Just some unrelated quotes/thoughts which Ive come across at random points in time, but felt like they seemed to form part of a bigger picture, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle Trying to put them together here. Some may look a bit complex… the reader is adequately warned here; this page is not recommended for idle time pass!

You need not read them in sequence… if one entry does not hold your interest, try reading the next one, or maybe the last one…

“You discover who you really are by first understanding who you
are not. You are not your collected opinions, beliefs, habits,
experiences, defeats, pains. You are a timeless Spiritual Self,
which you will discover for yourself with lasting delight.”

Feelings like fear, sadness, anger, are all interpretations of the mind. They are like dust on the mirror, which prevent us from seeing our true self. Clean them by  meditation, which is a much hyped up word having so many different variations given by different people, but in its purest form is actually nothing but practicing constant awareness, not just while sitting in one place but during all our normal day to day activities. This dust has the nature of continuosly dissipating automatically, manifesting as some kind of thoughts or behaviour. By not reacting and simply being aware and equanimous, new dust stops getting accumulated, and over time, the true Self will reveal itself. Not one sudden bright day but slowly and incrementally. And this is easily reversible… even when a person comes closer to his Self, it is only temporary, he always has the vulnerabilty to fall back into the games of the mind if his awareness reduces.

This is what the Gita says about the Self:

“Weapons cleave it not, fire burns it not, water drenches it not, and wind dries it not.”

The full text… Lord Krishna says…

Why grieve for those for whom no grief is due, and yet profess wisdom? The wise grieve neither for the dead, nor the living.

There was never a time when I was not, nor thou;
There will never be a time when any of us shall cease to be

As the soul experiences in this body infancy, youth and old age, So finally it passes to another. The wise have no delusion about this.

That which is not, shall never be. That which is shall never cease to be. To the wise these truths are self evident.

The Spirit, which pervades all that we see, is imperishable. Nothing can destroy the Spirit.

As a man discards his threadbare clothes and puts on new,
So the Spirit throws off its worn-out bodies and takes fresh ones.

Weapons cleave it not, fire burns it not, water drenches it not, and wind dries it not.

It is eternal, all-pervading,unchanging, immovable and most ancient. It is named the unmanifest, the unthinkable, the immutable.

Wherefore knowing the Spirit as such thou hast no cause to grieve.

“Death is just another phase in life” 

A zen story

Twin boys in the womb were involved in a spirited discussion.

“Are the walls getting smaller or are you getting bigger?” asked one twin.

“Can’t tell, but it sure is getting crowded,” said the other.

“Kind of a dull life.”

“Oh, not bad. Don’t have to breathe or eat. Just float around in this warm bath.”

“But is this all there is to existence?”

“Don’t worry yourself.”

“I heard about something called birth.”

“Rumors. Now move your leg and shut up so I can get some sleep.”

In the early hours next morning a horrendous contraction awoke the twins.

“It’s an earthquake!” shouted one.

“The house is collapsing,” said the other.

“I’m slipping,” shouted one.

“Where are you going?”

“Don’t know. Help me.”

“I can’t”

“Goodbye brother. I am going … going.”

“Oh, this is horrible,” moaned the remaining twin as he felt himself begining to slide. “This is surely the end of everything.”

Each morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.”

- Buddha

The Fourth State Of Consciousness
By Glen Kezwer

Indian philosophy’s focus is to determine the nature of that spirit or self which is the centre of everything, the animating force which makes a person alive, alert and aware.

It is consciousness, variously called the Self, Knower, Seer, Experiencer or the Witness. It knows no distinction of gender, nationality, race or religion. It is the unchanging and all-pervading, transcending the limitations of time and space, birth and death. Ultimately it is the substratum or essence of the entire manifest universe.

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan wrote: “The philosophic attempt to determine the nature of reality may start with the thinking self or the objects of thought. In India the interest of philosophy is in the self of man. Where the vision is turned outward, the rush of fleeting events engages the mind… Within man is the spirit that is the centre of everything.”

Atmanam viddhi or ‘Know the Self’ has become the rallying cry of sages who for millennia have represented the highest of Indian thought. The Self is beyond the reach of the senses. So while we perceive the world around us, we are unable to perceive the Self which is its source. If the Self is indescribable, how are we to know it?

