Himachal:

View of valley: McLeodganj

Midst Of Pine

Meet Reality

It is as if that is what I am witnessing-coming closer to reality, it is like sleeping wihout something cushy under you, on hard ground

It rained, and there was sunshine too. Sky patched with clouds.

Didn't go for a jog today
Had dinner
Had a long talk with nepali friend, nothing is helping me
spent an idle evening with her, idle evening in an endless long time-i could afford that!
Am dying

END of PHASE I

There is a one year prologue for Phase II
You know it is end of phase one when everything personal/professional which could be changed has changed, in terms of perspective. Am grown up, am a woman, life is here with its gamut of family, job, degree blah dancing, time to build the prospects, write, time to build my concrete house, write my set of words, perform my part of duty, do my share of travel, time to play my part before i retire, time to live. THIS is the time when I move on from the being the beliefless, pathless, heedless, convictionless person ...time is right.

I'll need all my cool. Prologue to Phase II is one year long, its going to be a fantastic year and its going to last me a long while. Lot of planned learning, lot of effort will go in laying the solid foundation of transition to Phase II.

For now in Phase two, I get rid of existential dilemma, time to live on concrete facts, time to prepare for the stability, time to accept, time for gearing for comfort and reside in some wisdom. before I lose it all again in Phase III or 3 if u like:)

What will Phase III be like...it will be closer to death, I'd be past my youth by then, or at least past the urgency of youth and will be moving faster then ever towards death, towards truth, bettering my practise, more skilled in practice for the path was carved out in phase I and the first steps taken there...and it is a long way to go, and I'd be found racing in my sturdy vehicle with calm reassurance

Intelligence

We can start with you laughing at me for whatever I am

Good.

:p I am just doing some very unintelligent things
I like it
It seems pleasant

Happiness is intelligence, it lies in doing very unintelligent things. It may not come from making the world’s most advanced software, it may come while doing it ha ha ha

Just returned from college. My teacher pretends to be shocked, why did you think you have flunked…(he knew I had not flunked as I went about telling everybody I had flunked the exams), then I entered hostel office after getting the papers for readmission inn hostel signed by our head of department, he is a large grizzly bear, …gave me 57 out of 75 in internals. He is perhaps the only teacher who corrected my paper honestly, in spite of nil attendance in class. Other teachers went to extent of giving a zero in internal/external…unreasonable marks (16/75) in papers I had honestly and completely solved. I love you guys, for you r u…and me will be me.
Guys I will be able to attend your classes this year since I have been promoted (you will see my face everyday), I have passed minimum papers required to get promoted and this year my freelance work might help me attend classes instead of being in office.

Earlier in the day, I got news from our publisher that they have a 1000 page book to be edited, on Linux. They haven’t made the payment for the last two edited books since they have a 45 day lag period after the receipt of the book. It is company policy. Told ‘em my policy, will take up their book only after they clear my payment, as a rule I won’t take up a new project until my last payment is cleared, personally it makes sense to me to not to keep too many dues in the pipeline-told them that in so many words. Was it harsh? I haven’t received a reply after I left them that mail this morning. Well, they won’t be able to resist me, nobody will bloody edit a 1000 page book in a week’s time with insightful improvements apart from grammatical corrections, with letters to the editor and my trademark global comments handwritten in ink ;)

Unitelligent to stay alone like a fucking fool. Unintelligent to tread fearless in this ugly city…not staying too long with anyone. Had this nepali friend, people started talking about us. The other day I entred the mess for dinner, was wearing my short skirt …my new Nike Air got noticed because of that “Pj is wearing her shoes because they are new…she is not that particular about jogging as she shows herself to be” …I wonder what else do I do with my shoes if not wear ‘em. I do not talk about how when I do/do not jog even when they come to ask me how to lose weight. I once told someone that they need not worry so much, my proportions are genetic…that is the current popular unintelligent theory in our hostel right now for explaining perfect curves!

Companionship

The hypocrisy is amusing. We do need company and yet we want our space, as in deep down our utterly selfish nature is thinking only about itself, obsessed with self impression and has little space to accommodate someone else. There are very few, like this Guy thoughJ)

We could translate the above in to saying that Pj’s life sucks sometimes when she feels alone, but the moment she steps outside it stinks even worse. She comes back to her den again, all alone.
Staying alone is better than going for false company which one finds in abundance, for everyone needs company but deep down you can't trust. Going by the law of averages we can not rule out the distrustful factors in our persoanl 'dealings', we kill ourselves, conceptual problem of bringing business when you just need to be happy.

Sometimes you could be out of place in a whole culture, it may just happen …then looking for company is like finding a needle in a haystack. Acknowledging the cultural difference helps in dealing with it. We all can be happy if we could trust goodness, if we could actually be good. Goodness multiplies, it comes back to you in bounties.

Last night it very clearly occurred to me that ‘people make it happen’. Look at organizations, the church, the legal system, the political system, educational institutions, research projects…people are getting together. No one man is moving a mountain, not always. It should involve people if it is a material context. If you gonna get married don’t do it secretly, involve people, have a bash, throw a party…people are important.

And this is not some PR agency speaking. Genuinely, connecting with others, loving your family, looking after college mates, hostel mates is important, not as a duty but just a natural part of sharing breathing space with one another, sharing life’s precious moments for they happen to be around at the same juncture of space time as you are. (But, categorically, ‘Do not take shit’, from anyone). For once I know that I genuinely respect bonding and will go for it, if it is apt.
And if I need to drop selfish projections of my own self I will do it, true companionship does not come from owning people or hoarding them, but greeting one who meets your eye, making space for one who has to pass by, leaning on someone if you feel weak and extending a hand if someone is in need.
And then there are those precious precious moments when you can just be with someone (walking may be) without a reason! I mean when you can just be with people and not see a deliberate purpose in it. Be yourself in it. Such situations occur only in a place where there is no war going on, society is liberal, progressing, tolerant, where people pursue their material goals and still find time to sit with each other.

