Cold showers is changing our relationship with cold, similarly fasting is changing our relationship with  hunger. 

To be healthy mentally ( during winter) need to accept the cold, to be healthy physically need to accept hunger. 

Both are same stop seeking comfort in food and warmth. that sounds brutal, but it is coming back to the same thing, show gratitude for everything good and bad. accept all sensations, food hunger, warm and cold, hot and cool. Equanimity. becoming Stitha Pragnya . 

I m thinking only way to stop struggling with weight is getting this relationship with hunger and food right

Many shards of a diamond ( 1-06-2021)

I was telling my friend - How my mom compares herself with other people and sees herself coming up short, even tho she is an amazing woman. In fact even in aspects where she is really good. She has always been fit and fit looking, flat stomach, always 55 kilos even in her 40s and 50s. But she always moaned about how other women look thin where as she looks fat because her arms are big! Like seriously! She was comparing herself with other women who were unfortunately not as fit and fab as her. they were typical Indian women dont take care of themselves, so have a bloated tummy, thin arms and legs. Those poor women ploded on by the time they are in their 40s. I feel its a bit unfair even comparing them to each other.  Why cant she see this?

I think this is because of minimizing. We reduce ourself or another person to a single trait. She is not seeing her whole self or the body but just seeing her arms.  We also do this all the time. But the minimizing is many. We look at a couple and say - Girl is so pretty, Guy is ok. We are reducing those people to just their looks

Why dont we make an effort to see the whole diamond rather than just see one face of it- one face of a diamond is just glass. 

21-10-2011 - gyans

Oh Dear! I had all these profound thoughts in 2011 and I am still grappling with the same issues until now, more than a decade later - its 2023!?! 

I mean these are very meaningful and good tips, how come I forgot this gyan and have to discover it again and again? 

1) dont be afraid to be embarrassed, once u are embarrassed and done with it life is better u learn how to live and what to do. after emabrrassement life gets better

2) take cotnrol of ur life - grow up.

3) when any thought comes - remember u chose that thought. so say I choose this thought.

4) every thought is associated with an emotion - so most times its thought first and emotion later... sometimes we may want to break this link between some thoughts and the negative emotions that come with it. - use 3 when dirty thoughts bother :D

5) dont crib about problems to others think - how do I get over this.

6) talking tips from ashok -he is a good talker :) otherwise I dont open up with lot of people

he made whatever i told special - by saying ah this is the first time someone has told this, that is perfect and ah thats a good perspective and so on...so help open up people to make comments

asking questions of interest -which made me give out long answers.

opened the aquintance with an interesting act

7) few more gyans came out at night

i get realy upset about my job - when eversomething comes up i get huge reaction emotionally

8) i have suppressed by ambitious and competitive side - because I think being competitive is wrong- I should shed this belief. also accept my ambitions. i have to accept that I will not be happy doing some small jobs - what ever anyone says. i shudnt believe it. I am ambitious and I should persue my ambition.

there is huge lot of resistance coming up when I try to make CV, it was similar discomfort when I was trying ot make decision for job, then i made some decision just to reduce the discomfort. now also... I wont do it. i wont give up making a good CV just because i am being discomforted. i need to get to the root of this discomfort.

9) I remembered or acknowledged one thing,

I used to be closer to my friends than my family

truth is I felt left out and lonely at home when I was a kid, and I was really jealous of my friends who were close to their mothers, who got affection physical affection from parents, Suma who played cards with her mom. Sandhya and Asha's family because they were 5 brothers and sisters and had a group and I missed being in a group. (This is no longer true in 2023, I think I acknowledged this and got over it, sometimes after. As I have lived away from my parents and as my parents get older, I feel very attached to them. I see their love now. Their reactions when I fell down was heart wrenchingly sweet. The concern was just as if I was 1 year old child. God bless!  I also some where along the way got over the complex that they live my brother more - all the spiritual work does pay off han ! )

