Heart Scare.

Recently I fell into a fit of coughing and expectorated some blood into my hanky. Everyone panicked and short of calling an ambulance packed me to a large hospital. I was in the pink of health except for my nicotine stained larynx. The pulmonary specialist was a chipper 40 something doctor, who ran his stethoscope all over my body, my breathing was fine, but I was a smoker so he suggested an X-ray. The X-ray showed a patch, I thought it might have been the hole in the vest, but there was an eerie silence while the doc evaluated. He suspected “Pneumonia” I did not even know to spell it, I was more worried about the tobacconist whose family depended on my business. Then he wanted me to run a battery of tests and investigations i e. CT-scan, HRCT – CBC + RES, Creatinne, Bronchoscopy, Electrolytes, Blood picture, Glucose post & pre postprandial and a sputum culture. I thought recovery was all about confidence. Mercifully the reports were “negative” I thanked negativity for the first time in the life. My blood sugar was high so he referred me to a diabetologist. This guy looked at my history, smoker 30 cigarettes for 30 years, Alcohol 3 pegs daily, B. P. - Heart 3 stents and a diabetic and stuttered how…. how….. I completed the sentence for him “are you alive” the miracle of booze, I wanted to say. He also wanted several tests, thyroid, stress test, urine, and stool. By now my purse which had become desiccated revolted. I beat a hasty retreat towards the emergency exit with my frail and ailing wallet. I am happy to report that with sunshine, a swig of whiskey I am in fine fettle again. –Vinay-

The Tao of Spirituality.

Under ontological dualism, the mind becomes more and more confused by paradox and to work their way out of this confusion patriarchal theologians seek the abstract to escape from the natural world defined as a seductive honey trap. The Hindu Vedas called this “Maya” a mere illusion. The Christians seek liberation from nature in a state of consciousness bereft of nature or the sense experience called “Nirvana”. In eastern spirituality which later gave birth to Buddhism and Zen further developed this out of ancient Taoism to reinsist in the reality of the real. The, ancient female way of fusing spirit and matter in non – coercive union. Life is a dance, a flow of events, the desire of energy to form itself in its own rhyth ms, an organic will. It is defined as Maya, “illusion”, “evil’, mere matter. Denying this man tries to impose his own contrary will, in the process he “destroys nature”, and thereby himself, for he is nature. -Vedas- Tao --- there is a theory confusedly formed, born before heaven and earth. Silent and void, it stands alone and does not change; it goes around and is not weary. It is capable of being the matter of the world. It has no name so it is called “the Way”, it is further described as receding, receding - perceived as far away, turning back…. Tao is that form from which one cannot for a single minute depart. That from which one may depart is not Tao.

Writers Block.

I always experience a sort of bliss while writing – what can be described as a near spiritual process. Entering into a state of mind or being where knowledge is available from poets, philosophers, writers, past present and future. Drawing on all sources and inputs to create a visionary thought, and I feel an urgent need to communicate primarily through my writing, no matter where my images come from, stenciling them repeatedly for the world at large.I am fascinated by the people I meet in bars, cocktail circuits and watering holes as well as work places. I am struck by the naturalism of the middle class with their aspirations and their bold new digital life style of domestic reality.I am moved by the misery and pain which most people carry silently, till it becomes unbearable. Trying to capture the darker elements of the psyche at the dawn of a new era in social realism. It is an alternate vision where the world is nebulous and abstract like a painting and not a concrete reality. The drama of decadence is also transitioned as one move from booze to drugs in search of a better reality.The fringe is unexplored territory where truth and fantasy are not disentangled but fight for supremacy. We all by to combine truth with fantasy, but when we have to choose one from the other, we choose fantasy. -Vinay-

Drink!

Invariably teetotalers would pick up the most sensational parts of health books on the unreliability of safe drinking levels and the female body’s poor ability to handle or cope with alcohol. Few people know much about alcohol, what it is what are the main benefits and drawbacks, how much can one imbibe safely………………………. What happens if we drink too much? In the absence of hard information, people tend to dig their heels into a thick carpet of prejudice. The villager or rural farmer has been drinking “moonshine” almost a bottle a day since World War I and is as healthy as ever before and his liver is better than those half his age. The J-curve indicated that moderate drinkers are less likely to succumb to heart disease than heavy drinkers or teetotalers. My interest in preventing my own liver from packing up pre-maturely is so that I can continue to enjoy one of life’s greatest pleasures for as long as possible. What is certain is that we have to die of something, and for my money it might as well be something that gives me pleasure. Alcohol is the devil we know far better than as unknown devil. I remain philosophical thanks to alcohol (C2Ho5) while my upper middle class neighbors labelled me as a drunken genius. Alcohol revives a tired body and mind and makes a man richer in the gifts of life. It’s all I have left in life. –Vinay-

Tiger by the Tale.

In the movie Pl and the tiger explores issues of spirituality, fact and rationality from an early age. Due to his secular upbringing, PI’ was born a Hindu, but followed all religions leading to an all encompassing state of tolerance that is typical of Hindu culture. Due to political concerns Pi’s family embarks on a small Chinese ship to Canada along with some animals from their zoo. Their ship sinks and Pi is stranded on a boat in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger a Hyena, an injured Zebra, and an Orangutan. As food and water grow scarce the hungry hyena tears off the Zebra’s leg and spends several days eating it bit by bit, and then kills the Orangutan. Finally the tiger devours the Hyena; Pi begins fishing to feed the tiger so that it won’t eat him during 227 da ys at sea. The solitude of the ocean is lessened by the presence of the tiger, man and beast drifting in the ocean, quietly, so serenely has a profound and spiritual effect, like the essence of life itself. Lonely and needing direction, he is unable to see God through the lens of the various religions. Finally the voyage becomes the direction and purpose culminating in a magnificent epiphany of sorts. They encounter an island where algae are carnivorous, so retreat hastily to finally reach the coast of Mexico where the tiger escapes into the jungle. Life, death, water, sky, man, fear, tiger, strength, body and soul – these are the conflicting thoughts that reflect the abstract reality of life. The adventure is quiet, serene, beautiful and yet violent at times. The photography is beautiful depicting the desolation in our lives, the questions we ask, there are no answers, but the brilliant cinematic celluloid medium has captured the spiritual essence which Lee has portrayed. In a way it is the story of all of us, we resemble Pi in our little boats, with our fears, trying to ride out the sea of life and survive in this cruel world. How do you espouse any religion when societies seem organized around consumerism, how do you guard against the turn temptations of intolerance and extremism?

