Monday, October 2, 2023

Slowdown

 "You got be faster than the fastest
   and slower than the slowest"

Some time in 2003 I suppose. Heard this from my GURU. To me, when a guru says, just listen. Follow if possible. no questions asked. Nor dig into "who made this statement?", is this his original words? and so on...

Could not make out the meaning of these words. but realized it was important. Had to wait for the concept of relativity to come for rescue.

A little flashback..
"Lion has to run faster than the fastest deer"

Some time in 1996, saw these motivational words on one of my clients table. Was inspired by this and started to work more and more. As quickly as I could. To the extent of burnout. Most often.  

The above two ideas seemed to be opposite of each other. Almost. But not exactly.

Sometime in 2008 or so, took a drastic decision to slowdown. Literally. 

Did a personal SWOT analysis. Listed down strengths, weaknesses, talents and skills.  Was brutally honest in doing this. All I wanted to do is to acquire the skills that matched my inherent talent.

From then on, it was exploration, experimentation, nomadic journey, living in solitude, odd jobs.... Was just going with the flow. The spiritual mind constantly nudging not to get into the planning mode. So, just evolved with every day.  Got into wake up, work, eat, sleep routine. Nothing did matter. Rather nothing should matter for the outcasts.

Today. 02 Oct 2023. The meaning of slowdown dawned upon as a flash. From the "science of relative motion".

Galilean relativity. Most of us would have experienced this. When two vehicles are travelling next to each other, at the same speed, we feel we are not moving at all (at rest). The concept of relativity has origins from similar experiences in a ship, or train or car or rocket. We could see the transportation evolve.

How does science of relativity connect to the concept of slowdown?

These are the order of events that happened over the past 2 days.

Realized that I had acquired sufficient skills to make a decent livelihood. It has taken almost 20 years. Too long though. But felt a sense of joy. 

With the joy of having acquired sufficient skills; MIND started RACING again.

Apart from the concept of slowdown, I was using one more policy. "Do the best with what is available right now and nature will conspire to offer the clue". This concept came to the rescue; to connect slowdown and relativity.

The first Example:
The speed of writing should be in sync with the thoughts in the mind. We cannot write faster than our thoughts. When mind and hand are operating at the same speed, we may consider them to be at rest. That's mind & body (hand) relativity.

The second Example:
You may try this trick (if you don't know yet). When climbing a mountain or stairs, try to take one step along with inhalation and another step with exhalation. Observe the duration of your climb. We can keep climbing for a long, long time. Breathing and Climbing are the same rate. Synchronized. Though we are in motion (climbing), we may consider it as being at rest. More so. 

The Third Example:
Dreams occur in our mind. Too fast. Am referring to the dreams that we have when we are awake. But we may not have the resources to achieve this dream instantly, due to lack of resources in terms of money, contacts, space, tools etc.

A P J Abdul Kalam — Dream is not that you see in sleep, dream is something that does not let you sleep. 

So, slowdown is not about absolute REST. Its about being active. The activity which synchronizes with the resources available on hand. It was an aha moment. Self discovery. Guidance from a guru is always through self discovery. This should be meaning of the statement from my guru. it applies to both absolute rest and relative motion.



Note:
The mismatch between the pace of mind and availability of resources would lead to stress & burnout.

Saturday, August 7, 2021

Gravity of Life

Life.

What is life?  was wondering and pondering over this question for long. 

There are things that have life (humans, insects etc.,) and that do not (rocks, metals, water etc.,). That's how we understand living and non-living things on this earth. So what makes life and living?

Did not get any closer. so asked the opposite question of what is death and came up with this article.. "Purpose of Death". Sort of understand what life is. a bit closer but not close enough.

This question was alive. In the mind.

Life is some thing that works against gravity. This was an answer that popped up. It was not through any forceful logical thinking. but a push from within the mind. something like an instinct.

On further analysis, I could trace it back to my child hood dream of creating an anti-gravity device. Just like most kids do. Listen to Mahabharata or Ramayana. Any one would.

Exploring further and listing out the six different physical phenomenon

Electricity -   Can be blocked (Switch)

Magnetism -  Can be diverted (faradays cage)

Sound        -  Can be blocked (Insulators)

Light         -    Can be blocked (Reflectors)

Heat          -     Can be blocked (Insulators)

But Gravity.