I defied this feeling by acting out like I didnt need a family to belong or I didnt need a gang to belong, but I admit I have (had)this deep craving for a close friend who is mine and only mine, I am craving to belong but I feel the denial very strong, to pretend that I dont need anyone that I can live alone. this feeling was satisfied when I had a the cats I guess...I guess this also comes out as out and out attachment to one person. I admit this.  (Or this may just have been Introvert/Asperges thing In 2023 This is also gone. I no longer attach to one person, In fact its opposite I want to be in a big gang. my gang of Ajjumas is my favourite ). My parents are really great, they really loved me, but they didnt show tat love, or may be once my brother was born I just became cold and assumed that my parents didnt care for me enough. I have a real barrier about getting close to people because I am afraid of getting hurt.. I have developed a very strong ego and a wall against this. the defence is strong and thus I shed light on this shadow. 

technical gyan

doubt everything.

dont hesitate to being from the first all over again. the solution may be there attimes..

be industrious and take the tedious path at times without hesitating..

Justice Sensitivity

https://medium.com/invisible-illness/adhders-justice-warriors-9cd2e20eca18

What is Justice Sensitivity?

According to Baumert & Schmitt, “justice-sensitive people’s information processing should be guided in a way that raises their probability of experiencing injustice compared with less justice-sensitive people,” and their “emotional reactions to injustice should be stronger the more justice is endorsed as a fundamental value.”

In other words, people who experience high justice sensitivity have a stronger tendency to notice and identify wrongdoing and have more intense cognitive, emotional, and behavioural reactions to perceived injustice.

Additionally, “justice-sensitive people should ruminate longer and more intensively about experienced injustice than less justice-sensitive people” and should have an “inclination to restore justice and undo injustice”.

 The link above goes on to wonder if neuro divergent - ADHD and Autistic people have a tendency towards being more justice sensitive

My friend shared this and wondered if I have this, First of all I felt good that someone understood me and some one thought about me and my behaviour. It feels very nice when someone gets you. Thank you friend. Yes! I am justice sensitive.

This explains a lot about me and my feelings and reactions in many situations, and also about Greta Thunberg. When I first read that she has asperges, I knew - Ah I may have something similar. At least I m borderline there. 

The best insight I got from this article was that everyone does not feel this way. It was eye opening. All my life I have felt like a lone warrior, Why dont other people care as much as me about fairness? Why are they not feeling angry? or intensely about injustice? Why are they being blatantly partial - even tho they are aware that they are being partial? This answers all these questions and help me accept neuro typical people as they are. 

Also there are lot of people who may not be ADHD/Autistic but be justice sensitive.  Gandhi ji! We dont know if he was neuro diverse or not but he was definitely very sensitive to injustice. Raja Ram mohan Roy - who opposed Sati and multiple marriages of men in 1800s. Nelson Mandela? - Yes all these people justice warriors who had these feelings infinitely stronger than me - so they took action against injustice. There is no reason to believe they were Neuro Diverse. 

Still knowing that justice sensitivity is more common in neuro diverse is interesting, It is interesting to realise that some of our values have roots in how our brain is wired.

08/10/2015 21:41 Okay.. So what is happiness Spiritual vs Material

One part of the philosophy or spirituality tells me that everything is within me.. I m feeling sad. I m feeling happy, the feeling is created by my brain and not by the thing or the incident which I think is causing the feeling.
Example.. I hear my friend say, DG is Shit! I feel betrayed and hurt and sad and awful. 

But then I talk to my friend and I realise my friend was saying DG is shit at lying! :-D I feel happy now, thinking of-course I am truthful person etc I swell with pride.. 

Now out of my ear sight, my friend tells my other friend that she in fact said DG is shit. I m still happy as I didn't hear it. 

See the statement didn't create the feeling in me. It was me - who reacted to the statement. same with objects and people. Its us who create this feeling.( this is a story by Antony Demello)  

Its true. Its very hard to see tho in day to day life...we are used to blaming things outside for the reactions, we are used to not taking responsibility for my feelings.

