Mind Trap

Choice, the most powerful tool,

a human being has, 

Choosing mind over life, is the mistake I made,

and the time has come to correct it,

Mind is not just a word, but it has many layers,

But all shying away from loosening the grip,

A machine running forever, 

knowing not how to stop,

burning itself away recklessly, 

the mind is that machine,

creating miracles but trapping itself out,

the grip over it loosening out,

the smarter I become, the more difficult it is , 

to get rid of insane bombarding of thoughts, 

and supreme divergence of attention,

the restlessness of the mind getting out of control,

almost like a car without breaks, 

start to think in one flow,
it pulls you somewhere else,
it learns to self reward its behavior
and avoid high speed highway of thoughts,
because once it goes beyond a pitch,
it becomes uncontrollable
and even sleep doesn't help,
therefore it stays in safer zones,
never testing its best limits,

I know I need to give it a break,

but the fear of loosing it stops me from putting breaks when needed,

the fear of losing the ability gained, 

the fear of being dumb if brakes are put,

what if car never starts again once the breaks are put ? 

but anyways death is certain,
and anyways the clarity wont come unless the breaks are put,
so why keep avoiding this snoozing ?

One of the choices is, to get it engaged in physical pleasures,

fuck the world and just ease it out, live a simple life,

but the mind will lost of its abilities, never able to take up difficult challenges,

weak and timid will it stand,

unable to bear the practical pressures,

it will become hobo,

Other choice is to get rid of emotions,

become a robot, and care not of anything else,

but the loss of sensitivity will restrict the inference,

but the lifelessness of thoughts will itch you,

and the inability of grip over thoughts will still be there,

the mind will become maniac, which needs some logical food,

all the time,

But there is another choice, 

which has risks, 

but worth it,

It is to snooze the brain elements for some time,

Somewhere we all know, than unless the cat comes out of box,

it can never see the full picture, and still it chooses to stay in box,

you can't expect to become everything unless you break the box of your something,

the cage of identity has to be foregone, for the true magic of experience to happen,

fear of loosing mind, is also stopping you from using it totally,

it is blurring the clarity by adding too many ripples in water,

The mind is not just the thoughts you are conscious of,

it also has endless associations trained by memory surrounding you in form of unconscious processes,

it also has the strong sense of identity, an acquired flavor of logic,

it also has centers of emotional  and hormonal responses, 

abilities to cognize,

but we have a choice of becoming a slave of this wonderful tool,

or rise above it, to use it when required, and be free rest of the times,

cause the mind will always be tensed and desperate,

never finding its finer expression,

it will always keep gobbling between thoughts here and there,

unless, it is rested well, snoozed off when required, 

untill the mind is greater than life,

the mind will never be life,

but when life becomes greater than mind in priority,

a new ease and clarity emerges,
this is not about being impractical,
it is about being able to consciously relax to the best,
to be able to participate in the game totally

Fulfillment

In clandestine castle,
I decorated my guilty pleasures,
I fired with the blasts of my likes
and cried with attacks of my dislikes,
such a happening palace, with colors so bright,
All my wishful thinking coming alive,
but the palace started seeming hollow,
as the comfort started itching me,
the satiating success became curse,
the palace I decorated became my golden prison,
It was like a dead beautiful lady,
a lifeless grandeur,

until one day, I realized that,
the true magic of palace can only be touched,
by the one who is truly homeless,

So I broke the shackles,
of my likes and dislikes,
to become no body,
just doing my work,

people take up family,
they lose some freedom,
but stitch a few lives around

 but when people take up world,
they lose themselves,
aches and nakharas loose their charm,
in front of integrity unmatched,
they just focus on what they have taken up,
and build it brick by brick, as they lose themselves more,
they become part of everything.

the hollow yet colorful palace will always,
spoonfeed you with the soup  of individuality,
but you have to be aware of the larger family you have took up,
and surrender all small, all big, all silly, all important,
surrender this little being not because I wrote it,
rather its because, this is the way to highest fulfilment,
to become nothing and hence claim everything,
But till you are not ready,
you can continue playing with your little toys,
no harm in it, but you will cage yourself too :)
the ferris wheel in all its glory is always right next to you :)

Needless and Sleepless

In the girth of meditativeness,
I touch a place, soo strange,
where all noises in head settle,
and I hear this quite soo loud.
Almost like in a movie,
where loud screams and sequence of fast forward,
is followed by unusual silence,
Such difficult is it,
to express the quality of silence,
which is beyond words,
silence beyond words,beyond thoughts,
fearless silence penetrating much deeper.
melting and metamorphizing being,
making us experience life beyond,
race,rush,rising and falling,
needless and yet fully awake,
aliveness felt like I am getting younger,
uncaged of few cyclical patterns of mind for moment,
needless and sleepless at same time,
intense without being tense,
all oxymorons coming together,
the basic premise of comparing two things,
is having opinions, prejudices,
liking or disliking something,
having different colors of emotions,emotions,prejudice,
sticking to different thing,
all seems to settle down,
beaten down into silk of clarity,
seemed like big needful break,
from neverending drama,
both beautiful and ugly,
on multiple levels,
without me even realising that there is a way,
to observe it, not just logically,
but by yardstick of experience,
and clarity beyond my nasty cocooning drive,
seem to creep into for few moments.
and still, a lot yet to be clear,
but bewildered by these moments

A Question

Even though I have disagreements and agreements with sadhguru, I respect him for the fact, that he planted a quest, a curiousity about life, what is life? What the hell is this creation. Now science is using logic to get close to it, but there is an experiencial way.

