Poor - taboo?

We all have different dictionaries, they all contain the same words but slightly different meanings.
 Ocean Waves a beautiful movie by Studio Ghibli, has a scene, the 1960 version of the heroine, goes out of the house without shoes and her father hits her. the one and only time he hit her.
Whats so bad about going with out shoes? Is it Japanese cultural thing? Is it perceived as being naked - bare foot considered as sexy? Kinky Japanese  :-)  I looked up.
Apparently, Poor didn't have shoes and Rich did. So if you went out without shoes its like being poor.
Isn't that shocking? I mean looking poor being considered so demeaning.
I did have an insight about how whatever is considered beautiful actually is just a showcase of being rich, but this is more shocking in a way - being Poor is a Taboo!?
Shouldn't actually be shocking, I have been thinking about this for some days
Swear words like Bewarsi in Kannada - actually just means Orphan. Biknasi literally means pennyless.
Not showing that you are poor is a value in many cultures.
Isn't it really sad, instead of pitying someone situation we actually consider that a taboo a shameful condition. Cultures are ashamed of being poor and we actually look down upon poor people?

My granddad  was poor ! ha ha! See I say this I am extremely proud of the fact how my Uncles and Dad came up in life in-spite of my grandfathers situation.  So tho I mostly dont talk about myself I do say this out many times
How does it sound to other people??? I have never given this thing a thought!  How does it sound to my parents? Do they feel ashamed? Obviously not, I think they are the ones that instilled that pride in our background.
This nagging feeling that everyone does not see this as shining example of positive came to me when someone commented - Oh but you were poor! like in some kind of slur! It didn't register then but its been at the back of my mind.
In Titanic Rose refuses to call Jack Poor. she does not say it. That I couldnt comprehend at that time!
Are other people judging me? Lot of people talk about their ancestors wealth, I am the only one who seems to talk about poor ancestors  !LOL Not true, actually I have some friends who do talk about how difficult it was for their parents and I did appreciate it - had respect for them!
but isnt it so sad, I think its changing, I think now people dont look down, except may be some snooty upper class families and such? no?

My parents are the opposite who look down upon wealthy :))) 

Osho

Is horrible. At least what he says just doesnot gel with me. What Buddha said... Introduction to Buddha was quite accurate, He is a scientist etc. Except it was told in 10 times more words than necessary. Ok.

When talking about Buddha, He talks about how a child are most comfortable in mothers womb and how he(HE)  is not free from the womb untill he find a wife. How mother can never forgive a wife bla bla bla such shit. This is Ekta kapoor serial level shit, What about daughters? I dont see any mother holding a grudge against a son in law? He talks of this shit as if it is absolute truth
If Buddha is a scientist, Osho is a rubbish B grade story teller :-)  Just so full of bull shit.  This is just one example, I tried to listen to one hour talk, It didnt have even one minute of What Buddha said, It has full hour of shit about celibacy, this kind of jealousy crap and , bramhins(?) and all sorts of rubbish. How to people tolerate him??!
This is my second and last attempt, I had to take second chance because some people I really respect seem to feel he is good. He just seems like a crap charlatan on drugs to me. So angry :-) 

unconscious racist

When we were youngsters, Having a boy friend/girl friend was considered a bad thing. There were lot of rumors/talks about She( yeah always She) has a boy friend, used derogatorily to tarnish someones' image. I was filled with strong self righteous values about not gossiping, Lol! yeah I didn't have any friends! so?  :-P So I refused to accept any such rumor, No they are just friends they are not going out together. I don't accept your silly gossip and rumors.
The question is, Am I better person than them?
Definitely, for not gossiping and for not wanting to talk "bad" about others, yes!
but No in another way. There is a subtle aspect to this. Look at the "bad" part of it. I deny that she is dating - she is not dating so she is good, if she was indeed dating she is bad.  I am still stuck in their same belief system, that dating is bad like the other gossiping losers.
The completely better person would have the argued, She may be or may be not dating, - so what?

I find the same happening with identity politics. Serena Williams caricature, She being black and a woman, most people are finding it really racist and sexist. I didn't find it either.
However  I cringe and I cringe and I cringe when people, even black people are calling that portrayal, sub human beastly and all that. Caricature exaggerates certain characteristics of the person. So if someone exaggerates black specific characteristics like full lips or curly hair  and to you it started looking sub human?  Who is racist here??
Tho There is history to it, I understand.

