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I want to know how to attain that state when and rid myself of the judgments.
Thinking and trying to convince yourself that something needs to be done or that you have to put a lot of effort in doing it makes tougher. Doubts,fear, random emotions related to it makes it tougher, makes me think its either too tough or too easy. The things I do without any judgments are very easy to do and they often the things others think you are so good, but on the other hand you somehow find it obvious...
Embrace your current feelings but know that its completely due to your impressions and memory not intuition... intuition strikes in non judgmental state of mind.
For example while writing this post a lot of things went around my mind. My mind was trying to convince me that the this activity is more worthy than any other work I would've done instead. There were many decisions I had to take regarding the choice of words and the flow, a lot of distractions too. I kept getting stuck at the decisions I had to make. I wasn't writing it according to the flow of my heart, it was according to the flow of my desires rather. I wanted this post to go in a certain way. The intelligent way would be accept that my first draft may not be the best, not to get stuck at decisions, do it in minimum time as possible, later when your mind is not clogged re-read and make corrections. You give different time to the flow and corrections, you don't get stuck in doing them at the same time and Writing then became easy..When I began writing blog my posts were long and cluttered, I used to get fed up by the time I finished writing... Hope I can apply it to other activities too especially studying...
There must be a reason why I keep hearing things like, do not procrastinate, be disciplined , Be proactive and its ok, let go. People feel free, calm and productive if they let go some things, when they have done what they were supposed to do in time, when their mind is not preoccupied with stale thoughts.
Stale thoughts are rotten, they are the thoughts about the things you've been thinking about for quite sometime. I generally prefer to finish of the something I don't like to eat immediately somehow gulping of entire thing rather than letting it become old and mushy, squishy and non crispy state or whatever. Same things apply to thoughts, especially the ones with a deadline like assignment; they seem to develop more side effects as the expiry date gets closer and absolutely of no use or little use after expiry. Leaving things incomplete and unfinished leaves more of staleness within you. After a certain point you become sick you start stinking, a thick atmosphere develops around you which people tend to avoid.
Become aware of that staleness, just let go, meditate and be purified. You don't like staleness do you? Think fresh think rich, the quality of thoughts you float around with, become aware of it.....Freshen up Take a breath and start playing and loving again......
But to make a wine the grapes need to ferment right? Yeah sure, but you don't want to make a wine out or own mind do you?
So think fresh, eat fresh, please don't eat non-veg and keep dancing in the rain.....
jgd
I think everyone one of us have had this experience with someone or the other. Its a basic technique used generally by moms, girlfriends, boyfriends, etc. to punish you or to make you do something and many other such silly stuff which can be bought by silence. It is interesting however to wonder about the power silence has which sometimes threatening (words) or action wont have. Guruji is going to be in silence for navratri. His silence is going to convey something special to you. This navratri check on the positives that are created in you and do post it in the comments.........
For interest of general people let me make a few things clear. Guruji refers to H H Sri Sri Ravishankar. For every navratri people from all over the world visit our ashram(Art of living) in Bangalore to experience a phenomenal fest. Yagyas are performed in these 9 days of navratri for the benefit of the entire world. Sitting in one of these with thousands of people is an awesome out of the world experience......
An ordinary house wife becomes a sensation and a modern ambitious girl gets her inspiration, this story is about two of these ladies. It totally brings out the fact that no human is ordinary. I totally loved the character of Julia Child, every now and then I meet people like Julia in my life and I envy and wonder at the confidence they show and which makes them happy in whatever situations they are and sometimes get them to heights where very few hardworkers or even a smart worker are able to make it. The only part Julia was genius at was being innocent and loving. She loved whatever she did and did whatever she loved, carefree of the competition, stress, social obligations, never greedy and absolutely innocent the way she was, which I believe is the most efficient way to live a life.
Story: 6/10. Its biographical story. The low ranking is not to discourage anyone, but just to emphasise that its not so fairy tailish type of stories. Though the story is not what will make you enjoy the story, its the narration and acting and the characters that stand out.
Genre: Drama, Biographical, Slice of life
Acting: 10/10. Every actor is well placed and does the job very well, of course the character of Julia child stands out more than anyone and Meryl Streep has done a phenomenal job portraying Julia. I liked her acting even in Mamma Mia. it just shows that experience can’t get any better.
Direction: 9/10. One of the best biographical movies I’ve ever seen and the all credit go to the direction and the narration. The flow of events the, the editing are all awesome and just stick together too well though not logically.
Mood:”Slice of life”,”happy”
Character: 10/10. The fact that these were all real life characters just makes me want to give a higher ranking though I have to admit that mostly its due to the influence of the character of Julia Child.