SCHADENFREUDE.

How beautiful when the winds meet over the sea and the dark vastness of the ocean trembles..... to stand up on the sea shore and see a ship sinking - rejoice in another's woe.....Perhaps this explains the astounding success of the movie “Titanic’. According to my friend Pesach Herschel “schadenfreude’ is a German word and there is no English equivalent. It means pleasure derived from the misfortune of others. Gary Coleman reiterated it in his lyrics and we see it happening all around us. Making fun when figure skaters fall on their asses or laughing heartily when a waitress falls dropping a tray of glasses. It is easy to have an “holier than thou attitude” though you hate the devil you love his antics and enjoy another’s woe and pretend you love god because you wouldn’t have brains enough to doubt and question. We think we are pure due to our beliefs but lack of compassion leads to unhappiness. Unhappiness does not bring people together but draws them apart. The believers think they know and understand everything; the less empathy they have, the broader they imagine their religious outlook. The unhappy believers are egoistic, spiteful, unjust, cruel, and less capable of understanding each other than non believers... The luxurious surroundings the villa, the yachts that bespeak higher cultural status, makes them react wrathfully towards the rich who seem to be happy externally. In the Eastern and Buddhist philosophy there is an opposite to the word “schadenfreude” known as “mudita” or sympathetic joy – which means happiness in another’s good fortune. Pause for a moment and enjoy their success instead of becoming jealous. Explore the possibilities in your life, living wisely as the sages of yore stated lies in discovering your passion and nurturing your talent. Precision, balance and clarity applied to daily life brings bliss. –Vinay-

Coyote Ugly.

Those of you who have seen the movie, "Coyote Ugly" may not know that it is a slang term which refers to the feeling of waking up after a one-night stand, and discovering that your arm is underneath someone who is so physically repulsive that you would gladly chew it off, without waking the person- just so you can get away without being discovered. Coyotes are known to gnaw off limbs if they are stuck in a trap in order to facilitate escape. The phrase has now entered the urban Lexicon and is commonly used to describe relationships, where in a stupor of desire people make commitments and then try to escape. A case in point is the sensual feline cougar, Demi Moore whose sensuality oozes out of every curve. Vladmir Doronin escaped her clutches and now Toy boy lover Vito Schna bel has also dumped her. A cougar mistaken for a pussycat shows the power of sexuality and how people intoxicated with lust salivate around the opposite sex. Mae West, at 83 could get any young man into her pad with a single come hither line. According to spiritual columnist Vithal Nadkarni there is a religious connotation -wherein he traces the equivalent in Buddhist philosophy to the donkey headed Yakshi, in whose lap the boozing philanderer wakes up bleary eyed in the morning after.The odd couples are depicted in the “Wheel of Life” motifs in Buddhist monasteries. The ass – headed feminine stands for the vice of lust that can be propitiated through enlightenment. Coyote ugly is an allegory for complete loss of discrimination brought on by intoxication. The Talmudic prophecy about the anointed king of the Jews on the other hand has the Messiah riding into Jerusalem on the female donkey followed by the colt – King and Colt. Moses, the first redeemer of the Israelis, too comes with his family riding on a donkey! In secular terms it is like the President riding to the White House on a cycle instead of a jet; but not in spiritual terms that emphasizes humility rather than hubris. –Vinay-

You Can’t Recharge your Batteries without a Negative Terminal.

Most of us spend a good deal of our time feeling impatient, frustrated, anxious, jealous, defensive and fearful. In today’s times man is living in circumstances of mysteries, uncertainties, doubts and hatred. Negative emotions if not understood in their proper context can be toxic and destructive. For instance the fear of betrayal pre vents us from trusting people, and we can’t form meaningful relationships in life. According to Keats we all must develop the “negative capability” which is essential for any achievement and real happiness, in life we must become aware, not generalize and trust our inner voice, only then can you trust others. Our thoughts and emotions move violently like pendulums from positive to negative, but enduring being battered by negative events and turning life’s ironies into moments of epiphany is the real vision of reality. If we can convert irritation into fact we can reason it out for a positive emotion.Our bodies make no distinction between negative and positive but threats, danger and uncertainty looms in our minds and our body responds to the basic fight or flight mode. We move reactively and trigger bio- chemicals, if we can proactively react, we can be happy, energized, exacted optimistic and confident. Concentrate on your strengths and break the web of negativity, with your individual understanding. Fuse negative and positive connotations into one compassionate emotion which is neither positive nor negative. We are all mostly ill with consumption and pass life wrestling to find happiness. It takes courage and a strong sense of self esteem to develop the “negative capability” which is the only way to resolve issues in life feel alive and connected to the universe. – Vinay-

Boredom and a Prayer.

Every Sunday millions of people will flock to churches all over the world to be bored. Over the course of one hour, they will hear talks on, among other things, topical sermons - concerned with a particular subject of current concern, liturgical sermons or evangelistic sermons - seeking to convert the congregation or bring them back to their previous faith through a recount ing of the foundational story of the religion, in Christianity, and scriptures from the Bible. Finally ending in the sermon a lengthy or tedious speech delivered with great passion, by the pastor, to an uninterested audience. The main advantage is that they offer the believer the opportunity to mentally wander: In wandering there can be revelation as you meditate, trance out, bliss out, luxuriate in your thoughts, think, or simply ogle at the women in the congregation. In Christian tradition, chronic boredom was “acedia”, a sin that’s sort of a proto-sloth. The “noonday demon”, as one of its early chroniclers called it, refers to a state of being simultaneously listless and restless and was often ascribed to monks and other people who led cloistered lives. By the Renaissance, it had morphed from a demon-induced sin into melancholia, a depression brought on by too aggressive study of math’s and sciences; later, it was the French ennui. Quakers who built the first “penitentiary” probably didn’t see it that way. The idea was that the silence would help them to seek forgiveness from God. In reality, it just drove them insane. Boredom has a much darker side, that it can be something much more akin to depression, another is that depression causes boredom; another is that they’re mutually causative; one theory is that boredom is the evolutionary cousin to disgust. And though getting out of boredom can lead to extreme measures to alleviate it, such as drug taking or an extramarital affair, it can also lead to positive change. - James Ward-

Crime does pay.

