This would be the strangest thing that I am going to write. It makes me smile. Showering is something we do alone, most of the time. It is very personal affair between us and the body we possess. What a good opportunity to practice some mindfulness ? How can a daily routine shower can be a place for you to relax and be mindful? That is the objective of this article. At least get you a smile at the end. https://unsplash.com/@tuzbro A natural Shower. First, we will look at natural showering. Have you ever taken a natural shower? From a waterfall, or a roadside stream? A dip in the sea or a natural pool. These are my observations. I can remember when I was a teenager I took a dip in the sea. I call it a dip, as I did not know how to swim. I was always fascinated by the sea. I would walk to the depths of the sea until I am drowned to my nose and wait for a big wave. When it does, it was often higher than me, and I would be rolled and washed toward the beach. That was a dangerous affair, as Sherlock Holmes would point out, as at any moment I could have been dragged to the sea. I can remember I would close my eyes when a wave is approaching and just roll with it to the shore. Only to open when my feet hit the ground again. Fortunately, it always did hit the ground. I wouldn't do that today. As I have become wiser to know the life is more valuable than the adrenalin rush in the youth. Some would not survive to live up to the full potential of it because of the stupidity like I had. Even before this we would take a "Natural shower" when it was monsoon. The rain created a little waterfall, from the gutters, and this was a fun time for us kids. We were allowed to take a rainwater shower. Mind you those days we took water from the well, and there were no pipelines to our house. I have written a great deal on monsoon and showers we had, in my previous article Rain rain go away . What is the wisdom we can gain from above to our daily routine showers? https://unsplash.com/@lifeofrobbie How to have a Mindful shower? I want you to imagine going back to those natural showers and remember what happened. You were fully engulfed by the environment or in the moment. At such places the mindfulness is natural, and that is why we can remember everything. Even the sensation of splashes of water in your face. One thing I noticed is I have kept my eyes closed. And let the body feel what it does with the water. That there is a simple trick to have a mindful shower. Close your eyes and fully engage with water. Rather than doing it habitually you can do it mindfully. Once you close your eyes feel the water from the top of your head to toes. And you will feel your problems washing away. You may find that when you close your eyes, the body is not able to identify the difference between a waterfall shower and an artificial shower. It is the same sensation. Only difference is the context provided by your mind that this shower is not natural. And you will realize that all showers are same. It is natural, and there is a waterfall, at your home. I'm sure you will enjoy more when you realize this fact. Do you know the best part of it is that this "Natural shower" comes with zero risk to life. Unlike a dip in the sea, even the stones are slippery at the waterfall. You can be more creative taking a shower. As I wrote in the previous article being creative is the modern American Dream . So, you can be more creative in taking a shower. You would ask me why? I would say look at the numbers my friend. Do you know how much time we spend in the shower during our lifetime? If it is twenty minutes a day, that would be almost one whole year in shower in your lifetime! Do you want to fill this year with stress and anxiety or creativity in life? https://unsplash.com/@nishaan_ahmed Taking a shower is a conceptual art. Not only taking a shower, but anything can be conceptual art . You do not believe me? You would, once you know how much they paid to the guy who pasted a banana on the wall with a duct tape and call it an Art. So, I created my own art during the showering. This is how it worked. I kept my hands on my chest one folded over another and created a little pool. Let the warm water (or cold if you prefer) accumulate in this little pool on my chest. It starts to overflow like a dam on a heavy rainy day. And it transmits the heat of the water directly to my chest. And I would let it go, like a break in the dam, so the rest of my body, which was devoid of water now flooded with it. It makes me smile every time I do this, as I felt like a statue of David in the middle of a fountain. I am sure you will be more creative than this. Let me know. I hoped you enjoyed reading how to have a mindful shower.

Is it about retirement? I was looking at an advertisement on securing your retirement. And saw a photo of group of senior citizens paddling a raft smiling, in a peaceful river. The bold letters said, "JOIN US TO SECURE YOUR RETIREMENT". It sounded wonderful but made me smile. I am all about making a retirement plan, but of course, hardly I would be rafting when I am above sixty. What are they thinking? I am getting old wiser, not dumber. Retirement: https://unsplash.com/@pzlvrs This is not the first time I saw such an advertisement. Often, I would see, funeral plans, selling on live TV. Again, I am not against someone making an arrangement for their death. But what about the advertisement, which makes me want to think my funeral would be a _____ wedding in atmosphere. What is the point? Aren't we going too far with this? I think for anyone who doesn't understand what life is, that will be a good trap to fall into. If you are living, you can't retire. In a way it makes me sad to look at life as something which ends up in retirement and death. And I refuse to believe those advertisements about happiness found in retirement. No, something is fundamentally wrong when we look at the life in this way. I call it Economists way of looking at life. I had opportunity to view a set of lectures about financial markets by professor of Economics Mr. Robert J Shiller in yale university. If you check, you tube you might find this interesting. Finance is the modern man's tool for doing some significant and massive work. When we look at the evergreen container ship which was stuck in Suez Canal in 2021, we amuse ourselves with engineering and creativity behind these gigantic projects. Yet it is the finance, which has made it possible for people to collaborate together to make those marvels. The ship was massive as well as the Canal itself. One important aspect of individuals finance is investment horizon. That exactly means what it means. If you are the sun, sunrise is your youth. Noon where you are ferocious at work and earning is your Middle Ages. And the golden hour is your retirement, and the investment horizon is when you have decided to withdraw your savings to make it bit colorful just before your death. Container ship: https://unsplash.com/@puntertje The power of now approach to life I find it frustrating to look at life in this approach. Infact, I have written a great deal on this in zero of life . However, there is more promising approach to look at life instead of constant march from birth to death. And that is power of now approach and sometimes mistakenly taken as mindfulness. Being aware of the present and to identify, whatever good or bad