Living – My jagged attempt

Book:

Half way through Head Trip by Jeff Green.. a wonderful book about the various states of consciousness. I was particularly impressed by Lucid dreaming and hypnosis. I am was intrigued by the ability to self heal, the placebo effect, by hypnosis and daydreaming. A cognitive willful psychosomatic outcome. It fascinates me that research has shown that we can impact on our physical and physiological functioning through sheer thoughts and focused visualisation. Reading this got me in googling all about visualisation.

Website explored:

http://www.mindmapinspiration.com

http://www.spiritualinspiration.com

I am impressed by the brilliant and useful mindmaps created by Paul Foreman. I tried mindmapping using http://bubble.us.

Yummy stuff:

Made kala channa curry (black chickpeas) with amchur powder etal. It tasted gorgeous. Also, I tried a version of chapathi called Bhakri for the first time. You make the dough with butter and milk, instead of water, and add cumin seeds. Yum yum.

Videos:

When we have our meal, me and my boyfriend try to watch inspirational, thought provoking videos. The best one we had ever watched was the Last lecture by Randy Paucsh.

Today we watched,

• a talk by AlGore on climate change
• wireless electricity demos (Witricity by MIT)
• Uniqueness and similarity of human.
• A mind boggling creative inspiration culminating in the product: Sixth sense.

Living

Book : Finished listening to Anthem by Ayn Rand in my mp3 player. Downloaded the free recording from http://www.thoughaudio.com

Exercises:
Tried back asanas and standing asanas from Shilpa’s yoga DVD. The explanation is quite clear but the transition from one stance to another is a bit too fast for my liking. I would have liked if I could pause in each stance for a bit longer and experience it. The asanas I struggled to do were… in particular the ones that required balance…

Healthy treats:
Had orange juice sweetened with agave nectar. Tasted yum. Agave nectar is derived from sweet cactus.

Wonder behold. The Bladeless Fan.

I was literally blown away reading about the possibility of a bladeless fan at http://joshspear.com/item/dyson-air-multiplier/. Trust Dyson to come up with that idea. Right! A fan and bladeless. That’s just what it is. The Dyson Air Multiplier.

(image courtesy: http://joshspear.com/item/dyson-air-multiplier/)

The Dyson website proudly describes its patented Dyson Air Multiplier technology to draw in air and multiply it 15 times, generating uninterrupted smooth flow of air. But for its price tag of $300, I would have certainly got this as a gift for my parents.

To carb or not to carb…

A moderate balanced diet with exercise is best, says the lead researcher of yet another study, splashed on the front page of the news news site. A low-carb diet causes artery damage. Fair enough. But right next to the article is a link of a news article from 5 years ago, which screams ‘Scientists endore Atkins diet’. I opened it out of curiousity, to find a totally contradicting results to today’s story, wherein the scientists exalts the virtues of low-carb high-protein diet to lose weight. Scrolling a bit more, you stumble upon the funding agency for the study; Robert Atkins Foundation. Now now!. If that weren’t enough, the BBC in its dedication to airing opposing viewpoints, interviews a professional of British Dietetic Association, who opines against fad diets. And can you guess what her name is, right, it is Dietzmina Govindji.
Check it out

Sweet Magnolia

That a tree could be so densely covered with such delectable white blooms fills the viewer with joyful abundance. Pure white flowers perched on the trees in some kind of dainty display of playfulness and ethereal charm. The tree itself can hardly contain its pearly white grin. Its waited a whole year for this spring to reveal its magnificence in full blossom. One is struck by the innocence in its opulence. Not a leaf in sight. The tree with its branches has chosen to adorn itself exclusively with the rich white blossoms. The beauty displayed was intensified by the romantic resonation of the couple held in deep embrace under its shade; the deep crimson jumper on the woman was a striking contrast to the white opulence in the backdrop.

Cacti in a Glasshouse

The enclosed warm tropical garden beckoned me and I ventured into that Victorian globular greenhouse.

What an amazing contrast of foliage in there to the ones outside. I’d entered into a tropical paradise just by virtue of choosing to pass through the door. A tall banana tree stood towering over me at the entrance. Actually there were quite a few tall banana trees all originating from the same spot, as baby trees sporuted from the base of the mother tree’s trunk. The leaves sheathed over each other through the trunk, just like a giant leek. I was eager to spot a banana fruit or even a banana flower. Mouth watering I remembered the savouries my mom used to make with banana flowers. I couldn’t spot any this time; perhaps it was the wrong time of the year. Its amazing that almost every bit of a banana tree serves to provide food, including the leaves which serve as plates.