Snoring.. its so irritating.. why? I realised it was empathy response.. if someone snores like they are choking.. if get feelings in our head which make me feel like I m choking and it feels horrible and I feel the pain and I don't like it and I want to make it stop.

okay thats that.

There was a motivational speaker yesterday..
What makes him tick? Motivation and satisfaction,
Motivations is what starts me off with my job and satisfaction is what I get at the end of it.
Sense of uniqueness, being the best in the field, the sense of achieving something.. money..respect..etc etc All the things which spirituality tells me to get ahead off
Spirituality tells me happiness should be unconditional..
Some branches of spirituality tells me.. u trace any goal to its last node and u come up with.. I want happiness, so why not chase the last goal instead of the first..
That is all true.. but  we need to understand the nature of these conditions better. These conditional happiness have developed as part of evolution.

How to do instruct a robot.. 

You give it if then else statements..
But then it becomes very specific, it wont be able to deal with unexpected cases in the field ..
U make it learn.. if (carrot) do .. if(stick) stay away...
So u make it run using carrot and stick approach.. u award it for a bunch of tasks which ultimately align with ur goal u punish for deviations.. Using this u keep the robot in line and give it a sort of free will.. 

It can of course realise that it does not like carrots and it does not care if it is beaten and it can carry on.

If u want to enlighten urself u need to see thru ur carrots and sticks.. its not always easy.. everything is a goal to happiness.. but our brain I find has made categories.. I think this carrot is evolved via evolution and via upbringing by our society... some carrots are evolutionary.. and we get a sense of overall peace and happiness when all the boxes are ticked

But this is temporary - all happiness is temporary by design, if you were always content why would you survive and reproduce? 

Warriors

What happens when a revolution is over? 

Mutiny revolution military take over etc, Sometimes a country raises an army, it may be to fight a neighbouring country which has suddenly gone rouge and attacking you, Or it may be a civil war - Govt is corrupt and horrible and citizens form an army and topple the govt, or a Dictator raises an army to take over a govt etc. Whatever the reason may be, What happens when the conflict is over? I find that the army which fought for so long finds it very hard to stop fighting, I find that is most such cases the military  takes over the country, The reason for the existence of the military may be over but it keeps finding reasons to stay alive,  See Taliban for example or Pakistan army which is still creating imaginary enemies and fighting India. It keeps going with its momentum. It is almost as if it is an onanism with a survival instinct.

I found a similar parallel in our own defence mechanisms. We develop some strategies and thought patterns to deal with our situation in life. Like It may be a kid developing aggression against abusive father etc, In my case , I have developed strong response against sexism, Feminism is my defence against gender discrimination.  When I was a kid gender discrimination was very rampant, I had to fight for my rights at every turn in my life. I had to call it out, I had to lash out, I had to protest . These warriors , my army of strategies have served me really well and they have helped me navigate life and create fair opportunities for myself, I m very proud of them . 

Just like the army whose purpose is over - my army also continues to fight at times. I find that the world has finally changed after 20/30 years. There is no longer such rampant discrimination, especially against me. But still my army fights sometimes. I find that my reactions are all too emotional, all too strong and sometimes uncalled for when something triggers me. Where as a comic comment or a simple telling off would do, my army goes for a full on attack :-) 

Calm down my dear friend, we the army can retire and enjoy life now, We can put down our arms,  our fight seems to be over. 

Can you fight hate with hate?

Can you fight hate with hate?

When your enemy  is intolerant, radical and not ready to negotiate? What is the solution? 

Do you also become just like that ? Fight hate with hate, you may win that war, but are u still you? or have u become them now?

We have an example of this in Mahabharata. Pandavas tried to negotiate , tried all different ways to avoid war. Kauravas were hateful, All they wanted was for Pandavas to be obliterated.  What can you do in this case? If it is you or them, It may as well be you. What happens to all our liberal and peaceful values, to our enlightenment? 

