Once upon a time there was a wise man who lived on a mountain. He was known to be the wisest of them all and held the truth about the meaning of life. Just like the wise monk who lived on the Himalayan mountain- he knew the telos of life . And in a faraway land there lived a Sheperd, who owned a large group of camels. He made a living out of this heard of camels by selling them to people. And he was proud of his job, and was good at it, and was well to do himself. However, he knew the life is not about making a living. So, he wanted to know the truth and took the long journey across the dessert to meet the wise old man. The journey took days. And he travelled with his herd of camels, as he would not trust anyone. After days of travel, it was dark when he arrived, and did not wait until morning to meet the old man. https://unsplash.com/@_sebastien "Oh, dear wise master, I have come a long way for your advice. I have heard you holds the truth to the meaning of life. Please, be kind, share with me." The old wise master, with a gentle smile, said to him. "Son, it is so wise that you started looking for answers, I have no doubt in your intentions. So, I will give you the truth. But it is too dark. This is not the hour for it, tomorrow, when the first sun rises, you can come and meet me here. I will show it to you- the meaning of life" Story of Camels And he continued. "I want you to do one Favour for me. I see all the camels you brought here; I see you have a hundred odd camels. Can you please make them all lie down for the night, before you sleep?" The Sheperd agreed, and the wise old man, disappeared into the cave. Sheperd was tired, he prepped his Dinner, and had a good shower, before he started to make the camels lie down. Oh boy! he tried. He tried and tried to put all the camels to sleep. Camels, they are good for nothing animals, worse than donkeys. Some did sit down when he commanded. And some did not! stubborn they were. Some did lie down even before he commands. And the ones he previously put to sleep, would rise up again. The stubborn ones would sit down, without any command. Utter chaos. And the moment he thought he is there; it started all over. And he was exhausted after few hours, and then only he asked the question, "what is the meaning of this?" And he thought "What is the meaning of life?" It is just like making the camels sleep. And he rode back next day before even the wise man woke up. -story of camels- https://unsplash.com/@shotoftheday Morals of the story. Everyone should focus on the meaning of life from time to time, before getting too much involved in the problems. And ask the question, why? (otherwise, you might try to travel to mar s, while answers are obviously not there) Like the Sheperd who tried to sleep the camels, we are trying to solve our problems, from the day we were born till we die. How much trivial they are, everyone has one. It's your herd of camels. And only the wise would understand by questioning their own actions and mind, that it is not under our control. Like waves of the sea , ripples of the water , chaos in weather , life is interconnected with reasons beyond reasons . One has to look inside with mindfulness to understand this phenomenon- Carl Jung

Story of the Top "The Sweethearts". Just the other day little girls were watching the "The top and the Doll" by Hans Christian Andersen , my favorite childhood happiness destroyer. It was a cartoon, and it was about a top which was first rejected by a Doll, because he was too shabby. At the end the Doll, ended up in the drain, as the time went by, and Top became popular and ended up not being able to help the Doll's doomed fate. I think this was a changed version from the original story The Top and the Ball or "The Sweethearts". And it seems like something really happened to someone. A top spinning on the table Wisdom Level 1. Next morning, I found a top. It was a broken wheel with an axel from a toy car. Just lying on the table, and I saw the potential in it to be used as a top. And I made it spin in front of the Little one who has never seen a top before until day before and never spun one. And she was amazed. I could see her little eyes glistening in anticipation and joy when it kept on spinning for a half a minute. Moment, it stopped she tried spinning it again and again, failing. I was also in doubt she could do that, as it wasn't a real toy top, and needed a great skill to spin it for someone who has never done it. So, I taught her how to hold the axel and do it in slow motion. And after a few tries 'Voila!' She started spinning it as good as any kid of her age. And that was the wisdom level 1. She came from wisdom 0 about tops, to wisdom level 1 in just a couple of days. First with some information from a little cartoon, and next with some practical application by herself. The important fact is this is just the level 1 about tops. In fact, I am going to show you some more levels of wisdom about tops, before we generalize "Levels of wisdom" Wisdom Level 2. Let's assume my knowledge and skill about spinning a top is at level 2. I easily possess the level 1. As far as information is concerned, I know about angular momentum which keeps the top spinning, and friction and its center of gravity. I have seen the workings of a Gyroscope, and seen how traditional dancers spin a tambourine on a tip of a lengthy pole. I know a top would spin on a hard flat surface without friction longer than on a beach. As far as the skill is concerned, I can spin a book on my finger, for that matter any large even asymmetrical item which I can balance on my finger at the point of the center of its mass! (and I have spent good couple of days of my teenage years practicing this again and again to master) I am sure 99% of the population on planet earth is knowledgeable about at least Level 2 top wisdom. And nobody would go beyond that, except that 0.1%. And I am going to get a peep into the other levels of wisdom just for the sake of this article and that is where Google AI comes handy. Another top spinning on another table Wisdom Level 3. Archeology -> A top is a very old toy, invented thousands of years before the " Rubik's Cube ", and found in many archeological sites across many cultures. Sport -> International top spinners association conducts, world spinning top contests each year, and I am sure the contestants are at a different skill level in spinning a top than any one of us. Mathematics -> Angular Momentum: L = Iω , where I  is the moment of inertia tensor and ω  is the angular velocity vector. Torque: τ = dL/dt , where τ  is the torque vector. Precession: The rate of precession, Ω , can be approximated by: Ω ≈ mgd / (Iω) , where m  is the mass of the top, g  is the acceleration due to gravity, d  is the distance from the pivot point to the center of mass, and  I  and ω  are as defined above. As you can see, Levels of wisdom about a spinning top is vast. And no human is ever able to master everything. A mathematician who is able to figure out the math, would never have the skill to win the world top spinners competition. Levels of wisdom For me as I can see this is a huge problem. There is too much information , just about a simple toy as a top. Image everything you have ever learned. You just learn a minute fraction of the total human consciousness. And if you are not mindful about the fact that there is no limit to the information you seek, you can easily get lost in this stupid streak of information and get stuck. And you will end up spinning a top all your life or struggling with an equation about solving the mystery of a spinning top. But at some point, in your life you will come across articles, quotes or thoughts about life, which will enlighten you. And I will call this a super wisdom, if it happens to you keep it in mind to remind yourself from time to time. As an example, look at the quote from Carl Jung the philosopher. "Who Looks outside Dreams, who looks inside awakens" So, the only way to achieve super wisdom is to look inside and understand the process of thinking. And then only we can understand what happens, in our own world. And fortunately, or unfortunately such information is not so popular, not so abundant and not so glamorous like being successful, or prosperity. If you seek such information I suggest starting with a simple truth . The top (Story) Ironically The top ( Der Kreisel) is a short story written by Franz Kafka between 1917 and 1923, in Germany. It is a story about a philosopher trying to understand a world through a spinning top. He tries to grab a spinning top and believes that it should keep on spinning. However, it stops each and every time. Only thing I can correlate with tis is the Spinning top scene in the movie Inception as forever spinning tops are only found in Dreams !

