Pain is inevitable as it is unavoidable, they say. I wonder who then they are? Or who gave them the right to be Mr. Know It all? Doesn’t it annoy you when you get all the sermons which instead of placating you infuriate you more?
We enter crying into the world, we learn our poems in nursery school which teach you about pain.. “Humpty Dumpty...” Pain is woven into our lives so intrinsically that we don’t know how to differentiate ourselves from it. Buddha acknowledged it as the first noble truth”Dukkham Ariyassaccamm. Sorrow, pain is with us at every step of our lives. And I ask myself if that pain is inevitable why does it come as a surprise every time/ if it is the embodiment of our living, why do we stumble, why do we cry? Why does it seem to be unfair when it touches us personally?
WE all know what goes up comes down, ( this is not an amateur science lesson, trust me people) , there are explanations for everything .We know there are opposites to everything, the supreme order keeps us in check and balances out everything. So, we all agree on this, then why not pain and pleasure being two sides of the coin. Trust me it just doesn’t enter my thick skull. It must be all the coffee.
We live our lives carefully, pick our steps carefully, measuring every action and some of us plunge in head first or you’ll say you let take the heart take its course. We all try to be careful and try to escape the ills or misfortunes which plague humanity but somewhere, somehow we don’t escape it. Albert Camus compares human condition to that of Sisyphus in Greek mythology. He was condemned to eternal punishment by the gods in Hades, his pain was to roll a boulder up the hill only to have it roll back again. We live our lives to avoid the fires of hell and to seek freedom the weight of the boulder but all our actions are fruitless, ineffectual and one is trapped.
The human situation is similar to Sisyphus where we desire freedom, autonomy, escapism form pain it’s hurt but are trapped by the inherent conditions of being human co-existing in a society. .We all are subject to the pain of losing a loved one, loss, grief, frustration, humiliation, and if one lives old the indignities of old age.
Pain is the shock which hits you; you never have the right shin-guards, the shock absorbers or the right shield to deflect. It is in fact as I Have come to realize makes one stronger, a little bit wiser (can’t take credit!!) It makes one stop, realizes and makes one stronger only via personal experience. I or anyone, neem – hakim cannot bottle it for you and say well this quota for pain for your life and you have your mukti from it. If salvation was this easy every parent from time immemorial would have gifted it to their children. A pain –free world, utopia.
Pain puts life into prepective, a bigger picture develops. A devastating blow makes us realize what life is –transistory and fragile. Buddha taught us everything in the world is fraught with pain. Only when we accept it does it make way for growth, for the right spirit to develop. We all have our crosses to bear, and they do us good. Sometimes we learn from them quickly, sometime slowly but we all get over ‘it”.
I feel the mental pain one suffers is stronger than the physical pain which is overcome by exercise, popping in pills. Mental Pain is tough. It makes us our own enemies because we fall for it, agonize over it, and the anxiety caused by such can only be rid of when we gently, kindly nudge it out after analyzing our mind. Of course it can drag you down into the vortex which is dangerous, the despair , the torment can you suck you into the darkness and as my friend says the demons have to be friended.We need to acknowledge or faults, learn from them and move on.
Admitting pain is not a puny thing, not a sign of weak character, not something one has to hide or mask under the false bravado or a façade of ‘ koi gal nahin”. Farak painda hain.
UMM, the bad news is that we will have a thorny, twisted painful path and it’s going to have its share of bad days and good days. You know that state of bliss, freedom will only come to you when you want it badly; no one is going to give it to you on platter.
The good news is every single one of us will get there.
Currently, A Sad Ravneet
Friday, February 25, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
journey
This little episode has been sitting in me for quite some time, I have been meaning to share but would always put it off ; thinking it to be personal or why would anyone want to read it? Well, something happened yesterday, a little discussion about ego... something which we all have in plenty and I made a remark that if one has to progress one has to control or conquer one’s ego and to the effect. Well, before I wander off another hole let me back-track
Every year before my boys go back to school, we visit a gurudwara off the beaten track, take blessings from the Babaji there and have langar do our personal spiritual practice and come back to our farm. It is in fact as close to a tradition, you can say. Well, last year we went, did our private thing, which I’m sure you don’t want to know about or read but on the whole it is about faith. Well I was shown how cynical and jaded I have become by my younger son, Gobind. We came out of the main room where Babaji sits, and there was a stray dog over there, my first instinct as a mother was to warn him to be careful as I was immediately thinking about dog-bites, rabies, shots all in one go. My son wanted to give him Prasad and I told him, stop, he might bite you.
