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26 March 2012

shantap paapam

shantam paapam shantam paapam.. :) do u remember this? patting our cheeks and saying shantam paapam  :-)
mostly to embarrass friends!so long since I did that :)

24 March 2012

synchronocity 3

Few weeks back, walking home, some how sad bout something ...some kids has thrown some flowers on the street, felt sad (when we are sad we feel more sad for others ;-) ) and picked up one, very pretty... I can almost see a lil fairy sitting on that flower :) too much miyazaki :) fairy looks like Kodama spirit in a tutu :D as if someone put it there to cheer me up! :) I took it home and put it on the altar.
. 
Very pretty  rose like flowers... camellia ...after that day I have looked for those flowers again,, always found them in the plants not on the street..I din pluck flowers - some stupid value. (flowers are so attractive and so plenty, they beg to be picked actually. If u pick one and touch 3, u are pollinating, plants will love that more than if u just stay away.. but still somehow we "shouldnt pick flowers!" Grrr)
Today also feeling somehow low...walking back home...there is a canal on the way. I notice there is a canal road dono where it goes..should I take it? took it anyway. Started walking .. soon (not soon enough :P) I realise it's a bit stupid to do this...Sun has almost set.. its getting dark fast and there are no lights on that road :D there is no way out either. one side canal another side fence :D absolutely no one else on the road...how far before some exit!!???  5 more mins.. 10 mins.. no exit!! mummy!! and now its long way back!!! :) .. then a bridge ..on the other side.. a hole in the fence!!  Great! but now I am in a huge huge football field ..empty..  also fenced! and where is the bloody entrance( exit actually )? Now it is almost dark. I can already see Venus and Jupiter?! hello there :P!! Aaaaaaa :D only I can get into a fix like this, in the city!! hehe!  luckliy some car tracks- followed - running ! I m afraid of the dark!! :) finally  I m out! civilization! Sigh!!!! 
and There a beautiful house -garden-same flower tree-same flowers all torn down and all over the street!!! :) :-) as if  strewn there just for me!! a gift?!! This time I pick up two :) It 's as if I was led through that sucha weird route to that particular place just so that I could pick those flowers up and cheer myself up ( Actually?! what sad? can anyone be sad and scared at the same time? no!!!! :-))
co-incidence :) but so longwinded and so sweet! :) 

mirror

Nostalgia actually
I bought this essential oil - lavender for aroma therapy.. funnily it does not smell nice at all..It smells just like my dad's old shaving cream :)  Good old days ... I used to be so intrigued by shaving!! The small round shaving cream box, shaving brush.. and the razor which opened up magically when we turned its handle :) the foldable razor was heights of technology I just loved that!( our parents let us handle blades and razors even when we were like 7!?! cool!) haha! I also loved to see my dad make faces when he shaved :D
That makes me think, actually shaving was sucha  ritual in those good old days.. he used to actually sit in the living room with a small mirror and a mug of water to shave!! ah! we didnt have a wash basin in those days!!! there was no mirror in bathroom!! actually if I think about it there were so few mirrors in those days! There was only one mirror in the house.. small face mirror and that shaving mirror! there was so full length mirror at all!!! same with my grandparents house.. no full length mirror at all!!!  people never knew or cared how they looked,except their face!
I remember my uncles often quoted joke about this girl he saw( for marriage )
He was like she looks just like Hema malini, He looks just like Hema mailini... neck down that is! :D :D meaning she is NOT good.
Today if some said that girl looks just like Scarlet Johansen...Neck down that is! we would  go WOoooooooooooooooo (howl  :P :P)  even better than  Scarlet Johanson neck up eh? ;-)
Full length mirrors are the reason for this? full length mirrors have changed our focus from face to body ?  I think :)
even then people saw others full length, but they cared only about face because they couldnt see themselves full length? :D funny :)