As I venutred further I was intrigued by the exquisite patterns on the leaves, and the aestivation of the leaves. I brought out my adorable 5MP phone and started shooting pictures. I must mention that my 5MP was a mega leap from the 1.2MP camera I’d always owned. I love the vividness and intensity of colours it renders. I often think it gives better quality images than my own eyes. There I was zooming on to the patterns and shooting pictures of the nature unravelling in front of me. I was also intrigued by the trunks of some of those tropical trees, which has lovely overlapping layers and rich shades in the upper part of the trunk culminating inot large sheath of leaves. As I was zooming and clicking, I paused hearing another click in the background. There was a fellow enthusiast clicking away the foliage in her rather imposing SLR. Instantly, I touched my 5MP camera for reassurance, fending the urge to buy myself an SLR when viable. As I resumed clicking, I stopped and nearly squealed in delight at the exquisite variety of cactuses. Now, cactuses have evoked contradictory emotions in me from my childhood. As a child I had disliked them, for they seem to lack warmth and love. They were thorny ugly heartless things, unlike my jasmine bush or hisbiscus shrub. As I grew older, I began appreciating the alternative existence envisaged in a cactus, the survival mode it had adapted to deliver that menancing physical appearance. Today, I was awestruck by something more immediate and aesthetic. it just stood out; armed with my zoom lens I just couldn’t escape it. The sheer brilliance of the structure, the intricate arrangement with variations in each different cacti. I was struck by the space conservation and biometrics.

Thousands of thorns were arranged with awesome regularity on a small cactus head, offering such beautiful uniformity of patterns. Where did nature ever learn art and pattern rendering from? How come it is so bloody brilliant at everything? Each cacti offereed a different take on arrangement and pattern, and each angle I zoomed into revealed further layers of richness. My camera was in for a treat. Myself and the SLR lady silently shared the cacti between us and peered into its structures through our lenses. The cacti revealed itself to us in all its mysterious glory. Dodging across other connoisures and buggies, I was gradually falling in love with the cacti. Boy! I noted that I have indeed come a long way from the little girl who had thought they were cold thorny heartless plants, to this woman who feels infinitely small at the exquisite brilliance of the patterns manifested by nature and the mathematical biometrics involved.

Would it or wouldn’t it????

Would it or wouldn’t it?
Does it or doesn’t it?

There can be only one of the two outcomes.
There always has been only one of the two outcomes.
It will or it wouldn’t.
It does or it doesn’t.
It shall or it shan’t.

Then why oh why, do I fret at junctures wondering and wishing. Wishing one of the two, when it will be one of the two. It always has been one of the two.
It will or it wouldn’t.
It does or it doesn’t.
It shall or it shan’t.

There can be only one of the two outcomes.

Do I know knowing?

At which point can one know for sure that one knows? Is knowing an outcome of seeing? Isn’t seeing variable in itself, as seeing is a projected being from perspectives, opinions, expectations and assumptions; with as many variations as there are people and as many shades as there are state of thoughts in their minds. Is seeing manifested through all sensory and extra-sensory perceptions rather than being solely a result of information bombardment on the visual cortex? More precisely, can you see someone who you haven’t seen, and know them? On the other hand, does merely processing the visual and auditory information lead to seeing and knowing them? At what point does knowing become concrete, reliable and sturdy? Isn’t such an idea of concrete knowledge an oxymoron, by virute of the fact that knowing is an outcome of seeing through an ever-changing prism of perspectives? So, at what point can one know that one knows? And is it even possible to know that one knows?

A silent experiment

I enjoy the rich stillness of silence. It is warmly permeating. Not being a telly person helps. I sometimes switch off the lights to be in stillness, as that potentiates my experience of silence. It is strange how you can tune into sounds that you normally don’t while at home; like the birds returning to their nests or the wind rustling through the trees. Maybe one day I would hear the grass sprouting or the flower petals opening.

Today, as I sit enveloped in silence, I realise the tick-tock of the clock. It could be often reassuring, though today I didn’t seem to want that reassurance. So, I decided to do away with clocks this weekend, removing their batteries, letting their tick-tocks disappear into the ever-widening silence. In doing so, I glided into a timeless zone as far as my cognitive awareness goes; letting my biorhythm take over.

I have noticed the play of biorhythm in the past, when my body got used to getting up at 6.30am, after being goaded for a few days by the mechanical alarm. Then one day, when I wanted to rest longer without an alarm, my biorythm simply took over and woke me up spot on at 6.30am. – A sure way to send the alarm manufacturers out of business. I wonder if my biorythm has a similar perception of the ticking of time. Would lack of a mechanical clock, let my biorythm surface and sense the rolling of time in profundity of silence. Only time can tell.

Polarities n Opposites: Equilibrium of life.

After reading Echkart Tolle’s views that polarities and opposites in the world are invevitable, and that it can be transcended only through surrender, I was keen on exploring that in my daily life, if that indeed were the case. It was quite interesting to observe myself, even as I went through the various human emotional states. Every time some sadness descends, I try to remind myself that it is cyclical and jubiliant bursting happiness is bound to follow, and so it does. Each time this happens I feel just as surprised as the first time around. Yet, this revelation doesn’t in the slightest mean that I keep my head firmly in reality or something. I still am a vignette of attributes from realism to dreamy fantasies . There is just an underlying awareness that things are cyclical, and that there are polarities for just about everything I undergo. That awareness helps me realise that I am Awareness itself, with a body, thoughts and sensations, to experiment, involve and experience the world around.