Have you ever heard about imaginary numbers? Following is a definition for imaginary numbers. Imaginary numbers were formulated to explain square root of negative numbers. I am quite sure you are not someone who is interested in mathematics. So, do not even try to understand these imaginations. We will start our discussion with REAL or even NATURAL numbers. Something we all love to do, count them. definition: Imaginary number (from Wikipedia- image) Skip the following! "An imaginary number is a real number multiplied by the imaginary uniti,[note 1] which is defined by its property i squared = −1.[1][2] The square of an imaginary number bi is −b squared. For example, 5i is an imaginary number, and its square is −25. The number zero is considered to be both real and imaginary." We all know how to count. We counted them with fingers, sticks, pencils, later with symbols. Although they are called natural numbers, if you think about it carefully, Numbers does not mean anything themselves. If it is difficult to grasp, consider the following example. If you said an apple, you could point out to an apple. If you said a tree, you could point out a tree. If you said one? you can point out to "number" one which is a symbol. but not the real "one" in a sense number are platonic (you can read about platonic ideas here) So, to speak the truth All numbers seem to be imaginary even Natural ones! Here is some magic Now let's imagine a watch. You had this beautiful Swiss watch which was a gift from one of your most valuable friends, who inherited it. Imagine it stopped working and you had to get it repaired. You gave it to a professional and next day when you go there you see he dismantled the watch, and all the pieces are placed over a white cloth on his table. Where is your watch now? Can you call the collection of pieces on the table as a watch? You can name each part if you try but the "watch is not there anymore." Following day, you come back, and you have your watch as re-assembled before. Working and fine. And wait, it is the same heap of metal and glass and everything else, but when at specific configuration there "appears" a watch. "A watch" is not a real thing it is still a mental object. Who is the magician? Can you see the magic of your mind? You can apply this to anything you know. More you see more you will understand how much magic we are living in. You will see even Atoms and Subatomic particles are mental objects. Would you like to know characteristics of these mental objects? If so, read: Objects of mind- mental representation You may also like to read: Definition of mindfulness Thank you for reading. What can imaginary numbers teach about life? - mental representation.

Imagine a typical day of yours. Since the start of the day, getting up from the bed up until now you have done hundreds of decisions making to give certain outcomes. Tiny decision makings. You have no doubt that you have made those decisions for yourself hence you would blame no-one but yourself if something goes wrong. Would you be surprised if I say some of the philosophers think otherwise? Some of them think, that whatever we think are not really our "free will" in action, but rather determined by the nature. Even before you were born! What would this so-called determinism do to our way of thinking? If such determinism is true, Everything which happened in the past and will happen in the future are pre-determined- there is no point of blaming anyone, not even yourself if something is not working properly. There is no true will for us. there is no way you can change the outcome. Although you think you are changing the outcome, that is already pre-determined by the laws of the nature. If we understand the fundamental laws of nature, we should be able to predict the future. And it appears it is not true at least for most of us. We really feel that we can change the outcome by conscious decision making. Imagine, in a world deterministic theory is considered true. A lawyer can argue his client, killed or raped someone solely because it was determined by the nature for it to happen. And the perpetrator can walk free. Such as society would be insane to live in. There are some observations in the nature to show that deterministic world may not exist as per se. As an example, in quantum physics the outcomes of a same experiment can be differ each time even if the conditions of the experiment are the same. Outcomes can vary and can be only given as a probability. What determines of these outcomes are not yet known. (some deterministic argue that still there are layers which we haven't explored hence, quantum physics itself doesn't argue that non-deterministic nature of the universe) Example: Imagine a physical experiment with certain x conditions are met, the outcome will be only A in a deterministic world. In a quantum experiment, although the certain x conditions are same, the outcome can be A, B and C with certain probability without clear explanation why that is so. Determinists (such as Einstein) argue there are certain rules we haven't yet understood to explain outcomes of a quantum experiment. Let's think that deterministic nature is not true and there is true randomness which effect, the causes and effects of the nature. It seems that when we lean towards non-determinism and true randomness, we can explain some of the phenomena we naturally see. Life seems to be a more of a random walk rather than a deterministic one. Even though some of our life events seems to be disastrous, they may eventually be the best things happened to us and vice versa. It is really unpredictable to determine what happens for you tomorrow depend on what you determine to do today. Yet, deterministic and non-deterministic both of these argue that we cannot have a true will. Determinists argue that our thoughts and actions are determined by nature. Non-determinists argue that our thoughts and actions are subjected to randomness. Both these arguments don't agree with a free will, outside the nature and randomness. It is chilling to think that there is a possibility that free will may not exist. What are your thoughts of a free will? Thank you for reading deterministic world and free will. You may also like to read the boy the dog and the mathematics A game of chess AI and life

If you asked me how to practice mindfulness. I would definitely say I would not give you set of instructions to follow. I am not capable of doing it as I am still a humble student of the great wisdom. Then you would think what the point if so, writing this article. I would say, 'wait- listen -my friend- I know I am not capable, but I know people who are capable. And this is the link to such a simple and complete guide to mindfulness. First for you who do not like to read beyond this point check out the link. It is a great guide by Ashin Tejaniya who has practiced and prepared the guide for people who are interested. You can download the PDF guide and follow it in your own time. Don't look down on the defilements, they will laugh at you. Once one of my teachers said, there are two kinds of knowledge. One type of knowledge you memorize. Other type of knowledge you memorize where to find. In essence these second type of knowledge we do not use routinely and yet we know, where to find if such a need occurred in the future. Above book by Ashin Tejaniya was a one such book I kept in my mind that I needed to access when I have time. So, keep it in your memory if you think one day you would start thinking about food for your mind to have a look. Here I will summarize few concepts presented in this book. Mindfulness practice presented in the book is not to be done one specific time of the day but throughout the life. It should be effortless and relaxed. Objective is to observe the mind without judgement. (judgements are defilements or values we give to mental objects) If there is stress and pain, doing this, something is wrong with the method. Such smooth mindfulness should gain momentum over time. In the land of thousand rivers, one day I walked onto a bridge. Alone, by myself. I can still picture the green mountain tops and trees covering each bank of the river. Majestic tropical trees shading parts of the massive water which runs down the river. I can remember the clouds and the reflections of them on the water. I looked down below. Water from upstream flew downstream passing under the bridge. And I continued to look, second after second, minute after minute, I could see new water replacing old water, still flowing downstream. It was continuous. There was no end to it. And I know the bridge is still there, water would be still flowing, if I went back and look at it tonight. There is something similar about the mind that these great teachers try to teach us about. Maybe one day It will occur to me. By writing about this wisdom, I have given you the power to change your mindfulness practice hoping it would help you the way it helped me. Thank you for reading, how to practice mindfulness - defilements. You may also like to read: fisherman and businessman story and life lessons. How to understand platonic love