And also, What was the consequence? Kauravas were all killed. Pandavas lost all their children, all the relatives, everything except their land and kingdom. Millions from both sides were killed. The only winner was mother earth, Krishna says this was meant to reduce burden on earth. So it was a win after all?

Is there any better solution? This is happening in the world right now. Everyone is kind of ready to jump on hate wagon. They point at the other side and say look! you are an idiot, you will be slaughtered. There are lot of other problems, other worries which needs the whole world to act like one family to fix.  What do I do? Should I just focus on my own development and ignore all this? 

We are the Witches

Savage daughter

I have sung this song and many like this, sitting by the fire side, May be it was me or May be it was my grand mothers. My wise circle of women, My Ancestors, my mothers speak to me thru this song. My Mothers who were cut down for raising voices, Who were burnt for being clever.  I owe it to you , I m your Savage daughter, I will not lower my voice.

ps: I m a the savage daughter, but Mother has different kind of daughters the kind daughter, the peace keeper daughter, the caring daughter , the wild and sexy daughter  :-) We are all her daughters. 

ps1: Gift -Turkish series on Netflix, is all about this

ps2: Aishwarya Rai is definitely not a savage daughter ! haha

I am my mother's savage daughter
The one who runs barefoot
Cursing sharp stones
I am my mother's savage daughter
I will not cut my hair
I will not lower my voice

My mother's child is a savage
She looks for her omens in the colors of stones
In the faces of cats, in the falling of feathers
In the dancing of fire
In the curve of old bones

I am my mother's savage daughter
The one who runs barefoot
Cursing sharp stones
I am my mother's savage daughter
I will not cut my hair
I will not lower my voice

My mother's child dances in darkness
She sings heathen songs
By the light of the moon
And watches the stars and renames the planets
And dreams she can reach them
With a song and a broom

I am my mother's savage daughter
The one who runs barefoot
Cursing sharp stones
I am my mother's savage daughter
I will not cut my hair
I will not lower my voice

We are all brought forth out of darkness
Into this world, through blood and through pain
And deep in our bones, the old songs are waking
So sing them with voices if thunder and rain

We are our mother's savage daughters
The ones who run barefoot
Cursing sharp stones
We are our mother's savage daughters
We will not cut our hair
We will not lower our voice

We are our mother's savage daughters
The ones who run barefoot
Cursing sharp stones
We are our mother's savage daughters
We will not cut our hair
We will not lower our voice

We are our mother's savage daughters
The ones who run barefoot
Cursing sharp stones
We are our mother's savage daughters
We will not cut our hair
We will not lower our voice

- by Wyndreth Berginsdottir

When we dont believe people

So finally UFOs on the blog! Cant believe it took so long for them to get a mention

Anyway, I m mentioning them from psychology and sociology perspective anyway

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_School_UFO_incident

So I saw this documentary on Netflix about a group of kids - 62 kids infact who reported to seeing UFO in their school.  Some kids even saw an Alien. It was lunch time, They saw a bright light and it turns out it was a flying saucer. It even had a message to the kids - take care of nature, dont get too technological.

They were not believed. Every adult who heard this, told them - this is not possible, You are lying, you imagined it. Dont talk nonsense.  I dont want to hear anything about it. 

A lawyer who was talking about this said a very powerful thing - people are put in jail, are even given death sentences on eye witness account. 5 people giving eye witness account is enough to put someone in jail , it holds in the court of law. 62 kids saw something and we are not believing it. This is eye witness account.  That hit home for me.

What else do we not believe?  untill recently society didnt believe kids accounts of sexual abuse. They were told exactly the same things as the kids who saw aliens. you must have imagined it, stop lying, dont talk about this any more.

We dont believe about peoples emotions if we havent experienced the same. Depression - I m feeling very sad, we dont believe that someone can feel so sad, we have never felt so sad.

 Some people dont even believe other peoples physical sensations - Oh how can u feel cold? It is so warm here. This was people in my office who turned the AC too low. 