Dead Fox I am comfortably seated today. Yet one year ago, on the post-Christmas day, I decided to walk on the London Suburbs, as there was no public transport. I have written poems all the way home, stopping by the sights of interesting, and boring. You can read all the poems Here . However, one which I did not emphasize much on that day was the dead fox on the road. That was not the only corpse which I can remember, as I have written about the man who was hanged and the day in a Morgue before. So, it is time put one and one together to make it a Four! and let's look at living once again in the perspective of the dead. Fox on the road On corpses- The drowned Giant - Film Some of you may find disturbing when I describe corpses. However, there is an entire animation film, about a dead Giant. It is called a drowned Giant. If you have no courage to look at a corpse, that is a nice place to start. A dead fox, a dead human, or for that matter a dead ant or a spider. I am sure you have come across some form of corpse, in your life. It is just the size which makes some of them alarming. And apart from the putrefaction, I want you to imagine this and identify what are the differences you make notice of the living. What is the difference between a dead Giant and a living one? What is the difference between a dead fox and a living one? We can say, living would move, but dead would not move by themselves. Of course, dead would also change and move according to the forces of nature. However, fundamental difference of the living and dead would be ability to think, or a functioning brain, or a consciousness . The output of the functioning consciousness is actions, sounds and movements and also thoughts. Although thoughts are not visible to others, this is the fundamental output of a consciousness which only later turns into voluntary actions. Although there are other involuntary actions which are not powered by thoughts called reflections. In summary living would have a consciousness and thoughts. A dead would not have this, just a decaying body. (Read more death of a microbe -> Bucket of water Bucket of life ) If a living loses that consciousness the body that it possessed would start to decay. It will decay so fast that in a few days it will be completely different. And in a Giant, this would lead to disgusting disfigurement. And this is why we cannot stand an elephant corpse but not of an ant. Tulips How to live? The objective of this article is to show you the importance of thinking. And show you that the thinking is the one which keeps us alive. This endless process which gives you happiness and sadness, fear and joy, day in and day out, is the same process which do not let your body become a corpse in a few days. If you understand this fact, you will know what will inevitably happen if you start not to think. Imagine a person, who do not think for themselves. Just float like a leaf . That person would be a living dead. Imagine a society, who do not think for themselves. Just drift like a cloud . That society would be living dead. "You should not be afraid of someone who has a library and reads many books; you should fear someone who has only one book; and he considers it sacred, but he has never read it." – Nietzsche And sooner or later the nature will start to disintegrate such a society, and its individuals. And they will start to stink and rotten. We have seen such individuals and societies from the past. Any country which is under the clutches of a dictator is a society which is dead. They are not allowed to think for themselves, and creativity is killed. Any society where there is blind faith on a single book, or blinded by the mass media, is a dead society, unless people start to critically think about themselves and evolve like a flower, which blossomed in the mud, they are goanna live a dead life. Any individual who accepts everything written in a book, or a verse or a blog post, is a dead one. As there is no empowerment of the consciousness that matters to keep us alive, such a person can be called dead. And I would not hesitate to call such, if you take my words and accept them as true!

Plato and platypus walked into a bar.. No, that is not how this story begins. This story begins with the story of The Ant man. The marvel character who can turn into a microscopic level at will. As we do not possess such powers I will help you with imagination. Becoming an Ant-man Imagine you became small. Small enough to so that you equal the height of an ant. And while in this form if you looked at the glass of wine in front of you It will look massive. And you climbed this glass of wine like tom cruise in a mission impossible. Now you are at the brim. And you try to grab a handful of wine, and guess what. The moment you touched the surface of wine you will be dragged into it with an enormous force. And this force Is the surface tension. Negligible force when we consider our arms strength. Yet a killer force to a tiny ant like you. You will be stuck in the wine glass unless a friendly human decided to put you out of misery. Universe: https://unsplash.com/@nasa Subatomic Ant-man We can go a step further with imagination. Remember when the ant man 🐜 decided to go atomic level to save the world from a raging missile? Let's assume we have the ability to go subatomic. At this level if you jumped into the wine glass, you will just be a black hole if you preserve your human mass. But if your density also reduced, we could assume you will behave like a particle. Hence you will not see wine. You will see protons and neutrons with their clouds of orbiting electrons. And a vast emptiness of the liquid which we call wine. And only thing I can compare your state at this point of time is an astronaut who is floating freely in space. Assuming this is possible, and find some digestible subatomic particles, you could spend your entire time floating in the glass of wine. And I can assume the time also would shrink as the volume and you could breed generations until someone takes the glass of wine and drink it! At this point when we come back to reality you would say, nice story! Sci-fi right? Understanding Universe Let's take a walk in the opposite direction. I assume you have travelled on a plane. And seen the earth from 33000 feet. And last time I travelled I saw huge evergreen container ships in Arab sea. And they were not massive at all. Infact they were tiny. Somehow my perspective has got bigger, and I could not see hundred people who were walking on the deck. Neither the waves of the see. But I see majestic clouds have become smaller and the continents which were never in my perspective now visible. I am sure this is why the billionaires tend to pay a million dollars to travel to the space station. They want to look back at us on earth and laugh how tiny we are because they do not have the imagination you and I possess, but only spare dollars. So, if a view from a space station is worth million dollars what would be the worth of a view from the edge of the milky way? Trillion quintillion dollars. Let's just do that. Voyager has taken such a view, if you do not know there is a photograph of earth from outer edge of the solar system and boy! It's difficult to locate our earth as it is tiny. Now imagine you look back at the milky way from a distance of thousands of widths of it. What would you see? You would see nothing. Just tiny stars barely illuminate you. Hence you would be in a total darkness. If you have spent your entire life, there you would not know you have a color. But that is not the point. Surface Tension Poem Philosophy of space The point Is that you would be just a floating particle in the emptiness. You know what else is a floating particle in the empty space called universe? It's our entire earth! And solar system. I can only compare this into what would you see if you began to float in a glass of wine at a subatomic level. Now I will give you a real question to think about when you consume your rest of the dinner. The question goes like this, if at a fundamental level, the picture of the subatomic Antman floating in the glass of wine is comparable to us floating freely in space, how can we be sure the universe is not a f------ glass of wine? Thank you for reading, philosophy of space.