Humans are the most creative animals on planet of earth as we have ability of innovation. We have everything which are necessary to invent most fearsome inventions to survive against a cruel nature otherwise. Now we do not see ourselves as vulnerable, yet God like powers, given by our innovations. We have become undoubtable rulers of the world. Have you ever thought how this innovation came to life? This is an attempt to identify the answer to the question, philosophy of innovation. It is almost 120years since Wright brothers took their flight to the sky in the first airplane, they built by themselves. It seems that they build it themselves. From the first appearance of it seems so. But the truth is we are not capable of doing such a great complex invention unless we build upon our ancestors. It is much clear that all those failed attempts which occurred before the Wright brothers influenced their invention to avoid those errors. Let's argue it is not true, for some truly genius inventions by single persons. Often, we see such inventions. Yet we cannot forget, no single human would survive without the love of a mother and the help of a family to survive those early years. Until we are enriched by our language and teachings. Only secondarily we become inventors. And that is our gift to the human race, increasing knowledge, contributed by us. I am often fascinated by the great minds which creates future for us, it may be Einstein, Stieve Jobbs or Elon musk. there Seems to be fountains of new interventions and ideas working in these minds all the time. How can they harvest such geniuses. Not only new inventions, even great artists of the history, Michelangelo for example. How did he create a great sculpture of David from a heartless chunk of a marble? We all know about all those great names. But what about unknown names. What about your and my father who build a playhouse for us? What about a builder who build a house and a farmer who grows some crops? They are also essentially building new things. They may not be new inventions. Yet those are unique inventions. What is the characteristic which is present in both, great inventors of our times and everyone else who builds something? One such characteristic common to every innovation is that it is an outcome of a suffering of a person. It seems the greater the suffering the more value is there in the item itself. Imagine Wright brothers, they took great effort and suffering, to build their flying machine. They had the idea of flying. Once the idea is deep rooted, they suffered a lot, months and years to build the flying machine. Once they did fly of course that ended their suffering and that made them happy. That is truly a negative way of looking at things! You may argue that that is not true. That they enjoyed every minute of working. Towards their goal. I am not suggesting that it is not. Yet, when we think, that our thoughts carry us to the skies, I just cannot imagine the suffering those thoughts brings upon us that we cannot do anything other than flying. Over the years these thoughts have made us crazy inventors. We build to destroy each other, and now even racing to Mars. And It seems time for us to stop and think and look at our own minds to end the suffering as solutions are surely not written in the space either. This idea of power of suffering to generate materialistic things was captured in comedy movie Brass Teapot 2012. Thank you for reading: How new inventions are made? - philosophy of innovation You may also like to read: Mental objects - characteristics How we are different from a dung beetle Egotism.

I have been tired. I think you have been too. A pair of tired people. I have been so tired that I could not even get up. Then I thought why? Do you know why? If you read the famous book by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi about 'Flow' it gives some idea about root cause of our tiredness. The book itself is not about tiredness at all. Instead, it reads about the opposite of tiredness. He gives the idea of optimal state of the mind which is called 'flow' where an individual is continuously engaged in productive activity without thinking about time. We will dig deep into this idea to understand tiredness. Here I am not talking about physical tiredness, it is mental tiredness. Of course, if it is physical tiredness, you just have to rest. But, as you can understand, mental tiredness is taking a long time to recover, and even after physical rest it won't go away. Traditional approach to tiredness Traditional approach to overcome tiredness is to have a rest. We try to take a walk, try some meditation, relaxation and yoga. I think you have tried them all. To overcome tiredness, and these are very good techniques. If they work for you that is really good, you should continue with them. If they do not help, maybe we are addressing the wrong problem. Flow state of the mind. Imagine a person who love doing work. Imagine Elon musk, do you think he feels tiredness? He has built a technological empire around him and he is trying to travel to Mars, he has a mission vision and devotion. He is always pushing his boundaries, and his internal motivation drives him. I bet he do not feel tired, and he even feels sad when he goes to sleep as he has lot of working hours spend in sleep. Do you know why someone would feel such energy? Now imagine a farmer in Tibetan plateau. He wakes up in the morning, drives his cows into pastures, goes to his land plough it, sow it, and look after the crops. Plenty of work at home, plenty of work in field. He may feel physically tired end of the day. But I bet he doesn't feel mentally tired of because it will happen only if he is passionate about his work. That is the word, being passionate about the work. Which is a natural phenomenon. Why am I so tired? How to overcome tiredness If the work you are doing is not something you are passionate about, I suggest you would not fall into a flow state. The 'flow state' is when you do not feel tired about your work. There is a balance in your mind between accomplishment and progress. And you would not feel time passing. If you look at your life, you will identify some experiences from the past where you have been in flow states. And that is the kind of work you should be doing every day. Imagine how much your life can change and how much progress you can make if you get into a flow state on your work. One day you might land on Mars. So, for anyone who is thinking on a tireless work, and a healthy career advice is to find something passionate about and do not be afraid of changing otherwise. Even if it is less pay than what you are being paid now, in long term it will be beneficial. Remember, happiness cannot be bought with any amount of money. If you do not agree, ask rich. In summary Flow is an optimal state of mind where you can continuously work without feeling tired. Flow state arise naturally when you are doing an activity which is pushing your boundaries as well as inherently rewarding and is key to overcome tiredness. To get into flow state you will have to choose work which you are passionate about. You may be helped by relaxation exercise and meditation, which may or may not improve your tiredness, however 'flow' helps in the long term. Thank you for reading: Why Am I so tired? How to overcome? You may also like to read: Pomodoro's and growing trees, how to hack smartphones for study? What is a life well spent?

