people are same all over the world
make up and its importance in the west, I was thinking women in the west are so obsessed with looks then Gauri pooja came and sola shringar was being offered to goddesses . Kumkum, bangles, turmeric, flowers to wear in hair etc etc in India.
Seems like making a woman beautiful is somehow central to the cultures itself, not just at individual level.

Its only me who doesnot care about all this, I and the yogis  trying to swim away from the samsara :-D , must have been one in my past life :-P For me, its not Gauri but Shakti! In her pure wild form! Jai Kali! Jai Durga! Jai Amba Bhavani :D No pleasing men and looking beautiful for them, thats not for her! killing the internal asuras and tearing the veils blocking reality! Thats her offering! Your defeated vices are her meat! Being one with the consciousness, with Shiva, by cultivating awareness, that for her is passion and love. To be one with all creation. 

Feeling superior

Ok confession, Hard one, but shouldnt be a hard one because first, I am sure this applies to you as well. Second, because, we should not be ashamed of how things are. We just allow them to be. So, that way we can see exactly how we are and what we are and take it from there. No judgements right? No judgements with ourselves first, only  then  we can do that to others. right?

So I feel superior to some people, well quite a few people. I was reading on a forum, posts by people having difficulties - getting over addictions, having emotional problems, feeling depression, unstable people etc. I felt thank god I dont have this, but the underlying feeling is not gratitude, It is - I am better than them, I am emotionally more stable. In this case I really felt ashamed of feeling superior.
I also feel this way about western poor . I was poorer than these when I was a kid and thought I was middle class and I was pretty happy.  I feel I have come thru from a hard place  ( actually my parents have come from a hard place, I came thru pretty easy, but I didnt have TV or smart phone or pocket money or lot of ..... see I am feeling this superiority right now )  These are the people who need a kick on their backsides, I feel superior to people who pity these who are too soft... When I feel superior to these, I have some more justification in me about it
I also feel superior to - Singers :D Especially when I hear songs about heart breaks . This man is wailing on.. last Christmas I gave u my heart the very next day u threw it away!!! Grrrrr Dude, you should have moved on, Its been a year?   Or some lady is singing - there is lipstick on your collar! Change Station!  Sad loosers :- ) Ok I am Stone heart.  :-D These people I dont even feel guilty about feeling superior.

Ok Jokes apart, Sometimes this feeling is very latent, very subtle - u can see it more easily in other people...feeling superior because of arbitrary and totally unjustified things - like their skin colour or gender or caste.  Ok I have started feeling superior for being from a diverse and non developed country, I have started feeling superiority about having been exposed to different kind of stuff when growing up, like so many languages, no many religions, people following different traditions. I have been exposed to hardship ( dono what hardship again! seriously? What hardship? )  Like that. I feel superior for my parents hardship .

feeling superrior because I think
because I read
because I read spirituality
because I read sci-fi
because I am unemotional
because I am clever
because I am a software engineer
because I am un manipulative
because ....
This is remnding me of a post(or was it a coversation) about how people can be proud of just about anything. Some people are proud of being tidy and some of being messy, some of being clean and some of dirty, some of being hardworking and some of being chilled out. of being beautiful, or about not giving a shit about being beautiful. basically as humans we are blessed with the ability to feel proud of any attribute just because we pocess it! :-D

auto movements

Automatic body movements are actually resistance. When we start paying attention to sensations which we dont normally do, the mental pattern causing it is actually squirming and this is the automatic movement that happens. Usually we are used to listening to the sensation and doing what it is asking us to do without being conscious of it. Instead now u are not acting on it but watching it, our body mind nerves are not used to this, may be this creates the nervous energy which causes movements.
I am guessing the movements will stop when the mental patters get used to being observed and settle down.
Atleast this is how it is, part of the times, Other times its the excess energy which is trying to flow but hits blocks. That kind of auto movements happen in mantra, and chakra based meditations. The squirming auto movement happens in mindfulness and concentration based meditations.

so what the fuss

quick insight because I am sleepy

I am not fussy, I eat all sorts of food, I am not particular about sleeping arrangements, I am not fussy about clothes mine or of other peoples. I am not fussy about haircuts. 

Fussy people irritate me, some people dont eat 90% of veggies, have very narrow choice of food, they can eat only what they are brought up with.  They are stuck to gender stereotypes, have narrow view of what is right behaviour for each gender etc. Am I more evolved than these people? will they become like me if they do spritual practice? 

I may be evolved in many aspects but what about people? This stumped me. I am very fussy about people!!! the kind of people I get along with, who I want to interact with, who I like, who I want to meet. That band is very narrow. I get along with only one kind of people! I behave exactly like those fussy people behave about food, I make a big fuss! I am veryfussy, I am just like the people who irritate me :-(

Anuloma Viloma vs Nadi Shodhana

Alternate Nostril Breathing Pranayama where you breathe in thru one nostril and breathe out thru the other and then breathe back in and repeate. This  is called by two names in Yoga - Anuloma Viloma and Naadi Shodhana. What is the difference?

