Life

 When we sit in Vipassana , we experience different sensations in different parts of the body. Itching, vibration, heat, heaviness, pain, and so on. We sit for long hours in Vipassana, and that's why I normally feel pain in my legs and back. Sometimes the neck becomes stiff. Initially, we react a lot, and one hour of sitting becomes painful. In fact, we change our posture many times during a one-hour sitting. Then comes the real test. We have Adhistana for 1 hour when we don't have to change posture. We realise how painful that posture looks. The more we feel pain, the more we feel the urge to change our posture. But the instructions have to be strictly followed. We just have to observe the sensations rather than react to them. That seems quite difficult at first, and one hour feels like a lifetime. In fact, we give up after some time and make a slight movement to feel that little comfort. However, there comes a stage when we decide that we will not react to the pain. We conce...

One of the most fundamental discussions in the world of spirituality is the difference between love and attachment . Pandavas "love" Draupadi to the extent that they fight the battle of Kurukshetra to take revenge for the insult to Draupadi. They kill the Kauravas , Karna and all the people who caused the insult to Draupadi. We may call it a perfect example of love. But the question is: "Whether it is love or attachment?"  When Arjuna enters the battlefield of Kurukshetra, he gets confused. He wants to run away from the battlefield because he feels that killing his own cousins, teachers, and elders will send him to hell. He feels quite anxious, and then Krishna rips apart his logic. Krishna helps him see reality from a broader perspective and, in the process, answers many of Arjuna's questions. When Arjuna is still not convinced, Krishna shows him Vishwaroop to make him realise the vastness of the universe and the limitations of the body. He makes Arjuna r...

In Vipassana , the meditation technique taught by Buddha , we observe sensations in different parts of our bodies. There will be so many different types of sensations. Somewhere itching, somewhere pain, somewhere vibration, and somewhere feeling the life flow of liquid. Sensations are closely connected to feelings. Each time we feel pleasure or pain, our body stores these feelings. Thereafter, whenever we encounter any situation, these old memories stored in the body try to give us a sense of direction through sensations. Somebody cheated long ago, and we felt bad. Those feelings are stored in the body. Whenever we meet that person again, our brain recognises them, and the old bad feelings are retrieved by the body. We feel bad again. The more we think about that person, the worse we feel. Body sensations are trying to make us feel bad so that we maintain a distance from that person. It's a self-defence mechanism . Similarly, a boy and a girl like each other, and somehow their fami...

A husband and wife can fight for hours and still reach no conclusion. The same applies to the political debates. These are two very common examples of debates taking us nowhere. All of us have opinions about different things. Our rights and wrongs differ from others'. While some may consider non-vegetarian food wrong, others may consider animal products and milk wrong, and still others may consider even potatoes and onions wrong. Everybody will have their own logic to support their argument. But what's wrong with these divisions? The whole of Ramayana and Mahabharata is also a fight for Dharma . Dharma is also closely connected to what's right. When Rama and Krishna can fight for the right, why can't ordinary people like us fight for the right? I feel that it all depends on the frame of mind in which we think. For example, if somebody thinks from the frame of family, Gautama Siddhartha leaving his family and going to the forest in search of truth is wrong. On the ot...

Sometimes we wonder why the person we are talking to seems so depressed. He has everything in life, and yet his complaints never end. Spending some time with these entitled people will make us realise that they are the saddest people in this world. My children do not listen to me. How do I ensure my child gets into IIT ? I have a short 6-month visa, while I wanted a 1-year visa. I have gained an inch, and I am so worried. My mother-in-law is sitting on my head. How do I give her a send-off? I want to go on vacation to Norway , while my husband insists on London .  The list is endless. I don't know where the genesis of these entitlements lies. Since childhood, we have a very strong drive to "become" something. We want to become doctors , engineers, CAs , and civil servants . Why? To become rich and powerful. Why do we want to become rich and powerful? Because we want to consume more and more. In the struggling phase, we feel that as we grow rich, we will eat the food of ou...

Just watched the movie Assi . A very well-made movie. The movie is about the rape of a teacher who is raped by 5 men in a moving car while coming back from the Metro at night. The movie is all about the tough fight the victim's lawyer puts up in court. Apart from other things, the movie shows the dirty face of the institution called family . How people try to protect the victims of rape in the name of respect of family in society. How families carve out settlements for the girls who are raped by marrying them to the accused of rape. How the family of the rape victim tries to convince them not to fight the battle in the court, and tries to get a settlement done out of court. What have we done in the name of love? I fail to understand how the institution called family can be so divisive vis-à-vis the rest of humanity. There is no doubt that we have formed the institution called family so that a few people can take care of each other during tough times. If a family member falls ill, o...

Where does communication get lost? So many problems in this world arise due to a lack of communication. Relationships get spoiled because of misunderstandings. There may be times when semantics matter because different words carry different meanings across cultures. It may also be because a person may carry a wrong understanding of the meaning of a word and use it accordingly, while the other person may not be able to understand that "personal meaning" of the word. However, these are minor communication errors and can be easily corrected. The more serious problems in communication stem from inauthenticity and a lack of integrity . By inauthenticity, I mean a conflict between our conscious intentions and our unconscious drives. For example, a person may invite his boss to a family function, even though he does not like him. In this situation, he will welcome his boss when he arrives, but a "little voice" at the back of his mind will urge him to send the boss away q...

