Run for your Life. If the race is over by the time your settle in front of the Telly, it’s a sprint; if it is still on after you have finished the popcorn and beer it’s a marathon or long distance run. For some people life is a jog and others it is a lark. You see them early mornings / evenings with fancy running kits, ears plugged into an iPod. Many of them have never broken into a sweat about mundane things like mortgages / EMI, tuition fees, inflation or recession. Years of living in countries like USA, Canada and Europe, a regular diet of proteins and carbs have built up muscles, and the sprinters with a dash of steroids have build bodies that move like greased lighting. For most people in cities life is one big sprint racing through everything in life – school to B schools, career, work, dropping the children, soccer classes, tuition's, music lessons and the occasional barbecue in the back yard. When we race against the clock there is no time to ruminate or chew the cud, when you decide to smell the zeitgeist, it’s time for antacids and angioplasties. On the Olympic track running is not such a glamorous part time, the marathon is tough business.The Marathon is packed with people from underdeveloped countries like Ethiopia, Kenya, and Morocco………. Athletes who have struggled for a meal, no training facilities, no shoes and literally begged to find sponsors to travel and foot the bill. Slight and wiry men, running the race of their lives, but with the will power, patience, strength and endurance required - an aerobic experience, sprint is an anaerobic one. Gaur Marial knows what it means to run for his life – he spent his childhood being chased by savage battles in north Sudan. Running from soldiers, through deserts without food or shelter, he survived 20 years of civil wars which killed 2 million including 8 of his 10 brothers. He was attacked by Arab nomads and kept as a slave by an Army officer. But today he has secured his place alongside the world’s greatest athletes, the sprint glam boys as he participates in the Olympic marathon – a man without a sponsor or a country. - Excerpts and Cocktail conversations with Yusuf-

style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> Run for your Life. If the race is over by the time your settle in front of the Telly, it’s a sprint; if it is still on after you have finished the popcorn and beer it’s a marathon or long distance run. For some people life is a jog and others it is a lark. You see them early mornings / evenings with fancy running kits, ears plugged into an iPod. Many of them have never broken into a sweat about mundane things like mortgages / EMI, tuition fees, inflation or recession. Years of living in countries like USA, Canada and Europe, a regular diet of proteins and carbs have built up muscles, and the sprinters with a dash of steroids have build bodies that move like greased lighting. For most people in cities life is one big sprint racing through everything in life – school to B schools, career, work, dropping the children, soccer classes, tuition's, music lessons and the occasional barbecue in the back yard. When we race against the clock there is no time to ruminate or chew the cud, when you decide to smell the zeitgeist, it’s time for antacids and angioplasties. On the Olympic track running is not such a glamorous part time, the marathon is tough business.The Marathon is packed with people from underdeveloped countries like Ethiopia, Kenya, and Morocco………. Athletes who have struggled for a meal, no training facilities, no shoes and literally begged to find sponsors to travel and foot the bill. Slight and wiry men, running the race of their lives, but with the will power, patience, strength and endurance required - an aerobic experience, sprint is an anaerobic one. Gaur Marial knows what it means to run for his life – he spent his childhood being chased by savage battles in north Sudan. Running from soldiers, through deserts without food or shelter, he survived 20 years of civil wars which killed 2 million including 8 of his 10 brothers. He was attacked by Arab nomads and kept as a slave by an Army officer. But today he has secured his place alongside the world’s greatest athletes, the sprint glam boys as he participates in the Olympic marathon – a man without a sponsor or a country. - Excerpts and Cocktail conversations with Yusuf-

Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

On July 4th science collided with religious beliefs in Switzerland in the conspiring cold when the Hadron Collider announced the discovery of the Higgs Bosun or “God” particle. There was palpable despair amongst “believers” who for 500 years were advocating the theory of a supreme creator of the mass and universe.

The camp of science was popping champagne bottles and Higgs became the sexy super star in the science firmament, an icon of the scientific, intellectual and business world. Fifty years of hard work running like a headless chicken had culminated in the discovery that gives mass to particles to exist in space.

Most “believers in belief” are not gullible theists, but mainstream people blessed with critical knowledge. But many others are blinded by religious superstitions - who support the misty realms of make believe, ludicrous notions of chosen people, soul exorcisms and heavenly rewards.

To uncomprehending men of science, their “truth” is a truth of transformation - rather than the truth of information. For such staunch and fanatical believers, who have not even understood the ancient mysteries of mathematics, Quantum physics is some esoteric hyperbole and does not make sense. They are bound to denounce scientist as hypocrites and curse them to eternal damnation.

For science it is the Holy Grail as it deals with only what can be known, direct or indirectly, by some experience and empirical truths. It cannot answer questions like the existence of God, consciousness, the soul, heaven or rebirth. Religion and belief has a life of its own, outside the scientific mind. Their claim is a matter of faith not knowledge.

Slowly the religious congregations also splinter into smaller particles where no mass can be held and even the god particle will not be able to prevent to prevent decay. –Science vs Religion-Vinay-

The God Illusion.

David Sloan Wilson, a professor of biology and anthropology at Binghamton University, is writing a book on "how pro-social religions with watchful gods’’ helped human groups scale up from small hunting and foraging bands to the vast, complex societies of today.

Wilson insists that trying to discover why we believe is more intriguing than the debate over whether any bearded old man is up there looking down at us from heaven. Clergy repeats what is written in the scriptures, as they consider it sacrosanct. What is important is not the written word the images we conjure in our minds and the bigger picture.

When a moth flies at night, it uses the moon and the stars to steer a straight path. Those light sources are fixed and distant, so the rays always strike the moth's multilensed eyes at the same angle, making them reliable for nocturnal navigation. But introduce something else bright—a candle, say, or a campfire—and there will be trouble. The light radiates outward, confusing the moth and causing it to spiral ever closer to the blaze until the insect meets a fiery end. Dawkin uses this illustration in “The God delusion”.

Moths didn't evolve to commit suicide; that's an unfortunate byproduct of other adaptations. In much the same way, the thinking goes, human beings embrace religion for unrelated cognitive reasons. We evolved to search for patterns in nature, so perhaps that's why we imagine patterns in religious texts. Instead of being guided by the light, we fly into the flames.

It's that religion is obviously bad for human beings, condemning them to ignorance, subservience, and endless conflict, and we would be better off without it. Maybe we should stop asking whether God exists and start asking whether it's useful to believe that he does.

Religion can elicit behavior that is good for society—sometimes. Myers a Harvard researcher discovered that religious people were more likely to give to charity, but only on the days they worshiped, or went to church a phenomenon he dubbed the "Sunday Effect." He has a generally low opinion of those who equate evangelical Christianity, with compassion by maintaining that only one word was required to prove that religion is more destructive than beneficial: women.

Those with eyes to see," Myers wrote, "can see for themselves that religion has for thousands of years perpetuated the oppression of half of our species," which is "reason enough to tear down our cathedrals, and mosques". Attacking obscurantist, cruel, lunatic ideas is always a good idea, which includes laying the blame for much of human conflict at the feet of the faithful. One of the good reasons for studying religion is that it does so much harm, and it's worth trying to figure out how to control it- Tom Bartlett-

What is Love?

According to the French philosopher Lacan, so many people now don't know the joy of love. They know sexual pleasure, love, is not a contract between two narcissists, it's more than that. It's a construction that compels the participants to go beyond narcissism. In order that love lasts one has to reinvent oneself.

What we talk about when we talk about this kind of love. Not just mere perishable personal romantic love, but also the kind of numinous transfigured, impersonal universal love that embraces us all, survives like a holy ghost, survives like smoke from a High-Church censer, ascending to heaven from the mortal bodies it inspirited.

Immortality of any kind—even the precarious “survival” —is not offered by love.

