Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

is a Latin Phrase traditionally attributed to the Roman poet Juvenal from his Satires (Satire VI, lines 347–8), which is literally translated as "Who will guard the guards themselves?"

Corruption in India is at its highest point (I hope to god) cause i cant bear to see it more. I think this year i have seen highest corruption in India namely CWG(Common Weath Game), 2G spectrum, Adarsh Housing, Vedenta Housing and others that arent important to be on the front page for a week. I wasnt fond of Congress government but now this takes the cake. How much money they are spending in cash for votes beats the hell out of me.

I read in the article and i concur with it whole heartedly that congress government is a family owned business.First Indira Gandhi, then both of her sons now Sonia Gandhi and waiting in the line is her son Rahul Gandhi. In fact the government as usual wouldnt have budged if Anna Hazare wouldnt have gotten this much support from Aam Janta for Lokpal Bill. But i dont have high hopes for it too as the commitee or the people who will look at the reports would be from government. So will they convit their own people? You would be a fool to think Yes and not skeptical or cynical but practial if you are thinking NO. But on the hindsight atleast the water is brewing, its not sitting idle, letting algae spread its tentacles through our system.

Recently i was having a chat with my friend saying nothing useful will happen in our country and if we put effort to get rid of corruption, it would take atleast 2 generations after which we will see the results. Everyday i see newspaper and i read corruption either at small level or at higher levels. I still cant understand how our country is surviving and how Foreign Investors (FII) thing we are hot and are pouring money in our economy.

The movie "Wednesday" was the perfect example saying marta tau aam admi hi hai, whatever happens, the aam janta and common people have to suffer. The politicans after doing all this scandal will still try for re-election or try to come into power because history says that no politican has ever got convicted and i dont see it happening in future either. The rich people having hands in with the politicans will go in hiding and enjoy the wealth they have a-mass.

I love my country but not the people who runs it. Maybe we should also have a revolution like one that is happening in Middle East but still i dont see anything coming out of it because the next government will be same like the previous one. Good people dont survive in politics and you have to elect whats left and who has trampled other people to come to the top. I have to accept this and move on cause we cant do anything else except try to support people like Anna hazare but should not expect much from it.

A little mind exercise

Its been a while since i wrote something, in fact to be precise its been around 2 yrs and 3 months. I had no intention of writing it now either except for the fact that i had to kill about an hour and after browsing through internet, i had absolutely nothing else to do so i thought why not do some writing. It will give my mind some exercise. So here i m back on my keyboard and thinking as hell what to write. Its easy if you have a topic to discuss or you want to share an experience, cause then you dont need to think too much, atleast not in the case of the latter but in the former you have to put your arguments and present in the nice way.

It is true that ignorance is bliss. I think i had written previously about this but i cant help coming back to this topic. Until now when i wasnt gymming or didnt had the calorie table, i was bliss in eating cheese and snacks. But now i look at food in the different way. I look it not as the treat to my taste buds but how much calorie will i intake. Its not easy to burn calorie, i realised that when i would do cardio and feel o boy today i m so tired and must have burned 500 calories and when i see the actual figure, its disheartening... and so when i eat i think i am consuming this much calorie and i wont be able to burn it....o how i wish i didnt knew the calorie table....but no i had to know because i was curious, was being smart and now i am paying for my smartness.

Top of it the problem is i am indolent. That also hampers my progress in cardio because half of the time i am feeling lazy and thinking today i wont do too much as i m already tired. In fact every one who knows me keep pulling my legs saying today also you gonna skip your gym? I guess i m used to it because there is no point in denying and accepting is the best way. Another thing i want to do is to get back to my meditations. Its on and off, sometimes i would meditate and most of the time i wouldnt. All because of my lazy nature. I would promise myself from tomorrow i would be regular but alas that tomorrow never comes. Its like at the end of the horizon. U see it but it never comes. Heres another example, i am going to end this topic as again today i m feeling lazy to write more...au revoir my friends

Understanding the popular quote of Bhagvad Gita

According to Sri Aurobindo, Bankim Chandra Chatterji gave almost exclusive stress on the expression Kartavya Karma , the work that is to be done, which they render by duty, and on the phrase “Thou has right to action, but none to the fruits of action” which is now popular quoted as the great word mahakavya of Bhagvad Gita. This is indeed true because though I don’t know the whole of gita but this phrase I believe is known very well to me and I believe not just to me but to most of the people. We have unfortunately ignored the rest of the chapters in Gita. However what I wanted to talk was this popular quote of Gita. Until now whenever I heard this phrase I would accept it without understanding why is it so. I want to ask you one question, think of this popular quote and tell me why you belive its true and we should accept it? “Thou has right to action, but none to the fruits of action”. Give yourselves a minute and summon up some reasons. 