How often we would like to hear a story? Ah ! such good times of childhood. We all loved a good story. It made us to imagine things, carried us in dreams woven with real and fantacy world. Here I will tell you a once upon a time story about a scarecrow. Stories are told for different purposes. Often, they are for entertainment. However, some are good enough to carry throughout our lives as they carry the message of wisdom. This is one such story. Bear with me its short. But its message is deep enough to the core. Story: Once upon a time a man, went on a journey. I really do not know where he was from, and where he was going to. Yet, he came across a vast field. (Like ones they have in Russsia). He had to cross the field. On the middle of the field there was a scarecrow. He passed the scarecrow to get to the other side of the field. There at the other side of the field he met another man. And alas ! I really do not know what he was doing there and what he was up to. Don't ask me ! Imagine and help me with the story. The second man, was looking at the field and he was about to cross to the other side of the field too. And he saw the scarecrow in the middle of the field and he mistook it for a man. And he asked from the first man. Is there a man in the field? The first guy was wise, he said " I wouldn't say there is a man " Is there no man in the field? Still wise, he said " I wouldn't say there is no man " And the first guy now angry he said, "Is there a man, or no man? One must be true?" First guy, smiled and said, "Neither is true my friend, why don't you take the path, and see for yourself? " And he carried on his journey. That is it. And that is the complete story. For the ones who understand it completely you can skip the rest. For others like me, I will try to explain what it means in simple terms. Meaning: Simply said the question of the first man is wrong each time. He attributed the figure to a man, which is fundamentally wrong. When he asked the first question he was wrong because he never thought that there is a scarecrow. A scarecrow is not "a man". If the wise guy agrees or disagrees to the first guy he also have to first agree to the illusion of a man, which was never there. When he asked the second qestion still he was wrong because he still did not think it is a scarecrow. A scarecrow is not a "no man" Do you follow the thought process of the wise guy? Still if you do not, do not give up. Read it again. Think about it again. There is a lifetime of wisdom hidden in the story. Hope you will find it one day. And when you do. Drop a comment. You may also like to read: Falling leaves in Autumn Hailstorms in summer (Poem and story) Horse races and rat races

You may have heard the term platonic love, before. Here in this article, I will help you to understand and feel platonic love, not for the first time! because once you read the article you would realize you have known it before. Maybe you are hearing "Platonic love" for the first time. Hence, following is a simple definition given by Wikipedia. Definition of platonic love "Platonic love is a type of love in which sexual desire or romantic features are nonexistent or have been suppressed, sublimated, or purgated(purified), but it means more than simple friendship." Does it mean a love where sexual desire is not there? We know that kind of love, don't we? A mother's love for her children. A fathers love for his children. A child's love for his/her parents Siblings love for each other. A priest loving his followers. Frends love each other. Are all of the above can be considered as platonic love? (platonic simply means what Plato interpreted) How can we understand platonic love? I can show you an easy method to understand what it means something to be platonic. To understand platonic love, consider following examples. Imagine a circle, which is 100% smooth. You can imagine it right? Have you ever seen such a complete circle in your life? It is obvious we can never draw a one. Yet we can imagine. We will never find it in real life, we might never able to produce a complete circle. Yet it can exist in our minds. Similarly, you can imagine a square, a straight line or a triangle. Yet there are not 100% straight line a square or triangle in real world. Imagine a beautiful butterfly, or a flower. However, that beauty is 100%. There is no flaw, there is no more beauty than that. It is at its best. A magical butterfly, a magical flower. As eyes can see and mind can imagine. Now imagine a world with justice. That everyone is equally served, even animals even plants. Can you imagine such a world? Maybe you can, but such a world does not exist. Yet we can imagine. You can similarly imagine a world with peace, beauty, even Love! Imagine a love which is so pure, in its basic form. Without any greed. Like "God's love". We can imagine, not only imagination, but we may also try to achieve it thorough our bodily acts. Yet we will never reach that Platonic love. Only we can reach only so far. So platonic love is not, A mother loves her children. A fathers love for his children. A child's love for his/her parents Siblings love each other. A priest's love for his followers. Frends love. Such platonic love is imaginary, we would not know it exist or not out of our imagination. Yet Plato tried to achieve, at least he believed he would reach such virtuous form after his death. Now answer the question, Have you imagined platonic love before? Maybe you have without coining the term. Thank you for reading, How to understand platonic love. You may also like to read, Nature is really beautiful, or is it?

I had a dream last night, I was a prisoner of my own mind, couldn't reach out of my fingertips and feet, thoughts were locked deep inside my brain, Then I woke up. Let's imagine a prisoner, forget about his crime. He is locked in a cell, only empty walls. he cannot reach what he needs outside his cell. He cannot feel the fresh air on his cheeks. He cannot smell fresh food in the market. He cannot see his loved family again, as he is a prisoner he is paying for his crime by restricting his freedom until he is judged that he had payed enough. Do you see the similarity? if you haven't yet, let me explain it to you. Where have you been living all your life? In your house? In your city, country? Are you sure? I have lived all my life in my body. I haven't really moved a feet beyond it my whole life. Although I can carry my prison to the edge of the world still I can just see the beautiful sunsets only through the tiny window of my prison walls. I can hear the outside world only through the vibrations of prison walls. I can smell and taste only things which come through the jailers little window. If I stopped there I will be dragging you onto a negativity. Yet, it doesn't stop there. My thoughts are also been living in its own prison shaped with the language and my education. More and more I learn things, more wisdom I accumilate, prison itself seems to be an illusion. Let it be a trigger for us to think.

