The Myths and The Truths

BLOG#20

"I'm not who I am, I am who I'm not."

- Unknown

Time and again, life jolts you in it's roller coaster ride, and you are enlightened after every such jolt. "Ohh! Aese bhi hota hai!!" Aren't we all kids from womb to tomb? Always in the state of learning, seeking truth; the Gandhi's 'Satyagrahi'. The subjectivity of truth is such, that you cannot universalize it. So every time you realize the existence of an outrightly different dimensions of truth. You are either startled, or gasped or overwhelmed, or aghast. This happens due to mismatch. Mismatch between 'what is' and what we 'think to be what is'. 99% of ours lives is just prejudices. Prejudices about the world, people, acquaintances, family, self. We comprehend the words and actions through the medium of our perspectives. 'What is' and 'what I concieve' are totally on two different planks. When they mismatch, which they most often do,  it makes you believe in fallacy of life. My friend, reality is a myth. We need to realize what Derrida claimed, "Every understanding is a misunderstanding". So why to fall into the loop of darkness, when glory is itself an illusion!

We look through the prism of prejudices and interpret the reality in it's different shades.

All we need is to decontaminate our medium of understanding to the extent possible, minimizing our preconceptions. Congnizance and consciousness could be our guide. First, we need to explore and understand our own selves which again has been guided by the social milieu. Then, we need to deconstruct the established notions and instead of looking at things from the prisms of our prejudices, and try to look at things as they are open to interpretations; not just about world but ourselves too! Bit complicated? Agreed! But isn't it fascinating too to have fresh perspectives? A multilateral dynamic view rather than rigid binary.

M.F. Hussain's "Vedic" (Art is open to interpretations)

"What I seem to do for myself, is not what I do for myself, what I don't do for myself is what I do for myself." 
Aren't we living a life dictated by our times? The night life, the bars, the 9 to 5 works, the dates, the hangouts, the every moment social media posts. Are these what we really want? Is it a probability that we have never known ourselves, our desires, our likes, dislikes, our peace? Can we be many different versions which we have not yet explored and harnessed? Can the current truth be a myth? Think!

Be A Better You

BLOG #19

Do you see demons around catching you? Or are these monsters the reflections of your own insecurities? Yes! You are the creator of all that's not okay, 'cause if things are not then they are the outcome of your perceptions and manipulations. It's a brain game!


If you recall a simple experiment from your school physics, of how the iron pieces automatically got aligned in a certain pattern when you put a magnet below. When you had reversed it's orientation, the pattern also got reversed. Doesn't this cosmo work around the same principle? All types of energies around you, and you align them as per your will. Doesn't this explain the status of any person in their lives? Isn't that why some people from extraordinarily bad circumstances turn to be the legends while some even with all the favourable condition are in a state of continuous downfall.


Be the most powerful magnet for the vibrations around. Be the manipulator. Work out the energies around you in the direction of your choice, your desires. Let them act as a positive feedback and let yourself grow. Let go of ifs and buts. Of oughts and ought nots keeping just single purpose - 'Striving to be a better me' and just wait for the magic. Cause there is no going down, no looking back, no failures. At the end even if you didn't reach where you destined to,  you'll be a better you. And this exactly is what the catch of life. It throws you with random surprises turning meandering your straight paths, you in turn turn it's challenges against itself by moulding those meanders for your benefits. Be a clever player. Be an artist of life!


Be a better you!

akansha.jain33@gmail.com

When all is right, what is wrong?

BLOG#18

Have your felt that anxiety? Although life is going as per planned. You are doing what you ought to do. From dawn to dusk and dusk till dawn. Your machinery is working as it is supposed to be. But still, do you feel that anxiety? Why such disorder in a perfect order? Why such commotion?

Maybe the order itself is a chaos. A discourse which you're trained to believe since your being, about what is truth, what is right, how you ought to be, what you ought to be. Then you traverse those same trodden paths, in the same manner as you are made to believed right. Or maybe you have given yourself ultimatum. A set of targets, a set of desires, for which you're working day in and day out. Nonetheless of the veracity of how important all that is for you to pursue your dreams, you still have apprehensions sometimes. Isn't it? But what I'm doing is important and any other idea is a waste of time. We've imprisoned ourselves in the cage of do's and don'ts.

