How to live a fulfilling life

Some random thoughts

Man was designed to work , as in really productively work , not more than four hours a day.

Work only four hours a day. But make those four hours count. Make it intense.

Not working is not an option. Till your dying day.

Be present. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing. Present means having the body, mind, soul and all the senses in attendance.

Life is a big cosmic joke. Don't take it too seriously.

Don't take yourself too seriously. Pompousness, and a sense of self importance, automatically comes with age. You have to guard against it.

Every day, learn something new.

Spend time in the presence of children. They have a lot to teach you.

Chase your dreams. To do that, you have to have a dream in the first place.

Follow your "swadharma", what you are uniquely positioned to do. To know what it is, you have to listen. To listen, you first need to empty yourself.

The world is constantly trying to fill you up. You need to keep purging often. Empty your stomach, fast. Empty your thoughts, meditate. Go for an annual pachakarma retreat.

Seek space. Even in the middle of a crowded, noisy environment, seek space.

Be of service to someone, somewhere, for something.

Do not get stuck within the confines of labels that you have created for yourself.

Go with the flow. Create in a state of flow. Live in a state of flow. For doing that, you have to suspend thinking. 

Your most productive times, and the most happiest, are the times when the thinking mind is out of the way.

Society's norms tie you down. Feel free to ignore them. 

Focus on your breath. Through the day. If you can, to the extent you can. Your breath is the only thing that remains with you till the end.

Listen to people. Seek advice. But follow your own heart.

TIGER SPOTTED IN BANGALORE LAYOUT

It was reported by a panicked resident that a tiger was spotted roaming outside the walls of Palms Residency Layout, Bangalore. 

 

This obviously created panic in the community. There was hue and cry, and the Layout's\ social media group went berserk.

 

What are we doing to stop the tiger?, said one resident.

 

My dogs are very sensitive, they are at risk of dying when they hear the tiger's roars, said another. Why don't you buy earmuffs for your dogs, said another, very helpfully. This infuriated the dog owner and a fight ensued. 

 

An environmentally conscious resident said that tigers are protected under  Indian law, and she would call in the SETDA ( Society for Ethical Treatment of Dangerous Animals) if anyone said anything which hurt Tiger Rights. A huge discussion ensued on tiger rights and privileges.

 

Over the course of the few days when these discussions took place, the tiger was not seen again. Meanwhile, the dog owners had picked up a fight with the SETDA activists over the issue whether dogs could be considered as dangerous animals, and there was another discussion, not yet concluded, on which brand of earmuffs are suitable for dogs. Meanwhile, one resident pointed out that "dogs are dangerous animals!", at least the way she viewed it. This resulted in a huge backlash – realising that she might be ostracised if she continued voicing such view, that resident shut up.

 

The tiger roared again. This time, three residents were positive they had heard it.

 

"It came from near the Railway Tracks", said one.

 

"No no, what you heard was the sound of a train", said another.

 

"What do you mean, do you think I am deaf?", said the former and a fight ensued. 

 

A lot of allegations of deafness, blindness, and dumbness were exchanged in an increasingly acrimonious  debate - all this on WhatsApp of course. The SRL activists - Society for Respectful Language - kept repeatedly intervening to say that deaf was a disrespectful term, the residents should learn to say "hearing challenged", and rather than "blind", "visually challenged" was more appropriate. 

 

"What has this got to do with Tigers" mumbled the Oldest  Resident,  but kept his thoughts to himself. The Oldest Resident, being wise, had long passed the age where he wanted others to hear his views; he preferred watching the people around and reading the WhatsApp posts – these afforded him enough amusement and a number of stories to swap with his friends when they met for the weekly Friday evening drinks sessions at the Clubhouse.

 

 

Since a few days had passed since hearing the roar, the issue took a backseat.

 

Meanwhile, there was report of a tiger sighting in Delhi. This was in a colony on the outskirts, near Chattarpur. The residents of Chattarpur, it is rumoured, hired a tiger hunter, and the tiger was spotted and killed in a day. Since this is of course illegal, no one in Chattarpur was willing to go on record or say anything. However, since that day, no tigers have been spotted near Chattarpur.

 

Meanwhile, in Palms Residency, one resident had started to keep raw meat every night outside the Layout's walls. He claimed it was for the stray dogs, but some people suspected that he was a closet tiger lover and the food was meant for the tiger. 

 

"You are encouraging stray dogs", said one dog lover, "and they bring in germs which are harmful to our dogs".

 

What about the germs that your dogs carry, to which some of us humans are allergic, thought the oldest resident, but did not voice it out aloud. One of the reasons he had succeeded in living to a ripe old age was by avoiding situations in which he could get lynched. 

 

 A big fight ensued over the right to feed stray dogs. The stray dog ( or tiger, no one knows) lover sent a legal notice to the Association warning them , quoting sections and subsections of the law, that anyone harming stray dogs physically or verbally, or preventing someone from feeding stray dogs, could be jailed for six months. 

 

The tiger roared again.

 

This time ten people thought they had heard it.

 

Let us have an urgent meeting to discuss this, suggested one panicked resident.