 My first reason was that we shouldn’t expect the fruits of action because if our expectations of work aren’t met then we would wound up getting disappointed and infuriated. Second reason was may be the work might be my karma and since it is what I have to do, I shouldn’t bother with the results. Tell me what reasons have you come up with? I never thought of considering this until I read a book from Osho and then I realized what message this quote carried when Lord Krishna told to Arjuna. Let me give one example. A painter is painting a picture. Now if he wants to paint a masterpiece and want to be known as Von Gough he wouldn’t be painting this picture with complete totality. At the back of his mind would be the result, the creation of masterpiece, the subtle details needed to be added to create this masterpiece. How much would he be enjoying the painting? And if a painter is creating painting with complete totality in it without any thought of how it will end up? He has completely ingrained in this painting. He has done with complete awareness, consciousness and totality. His work would be a masterpiece even though he wasn’t gonna create it in the first place. Think of a dancer, how she would dance if she is dancing for the first place or she is dancing because she feels like and wants to enjoy completely immersed in it. Would she have the same grace if she is dancing for the cup or for herself? Same with musician, poetry writer. We mess up our work if we keep an eye on the result because then we wont be working with full totality, consciousness. 

   
 Then there are sets of arguments regarding this. The arguments are that if we don’t benchmark our work, how will we strive forward? If a batsman doesn’t enter a field thinking I need to make a century how will he play good and responsibly? Similarly in our case, if we don’t think today we are going to give 100% accuracy how will we improve ourselves? For this I said to my friend that 100% accuracy is the by-product and not the main purpose. How many times have you heard when coach tell to the player, play your natural game. Ok, sometimes you need to curb your natural instincts and play according to the current situation but if you play with century in the mind the perhaps the ball that normally you would hit, you would let it go considering a high risk and in the process lose your natural rhythm. If you are playing, dancing, painting, writing poetry, music with full awareness, totality then I bet you wouldn’t have to worry about the result because it would be a masterpiece. And if not why bother? Didn’t you enjoy doing what you did without focusing on the result? Isn’t happiness of working without stressing yourself over the result worth doing the job? 

 Then another set of arguments are if we don’t keep an eye on the goal how can we become ambitious? For achieving something we have to set our eyes on the goal. Yes that’s true but once the goal is achieved, will we be enjoying ourselves? I doubt because after achieving our goal we will set our eyes on other goal. The desires would keep on coming and we would be running after our desires and never onces enjoying the work we are doing because we are waiting for the goal to get achieved. Once it gets achieved, instead of enjoying the goal we will set ourselves for some other higher goals. That is why I am saying that the result is just the byproduct. If we would give our 100%, full consciousness and totality in work then that work would naturally be good.

 We always have faith in our teachings of religion and we never question and part of it is true because if you are going to question everything you wont accept anything because you will be finding reasons to argue, reasons for your ego to justify your intellect. So my reason is that believe in your religion but try to understand why they are saying because without complete understanding you wont be able to know the significance of it and accepting it as it is without its reason will lose its value and wont be remembered by you.

Walking Naked

This has been second incident in past 2 months that I have seen in paper. The first time was a lady ofcourse not walking entirely naked but in fragmentary state of dressing and walking down the street to protest. The second incident was another lady who made a bet with his male friend to take off her shirt in front of public and she too took off her shirt and walked down the street. Now it takes certain amount of courage to do it but to me walking naked to prove your point or assert a point seems a tad meaningless. We are looking at this superficial way and not understanding the point at subliminal level. 

I just want to ask you how many of you have walked naked? But ofcourse I am talking about it in your privacy of room. Even I am ashamed to walk naked in front of public but in my house when I m all alone, I have done it. If not, then do it. I tell you, it feels so light and liberating. You feel emancipative. Partly I am feeling light is because all my life I have worn clothes so naturally when I walk in state of nakedness, I am shedding 1 or 2 kg of clothes that I have worn. I vividly remember when I was doing basic course in “Art Of Living” where after the course was over, I had to stand in front of all the people who attended the course with me. We had to do certain type of breathing where we were letting go all of our ego and after that I had to perform what the teacher would ask me to do in front of the people. Some had to act like monkey, some had to jump like a rabbit, some had to bark like a dog and I had to dance like a retarded. I am not much of a dancer but because I had to dance like a retarded I am sure I played my part to perfection but the prominent point is after playing the part how I felt, I can’t describe it. That feeling was with me for about 40-50 seconds and that was when I felt how it feels when your ego drops. It was such a light feeling that I have never experienced it before and after that incident again I have never felt it. It was just at that moment. That moment was the moment when my “I” was dropped. I was with infinity. 

So walking naked just to prove a point is meaningless. In the second incident, she did it because her ego demanded it. I still sympathize with the first girl, she did it because she wanted to raise her voice and yes, she got the lime light. But let us also walk naked, why don’t we have courage to do it. I am talking about walking naked figuratively where why cant we shed our ego and drop our “I” because let me tell you only after that we will have infinite happiness. The feeling I experienced when my ego was dropped was of pure bliss. Never ever have I felt so happy in my entire life except during that moment. So let us all experience that moment and shed all the extra baggage we are carrying around.