happens in this moment. Or the second we call life. This is fairly good view about life I agree. It is about now, right? You must feel good now. What is the point making a fortune and be dead before even retire? If you can't go on a vacation to your favorite destination tomorrow what is the point saving for twenty years to do it when you can't even hear. Maybe this is the reason why more and more youth involved in a radical approach to life. To feel good now. There is no retirement when this approach is considered. Instead, you can rest. However, I find positives and negatives in both approaches. More importantly when I think the now approach, I see similar errors. If we can pack life into a second. Why stop there? We also can pack it into a millisecond. It's not about retirement It's about timing: https://unsplash.com/@karsten_fuellhaas If we can pack life into a millisecond why stop there? We can pack it into a microsecond. I see there is no depth to this and only imagination can show that maybe this also is wrong? If it is logical to pack life into a microsecond then there cannot be a meaning to the life. As to even form a meaning we need at least a second! Otherwise, good and evil, heaven and hell, rich and poor will disappear together with the self into thin air. Poem -> Happiness poem. Time -> understanding time Relative nature -> simple truths So, in summary, I can see problems in both approaches to life. The economist's way and the mindfulness way. So, this lead me think maybe 🤔 it is just relative. Maybe mind is a magician who creates things out of thin air after all. What is your approach to life?

Crabs and shells Look Nelly come and look! Tom shouted at Nelly who was making sand castles on the beach. She didn't want to get up, yet she knew it must be something interesting as Tom is her brother. And rarely he bothered Nelly, and he is the best brother she could have. She, went to tom and kneeled near him as he is. Turtle swiming "What is it Tom?" "The shells, look at the shells, they are walking!" Nelly bend down to look at what he is pointing. There was a shell indeed. And indeed it was moving. But how? She was as suprised as Tom to see the walking shells. She kept her elbows on the ground to reach more closer to the moving shell and noticed tiny feet protruding out to the ground. Now that is interesting! She expected feet like a slug, but these are not sluggy at all. More like a beetle or a crab. That is it! They are exactly like a crab. Maybe it is a crab. Then suddenly it hit her. That is a crab! Who has taken the shelter of a shell. She had seen it on a TV documentary. Never thought she would see it real. Tom was suprised of her sisters knowledge. Well that solves the mistery. Shell moves because of the crab. Maybe it ate the slug, or maybe it is a dead shell that it took over, whatever happened now it is the crabs home. This is a tiny crab. When it becomes bigger it will move to a bigger shell. The turtle beach They were at the turtle beach for the vacation. The coral reef which was the home to the turtles did reach beyond the sea and into the beach. Clearly visible rock made it harder for the waves to erode it with its full ferocious power. Hence baby slaps to the shore. Unlike anywhere else the sand was red and rich in grains. The mangroves marked the end of the land. There were less hotels, and beachfront private gardens, hence turtles did not yet, wanted to move their breeding grounds. For generations they have been coming back here for the purpose of laying eggs. Sally and Tom were excited to see them in action. Maybe tonight. Maybe tonight they will come and we will get our chance to dig a hole for them. While Tom was busy digging holes, Nelly did continue with her castles. She was a quite girl, at home, in school, even on a trip. She either needed only a book or a lump of clay for keep herself busy. And books, that is where all her knowledge came from. She knew everything about them, turtles. She knew turtles are innocent and, that they are silent. She wondered how a person could live all their lives in silence. And often she knew she was labelled as silent. Maybe, I was a turtle in last life. While she was day dreaming about the local hatchery she went with papa yesterday, Tom came with a bucket full of wet sand. He wanted to build a castle of his own. Hatchlings - happy swimming Nelly? Will our castle will be there by tomorrow? I mean will they be washed away to the ses by tomorrow? I know what you mean silly. Let me think. She looked back at the waves. They were a good ten yards away from the waves. I think it will last atleast a couple of days. Unless it rains tonight, or a turtle destroy it. Oh, I thought it will be there next year when we come back. Papa said he will come back next year. No Tom. It would not. I am sure a big wave come tonight and wash this away. Why do you think there are no plants this part of the beach. Can you see, the waves have crashed even there. That is why the sand is still wet. I am sure of it. Then I am not going to build a castle what is the point. I will grow bigger and make houses like Pa does. It will last forever. Nelly smiled at her brother. She knew houses that Papa build do not last longer either. Yet she didn't want to break her little brothers heart more. So she asked him to help her with her own castle. They waited few more hours on the beach Until it was dark and went back to the banglow. That night Nelly kept awake reading her books, while her little brother was soundly sleeping like a crab inside a shell. Maybe he was exhausted from the afternoon on the beach. It was almost midnight when her father knocked on the door, with a torch in his hand. The turtles have arrived, and they waddled in the night like a group of scouts on a mission. And they spotted the turtle who had dug a hole. She was laying eggs! A whole lot of them. They sat on the sand and waited until she finished, and slowly began to cover her eggs with sand. She was silent the whole time, just like it was a sacred affair. Just like she crawled to the sea, a long time ago for the first time as a newborn She began crawling back. Trusting the nature to protect her eggs and offspring. Nelly followed her all the way, passed the sand castle into the sea. They marked her breeding ground with a flag and fitted a cage to protect it from predetors. Nelly helped father to clean the surroundings. Mama Turtle When they returned that 🌙night there was enough moonlight, it looked more like a dream than reality. She knew she would never forget that day ever, and the eyes of the mama turtle, was all that she could think of until she fell asleep. The red Turtle (Film) The Red Turtle is a 2016 animated fantasy drama a silent film directed by Michaël Dudok de Wit, known for its stunning visuals and poetic storytelling. The film follows a man shipwrecked on a remote island who encounters a giant red turtle. Their interactions and the man's journey of survival and acceptance are depicted without dialogue, relying on evocative imagery and sound design to convey the story's emotional depth. The Red Turtle explores themes of life, death, and the cyclical nature of existence, leaving a lasting impression on viewers with its minimalist yet profound narrative. The film is not action packed. But it will speak to similar silent hearts, just like an extraterestial observer to life.