Which does not denigrate, even may elevate love. Love for its own sake, love that can perish and die, love not for some promise of immortality. This is tragic, romantic, and existentialist love, perishable with our death or the death of our love, but nonetheless, even more valued, because of its transience.

We must love one another even though we will die, and it will not make a difference—Its burning existence and extinction in the moment is all that counts. What happens to the love between two people when it’s over?

Seriously, where does it go, all that feeling, all those memories—do they dissolve into the air or do they survive somewhere, in some way—perhaps in a parallel universe? This is the poetic question we all must ask.

Dark Flight of the Soul

Our beliefs or faith has got nothing to with our own happiness. After our birth awareness sets in and the flow of life begins. There is a tendency to attribute happiness to divine intervention.The disconcerting absolute self-confidence of the religious believer convinces him beyond doubt that the truth espoused in his mythic tradition will ensure happiness without grief.

When you read any scripture you should be able to interpret the true context and that one cannot avoid obstacles and it is part of living in this world. Obstacles are part of life’s energy and form part of your rhythm too.We have to detach ourselves from fear, grief anger and let lightness flow from our heart, and like the river softy bypass the obstacles with slight course corrections.

Self confidence, belief in the timeless domain of our being, patience and persistence is the path of a truly evolved person. Beyond sorrow, beyond joy, beyond attachment, transcending all ephemeral emotion - till even time dissolves dramatically because of your altered state of consciousness.

This is the Zen monk state- the emotional quality of their calm serene life, the undisturbed almost melancholic nature of the mountain tops where they meditate. The landscapes have an eerie tranquility that does not fail to inspire us.

All religions require death- without it concepts of judgment days, cycle of birth and rebirth, merging with one become meaningless. If there is no death, then there is no hell or heaven, and even ultimate enlightenment becomes meaningless.

In real life dying statements are generally considered to be the ultimate truth. People in their dying moments are known to be candid- as their mind is free from all compulsions.

Also what happen to the soul while we are slowly dissipating and dying? Does the soul float in cyberspace waiting for a religious factory produced body? How does the soul which contains the older wisdom of the ancient discarded body adopt to the new fresh body?. – Vinay--

Story of our Lives

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Every religion tells you the story of their God, but few are interested in you travails or story of your life. They want you to spend your whole life praising the lord, worshiping God and reading the scriptures in their Holy books.

They make deals, believe in god and you will liberated, you will reach heaven, some talk about nirvana, redemptions and everlasting bliss. It tries to ignite a passion that few people can resist. You are taught to pray though it never works and has only a therapeutic place to effect in our lives.

Prayer is just a hollow gesture, like searching for a black cat in the darkness, a waste of time. The deal is God only protects the people who pray and ignores the non believers. This is a silly judgmental concept, rewarding the religious and punishing the atheist irrespective of whether he has sinned or not.

This is where the Indian Vedantic tradition differs about the way we perceive life. It opens your eyes to your own consciousness and thereby the Universe. It is like opening the shutters of your heart and mind and allowing the sunlight to enter and dispel all dark notions of heaven and hell. It liberates your mind from religious stupidity.

It shows a human way as opposed to a godly way, it is a internal process that sets you free and liberates your individuality from the clutches of organized religion. It brings a deeper philosophy to the fore while renunciation unwanted rituals and practices. We can overcome our suffering through analytical action, wisdom and compassion.

It is a sort of yogic explanation of the universe, unlike the contrived beliefs of religion, which restricts you to a consecrated holy theme. It asks see your whole life unfold as a moving picture and let events and incidents happen, that is the best way to perceive everything around you.

Being in the moment unshackles your from the past and uncertainties of the future, just focus on what you have and follow - your imagination, thoughts, dreams and memories, Karma, destiny bliss will follow if you dare and soar above hypocrisy. –Vinay-

Death is Invincible.

We are like the trees and vegetation that blossoms and then becomes barren Reminiscent of the brittle quality of dry leaves and the tautness of stretched hide of cadavers. Like a young girl that buds and flowers into a voluptuous woman, with a body like some ancient goddesses.

Youth, love and beauty are often short lived and ephemeral, they will last as long as they can and slowly wilt and crumble back to earth. We are not built to last forever, there exists only the present instant ….a “now”, which always has an end and becomes the past.

When we use the now, that moment has no end or beginning. Though we exist in time we belong to eternity. As a skeptic I often wonder about those frequently used and misused words of religion, retribution, redemption and damnation which tries to deny free will to the world – where everything from the death of a sparrow to the birth of a galaxy is supposed to be governed by a divine destiny.

Life is complicated as we remember the anguish of first love, cracks in our marriage, loss of old friends/kith and the idiosyncrasies of our parents, all of which reverberate like undulations of our wrinkled skins.

We serve our purposes, delight in our lives and see the beauty of the universe through our interactions and then crumble back into the past. It is similar to the ancient Vedic fire altars – carefully built for ritual worship and later dismantled when the event is over.

Like the structure of the cosmos, connecting the vibrant life to the shadow of death. At the moment of precious insight called the evolutionary impulse, we are swept over by a strange sense if inner peace – the parting pain ~ a glimpse into an afterlife. –Vinay-

Lonely creatures on this lonely Planet .

So intolerable is loneliness that even animals attach themselves to any creature they can scrape an acquaintance with. There is a case of a pony confined by itself to a field, and a solitary partridge, the only one of its species in that place; they were always seen together in close companionship.

Then again there was this lonely Swan, driven away from its group, who eventually made friends with a trout. The fish had its place by the side of the bird, just below the surface and together they would rest and together they would travel like one being….

Those who saw it could not believe their own eyes or senses.
- Adventures among Birds.-

Spirituality is beyond Religion.

There is a general feeling that being spiritual is being attached to some sort of belief, and you seek it when you reach the point of no return, This is the paradox because all religions have been missing the fundamental quality of spirituality- it does not have answers. It is not a break away from the predecessor called religion.

Even if you are successful, rich and have achieved your goal in life, you are still lonely because of the high pressure and complexity of success. You still have questions and may need a course correction in your life. In this age of doubt and strife, it consummates our need for a friend, philosopher and guide.

Spirituality creates awareness of the changes that could lead to a break through and develops your own potential. Change can be anything kicking an addiction, changing your fast paced lifestyle, or unfolding unconditional inner space for further growth. It could be a guide on the ups and downs, holding you accountable & responsible for all your actions.

Even if everything is perfect, we get bored with life, we are always on the lookout for new dreams to come true, or feel the certain emptiness in all our lives, spirituality helps you get into the flow without being judgmental. It can reveal the designs, both the big pattern/ picture and the smaller focused details, leading to a refreshing change.

Spirituality opens up a fascinating and sophisticated world of emotional intelligence by asking powerful questions to increase the awareness or total recall of your self directed journey. It is not about who you were, but who you are, and instills the wisdom to live in the moment.

So have no illusions, its is not re-packaged religion, there is no heavenly landscape, no fairy tales, no Martians, gods, devils or angels , yet its like a new memory implant - rebooting a total recall in one’s self. -Vinay-

The Ego.

The ego is not a by product of arrogance, or self, aggrandizement normally, but it has a tendency to insidiously prevent humility from integrating with it. First you have to comprehend what ego is – when you are born you first become aware of your mother as she feeds and sustains you.

Thereafter you begin to recognize parents, and others as you evolve, then you become aware of your self, realize you have significance and that you are valuable – this is the genesis of ego.Ego is a need, social phenomena, a reflection of what others think of you, it is the order of existence – the centre of you that flowers as you evolve.

It is difficult to see one’s own ego. Ego is also the means to find access to our inner core and creativity, the centre of our being- the domain of our individuality, which can transform you in your own individual style.You cannot subdue the ego and create your own destiny. Ego is required like a ladder of inspiration to achieve the higher realm, perk you up, and expand the horizons of your mind to achieve the success you desire.

