledge to add value and survive in the world. But nowadays, how is vedanta adding value to attract people to know more about it ? Vedantists or rishis or yogis only meditate, philosophize and run ashrams. What of the great skills, powers and value addition ? Ayurveda, new concepts, etc ? where is it ? If this knowledge of truth propels one into inaction I do not want it.

Ok, let all be one.. Maybe I and you , everyone is one , as advaita says , so what ? Let each individual or each I/you lost in material bodies realize themselves, How much ever talk or lecture we give, does it make anyone realize ? No. They must try to realize it and when will one try ? when will one , im sorry, we don't need 1 or 2 or the depressed lot which tries anything, we need real hero's to try these supposedly great methods. And for such to try these, they must be really something useful to the society or themselves, mostly society. Can knowledge through such learning , such philosophy , through calm composed mind gone through hours of meditation yield something useful other than mere talk ?
Can the secrets of the universe not be revealed, can they not be acted upon to produce great results, discoveries, and choose right paths ? cannot the yogi wield his power to win a gold at Olympics.. cannot he take sports to the next level and thereby attract more people towards it and thus help mankind to progress..

Cannot a master of mind do a menial task of thinking and breathing a certain idea and making it a reality by his sheer will power ? Thus showing the world its powers..

If it has not been done there must be a strong reason for it ..what cud it be ?
Say we humans become aware of this powerful knowledge or methods, we try it very hard to become powerful but maybe for wrong reasons and not for knowing the value of that knowledge.
But we do know that true knowledge cannot be obtained if its objective is to get something else, outside of the knowledge. Whateva.

I think it is possible, lets not talk. I shall try and dedicate my life to this education system and philosophy which we boast of , to see if it can do any wonders in the field of survival of a human, in the progress of mankind, etc..

Monday, May 5, 2014

Contemplating a long leave

Why shouldn't I go on a long self-discovery break ?
Lets list Reasons to go for it :
Im 25, I have saved good amount of money.
Im working in a govt job that doesnt easily remove an employee, so it means even if my endeavour fails I can always come back to live the normal life.
Im young and not in a hurry to marry. Also no one is dependent on me right now.

Life is a mystery, its short. Death is inevitable. There's an inner calling.

The time is right, I will go on a journey of my lifetime.
A journey to gain experiences, learn how different people live.
A soul-searching journey.

I want to be alone sometimes, do my own thing, read books..
there's something that needs to be discovered!

Do I want to keep analyzing pipes and supports ?
No, not now.

Am I taking this decision based on laziness or frustration ?
I could say Yes though I do not want to. I believe I shouldn't run away from something but should only leave something once I have defeated it or loved it but never out of inability or laziness.
I liked studying for the Interview a little bit.
But lately i have been lazy - my will doesn't translate into action.
I will strengthen my will, discipline myself, try to love the job a little and then I shall leave it.

Do you want to travel a lot ?
Not really, cuz i don't really appreciate beauty much. Its all the same for me wherever I go unless the climate changes. I like it fresh and cold.

So do you want to stay someplace nice and pursue something?
Yes, I think of meditation yoga music books and healthy food if possible.
But I'm also aware that I should not get too comfortable, then the mind begins to entertain laziness.

So it looks like you want to travel a bit, find a nice place and stay there for a while and leave it just when you start loving it. Isn't it being harsh on yourself ?
Is it? I donno. I'm more interested to see how long it takes for me to love the place. The moment I feel a strong emotion to settle, I shall leave !

Greatest hindrance while contemplating to embark on a journey, is the fear of unknown.
I can never ever imagine or think of what future lies ahead of me in a journey. I don't know if it will surpass my imaginations or fall way below it into an abyss. 

Thursday, March 6, 2014

PUSH , HOLD , PUSH!

Push against the lazy part of your mind and body which wants to rest!

Hold that same part which pulls you towards easy desires !

Both are equally difficult, but extremely rewarding in the long run.

Inhale - push the air into your lungs. Hold it there, a little longer , hold. Push it out slowly through your nostrils.

That part of mind, which is not you, which is animal instinct - asking you to rest, sleep its not yet time, watch tv/movie, etc.. has to be overcome. Struggle to evolve! Grow in strength.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Big bangs of the Soul

"Everything struggles to go back to what was before these illusions, to be free in fact. What then is the value of life? It is to give us experience. Does this view do away with evolution? On the contrary, it explains it. It is really the process of refinement of matter allowing the real Self to manifest Itself."


This is the exact sentence in Complete works of Swami Vivekananda Vol 6.

Its so strange that like yin and yang these two processes are intertwined.

Its like expansion & compression, series of waves..
One time the whole of universe is ONE, then it expands, creating numerous illusions.. each part trying to reach the ONE or unite (through continuously evolving matter) ... Only to expand/explode with a bigger bang !

By unite , I don't mean physical unity but of the mental state, then by bang do I mean the physical big bang ?
Physical is what is perceived by the mental, once the bang is in mental state , its in physical too.
All minds are new/replaced with better intelligence..

Its like confusing oneself to know oneself better ! Or its like, going in search of truth by thinking in different ways.
Or maybe its self-doubt ! And is written - what is the value of life? It is to give us experience.
Experience clears doubts ! The whole Soul is struggling to know everything beyond doubt.