Can we rest for a while...?

"Speak when you are angry--and you will make the best speech you'll ever regret"

Anger -- one of those emotions on which action comes first and realisation the next. And I guess that's the reason why many a people find it difficult to manage or put a period on the conversation when it is pumped out at this state. This is one emotion which we can trace back to all our issues - international or mere domestic. I was just wondering why not put a little thought into this complex emotion.

Why do we get angry? This is the first question that comes to my mind.. The reasons could be many, an incident that dint hold up to your expectation, or a continuously lingering thought that managed to get its way thorough the mind and create the impact.. the reason for this emotiona l outburst could be any number crossing a thousand. But all these reasons, I guess, can be summarised and brought into one single point of thought and that according to me would be "Expectation".

Expectations... every thought in a relationship revolves around this concept. We just have to probe a person to list out his/her expectations and am sure the list would run down to pages. Mother, father, husband, wife, children, siblings, friends, manager, colleague, subordinates.. ... this is one emotion that is common in all the relationships. And forget about relationship, we should be using the word every human, known or unknown. For instance even a passerby whom you don't notice is also not exempted out of this emotion. Even he'll have the basic expectation that you'll give space for him to move through the path way. A person who is unknown to you, but then if you don't stand up to that one thought of his, the result might be an embarrassing scowl or a stare. We are so accustomed to this emotion that we don't even spare the people whom we are unaware of and it would be more than easy to imagine what would be the impact when it comes to those close relationships.

An unmet expectation lead to anger, hatred and all those emotions that is considered as toxic for our mind, body and soul. Still we humans, the most evolved of the beings go on in our way, unaware of the impacts. Is it because we are not yet ready to meet the expectation of the One above all of us, who is the creator and mentor? Talking about that I wonder, if HE also is strangled in the webs of these unnerving emotions like anger and expectations from one of His most beautiful creations - the creation with a fully evolved brain and free will!

There are few more emotions that can be talked together with, here - Ego and Fear. I guess these 2 emotions are also closely associated with Anger. Any comment or action that pricks out on a person's ego would bring out a response crammed with anger and similar is the case, i guess, with Fear too. The fear as it is can exist at different levels and it is mostly the fear of losing that pumps out anger filled statements.

Will there ever be a day when man is free of all these emotions that displays the insecurity in him? Man one of the most powerful creation -- will the creator ever would have thought that he'll be the most insecure one in the whole creation? Even with all the thinking abilities, we are unsure of the results of our own actions and there's this accompanied fear of losing the identity. Why....??? Why are we so insecure in life...?? For that matter Who are we afraid of..? The fellow beings who are struggling just as we are...?? Since the only one above us is the Creator himself, who is not ready for any kind of a competition with us, i guess its our own friends and relations that we are competing with -- the fellow beings!!!!

If you ask me, I am tired.. tired of this unending struggle to keep up the pace with others in the race. I want to sit back and relax... is it possible? I am not very sure if I can make it up to the statement I just made. May be I am looking for company, another set of people who will join me to stay back, so that I am not alone -- I guess the fear of being alone might push me to join the race and move forward along with the racing group. The typical thought of the human... even the worst wrong becomes the most right if it is backed up by more than one single hand. Isnt it?

The happiness thermostat

The happiness thermostat

Dr P V Vaidyanathan Aug 25, 2008

WE all constantly seek happiness, which means different things for different people.
Many of us look forward to positive events, like a marriage, the birth of a child, passing an examination, winning a contest, achieving a landmark of goal that we have set for ourselves, which make us feel happy.

But recent research indicates that all of us are born with a happiness ‘thermostat’ which is responsible for keeping our levels of happiness at a particular level, in spite of ups and downs in life.

This study, based in Germany, and appeared in the Economic Journal, studied the life patterns of hundreds of people, over a 20 year period.If was discovered that positive events like a marriage or birth of a child did make people happy, but this happiness slowly started to go down, and by the end of a two year period, most people had come back to their previous happiness level, the level at which they were, before the event (marriage/ child birth) had occurred.

Likewise, the researchers discovered that traumatic events, like a divorce or a death in the family, caused one to become sad and depressed, but eventually with time, the person regained his or her previous levels of happiness.

This has given rise to the concept of all of us being born with a happiness ‘thermostat’, something that always pulls our emotions of well being back to a set point.

What this means is that we normally cannot remain eternally happy or sad, following positive or negative events.

This thermostat perhaps functions differently and is set at different points for different people, and hence we see people who are happier or sadder than others. This gives credibility to the old saying ‘Time heals all wounds’, and is what we commonly know as adaptation.