Silence Oh. I have been running away from you You have been my guidance, to eternal peace it's true When the words play the game of life, on the sandy beaches of mind She gave me the strength to fly away like a wind for a cloud in the sky Why you should visit the beach Reason 1: Because it takes courage to look at the sky. For an ordinary man, or a woman, it takes courage to look at the sky . Remember when we were kids, there was never a day that we did not spot an eagle or a cloud. Now, when we are pressed in between our work and responsibilities there is never a time to look at the sky. But the beach, at the beach you even do not have to look at the sky. The sky meets the ocean at the horizon, even if your neck is fixed with a stable gaze parallel to the ground, you would be able to see the sky and the clouds. Often, I find without an effort the eyes start to drift towards the sky looking for those lost clouds. https://unsplash.com/@pedropiteiramonteiro Reason 2: Watching the waves. It is fun to watch the waves. Do not believe me? I have written a whole article on watching the waves and learning life lessons from this . However, even without life lessons you can just watch the waves. Longer you look at them you will notice they convey the same message as drifting clouds up above . Life is a buoy on a wave. It ups and downs with happiness. Memories fade away like footsteps of strangers on the beach. If you would come back tomorrow even the sandcastles would not be there. I still do feel like a kid playing on the beach, making castles- real ones, only hoping that they would not wash away with time. Reason 3: End of the land. If you want to run away from life, you should run away either into a library or to the beach. If you run into a library, you would improve your vocabulary and come out as a poet one day. If you run away to the beach like when the forest gump did, you would learn the lesson of life. You will learn the lesson of life that there is no place to run away. Nobody lives in the sea, not for long. So, there you will have to turn back. At the beach, you can feel all your problems, all your memories are just behind, on the land. You are at the edge, at the unknown future. Spend some time there, and it will clear your head. It will make you just a little bit wiser a man when you return to your problems back again. Reason 4: Plenty of life. On a busy Sunday, there would be plenty of people, at the beach. You may not seek this company, but I am sure you will still find a peaceful corner. Even if you did not, you can just stay at a one place and watch. You will start to notice, the people, they come and go, come and go like ants. You will start to notice, the sea, remains the same, the sandy beach remains the same, and you and the sky remains the same. There you will find peace, when you are a constant, not a variable in the picture. Do you know who else will be there on the beach? Crabs. Plenty of them. So, truly speaking you can never be alone on a beach. You will have to share the beach with plenty of other life, human or not. If you are an animal lover, you may find many both in the water and on the sand. It might make you smile, a crab crawling out fast before the next waves hit, or spotting a fish in the shallow water. You do not have to do snorkeling or diving, to see life as it is. A pair of good eyes and a childish curiosity is handy. https://unsplash.com/@sotti Reason 5: Golden hour rush Sun is soft, when it just pops up from the far horizon, in the early morning hours. Just like a little child, who smiles and dance innocently, the sun would play some time until it passes into teenage times and into the youth at noon. Like the miracle of life, just to be soft again in the evening, before it hides from our sight. Again, at the end of its death, the sun would be soft, clam and be innocent like a child, forgetting all the havoc it played when it was a bright silver star in midday. Take your time to go through all of it, never in a rush to leave , otherwise you will miss it. Reason 6: natural fan - the breeze The wind at the beach is a natural fan. You can fly a kite even if it is not meant for flying. However, what I like most is how it plays on my face and the body. The wind will touch your face like it does touch on your dog, when it peeps out from the window when you drive it to the wet! Did you see the smile on the eyes of the dog? You really do not have to jump from a 1000m cliff, to feel the breeze, risking your life. At the beach, the feeling would be provided even if you are stationary with zero risk. Try it next time, and smile to yourself when it tosses your hair. Reason 7: natural mindfulness Just like the breeze, the mindfulness is natural on places like beach. Just like James Clear claims in his TEDx talks, changing your environment changes our habits. One thing I noticed when I am at the beach is there is no place in mind, for any hazy thoughts. Just like the ships clearly visible on the horizon, each thought which appears in mind beach is clearly visible when I am at the beach. It has nothing to do with my effort. Because I never try to be mindful at the beach. So, it must be natural. It must be nature doing it. So, if you are finding difficult to start on mindfulness awareness, I suggest try the beach on your next vacation. Or this afternoon if you are close by. That concludes my 7 reasons why you should visit the beach. What are yours?

