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

================
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.
 ================

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

to the (most probably very very few) readers of this log

I have not been writing much.

I am obsessed with that, which I believe I do not possess.

(I have been obsessed with creation, timelessness and seminality, systematically eliminating the time-bound and trivial.)


I experience that, which I believe is not a part of my being.

I know that, which I believe I have no experience of.

I express that, which I believe I have still some doubt about. (this reminds me of a sentence in ZATAOMM (zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance - R. Pirsig -- "No one is running around yelling that the sun is going to rise today! " To express something fanatically, there -must- be an element of doubt. )

I talk about that, which I believe I do not entirely know.

I have found myself talking too much, and have started noticing sometimes that it reminds me faintly of my ignorance.

Hence the desire to integrate - being, possesion, knowledge, experience, intent, desire, meaning, and finally expression. 

All this is perhaps just a play of words.

Perhaps ... hence the silence

A million new romances

If I am alone, and must be a part of this world
I will become the sun
and I will marry the earth
I'll love every single one
person, animal and thing,
caressing them with my rays
impregnating them with my vitality
creating new life
with just a few glances,
every day - a million new romances.
 - yearning, from miquelrius journal late 2007

dear 'kaahi bolaayche aahe'

Dearest "kaahi bolaayche aahe" (On speech - http://www.blogger.com/profile/00580929730887756405),
Ataa bolNyaachi shakti parat aali aahe. :-)
You seem to have closed down your blog.

If your're still reading this - I know -very- few people do, perhaps only the few people I have shared my copy of the patanjali yoga sutras with some time or the other.

Ye na bolaaylaa aataa :)
mail id: aalhad@acm.org

Prime mover memes. Principles.

Yesterday night, I asked my father some questions -

• Why has 'God' (even evolution - if that happens to be your God. Social evolution(?)) created both, forces like fundamentalist terrorists, as well as Mahatma Gandhi ? 
• Is it possible to act truly as an instrument of a God meme? I will not now act of my own will. I dare the creator of this space time dimension-space I find myself in, to enter 'me' and act directly; a stubborn child, I refuse to now act on 'my' own.
• How does one differentiate between 'Gods' will and one's individual will?
• What are the biggest gears, the prime movers that lie at the root of this space-time complex? 

Possible answers that struck me while I was sleeping. In reverse order:
We must first define the framework for what we are trying to understand.

The prime movers - the big gears that drive this space-time complex

This power to effect change is proportional to the extent of alignment one has with the memes that lie at the root of this space-time complex. To summarize my understanding (backed by intuition and experimental verification to varying degrees, of the Yogasutras of Patanjali - beginning with my reading of a photocopy of a study of the sutras by IK Taimini, sometime during my student days during engineering school and my stay in Alandi.)

To summarize:

Meme a: Satya - Truth
What alignment confers: realization, materialization of one's intent
Extreme alignment: utterance or thought that is out of sync with this space-time complex or reality is impossible. What one speaks, thinks, conceives -must- come true, for not only is that being incapable of thinking or conceiving or dreaming of a falsehood, it is verily truth itself that continually speaks, acts and sees through him.

Meme b: Asteya or abstention from theft
What alignment confers: freedom from a sense of lack of anything. Wealth flows.
Extreme alignment: Nature cannot let such a being experience a 'lack' of anything. The whole universe is at ones disposal.

Meme c: Aparigraha or non-possesion and abstention from greed
What alignment confers: Freedom from ties in this space-time complex - things, ideas, thought, belief... knowledge and action is possible across larger and larger expanses of time and space.
Extreme alignment:  Knowledge of the past, present and future, of the seeds of desire that flower into manifestation through threads of matter woven across time. Patanjali posits that one may gain knowledge of the past, present and future lives of one's self. (I guess, self as a function of (x, time, space) for larger and larger and larger values of x, time and space as the self of sense expands.)

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.

Meme e: Brahmacharya - continence. Of speech, thought, action, being and also of the most refined, the most seminal representation of our essence, the ability to create and procreate.
What alignment confers: creative force is available at one's disposal.
Extreme alignment: Tremendous creative force - to create anything in this spacetime fabric. create(x, space, time, matter, thought) for larger and larger values of x, space, time, matter and thought. At the very extreme, create new 'seed meme complexes' like this one.

See and create, unhindered, across unlimited expanses of time and space, using every or anything - in this space-time complex, with a guarantee of materialization of intent. This may perhaps be a good definition for 'God' hood.


