Be a friend

 1995 - I was in the first year of engineering college, I went to Appā Baḷwanta Chowk, the place where numerous bookstores are there. I parked my scooter by the side of the road and started walking - looking at the shops - when suddenly a kind but strong voice called out -

Bol mitrā, tulā kaay pāhije, kaay shikāychay - mi deto.
(Bolo mitra, tumhe kyā chāhiye - kyā sīkhnā hai, mai detā hoon.
Hey friend, tell me what you want - what do you want to learn - I will give you.)

I turned around to see - and there was this man with a wide smile standing outside a small 5 feet by 5 feet chai ṭaprī sized shop filled with books. Pradeep Book Depot.

Since my schooling was in the part of Pune where friends typically spoke in Hindi or English - this was the first time someone had called out to me in Marathi using the word "Are mitrā". That too - an unknown person. At that moment - I paused - it felt as if someone is caring deeply for me. That feeling I still have, preserved, with me.

And then, I also decided to start using the word mitra when talking with people - with the same bhāva ... 

Hello friend - tell me what you want - I will give you.

Follow up on Mosquito Mamas - Cleanup Teams

With respect to my previous post 

https://aalhadsaraf.blogspot.com/2012/08/mosquitos-mamas-cleanup-teams.html

 - somewhere I came across a sentence that said something to the effect - "No - only female mosquitoes bite only because they need the animal protein required for reproduction and their offspring."

My thoughts about that were - 

a. Aah … so - if I eat meat - that will attract them - that explains this - whenever people from outside India - who have animal meat as a part of their diet come and visit us - no wonder - they are hounded by mosquito mamas, while I am not bothered by them at all!

b. I have enough … I will gladly give a few drops to a mother for her children... in fact I will try to give the essence of the best I have.

a. AND … she still is doing it out of caring and love.

And as far as the 'bad germs' they are supposed to spread are concerned - there is a population of billions living at that scale inside my body - my focused intention is that the bad guys get adjusted in that universe - and yes … there is enough power in that universe to assimilate and help them.

Mosquito mamas Cleanup teams

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Caveat lector: Words here are an not a representation of reality but an approximation of my model of it and reflect more of where I come from and my observations. Labels: idealist. extremist. (non-conformist?) consider -knowing- important. mostly know stuff only from books, but like practicable philosophy.  revere the yogasutras of patanjali - but am pretty green - inexperienced about stuff in general. Have been intolerant about anything but the best, and only recently have started being tempered by life. Hesitate to write, lest it be a reproduction of what I have learnt from books, a mouthing of platitudes or an expression of something that I do not understand yet, and I believe words to be very powerful vehicles that can take one a long way - but have sometimes used them carelessly in the past.
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Engineering school. 1996. Late nights over a drafting board finishing Engineering Drawing assignments. Odomos all over my hands and neck. A mosquito repellent coil lit up right beside me to prevent the little buggers from biting me.

Forward to 1999. Alandi. A village near Pune associated with Saint Dnyaneshwar. The Alandi centre of the Centre for the Development of Advanced Computing. I had this idea that I should verify if our spiritual texts represent practical values and they "really work". I had a photocopy of a book "The Science of Yoga" by I.K. Taimni on the Yogasutras of Patanjali.

In Alandi and the years that followed I discovered a few things about my relationship with mosquitoes.

(Remember that I was trying to find out if yogic philosophy was pragmatic. )
I decided to stop swatting mosquitoes and using any means to repel or kill them.
I was experimenting with living in saatvik mode. (key words: Tamas, Rajas, Sattva)


Observation 1: As long as I was trying to be in saatvik mode, the mosquitos stopped biting me. If I switched to tamasic, say I had food that was tamasic,  they would start biting me again. ( saatvik food: a wholesome vegetarian diet plus refraining from eating stimulating/medicinal foods like onions and garlic for the sake of taste, abstaining from watching most popular entertainment or anything whose purpose was to stimulate.) This was helped by the fact that while in Alandi I was in a space that was cut off from media - television, newspaper, cinema and that we used to have food in a place named Mamata Jain Bhojanaalaya (keyword: Jain.)

Fine. This agrees with the howstuffworks.com article on why mosquitos bite  - mosquitos are supposed to be attracted by sweat and body odor (added note: sweat and body odor if you keenly observe - change based on the food we eat - emotional food, mental food, physical "food" food ...), attracted by dark colors like black (added note: tamasic) and other waste products like lactic acid and carbon dioxide ...

Observation 2:

Some years later when at IBM - before I was hit by chronic fatigue, mosquitoes were actually helping me. If I abused my body in any way - say by staying up late at night in front of a laptop, mosquitoes would come and sit on my eyelids, not biting me, but waiting till I got up and went to bed. If I got out of bed and tried to get back in front of the computer, they would be back buzzing around my eyes.



Now this appeared outlandish when I talked about it, to many people in my family (I did not dare to talk about such things with friends for risking being called a madman or a heretic).

