Daily journaling

At work. Have work to do and complete. I will do it.

Waiting for my OTG. I want to with discipline get down to baking and master 1 cake, 1 bread , and 1 cookie. Kaizen. Just one thing perfectly.

Reading news sites and listening to an Oprah super soul podcast with Pema Chodron.

Read a news article that made me go hmm...

https://www.ndtv.com/offbeat/a-daredevil-died-doing-pullups-off-a-skyscraper-in-china-1786640?pfrom=home-topstories

About a young 26 year old chinese man, who performed dare devil stunts. On this stunt where he is hanging from the rooftop edge of a high-rise, doing pull ups. three pull ups and the 4th one he slips and fell to his death.

I wonder what he felt. was he really focused and confident like on all other days when he cheated death? or did he have a signal from his gut that told him 'stop' and he did not listen. 

Was he conscious through his fall and impact and painful death? or did he zone out and get out of his body.

I wonder.

The funny thing about life; when one can't figure out life in youth, one just wants time to pass till one can grow old enough, so that people can stop telling you what you can be, what potential you are wasting and yada yada yada.

And then one day you realize you do know what you want and why and Youth's passed you by. You feel out of place because the stage is always more welcoming of the youth when they are trying. The young are allowed to blunder...to yearn ..to be brazen and overconfident. Their failures are amusing and cute. Try the same things when you are older and you become a laughing stock.

Youth is also a very integral part of desire. There is no desire when you start aging. Youth has a suppleness and glow. The elephant skin of old age is hardly the canvas for yearning and love and lust and color and glow.

It's such a conundrum. I don't know if there is another birth. But if there is, I want to learn everything now so that I am super confident in my next birth.

is there a next birth? If yes..then how do we know for sure.

If we are all but clay...we can be broken and reshaped. But does burnt clay ever like new clay?

Is there even a soul. Or are we just a memory box thinking we are conscious and have souls. However we do grow. Like trees. Don't we.


I am sounding distinctly unintellectual. I must get to my work. When will I be busy and have a large busy network of friends so that I stop feeling that I am a failure in society and the world and don't fit in anywhere.

I never feel confident. I am tired of pretending. It's hard because showing your vulnerability all the time is a certified death sentence. Have to have some defences up. Have to have an immune system.

I wish I could fearlessly travel all of India. But I fear. I could get raped, mugged and murdered. Could I afford it. If I meet conmen and cheats along the way..I lack the ability to laugh it off. it spoils my entire day.

A house seems to be the safer cocoon. Only sometimes it does get boring. And I know between boring and risk....I always choose boring. I am totally unsure I can handle challenges with flair and dignity. Reliving how I survived tough situations is sometimes just as traumatic as having experienced the situation.

And I have a strong mental notion of what is good. When I went out into the world without mental notions...as a empty slate...I had traumatic experiences several times. Obviously not all the time, because i have had a nice good life with kind people all along...but kindness..just general kindness one takes for granted. Like a nice day or a good weather. One forgets that it is magical and to be thankful for it.

I don't know why I am so fundamentally unsure and unconfident.

I can isolate myself in my misery. When I don't get attention I can feel rejected. I don't want to hang around a group that seems to get it with each other. I never do. i always feel I am missing some hidden sign language. Some sub text when I am in the room. Others know what is going on and I don't.

Always.

It's tough. My mind defeats me. My mind should make me win too right. The same door I feel through..has another side. The same door.

random musings

Had a thought. By the time I opened this space..it's swum away.


dang it. What was it......this is scary. I am like a goldfish now. ok..let's keep this page open. It might swim back into my view.

Have to send a card for S. She is turning 9!

Yest someone asked me, and almost every one asks it in the most genuinely natural manner "Why did you not settle abroad as you had the opportunity".

I always am at a loss to explain my brain does not work that way. I never figured out how to. And I have tried telling them but NO ONE EVER believes me. So now I have formulated the answer I feel is the most easy to be accepted. And people nod in understanding and drop the topic.

And it's not a lie either. It's certainly true feelings of mine..ONLY it is not the reason why I did not settle abroad. I just had no opportunity that I could see was clearly an option.