Broken the 13 min barrier

Ever since I started jogging, my aim was to break the 13 minute barrier. Initially when I started the 4 KM Jog, my time used to be around 15:45 to 16:30. It would vary and then it started slipping below 16:30, so I chastised myself to push harder and until now my aim was to finish my jog under 14:00 minutes, give and take 10 seconds plus minus. Last week I would finish my time under 13:40 quite easily so then I started pushing more until last Friday my time was 13:02:20. My god I was so close to my target, I clocked 13 minutes 2 seconds and 20 milliseconds. So I knew I was on roll and this Sunday finally I broke the barrier and my time was clocked at 12:43:07. That is my best time until now and today it was 12:49:40. When on Sunday I clocked my best time I wanted to jump up and down like in the movie Rocky, Stallone does but I refrained myself thinking people will really think of me as crazy.

Whenever before I would clock my best time, I wanted to post it. I even had the notion that I would post my time every day but then I realized who except me was interested in my timings. Anyway now this new record has placed me in a predicament. On Sunday as I said, I broke my barrier so today there was this pressure on me to finish my run under 13 mins. Its like you are on winning streak, so everytime you go out to perform there is this added pressure on you to perform. This pressure is depriving me from the pleasure I take in jogging. Although the pleasure last only for the first 500 meters after which I start getting tired and then my thought would be when would I finish my jog. But still when the pressure was not there, sometimes I would take pleasure in listening to the music while on the run or thinking about something during jogging. Now today the only thing I was focus upon was my speed , to make sure that I could complete my run under 13 minutes. So now on one hand I have my pride that I have finally broken my barrier and on the other hand, I have my passion for jogging. Which one to choose now?

Ideals create hypocrisy

Our mind holds onto the fixed ideas with which we have identified with ourselves. If we have a certain idea of how we should be, then we cannot accept the experiential truths of our beings. Osho has so brilliantly explained this. For example if we have the idea that we have to be brave, that bravery is valuable, then it is difficult to accept our cowardice. If we don’t have any ideals, then we don’t have a problem. We are a coward, so we are, we accept it, we don’t condemn the fact, we don’t reject it, we are what we are. Even Sri Sri Ravishankar said that “Things are as it is, it is we who label them as beautiful or ugly”.  

So ideals create hypocrisy. I bet out of 100 persons if I ask what do they hate in another human being 90 out of them would say hypocrisy. Have you seen the irony of it? People have the ideal of not being hypocrites, and hypocrisy comes through ideals. It is easy to say but try not to have certain ideas about yourself. People are carrying so many ideas of how they should be. For example if one thinks of themselves as “kind” person then they wont allow themselves to recognize and accept angry feelings when it arises. But anger is fact and the ideal is just an ideal, a fantasy of mind. I have to see and realize that I am only the moment-to-moment, experiential reality. Some moments I am angry, some moments I am sad, some moments I am jealous, some moments I am joyful. Moment to moment whatever happens is accepted.

Whom to blame for boring movie?

What should one do during boring movie? How can one pass the time? There are so many people I would love to blame when the movie is boring. I would start off with the director and producer for making such a movie. I mean the writer could write crap but still it’s the director’s call to see if the script will keep the audience stick to their seats. This week I saw the movie “Mere baap pehle aap”. I was itching to leave my seat and roam around during the movie. It took an iron will discipline to keep my butt glued to the seat. Besides girl sitting next to my friend didn’t help the matter either. She was hot so my attention kept going towards her and then to top of it, the movie held least interest so how could you blame a guy for not watching movie but her? I am itching to grab my friend’s throat on Monday because he suggested me this movie saying it’s very nice. We are gonna have an interesting session concerning how he liked this movie. So second person I would blame for the boring movie is the guy who suggested it. 

Another suggestion would be to talk during the movie. Make some feverish comment but for that too, you need some good material in the movie to comment. The main theme of the movie was comedy but I laughed around 3-4 times in the whole movie. The movie was so boring that I was paying attention to minute things like my kidneys full, getting cramp in my legs, what are my neighbors talking about, when will the girl laugh sitting besides my friend so that I could judge how her sense of humor is. I was paying attention to her with such scrutiny that if I had paid such attention in my studies, I would have been awarded doctorates degree by now. Don’t blame me, blame the director for making such a movie. I bet he must have slept like a dead horse during the inauguration of the movie. Also I choose this multiplex which is 18 kms away from the city is because it has splendid pop-corns. Before the movie, we chewed the pop-corns to our heart’s content and then during interval we ordered the same and the guy brought another flavor because our flavor was out of stock. Great, first the movie now the pop-corn. We were lucky the gal didn’t left the movie from the middle, although one couple did left and I commented saying smart couple and the guy heard my comment and said thank you and I replied don’t mention it, give me courage to see this movie whole. But I triumphed and finished the whole movie. I am so proud of myself. I think I deserve a courage medal. Any body wants to nominee me? The lines are open, please pick up your receiver and nominate me for the brave heart medal.

By the way, director comes at the top of my list.....i blame him for creating a boring movie...how about you?