But at the same time, he has re-ignited a question which grows in me with time. I never payed enough attention to this question which was already there. Question is "What is life, what is death, what is what?  And by my experience in Artificial Intelligence which is quite limited, I feel that even though I may understand the patterns logically, the possibility, that I may be able to experience something fantastic goes away"

Even before sadhguru had come in my life, or Paramahamsa Yogananda, or Vivekananda, I had this question in my heart. What is life ? See, if you start believing in any theory or any person, this torment will go away. But the problem is, that you will never know. It is very easy for me to believe in sadhguru or vivekananda, and give lecture to 10 other people, but the difficulty is that I will never know. 

believing is inversely proportional to knowing. 

But yes, it doesn't mean, in this torment, I have rejected the yoga. Inner Engineering and Hatha Yoga programmes have worked tremendously for me, and thats why I practice it. Especially, It gave me an important perspective into how simple things like  sitting properly, standing properly, breathing properly, sleeping properly, eating properly can turn life upside down. Properly does not solely means discipline as such, it is more about awareness.  Otherwise gym people would be lone spiritual people. 

Disengaging from 5 senses has been pivotial for me. I think we do see in documentaries, how a blind person can allocate his auditory senses for visual cortex. That means they can see sounds. Similarly, if possibly, if we can create calm and control our mind and breath to a point, I am sure, we may experience something which senses don't let us know. Especially when I am deeply meditative, in awareness, I can observe, how my mind is constantly vomiting out judgements, prejudices, (good or bad reward) about every image, every sound, every sensation. In this deeply meditative states, if I succumb to these divisions setup, the intensity drops.  It feels something like harry potter last movie, what dumbledore said "It is happening in your mind, but doesn't mean it is not real".  It seems at that point that if I can disengage my mind from adding the colors of my personal biases and prejudices to anything that I see, hear, or sense , I will be able to have a clearer and true perspective of things. And whats least distracting that silence and darkness itself ?

I understand sadhana that you learn from any reasonably good place is means to empower your body and mind from disengaging personal biases, in order to have clarity. 

Don't ever underestimate these biases. Mind can trick you more than you can even imagine. For Machine learning students, It is like a steady state probabilistiic graphical model constantly running. Even if we remove past in steady state, the present is still carrying information of past transitions , necessery to take future action. It needs to be seperated from the graph in order to get away from the conditional inferences. 

But what happens is that,  people don't disengage the personal biases, they rather empower it, and then things turn into blind belief and andh bhakti. This is because once you start disengaging, even stupid things start magnifying. Even small bias becomes magnified. Like in movies, even small emotions starts amplifying.  So closing eyes is like watching movies, whats on screen is your projection of belief. It becomes magnified. If you don't beat it constantly, it will grow rapidly. If you don't attach importance to these biases, they die down. 

See as soon as you become blind believer in any theory or person, you stop being seeker. 

You should learn yoga, but with an unprejudiced mind. It is difficult to not believe, it is very convinient to linger on to your assertions, but a true spiritual seeker is not concerned about convinience, he is concerned about truth, and keeping his mind unprejudiced. He/She derives the strength and guts by this storm. If he gives up, and lingers to any belief, he becomes another believer, and storm slowly dies.

But I do sense, that there are some bhaktas who are not andhbhaktas, they are simply mad by emotions. They raise the madness to a point that all the barriers of prejudice goes away. That is another smart way of getting rid of prejudice and see beyond.  It is like creating a tornado which destroys the city of mental prejudices in your head. 

Once these structures start falling with awareness iand intensity intact (which is not so in sleep, or drugs), there comes time, when we start becoming aware of unconscious, subconscious. But after those structures are also disengaged a bit. If you sit and breath in right way, with eyes closed, the intensity of silence drizzles through you.
It is not some right brain thing (which can be obtained by snoozing left brain), because rightbrain can give you experience of boundlessness, it will create a crack in conscious to go into unconscious, but will not give you experience beyond the the thick sheath of unconscious mind. Left brain needs to be used as a tool to beat down the unconscous of right brain. But left brain alone, or right brain alone , doesn't work. Thats what I sense. I don't believe it totally, but this is just the projections of my thoughts.

It is in this state, buddhist monks can rewire thier brain to feel pain as pleasure, to keep heart rate very low in harsh conditions, if necessary. It is an active experiencial process.

But there is something even more tormenting than this. That something more, where we may experience the most crude elemental form of existance which may be basis for this whole creation , what the striving is for. 

The striving is like breaking hydrocarbons untill it becomes carbon. It is like constantly beating the tricks until, the experience becomes elemental from compound forms. It is like knowing experiencally what is source to all creation (real or imaginary who knows? ). 

Maybe out and out rationalist can explain me this or write blog like me, but I will never know, Maybe some guru says this out loud, but I will never know. I will know only if become curious and strive to know it. And the way to this cannot start without beating down  or atleast not giving to much grass to senses. 

You cannot know how this one question has formed lump in my throat to a point of explosion, has zambered in points between my eyes, has made me observe different shades of silence, has made me super intense in silence, in ways that words cannot explain. The only thing I need to do I guess, is constantly beat my prejudices, constantly seek, constantly make an attempt to know, and yes do my sadhana regularly. 

I enjoy watching movies like you all, but I don't just enjoy these gutsy heros on screen, I attempt to make honest effort to address this question of "what is life, who am I, what is all this?" by beating down all prejudice and using sadhana as a cruching machine. (A machine which helps crunching the prejudices  to smaller chunks than before - atleast for few seconds to be honest) . But experiences in sadhana are big barriers, because you may want to settle for it. But like a true  filmy hero, you never settle untill we experience it all. Thats why , people are refrained from giving too much importance to intermediate experiences.

