Learning

त्वदीयं वस्तु गोविन्द तुभ्यमेव समर्पये।
गृहाण सम्मुखो भूत्वा प्रसीद परमेश्वर।।

All goodness comes from you; all misfortunes are signs for me. 

Relate

सबकी ममता त्याग बटोरी .. this came up a couple of days after I had realized it on my own. I was able to relate to this statement and hence the author and eventually ended up buying the book. 

A girl who is a little elder but so much wiser, I want her to be my friend. If she is there, I do not need anything else - I can provide instead. 

Pain

1. Trust the process

2. It is by design - imagine a conveyer belt

3. Sit through the process and pain - moving will disrupt the process and pain will shift elsewhere. It may look that the pain has been relived but it will settle elsewhere and the whole process will start again. It’s painful every way.

4. The pain will becoming soothing after a bit - it’s a sinusoidal wave - it does become better if we have the patience to follow the process by all design principles.

5. Pain is a teacher. 

6. Pain helps to focus and get attention.

7. Pain is more helpful overall.

8. It diminishes ego. 

9. In the absence of ego the true process can start. 

10. The process is designed to move from gross to subtle sensations.

11. We want the subtle sensations since they are at higher frequencies.

12. Higher frequencies tend to zero. 

13. At some point the bliss starts taking over such that the sensations don’t matter as much and hence right action can be performed. 

14. The bliss keeps you preoccupied and is a happy state of its own - only because it’s like a high and the mind can come up with out of the box ideas. 

15. Shifting the focus changes the state of being. 

16. We become all powerful and come closer to the essence 

When there is difference in "what you know is right" and "what you do in spite", there is a discontent in self and life. No amount of knowing will help if that knowing is not followed up with some action.   

One way is to bridge that gap. But it requires self discipline of highest order. And that also is yog. 

Silent in the moment

The intention needs to be set up, whenever we have to get into a cosmic dance with another. Any activity requires it. During the entire interaction, the others show who they are and if both are flowing in the moment, every movement is responded to as required. If we are not in the moment, we fail to notice the specific need and we straight get to the last step or anticipated need making the process not as pleasurable. Silence helps to listen and focus on what is needed in the moment.  

When I speak up or think ahead, I interfere with the dance, I break the character. I get pulled out of the moment and appear as a cartoon character who is just parroting what should be said as per the set up. By doing this we get distracted more and we break the process further. The cosmic dance does not require us to know the next step but flowing and playing with it, we create a pleasant and just needed experience which is lacking nothing. Interestingly it is always what is wanted by the system and everyone benefits with this. When the participants are not in the moment, everyone is distracted and it further distracts everyone and the cosmic play starts to lose the fun - hence we all need to be silent. The mirroring happens during silence and the responses are better - even if the other person is caught by surprise. 

Once we are in the moment, with our silence we can hear better, participate better and respond exactly to the need. It is by going with the flow, is that I know what is needed next - not by thinking about it. And this is extended to everyone we interact with implying that intention needs to be set all over. Its all about knowing and reading the other person better so that they can know you better. Honesty is needed so we can respond to what is needed; otherwise we respond to something that's not the truth and hence spoil the process further. 

How are we so programmed? Did we do this as a shortcut?

Demons

Your demons are your old friends. You should welcome them and treat them with kindness. Make them pals with your treatment. They are not scary at all - they have stayed in the shadow too long and they need some sun. Treat them as small, spoilt kid who cannot articulate and hence creates drama. Talk to them and make them feel better. They complete you - they are parts that you hide and hence they are upset with you for abandoning them. Their wounds are festering and all of that needs your love to heal. They need your attention. 

Barbie

• Matriarchy and Patriarchy  
• I remember walking in a conference room, talking to my friend over a phone call and as I usually do, talking my thoughts out loud. I remember flipping the scenarios and accepting that it would be as disastrous in a Matriarchy. It would make women behave like men. They would treat men as stallions for work and pleasure (just as men treat women). It would again be a world that would not work out since no one likes to be treated like that. 
• I saw this depicted in Barbie-land, though it did not come close to the crassness with which men could be treated in the world I had imagined.  
• So I had concluded that a perfect world would require perfect equality and mutual respect for everyone. And that requires being a nice human first - as the movie calls out, it starts with knowing who one is without everything else in the picture. That is step number 1.
• Plight of women
• The day I decided to end things, that evening I had cried with such strong emotions trying to articulate how women are treated - how I was treated and how every other women I knew was treated. Most of the time women have no where to go because the do not know how to leave the only world they know. I had physically ached explaining how disgusting it was for men to treat women so poorly when no one deserves to be treated like that. Interestingly the cases I was thinking about back then where not even close to the cruelty with which men actually treat women. Somehow those simple instances were enough to make my blood boil - anymore than that would have invoked violence in me. It had played as a propellent for me to decide that evening. And his shocked face was pure gold - because I knew he could not comprehend a single word I said - as I had not in all these past years of my life. 
• It arrived as America Ferrera's monologue though yet again it was just barely touching the surface of phenomenon women actually experience in man's world. And even this much hit so hard because it was being delivered in a room full of women in the movie and the audience was shocked - I know this because I saw this movie two times and both times there was pin drop uncomfortable silence in the theater. In that moment, everyone was listening. 