World is clever and changing

When I ( we also - the media and such )  look at trends, dangerous/annoying/stupid trends, We assume that this trend will go on for ever, we draw conclusions about what will happen if this trend continues indefinitely. And these conclusion turn out to be dire.  The graph of such trends tends to end with end of the world ;-) SCARY!!!! We make noise on the social media, media makes noise bla bla. I am not saying we should not do this... but I have started noticing that..
Even tho we assume that the  world is stupid, world is in fact clever and sentient and it learns it adapts
so trends don't continue on to their(our!?) destruction, but they stop.
(may be this can be attributed to all that shouting we did in the above paragraph. so it may be necessary to draw dire conclusions and shout anyway)

Last few years I notice the world adapting and giving up trending and learning.
First its a small group of outcasts making a noise and pointing out that something is not right, there is lot of ignoring, then opposition then with in a year or two, it actually becomes fashionable and mainstream! ,
the dire consequences predicted by the small group never come about because people learnt and people changed! Phew! Thank god!!
Few examples - are gender based kids toys - market segmentation tactics
use of social media - people have become smarter, I dont see the same type of posts any more
gender equality
Most pleasing is the plastic usage

I wrote a blog about my aunts niece doing computer science to get married, that is also an example.

Hinduism gyan

There are two aspects of Hinduism.
Just like there are apple users and apple developers , there are Hindu users and Hindu developers
The day to day people who follow rules and worship in temples - users. Just follow the rules.
Yoga and Tantra - the science which tells how to control the mind and how to design the religion which the other people are using - Tantra - the developers/architects and designers. Understand.
This is why there seems to be such a big gulf in the two aspects, Yoga is the programmer and day to day Hinduism is user.

attraction to assholes and submissiveness

The Top Two in my hate list :)
When other women behave like this, I just blow my top. I cant believe how some(lot of ?X-( ) women find assholeness totally sexy. Aggressive, brash, insulting, patronising - this is the popular kind of hero in movies,novels, series and women just seem to lap it up. Fifty shades of Puke anyone! Its not just in fiction, even in real life, lot of girls seem to think this is ideal. Why else would they lap up that crap ( hehe! I admitted my hate okay! :-P )
Ever wonder why? It comes down to evolution and survival again ( Ok, I am skipping all the "I thinks" and peddling my pseudo science confidently! people! I am watching Brooklyn 99 and I am inspired by Gina!) 
What kind of person is the Top guy in any company, the Alpha? The top dog? - Ass hole. The aggressive seems to be a successful personality type, especially in the old cave man person days, Violent aggressive abusive man who beat up people had a higher odds of survival and making a living than a Mr nice guy, right? When a man is violent and bad to a woman, she decided that he is even worse to others so has higher survival rate? Is that why all those stupid women are attracted to jerks and assholes?
This is why it becomes so important to be self reliant and earning woman, would change their whole outlook and psyche and make them go for the nice guy! Yeah this may not be cutting edge science but you know this effort goes towards trying to understand people and all that.
Submissiveness - I watched this movie about makers of Wonder Woman. Professor Marston and the Wonder Women. It is about the really unconventional and controversial life of the writer of wonder woman and the women in his life. Professor Martson, his wife and girl friend are clearly all feminists and very strong and intelligent people, leading a very controversial life in that day and age. They were obviously very courageous as well. Well, inspite of all that, What struck me in this movie was how one of the women, the girl friend, the wonder woman liked to be submissive. When the wife is as outraged as I was about How she or anyone could like being humiliated, the organiser says This is what she is - a submissive. Okay, I do not understand the BDSM concept at all. But it made me think. Is it possible that some people are wired to be submissive ( in normal day to day life non kinky way) and it is not an indication of subpar intelligence or lack of courage or confidence( am I pushing it with confidence?) Just like expecting gay people to be straight is wrong, Is it wrong to expected these people to be non submissive? Should I rethink the number two on my hate list as well? 
Not yet taking these off my hate list, but trying to keep an open mind.