Scriptures containing the message of realised ones can help us in this respect. In the Bhagavad Gita Arjuna earnestly seeks to know the Self in order to understand what action he should take on the battlefield at Kurukshetra. Responding to Arjuna’s queries, Krishna, the realised one, describes the Self: “The Self, the Spirit dwelling within this body, is always identical with the Supreme Being. It is free from identification with the body and mind. It is the Seer, the Witness, the true Guide, the Lord and supporter of all…

It cannot be cut by weapons, burnt by fire, wet by water, or dried by the wind. The Self, being ancient and everlasting, never takes birth and never dies… He who has realised Oneness with the Supreme Being, who permeates all and in whom all exist, attains the vision of immortality and reaches the supreme state.”

Since the Self is real and permanent, it is not within the purview of the ordinary mind or intellect of a human being. The mind of a human being experiences three states of consciousness: Waking, sleeping and dreaming. The dream state of consciousness is not considered to be real because, upon awakening, we realise that the world we experienced in the dream state does not fit in with the waking state world. Because there are discrepancies between these two worlds, we reject the dream state as unreal.

The same can also be said of the waking state world, which we only assume to be real because we have no other standard with which to compare it. And certainly the sleep state world cannot be considered real because no world whatsoever is being perceived at the time of sleep. Thus not one of the three states of mind is real. Furthermore, it is obvious that none of these sta
tes is permanent.

In seeking what is real and permanent, we must unfold a fourth state of consciousness which both goes beyond and at the same time includes these three.

The fourth state is that which manifests itself in meditation where the normal functioning of the mind is transcended. When we close our eyes in meditation, the forms and events of the outside world no longer impinge on our consciousness, and we are able to focus our attention on our inner Self which is immortal and inPisible. Through continued practice of meditation we come to realise that not only is this Self our own essential nature, but it also permeates all of manifest creation.

(The writer is a physicist from Canada. He lives in Himachal Pradesh and is author of the book Meditation, Oneness and Physics)

“Picture yourself standing on the shores of a lake, watching your
reflection in the restless waters. If you take the reflection as
being you, anxiety arises, for the waters constantly change and
distort the image. You feel insecure, with neither identity nor
stability. But when you see the image as an image, when you no
longer identify yourself with the changing reflections, trouble
ceases forever.”

“A woman wanted to know how to deal with anger. I asked when anger arose whose anger it was. She said it was hers. Well, if it really was her anger, then she should be able to tell it to go away, shouldnt she? But it really isn’t hers to command. Holding on to anger as a personal possession will cause suffering. If anger really belonged to us, it would have to obey us. If it doesn’t obey us, that means it’s only a deception. Don’t fall for it. Whenever the mind is happy or sad, don’t fall for it. Its all a deception.” – Ajahn Chah (http://www.bodhinyanarama.net.nz/acquote.htm )

When I was small… I loved butterflies… so brilliant and colorful… and wanted to catch them so that I could admire them closely. The more I chased after them, the more they flew away from me. Eventually I realised that I just had to stay still, and they would come flitting around me. Then I found that with this stillness, there was no need to catch them at all, they would themselves settle on a flower next to me and I could just watch them. As I grew older, I realised that many things in life are like that. Of course theres no point in being still just because you are hoping that they would come and settle down near you… its the stillness of the mind that matters.

Pitcher Plant

The mountain sweet pitcher plant is carnivorous. A sweet aroma permeates the air. Attracted to the alluring source, the insect discovers nectar drops clinging to the hooded margins of a boldly-patterned plant. The insect lands, drinks, and walks around and down inside the hood. The nectar meal is rich, nourishing and filling. The insect turns around to climb up and out but its path is blocked by a wall of downward-pointing hairs. The insect is now hopelessly trapped. Unaware of its fate, the insect turns around and walks farther into the plant, maybe drinking some more nector. Eventually, it reaches a smooth, waxy area where it can’t maintain a foothold, slips and falls into the water-filled abyss and drowns. The pitcher plant has snared another meal.

Often external objects act like the pitcher plant, and though we know it isnt good, we keep allowing our minds to trap us in it! Many times I experience this inner struggle and sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. By saying I lose, I mean I do something I dont really want to do – for eg I overeat something just because it is tasty though I know my body dosent need it. When I say I win, I dont just mean I stop or avoid eating, it also means I dont regret about what Im missing. And I have realised that these victories or defeats dont really matter over time, I cant say I won 99 times so its ok to lose this one time, the past is buried in the sands of time and all that matters is the present.