Well I just said what I honestly feel, if you want to linger to some belief and stay comfortable, go ahead and live an IT life or scientist life or artist life. In last few moments of death, these questions will come, for sure. And who knows we may just be food for earthworms and there is no afterlife. Won't you want answers for what is life experiencially? would you settle for logical explainations or would you be wanting to experience?  rather than believing in any religion, person, ideology, texts etc, remind yourself of last moments befoe death ? - Then you don't need any blogs, any thing else if you just remind yourself of death.  It may sound gloomy, but are you interested in facing the truth or are you interested in dodging yourself?

Needs and Deeds

Our dreams don't fall short,

Our desire, swirls around,

we do good things,

and the good things do us,

we start something,

but end up getting trapped by it,

why is everything we take up,

enslaving us,  and is not liberating,

 I am exercising freedom to do, think?

but why is this freedom becoming my very bondage?

Because, our deeds get latched on to our needs,

the deeds are fine, but the needs are the problem,

In the trap of needs, we just entertain in needs,

not seek a way out, 

Needs can't go by control,

rather they grow and florish,

by cycles of control and release, 

Like you try controling your emotional urges,

one day, two days, third day it will come out louder than before,

so control won't help,

The trap can be set free if you latch on to something higher,

If you latch yourself to intensity and logic, emotional urges will fade away,

But even logic is next set of trap,

because you start by thinking,

but end up thinking more than doing,

the thinking becomes need and thats where the problem lies,

The needs in the deeds,

freezes all that is,

all possibilities frozen,

without transcending needs,

So what should we latch on to?

thoughts, emotions, energy,laughter?

what?

have you considered latching on to nothing but with intensity?

If the roots are steep in nothingness,
It is not dullness, because dullness is bondage,
dullness is a heavily guarded trap,
a trap hard to undo,

we are talking about intense nothingness,
and the actions performed with awareness,

it doesn't become a need anymore,

it like, you tamed the monster sitting in your head,

to sit bellow you, 

by latching yourself to something better,

and now the thoughts and actions are not urges,

but rather a conscious act, with awareness,

the insecurities, the needs are no longer propelling,

But yes, you have to fight a monster,

before you take this up,

fear of loosing everything,

fear of unbecoming what you have become,

fear that you won't be same anymore,

the fears are correct, but incorrect at the same time,

even if you don't fear, you do shed your body, and loose it all,

even if you don't fear, the old age ties you up, and pulls you down,

so why not put it down anyway?

Cause you never loose  what was prior by going higher,

You only dwarf it down tremendously by getting something better,

Is is right to get something better, and let the old get cornered?

Yes!, if the new is really better, why not?

But the beauty of the this highest thing is, 

you don't actually loose anything,

it is just that the intensity and the needs become unlatched, untangled,

and thus you enjoy even the moments which seemed dull before,

everything becomes yours, not just few things,

once you split apart intensity and needs,

but it takes effort, it takes time,

thats why inner engineering,

and the inner solitude which may seem to be killing you initially,

distancing yourself from things around, if not possible (which is obvious case for most including me) ,

at least realizing when the needs are taking charge,

cause you will find more than 95% acts sprouting out of needs,

and you realize what a prisoner you are,

without even knowing that you are in prison,

this uncertainty, this repulsion, these things will settle down, 

and the seeming poison, will transform into most wonderful nectar,

the more you are aware, the faster will this happen,

the more you feel intensity in closed eye by sadhana,

the process of transformation will be catalyzed,

and one day, you become free,

truly free, but it is not a logical dictat to be truly free,

a person like me, can talk all this garbage in poem, knowing intellectually this stuff,

but still not free, 

it has to be worked upon,

and has to be in experience of life,

that't my poem on needs and deeds,

and twain unlocked shall make you truly free

Why sanyaas

Before even writing, let me tell you, that this is the most difficult article I am writing. Difficulty with me is that no matter how much I try, it can be mis-construed and misinterpret in millions of ways. 

As a loving child of parent, if you say out of your thirst to know, that I wan't to take sanyas. Bellow are the questions which will pop out.

1. What kind of defeatist mindset have you gotten into?

2. He/She is definitely hypnotised by someone.

3. I think one week break will do, rest of your life is too much. It may sound romantic, but it isn't so.

4. Change your job

5. For techie and data-scientist like you, who has struggled soo much , and has immense potential, it doesn't suit you. You are  wasting your potential.

6. You can do great things in world without taking sanyaas too. Its just an excuse, you do get enough free time.
7. You are soo happy and successful, then why sanyaas?

For a girl, I can't even think of numerous extra hard-hitting points which parents and society can add. Friends may not stay friends, family may not stay family. And marriage is bigger pressure for girl.

Leaving these questions aside for a moment, lets ponder around, what is soo tempting about sanyaas anyways? And why is it difficult to explain ? 

Lets say you are concentrating on the ball in cricket, and aiming a shot,  by trying to be aware of fielders, you will seem little slow in terms of hand,leg and eye movement. you may not move much, in order to be prepared for ball, and then imagine another lazy guy who is all filled with food, little dizzy trying and aiming shot at the ball. He will also seem to be a little slow, isn't it? And from a third person's view, both will look same isn't it? 

Now in cricket, you atleast have a score in match to prove your worth, but same is not in sanyaas. Both highest and lowest always have similarity. Parallels can be easily drawn. And this is the biggest problem. For example, the tallest of scientists are always as humble and as simple living  as a rookie who is not able to earn a penny because of his unwillingness.  There can be any number of analogies.
The essential reason for this similarity is because of the fundamental reason, that you refuse to gather (gather info, gather friends, gather success, gather memories, gather recognition, gather xyz) when your energies crosses a particular threshold, and you also don't gather if your energy level is bellow a particular threshold. Only in middle, you want to gather as much as you can. But a famous sage rightly said, life is slanting for a reason, you can slide down or slide up, but can't stay in middle endlessly. 