Thought it has been drilled in our head that the wages of sin are death and crime does not pay, in real life it is exactly the opposite. Recently in India Bhanot who was charged with corruption and siphoning money was appointed as the chief of the Indian Olympic committee. So too, many ministers’, politicians who were embroiled in corruption. There is a pervasive spiritual vacuit y that has covered our nation with a blanket of moral blankness. Self deception and corruption are the ladders to success by which we mean wealth. All our institutions allow shareholders to enjoy the wealth which can only be created by unfair and corrupt means. Even ordinary mortals are caught in this vicious web and there is a moral decline due to our greed for profit. Every successful company has a scam in its cupboard, which is the quintessential yardstick of success -rich dividends and bonuses are the result of this theme. CEO’s are supposed to generate profit by hook or by crook. This is evident from the moneyed sleazy milieu of politicians, fat cat bankers and big businessmen all colored by then own caustic, corruptible, sensibilities. Just before the crash and recession the wave of money making touched all sorts of people and it combusted itself as conspicuously as possible, pouring into champagne filled parties in yachts, villas with Jacuzzis, taking flight in private Lear jets and helicopters with a complete loss of one’s moral compass. Being fair, ethical, charitable and humane prevented one from being rich. The God Mammon favored the sinner. In philosophical retrospect the saints will have a lot of disappointments, devastation and depression. Sometimes wonderful things do happen when you don’t get what you want if you were ethical.

Dharma and Compassion.

In his classic teaching, Shakyamuni Buddha compares the ‘Dharma’ — the true nature of reality — to a soothing rain that nourishes all beings. Plenty of us recognize that Buddhist writings and teachings — especially in their Zen manifestation — celebrate the beauty and wisdom in the natural world. Part of this sensitivity to nature is a Buddhist grasp of suffering, whose exi stence constitutes the first of Buddhism's Four Noble Truths. The key teaching is ‘compassion’, which means something quite different from empathy, sympathy, doing good, being nice, or easy phrases about ‘feeling your pain’ for Buddhists there is no self in the deeper sense that no one exists as a singular, permanent structure distinct and isolated in any meaningful way from the rest of the world, in line with an evolutionary and ecological approach to our origins and our embeddedness in natural processes. The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, expressing as it does our love of the natural world and at the same time the pathos of our yearning towards transcendence. People who follow ecological thinking including rational scientists might not realize that they are also embracing an ancient spiritual tradition. No man is an island, entire of itself,’ every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes us, because we are involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for all of us-

A Spiritual Odyssey.

The spiritual voyage obliterates all boundaries; it is a journey into the centre of higher awareness a perpetual state of adventure. This state has no religion nor is it confined to any ideology, it offers an emotional concoction reaching deep inside ones inner self by which you attain the higher attitudes of consciousness. The key essence is love and compassion, bereft of feeling pain, being nice, empathy or sympathy. In the spiritual realm we shed the conventions of our normal society and open up less conventional customs - for reflecting exactly the state of moral and emotional anesthesia, which tells us about the realities of the world than do the rhetorical preachings of religion. The journey through celestial lawns is marked with delicate moments of subtlety and we realize what everyone takes to be real is in fact illusion. It reaches to unearth the bountiful beauty present in human beings, depicting love as the path to eternity. You will understand to look the way you think, as the mind is an inner reflection of what you are outside, it defines you. We admire the freedom of spirituality, unfettered by religious conventions, but when others are enslaved or held capture by social conventions we must return to literate them. Like a beam of love or like an enlightened soul, we must reach out with the uncanny sense of spiritualism to transform peoples destines. Spread a tranquil flame of soothing expressions to fill their hearts with the fragrance of love – Vinay-

The Material Man.

Freud said the goals of most are fame, money and beautiful lovers. We recognize the men’s search for wealth as an allegory on the quest for true happiness. The thoughts of each individual are always scattered in disorder . . . and without shedding light on anything, without lighting up the night, they vanish somewhere far beyond old age. Placing one’s faith in religion and miracles is like chasing the darkness. We all want to be pure souls yet wealthy, but pure souls aren’t worth a damn cent in today’s material world. All their inactive sanctity and purity are based on hazy and naïve sympathies and antipathies to individuals and scriptures, not to facts. Why silently whip yourself by pretending you understand everything about life. Even if god said let there be light, s ome lights only darken everything. For most women, the moment of love, followed by marriage and family constitutes a complete revolution in life, whereas for men it means nothing. They readily justify the deception. There is no such thing as free will and therefore they cannot be blamed. Women’s psychological hurt increases, this in turn distorts their perceptions and the inner bitterness will not allow happiness to enter. Restrain the mind until it dissolves in the consciousness. As Walpole stated “this world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel”. Slings of shallow relationships, ingratitude, inextricable attachments and falling victim to guile and deception, these often befall those who excessively use “heart” in preference to “head”. After all no one has any real self and, in any case, life has no meaning and grief is trivial in comparison with endless time. –Vinay-

Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.

For several centuries, Americans have been living under the regime of common sense - hard-headed empiricism, Yankee ingenuity, and so on—with respect to practical affairs. Yet at the same time this “nation with the soul of a church” has produced a plethora of emotionally charged creeds, most of them claiming exclusive access to the deity while denouncing their rivals and predecessors as cold, false, and dead. This now is the case of Islam that is rearing its religious head, starting from the Middle East and spreading all over other Islamic states. Truth games of the spiritual type, if they are not to sink into anodyne church/mosque/temple conversation, cannot and must not be confined within the frames of an epistemological establishment or within institutions of a politics of knowledge that's given once and for all. Religion sees “third world” humanism as a kind of "taming of men" that saves them from "barbarism, infidels and heretics. For cultural historians - social struggles, war, pain, the arts, politics, accidents, poverty, culture, science and technologies, are more important than trying organizing and domesticating the social life of people through the creation of organized religious institutions. Over the years the religious framework faded and accumulation became more acceptable, the Protestant, Catholic and Islamic ethic will be transmuted into the spirit of capitalism—a set of moral and psychological sanctions for systematic moneymaking. For much of world history, the marriage of religion and capitalism was the only one fitfully consummated. Mammon is the ultimate God.