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Barbie is an important movie of this age. 

How can I serve?

You can move from a group to another group - any group you want. Every group has a "persona" just like we have one in product management and all of those personas are equally interesting and boring depending on what you already know. To me it all seems boring and noisy and lip-service after a point. They look interesting from outside, they are all the same from inside. So depending on what one likes or wants, they can become that to join the club. What if I do not like what the clubs offer from inside but find them interesting from outside? What if I do not even want to know anymore clubs because they are all the same for me? What if nothing impresses me any more? I knew this in 2018? Why am I taking such a long route for what I already know? 

Fear that not; be not awed

“Fear it not. Be not terrified. Be not awed. Know it to be the embodiment of thine own intellect. As it is thine own tutelary deity, be not terrified.”

It is karmic personification of your own disposition.You know them so meet them as old acquaintances.

Freedom

Create space or rather free up your headspace for creativity. Everything else is just a waste of time! Freedom is above all. 

Everyone is a mixed bag.

Be in the moment.

No aversion; no attraction. 

I cannot be moved(scared / happy) by anything that I create. 

Insensitive

I have not been able to process of insensitivity meted out to a person I knew by his own "people" to date. I saw people turn; fans and followers change - to an extent that it gave a spotlight to the loneliness. 

Sensitive people are collecting enough data about the world and then they tend to crash. I say, be sensitive and develop a thick skin. Do not forget - so that you can ignore completely. 

Leveled-up

This year, we leveled up in life. While we had a lot of fun, the time after has a lot of work to do.

Gratitude

• It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful - David Steindl-Rast
• The more grateful I am, the more beauty I see - Mary Davis
• Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind - Lionel Hampton 
• Gratitude for the present moment and the fullness of life now is true prosperity - Eckhart Tolle

Bundle of Contradictions

I am a bundle of contradictions. I am made up of parallel streams, these emotions and tracks that overlap and create a haze. I am all that and yet I can observe this from a distance. When I am not pulled into these contradicted states, I find all of this funny. I stay in good mood and I ensure everyone around me is in a good mood. This is a state I strive to be in. How can I always be here?

Beneficial for All

हितं यत् सर्वभूतानाम्    आत्मनश्च सुखावहम्।

तत् कुर्यादीश्वरे ह्येतत्    मूलं सर्वार्थसिद्धये।।

(महाभारत, उद्योग पर्व - ३७/४०)

अर्थात् - जो सम्पूर्ण प्राणियों के लिए हितकर और अपने लिए भी सुखद हो, उसे ईश्वरार्पण बुद्धि से करना चाहिए, सम्पूर्ण सिद्धियों का यही मूल मंत्र होता है।

People and Relationships

People, just like things, can be a distraction. Or they can be used as tools to know and grow. Their presence and absence both can teach us something about ourselves. Do we crave someone's company because we like them? Or perhaps they give us a purpose? Do we have a common agenda? Does their presence create a structure that we think defines our being or life? Keeping a person in mind, if we can define why we need that person, we will know something about ourselves, not them - but about ourselves. 

Why should we need people really?

If we can become peers as souls on this journey of life, sharing, relating and caring a little, that would be the best reason to want people around. Detached, and yet attached. Not too much, not too little. Precious connection in those moments. THAT is why we need people. 

How can we detach and yet be attached?

We should remember that "people is a 3D concept". We should understand that each individual has their own journey which will ALWAYS differ from ours. But if their journey does align to ours, we have met someone who can be a true friend on this journey of life. We should stick to OUR own goals so that people can align, not the other way around. 

How can we transform our relationships?

We can transform our relationships by sharing our personal truth. The highest tribute one can pay to a genuine relationship is one's own personal truth knowing that it can completely break the relationship. If a person can understand or deal with this truth, they will connect at a different level, paving way for higher intimacy. If the person is baffled by it, they will move out of the circle, paving way for others who can deal with it. In both cases we have achieved the transparency that is elevating for both parties. We know where we stand with respect to each other, hence we give space to each other to grow. We don't block each other or pressurize each other to do something that adds resentment in the long run. Resentment defeats the entire purpose of a relationship. Why be with someone if their presence keeps us away from ourselves?

Grateful

Without a suitable friend, this journey can be so long and straining. This friend can listen and ideate; convey and explain; relate and retaliate - overall the experience then becomes of going through something together. So it’s bearable, the journey and it feels worthwhile. Even though it may all be meaningless, it’s meaningful in those moment. For this, I am grateful.

Faith

I am happy! The various ways in which universe reiterates and confirms is absolutely fantastic. I mean all we ever have to do is take that leap of faith. 

Yog

All my planned or accidental mediative attempts have resulted in distinct differentiation of sooksham and sthool - vibrations  resulting in feeling heaviness and lightness at the same time. They separate out and it implies that the lightness can move around. It can move around without me leaving the spot. I was floating but I was also connected. 

I have experienced that movement once - where I move so fast that I can see myself connected with the whole. 

#soundbath #experiences