How many dimensions are there? There are many dimensions. If you are into mathematics or science in general, you would know this by now. And I am sure you have seen a couple of videos to understand the fourth, fifth dimensions. Some argue time is dimension. However, I think time is just an illusion created by mind comparing two events, while actually there is none. I have discussed this phenomenon in the book What is time ? The objective of this article is to illustrate the fact that our blindness to the fourth dimension of in our lives and show that mindfulness is key solution to the problem. There are many dimensions, you can say it is infinite. If you have learned about matrices, we can represent two dimensions in two numbers, three dimensions by three numbers. Hence there is no end to it. In reality we consider ourselves 3D creatures. https://unsplash.com/@markusspiske Flatlanders. Remember the flatlanders (not the band but the book)? In the book "Flatland: Romance of many dimensions" Edwin A. Abbott invites us to imagine two-dimension world. Where there are only lines and even a 3D object passing through this flat world would be seen as a line. I find this a very good exercise for the mind to compare it with imagining a 4D world. How to imagine Fourth dimension? Imagine a square in a flat land. And reduce yourself to a 2d object and look at the square. What you would see is a line. Although you glide all around the square you would not find a way to get into the square. Just like a fortress. If you are inside similarly you cannot go out without breaking it. Now come back to your 3D world and look at a 3D cube. You do not see inside of it right? And if you travel all around this, still you cannot go in, and if you are inside of it, you cannot go out without breaking its walls. The problem is you are in a 3D world. You cannot see inside of it. But imagine you live in a 4D world. Someone in 4D world can see inside of it. Just like we can play magic on flatlanders by taking out something from inside the square without breaking its walls, a 4D man can take something out from inside a cube and keep it outside without breaking its walls. It doesn't stop there. Imagine crazy things that would happen. You would not be able to hide from this 4D man, as he would see everything from inside out in this 3D world. he would see your organs grow inside and how food moves through your Gut. How a cancer develops inside your body. He would be a walking CT scanner. More importantly he could disappear from our 3D world into the fourth dimension and appear again when he wants. It seems very interesting to trying to understand the fourth dimension. However philosophically I use this analogy to what happens when you start mindfulness. This is the simple truth that David Foster Wallace invited us to think about saying " This is water " in his book. https://unsplash.com/@sergei_gussev Consider the following saying. "You go to work, wearing your new cloths, in your car driving through the traffic, leaving your home, just to earn enough money to settle the debts, that you made, by purchasing all this to live a relaxed life at your home." I can't remember who the great thinker was who thought of above, but it is the truth for most of us. What is the alternative? Travelling the world without any money? The problem is if everyone decided not to work, such a system would collapse in few months or years. It seems there is no alternative. We are kind of stuck in a loop of some kind of an abnormal 2D life where we cannot get out. Just like a flatlander stuck inside a square, we cannot see a way out. And that is the problem of our 3D world. I can see some 3D landers, live their whole lives grossly unaware of these problems. But there are plenty who do. For those who wants to break the illusions of a flat land, I invite you to practice mindfulness today. So, you can peek into the 4D world which hides truth from our eyes and find peace in silence. Mindfulness and wisdom is the eyes and ears in the fourth dimension that we all are searching our entire lives. Life as a free fall It is a big risk to take a lifetime of decisions to depend on views which are shaped by our teachings, culture and science. As nobody can answer why we were born, It is a gamble. We have only information, given to us by our own ancestors to make these decisions.There is no difference between someone who gambles at a casino, someone who takes a cigarette for the first time in their hands or someone who wakes up early to go to the job, in his office.  We all take the free jump, pushed by our will. As all those decisions were made possible and limited by the information we received. We are clueless, risking our lives in everyday decisions, as we do not understand the limits of the current understanding in science and nature. What if life is a free fall, what if there is no destination but it's only a journey? What if we all are in a train which never stops?

How I used dreams? I am fond of dreams. In fact, previously I have written about dreams of my childhood and Philosophy of dreams. However, with time We get better in understanding of them. If you ask me who use dreams, I will say everyone conscious and will explain how. But first let's go back to childhood to learn How I used dreams. Maybe I was seven or eight at that time. I had trouble sleeping. Often, I would go to bed and just turn this way and that way without sleeping. I am not sure what I was thinking, maybe I wasn't sleepy when I go to bed. And that Is hard when you want to sleep but sleep doesn't come. Then I used this dream trick for a better sleep. I would start a deliberate dream. Fish: https://unsplash.com/@rayjo I would start a dream with conscious awareness. With selected characters blended with imaginary ones, like a little story. I would make them do what I would like them to do. I would make a dog in my mind and paddle a cycle with it in a race. Or I will make the river flood drowning everything one foot deep and make its fish swim everywhere in the town . And deeper I went in this imaginary dream, I forgot it's a deliberate dream. And I would never know when it became a real dream! Often Wake up following morning. I'm not saying this is the sleeping pill for everyone with a poor sleep. Just to illustrate How I used dreams. Fundamentals of a dream. Some fundamental things about dreams that often we get mixed up is the location of a dream. We locate a dream and put it within the timeframe of the sleep. Yet if you look at the above example and within yourself, we really do not know what happened during the sleep. Unless you wake up in the middle of a dream and realize you have imagining things or dreaming. So, if we really should locate the dream we should locate it at the time of awareness of it. And this is often the time you are fully or partially awake of your surroundings. So, dreams happen when we are awake when we are aware. What happens during sleep we do not know. Who else dreams? If we look at above as a fact, that dreams happen when we are awake what is a good definition of a dream. When I combine this with the fact that I can create my own dreams just at this moment, we can say dreams are projections of mind about the future which happens now. They do not have to be following physical laws or social norms as they are just bounded only by our past information and dimensions of our imagination. Fundamentally everyone dreams every day. Mind Castles on empty lands. Mind Castle is a memory method used by some genius to memorizes things. I am not a big fan of the method. But the technique is interesting. You imagine a place, completely it's up to you and in mind you visit this place so often. And you fill this castle with things. Some mental objects. Once the castle and its objects are in place, when you have a list of items to memorize you peg each item with something in your memory castle. In that way when you retrieve information you just have to go through items in your castle and the list will be there in order. I'm sure you have used dreams not to that extent like a memory castle, or a mental experiment of Einstein. Remind yourself last time you travelled. Imagine you saw an empty land by the road. I am sure when you see empty land like this naturally, we build a castle. For a construction worker it is a skyscraper. For a CEO it is an office building. For a man without a house, he would dream about a house with a garden. For a cowboy it would be a nice place for a stable. If there are twenty people in the bus, they would dream twenty things about the land. And some would go further than the others. But the bottom line is this happens every time when something comes to our conscious awareness, and it is essential we do that. Mind Castles Why dreams are essential to happiness? Dreams are essential component if you want to savor something. Imagine a young man see a beautiful girl walking passed him. And he would dream about a future with her, and this is the savoring part of the experience. If he just saw the girl and there were no additional thoughts about a future dream, there would be no enjoyment in this. Importance of dreams in mindfulness practice. As you can understand everything, we observe has a future component in it. You can call it a dream or any other name. But important message is this part is essential to enjoy. And it is not real. Just the imagination. Just like the past, which never is there . Mindfulness lets us understand the nature of our experience . When you see future projections are your own creation, mind will further identify essential nature of reality which is called now. Like a swan who can separate milk from water, sharp mindfulness tries to separate experience from imagination. And will come into conclusions on its own. Until then let's try and focus on what is real instead of the dreams.