A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner.

“Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time.”

When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, “The one I feed the most”

“No action is more fascinating than the action of self-
transformation. Nothing on earth can compare with its
drama or its value. In Athens, one day, Diogenes was asked
whether he was going to attend the athletic contests at the
local arena. Diogenes replied that his favorite contest was
to wrestle with and to win over his own nature.”

In the movie Beautiful Mind,  its fantastic the way he copes up with the creations of his mind.

He says  “you feed the past and it becomes your present”

Fiinally he ignores the imaginary people no matter how much they convince him to get him to talk to them… esp that sweet little girl with a cute smile and her arms open … or that military guy who shouts at him him to convince him.

I felt that all of us are schezophrenics in some way or the other (of course in a much milder way)… only thing is the objects are not always people but something else… for eg in my case its my aversion to fruits… a notion Ive fed for the past 27 years  (atleast) … and in some other cases, its a cigarrette.

In the 17th century, the French philosopher René Descartes came up with the “explanation for it all”: “I think, therefore I am”.

From http://www.innerself.com/Reflections/i_think.htm :

I feel that his statement really is a fill-in-the-blanks statement. “I think _________, therefore I am _____________.” In other words, “I think I am angry, therefore I am angry.” “I think I am tired, therefore I am tired.” “I think I am busy, therefore I am busy.”

Buddha said, “All we are is a result of what we have thought”

Pavlovs experiment with a dog: When presented food (the unconditioned stimulus), the dog salivates (an unconditioned response). Initially, a loud bell evokes no similar response. However, after the bell is paired with the food on several trials, the bell alone will generate salivation. The bell is now a conditioned stimulus, and salivation to it is a conditioned response.

Think about the implications of this. The dog is a simple creature… compared to us humans. We have built a much more complex system of conditioned responses *throughout* our lives. Some of this conditioning is part of our DNA, some of it is from inputs we get from people around us / society, TV, etc and some of it we are continuosly adding from own experiences.

I used to love sweets. Jamoons, rasmalai… esp ice creams used to make my mouth water. I knew its bad for me since I am overweight… I tried hard to resist when Im at a party surrounded by sweets, but at one point, I used to give up and starts gulping them down.

Try an expt… take a sweet and touch it at the center of your tongue. You will surprised to see that you will not be able to make out that its sweet. Actually there are only 3 points on your tongue that can actually taste sweet. At the tip, and at the sides. The taste of sweetness is just a series of biochemical reactions produced by the neurons on your tongue. The mind creates the illusion that the *** whole tongue ***, in fact the whole mouth is savouring the sweetness.

Add to this fact, the fact about the way the mind is conditioned, and what do you get? The pleasure is associated with the sweetness, and I reinforce it everytime I eat more sweets. Whenever I finish eating a sweet, behind the scenes, the mind is craving for these biochemical reactions… and it translates to the reaction that I feel like eating just “one more sweet”.

Now with this knowledge, I havent stopped eating sweets. I have merely reduced my attachment, and eat only how much my ‘conscience’ allows me to.

“Q. What is wrong with my life?

A. There is too much of you in it.”

“A student once asked me, ‘I find it hard to believe that I live in
a state of psychic hypnosis, as you teach. I think I am a perfectly
conscious inPidual.’

My answer was as follows: ‘A simple experiment will prove two facts
to you-that hypnosis is a fact for mankind-that you can awaken from
it. The next time you are alone, become alertly aware of yourself.
Be conscious of your body, surroundings, thoughts, and feelings. As
Gurdjieff would say, ‘remember yourself.’ An hour later, be aware of
yourself again. Once more, be conscious of everything outside and
inside you. You will make a startling discovery. During the interval
between your two periods of awareness, you were in a state of psychic
sleep; you did not know that you existed. The interval passed without
you being consciously within it.’

The reader can experiment for himself right now. Pause in your reading
of this book to be aware of yourself as outlined in the previous
paragraphs. An hour later, awaken to yourself again. Do this until you
get it. Nothing will surprise you more or be more beneficial.”

“HYPNOSIS AND REALITY

Asked Joyce, ‘Please give us something we need.’