It is a motivator par excellence and adds a special glow to your personality and is your strength. Killing the ego is counter productive and can result in an inferiority complex- if you merge your individuality like sheep to the army of believers, it can lead to superstition, anxiety and loss of identity.

The Tree of Life.

Terence Mallick tries to capture the essence of spirituality on celluloid and almost succeeds. The film chronicles the origins and meaning of life, by way of a middle-aged man's childhood memories, of his family living in 1950s Texas, interspersed with imagery of the origins of the universe and the inception of life on Earth.

Jack (Sean Penn) finds himself a lost soul in the mo

dern world, seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life, while questioning the existence of faith. It is impossible to distil philosophy in a film, but it takes you back to your childhood days, re-igniting all those long lost first moments/feelings/discoveres and guilt’s.

The first time you fought with parents and friends, the remorse you felt later, the film blends all the above with imaginary scenes from the creation of the cosmos, how all is connected, how did we get here? Why? purpose of our lives? Mrs. O'Brien (Jessica Chastain) recalls a lesson taught to her that people must choose to either follow the path of grace or the path of nature.

In Vedanta the tree is a visual metaphor of the essence of our continuous evolution, growth and continuity. The tree symbolizes our roots with nature, yet reaching out for change, innovation and resilience. Change and growth is constant like the branches, taking us to newer heights.

Our roots give us identity and strength, to face adversity, the branches give shelter and succor to others in this universe. Whenever there is change, our roots and what we stand for will remain the same - but what we must aim for will rise to the higher realms. – Vinay-

Fear- kindles the mythical embers of the creator.

Fear of death is the mother of the invention of God - is the sentiment echoed by philosophers for centuries. Sentient humans dream up stories of an ancient supreme creator, to try and avoid death with the superstitions of after life.

Creatures of the other hand are self aware, have base instincts like fear, but do not have faith, as a religious emotion, locked inside or fret about death - unlike humans who need such myths to live and thrive and hence invent them.

Even poets Sufis, Dervishes have all extolled the virtues of nature where the flora, the fauna, dance together heralding the freedom from the bondage of religion and god. The whole planet, men, women, flora, fauna, creatures and inanimate, all integrate to become one and there is no God left to worship.

The universe is the ultimate vessel where the spirit of freedom soars. With this intense relationship with nature comes a conviction, about the uselessness of Gods and priests, a dismissal of clerical authority, organized religion and social convention.
Gradually it emerges that God had never existed, it was a literary hoax, a satire, a parody of outlandish possibilities - which no other animal has had to invent, unlike humans with their conscious awareness.

Make Love, Not Law.

This stimulating book examines the ways in which legal systems have attempted to regulate sexual activity over millennia, from the 'slow impalement of unfaithful wives' in Mesopotamia to the 'sterilization of masturbators' in the United States.

The catalogue of fun is subject to continual reinterpretation by the baleful forces of law includes incest, masturbation, bestiality, sex during menstruation, boring old adultery, prostitution, transvestism, pornography (which came of age in the Early Modern period), and the cult of virginity. As for homosexuality, the Theban infantry had a gay unit that fought nobly at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, and the issue only moved centre stage in the Christian era.

Overall, Christians come out of the story badly, 'with their insistence on the conflict between the body (which craves sex) and the spirit (which sex destroys)'. 'From the reign of Emperor Constantine to the present,' 'the Christian notion that sexual love brings spiritual death has been the cornerstone of Western sex law.’ What all this amounts to, in most of the human cultures that have ever existed, is the male fear of and wish to subjugate women.

I don't suppose it sounds humorous to contemporary victims of forced marriages sanctioned by law, of condoned rape, of female circumcision - and of God knows what else happens to women in those countries existing in ethical midnight. In Ur Nammu in the third millennium BC the penalty for raping a slave girl 'was as trivial as a speeding ticket today'. Considering the recent case of the monstrous Dominique Strauss-Kahn, one wonders how far we have progressed. -Eric Berkowitz -

Soul Song. (Till death do us part)

Birth and death are the inseparable and opposite poles of the life on earth, senescence is an acceptable for all form of life except for the Jellyfish Turritopsis Nutrecula which is believed to be immortal.

Religions wax eloquently of the existence and possibilities of another beautiful world, of other exotic substances which an average person is unable to see. All religions require death- without it concepts of judgment day, cycle of birth, rebirth, or merging become meaningless.

If there is no death, them there is no other world called heaven or hell- even ultimate enlightenment becomes meaningless. In real life dying statement are considered sacrosanct, the ultimate truth. People in their dying moments are candid- as their minds are free from all other compulsions.

The beginning and end of life are symbolized by the birth and death cycle on earth. Even though the Abhramic religions propagate resurrection and Dharmic religious promote re-incarnation, no human being can ignore death. What happens to the soul as the body slowly dissipates and dies?

How does life enter the soul and what becomes of it after death? How does the soul which held the older wisdom of the ancient discarded body adopt to a new outfit? Does the soul float in cyberspace during the interregnum between leaving the old shell and finding a new body?

The God Particle.

Before the discovery of Higgs Bosun field all believers claimed that it was God that created the Universe, and expected the believer to worship him. Discovery of the God particle will compel religion to re- invent itself in order to stay relevant.

As far as mainstream religions are concerned their teaching were always anthropocentric, with man as the creation, who is supposed to adore and pray faithfully to God, as is done when mars is offered.

The non believers and atheists are like free birds, chirping and flying around the Universe without fear of God. They have accomplished inner freedom, free from fear of substance, recession, bounty, corruption, scams, wars, pertinence do not affect them for they have no stake in this planet.

They flow with the natural rhythm of the Universe and things fall into place, whether its Karma, Destiny, life and happiness or sorrow does not affect them. The visible world has no substance for him, so nothing is acceptable or reject-able.

Atheism means being responsible for your own destiny and accountable for your acts of free will. That is why most people dread being “non believers” as they cant blame, God religion or country, the buck ends with them. Unlike Wade Michael Page & the Wisconsin shooting,they have no religious apron strings to fall back upon.

The Rain Song.

The rain song is a haunting melody drenched in anguish and grief, yet like a delicate flower, love blooms posing the question “where art thou searching for me” in this journey that has neither a beginning nor end.

Over the city’s ruins raindrops splatter covering the sins of men and women, an infernal cesspool and paradise in one, an anonymous combination of freedom and anonymity creating the metropolitan attitude.

Days and nights are slain by the incessant rains. The griefs of past times are forgotten. Hidden and possibly secret relations, bind together the apparently personal times of our inner experience.

The green under wood says that the summer is over and luscious palms sway with a beautiful pain. Men, animal, birds, insects’ blossom in the dust, the decay of experience, a flash of messianic zest readily take on a life of their own.

The quest is eternal, daylight and sunshine loses, as the hyped sensitivities of the sleet of grey like night takes over. In the village street the rain eats the earth, as it textually evaporates and thought images are stripped down to its semantic core in a bloody mist.

A leaf of grass and a grain of sand divide lover and love with a gentle shower, a dream of a shadow buds again, and once more smells the dew and the river.

Do not ignore your Hunch, Intuition or Gut feelings!

Phenomenology is the basis for knowledge, of a feeling or state of consciousness resulting from emotions. Intuitions are the ability to acquire knowledge without inference of analysis or reason. All these whether it is gut, feeling, hunch or intuition are perceptions or strong signals from our unconscious minds.

All creatures, man, animals, cats, experience it, and there is no difference and these feelings are as dear to mute animals as it is to man. There is a misconception that only a higher evolved species can experience insight, noesis or spirituality. This faulty logic is arrived upon as these are subjective feelings, and we think only humans can translate it into the rich experience with prose.