What drives a moral society? What drives us not to be Dorien Grey's in our own lives? In his work "The theory of moral sentiments" Adam Smith talks about praise, and praiseworthiness as forces which make us more morally applicable and in check, to such unacceptable behaviors. Definitions - main argument - Application. Praise - Praise is the acceptance of those who are around us, family friends and society in words, and by other means. Praiseworthiness - This is a mental entity, which is created by our own mind judging our own actions, and weighing its potential to become a praise, in the future. Even though it may never become an actual praise. It is essential that we ourselves are observers of our own actions, like looking at a mirror (picture of Dorien) to judge our actions praiseworthy or not. Main Argument. There is no argument that we crave praise by those around us, and it is a driving force for moral behavior for us. However, praiseworthiness is the potential for our action by our own judgment which still drive us in same morally acceptable actions even if we are not praised by others. It is a value we generate of our own. As an example, if we are praised for an action which we did not do ourselves, still we would not feel comfortable as we ourselves know we are not praiseworthy. Application Children, and adults can be motivated by praise. Praiseworthiness is a value given by us in our own minds. Hence, a mathematician, will still be highly motivated on his own line of work, even nobody knows about his work. Actually, speaking it really doesn't matter you are praised, as long as you know the value of your own work. Praiseworthiness is more important than praise, as a driver of morally acceptable behavior, as praise itself can be actually led to morally unacceptable behavior in the absence of praiseworthiness. Opposite Argument. Punishment and Fear of Punishment Shame and Fear of Shame Similarly, if you extend the principles of the above argument, opposite of the praise can be considered as punishment and shame. More than punishment and shame, it is the fear of punishment and fear of shame which keep us in check to moral behavior. Even at a loss of other temporary gains. Hence, it is more important to create internal change of fear of punishment, fear of shame and praiseworthiness, if we are aiming for a morally acceptable society. Thank you for reading Praise and Praiseworthiness, drivers of a moral society- Adam Smith You may also like to read - Picture of Dorien Grey. What is time?

I had several blog posts on mindfulness, Here I have combined them to answer everything from its definition to practice. I also have given several links to related topics which helps in understanding mindfulness. Everything you need to know about mindfulness in four steps Step1 Definition of mindfulness Step2 Understanding mental objects. Step3 Understanding values (defilements) Step4 Mindfulness practice. Step 1 Definition of mindfulness, what it is and what it is not. Being aware of the awareness is the mindfulness. This is the shortest, and closest and most complete definition of mindfulness that I have come across. And these are not my words. These are from great people who practice mindfulness daily. But as we all know having known the definition helps but not completely. Being aware is not mindfulness. Just being aware is not mindfulness. As nothing can be done without being aware. We are aware all the time we are not sleep. We work, walk, talk and roll in an emotional roller-coaster throughout the day. But can that be called being Mindful? And we know the answer. But if you are aware of your awareness, then it is mindfulness by above definition. See the Suttle difference? Let's imagine you are a programmer. You are tired after six hours of work, and you are aware of your tiredness. That is not mindfulness. But if you see that you are observing your awareness of tiredness as a quantity itself. Then you are mindful. Mindfulness feels like a higher layer of awareness. But what is the importance of knowing this? It is obvious we are immediately starting actioning when we are faced by an emotion, like tiredness, love, greed, anger etc. That is if we are just aware. But if we are mindful of theses emotions, there is a gap between thoughts and actions. Instead of involved with these emotions, once they are objectified as things to be aware of, we naturally tend to get away from our impulsiveness. I can write thousand benefits of being mindful. But this may not the time or the place. I suggest there are thousands of blogs have done the same before. So, I choose not to. However, I will give you another principle to help you with this. That is, Mindfulness without wisdom is like a blind goose. That is true. You have read it correct. Mindfulness without wisdom is not going to go anywhere and it is going to do more harm than good. So, what is wisdom? Wisdom is the information we receive to guide our mindfulness with. I have given you some wisdom. here in this article. But there is lot more. Wisdom is shaped by our information. So, if you are prejudiced by your culture or religion, I suggest you go in front of a mountain and be mindful until your ego drops down to earth and, then mindfulness will take over. And it will generate wisdom. As information is always out there, whenever you hear or see or smell something. Now knowing the definition of mindfulness, we will move onto mental objects. Essentially in mindfulness we are being aware of mental objects, awareness is also a mental objects. what are the characteristics of these mental objects? Step 2 On Mental objects and their characteristics. Let's talk about objects of mind. Let's not go into deep theorems of philosophy. Let's try to understand our objects of mind in a simple manner so we can have a good model of what is happening inside out. First to explain and identify mental objects we will do a thought experiment! Hang on it's going to be fun. As per the example, imagine you are looking at a flower. When you turn your eyes, you see a flower right? Now imagine you are a newborn baby and forget everything what you have learned so far. You are seeing the world for the first time. Now, let's look at the flower. What do you see? Do you see a flower? Do you agree there is no flower if you remove layers of knowledge? Now, do you agree yourself now, and yourself as a newborn baby both saw the same thing? But for the baby, there was no flower, maybe there were some colors. But for the baby there was only some light, which was present. (We really do not know it was even colors) It seems that the things we have learned since our birth, has influenced markedly on what we see. Essentially it has made a world around us with our own imagination added to the layer of just mere colors, sensations and sounds. I will give some characteristics of these mental objects . Mental objects are unique to each and every individual. We cannot access the world or communicate with the world without these mental objects. Our values are almost always associated with these mental objects as we are communicating with the world through them Mental objects change over time. At one point of time our mind can only access only one object I will discuss the characteristics one by one. And the importance and application of each. As a start here I will show that how mental objects are unique to each and every individual. Imagine a family of five, father, mother, son his wife and a grandson. Imagine yourself as each one of them and think about following, father will see himslef as -> me mother will see father as -> husband son will see father as -> father daughter in law will see -> father in law grandson will see -> grandfather Do you see that all of them are talking