How many people and how many experiences do we shut down like this, How much of our experiences are gas ligthed like this out of our minds? 

Coming back to the UFO incident. It is shocking. There have been countless mass sightings, we have been gas lighted into believing that All of these are misunderstood, fake, they are balloons etc. 

Assuming that something is impossible and then finding a cause for it - that is not scientific. Scientific thinking is when we keep an open mind.

So yeah! I believe in aliens and UFOs, I believe aliens are landing on earth and making contact with people.  They were probably called different names in the past - Fairies, Gods, Gandharwas?

This does not make you better than them

When there is discrimination - like by gender,  against dark skin people or against some northern ascents in UK, or preferential treatment is given to private school kids etc, people react in different ways - I like to fight the discrimination. I like to call out the discrimination, question the discrimination, ask them why, Punish them even for discrimination. I do this even when I m being benefited by discrimination. 

Some others - they adapt, they change themselves, they lighten their skin, they will change their ascent, their clothes, send kids to private schools, change names to western ones. Will not fight it but do something so they dont get discriminated. If I can get better salary, more interview calls, better rates on my goods if I call my self Dee instead of Deena Prasad , If I can promotions by straightening my hair and wearing lipstick, Why not?

If the system is unfair - one group wants to make the system fair

the other group - majority wants to make sure they get the better part of the bargain.

I am proud that I m the type that wants to make the system fair but does that make me better than them?

Am I not atleast slightly better than them? ;-) 

or may be - We are just different types of people with different strategies to life? 

Just like blue and red, one is not better than the other

what is difference between religion and spirituality

Vishnu is Religion and Shiva is Spirituality

When u pray for a better life it is Religion when u pray for enlightenment it is spirituality

Spirituality is part of every religion - or rather all religions seem to have a mystic side which has been persecuted in the recent times Like Judaism has Kaballah, Sufis in Islam, It is also secret and covert

?

Like always with discussions, more questions raised than answered

what is the difference between mystic esoteric and spiritual?

What about religions like Shinto? and belief in fairies and elves - like Icelandic religion. They are spiritual. A different definition of spiritual.

Then What about shamanism, Ayahuasca - South American religions- Spiritual religions?

There are words and then there are concepts, sometimes words mean a lot of different things to different people. And they only touch upon the tips of the concepts they try to define. most of the definition is in abstract in our minds and it will probably rarely match the definition in other peoples minds :-)  

Shadow work

I had an interesting conversation with a friend, He discussed couple of books which held my attention - one about Shadow work - Owning your own shadow and 48 laws of power.  I have tried to read 48 laws of power before and It has really trigged me. Like every time I try to read it, I couldnt go past a few pages. I said as much. But I am intrigued by the idea of shadow work. I have heard of it for sometime but havent really explored.

Now I started reading about it - the best indicators to know ur shadow ? - Your triggers. And What triggered me? 48 laws of power :-)  There is a definite link to my shadow to power, manipulation and those kind of things. 

So It makes perfect sense to explore both these - totally opposite ( atleast in my mind they are totally incompatible) concepts together.

 

you cannot fix new problems with old solutions

I am having health problems, I m trying to apply the solutions that have worked in the past to fix the issues. None of it is working.

What if - the health problems want to teach me new lessons, Is that why the old solutions are not working?

Grief anger  hurt frustration just that is not suffering

That wholesome meal you enjoyed,  Your childs first smile that left  your heart brimming with joy? That also is suffering - just the other side of it. 

The threads of maya, the thread of the puppeteer that is our evolution which pulls our strings for its own agenda - all of that is suffering. 

barber haircut

Stereotyping in our mind is weird

When I wanted to go for a hair cut to a Barbers which is usually mens only, I was very specifically looking for Turkish/Arab barbers and not English barbers! I was somehow sure I wouldnt be shooed away or kind of insulted and had a better chance of getting a hair cut there . Why? :-) 

but If someone randomly asked me 

Who would you think would be more sexist - Devout muslim Afghan man or Atheist British White man?  I would probably go with the second one. 