He turned around and said, “Mama,Babaji is in him also.”
I was shell-shocked, and was so ashamed of myself. Here I was trying to teach him the fundamentals of path, mool mantra and my son taught me the biggest lesson of my life.
Don’t why but wanted to share it with you all.
Every year before my boys go back to school, we visit a gurudwara off the beaten track, take blessings from the Babaji there and have langar do our personal spiritual practice and come back to our farm. It is in fact as close to a tradition, you can say. Well, last year we went, did our private thing, which I’m sure you don’t want to know about or read but on the whole it is about faith. Well I was shown how cynical and jaded I have become by my younger son, Gobind. We came out of the main room where Babaji sits, and there was a stray dog over there, my first instinct as a mother was to warn him to be careful as I was immediately thinking about dog-bites, rabies, shots all in one go. My son wanted to give him Prasad and I told him, stop, he might bite you.
He turned around and said, “Mama,Babaji is in him also.”
I was shell-shocked, and was so ashamed of myself. Here I was trying to teach him the fundamentals of path, mool mantra and my son taught me the biggest lesson of my life.
Don’t why but wanted to share it with you all.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Sex sells
Sex sells. Sex is always there on people and that is what Advertising companies try to capitalize by trying to utilize “this appeal “to the hilt to effectively sell the product for the companies. There was a survey conducted by behavioral scientists where it was found that women are uncomfortable by and large by the blatant portrayal of sex. It is more of an internal paradigm shift where they have learnt to handle the portrayal of their ‘woman-hood’ to sell everything from cars to cement to houses to creams. They appreciate the subtleness rather than the exhibitionistic, brazen, titillating man-baiting USP which has become their bête-noire’. Mohan Pal Randhawa, a young Nri says, ‘woman want it.’
In the Asian society set-up women are taught or attuned to view their emotions as their strengths and this takes precedence over everything and they take it in their stride. They actually respond to a message that is authentic and real –warts and all more positively than a phony beautifully packaged one. Ofcourse, the men in our state disagree. They disagree to agree, always! Gurbinder Singh Anand, replies women are culpable they never want to be seen without make-up? They drive this industry.
Harminder Singh Dhillon, another person who was part of the online networking survey conducted On Facebook replies, ‘Advertising companies use beautiful female models to promote new and old products because this seems to be the best and proven formula since advertising started. I don’t know why they use females for irrelevant products. I guess it has to do so, with the me thing, with the subconscious relating to a product with a particular face. For eg:Liril with Karen Lunel, Anoosha Dalal, an dnow the latest Preity Zinta.
It is the impact on the mind, the image which is created and stays with the viewers which ultimately leads to the term brand ambassadors. It is this which leads to them being stereotypes and the journey of association starts. However as, Baljit Dhillon remarks,’ Most women used are beautiful, easy to the eye, and therein lies the appeal irrespective of the service they offer, be it the newscaster or the advertising model!”
The companies have spent crores of rupees in perfecting the kind of models which appeal to the consumers and cleverly hoodwink them into preferring the product. The models both are unreal to begin with- one is the sassy, sexy, confident, uber women who are all glossed up, wearing the right kind of brand clothes just off from the streets of London, NY with wild hair, voluptuous lips! The creators try to merge, marry the international look with the brand image. Both are avant-garde’ and appeal to India’s changing globalised outlook. This is a result of the after-effects of colonization, the Brits lest us but we still lust and hanker after the “gori-chamdi”!! It is a pity that this fuels another industry of cosmetics, skin –whitening products but that is another story, another day. Indian woman are always shown as North Indian, fair, urban and fairly unimaginative. Where did the dusky, real, believable, flesh and blood Indian beauty go?
