My uncle falling sick and losing his legs prompted the whole family into spirituality?
My uncles and dad used to attend Gita classes, go for yoga and meditation courses in 1970s. When it was not main stream like it is today. My grand mother learnt to read when she was .. 60 or atleast late 50s so that she could read spiritual books by Sai baba. All my uncles and aunts have this kind of stable and balanced personality... I wonder if this incident contributed into making  them all what they are today?

The point is - every incident and everything that is happening to everyone is shaping them in some way, programming them, The point of life is to get shaped nicely rather than to have pleasant experiences? 

what is the hurry

habits of a life time dont happen in a day or a week or even a year...

I ll be there for you...when the rain starts to fall... 😜

striving

Striving is trying to wake up at 5 instead of 5 30
Striving is trying to do  1 hour meditation, intense meditation
Striving is trying to jump to week 2 of C to 5 K instead of week 1
Striving is what we have been conditioned to do. The need for constant progress/growth.
Striving is swimming (against or towards the current) instead of flowing with the river
Striving is measuring? No striving is not measuring, striving is using measuring to feel dissatisfied.
Its is a feeling inside like greed. - no Striving is caused by a dissatisfaction, its not the cause its the effect.
Cure for Striving is patience,contentment - lack of contentment leads to striving.

Our current culture encourages Striving, Striving is almost a core value
Buddhism asks us to let go of striving - Striving implies attachment to the goal.
Another word which is used a lot is non gripping, non grabbing. If we notice our attitude at any minute, we can feel this gripping and grabbing, for things, for feelings, for moments, for goals.
Same with Yoga - effortless effort.
The more I learn about the two the more I see they are so similar. 

gyan repeats - similar sentiments few years ago...
http://mystic-babe.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/stop-trying.html

The point gets across only at the right time.

not gripping

“Relationships - of all kinds - are like sand held in your hand. Held loosely, with an open hand, the sand remains where it is.The minute you close your hand and squeeze tightly to hold on, the sand trickles through your fingers. You may hold onto it, but most will be spilled. A relationship is like that. Held loosely, with respect and freedom for the other person, it is likely to remain intact. But hold too tightly, too possessively, and the relationship slips away and is lost.”

― Kaleel Jamison

But this is not just about relationship at all, This is about everything. You hear like - desire is the cause of all suffering, it is translated better as cravings are cause of all suffering, letting go of attachments, effortless effort. let go, relax.
In that context. We should hold on to our goals like this, like holding on to sand, firm and steady but not gripping tight. This is what Bhagawad Gita means when they say dont worry about results do your work. Same with yoga poses - this is effortless effort, we are not trying too hard, we are holding the pose but not struggling or striving.
we should hold on every moment like this, like sand, to people offcourse, to our thoughts, to our time, everything.

What is the focus of my life?
Weightloss? Workout sexy body?
Untill a few years ago at least the goals were career /ambition.
We are disillusioned with that and then the goal became health and self improvement
but somehow that has got caught into weightloss and fittness which is indeed an exhilarating goal but.. shallow?
But These days I see something in people and in myself, desire to make things better. small things, less plastic, less energy, sustainable etc etc :-) Light is shining little by little.

decisions

This, I had written down in a book instead of  the blog. I found recently and realised It has indeed made a profound difference to my life.
New year resolution, 2016 Jan I seem to have taken a new year resolution to take decisions. I had realised I was not confidently taking decisions and used to keep things hanging for a long time.  I dont remember working consciously on this but It has made a difference. 🙏🏽 Thank you my past self! You did a good thing.

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.