Another study, conducted by the Edinburgh University involving 900 twins discovered that at least 50 per cent of our happiness levels are genetically determined.
The remaining 50 per cent of happiness comes from factors like career, lifestyle and relationships. Though the research indicated that much of our being happy depends on our genes, it also goes on to say that this is not something permanent.

Many of our day to day activities influence this level. Also, writing a dairy, being grateful, willfully becoming positive in one’s outlook---many such characters can help us to override this genetically determined levels of happiness and can make us happier that what nature has programmed us to be.

Happiness and sorrow—both come with an expiry date, as the human mind is equipped with a thermostat like quality, which helps it to bring back our emotional state to a pre-fixed or pre-determined level.

Also much of how happy a person is, is determined by genes, although working hard to raise one’s positivity can help to change this level.

All this research also makes us think about things we have learned in the past, like Newton’s law, which says that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and the various philosophies like Vedanta and Advaita, which stress on the duality of life, and have always been saying the everything in life comes together are two sides of a coin - night and day, good and bad, happiness and sorrow, light and dark, pain and pleasure.

This current research does bring about a meeting of science and religion, so to speak.

Decisions.....

"Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever" was the quote that showed up in my blogspot today. Decisions.. one of the most important terms in a person's life book. It seems as if there is always an analysis done at the end of every funeral sorting out the Right and the Wrong Decisions taken by the one who is now lying 6ft deep down in the earth. And may be at the end of every lifetime the soul itself might have to stand up out there in the God's court to account for all those decisions taken during every point of that specific lifetime. Its this fear that forces every human to practice a little diplomacy in his/her Decisions in life.. the fear that at one point of this lifetime they are answerable for it all; if not then at least at the beginning of this Life after death where a per the mythology all the records are maintained by the great Chithragupta and the punishment/reward accordingly given by Yama - the embodiment of darkness.

I don't think we can ever take this subject to an analysis of right and wrong as that question depends on individual perception. We can only talk about the various decisions that's taken just like how a review is done on books or movies, jotting down the contents and leaving the analysis for the public out there. Coming back to the initial quote on which I started this whole concept on, personally I have always had this feeling that every decision we take in life is all a pre-decided one and obviously the most perfect. May be because of the various teachings that I have received from my spiritual teacher, I believe in this fact that life as it is, is just like another story book. The book is already written and that too for someone else to read and enjoy but the characters are not aware of the fact that their individual fate has already been decided by the author. Instead they struggle and thrive at various phases of their life to make it better, not knowing the fact that they can never bring in a different outcome of the situations and all the more that it is all for the best and the better. It might really be a very interesting work for the One above all of us, just like the way all the authors are proud of their efforts on a book. May be this is one reason why I want to write a book for once in this lifetime.. to take charge of another person's life and design it the way I want to.

I am not sure how many of us believe the fact that we are living a life which is already been designed by the expert hands. Nothing can wrong here and especially with the ending. It has to be the most perfect ending.. the end of all life and the end of all thoughts and most of all end of all decisions in life.. Decisions. .. the only thing that the child in a man gets to play with; the one thing that sow the initial drops of Pride in every man.

Love - the Eternal and the most Blessed !

When it comes to music I usually prefer Love songs and when it comes to books I love to read all about romance, the late night dinners and the doorstep good night kisses... I guess most of us , just like me, love to live in a world of fantasy where things are so loving, everything so right and good.. Talking about love, I just remembered a conversation I had with a friend of mine. She was surprised or rather shocked to know that even in reality most of the American citizens are not virgins when they get married. Forget about the US, right now even in our own Bharath, with the thriving multi national culture, it'll be considered too much of an expectation for any man to ask for a virgin wife. I think we the late 20-30 group of women still doesn't know or rather have not widened our thoughts to include the differences between love, commitment, adjustment and the real love life. When for me, all these are different things, this friend of mine was having a hard time understanding the explanations I gave for the differences.

Marriage... does this word mean that we can never fall in love again?? I certainly don't think so.. As you grow old.. your preferences change.. your interest grow up along with you and in case your spouse is not able to meet or stand side by side along with them, there's every chance that you can fall in love again with some one who does that. My mom might think that this is infidelity, but I would say this is being practical. You just have one life to live with and so many of your dreams to be fulfilled. No one has the right to kill those, how much ever close the person is to you and at one point if its required that you need to move forward alone or holding a different pair of hands, its completely natural. After all, the life.. your life.. your dreams.. atleast you are worth it and have every right to live them.