21 March 2012

sexist western society

Why does every comedy serial have this episode where the women talk about how they want a great wedding, about girls dreams of elaborate expensive weddings and how they have been planning it all their life?!!!?! It is not funny :( It is plain wrong. sucha waste of money and resorces and such a wrong direction for young women.and it is setting a very bad example for all young girls :(
:-(
how can all these sitcoms justify waste of money over silly ceremonies and glorify it? I hate it! supposedly pro-women sitcoms are so sexist. Its plain wrong :( Sex and the City, Friends,movies like father of the bride.. all.. and yeah - girls father pays for the wedding! :-O

and the biological clock ticking hysteria?!? it is kinda funny at times...!  exactly like the hysteria about getting daughters married in conservative households in india.. there age bar is 22 here 40.. but its the same anxiety/fear/desperation.  ( BTW I think our first lady princess Aishwarya having a baby at 37 should chill a lot of people and raise the bar in india? ;-) )

and the girls are bad at maths thing! There are absolutely NO lady engineers here in the UK! Zero! Thanks to such sexist propaganda! Girls are bad at maths! There were hardly any boys in my class as good at maths as me!
In India there is an awareness about such things atleast some people are feminist, people are fighting against such views. There is always an uproar about sexist ad campaigns, here there is nothing. pink and blue. why  so much distinguishing at such young age.. why not green/yellow/purple/red prams!?! just let them be, instead of doing this boy/girl thing!
I dont like :-(

Yes there is Sexism here but .....
 I had to add the PS:
After  bumming on the beach, in a bikini, alone.  topless babes sun bathing around me, often alone, roaming around in clothes definitely classified as very skimpy in India in the wee hours of the night, drinking alone( :-O?:-P) and feeling so safe to be able to do this.. I felt very touched and grateful to this culture and society actually.
I remember how we went to the beach in India.. my river dress . thick grey trousers and thick dark black and red shirt.. I felt sad for me for that... I remember kerala - people following me on the beach even when getting into water fully clothed. Yew! disgusting that... from that to this!!! Liberating!
West has got something right, and India is like very very very very long way behind.... after tasting freedom like this..  will I ever be able to go back to that?
.. 

19 March 2012

pursuit of happiness

Money fame power...
pursuing these... people say wont really lead you to happiness, they say these are shallow goals, superficial, when u achieve still u feel empty etc.. kind of like the gold pot under rainbow pursuits...
Family, people, love they say  bring real joy!
Travelling alone I realised even these goals family/love/stability/perfection...even these are rainbow- gold pot type pursuits. controversial but true. Its the same thing as power fame money...
unless we  find happiness inside ourself, everything else is still gold pot under rainbow pursuit- no?

I m sure having good close friends, loving partner and kids bring us a lot of joy no doubt... making money, being successful? also brings us joy...
well actually what I think I m trying to say that the converse is not true.
 making money, being successful? also brings us joy..,not having money or success need not necessarily make us sad! :-)
Ye!!! yes this is exactly what I actually thought -
similarly having good close friends, loving partner and kids bring us a lot of joy no doubt...but not having these need not make us sad at all :)

What I actually thought is that these things as such are not bad at all, they bring us joy, but pursuit is bad,? Pursuit is also not bad, making something a pre-condition for our happiness is bad. "I will be happy if..." I think the "will be" and "if..." part  of that statement are wrong. "I m happy!" May be There are no pre conditions for happiness! ( yeah, not original - this is new age funda : ) but nice funda. )

Miyazaki has 2 sons and no daughters!
Aww sucha pity!  He would make a really lovely dad to a daughter.. such a sweet man and his understanding of girls is just .... awww...
Paulo Coehlo - Feminist - no children :)
How come these two great artists with such beautiful hearts are such avid feminists! Aww  I m touched..
<3 * <3* <3
C S Lewis - people criticize him to be sexist and religious. I actually found him also to be a feminist, this lead is a lil girl. she is the one who almost always gets people out of trouble and Aslans favourite. I din find his books too religious or evangelic either.. :P