We often feel hurt. We feel that so-and-so person has caused us harm. He has deceived us or cheated us. There remains a lingering pain in our heart regarding some event where a friend did not support us in a bad time, children did something that we did not expect them to do, a trustworthy colleague revealed something that we told him in confidence, or there is a breach of commitment by somebody close to us. It's difficult to bear the pain. Especially if we continue to live with the person, the hurt is all the more difficult to bear because every time we see that person's face, we recall the incident and feel hurt again and again. So far so good. Going by the same logic, Lord Ram should feel hurt by Mata Kaikeyi every day he spends in the forest. He should feel hurt when Mata Sita is kidnapped by Ravana , and he has to go through the entire rigmarole of searching for Sita and attacking Lanka. It means every minute of his Vanvaas of 14 years, he should feel hurt. Had that been...

 Do we see widespread violence in the name of love ? People say that they love, but actually, they want to possess. Parents want to raise their children to earn a medal for having brought them up well. If children deviate from the path that their parents have carved out for them, parents feel threatened. If the children do not marry within the caste or religion that their parents want them to marry, they feel threatened. Parents will do all this violence in the name of the welfare of their children.  Different types of violence exist in different relations. Once you get married, the centre of existence has to shift to family. Your aspirations and ambitions do not matter. While an industrialist toils day and night, his family often complains that he has no time to take them on vacations or spend time with them. I have experienced this phenomenon firsthand while meeting some of these families during raids conducted by my Department. All the people who have excelled in any field ...

 If two individuals have different loci, can they ever form a good companionship ? What if one feels that the locus of life is entertainment and fun, while the other feels that the locus of life is the welfare of the family? One feels that locus is excellence, while the other feels that locus is getting good marks. One feels that locus is achieving the target, while the other feels that locus is following the rules. One feels that the locus is wealth, while the other feels it is social service. One feels that locus is spiritual evolution , while the other feels that locus is materialistic development .  The conflict will be visible in almost every conversation and every decision. It is because we are the sum total of our thought processes . Our thought process reflects our understanding of life. I found the following video of Dr Alok Pandey from Sri Aurobindo Ashram to be quite interesting: https://youtu.be/UtF4OLUptWE?si=Qax7lhKqwU7nnuHf All of us have quite different view...

I don’t know why life has become so busy. Everybody is running around, as if trying to achieve something great the whole day long, yet feeling depleted and dissatisfied at the end of the day. Organisations have become mad places to work. Almost everybody is busy pursuing multiple targets at the same time, without knowing whether any of them are relevant to the organisation's growth. People want to become the kings of social media with millions of likes and followers, without ever contemplating the true value of these likes. People want to have thousands of friends on Facebook without ever realising what friendship really means. People just want to attend one party after another, without ever thinking that the happiness of attending the last party did not last even 24 hours. Why have we become so mindless? Probably because this is a significant difference between the word "Pre 2000" and today’s world, which is full of electronic devices, like mobile laptops, Video games, ...

It is difficult to appreciate something we have not experienced. For example, it is difficult for a layperson to appreciate the hard work an astronaut puts in, especially when they have no idea of the processes the astronaut must undergo before entering outer space. It will be difficult for us to appreciate the dedication and hard work of the scientists who carry out research to unravel the secrets of nature. It will be difficult for us to appreciate what Buddha must have gone through while being in the forest searching for the truth. There would always be a few individuals in society who would continue to strive to excel beyond the norm. On the other hand, the narrative of the society will always be set by the average intelligence. Therefore, it will be almost impossible for the masses to understand these outliers. They will always be considered weird or strange. This weirdness will be a generally accepted attribute of the outliers. However, it is also true that whenever society prog...

 Something struck me suddenly while having a discussion. So much pomp and show, and so much expenditure, people make in their ceremonies. For what? You ask them, after they have attended the functions, whether they are happy and how long they will remain so. If somebody dared to tell the truth, the reality would be that it was just a momentary joy. Even while coming back from the ceremony, the joy would have already faded away. In fact, for most people, it was never a joy with their hearts filled with feelings of comparison and jealousy. Still, people spend crores of rupees on these functions. Isn't it such an expensive way to get the pleasure. Each family that participates in these functions and ceremonies spends thousands of rupees, sometimes even lakhs. Lakhs of rupees spent for such a momentary joy. In fact, people save money for years, dreaming of organising these functions for their children's weddings. Years of savings spent for a few moments of joy. On the other hand, p...

Looking at the pigeon sitting on the balcony, a thought just struck my mind. It is free to fly, while human beings can't fly. Does that make human beings lesser mortals? No, we have so many different things, such as the brain, which we have created so many wonders on this earth. In fact, using the brain we have designed aeroplanes using which we can also experience flying in space. Does that mean the pigeon is a lesser mortal? No, it lives life to the fullest.  Where is the need for comparison? There are 12 houses in astrology , and when we examine the horoscopes of different individuals, everybody has some strong and some weak planets. Everyone has certain aspects of life represented by specific houses: some they have a natural strength in, and others they are bound to face challenges in. That's what makes every human being unique. Somebody will have a very strong house of Lagna and will therefore be generally healthy and decisive, while others may have affliction in the 2nd...