My experiments with Life - I

I have been listening to discourses of Prof K S Narayanacharya for about 2-3 weeks now thanks to 2 of my friends for triggering my thoughts and ego to listen to those discourses and also for sharing the link.

http://www.kannadaaudio.com/Songs/Discourses/home/Indina-Jeevanada-Mele-Mahabharathada-Belaku.php
http://www.kannadaaudio.com/Songs/Discourses/home/Vishnu-Sahasranama.php

OK so why blog ? It has changed the way i look at myself and world . It has also strengthened my faith on Indian Scriptures . so i would like to share my understanding with examples.
One major take away was what krishna told arjuna "Do anything that you do with utmost dedication without any expectation" [I would like to add prejudice to expectation].This may sound either way too simple or way too complex.But But.. there is an extraordinarily simple yet powerful hidden secret in this statement.That is the belief factor .

Normally it so happens that when you believe in what you do without considering any factor of "success-failure" "like-dislike" you normally tend to do things that you are really passionate about or what you are good at without wasting effort on crap.It results in satisfaction allowing harmonious co-ordination of body and mind.
Otherwise had you concentrated on the outcome , it is general tendency to have fear of failure , fear of not living up to the expectation of yourself or others. Now once you fear, mind starts simulating scenarios where it places you as a loser thus disconnecting body-mind harmony and thus resulting in stress/failure .
Now that paul the octopus is dead I still think Netherlands lost to spain because of the predictions of paul! as Netherlands had already accepted defeat even before putting up the fight!

Expectation is a monster that eats you irrespective of whether you win or lose.When you expect something and reality is closer to what is expected then you dont learn anything new as you already knew. Now if it so happens that it did not turn out to be what you expected you are so disappointed that your mind shuts off without taking anything in!.
Had we all learnt getting prejudiced or expectation when we were born , I guess none of us would be walking today.

Now let me take examples , Recently i had to travel to Bombay and Hyderabad. On one hand I was heavily inspired by David gregory Robert's shantaram and his description of Bombay and on the other hand deeply apprehensive as i was travelling alone without family or friends for first time and had heard several stories on mumbaikars being rude.Now had i gone with this expectation i would have been thoroughly disappointed as the Bombay i saw in 8 hours was not even close to DGR's description but way better and people right from my driver till the consulate really friendly.Although i wouldnt say same thing to Hyderabad its not a bad place either and its amusing to read telgu characters similar to kannada but with spirals[chakkuli in kannada, Marathi is devanagari script i suppose or is it that I read hindi boards :D ].Anyway the point is its fun to explore life without prejudice or expectation.

When the concept is so simple ,i have realized it is the toughest path to tread , After all these realization , when i started off to read SL byrappa's Kavalu i was totally disappoined after the prelude itself ! I was expecting another Avarana/Parva and it turned out to be different! so expectation is just built into our system which we need to start rebuilding. solution ? Practise practise and more practise! I'm set!!

Now other take away was to see god in everyone
Sarva Bhutaanaam cha atmanaam |
sarva bhutaani cha aatmaani ||
Ikshate yoga yuktatma |
sarvatra samadarshanam ||
When everybody curses Hinduism(typed sanatana Dharma from now on) for being non secular , which other sect says that there is god in every one and everyone should be treated with respect. It upholds equality not just among humans but across species.It also makes one humble as one realizes that everybody is good as I am as they all have portion of the same god which i consider as ultimate and is within me.

Common Wealth Games : Celebrating Slavery

Sometimes I wonder if Britishers had injected some slavery bug into our genes before leaving India. If you are wondering what the hell am i talking about here goes the entire Article to explain myself.

If you have ever wondered what common wealth games is ,

a Quote from wiki

"The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and previously known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states. All but three of these countries were formerly part of the British Empire."

It is a game that is played by members of common wealth nations , members who were part of British colonies.Basically one's ruled by British!

So after celebrating 61st republic day , if we still get Prince charles to come and inaugrate[ok jointly with Prathibha but still!!] the Common Wealth Games, arent we celebrating our slavery? Had Subhash Chandra Bose been alive today , this act would have cremated him alive. Is this the respect we are paying for all the struggle?

Now if you say Globalization, India getting visibility and such crap , The only visibilyt we got was for ,"The Great Indian Corruption". When It might not have affected any of these corrupt officers , It has bled the heart of every honest tax payer in India.Yes Inaguration was great , there was folklore , there was this great Indian railways program with people from different parts of india from kashmir to kanyakumari coming in. Again is this our reality ?, Doesnt the whole world know of the issue we are facing in Kashmir , Naxal problem ? Isnt this the act of wearing silk robe for a day when everybody knows that you wear rags otherswise? Had we honestly used the same money to fix food, education , funding for sports , encouraging entrepreneur rather than showing bigotry by organizing games , Probably we would have been far far better.

But then wanted to humor myself , Inspite of all the rage , Bingo! Remebered this joke about English :

"British might have ruled us for over 200 years but Indians have been taking the revenge ever since by killing their mother tongue day-in and day-out"

Just looked around and found these pictures .. :-)