Mantras

(this is kinda random post)
Om mani padme hum - from tibetan incantatons mp3 from friend
Om Thrembakam yajamahe - this one just came to me? may be when I searched for Om joom, I found that, that was maha mrytuyunjaya mantra but full form was this one, This was also chanted at the end of yoga class, but I never got it then
Om joom saha maam palay palay saha joom om -astrologer, He says anger will come down, but from personal experience I think this is for good health.
Om namah shivaya Om - childhood one :) My parents ploy to keep kids quite during power cut, Do Tapas like Druva they used to say  and I will get a vara :D haha! but Druva must have worshiped Vishnu...my parents told me Om namah shivaya.. I say this when I am scared of ghosts also, funny My brother says Jai Bajarang bali :)
So ham - pranic healing. Ham-sa - It is the opposite of so hum, supposedly milder version.
Om bhur bhuvasvaha - most popular mantra :)  These days it is played everywhere. 1998 - A friend was offended that this mantra was chanted in a movie( Stupid movie Mohobatein), Apparently it should nt be chanted by women, lower class people, actually anyone except some initiated bramhin male :) and how things have changed since then.. heart warming.. Thanks to Vivekananda and Theosophical soceity and all those movements which started about 150 years ago...and most recently internet and western interest in these things... foreign influence breaks bonds..
Om namo parabhraman om - pranic healing
Om purnamidam - I heard this in the closing of yoga class and loved it. I like the shanti mantra too..( from Vedas, kind of non religious) 
http://yoga108.org/pages/show/69-closing-mantras-of-yoga-class
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTwtGu-XZBE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCZVm6slzE0


From childhood
Om asatoma sad gamaya - school prayer/Uncle...
Budham sharanam gachami - Uncle
Guru bramha -Uncle/Dad
Sahana vavatu -School prayer
Poojyaya raghavendraya -Dad
Ganesha mantra -
Vakra-Tunndda Maha-Kaaya Surya-Kotti Samaprabha
Nirvighnam Kuru Me Deva Sarva-Kaaryessu Sarvadaa


Shuklaambaradharam Vissnnum Shashivarnnam Caturbhujam 
Prasannavadanam Dhyaayet Sarvavighnopashaantaye 


Karagre vasate lakshmi.. Home. but these 3 never entered my thick head :D


Yakundendu tushara hara - school prayer. I din like this, it used to fill my heart with dread :( I guess I din like that school at all... Our Florence English school suited me much better. Our father in heaven :) Lords prayer.. apparently even that is a a very powerful mystic symbolism...


Wow! This post started off as something mystic.. but This is more like a nostalgia trip !!! :-)
Mantras are good, I wanted to find a mantra for each occasion but it turns out.. my uncle and dad and my family have taught me so many little things in my childhood. I feel misty eyed.. I love you uncle doctor bappa! he has touched our lives in so many ways... dad and uncle .. little tihngs they taugt us.
I remember I used to resent learning these as I got slightly older.. I used to run away and ignore.. :) but now when I read these I feel so good.. not about the mantra but about the care they took and the love that was behind all this :)


This makes me think of the comedian Dara O brien who says he is ethinic catholic even tho he is atheist.
exactly my sentiments.. I am ethinic hindu.. hindu culture is in me but I am not a religious hindu..I have lot of anger and hatred for some aspect of Hinduism but it is still in me.




awesome, I ran into these while looking for mantras..!Written by Ravana one of them is :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp9OwlYrEUY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5oGpRzlPO0&feature=related
New found  Om tare tuttare ture Svaha! Green Tara Mantra, chanted in chinese style. I loved this one too
http://www.greenmesg.org/mantras_slokas.php#Ganesha


This post is no way complete...I started out to research but now just emotional..lost the will to research.. 
To do
1) what really is the power of mantras?
2) What are Beeja mantra's?
When we were kids we used to say Hram Hreem Hrooom... pretending to mantravaadi's ( bad black magic people;) but this is chanted along with Surya Namaskara for additional benifit.
I have read a lot about beeja mantras - seed mantra! ? but I havent really figured what they are! they make the normal mantra more potent, but hram hreem are just chanted by themselves too? Om Btw is the Ultimate beeja mantra I suppose?
3) Wama mantras? ;-) Are there any? 
4) other Religion mantras? Chants are very common - Sufi - Dama Dum Mast Khalandar! Tora - is all about chanting right?


ps: I would love to see one post by my friend M about such things, that would be real technical/scientific and real vedic perspective on all this... it would be awesome. 

narratives

Noticed how we make up stories to tell others and very soon believe it ourselves to be true :)

When something happens - I usually make up a narrative to tell others in my head ...sometimes this narrative drifts slightly from truth ;-)  Based on emotional state sometimes more artistic liberties are taken :) especially in anger, the villain is painted blacker than reality. That would be kinda ok, but I also noticed that the blacker version adds to my anger as if the imaginary version of the story did actually happen.  I may not tell that blacker narrative to anyone at all.. I actually mostly tell the correct version to other people ( yeah I m ethical that way :P) but the blacker version has poisoned my psyche more than required. Should cut this out in future.