According to neurologists the most primitive portions of our brain- happen to be the spiritual and this hold true for all creatures. All sentient/ insentient beings have the ability and in some cases intuition is honed to a fine art. These are powerful signals telling us to avoid certain things or do some things.

Transcendent feelings, intuition, insight, awareness or spiritual experience cannot be explained in language or words. It is a sort of meditation, finding your inner axis of the self and it plugs you into the universe enhancing one’s awareness and sphere of observation takes on a loftier realm.

Some times instinct works and sometimes it goes terribly wrong. These are the primitive, dormant areas of yours unconscious mind- that have been unused for centuries. All animals and creature have similar mystical experiences, comparable to humans. –Vinay-

Practice may not make you perfect or successful.

When we do not get the desired results we try even harder, following the silly King Bruce Maxim to keep on trying till we succeed. But we never stop to analyze even for a moment why we are not succeeding after repeated attempts. Like religion does by repeating (Hail Mary’s) we keep repeating but of to no avail.

If, we stop to think or scientifically analyze what went wrong – we would soon realize that we forgot to “change course” in spite of seeing the iceberg in our path. If real awareness had set in we would have taken corrective measures earlier and avoided a lot of stress and disappointment.

Success is not a science or art that one can perfect; it is more of creative thought and applying winning strategies. To climb the ladder of success you don’t need more practice but creating more friends and leaping into the warmth of human experiences. This way you will inspire yourself to attain new heights.

In the earlier days, they said God was watching over us, now god is a blip on the radar and the Internet is watching us and might even censure you for this part. Can we not just believe in ourselves, our hearts and our intuitions? Do we need the lines of our lives to be a perpetual confession in the presence of an unknown, unknowable creator? Why can’t we create our own legend and bury ourselves in it, before our ashes lose its warmth.

Success comes at a heavy cost though we don’t realize it at that point of time and you will envy the ordinary unsuccessful people in this world, those who are blissfully unaware of dreaming big.

Sometimes you will yearn for the aimless solitude of our erstwhile youthful life, no goals, no responsibilities the sort of schoolboy life we enjoyed. It was when the world was alive with magic, less complicated and we were free inside. Not trapped between the timelines, meetings, deadlines and the fear of failure.

In the end it’s all about living a life that gives you leisure and the joy to enjoy your life, one that truly provides bliss. It is when you are at peace with yourself and the world around you that become aware of all the different paths your life took, each time you made a choice.-VINAY-

A penny for your thoughts!

Any good post should have the capacity to provoke thought - shake the reader from his complacency and border on the outrageous.

Great philosopher, poets, writers have this capacity to stun us from our stupor and shock their readers; most of them were zealous and paranoid about their views, thoughts and works.

Safe conventional posts or quoting some second hand wisdom and advice from scriptures is for preachers’ clergy, teachers and proselyters – who do not have any original thoughts and do not want to step out of their comfort zones- and all their posts are as dull as dishwater.

Out of the box thinking and posts, presents ideas and thoughts that seemingly suspend conventional wisdom and understanding, sometimes turning it topsy turvy,it is an in your face good or bad advice from life’s bitter experience.

However whenever I post a creative or outrageous thought – I am labelled as a cultural and religious provocateur, mainly since I do not follow the path or dogmas of millions of believers. Added to that the fact that I am an atheist, a non conformist and a rebel makes me an easy target to be labeled as a fake, infidel, denigrator of faiths and an abnormal person. Often these philistines with a religious disposition sit on judgement on my thoughts and posts. My thoughts are worth more than the miserable pennies they drop in the charity boxes.

Screw them to oblivion – Vinay
My thoughts are worth more than the miserable & charitable pennies they drop in the till.

(The Untouchables) - A Life less Ordinary.

There is infinite grace, harshness and beauty even in an ordinary life - even bruised souls find a connection, a glimpse of the fabric of realities, that is about sex, love and despair. For the impoverished life is layered with a profound sadness – the kind of melancholy that comes from being aware that their life, careers, even children are tainted by poverty. Throughout their life they try to escape this labyrinth which has a bleak centre – bitter sweet, poignant and deeply moving.

There is always an endeavor to get out of this rut and create a better life – like trapped dream walkers they float in a somnambulist state of sleeplessness. Whether their dreams die or if it will be successful is a moot point. Forever alone exploited by the rich 

and state – a seething rage implodes within their character, loneliness and disappointments are the order of the day.

They would wake up the next day, not knowing whether to laugh or cry about their dreams or nightmares, but just shrug it off and get on with their dreary life. They are afraid of their own thoughts and their response mechanism search high and low for a means to escape from themselves.

It is a cruel world that they are trapped in which ultimately breaks their spirits and souls and in the end it kills them as surely as life. There is no end to their misery and the very brave snatch moments of joy, before the timeline dissolves. The caste system which has Indian connotations is prevalent in the world –these are the people who are not part of society, they live on the fringes, they have no position or place in society you cant touch them.

Forming a part, of a shadowy world, left out of the mainstream- loneliness creeps in like the dark night that envelope a city. Only in sleep are their tortured minds allowed to relax and slip through the fabric of misery. So many questions, so many possibilities but none of them an option, careening off in the direction of an azure conclusion,-that ultimate point of truth, where all their desires merge.

Despite the progress and wealth of this unmoving world … everything around their wretched life is stifling, yet in their hearts they are free, blissfully unaware of the enchanting treasures of the world, victims of their own circumstances. Trapped forever, jaywalking through life with dreams for all eternity. _Vinay-

Who am I?

As Barry Schwabsky commented in Extreme eccentrics, those who maintain the question “Who am I” was started by mental cases seems to be right - only “mental impulses so strong and so disconnected from the actual environment / reality” as those that plagued, Van Gogh, Cezanne and Rousseau, could have allowed them the courage or naiveté to venture so far into the unknown. Later all religious figures and seekers began exploring this new terrain in full consciousness of the unknown consequences.

In India ringing in a bitter reality Janme Shah Sinha, Asia Pacific head of Boston consulting Group realized that he did not envy those seekers of spirituality in their quest for identity. No wonder the famous Indian film star Shahrukh Khan yelled at the US immigration authorities “my name 

is Khan and I am not a terrorist”.

Establishing one’s identity is equivalent to seeking Nirvana and is a herculean task. You require address proof, copy of your passport, electricity bill or phone bill. The issue gets further clouded as some accept passport copy, others went your (IRS) Pan Card copy, some insist on your driver’s license.

If the electricity and phone bill are in your wife’s name then you have to produce your birth certificate, school certificates and sometimes lease deed, or letter from the society you reside currently.

If you are brave enough to change your residence the whole process has to be repeated, you tribulations will never be over. You have to get all these copies attested by a senior Government official with a rubber stamp - the purple imprimatur, which certifies you exist. You also require furnishing bank statements for 1 Year. If you have not made any transactions because of the recession, it is assumed that you are dead, fictitious or do not exist.

Just like Frang Kafka’s character in “The Trial” who has no idea what he is charged with – we too end up wondering “who am I” if not for all these documents. The search continues…. If you are a real brave heart, then only apply for a U S Visa as you have to not only establish your existence and identity, but prove that you have enough bank balance to last through 3 recessions, that you are not a pedophile, terrorist, rapist, atheist, vampire or wife beater.