‘When told you dwell in a state of psychic hypnosis, do not
take it as mere words which seem somewhat critical. Take it
as the actual condition which controls every minute of your
day. You do not as yet know what it means to be hypnotized,
for you dwell in imagination, not reality, but do not realize
this. You do not know what it means to be hypnotized, for you
have not as yet caught a glimpse of the awakened state. Try to
snap yourself out of the spell, after which comparison will
clearly reveal the fact of psychic hypnosis.’

‘How can we see and snap this unconscious spell?’

‘By regularly standing outside of yourself and looking back
at your daily behavior. With tremendous honesty, see your need
to feel superior to others, see how you fear disturbance of your
favorite ways, see how little you really know about yourself.
Each sincere effort at this changes the kind of human being you
are.’”

“Q. How can we tell when we are unaware of ourselves?

A. Nothing is simpler. Whenever you feel worried, nervous,
pressured, you are living from imagination, not from aware-
ness. These negativities do not control a conscious man.”

“Living in harmony with universal principles can be compared with
playing the piano. We know when we are following the music and we
know when we strike a wrong note. We can hear the difference
immediately. Likewise, when feeling discord in our lives, we know
we have failed to play the cosmic composition correctly. But the
disharmony need not continue. We were not made for failure. We can
look again and practice some more. We can learn to play it rightly.”

Imagination

I used to think that the creative imagination was something mysterious and intangible, which could neither be described nor trained. While there may always be something elusive about artistic creation, some thinking by people like Liam Hudson and Daniel Dennett gave me some cause to hope. Creativity is not a simple product of unfathomable inspiration, but a result of firstly, generating lots of (mostly junky) ideas, and then weeding them out to discover the ones that work. If this is true of the expressive arts, then it surely also applies to chess, where the ideas have such concrete prompts on the board, and the selection of the ideas that work can be put to the simple test of analysis.

Put simply, this suggests that someone like Tal can come up with great ideas because they come up with loads of ideas, good, bad and indifferent, and then can select the great one. The problem with most of us is not that we are failing to come up with enough good ideas, but we are failing to come up with enough ideas, full stop. Our ability to spot combinations is limited by our tunnel vision, considering only a few moves of a stereotyped nature, and not having the habit of looking at every thing once, no matter how foolish at first sight. Developing imagination, then, is not a matter of learning how to do something terribly magical, but to some extent involves putting aside what you think you know (retreating pieces is bad, putting your Queen en prise is bad) and considering moves that only very good players – or very bad players! – look at.

Source:
unknown

Attitude - “I Alone Matter - Nobody Else”

In my perception, in India, on an average people generally thing only for themselves. Few people give a thought to anything beyond themselves to the bigger picture. Nobody seems to realize that by improving the bigger picture, they can improve their own situation much better
than if they had worked on improving their own situation alone. I
think this is one key point to differentiate between an advanced and a
developing country.

The best example of this is seen on the roads of
Bangalore. Consider congested traffic moving slowly on road 1 & 2 of an
intersection.

Say people are driving on road 2, while people on
road 1 are waiting to proceed.

     | |
 ____| |____
1____   ____
     | |
     | |
      2

What inevitably happens is people on road 1 keep on
inching forward until they block the traffic on road 2, and then start moving
ahead. Then the people on road 2 start doing the same thing until there is a
total jam and instead of people moving at 40 kmph, they are each moving at 1
kmph.

Each new person who enters the situation, tries to
move as fast as possible through whatever gap he finds… because *he* wants to
get to his office faster, causing the deadlock to tighten further.

Very few people (but fortunately there are atleast a
few such people!) actually pause for a moment to think about the bigger
picture, that if they wait now for 2 mins and allow the traffic in the
perpendicular road to clear, they can reach their destination 15 mins earlier
!!

Another very common example
is a person with a highly polluting vehicle releasing clouds of
thick white/dark smoke. The exhaust pipe of their vehicle is *behind* them, so
they are not getting any smoke in their face, so they are happy. It is only the
unfortunate person behind them who is unhappy, esp a two-wheeler driver. I have
seen a motorist standing at a red light, covering his face with a hanky
because of the noxious fumes from the jeep in front of him, while his own
mortorcycle spewed the deadly black smoke to people behind him.