But my experiences were backed up by

a. work done by Dr. Uday Bhawalkar, a friend of my father, and a researcher with a doctorate from IIT Bombay. He had carried out research about the role of pests in society - and how they were actually the clean up teams provided by nature, and could be usually found in abundance where waste or garbage was present. He was doing work on methods to help them clean up the waste faster instead of using poisons to kill them.

b. various commentaries on the yogasutras -


If you follow extreme non-violence and live a highly saatvik existence, all beings shall drop their intentions of violence towards you in your presence.


In the yogasutras, actually in the various -commentaries- on the yogasutras, there are claims that appear fantastic - . For instance in the above book by Taimni -

... Another important point to understand with regard to Yogic morality is that the virtues which are prescribed have a much wider scope and deeper significance than what appears on the surface. Each virtue included in yama, for example , is a typical representative of a class of virtues which have to be practised to a high degree of perfection. The injunction against killing, stealing, lying, etc., under Yama does not seem to represent a very high standard of morality even from ordinary standards. Any decent and good individual is expected to abstain from such anti-social conduct. Where is then the high standard of morality which is demanded by higher Yoga? .. Each virtue is more comprehensive in its meaning than what it is generally considered to be. Thus Ahimsa - non-violence, does not merely abstaining from murder but not wilfully inflicting any injury, suffering or pain on any living creature, by word, thought or action. Ahimsa thus stands for highest degree of harmlessness which is found only among saints and sages and any ordinary person trying to practise it seriously in his life will soon begin to feel that perfect harmlessness is an unrealizable ideal. To what degree of perfection these virtues can be developed is shown in the eleven sutras, II (35-45) .... An individual who has developed ahimsa carries about him an invisible aura surcharged with love and compassion even though these may not be expressed at an emotional level.  Also, because love is the power which binds together in a spiritual union all the separated fragments of the One life, any individual who is imbued with such love is inwardly attuned to all living creatures and autmatically inspires confidence and love in them.That is how the violent and hateful vibrations of those who come near the Yogi are for the time being over-powered by the much stronger vibrations of love and kindness emanating from him and even beasts of prey become harmless and docile for the time being. Of course, when a creature goes out of the immediate influence of such a yogi, its normal nature is bound to assert itself but even this brief contact is likely to leave a permanent mark on it and uplift it a little ...

Relevant parts from some earlier posts on this blog -

Dual meme transcendence ... consider this - every time you breathe, you 'kill' millions of micro-beings as you suck them into your lungs. Every time you eat, some form, some being, some structure has 'sacrificed' itself, for another structure to be created. You are massively violent at a micro scale. Scale, not quality.) How 'kind or cruel' can you be? ...

Prime mover memes - principles ... Meme d: Ahimsa - non violence
What alignment confers: There is no obstruction. Action will progress without hindrance from any force/any one.
Extreme alignment: The being starts creating an atmosphere around self, (self(x,space,time) for larger and larger values of x,space,time) where violence and enmity must cease to exist. All beings, even animals are sensitive to such an atmosphere - as many trainers would testify - the animals 'know' they won't be hurt. ...

c. And this takes the cake -

From the howstuffworks article - " ... As mentioned before, only female mosquitoes bite."


The males can survive on sugar without biting people - physiologically speaking, so can the females.

Is it true that only the female mosquitoes bite people, what do the males eat?

Few people realize that mosquitoes rely on sugar as their main source of energy. Both male and female mosquitoes feed on plant nectar, fruit juices and liquids that ooze from plants. The sugar is burned as fuel for flight and is replenished on a daily basis.

The mosquito is careful that the bite itself does not hurt, you are only barely aware of it, takes away as many toxins out as she can, and leaves you with a slight irritation that is a pointer to a clean-up site. (I wouldn't be surprised if someone does research on how mosquito bites correspond to acupuncture points.)

From the howstuffworks article ...

If she is disturbed, she will fly away. Otherwise, she will remain until she has a full abdomen. If you were to cut the sensory nerve to her abdomen, she would keep sucking until she burst ...

She is not doing it for filling her stomach!
Not just for fulfilling the vital clean-up role of a pest ... it can only be an act of love.

Feel free to call me a madman. :)

influence, affluence, corruption and social spirit

Corruption and bribery. A rebel take on how to "fight" it.

Try to be aligned with the socio-economic-cultural perspective from where such a need arises.

Overthrow concepts of 'fixed cost' and 'justifiable cost' or 'worth' of a transaction. Value people more than money. Expect them to be and treat them as if. When work is performed up to competent levels, proactively give a post-bribe like a gift, from the heart, once the work is done.When asked for money, give more money than is demanded, and give it openly as a respectful gift, not under the table.

Influence and affluence should be contagious. Let us tip the balance wherever possible and intuitively appropriate.

Do not resign yourself to just feeling bad, angry, or putting yourself in a quandary in mind and spirit, or engaging in uncontrolled temporary physical action - when asked for a bribe. Go deep and hit at the real root.


The root of the word corrupt is from the latin word for "to destroy, to spoil, to break". com- + pp. stem of rumpere - to break, as in rupture. Actively prevent the spoiling or destruction of the spirit of social transaction and relationship, by a person ignorant of its sanctity. Have a grin on your face, surprise the bribee and maybe allow the goodness in him to have space to surface.