Golf and the Art of Swinging through life

In life we have Gurus, Sages and Personal life coaches. In golf the caddy is your companion guide and pseudo philosopher- who helps you to explore the landscape of your life. Among all the sports and games, golf is the one game that brings you closest to nature and your inner self. 
There is a method in the aimless jaywalking style of the game- while chipping away at the pock marked ball, one realize the importance of conserving nature and the environment. A mystical journey and a sort of spiritual union with the universe.
Silence is absolute here like meditation, and ethical questions will always hover in your consciousness when you attempt to take short cuts- because it will dawn on you that you are only fooling yourself, and it is not the p

ath to mastery or perfection. It is a symbolic trip through lush space and time, to perceive reality through nature.
You learn that bad shots happen on the golf course too and one must not fret about it but analyze what went wrong and focus on the next shot. You learn so much more from your bad experiences (shots) in your life than the good ones. You get time to reflect on them unlike other sports, not reflecting is a waste of a precious opportunity, as reflecting plus pain equals progress in life.
A few bad shots are not the end of the game of life and one great shot can make the par, and you can reclaim your life. The real purpose of mistakes, sorrow is to enable you to rechart your life, just like you make course corrections; you change the iron to fit the situation, different sticks for different strokes/ situations.
On the course you are alone, no coach, no guide the moment of truth- as you are poised to strike the ball, you are alone, the “ I” remains. You will discover that you develop two perceptions of life, two fundamental objectives,- the self discovery of your specific characteristic and the perception of distinction, for a balanced view, the game is a relentless pursuit of truth and personal evolution. That is why they say old golfers attain a state of bliss/ nirvana- they do not die, they only lose their balls.

Hinduism is not a Religion .

Religions have always been at loggerheads with philosophers and their advice to mankind. Christianity and other mainstream religious theology always wanted to remain as the undisputed King & queens of ethics and morality. Even after moving from the Gothic arches of the dark ages - the medieval Cathedrals, to the neo-Gothic modern towers of online biblical teachings, they want to even control the air- waves, with their commandments.

In ancient Hinduism and the Vedanta Philosophy which is not a religion but a way of human life - it is a treatise, a teaching one how best to care for the soul. The Upanishads like the philosophy of Epicurus Aristotle etc, taught mankind how to eliminate anxiety and irrational desires to lead a life of happiness. Living in accordan

ce with one’s own virtues is the goal of human life.

Vain is the word of the religious clergy who quoting their holy scripture can not heal any suffering of mankind. Even the commandments have largely lost the robust connection to human life and reality and are just a cramped box of permissible and non-permissible deeds. There is little that looks like it is capable of healing and it seems to promise the opposite.

Hinduism and ancient Vedanta’s ethical work in contrast offers guidance to “the whole of human life” not just questions of right and wrong. They share a commitment to life that develops and perfects the human capacity for reason cultivating the virtues of courage, temperance and compassion being a few.
The basic metaphysical truths of life were offered for contemplation to everyone, unlike the dense theories of religions which differed technically in each faith and advocated living in accordance to its fixed tenets. Vedanta and the Upanishads is basically ancient philosophy which focused on living well and is flexible.

Only when one has a completely grounded philosophical understanding on the embedded truth of how to live, can one find a fully satisfactory life as a human being. Unlike other religions or science there are no pre-determined answers for; What should I believe? How should I seek salvation? Or How should I live? It teaches what matter most in life and you are left alone to answer your questions. –VINAY-

Sincerity.

How a moral ideal born 500 years ago inspired religious wars /hipster chic/ modern art/stories and the curious notion that we all have something to say no matter how dull.
Somerset Maugham once stated “ I don't think you want too much sincerity in society," It would be like an iron girder in a house of cards." Extreme frankness is often called "brutal," after all, and unbridled truth-telling at all times and in all places would probably result in bloodletting.

Sincerity—broadly speaking, the alignment of outer and inner selves—would seem to be essential to the modern conception of a virtuous life.Sincerity was eventually elbowed aside by the need for authenticity, a more strenuous moral experience that responds aggressively to receive moral opinion.

Confronting one's innermost thoughts or emotions and relaying them to others straightforwardly, no matter how relevant to the topic, injurious to one's own reputation, or embarrassing—or however correct or incorrect. Freud helped push love and sacred marriage in this direction, by replacing the traditional 'holy space' reserved for the reception of fidelity in wedlock and discovery of God with drives for sex, violence, death, and pleasure. Rousseau, always saw man without civilization and religion as happy and good, you don’t need God or religion to teach you morality.

Our frustration with insincerity, he says, is itself disingenuous—a kind of performance of upright moral sensibility. The Puritan emphasis on sincerity, led to a climate of suspicion and misanthropy, the truly sincere person ends up understanding that he is always lying. Hardly anyone including the Vicar comes close to the ideal of sincerity all the time; yet our false beliefs about our own honesty keep us from lying even more.

Excerpts from conversations and article in Life and culture –Daniel Akst and R. Jay Magill.

Spirituality is not Chicken Soup for the Soul. Spirituality is not a search for experience or meaning in one’s life. It is not something mysterious or profound- it can be arrived at by contemplation rather than meditation. It emanates from the heart, prodding the mind and it is not an intellectual or divine phenomena. Spirituality is the search for the real being that is inside you, and with that knowing, there is no urge- no need to seek for any purpose. With the knowing of the inner true reality, the authentic being, all search ceases. Spirituality is all about living a life that gives you satisfaction, one that truly makes you happy, it is then that you are at peace with yourself and the universe around you. Spirituality must connect you to your desires and choices. Once you have come in contact with your deepest core, you can live an ordinary life, but the emptiness will remain with you, a sense of worldly solitude. There is no enlightenment or nirvana. –Vinay-

Spirituality is not Chicken Soup for the Soul.

Spirituality is not a search for experience or meaning in one’s life. It is not something mysterious or profound- it can be arrived at by contemplation rather than meditation.
It emanates from the heart, prodding the mind and it is not an intellectual or divine phenomena.
Spirituality is the search for the real being that is inside you, and with that knowing, there is no urge- no need to seek for any purpose. With the knowing of the inner true reality, the authentic being, all search ceases.

Spirituality is all about living a life that gives you satisfaction, one that truly makes you happy, it is then that you are at peace with yourself and the universe around you.

Spirituality must connect you to your desires and choices. Once you have come in contact with your deepest core, you can live an ordinary life, but the emptiness will remain with you, a sense of worldly solitude. There is no enlightenment or nirvana. –Vinay-

Tantric Mythology and Sex.

In the ancient Hindu, Greek and Russian mythological texts it urges man to indulge in our baser instincts like anger, violence sex – as venting and dissipating these energies conforms to the needs of the spirits within us.

A number of great sages, philosophers, writers, artists and poets also endorse this view. With regards to carnal and lustful passions, the pagan sense of sex – which is the primal flux, the DNA of our very existence. There is no resolution for the soul’s confusion, as our lives are divided into two emotional realms – one towards separation and individuation and the other towards connection and union.

It is only after we have satisfied the cravings of one’s physical desires that one can transcend into the higher realm i.e. sex in the cosmic sense from the genital one.
Like Dante who also found himself lost in the dark woods, in the middle of his life – but also emerged to see the stars, having discovered that love is what makes the world move and go around, and this is how he truly lived.

Thoreau also echoed similar sentiments when he said “We are all living lives of quiet desperation” or in today’s context noisy desperation, the conflict between carnal and ethical explodes in our faces. Most of us are not liberated in the real sense, real freedom frightens us.

We follow patterns, set for us by our parents, prurient religious, or an overtly moralistic society that weighs our morality against our desires.
Sexual liberation is the actual drive that leads us toward transcendence- it enriches our life and solves our creative crisis at the fag end of our lives.

