exhausted

my arms are feeling like dead weight and my legs hurt - and since i virtually shouted out to the valley, WebMD thru Google told me that fatigue and weakness are very different - i am fatigued.  

i have come to the conclusion that comfort zone is like a sunny dawn, if you wake up early and are lucky you might ocassionally see it. but even if you never sleep on time and you are lucky you might still catch it sometimes. but rest of the day is going to nothing like it, better get used to it.

I am assuming that comfort zone is when you fulfil your own expectations. About which Swamini Vimalanadaji says, none of us are ever able to live upto our ideal; the difference lies in whether you try to lower your expectionations from yourself or you never give up. That, she says, will show you where you'll end up.

Swami Vivekananda

Life is too short to sweat the small stuff

Here is something you might enjoy:


Ekla Chalo Re

and if you are feeling particularly inspired, click here!

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch

To drive is to become one with the car, i.e. me with a better voice or better ideas (on the CD), faster and with less effort. I have a donkey of a car - unsexy and reliable! The sad truth in this situation is that it makes me unhealthy and it is bad for the environment. The best thing is that I get to hear my CDs basically uninterrupted and with a regularity that is comforting. The latest CD that I have been listening to is by Swami Tejomayanada on the Upanishads. (Among many other things and assuming that I understood and remember correctly) he says that humans are born with 3 defects of the mind, firstly, mal (impurities), secondly, vikshep (agitations) and finally agyana aavarna (veiling due to ignorance.)

By mal or impurities are meant the likes and dislikes in the mind. These likes and dislikes superimpose your ideas of preference on what you see and hence you can no longer see how things really are. If Truth is of any importance, then these likes and dislikes are like impurities that pollute your vision of the Truth.

By vikshep are meant agitations: the incorrect vision causes agitations in the mind. When we superimpose incorrect values on the world due to mal, then we are driven  to act upon our incorrect conviction. (At least my vision is incorrect because if it wasn't then life would make complete sense - which it doesn't - and I am unable to decide because i do not know how to place value on different choices.)

and finally agayana avarna by which is meant veiling due ignorance, ie, just because you do not know, you believe something to be something it actually isn't. For example, it is a dark night and you are walking down a path when you see something long and winding on the ground before you. in the darkness you look at it and it is a snake till someone points a torch on it and you see it is actually a rope.

i.e. because we do not know what we are or what the world is, we assume them to be something other than what they are. Thus, we believe somethings will bring us happiness and we like them and others will bring us unhappiness and we dislike them. Finally, we spend our lives running away from what we do not like, and chasing those that we do like. But because we assume incorrectly, all our running away and chasing does not take us to the place we want to be.

All of which is complete theory for me, for i wonder about the meaning of the events in my life. Or as i put it to wonderful and wise friend:

Now, what I would really like to know is if there is any method to the madness of our lives? Is there any direction to the random occurrences in our lives? Does everything happen for a reason, i.e., no matter what happens, it is because it was NECESSARY for something, to lead us somewhere? An example that comes to mind is of modern art, whether there is any MEANING to it, or is it just blobs of colour in which we find meaning, just because we want to? 

To which I got the wonderful answer:

In short, nothing has meaning and everything has meaning.  It depends on what your goal is.  Kicking a ball into a net has no meaning really speaking, but the goal is to win and so it has a very significant meaning.  We need to find a goal of life to dedicate ourselves to, and then alone everything in our life gains meaning.  Higher the goal, greater the meaning of every act.  if the goal is Moksha, every breath has a meaning!

i.e. if moksha is the goal, then everything is only to purify the mind and every experience will only show more clearly the difference between what is real and what isn't; and only cast a light on our strong likes and dislikes and hence every experience has a meaning.

Benedict Cumberbatch

You'll have to be very gentle and tell me otherwise, because i think this is SUPER CUTE!! (and just as likely, a bug) 

Van Gogh

Not too sure if this video should have been on youtube, and therefore the link to the BBC show Van Gogh Painted With Words below might vanish at any point in time (or it might not - I don't know.)



Anyhow, it is a really good show. In fact, it is a grace that Benedict Cumberbatch is such a good actor, it would have been an atrocity to damage any of Sherlock, Frankenstein, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and now Van Gogh! With him working on JRR Tolkien's work, maybe I should place a bet on him acting in Asimov's Foundation trilogy next...

anyhow again, getting back to the original show about Van Gogh - it is a bit difficult to understand how the same mind can create such excellence and be in depression along side. Similar to how  shocking David Foster Wallace's death was. Isn't excellence is result of self effort? Isn't self effort impossible in case of depression? How does this work!?!    

Books, TV, Music, Movies and shopping for souvenirs

I have been on the bandwagon of catch-up TV on the Internet for a while now, and have been enjoying  Death in Paradise and Downton Abbey lately.

Managed to watch only one movie during some 24+ hours of flying, Agneepath was terrible, so I didn't waste a good movie on that tiny screen. Read two books: Litigators by John Gresham* and  The Thirteen Problems by Agatha Christie - both I would recommend you to stay away from.

I have a few movies waiting to be watched: Hawking and Rockstar being on the top of the list. Tho, some how Death in Paradise, The Amazing Spiderman and The Dark Knight Rises were the ones that got watched. 

Hey show you something? I miss Bhai saying that to me, like he did for these songs:





and listening to them made me more homesick than all the dramas in my life could. Talking about songs, you might enjoy this one as well.

And finally about the souvenirs: 

Being a bit aware about the story telling of the Mahabharata in the traditional story telling forms (OK, just Kathakali actually) I know that different characters look different to each other.

So, in spite of the fact that I find Wayang Puppets quite beautiful, I couldn't bring one home because I couldn't be sure if I was inviting Krishna home or Dushasana? Finally, a nice article that explains,

"These puppets come in all shapes and sizes from the squarish brutish forms of the giants, 'raksasa', to the smaller fine limbed figures representing highly cultured kings and nobles. Some are grotesques. In fact every part of a puppet's design has symbolic significance.Different shaped eyes and noses denote such qualities as nobility, patience, crudeness, steadfastness, strength, loyalty, clownishness or wisdom. There are about 25 varieties of headdress to represent priests, princes, fighters, queens deities, kings or gods. 

Looking for Wayang Kulit on the Internet re-introduced me to the face masks I saw everywhere. Now of course I find that "Southeast Asian masks traditionally, represent people, demons and deities. They are cultural icons that help preserve tradition, religion and history."  

I just ended up buying a mirror with similar art work on it, and pen sketch of a village scene. Who would have thought buying souvenirs is serious business!!

*Given my recent experience with some very prosaic lawyers I read the book a lot differently than I would have in the past. In the past lawyers meant Vallabh Bhai Patel, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Clarence Darrow, Clinton, Obama, my uncle and cousins; now I know there a lot more of them like the ex-husband.  

upon my word

It comes (maybe again) and eight months into the year; the word for this year has been:

feral*

*with emphasis on the following meaning - "having escaped from domestication and become wild"

List...

Umm, so I'd like a pair of binoculars, a pocket camera with a good zoom and a tablet. I'd also like to book some surfing lessons and while I am at it, some sailing lessons too!  

Images

 Thanks, I had a good break.