Some side-notes on the prime-movers:

These memes are vehicles.
One starts by aligning oneself with them, by 'boarding' these meme vehicles.
Once this direction is fixed, one witnesses the beginning of a 'transcendence engine'. 


One must know where to get on and get off and when to press the accelerator, when to stop, rest or just enjoy the view.

And either discover newer, more fundamental meme-vehicles, or create them.

This is where 'the middle path' is important. As you start nearing the destination, and hit a point where you need to get off (transcend?), the duality of the vehicle becomes apparent. Mahatma Gandhiji rode the vehicle of non-violence to a point where his very existence was the highest form of violence for people who believed in violence as a vehicle of change. Summary: The middle path is safe. Skill is needed. Your mileage may vary. 

The vehicle becomes the driver. The driver becomes the vehicle.
After a point, no conscious driving is necessary. The vehicles or principal memes take charge, embed themselves further and start driving the person. One need not try to, or 'speak' the truth. One becomes truth. Truth starts using the person as a vehicle for expression. 

 
 God's will, individual will

These large forces drive smaller forces,
all lying within them,
and they in turn have smaller still,
and so on ad infinitum

All these memes have dual kinds,
For consciousness they dance,
Riding vehicles of matter, Desires in their arms.

The strongest memes are what we call God
This massive dance is Mind
(But -why- the heck all this goes on,
I am yet to find.)

These meme-dancers will go out of Time,
without non-dual love to bind 'em,
their matter-vehicles will sink into primeval slime,
with no consciousness to find 'em.

(adapted the Siphonaptera for the first verse.)

By this definition everybody is God(x), to an extent. And these memes and their duals(for it is a matter of degree - not of quality - like in the last statement in this post.) may be considered as 'God's' will. This might be the basis of a statement often heard in India  'सब ईश्वर की इच्छा है'.

Fanatic fundamentalists - follow what they see as truth strictly, believe strongly in a code of ethics and are thus 'driven' and have varying degrees of power.  Sometimes they ride the dual-meme-opposite of non-violence and thus are bound to face varying degrees of opposition and are limited in the amount of change they can effect. Only if terrorists would -experiment- with riding the vehicle of non-violence, I wonder what could be possible. But then when that happens, when the + and the - start seeming, becoming alike, we would perhaps be close to the beginning of a new space-time complex, a new set of prime-mover-gears-meme-set.


Further questions:

• What is it that makes these prime-mover-constructs so powerful and seminal?
• How is a sustainable, emergent value system and a desire system engineered?
• How does one engineer such a system, a new set of prime-mover-gears, like the yamas outlined by Patanjali are for -this- space time complex.

i.e. How does one play God(x,self) for sufficiently large values of x and self.
 (a very small value of self - would be for instance, expanding ones self when starting a new family.)

:-D

Usual Caveat Lector applies.

Optimal learning

After a long break, I have come back to using words.
:-)
 If one masters the ability to enter a state of single pointed focus, the ability to focus ones desire to a laser sharp point and the ability to see what needs to be done i.e. vision - I used to believe that the purpose of formal education has been served.


Learning is an interesting and fascinating phenomenon.


One of the questions I had was - how does one achieve this one pointed focus at will?

The Patanjali yogasutras offer hints as to how this process occurs.

shraddhaa veerya smriti samaadhi pradnyaa poorvak itareshaam.
Patanjali's yogasutras (1-20).

Shraddhaa - loosely translated as faith. It begins with belief - with faith. Faith in the teacher, in the subject, in the process of learning. Faith provides the "wetness" necessary for union. (between teacher and student, between student and subject) In a teacher-student situation, without faith, there is dryness - resulting in "dry dis-course" that is a painful boring 'one-way' process. 


Veerya - this can also be translated as utsaah or enthusiasm. Faith leads to enthusiasm - (enthusiasm comes from en+theos from Greek - literal meaning - to be filled with God) and the being of the student is ready for union with the subject, for learning.

Smriti - Enthusiasm leads to past experience and knowledge being brought up into the memory cache, ready to be recalled at will, thus providing a firm foundation for learning to occur.

Next is samaadhi - or union with the subject of study, a state where one pointed focus is achieved. Nothing else except the subject exists.

This leads to the awakening of pradnya - a state where after the subject is assimilated into ones being, the blossoming of wisdom results.



( 'poorvak itaresham' - this sutra is referring to most normal people, and not those who have been talked about in the earlier sutras - those who have already achieved the ability to enter 'samaadhi' at will.)

shraddhaa->veerya->smriti is one of the pre-conditions for achieving one pointed focus. Hmm.