At first I felt this was selfishness, but later
felt it was more a sort of indifference and total lack of
awareness of people around us. “Who cares…” and “we are like
this only” is the favorite excuse used.

Vicious Trap Of Illiteracy

Lack of education, even basic literacy, to the poor
causes the poor to remain poor generation after generation. A great deal of
work is currently in progress by various groups…. though I feel no amount of
effort is ‘too much’ in this direction.

The silver lining

Those were, in managerial terms, ‘areas of
improvement’. There are so many really positive things about India which I had
always taken for granted until I went abroad.

I am delighted to discover more and
more Indians everyday who have risen above this apathy to create a
lot of value to those around them. If there is one place on Earth, where you
can meet a simple looking ordinary stranger, say on a train journey or on the
street, and in due course of conversation find out more about the person, and
realise that that person is actually worth his value in gold, then you
are most likely to be in India. Nowhere else have I encountered so many people
who have simple living and high thinking, and they dont stop there, they follow
it by selfless action!

I think that compared to an average Westerner, an
average Indian has a higher awareness of God, in whatever abstraction, and
consiously or atleast subconsiously sees God in all human beings and living
things. Of course, awareness may not always mean understanding, judging by many
blind beliefs and rituals, but awareness is definitely there. This is the
reason why though an Average Westerner is extremely cordial and courteous, it
is feels more superficial, compared to a lesser glamourous show of Indian
cordiality, which feels like it has greater depth. (Please note the use of
‘Average’ since there are many Westerner whom I know to be truly erstwhile
friends.)

I became aware of so many other people who had been
thinking on such lines for a long time already and have actually acted/ are
acting on their thoughts too. For eg

http://www.geocities.com/jaiminiram

*** ANGER ***

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a
hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else — you are the one who
gets burned.”   

                                                                                        
- Buddha

We feel any negative feeling because we hold on
to our past. If we just let go off our past… even the previous terrible
hour… or the previous terrible minute… just let it go… its scary and
doesn’t make sense because what made you angry was so important, and how can
you just forget it so easily… but just let it go… something like while
skydiving, you let go off the plane and jump off into the open space
below… then you experience the exhilaration of real freedom and lightness.

Then… this makes sense if you succeed in
the above and are in a calmer state of mind… face reality - accept
the fact that whatever’s happened has already happened. It’s better than the
other option where you waste hours together dreaming of how much better things
could’ve be if it had not happened. Then see what’s the best thing that can be
done about it now.

Buddha’s quote was an
excellent aid in understanding 
demystifying myths about Gandhi
by Mark Shepard.
If you dont have time to read the whole article, you could read just the last
para.

As a young citizen of India, armed with technology, knowledge and love for my nation, I realise, small aim is a crime.

This song, when sung in our own beautiful languages will unite our minds for action.

- Abdul Kalam

If all the world is a stage and we’re just actors
playing roles, then I need to have a serious talk
with the director about my motivation for this part.

(Braisco)

http://www.humorcorner.com

One day, I’m gonna finally get up enough courage
to actually go skydiving, rather than just
being thrown out of the plane like last time.

(LeMel Hebert-Williams)

Much to my surprise, the old “arrow through
the head” gag resulted in nothing but
compliments at the body piercing parlor.

(Kevin Green)

I was much happier before I
found out that ignorance is bliss.

(Peter Medhurst)

I think a secure profession for
young people is history teacher,
because in the future, there will
be so much more of it to teach.

(Bill Muse)

I could write a whole book on the
problems I’ve faced due to my bad memory,
only thing is I can’t remember most of them.

(Sanjay)

I bet one of the first uses of a time machine
will be to combine it with a microwave
oven, to make food cook even faster.

(David Gunter)

My life sucks so bad my ears
pop just thinkin’ about it.

(Gary Smith)

If I were a lawyer I would be
mad at the other 99% who give
the rest of them a bad name.

(Rick Owen)

Someone should make a car that runs on urine
and has a tube to pee into while driving.
With enough beer, you could make it clear
across the country without stopping.

(Christian Knudstrup)

Reproduced with permission from here:

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Top Five Ruminations

Ruminations…

If all the world is a stage and we’re just actors
playing roles, then I need to have a serious talk
with the director about my motivation for this part.

