I don’t like thinking anymore, and so stopped it. Yes you read it right. I have stopped thinking. There are no similar-sounding verbs to “thinking”, still for those with impaired hearing, or exaggerated disbelief on their faces, I repeat – I STOPPED THINKING!!
I know what the Indian philosophy/yoga types reading this stuff are thinking. They are imagining the descendants of Ekta Kapoor, three hundred years from now, making a television serial on me, the saint who stopped thinking – thoughtlessanand baba (the pun is, of course, intended), in which the last episode shows my soul, portrayed as thin yellow glowing gelatin-like ellipse, merging with another much larger yellow glowing gelatin-like ellipse, obviously representing the God’s soul – paramatma. (Disclaimer: ellipses could easily be ellipsoids, depending on the advancements in television technology of the time) But nothing like that has happened – I have no gelatin around me right now, and the last ellipse I saw was Yuvraj Singh’s wagon wheel, digitally representing the Kingston stadium, where India defeated West Indies. Now that you have pained your mind enough deciphering the large comma-studded sentences above, I’m sure some of you might like to stop thinking. And in somewhat similar fashion I stopped thinking. Sorry to disappoint the glowing-gelatin-ellipse-lovers.
However, the thoughtlessanand baba has economic value. I am sure friends, families, parents of some of you seek or have sought some sort of spiritual support from some sort of spiritual beings. The world needs babas. From management to spirituality you need the babas. And like in spirituality, so in managment, the less the baba thinks the better he/she is. So the world surely needs a thoughtlessanand baba. And for you, I am sure you would be more comfortable with your friends, families, or parents seeking support from a modern baba like me, than the traditional saffron clad ones. See I sold it to you as well. I know you are thinking where does the “economic” part come from. Well the thoughtlessanand baba, like all other babas, wont charge a fee. He’d only help grow the pie. With less thought there is more pie. Now let the Peter Drucker‘s of the world explain that to you. And if you dont like the jargon-filled books, and still need to get the “less thought, more pie” funda – watch the waitress, the movie I mean.
For those who still doubts the truthfulness of this post, I am sure this post itslef must convince you that I have stopped thinking 😉
PS: I did consider “Surrealanand Baba” as the branding, but that’s a bit too much disoriented for people seeking spiritual help. Being inconsiderate is something they are anyways expecting.
I consider the ancient tradition of knowledge in India, the most profound academic tradition ever. One of the basic characters of this tradition, is the unquestioned belief in The Veda as the ultimate source of knowledge. And so, I naturally tend to attribute the success of the tradition to The Veda.
Vedas are not a set of books containing a set of facts. They are a doorway into the vast human capability of knowing beyond what the organs can sense and the mind can think. They are a method that gives humans the great capability to act beyond ones physical limitations, to fulfill ones desire, to overcome what is destined. They are a song capable of evoking those human emotions which open the doors to bliss. Thus, they validate the divinity of humans, and proclaim the supremacy of human endeavor over any other force in nature.
They are an inquiry into the nature of truth itself. They are like a finger pointing towards something that can be perceived but not said. They are a necklace of pearls of wisdom, knitted together by an invisible thread. If you perceive the invisible thread, you know that it is a necklace. If you don’t, they sound to you absurd pieces of poetry somehow put together. This is the same invisible thread which connects two human beings, which enable one human being to empathize with another human being. Therefor, it states emphatically “एकम् सत् विप्रा: बहुधा वदन्ति” … the truth is one, wise men say it differently. Therefore, it welcomes with open arms, everything good coming from any direction… “आ नो भद्राः क्रतवो यन्तु विश्वतः”.
And, the Sukta, which I like the most in The Veda, is the नासदीय सूक्त, the creation hymn (Mantra 129, Mandala 10, Rigveda):
This is best recital I could get: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyrXdEi8i_I&feature=player_embedded (Though there’s not so good pronunciation, and pretty superficial translation). I’d post a better recital if I found one.
And, if you have patience you can look for the 129 Sukta of the 10th Mandal in the entire of the Rig Veda here: http://www.astrojyoti.com/rigvedamp3part1.htm.