Beyond All Religion Lies Salvation for The World.

All religious traditions, no matter how carefully re-designed to suit modern tastes, nurture strange beliefs—strange, at least, to non-believers. What could be more bizarre, to those outside the faith, than theories of transubstantiation or reincarnation, and of Limbo (abode of infants who die before baptism) or the heritability of Original Sin? Yet certain strangeness may be inevitable in such matters, Theologians choose obscurity over clarity. Quote scriptures as often as possible and add neologisms the more unclear the better, as if sprinkling opaque phrases. Any faith worth the name strains credulity. “Credo quia absurdum est”said Tertullian, religious faith and common sense are profoundly different ways of knowing. Out of a natural cosmos, they try to make supernatural sense. The question arises: how have educated people brought their white-hot faith into harmony with the cool practicality of their everyday lives? How have they connected theology to ethics, precepts to practice? Religion refers constantly to the endlessly interpretable Holy book -priests, mullahs, to show easy familiarity with the here and now and to suggest their profound literacy in their faith quote apostles and prophets to discuss important religious issues. For more than 300 years, everything that has fired authentic thinking has come from non religious philosophy erupting into science, art and literature. Religions rigorously avoid clear-minded science, technology, social science, or real history—the specter of interdisciplinarity—as if to proclaim that faith commands its own territory, concepts, and nomenclature, and outsiders must pay a salvation fee at the door.

Dead Senses Come Alive in Nature land.

One evening I wandered beyond the hills into the woods overlooking the city, it was a blend of exceptional beauty and tranquility. A pristine patch of nature preserved within the environs of the town with a bewitching charm. The sun was beginning to set and the modest crimson light seeped through the couture of dark foliage creating a dense evocation. The woods were so dense and there are no pathways, its wild nature whose sheer intensity makes us gasp in awe - desire burns slowly as the details emerge, hitting you with an intense punch. Our senses awaken to the whole story about longing and derail the elemental matters confronting mankind. A hushed silence envelopes everything like in deep meditation. The intimacy of nature demands one to physicall y bend and smell the fragrance of flowers or peer at the texture of a mushroom. These are the minutiae we miss in our daily lives which are revealed in nature- often with an absurd sensibility and require a poetic sense of imagination. We ignore these vignettes because we are immersed in the different aspects of our quotidian lives. A mystic osmosis takes place and a sense of elation overcomes me. I found the woods enlightening and liberating, all my worldly worries disappeared like an illusion as true nature revealed itself in the serenity of my thoughts. Back in the city lights come on, where glass and concrete has devoured mother earth. People despite street lights are walking in darkness, and cannot fit into nature’s landscape…, they have to rebirth anew. They understand nothing in that sense - it is difficult for them to recognize the insufficiency of worldly knowledge. I let out a sigh of relief before setting out to see the sorrier and sordid side of the world–Vinay-

Winds Of Change.

A new world is trying to eradicate old traditions but is not easy, as the old war horse fights back but doesn’t really stand a chance. The old Victorian buildings are being pulled down to give way to monstrous glass and concrete structures. During Asian and Commonwealth games the whole topography of Delhi in India was changed, similarly in cities where Olympic games were hosted. As Bailey and Pattanaik state that even in the eastern philosophy it states “everything must change for better or for worse” It is like someone growing a beautiful cauliflower in the garden to nurture and admire it, then of course, somebody else will come along and eat it. In the old Vedic system a man is supposed to retire from active life once his son has a son of his own - and renounce the wo rld and material activities. His s supposed to eat half of what he ate as the householder, and in the final renounced state eat whatever the wind brought him. The essence is that the old makes way for the new, so that society just as in nature is always taken care of and there is like too much burden on the resources of nature. It is like a career or job where you have given your heart and soul and your self-worth hinges around it. We are terrified of letting go of our identities, you may not let it go, but it has already let you go. Only those who relearn and reinvent themselves can inherit the future.

Where there is Wilderness there is Hope.

If you have lost your job, home or want to share the sorrow of separation, head for the wilderness. To explore the depths of unrequited desire, or to find a true soul mate this is the best retreat, alone in the midst of the beautiful wilderness, you can weep like a child. Loss, deprivation, anxiety, impoverishment, sorrow and loneliness haunt our lives. At some point everyone’s life seems like a failure - a sense of being incomplete, though not unfinished, a catalog of sensory and quotidian woes, that prevents happiness from seeping into our lives. In this lonely hideaway amongst the wild untamed beauty of nature you will discover a land of serene environs - with meandering pathways and winding dirt tracks. When you explore and venture deep inside you will realize the vastness and stillness. Here you can let go of our past demons and conceal the pain with a cathartic ferocity. Stacking new fragments of memory, into an epiphanic moment of clarity - that pushes you through a crack in the universe - and allows you to recreate or reclaim your life again. As you explore the surrounding wilderness and as the evening sky turns grey while watching the darkness claim the lake in a sweeping gesture you will discover your inner harmony. The narrative of our lives, operating in multiple layers and lying in shattered fragments will become whole again. –Vinay-

Street Illegal.

Many a time our hearts reach out to the homeless impoverished beggar or urchin who begs for money to eat. This universal epidemic prevalent from the descent of human life, paradoxically eludes the solutions of economists who have tried to bridge the gap between the haves and destitute. All of us have at some time with altruistic feelings tried to eradicate poverty in our own small way with the best of intentions, only to be rewarded with ingratitude. Many philanthropists, N.G.O.’s and charitable institutions have tried to reach out even through self – abnegating generosity. Apocryphal stories abound along with anecdotal experiences, some gave loans of Rs.5000/- to a mother and her malnourished children to start a trade and quit begging, and was surprised to find that she instead invested in a T.V. and was back on the streets in 2 days. Similarly a 13 year old street urchin was given Rs. 3000/- which he splurged on a pair of Nike Shoes and was starving and begging the next day. To understand ingratitude you must know the basic nature rooted in self-aggrandizement and egos of even street urchins. Those who are addicted to the lure of the streets and begging do not want to labor for survival. The sense of freedom, excitement and adventure the streets offer does not warrant the investment of an unknown future. He or she loves being a truant, beggar, even a thief by mere habit - an addict and dodger for life. Shaky ego, an inferiority complex, are the truths that manifest as ingratitude, sad but wiser for us so that our sympathies and affection are not misplaced or ill directed anymore. They are happy even without our money.