People refuse to believe that! So I tell them..I never tried hard really because I felt it was too lonely in the west for a single girl. I prefer being close to my parents who are happy being here. AND all of that is true enough.

The part they don't believe, but which is more pertinently true, is I did not see any way for it to happen. I did not go there to study. I am still confused whether I can bear the politics and harsh judgemental dynamics of a school where you need to appear cool else someone is giving you hell.

I just never could figure out how to be cool. The cool factor terrifies me. It is like that maths problem I know I can never solve. While those who can, ask you useless questions like why can't you solve it? It's so easy? If I knew why I can't, I would have solved it people! Oh the irony.

And I was never great at my job where a magical, career path with possibilities is open to me. I am as OK as many and just chugging along. I never figure out how to get ahead in a queue from amongst a group of people.

Let's go back to my childhood. I was the kid in the playground always lost. Never able to understand whether anyone was playing with me, or was I running along with a bunch who were playing their own game. I ALWAYS felt like that. I often would sit alone, or under a tree or on a swing...until a bunch of them would come and ask me to play and I would go along with quivering hope..only to shortly start feeling lost and clueless and unseen again.

The play ground at best confused me and at worst scared me. BUT I always...100% of the time as far as I can recall, felt I was in the wrong place and did not belong. sitting in the sidelines and watching other kids play, wishing you could be as cool and confident and self assured does not help in personality development or inner Joy. No.


Oh yeah another thought I had in the morning, which I just felt is a true insight:

Thinking is a dead thing. It must have originated from a cave or a grave.
A man, even a being in real nature, cannot afford to 'think'. You will be dead on your feet if you stood thinking. Nature will engage you. And you must follow. Run when you have to. sleep when you have to. Eat when you have to. Sex when you have to. BUT thinking is twisted. Thinking looks sideways at what it wants and goes around in circles pretending to go away while coming at it.
Thinking tells desire and instinct it is crude to be direct and you must build complicated codes and reasons to get what you want. You must deserve it. Wanting is not deserving until there is a reason you are entitled to get what you want. This desire to find a reason other than natural desire...is the working of death. Life lives. Death pretends to live.

It is always so. But Death and thought are so cunning they even make you believe you breathe because you think!

I wonder if this is making sense...I mean I am not able to really articulate it and illustrate with examples. But it is true in this much. Thinking is a dead activity.

Shivji fascinates me. His meditation signifying, the universe thinking is always in a graveyard or cremation ground! always.

Shivji is most beautiful and alive when he dances. And he dances to his own beats. The music is made with the rhythm of his dance.

Unlike Music. I wonder if Music is as alive as dance is. People can be moved by music, without being fully engaged. They could be shelling peas while listening to music or even singing.

But when you really dance, you just dance. And if you are watching a dance, you can only breathe. Doing anything else while watching dance and you will miss something. same for when you are dancing. You have to be there. Fully present. No half in and half out. That is why to me, dance is superior.

Reading Drew Barrymore's personal essays in "Wildflower"

After a looooong time...excited to read something good and real.

will update this post.

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

12/1/2017:

I totally loved reading it. Have not finished reading it yet. Like all books I really love, I am now reading it slowly and with breaks so that it does not end so quickly! Because it will. It is a small book. Readable conversational dialog with one self or a intimate candid tete' a tat with someone pleasant.so good.

Journal 12-1-2017

So this thought came to me yesterday. Or more a statement I have always felt but struggled to articulate. I did not record it and It swam away like a slippery fish.

And now it teased me by swimming back in sight and I recall the feeling and thought I wished to articulate,

but I do not remember the exact statement I thought up.

Here it is:

I don't need any scientific data, table or statistics to KNOW what I feel.

You can confuse me on what I think, but not what I feel.

Science speak, terminology, and logical conceits does not replace my experience. 

I experience what I do. I feel what I do. Your descriptions do not change the experience I felt.

Thank God I remembered and put it down. 

*****----------------------------------*****-----------------------------------******-------------------------------------******

I can come back and add on after this point. 
A foot note in the map of my thinking mind. :)
And that just rhymed...

wondering ..about...meditation

Is the act of observing thinking?
can thinking observe thought?
can one observe oneself? how?