This definition of up and down is again convoluted social affair. For typical cultured Indian family, sexual arousal is sin, but shopping spree, talking endlessly on nonsensical topics is not sin.
For American family, it is otherway around. Not talking about sex is considered out of league. You don't fit in, unless you have a few girlfriends/boyfriends in present/past, etc.
Nothing is right or wrong, family people have their compulsions of family emotions, scientists have their own compulsions of sounding logical and intellectual, prostitute has his/her own compulsions, a good middle class person has his/her own compulsions. A middle class person will make sure he gets the taste of things, but always fear to go beyond and explore or go beyond and leave it.

Let me attempt to explain society scientifically. If I am thrown into a world where I have only seen people writing with legs, you also start writing with your leg. Now I don't have anything against leg. But lets suppose that someone starts writing with his bare hands, because he discovers that he is more comfortable. First thing is social isolation. People will say, writing with hands is wrong. Our scriptures don't allow it. People will say, writing with hands is not natural, are you trying to grab attention?

Yearning for society and social approval simply means, either you want to make everyone like you, or you want to brainlessly follow a group of people or you want an endorsement of your limitations from a bunch of people who are also suffering from similar limitations. You want a community because you assume that something is great, or something is important emotionally or logically, and now you want to meet more people like you, to add more voices. It is like Multiplication. It feels nice, because it adds power and approval to your lifestyle but it also pulls you back if you want to move either up or down.

It is like this, If you have collected 2 TB movies with crime genre. But after 1 year, you realize that art genre or horror genre movies are better, and crime genre movies are useless, you still won't delete those movies. You will keep watching them(crime genre movies), not because you like them, but because you are used to it. You just get soo much used to it, that doesn't matter what shit is the past, you will romanticize it, you will beg for it, not because it is great, but because you are used to it.

But has it ever happened that if you watch childhood movies, you can't stand it for more than 5 minutes? Does that  mean, those movies meant nothing to you when you were child? Does that mean, you don't enjoy and understand those childhood movies anymore? But you move on, don't you?

Let me tell you something about me. I am not as great, but I did had wonderful moments. For me, I had crush on algebra. The beauty of  paradoxes, especially time frequency, in terms of hilbert, banach spaces still fascinate me. The ways I had visualized fourier is still fresh in my mind. I had fortune of having Prof. Samaresh Chatterjee as my professor during my BTech. He is descendent of Newton in teacher student chart. Cayley Hamilton came somewhere as his direct/indirect teacher. He had a typical donald duck face with nerdy specs and sweaty body. He was unmarried and had slightly bend spine, with pants slightly above normal waistline. As far as I can recall, his age was above 68 back then and was a fan of beatles. Besides these personality traits, one of the most interesting trait in him was his curiosity and intensity with which he propounded vector spaces or more fundamentally, functional spaces.

His Linear Algebra course was already soo tough with 104 lemmas and proofs, that Advanced Linear Algebra course was out of question for most of the students. Only 3 students took the Advanced Linear Algebra Course, I being one of it.
The course was in early morning and in many classes, I was the only students. More than mere numbers, this guy instigated a spectacular imagination of abstract mathematics is my mind. I was like I could breath algebra back then. I used to skip a beat at times, the way he introduced new topic. The thing with him was that mathematics was larger than life for him, and I could feel that intensity.
Same was the case with Stochastic Random Processes course. At times, I used to get soo involved that I would speak the answer, even before the question is asked, anticipating it. Lectures were like my matinee movies.

Same happened with my anthropology class. When I first heard the concept of chiaroscuro, (light and dark), I was fascinated beyond measure. I asked my teacher is supposed to be one of the torchbearers of Indian animation, why jan svankmajer movies are dark  and unclear? She told me something which is mother of all mystery. She asked me "What is more powerful, light or dark? " even as I was contemplating, she told me, "Its the darkness", if this whole room is lit up, there is nothing much to observe for you, but if we switch off the light, and something crawls over your hand, now that's film noir for you.

Lets say you have glass wall separating shop from footpath. On one side there is a mysterious object, and on other side there is a person looking from otherside of glass towards that mysterious object. The task as a cinematographer you are given is to see how you can evoke sense of horror in film. Now, how would you shoot such horror scene?

A good cinematographer will not shoot the object, he/she will rather shoot the eyes of the person looking at that object, the rustling sound of wind, the change in weather, etc. Everything EXCEPT the object. It is the hiding, the darkness that creates curiosity, that sense of mystery. It is not about the object, it is about the sense of mystery that is evoked which is important. Now what has this to do with sanyaas? The thing is that, it made me understand that object of stimulus is not important, it is the experience and intensity that it evokes.  In the glimmering light of everything bright, maybe everything is missed. Thats why the cinema have lights off, so that everything in your life for those two hours is that movie. And you know how much intensity it produces.

Imagine the intensity of your life, if your attention can be stead-first like movies or even more, without lights off, without the intense music, because in meditativeness,  without any object there can be hairraising intensity. And then you find your old crushes like algebra or filmmaking worth nothing, because you have found a more efficient and intense yet balanced way of experiencing life.
Balance is essential because the intensity is skyrocking. It is like if you have to walk on rope between two mountain peaks, the intensity is deafening, and balance becomes absolute necessity. Balance is not required , because you want morality or schooling or constipated ideas of right and wrong imbibed, but balance is required so that you can absorb and hold this intensity without breaking down and also without toning down.

Have you seen that when you are in balanced  state of breath, you can watch 3 to 4 movies back to back without loss of intensity, but in rush , you can't even enjoy 10 minute clip, you skip through it. Has it not happened?