One day I happened to visualize myself holding a gravity shield (a sheet of special imaginary fiber) above my head. The shield was between earth and sun. Could imagine the earth drifting away from its orbit and started moving out of our solar system.

Nature will not allow a gravity shield to be discovered by anyone. if nature allowed, planets would not be able to stay in orbit. From then stopped thinking of inventing a gravity shield.

Many years passed. 20 years plus. Another passing thought. The thought that, anything that lives is able to stand, fly or swim.  Things that live, breathes oxygen. Once the breathing stops, we fall flat to the ground. Gravity takes over once the breathing stops.

The core of life should be oxygen. For oxygen to combine with any other element or molecule, it should resonate with a certain vibration.

Think of this example. A match stick does not burn by itself. The molecules in the match stick head should be given sufficient vibration (energy) for atmospheric oxygen to combine with it.

On a similar note, the cells in the body or what ever is responsible for metabolism should resonate with oxygen. If that vibration (energy) is not sufficient enough, there is no life.

So the next journey begins. What is that which resonates with oxygen?

Could life be anti-gravity?

After Thought:

A small seed sown in the earth grows into a full blown plant or tree. The seed has something in it to germinate. At the same time, a massive dead tree is decomposed by the microbes in earth. May be the microbes know about life. The energy. The thing called life.




Friday, April 23, 2021

Now

That which is neither the past nor the future. Now is equal to plancks time.

Planck Time : tp = 5.39 × 10-44 s

Before we could get to present, lets understand past and future.

Past is the one we experience through our sense organs. What we see through our eyes or hear through our ears are events that happened some time in the past. light and sound travels with some fixed velocity. we may say all our physical experiences are from the past.

we may at times see the past in our dreams. so past is also from our memories (which in-turn are from our experiences).

Future happens in our mind. it is the one that is projected from our past experiences and experiences are gained through our sense organs.

Now. Now is neither past nor future (similar to absence of light being darkness).

Dictionary Definitions of Now: That which is immediate or in the present time.

So, what could the words Immediate or Present mean?

Philosophical Perspective (From Swami Vivekananda): Present is the duration between an inhalation and exhalation. There is no past or future ( when our body looses the ability to breath).

Physiological Perspective: That's approximately linked to the rate of breathing. Could be 10 secs for a human being at rest (it can increase or decrease depending on the activity we are involved in)

We can go on... Now is the time between our birth and death, live one day at a time... it goes on...

So, how small is now. Scientifically, it could be equal to plancks constant.  Its could be in terms of energy (plancks constant) or space (plancks length) or time (plancks time) or mass (plancks mass). 

Spiritual Perspective: The state of being in which there are no sensory inputs or mental thoughts. The state of meditation. the state of stillness.  the state of experiencing  plancks time. the eternal state of bliss or being one with atman.

In being one with atman may be we can travel through this universe back and forth in time effortlessly or getting to understand that, being in this physical form, absolute now is an impossibility. This could be meaning of awareness.

May be we can say NOW depends on form, sensory inputs and state of mind (human, tree, bacteria, muon etc).

If we have to be in the NOW, we got to be space or time or mass or energy. Everything is derived from us.

Ha ha. That's more like saying "You are God"

Note:

Sensitivity of our sense organs may also be considered as another perspective towards "Now". Eyes have approximately 15ms sensitivity (24 frames per second for a movie). Ears have 30 ms sensitivity (reason why we hear echo). Touch should also be within 30ms limit (experiment by moving a finger across a candle flame).  Taste and smell should also be within the same range of 15 to 30 ms (not sure of how to conduct an experiment for this).

So "Now" could be a time between 15 to 30ms range from the perspective of sense organs.

 

 




Sunday, June 2, 2019

Purpose of Death

Purpose of Life. That is what i was searching for.

Some seem (claim) to know.

Some claim to guide us to know.

May be i have not found the right person to listen to or am not mature enough to understand even if it was explained in the best of the ways possible. lets leave it to benefit of doubt.

But, the restless and curios mind keeps searching within. The mind proposes to relook at the question and over prolonged internal arguments - the question was rephrased to "Purpose of Death".

So, what is death?
Our heart stops pumping blood, lungs stop exchanging molecules or some other part of the body refusing to collaborate with other organs.

Why death?
The all powerful nature could have created life without death.
Evolution says ( i am made to belive that) the purpose of life on earth is reproduction; followed by survival.