As a gandhian model - when slapped on your cheek, turn the other one.
When asked for some notes from your pocket, whip out your cheque book!
I thought this was only a Gandhian concept, but it is also there in the bible (Matthew 5:38 to 5:42) among other places - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turning_the_other_cheek

flowers, petals and why in heavens name do I have to study and do homework - part 1

I had a thought today morning that I would like to share ... in school subjects such as maths, science, history, geography, sports, crafts etc are taught. What I used to think are the subjects, are actually "objects". (Think grammar - objects) The real subjects are present within the individuals. (in + divi + duals = advaita, indivisible seers, whereas the subject<->object pairs are the divi-duals) The in|dividual is the core of the flower and the (subject-object) pairs, the 'dividuals', are like petals radiating from from the core.

These flowers are present at each chakra ( which is why they are shown as flowers in images - It is typical for chakras to be depicted as either flower-like or wheel-like. In the former case, "petals" are shown around the perimeter of a circle - wikipedia link) So there are millions of subject+object pairs present at each level of a person.

What is being developed is the capacity to perceive and play with the "objects". The SUBJECTS (actually present INSIDE the children) must not be taught, they must be cultivated and allowed to generate seeds that will blossom into trees that will grow and flower beyond the dreams of the teacher.

Homework, studies ... are NOT necessary at all. (whew ... sense of relief after 34 years of trying to figure out why they were trying to make me study in school. In the last year of engineering school, my view was that the sole aim of education was to enable an individual to focus his desire and attention to a laser sharp point so that anything may be perceived clearly, any goal may be achieved ... aah youth ;-) er .. not that I consider Aalhad Saraf to be old just yet)

So homework and study are not -necessary- after all .. they are just an indication of the blossoming of flowers. You generally cannot stretch petals out for those flowers to bloom faster.

Before the objects of the world start attracting the subjects, it would help a flower be happy if it only -KNEW- that a flower is what it itself is and a flowering is what the process is (and I may now be talking about what I do not really understand yet - but THIS knowing is samadhi and yoga.)

I had this fervent desire that all students become yogis before they are exposed to the objects of the world, especially the senses.  For the core to become stable before engagement with the world begins.

And this is easiest achieved by flowers who already know they are flowers - children when they are young and small know it - and the grandmoms and granddads know it - after experience and when they reach their second childhood. So perhaps when the younger flowers are let be with the older flowers, this knowledge can be communicated (hint: the language used is not verbal or written), reinforced and maintained intact while later in life, the subject-object drama unfolds.

Usual caveat lector applies.

note to self

Dear Mr. Saraf,
Whenever you speak, write, or think - anything with the word 'I' or 'me' in it,
pause, pause, pause,
briefly, subtly, gently but firmly,
perceive,
what that word means, implies, feels like
and from where, how, when and why it comes.

blaze like a fire

Quote attributed to W.B. Yeats: Education is not the filling up of a pail with water, it is the lighting up of a fire.

One of the things I had on my todo list: perfecting the art of lighting fires.

Now, to light up a fire, one must possess a flame, at least a spark. Or even better, one must -be- a fire. A raging ball.

So how do you go about becoming one ... one could dry oneself just enough through "vairaagya" - dispassion, produce enough friction through "aabhyaasa" - discipline so that some sparks may fly.

Or even better, while doing so, let oneself be lit up by a larger fire - a guru. 

Becoming poetry

I sometimes write down questions that strike me as being important.

One such question, what to do when inspiration hits or enters, the mind goes on a high and ideas that seem good just don't stop?

... express as words written onto paper, diagrams sketched, spoken about
to a friend, look at and then let them ferment till they translate into
action, look at and and then let be, merge into silence trusting
that  they will be refined and translated into manifestation with time,
or let the flow continue on unabated ... :-D

This reminded me of a thought partially borrowed from rumi, google
isnt turning up the quote right now, but I got it from a facebook post
from Amano Manish bhai: write poetry, do not write poetry, let your
life become poetry.

dreams - random verse

When I lived for a year near the mountains of south Japan, mostly being, and teaching a group of schoolchildren on weekends, a friend told me that I was living out a life that was her dream. (Actually she was living a part of one of my high school dreams (we were studying German) - (to excel at the German language maybe complete a PhD and live a quiet life near a lake, teaching German to the people in Germany.))

My life, it seems,
a dream,
for someone else,
I seek out, my own.
Is what is,
is what it seems,
or by me, it is being shown.

Spirituality is perhaps not a choice.

Question from a friend:
I read your blog,
but they are increasingly spiritual, so tell me whats up

Response:
Spirituality is perhaps not a choice. :-D But both of them are tricky words.

Words can be gooey things, slippery, vague and nebulous - but sometimes strong, each being stuck with a whole cloud of ideas, meanings and intentions. The subtler and more generic the word - usually the stronger it is. But we must work with what we have. Hacking (reality hacking?) through the layers of shabda - artha - rasa - bhaava (spoken word or even lower, written word - meaning - emotion - intention) to identify the spirit/identify with the spirit.

For a photograph to exist, light is not a choice.


-email thread with an old friend