Mosquito versus meditation

 Mosquito versus meditation 

Mosquito suddenly became a teacher+yardstick for me,

During 1992.

🤣

By parameters "known" to me then
I had preconcluded
That I "relax" sufficiently well, ( especially with sufficient practice of that guided meditation where conscious 'tensing and relaxing' of each part of body is prescribed!  Initially, we use voluntary muscles etc, to create tension & then let-go.... relaxation 'happens'  involuntarily 😜)

The teacher said "Mosquito is an intelligent creature.
It won't waste its venom. It pokes the needle a "little" to check the stiffness of your skin. If soft, it gently pushes the needle further, draws a drop of blood, departs!
Only it's venom causes 'pain' to you. We have had 'butterfly-needles' for baby's injections? Mosquito has better ones🙏
So, if you are keen to avoid pain, just relax a little more. Compromise. 1 drop blood-donation isn't going to deplete you. Alternatively,  sit inside a Mosquito net. Still worse, use those toxic cream, fumes etc"

So,
Choice was mine.
1) learn to relax deep enough ( even the 7 layers of skin gets 😌 relaxed ---to atleast Mosquito-standards, if not better😭)
2) spend money and health on expensive defence-procurement.

I too was capable of stubbornity at-will 😜
I decided to learn that cursed thing called skin-level-relaxation to meet my co-habitants called Mosquitoes😡.

It took hell of a
Lot of time to learn.  Humble beginning was extra painful.  Sitting not-meditating, I notice an uninvited guest, Mosquito landing on my forearm
He is busy & focused . He pokes the needle. I get "alert" I too focus.
Dammit....pain is double? 🤔
( lesson : mere focusing increases my skin-tension!!! That lady nurse "knows" . A wise nurse says "look away". Atleast the incremental tensing due to focus is reduced.  Cellular-level intelligence will "naturally resist".  The distinction became quite-clear.  A scientist looking at a phenomenon 'affects the effects' a little 😳)

Anyway, mind-over-matter wala-concept was needed to be deployed😭
My mind had to gather enough power to instruct my neuro-network, to tell the skin-cells "allow the enemy to get inside your fortress!" ( easy to write it here in a few lines. "Project" took time!😜😜

Now, the definition of "relaxing" is still undergoing refinement in me.
Perhaps, only in a GRAVE-situation, that is....I reach my body's final destination ( burial or cremation---let alive ones choose🙏).....my tension about "how deep to relax" will pause-to-tense 😜

Metabolic activity dropping dramatically,  I was-to-discover, is a short-cut to relax via a by-pass-surgery of stressfull-physical efforts! Confused? ( that's the-mosquito in me😜... injecting kaanfusion/confusion👍

Pokingly yours,

psn (4 March, 2025)

Being Good

 Being Good!

“Who suffers more? Good ones or the bad ones?” Asked the teacher!

It was a yoga program.

Of course “good ones”( my mind prompted out of “real-life” experience 🙏😭

I chided my mind “okay, dammit😡… now don't repeat my stories related to this….. I paid for this class. Can't miss the next few sentences, getting drowned into your re-telecast of those tragic episodes! Just shut up and listen”

I didn't miss the recipe. Teacher narrated a short story. A cobra took an advice of a saint too-seriouly 😜 ( be good unto others)

A kid accidentally threw a ball, and it hurt this snake “a little only” ( my mind “tries” to divert me with “yep! You too thought, little-help to colleagues and they got addicted to exploiting your goodness…remember? “ I had to stop my mind again “buddy, didn't I tell you to shut-up. I don't want to miss the-lesson in that story! I can't even throw you OUT…. YOU ARE MY-MIND😭… P-L-E-A-S-E  Shut up”

I didn't miss the “continuity”.

The kid was surprised. That ‘stupid’ snake didn’t hisssss!😳

Soon kids got the news( this cobra is an idiot. Doesn't react 😜)

They had fun, throwing pebbles, then stones at this ‘good’ snake!