Puritans and clergy will disagree and may even frown on the real freedom of our untamed energy and its link to the primal force of sex. They may even classify Dionysus (God of fertility & merriment) and Bacchus as a band of drunken monks and the epitome of vulgarity, but the spark of desire will always be inextinguishable – Vinay-

Exploring the world of Vedanta

The Vedas are world’s oldest composite literature on religion, science, humanities and spirituality, yet they are not treated as sacred in the biblical sense and as it is secular. It is a priceless intangible, and unique mystical world view of that era. It has documented mans culture, fear and misery as a sort of reflection of the Rishis of yore. It deals with our attachment to our wild side and the sensual world we inhabit with all its inbuilt suffering. The universe has sculpted our connection with life forms and solidarity with sentient and insentient beings. Earth is a picture where ideological and political crimes are carried out everyday, a cruel place despite humans who are instilled with humanity inhabiting it. The world is a merciless place, inhabited by, cruelty, consumption, hatred lust, violence and untold misery. Life is full of great joy and intense pain, we have lost something both aesthetically and ethically with the shift of the ages from that era to our modern culture, and we are on the brink of losing a priceless intangible heritage. Mans condition to protest against this human condition is to protest or pray to God, as they live their entire lives in the reflected glory of religions as part of a celebrity posse, losing their own identity in the process- hope exploding into despair the external theme of faith and religious becoming the setting for absurdity. Religions, symblolise hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected. Our relationship are filled either with great happiness or intense sorrow shared with lasting pain, it is here that the Vedas helps us learn about life. When we are stripped down to own bare bones and the road ends, when nothing leads anywhere, and religious hope and despair become equally groundless- then the Vedas helps us to reclaim our lives. As humans our life is nothing but a slow journey through detours of bliss and intense sorrow the simple understanding which unless you surrender to nature the world refuses to answer these meanings. We must move into the solitude and silence of our inner self to perceive the images whose presence our hearts opened up in the first place. What a fascinating world, its starkness like the desert that is within us, with a vast expanse of silence is the real beauty. Order and reason, the will to survive, the imperious obstinacy to change, all these secrets are revealed, the happiness in those mystical moments of nature, the simple pleasures and to re organize our life’s priorities till we can treat death itself is a triumph over our spirits. It is all there in the Vedas. –Vinay-

Where Love Has Gone it goes with you Danny…. -Harold Robbins-

Love, creativity and the Universe will always remain a mystery. It has intrigued theologists, philosophers and mankind, who keep wondering about it all the time. Love is the tragic influence in our human lives, a hostile relationship like a drug, in which we cannot control the hallucinations of desire and hate. The world is full of suffering lovers who converge easily, but with the passage of time diverge diagonally and as the sweet music ends- they no longer want the strings attached to the instruments of their love.The alchemy of the initial rhythm and mellifluous sweet thoughts that made them tango disappears in the utter tedium and futility of everyday life. As the crescendo of the love balled comes crashing down to expire on the rocks (pun intended) the images remain shattered and totally desolate. We go on living in quiet desperation even though the page is blank and bereft of letters or meaning. We wonder where the love came from and where it has gone. In this life we love many and one, it is as if the truth was an illusion built on a shaky foundation of trust. When did love alter is course like the river, what happened to all the obstacles/compromises we made to hang on, it couldn’t stop the relationship snaking away like a strong current leaving one bleary and starry eyed. Like a sputtering candle in the tempest it burns brightly then blows out and our lives become a blurred waking shadow of memories. The river of love flows into the larger ocean of life, the tears mingle with water and are everywhere but the river is no more. We wonder where it went, did someone take possession? We will never know, we return to the faded memories, like the rustling trees and rivers of our youth- to view lost love, reminisce with sensibilities on a deeper philosophical plane. The idyllic universe, that existed briefly, when we had time for loving and thoughtful individuality- deepening the intimacy before being snuffed out. Death, love, loss, expectations and regret are the deeper issues we face in our world- tinged with a sense of mild incomprehension as to what life is all about. –Vinay-

Awaken Your Ego.

Everywhere in discussions and beliefs it is propounded to kill the ego which is portrayed as a stumbling block in life and progress. According to Freud’s theory, ego has three parts Id, Ego and Superego. Id is the instinctive part (involuntary & spontaneous) which contain the basic drives and pleasure principles. Ego is the organized and realistic part, as one matures this part learns to endure pain, and defer gratification (satisfaction/ fulfillment) indulging only when necessary. Super ego is the critical and moralizing part which is the dangerous part as it can bring in a sense of false pride self idolatry in nature. All religions preach denial of the ego, this is because they do not want individual but herds and your own identity becomes extinct, and we become meek as ants. Ego is so delicate like a flower that praise tends to make it bloom while discouragement often nips it in the bud and resentment sets in. Ego is definitely required for survival in this planet. “I “and individualism is not a failing, it promotes yours own identity and a healthy distinctiveness. Your ego represents your assertion of your unique self to attain your objectives in life. The laws of nature cannot deny your existence, so treat it as a positive state as it provides sustenance for achieving personal excellence and in charting one’s life on our own terms. Even animals have awareness, instinct driven, the Lion is the king of the jungle, and they know fear but not greed. All creative people have hung onto their ego to follow their inner calling, passion, or creativity, because everyone is born with his or her own unique talent in their respective fields. Ego helps to develop lateral thinking to raise the bar for excellence and overcome adversity stimulating growth. It helps you lead your life with higher values, walk the talk, to be successful, happy and communicate yours vision. Killing ego is killing yourself a sort of spiritual hara-kiri – Vinay-.

Cabbage Patch Dolls and Golliwogs in Cyberspace.

Many of us may not even remember those quaint dolls made of cloths or knitted in wool, a cherished childhood tradition. We had relationships with them, but later grew out of it. Remember the weekends when we would grab the picnic basket, sun umbrellas and head out for an intimate weekend on the beach or woods with the family and friends. It was an iconic image of weekends and leisure, the sense of a vanishing world is painfully insistent in our technology driven lives today. With the ubiquitous Blackberry and Smartphone we embrace digital technology to fill the void of intimacy and warmth of relationship thats has vanished forever. Dolls, picnics and weekends at the beach with family and friend are passé and even at parties – physically they are elsewhere as they tap and text on their cell phones. Children have difficulty in differentiating the real and authentic from the inanimate. There is a dark possibility that cherished cultural artifacts and traditions will disappear to a point where, we prefer shallow relationships over actual intimacy. Cultures and places changed beyond recognition by social media. We have a fragile sense of self; we are becoming terrified of intimacy and flee from the old life long gone by … and the old analogue world being dismantled. We can never go back within the flow of time, from which it was removed. We turn to the digital world, mute the sound of our hearts and emotional lives and present a false persona online. We become that person; we get confused, disoriented going into a grayish dark world of monitors hoping to find a digital soul mate sooner or later. -Vinay-

Religion and Evolution.

Religion and Evolution. From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age, is a world history of religion in its early phases, directed against a biologically founded critique of religion and against all western and scientific triumphalism. It is based on an understanding of religion as a complex of human experiences, symbols, rituals, and myths and shows how the traditions were created that still nourish us today, for example, in ancient Judaism. If we elaborate on the biological foundation of religion by giving it a larger frame work it can encompass the cosmological and biological. For the study of religion in human evolution, let us start with the Big Bang, the beginning of life. I do feel that religion is concerned with the general order of existence. It is primarily a way of acting in the world, but it also involves a concern for knowing in the world. Remember the first sentence of Aristotle’s Metaphysics: “all men by nature desire to know.” But in order to understand who we are today in this world, we need to know where we came from all the way back. And we are animals—we are biological creatures—and furthermore, we could not exist for a minute on this earth without a great many other biological creatures. We depend on the entire biosphere and we need a great variety of other creatures. So this is where we have come from, and we are biological creatures, so that influences our understanding of what religion is. The reality that we have something in common with the rest of the biological world has never been forgotten by human beings. A few arrogant intellectuals want to make an iron curtain between the human consciousness and every other kind of animal, but children know. Their games are full of animals. And in a great many houses, we have dogs and cats, and we treat them quite nicely usually. So instinctively we know we’re related to the rest of the animal world. We don’t remember that we’re also related to the single-celled creatures that we call bacteria; we’re very afraid of them because a few of them do us damage, but really we rely on them more than we think. The biggest danger religion is facing is that some natural scientists and their sympathizers are trying to turn the evolution story into another kind of religion. This might imply that our deepest moral insights are not going to come from other spheres.-Robert Bellah-

Cyber sex – Fantasy without Boundaries.