When all is right, what is wrong? Why then a sudden acceleration of heartbeats? Why a rupture of some unnamed emotions? Why after all, you miss something or somebody, or worse you sometimes even don't know what you're missing. When you don't know the disease, how on Earth will you treat it. This is not the end, there's more to it. What if you don't know that your ill? Many of us, many a times, don't even realize that something is out of sync. You refuse to accept what you feel. You force yourself to believe that the problem lies within you. It is 'you' who needs to be more focused rather than being distracted since you know what you're doing is right and ofcourse important. This is the rationale your mind keeps you fooling with whenever you're heart yearns for a change and guess what? You end up aggravating the problem even more!

How about having a pause. Perfection is itself imperfect! So why the hell are we chasing for it! It's okay to not be in sync at times. It's okay to have a break. With no aims, no plans, no apprehensions, no chains. How about stepping out of your hustle and having a poise? How about exploring more about your own self, your being. Everybody has his/her ways. How about writing, or painting, or dancing, or singing, or shrieking, or walking, or running, or jogging, or playing an instrument, or making a random call to a random friend, or catching a train and travel to some old familiar or some unfamiliar place, or watching children play in their slums, or how about abusing your best friend and laugh out loud till die! The list is long. But a little of anything in a while can help you discover your true order, or rather disorder! Find yourself and let yourself not get lost, in the hustle bustle of your life. It's okay to have a date with self sometimes. I guarantee you'll enjoy your company!

Inertia

BLOG#17

Inertia. Did you remember something? Flip through the pages of memory from your high school and you'll vaguely recall Newton's first law of motion. The Oxford defines inertia as "A property of matter by which it continues in its existing state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, unless that state is changed by an external force." Newton in his first law described inertia.  I wonder, is inertia just the property of matter? Ain't we too following this law? Don't we oppose change? Change! That is the keyword. We fear it. We oppose change. We flee from it. We grow comfortable with a certain set of habits, people, things, environment. Our growth might have been stopped there. It might have become dormant. We might no longer be serving our purposes. But since we are used to it, we avoid the change despite being aware that we do need to move on. Habits are hard to leave, for sure but does it make any sense to stay when there is no growth, where there is no growth? Mustn't we do whatever it takes to serve our purposes. Then what actually makes us resistive?

It could be your sense of stability, fear of taking risks, insecuritiy towards adopting newer things and ideas, reluctance in accepting them and remaining in one position. With position, I am not specifically pointing to anything. It is in general. We become stagnant and dormant. We need to have the 3 A's : Adopt, Adapt, Accept! We need to be more vibrant and dynamic in our lives rather then following the same conventional paths. Are you saying it is risky? But then what is life without some risks. Let a little adventure accompany you and allow you to explore all that hides within you. All that you are. Let go of your fears, scrap off your insecurities. Besides, if what's worrying you is how the society would react to your radical decisions, then my dear you are in a closed tunnel. No way out of these cliched views as changing the views of society is a herculean task. The only way out is to just ignore these prejudiced people and carry yourself forward. Up and up and up.

John Green has quoted in his novel famous TFIOS, "Life is a roller coaster that only goes up my friend!" So my friends, which graph do you want for your life; constant, linear, exponential, it all depends upon you. Don't confuse this idea with just gaining money. It could be knowledge, it could be passion, it could be money, it could be your social life, your profession. It could be anything! Just follow the vibes. Set yours spirit free. Allow it to to do whatever it craves for or craves to serve for. Hurdles, no doubt, would be encountered. But you have to counter those hurdles and pin them down to enliven yourself. Win over the inertia within you. They say, ' Change is the law of nature.' So change. For a change.