(Braisco)

http://www.humorcorner.com

One day, I’m gonna finally get up enough courage
to actually go skydiving, rather than just
being thrown out of the plane like last time.

(LeMel Hebert-Williams)

Much to my surprise, the old “arrow through
the head” gag resulted in nothing but
compliments at the body piercing parlor.

(Kevin Green)

I was much happier before I
found out that ignorance is bliss.

(Peter Medhurst)

I think a secure profession for
young people is history teacher,
because in the future, there will
be so much more of it to teach.

(Bill Muse)

I could write a whole book on the
problems I’ve faced due to my bad memory,
only thing is I can’t remember most of them.

(Sanjay)

I bet one of the first uses of a time machine
will be to combine it with a microwave
oven, to make food cook even faster.

(David Gunter)

My life sucks so bad my ears
pop just thinkin’ about it.

(Gary Smith)

If I were a lawyer I would be
mad at the other 99% who give
the rest of them a bad name.

(Rick Owen)

Someone should make a car that runs on urine
and has a tube to pee into while driving.
With enough beer, you could make it clear
across the country without stopping.

(Christian Knudstrup)

===================================================================
[ Ruminations is a Top5 publication ]
[ Copyright 2000, Chris White ]
[ --- --- --- --- ]
[ Please forward this message only in its entirety. ]
[ Radio and television programs, magazines and newspapers ]
[ *must* receive permission before using this material. ]
[ --- --- --- --- ]
[ Send your ruminations to: submit@ruminate.com. ]
[ NOTE: We accept only 100% original, unpublished items. ]
[ --- --- --- --- ]
[ To kvetch at the owner: Send mail to chris@topfive.com ]
==================================================================

[written in April 2004 but updated here to sync with the actual event]

I = Interviewer
B = butterfly

I met some butterflies and asked each of them if they had some time to spare for a moment, none of them agreed. Finally I found one chap who said “yes while Im having a quick nectar-break – shoot!”

Read the rest of this entry »

An email exchange with friends…

Read the rest of this entry »

[date is only approximate. TODO: update date]

Travelling is no doubt the greatest teacher, as long as one is willing to observe and learn. While travelling through Deutchland, I saw many characteristics about the Germans which I felt are worth emulating. My inferences may be based on limited experiences and may not be accurate. They are just some of my thoughts, and are in no way comprehensive. They focus mainly on the positive points, and are based on my visits to Dusseldorf, a city in the north-western part of Germany. Many of the points are applicable to many other countries too, including our own, and I don’t mean to compare too much.

To start with, the sense of discipline of the Germans is their most prominent characteristic. This can be seen for example while driving on the roads. If you drive from a neighbouring country like Belgium and enter Germany, you can see a marked difference in the way the rules are followed. This discipline extends to various aspects of their life. Their sense of health-conciousness is very impressive. It is uncommon to see people overweight; people of all ages are generally in good shape. They are careful about their eating habits and watch what they eat. They generally eat a good breakfast and lunch, and have a very light dinner – sometimes just a little bread.

Their respect for other people’s time is uncanny. I think the height of this was when one day, a friend was to pick me up along with some others from my room at 22:00 to go to some party, he called me at 21:45 to tell me he would be 10 minutes late.

There are no set conventions, no matters of prestige and status to uphold. Even the richest people don’t hesitate to to take out their own trash, or ride a bicycle if they feel it more convinient than a car. Even when they visit someones home, they help the host clean up after dinner or take something like groceries for the host along with them. There are a lot of things I have learnt to appreciate about India which I just used to take for granted earlier, and our great sense of hospitability is one of them. But this duty of the guest to not impose on the host esp. for long two or three day visits was a real eye-opener. I have seen this being done here too but only limited to close family-friends.

They have a great sense of pride and possessiveness for their own language, city, and country. An amazing incident was when I saw a lady who was sitting in a bus, got up and cleaned a dirty spot on the seat next to hers when she noticed it. On the other hand, there are always exceptions… for instance some unused bus or train terminals are dirty with broken bottles and at times, even the stench of urine. But the ratio of civic minded people far exceeds these ‘exceptional’ people – mostly drunkards since beer is available cheaper than water.

They seem to be more or less self-content, not craving for more and more in life… happy with whatever they have. I wouldnt really go as far as to say they are all happy people, judging by the silent morose expressions I used to see on their faces in the trams, on the way back to my hotel room in the evenings.