It was strange from the beginning, as I never liked being photographed. Of course, I was shy and introverted. And I don't think that is the reason I did not want photographs taken. So, there are very few photos of my childhood, and even as an adult. What about you? How photogenic are you? Thinking about photography? Have you ever thought why we ever need photographs, and videos. How did it ever evolve? How did they take a selfie back in the stone age. Cave paintings? There was a selfie taken by "Croods" family in the animation movie which I can remember them taking a selfie. You would agree that we are so advanced from ancient stone age that we can now even take photographs even of black holes , in far corner of the universe. Is it an advancement of our technology, as a human race provided us to capture the moment instantaneously from our smartphones. Not only that, but we can also share it online, Instagram, TikTok Facebook, and many more apps. https://unsplash.com/@jontyson So, again why do we need photography? Imagine we have a great memory. That we remember everything that we see. Imagine you are at the beach, and you see a beautiful sunset. And you would remember the colors of the sun, casted on the sky and the clouds. And its reflections back on the waves. Old fishermen going to the sea in the afternoon in shadows. And you remember soft waves crashing on the sandy beach. You would remember the salty smell of the sea wind. Imagine you have this memory, and you have the ability to capture it in your memory every time as many as you want. Then one problem solved. We would not need photography to remember anything from the past. How often have you looked at your old photos and noticed that you cannot remember that you have been there, done that, not as the photo shows you. Which one is correct about colors, in that instant of time? Is it the photo or your memory or neither? And also, when you look at the photo how many times you have thought "That's not how I remember it" Truely speaking at a single moment a photograph is taken you would only focus on one thing. Maybe it's the color of the sun, maybe it's the sound of the waves or the smell of the wind at the beach. But photos and videos are advanced than our million years old evolved machine that it can capture many more than our memory, at least as close as possible. More in bites than we can put in our memory, and even without prejudiced from our learning. So, for the moment, let's say photos and videos are more correct than what is held in our memory about something. https://unsplash.com/@sarandywestfall_photo Photographs are needed as our memory is limited and our attention is narrow. Limitations of the photography in capturing the moment. Everyone would appreciate the fact that photographs and videos can capture the moment. However, some would like the real experience of it. Do you know the limitations photography and videos have? in capturing the moment. For a moment look around the place you are in now. Imagine you have taken a photograph of it. But that doesn't capture everything at that instant right? There is more data in this instance to be captured. And even if you put this data into the all the memory bites humans have ever created, still there would be space, as there is no depth to the actual world. Even if you zoom billion times still there would be space to zoom in. So, truly speaking we can never know exactly what was there in our room. We can just approximate, colors, and objects. Similarly, videos cannot capture the continuous moment to moment change ( Like a mathematical function ) that happens around us. It just captures few of the images in between, and we know that even is not close to the reality. So, true reality if it is there, we cannot capture it by any means. And previously we agreed photos are better than our eyes and memory. So, if photos and videos can't do it, definitely we cannot. https://unsplash.com/@cjeematic7 Looking back at the original question which I had, why I didn't like being photographed. I have the answer now. I was shy! as an introvert I was shy that was the reason. And I can add to that saying that I knew photographs will never capture the reality, so why bother trying to do something impossible? What are your thoughts on this?

Becoming a monk in India Recently I saw a news from India, that a couple have decided to become monks. And they do a ritual of riding on an elephant throwing all their wealth to the poor. Well, not necessarily poor, whoever on the road, who likes to collect their money. I am sure, everyone loved it to be on the road on that day. However, there are people who criticize such act. Some, say it is just 'show off'. If they would want to become monks, they should just leave. And if they wanted to donate money, they could have done it secretly. This made me wonder. https://unsplash.com/@amjiths Ripple effects of life Of course, one way to look at such an incident is that they are 'showing off'. If I would ever to donate money, or even anything, I would just do it. But I am a full, introvert at the end of the spectrum. Yet, I try not to be prejudiced about the world with my judgements. Can anyone, do charity, even with big event like above, and not be prejudiced. And the couple in the above scenario, may well be just thinking about their charitable work. Not about the news, they are generating by doing this. And mind you I have just written an article about the ripple effects in life. What if such a charitable work, creates a rippling effect on society and everyone starts doing it. Coming out of their shyness to do something they believe is good. Isn't it a good trend? On the other hand, someone can argue that we should not try to gain anything doing charity, not even becoming famous. This reminded me a similar experience I had within a YouTube chat. A long time ago, I saw a video on a gathering, of Buddhist monks, doing rituals on their beloved late teacher. They kept some lamps lit up and chanted mantras. They were all doing same. And someone commented, that isn't it good to practice mindfulness instead of chanting about it? Isn't it good to give up on what is lost and move on, like doing real mindfulness. And after trying to understand mindfulness for a year. I think I know the answer to this now and here is what I wrote. https://unsplash.com/@eddybllrd Becoming a monk in mind Imagine 40 monks who are gathered to remember their beloved teacher. Young monks would see that they are doing all these rituals. And just like the anonymous YouTube commentor, some of them would think that it is absurd to do all these rituals, and they lose time in a forest in solidarity, doing this, valuable time lost doing useless task. And some of them would not think about anything and just follow what their seniors do, but they have faith, what they are doing must be very important and essential to understand the meaning of it. I am sure, as all of these Nobel monks are in different levels in their practice, some of them are from forests, where they have been isolated from the society, like those enthusiastic young monks wanted now. And they have understood that, even in a forest that you cannot find silence and happiness you seek, as it is not there outside. And they have come back to show gratitude to their teacher, who is not lived and died outside, but within their minds, still living as a memory. And they must be moving, and speaking and watching in patience, at themselves, still practicing mindfulness , while all the others are shaken by what is happening outside, their minds stay still, like the sword of the seeker, unmovable from the rock it is buried. https://unsplash.com/@omarprestwich That is, it. Those are the thoughts which are transferable to anywhere. Let they be remembered next time when you try to blame someone and ask if you are really curious. Without being prejudiced and judge yourself. Mindfulness is an amazing practice which can transfer your mind into such realms of reality. Hope you will start your journey soon. Thank you for reading 200th article on mindfulness and philosophy of life.