ps: how much of our memory is actually true/real? god! are we all screwing our future selves by corrupting our memory like memento guy? ( I know what u are thinking, that I m crazy and that u dont do it! Hah! bigger HAH! just watch urself and see! :P, we are all just as evil :P)

BTW awesomest psychological thriller ever http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_(film)


solitude

What actually needs to be hammered into my head now is
wanting people for being happy is a myth
similarly wanting solitude to be happy is also ...
Living in solitude people consider it as harder.. but I feel its the opposite once u get the hang of it...its a lot easier (I think it really helps that I am very nice and interesting person ;-) , and I always agrees with me ;-))..but its like living in a monastery, like living in bliss but  its like a lab condition. its like your product is still not mature , still has lot of errors and bugs which are not exposed, which are hidden, they will come out only once u are in the field.
Staying alone would be like playing level 1 of a game again and again and not going to level 2 becuase level 1 is nice and level 2 is more challenging!

When ur belief that u are happy alone is solidifying.. it becomes harder..
When u believe u need people for u to be happy u are more accommodating, otherwise each accommodation/adjustment requires more justification to self...
so what to do?
In sucha  case only truely understanding other people and understanding why they behave that way may help, developing empathy becomes very important.
everything is slightly easier when there is something for us in it no? to do things when there is nothing in it? may be we should be creative and actually see what is actually in it for us.
So one carrot we can use is self growth - see everything as one more lesson I need to learn.... each person is a challenge/ learning opportunity. each irritating trait is like a puzzle, like an obstacle in a game which I need to learn to cross, each time I cross an obstacle and maintain my peace and calm - I get points :) and then  I can cross levels... slowly I can start putting myself in more and more challenging situations - may be i can even invite BIL back to living with us :D and go and eat with my uncle daughter in law's who eat in their husband leftover plates :D and still maintian peace!
Shalom ;-) 

25 February 2012

Ive gone crazy and I intend to stay that way ;-)

May me live in interesting times

I am free free free, like a lifeboat lost at sea..

20 February 2012

this and that

reading so many books , gettng so many answers.. its wonderful.
I have to admit that what the spritual books say is right. u get the right books and u are able to read them only when the time is right.
Its the sequence.. if I had read the books out of sequence I wouldnt have got it.. It somehow happens that u end up reading them in sequence.
U may try and try but u will succedded at the right time ..but u have to try.. u know trying and making up ur mind that u will do something is sometimes enough to trigger off things and then they happen but u have to have patience.
I used to feel this even when I was very young.. that I always get what I want but not when I want it. It used happen uncannyly :) I wanted something obsessively badly, I wouldnt get it, then after I forgot about it, after an year or so, there it would be :) patience. so :)
Nothing happens by chance, everything happens for a reason.. I believe in synchronocity...

There is talk in the new age circles that something on earth has changed - for the better. there is more energy now ...more connection with ..God, the source..
I do agree.. I was thinking about reality shows, India has got talent....people have started doing things which they never believed they could do before.. so many art forms - parkour for example.. there is no technology. it is just with our boies. They are able to do what used to be inhuman feats now..
People breaking glass and rolling on it.. small kids with such unusual talent... the labourers dance troupe with amazing dances..
Peoples perspective has changed. They believe they can do anything and they actually do...
Movements.. anti capitalist movements, jasmine revolution, anna hazare, everyone has started caring about the enviorment.. we who dont care that much are also forced to care.. the earth has started caring as if..
vegetarians everywhere.. I find so many in the UK for varied reasons like meat costs more to earth and all.
World against interenet piracy, open source - who would have thought it would work, Java- it is all eutopian if u think about it.. yes I think the world is changing for the better and it is quickening too..
All those people being interesting in sprituality and meditation and practices and knowlegde that was secret and in the hand of few and almost lost is for everyone to pic and use..its overflowing some charge money for it.. many give it just for free.. its everywhere It started 100 years ago Vivekanand and Yogananda and Anne Bessant etc.. but it didnt catch on untill now.. Internet can be anyone's guru...
world consciousness is changing people are asking do I have to work to live, people are questioning everything!! Its awesome!
Are we living in interesting times? :-}

stubborness


I m stubborn.
what is this mean?
>Resistance to ideas which go against my will
>Refusing to give reasons for what ever my stand is.
>Cutting off all negotiation after a certain point and making it very clear that I will not budge from my stand.
>Little/No(?) patience with others ideas, after mind is made up.
>Seeing some advise as manipulation.