about same person? Yet for each one of them the mental object of essentially same person, is markedly different. Even you have your own imagination about this father, and I am 100% sure it is different from mine. Who is correct? I can answer this question (who is correct ?) in half a day or in a half a sentence. But I will answer it in half a sentence to keep the post shorter. Everyone is correct but only in their own relative world. More importantly Let's discuss the importance of knowing, these mental objects which are different for each one of us. A flower that is beautiful to you may not be necessarily beautiful to another. A loss that is not painful to you maybe very painful to another. Have some empathy and understand and believing what they are saying is true is the only way we can understand what they are experiencing. Do not go into arguments by observing something from just your point of view. Someone else with more background knowledge may have a better understanding and point of view. After all, only you know nobody is exactly correct as we can never know what is really out there except through our own copy of mental objects ! Step 3 understanding Values. This article is a follow up to the Objects of mind mental representation, where I have discussed some of the characteristics of mental objects. Here I will try to understand how our values are generated. Following is a poem about our values. Happiness Quantifiers - from the book what is time. We are in the land of Quantifiers they shouted, We measure our distances, we measure our weights, We measure our time, and we measure our speeds, We measure our heat, and we measure our energies. And when we get together, we talk about our measurements. We talk about the speeds of our cars. We chat about the calories we consume. We argue about the wages we are paid. We fight about the boundaries and land. We laugh about pink and white dresses. And we teach our children to measure on their own. That's all what we do. If you have followed the thought process of mental objects, previously I have discussed everything which comes to our consciousness is represented by our mind by mental objects. Same physical object is represented by different mental imaginary by different people in deferent ways. More importantly our values are attached to the mental objects. You would say, no, our values are in the physical object itself. Let's understand this. Example of values of mental objects Imagine you are trying to sell your car. You are the first owner of the car. You try to sell it for good money; however, nobody wants to buy it. After few months of trying, you give up. You give up to a salesperson to some relatively low price than you have initially imagined. You think it is worth more than that and it is surely. Few months later you see your car outside a shopping complex, and you meet the new owner. With a casual talk without telling anything, you ask how much he pay for the car. And he gives a value which rolls your eyes. Shamefully you go away thinking you missed the opportunity to earn some more cash. What happened? It happened as the price was not in the car, the price was attached to the mental object of the car. Really speaking there is a branch of finance which is called behavioral finance as the real-world decisions we make are inherently attached to the values of our mental objects. Not only in finance, but we can also generalize this idea to any other value given to mental objects, if you closely think about it, whenever we create a mental object, we give a price tag to it. It may be a religion, mathematic equation, a goal for next year, a relationship or friendship. The following characteristics of mental objects are also applicable to these price tags naming, values are unique to each individual. values change over time. What is the Advantage of knowing this? I would say it is essential to understand where our values come from as each and every action and decision making, every and gain and loss in our lives come from values we assign. Hence the happiness as well as sadness, pain and pleasure inherently bound to the values. Anyone who wish to live a mindful life, this information may help to overcome some of the problems if not all. Step 4. How to Practice mindfulness - Looking at defilements. If you asked me how to practice mindfulness. I would definitely say I would not give you set of instructions to follow. I am not capable of doing it as I am still a humble student of the great wisdom. Then you would think what the point if so, writing this article. I would say, 'wait- listen -my friend- I know I am not capable, but I know people who are capable. And this is the link to such a simple and complete guide to mindfulness. First for you who do not like to read beyond this point check out the link. It is a great guide by Ashin Tejaniya who has practiced and prepared the guide for people who are interested. You can download the PDF guide and follow it in your own time. Don't look down on the defilements, they will laugh at you. Once one of my teachers said, there are two kinds of knowledge. One type of knowledge you memorize. Other type of knowledge you memorize where to find. In essence these second type of knowledge we do not use routinely and yet we know, where to find if such a need occurred in the future. Above book by Ashin Tejaniya was a one such book I kept in my mind that I needed to access when I have time. So, keep it in your memory if you think one day you would start thinking about food for your mind to have a look. Here I will summarize few concepts presented in this book. Mindfulness practice presented in the book is not to be done one specific time of the day but throughout the life. It should be effortless and relaxed. Objective is to observe the mind without judgement. (judgements are defilements or values we give to mental objects) If there is stress and pain, doing this, something is wrong with the method. Such smooth mindfulness should gain momentum over time. In the land of thousand rivers, one day I walked onto a bridge. Alone, by myself. I can still picture the green mountain tops and trees covering each bank of the river. Majestic tropical trees shading parts of the massive water which runs down the river. I can remember the clouds and the reflections of them on the water. I looked down below. Water from upstream flew downstream passing under the bridge. And I continued to look, second after second, minute after minute, I could see new water replacing old water, still flowing downstream. It was continuous. There was no end to it. And I know the bridge is still there, water would be still flowing, if I went back and look at it tonight. There is something similar about the mind that these great teachers try to teach us about. Maybe one day It will occur to me. By writing about this wisdom, I have given you the power to change your mindfulness practice hoping it would help you the way it helped me. In summary Everything you need to know about mindfulness Mindfulness is being aware of the awareness. In practicing mindfulness, we look at mental objects Mental objects are tagged with values given by our own minds. It is the values which gives problems, and practice of mindfulness is to see the process. You may wonder what is the purpose of doing this? Apart from health benefits and mental stability. Of course there are plenty of advantages. But if you want to think more deeply following is a good article to read about. Doing and not doing things. Thank you for reading, everything you need to know about mindfulness. You may also like to read: A bucket of water bucket of life. Story of the boy, dog and mathematics Embracing silence Waves of the sea and life lessons What is a life well spent.

