This is the second article on Game of life. I would like to look at games of shadows we play. Shadows are interesting. I am sure you felt something when I say shadows. Some dark hidden feeling, corners of your house, edges of windows and haunting ghosts. I was not a fan of shadows, but these are such stories about the silhouette of life in front of our eyes. The poem itself harbor the meaning of life. Life is a silhouette. An impossible dream , when you think about the illusion of time . But, to understand better we need to take the walk again slowly in the memory lane. Previously I wrote about lanterns, and games we played with lanterns . One such was to display shadows on a wall. I could make a dog, a dancer and a drummer on the wall just using my fingers. We will analyze the shadow making in detail to understand the illusion it creates. Light source-> had gesture -> shadow on the wall. Games of shadows Now let's analyze a shadow. As long as there is light, and my had to block the light there will be a shadow on the wall. As the shadow is formed when rest of the wall is illuminated with light. As long as there is the lantern, eliminating light, and my hand is blocking part of it, there will be a dancer on the wall. If I blocked all the light, or for some reason the lantern blown with the wind, the shadow will disappear. If I removed the hand again shadow will disappear. And if there was not a wall the shadow would not form. So, the shadow is not a real thing. right? Shadow is just an illusion on the wall. A 'thing' which is dependent on the light source and the hand. A shadow is neither light source, nor the hand but 'something' which appears when both of these reasons aligned themselves. (Those are not the only reasons for the shadow to be formed, if you read the article reasons beyond reasons . But for now, we can limit ourselves for the clarity of thought) Conclusions from the game of shadows So, the conclusions are the light source, and the hand and wall are the reasons for the shadow. We assume shadow is just an illusion, created on the wall, as that is not touchable, and also dependent on the reasons. Shadow will be there as long as these reasons are there. Moment, they disappear the shadow will disappear. So, they are inseparable. Games of life Now, let's look at the shadow again. This time let's look how we see the shadow on the wall. Let's look at a fraction of a second in time to understand the Optics and reflections. There is contrasting colors on the wall, created by above reasons, which creates the shadow. This light reflected by the Lense in our eye, creates a reflection on the posterior wall in our eyeball. With some chemical mechanisms the electrical signals generated travel to the brain and understand this as a 'shadow' with previous information we gained by past learning. 'Real shadow eliminate light' -> reflected by Lense-> creates a shadow in eyeball-> interpret by brain and process of thinking. If you would agree anything we see or hear, or smell or touch are creating such shadows in our brain. And, whether we like it or not that is what we are doing all our lives. Creating shadows and interpreting them. Now if we apply these characteristics of game of shadows to game of live it will provide some valuable intuitions. Conclusions from game of life. Light emitted by wall, eyes and thinking process are reasons for seeing a shadow on the wall. So, the shadow we identified, is not the real thing, it is just a reflection. Or a shadow, of a shadow. Similar to the shadow on the wall, shadow in our brain is there as long as the reasons are there. (As long as you stare at the wall you will see a shadow, as it will create a shadow in your eye and brain will recognize it) This lets me understand that the world, I live in is just a shadow, created inside the brain, or the process of thinking. As long as there are reasons, these shadows will be formed. And there is nothing more to it. Nothing less to it. Just a Giant shadow. Although I think "I am doing, things to the world" What I am really doing is adjusting the reasons, so that there would be better shadows created in the mind. Which "I like". And I see "me" or myself is just another shadow. Game of life Like when the mind gets a thought, "I need to travel". What I am essentially doing, is adjusting the parameters which will create new shadows in the brain. To do that, I would, get a leave, prepare my bag, and travel on a bus to a faraway place, and take a walk deep inside a forest. And there the reasons of the jungle, will create new shadows in my brain, which will be interpreted as 'I am inside a jungle, far away from humans, and I can feel the wind on my forehead tossing my hair, I can hear the buzzing bees' type of image. As long as I am in the jungle, these shadows will be there, and they cannot be separated from "me". The moment I leave the jungle, another set of shadows will start to form. Then I say to myself, Oh come on they are just Shadows. And, without complicating too much, I will end the article here. If you look at carefully at your life, you will see all these shadows. Your mind just created for you. Shadows, of tastes of ice-cream, shadows of films, shadows of your friends and family, even when they are in front of you will see they are just shadows. And they disappear when you close your eyes. Just try. And once you learn to see shadows. You can read article on characteristics of these shadows. On mental objects.

This is an interesting topic. Outer body experience, which is commonly associated with Near death experiences. However, it is not uncommon like Near death. As whoever have lived long enough, may have experiences in following forms I like to discuss. Although this article is personal perspective, I would summaries available evidence wherever necessary, and your personal perspective is also welcome. What is outer body Experience? Copilot answer. An out-of-body experience (OBE) is a sensation where you feel as if your consciousness has left your physical body. During an OBE, people often report: Floating outside their body: A feeling of being detached from their physical form. Altered perception: Viewing the world from a different vantage point, sometimes looking down from a height. Realness: A sense that what’s happening is very real. While the exact cause remains uncertain, some theories suggest abnormal brain functioning in areas that process multisensory signals. However, there’s no scientific evidence that consciousness can truly leave the body. If you’ve experienced an OBE, you’re not alone—around 5% of people have reported similar sensations Outer body experience in Movies and culture. It is common occurrence such 'movements of the soul are screened in movies. I remember there was a scientific fiction teledrama, I watched a long time ago, where some scientists get together to take out one person's soul out of the body, to make it work for them. Unfortunately, the person died on the table. The man was a poor person who joined the experiment, only because he was offered money. It is unethical right? However, shocked by the death, the scientist himself, participate in the experiment as he wanted the mystery solved. The tragic struck twice and that was the sad end of the drama. My personal experiments and Sleep Paralysis. Inspired by different stories I did my own experiments. I became my own Guina Pig and tried to take my own mind out of my body. Hilarious when I think about it now, I even felt I am getting successful at some point, like making some progress. Never made it through. Later I tried to read other people's minds and even tried to send a message from my head. I imagine the receiving person from the other end and, unfortunately, they never got the message. Maybe it went to the wrong address. Or maybe it is still out there being delivered. Either way, I lost the interest up until now. Similarly, I had involuntary DeJa'Vu type experiences many times. Often it would happen, when I am seeping, I would suddenly realize I am not sleeping anymore. However, I cannot move my body, totally paralyzed. Cannot scream, cannot move, only able to think. And trust me I have tried to wake up. Wiggle my toes or tried to scream. Nothing is possible. After first few such incidents, I would know, that it will go away and although I feel I am woken Up, I am not woken up. Still, it is dreaming. And the previous Panic did go away, knowing that it is not death. Have you ever faced such experiences? Or heard the stories? Nowadays, I have come to conclusion, although these outer body experiences feel real, they are not the real deal. And the copilot also summarizes that there is no such evidence to outer body experience. There is no way our soul can separate and travel like an avatar, into the space. As the mind is associated with body, the moment it leaves, the body would become lifeless. And just like a life starts in a group of cells inside a mother's womb, same life would end when the marriage between the body is broken. Which looks permanent and irreversible. A consciousness is dependent on the body, and the body is dependent on consciousness. So, the body has become the prison of the consciousness, while the greed of consciousness keeps feeding the body, to sustain life. Why can we never leave our body? One other way to look at the problem is by studying the consciousness or the world. If we follow the arguments of consciousness article, it appears what we experience as the world is the manifestations or reflections on our own mind. Hence, the body we experience, and the mind we experience are all created within this process of consciousness. Hence, it is all one continuous function rather than several different 'things' It cannot separate out from itself. That ends this short discussion on outer body experience. I think a story about a tree would do better for anyone baffled by the philosophical arguments. Story of the Gentle Giant a tree.