Some website say stubborness is resistance to all change, I dont think so! that is plain wrong.
Stubborness is more like refusing to let go of our stand, if the change that is happening has nothing to do with our stand why would we resist? :P

"you could possibly have you need to let go of the need to not look vulnerable. If you are too afraid to be human and weak then you are going to end up being bitter and strong and alone"
Agree...sometimes we dont change stance just to not look weak, ego... bitter strong alone is perfectly said... strong is overrated :)

"Stubbornness is a good thing, Many times". I also think so, Sticking to stand is good thing, but things like refusing to explain and making others feel like that they are banging head against a huge kal bande thats not good.

Stubbornness  needs to be sugar coated for others to take... but generally it doesnot go like that, atleast most of the people who are openly stubborn are also straightforwward and silly :-)

It is surprising how many websites throw up taurus as associated with stubborness!!!


17 February 2012

whisper heart

Hayao Miyazaki ** pure love** my heart hurts I love this mans movies.

12 February 2012

receiving is ok but giving? ;-)

In giving it is that u receive...  they say,,,
the joy of giving they say...
the happyness that u get when u give they say has no parallel..
but why does it suck so? :-)
Is it really so or it is a trap? Is it a ploy by the society to make a bakra out of u...

Even people who are really close to me and whom I respect a lot say that u should take joy in making others happy, that makes u happy they say. but when i try to make others happy at my cost.. I feel truely crappy. :-D
I hate it. I feel everyone should be responsible for their own happyness.
why doesn't anyone make me happy for once? :P  prove ur theory!!!!!..
When people do that, that actually sucks too,
It makes me feel small, if someone is trying to martyr themselves for me.. so it no good no? :-P
what the F&#$ am I missing here?

(moods change and so does our thinking.. In some mood I may be touched by St Francis of assisi's prayer of forgiveness and giving :D but I was definitely not in THAT mood when I wrote this :D)

Its ok to receive!

Learn to receive gracefully.
when some one compliments, accept it !say thanks.
when some one gives a gift, be grateful! accept the gift!
when you need help, ask. thank for the help
Its ok to receive! 

Devil and miss prym

Small side story in this..This is why I love Paulo coelho :-)
This old town in France was once an adda for hooligans and evil people who were lead by one Ahbab.. A saint converted them into Christianity and reformed them.
but Ahbab guy is too cool, he manages to add his own twist to the culture of this town.
He invents this ritual - forgiveness day.
Every year, one day - people of this town ask god for forgiveness for all the bad things they have done.. "God! please forgive me, I killed a man, please forgive me, I have sinned and cheated" and so on..
and then they forgive god! :D
They say I forgive u, god, for making it rain and ruining my crop, I forgive u for taking away my young son. bla bla..;-)
You forgive me and I forgive you. so now we are even :-D

Worlds with in worlds

It is strange that we think of these things even when we are little kids.. its as if we know..
How come we thought of profound things when we were little kids?
What if this is not life at all but all a dream. what if I am some one else sleeping somewhere and dreaming of this?
What if  there is a world like earth on every electron - we used to get this thought becuase it was so uncany, planets revolve around sun and electrons revolve around the nucleus. just the same.. :-)
and in Reverse,What if we are just a small electron in the body of a huge huge huge organism... It would be so big we would never know!!
What if earth is a huge organism we are all cells of this organism, like we have cells and organs inside us, so does earth...
Reading a  book which is bringing all this back,
Each cell in my body is indeed a life. It has the same DNA as me. Thats the only difference between my cell and a bacteria actually...otherwise they are pretty much same basically...single cell thingys...so I can imagine myself as made of millions of  different bits of life...like forests and oceans filled with tiny life?!? in my own body, doing their own thing ,co-operating and keeping me functioning and happy. I m their eco system..a mini earth?
Aphids reproduce by vigrin birth( or whatever not going into technical details :P) a female takes over a plant and give birth to new females which have exactly the same DNA as the mother.. so all the aphids on a plant have the same DNA, in Selfish Gene Richard Dawkins calls all aphids on a plant as the same one organism...
so Its a matter of perspective...where the organism ends and the other begins... the lines are blurred.. he also says that different cells in our body started off life as individual organisms then they got into partnerships and got bound eternally ( ah! eternal true love! :P )