Entertainment value: 8/10
Overall: 9/10
Roaming around the forest was the only pass time for Nickel who was a large black bear at the peak of its youth. He used to roam around the forest to find something interesting, though he never knew what he was searching for he kept on wandering through the forest. He ate when he was hungry, scratched the trees around when he wanted to stretch and slept under his favourite tree when he had done all the wandering he wanted to do.
One day while he was having a nice afternoon nap he sensed a strange odour in the air and heard sounds of someone approaching. The odour was very distinct but he knew it was coming from an animal the sounds of rubbing against bushes were unlike that of any other animals he knew in the wild would make. The sounds had a weird pattern and it seemed like the animal was lost since they were short bursts of sound. There wasn’t much sound at every possible foot the animal took which suggested that the animal was small but the sounds also came from branches of higher altitude suggesting that it was tall, naturally he took a cautious stance waiting for the confrontation with this strange animal which he had never heard or seen in his life. Slowly a figure in brown started to appear from the bushes and Nickel held its breath. The strange animal was looking behind, it hadn’t noticed Nickel and was looking everywhere and seemed to be lost. It was a very strange looking animal, it was tall and was using only two limbs to walk, its fur was very smooth as though some dry leaf like material sticking on its skin and then half of its limbs had very little black shinny hair, it seemed like it was suffering from some disease, It had long fingers like the monkeys and on one hand it was holding a stick. The animal didn’t look ferocious so Nickel relaxed a bit and started approaching it with curiosity. The animal slowly turned around and their eyes met. The animal immediately took a defensive stance pointing the tip of the stick him lowering its body a bit. Nickel was taken aback but he could clearly see that the animal was frozen with fear. He then carelessly walked towards his right to have a good view of the animal. But the animal was still trembling and kept pointing the stick at him. He was surprised that the animal didn’t run and for a long time didn’t make any conversation.
He was annoyed, not able to make out anything out of this encounter and was no more interested in this animal and decided to chase the animal away. In situations like these Nickel would usually charge towards any animal for a short distance to scare it away. So he made a half hearted effort to chase the animal away by performing a slow lazy dash, He thought that it would run away but then it started trembling in fear and did something that scared and startled him like hell. The animal made a very sharp and loud sound loud as thunder, it was the first time he had heard such a noise. He noticed that the animal also jerked very sharply and it seemed like the stick was making the noise. Scared out of its wits for a while now Nickel took threatening stance, his head lowered, rear legs ready to spring he began roaring to tell the animal that it was serious now. It didn’t have any effect on the animal which was still frozen and trembling with fear and was now making noises like a baby animal which is cornered and out of breath. It wasn’t threatening like an adult would even in this stage and its trembling grew more with every roar. Now Nickel had lost it and began to charge for real, his heartbeat was increasing rapidly and half way through he was again met with the annoying sharp and loud as hell noise which made him very confused and scared. He paused for a fraction of a second, made up his mind, and then he dashed with all his energy like his life was on the line.
There are many reasons why I had kept avoiding seeing this movie for a long time one of them being it’s a Nazi movie. I’m amazed that when it comes to making a Hollywood war movie they seemed to be too overwhelmed by the stories and plots of the Nazi wars, and why not when the whole history of mankind is, but I’m now saturated with these. And I didn’t waste much time once I came to know that it’s a Quentin Tarantino movie, regretted avoiding it for a long time when I saw Brad Pitt was starring and pretty soon concluded that I should have kept my distance for some more time since it turned out to be as boring as I expected from a movie with such plot. The movie however scores good points but not without some disappointments which can be overlooked without much effort. There is not much to be experienced from the plot but some drama sequences are out of the world. I won’t be looking forward to another of this guy’s movie which attempts to recreate “Kill Bill’s” magic especially in such a plot, I welcome variety.
Story/Plot:7/10. Its work of fiction set in Nazi war times. A simple story but the power of a Tarantino movie lies in the direction. The fiction comes nowhere near to the legendary truth. Personally I think the plot suffers from precision a lot of times like low security for Hitler and poor depiction of Hitler though he is not a main character. In most of the Nazi movies I’ve seen Hitler stays in-door in a gloomy environment unlike in this movie.
Genre: Drama, Thriller.
Acting: 8/10. Mixed reaction. The German detective was mind blowing. The Inglourious basterds were a bit of disappointment mainly due to Brad Pitt who is in a role of an army commander and defenitly seems very soft spoken for a character of army commander he acts more like a strategist.
Direction: 9/10. Trademark Tarantino direction. Kill Bill is my all time favourite and Tarantino uses the same format so it seemed monotonous and boring right from the start (the cowboy style music).
Mood:”Suspense”,
Character:10/10. The scenes of German detective were the best and requires place in history of film making as the best depiction of a detective ever. The characters of German detective and the girl cinema owner are my favourite and are simply intriguing.
Entertainment value: 7/10. Kill Bill scores 10/10 in this but this movie doesn’t do as expected in this regard when compared.
Overall:8/10.