My friend who was trying to get a job in UK did his IELTS recently and he got to talk about mirrors. It occurred to me mirrors and reflectors had indeed created fascinating reflections with a lot of memories in me over the years. What is there to talk about mirrors other than they reflect light? Mirrors and reflectors - in the Jungle. Have you seen the experiment when they keep a mirror in the middle of the jungle? In the opposite side hidden behind a bush a secret camera, recording everything. Animals unlike in the zoo, are not exposed to reflections much not from a mirror, so when they see their own reflections lot of them have reactions, thinking that there is an animal behind the mirror. Some got scared and some got angry, some got curious and went on investigating. Hardly any animal recognized it was their own reflection that they saw. But I am sure kept it long enough, looking at it long enough they would understand that the harmlessness of the reflection. Mirrors and reflectors - kaleidoscopes. We used to make kaleidoscopes when we were kids. Finding equal sized three mirrors was the difficult part. Once found they were used to make a prism and to the bottom a transparent paper is glued. When tiny colorful pieces of any material put inside the prison, we could see the reflections it creates. Although only few things were put inside, it reflects multiple times on its own, world and create wonderful patterns. These flowery patterns are different from each other, even if it is moved around slowly. And I could remember it was almost a non-tiring game to look at these patterns. Just Like watching you Tube videos. It feels like the same game, as we are always curious to see what new pattern it will bring next, into our vision. Mirrors and reflectors - of mine and yours. Along the way over the years, I have seen many more reflectors and reflections. I have seen projectors, which are used in our lecture halls. From old ones to modern smart Projectors. I have seen television screens, and I have seen the moon through telescopes, birds' thorough binoculars and more importantly I have seen all these with my eyes. Which are reflectors themselves. I had the opportunity to sit down and learn intricate details about cornea the iris and the Lense and their curvatures. I learnt about the rods and cones and their adequate stimuli which create similar projections to a camera. I would invite you to remind your reflections, where have you been. Maybe you have been to the north Pole and the south Pole. Maybe you are an astronomer who have been to the space or the moon. Maybe you are a solider who used to use IR cameras and night vision goggles. Maybe you are a deep-sea diver, who used to film corals and flocks of fish for Nature Planet. Or maybe you are a biologist using the microscope daily to see microbes in thin agar Plates. Maybe you are just a child who loves to blow soap bubbles, and still, you would see reflections unless you are blind. Reflections of mind Let's imagine you are away from your mirrors and lenses and soap bubbles. Since the morning since you opened your eyes today you have been seeing reflections which were made by your eyes. That is one window in our prison, to the outside world. As trying to be a mindful person, I see these reflections too. Just like the monkey Infront of the mirror, I see myself being happy and being sad and being angry and scared throughout the day, from these reflections. Really when I think about this, I notice this is what I have been doing since the day I have born to the moment of writing this. And Just I laughed like at the monkeys and animals who fool themselves Infront of the mirror who cannot see reflections as reflections. Why should I fear? How do we understand the philosophy of reflections. Where was the Toad? Philosophy of reflections Like yesterday, when I was walking to the bathroom, I saw a toad. hopping towards it to get a bath himself. I got afraid and I climbed on to a chair. I know, silly right? Ethics shouldn't have aesthetic criteria. I looked at the toad from the top of my chair again, noticed the reflection inside me which helped to identify the 'Frog' And I looked everywhere inside the brain to see a real frog. I could not see the real frog, no matter how much I searched there was only the reflection. Whatever the thing which was outside which created the reflection wasn't accessible with my senses. Maybe there was a frog, and maybe there wasn't. Of course you would tell me, If I touched the frog, I would have felt it there. The problem is If I closed my eyes, I would feel something soft and I wouldn't be able to identify or separate it from the skin of a frog to skin of a human. Can we get over this problem? How can we really prove there is something there outside in the world if we only see is the reflections inside the mirror since we were born? Truth is nobody would ever be able to. Although we live in a world which is agreed upon to be true, we all are stuck in our won relative worlds. Unfortunately, nobody can go out, or come inside this world. Consciousness is just like a mirror, which reflect what is outside through our senses. And it even reflects on itself like in a Kaleidoscope. And if I tell you there is only a mirror and nothing else, I would be lying as reflections do not happen without something outside. These reflections are not the real things either, have you ever thought about this. I think this previous article about mental objects would make more sense now, as it does to me. More you would find in the story of the scarecrow.