Machine Learning and Artifical Intelligence are undenyably most fascinating developement of this decade. Interesting thing is that I am fortunate enough to see the birth of this wave, which gives me good insights into what is going into it. I was one of few labs in India, who got access to Tesla GPUs for Deep Learning. I remember the setup of Caffe, and power of deep learning unfold. Working into projects involving autonomous agents, music synthesis, modelling visual attention, chatbots and neural machine translation,  etc in a span of 2 years in nothing less than a forturne for me. Do note, that it is not just reading papers, but actually working on them!  But I still see through the limitations of these powerful possibilities.

It is definitely going to rule the world in this century, but people will get tired with explanations of phenomenon. Longing to experience is bound to grow. Augmented Reality, Drugs, mutated humans with superior genes, etc possibilities are bound to grow.
But just like changing the clothes doesn't make you any better, similarly changing limitations or compulsions from social to antisocial to drugs doesn't make you any better or worse.

Experience has multiple aspects to it. Drugs may give you taste of borderlessness, but can cripple you for life. Intensity without balance can be troublesome. It is like giving knife to child. Only if you can generate this absolute drunkness and abandon from womb of silence, that it can sustain its impact without the crippling. It is like being absolutely aware and sensitive to everything around and still being drunk in meditativeness. But in substance abuse, the drunkness and madness is there but the sensitivity is destroyed. Does that mean you should ban drugs or endorse drugs? No ! It is just that damage by it can be irreparable at times if not within limits. I don't like to see things as good and bad. Good is also bad for me. Good and bad are nothing but different colors. Spiritual quest is to move beyond colors, into the absolute womb of nothingness which holds everything.

Just as I wrote the last line,I realize that again people will make judgement about nothingness. Is silence after earthquake different from silence in the sunday afternoon? Is the silence after breathtaking performance different from silence after having full meal? Yes right? Similarly nothingness is not actually nothing! Intensity of silence is loudest scream you can have. I have seen some glimpses in people , how intense they are in silence. If you observe them , it can flip the world in your head.

My reasons for Sanyaas

1. Why not?

If a child becomes an engineer there is no hassle. Why? Because it is having that sweet spot of clinical cliche where you are becoming serious and earning hard money with mechinical masculine approach. Society loves it ! It is like becoming middleclass godfather.
But sanyaas means, "My baby needs care". This is because concept of sanyaas is fucked up by frauds and charlatans , especially in India where you have disco baba, golden baba, nude baba, xyz baba or baby, who just sap upon the crippled people. Sadly these kind of people are the ones who grab eyeballs of media and come in limelight. If this was not enough, because of current nature of media which is just about pulling everyone down, and this hunger for TRP and cosponsering that condescending tone of reporting of  good folks  has become inevitable. News has become like a food platter for all angry and frustrated people.  But there are wonderful people too. Many in limelight for both right and wrong reasons, many not in limelight at all.
Sanyaas is not a hippy paradise or a dungeons cage, It is the highest pursuit which I can speak unflinching, after collaging different memories and patching bits and peices of little I know. I know, I don't know a hell lot.

2. What is better tool for growth?

Let us say I want to go out of the door in house. One way is to not even try and cry about it. Another ways is to try to hit but not hard enough. Third way is to try to hit the door, but making sure that your hands are not hurt. Forth way is to not even try to open the door, and just look through the window and enjoy. Fifth way is to find the key to door and open it. The fifth way is most efficient.

World you see is different based on how you percieve it. I look at same apple very differently than how my mother looks at it or my brother looks at it. Now If I am really dumb, and people yell at me that you need to bit smart, it doesn't work. If they teach me the ways to be smart, it may work till an extend, but If I learn to be more aware, I will very quickly push through one level of existence. 

Tell me, should I work on
A) awareness ?
B) work on peoples advices and improve incrementally ?
C) don't care ?
Answer is obviously option A.

 So spirituality is working on roots, Working on awareness is much more efficient and fast. If you want to make fundamental changes in your perception, better work on your physical and mental faculties directly rather than wasting time with unguarenteed methods.
 In that sense, yogic practices are super efficient ways of nurturing the roots of perception.
 There are many mountaineers who will agree that because of yoga, they could keep their heart rate lower than normal with same efficiency which helped them in surviving harsh climates. Books or physical activity doesn't directly translate into altering of  fundamental nature of perception.
 You can be good coder after solving tens of thousands of errors and writing millons of lines of codes or you can become good coder after just few hundred of errors and more than a hundred  program files, if awareness is worked upon by meditation.
 I am not saying meditation is just about awareness, it is much more than that, but the point I am raising is that spirituality is not about getting crippled.

Sanyaas for me is not about leaving everything or gaining everything, it is about doing what is necessary to unfold the clarity of perception bang on rather than beating the bush around. This urgency is because life is limited and we don't know what can happen even this day. 

3. Deception of Fulfilment

Fulfilment is a tricky thing, especially if things have not happened your ways and now suddenly you are on fast track, you start thinking, this is the way. The pace of your growth is what determines the destination, rather than the quality of your destination. But ultimately this urge to grow essentially comes from certain longing to exert power in world in different ways. It can be by Artificial Intelligence, or it can be by politics, or anything, which is not bad. It gives you a sense of fulfillment because you are successfully able to position yourself and able to do seemingly difficult tasks with extreme ease. Winning is always delectable. And winning in a race, growing and breaking boundaries is fantastic. But we become like that weaver bird, which is becoming successful, but still in limited sphere of life. And anything limiting before you die doesn't go well for spiritual seeker.



4.   Logic or Emotions are never the real reasons for Sanyaas, it is only from the urge to know what is what fundamentally. It is from urge to experience the fundamental source of existence.

If only I could express how I could experience things at certain moments, you would understand me. I think everyone reading blog should atleast meditate for half an hour daily to have some ground truth to compare with.

The dimension which I have just observed , not tasted much, is such that it seems something which is basis of everything, but doesn't even resemble to anything a bit. You may have yogis who are not emotional , you may have yogis who are not logical, because they don't care about any peripherals. If you have harley davidson bike, would you love to drive scooty ?