How I made a new word. Recently I learned that the language is a tool. It is not the perfect tool but a good enough tool to pass a message and do some math. Hence, I wanted to little experiments I decided I should make a word. So, without further thinking much I created a word. Following is one. New word. And if you search the internet, there are loads and loads of new words or 'slang' developed daily. And who makes them? People? A secret agency? And how do they make these words. Often it is by combination of some other words. Have I made a new word before? This is not the first time that I have tried to make a new word. In the past when I was a kid I had a whole new language made up just for myself. And I had a book written completely from this language. It was similar to my mother language, that I used special symbols to represent each and every letter in the alphabet. Hence, technically speaking it is not a new language but a secret code. Funny fact Is now I can remember I even was able to write in this language after memorizing all the letters. Unfortunately, there was no-one crazy as I am to continue the crazy code. Hence maybe I lost the interest after some time. But, no, I haven't made a new word before. https://unsplash.com/@leyko Why should you make a new word? But after decades, as an adult, yesterday when it occurred to me there is no word for what I felt. I felt like the Great Thomas Alva Edson, or the famous Shakespeare, for a fraction of a second. A happy place which lasted for a fraction of a second . Just like a poet, who enjoys re-reading the masterpiece, just like the Michelangelo, looking at his ' David ' the next day he finished it. I took a moment to rejoice the simple accomplishment that I could add one word to million words already there. I am sure it would not last like the rest of the bunch. And I have no doubt It will never come to a dictionary. But does it matter? No, as nothing lasts forever in the world in the universal time scale. So, Even English is subjected to rules of the nature I am not worried. It would serve a purpose. Hence, to prove my point, and to kick my fraction of a second happiness into a minute I wrote the following Poem. Poem In the middle of last night. While I was retired on the couch. Dozing off sleepozing. Noticed, I have been looking for you For a long time Everywhere. Except within myself. So, with this experience, I invite you to make a new word and comment it here. So that it will not get lost in the past, the void. Following is a list of new words WFozStories . Oversnoozed : Oversleeping after hitting alarm snooze few times. Wakesomnia : When you fall asleep just fine but consistantly wake up too early. Daniel Sunden Groob : An insane philosopher N.Sh Souli : A soul that belongs to me Atheseus Blabbler :An textural item added to an otherwise consistently smooth food, particularly in ice cream.

Clouds are a great place to start mindfulness It really is. Haven't you looked at the sky lately? Clouds are everywhere. I am sure if you are in UK, you yern for a cloudless sky. And if you are in UAE you will pray for a cloudy sky. Some of us are fortunate to get the better of the two worlds. Like us in tropics. Today it is cloudy the sky. It is about to rain. And I was looking at those dark clouds about to weep. And then Mind took a journey on clouds. Clouds : https://unsplash.com/@guibusted Story of clouds. Little bambinis were looking at the sky from the window of the car. They have learned about different clouds just the other day. Cirrus, cumulus, stratus. They were shouting in the back pointing at the clouds. It just reminded me of the past when I used to watch clouds, either on the ground lying down with an uninterrupted view or from a tree, a little bit closer to the sky. Just the other day I wrote why beach is my favourite place, as you do not have to strain your neck to look at the clouds. But it made me realise truly, what do I know about clouds? Looking at clouds scientifically. After looking at clouds, naturally we learned how to look at clouds scientifically. Initially we learned about water cycle, in cartoon diagrams. And learned that if it wasn't for the clouds man would not survive planet earth. We didn't stop at the level of cirrus and cumulus. We combined them to make cirrocumulus or cumulonimbus clouds. Now its children's turn to learn them and my turn to unlearn what I have learned to know that I know nothing about clouds. Looking at clouds lexically Even before, knowing clouds we learned the lexical logic of clouds. Initially it was monosyllabic, we just blabbered as toddlers. Then bisyllables, and within few years we combined our C+L+O+U+D to make a cloud. Now sitting on the bank of the lagoon, looking at the sky I dissect syllables and see. I see no cloud In C, No cloud in L neither in O U or D. Yet combined there is a cloud. Just like magic. Clouds from above: https://unsplash.com/@thomasrichter Looking at the clouds, microscopically Or we can call it scientifically. I read a story about a man who made an artificial cloud inside a room. We can harvest rain of a cloud forcibly for good or bad intentions. We can predict weather weeks ahead. That much we know about clouds. Yet, do I really? I can remember travelling 30000 feet above the ground. The mighty clouds which looked majestic from below were just formed of mist up there. I couldn't feel it. Yet from the ten inch window I could see them. If you see them microscopically there would be nothing but water vapours. Like on this really cold winter we all breath clouds with our exhalation air. And the space X rocket builds instantaneous clouds on its launch vaporising water.The fact is even when looked at microscopically the cloud dissappear, for the second time. Looking at clouds, macroscopically. I look up at the sky again. With my scientific eyes I see water vapors but no clouds. With my lexical ears I hear them syllables but no clouds. And for a brief second I close my eyes and I see them dissappear for a third time. When I look at the sky long enough I see a cirrus crashing into a nimbus and become another big one. Then I take all the clouds ever been on the sky from the point of view of a geological rock. And arrange them in order from East to west on the sky. And I see no demarcation of cirrus or nimbus. It is a true spectrum . And the artificial names dissapear again. Then I let my mind forget everything. Everything I have learned about cloud and try to look at with empty mind. And I know I should see nothing. Yet clouds are there as true as the sky, as true as myself relatively. I apply the logic of looking at a cloud to look at myself to see the magic in action. Would you do that or are you afraid you will break the illusion and dissappear?