Plastic is a pollutant, right? Recently my daughter brought her science homework to me and asked the question. She had a heap of items to separate into two groups. And plastic obviously went to the pollutants group. I am sure you are in a grade higher than her Grade, as you are reading this. And I also think you value your time more than thinking about these second-grade questions. Hence, without exerting you, I did own thought experiment and wrote down the observations here. So, it will take only three minutes of your time. https://unsplash.com/@luandmario Plastic - Humble Origins Did you know plastic developed as a byproduct of oil. Most likely you did know. Back to your college chemistry class, I am sure, you may have learnt about different methods they use to separate hydrocarbon compounds from Crude oil. And Plastic is one such product. Actually, it is one from hundreds of such material produced from Crude oil. Once plastic is separated It goes to a factory to change its form yet again. And thanks to the labor forces of China and its assembly lines mass production of plastic items circle around the world. From brushes to cups, from toys to auto parts. Plastic is everywhere. Even in the Pen I used to write this article. So, this leads to the question, if plastic originated from the natural product of oil, deep inside the earth, when did it become a pollutant? Or how? Plastic - the Journey Plastic and its components were inside the earth for millions of years. And nobody even thought about it as a pollutant. Once its form is changed, by the process of chemical treatments, and production of items next it became a useful item. I am sure plastic is even used in saving lives, in hospitals, to battlefields, even in the zoo, even in the wild, maybe plastic is used in trucks which carry water to dying thirsty animals in African National parks, when it is harsh routs prevails. And same plastic which we call pollutants. https://unsplash.com/@naja_bertolt_jensen Plastic - the inevitable end of an era. Imagine plastic after 10,000 years into the future after our doom's day on earth. I am sure the macro plastics will become micro plastics, will start to decay. Even the animal species, who have hard time adapting to plastic, will eventually evolve into species which utilize them. Biological and mechanical decay will set in. Heat, chemicals and wind and water will batter the micro plastics that eventually they will be dust. Broken down into atoms. And release their carbon and hydrogen into the atmosphere. The plants and animals will reuse these precious atoms to build their own masses of lives. The natural recycling will eventually happen Even if we do not care about recycling and destroy ourselves over a world war. Sure, it will take 10000 years, but fact remains that it is inevitable. Same plastic will end up in fossil fuel once the plants and animals are buried deep inside earth. Why is plastic a pollutant - Philosophy I think now we have enough knowledge on how we can better answer the above question. Why is plastic a pollutant and how philosophy answer the question. It seems plastic is natural as it is, from its humble origins and from its graveyard. So, what happens in the middle of the process is the problem. In the middle of the process, we are there. We are there to witness the great garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean. We are there to witness our blocked drains. We are there to see our hiking trails covered with plastic bottles thrown away by stupid human beings. We are there to witness poor animals struggling with their lives to get away from these plastic traps. It kills animals and plants and makes the world an unpleasant place for us. Do we really care about poor poor animals? We just do not like to see them dying Infront of our eyes. We need them to have a 'human' death, like from a cattle Gun. We do not want them to suffer, and it makes us cry in horror for our deeds, right? https://unsplash.com/@naja_bertolt_jensen Plastic is a pollutant only in a human world Now let's imagine a world without humans, but only plastics we left behind and animals and plants. Such a world is highly possible. In such a world there would be no one to value plastic as good or bad. As there is no human consciousness, do you think such a world is not natural? It will still stink, it will still kill animals. But our judgements on what is pollution and what is not is not there. Still there will be tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions, killing animals and plants, and they will still be natural. Just like the plastic we left behind. We have a desire to see the world, not as it is but, with clear running water, in our streams, and fresh air wherever we walk. So, compared to this, 'imaginators beautiful planet' plastic is a pollutant. It is our greed labels the plastic as a pollutant, compared to what we really desire. But the nature has no value. Inherently plastic is just a changing material, like everything else to the nature. So, it is our consciousness which likes to label things is at fault. I am not sure how many environmentalists, are going to oppose these arguments, put forward. To see truths about nature, one has to say goodbye to all the learned behaviors and look at the world in a fresh perspective. It is harder than it seems, as we love to build our own worlds. Which is the nature of the consciousness. If you ask me what I would teach my children, I have no hesitancy to teach them yes, plastic is a pollutant. That is what we want as the human race. Nobody has to go against that, but I can see when I do this, it will add to individual suffering of myself. If I see a bottle in a nice, beautiful river, I will feel sad, and even angry to the point, I will take great trouble to photograph this and put on my Facebook profile with a hate speech on such human beings. I would see this will destroy the peace and happiness inside me and make turbulences, while the nature does not care at all. It doesn't give a value to a plastic bottle, neither to an animal life, neither to my life. I would teach my children war is destructive and jealousy and greed are bad. I would teach them jealousy and kindness are good that we should plant them and let them grow. Until they are grown enough to ask questions about this, and Challange, until their wisdom is grown enough to see the world beyond good and evil . Until they do not find answers to their questions and cry, in pain battered by problems of life. https://unsplash.com/@vincentvanzalinge Then I would teach them Good, and evil are our judgments, illusions of our consciousness , to otherwise neutral environment. Which is the root cause of our suffering . And I would teach them it is only the wisest from wise, luckiest of lucky, rare rest to rare are able to see the world through this mindfulness eyes into the peace. Let's start this journey today.

