July 31, 2010

Happiness and Sorrow

Happiness or Sorrow, both are nothing but state of mind. They are emotions which one is TRAINED to feel when something one wants occurs or doesn’t occur respectively. If one wants something and gets it, one feels happy. It is just a state of mind; one has been trained to reach when something like that happens. But, most of the times one feels happy IF some other person does not get what they want. Why is the general perspective so negative and destruction oriented? If I get something I want and the other person doesn’t, then I shall be the happiest… approach to life is so NEGETIVE yet PREVALENT… 
From this one fundamental question arises. Can there be Happiness without Sorrow?

Some great philosopher had once said “There cannot be light without darkness”, this universal phrase means that darkness does not exist on its own, but needs light to define it OR Darkness has no existence without light…  but, is it so? Is it not the opposite, that Light is defined by the darkness?

But then again we have a paradox in our hands. In space where there is the ultimate sources of illumination (the various suns), why is everything so dark? The answer is Light is revealed only by the presence of an object, which can reflect it. So, let we can say, light – dark – objects are the three fundamental things one needs to have before the experiments can be done.
Enough of metaphors, light is happiness, darkness Is sorrow and the object is the person in question. So, when the object exists but there is no light, the person is sad. Whenever light is thrown on the object, but the object is transparent there is no change in the scenario and the person continues to be sad. Then, the only way to happiness is being opaque and by that it means, reflecting all that is thrown at you…

IS IT?

July 29, 2010

The Girl in the Café

A moving story, a movie which goes on to remind us that humanity is alive and that a single person can by his/her strength of unwavering resolution can change the world around.

The movie revolves around the central theme of G8 summit of 2005 at Iceland (actually held in Scotland), the protagonist is an aging civil servant who has dedicated his life to service of the nation. The agenda he has been working on was eradication of extreme poverty from the world; But he does not have courage to actually push these things forward. He meets with a taciturn yet resolute woman in at a Café in London, they talk awkwardly and yet the man is moved and asks her for lunch and later for dinner. He invites her to Iceland to accompany him at the summit.

The woman, who actually had murdered a man, guilty of killing a child, leaves no opportunity unused to advocate for the poor and unprivileged, so much so that the Chancellor and the Prime-Minister are totally annoyed and make her leave the venue. But, the idea planted by her takes momentum in their minds and they resolve to stand by it. She makes them realize that greatness is something one has to strive for, and also that greatness can only be achieved by doing something so extraordinary that no one has ever mustered enough courage to do it.

famous quote from Nelson Mandela sums it up.
"Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great.
You can be that generation.
Let your greatness blossom."
(Nelson Mandela - 2005)

It is only upon us that the onus of doing something for the good of people lies, there is no one else to blame for it; not the government, bureaucrats or the system. The movie exemplifies that a single resolute commoner can achieve such great feat.

PS: Thanks to Urvang for Suggesting the movie. :)

July 20, 2010

Ways of Life

Today I was talking to a friend and suddenly we started discussing the ways of life.

He explained to me, there are basically two ways of living life
1) For Happiness
2) For Purpose

People who live for happiness, are content and may or may-not be achievers in the broad sense of society, Yet... they are in their own world.

The people who live for purpose, get satisfaction and are achievers in their own arena and most of the time in the eyes of society at large. Seldom do these people have happiness, because happiness is a state of mind and not something that can be quantized and measured.

I argued that it is not true, having satisfaction of fulfilling the purpose and moving on to the next one is itself happiness... the joy of completing something isn't something one puts away lightly. On this he sharply replied, satisfaction of completing one's purpose is not always happiness... He elaborated by illustrating a simple act of doing societal good at the cost of one's personal life, he explained that the person, who is purpose oriented ALWAYS has to make a SACRIFICE without which the purpose is not complete.

I asked, is it always that giving is painful?

July 19, 2010

Dreams and Inception

Psyche and Intuition are the two sides of human psychology. Intuition, the limitless terrain of unknown, the grey area of science… there are a lot of adjectives which can be used to describe it; is a seat of creativity, the powerhouse of imagination and the realm where everything is achievable. It is the seat of thought, the ultimate contraption capable of analysing all permutations (tree of possibilities) for a problem and come-up with a way to achieve the goal, and all this while the Psyche is switched-off.