Being content Being content is not easy. As it feels like being content is the opposite of being successful. Sometimes it feels like the lazy philosopher's tactic to make proud of a losing battle. But is it really? Let's hear some Jim Carry philosophy. I love him as a character and as a comedian. He could be the Charlie Chaplin of his era. But what's with comedians are fond of philosophy? Maybe they have a different view than us about life as they always see the comedy in it. I just listened to it again. 👌 wow, he is full of philosophy. In his speech in Golden Globe awards 2016 he said the following. "I am two times Golden Globe winner Jim Carry. When I sleep at night, I'm not just a guy going to sleep. I'm two times Golden Globe winner Jim Carry going to get some well needed shut eye. And when I dream, I don't dream ordinary dreams, no sir, I dream about being three times Golden globe winner, because then it would be enough. To end this terrible search". Award : https://unsplash.com/@omilaev Jim Carrey Philosophy That there is a summary of most of our lives. All our lives we are in search of something. For some it is success. For some it is peace. And when it is not there, we call them dreams. And we forget how why and where these dreams came from. At what point we became obsessed with them and most of the time when we ask these questions, we are too old to comprehend. And there is no choice but to carry it until death. For Jim it was about Golden globes. I am sure for Elon it is about multiplanetary consciousness. For me and you and for the ordinary it maybe about a happy family. But the information doesn't allow us to stop at the level of happiness. Information just keeps on building another layer. When we try to be content in our one storied home, it shows us two storied one with a pool. When we try to break ourselves achieving that dream in five years of hard work, they just build a cutting-edge Tesla. And my Neighbour starts laughing at me looking at my antique junk tuck. Finally, when someone becomes a good writer, they want a series of novels from you and when I wrote just one post about being content, everyone gets into a fight to outrank this. Ha 😁 ha ha. It's the Rat 🐀 race which keeps us from enjoying life and being content. On this lovely afternoon, sitting by the lagoon, I ask myself. What do I want to be happy? When would it be enough? And the answers are clear. You don't need anything other than what you already have as when you are aware you become detached from the film which is called life. I look at little bit of hunger and let it be. I feel the wind and let it be. I look at the couple who walk past me and let it be. Everything the uneasiness, the happiness, and sadness, the clouds and the trees, they all deserve to be, without my conscious awareness, they would just do that. How selfish am I if I needed more than what the nature offered. magician : https://unsplash.com/@juliusdrost How to be content? Being content is difficult rather impossible unless we see the magician in our minds. Like a Gene of the Aladin's lamp he creates a story of Arabian nights each and every day and makes us forget the Deamon of death. Let's look at how Jim concluded his speech to get more wisdom. "These awards are important. If we blew up the solar system into dust although we would not find us or our entire human history in naked eye, yet these awards are important, from our perspective." That there is the answer to our problem of being content. When we look at from perspective from the society we live in, it would never be enough. Yet, if we see ourselves in the perspective of life, it is already perfect. As we all are just marbles hiding perfect statues of David inside of us. We just have to find it.