Posting Ghalib after quite sometime today. It is a quite well known ghazal, and represents a state of mind which I relate to quite often. Especially after meeting a few people. 🙂
[निहाँ == indistinguishable] [गर्द == sand] [सहरा == the desert ] [The line means, that I seem to be living for so long that the sand of the desert is getting created in front of me]
[ज़बीं == forhead] [ख़ाक == soil] [Again, the line signifies that I seem to have been alive to see the river erode the soil in front of me]
[ईमाँ == integrity, truthfulness, religion] [कुफ़्र == irreligiousness, lure of the material gains] [क़ाबा == kaaba] [क़लीसा == technically is a Church, but used here to signify place where कुफ़्र happens]
Many Indian and Pakistani singers have beautiful renditions of the gazal. One of the more famous ones is by Jagjit Singh from the serial Mirza Ghalib. Here’s the clip on youtube:
Okay, so back to Vick Vaporub. You rub it on your chest, your neck, around your nose, may be if you mistook it for Zandu balm, then on your head. You do it when you are sick. It makes you feel better. And it makes you better by evaporating itself, when it leaves your skin.
Life is something that you rub on yourself superficially. Haven’t you heard people (especially brown-haired, satin-skinned, beaming-eyed woman) telling fat nerdy bearded geeks – “You’re sick, Get a Life!!”. So typically those geeks would try and get a life… by rubbing it superficially… they’ll go and swim, play a game of pool, or watch a movie, or chase girls, play guitar, sketch, paint, flirt, write, drink, drive, act, debate, code, design, orkut (v), discuss etc… Drinking following driving in the above line is purely incidental. (To be legally safe, the author does not take any responsibility for the urges emanating in the readers mind) 😀
So yes, it seems they got some life rubbed on themselves. But they still feel sick. Because, life, like Vicks Vaporub, makes you feel better only when it leaves your superficial skin. When it evaporates.
Because, it has to get in to you, to be able to treat you, to be able make you feel less sick. And it can get in you only when it evaporates, only when it enters your lungs through your nose. It opens up what is clogged inside. That something, which is preventing you from breathing freely. That something, which is making the head heavy. It enters you, settles down and you start breathing freely.
Life is also like that. There is nothing intrinsic about those get-a-life-actions that will give you a life. Let it be, putting some colors on a canvas, or some charcoal on paper, or letting the visuals of a movie reach your eyes, or letting your body float on a swimming pool, or writing poetry for a woman, or putting your leg hard on the accelerator while driving on an empty highway. There are no measurable units of life in any of those acts. They are just superficial rubbings. You have to let it evaporate, let it leave your body, and enter you on its own.
But you still have to start by rubbing it in, and have faith that it will get inside you on it self. And remember that it would not get in, if you don’t rub it, to start with. You have to make the effort and let it go, and have faith that it will enter you … relief will follow 🙂
So, life, like Vick Vaporub, being volatile, will leave your skin and go onwards and upwards, and finally get inside you. 🙂
So, what’s the conclusion of the metaphor? It is not new. Somewhere in the planes of Haryana, some 5,110 years ago, a saarathi told a dhanurdhar – “Do your job well” 🙂
A student went to his meditation teacher and said, “My meditation is horrible! I feel so distracted, or my legs ache, or I’m constantly falling asleep. It’s just horrible!”
A week later, the student came back to his teacher. “My meditation is wonderful! I feel so aware, so peaceful, so alive! It’s just wonderful!’
Someone found my previous post about ‘some page’ absurd, abuse of blogging, murder of humor and ‘useless’. I was thrilled, excited, and felt an immense feeling of achievement. 😀
That someone, is a nice and close friend, and well, is quite dumb. Usually it is hard to find intelligent people who are nice and close. So, I guess it is quite nice to be dumb, as long as you are nice. 🙂 And finding that post (and my blog in general) useless, is one of the lesser dumb things demonstrated by this friend. In fact, it is a pretty worthwhile observation that my blog is useless.
Being useless, is probably, the highest form of existence one can think about. I know that people would not quite appreciate finding philosophical imports on a useless blog, of course, except those who find philosophy useless. 😀 So, I decided to quote someone else. And this quote is about someone who never liked to be quoted – Lao Tzu. So, here’s something indicating his views about being useless:
Lao Tzu was traveling with his disciples and they came to a forest where hundreds of woodcutters were cutting the trees. The whole forest had been cut except for one big tree with thousands of branches. It was so big that 10,000 persons could sit in its shade.
Lao Tzu asked his disciples to go and inquire why this tree had not been cut. They went and asked the woodcutter and they said, “This tree is absolutely useless. You cannot make anything out of it because every branch has so many knots in it – nothing is straight. You cannot use it as fuel because the smoke is dangerous to the eyes. This tree is absolutely useless, that’s why we haven’t cut it.”