Of course, the second type is the typical, stereotypical Kanta Bai, Lalitaji model. She is de-glamourised, has old principles and will fight for hew rights form the nukkad wala money lender. The last is the corny, romanticized, virginal Pati- parmeshwar types who is all dewy eyed. Advertising companies are given to over-dramatizing the tones, a mythological version is created when women are selling mobiles to washing powders to cars to cement, and the obnoxious Ax- deodorant. Where would one salivate over a chocolate –smelling deodorant? The ever present watch- dog of Indian morals, principles the censor board conveniently feigns ignorance or turns a blind eye while the overtly sexual deodorant ads make rounds. It is indeed a sad day when the companies resort to selling their mobile phones by showing a rugged man receiving condoms in return as change, as he owns the particular mobile!
Is this a shift and an affirmation that a new-age Indian woman with a new-age persona has finally become the westernized, woman with independence and freedom? Has she finally become a butterfly in the true sense of the word or is the chrysalis as shallow and phony as the advertisements which tease, promise but seldom deliver.
In the Asian society set-up women are taught or attuned to view their emotions as their strengths and this takes precedence over everything and they take it in their stride. They actually respond to a message that is authentic and real –warts and all more positively than a phony beautifully packaged one. Ofcourse, the men in our state disagree. They disagree to agree, always! Gurbinder Singh Anand, replies women are culpable they never want to be seen without make-up? They drive this industry.
Harminder Singh Dhillon, another person who was part of the online networking survey conducted On Facebook replies, ‘Advertising companies use beautiful female models to promote new and old products because this seems to be the best and proven formula since advertising started. I don’t know why they use females for irrelevant products. I guess it has to do so, with the me thing, with the subconscious relating to a product with a particular face. For eg:Liril with Karen Lunel, Anoosha Dalal, an dnow the latest Preity Zinta.
It is the impact on the mind, the image which is created and stays with the viewers which ultimately leads to the term brand ambassadors. It is this which leads to them being stereotypes and the journey of association starts. However as, Baljit Dhillon remarks,’ Most women used are beautiful, easy to the eye, and therein lies the appeal irrespective of the service they offer, be it the newscaster or the advertising model!”
The companies have spent crores of rupees in perfecting the kind of models which appeal to the consumers and cleverly hoodwink them into preferring the product. The models both are unreal to begin with- one is the sassy, sexy, confident, uber women who are all glossed up, wearing the right kind of brand clothes just off from the streets of London, NY with wild hair, voluptuous lips! The creators try to merge, marry the international look with the brand image. Both are avant-garde’ and appeal to India’s changing globalised outlook. This is a result of the after-effects of colonization, the Brits lest us but we still lust and hanker after the “gori-chamdi”!! It is a pity that this fuels another industry of cosmetics, skin –whitening products but that is another story, another day. Indian woman are always shown as North Indian, fair, urban and fairly unimaginative. Where did the dusky, real, believable, flesh and blood Indian beauty go?
Of course, the second type is the typical, stereotypical Kanta Bai, Lalitaji model. She is de-glamourised, has old principles and will fight for hew rights form the nukkad wala money lender. The last is the corny, romanticized, virginal Pati- parmeshwar types who is all dewy eyed. Advertising companies are given to over-dramatizing the tones, a mythological version is created when women are selling mobiles to washing powders to cars to cement, and the obnoxious Ax- deodorant. Where would one salivate over a chocolate –smelling deodorant? The ever present watch- dog of Indian morals, principles the censor board conveniently feigns ignorance or turns a blind eye while the overtly sexual deodorant ads make rounds. It is indeed a sad day when the companies resort to selling their mobile phones by showing a rugged man receiving condoms in return as change, as he owns the particular mobile!