Apparently the difference is in Naadi Shodhana there is no holding of the breath after you have breathed in. So its breathe in thru left, breathe out thru right
breathe in thru right , breathe out thru left and repeat

Where are Anuloma Viloma is
breathe in thru left, Hold the breath,  breathe out thru right
breathe in thru right, Hold the breath,  breathe out thru left and repeat

The effect of Naadi Shodhana is calming of the mind, but Anuloma Viloma as additional benefits of increasing the Prana in the body.

Ps:  some websites  swap the definition , so one is this and one is that. dono which is which.
Anyway holding the breath one is more advanced one.

Even tho I know that everyone is running on mental patterns which are programmed by society,
Even tho I have studied so much psychology and know that we all have very little self and very little free will.
Even tho I have soak myself in Buddhas teachings and know about samskaras and how hard it is to get rid of them, even tho I know how little mindful I am day to day, moment to moment,
even tho I know that this is all maya and everyone is stuck in samsara,

Why do I still judge people so much  for their choices and their actions?

Happiness book by Matthieu Ricard

How do know if you are truly altruistic and not doing for credit or to assuage guilty feelings?
You will feel happy and not disappointed if someone else does the good deed you were about to do. This is the official test for altruism.
Apparently 15% of the ( western, they havent tested other countries)  population is truly altruistic .

 -  Happiness book by Matthieu Ricard

 which I am not liking much :D because some stupid saint let himself be burnt in place of a thief in the book. Grr Do we have to be stupid to be alturistic? Dude Saint! because of you, now my house is robbed?  etc kind of thoughts coming :D  Also he has gone little overboard selling how good it is to be optimistic and how bad to be pessimistic. I being completely sold on Hinayana Buddhism, want to look at good feelings and bad feelings with equanimity, but Tibetan buddhism is little bit like bhakti yoga focusing on helping others, somehow implying we shud cultivate good. I agree I need to cultivate loving kindness and metta ( I am on it peeps)  and that it makes people happy. but ultimately happy is just as false as fear or anger? Or not? anyway I want that wisdom which tells me the answer to that.

equanimity and awareness are the two wheels of the cart of Vipassana. - Goenka

Dont judge others

Why am I annoyed with other peoples thinking?
I am not talking about what other think about me, but in general what other people think.
Like their opinions on say - Refugees or Muslims or Women or Love or Marriage what ever, Why do I care?

Is it right to care or wrong? Do I have a social responsibility to care?
Is that the same attitude Christian missionaries have, who think they know how to think better than others? ( i.e Bad)
Or Is it the same attitude as Eshwar Chardra Vidya sagar who abolished Sati and supported widow remarriage? ( i.e Good)?

When people say don't judge anyone, are they being a cop-put? Are they really not judging or are they taking easy way out of controversial issues and avoiding offending others ( which again may be good or bad) Then why do I care what other people mean when they day dont judge :D :P

What if Eswar Chadra had not judged women who were committing Sati? Many of them were not forced explicitly but they were doing it voluntarily, the forces which forced them to do it, was the subtle programming since birth by society- which made a virtue out of it, also the circumstances they would find themselves in, if they didn't do it. kind of like emotional blackmail. I see the parallels with hijab and husband worship etc which my friends indulge in.
But  how can I judge them, when I know that they are not responsible for it but the programming is? Did Eshwar Chandra Judge them? Did he take action without judging?
The opposite of judging is understanding, It looks like I am understanding, but then why doesnot judging go away? :-)

who has changed? have you changed or have they changed. How would you know? 

“Beware of the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world.”

― Ben Okri
So beautifull said, so True and so Chilling.

Thanks M for sharing this with me. 

Detachment vs Love

Avatar the last air bender. Its an amazing animation series. Spiritual, incorporating Eastern Buddhist culture-remix perfectly. They got one thing wrong. that is the thing that almost everyone in the west, for that matter almost everyone ( Except me >:-) ) gets wrong.
This is the basic fear about spirituality for almost everyone  ( except may be a few  peeps like - me ;-D )
"Letting go and being spiritual means not loving a person, detachment means not loving anyone and becoming a zombie." The series got everything right but they are showing personal love as greater than enlightenment. and I dont like that.