If we are not afraid of death, we should not be afraid of sex. Why can’t we love and indulge in a thing that gives us pleasure? What is this irrational fear – unless we release ourselves from the fetters of this hypocritical mortality imposed by society? We will forever be in human bondage and we will never be able to find our true selves – because we are not crossing the barriers of self liberation. To live life fully is to explore those sensuous, dangerous horizons of desire; living on the razors edge heightens our senses in sheer exalted exuberance. We get in touch with our wild side of our inner spirits, the missing link where sexuality and spirituality meet. Sufis, Tantrics, Dervishes, the Bauls, Dionysus and Bacchus used love and sex as the final means to Mukti, deliverance or bliss. It was Blake who remarked – by flying ourselves with utter abandon into the sexual – we find that the spiritual beckons – the road of excess leads us to the path or place of erudition. In this internet age of cyber love and virtual sex with digitally simulated orgasms, which seems really hotter than sex in the real flesh – because there is no reality to block our inhibitions or fantasies? The mind has an infinite capacity for liberation and is after all man’s main erogenous zone. This is the right approach leading one to true spirituality, the transcendence to the right avenues, evolving from the lustful genital craving to the ultimate cosmic, symbolizing the freedom of our untamed energies. This is basis of transformation; it provides above all a meaningful human connection or linkage. In the end we recognize that it is not just work, but love and sex – the unconditional love of another who accepts us for who we are, that makes life bearable. Sex is the ultimate expression of love and fulfillment.-Vinay-

Run for your Life.

If the race is over by the time your settle in front of the Telly, it’s a sprint; if it is still on after you have finished the popcorn and beer it’s a marathon or long distance run. For some people life is a jog and others it is a lark. You see them early mornings / evenings with fancy running kits, ears plugged into an iPod. Many of them have never broken into a sweat about mundane things like mortgages / EMI, tuition fees, inflation or recession. Years of living in countries like USA, Canada and Europe, a regular diet of proteins and carbs have built up muscles, and the sprinters with a dash of steroids have build bodies that move like greased lighting. For most people in cities life is one big sprint racing through everything in life – school to B schools, career, work, dropping the children, soccer classes, tuition's, music lessons and the occasional barbecue in the back yard. When we race against the clock there is no time to ruminate or chew the cud, when you decide to smell the zeitgeist, it’s time for antacids and angioplasties. On the Olympic track running is not such a glamorous part time, the marathon is tough business.The Marathon is packed with people from underdeveloped countries like Ethiopia, Kenya, and Morocco………. Athletes who have struggled for a meal, no training facilities, no shoes and literally begged to find sponsors to travel and foot the bill. Slight and wiry men, running the race of their lives, but with the will power, patience, strength and endurance required - an aerobic experience, sprint is an anaerobic one. Gaur Marial knows what it means to run for his life – he spent his childhood being chased by savage battles in north Sudan. Running from soldiers, through deserts without food or shelter, he survived 20 years of civil wars which killed 2 million including 8 of his 10 brothers. He was attacked by Arab nomads and kept as a slave by an Army officer. But today he has secured his place alongside the world’s greatest athletes, the sprint glam boys as he participates in the Olympic marathon – a man without a sponsor or a country. - Excerpts and Cocktail conversations

Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

On July 4th science collided with religious beliefs in Switzerland in the conspiring cold when the Hadron Collider announced the discovery of the Higgs Bosun or “God” particle. There was palpable despair amongst “believers” who for 500 years were advocating the theory of a supreme creator of the mass and universe. The camp of science was popping champagne bottles and Higgs became the sexy super star in the science firmament, an icon of the scientific, intellectual and business world. Fifty years of hard work running like a headless chicken had culminated in the discovery that gives mass to particles to exist in space. Most “believers in belief” are not gullible theists, but mainstream people blessed with critical knowledge. But many others are blinded by religious superstitions - who support the misty realms of make believe, ludicrous notions of chosen people, soul exorcisms and heavenly rewards. To uncomprehending men of science, their “truth” is a truth of transformation - rather than the truth of information. For such staunch and fanatical believers, who have not even understood the ancient mysteries of mathematics, Quantum physics is some esoteric hyperbole and does not make sense. They are bound to denounce scientist as hypocrites and curse them to eternal damnation. For science it is the Holy Grail as it deals with only what can be known, direct or indirectly, by some experience and empirical truths. It cannot answer questions like the existence of God, consciousness, the soul, heaven or rebirth. Religion and belief has a life of its own, outside the scientific mind. Their claim is a matter of faith not knowledge. Slowly the religious congregations also splinter into smaller particles where no mass can be held and even the god particle will not be able to prevent to prevent decay. –Science vs Religion-Vinay-

Unholy Dream.

Religion gives you the luxury to dream of redemption, liberation and joy everlasting. When you wake up to the harsh reality of life, you realize that they have cleverly omitted to mention agony, grief and unhappiness on earth in their technical specifications. Over the years, religious wars, jihads and global terrorism have embedded, terror in the psyche of all peace loving people, endowing a weak messianic power to which the past has claim. People have slowly withdrawn themselves, mentally and emotionally from the wider cravings of faith. Empathy rather than sympathy is the new cardinal social virtue, which combines learning with a wise, unpretentious ethical sensibility. This has prompted a return to family values-which is clearly picking up momentum in these economic recessionary days. As the disparity between the elite and masses increase, looking outward makes for better social awareness. Power buys influence, the needs of the powerful institutions comes first, hierarchies comment must be respected, lives of ordinary people have no commercial value. Powers only understand power and the occasional injustice pales in the face of larger injustices meted out by the government. The global detachment of state and religion toward the masses is the unchanging habit of tyranny. Truth, transforms to deceit and hate in the “us-against them”, in the battle for survival, where the perverse power of solidarity erupts in “Arab Spring “and “Occupy Wall Street” revolutions. By plumbing the depths of our inner lives we understand the deep nature of reality. Following a charismatic leader or evangelical preacher to an abstract principle & their unrealistic assumptions is no longer an option. We are dissatisfied because the world is fall of wretchedness and religious vanity and our dreams turn into nightmares. The angels of history, the decay of ethics, and the flash of messianic fervor manifest the world in a futile state of flux. A new world order must arise; spirituality without borders, or confining dogmas, is the ultimate reward for happiness. “And as the truth is re-enthroned, problems of disparity should evaporate to usher in a posthumous portrait of civilized living to the new culture now defined by Internet and face book. Vinay-

Be a Vedic Nomad and Explore Life.

One’s entire life is a continuous slow journey, a pilgrimage like process of inquiry through the world. It is related to discovery and learning, but the beautiful mystery will never end. A certain sense of what is transient and what is permanent in this universe will permeate and grow as knowledge grows within you. Life itself is our teacher and the Universe communicates with us, unlike school or society there is no test and no fixed curricula. You will continuously meet different situations and this experience bitter or bliss will teach you what is to be desired and what is unimportant. You need not go through many births, heavens or hells -this life itself is a collection of moments and experiences. It will provide you with the key moment when if you look without awareness you cannot see, or listen, but cannot hear. Life may be series of attachments, because relationships are the fulcrum of our lives, be it physical, mental, emotional or spiritual. The order of existence in the Universe is rooted in viewing everything with equanimity and relationships with animate and inanimate beings. We will learn to bear reality ‘s timeless and space less fire, and enjoy the grace of nature and realize – that there is nothing to be asked for, desired for beyond one’s spiritual self. This what is called enlightenment and it is not an end by itself, only death is the end of physical existence.

Only Slaves are bereft of Ego.