I spoke with a WallStreet Shark once, in a remote resort in an isolated island In his seventies with luxury guaranteed, he was walking towards the beach with a rush with Glistening eyes of a greedy mouse, he looked at the drowning sun made a remark " What a beautiful sight" and joined me with a chat in turn https://unsplash.com/@grafixgurl247 I came here fast, not before last, to catch the golden hour it was a rush. Glad I did, now I can relax, collecting those colorful shells, ashore fresh And he walked away in exploring sandy bay, while I remained still and mute Saw the final light disappeared in the sky, taking a dip in the sea when he left. What is Golden hour in photography? Golden hour can mean different things to different people. I am sure the most common meaning is just after sunrise and before sunset. As  this is the hour the sky becomes golden in color with sunlight. If you are a photograpger, or a nature lover, I am sure you would be out watching the sky and earth. Taking photographs, otherwise impossible. There is no rush in golden hour. Not naturally. These moments are quite and calm. Golden hour in Medicine As a person with medical rarther surgical background golden hour means different for me. It means the period when a trauma victim comes to the ETU. Now that is a real golden hour. A real rush. As the ETU team resuscitate the patient sometimes surgery is necessary to save the life. Which has to be done so quickly that patient should be on an operation table within one hour. And golden hour is a golden opportunity to save some lives which otherwise is not salvageble. Other meanings of Golden hour If it is the black friday, golden hour can mean the first hour when the store is open. When it is a writer it may mean the hour you are maximally creative and focussed like a razor blade. For a soldier it may be time to kill, for a fisherman its time to fish. As you can see golden hour represent most productive and creative times of our lives. So generally everyone is in a rush to reach the peak at these times. Golden hour in Mindfulness However we should ask ourselves what is the golden hour of mindfulness? Is it the time when your mind is most calm and at peace? Is it the time when the enviornment is so quiet? If you are true to the practise and open to the wisdom I suggest otherwise. Someone can say there is no golden hour in mindfulness. But I like to view it as every hour is a golden hour in mindfulness. The problem is we are not open to the lessons which life tries to teach us. A drifting leaf on the water, a jelly fish or a mangrove is there to teach us lessons of life. Question is are you willing to listen? If you keep a blind eye to the nature and try to rush yourself looking to catch the golden hour according to your yardstick, I am sure you will lose the every golden hour till you finish your last breath. Let's be mindful friend. Its the golden hour now. Thank you for reading You would also, will enjoy reading my little story on waves of the sea.

Shackles of an elephant Elephants are majestic animals. And this is not the first time I have something to talk about them. I will give some links to all the elephant articles at the end. But first let's talk about their training. Shackled elephant: https://unsplash.com/@nirnawa It is hard to train an elephant. Especially wild ones freshly captured. But as you can understand training a seven-foot young one is harder than training four-foot calf. So often it would be a calf. I know what they have to undergo in this domestication process is not pleasant at all. Maybe it is shackles on all four legs, keep them from kicking and running away. Ankus to inflict the pain, and food and water as a reward. And at the end of this tiring painful period, they will learn to obey the command of mahout. And most likely they will remain calm for the rest of their lives. I am sure you have seen a couple of elephants walking on the road. Sometimes they have no shackles. Sometimes tiny one on one leg. Sometimes they carry their own shackles. Why do they not run away? Answer is its their memory. Although they are not shackled now. They were in the past. And all the elephants can remember is what it had gone through when it tried to escape for freedom. They have strong memory which last decades. If you think about this, it is exactly like the horse who did not run away when tied to a plastic chair. It is a no knot! This phenomenon brings us to the main point of our discussion. Freedom. Shackles of freedom Freedom can be physical and mental. In physical freedom you are allowed to walk free. Do anything you like and feel anything you like. This is fundamentally a principle in democracy and not in dictatorship. So, we are lucky most of the time to be born with this freedom as a right, more than we appreciate it. We can compare physical freedom like the wild elephant, and the one who is trained. Except when the elephant is in training it is physically free most of the day. But the elephant as you can see is not mentally free. Maybe it is taken care of, yet it doesn't want to run away meaning, its shackles are in the mind now. Someone can argue it is like the fish in the tank and fish in the wild. Fish in the tank is free from disease and sudden death from predators but with compromised freedom to swim. But swim in the wild is freer physically yet not free from dangers. As we can see this is going to be never ending argument, unless fish could talk and tell exactly it prefer. Mind you still this can wary according to individual 🐟 🐠. To understand mental freedom better we need to go back to how it is restricted. What is mental freedom? What are we trying to free ourselves from? What are the shackles of mental freedom are made of. I think at this point you might need to look at previous articles on prisoners of mind and who build mental prisons. Sometimes you may think it is freedom of thinking and expressing yourself in writing painting and speech of what you think. But I think this is also a Suttle form of physical freedom as these all are actions. Then what is true freedom? And what are the shackles which prevents us from achieving that. To understand this, we need to find out how mind works. But there is a problem. No matter how many pages would write here about workings of the mind, your mind would understand it in a different way. But that is basically the problem. There is no objective truth which we all we see similar. We all would see according to our knowledge and capacity. When we look at our own minds long enough, we will understand how mental objects are formed. Basically, these are reflections of our own environment but within us. It includes everything you ever heard of and going to see in the future. Mathematics language, living, non-living, good and evil, truth and false. These mental objects are our own shackles which keeps us trapped. And more importantly we are also a creation of same process, hence a mental object. This is the wisdom you can gain while looking at a lump of clay. Here I can give you another example. Imagine a prank where a group of people fight on the street. They will mimic a gunfight and play havoc on the road. For them and the camera crew this is a joke. Yet for the people who are on the street this is a first-hand experience of a gunfight. I am sure they will start to run away and even injure themselves. They would not enjoy it like the camera crew or even the actors. So, we can say, not knowing the truth is the suffering for the people on the street. They are with their own mental shackles. And only way to break them and become free is to empower them with knowledge, and each one of them have to understand it. Yet this is hard to do in real life as of the previous problem of subjectiveness of the world. I am not claiming I am free. Rather there is a way, and you have to see it yourself with mindfulness. Pink elephant philosophy Why I cannot see elephant in the pen First thing you have to know is yourself Dumb ways to die