Nimbus, Cumulonimbus, Stratus, Clouds are everywhere in the sky. Every day, unless you live in a desert. Clouds teach us important lessons in life. I am not the weather man, but if you tell me I am a philosopher I would feel proud. I like to look at the sky, when I have nothing else to do. And today it is cloudy, no blue at all. We had a playground near our house. Often covered with fresh grass, it is a great place to be. When there is no sun, I would just lie on the grass and look at the sky, the clouds just drifting, just like the life. If you would like to know important lessons of silence, I suggest you read my previous article. But here I would like to emphasize on a historical cloud that changed the course of million lives as today. A historical day, end of an Era. It was 9th August 1945. There was a B29 plane flying over Japanese shores in stealth mode with, accompanying wing aircrafts. I would like you to meet Major Charles W. Sweeny who is the captain of the aircraft Bockscar. Yes, as you guessed it this is not an ordinary flight. The aircraft is carrying the "Fatman" the heaviest of the two atomic bombs which are responsible for end of the war, by means of instant death to over 100000 people. Which would seal the fate of many more to come. Just two days before, Hiroshima was bombed and everyone around the world shook in horror as the devastating effects of the nuclear power. Even the creators of the nuclear weapons began to doubt their sanity, as human beings. Cruel in its nature, destructive in power, atomic bombs are one of the cruelest creations of modern ethical, developed man. Hence, the second bomb, was supposed to cause more harm, as it was even bigger than the first in weight and destructive power. We will come back to the day of the bombing, the B29 came to the primary target of the atomic bomb, the city of Kokura. However, on this day, the sky of Kokura was covered with smoky clouds due previous bombing combined with poor weather. And as visual targeting was the norm those days, Captain Sweeny decided to move to the secondary target, and around 1100 hours they reached the City of Nagasaki. Now he had bigger problems. The Nagasaki also was covered with smoke and clouds that day. While waiting for the clouds to clear, they had limited time until they reach the limit of their fuel capacity to fly back to the base. Captain Sweeny had a decision to make, either drop the bomb, with radar guidance, blindly over the clouds, with bigger chance of missing target or abandon the mission. Yet, in the last minute, suddenly a death hole was opened up in the carpet of clouds showing the city underneath, and at 1102 the "Fat Man" left its safe compartment to rapidly descend towards the Mitsubishi, factories in the heart of the city. At 1600 feet above the ground the bomb detonated, and before even the B29 left the scene, 40000 lives were lost, in seconds which followed the detonation. The closest were lucky, as I am sure they did not even feel what happened when their bodies vaporized in hot nuclear blast shockwave. The death must be instantaneous in such close range. Unlucky were the ones which were wounded, and the children and animals whom to be born in the years to come. Survivors who lost their loved ones, as they were there to witness the aftermath and faced the consequences of radiation. It sure ended war; however, everyone doubted the method. Cruelty ended with cruelty. Who knows, what would have happened, if dictators stayed in power until the new millennium? right? A cloud would save the day Story. Even today the sky is cloudy, just like the day in Nagasaki, there is mist everywhere. I am glad, I am not in the era of the world war, and there is no B29 over the clouds. It made me think, what would have happened if there was no opening in the clouds that day. Would that save 20000 more lives? Could that save more lives and still ended the war. Yes, I do have enormous respect for the innocent looking clouds over my head. And the nature, is so unpredictable. A cloud did save the day in this historical story for people in Kokura, who lived their whole lives, but tragic for the Nagasakians. If you have any cloud stories I would like to know. maybe I will expand this article another day. Hiroshima Bombing Following is a paragraph from the book, what is time about the bomb "incident". I would apologize if you would not grasp the full meaning of paragraph. But it appears the arrow moves and hits the target after all. So, the time must not consist of instances. And how does our brain get around this problem? Our brain, or the mind tries to understand the world. And it creates the freeze frames in time which are again arbitrary as time has no instances. Imagine when we talk about the Hiroshima bomb incident. The picture of the gigantic mushroom cloud comes into our mind. But if time has no instances, we cannot talk about the Hiroshima bomb. It would be meaningless. There is no specific point in time which can be pointed out as the Hiroshima bomb incident. Hiroshima bomb incident, It is not the plane that flew with the bomb over Japan, It is not the release of the bomb It is not the travel of the bomb through the air It is not the impact of the bomb on ground It is not the detonation It is not the explosion It is not the nuclear blast It is not the shock wave It is not the collapse of the buildings and the clouds that followed It is a collection of every one of these events. And we know by the arrow paradox we cannot talk about an individual event which happened at an instance of time as time seems to be instance less in the first place

How I met Mr. Apple In our country there are no apple trees. So, we import them. I loved them and still I do. When I was a little boy, my father used to bring apples on special occasions. Like when on his Payday. Maybe a couple of weeks old apples, since they were harvested as apples took great difficulty coming here from the farm. They had to take a long journey on the lorry, in the voyage, through the mediterranean sea to reach us. And I didn't know all of this story. Yet, I knew only the taste of apple. The red color, and the tiny little seeds. Isn't it amazing fruit. It has more than 90% edible parts, compared to an avocado, or a mango. I would say, when the God made the Adam, and presented him with an apple how could he resist, eating it. Forbidden Fruit in Garden of Eden. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. — Genesis 2:16–17, King James Version [1] It made me wonder what Adam felt when he first took a bite from the sweet apple. God, was he unfair? He made the Adam in the first place with some delicate intricate tongue with taste buds. Not one, hundreds of them for different flavors. He made the neuronal network to identify chemicals, and teeth to get a good bite. He developed a brain and put a consciousness in there. And he created the apple. He created the apple with real balance in chemical composition to stimulate exact taste buds in a unique combination. And then He expected Mr. Adam not to eat the apple? What is the logic behind it? Should I just leave it there thinking this is God's plan and I would never understand that? Meeting Mrs. Apple Juice. Back to the question again, what Adam felt when he first took a bite from the sweet apple? I will take you a tour to how I met Mrs. Apple Juice. I first met her on a flight. That was my first flight, and I was offered like you guessed Mrs. Apple Juice on the plane. It was hard Mr. Apple to come to visit our country, so Mrs. Apple Juice did never make it there. Only because I took the journey that I ever met her. She was the Essence of Mr. Apple. As she reflected all the good things of Mr. Apple. Except for the shape and maybe the consistency, but the taste was similar. Even today I love drinking apple Juice. It