What is the significance of reproduction?
The experiences of a living species is so vast. The essence of all the experience is sorted, filtered, compressed etc etc and stored into a Gene. The 20+ years of experience of an individual is stored in a gene, gets born with basic traits and gains new experience and this process contintues. That could be the significance. So, what?

So, what?
I am not sure of why this has to be this way?

Nature gives a glimpse of death everyday. In the form of sleep. In the form of dreams within sleep. Rearranging and storing experiences in our brain, muscle, cell and gene. Waking up from sleep everyday for a new set of experiences.

Life is not much different. it is just few more days, months and years. Just that the offspring wakes up with the new body and lives in parallel (grand parent, parent, child..) with our current experiences.

Not sure if i would understand Purpose of Life. But, one thing is getting clear. If the offspring has to be healthy, better prepare our gene with good actions and good thoughts.

What is good (or bad)?
This is another question. We may not get a straight answer. We may have to rephrase the question.

Rider:
Complaining about the current generation is meaningless. We know "who is responsible?"



Wednesday, May 15, 2019

Food for Thought

When to eat?  What to eat?  How to eat? and Should we eat?.

The questions that haunted me for long.

Having born in an environment where eating non-vegetarian was a norm. During the days when i used to eat non-veg food, i dont involve in cutting or even cooking as it squeezes the heart a little.

The concept of jeevakarunya got in. One fine day the neural connections rewired themselves and converted me to become a vegetarian.  Then somebody said, plants are also living things. I did not find a choice and hence remained a vegetarian for almost 19 years.

In the mean time, i had been hearing of people who lived only on water, my guru living on one time food, long duration fasting etc

The concept of palio diet gave another perspective. My understanding of palio diet is that; some one observed carnovorous animals (tigers, cheetah etc) that eat once in a day and are fit and active. Herbivorous animals (elephants, cows etc) are generally fat and found eating most of the time.

Recently i came across Nature Cure - http://akarma.life/akarma-health/ in coimbatore. Just by adjusting food habits the common ailments of sugar, BP, diabetes etc are gone. Even chronic head aches and asthma. Have personally interacted with them and have just about altered my diet plan. The plan is more or less - No Oil - No Boil - Hence No Kitchen.

You may check out this video for more details.


During one of our tekmonks sharing session, this topic came up and one of them made a startling remark.  "Extending jeevakarunya on these lines, i think we should not eat any form of seeds. The seeds are their children. They grow and keep the species alive".

So, we are just left with some fruits and vegetables to feed upon.

May be some day, some one would make another observation and we might start living on water and air alone.

May be that is why we are asked to enter into deep meditation for years togather.

Looks like anything a human being does, leaves a disturbing footprint for other species. May be the purpose of humanity is to disturb the ecosystem or maybe we are the highest form of intelligence which is supposed to sit and enter into a trance. Not sure why we should have a physical form? May be someday we would realize.





No Childs Play

Lets begin at the end.

"Children need not play". They have better things to do. Play as in todays context is destructive to children and society.

The moment this thought occured, i thought, may be i have lost all faculty of mind and got insane. A few moments later, once the distrubances in neural connections gradually settled down, realization started to dawn.

Now lets move on to the beginning.

"Once I complete my work, my teacher allows me to play. so i complete my work as fast as i can and go on to play". This was a casual statement from my daughter when she was some 6 years old. This happened atleast 2 years ago.

"Toys, reading books, listening to stories are not a must for children". A statement made by a minimalist and mother of 2 while sharing her experience. This happened a few months ago.

The above 2 incidences got registered in my mind. Without any prejudice or judgement.

A few weeks back, during a workshop with children, i happened to notice that the children were longing and waiting for a break... Felt bad for not being able to motivate and handle a group of them. May be i should find a way of making things interesting. maybe integrate play within the session. so many ideas...

 As usual, with a worried mind and a not so sound a sleep, the first statement that flashed through my mind when i woke up was "Children need not play". Why? I asked my mind.  Brain and Mind got into a war to justify this statement.

A few seconds later, the mind proposes the following.
In the earlier days of human evolution, children would just observe and repeat what theirs parents did. May be explore a little bit beyond that.
There was no concept of gathering food and staying in a specific place. It was a nomadic lifestyle. So, life was a play and every day would be new.
Children had to learn to feed themselves. They grow up and the cycle repeats.

Now that we have become gatherers and better still parents gather enough and more for the child until the age of 20 or even to the age of 30. some times more. for the child.