 

The human brain uses only a fraction of it power when awake, whereas it has been proven scientifically that the brain works harder during sleep, especially during the R.E.M phase of sleep. It is this phase when the human mind is experiencing DREAMS.

Some say that dreams are just there to vent out one's frustrations in life, because in the dream world, one is the protagonist and the world is as one wants it to be… but, is it so?

 

Haven't we all come across "déjà-vu" situations? We feel that we have had this exact experience before, but we are not able to recall when, where and how? This is the point of inflexion, where the consciousness and sub-consciousness meet, the sub-conscious has done a days work and has presented the person with a solution, and INCEPTION of an idea has taken place in the sub-conscious to solve a complex/essential problem of the conscious mind. Once this idea has taken root, the person sub-consciously works towards achieving the required goal through a path which it had worked out earlier.

 

The dream world is populated by the person's own projections of real person(s) dead or alive, behaving exactly like the dreamer's perception about the real person(s); e.g. One may create paradoxical situations like – an infinite staircase, a world with houses on all six sides namely bottom, left, right, front, back and top.

The physics of the situation, however is controlled not by oneself, but is enforced by the problem one is thinking about. The sub-conscious mind traverses through the maze, in the search of the solution one desires for the "MOST"; the sub-conscious being much more potent at such tasks, completes the much faster.

 

The time, one gets during the dream is proportional to the person's level or DEPTH of the dream. Consider this – One starts dreaming (by falling asleep) and is coursing through the labyrinth of the problem, and feels that the perspective of the problem in this level is not right, decides to see the problem a still deeper level, goes into sleep in the dream, and comes to the next level or goes deeper into the dream, the problem changes at this depth. Time is slower at the next level, i.e. the time available to do process things is more e.g. 10 sec of real time dream translates to 3 mins at level 1 dream, 20 mins at level 2 and so forth. This can be explained by Einstein's theory of relativity – consider two persons A and B; A is on earth and stationary while B is on a rocket moving at 90% speed of light. 1 min for B is maybe few days for A. It is because the time has slowed for A who is moving at a very high speed with respect to the stationary person B.

 

Now, when one is wandering this maze of the problem it is facing, the projections interacts with it, creating new experiences, and through this multitude of interactions, one finds OR tries to find a way out of the maze which it feels is the most suitable outcome. Here takes the birth of a new idea – Inception of the idea of the way to achieve what one wants to. This can only be achieved with patience and practice. The minds of the weak and untrained, wander through the same mazes everyday without ever implanting the idea of the way out, and hence do not remember that they have already found a way to achieve their goals. Humankind is blinded by its habitual way of knowing, we do not rely on our instinct. Our habitual way of knowing, based on needs, is the only obstacle to the knowledge of the absolute. All theories of knowledge have in one way or another attempted to explain meaning and consistency by assuming contingency of order. We try to make out an order where there is none. The real obeys a certain kind of organisation, that of qualitative multiplicity. Structured around its needs and interests, our intelligence fails to recognise this ultimate reality.

 

 

July 16, 2010

Lamha

Kashmir reality served on a platter.
The movie showcases the true nature and cause of the epic "Kashmir Issue".
The politicians and "SO" called kashmir's freedom fighters are trying to keep the heaven on earth burning so that their houses are warm and their coffers overflowing.

The victim of this whole struggle is the common man, who just aspires to earn enough to feed his family and live in peace and harmony; but, what does he get? Unemployment, hunger, bombs, curfews, and death. This is the reason he takes to arms.

"God created heaven on earth, man made it the hell"

The movie arrays Bipasha in a hijab and a totally no-glam role, but she did justice to the role, the movie is nicely made and makes a bold statement.
I truely hope the reality to change for good.

July 12, 2010

Secrets of Life

The secrets of life as brought about by the short movie "Secrets of the furious five" are

  1. Patience
  2. One must be patient enough to wait for the expected results to manifest. It takes time for a nice cake to bake, and with the virtue of patience one can achieve things which cannot just be achieved by strength.
  3. Courage
  4. One may have all the things required to make the best cake ever, but Courage is required to take the first step, and mix the ingredients. it said "Fortune favors the courageous..."
  5. Confidence
  6. Control
  7. All the power in the world is of no use without the lever of control, channeling its direction.
  8. Compassion