Then where do you draw the line for good and bad, that's the question that came next against my thoughts. The line comes where you get involved with emotions like selfishness, untruthfulness, lust etc. I feel that if the reason for holding onto a different hand is coz you are completely in LOVE... the eternal and the most divine feeling, then its completely fine and obviously a great thing to do. But being the human kind as we are, we tend to decide this situation considering the amount of bank balances, the securities and the position title of the other half. This is where it becomes wrong and end of it all it spoils the purity of the relationship - MARRIAGE.. the blessing which God bestowed on us from the time he created this thing called the earth, the planets -- the whole creation in itself; so that never will there be a human who is a loner; who's deprived of the feeling of Love -- the feeling that makes you one with this whole creation in itself.

India... the country that always holds upto its family bondage, the country which is always looked upon for its culture, the country where girls are married to those unknown men chosen by the elders of the family tree, the country where divorce rates are currently on a very high end. I guess we have moved up in the trends, especially when it comes to relationships. Its true that every divorced individual is still considered as an outcast and a dare-devil, even in the high society group. But I would say what is the point in continuing a relationship when there is no love in it. All the spiritual leaders of today would say that setting right your close relationships is the only solution to all the physical and spiritual problems in your life; the close relationships with your parents, siblings, spouse and children. I also share the same belief that unless these close relationships are filled with love no person can be completely happy or successful in Life. This is the rule of nature; the rule of Life itself... But this rule doesn't tie us for life to any relationship and that is exactly where people are unable to distinguish, i guess.

The line is drawn in this rule also just like every other aspect of life. What the spiritual teachers are trying to tell is that we should develop the quality of love within ourselves.. and keep that love alive in and all around us. But that doesn't mean that we have to try and stick on to an already dead relationship, trying to convince ourselves that its still completely alive. Believe me, all the others around you are completely sure that you are just wasting your time and there's nothing that you are going to gain from this futile effort.

End of it all, as far as I am concerned LOVE is the only emotion that a human can feel to make her completely free and secured in this lifetime... the only emotion that can bring in most of the bliss in this small life... the emotion that make you fly out there in the limitless sky and swim out in the deepest of the oceans.....

I want to love... and to start with, I want to love myself.....!!!!!!

Grab your man's attention, buy him a pint of beer
ANI
Published on Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 02:04 in Lifestyle section

London: Forget wearing loads of make up and skimpy clothes, the best way to grab your man's attention has been found – buy him a pint of beer.
That’s the conclusion of a group of researchers, who have found that "beer goggles" really do work.

“Beer goggles” are considered to have distorted the "wearer''s' vision, making unattractive people appear beautiful, or at least passably attractive.

According to the study, a pint of beer actually makes men find other people more attractive.

Through the study, researchers are claiming that they have proved for the first time that men who had drunk alcohol tended to rate pictures of women higher than those who had not.

In fact, they have claimed that a pint and a half of beer can do the trick for most of us, and the effect is much more pronounced in men, in whom it may last for 24 hours.

The participants were arbitrarily given vodka and lime or a similar tasting non-alcoholic drink.

After almost half an hour, they asked both the groups to rate the attractiveness of 20 male and 20 female faces on a seven-point scale.
People who had been drinking alcohol rated the faces about 10 per cent higher than the non-drinkers.

Next day, they observed that men who had drunk alcohol still gave pictures of women higher ratings than those who had not.

"The findings are important because of the role drink plays in, for example, unsafe sex,” The Telegraph quoted Dr Marcus Munafo, an experimental psychologist who led the study at Bristol University, as saying.

Experts believe that alcohol stimulates the striatum, an area of the brain that plays an important role in attraction.

Ladies Coupé - A Novel by Anita Nair

The story of a woman's search for strength and independence.

Akhilandeshwari, Akhila for short: forty-five and single, an income-tax clerk, and a woman who has never been allowed to live her own life - always the daughter, the sister, the aunt, the provider; until the day she gets herself a one-way ticket to the seaside town of Kanyakumari. Gloriously alone for the first time in her life, she is determined to break free of all that her conservative Tamil brahmin life has bound her to.

In the intimate atmosphere of the ladies coupé which she shares with five other women, Akhila gets to know her fellow travellers:

Janaki, a pampered wife and a confused mother;

Margaret Shanti, a chemistry teacher married to the poetry of elements and an insensitive tyrant who is too self-absorbed to recognize her needs;

Prabha Devi, the perfect daughter and wife, transformed for life by the glimpse of a swimming pool;

Fourteen-year-old Sheela, with her ability to perceive what others cannot;

And Marikolanthu, whose innocence was destroyed by one night of lust.