They have a lot of value for other people’s ‘personal space’. For example, while I was working there, anyone who came to talk to me usually conciously made sure they were facing away from my monitor when they approached me, so
that it was made clear to me that it didnt matter to them if I had some mails open or the Developer studio at that point in time. And they would first ask me if they could interrupt, and then go on to start talking.

They have a lot of respect for even total strangers; while commuting, they are very much aware of people around them. For example, even in places like shopping malls they usually hold on to the door for a second more after they
entered so that it wouldnt close in the face of the person coming behind them.

When a tram is about to leave from a station, and they see some person running to catch it from a distance, I have often observed someone press the button to open the door, even though they dont intend to board the tram… its just that
they’re so observant and care about others.

They are not workaholics and value their life too much to waste late evenings in the office. At the same time, their effectiveness at work during work hours is truly inspiring. The most ideal person I know came in the morning around 8:30 AM, and finished so many tasks by 6 PM that it would have taken any average person two days to finish the same number of tasks! They dont waste too much time for at coffeebreaks, etc. After work, their life begins, and different people have different hobbies which they do regularly more than just an occasional past time. One friend was a member of a rock band and composed and played music and had a well established garage studio! I had the priviledge of being invited to one of his rehearsals, and he gave me a CD that he had made of his bands latest album. People are not very addicted to television.

Travelling is a popular hobby, and they love to see the world ‘as it is’. I judge this based on the observation that they travel with minimum baggage, sometimes just a rucksack, and are they are more likely to go around by walk or whatever local public transport available than in a rented car – this way they get a real ‘feel’ of the place than just see the place. They generally take atleast two really long vacations a year, to any of the neighbouring European countries, the more adventurous go further visiting Asia and America too.

I think the aspect I liked the most about Germany was the greenery coexisting with the concrete jungle. They have a high regard for the environment and there are many parks where one can walk endlessly amidst nature, right in the middle of the city.

I think a lot of civic amenties could easily be implemented here without much cost, the simplest one being maps of the city put up at various places. Or seperate bins for recycling and a good process in place.

Last but not the least, when I visited a doctor there, I had an opportunity to witness a lot of beautiful ideas. While I was waiting at the opthamologist center, there was a section in the waiting room just for kids. There was a playpen with a lot of toys, paper and crayons, comic books, etc. There were a lot of posters on the wall having cartoons about eyes and the eye-doctor as seen from kids’ point of view. There was one interesting cartoon in which a kid’s vision has gotten a bit blurry, and his mom gets him to the eye-doctor, and the kid talks about how nervous he is. Then the process that the kid goes through at the hospital is clearly explained from a kid’s perspective, and at the end he is seen smiling happily having made a the eye-doctor as his new friend.

Incidentally, as I was sitting in the waiting room, I heard the receptionist calling for a Harmuth again and again… was he deaf or what he didnt seem to hear though she called so many times. Names like Andreas, Harmuth, Stefan, etc are very common in Germany. If you were to go to a crowded market and make an announcement for a Harmuth, there would be a long queue at the announcement center. When my mind drifted back to the waiting room, this particular Harmuthad still not appeared. Maybe he had gone home tired of the indefinite waiting. Since I had nothing else to do I started thinking … Herr is ‘Mr.’ in German, and my last name was Mutt and then it flashed… they might be calling me Herr. Mutt (Mr. Mutt) since my full name is Sanjay Mysore Mutt (I had always called myself Sanjay M all my life till I went abroad and now I was usually confused about which to give for which part of the name) And it did turn out to be me she was looking for, and she asked me something in German which under the circumstances might have been something like where the %$%@# were you all this time? But luckily the doctor could speak English.

One nice thing about the waiting room was that every time a new patient joined the waiting room, h
e would greet everyone else as soon as he entered, and others would greet him back. Ocassionally this seemed to be just for formality’s sake, when the greeting would end up being just an incoherent grunt, but apart from that, it was cheerful most of the time.

Germany is not just an ‘advanced’ country, it is continuosly advancing. On every visit to the city, one can see something new, some new models of trams, or some new touch-sensitive interactive train reservation terminal replacing the earlier mouse wheel and button based interactive train reservation terminal.