 

No, we should have an Extraordinary General Meeting, EGM, said another, very procedurally conscious resident. 

 

But that needs 21 days' notice!, pointed out another, and this is an urgent matter! 

 

The debate on whether an EGM was needed or not to discuss the tiger issue raged for a few days. 

 

Meanwhile, the Layout Poet, a retired corporate executive with lot of time on his hands penned a poem.

 

 

Tyger Tyger, roaring  loud, 

Quite close, outside the layout,

What mortal mind or eye, 

Would not turn panicky? 

 

Not distant, but near the tracks,

Where art thou, where is thy lair?

The residents are all astir,

Discussing on WhatsApp!

 

 

William Blake will be turning in his grave, commented the Oldest Resident, wryly , wincing while reading the poem. I don't know which is worse, the dog lovers or the poet! But he didn't say it in anyone's hearing.

 

 

Several years back, we had a tiger sighting, and the Committee had been tasked with solving the problem. But the Committee did nothing. The Committee never does anything. Said one disgruntled old resident.

 

What do you mean, the Committee does nothing, said another old resident, who had served on several past committees. He went on to list ten good things the committee had done in the last ten years. This resulted in an all out WhatsApp war. For each of things he listed, there were views on whether it could be considered a good thing or a bad thing, about how he was wrong, about how his memory was playing tricks on him, and about the time his dog had bitten the neighbour's kid. This time, the committee members, the ex-committee members ,the dog lovers, the language activists – everyone got into the debate. The poet got the opportunity to write ten poems, none of which anyone read, but everyone got up all heated and ruffled under the collar.

 

 

A few months  passed since the first roar was heard, and people forgot about the incident.

 

And then it happened again. Five residents having a drink together late at night swore they had seen a shadow flit by that looked like a tiger.

 

Do not harm the tiger, warned the SETDA activist.

 

Let's call an EGM, said the procedurally conscious member.

 

Ah, let me write a poem, said the poet.

 

I hope we are meeting this Friday for our regular drinks session, asked the Friday drinkers of one another, no tiger is going to stop us right?

 

And life goes on… sighed the Oldest Member, with a sense of Déjà vu.

 

 

Religion vs Spirituality

Saturday morning musings

My take on Religion vs Spirituality 

The goal is the same. Realization of inner potential.

The prescriptions are known and similar across cultures, the sages had it figured out.

But it calls for individual understanding and effort. A combination of bhakti, karma, jnana and Raja yoga, as per individual personalities.

The general masses are, as we all know, quite dumb. They can't do all that on their own.

So religion comes in, with a set of codified rules. Suitable for the masses, but not suitable for the discerning. And then you have priests to "guide" the public. Again, necessary for the masses, but restrictive for the discerning. 

This watering down and dumbing down is the essence of religion. It is basically spirituality for idiots.

The discerning seekers would be of course put off by organised religion, and they , on their own, go back to the essence of religion, which is spirituality.

Meanwhile, organised religion meanders on, in the form of a stultified grotesque parody of itself; a necessary parody though, for the masses need their opiates, and the rulers, something to control the masses with.

Looking back on the "pandemic" - Part 1

 

Points to ponder: 

"Gain of function" research did happen , and it is happening all over the world. Gain of function is euphemism for biological warfare.

US funds bio warfare labs, several hundreds of them, around the world. It has to be in places where they can exercise control with pliable regimes,   and it has to have  plausible deniability. Ukraine had several such labs.

Bill Gates bought into vaccine manufacturers and spoke of "being prepared" for a "pandemic" years back.

SARS / Avian Flu , a small version of what happened now, happened decades back.

Fauci has survived six presidents. He has close links with the Pharma lobby.

WHO is clueless about  medicine, and about science.

Breathing is one of the fundamental processes of living. Any obstruction to free breathing will cause long term health damage, both physiological and psychological. No one talks about that.

Masks impede breathing.

The virus was supposed to be surface borne, and people were told not to touch any "surfaces" . Then people were told it is airborne. All kinds of measures were proposed which are ineffective.

When the virus is smaller than most air particles, by definition, if you can avoid it, you are actually not breathing. By definition, you are dead. 

Equating day to day living with conditions in an operating theatre , for proposing measures like sanitiser and masking, is highly stupid logic, for various reasons. 

The stories keep changing, the narrative keeps morphing. But what is constant is that people are told to wear masks , be distanced. The only result is that it creates a  long term sustained state of panic.

A long term sustained state of panic is good for keeping the population enslaved, and for controlling their minds.

There is no evidence that masks are effective. But everyone has been forced to accept it, and repeat it as a mantra.

Vaccines are full of toxic ingredients, each one of which is a heavy poison in its own right. No one talks about that 

Everytime you take a vaccine , you cause some long term damage to your body. 

The body has evolved defence mechanisms to fight "germs" as part of its evolution.

Any solution like a vaccine, will not address the problem holistically, like the body's immune system does. 

Any vaccine is for a specific variant of a specific virus. There are trillions of viruses out there and they keep mutating all the time. 

No one wants to acknowledge all that.

Equating every flu virus with small pox and polio is highly stupid logic, for many different reasons. 