By agency of a mirror?

So here is a thought  that whispered itself inside of my head.

Some times I wonder do our ears hear from the inside too? Do we have ..all of us, do we have many personalities and hence voices inside of us. We are constantly talking or listening, even on the inside.

Just 5 mins of self observation and you will know that. There are constant voices. Either they are doing a commentary or are giving impulse commands. Panic commands, excitement commands, signalling emotional cues...but there is constant telling.

I have had a glimpse of it. Where I have suddenly realized all these conversors, with multi thread conversations and I have stepped back. Realized they haven't noticed and ALMOST run away.

Except they notice, panic and call me. They pull me back. And I feel the pull right in my stomach. My gut. You just know that instant..if you get away that instant..that very instant you will die. And you know there is no coming back and you stop yourself and you even forget that moment happened. A memory lingers ...but barely.

I now have begun to enjoy and (I did not expect it) to look forward to sitting in silence and listening to voices...inner..outer...and having this feeling that somehow I will drift away and tune into a voice I like or fall through a silence door and fall into somewhere....Dunno.

Atleast I now know..there are more dimensions to perceive than  I can name, spot and label. There is more. Doors behind Doors. 

Just random thoughts

Just saw H in office. She seems to have put on more weight. 

Was wondering is awareness actually a limitation. Does what we know , then a probability which stops us from achieving possibility.

 I wonder if others in office are doing anything required? Is this something that needed to be done? That if it wasn't something else would not happen? That what they do matters for things to go forward?

Or is it all merely a timepass? I should leave by 6. I plan to have an exciting day but without any plan...just merely on intention. Stupid right? yep.

I realize it is stupid too. I spent half my life shrugging away and explaining to all 'Oh I never Plan'. Not that I was proud of it but I spoke of it as if it was a law of nature and every one must understand it.

Quacks and charlatans around the world

This is the reason I cannot surrender or submit to anyone. How can any one be above question?

After being led to that critical site on Louise L Hay, I stumbled on a string chase on another charlatan. The ordeal narrated in below blog is horrifying! And it is scary how many frauds are operating under the watch of the law with absolute impunity.

https://www.cancertreatmentwatch.org/victims/ponzanelli.shtml

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/10/27/requiem-for-a-quack-part-ii/

This world is murky. Why do so many people need to believe a lie. Why are they almost emotionally violently against rationalism.

Today's rationalists sound like voo voo people to me.

Interesting things I read today. The web search came from a question that arose in my mind.

The question was...Do animals think of death. Do they worry. Do they know they will be dying some imminent moment. Do they philosophize about it.

Are their brains like us? Does right and wrong matter to them morally speaking beyond their own sense of pain? It must since they are often kind and Loyal.......

But animals...how do they visualize their God?

http://animals.howstuffworks.com/animal-facts/pet-sixth-sense.htm


http://www.chicagonow.com/animals-know/2013/12/do-animals-know-they-are-dying/

http://www.slate.com/blogs/wild_things/2013/11/04/do_animals_know_they_are_going_to_die_my_cat_told_me_she_was_dying.html

Louise L Hay

Like millions of others in this world I have read Louise L Hay. She died on 30th August. It was a small headline and I even read it only while googling her.

There was such negativity going around I felt like I could remind myself of some positive outlook and googled her. Learnt she passed away instead on 30th Aug 2017.

Then i wondered why it was not big huge headline news. It wasn't. I googled for tributes for her and there were a dismal few. A few on YouTube..I think Marianne Williamson was one and maybe some of her readers. Not much from her students or colleagues who became part of mainstream and made a living out of her work.

Disappointing and intriguing. I like her..but I remain a bit skeptical as well. For example that vulture Doreen Virtue or whatever, I could not stand her and could not understand her association with Hay House , Louise Hay's publishing business. That Doreen Virtue looked an absolute charlatan from the 1st second to me and so a lot many felt too.

Now again, came to office and feeling bored because frankly there is nothing to do for me. What to do. By instinct I look for stories about people and..stories. I wish I had a job dealing with stories..real or imagined all the time.