Jekyll/ Hyde are Anonymous on FB.

“Fifty Shades Grey” is a bland book about pseudo sadomasochism but it’s successful because it dares to talk about the “untellable” on the world forum. This is rare, most of the time; anonymity is still the preferred way to go about it. Like Jekyll and Hyde one apparently good and the other evil, a struggle between his dual personalities. You see, it is really very simple. All you have to do is make up an alias and surf the most sinful websites that your heart desires. Chat with other aliases and indulge in the kind of role play that your partner, your family, your society or for that matter even the ‘social’ you might not allow. You are free in this space. Free of the person that the world knows. On a micro blogging site, you can see the strangest aliases for people, and these aliases take it upon themselves to comment freely, rudely, hurtfully, and even downright sadistically to people and their situations. Yet what is important here is that they need the cloak of anonymity to say all those terrible things. They would never dare to say the things without being invisible. Meanness is too cowardly to stem from the person the world knows. It has to be delivered in stealth. And yet the most common use of anonymity is the internet and sex sites, which to my mind are the cleverest device invented by man. You can be who you want to be, and be really who you are! And the hypo critical person who judges him is always somebody else. Oh, for crying out loud. What a complex web we weave on the World Wide Web. All of us are two people, completely opposite levels of morality. All of us hiding from others. All of us judging the other, battling between the good and evil within. Can this get more muddled? I doubt it. Anonymity brings out our real selves.

WHO AM I? WHAT IS MY IDENTITY?

Roads? Where we are going we don’t need roads or paths. We are all travelers the journey is like a stream passing through many landscapes before reaching the desert sands. After crossing many barriers the stream found that its waters disappearing in the desert sands. We sometimes think our destiny is to cross the seven seas or the desert but here the danger lies in being soaked by the sand. No matter how fast it ran in the sand its water disappeared. Then an inner voice speaking on behalf of the mystic desert says, “You cannot cross by doing things in the same way you’re traveled, surmounting obstacles. – allow the wind to carry you over to your destination.” We are scared of change of being absorbed we do not want to lose our individuality and you cannot remain the same for eternity. The sand again whispers “the wind will carry the water over the desert and fall like rain and become a stream again.” Why cannot I remain as the stream I am? The sand replies “Your essential part is carried away and forms a stream again, “you are called what you are because you do not know which part of yourself is the essential one or the reality.” The stream then recalls its past and the state of its earlier generations – it had been held in the arms of the wind raised into vapor gently borne upwards and then let to fall gently on the mountains to become a stream again. The experience of your life constitutes your identity and consciousness evolves along the journey. -With excerpts from a Sufi Parable -

Recently I fell into a fit of coughing and expectorated some blood into my hanky. Everyone panicked and short of calling an ambulance packed me to a large hospital. I was in the pink of health except for my nicotine stained larynx. The pulmonary specialist was a chipper 40 something doctor, who ran his stethoscope all over my body, my breathing was fine, but I was a smoker so he suggested an X-ray. The X-ray showed a patch, I thought it might have been the hole in the vest, but there was an eerie silence while the doc evaluated. He suspected “Pneumonia” I did not even know to spell it, I was more worried about the tobacconist whose family depended on my business. Then he wanted me to run a battery of tests and investigations i e. CT-scan, HRCT – CBC + RES, Creatinne, Bronchoscopy, Electrolytes, Blood picture, Glucose post & pre postprandial and a sputum culture. I thought recovery was all about confidence. Mercifully the reports were “negative” I thanked negativity for the first time in the life. My blood sugar was high so he referred me to a diabetologist. This guy looked at my history, smoker 30 cigarettes for 30 years, Alcohol 3 pegs daily, B. P. - Heart 3 stents and a diabetic and stuttered how…. how….. I completed the sentence for him “are you alive” the miracle of booze, I wanted to say. He also wanted several tests, thyroid, stress test, urine, and stool. By now my purse which had become desiccated revolted. I beat a hasty retreat towards the emergency exit with my frail and ailing wallet. I am happy to report that with sunshine, a swig of whiskey I am in fine fettle again. –Vinay-div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">

A letter……………..oops! Post to Santa Claus.

Dear Santa, I want to take this opportunity, before time and our common mortality, robs me of the chance to thank you, St Nicholas for all the gifts you have been showering on all of us as children. Xmas might ring in earlier, courtesy global warming, hurricane Sandy and climate change, causing Ice in the North Pole to melt. Yuletide and your feast on 6th December will be a low profile affair as the buying spree is subdued due to recession. I know you are known for your secret acts of charity and love. So shower your munificence on the homeless and jobless who were caught in the wake of depression and hurricane. I have kept my X’Mas gift request to the bare minimum just an I Phone 4S with artificial intelligence, as whatever IQ -I was born with has been diluted by Face book. The iPhone has a million applications that does everything very well except the phone part. The $ 4 per gallon of gasoline must be crimping everyone’s lives; thank god you stuck to your reindeer (games) transportation. Take a detour from Wall Street as it is congested with protestors. Oh yeah! please throw in a bottle of Jack Daniels too Ho Ho! The turkey I can steal from the farm. This yuletide is your season, like Toy Story we all have been lucky to run along behind you picking up all the goodies you drop in the socks. It is a little scary to think that in future instead of this letter our requests will have to be sent via internet on Face book, Google and Twitter. As twitter restricts the no of characters the shopping list will be small and you can process it online. I am happy that I lived in a time where the reindeer's and buffaloes roamed. - Vinay-

The Tao of Spirituality.

Under ontological dualism, the mind becomes more and more confused by paradox and to work their way out of this confusion patriarchal theologians seek the abstract to escape from the natural world defined as a seductive honey trap. The Hindu Vedas called this “Maya” a mere illusion. The Christians seek liberation from nature in a state of consciousness bereft of nature or the sense experience called “Nirvana”. In eastern spirituality which later gave birth to Buddhism and Zen further developed this out of ancient Taoism to reinsist in the reality of the real. The, ancient female way of fusing spirit and matter in non – coercive union. Life is a dance, a flow of events, the desire of energy to form itself in its own rhyth ms, an organic will. It is defined as Maya, “illusion”, “evil’, mere matter. Denying this man tries to impose his own contrary will, in the process he “destroys nature”, and thereby himself, for he is nature. -Vedas- Tao --- there is a theory confusedly formed, born before heaven and earth. Silent and void, it stands alone and does not change; it goes around and is not weary. It is capable of being the matter of the world. It has no name so it is called “the Way”, it is further described as receding, receding - perceived as far away, turning back…. Tao is that form from which one cannot for a single minute depart. That from which one may depart is not Tao.