What is the present moment? To understand why we can't live in the present moment, it is utmost important to understand what is meant by present moment. following is a paragraph taken from the book from the past to the future or What is time. “Live for the moment” When I was still a schoolboy, I heard the above phrase from one of my teachers. She was an English teacher. For some unknown mysterious reason, I remembered it. I cannot remember anything else that she taught me specifically. But it is amazing to see how the mind plays games on us. I have thought about that phrase many times in the past. Many times, in the future I will think about it too. At the time it seemed to be the best advice. It may be the best advice in terms of a rational mind, that would be the only wise thing to do. From time and time, I have come across different versions of the same advice from great philosophers of the time, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, Today is a gift, that's why it's called present “(Oogway- kung fu panda). It invites us to be mindful. Yet we struggle to live in this moment. Our minds wander in the past and into the unknown future. There is more to the mystery than its thought. Can we really live in this moment? What about learning lessons from the past and planning the future? What does the moment mean? Does the moment mean today? If so, how can I live in a day? Does the moment mean an hour? If so, how can I live in an hour? Does the moment mean a minute? If so, how can I live in a minute? Does the moment mean a second? If so, how can I live in a second? Does the moment mean a millisecond? If so, how can I live in a millisecond? It seems stupidity to ask such questions. But , as one of my teachers said, “He who asks may be a fool for one minute, but he isn't a fool forever.” How can we live in now? is not the correct question. Time seems so fast, if the advice is true, I should be feeling each and every moment continuously being mindful. Truth is, the mind is not capable of handling so much information. It simply cannot follow everything. It seems to be jumping from event to event or thought to thought from past to the future, trying to live in this second seems to be more of a supernatural dream than reality. Maybe a meditator can come closer to the feeling of a millisecond. But for an average human being, simply an impossible task. There seems to be the future, there seems to be the past, but the rate of the future becoming past is too rapid to grasp. It's after twenty years that I now feel, maybe it's all wrong. Maybe there is nobody in the seven billion human population that can grasp the reality of that fraction of a second. Or maybe I am asking the wrong questions. Maybe I should ask can anyone live in this moment? If we cannot live in that fraction of millisecond time which is ‘present’, where are we now? Am I in the past? Am I in the future? Am I in some kind of delusion of the mind? Is there anything which can be labeled as moment, or present? Fig 9. Traditional vs rational timeline. It is worth doing some analysis of the figure here. If we look at the traditional timeline, there is past present and future. However, if you look at time, it is a continuous function. When we model the world with a continuous function, we just live in a fraction of a second (even we cannot be exactly say as fraction of a second is even divisible to even smaller fragments.) Following is a paragraph From how to model the world in a mathematical function. Whatever the model scientist and mathematicians will come across in the distant future will be a continuous function. If you know some basic stuff, for a continuous function you can input any value and there will be an output. These values we input are discrete. However, the function describes a relationship of variables against each other or relative change of an input variable. So, what is constant (or common characteristic) in such a function is change. Only thing that is common to continuous functions is that it is bound with change, you can only see this if you graph the function. This is the intuition we can get when we look at the world in a hypothetical continuous function. We can expand on this idea. If something is bound to change, moment by moment, there cannot be inherent value to it. The values we see are only artificial, cross sections of the function which lasts only fraction of a time, or not at all. More importantly there is no, place for us to enjoy the present moment. As present moment is continuously changing. This is the exact argument presented in the following poem. So, when Eckart Tolle wrote his book and everyone did hug it with enthusiasm, he made a mistake. And it is unfortunate not lot of them come across the explanation. So, live for the moment by my teacher is a mistake. A walk on the beach A poem on power of now (or no power) - Poem from the book from the past to the future? One day I had a walk on the beach, With my daughter on my shoulders. My feet dug deep into the sand as I walked. On halfway I looked back. Most of my footsteps washed away, No trace, fresh sand covered footsteps, Waves crashed as ever. Then I realized, That I had no past, I had no future, And I cannot harvest the power of now. It is too fast! Similarly following poem illustrates the same ideal. To catch The Happiness before it hides "Life is the journey not the destination." An angel told me once the happiness is the movement, the journey, the in between. Then I took a walk and thought to myself. If life is a wave. Happiness is a movement of the buoy. If life is a waterfall. Happiness is the flight of a droplet. If life is wind. Happiness is a falling leaf. If life is a river happiness is in the flow of waters not stagnated pools of calm. If life is a lifetime, happiness is in years and decades. If life is a year, happiness is in weeks and days. If life is a day, happiness is in hours minutes and seconds If life is a millisecond, happiness is an illusion in the mind. Meaning: To catch the happiness before it hides The poem was triggered by a tweet highlighting "life is a journey not the destination". Ha ha ha, however, I Lied. I really didn't take a walk, (Poets are allowed to lie in the context of poem) though it took me on a thought journey (Maybe I did not lie after all). Now you know what I thought and it really is difficult to catch the happiness if the life is just in milliseconds. However, we have to go through milliseconds to go into seconds. So, what is happiness? Is it an illusion of mind? So, where does this leave us with, why can't I live in the present moment?? I would say, we really have to think about this individually and seriously. Something really seems to be not in order. If you understand the concepts given in this, you will know that even a thought cannot be there. To understand look at one of your thoughts. Think that you are thinking about 'Time' the word time echoed in your mind. How long did it take for it to be there? more than fraction of a second right. So, even to comprehend something we need at least fraction of a second, but this should include the past, as the present moment is continuous. So, when we think and when we understand something it is combination of past and fraction of now. So, what does it really mean to live in the present moment is really something we cannot do. Simply because it is too fast to comprehend. So, are we living in an illusion of mind? These are exact question's philosophy would try to answer and after all the film Matrix seems no joke. In summary: Why can't I live in the present moment? Present moment is an outcome of a continuous function. Hence present moment is changing moment to moment. Our comprehension is too slow, and nothing will ever be able to comprehend present moment as a second is infinitely divisible by nature. Maybe we are living in an illusion created by mind. Thank you for reading: why can't I live in the present moment. You may also like to read: Random walk for life. Living in silence.

