Bindu

Did you know that writing sometimes felt good simply because it led us to switch from one part of our brain to another? From the chaotic, parallel processing part of the brain to the serial processing part of the brain and helps restore order to our thoughts? have you ever tried to solve a problem that wasn't? If you have, you would know that one can never win that war and that it leads your brain to shred itself to pieces. During my PhD research I realised that finding an answer is the easy bit, defining the question is what takes talent, skill and thought.


So, completely unrelated to anything else, let me tell you a story from a while ago, probably 1998. I was in high school at the time, and the way it worked at our school was that every morning during assembly 2 students, by roll call numbers, would stay back and clean the class rooms. It was my turn just after the weekend, and I think we must have had our class room used as an examination centre. Anyway, I was emptying out the cupboard and refilling the chalks and the regular stuff when I found the following just lying in there.

It was one of the most mesmerising things I had ever laid my eyes on; I felt it was too precious for me to steal so I left it there and I would come back every day and look at it. But a few days later it disappeared. I am not sure how many years later but I found out about S H Raza and realised that someone had done a really good job copying that painting.

Who knows how our brain functions and why a good story* and beautiful art resonates with us so much?


*Reminds me of someone saying that a story is true in intent rather than in facts.

Resolution for the year 2014

is a rather easy* and nice one, in my opinion...

I am going to grow my hair for the year and then donate it for a wig for someone with cancer

At that point, I will get a hair cut like this:

*and not a difficult and good one like one that requires me to give up on my hang-ups - of which I have plenty and that I don't know what to do with, because it is so difficult to give up on stuff at times!

And this is barely one half of it

Recently I have been reading books about the mind, including,
Carol Tarvis and Elliot Arsonson's Mistakes were made (but not by me!)
Oliver Sack's Musicophilia
Charles Duhigg's The Power of Habit
Ekhart Tolle's The Power of Now
Alan Wallace's The Attention Revolution
Jill Bolte Taylor's famous TED talk - My stroke of insight

Andrew Soloman's also famous TED talk - Depression, the secret we share
Swami Nikhilananda's commentary on the Bhagvad Gita

 

The over all impression, if it can be called that, has reminded me of two stories from my past: In one, I was a wee little girl and my uncle was showing me and my brother and my cousins the stars; at some point as I wasnt sure which star he was pointing at I tried pointing my torch towards it.
The other story is when either in a science class or thru a science book I learnt that the most solid things are only mostly empty space and a teeny tiny may-be something moving really fast.

Below are excerpts from Richard Feynman's poem, that put it rather well:

 

 here it is
 standing:
 atoms with consciousness;
 matter with curiosity.

Stands at the sea,
 wonders at wondering: I
 a universe of atoms
 an atom in the universe.

 

Then I learnt to doubt my senses, now I have learnt to doubt my mind. I am realising more and more that this is a tool, and it tends to behave in certain ways and it has pretty massive blind-spots and limitations, that it is fantastic at disguising them. That it hates confusions and knowledge vacuums so it imagines knowledge when it can't find it; that attention is a curiosity, at least where I am standing - while some talk about the present moment being nirvana (Jill Taylor's talk for e.g..), Oliver Sack's Musicophilia talks about extreme cases of amnesia where every moment seems the first moment of one's awakening - the person who experienced it found it a torture, and then funny - what is it about humour? Bill Watterson said it via Hobbes the Tiger: 'I suppose if we couldn't laugh at things that don't make sense, we couldn't react to a lot of life.' I think that only one these two is true: either we are constantly making decisions or we are constantly defending decisions and trying to keep regrets and confusions out of our lives, so that they dont keep us awake. I am not certain we know which one it is. 

 

Strangely, we manage okay in a world that that is counter-intutive, we have adapted by learning habits that are now counter-intutive too. Soloman in his talk mentions an experiment where they found that depressed people were found to be more accurate about data than non-depressed people. Swami Vivekananda said long ago that 'extremes appear alike'; and so it is either the depressed or the Buddhas who see the world for what it really is.    

  
  
 

it is no good...

I am a bit peeved today - I wanted this job as a researcher at the Greenpeace and I did not even get called for an interview! It is just most perfect time to write a letter to my 15 year old self to explain that whatever she was doing, well, doesn't quite work out as well as I would have liked it.

 

The grief of the moment is that my job does not do anything to help me express the purpose of my existence - if there is any such thing as the purpose of my existence! My job and my apartment feel less like space to be the best I can be and more like thoughtless obstructions and gosh I cannot wait to get rid of them!  

 

It is incredibly sad, because I work with some very admirable people and it makes me feel very guilty for not doing as well as I would like to; my city is beautiful and my apartment is in a nice spot gets a fair bit of sun and would be perfection itself if only it had this teeny-tiny bit more room (really, I don't think anyone should have to think so deep and hard about an extra sweater! let alone finding space to be able paint and play) and I could have a pet! Rationally it seems like a disproportionate response to things falling short by such a small margin but I am imploding where I am and, now, I can't seem to escape!

who are we?