Wherever there are gaps in this chain, sub-optimal union with the subject at hand and thus learning might occur.

Refinement ... food

This desire to go beyond what is, slowly morphs itself into the desire to live the best life possible, a search for best practices. A process of continuous refinement. This process of refinement reflects itself in various ways. Including diet.

In Japan there is a special kind of diet called shoujin ryouri. If you are a vegetarian in Japan, then you'll be glad to know that you can enjoy shoujin ryouri at most Buddhist temples and some onsen (hot water spring bath inns)

The word shoujin is made of two characters. Shou - "refine, essence, spirit".
Jin - "advance, progress".

The word ryouri - loosely translated in English as "cooking" is composed of two characters "ryou" means material. And "ri" means "logic, arrangement, principles of right and wrong. 

There is a tacit recognition of the fact that all matter, everything that exists, is 'food' for some force or the other. All material is food. Cooking is the process of arrangement of material according to logical principles of right and wrong.

However, material may be arranged to reflect refinement, so as to bring out the essence and to progressively aid the advancement of that refinement. The principles for doing so have been identified and are embodied in "shoujin ryouri".

-miquelrius journal, end of 2008

On speech

From Miquelrius journal - Oct 25, 2006

How long before I reach a state where every word I utter, can be construed as not being harmful to anyone. For instance: If I am speaking about something I desire or something desirable that I have acquired, people who don't have it may be hurt. If I tell someone what ought to be done - if they are incapable of doing it, they may be hurt. If they are not amicably related, they might even want to hurt me... even a thought of doing so should not be provoked in their minds.

I must learn, neither to praise anyone, nor blame anyone, or compare anyone or anything using speech, for I have no control over the impressions and reactions it will form and cause in the consciousness of the listeners.

A key virtue to have with respect to speech is the ability to only speak when necessary, for right action to occur in a manner such that it causes alignment among all listeners. This stretches the limit of not only expertise with language, but one's control over personal and collective consciousness.

Characteristics of a philosopher - Epictetus - (commonplace entry from June 2006)

The condition and characteristic of an uninstructed person is this: he never expects from himself advantage or harm, but from externals.
The condition and characteristic of a philosopher is this: he expects all harm and all advantage from himself.

The signs of the one who is making progress are these:

• he censures no man
  
• he praises no man
• he blames no man
  
• he accuses no man
  
• he says nothing about himself as if he were somebody or knew something
• when he is impeded at all or hindered, he blames himself
• if a man praises him, he ridicules the praiser to himself
• if a man censures him, he makes no defence
• he removes all desires from himself and he transfers aversion to those things within power and contrary to nature
  
• He employs a moderate movement towards everything
• Whether he is considered foolish or ignorant, he cares not

And, in a word, watches himself as if he were an enemy waiting in ambush.
- Epictetus - Enchiridion.

(June 18, 2006, Commonplace from journal (Miquelrius) )

A page from my diary - September 11, 2008

If you treat your thoughts as clean and precious
clear as a fresh brook, pure as the bright sun
your mind will soar, till you need it no more,
with the whole world you will be one...
for with a being so pure, there's nothing more sure -
the soul shines through, and to think - is to become.


-----------------------

Here you are you puny body,
seated on the brink of death.
you sordid tale of like and dislike
the Elements bound by cords of breath

yet within, a temple lies
be still and you will see
'tis open, vast ... like the boundless skies,
nothing was, or is, and will be.

-----------------------
Repetition of message to self:
Know very well that as you were born without too much control over where you were going, this body too will die. Live every moment then in oneness with whatever is around the body at the moment (in other words, like a God :-D)
For to be one with any one thing is to be one with it all. Yoga is holographic.

Consumption - Production game, who's who?

Thinking about true cost and the story of a one rupee coin - had gotten me thinking about the dual meme nature of production and consumption.
Trying to get down to the essence of this dual meme led me to this -

The desire to desire is the consumer.

That which believes it exists is the consumed. 



To clarify - that which believes it exists is - basically everything that 'is'. I use the word 'belief' for want of a closer word - for example, if you believe 'you' exist, you are binding this concept of self with space and time, and will thus be subject to the consumption process - if by nothing else then by time (which is to say - desire operates in time-space co-ordinates - and desire being the urge for something other than what is, what is - must be consumed.) Yoga enables 'one' to free 'oneself' perhaps, by neatly transcending this dual-meme.  
What this implies in space-time terms, may be understood by trying to practice the Yogasutras.

(from somewhere in early 2008)