Badly bruised…the cobra once again…went to that saint, complained.

The saint laughed,”fool….you didn't listen CAREFULLY, I told you “BE good, not LOOK-good.”... who told you not to hissssss? “ the snake got the teachings! 1)pay attention when taught 2)’good’ is relevant to ‘self, not for advertisements etc! 

Now,

My tragic sample-story ( of being “good” like that STUPID snake).

I don't want to be tooo-good, telling too many of my tragic-stories, lest you will be bored😜

A colleague used to ‘tease’ me “PSN…you are just-lucky, you appeared for bank job at north( nagpur). Here, you would have flopped😂. Competitors are better here!”( I was supposed to be “good”! I didn't react with “dammit, I topped the list there!😡… combined list of graduates, and non-graduates, and I was a non graduate! “ ……actually this guy used to ask me to explain circulars in english/hindi--bi-lingual)

One day, he requested “hey, psn….draft a 2-minute welcome speech. Make it good! Delegates from all over India “ 

I wrote.

He read it on Mike.

Next day, he asks me “psn,  what did you write? I just read it mechanically. Normally,  only a 2-second feeble claps for welcome speeches. But, yesterday they clapped for 5 minutes, that too STANDING😳”

I didn't know what to say😭

I tried “looking good”, by saying “oh! Did they applause? Maybe they call it ‘standing ovation’…. Sorry-yaar, I forgot what wrote, in those 10 sentences🙏… anyway,  nothing harmful isnt it?  Let's forget👍”

I don't think I can learn to “hissssss” during this-life-time😰😭

But I thank Gawd, I didn’t have to learn afresh “how to hissssss at my mind, by  asking it to shut-up😜”( meditations seemed a “bit” easier, sooner in me🙏🙏🙏)

Badly yours,

psn(3rd March, 2025)

Placebo effect

 Placebo effect

We know what that means 🙏

( a typical example is : my classmate at school….now an eminent surgeon,  used to tell me 4 decades ago “ some patients insist on having an non-existent ailment. I inject plain water, and tell them ‘very powerful injection’. And they get rid of their symptoms “.....  )

Enough research is going on on placebo effect. Mind, when positive, seems to discharge curative material abundantly enough in the body, hastening the “healing” process…

One instance where a training in placebo effect works, and I came across it was….  Coast guards are trained to chant “i must swim” and use it 15 minutes before hypothermiasets in them…..  It seems when hypothermia sets in while trying to rescue people drowned in near-zero degrees Celsius sea water( Coasts of U.K. etc).... icy water numbs the brain. Body can do only the last-few instructions of the brain, of 15 minutes ago. So, “I must swim” increases the chances of survival. An example of “placebo “ of mind.

But ancient Bharat innovated this placebo very scientifically, and structured it to “function” extremely well,  consciously ( not like a “numbed brain”😜)

Certain meditative practices deepens into extremely relaxed state of physiology,  while maitining razor-sharp alertness and awareness.  Once this is within ‘a reach’ the person can actualize his strong visualizations at very-very subtle levels too! Seemingly super-human tasks become possible.  Siddhi, is one popular branch of spirituality where this “sophisticated “ format of placebo-meditations are deployed to acquire such tough capabilities.  Synthesis with past karma ( prarabhda, inherited & acquired) helps karma get dissolved, using these deep meditative states!

Not quite a convincing blog this one🙏 ( especially the description of ancient sophistication-part of placebo! ).  Research, using ailments and ways to cure, basically differs from research using “health” and ways to enhance it to peak levels of performance 🙏.  Results/findings differ dimensionally🙏. Utilitarian aspects depend on “findings” as presented by that-mind🙏

Plainly yours,

psn(2nd march 2025)

Imposing ideas

 Imposing ideas

Advertisement world survives on imposing ideas on its victims.

And the ‘disclaimer’ in fine print survives on our laziness to read it.

I am not good at imposing ideas.