Following is a collection of articles which are on death and afterlife in general. You can skip from one topic to the other as these are not inherently related. Topics are laid out in following order. These articles include personal experience and philosophical insights. Open for discussion. Philosophy of near-death experience Immortality and afterlife. Near Death Experience in an airplane Philosophical insights to near death experience Afterlife sausage party What is a life well spent Immortality Near Death experience - in an Airplane Today I am going to share a story with you. It is hilarious now when I look back and think about it but nonetheless it is still a near death experience as it is. And the lessons learnt are still valid. I had to travel in an airplane few weeks back. I had a little cold for a few days' prior with a mild frontal headache. I didn't mind that as I never had any problem travelling. 6-hour travel after busy day of working, on top of that I couldn't even sleep on the night before. As usual and as often happens, flight was delayed one a half hour! Well, that is for the background. Flight was smooth, nothing abnormal, I was in good spirits. However, I could not sleep still. At 40000 feet I was really fine, then the pilot announced we are about to descend. And slowly but steadily it started a down slide. Then I noticed a sharp headache on half of my forehead, which has never been there, like I was struck with a club. That's strange Sharp severe pain 9/10. My initial thoughts were maybe it is a sinusitis and blocked ear causing nerve irritation. (later happened to be what it is) Or a stroke. Latter was fearsome. A worst place to get a stroke! Am I going to die? Are these my last minutes on this life? And I panicked. I palpated my pulse and felt its slowing down. I could feel my heartbeat slow down. For 15 seconds I believed I am going to die. I told the stranger nearby that I feel ill, and I lost my consciousness. And I woke up. for 2 minutes I didn't know what happened. And a kind flight attendant helped me with some water, and I processed what happened. Pain was still there, and my heartbeat was fine. I had a Vasovagal attack! There is more to the story. But I will not drag you on that lane as I really like to keep the post short and let you scroll through the cat stories in the web. Lessons Learnt from near death experience. Lesson one: For 15 seconds that I believed I am going to die, I reflected my life. And I knew I have wasted it on unnecessary things. Family, money, my job, stress, work did not matter. I really did not know what is on the other side. And I regretted the way I have spent my life. Lesson two: The only one person that could help me was the one who sat next to me. That was the most important person. I will end the story here. When I reflect It may be not a true near-death experience in an airplane, yet I did believe it was. Some of you may have near death experiences. True ones. Please feel free to share your lessons in comments. For rest of you I suggest imagining. Imagine before it happens. Philosophical insights to the near-death experience. Few questions arise from near death experience are, Is it evidence to afterlife is prevailing? How near-death experiences occur? How near-death experiences changes life? Imagine a typical scenario of near-death experience. Imagine someone in a hospital, with a medical condition and suddenly stopped heart function. After several hours of extensive effort his heart is reverted, and he is back to life. After waking up, he describes what he has undergone. He may explain the experience as an outer body experience, or travelling through lights and waiting to enter, sometimes they may explain bad experiences like going through darkness. How can we explain above experiences during near death? We will understand this as two scenarios. Imagine your life is like a room. And afterlife is next room. Near death experience may be that you have left your room, entered the next room and due to some reason came back to your room again. In this scenario, it is true it will represent afterlife. In the second scenario, you never left the room and just bumped into the door, you didn't see the other side, but just saw the door. It doesn't prove that there is another room at all behind that door. Really speaking, most of scientists and philosophers believe this is the most likely explanation to near death experiences. It may be due to extreme chemical fluctuations they had during such episodes. So we have some answers to first two questions. Maybe near death experience is not evidence of after life Maybe it is just because of chemical fluctuations, after all you are never "dead" as you wake up after near death. More importantly how near-death experiences change life? It is a common to see near death experiences changes the most of lives of such people who have experienced that. Markedly and so often. These transformative effects of near-death experiences are not explained by chemical fluctuations. However, if you followed my previous article you would know, there is no need to have gone through the process of dying or near-death for these transformative effects to occur. As even having a vasovagal attack and thinking I am in the process of dying, created some transformative thoughts in me. It seems they are merely psychological. Looking through the window of the empty tower I cannot see beyond the horizon, Where water lilies flower Crimes of the past when they haunt me an every hour. Curled on the floor when they bleed. sweet memories I savored. What is there great beyond? Afterlife. Sausage Party I was watching Sausage Party the other day. An animation film with dark humor, if you haven't already watched. For those who haven't watched I have to give a summary to explain one scene which made me think. Film is about food in the supermarket, living their own lives thinking that they have a life filled with happiness and joy beyond supermarket doors. The humans or their "Gods" choose them to go beyond and give them a life of their imagination. There is a scene in the film where the sausage meets some wise items who are "non expiring", and they discuss the "great beyond " is a lie that they themselves generated to reduce the sadness and chaos otherwise would prevail if food understood the truth. This let me think about life and death. It seems whoever wrote the plot of the Sausage Party did think about it as well. We generally think the life beyond death is Either good or evil. Yet if we stick to facts, there is no absolute evidence for either of them. So, we have to imagine each one is equally possible. We ourselves have to think individually. Otherwise, we will be singing all the old songs our ancestors sang. There is a chance they created those songs, so they feel better when we face the death beyond. Let's think about each in turn, consider following scenarios, Possible outcomes of after death. Everyone gets a happy ending after death. Everyone gets a sad ending after death. Death is the end of everything as we know it. What comes after death is consequence of what we do today. External force will help us to become great after death. You can be creative and add more. I will stick to these simple thoughts and discuss what we should be doing. Please drop all your prejudices if you wish to read beyond this point. Trust me I have my own believes, yet I like to forget all this and be rational and rational only. Scenario 1,2,3 If first second and third are true, there is nothing to worry. Whatever we do today the outcome for each of our action is fixed no matter what. It is good right? Yes of course, it is good only if we know one of them is true. Trust me I have not come across such evidence to say so. If I would ever find out, the search would end, and I will write it here so you don't have to look for it and we all can be happy or sad. Scenario 4 Imagine the fourth one is true. Our actions determine what happens to us after death. This is an equally possible scenario. If this is possible, we really have to be careful what we do in this life. Otherwise, we are