A friend acted completely out of character while under the influence of alcohol, and I am left wondering - who are we?

"we" are nothing - empty space and pure awareness. we are like a play of light, atoms moving fast enough, thoughts moving fast enough - and we start believing in the illusion of a solid physical body and an doer and enjoyer... but there is no one but I; there is I.

My Books and Movies of 2013

In the life and times of me, 2012 was the year I bought an ebook reader, a snazzy thing with a touch-screen and a case with an awesome reading light on it. It has remained unused and has finally been passes on by me to more savvy relatives who can install calibre and read wonderful books - I have gone on to get a relatively cheap-o Kindle, 6" at that, bought at a discount, without a case (I intend to keep it like that!) and read a whole lot more books that I have actually wanted to read. (I have perhaps sold my soul to the devil of monopoly, but bought a really well designed device that means I get to read more!)
My usual things is to list the books I read in any year, movies that I watched in any year. But 2013 was a very long year; I can barely remember parts of it and it is also the year where a lot of books were only half-read, blasphemy, i know!
Here is a list of books I did end up reading, including reading up to yesterday, in no particular order:
1. The fault of our stars by John Green (in the US)
2. The happiest refugee by Ahn Do
3. The Cuckoo's Calling by J. K. Rowling or Robert Galbraith (in the US)
4. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
5. The Power of Now by Ekhart Toole
6. The Game of Thrones by George RR Martin
7. Call for the dead By John Le Carr
8. Lost Cat: A True Story of Love, Desperation, and GPS Technology by Caroline Paul, Wendy MacNaughton (Illustrations)
9. Banker To the Poor by Muhammad Yunus (in the US)
10. He did it: Swami Chinmayanada by The Chinmaya Mission
11. Lectures on the Bhagavad Gita by Swami Vivekandanda
12. Guitar Zero: The New Musician and the Science of Learning by Gary Marcus
(Not going to mention the part-read!)

The movies watched in 2013:
1. Gravity (of course)
2. Blue Jasmine
3. Before Midnight
4. The World's End
5. Silver Linings Playbook
6. About Time
7. The Hobbit - Part 2
8. Lootera

The most interesting (and currently persisting) discoveries were: Brain Pickings; Twitter; Kindle; ColorNote (Awesome app); lolmythesis!!
PS: If I am able to recover my goodreads password, i might add to the book lists! hopefully! ;)
Update: Looking up goodreads only added one more book (see no. 12), sadly.

on the Bhagvad Gita

It is not for the lack of attempts that I have not been able to write about the Bhagvad Gita; it is simply that I never manage to say it clearly or completely enough. Maybe I should simply give up the attempt, forward people to a few of the most popular talks on the Gita or direct them to my favourite and then go on and say however more or less I wish to say. 

I heard the lectures on the Bhagvad Gita by Swami Nikhilananda; and they resonated with me completely. They were completely comforting emotionally; satisfying intellectually and they ran true thru my experiences in life. The lectures did not contradict my experiences in life, they were in completely in harmony with them and they made them complete - does it sound as baffling to you, as it did to me? Can you imagine a text written 5000 years ago, being read and commented upon by someone living across in another continent not only anticipating my experiences, but also giving them a well rounded completeness - that gave me harmony and peace and growth in my life? One would think, I am like an apple falling to the ground from a tree, wondering how could Newton all those many years ago anticipate my entire trajectory of motion and even explain it? (I am genuinely sorry if this sounds fatalistic to you - it isn't, because I am not my mind or my thoughts or my intellect or my decisions or my body - these are all subject to laws of nature, as much as that apple falling to the ground; I am not nature, I am only in love with it, totally identified with it.)  

The beauty of Gita is that it starts where you are, it lovingly accepts you - I am sure I will never get over the fact that Gita was a guidance given to a friend, and just listening to the names that Shree Krishna has for Arjuna makes me grateful for the simple profound love that He has for us, and the faith in our abilities that He has - and since I refuse to believe Him to be lying, you and I must be capable of great feats, indeed. I could wax on and rather ineloquently (given the subtlety of the topic and its beauty) about the beauty of the Karma Yoga and the stages of growth of the human personality - that, in harmony with the universe, also corresponds with the harmony and beauty in the universe. What I found most fascinating (tho in hindsight it might be obvious) that anyone who has given their experiences and the world any thought has come to conclusions that can be seen in one form or another in the Gita - whether a socialist is talking about Yagna as the means to benefit humanity, or John Steinbeck talking about the might of nature and Ishwara that moves creatures helplessly to their own deaths or any of the others. The incomparable beauty of Gita is that she takes all these ideas and shows how they fit and tell you how to use them like tools, with understanding of their strengths and purposes - the incomparable beauty of Gita is that it is Complete.