normal distribution 2

It is very satisfying when the theories I thought about are kind of confirmed by science(? haha not sure that happened, anyway it was mentioned in Sam Harris podcast, and if you want citation and all that nonsense you know what u can do to yourself :D :-P ) The normal distribution ( for any characteristic ) difference between men and women, How I think women fall more into the average , where as men are spread out across the spectrum, I also think the average for men is usually lower than women. You can read all about it here. Basically how someone else put it is - mens distribution have fatter tails.
Interestingly I didn't read into the implications of this as much as they have, they used it to justify why there are less women top scientists. For example - discounting the gender stereotyping, prejudice and everything else, this can also be explained to an extent by the normal distribution. There are less nobel prize winning women because, even tho there may be more brilliant women, than men in this world, there are more brightest men than brightest women. There are more men in 99.9th percentile? and These win the Nobels? Don't know if this is proven, but it seems a logical hypothesis which can be pondered about.
Also now that I think about this, does this also explain why 98% of prisoners i.e criminals are men? We know that ( at least my theory is that ) mens distribution has a fatter tail at the bottom end than the top end, and also we know that prisons are keeping the worst of the worst - the worst percentile of people? bingo more men :-)  I know there are other explanations like testosterone and increased aggression in general in men etc. however this is a good fit for the fat tail phenomenon :-) What else can be explained by this? 

prepare for old age gyan

Control and will power are great when you are young and/or strong, When you get old and weak, the will power fades. All the aspects we controlled, start getting out of control and start ruling us. Mindfullness, relaxing and accepting on the other hand are just perfect things for times when we are weak, When old age strikes we should be practised and prepared with these skills. Its like floating on water, u cant learn it in panic, but if you know already you dont need much strength to do.

Ps: I seem to be preparing a lot for old age wouldn't it be really ironic if god forbid I don't make it? ;-) Gulp! 

La la land is Whisper of the heart with adults instead of kids! Love both movies...  love inspiring life - to be the best they can be... I like that even with heart breaking ending of la la land. 

Teen movies

If it is not all about looks then why does the ugly duckling girl with great personality get the totally handsome guy and not another ugly duckling guy with great personality? :-P
Moral of the story is - NOT - looks dont matter. personality does!!
It is - Dont worry if you are ugly duckling there is a totally handsome guy for you?

Teen movies!! Sheesh!

Wood cutter's pots

I am a microcosm of the macrocosm!

Once upon a time there was a wood cutter, Wood cutters make excellent heroes for old time stories because they go into forest so much alone and you know, good opportunity for gods to contact them and all. Anyway this wood cutter went as usual into the forest and did a good deed, like the heroes do. He didn't cut a branch which had a nest, or saved a rabbit from wolf or may be it was when he went to cut an old tree the tree said please don't cut me, I am a cursed goddess. The nest, rabbit or the tree goddess was pleased with the wood cutters good deed and blessed him with 7 pots of gold.  Poor wood cutter was very happy, he carried the pots home. His wife saw the gold pots and exclaimed loudly! wow!! I can't believe our luck! We are rich! and Then she saw, one of the pots was only half full! ( as the old story writers were misogynistic) She said Oh no!! Why is this pot only half full!?
Wood cutter used the money got a big house, car, carriage may be, ate wonderful food and invested money made more money and was very happy. Wife kept nagging, we are so rich but one of our pots is still half empty! So he decided now that I have money I should fill that bugging half pot with gold! He bought gold now, lots of it and put it into the half pot. Come morning the pot was half empty again!! Wife taunted him! Aha You are a rich man, famous man, powerful man but our 7th pot is half empty. He worked really hard, made more money, more investments and then more gold and half pot... remained half empty! That was annoying! He sold his house, all property bought gold and tried to fill the pot, it still remained half empty!  His wife was crying on the street that they were ruined.
Then the goddess appeared to the wood cutter and she said, haven't you noticed that there is something strange about The half pot? No matter how much you put into it, it always remains only half full? You had everything and 6 full pots of gold, but you decided to focus on the half pot! Instead of feeling happy about what you have, you decided to cry about what you don't have! This had ruined you. I will take away all your pots.
Then the wood cutter started going into to forest cutting wood and decided to be happy with what he had, living a happy life. There was no half pot to fill anymore. ( His wife also I presume :-P )

Why I remember this is, We as a society have become like this. Earth as a whole now has enough prosperity for everyone to lead a good, healthy and comfortable life. Never in the history of humanity did anyone have such good health care, so much food, so much warmth, so much safety, so much peace. But are we happier than before? No, we are as miserable or as happy as before. If we look at the news and the media, what we hear is about what all is wrong with us. We cannot shop, we cannot go on vacations abroad, we don't have a 3 bed house and a garden. There is discrimination, there is inequality. I am not saying there isn't. There is! but It is not the outside things that will make us satisfied, It is a state of mind. If we do not appreciate what we have, How can we be happy? We cannot change the inequality and discrimination until we stop being insecure about our half pots.
We should tell the world that this is the case, that we have everything! we should look at what we have and be happy ! :-)
Then I realise, Do I know this? I know it intellectually but Do I know know it? Do I know how safe, how warm, how healthy, how peaceful, how full I am? Am I thankful?
I am the microcosm of this macrocosm, I am the bellwether, If I know this, others will know. I should tell myself first about this half pot, that it is unfillable. Then.. others.

a fairy dies every time u...