And……somehow, by some strange luck, it so happened that for all these 7 decades, I never succumbed to any imposition by others🤣 ( not even an instruction like “pray” ( at a temple) really impressed me. I used to join palms, and make-a-show, so that they( elders) focus on their-prayer, instead of wasting  their precious visit on me🙏😰. I assumed-the, “ maybe it works for them” 

Is it not a “desire” surmounted by a huge expectation, of that desire to get-fulfilled, which provides a vulnerability to become victimized to “ideas” that may not suit_us, work_for_us?

I told my son “brush your teeth the first thing, early morning”. He obeyed. It worked for_him_too. But I didn’t try to tell my toothless grandpa “hey! You don't brush ….then why are you IMPOSING that idea on me?” 

Teachers find it hard, to impose on certain kids the idea “sit quietly while in the class!”( now, doctors found it a lucrative source to siphon money from loving parents, by selling the idea that “restlessness in certain kids is a disorder”...  ADHD--ATTENTION-DEFICIT/HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER).

 Unless, a kid sits calm and focused,  how to thrust the lessons into its head?  Can we call it imposing ideas….. that A,B,C,D….1,2,3,4? The kid is yet to learn politics of language_imposition, NEP, anti_hindi protest, etc😜

I see a speeding truck about to crush a deaf person, looking away. Do I appeal to him “sir, I dont want to impose my idea ‘you better step aside, to escape a fatal accident” and leave it to his choice to contemplate_deep, before succumbing to my_idea.. I just push him hard. He sustains minor abrasions on his forearms, falling suddenly! But he is alive🙏. I thank God, I saved him! 

When do I end up, imposing my_ideas? 

Should I wait till the other person realises that I have victimized him into accepting my ideas? 

Can I not use my ‘brains’ to distinguish between what is common and can be conveyed versus what is not going to work for others, just because it did for me? ( a guru noticed his deciple, copypasting an idea “if my guru can drink liquors,  I too can” and was buying a drink, and drank it. That guru stopped at a blacksmiths workshop, picked a cubicle of molten iron, gulped it. Then the Guru turned to look at disciple and that look conveyed “your turn now…. Copypaste this too dammit😡”... the disciple hung his head down)

Apart from being honest in sharing my experiences ( clearly distinguishing….what worked, and what did not…for me) I learnt that my ideas need to be workable for the others. A phrase,  “Value-addition” seems a useful reminder, till I find a better phrase, a comprehensive one🙏.

Experience of having_shared ideas( experience based) also educates me on what seemingly suits others, but doesn't appeal_enough to invoke their passion to fuel an effort to try it.

Capitalists, socialists, communists, fundamentalists, extremists, radicals….and now paid tool-kits experts, are not/never going to subscribe to this idea of “do not impose ideas on others for personal ego-satisfaction”...  Inadvertently,  certain propagationists of certain religions use unfair means( within the loopholes of law😜) to impose their “beliefs” on forced-converts!  

A color-blind, yet to get tested for it, might recognise different shades of “grey” and even convince me “look this is what you call as blue, in your language, isn't it?” And I agree👍 … indeed it is blue for me, I can see colours! ( and I don't know really, if the bandwidth of waves i call as “blue” is actually a “green” for the other fellow, but he calls my_blue as his_blue, though, the colour he sees is “green”. Labels of colors don't matter, as long as we are consistent in identifying it the same way, each time🙏).

How about trying to make the other, find an appeal to pursue his_spirit? 🤣 can't impose even a pursuit ( only thereafter, a “question” can arise about which_of the 4 paths, and tools of each one!🙏😰😰😰).

Insurance,  is a subject-matter of solicitation ( so is spirituality. ) . Even law prohibits imposing “insurance “ policy🤣.

Habit-forming negatives shouldn't be made available even as visual temptations ( forget about imposing such temptations).

Well,

Did I impose this blog to be read? ( anyway,  seldom do my blogs touch readers deep enough!🙏… quite harmless)

Harmlessly yours,

psn(1 March, 2025)