Anyways came upon this blog rather critical of her. https://spiritualityisnoexcuse.wordpress.com/2014/01/24/louise-hay-is-a-dangerous-quack/

So my next few minutes will be engaged in interesting reading.

inspired by Khushwant Singh

I know I want to write. Write profound stuff which is rivettingly interesting as well.

Only thing is when I sit down to write I don't know what to write. My most prolific writing is on FB, which is like reactive writing. I am provoked to some or other tid-bit, either pleasant or unpleasant and I start flowing with expression.

Some read it also. Even if no one did, it feels good and purposeful to write it.

Daily writing practice:

Political opinions. Public opinions. We look at something, and we feel something. But is it true?

We hear something, and we feel something. Is it true?

What we see or hear and feel is true, seems different to what others see and hear…and they seem to be reliable or trustworthy. So who is true? What is true? What is truth itself?

What is the definition of Truth? According to the dictionary;

Truth =  The quality or state of being true. That which is in accordance with fact or reality. A fact or belief accepted as true.

True  = In accordance with fact or reality. Strictly Genuine. Actual. Accurate. Exact. Loyal or faithful.

People copy each other. Always template clutter. I don’t want to be a template. If nothing else I have achieved that J

Memory - Parveen Babi

Memory - what is a memory. what is an emotion.

why do we forget and why do we remember

why do we forget at the wrong time and remember at the wrong time
what makes a sharp memory.

I keep coming back to her story every few months or years. She puzzles me. She intrigues me. As a kid, for years I kept getting confused between Zeenat Aman and Parveen Babi, to the amusement of my mother and others.

Their faces merged and I often wondered if they were one and the same. Ofcourse, after several years, I could make out the distinctions well. Point to remember is those days, back in the 80's the media was not so ubiquitous. We would once in a while glimpse the face of a dazzling celebrity in a poster on a wall or that rare occasion we went to a cinema hall or in a magazine in some person's home, who was rich and could afford such indulgent luxuries as to spend money on film magazines.

To my child's mind, seeing either of their faces, after months of break in between, lent itself to hazy recollection of what I had seen before, and I do remember that I used to be puzzled for the longest time. They had some similarities in appearance, beyond being the 'modern westernized' heroines. They both had straight long hair, often parted in the middle, had similar skin tone and build and dressed similarly as well. 

They were cut to the same style more or less. But ofcourse they were totally different. As one retrospects, Zeenat Aman, was more practical, stable and had a more successful career, because it went through logical progression.

Parveen Babi, was destiny's child but had a chequered career because of her mental and emotional health issues.

For such a spectacularly beautiful, modern, successful, independent lady, she was equally fragile, broken, and damaged. The damage took over and she really could not win over it eventually.

But she fought till the end. I never knew her...but I am so proud of her. What a brave woman, and what a warrior. If one has to work out Karma, she worked a heavy load of it in this life. She built up many, harmed none and took on more than she could have handled...and she went quietly. Alone. That is what I find sad.

It is sad. She was associated to U.G. Krishnamurti via Mahesh Bhatt, but neither of these men could help her. I wonder why U.G. could not. U.G. refused to take on the onus and halo of being a God man or a miracle man, and claimed that he was ordinary. However, he was so insightful. And I keep wondering...why he couldn't help. 

To step beyond the obvious pathos of this, that such a beautiful, radiant, successful woman, got unraveled by a mind she could not control, I still want to understand why? What is this paranoia.

It is also, kind of...and this may sound silly, but wondrous to me, that people in her life, who ran away from what they felt was her 'madness' coming on, had to face it in their future family life. At that time, they commented on it wisely and walked away. But Parveen, if there is the irony of Karma, never went out of their life. Her probably first intense Love, Kabir Bedi, had a son (now passed away) who suffered from Schizophrenia. He jumped to his death, leaving a note that he could not live with it anymore, because he knew he will never get well.

Mahesh Bhatt, has 4 kids and they are a candid family. His eldest daughter Pooja, who bears quite a resemblance to Parveen Babi (She was probably born around the time Mahesh was having his affair with Parveen, or a little after), has spoken about her struggles with alcoholism. His son suffers from depression and feeling neglected by his famous father. His elder daughter with Soni Razdan, Shaheen has spoken about struggling with depression.