made me wonder what Adam did feel when he took the first bite into the apple. I am sure he felt something, maybe it is 'Apple taste' but who knows. Imagine Adam, feels the mango taste like 'Apple' and apple taste like 'Mango'. Can anyone ever know? that his taste is switched? Even if you ask all the people in the world what he felt when he took the first bite into his apple, nobody would be able to answer the question. Not even Adam. Only he would know what he felt. And if you ask after a day or two From Adam what he felt yesterday, when he took the bite from the apple, he will tell he felt something like 'apple taste'. But that even is just a memory, and that's not the real 'taste'. This fact leads to an interesting conclusion. Now think about the following. God's existence and Apple Juice let's look at evidence of God's existence. If anyone claims, to know that what the other person felt, that person should be able to 'be' the exact person at the exact time. Because the sensations are temporary. Memory of a sensation is never the same as the sensation. If God knows everything, he has to be inside us every moment, living the same lives with us. Is it not great to know, that God lives in us all the time? Other side of the argument is that God, knows only some of the things. So, it means there must be some means even to cheat the God if it's true, when his attention is somewhere else. Maybe those were the thoughts of Adam, when he took the bite of the apple in the first place. Only God knows what he thought. For anyone who do not enjoy Philosophy following are fun facts about Apple. (Copilot version- do not blame me) Certainly! 🍎 Here are some fun facts about apples: Origin and Varieties: Apples belong to the rose family, just like pears and plums. The apple tree originated in Central Asia and has been cultivated for thousands of years in Asia, Europe, and North America. There are more than 8,000 varieties of apples, making them the largest variety of fruit in existence. Apple Trees: It takes 4-5 years for an apple tree to produce its first fruit. Standard-size apple trees start bearing fruit 8-10 years after planting, while dwarf trees start in 3-5 years. Apples ripen six to ten times faster at room temperature than if refrigerated. Apple Inc. Fun Facts: The name ‘Apple’ came from founder Steve Jobs’ liking for the fruit. Apple originally had three co-founders, but Ronald Wayne left the company after 12 days, missing out on shares now worth around $60 billion. The first Apple iPod had a hidden Easter Egg game called “Breakout.” Apple’s excess capital is around $150 billion, more than the U.S. Treasury. Feel free to ask if you’d like to know more! 😊

Now that is a tricky question. If you are in a hurry to go somewhere I will reveal the answer here, but if you have spared few minutes, I invite you to continue reading to why? The most valuable thing in the world is the knowledge of valuelessness. Positive Value of a Pot in Ancient China. Let's build our arguments here. Let's go into the Ancient China. Imagine you are a potter. You sit in the morning with freshly prepared clay to Mould some pots. The pots are valuable to you. Not only to you they are valuable to Chinese people. So, they come and buy some quality pots from you. Your pots are made so perfect that even they are sold to the palace. But as the potter your family is more valuable to you. So is your and their hunger, and their protection. So, if the pots are more valuable to you than your family, you would have sold your family and kept the pots. Yet you do the other way around. So is the hunger, and you spend some money to buy a house for shelter and buy some food. What is more valuable Food or clothes? Food is more valuable than cloths, right? If you ask our ancestors, they will tell. Would you rather die with cloths or live without cloths, and without hunger? Now, that is a difficult and unfair question to ask from you as you have both. Obviously if you are reading this. In real life, we would never face such extremes of choices. Do not forget that we passed the era of Auschwitz and even today such souls are not rare in different corners of the world who face such choices. Maybe it's not hunger and cloths, but hunger and medicine, hunger and education. Negative Value of a broken Pot. Going back to our little pot shop, the buyer has now value in your pot. For him his money is less valuable than the pot he is buying. That is why he agrees to the trade. Later he might think that he has paid too much for your pot, but at the exact moment he decides to buy, he has more 'value' or 'need' for the pot than the money he is paying. So, it is not the money which gives the 'value' to the pot. The value is generated by the need. If you want to know more about how the values are generated, read the following article on the topic. Either way, let's imagine the pot is gone to some house and after being used for a couple of weeks the pot is broken. The little child in the house, let it fall on the floor and it breaks into three pieces. It still has all the intricate drawings on its surface. It has the same amount of material in it. And even you could keep them together if you glued it, to make it look like a complete pot. Yet for the people in the house the pot has no value now. It is thrown out of the house as it might hurt the children, who like to run inside the home. You can call it has a negative value now. A valueless pot After some time, years and decades and centuries, even millennia go by, when everyone forgets about the broken pot. During this period of time the pot did not have any value. You could call it zero, why? Let's keep the question in mind as why it is valueless in this period of time, which will be answered later. Highest value of the Pot Archeologists while digging up ancient ruins dig up the pieces, with great care and utmost respect, they took it out in the museum and restored, pasted the three pieces together and dated it back to 2000 years to the exact location and emperor. It is the most preserved pot from that era, and with most delicate details of the flowery decorations. Most precious item in the entire pottery history. Now if we look at the value of the pot, I will say it has gone through the rooftop. If the potter lived today, he even would be amazed. Yes! exactly, can you remember, that you are the potter in our story. So, if I ask you now knowing all the story what is the value of the pot can you point out? No, you would not, as it was changing you would need more details. You would need at what time, which society and more importantly in whose mind? Now that is strange right? We can exactly trace the value of the pot to a specific mind, in specific person's thoughts but is it true for everything? That is for you to think about. As the story doesn't end there, I need to drag you to another step forward. If the values were not in the pot itself, what was the true value of the pot? What was the inherent value of the pot at any stage? It is zero, right? or no value. Did you see the valuelessness of the pot? It was only apparent when we think about the time when the pot was not recognized by any human being. From the time it was thrown away, to the time it was re discovered. It had no value as there was no thinking associated with the pot. Knowing this little truth about our values helps us to understand the world better. And It is the most valuable thing in the world. Now you can think and expand. What is the value of the wind? What is the value of a tree? What is the value of a phone? What is the value of SpaceX? What is the value of a road? What is the value of a life? What is the value of a soul? What is the value of you? If you have followed the arguments properly, now you possess the most valuable knowledge about valuelessness of the world.