Many people shed away emotions to be come logical in order to be sucessful , many shed logic to become emotional to add colors to life, making it worth living. But spiritual person can shed everything and still be absolutely blissed out.


5. Helping People : My only hindrance

This rage about things not going well with people has always baffled me. Still, it makes me think, that if million people are hungry in world, how can I be taking such steps? But then I think of methods to address, It became more clear why meditativeness can contribute to society.

If I teach you all the cool stuff in Machine Learning, maybe you will get good job and get a purpose+meaning which is great, but fundamentally you will still be the same. Directly changing the fundamental faculties is what makes spiritual transmission most effective.

It is at times uncomfortable for me, to keep holding on to these symbolisms, these unnecessary dreams of past I had woven to shake the world with curiousity because I know that there are more effective ways.

It may sound crazy, but spirituality has capable of bringing about silent revolution. It may not produce any sound,  but it can transform you from within.

I think it is a huge mistake to think that if your dreams are fulfilled, your life will be settled.  In the outer dimensions, things only multiply. It is like Fractals in Mathematics. It repeats itself if you zoom in more. But it won't stop. You will only end up gathering more and more, but having no touch with true nature of your existance.

Even after poverty and hunger is gone from world, the world suffers immensely. Suffering is not because of deprevation of anything for a lot of affluent nations. 

But at the same time, we have crafted new worlds with comforts and conviniences which are more than a priviledge.

Even a middle class person in an affluent nation can build his/her own home theatre and enjoy all perks of life. Similarly a scientist can roar and collaborate  in scientific community like never before. But still, its not fulfilling, why?


Science, Short Films and Exercise

1. Science gives you knowledge, and rational tools to explore outside. Spirituality is science of exploring the inner subjective dimensions of human being. It is about experiential dimension. Plain logic will only give information, but yearning for systematic exploration of experiential dimensions will throb in human heart, when he is done with too much information, but too little richness of experience.

2. Short films and Live lectures for me, were medium, to explore and project the irrational and crazier part of existance. It does touch upon a few drops of experience emotionaly and the a viewer forgets about it. Plus, the projections of a director, are not same as the perception of the projection by the viewer. For example, if I project tiger in film, one person will think fierceness, another may simply be eating popcorn, third may get frightened, fourth may sleep off, fifth may be thinking about some boyfriend named tiger, sixth may become fierce like tiger. It is wonderful gift of nature, that even the same events are perceived with so much diversity in the human firmament of mind.

3. Physical Exercise has some degree of sameness of experience for most of the people but in general it just stays on the surface for physical benifits. Even the mental exercise largely attacks visual  memory,abstraction  and deductional capability. It still doesnt directly orient you to prepare for a deeper perception of life in general. You may have more colors because of better abstraction, but the colorless which is the basis of all color may get totally missed. This is because we are so busy sharpening the tools we already have that we miss whats beyond it.

These trio had me get even more wondering about what,why,how should I do?

Let me give poetic expression to the fire thats raging in me, because paragraph will definitely not do the justice . .  .


The creation soo gripping,

the pleasures soo fleeting,

the love soo intoxicating,

you whisper in my ears,

in a rythm of silence,

always,

but I hear it not,

but sometimes I get close,

This silence I feel is opposite of quiteness,

this silence is loudest scream and much more,

In this never ending chaos of world,

I sometimes have breaks,

but those breaks become stormier than storms,

they become soo strong, that they take form of silence,

To contain a storm forever,
without losing its madness,
and without losing the control,

requires a form of silence,

this sane insanity of having storm,

is just killing me,

but I am not yet killed,

because its tune is silent,

there are different kinds of songs,

we dance, we feel the beats, and go crazy,
but some songs don't even have sound,

cause the intensity of song is beyond words and sounds,

Everything seems to be changing,
at a superfast pace,
but the stillness also growing,
like a tornado creating havoc,
with eye/center of tornado surprisingly still,

for a lot of readers, this poem might be mumbo jumbo,

maybe it is, may be its not

 

Parting words

Why did I have to write such a long blog, ranting about whats in my head?  Its because of two reasons -
1. People think spiritual seekers are some kind of retards, depressed or escapist, which is what I needed to directly address. Even after all the dreams we weave, essentially most of us just end up getting a few ranks in company, publishing a few more research papers, getting a few golden moments of presenting to a serious like-minded/interested community, going for a few party, raising a kid (if married), eating, sleeping. It is soo predictible if you zoom out of your current perception and expand it to your past and future. It seems to me at times, that we are just fooling ourselves most of the time. Hope is lethally making us do the same silly things of past again and again , may be at different scale, and only when death starts kicking in, we suddenly baffle around as to what just happened? Multiplication of past soothes your mind, but hollows your curiosity to know.