Took a bus from Ajmer to Pushkar This was supposed to be the holiest place
in India. What I saw there was absolutely incredible contrary to all
expectations. The place looked as cosmopoliton as Berlin or Paris, with
internet surfing stations and banners of all kinds of international hotels
(some with swimming pools) and camel rides and what not. The whole place was
so unbelievably commericalied.

Almost everybody was out
to get some money, but as a lone guy with a backpack I managed to merge into
the ambience without attracting too much of attention. Another thing was the
way foreigners walk around dressed exactly like Indians, very much merged
into the atmosphere and I felt that they had made it their home.

[Actually I started this post with just one photo... but its started to
become a narrative - and I just cant stop myself now! I wish I had
maintained a diary then, now I can only vaguely recollect some things. ]

During conversation with some pujaari there [Im not a hindi expert but
manage to get my point across] he told me a story about the Pushkar lake -
something to do with some lotus flower being dropped there from which the
lake had sprung up. He said that was the only place in the world which had a
temple for Brahma. I vaguely remembered some Amar Chitra Katha story about
some competetion between Vishnu and Brahma on finding opposite ends of an
infinite pillar of light. Both went in opposite directions, but Vishnu
admitted he could not find the end, Brahma lied saying he did. Thats when
another God came and declared that because of that nobody would ever worship
Brahma.

Anyway the pujaari told me to do some ritual in the name of my late father
to give him salvation. Though I am not religious I just said ok fine. So he
recited some mantras for a few minutes and broke a coconut etc, and at the
end of it, he said “ab aap kisi brahman ko kuch dakshin dena hai”. Then I
said “hmm… kis brahman ko? kaha se doondu mein us brahman ko”. And I’ll
never forget his reply… he said wagging his hand pointing to himself “is
brahman ko do! is brahman ko do!” and I paid him Rs 50 after some
bargaining, hiding my laughter. But he had been a very nice person, it had
been great talking to him.

I walked around the perimeter of the huge Pushkar lake.

At the other end in more secluded places… I
saw some saadhus deep in a trance, and to my great surprise they seemed to
be on smoking some drugs from a pot. Drugs were quite a common scene there…

…but seeing all those sadhus like this was news to
me. Walking around the perimeter I passed temples temples and more
temples… around a 1000 temples somebody said.

Here is the one and only temple for Brahma (the text in Hindi reads: Shri Jagath Pithaa Brahma Mandir Pushkar)

Next day I also visited the Muslim dargah near Ajmer along with another
friend – Rahul. Even this place was no exception wrt commericalization. Here people
were more demanding… asking for money whether we wanted to or not. Upon
entry of the dargah, a lot of people were squatting on the floor within the
premises, and invited us to join them for some ritual or fortune telling or
what I dont know. We were warned earlier itself that this would be the case,
and if we were ever to conced and sit down, we would lose all money from our
pockets, so we very diplomatically refused and walked on. We however had
also been advised to buy flowers to place inside. Finally we reached the
center of the dargah, where some great person was buried. [3 years later, I did a google search and found the name: Dargah of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti] The visitors are to walk around the very beautifully decorated tomb (very similar to what is there
inside the Taj Mahal). One person (priest?) had a bell shaped vessel, and
every visitor would bow before him, and he would place it for a few moments
on on top of the visitor’s head. It was quite crowded inside and everyone was pushing each other. Finally my turn came, and when he placed it on my head – I could feel some
strange vibrations. He had not striked it or anything, he had simply placed it gently over my head. I had no explanation for it. Thoughts of all the commercialization and crowd etc faded away into a moment of silence which seemed to last forever – and I felt this was what it all came down to. I placed the flowers and joined my friend outside – who didnt have anything to say about his experience so I kept silent too.

Ajmer was quite a crowded city. Long ago in Germany some Germans had asked,
very earnestly… “do you have a lot of cows and elephants walking around in
the middle of the streets in India?” and I had laughed at this typical
attitude of foreigners. On the streets of Agra, Ajmer I laughed at myself
for having laughed… for those words were turning out to be actually true!

But this was a journey where for the first time I felt I had really experienced India in a deeper way.

———–
Camera: Olympus D-460, autofocus
Note: Some pictures might be edited for contrast.
[Btw having been born and brought up in Bangalore and never travelled much except for family trips to places within 400 kms in the south, this was my first lone venture into the northern part of India]