doomed. What we should do and avoid you already know. Our ancestors taught us. But if we look at the world, you will see different ancestors taught us different good and bad things. One action which is correct in one part of the world is wrong in the other part. Scenario 5 If this is true it is great news. All we have to do is do whatever we like and get that external help on the specific way. But if you are rational, this is an equally possible scenario. There is a chance this could be wrong as well, as all of the others. More importantly if you believe in this too much it can clash with scenario 4. You will see this as a loophole to escape consequences of your actions. So, how are you going to decide what to do? You may ask. Think about each scenario and give equal weight to each one of them. Then think about yourself and you will have the answer. Unfortunately, I am not capable of deciding for yourself. What is a life well spent? - Minimalist, Achiever, Seeker. I will try to answer the question what is a life, well spent in a philosophical point of view. Story of happiness: I knew a boy who lived in our village, he was a cheerful boy. He wasn't a genius, average in everything. The quality I liked about him most is his manner with other people. I never saw him unhappy. Always smile on his lips. Have you known someone like that? I always wonder where their happiness comes from. Maybe there is a fountain of happiness inside their brains which always overflow them with Joy. As he spent his ever-happy life, with his friends and family he was just around 17 or 18 years old when he started to drive a van. People used to hire his van for picnics. So, they can go around the country visiting places and he is being a cheerful boy this was a great life for him as well. As it happened one day, he went out with a group on one such trip. And we heard the story that the group went on swimming in a river. Few of them got caught in fast current and were washed away. The boy, he jumped into the water to save them, and I am not sure what happened, yet he drowned in the process of trying to save others. He died a teenager. Now, I have outlived his life (he was only one or two years younger than me). Yet, I cannot think about the cheerful short life that he had. Why are such beautiful souls taken away? This also brings back the question. What is a life well spent? Was his life well spent? Of course, we have to think about how spend our lives as the life is limited as we see. It is limited by death, inevitable for all of us. Any vacation would end one day. What is the answer? One way to think about it is we have to achieve valuable things in life. Materialistic or memories which gives us a certain form of accomplishment. We can aim for higher or lower at variable risk. What is a life well spent? - Minimalist, Achiever, Seeker. Minimalist We can spend a minimalist's life settling for smaller things and aiming low. We have less chance of failure if we do not try. Example: someone would settle for a life with minimal pay and spend it on eating and drinking, just enjoying few things. An Achiever We can aim for higher at risk of failure, and if we are successful, we will be more happy, more accomplished. Example: someone would not settle for life but will raise a family, to keep the legend of him go beyond the life, build a company, write a novel or a book to feel accomplished. Most of us are limited to these two variations of each materialistic/ mental accomplishment views about life. The core idea behind both of those views is that our life is inherently valuable and have a meaning, at death we are going to lose it. A Seeker And also, there is another school of thoughts. What if our lives are not inherently valuable? If so, at death we would lose nothing, gain nothing. What would be such a life would be like? The life would be to understand the null value of life rather than chase the values of life. Some philosophers identify these two ideologies, former as western, and later as eastern patterns of thinking. What would you choose for your life to spent with? Atoms and dust - Poem I was walking on the sidewalk, And stepped on leaves and dirt. Stopped for a while to harvest some sunlight, When mind continued the walk Those dirt and leaves which I stepped on, I hear them scream in silence. They carry the atoms and molecules of my bloodline. Just a few hundred years into the past. Can't wait to be a leaf, can't wait to be some dust. I will stick in the boots of my future children. Mixed with your atoms and dust. In summary You can either be a minimalist and be happy, or chase success with risk of failure. Less known third option is to chase the meaning of life, in search of 'Truth.' What will happen if I am immortal? (Immortality) - A life in a black hole. Let us discuss immortality. To make it interesting let's imagine you are already immortal. We will go through simple scenarios to understand this. First of all, it is clear that nothing we have seen so far around us seem to last forever, everything seems to be changing at least over billions of years, although difficult to see in our eyes or during our lifetime. Even the mighty Sun and moon. Immortal life in a black hole If we are immortal, we will have to live through the lifetime of earth and beyond. When the earth is destroyed, we will be swung into the atmosphere. There is no need to eat, as even if we do not, we wouldn't die. There would be no need of water or oxygen to sustain the life, as immortal life is sustained by itself. We can drift in the atmosphere until eventually the sun also at the end of its life and collapse into a black hole. If the sun collapses, we will be in a complete darkness. After some billions of years in darkness we will forget we have seen light. There would be no difference of living and not living as there is no change. Both living and non-living will overlap each other if there are no conscious thoughts. It is not difficult to understand as our thoughts are always linked to the stimulations that we get, when there are no stimulations, thoughts will cease. Immoral life on earth Now, let's imagine you are not sucked into the black hole. You stay on earth doing ordinary things. Would you? There would be no need to do a job. There would be no need to create more and more immortal people (birth) as nobody is going to die. There would be no need to do anything. Even you don't have to travel. At least there is no rush. You have time. When you are immortal outcome for you is fixed. So, whatever you are going to do is not going to change the outcome for you. There would be no need to measure the time as even time would be valueless, when it is present in abundance. Really speaking there is no value in anything in such a world. As nothing is going to change your outcome. In such a world what would you do? When there is no death, there would be no need of thinking about it. So, nobody would think about it. You would no longer depend on physical laws, gravity and magnetic forces cannot have effect on you, otherwise you would not be immortal. Let's stop our thought process in here, for a while and discuss why we should discuss about immortality. You may have different ideas about immortality. Kindly let me know if you do. Yet if above is true you would understand that immortality when taken as itself reduces the boundary between life and death. Immortality is not itself aversion of death. Immortality is aversion of life as well. Immortality is not itself aversion of pain. Immortality is aversion of happiness. There is no immortality without sacrificing what we are already attached to, either pain or sadness, thoughts or silence. In summary: Near death experiences allow us to think about life to change it for better. Afterlife can have several outcomes. Life can be spent as a minimalist achiever or a seeker. Immortality can be equally non attractive concept. (Age of Adline) Thank you for reading: Philosophy of near-death experience Immortality and afterlife. You may also like to read : Everything you need to know about mindfulness Why I can't live in present moment.