Story of two parrots Once upon a time there lived a parrot family on a tree. Two parrot siblings lived in a hollow of a tree. While their parents were out looking for food a thunderstorm hit the forest. The old tree was violently shaken with wind and the two parrots were thrown away. One fell to a forest monastery where some old monks lived. The other fell to a place where a group of thieves lived. Separated from their parents and each other each parrot grew with humans. Two parrots: https://unsplash.com/@caproche One day a man walked into the forest, looking for some herbs. And deep inside the jungle he heard a voice. Violent voice shouting at him to catch and kill him. Man frightened to the core hid behind a tree and looked around. There was nobody except a talking parrot. And after staying silent for a while he, got out and examined. There was none to be seen, except an abandoned cave of the thieves. He chased the parrot away and continued to walk. And then he heard another voice. "Hello friend. Where are you going? Come and rest with us" And the man was looking around saw another parrot. And he was inviting him to the monastery of old monks. He walked into the monastery and met the monks. And after explaining his purpose of the visit he inquired about the 🦜. Monks explained they found it injured in the backyard of the monastery on a stormy day. Just beyond the trees there is another parrot. Do you anything about it? The man inquired. And monks told the man there are some thieves live in that part of the jungle, and they do not harm us as long as we do not disturb them. After all monks have nothing to rob. So, the man understood what happened. As the parrots 🦜 looked the same he knew they must be siblings or related. The only difference for them to behave differently is there up bringing. That is the end of the little story of two parrots. I am sure you must have read or heard similar story before. But it highlights the face that what effects our environment has on us. Let's understand this. Environment control keystone habit Environment control is a keystone habit. As it will influence many other habits in our lives. At least in parrots 🦜 case it led to polite manner and behavior. And if you looked at the fact carefully, we might see the conduct of two parrots are different in many ways, from their food habits to daily routines. Similarly, if we look at siblings who were separated from early life or even your own life, we change and adapt to the changes of our environment. Changing environment can positively or negatively affect your life. And it does markedly. As an example, if you are trying to get away from a bad food habit. Maybe environmental adjustments can help you just do that. You can hang out with people with good food habits or join a club. Sell your fridge or fill it with fruits instead. If you lived your whole life in a dark alley with criminals, maybe it is time to break away from the vicious cycle of doom and look for a better environment. As you can see progression or change is impossible if you are stuck in a pool. Difficult situations. Difficult situations: https://unsplash.com/@7ndy Sometimes we cannot change our environment. It can be relative such as you are stuck with your old parents or taking care of a loved one, yet you feel stuck. Or it can be absolutely like you are stuck in a bed unable to move like in the case of Alexandre the man with iron lungs . However, there are ways to improve if you are just creative. You can change your environment temporarily if you cannot do it permanently. You can visit the local library or take a walk in the park on your way home, to bring a little freshness calm and clarity. You can paint the house if you think its gloomy, with white paint of course. Why not! Or you can change the mental environment. Take a dopamine detox from endless scrolling and you can do some meditation. After all, we all are prisoners of our minds , hence from time to time we have to clean our own prison cell to keep it clean otherwise it can surely stink. I am sure 😌 you know how to. Because you crave that change, the light, the peace after all. Let's be thankful to the 🦜 🦜 s who taught us the lesson hard way.

Mindful eating This article is about mindful eating. Do not be cross when I talk about cows and eating grass. That is just to make the discussion interesting. If you would want to skip the details, you can go to the discussion. Or if you need to take another approach, I suggest you read about How to eat a mango Mindfully. Let's look at cows. Buffalo eating grass Why do cows eat grass? I used to watch cows graze in the nearby field from top of a tree . Later I learnt that cows could digest grass, but not humans. Cows and for that matter animals who eat grass, or herbivorous have stomach filled with bacteria, which are capable of breaking down cellulose. Hence, the Cow stomach is so called " Sweet Home " to large number of bacteria. And cow absorb carbohydrate. That is easily understood. Yet, if you look at a cow, they not only eat grass. But they build a massive muscle mass. How do they get their protein from? Cows, get their protein by digesting the bacteria. Essentially for the bacteria, the intestinal tract of the cow is the place of the home and place of the doom. When they go down with food into the lower parts of the digestive tract, bacteria themselves become the victim to chemicals and enzymes, being killed after getting used. They become the source of "Protein" for the cow. So, let's leave the science behind and ask the question again. Why do cows eat grass? There are several answers. One simple explanation is that they get hungry, and they have taste for grass. Digestible or not, cows would not eat grass if they do not get hungry and they do not have a taste for the grass. So, if we look carefully both hunger and the taste are essential survival tools for the cow. Being animals, they do not overthink about these things, like we do. They just get hunger, and they eat what tastes them. Why do we not eat grass? mindful eating. That there is a simple wisdom, for our mindful eating. Although we do not think about this we do eat for the same reasons as cows. We eat because we feel hungry, and we do have taste for food. Imagine we do not feel hunger, no ghrelin (hunger hormone) in your system. I am sure we will be so busy that we would die, without any food. Same goes to the taste. But this is something which have evolved for us to better understand what is good for us. Just when humans lived in jungles, they did not have a food hygiene. They relied on their smell and taste to identify what is good to eat. So essentially taste is also a survival tool. Only in modern supermarket era that taste have become a five-star luxury that costs hundreds of dollars. Where is the taste? Is it in the Ice-cream? Mindful eating - Binge eating and obesity. Get to know about hunger and taste is essential to mindful eating. As an example, let's assume you have a habit of binge eating. If you look at your eating pattern, you will understand, that you start eating, because you are hungry. Get to know your hunger. Know exactly where it feels. And if you do not have the hunger, do not eat! And while eating you will know the feeling of hunger goes away. Not suddenly, but gradually. And anything you eat after your hunger is gone is going to add onto your extra weight. And that is better left alone in the plate or even thrown away than eaten. As anything beyond this is a reason to make you sick, diabetes hypertension or MI. As you can see, you cannot do or even think about controlling your eating habits without getting to know your hunger. Same goes to the taste. However, taste is tricky. Taste is something we wrongly attribute to be in the Ice cream. However, it is never in the food. And we can think it is in the tongue. But it is not true either, as dead person's tongue would not feel anything. You can read more on this in eating a mango article. So , the taste we can assume is in the mind. But what is mind? What is mind, is a discussion for another day. Maybe you can have look at the consciousness article or for that matter even a lump of clay to understand the mind. However, what is mind is a deep subject which can only be explained to someone who has been thinking about it for a long time. I would not do that mistake here. After all this is just to explain why we cannot eat grass, and simply it is because we do not feel taste for it. Not by our choice but by nature. As you can understand, we would be eating any dung, if we had taste for it. As pictured in the film Jacky in Women's Kingdom.