P.S.: I have posted after a very long time. Sorry for the delay. If you want me to write about anything, do let me know in the comment box below. Keep reading and growing! :)

Be the perfect gardner

Blog #16

People often complain to themselves. This thing is beyond my reach. Achieving something or someone or some position is not under your horizon. But someone will definitely achieve it. So why that someone is not you! Why you can't be that someone? Did you say you lack potent? No! Lack of burning desire. Lack of perseverance. Lack of faith in yourself. Begin to trust yourself 'cause you might be the ace of your deck. You might just be ignorant of it!

In tracing the gap between the initial and end line race of attaining one's goal, I believe one requires to become a gardener. Shocked? Don't take me literally, I mean cultivating your goal. The journey from oblivion to enlightenment.

Bow the seed of desire, water it with ambition. Let it sprout, nurture the bud with vehemence. Care for it with dedication, add the compost of faith. Continue looking after it with persistence. At times, it might show slow signs of growth and that must not recede you or think low of your plant. That might be a sign for you to garden with more caution or mould your ways of care. So let that prod your morals and and embellish you to be a better gardner. When you're so engulfed in the process, when you get into love with gardening, you will not realize when that little seed of desire you had sown has transformed into a huge tree of success. But if you keep getting impatient from the very first day, about when the seed will become a tree, that impatience will keep impeding you, keep pulling you back. Keep your ambition in mind but burn yourself in the process. Live the journey and the time to reach your destination will get near. Wait for the destination and you'll keep waiting. Just keep watering the plant.

Are you able to relate this with something you desire so badly? Do you think you need some out of the box skills to achieve what you desire? Do you think you aren't capable enough for your ambitions? If yes, then think twice my friend. Exceptions are born out of ordinary. You can be the perfect you. Just target your tree and follow the steps.  You'll definitely cultivate an enormous tree of accomplishment, tranquility, equanimity bereft of commotions. The ideal tree that all long for irresistibly. Be the perfect gardener.

Reviews are welcomed in the comments below. For some more words by me, you can visit my Instagram page:
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Students of life

BLOG#15

We have all been students during our schools and colleges. Learners, dreamers, achievers. The most crucial part of student life was to learn. Though having come way across those times, don't you think we are still living them? We have been learning constantly. The cycle goes as experiencing, falling, learning, and then applying it. This prospect can have multiple dimensions. There are innumerable areas out there for you to groom, plethora of hurdles to encounter, plenty of things to fathom. Ain't all this the syllabus for a new course called 'life'! We encounter a pebble, stumble, fall, muster up the strenght to rise and walk again. This process repeats itself for indefinite types of pebbles. Sometimes there's a clear smooth path, the other times it is loaded with coarse stones. We walk, we stroll, we slow down, we pace up. This all keeps running like a background music in the drama of life. We are nothing but it's students.

We give exams as well. But the most intriguing part about this lies in it's nature of uncertainty. You never know what is going to be served on your plate. Moreover, each time the exam is a different one. You need to pass them all to remain qualified for this game of life.

At times we seek answers, for the bigger questions, the miscellaneous ones. Queries related to love, life, death, sorrows, bereavements etcetera. We try hard to find the answers. If unable to find, we keep on repenting, mulling over, getting tensed; all of which eats us on the inside and turns our behaviour haywire. It is then, that our tensile strength comes under scrutiny. Our ability to stay normal during the abnormal. The quality of holding on our inner demons to not effect our ways of life finds it's role now. Here lies the trump card. You either keep on giving the supplementaries or you come out of it atoned. You constantly repair yourself, smothen your sculpture to prune the irregularites but mind it, you're never perfect. 'Cause the process is an indefinite one like life itself!

The graph of a scholar traces an upwards heading zig zag curve with no upper limit of course. A constant graph however, makes no sense. It points to a monotonous life. So let go the worries. Stop abhorring the hostile situations. Instead embrace them and fight with all your might. Enjoy the ups and downs. After all they solely make you feel alive by the adventures and challenges. Be the scholar in your own university!

The Android Generation!

Blog#14

Imagine your face in the picture. Funny yet suits the present arena. Isn't it?