So. There is no challenge for the child. Boredom sets in.  Parents are too preoccupied with their own jobs. The jobs are too varied in nature (it was just basic survival skills that humans needed in the earlier days). The child does not have enough experince to understand what career to choose. Workplaces are different for parents and often not possible to work as a family.  No more joint families...

The way out to keep children occupied. Ask them to play. There is the opportunity knocking on the doors of commerical world. Sell them bats, balls rings, software games....  create competetion among them.. break the unity. In the name of expressing their passion towards the game, the eyeball industry sets in. The Televisions and digital content glue (gravity of photons) them to the chairs.  The spice of advertisements promote packed food. That food takes them to the noble practitioners of medicine. Expense of time, money and health for the family and child; all along the commercial chain.

In the process, energy is drained sufficiently and there would no room for productive work. What a beautiful way to end up in slavery. Not even realizing the process of enslavement.

What is the way out?

Lifestyle change.  Minimalism and Sustainable living practices may be adopted so that humanity would be humane and leave minimal footprint on this earth.

I hear people quote the famous poet Bharathiyar. To my kowledge, the great poet would not have thought of competition and winning. The play as he means would be for fitness of body and mind. May be he saw this coming..















Monday, November 5, 2018

Are Engineers Susceptible to Stress?

Take a walk!.  Thats what i do.. when stressed..  stress in the sense that... i intend or try to do something and the situation does not allow me to do so.. may be i dont have the conviction or whatever the inference is.

The interesting thing is.. after a walk... the stress takes a walk.. :-) and i am relaxed. so... who am i?... But the big I is not the topic for this blog.... it is all about sress and engineers....

I happened to take a walk on one such.. what else... a stressful situation..   The question that rushed internally was and is.. the title of this post.

Yes. I am an engineer... no no no. i as a person... holding an engineering degree certificate.. thats all. thats how i got my 12th certificate and my 10th earlier to that... The certificates were not earned.. they were conferred based on some vested interest of some one else.. I thought i was worth it... little did i realize then... how foolish i was and am...I am also part of I scratch you scratch community...

A sincere someone asked... a valid... very valid question.. "so, what have you engineered so far?".  in that sense, i am not an engineer and i cannot be stressed. so.. what else....

The train of thoughts...  random thoughts...  as it occurred...

As much as a "point" is for geometry.... "acceleration"  is for classical mechanics.... "velocity" is for relativity.. the "pulse" for a traditional doctor.... ofcourse modern doctors rely on engineered instruments to track the origin of the pulse in the name of stethascope.... The "stress at a point" is fundamental to a mechanical or civil engineer.   Not sure what is it for an electrical, electronics or a chemical engineer.. some say its all about electrons....

As a certificate holder of mechanical engineering, all i know is that... Stress at a point requires 9 numbers in a 3x3 matrix to specify it... further more... to understand it... and use it for prediction... may be thats what engineers do...it takes differential and integral calculus.. Who knows calculus? May be newton.. may be leibnitz... may be maxwells, gausses and feynmens... But not faraday for sure..  Had faraday tried to understand calculus... he might not have had the time enough to conduct experiments with electricity and magnetism.... (this is bad inference... may be...)

After all the random thoughts have subsided through the brain.... there was a nasty flash....

An engineer tries to recreate or duplicate nature. In the process, engineers have gone far away from understanding nature.....  the plants... the animals... the birds...  the air... the fire... the water... the earth... the sky....the social psychology.  How can an advanced engineering community live in harmony with nature?....  It seems to be a contrary... an Irony....

An engineers pursuit of understanding the stress of a physical object.... seems to result in exceeding the safe and yield stresses (ultimate stress for brittle materials ) of the environment.

Naturally .. nature will withstand the stress... what about us? engineers?  ... the lesser mortals.. ?

This reasoning aint self-defeating.... A realization or an opportunity for .... alas we all like to play with words... ...awareness engineering or mindful engineering.... dont forget... there is environmental engineering....

We love to pass the buck... the famous question... "Who kills Creativity?"... The most loved answer seems to be schools... and then the teachers.... we do not want to accept the fact that... the very reason being the parents themselves...  we dont accept. dont we?...

Some day... we engineers too might realize...

Note:
Dots were used very liberally in this article.. Just because, i did not know, when to put a comma and when to put a fullstop.. so....  thanks to the dots. though they are abstract, they seem to somehow connect.. to reality....