I feel about it, that Parveen Babi....her essence, her rooh, splintered and attached to the lives of all who came in her orbit. Maybe, once we meet someone, they are always forever, a bit in us. Like dust that is not very visible, but never quite detached. Anyways, these are for all we know, mystical bullshit ravings.

https://sulochanosho.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/parveen_conf.pdf


I keep googling her. Many results come up and over the years I have read and re-read several. And I still don't find myself close to an understanding, though I have heard many accounts. 

She lives on in my mind's curiosity.

BTW, Alia Bhatt also bears a resemblance to Parveen..though she is all sunshine and innocence now, and I hope she stays that way. Infact looks like Mahesh Bhatt kept getting attracted to all these women, who seem quite similar in appearance to Parveen Babi. His fist wife Kiran Bhatt, looks similar. Soni Razdan, his second wife looks similar. And he made all these successful movies with autobiographical elements. Whoever, he cast in those movies, their lives took dramatic turns for the worst after that!

For example, he made Aashiqui with Anu Agarwal! Another beauty with a strong resemblance to Parveen Babi, or that similar look. Straight hair..very modern and uninhibited. And while that became the only notable movie in her short career, a runaway hit of the year, and few years later a very derailed life, in search of spiritual answers, a devastating accident that left her physically and mentally broken...it seems touched by the same trajectory as Parveen Babi.

He made Woh Lamhe with Kangana...and she is holding up, but has been accused of being a mad witch, who is delusional and obsessive. So far Kangana is fighting so bravely, but she is getting isolated. And she is isolating herself, because that is what happens when you feel misunderstood.

...Have to get back to work..I will come back. This will be a long and ongoing, rambling post.

Another Friday

Yawn

Can't wait for the office day to end. Office is like a dead dull zone. none of us are too invested. on my left is S, whose slow and steady speaking can lull you to sleep.

Lighting a fire is well nigh impossible with him. Forget fire, even igniting a spark seems difficult.

A, keeps himself aloof, arrogant and maybe that is what is needed for one's creative life.

S, I can't figure out. Seems lost in his own world, which he aggressively guards. He tries to aggressively appear like he has points to make from time to time, but he actually has aggression more than a point, and hence runs out of steam as quickly. Then retires back to the aloof silence.

People are walking by. S is checking train tickets for his family I suppose. Yawn.

I want to go home....relax...put on Republic TV, have my home made icecream, and chill chill chill.

What do I do over the weekend besides cleaning up? hmm....I don't feel like going shopping or for a movie or for meeting P.

Meet Y?  Nah..too far. too much effort to keep in touch when there are easier ways, esp as she being a Mom now, she is too distracted to just kick her heels n do soulful talks.

S is back, in his aloof, bemused thoughts, scratching his beard.

Why am I writing random shit?

Dunno. Spoke to Mom. She was fine...her BP was totally normal. A day cannot pass unless I speak with her.

I think

My job does not fascinate me...unless a question niggles me and then I am on a fact finding mission.

I am a seeker. A story hunter. I am happiest ..happiest hunting stories. I am emotional and I love good ideas.

What should be my ideal job? what?


Truth is lost in stories. There is no input without an output. Truth comes out in stories. Somehow. Something is connected to something. Somehow somewhere there is a trace. There cannot be a blackhole.

That is why I believe in Karma.

Today Vinod Khanna ji passed away. Why does it feel personal. I dont know. Maybe because I always liked Akshaye Khanna so much..or Papa told me he saw Vinod Khanna in person, and has never seen a more handsome man since or because he got involved in Osho and I have heard and enjoyed Osho's crazy talks so much...anyways he was a superstar and I am one in millions fascinated by some aspect of him.