Writers Block.

I always experience a sort of bliss while writing – what can be described as a near spiritual process. Entering into a state of mind or being where knowledge is available from poets, philosophers, writers, past present and future. Drawing on all sources and inputs to create a visionary thought, and I feel an urgent need to communicate primarily through my writing, no matter where my images come from, stenciling them repeatedly for the world at large.I am fascinated by the people I meet in bars, cocktail circuits and watering holes as well as work places. I am struck by the naturalism of the middle class with their aspirations and their bold new digital life style of domestic reality.I am moved by the misery and pain which most people carry silently, till it becomes unbearable. Trying to capture the darker elements of the psyche at the dawn of a new era in social realism. It is an alternate vision where the world is nebulous and abstract like a painting and not a concrete reality. The drama of decadence is also transitioned as one move from booze to drugs in search of a better reality.The fringe is unexplored territory where truth and fantasy are not disentangled but fight for supremacy. We all by to combine truth with fantasy, but when we have to choose one from the other, we choose fantasy. -Vinay-

Drink!

Invariably teetotalers would pick up the most sensational parts of health books on the unreliability of safe drinking levels and the female body’s poor ability to handle or cope with alcohol. Few people know much about alcohol, what it is what are the main benefits and drawbacks, how much can one imbibe safely………………………. What happens if we drink too much? In the absence of hard information, people tend to dig their heels into a thick carpet of prejudice. The villager or rural farmer has been drinking “moonshine” almost a bottle a day since World War I and is as healthy as ever before and his liver is better than those half his age. The J-curve indicated that moderate drinkers are less likely to succumb to heart disease than heavy drinkers or teetotalers. My interest in preventing my own liver from packing up pre-maturely is so that I can continue to enjoy one of life’s greatest pleasures for as long as possible. What is certain is that we have to die of something, and for my money it might as well be something that gives me pleasure. Alcohol is the devil we know far better than as unknown devil. I remain philosophical thanks to alcohol (C2Ho5) while my upper middle class neighbors labelled me as a drunken genius. Alcohol revives a tired body and mind and makes a man richer in the gifts of life. It’s all I have left in life. –Vinay-

Tiger by the Tale.

In the movie Pl and the tiger explores issues of spirituality, fact and rationality from an early age. Due to his secular upbringing, PI’ was born a Hindu, but followed all religions leading to an all encompassing state of tolerance that is typical of Hindu culture. Due to political concerns Pi’s family embarks on a small Chinese ship to Canada along with some animals from their zoo. Their ship sinks and Pi is stranded on a boat in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger a Hyena, an injured Zebra, and an Orangutan. As food and water grow scarce the hungry hyena tears off the Zebra’s leg and spends several days eating it bit by bit, and then kills the Orangutan. Finally the tiger devours the Hyena; Pi begins fishing to feed the tiger so that it won’t eat him during 227 days at sea. The solitude of the ocean is lessened by the presence of the tiger, man and beast drifting in the ocean, quietly, so serenely has a profound and spiritual effect, like the essence of life itself. Lonely and needing direction, he is unable to see God through the lens of the various religions. Finally the voyage becomes the direction and purpose culminating in a magnificent epiphany of sorts. They encounter an island where algae are carnivorous, so retreat hastily to finally reach the coast of Mexico where the tiger escapes into the jungle. Life, death, water, sky, man, fear, tiger, strength, body and soul – these are the conflicting thoughts that reflect the abstract reality of life. The adventure is quiet, serene, beautiful and yet violent at times. The photography is beautiful depicting the desolation in our lives, the questions we ask, there are no answers, but the brilliant cinematic celluloid medium has captured the spiritual essence which Lee has portrayed. In a way it is the story of all of us, we resemble Pi in our little boats, with our fears, trying to ride out the sea of life and survive in this cruel world. How do you espouse any religion when societies seem organized around consumerism, how do you guard against the turn temptations of intolerance and extremism?

Gentrified

The word ‘gentry’ is an anachronism – it is a thing of the past. Aristocracy, landlords or landed gentry evokes a cosy genteel exclusive and somewhat smug world – in which background and family were deemed more important than sheer- wealth and individual qualities. The younger generations has declined this privilege and are scattered round the globe. In those days it was all about land, they had core values of grace, enterprise, chivalry, breeding and honor. Money and conflict were as crucial as blood and family, but character was important and this many times has caused them to lead a life of struggle in later years. A sense of order, sociability, well being and ability were expressed through the landscape and inter folding of people. Land, animals, paddy fields, food, and old rambling mansions, all interconnected with old money and social connections. Many amassed wealth through plantations, business was looked down upon – so too jobs and politics. As the old order changed slowly, big businesses, politics and the government took over of vast tracts of land and pushed them slowly to penury. Some through their achievement, adjustment & adaptation have advanced up the ladder. The beautiful sense of community slowly disintegrated by unkindness, dominance and competition. To struggle with the new world order and corrupt politics was their Waterloo. In the faint horizon we can still hear the clink of wine glasses, the clutter of Dresden crockery as the hushed low voices fill the air. Life is a struggle and community ephemeral

Martyr or Mercenary?