On a couch Jacob was happy, after an honest day's work. He was in charge of the presentation today, in front of all the stakeholders. The company he is working is trying to expand their operations. And they needed to capture the progress they have made last year into a half an hour speech, to impress the investors. And as the project manager Jacob felt good about what he has done today. Now it is time to relax, finally when his company makes more fortune, he will be able to move closer to a better apartment in suburbs, than current shaggy one. He needed to better breath. He ordered dinner online and relaxed on to the couch, until midnight sleepozing watching who wants to be a millionaire. A good one. Lake Driving Jacob was driving his car. Beside him was his lovely wife with a big belly of nine months. They just discovered she was in labor when water broke out and started to rush to the hospital. She seems to be in severe pain, crying now, and Jacob in panic. Why and who built those stupid red lights every corner of the block. What if the baby starts to come out even before he reached the hospital? He hit the gas once again and in the corners of his eyes he saw the hospital finally at last! And soon as they arrived at ED his wife was taken away to labor room. He was waiting outside, anxiously waiting to try to keep his calm, taking deep breaths. Is she OK? Is my baby girl, OK? Rowing The evening sky is orange today. Few clouds on the horizon. The sun is nowhere to be found, disappeared behind the tree line and the hill above the lake. Jacob stopped paddling and let the boat float slowly on the water. The fish were not afraid of his boat as there were no fishermen at this part of the jungle. Not lot of hikers come here as well. He had been living in the hut on the bank of the lake for some time now Then he realized something. He wanted to remember how did he start to live in a hut by the lake? His memory was blurred. He remembered he was driving just before he started rowing the boat. He was driving with his wife in his car! Where is she now? How is she doing? Am I dreaming? Jacob remembered how can I be married? I just came back from work, and I live alone. I was doing a presentation just this afternoon, to a half a dozen of people. Where am I exactly? In a boat in the middle of the lake? Or in the hospital? or on a couch? Rowing boat in the lake The dream Jacob remembered watching Inception, movie just the other day on Netflix. A dream within a dream. I must be dreaming but what is the reality? All he can remember was what happened since he started to become conscious about the current dream. What was there before is doubtful. Maybe I am "The guy" in a film. Stuck in a virtual reality. Maybe the lack of coherence in his dreams is the fact that I am dreaming. More than anything Jacob wanted to wake up to the reality. But how? He could not access the reality from inside the dream All he could do is to move to another dream from the current one. And that even was not under his control. But within his dream he was in control. Jacob closed his eyes and started listening to the sounds. Sounds of the birds were real. The move of the wind over the mountain brushing trees was real. He could feel the water on his hands which felt really cold. He relaxed into the fact that everything feels real. But he knew it's all a dream. Just one alternative reality from thousand possibilities. He could not wake himself up from the inside of the dream, as he was part of the dream. It did not matter. Maybe there is no other dream, just this one. He did not know how where and why he felt like he was living. All he knew was he was part of it. Maybe it is the fear of losing the dream and himself, which drives it. He can imagine a reality, but as he is in the dream it would be just a false one. Maybe there is nothing to wake up. As dream about the reality is also part of the dream. End. You can read more about dreams on following articles. Dream vs Reality -> Duality of the nature. Cannot access reality from the dream -> subjective reality. Philosophy of dreams Living in a dream. Its time to dream

What is success? If "A" is success in life, A = X + Y + Z Work is X, Play is Y, and Z is keeping your mouth shut. Albert Einstein In this article I am going to critically analyze success according to Albert Einstein's definition. And then look at success in the mindfulness eyes. Why? Because without knowing where to go, you cannot make a complete journey. Albert Einstein is a successful person, right? According to story, he was chased away from his kindergarten class because he was too slow. And I think the reason being, he is a diffuse thinker , that often dream about things he had felt and heard, more often than necessary. Guess what, he has come up with equations, that even less than 0.1% of the population would understand that given a whole life to study. Isn't it a remarkable achievement, and if you would believe that it is, we should clearly dissect his definition of success, to understand how he did it. Albert Einstein https://unsplash.com/@moyse Albert Einstein definition of success A = X + Y + Z X So, to achieve success we need to combine three factors, according to Einstein's equation. First one being A, is work. Working is necessary. And it is obvious factor. If you do nothing, nothing will happen. And there would be no success at all. You can have dreams, but if you keep sleeping on a couch sitting on them, dreams will never come true. Luck is there in universe but for you to attract luck we need to have some forces working toward us, which is the work. Maybe hard work in some cases, maybe smart work in the other. More importantly the relevant work. As you can see there are so many pseudo-works out there which can distract us. In