This book says, If u look at it in one way there is a world inside a world inside a world inside a world .. your red blood cells.. they have friends they have life cycle.. they do their job they grow old and they die.. and go to heaven.. so for some heavenly body aka god.. we are also like a cell of earth which is an organ for the solar system .. etc etc ... like we used to think when we were kids.. just like that :) ( Interestingly I heard similar concept in another meditation, heart chakra of earth is made up of crown chakras of all the people on earth! )
He talks about earth having a consciousness - the concept of Gaia.. who may actually be gently guiding evolution. So gods are not all powerful always right beings but Gaia is like us, getting things right by trial and error.. Only thing that characterises gods is love...gods infinite love..but his perspective is different from what we generally read in spiritual books
He says gods love for us Is exactly like our love for our red blood cell say :) hehe
Like u want ur red blood cell to be happy because it is part of u, but u dont really care that much for its prayers and happniess. do u? :P u want its well being and u love it.. sort off... but that love is not personal. because we are in completely different levels of consciousness.. red blood cell wouldnt understand me, ,my thoughts and motives would just be beyond comprehension for the blood cell, Its like we are alien to each other.. if my cell came out of the body and saw me.. say cause of blood transfusion.. it would think I m god eh?  like that...I go and intervene in this world inside me, mostly when there is trouble.. and sometimes I succeed and sometimes I fail to put things right.. so does god! ( nahiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii :D )

Interesting perspective.


the spirit world

hehehe I am just going total crazy, It started off with spirited away, which made me cry in the middle of the night! I want I want I want, I want spirits and magic and those tiny lil sooth balls to be my friends..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayao_Miyazaki 
Hayao mayazaki is a magician.. so imaginative and so spiritual.. I can feel the love he has for nature in his movies.. I can feel his spirituality ( I dono what ever I mean by that :P)...I can almost believe that the world he has created is real.
Then I watch princess Mononoke... Ah the Kodama spritis in the forest! so adorable! !  by now I definitely believe in nature spirits and I have started attributing the tingly feeling I felt in my heart in my garden in bangalore to these tiny cutie lil things! :) plant spirits! How I love them!    hero was annoying( I mean by his goodness) he refuses to cloud his heart with hatred...Grr I mean he doesnot hate that woman who kills off the spirit of the forest :( Its a saddish movie...
My neighbour Totoro - Awww sweetness..Totoro is again forest spirit!  I love Totoro and the innocence of this movie, the village and everything.. I want to be there.. I want a friend like Totoro.. I want to sit on top of Camphor tree in the middle of the night with Totoro and sleep on his tummy in the tree hollow! such bliss! The sooth balls are again there...It is such a beautiful way of looking at life.. like everything has a soul.. the shrine, the respect for nature so simple...touching..


"Aa chal ke tujhe, main le ke chaluun
ik aise gagan ke tale
jahan gam bhii na ho, aansoo bhi na ho
bas pyaar hii pyaar pale" 


He did manage to take me to a place like this...
Ponyo on the cliff by the sea... nice..
I m crazy about Studio Ghibli and miyazaki <3 <3 <3

Miyazaki is clearly influenced by their religion.. Japan is indeed a unique place
India also is like this, The sweetness and beauty and innocence, its all there, I wish we had ways to express it like the japanese do...



29 January 2012

model of the world in our head( for myself)