2. Second reason is my parents,close friends and family
No matter what, our parents deserve the right to know what we are planning in long run. It may be easy for you to run away like "Into the wild movie", but for parents, it may bring so much of sorrow after you take such drastic steps. It may be difficult to inform and make them understand (atleast a bit)  why you are taking such steps, but still it is worthwhile. Societies of past were different, the individual freedom was not ensured. But in todays world, me and my mother+ society can differ in opinion and still co-exist without hassle. Those olden techiques of forceful marriage, intimdation, and forceful return are no longer applicable now. For parents, especially Indian parents, I have a message :
 "It is wonderful to having a loving warmth for your child. It is good to have people who genuinely care for you and vise versa in may cases. But caring about someone is one-thing, and forcing your opinions, becoming over-protective, inflated with supernatural emotions is another thing." Parents are like this, the don't mind if you waste your life by "doing the same shitty things of waking up, going to job, achieving a few targets and going to bed daily". In those scenerios they embrace this weakness. But as soon as you muster some courage and start to experiment with your life address the fundamental nature of life, or forget spirituality, even having a startup or becoming researcher with less pay, or becoming adventurer who travels the world risking life a bit, then they get all inflated in emotions. Especially Indian mothers think, it is their fundamental right to decide child's life trajectory ,  even after you cross 30s and sometimes even at 50s. And if child disagrees, you can push him, coax him, throw tantrums, create a big scene and get away with doing all these stupid things, just because you are a mother. I am not insulting motherhood. It is one of the most intimate and fulfilling gift to be a mother to a child. Indian mothers sacrifice their whole life without even giving single thought about how they should dress, how they should eat, how they should sleep. For them it is like, how should my child eat, how should he/she wake up, how should my child be happy. But this beautiful phenomenon turns ugly when they start thinking that they possess you just because you are born out of them. It is a serious mistake if they think, they have created a child. It is the biological fusion happening which has created the child. Mothers, you have fortune and privilege to be an instrument for a birth. It is fabulous to treat the child as a part of you, but you should also have an awareness that it is not you. Even two identical twins are not similar in traits that they posses.  So better not abuse this privilege of nurtering the child in womb that is provided. I know it is easier said than done, but some basic understanding has to sink in, otherwise it will kill all the wonderful possibilities that future generation has to offer.


Even after this thorough reasoning, I am not sure if I will be able to take sanyaas, but one thing is sure, my priorities have definitely toppled. I will keep preparing myself for this possibility. I will keep working on aspects such as balance and energy by meditation and hatha yoga. This is because I don't want to take such step and then return  back. But if ever, I know from within that time has come for this step, I will not hesitate.  Till then my wish is to bring this curiosity and this possibility to the people I  come in touch with , on a day to day basis.
I can only put forth the questions I linger with, the methods I have employed.

If spirituality was as intellectual process, I would have been first to read it. But I get a sense, that it is not so. And so, even if I can share my mind on the blog, it is impossible to replicate my experiences in words. This blog therefore is useless if you were expecting an answer for spiritual quest. Because answers are only words, and words have no significance in certain types of experiential dimensions.  But it is still worthwhile, because it can empower this quest to know. Someday you may take a few steps to discover so (which may be of actual significance in your life), which is why I am writing it.

My request to intellect soaked people is, don't judge yoga or meditation by how it is marketed, or how buttery or how bitter it is put forth. Try to take a step, by going for some yoga program (like Inner Engineering), or read this Inner Enginnering book which comes with some set of simple experiments.  Or if you are too sceptical of yoga programmes, then atleast wake up early , stay silent and observe your breath with spine erect with eyes and neck slightly upturn, during the dawn (4 am - 5 am) in morning. If even that is difficult, than atleast experiment with  staying silent - mentally and verbally, with eyes closed and spine erect during uber ride. I know an explosion of thoughts and/or emotions will dawn upon initally, but let it come and go, just don't over react, and thats perfectly fine.  But try this for at-least 3 months daily.   If you can not muster this much courage to transform your life, that means, you are not sincere enough to address the quest within you to discover the more fundamental nature of existence. And yes, don't become too dead serious, otherwise you will definitely miss a few wonderful experiences. I am telling this from my personal experience. However you can disagree with me too, as I still have a partial view.
I still havn't seen the complete picture. And different ways work for different people.

"Never look up to something, never look down at something" - Famous quote

Don't look up to this blog, don't look down at this blog. Similarly, if you experience something, dont try to exagerate it or undermine it. See it as it is. If you eulogize anything, you will distort it, if you undermine , you distort it.

"Never ever make major life decisions blindly relying on someone else or something else. Your decision should be 100% yours. Only then you will be able to face consequences with ownership and make better/worse choices according to your situation. It is like this. A fish,  can't imagine to live without water and so it can write blogs about staying in water endlessly, and humans cant imagine to stay in water. But if it blindly follows fish's blog, than he might land up in trouble. Every person has different situation, different make up of qualities and so on. "

PS : Above quotes are not some testiment to be be followed, rather experiments to be done. The above statements like looking up and down are not about drawing inferences, they are ways of keeping yourself observant and not stagnant. Don't become too obidiant and always follow them. Too much goodness is lethal, you better know that.   . . . the statements are tools and not rule books to be adhered.




But meanwhile, despite having these intense experiences in meditation, the baffling curious question of what is life, still remains . . .
I am sure that the answer will not come in form of words or explaination, but I hope it does come . . .

Becoming price less not priceless

What are you saving yourself for?
For becoming a big scientist,
or a big singer?
What are you mushy about?

Why fear every moment ?
and avoid life, its zest and vigor?
Why not plunge into it, possible whenever?


The sceptics, the sophistication,
the order, the routine,
will stink after a while,
and the life will yearn,
to be close to the sand.

You fool? you keep worrying about jobs?
you keep worrying about past,present and future?
how can you be timeless, if you don't step out of time?
how can you be anything, if you rot and stink with garbage of knowledge?

Keep knowledge at work,
and use it wise there,
but don't bring it to life

Real success can't be attained by saving yourself,
by creating walls,
 it is only by breaking the walls,
that you will see here and beyond.

So pull up the socks,
and get up,
wake up early and jog,
feel the touch of breeze,
and coolness of wet soil,
 get your hands dirty and,
look up,
cause rain may just fall,
and you will be all soil,
from where you came,
and where you will be go.