Vengeance is mine screamed Pakistan Taliban leaders exhorting their followers to mount attacks on Indian targets anywhere in the world. They want to avenge the execution of the terrorist Ajmal Kasab whose team senselessly murdered and maimed 80 people in Mumbai on 26/11. Meanwhile in Islamabad a suicide bomb attack killed 23 people and maimed 67 others when a Shia Muslim pro cession was mourning Husain the Martyr of Karbala. Paradoxically in Islam the Shia, Sunni and fundamentalists kill each other in sectarian violence. Internecine sibling rivalry that pits brother against brother from biblical times. As the famous poetess Sarojini Naidu wrote “Black robed – bare footed and bare chested – with dim eyes that rain”. Wild tears and memory of thy woeful plight. The votaries mourn and self flagellate themselves through the tragic night / crying to thee Husain – Ya - Hussain…………… The Tehreek – I Taliban has claimed responsibility for bomb blasts and also targeted Malala for her relentless objection to the repressive interpretation of Islam. Rather than religious fanaticism, it is poverty that drives young men to become jihadists and suicide bombers. Typical terrorist belongs to a large family with meager means and several siblings. Religion is a virus that indoctrinates these young minds with all kinds of infectious memes that thrive in spite of being false, such as being Allah’s message is to kill infidels and enter heaven as Shaheed. These are backed by admonitions to have faith in Allah and not doubt his instructions but blindly follow all untestable but ferocious commands or face punishment. The gullibility and naiveté of the majority followers of Islam despite rational minds never ceases to amaze me. Understanding of truth is always conditioned by religion. So no one is a mercenary as they go on killing innocents - everyone is a martyr. Tell it to the Marines. –Vinay-

The Pursuit of Happines.

The pursuit of happiness is on! What do we know about happiness? We know that people’s reports of immediate joy and misery fluctuate from activity to activity—sex is an upper; commuting is a downer—and often diverge notably from the summary answers they give to questions about their happiness “these days.” We also know that subjective well-being can be complex. People can be happy about work and sad about love; the latter usually matters more. The opposite of happiness, research suggests, is not necessarily despair, but rather apathy; some people just don’t feel much of anything. Nonetheless, people who say they are generally happy tend to be economically secure, married, healthy, religious, and busy with friends; they tend to live in affluent, democratic, individualistic societies with activist, welfare-state governments. The connection between reporting happiness and personal traits often runs both ways. For example, being healthy adds to happiness, and happy people also stay healthier. For decades, researchers have been obsessed with—whether money makes people happy. We know that being poor makes people less happy. Making more money may be fruitless because people adapt psychologically to their levels of wealth and, like addicts and drugs, need ever more money to get the same level of pleasure. People chase money to feel superior to the folks next door. That, of course, becomes a vicious and pointless cycle. but they nevertheless insist that more money—unlike the futile experience with drugs—does bring more happiness, just at a slower pace among the well-to-do. what gives us most meaning in life and suggests it is more often found in painful striving than in achievement. Whatever the philosophical issues around happiness (Whatever the philosophical issues around happiness (Paradox, aside from adaptation and competition, is that increasing materialism ruined the pleasure Americans might have gotten from becoming wealthier. -Claude S. Fische

LEGACY.

What is the logic of national pride, family pride or shame? Having a 3000 year genetic legacy can be a source of group identity and pride in the same way as a shared history, culture & religion. Religion, color, caste, creed, region and relationships normally define our identity and classification of humans always depended on physical features like skin color, facial and hair form called me mbers of a race. “Race” is a term of uncertain etymology and many interpretations, human race, white race (Europeans), Englishmen(Nation), Africans, the last of the Mohicans or even a single family. History is replete with race, “tribe” or “people”. Are the NAVAJO, a tribe, a race, or people? Ancestry and origins are vital in every culture, as is family history as Richard Lewotin states in this article; we may understand ourselves better if we know our line of ancestors. Consciousness of being a member of a genetically ethnic group may help us in our quest for self knowledge and to know who we really are. Biological research validates links between Jews and the land which has been the glue of their socio cultural bonds, like cultural or religious principles transforming ancestry into identity of selfhood. The choice to learn about ourselves, to remain who we are or realign ourselves vis a vis the newly revealed sense and bodily facts about who we have always been remains ours to make.

Green Philosophy.

Today the new flavor is towards the green movement, organic farming, recycling, energy conservation and working for a sustainable environment. However this has always been the fundamental principle of the Vedic philosophy. The interlinked chains of cause and effect are inherent in the eastern metaphysics which ecological science is discovering. Eastern Vedic spirituality state s that the natural world is a subtle balance of complex inter-relationship in which the existence of organisms is dependent on the existence of others in the ecosystem. Our embeddedness is in line with the evolutionary and ecological approach. So celebrate the beauty, wisdom and grasp the suffering which is part of existence David Barash an evolutionary biologist understood this principle as he states in this review, “all individual lives are eventually over but their constituent parts continue living for ever in an ongoing process of bio-geo-chemical cosmic reincarnation”. Hence the Vedas urge us to be sensitive to the suffering of all sentient beings – as we are all evolved from spare parts scavenged from the same cosmic junk. The key teaching is compassion which is different from empathy or sympathy – as there is no self in the deeper sense and no one exits as an island isolated from the rest. Many in the western world now espouse eastern spiritual philosophy – succumbing perhaps to its chic Hollywood appeal where Tantra, Yoga and Meditation are the latest fads, while others endorse a world view with political implications that go beyond bumper stickers – demanding a free Tibet

Just Say the Word and I Shall be Healed.

The individual is unfathomable, therefore exploring the self becomes the key to accessing the magical world we live in and it is this search which enriches our sense of existence. Opening up our senses and consciousness gives us an ecstasy, which may seem to be entangled in an inflexible reality. As individuals we yearn to reunite with our cosmic womb and hence the eternal ethos of humanity is on a perpetual quest. Some tend to run and collapse in the wanting of the beloved, the lovers become blind to everything else. The more our desires are unveiled, the more we enjoy life in this world; however the trajectory of our life is regulated by forces beyond our reach. When we face sorrow and misery the words of sages, philosophers give us relief from the fatigue of everyday life. These words or thoughts of poets, philosophers and writers can turn our anxieties into happiness and peace with their magical power. Words and poems have a redemptive quality and books and prose have a curative force and provide the escape we all desire. We are able to overcome grief emanating from unachieved desires. These prose and poem carry a message as well as cosmic spiritual energy and as Novalis states, “heals the wounds inflicted by the world”, as it transports you into another realm. It is an attempt to move towards a fragile redemptive peace from heart rending and unforgettable experiences.-Vinay-

Boredom and a Prayer.