First of all, I dont like the new google UI being imposed in blogger! I hate it! its sooooooooooooo plain! :( Nice for a search page and all but not for my blog! Grrrrr
Ok with that and the stinking feedback to google, out of the way.
Now I can think about what is this universe and all that :P
If u think about it, universe  is also, like everything else in our life, a model inside our head.
I mean, what is reality?Reality is What I am actually perceiving "just now". The present moment.
What do we mean by present moment?
The eye only sees the image for 1/10th of the second. There must be some similar minimum duration for the ear, and for our over all perception of time ( I mean 2 points of time which we perceive as 2 separate points of time!  How long is this present moment? apparently 3 sec!!! Check it out! http://resources.metapress.com/pdf-preview.axd?code=864j03x6w6q01101&size=largest. ) This is THE MOMENT, the NOW.
Everything else that we have experienced so far is just memory. Memory isn't just data. I mean it has things like - I did this. I did that. this happened to me so on. It also has procedures or how to do this and how to that memory, how to cycle, swim, talk, walk, do Maths etc etc...but more interestingly, Along with all this, our brain also creates a model of the universe for us. I mean, it makes sense of the things it sees, it experiences and builds up a set of concepts( and more..). This is an universe model or a world view. This is very subtle and kinda elusive, We take it for granted that there is a world out there and we know it. But our brain has done a huge amount of work in translating what is out there - which is just data,a collection of present moments.. into a set of concepts - which is what we are feeling the world is like at this moment.  ( What we are seeing is not code but UML diagram? :P) Most of this model  was probably built as part of evolution and is hardcoded in us. even a fish or amoeba has a world view. May be a pigeon's world view has the magnetic lines marked proper roads? whatever.  but as humans, huge part of this world is modeled in our life time by our experiences.
An example, When u are a baby u are like koopa mankuda, u probably think world is just as big as the room, then u are taken outside, u get the concept of space.. and that there can be more space than what is visible. This concept is added to its internal world model -"There is more space than what I can presently see."

One very important input for this  model is knowledge or what we read and understand and what we believe. Once we believe something, that part of the universe will be constructed in our head.

Then when that kid reads about solar system and galaxies and multiverses... it probably get the concept of infinite space into its world view. It gets the concept that things can be really really really big.  This kind of concept was probably not part of early humans at all?
( Its not just about concepts, is it? When we read something we understand the concept and ...change how we think the world is and....???change some constructs in our head... what is this constructs?? there is more to this but that eludes me?!!)


I am guessing this world view, like the rest of the brain has two part, subconscious and conscious part. Consider Gravity- when a baby learns to walk it learns 2 things about gravity - how to use muscles, how much pressure to counter gravity, this will all go into subconscious part of world view. "I will fall" information goes into the conscious part of the world view. When we go to moon, this part of our subconscious world view's gravity concept is screwed :)
Its is very scary to imagine that everything we have, our whole past-i.e our whole life, the whole world, are just constructs in our head, If something goes wrong in the brain, things can screw up like crazy.
And the social aspect of the world view...Society, parents, TV,everybody has cluttered our world view with so many rules which may or may not be relevant,real at all... they may nor may not be helping us.... dont talk to strangers, Be home before dark, drinking is bad, boys shouldnt cry, Only a couple is happy not a single person,Dark is not beautiful... It takes a while to sometimes realise that these are concepts in the head and not really reality.

Each experience of mine is creating my world for me, More different types of experiences- richer world? :-) what we read what we see on TV all that is building my world view. So I should experience more and read more and.. live more!! :P


May be some old people into whose life TV came in quite late, may refuse to see TV as a source for the rules  for creating the world model?
but we.. we add up what we see on TV very easily into our world model. Thats why it was so easy for me to accept a gay couple in Tel aviv, I had seen Will and Grace and unconsciously that was ingrained in my world model it was not something strange.
Watching sex and the city I also think it has become part of my reality to think its ok to throw temper tantrums, flip my hair and walk off.. I seriously consider going and staying in a hotel after a fight at home then I realise too much soap watching anta :)
Oh! When u digress from Universe to Sex and the City its time to stop writing :P
I get pissed about the kind of girls who I got to play with when I was a kid.
They seriously lacked imagination for one!! Always playing house - Mother father kitchen kid. nothing new. All my ideas about playing dinosaurs and dragons or dolphin and whale befriending the fisherwoman were dismissed without thought!! I would rather play alone!!!They were SOOOOOOO boring!!!!
hmmmm... I was thinking along these lines yesterday afternoon and a very sad realisation stuck me...
My mom and dad sat with me and told me stories, thousand of stories! My mom especially cooked up most imaginative and interesting stories ever.I had loads and loads of Russian books, story books, science books, my uncle and grandma told me stories of mythology, history.. but... These kids... their mothers probably didnt even read, their fathers didnt tell them any stories! They din have any childrens books,There was no TV those days!! :-(  This is especially true about the kids near my malleshwaram home. how cud they imagine? how cud they dream of Dragons and Dinos? :( ( but ... my parents had same kinda childhood! how did they turn out imaginative?!)
Its easy to look down on people and think of ourselves as special, but may be its just that we are just very very lucky!