A Seeker

The seekers of truth,
are not the ones who abstain,
but ones who aspire to see things the way they are,
if body urges are taboo,
than family affaction is also a taboo,
then intellectual meandering is also a taboo,
for a spiritual seeker,
everything is taboo,
or everything is divine,

the eyes of seeker,
are not poisoned by guilt of bad,
because for him there is no good too,
good is also bad for him,
for him sweet is as poisonous as bitter,
or sweet is as wonderful as bitter,
for him everything is equally close,
doesn't matter if he plays any role,
it doesn't stick to him,

His only companion is silence,
the deafening loudness of silence,
is his only nectar which feeds on,
he creates this space of silence,
rubbishing all the good and bad aside,
let the rigramroll drum itself out,
be like burning fire,
but without an object to be burnt,
simply burning and aware,
of even simplest of moves in actions,
freeing the self from clutches of compulsive reactions,
by the awareness of action,
letting the madness of stillness to manifest,
and ready to forget the world if it takes, to absorb it,
and then wait  . . .

Everything seems to be changing,
at a superfast past,
but the stillness also growing,
like a tornado creating havoc,
with eye/center of tornado surprisingly still,


That is how seeker of truth,
is creating the space of silence,
for the ultimate madness of existance to manifest,
cause buckets of emotion will not be able to contain it,
bucket of intellect cannot absorb it,
none of the buckets can hold the intensity of truth,
than the absolute womb of silence.

Past

It gives me goozebumps,
to describe the struggle I went through,
to have amateur dreams of mine,
fly in the sky,

I studied all the wrong things,
which didn't mean a thing to me,
but with a hope that it works out for some dreams,
but now I see its brevity,


If only we could open pages of our memory,
very quickly,
and future simulation of present,
we would just get baffled,

We justify the wrong choices,
the memory rules you,
the hands are tied,
until the pain is apparent,

and you decide to move to next step,
and leave  behind,
the past, and jump into the future.

It takes courage and wisdom,
to see what is needed and not just go by flow.

Goozebumps still fresh ,
when I revisit chapters of past,
and see the fragility of life.

 

Whispers of Truth

The creation soo gripping,

the pleasures soo fleeting,

the love so intoxicating,

you whisper in my ears,

o dear truth,

in a rythm of silence,

always,

but I hear it not,

but sometimes I get close,

to hearing it,

This silence is opposite of quitness,

This silence is stormy than the storm,

this silence is beating more and more,

In this never ending chaos of world,

I sometimes have breaks,

but those breaks become stormier than storms,

they become so strong, that they take form of silence,

To contain a storm forever,

requires a form of silence,

this sane insanity of having storm,

is just killing me,

but I am not yet killed,

because its tune is silent,

some songs rythm storm,

some song rythm pride,

but some songs don't even have sound,

cause the intensity of song is beyond words and sounds,

This silence is rare visitor,

it visits after some storm,

may I be blessed with such storms,

storms that become as intense as silence,

for a lot of readers, this poem might be mumbo jumbo,

maybe it is, may be its not

Silence

Silence may be,
one of the most underrated qualities,
but is most fantastic way to be,
without intensity and attention,
It turns into laziness, perversions and dullness,
but when sustained with unidentified intellect and deep attention,
it turns into the most powerful companion,

The word is a play,
as Shakespeare says,
but in silence you see,
what is not seen, what is missed,
you enjoy the play,
but nothing moving inside,
its all silence,
the breath becomes slow and tender,
when the silence explodes,
nothing looks great or ugly,
its all a play,
as Shakespeare says,
but some see it with heart,
some see with their head,
some don't even see it,
some simply see it ,
like raindrop falling on lotus leaves,
but nothing touching it,
yet embracing it all . . . 

Tyrst

The cloud of emotions,
Its succour for the likeness,
The cloud of thoughts,
and its lust for superior reasoning,
everything starts to fade away,
the lustful eyes of mine,
turn into bewildering sight,
wondering what is life,
before the mighty death arrives,
I was fucking fooled every time,
by the comforts of ignorance,
but the holowness inside growled even more,
for not paying attention,
for ignoring the questions so bright,

The world itself is such a big addiction,
the drug addicts seems puny,
cause you have divided it in billion things,
half you like, half you dislike,
and you keep lustfully searching for your likes,
and you keep fearing for the plight by dislikes,
such is the world . . .  which you delight
 and die in this cage with sweet poison you like . . .

the marvels of human acrobats don't awe then what will ?
The meaninglessness of the life before death doesn't shake than what will?
but instead of preparing / training ourselves,
we chicken out ,
we don't face these uncomfortable questions,
because we are fucking addict.
3 days we can't stand without our bed,
7 days without home,
but worst of all,
not even 1 day pondering these uncomportable questions ?

The tryst is evident,
as long as the walls of inhibitions are demolished,
and questions sink deeper and deeper,
Thats what I feel and think qualifies as seeker.

Misfits eternally

Fuck the world, they will say, what they have to say,
cause your brain doesnt function in a principle way,

Who cares if you forget, if you are mad, or if you are incapable,
cause maybe not everyone is gifted one, not everybody chosen one,
but hell ya, everybody can fight/chase the chosen dream,
who knows if it is achieved or not, but hell ya, you can fight,

cause it is the fighter spirit that makes you live,
loser's don't live, they die internally,
loss is not about not being able to achieve,
but it is about not being able to do whatever was in your hands,

Let them mock you, let them make fun of you,
let them think you are incapable,
but you have to ignore this shit,
and keep working,

don't keep reasoning again and again,
what you have chosen,
cause even if it is filthy like hell,
if you are persistent, flowers are bound to blossom,

there is saneness in being a somewhat mad,
and there is serious insanity in being totally fitting,
it stinks to have perfect order,
cause without chaos, life disappears

you may fit in society or you may be a misfit,
you may be capable or incapable,
someone trusts you or no one trusts you,
but you should trust yourself,
you should not loose the hope,
persistence pays

cause life is not in achievements,
but in giving yourself persistently to something.
if you have taken up,
you have to take it somewhere . . .
thats it, thats all, end of the poem