Is this a shift and an affirmation that a new-age Indian woman with a new-age persona has finally become the westernized, woman with independence and freedom? Has she finally become a butterfly in the true sense of the word or is the chrysalis as shallow and phony as the advertisements which tease, promise but seldom deliver.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
transformation 101.1
Transformation 101.1
I don’t know how to describe myself, though my fb status comes close to what I am.. Conspiring, evolving and smiling. Call it my obsessive reading habit or the fact is that I read whatever I lay my hands on, I got interested in spirituality. Also, I think apart from the cynical, aethist friends that I have we are all in awe of HIM.
Increasingly, I find myself withdrawing and trying to learn at the same time and the only thing I’ve concluded is that one needs to practice it daily; it’s not a weekend chore or once a blue-moon activity. It is what the learned people describe it as karma yoga. There are countless spas, resorts, wellness centers which one can join and you get a crash course where you can saturate yourself with a quickie program and feel that you have attained salvation and one feels that it would carry you forward to the next level. Oh! There were fears by my sweet adorable sister-in law who thought I was getting all flaky and was reading too much of the heavy stuff with covers adorned by men with long flowing beards! Even my friends think I’m a bit of a loony as I talk to God.
This journey all started and I don’t want to bore you with the details but I progressed, I think with all my knobby knees and increasing loss of hair much to the chagrin of family I became a karmic yogini. Sounds increasingly heavy, mumbo-jumbo and spiritualistic, doesn’t it? It seems you’ll hear the temple bells ringing when you see me and incense coming out of my ears. Well nothing of that sort, I had a moment of eureka where I realized that the saying which Yashodhara uttered,” If you don’t do the work, you do the pain”.
Do not confuse the word karma to the t-shirts available by the dozen in Manali or the John Lennon song “instant Karma” (And we all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun”). I‘ve grown up hearing from my grandmother that what one shall sow one shall reap and then my kids have been taught that there are two angels on their shoulders called chitar and gupt who see what they are doing. It has guided them throughout their life. We could also call it a boomerang effect. Karma yoga tells us that doing your work selflessly and skillfully, this focused work is an opportunity to peel away the layers of the conscious mind to find out what you already know and who you already are. Have you ever sat quietly without the constant blare of music or activity and dwelled who you are? Try it. It’s scary.
Try putting your effort into the mouth /words which one can sprout all the time.
I have always been a chatter-box, talking to nineteen to a dozen and how I love it. However maybe I am growing up. Each time I notice a new thing about myself. It’s an exciting experiment and you will also see that people would not like this change this new rebel in you. When we conform or go with the flow it’s a smooth ride, the tricky part is to have an identity and still submerge.
The books, the saints all extol of one thing do not get attached to the result; do not get attached to the end result. To quote, the Bhagvad Gita,” You have the right to work, but not to the fruits thereof”. I find that increasingly difficult, frustrating, I mean I’m working so I get paid . Also, I always want to complete the chore and move on to something exciting or different.
We all have this fantasy where we think life should be this dewy colored, soft, fluffy mother-of pearl hued universe and we keep on waiting for the epiphany to hit us. Well, keep on dreaming folks. It isn’t going to happen, you’d need to be brain –dead or be on drugs.
Life has periods of perfection, absolute stillness complete harmony and then you get hit by a tornado of emotions, a torrent of words and you don’t know what hit you. I also am learning how controlling I am. I always thought I was easy to get along, deferring to others but was I in for a surprise. I realized this when I came across another controlling person! My controlling tendencies I think come from self-doubt. Doubt is about having your cake and not eating it.Having a path and not being on it. Opening a door and not walking through it. Nodding your head yes and saying no. Doubt is a dangerous waste of time. For a karma yogi time is just a concept. One needs to act rather than procrastinate. I fear always that my work is not good enough so I delay>one of my friends is testament to this. I will delay think up of a zillion excuses and will defer. Well am getting better. I did not promise the moon! The block-buster barriers which I had created are indeed coming down and I promise the show is only going to get better; or as they say.
I am learning to learn; it is a tough concept. To re-learn to break down the barriers the set principles created and moreover conditioned in my mind. To change the preconceived notions the expectations. The irony is what I ask for and what I get.
