All posts tagged: Learning

Tomorrow comes Daily

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Slowly slowly as good days passed, hardest ones arrived. Three deaths and earning a bagful of silence later, we started sleeping again, or may be not. But mind does not change as of yet. Because Ruts don’t dig themselves. Most of the time, we’re in a rut because that’s precisely where we put ourselves. Out of many, some actions become habits, and habits get repeated because they feel safe. The easiest way to make things more interesting is to simply stop repeating your habitual behavior. And that often comes from reacting to triggers. Remove the triggers and you can alter the habits. Tiny changes. Different ways to keep score. Tomorrow comes daily. But we don’t have to take the same route to get there.

Better than perfect ?

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Draw a perfect circle. Use a compass or a plotter. Now, zoom in. If you zoom in close enough, you’ll discover that it’s not a perfect circle at all. In fact, anything we create, at close enough magnification, isn’t perfect. It’s foolish to wait until you’ve made something that’s perfect, because you never will. The alternative is to continue to move toward your imaginary ideal, shipping as you iterate. Getter better is the path to better.

Homeland

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He woke up four inches below the snow like bed. But the day ahead was going to be as treacherous. He felt excited because travelling to rural India gave a smile to his face. Indian villages to a good extent still practice their civilisational old traditions. The air is different, the land for miles is green. But leaving Delhi behind is a lengthy affair. Their is an infrastructure push. Hundreds and thousands of trees that once gave beauty, breath and shade have now given way to expressway and highways and along with it empty, always being constructed high rise buildings. Slowly we start going past it. And we start seeing cow dung cakes kept for sun drying for kilometres. For centuries cow dung cakes known as “upla” in Hindi are used for cooking, cleaning homes and for homa- the fire worship. It’s smoke is known to purify the environment killing small insects and creatures. Many years ago someone said to Nara about India, when he was roaming in the river valleys of Kedar, that India …

LAST FLIGHT OF AN OWL

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She kept looking towards the sky while floating in the water kept for cows. Her death seemed such that at one time I felt she chose it.   But do birds more so when one is a predator choose their own death?   When Maharaj ji arrived, he first closed his eyes. May be she needed someone to close her eyes before it could be plucked out by hungry ones. May be he earned this burial. To only put a stop to this cycle. May his body rests and the spirit awakens. Aum Shanti In Photos 1  

Ways to Grow

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  A checklist to get you started—you can either do the same thing or a different thing… More of the same Persist Get the word out Doing something different Change an element of what you do Raise your prices Lower your prices Make it better Tell a different story Serve a different customer Enter a new segment Change the downstream effects of your work Earn trust Make bigger promises Organize Get better clients Do work that matters to someone

Amarnath in the times of article 370

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Even after thinking about doing something daily, one ends up doing it, achieving it, finishing it only in the head. In the head is good, as it creates enough compound interest in head but it is not good enough. I have had ups and downs, and have been away from home for some time. I was in Kashmir when article 370 was taken off. I was one of the last person to have trekked the majestic Amarnath ji this year. Without any plan or any inclination to have wanted to do it but surrendering to flow of life is such it takes you along on the paths, and you would enjoy. I fell in love with the harmony of the few people who walked along, some saints barefoot, and two without a leg who finished approximately sixty kilometres in as many days as I did. Food, sweets, tea, love and the name of shiva. But the feeling was erratic even then. Tents, people were leaving a month before. And many had already left. The way …

Swaha / to the sun

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Slowly I have started smelling like fire. There is nothing more to feel one with the divine than this. Ash is all over my head, my clothes, my legs are bereft of a sole. Pouring Ice water every morning on head now seems a ritual. And the heat from the fire has become a family. Is it because of these squirrels that i have started listening to? Or that bird in the morning quietness who comes sits by my bed in the darkness of the dawn? Something will change. It seems to be initiating something and directing somewhere i cannot know just now. Hear hear they say. Hear till your eyes see the light.