When you think of wars, these are the situations that give us a good idea of what humans are. Almost every part of being a human makes itself visible and discernable, emotion are not surreal any more, feelings not hidden, and the will power shining forth which can move any human soul. War starts by greed carried out by anger and ends always in realisation that love is the only driving factor for everything. War photography embodies the mad, crazy youth part of the parcel. I just happened to see a BBC documentary video called “Vietnam war unseen”, supposed to be for Americans to show the war from the eyes of Vietnam side, from the Vietnam War photographers to be precise.
The documentary shows a Tim from each side of American side and Tim from Vietnam side with some other Vietnamese war photographers who took part in what Americans call Vietnam war and what Vietnamese call the American war and the shattering contrast between the two. Both Tim’s were war photographers and both were adrenaline junkies but with stark difference in their motives. One was having a mad party abroad and the other was trying to keep up the national spirit as soldier and as a responsibility.
It’s thanks to these people that the realisation lasts for long. They do the job of preserving these moments that makes us realise that human will can surpass any situation, nothing is impossible. The Vietnamese used to build a series of underground tunnels to survive the bombing raids by American b52 bombers. All by using primitive tools and their own muscles and will. In these tunnels contained a world of its own again exemplifying the human nature of making the best of the situation. Here the mothers raised their babies the wives cooked and the family members sang songs. But how could these stills be taken in dark underground tunnel with a camera with no flash? Who would have thought that the bullet used to take life would come handy for preserving it and that the gunpowder in a bullet can be burned to give flash. This particular photographer wanted to inspire the country by taking picture of beauty surrounded by war came up with this solution which again made me marvel at human ingenuity. When this photographer came back to the village where the survivors from those tunnels lived after 50 years you can imagine the warm reaction from both sides. He gifted them these photographs, essentially their youth back to them. One of these Vietnamese war photographers was recalling that with the one lens camera they had he had no choice but to be in the line of fire unlike their American counterpart.
It made me think whether a war is really needed to make humans realise this awesome power they have, if only we had a huge army in every country with the same spirit to solve social problem currently plaguing the world and when will I start to make this a reality in my life. Would anybody commit suicide if they knew they had such potential in them? Will the minor poverty problem exist if the major part of the world just realised their will instead of complaining? Well I’m already set to go in this path and hope I don’t fall into a war like situation before I gather courage.
An article by my guru H H Sri Sri Ravishankar about women. It really makes a lot of sense. I also think women leadership is a key factor to world peace.
A woman has the capacity to be an excellent peacemaker because it is natural for her to relate from the heart
Women have both gentleness and strength. Indian scriptures place tremendous amount of power in women. In fact, the primordial energy known as Shakti which is the life force behind the whole creation is feminine. That is why our scriptures honour women as the highest aspect of divinity - the Aadhya Shakti.
Women bring together the finest aspects of society; the ability to create and the transformational ability to make a difference in society. Women bring us to the planet and teach us how to live. A mother is our first guru, our first teacher. Women teach us our first behaviour, our first steps in life. Women also have a great role to play in society. She can be a strong peacemaker - at home, in the community, in society and in the world. Women can glue differences and bring people of diverse nature together - she does it in her home all the time!
In this fast pace of life, we need to balance our inner peace, beauty and ethical values with the external challenges we face, and women have it in them to do it. These qualities are inherent in a woman.
A woman has the capacity to be an excellent peacemaker because it is quite natural for her to relate from the level of the heart. The biggest strengths of a woman are her emotions, feelings, motivation and inspiration. Men can inspire to fight but women inspire to unite. There are more wars in the world today because there is a lack of feminine leadership to unite people, overcome differences and bring home to us the purpose we are all born for! In todays war-torn world, we need women to come to the forefront and take more responsibility, without getting stressed.
Today, we need to ensure that women in our country are literate. When women are well educated and well informed they can take more responsibility, bring about that positive change and can make any project successful.
A woman by nature is multi-talented and multi-faceted. Usually people think women are emotional but the fact is, women are also great intellectual geniuses and excel in planning and execution. You see any department headed by a woman; chances are that department is much ahead of others.
Women are the backbone of any society. The role of women in the development of a society is of utmost importance. In fact, it is the only criterion that determines whether a society is strong and harmonious or not. Also, a corruption-free society can only emerge where women are given due regard, respect and importance.
Given the wealth that is inherent in them, it is very important for women all over the world to sit together and see what they can do to make this world more stress- and violence-free. Women need not wait to be given power. They automatically have it. Unfortunately, most of the feminine movements today are demanding rights. What and from whom are they demanding? They are asking from an empty bowl! Women already have equal rights. They simply have to assert their rights! They dont have to go and ask somebody, it is all there for them!
A woman is a born leader. She has the potential to bring prosperity, happiness and joy to this world. Its up to her to make it happen.
DNA, 7th March, 2010
H.H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.