If this is wrong then how does it really work? Is it really wrong?
Not exactly, we in our small minds love individuals, our children, our parents, one person we choose as partner etc, this is celebrated as the greatest virtue, It may - in the context of non expanded small minds.
but to enlighten the mind and go beyond right and wrong, then this love probably goes, then our child is as lovely as the neighbours child, they probably genuine feel as sad when they read about 15 dead in car accident as when they hear their parents demise. Or probbaly not feel bad at all in both cases.
When they let go of the personal love, they are filled with universal love, unconditional love for one and all, for all beings not just humans but even for small pox virus and ugly slimy slug which eats their strawberries.

This state is not a zombie state at all, this is a very high level, very superior, very beyond the confines of the small mind kind of love, this is the avatar kind of love.  you and I dont have to fear this because fearing this is like starting couch to 5k for running and fearing that you will break Ussain bolts record and make him feel bad :-D :-D :-D  This is out of our league. ( Unless some enlightened person is reading this, then Sorry :-P )

Love for one person is never greater than love for all, may be be mothers love for her baby, may be be savitri s love for her husband bringing him back from the dead, all these have the self and selfishness at their heart. it is "your" love. It is never ever greater than compassion and love for all beings like the bodhisatvas have. never.

Sometime back I wrote this.
"I  find myself dismissing meditations on objects,dieties,mantras and mandalas as lower level to vipassana which in my opinion is the ultimate. I found myself looking at a Mahayana buddist book and thinking, this chantings and focusing on objects is creating more patterns in our brain, this is not what buddha taught."

http://mystic-babe.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/am-i-getting-intolerant.html

Sure ways of self realisation - this amazing book explains how all types of meditations work.
In one way it is true that the other ways of meditation create more mental patterns, but the other techniques will help us get to the state where we are able to do vipassana properly faster.
He says Vipassana is like walking towards enlightenment, where as tibetan buddhism(i.e tantra yoga) is going by rocket. (but then who id in a hurry? for some like me we need to understand how everything works, more than be enlightened :-)) also what u choose is based on your personality, for some vipassana is itself rocket fuel like for my cousin and Yuval Noah Harrari )
So my intolerance was short lived (atleast towards other meditation styles, not towards monothiest religions )
The first step in any meditation is controlling the monkey mind, Vipassana uses noticing the breath to achieve this, however this can be achieved by focusing on any object - a word - chanting, an image - mandala,  ishta devata, etc. Mandalas and mantras are like easter eggs which work on our subconscious mind.
Rishis of ancient India knew how to programme our mind with sounds and symbols. These tools will be there with us for a while on the journey, Ultimately like vipassana says we have to break thru these patterns as well to reach enlightenment.

yoga with music

I dont like Yoga classes with music, I find it annoying. I want to concentrate on the poses not music! Duh! and all.
I was not able to do yoga on my own, I found it really hard to continue.  I have done yoga for more than 10 years now, on and off, so I know all the poses, and after the TTC I should have been able to do by myself. but no. not possible.

But put 2 things I dont like together and - Magic :D It turns out, If I play music, I can do yoga on my own and enjoy it ! I figured this out when doing yoga on my own in a hotel gym with music and alone and It went so surprisingly well. but It took me couple of months to realise I could do that at home.
Slow! I know! but I am thankful for this lucky click.

Good luck to me  and May I be blessed with Years/Decade/Centuries ( reincarnation n'all ;-) of self practice. 

When westerners look at poor Indian kids without shoes,  they feel very sad, they want to give them shoes. I feel as if not having shoes is the worst thing in life? When I look at western kids (and rich Indian too)  with too many things, I feel sad, so materialistic, how will they value anything in life? :-)

who is right?

Matthew Ricard is talking about this Tibetan refugee in Bhutan who doesnot have hands or legs, He was carried by someone from Tibet to Bhutan. Hardly ever goes out of his hut. Dirt poor.  Not miserable depressive. Everyone in the village visits him with food or water. They say it makes them feel good to meet him. Ricard says thats because he has inner peace and happiness, which all visitors can feel. Reminded me of my uncle, bed ridden for 38 years, taken care of by others, but his mental state was super strong. Everyone came to visit him just like the other guy, regularly every week.
Actually this reminds me of helplessness, the world thinks of these as helpless, but their minds so stable from inside, inspite of tragedy. They are not denying their emotions, they feel bad sad but that diesnot takever their lives. Inner peace.
That is what I want. Solid rock of stability inside, and melting heart of gold loving kindness :-D

 Sadhana        
                                              Samskaara        
                                                    
                                 Samsaara 
               
           Loving Kindness      
                                                   Monkey mind             
Dukha
                                       Om
          Tapas          
                                              Sankalpa 
                              Metta 

Helplessness

Left brain mode today, so it will be analytical and preachy. :-P

Helpless is of 2 types
Helplessness about the outside circumstances
Helplessness,  the feeling we get within.