This is an article I delayed a long time. Better late than never, right? You may wonder why mindfulness? Why should we try to maintain our awareness on our awareness (by definition this is mindfulness) Let me explain why. Mind you this is not a list of benefits of mindfulness but rather a motivational speech. Benefits of mindfulness - at Breakfast What have you eaten for your breakfast today? Some bread with eggs and milk? Did you know what it tasted like? Can you remember the taste? Or were you not aware of the taste. Maybe you were listening to the morning news bulletin or busy getting ready to work. Maybe you were thinking about the long list of tasks which needed to be completed today. But you missed your breakfast, the taste it had to offer. Maybe it went down your throat in a minute or two, just like the day before. But, what about the dinner you had last Saturday night with your friends. Maybe you had time to savor the bites. So, if you want to feel the taste you need to be mindful when you are eating right? Some time ago, there was some instruction somewhere that if you want to digest your food better you need to chew your food properly. And I practically used this myself thinking that I should chew each mouthful at least 10 times, before I swallow it. I learned that by doing this, I was more aware of the food which was in my mouth than what is going to come into my mouth, or what was in the plate. I was more aware of how much the stomach was filled, I was more aware of the tastes as it was chewed, and taste buds were more stimulated. Mind wants to move to the next mouthful, but the extra pause gave me time to savor the moment. Slow is new fast right? Benefits of mindfulness - in the Garden Next, we will move to the garden. How many times you looked at the trees in your garden for the whole last year? The garden is for our relaxation. You may have spent lot of money trying to keep it tidy. Maybe it is left to grow wild. Either way, is good as long as you have watched. Did you see the branches? Did you see the leaves? Did you see their different colors change day by day? I wonder what happened. I am sure they were green at some point, and suddenly you saw them in the Autumn. When they were yellow, but, you missed the entire time period in between. It doesn't mean that we should be staring at the window looking at the trees entire day. Yet, we do not need to travel too far into the woods to find peace. Maybe it is just by the window, and you may have missed it entire time because you are not mindful. Similarly, even if you were in the deep woods you would miss the entire experience if you just did focused on photography and trying to capture the moment with your lenses. Mindfulness is the Great Guide to the nature, good thing is he is never far away from you, and you can always summon, if you know how to. Benefits of mindfulness at work - time is money. Time is money, right? If you are paid by the hour this is so true. Even if you are not paid by the hour, you will spend time doing your work, some human hours. What exactly are you being paid for? If you think about this question you will come to notice, it is not your time they are paying for, but your body and mind work. Body work need your mind to be present during that time. Of course, you can make your mind wonder away if the task is monotonous yet, there should be some awareness about the work. This is why the employees are not allowed to use their phones or surf the internet while at some jobs. So, these human hours are hours that are not yours. You cannot put your mind to things that you like rather your employers need. If you ask me when do you find it is most difficult to stay mindful, I would say at my job. But I believe one day I would be able to, and nobody would be able to steal my hours even when I am at work and they would still be 'my' hours or rather 'hours'. If you don't understand the argument, think about the tree by the window analogy. It is like looking at the tree twice a year. I see, looking at myself just before I go to work, and next I just see the autumn tree, in a tired and stressed with a lot of yellow leaves. I even did not know the factors which lead to that state. What did I miss? An entire day of my mindfulness. Has it happened to you before? Mindfulness is the art of living. By now, you would understand, mindfulness is the key to understanding mind. If you look at the mind, it changes over the course of the time. With various external and internal factors. Often we would see the outcome, we would see ourselves stressed, angry sad and happy. And we would not know how we came to these. If given long enough time we would see trees would lose all their leaves and back again in spring with full colorful self. I see mindfulness as living. If you really want to live a life, you have to be mindful. As it is not something we should be doing, it is what we are. Mindfulness is living itself. All other healthy benefits are just side effects of mindfulness. This is the argument I wanted to emphasize when I discussed about the goal of mindfulness. What do you think about living a mindful life? Let me know in comments I had a dream a wonderful one I was a bird in it, and I was flying I was a tree and stood tall on a hill I was a leaf a rabbit, a rock in a brook I was the earth, the sun and the moon And I debated with myself on God and greed I screamed when I couldn't wake up While hot tears ran down my cheeks So I slept, and woke up in the dream Back again for another day of dreaming.

We have been to the zoo, as a kid and as an adult. Only couple of times ever, and I can remember as a kid I did enjoy it. With a bag of peanuts in my hand, looking at animals closer is some experience, we cannot have even in a safari. In a Safari, we only can see few animals and it is different feel. Recently I went to the same zoo, as an adult. While the kids having similar wonderful time, I had the opportunity to observe. Life in the Zoo Lions. I saw the lions Sleeping. It was almost ten o'clock in the morning. They had some of the largest cages as expected with plenty of open areas, but with tall walls separating from visitors. If it was a wild savannah, the pride would have been on hunt in the morning, for some fresh impala. But here fresh meat is served specially prepared for them, so they do not catch any disease. Without any risk of dying early killed by their fathers, cubs even have a best chance of survival as well. But I know it is the animal rights authorities' efforts throughout the world which has brought the rules and regulations that they are cared for now. As for the common view of life in a cage is suffering, I could see the benefits of it as well. If you have read the previous article about Robert frost and what a wonderful world you would have identified the dangers of the wild. So, the real question is what the lions think about the question. Best scenario is to ask a lion who have lived both lives, or after explaining risks and benefits of all the choices. Who is intelligent enough to remember both options and weigh them to make an informed decision. Maybe we can make a council of lions who makes decisions on such matters on behalf of unborn Pride. The make it a law. But they have to consider, individual variations of choice when applying such law. The truth is we would never know, what individual lion wants. Now you would understand such questions like animal ethics are not easy to answer. From superficial level it seems it is bad to change the nature by making a zoo, just for the entertainment of humans and some to make money. If you take the history, there had been actual human zoos, with kidnapped children from African tribes. Clearly it is unethical, yet on the other hand humans can convey what they really want, and they can make informed decision where they would like to stay (Although at the time of the human zoos, the privileged actually believed those tribal people were not able to make informed decisions at all) Imagine you are a fish, in an aquarium. Would you rather be in it the rest of your life if you were given chance to freely roam in the wild. Humans can answer such complex questions but not fish. Life in the Zoo Orangutan Walking along the paths of the zoo, we came to the place where there was a Gigantic Orangutan. Clearly it looked sad (maybe it is their natural faces). He was sitting there on a Lattice made by humans with its gloomy frozen stare at us. The cage was in escapable. There was only one tree inside and it had a downward facing roof attached to its trunk so it could not even climb the tree. And it made me realize That is a Guy who likes to be in wild. But still, I would not know. We are never going to find out the real truth. Maybe it only wished for some female counterpart. Maybe it was the loss of a loved one. Suddenly I realized similar question which was difficult to answer. The town mouse and the country mouse. Simply put the classic story tells us the same dilemma. I have previously discussed the problem of living in the town vs the country. But wherever we live, the problems in life are not going to go away, and it is sometimes hard to choose one over the other. Compared to sad Orangutan, the chimpanzees were happy. They were doing some tricks. They spread their hands like Beggers and making sad faces and asking for treats from visitors. Some even were rewarded with food, although it was banned to feed them, obviously both parties didn't care about human rules. They have adapted and surviving. I am sure most of the animals are not in a position to decide for themselves where they should be. They seem to be not intelligent at all. If I ask the zookeeper, which animals she think is not happy in the zoo, she will surely point out to the ones. But obviously we have to agree some animals are too dumb. It would not make a difference for them where they are. Life in the zoo animal ethics to Wars and Gods Realm. It is something is fundamentally wrong to think about the zoo in this way. We can argue both for and against the keeping animals in the zoo. But we will never come to a conclusion. Maybe there is no answer to questions like these on animal ethics. Just like our Middle east, just like the town mouse and the country mouse, just like the theist and atheist. So maybe the way I look at the problem is wrong and maybe even the Zoo is just nature. If I shouldn't change the nature, and the zoo is also the nature, maybe I should just walk away without making it a problem, and that's Just what I did. Instead, I questioned the question before it becomes a missed opportunity. So, what do you think about life in the zoo and animal ethics ?