I wish I had some pearls of wisdom all I have is some ramblings so will be back to sound like a cliché’.
I don’t know how to describe myself, though my fb status comes close to what I am.. Conspiring, evolving and smiling. Call it my obsessive reading habit or the fact is that I read whatever I lay my hands on, I got interested in spirituality. Also, I think apart from the cynical, aethist friends that I have we are all in awe of HIM.
Increasingly, I find myself withdrawing and trying to learn at the same time and the only thing I’ve concluded is that one needs to practice it daily; it’s not a weekend chore or once a blue-moon activity. It is what the learned people describe it as karma yoga. There are countless spas, resorts, wellness centers which one can join and you get a crash course where you can saturate yourself with a quickie program and feel that you have attained salvation and one feels that it would carry you forward to the next level. Oh! There were fears by my sweet adorable sister-in law who thought I was getting all flaky and was reading too much of the heavy stuff with covers adorned by men with long flowing beards! Even my friends think I’m a bit of a loony as I talk to God.
This journey all started and I don’t want to bore you with the details but I progressed, I think with all my knobby knees and increasing loss of hair much to the chagrin of family I became a karmic yogini. Sounds increasingly heavy, mumbo-jumbo and spiritualistic, doesn’t it? It seems you’ll hear the temple bells ringing when you see me and incense coming out of my ears. Well nothing of that sort, I had a moment of eureka where I realized that the saying which Yashodhara uttered,” If you don’t do the work, you do the pain”.
Do not confuse the word karma to the t-shirts available by the dozen in Manali or the John Lennon song “instant Karma” (And we all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun”). I‘ve grown up hearing from my grandmother that what one shall sow one shall reap and then my kids have been taught that there are two angels on their shoulders called chitar and gupt who see what they are doing. It has guided them throughout their life. We could also call it a boomerang effect. Karma yoga tells us that doing your work selflessly and skillfully, this focused work is an opportunity to peel away the layers of the conscious mind to find out what you already know and who you already are. Have you ever sat quietly without the constant blare of music or activity and dwelled who you are? Try it. It’s scary.
Try putting your effort into the mouth /words which one can sprout all the time.
I have always been a chatter-box, talking to nineteen to a dozen and how I love it. However maybe I am growing up. Each time I notice a new thing about myself. It’s an exciting experiment and you will also see that people would not like this change this new rebel in you. When we conform or go with the flow it’s a smooth ride, the tricky part is to have an identity and still submerge.
The books, the saints all extol of one thing do not get attached to the result; do not get attached to the end result. To quote, the Bhagvad Gita,” You have the right to work, but not to the fruits thereof”. I find that increasingly difficult, frustrating, I mean I’m working so I get paid . Also, I always want to complete the chore and move on to something exciting or different.
We all have this fantasy where we think life should be this dewy colored, soft, fluffy mother-of pearl hued universe and we keep on waiting for the epiphany to hit us. Well, keep on dreaming folks. It isn’t going to happen, you’d need to be brain –dead or be on drugs.
Life has periods of perfection, absolute stillness complete harmony and then you get hit by a tornado of emotions, a torrent of words and you don’t know what hit you. I also am learning how controlling I am. I always thought I was easy to get along, deferring to others but was I in for a surprise. I realized this when I came across another controlling person! My controlling tendencies I think come from self-doubt. Doubt is about having your cake and not eating it.Having a path and not being on it. Opening a door and not walking through it. Nodding your head yes and saying no. Doubt is a dangerous waste of time. For a karma yogi time is just a concept. One needs to act rather than procrastinate. I fear always that my work is not good enough so I delay>one of my friends is testament to this. I will delay think up of a zillion excuses and will defer. Well am getting better. I did not promise the moon! The block-buster barriers which I had created are indeed coming down and I promise the show is only going to get better; or as they say.
I am learning to learn; it is a tough concept. To re-learn to break down the barriers the set principles created and moreover conditioned in my mind. To change the preconceived notions the expectations. The irony is what I ask for and what I get.
I wish I had some pearls of wisdom all I have is some ramblings so will be back to sound like a cliché’.
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