Why Barber? because no appointments, cheap, they cut a lot of Indian hair short, many Indian boys near my house are sporitng excellent haircuts ( like Leonardo from titanic)  also just wanted a bit of a trim and so on. Also Simple is good. 

What u say - tells more about u.

I have heard/read this many times. What you sat about others tells more about you than about them.  In day to day conversations I dont notice this that much. I take what other people say at face value. But when I m reading comments on the internet. Boy oh boy! This becomes so apparent!!

You can tell which country, the background of the person, probably their age and definitely their thinking when they voice their opinion. What they say about the subject is almost irrelevant. They are giving an open insight into their own mental programming.

For example any discussion on abortions on reddit. What does a comment like "You will go to hell for this" tell you? nothing about abortions or about the person who it is aimed at but I can fairly be sure the commenter votes Republican and is religious. 

In fact - I just realised this - this is the main basis of Louise Hay self healing. If any person irritates you - she says examine your beliefs and your self. They trait that u hate in other person is probably a trait you exhibit! ( This is shocking and disturbing no?) Or it is your core belief about the world - If you keep meeting cheats then you probably believe men are cheats Or you have very strong fear of being cheated or taken advantage of - shows lack of trust in our ability to detect and handle such people.  So what she is saying is - Your life itself is an inner reflection on you. 

It does not mean that it is a judgement on us if our life is not going well, We need to observe and We need to change what we dont like. Thats it! 

This applies so much to my life - It was not about circumstances at all, it was all about attitude with which I approach the circumstances. Always its not them it is us. 

Thank you instead of sorry.

Oh I did so many interesting things I wonder why I didnt blog!!  Anyway, this is about one interesting thing I did today.  not very radical or different or anything like that.

Someone offered help and I accepted it :-) Is it such a big deal? 

When people offer small acts of kindness to me, I usually feel like I m being a burden or I feel like they were obligated, or what ever we have been taught not to be a trouble to anyone. So I say no.

I was short of 20p someone in the queue offered, I said no. When I was coughing someone gave me water , I said no. Today I was at sandwich shop, they ran out of Brown bread, The kind lady before me offered her brown bread to me - I said yes! Thank you so much. It felt good. Believe me it felt much better than refusing all those helps I have refused before. 

It was nice that someone did a kind thing for me, It felt very good and very nice. I felt very emotional about it. I felt genuinely connected at that moment. 

Who knew?!

Someone once sent me a forward - Dont say Sorry, Say Thank you. If you made someone wait , instead of saying sorry I m late, Say Thank you for waiting for me. Simple thing like that turns a negative into positive. It changes how you feel as well - It replaces guilt with gratitude. so much more positive.

Feeling happy when sky is blue and when there is sunshine and depressed when skys are grey is linking your happiness to the saturation and brightness of the scenery around u! Isnt that silly? 

Food gives us nourishment, builds our body. Food is divine, Food is a sacrifice - Some plant, some animal has been killed,  Food deserves respect. 

When I eat I shall be respectful to food, I shall pay full attention to what I am eating. 

God! Help me remember this.

Coming full circle

It feels like that!

My cough and cold has made a come back - I used to get cough and cold all the time, So tired of that shit, I tried a million things, finally Pancha Karma and yoga seems to have cured it, 3 years break from Pancha Karma and I am getting cough and cold all the time again. Feels like life has come a full circle. 

I have decided that I have tried and done it all and come back to pranic healing and yoga

Datura has grown in my pot - As a child I had eaten datura and ended up in psychosis for 2 days ! ha ha! I have eaten so many unwanted things as a child but this was the worst. I didnt know at that time that it was a fruit of Shiva. Now I planted chillies and out grew Datura! Is that a sign? feels like a full circle.

 

feels like I have made a full circle and landed at a slightly better place than before and it all begins again :-)