Introduction - Why Ever since I can remember I watched television. As it had consumed a considerable amount of time, I think it's time to write about it. Maybe you have watched maybe you are surely using some kind of a screen, even to read this. Hence, following may apply to you even if you don't watch television. Evolution - Skip Yes, you are allowed to skip this section, as it is not included in the title. The television was initially black and white. That was a long time ago. We had a television, even when I was born! and that was the only television for the whole neighborhood. People from all around our home came to watch news and teledramas. Then everyone wanted a television, and one by one they stopped coming to our house. As all of them brought their own. Initially there were only few channels, and programs were there only for a part of the day. I can remember waiting for counting hours for the favorite program to come up. We had to say alert and stop our work to catch a movie or a cartoon. Then came the colored version. As people needed more and more, there was a roller-coaster since then. Flat screens were next, Sterio sounds, LCD screens and Smart TVS. Nowadays more and more developments in software, we have hundreds of channels to choose from. And even to save and record our favorite programs so we can watch it leisurely. I'm sure you have at least once watched a 3D movie as well. I can see our demands are never stopping, we have cheaper versions to highly expensive versions. We need television in our pockets. (my cheap Chinese phone) And our poor scientists have a hard time developing them. They will end up without options one day to catch up with our greed. How much more the television can improve? I couldn't find a single program to watch from hundreds of channels the other day, Analysis paralysis, right? Do our minds ever going to satisfy with cravings just by satisfying them? How to watch television - 3 ways. Ears closed television There are several ways to watch television. Our normal way of watching television is eyes and ears open. Have you ever tried to watch television with ears Closed? You may ask what the point is. I would say try it. Try watching Despacito with the mute button on. And you would see the part of the illusion is missing. And sometimes it is hilarious to see the moves of singers and dancers without the sound. And even your mind will start to scream to turn on the sound. I suggest not to. Let it learn what is the world will look like without sounds. I see this phenomenon in recent tick Tok trends where they dub the voice of celebrities with everyday bare voice. Eyes closed television Next is eyes closed television. Yes, it does sounds wrong. I think you have done this before though, Radio, sounds familiar. Can you remember the times when they used to play voice dramas in Radio. We used to snuggle up all the siblings to listen to a Ghost story broadcasted in afternoons. Such adventures. They created old mansions and greedy wealthy owners, with their young stunning brides. And those mental pictures were stronger than television. We are now even lazy to create a mental picture because of the TV. I can remember earlier days when we were not allowed to watch teledramas. But I could hear them very well, from my room, when I kept the door just open enough. Just like watching the drama, I could imagine the whole story and even waited in anticipation for the next episode another day. Maybe my teledrama was vivid in imagination than the actual ones played on the TV, I could never know. Later I used this trick myself when I was preparing myself for final exams in college. I was busy with work, and I wanted to watch the Cricket Match as well. Watching the live match is far superior to watching Highlights as emotions are high on the roof. Yet I wanted to do my studies as well. I used to turn on the television, go to my room, keep the door half open and do my work. The match will play on. If you have watched a cricket match, you would know that most of the balls are either not played or fielded. Only the ones where fours and sixers matter most, or when a wicket falls. And there are lot of advertisements too. What I did was, I focused on studying. When the mind hears the commentary gets stronger in the background when something interesting happened, I would go there and watch the replay. By this way I did cover the whole match and did a wonderful study session as well. And I knew the lessons as well as, the match. So, I could Boast about both with my friends next day. I suggest you can do this with any game. Recently I learned about baseball, which pretty much looks the same. Total duration of the game was about three hours and I noticed for the total duration something interesting happens in only about three four minutes. Would you rather waste your three hours of your day just for three minutes of entertainment? I am not against watching an entire match, on TV or on the ground. Yet, it's just a trick which comes handy. Television with a magnifying glass. Let's move from there to some more ways to watch television. Have you watched television with a magnifying glass? It's just three lines of colors of red, green and blue. With different shades created by alternating the colors which ones are on. If you want to know how it works, there are plenty of YouTube videos about this. But in this article, it is not about how, but what to do with the knowledge, or application. I often wonder why I forget that there is nothing but a collection of three dots. But the illusion creates Wild beasts grazing in savannah being chased by lions. Next, philosophy of watching television Philosophy of watching television Now we know some different ways to watch television, I can tell you about a movie that we have been watching for a long time, that we have forgotten it is a movie. We have forgotten, so much that we have started to live in this. The movie feels so real, not only the pictures, not only the sounds, but this television is also so realistic it brings us the touch smell and taste too. Just like a metaverse, everything is 3D. The main character is behind your eyes. How do you know it is a movie not real? Close your eyes, you will see everything colorful disappear. Just like you turned off the TV. If you keep your eyes closed forever, there will be no colors. If you can keep your eyes closed till you die, the movie will play without any color. (A blind person's world) Close your ears, you will notice the movie will have no sound, when you do this. The pictures will move, but they will not make Noice. Only silence, like a still movie. Like you turned on the mute button. Just for the sake of it, close your one eye and suddenly the movie will become 2D. No longer there would be depth and you will knock your pinkie toe on a rock. Stop moving and touching and you will notice there will be no hardness and no softness. This movie which created by your mind made it so real. The film is only played for you. The main character is also you. You are the director and the cameramen, the sound producer and the writer of the screenplay. And you are also the only one who is watching the movie. You are also a part of the movie. If you would like to know more about the movie, I would suggest you read article on Consciousness.