Identification with our self and ego is very important for our individuality to grow. The universe is full of bio-diversity but each has its own inimitable DNA stamped on it. Ego is the spirit that nourishes our growth and gives you the identity of who you are and what you think you are. We need to grow in consciousness to reach our full potential, to be perfect and complete. True humanity is the distinctive characteristic of an evolved ego, a spiritually awakened person who has no fear, but believes in himself and his cause like Gandhi or Martin Luther King. If you limit your self image you can never be creative and the world will be bereft of icons like, Van Gogh, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Pop Stars, Hollywood Celebrities, Scientists, Sportsman, Artists and authors. However there is need for balance, preventing one from a self inflated ego and pride. One must be flexible and not fixated or don the role of god. Killing your true self is not possible because the tiny shred of DNA differentiates you, from the larger superficial layer of homo- sapiens, as one robotic, religious army. The ego allows us to experience our true nature, and accomplish things as a separate entity. Sometimes the individual can become a victim of his own success. One must emulate the Universe which though having unlimited power and infinite resources, allows separate beings, persons to co-exist and dissolves all boundaries, yet sets everyone apart from one another to reach our own individual potential. Destroying someone’s ego is akin to slavery, whereby one person falls under the property rights of another, institution or cult and is contrary to the laws of nature.-Vinay-

- Adventures among Birds.-

Lonely creatures on this lonely Planet . So intolerable is loneliness that even animals attach themselves to any creature they can scrape an acquaintance with. There is a case of a pony confined by itself to a field, and a solitary partridge, the only one of its species in that place; they were always seen together in close companionship. Then again there was this lonely Swan, driven away from its group, who eventually made friends with a trout. The fish had its place by the side of the bird, just below the surface and together they would rest and together they would travel like one being…. Those who saw it could not believe their own eyes or senses.

Spirituality is beyond Religion.

There is a general feeling that being spiritual is being attached to some sort of belief, and you seek it when you reach the point of no return, This is the paradox because all religions have been missing the fundamental quality of spirituality- it does not have answers. It is not a break away from the predecessor called religion. Even if you are successful, rich and have achieved your goal in life, you are still lonely because of the high pressure and complexity of success. You still have questions and may need a course correction in your life. In this age of doubt and strife, it consummates our need for a friend, philosopher and guide. Spirituality creates awareness of the changes that could lead to a break through and develops your own potential. Change can be anything kicking an addiction, changing your fast paced lifestyle, or unfolding unconditional inner space for further growth. It could be a guide on the ups and downs, holding you accountable & responsible for all your actions. Even if everything is perfect, we get bored with life, we are always on the lookout for new dreams to come true, or feel the certain emptiness in all our lives, spirituality helps you get into the flow without being judgmental. It can reveal the designs, both the big pattern/ picture and the smaller focused details, leading to a refreshing change. Spirituality opens up a fascinating and sophisticated world of emotional intelligence by asking powerful questions to increase the awareness or total recall of your self directed journey. It is not about who you were, but who you are, and instills the wisdom to live in the moment. So have no illusions, its is not re-packaged religion, there is no heavenly landscape, no fairy tales, no Martians, gods, devils or angels , yet its like a new me

The Vedic Tree of Life.

Terence Mallick tries to capture the essence of spirituality on celluloid and almost succeeds. The film chronicles the origins and meaning of life, by way of a middle-aged man's childhood memories, of his family living in 1950s Texas, interspersed with imagery of the origins of the universe and the inception of life on Earth. Jack (Sean Penn) finds himself a lost soul in the mo dern world, seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life, while questioning the existence of faith. It is impossible to distil philosophy in a film, but it takes you back to your childhood days, re-igniting all those long lost first moments/feelings/discoveres and guilt’s. The first time you fought with parents and friends, the remorse you felt later, the film blends all the above with imaginary scenes from the creation of the cosmos, how all is connected, how did we get here? Why? purpose of our lives? Mrs. O'Brien (Jessica Chastain) recalls a lesson taught to her that people must choose to either follow the path of grace or the path of nature. In Vedanta the tree is a visual metaphor of the essence of our continuous evolution, growth and continuity. The tree symbolizes our roots with nature, yet reaching out for change, innovation and resilience. Change and growth is constant like the branches, taking us to newer heights. Our roots give us identity and strength, to face adversity, the branches give shelter and succor to others in this universe. Whenever there is change, our roots and what we stand for will remain the same - but what we must aim for will rise to the higher realms. – Vinay- The Book of Job:"Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation ... while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" (38:4, 7).

Fear- kindles the mythical embers of the creator.

Fear of death is the mother of the invention of God - is the sentiment echoed by philosophers for centuries. Sentient humans dream up stories of an ancient supreme creator, to try and avoid death with the superstitions of after life. Creatures of the other hand are self aware, have base instincts like fear, but do not have faith, as a religious emotion, locked inside or fret about death - unlike humans who need such myths to live and thrive and hence invent them. Even poets Sufis, Dervishes have all extolled the virtues of nature where the flora, the fauna, dance together heralding the freedom from the bondage of religion and god. The whole planet, men, women, flora, fauna, creatures and inanimate, all integrate to become one and there is no God left to worship. The universe is the ultimate vessel where the spirit of freedom soars. With this intense relationship with nature comes a conviction, about the uselessness of Gods and priests, a dismissal of clerical authority, organized religion and social convention. Gradually it emerges that God had never existed, it was a literary hoax, a satire, a parody of outlandish possibilities - which no other animal has had to invent, unlike humans with their conscious awareness.

Make Love, Not Law.

This stimulating book examines the ways in which legal systems have attempted to regulate sexual activity over millennia, from the 'slow impalement of unfaithful wives' in Mesopotamia to the 'sterilization of masturbators' in the United States. The catalogue of fun is subject to continual reinterpretation by the baleful forces of law includes incest, masturbation, bestiality, sex during menstruation, boring old adultery, prostitution, transvestism, pornography (which came of age in the Early Modern period), and the cult of virginity. As for homosexuality, the Theban infantry had a gay unit that fought nobly at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, and the issue only moved centre stage in the Christian era. Overall, Christians come out of the story badly, 'with their insistence on the conflict between the body (which craves sex) and the spirit (which sex destroys)'. 'From the reign of Emperor Constantine to the present,' 'the Christian notion that sexual love brings spiritual death has been the cornerstone of Western sex law.’ What all this amounts to, in most of the human cultures that have ever existed, is the male fear of and wish to subjugate women. I don't suppose it sounds humorous to contemporary victims of forced marriages sanctioned by law, of condoned rape, of female circumcision - and of God knows what else happens to women in those countries existing in ethical midnight. In Ur Nammu in the third millennium BC the penalty for raping a slave girl 'was as trivial as a speeding ticket today'. Considering the recent case of the monstrous Dominique Strauss-Kahn, one wonders how far we have

Soul Song. (Till death do us part)

Birth and death are the inseparable and opposite poles of the life on earth, senescence is an acceptable for all form of life except for the Jellyfish Turritopsis Nutrecula which is believed to be immortal. Religions wax eloquently of the existence and possibilities of another beautiful world, of other exotic substances which an average person is unable to see. All religions require death- without it concepts of judgment day, cycle of birth, rebirth, or merging become meaningless. If there is no death, them there is no other world called heaven or hell- even ultimate enlightenment becomes meaningless. In real life dying statement are considered sacrosanct, the ultimate truth. People in their dying moments are candid- as their minds are free from all other compulsions. The beginning and end of life are symbolized by the birth and death cycle on earth. Even though the Abhramic religions propagate resurrection and Dharmic religious promote re-incarnation, no human being can ignore death. What happens to the soul as the body slowly dissipates and dies? How does life enter the soul and what becomes of it after death? How does the soul which held the older wisdom of the ancient discarded body adopt to a new outfit? Does the soul float in cyberspace during the interregnum between leaving the old shell and finding a new body?