You must've heard about Android software and the devices run on it. Surprisingly, I can observe these days, an ocean of young minds becoming android. No no, don't worry. I'm not at all pointing towards human computers. My gesture is towards the alarmingly increasing digital sphere in our lives. We are so driven to these blue lights, that we've almost forgotten the natural lights. I, myself now read e-books and reading the paper books have become a rare phenomenon.

Be it entertainment, be it knowledge, be it business, be it studies. It has not only shadowed our lives, but have rather crept us in a tight grab all around. With demonetization in India, we have seen an increasing drift towards the digital accounts and payments. With words like IOT (Internet of things) trending, instead of adapting technology to our convenience, we're adapting ourselves to the changing tech gadgets and emerging innovations. The degree of penetration of this virtuality in our lives must be decided by us and not the virtual world itself!

A matter of fact is, instead of refraining from it, we're heading more and more towards it. No harm in this at all, if we do not neglect at the same time, about the origins of birth of these ideas. These facilities are ought to make our lives easier, aren't they? But I see complicated lives more in number. We're so very engulfed in virtuality, that reality now has become water under the bridge!

Let us simplify this. The people we live around have an impact on our lives. But gradually, we're losing hold on people. We least care about their world. We've become so liberal that our lives hardly intersect.

Even if they do, they intersect on facebook, instagram, twitter, snapchat, tinder, YouTube etcetera. These have evolved as tools to kill time. We are no more humans. Let's rename ourselves to android. After all, that is what has obsessed our lives!

Situation has got so intense, that these days you need a 'Pokemon Go' to explore the nature. The need for new display pictures drive you to hang out with your friends. Recently, an article caught my attention about a plane catching fire where passengers had to be evacuated safe instantaneously after emergency landing. Bewildering it was to find that a person kept shouting for his "laptop" and was in a bid to take that as well knowing that fire was spreading. He kept at stake his own life and those of hundreds others while the smoke had completely hovered the place. Alas! laptop above lives! This might be just one person, but definitely it reflects the changing mindset of humans.

I admit that digitization is a great change; from our conventional lives. In fact, that has only saved us during the days of cash crunch. It has done wonders and will keep doing so. But all I have is a simple request, to self and everybody who is reading this. Amidst all this chaos, don't forget the very basic drive that has somewhere been left behind. Don't forget 'you', yourself! Think about it. You'll find that in the process of connecting with self, you'll automatically connect with such souls vibrating around, waiting to be found. Isn't that amazing! 

Equilibrium: The Nature's Law

All the answers lie within the nature. All you ought is to find them.

Blog #13

Equilibrium. We all have studied this term in our science textbooks during schooldays. The tendency of all matter to stay in the state of equilibrium or balance. A drop of water is spherical as sphere is the most stable structure keeping all forces balanced. As David Viscott rightly puts in his book meditation, "Nature is creativity's best inspiration.". So have we ever correlated this with our daily lives? If not, then I guess this is the time!

Everything demands balance. From a little game to all the games of life. Be it your behaviour, your social space, your reactions, your studies, your business, your job, your relationship; everything. There are times we get impulses when we find something abhorrent yet we require to keep our cool. Such situation becomes terse when you don't scholar the art of balance. Consequently you might even loose a job or a relationship. During student life, we always find it hard to focus on both studies as well as the extra curricular and other personality development activities. You keep an eye on the other and the previous one sneaks out of sight! It has been oft quoted that the toppers are never the most successful ones, rather those are the average students who make the bigger cut in career. The reason can be very well understood from the sanskrit proverb "अति सर्वत्र वर्जयेत्" meaning excess of anything is never good, be it due to any reason. Gaining the worldly wise tactics and practical knowledge is equally important with learning the theory. But then again, one is never perfect! You don't have equal interests in all the fields. Then how come you create a balance. Well, that's where the art lies.

Keeping calm, maintaining your poise comes with self control, meditation and self discipline. You cannot let the wings of your 'so called heart' fly all the time, everywhere. There has to be a control on distractions which comes from concentration. This can attained by meditation, or by any other exercise or sport. The very basic strategy of every sport is focus and balance. Keep iterating yourself about this theory or keep observing the nature and stay inspired. Once you master this art, you acquire a trump card to become almost undefeatable in all the spheres of life. It's not just me who think so, rather this has been the ancient formula given by our sages. We've forgotten to implement it.