As she listens to the women's stories, Akhila is drawn into the most private moments of their lives, seeking in them a solution to the question that has been with her all her life:

"Can a woman stay single and be happy, or does a woman need a man to feel complete?"

Being One with The Divine

As a kid I always wanted to lead a spiritual life and I had infact believed, like any other person, that leading a spiritual life would mean leaving all comforts in life and becoming a sanyasi. I did try my best to become one, but life had other plans.. to teach me what exactly spirituality, in its essence, mean.

I would like to share a story about Buddha, which my spiritual teacher had told . Some kids at that time wanted to know from Buddha what exactly it felt for him to be an enlightened person. So they invited him to have food at their house and then served him lot of fruits. The kids posed their question to Buddha and was eagerly waiting for reply. Buddha took an orange, silently peeled off the outer skin and started eating it piece by piece. Once he ate his lunch, he looked at the kids and told " this is what enlightenment means to me. When I took the orange, " I was taking the orange"; When I was peeling it " I was peeling the orange"; When I took the piece and ate " I was tasting the orange - the flesh inside and its juice". He further told that his state helps him to enjoy what he is doing. There is no gibberish going on in the mind.

Enlightenment is the state where the mind stops. You can no more multi task as the senses become slow in their functioning. But, the same time, this is not a state of immobility. Its just that the brain would concentrate more on the exact action that is done on a particular time and that in turn creates a joy in the hearts. Every action would create bliss; every thing would look new. The mind would stop doing the Right-Wrong, Good-Bad, I-You analysis and as a result you stop judging every action; every person and every situation in life. When there is no judgement passed, there is scope for only one single emotion and that is bliss... the eternal bliss of being one with nature; to be more simple - feeling one with the computer you stare everyday at.

Talking about the computers, how many of us would really have taken the time to look carefully at the system monitor. Does that give us joy in anyway; I am sure the answer would be a big NO. But once enlightened, looking at the silver lining and the black screen would generate so much of joy in us that there would be no scope for boredom. I guess all of you who are reading this will be thinking that I am talking fantasy. NO!! This is sheer reality and it has been scientifically proven that Enlightenment, the altered state of consciousness is an altered state of Human Brain also. There are lot of spiritual organisations working solely with this motive - to make the mankind Enlightened.

If the next question is Why? the answer goes like this. The human life is supposed to be a cycle of births and deaths. According to Hindu mythology every human is a part of the divine light. And at the end of each life cycle, its required that all the light particulars merge with the divine and be one with it. For this to happen, there should not be any feelings attached with the life that is already spent - namely anger, fear, wish, desire etc. Enlightenment is a state that helps man to free the human mind and as a result it breaks the attached strings of life from the Soul.

I guess this is too big a topic for me to handle in a single go and so let me put a period on this here, leaving you to wonder how it would be like to experience the state of altered conciousness.... As for me, I am waiting for the day when Enlightenment happens to me. What about you? Are you willing to receive it?

Techno Park Trivandrum

Thoughtsphere

One more day added to the lifetime.. not knowing what exactly it has added to the thoughts and experiences in life.. Was wondering what to write more in this and there it came.. as a thought.. "thoughtsphere".

Wondering what thoughtsphere is..? If its from the atmosphere that we breathe in and breathe out, its the thoughtsphere from where we draw in our thoughts and at the same time send them back to. Its the home of all the thoughts... Ever wondered why we sometimes feel down or at times over excited for no reason. Its because someone somewhere in this world is sad and due to some unexplainable reasons his/her thoughts are affecting you and for no known reason, you end up feeling sad. Sorry to tell but yes, this is the truth of thoughts on a spiritual line.. and thats why the saying goes " Your thoughts are not your thoughts"

When your thoughts are not your thoughts, then we cannot analyse or conclude that we are good or bad or right or wrong.. When your thoughts are not your thoughts, then you cannot react unresonably on the situation. It explains the intricacies of life itself; when even your thoughts are not yours, then what is it that you can be proud of.. what is it that you own in life.... there is no existence for pride, joy, sorrow, fear, anger and that explains the need for awareness on the non existence of SELF itself....

Marriage Secrets

Some Secrets for a Successful Marriage

* expert opinion, not mine... ;-)

SECRET 1: PUT YOUR PROBLEMS ASIDE

SECRET 2: TALK & TOUCH

SECRET 3: GIVE

SECRET 4: GET INVOLVED

SECRET 5: BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE

SECRET 6: THE KEY TO SUCCEEDING IN MARRIAGE IS NOT FINDING THE RIGHT PERSON; IT'S LEARNING TO LOVE THE PERSON YOU FOUND

SECRET 7: BE A HEDGEHOG