fact, nobody can do nothing. Have you ever tried to do nothing? It is really hard to stay doing nothing. Hence, most of the time we do irrelevant tasks. That is enough for the work. Shake your procrastination and start working is his advice on this. Y Y is play. What is play? Play is being creative in your work. Innovation comes when you are in creative state. Apart from doing old boring routine, even if it is old boring routine you have to start playing. There is no other way. Yes, you can forget play and enjoy 8-5-hour job. But as we all are humans, we will start to get exhausted soon enough and unless there is novelty in your work inherently, you will start to lose your enthusiasm and give up to boredom. More than this to push Forword as a society and individually creativity is a must. This is why I have created some articles in this blog for promoting just this, America is the dream land of creativity and creativity gives you wings. Z Z is keeping your mouth shut. I am sure Albert Einstein meant silence. Why? I have previously written great deal about making friends with silence . This doesn't mean physically not talking. It does mean mentally you are ready to listen. You accept the world as it is and more focus on listening, seeing and feeling things. Guess what, creativity is inherently tied to the silence. When you are silent you will start to notice patterns in the environment and your own mind. These ideas would have never come to your mind unless you are silent. This is why taking a walk matters, relaxing in the silence matters and diffuse thinking matters. Silence https://unsplash.com/@annawangler That concludes Einsteins equation for success. Work + Play + silence. Simple elegant and true. As this blog is about mindfulness, we will look at success from mindful eyes to understand it better. Definition of success from mindfulness. Success is a mental object. Like everything else. When we consider this as a mental object we can notice its properties. Following are few examples to define success. Successful lawyer. Imagine a kid wanted to become a successful lawyer. First, he did not even know about lawyer, as few years back he was a toddler. Then after hearing all the adult stories, and seeing some lawyers, driving near the court, and seeing them in the news in court rooms, he has built a mental object of a "Lawyer" then he adds "Successful lawyer" to his picture. Once this image is fixed in his mind the target is there. Now he has to work and be creative and silent. He goes through everything he has to go through hardships. Work towards the university and become a successful graduate. And join a law firm, and once he become a lawyer, we label him as a successful lawyer. There are many things which have happened during this long process of "successful lawyer" story. His "Successful Lawyer" image also has changed day after day. Sometimes he may never reach this. Although he is successful to the society, in Lawyer society he may be a pretty average lawyer. If his image matches his achievement of course he may be happy too. But most likely he also has some other success images, like healthy relationships, healthy body etc. He may be pretty happy about the path he has taken to become the successful lawyer himself is now. He may have mastered the Einsteins Equation to achieve the Success in his case. But when I look at this scenario from a distance, I also see the absurdity of it. It is all due to information he received when he was young. That of a "Successful Lawyer". If it happened to be a "Successful football player" he would be per-suiting this all his life. And even be successful at this. If he was in a village in Vietnam, he would become a "Successful Monk". It does not mean that we should not pursuit something. It just means that we should be aware of what is happening inside our brains, so we do not get carried away from the imaginary play , which we call life. Rodeo Bull riding - most dangerous 8 seconds of the world. Bull riding https://unsplash.com/@gilleyaguilar In the sports world, Rodeo bull riding considered the most dangerous 8 seconds in the world. These bull riders try to stay on top of the bull holding with one hand and survive 8 seconds. If they do that, they are given marks according to the difficulty and ranked to find the winner. Now, this is not a child's play if you have seen a video. From the moment released to the arena, bulls buck and kick, and most of them would not ride 8 seconds. Some would even never ride again after serious fall, or for even that matter walk. What drives these brave men and women to such a risk? If you look at the process of the "Successful Lawyer". You may understand now, the "Successful Bull rider" philosophy as well. It is all due to the information received by an innocent kid who lived in a ranch. And he saw adults doing this thing called "Bull riding" and became excited about it. Guess what after 15 more years he would become a successful bull rider. We all talk about how he achieved thing, but we never go back the timeline enough to understand what happened in the first place. I think we even might blame him if he seriously injured in the sport. So much so for a mental object. Mindfulness let us observe your own mental objects and understand them. Still, you can be a successful lawyer and be a bull rider. But this time with a great wisdom of how it happened and happening. Let's look back at the Albert Einstein equation to understand what he missed in the first place. Look at the equation again. A = X + Y + Z Can you the error? A, X, Y and Z everything is imaginary. To achieve success, you first have to imagine that there is a thing called "Success" in the first place. I am sure we will get to know this once our wisdom is shining enough in the prison of itself.