Every Sunday millions of people will flock to churches all over the world to be bored. Over the course of one hour, they will hear talks on, among other things, topical sermons - concerned with a particular subject of current concern, liturgical sermons or evangelistic sermons - seeking to convert the congregation or bring them back to their previous faith through a recount ing of the foundational story of the religion, in Christianity, and scriptures from the Bible. Finally ending in the sermon a lengthy or tedious speech delivered with great passion, by the pastor, to an uninterested audience. The main advantage is that they offer the believer the opportunity to mentally wander: In wandering there can be revelation as you meditate, trance out, bliss out, luxuriate in your thoughts, think, or simply ogle at the women in the congregation. In Christian tradition, chronic boredom was “acedia”, a sin that’s sort of a proto-sloth. The “noonday demon”, as one of its early chroniclers called it, refers to a state of being simultaneously listless and restless and was often ascribed to monks and other people who led cloistered lives. By the Renaissance, it had morphed from a demon-induced sin into melancholia, a depression brought on by too aggressive study of math’s and sciences; later, it was the French ennui. Quakers who built the first “penitentiary” probably didn’t see it that way. The idea was that the silence would help them to seek forgiveness from God. In reality, it just drove them insane. Boredom has a much darker side, that it can be something much more akin to depression, another is that depression causes boredom; another is that they’re mutually causative; one theory is that boredom is the evolutionary cousin to disgust. And though getting out of boredom can lead to extreme measures to alleviate it, such as drug taking or an extramarital affair, it can also lead to positive change. - James Ward-

Sighing in the Wind!

The lines from the movie “Casablanca” haunts my thoughts in a tantalizing way “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship” she partied, frolicked and fornicated with a melancholic ferocity. It’s probably destiny that binds people into brief relationships which sometimes cannot be sustained. Like the bird on a wing, the cactus swaying in the sands, life i s a form of love affair, it is sheer poetry as she found in “Casablanca” – the companionship, equality of spirit and intellect that she craved, each helped overcome loneliness in each other. Sometimes spiritual and intellectual relationships can ultimately blossom into sexual relationship; there is no harm if one indulges in a physical affair if the perception is without distortion. We all grapple with problems of grief and loneliness and want to convert it into ordinary happiness, in a safe and supportive environment “I’ll go home and I’ll think of some way to get back together again. After all tomorrow in another day!”

Just Say the Word and I Shall be Healed.

The individual is unfathomable, therefore exploring the self becomes the key to accessing the magical world we live in and it is this search which enriches our sense of existence. Opening up our senses and consciousness gives us an ecstasy, which may seem to be entangled in an inflexible reality. As individuals we yearn to reunite with our cosmic womb and hence the eternal ethos of humanity is on a perpetual quest. Some tend to run and collapse in the wanting of the beloved, the lovers become blind to everything else. The more our desires are unveiled, the more we enjoy life in this world; however the trajectory of our life is regulated by forces beyond our reach. When we face sorrow and misery the words of sages, philosophers give us relief from the fatigue of everyday life. These words or thoughts of poets, philosophers and writers can turn our anxieties into happiness and peace with their magical power. Words and poems have a redemptive quality and books and prose have a curative force and provide the escape we all desire. We are able to overcome grief emanating from unachieved desires. These prose and poem carry a message as well as cosmic spiritual energy and as Novalis states, “heals the wounds inflicted by the world”, as it transports you into another realm. It is an attempt to move towards a fragile redemptive peace from heart rending and unforgettable experiences.-Vinay-

Thou Shall Not Commit Adultery.

“I have looked at many women with lust. I have committed adultery in my heart many times. God knows I do this, and forgives me.” Former American President Jimmy Carter had said this in what appears to be an extremely brave moment of unflinching honesty. No one, and I repeat no one, has escaped adultery. To my mind there are only two kinds of people – the ones who would indulge in adultery, and the others, who would think of adultery but not indulge in it; but there is no third kind, the ones you’d like to believe are people who neither think nor commit adultery. If anyone were to say that he or she has never ever thoughts of someone else while they have been with another. I would say, tell that to the marines! Complete balderdash! We are two people, all of us. One that the world knows, and the other that we keep to ourselves, locked and closeted with access only given to our minds. No one dare enter. Is this rant about adultery then? No its not. The above take on adultery is only a way of expressing the duplicity that exists within all of us. This duplicity is also what brings me to the principle that I would like to share today: its only anonymity that brings out our real selves. In essence, what it means is that to be your real self, you have to be someone no one can recognize. To let your honest and true desires surface, you have to pretend to be someone that you are not to be you. It’s tragic and quite ironical. What has the world turned us into? Why are people constantly afraid of being judged for who they are? In every person, there exists that other person who wants to be free. The greatest irony – and tragedy – of human nature is that to be yourself, you have to be someone no one can recognize. Alas! It’s too late to rewrite the dictum of society. It’s the rare person who dares, and goes against the dictum. For the rest, there is anonymity, and it seems to be the only way to be. Have fun then, but don’t get caught! _ME THINKS_ Vikram Bhatt.

Crime does pay.

Thought it has been drilled in our head that the wages of sin are death and crime does not pay, in real life it is exactly the opposite. Recently in India Bhanot who was charged with corruption and siphoning money was appointed as the chief of the Indian Olympic committee. So too, many ministers’, politicians who were embroiled in corruption. There is a pervasive spiritual vacuit y that has covered our nation with a blanket of moral blankness. Self deception and corruption are the ladders to success by which we mean wealth. All our institutions allow shareholders to enjoy the wealth which can only be created by unfair and corrupt means. Even ordinary mortals are caught in this vicious web and there is a moral decline due to our greed for profit. Every successful company has a scam in its cupboard, which is the quintessential yardstick of success -rich dividends and bonuses are the result of this theme. CEO’s are supposed to generate profit by hook or by crook. This is evident from the moneyed sleazy milieu of politicians, fat cat bankers and big businessmen all colored by then own caustic, corruptible, sensibilities. Just before the crash and recession the wave of money making touched all sorts of people and it combusted itself as conspicuously as possible, pouring into champagne filled parties in yachts, villas with Jacuzzis, taking flight in private Lear jets and helicopters with a complete loss of one’s moral compass. Being fair, ethical, charitable and humane prevented one from being rich. The God Mammon favored the sinner. In philosophical retrospect the saints will have a lot of disappointments, devastation and depression. Sometimes wonderful things do happen when you don’t get what you want if you were ethical.