Going into a forest feels like a rejuvenation, staring from top of a mountain at the horizon feels freeing, safe, like some long held tension is released. walking barefoot... looking at the stars...
When we dont do these things, we lose a small tiny part of our soul. Its not noticeable because we have backup options, something else in our very developed mind compensates for it... but the sum total of it all.. that shows..it shows that our soul has stretched thin.  depression, cancer, stress, tension, autoimmune problem etc...or ok need not be something major like that but vague uneasiness and muscle tension, Its like the background noise of the AC or the motor road, u dont notice it, but u notice how nice it is when it stops.

Concrete roads, houses, cities, artifical lights even agriculture, wheel, fire... was it one step away from nature? Where do u draw the line? Crows use a stick to get insect out of the crevice, termites build mounds.. is that away from nature? Do they lose tiny pieces of their souls too?  ;-) 

Today news paper listing all autustic people - Einstein, Newton, Charles Darwin!!?? hello?
Makes me think many of the mental "Illnesses" are just different brains rahter than Ill brains?
offcourse some of the problems are real
or are they! hmmm...

Draft from 2014 

You meditate and you are still like this?
You are like this and still you dont meditate? ;-)

 #goodcomeback #obviouslynotenlightened :D :-P

Am I a hypocrite

People who insist on using separate vessels for meat and veg, who want to use separate vessels for festivals all this irritates me no end.

But according to pranic healing, energy permeates everything and this even if you wash it, if you cook meat in a vessel the energy stays. I believe in this. So basically I know the reason behind why they are doing it, I believe the reason to be true. Then why the irritation?

1) I believe that the nuisance and ill feelings such fuss causes far outweighs it benefit
2) the spiritual development of such people is minimal ( :-P yeah I know :P ) and such hygiene is required for serious and advanced yoga practitioners. Not for people who do maggie style sandhyavandane ;-)
3) Also I am not sold on the value of prana hygiene, It reminds me too much of un-touchability and all the social evils. nothing good could have caused it or could come out of it. I feel anyone on the path shud be beyond such small selfishness.  

4)  Is it because I think, They are using it for material benefits and not for spiritual? 

This comes under the general umbrella of my irritation towards many old customs, done ignorantly, causing more harm than good etc etc.  

Blogger is a graveyard of blogs, all dead since years, no posts since 2011,2013...
I am feeling like an apocalypse survivor :-D

I am a puppet( and is there such a thing as a boatsman? )

x

I wish I was a poet,
so I could write this as a poem, this feeling is poem worth,
Alas I am not. I am however a puppet,
I am pulled constantly by invisible strings,
Sensations and feelings, like waves of the sea, gently and not so gently pushing me to the shore.
The strings so subtle, the currents so under the surface
There is more than one puppet master and more than one wave, I go hither and tither rather than a straight line
 I am the master of my fate, I am a boat with a sail and rudder, or so I sometimes think
Am the boat or the boatsman?
 Is there a boatsman?  or is it just me and the waves? or just the waves, no boatsman and no me?

DO NOT correct peoples opinion on social media. Its a trap. Its a bait and every time we fall for it, They( THEY!!! the boogey men )  get our data, attention and time.

Or In real life for that matter, Its as much waste of time in real life as on social media. May be ask questions and try to understand why they have that opinion, there is absolutely no point trying to argue/correct people.

Yes yes Cow breaths out oxygen! :-) :P

They are all doing it for relief, I am going it for enlightenment ;-)
On meditation
  - my ego 

Autobiography of a yogi has a quote by Meera Bai - She was a woman saint in medieval India. When some men didnt allow her into a spiritual place because she was woman she said - Dont u know you are all female too and the only male is God?

One of my friends once told me that when Sufi saints die - They perform Urs, which is a marriage of the saint with God! The songs of the Sufi are always sung as love and longing of a woman for the man who is god, It is sung my men mostly.

Different religions same spirituality :-)

The contrast - between the spiritual and the normal. In all of our cultures where calling a man a woman is one of the worst insults,  these men willingly/openly go around calling themselves women/female. It is very touching, Bhakti movement is a very tender movement, so full of heart!