Play a sport

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Many a times when body starts feeling the temperature, it starts affecting every other small action, as simple as interaction. But there is one thing that has worked for me since my teenage years. Every time I felt tired or exhausted. When body felt like breaking up, lethargy, uneasiness or just plainly feeling low crept up. I always called up a friend and played a sport. Probably sweating it out, screaming, shouting and expressing every other emotion that comes with it. I learnt playing Table tennis only a few years ago and since then it has only added dimensions the way my body reacts while moving, watching the spin of the ball, or the moment when you know it has to be smashed. It has always been an exciting mix of playing serves with different arms of various nationalities and minds. It has made conversations start and built observations. It is as good as chess and as fast as instinct. I lost four games out of seven today but by the time it ended, my …

An Unending Cycle

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A trigger prompts a cycle. And that cycle might go on longer than it should. The first spoonful of ice cream can trigger a cycle of binge eating that you regret later. The silence of walking into an empty house might trigger you to turn on the TV, and that cycle of wasting time watching nothing that matters goes on all night. The rush to get out the door leads to a cycle of rushing, which makes your commute a daredevil exercise, one that takes hours to recover from. It’s really useful to see your cycles and to work to dampen them (it’s almost impossible to go cold turkey). Even better is to find and eliminate the triggers. That’s surprisingly easy if you care enough. Quit Twitter. Empty your freezer. Wake up ten minutes earlier… Make these decisions when you’re not in the middle of a cycle. With the trigger gone, you might discover the cycles are gone too.

A Digital mind

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The world has long gone past finding comfort for humans. Comfort seems secondary. They might only say it has only started. Facebook and Google will leave no stone unturned to get even the last human trying to hide in his cave to get connected with the world. The momentum of the world trade and news constantly travelling is like making too much noise standing. Iam certain now that the race is not to find god but to become formless while living. One can argue, we are our own god and only us can stop ourselves from doing or not doing. In doing they might have exceeded their own expectations but every achievement is not the end of the story. The story keeps becoming. It is neverending. It merely adds another layer of truth, another variation of the result. How ever much our minds become digital, we are still a long way to forget our mothers.

Schools ruining the foundational roots of learning

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We spent almost 15 years being brainwashed on learning things that have nothing to do majorly with our present mind space. And we keep paying the price. It is proven that the most dangerous habits of all come from high school. Because if you are not willing to explore and experience, you are not willing to learn. Traditional schooling rewards multitasking and widespread mediocrity, with a focus on ‘good enough’. means you’ve done enough, quick, get on to the next average thing. Repeat the cycle. I was reading somewhere that almost every public speaker has experienced the back-row syndrome. Where did we learn to seek out the anonymous middle or the other zone of the back row? Who taught us to worry about getting called on? If you’re going to bother showing up, why not show up in the front row? It’s that  tension and focus that will help see you beyond and soon yourself in a different light. Wondering is a lot more effective than wandering. School pushes hard for wide, bot not deep. It …

The buffalo Doctor

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Father was speaking after a long time. He sat in front of me. His eyes were kind of sad but when he spoke, they spoke of a nostalgia that had come after years of living in a city. He is a village man. Once one of our water buffalo had fallen sick, he started narrating, “she had stopped eating. It was felt that we needed to call the veterinary immediately. He was five miles away. Being the youngest probably, I was asked to go to the village and get him along fast. I left and as soon and as fast i could, i got him on my cycle. He immediately saw her and prepared the local medicine. It was on the burner. He asked me to give buffalo the medicine once it gets back to a normal temperature. For animals there used to come funnels. One can put that in their mouth to let the liquid medicine pass. We tried to place it in her mouth but she refused and after some struggle, suddenly she …

Teachers Day is also a Mother’s day

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Teachers day is somehow another Mother’s Day. Because mother is our first teacher. First person who taught us love, and taught us how to everything on earth. It was a good day at school. Children had come becoming as new as wise. They had come wearing dresses of teachers. Its fifth class’s last year at school. Children grow at a rate of moon cycle. Its a shame we don’t have enough space to add at least three more classes. Our’s is a primary school. I was only thing that we enthuse our love, our energy and resources shaping and giving them the best of foundations but leaving school as early as VIth standard. It is hard for children to change their patterns. Who knows how much disciplined and caring the newer school be. For us, we feel to at least bring our classes till VIIIth so that you can shape those children better and further holding onto those ideas, creativity and empathy for humankind and for nation a bit longer. Every day, every year is …