But what's curious is my day got spent reading on him...and then I stumbled on a little article where Zeenat Aman spoke of him and gave a tribute reminiscing that they worked together in a film directed by brij Sadanah who died a gruesome death. I wondered why n googled (Jai Ho Google) and found this was an old story..where earlier only the son's name had registered on my consciousness. When I was still in school...this young man called Kamal Sadanah..with a puppy melancholy face had debuted. And maybe just before his debut it was a scandal that his father had tried to kill all and then killed himself in a case of domestic shootout right on the day of his birthday and a party going on at home. That is the kind of story one does not forget. But in that story I registered this fact of the murderer as actor Kamal Sadanahs father. That is it. Today I learnt he is Brij Sadanah...now I will always remember this fact! Stories are so funny. And my day seems well spent collecting stories. Why am I in a corporate job creating decks n excels about topics I don't care a whit about? GOD PLEASE HELP ME.......I need to find a job where I LOVE to be at work every single day. PLEASE. And yes...Dear God..please take care of Vinod Khanna ji and his good kind soul.
Anyways..the story. So I wanted to find more about Brij Sadanah. So I google again and search shows me a string of articles..and this one grabs my eye...."http://www.filmfare.com/features/exclusive-at-17-i-had-turned-to-prostitution-shagufta-rafique-3346-1.html"

Seems Mr. Brij Sadanah was married to a yesteryear actress, who had an illegitimate daughter..who had to turn to prostitution to take care of her foster mother...but emerged out of that grim world to be a story teller today!!!! Her name is Shagufta Rafique. Absolutely fascinating. God please give me a moonlighting job as a writer interviewing people and finding out their stories to tell. Stories..stories..stories...

Words - Truth - Fact - Fiction

What is Truth?

After all the question is but words.

Truth is a bunch of words.
Lies are a bunch of words.

Facts..what are facts? 

After all stated words are but words.

Fiction is a bunch of words
Stories are a bunch of words
True or False

If it is all words, words, words

Word - World - Lord Word -  Word of Lord - Lord of World

hmmm

Age old questions..random ramblings

U.G. Krishnamurti said, enlightenment is when the question falls away. Also,  that all questions come from answers we already know. 
Or we ask questions to tell our answers.

There is much truth in this.

I read the news. I see so many people, having liberty, attracted towards the opposite of it.
I see conversely, not enough oppressed truly wanting freedom. They seem to hate it with a vengeance.

Why must it go on the wrong way. Why must we sit around helpless, demanding n lamenting a better world, but unable to stop little girls from getting raped, or little boys even, people from dying of starvation, or people who have never seen or heard a God, believe some body's version of it, and then using that as a basis, go out to loot, murder and mayhem saying their belief sanctions it?

And why is it that some of our greatest enemies are those we love, who go out and invite our enemies home?

If we do find a reason ..a true reason for these, will the question stop bothering  one?
I doubt. Feeling hungry and sleepy. odd.


Synchronicity. A sequence of related beads of love. connect the dots. the connection is love.

H showed up and shocked me...told me of her tumor survival story. She looks Good. God bless her. But it has made me think. Here is a link on her tumor recovery journey.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/729953/world-largest-tumour-removed-kidney

And while I have been thinking about her, here is another story I came across. This is a live example of synchronicity:

http://isha.sadhguru.org/blog/inside-isha/expressions/cancer-yoga-close-death-survivor-shares/

The Tree I was meant to be - 25 Jan 2017

The wind must have brought me here.
I don't want to travel, but I must.

I want to take roots and stay, somewhere.
I want to die, be buried, spring to life and Live there.

But I must find my ground.
My soil.
my sky.
My water.
My rocks and my wind.

I will know when I meet them, I will know
because only there will I grow
in stillness.

After all, only when a seed dies, is a tree born.

The wind must have brought me here.
It must've been a mistake.
Never mind. Things Happen.

There is hope. Always. All-ways.
Because things, all things, change.
Change Happens. Changes Happen.

And thanked be God, that he made her round.
He loves her so much, he ensured,
no matter how far he goes,
He eventually comes around,
to where he left from.

This wind that is trailing him, and carried me
and dropped me here,
will come around & carry me
and drop me there.

I will know.
I will know my air, my soil,
my sky and my land.

I will get down there.
I will die there, and I will get born there,
For ever.

I will become the tree,
I was meant to be.