So, as I have been writing too much depressing articles lately, I have decided I should tell you the secret recipe to be the happiest person in the world. And trust me it actually works. If you have read previous articles about consciousness, mental objects and value of anything etc. you may have already guessed that it has to be something to do with manipulation of the mind. I can remember about 20 years ago when following thoughts occurred to me when I was walking home from the school. How to be the happiest person in the world- a secret recipe I was walking through the fields and due to some reason, I was not happy. Maybe it was tiredness, maybe it was time of the day. I felt like the stranger. I thought that no matter how much happy I would be after all the struggle, in the future that is not going to help. I wanted to be happy now and at that moment in time. Just like you now. Then I decided I should be the happiest person in the world. So, I thought in this second just a second if I could fill my mind with just happiness for no reason, I could be the happiest person in the whole world, just for a second. So, I really did. I filled my mind with happiness for no reason just for a second. And even today I believe that was one of the happiest seconds of my life. And there is a good chance that in that second, I may have been the happiest person in the whole world. (if happiness is measurable) It made me smile. Now try for yourself Now after so many years I have told you my secret recipe for happiness. It is true we cannot maintain such happiness throughout the day, but anybody can do it for a one second. Try for yourself and tell me what happens. It doesn't matter where you are, It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter what bad things you have seen so far It doesn't matter what crimes you have done in the past. Give your mind a second. The second that your mind have been craving for, all these years chasing your dreams. Maybe your mind is tired after all, after a long day. And when you fill your mind's cup with happiness fill it up to the brim, so that happiness overflows. And I bet you will be happier than me, happier than your friends and happier than your enemies. You and only you would know you are the happiest person from the whole world, and it will surely make you smile. I will end the trick here, and following is my analysis to why this trick works. Happiness is not a continuous state of mind, so if you try to maintain it, it will not work (read about happiness is a buoy) You are not giving your mind the dreaded task of being happy every day. You just want only one second of your whole day to be happy. So, the motivation, is very high as the task is not overwhelming. You are not bounded by external objects or any other means to generate such happiness, and mind you it will be so pure in content. Whoever try the trick is unlikely to do it at the same time as we all are separated by the time and location. So, it is very likely the second is just your mind to shine as there are no contestants. Even if you came second it doesn't matter. Remember all the people you surpass by doing this. It includes not only happiest people on the planet, but wealthiest men and women, most powerful beings, and even most peaceful people of the whole world, and definitely I would be sleeping. Ha ha ha. Let's be happy. A paragraph from the book what is time In the land of happiness quantifiers. If someone asked how happy you felt when you knew you passed the exam, or the interview, or the promotion, you might express yourself. “I was very happy, enormously, Amazing, like flying” etc. But nobody would quantify happiness like” I was 100 degrees happy, 500 degrees happy or 50000 degrees Happy". Or we could quantify our happiness by the angle of our mouth, or the dopamine level we produce. Imagine a society where happiness (which is a feeling) is quantified. We would feel alien, to live among the ‘happiness quantifiers'. If happiness is a currency in that world, definitely it would make sense. It would make perfect sense to pay an extra-large smile, for a morning cup of coffee, in this hypothetical world.

Language is an important part of our lives. It is one of the factors which separate us from animals. Although we try to prove some animals use language, I am sure that they will never come to a point that they speak a proper language even elementary as our ancestors used. Wherever you live in the world you will be using a language to communicate the fellow humans. We will look at some philosophical aspects of language and discuss some of them in detail. As our knowledge is built upon language, it is utmost important to learn about the tool itself, to understand its strengths and weaknesses. Common observations about language. There are thousands of languages around the world. And all of them are evolving. More isolated a group of people from the rest of the population, they have unique changes in their language, and some such communities have their own languages, with no connections to the other languages around the world. From this observation it is apparent that language is a creation of human beings. For the purpose of communication. All these languages are capable of explaining common observations that humans make within that community. More knowledgeable community is more advanced their language will become as new words needs to be added to describe new observations. So, this also brings up the question what is communication? and what is a language? Fundamentally communication is the method of a one consciousness, trying to explain another consciousness the observations it made over time. Language is the general convention which is previously agreed within such advanced community to such observations. We can understand this fact with an example. Imagine a man walk into a room. And we say "The teacher walked into the room". Easy right? Everyone will get the meaning when they read or hear that sentence. So, we know what is 'Teacher'. We learned it early in our lives that teacher is someone who teaches us some subject. We know 'The teacher'. When we say the teacher, we put it in context of current situation. And even would know exactly which teacher is this, unique from all the other teachers. If it is early morning math's period, we would know that it is the math teacher. And if you are not sitting in a classroom you would think about a general image of a teacher. We know 'The room'. We have learned what is a room and agreed upon this. Similarly, we know what is walking. The teacher and the room are Nouns. And walking is the Verb. We can analyze the whole language from this sentence. As the consciousness always try to understand the nature, Language is the great tool for this. But if you see close enough you would see that there is something wrong when we stick to these conventions, and it is really difficult to grasp. Let's be a third person and look at the above scenario. The observer (in this case a student, or you) see a teacher walking into the room. And this observation makes sense only when he identifies this phenomena and label this in his mind. How does he do that? The language is the tool. He labels it as. "Oh, the teacher walked into the room" It doesn't matter what the words are, I am sure any language would have such words to describe above observation. And when we read and hear it, we would make same mental pictures. Now you may ask what the error in this is. What are nouns and verbs and functions? Before coming into the philosophy of language, I will take you down the road of mathematics. Calculus. You may have skipped this class like me. I never learned mathematics into the realm of Calculus. So, it doesn't matter you are an art student or not. You will grasp the meaning of what this is about. Modern Calculus was developed by Sir Issac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (independently from each other). Imagine you are under a tree and an apple fell onto your head. You started to wonder about this phenomenon. You thought about it and made following thoughts. First, I want to know, what distance the apple fell in