Lockdowns have not been effective. They never will be. But the powers that be want to impose lockdowns. 

Data on covid deaths have been inflated in various different ways. 

Data on deaths due to adverse events of vaccination have been suppressed in various different ways. 

There are many adverse events of the covid vaccine.  They include sudden  cardiac seizure, hair fall, hearing loss, and a host of other things. No one reports that or talks about that. 

Companies like Pfizer indulge in outright fraud, suppress data and information, seed false propaganda, and are focused only on profit.

We believe companies like Pfizer. Or we believe organisations, like WHO and medical lobbies, who are controlled by companies like Pfizer.

A lot of prescriptions to "fight" the pandemic go against  natural laws. If we go against natural laws, we will always pay the  price. 

A lot of what passes for scientific research in medicine are outright lies.

A lot of what passes for medicine is an outright lie.  

( TO BE CONTINUED)

KASHMIR DIARY PART 2

 

( link to Part 1:    https://www.dineshgopalan.com/2022/05/kashmir-diary.html )

 

In many ways Kashmir is still in the middle ages. Ninety-nine percent of the population being Muslim, all business establishments are run by men, and  any work outside the house is done only by men. Women can be seen outside and move around freely, but you will not see any woman without a scarf covering her head. The full Burqa is rare but you can see one in ten women wearing it.  When it comes to dress, it is not just the women of course. In line with what Islam prescribes, men – even little boys – are always covered fully, with only the palms and soles of the feet exposed. Apparently, the people themselves wish to be conservative in their dressing habits.

 

There are no theatres in the whole of Kashmir. Except for the tourists, and those who accompany them, you are unlikely to find too many people outside after 7 pm. Apparently, the people do not like night life of any kind.

 

There is only one liquor shop in the whole of Kashmir, somewhere in Srinagar. When we were there, it was Ramzan time, so the shop was obviously closed for the entire month. Apparently, the people being very pious, do not ever wish to drink.

 

There is no public transport worth the name. We hardly saw any buses except in a couple of places. Inter-city travel seems to be a rarity. Apparently, the people are so happy being where they are that they do not want to go anywhere.

 

There is hardly any industry, which of course may be a good thing in Paradise, but it means that there are no employment opportunities, except in tourism.

 

Now, for the flip side. Education is given huge priority, and schools are well organised. There actually seems to be some education going on in the government schools even in far-flung areas, which is a situation quite different from most other places in the country. Almost everyone we met, including villagers who it is apparent have not stepped out much, spoke passable English.

 

It is considered desirable for girls to go to school and many parents would send their children, including girls, for higher studies if they could. At the home stay where we were staying in Aru, the daughter who is eighteen has aspirations of getting into the civil service. And her mother was beaming encouragement at her. The people are very proud that one of the Rafale pilots is a Kashmiri girl.

 

The road system is not very well developed in terms of connectivity. It almost seems like all roads lead to Shrinagar, and even to go the next district, you need to go via Shrinagar. A lot of it has to do with the terrain of course. Railway has not yet reached Kashmir; it is currently snaking its way up from Jammu at a much-delayed pace.

 

Tourists are coming in in droves, possibly due to a unique combination of reasons. The post-covid revenge travel boom, the reluctance to travel internationally yet, and the effect of the movie Kashmir Files which has brought the state into the limelight. We heard Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali at several places, and they do not come singly, they come in busloads.

 

The economy is heavily dependent on tourism. The locals are invariably very well-behaved with the tourists, and why not, no one will want to kill the goose which gives the golden eggs.

 

So much has been said about the scenic beauty of Kashmir that it does not bear repetition.

 

What we have here is an idyllic paradise stuck in the last century, with a population steeped in a sense of their own virtue, living in a cocoon which has to burst. And burst it will. Such an influx of tourists from all over India will expose them more than they would like to outside influences. And such an emphasis on educating their girls, while at the same time keeping them confined in various ways, will soon result in contradictions that they will find difficult to handle.

 

The men are going to be busy attending to the tourists, for which education is not important. At least, not the conventional kind of education. The women are going to hit the books with a vengeance since they are allowed to do nothing else, and all of them will be harbouring dreams of escaping the prison that is their home. To us, it may be an idyllic paradise, but I can imagine seeds of rebellion brewing in me if I am confined to a cage in any version of paradise.

 

Within a couple of decades from now, the women would have outstripped the men, and many would have flown the coop. They will take up white-collar jobs in other states and leave. The whole population, which already has DTH TV beamed into their homes, is going to become restive. The tourists who are being encouraged into every street, and into every home in the name of home-stay will bring in great disruptive influences.

 

The Chinese concept of Yin and Yang has a very interesting template for this phenomenon. Everything always swings between the extremes, and at any point in time there is more Yin or more Yang, there is never a perfect balance. But, when things go too far in one direction, the seed of its opposite, which lies dormant within itself, starts growing and things start swinging in the other direction.

 

The very conservatism, of which the Kashmiris are so proud, will breed the seeds of liberalism, and they will see the destruction of a lot of what they have held on to, within the next two generations or so.

 

Whether that is a good thing, or a bad thing, is debatable. But it is inevitable. It will be interesting to watch it unfold.