An old English saying goes as, "Everything in moderation is the secret."

Let us give it a start, and attain the balance of mind. Life is a game, let's master it.

Growing up

Blog #12
Friends, we talk triumphantly about several stages of life. Childhood, adolescence, grown up lads and so on. But have we ever given a thought, what actually segregates the other? What exactly are the lines of distinction of these phases; the boundaries?
Every moment, we transform. With every breath, the metabolism in our body changes; and so do us. Our perceptions, our whims, our passions; they all develop with every new experience. So, to summarise, it would be apt to say that each moment is a creator of a modified us! This process can gain pace just as epiphany comes into play and we reflect our experiences and realise that all we go through has some purpose. Some farther purpose. Without having a little talk with yourself amidst your hectic day, you are, in real just running; oblivious of your purpose, of your spirit.

Why not we search it. Why not we seek ourselves! Give yourselves some time. Contemplate. You'll see that the advices you give to others, have actually begun to be implemented by you! You'll naturally feel an inch grown up from your previous mental height. Your horizons extended each day. Your breaths expanded each moment. Interesting it is that it accompanies with it a pinch of solace as your reward! Interesting it is, to grow up.

One more interesting thing about this is, there will be times when you'll feel " I've had enough. I have learnt to stand by even the most turbulent of storms in life. There can be nothing darker. I have been so strong. All that is to come, will now pass smoothly as I am a modified version of me." But, life always proves to be a winner. It is better prepared to knock you down each time you get arrogant about being strong and teaches you another lesson. Isn't it intriguing? You never stop growing. It is a phenomena till eternity.

Don't get older, get better!

Nonetheless easy as this may sound, it is the most arduous of tasks. "We grow up with age" is a myth. We rather grow with each learning. No doubt, with age you get more chances to learn. But at the end of the day, it is up to us. How much do we want to grab! Growing up is an art to be mastered at. Let us also accomplish it. Let us ascend each moment, to a higher level and keep on increasing the limits, extend the periphery of our reach.

Growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional.     

Chili Davis

A Masquerade

BLOG#11
I recently went to a masquerade. Different types of masks on people visible in the gleamy coloured lights in abysmally dark party with loud bass music. Beneath the masks, hid the free souls that crave to be unmasked here in the sea of masks. Yes! That is the irony. In daily lives, though being unmasked, we wear masks. Not physical masks, but the invisible ones. Interesting is that, behind them, we've blocked ourselves to wander freely. The society that has set us boundaries for everything. The apparent lives that this social psychology has paved. The paths directed by the myths, the notions of society. The paths we choose blindly depending upon what seems to be right, with deaf ears to what our inner whims cry. We have been living the lives given to us by the people around and their mindsets. Have we ever tried listening to the sleek voices which have been left unacknowledged? Maybe that is why, we require masks in such parties to unmask these souls for a while and just sway in absolute forgetfulness carefree of the worries. A temporary escape from this mundane world.

Why not we choose a life, that requires no escapade. Let the innocent voices guide us, to glory. Be it off the track, your ways; just bring them to life. No doubt money, power, fame and other such materialistic things matter in life and cast a shadow upon the lives we choose. But just for a second, think, what really matters at the end of the day? It is the happiness, the satisfaction you feel. With time, we have learnt to teach our hearts, the new dimensions of happiness. We've very well taught ourselves to like our paths. We've learnt to compromise resulting in the desire to elope.

So throw away the masks. Don't love what you choose, choose what you love. YOLO!

I'll conclude with a poem written by my brother while in high school, based on mask and importance of humbleness in life:

"Bear your face, 
Don't be masked
Say what you has 
Otherwise will be laughed. 

If you're asked, 
You are what 
Don't reveal I'm at top 
Say there are steps to walk. "
-SIDDHARTH JAIN

P.S.: If their is any query regarding your lives, if something is disturbing you, feel free to contact me at my email id akansha.jain33@gmail.com 
'Cause you never know, what might heal you.