each second. How can I do this? You can do a little experiment and fix the frame of time in each second and measure the distance right? (Let's say we can do this by taking photographs at the end of each second.) Now I want to know what the speed of the apple at the end is of each second. (If you have learned calculus, this is the rate of change in the distance travelled.) As the distance travelled by the apple in each second is different, the speed seems to change over time. So at any given time, the apple would have different speeds. Calculus helps us to calculate speed at any given time accurately provided we know all the variables. Now I want to know the acceleration, at any given time. Which is the rate of change of the speed. (Again, calculus can help in determining this- and he discovered this is constant in close range which is The Gravity of earth) Those are the similar thoughts Newton had when he was under the apple tree. And he discovered Calculus. Calculus helps us to study a continuous change which happens over time. These continuous changes which happen over time are described by functions in mathematics. Previously I have written an article about the importance of functions. And how to model the world with mathematical functions. And in conclusion, you would see that there are functions all around us, and that is the only thing there is. As 'change' is the fundamental characteristic of a function, 'change' is also a fundamental characteristic thing of things. Philosophy of language verbs and nouns(science) understanding construct errors and limitations Now, we have background knowledge of what mathematicians and scientists see the world as. They see the world as combination of different functions. But when we look at sentences which is the fundamental units of the language, we see mainly it consists of verbs and nouns. Let's go into details of the philosophy of language, verbs and nouns. Verbs. Of course, verbs are functions. If we looked at the verb 'walking' we can model some mathematical functions to describe the walking. As walking is a continuous 'change' over time. Can you do this with nouns? That there is the error in language. We have nouns in language. But in mathematical and scientific models of the world there are no nouns but continuous functions. How did we make a fundamental error like this? Let's look at the above sentence to understand this phenomenon closely. Our sentence was 'The teacher walked into the room'. Our language, in that case our consciousness hides the true nature of 'The teacher' and 'the room'. Who is a teacher? Teacher is a mind and a body. Collection of things. You can understand the complexity of the word teacher as a collection of things. And these individual things are bound to change. As an example, if we think about the weight of the teacher, it is changing continuously, with each breath. If we think about the height of the teacher, it too is changing. If we look at the color and the mass, these too are changing. These changes even occur in macroscopic to atomic scale. From one given point of time to the other. And basically the 'noun' teacher can be described as a 'collection' of functions. So, if every noun can be replaced by a collection of functions, what is the purpose of having them? I invite you to read the chapter on understanding time in a novel way to get some intuition to this question. Here I will describe it in language of mathematics. Every continuous function has infinite amount of data in it. Even something happening over a one second have infinite number of fractions in it. Our minds, or consciousness is not capable of understanding the infinite amount of data. So, just like Newton used calculus to describe a rate of change in a function, we use nouns to describe the world. When we do that, we only limit ourselves to a fraction of time where there is a fixed frame. Just like a fixed frame of a teacher, with a specific, weight, specific height and specific color. However, as you understand this is not the real world. It is just an approximation, which works well, and which makes us happy and sad and continuously living. In summary. Language uses models of nouns and verbs to describe the world. Mathematics and science uses functions to describe the world. Like calculus in describing the rate of change of a function, nouns describe a fixed frame of otherwise changing function in a real world. This fact about the language makes us understand the world in a wrong way, although correct in common convention of language, wrong in a true scientific sense. If you would like to read more on our consciousness, I invite you to read previous article on how to hack our consciousness. And it will get us one step closer to truth, hence nature.

It occurred to me that I haven't written about this favorite story of mine in the blog. I am really not sure where I heard it from but that is stuck in my mind for good reasons which you will too if you find its interesting. The story is about monkeys. Now, monkeys are notorious for being mischievous right? I am not talking about the innocent ones deep inside the thick jungles of amazon and Congo. I am talking about monkeys in general, in zoo, in human habitats, and monkeys in the Jungle book kind. They are intelligent, may be not all of them are mischievous but for the sake of the story let's assume they are and otherwise the story would not work! The Monkey and the bird story Once upon a time there was a group of monkeys, they dwelled in a deep forest. And on a treetop there lived a tiny bird. You can think of any kind of a bird. Any kind of a bird who builds fine nests. Birds are known to make fine nests, most of the species. And this little bird had a nice little nest build on top branches of a tall tree. Covered with twigs and leaves, and padded with cotton and feathers inside, the nest was a delightful place, a shelter for its family, even on heavy rain. As it happened one there, there was a heavy downfall. Like Monsoon type. And the monkeys, as they never built homes, were lost, they started to try and find shelter on the branches of the tree, mostly in vain as the storm raged on. And it started to become too cold for them to bear. Earlier, these monkeys have seen men who go on hikes into the jungle. To keep warm they make fire. And knowing this some of the elder monkeys started to make a fire. They started to gather around and find some red color seeds from a nearby tree and started to blow them to start a fire like humans. That's what they have seen humans do. Humans make fire and keep it burning by blowing wind onto the sparks of fire, and these 'wise' monkeys thought they knew what exactly they are doing. But they just got exhausted as expected and yet did not give up. Shivering in coldness, battered by rain, they kept on blowing on the red seeds, hoping it would make fire. Stupid right? As it happened the little bird also thought its stupid. The bird as expected was intelligent. And it knew that the blowing on red seeds would not make fire at any cost. So, within the comfort of its nest the bird shouted at the monkeys. "Hey, you monkeys what are you doing?" Monkeys told, "We are trying to make a fire." With a little giggle the bird told. " You idiots, don't you know that how much time you spend blowing on those seeds you would never succeed. You would not make fire" Monkeys got very angry, "You F---- stupid bird, what do you know about making fire. Let us teach you a lesson." they roared and within seconds the bird's nest was thrown in the air, and that was the end of the bird itself. Moral of the story That is the end of the monkey and the bird story. Although the ending is sad, moral of the story is very strong. Sometimes knowledge is not enough. If you do not have wisdom, as we all are living in a world where stupidity is overwhelmed, you can fall into danger of such stupidity. And, often it happens, we should keep our silence, as even the truth itself can lead to more harm. Knowing the truth is useless if you do not know when and how to use it. And such should be only to be reviled to the ones who are wise and humble enough to correct themselves.