Helplessness in circumstances is beyond our control, just like everything else. Astroid is going to hit earth, Something that happened in the past, Child is dying, incurable disease etc. We are very small player in this big world, so there are lots of circumstances not under our control.

Helplessness inside is the reaction inside us to outside circumstances, we can do something about this. My first reaction to this is, If we are feeling like this, there is scope for improvement in our thinking.

We feel helpless when
- we judge a circumstance as bad
- Then we think that we are responsible and we should be doing something about this situation
- Then we judge that we failed cause we cant do anything about it.

The solution to helplessness is acceptance. First accept - circumstances are neither good nor bad, its just our judgment. even being burnt in Hilters camp.
Second, most of the things in this world are not under our control, we should develop wisdom to differentiate those that are under our control and those that are not. we should stop worrying about those beyond our control and accept them - cause - seriously there is no other choice. and for those things under our contorl - we are no longer helpless.
The third thing - failure. Well this is the worst of all, We can do our best and leave the results to circumstance to the universe to Krishna. That is all we can do, the work is under our control, the result is not. So judging as failure is a Big waste :D :P

Samsara like samskara is also something craved by the house holder and shunned by the monk. 

kindness

Kindness

Ok I wanted to write nice things about kindness, Kind, feel good things, but I think I will write about why I dont like kindness sometimes, what are my mental blocks about it. Whether what I dont like is actually kindness or not? Or I am again being too "mental" about it all? :-P

There is resistance to doing kindness, or being kind in me. I sometimes link it to self harm, by being kind I may be harming myself? Am I a sucker?

Kindness may be considered weakness - I judge many people who seem kind on the outside as weak. They are doing to avoid conflict? Am I judging them too harshly.

more than as weak many times I see kindness as stupid , people giving money to obviously fake beggars, which increases the number of these horrid people on the streets. forwarding "please share this in 2 secs her father will stop smoking" kind of things.

I also think there may be hidden motives - what if they are trying to curry favour, trying to please someone? trying to make someone like them.

ha ha! yes I am a B :D I think like this only, I cant help it, I am high IQ low EQ person ok :P

Other people being kind makes me look bad. Is that why I find it too hard to give the label of kind to other people?

There are so many instances where I feel like calling out, that is not kindness. My friends are vegetarian, and they claim it is because of their kindness, but I think its because of their samskara the way they are brought up and wrapping it as kindness.

My MIL and such women, doing things for their men, Its how they have been conditioned, but they think of themselves as kind.

I know such a judgemental piece right? May be shobha is right, we need to think of instances where people do something for others total strangers and not for family. 

I give way to others while driving 3 types of mentality - 

1) give way to assholes :D because they are blocking the road and things will move faster if I give way. 

2) give way with a sense of duty, because things will move smoothly if I drive like this. 

3) Sometimes rarely, when I dont expect someone flashes lights and gives way.  I feel happy, I do the same for someone, makes me feel good. that may be kindness? Is the difference only in attitude and not action?

Can I ever judge others action as Sucker/people pleaser? only they know how that made them feel. may be they are kind.

We shud not be obligated to be kind, so trying to be kind - is out. it will probably only build resentment. and trying will always be with a sense of duty. may be try to cultivate a sense of love for all and then kind actions will happen automatically?

I gave 100£ to starving people in somalia, was that kind? or sense of guilt for being prevailed?

did it make me feel relieved or happy? did I do it with love or shame or pity? 

I did it with a sense of fairness.  I have started feeling its wrong that some of us, earn this much lead such a comfortable life, just because we are lucky. Its not fair. but did I feel love for them ? I dont know.  May be my way will be like this, because I am a thinker after all..

contentment

What does it mean to me - contentment
words that come to me is, It is opposite of  "I want" = "Enough"
contentment is Buddha.  In my mind - contentment is always simple, down to earth, straightforward. minimalist, zen, white, light blue, pastel colour anyway . old man resting under a coconut tree in the afternoon.

How do u get it?
If you want to be content, you are not :-) Looking for contentment itself is not being content :-)
Can we be content with being not content :-)

related words
Acceptance - only content implies joy, acceptance implies neutral
So content is "Enough" with a smile .
Gratitude - is a way to contentment.
Awareness - is also a way into contentment. "I want" focuses on what all we dont have, where as we usually already have what we need ( otherwise we would be dead :D ) Can we have gratitude with our awareness of what all we have?
Gratitude is Awareness + emotion

Gratitude is exploring the current situation and seeing it in its entirity and knowing what all is responsible for my current situation- with a positive light offcourse, This will surely bring contentment, because if we are alive, we must have more things to be grateful about than not :-D

Am I content?  At moments may be. trying to be :D (Psst! That means I am not content with being discontent! Sheeesh!!! )
On the way to contentment - Trying to make "wants" small and have more "enoughs".  Simplify.