Ok, Let's slow down, and think about the question. Let's ask why we should hack our consciousness? What is consciousness and why should we hack this? Consciousness is everything. When I say everything, it includes the world and everything in it. Consciousness is the great 'Knower'. If you would not agree with me, let us imagine a world without consciousness. Take a minute, write it down. Did you, do it? Were you able to do it? I do not think you did, not because you are lazy, but because for the world to exist, there should be consciousness. So, the world and our consciousness are not two things it should be outcome of one process. https://unsplash.com/@joannakosinska The world and our consciousness are no two things It is one process. Now that is a bold claim. It should be investigated further. Let's imagine a world where there is no your consciousness. Can you imagine such a world? It is easy, before you were born, there was no consciousness and after you die there would not be either. (forget the learned facts that your soul will be existing, even if it did, it would be not really 'you' as you can never possess the same body and same 'life') Now, try to answer the question does that world exist relative to your no consciousness? What is the 'true' duration of the 'world in your consciousness existed?' I know, you are not a philosophy student, neither I am. So, let's make this question an easy one. Let's imagine you have been living on a mountain whole your life. In a small village. You are the blacksmith. You were born there; you learned your black smithy things there and you made a family there. Except for the occasional travel to the town, you have not known anything else. Imagine you lived in the era before even Columbus made the discovery of the America. And you died. Sorry for that, but you died, leaving your loved one's behind. Now, let's go into your wife's mind. Do you exist in your wife's mind? Let's peep into your children's mind. Do you exist there? Let's look into your relatives and villager's minds. Do you exist there? Yes, you do, you exist as a memory in their minds. As long as they remember you. You would really cease to exist once every consciousness that is available cease to exist or forget you, in their relative worlds. https://unsplash.com/@supergios Now, let's go into your consciousness, do you exist there? No, once you are dead, your consciousness is no longer there, and you would cease to exist. Not only consciousness, but everything inside your consciousness will also cease to exist. What was there inside your consciousness. Your name, memory about your craft, your skills, your memory about the trees and villagers. Your anger, your happiness and your sadness. This does not argue that the 'world' did not exist. It pretty much does. That why when someone is dead, we are still live. And we can see everything remains same. But relative to that person's consciousness everything ceases to exist. And by any means if we could bring back his consciousness, with or without a body, from whatever happened to it, still as the 'world' is there, it would generate the 'relative world' again in that consciousness. Wow, that was difficult. I am not sure, how much of it you can grasp without being bored. But trust me there is something I need to tell you. And it takes time. Like I always say, our language is not advanced enough to discuss such matters of mind, and consciousness so, you might get a different meaning out of it. But we should try to focus on truth without any doubt. Was there a tree fell down in the forest? https://unsplash.com/@lucapizzarotti You may wonder now, If the world did not exist in the consciousness after death, Does it exist when we are sleeping? When we are dreaming ? What happens all the time when we are thinking about something? Does the world exist at that time? That is the core idea behind the 'Schrodinger's Cat experiment' If you haven't read about this, I will include the chapter from the book what is time? at the end of the article. For now, we can imagine a similar scenario. If there was a tree fell down deep inside the forest, and it made a huge Noice. And nobody ever heard it? No device measured it, no one recorded it. Did it happen or not? It is such a simple question and such a difficult question to answer. Bottom line is nobody knows. And it seems it did and did not happen at the same time. Unless someone measure it, we would not know it happened. At the same time someone can argue that it did happen. Of course, if there was a consciousness was there to hear it, it would have heard the Noice. But relative to all the other consciousnesses who did not know about it, there was a never tree that fell. So, I think we have come to a point where we can move forward with our argument. We have enough information now. Let's summaries the facts so far. It seems our consciousness and the 'relative world we feel' are born at the same time. The 'true' world is out there, but only we see is part of this true world (unseen world) which comes to our consciousness. The 'part' of the world which doesn't come to my mind did never exist for me and as long as it doesn't come to my mind will never exist. For the last fact I can give you some more examples. Think about the following. A man dies of a car crash. Dead as a rat. And imagine he had a cancer growing inside his body at the time of his death. And he was never diagnosed with the cancer. Only after the autopsy that he was identified of having a cancer. As he did not have any symptoms, he was never even thinking about having a sinister diagnosis. For which people did that cancer exist? Did that cancer exist for his doctors? Not until they did the autopsy. Did that cancer exist for his family? Not until they found out the autopsy results Did that cancer exist for the dead man? No, it did not, not in his consciousness, not in his relative world. It surely did occur in the 'true' world, otherwise the doctors would not identify this. But not in his 'relative world' as there it never came across his now 'dead' consciousness. https://unsplash.com/@stafra Bottom line from this case study is that something 'matters' (or exist) only as long as it comes to our consciousness. And it makes me shudder realizing this truth. As long as there is consciousness it will identify things in the 'true' world and make a copy of it in my 'relative world' which I can label, good or evil. And this process of labelling will go on until we are unconscious. Can you see the danger of this? We do not know where we came from and where we go after life . Imagine there is some 'truth' out there which doesn't come into our 'conciousness' and we just blindly follow our ancestors not knowing what truth is. And in this scenario we all are doomed. Unless we do our own study of this relative world of ours individually. Nobody owns this world than you. If you look at this process carefully, you would understand, the there is only one world you can ever see. And that is whatever stupid thing your consciousness brings to your awareness . How to Hack your consciousness. Oh, I almost forgot. How to hack your consciousness. How to do that? Do you know? We all do. Come on.. we all lie. When we lie, we basically hack someone Elses consciousness. But how can we hack our own mind, because as you already know, you are the 'creator' of your own relative world. The truth is our consciousness does this all the time. And our consciousness fools us all the time, because it can never know what the 'true' world is it creates a 'relative' world which exist only in a fraction of a second but feels like a lifetime. You can never hack your consciousness as your consciousness is always hacking you since you were born. You will hack your own consciousness only on the day you understand this truth. Until then it will fool you. Come join me friend. Let us discuss this sad truth about our existence. I'm gonna steal your seconds. Your minutes and hours of consciousness. With a little tweet here and there. Would you be mad with me? https://unsplash.com/@puregeorgia A paragraph from the book ' What is time ?' A deep dive into science  Schrodinger’s cat experiment and quantum physics. In 1935 Erwin Shrodinger, an Austrian physicist, conducted a thought experiment. He placed a cat in a hypothetical box with a radioactive source which decays over time at any point and releases a poison killing the cat. However the box is closed and there is no way of knowing when the radioactive material is going to release the poison.  