The disciples came back and told Lao Tzu. He laughed said, “Be like this tree. If you are useful you will be cut and you will become furniture in somebody’s house. If you are beautiful you will be sold in the market, you will become a commodity. Be like this tree, absolutely useless, and then you will grow big and vast and thousands of people will find shade under you.”
I thought about it, and realized, that the tree is not useless. It is useful – you can find shade under it. But the point is – it is just not ‘trying’ to be useful.
I have posted ‘intesab’ by Faiz Ahmed Faiz earlier. This is another one of his very popular poems. It was written during the rule of General Zia in Pakistan, and has a very distinct revolutionary fervor. It urges everyone who feels dejected of the happenings around him, to come out and get heard, inspite of the odds. And the feel is surprisingly similar to the spirit of Gandhi’s satyagrah, rather than that of call for a violent revolution.
For the whole last week, I have been haunted by Nayyara Noor‘s rendition of this song. You can listen to it here.
Majaaz, the Keats of India, died alone, off heavy drinking, in a tavern in Lucknow. But he is probably one of the very few ‘progressive’ urdu poets, for whatever it means or whatever is left of it to mean. Best of his works are primarily romantic, with heavy-duty mushiness, like this one:
But I’m going to post here a very different kind of his poem, its called Awaaraa. If you concentrate a bit, you might find a second, and sometimes a third, level of meaning out of the lines. Here it is:
Poems are like beds. They come in all forms – from extremely pink, furry, mushy and soft to back-painingly rock hard. You can always add cushions to make them better. They can be used as decorative pieces in drawing rooms, without much utility though. And they seem unnecessarily clumsy when used as decorations. They have their own roles to play in love affairs (okay don’t look at me like that… they have nice and legitimate roles to play… you pervert). They can be hollow when they come, and the ‘user’ can put substance into them by his imagination. If you don’t want others to see a broken piece, you always have sheets to cover them.
So here’s a poem which I wrote the day before, clad it in a big white sheet yesterday, and I slept over it the yesterday night. Take it:
The current of the river swept silently over them all — young and old, rich and poor, good and evil, the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.
Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth.
But one creature said at last, ‘I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom.’
The other creatures laughed and said, ‘Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!’
But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.
Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.
And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, ‘See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!’
Earlier this month we unveiled GLAD Answers, a reboot of our Legal Info Line, the information and referral service GLAD has run since the organization was founded. After 35 years, it was time to freshen things up a bit. Given that these days many people contact us by email and live chat, the idea of an “Info Line,” which conjures up a telephone in the minds of most, seemed a bit outdated. The name GLAD Answers better encapsulates what this service does: no matter how you get in touch with us, if you’ve got questions we’ve got answers.
Personally, I love the clever construction of GLAD Answers. As Carisa Cunningham, our director of public affairs and education is fond of saying, “It’s a noun! It’s a verb!”
we’ve added some other new features that will enable us to help more people throughout New England who have questions or concerns about their legal rights as LGBT people :
The Power of Perseverance: a Black Gay Man Reflects on the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington
Fifty years ago I felt like I was living in two countries, two communities, two neighborhoods; among two distinct races and cultures, but in one class of poverty. I was born in an all- black housing project, but my parents thought opportunities would be better in an all-white housing project so we moved from the South End to Roslindale when I was five years old. My parents, both Pennsylvania transplants, worked as domestics for white families west of Route 128, a secret I held closely because of shame, guilt and pride.
The message to this only child was keep your head down, fit in, get along, study hard, go to college, get a good job, marry, have children and you’ll be equal. During those formative years in this predominantly white environment, I felt pretty equal to my peers, attending school, playing sports, and accepting invitations to hang out with friends after school. We were all poor and living on some form of government assistance.
Our family moved to Dorchester when I was 16 so I could meet other black kids and experience black culture. My mother was hopeful that I’d date black girls and attend church on a more regular basis. For the first time in my life I felt un-equal. The clothes, shoes, music, cars were not the same as in my old neighborhood, and for the first time in my life class differences and cultural differences were very evident. Neighborhood and racial disparities were reflected in our stores, food choices, streets, and city services that I had taken for granted in my old neighborhood but now understood were absent in my black neighborhood.
At the same time, my brothers and sisters south of the Mason-Dixon line not only lived in segregated, marginalized neighborhoods like I did, they suffered under local, state and federal Jim Crow laws that prohibited equal access to housing, employment, education, full citizenship and basic human rights.
Labels: civil rights, equality, family, Goodridge, lgbt rights, March on Washington, marriage, Martin Luther King Jr., racial justice, segregation