The conclusion is after some time the cat is both alive and dead until someone opens the box and makes the observation. Quantum physics has helped us to understand why particles behave as waves and waves behave as particles. It has opened up another dimension to our scientific expansion of our knowledge. We will hear more and more of quantum computers, quantum chemistry and superconductors and great applications of this knowledge. However, has it provided us an opportunity to understand ourselves? What does this have to do with our time? Is it true that time exists and does not exist at the same time? Time exists when we start thinking or being conscious of our surroundings. It ceases to exist when we are unconscious. Does it explain some of our questions earlier in this book? https://unsplash.com/@ejleusink Are your cats dead or alive? We all have cats. Have you ever noticed? Let's imagine there is a mother, who has sent his son to the war as a soldier. He is away in a foreign land fighting war in the front line. And he dies wounded among many others. The news arrives to his mother and family only three days later. And since the news, to that person hearing it he was dead. But what about those three days? He would be still living in the mind. Yet to an outside observer of both events he is dead. However what matters for one individual is his or her own perspective. In this case to the mother her son is living all these three days, or even longer until news reaches and she understands. Her son is dead and alive all the time, even before three days, until someone observes what has happened.  The true fact is you don't have to be in war. Think about a loved one who is not there with you at this moment. Think that is your cat, now living in a box with radioactive material. Do you know that moment that they left from your vision, the moment you stopped hearing from them that they become a cat in the box, until they come to vision again? Did you know that they are both dead and alive at this exact second? How can you be so sure that they are alive? How can you be so sure that each and every time you open the box that they will be there smiling at you? Think about yourself. If it is true for someone else. It should be true for yourself. If so you are dead and alive at the same time for everyone else. How can you be sure they are wrong? If you walk in a forest path on a normal day you would see a lot of dead leaves on the path. However if you take a walk after a strong gale there would be more and more leaves, some brown, some yellow, some green fresh leaves. When the radioactive decay occurs, even fresh leaves have to fall. You would not be surprised if you know there can be a gale in our lives at any point. Even now we are just waiting for our radioactive material to decay in our box of vision.

This article serves two purposes. If you are a victim of a scam, it allows you to be aware and free yourself. If you are a scammer, it will allow you to be better at your trade. How I got scammed, almost. I will begin with this story, which happened to me few years back. I settled in a new country and few months down the line I got a call from internal revenue department. I was a good listener, and I listened to what they said. It started as a friendly discussion about my work and then told me my accounts have been showing fraudulent activity. And suggested my identity was hacked by some criminals for money laundering. And I am at risk of losing all my money and legal actions. And at this point Panic set in, and I did not know what to do. One behind the Mask: https://unsplash.com/@stumpie10 And they said they would help. Help to safeguard myself and my money. And after a long discussion of how to, I transferred my money to an online app. At this point I did not know what I am doing as emotions had overwhelmed me. However, I had trouble transferring money as I wasn't at all good at doing this. Suddenly the lady on the other end got angry and slightly broke her character. Then it hit me! I am being scammed! It's not about my next-door Neighbour being a criminal and this itself is the scam! At that point I got help. I had great trouble recovering my money, but after a few days I got everything back. Luckily, I did not complete the full scam. It was emotionally devastating for days. I have been watching online scamming videos before. I was fully aware of the risk, yet it happened. If it wasn't for the lady who got impatient, I could have lost thousands of pounds that day. I can attribute it to me being not having awareness or, the smartness of scammers to use local numbers with good English accent. Yet there is fundamental to such why that it works. And that is fear. Secret behind a successful scamming. Secret behind a successful scamming is making the victim into believing something bad is going to happen. In other words, plant a seed of fear. That was the trap I fell into. Once they plant a seed of fear in your head, it will blind the judgmental ability no matter how smart you are. Once the fear is there it doesn't matter how many scamming videos you have watched. And scamming will easily happen if you are an introvert like me. Fear: https://unsplash.com/@karngraphy Scamming is not a new occupation. In fact, we were the victims of scams even when we were children. That's how we ate broccoli! Our parents used to implant a seed of fear in our minds of what will happen if we do not eat broccoli. And they became saviors. When grandma told stories of monsters to make us sleep early, grandpa became a hero by creating worriers who are so powerful against dirty monsters. Scammers are everywhere Once you know the fundamental tool of scamming is the fear. You will notice some subtle forms of scamming which are underway at this very moment. Turn on the news and look how our politicians talk. They do not only talk about bright positive future that they are going to create, most of the time they talk about what bad shit would happen if the opposition came into power. They create the monster first from their own words so they can be saviors of the crowd. And that is scamming at its best. How about religion? I know you will disagree on this. Only until your mindfulness starts to shine. Then you would see it as a truth. First, we learn about hell, where every bad person goes to, and they create a heaven, every good person can go to. We have neither seen the heaven or the hell. Yet when there is fear, we just follow set of guidelines and someone would benefit. I'm not specific about any religion, but this is common to any culture or religion if you are careful enough to consider without prejudice. Not at all means we should go against someone's belief. Simply means, it is a solo journey in silence. Good cop Bad cop I am sure this is the tactic used to drag otherwise a neutral public into war. You may see this used in medieval times where public executions were the norm. When fear settles in it is easy to rule. In modern day, interrogation of criminals this is still used. They call it good cop bad cop combination. When one guy plays the role of bad cop and plant seeds of fear, the other guy tries to appear helpful and save you from doom. That way you will be scammed of information, even against yourself! No fear: https://unsplash.com/@libraryofcongress Box of entertainment or box of Scam? If you look at in half of tv advertisements, you see this. They talk about germs giving you a stomachache unless you use that clinically proven soap. Or you will suffer without money in future unless you use their platinum retirement plan. In this blog also, I have used some seeds of fear, to plant a seed of wisdom. Yet I have exposed myself now, hence technically I claim not to be a scammer!