But the same material concept of companionship does not hold true in a very specific sphere, time for introspection. Crucial that one may understand this. It is true that every man dies alone…crucial that this aspect be understood, delineated and made clear so that one may not overlap inconsistent arenas. Material companionship is functionality, important. Companionship of any kind has a functional relevance and a functional limitation. Personal growth, like the pain one experiences, is a microcosmic experience, like death, birth and enlightenment. These happen in a personal space.




The concept of personal space should not be exaggerated, you can’t use it as a reason to ignore others, nor can you let false projections affect it. These false projections may be a shroud of lies which you may have used in defining your relationships with others. If you are framing lies then there is something wrong. Personal space is that healthy time you spend with yourself where you introspect without getting conscious of other people’s opinion of you and then go back to be with people with a satisfied, earthy smile on your face.

For mediators too there is a Sangha, a whole gamut of people on a personal journey. Nobody is trying to uproots the other, everyone is growing in their own soil reaching for the sky.

what makes you so interested in my research project she asked, why are you helping me so?
(she knew i was hard pressed for time, the manuscript lying on my desk) Something terrible happened when she asked me that question, for me i was just doing it....didn't think 'why?'. asking that question she got a very vague explanation about something entirely out of context from me and then i was not approachable anymore, it just happened. she is downstairs and am upstairs now

Mandala Dream

“First incident when I was in class 5. Did not even know what it was then.
An year later, in class 6 I saw a dream with my mind conscious, reason from my waking world still working making me aware in my sleep, or you could say I was visualizing with my eyes closed resting in my bed at night…or something like that in sleep state.

The dream was of two round lumps with shifting boundaries, fluid masses with fluid round boundaries, mingling…vision like of some animals like infrared vision, using body heat, like it just stands out as red masses of heat and flesh against the dark, moving. I remember telling myself "P when you grow up and get the delusion, remember this is what it is, just this, nothing great!”

The psychology person doing research on typical childhood dreams of meditators said:
That’s a typical Mandala dream, that is why you are what you are. That dream was the determinant of your spiritual…the researcher on meditation who is impressed by Carl Jung explained to me. (dreams are just shadows I later explained to her, they can never be ‘determinants’. Wrong word)



This has been a recurring dream recently, saw it 3-4 days back:

“I am at the terrace of a very tall bare building, tall as a cliff, the terrace has no boundary. I sleep on a mattress on the edge of the terrace and when I stretch my neck and look down from the immense height, houses look like the size of ants and I hold on tight to the mattress afraid that I’d fall. The sea stretches on one side with the setting/rising sun reflecting on calm waters and the sprawling city (like Mumbai) along the coast on the other side. If you look right ahead you see the coast and if look on your left from the building it is the endless sea, as if you watching from a cliff. As I look up lying on the mattress I usually spot a pair of eagles flying.”

You are going to succeed she said. (Whatever that means))


She transformed the perspective I had for the first incident, she has studied Tantra…
“It was first experience with energy, your initiation at a young age, anyone else might have thought it was terrible, it was positive for you…" she said it matter of fact and we resumed editing the research proposal orally”
Had I been the teacher I would have rejected the badly written proposal, or may be not… provided I didn’t think like a stupid editor. She knew it as i went about commenting, she had not worked hard on the thing, ( she did a lot of copy paste), might have wasted lots of time in thinking/ worrying/talking about/around it, like most Indians do!


Where do we go now…mmm where do we go

Is it End of Phase I ?

I was just left indecisive. A day back, the phase II of my life could have ensued. I could have happily moved to working/earning, and settling down like gentlemen/women are supposed to. Doing things like saving, investing, starting to be something, or starting something of your own…and sweet things like that. I like it, when things are clear, one way or other. A day back things stood clear and I liked it, though it was a sad fact, it was there without duality.

Now, again there is apprehension, have to wait till Monday, have to reschedule the interview…indecisiveness.

“Processes rather than the sensory data that they process, are primary in one's experience of the cosmos”

It is like phenomenon of observing becomes more important than experience (outside ‘matter’) itself. Dunnow how many lifetimes one will take to traverse the entire length and breath of experience... the varied diaspora on earth presents (and who knows elsewhere!). No number of movies can capture it nor can any amount of travel cover it, no amount of expreience can exhaust it. Any attempt to do it by these means is incomplete, shallow by any measure. World keeps changing and who knows by the time you complete one set of rounds another set of events change the face of the place completely, making it ‘new’. So if I am ignorant of movies I dunnow how much I have missed, but if I am wrong with the processing phenomena, then I know for sure I have missed out on almost an entire plane of experience, several dimensions of experience which any sensory data can trigger, a movie or any real experience…observation of breath, phenomena takes precedence/importance. It is as if you just need data, any sensory data and the process of sensation and ‘nirjara’ or discovery/realization begins…sensory input just becomes the means, a very important element but just that ‘means’.

Observing, growing with ‘experience’ or with ‘practice’ the processing of sensory data, the phenomena becomes more important than the source of the data itself (that source just seems to be as it appears to be, it is relative therefore you can just look at the reality which 'appears' at this moment, even if it is the last moment's truth it is 'memory' and again one needs to dig this moment's truth which might be different, is different), but that again requires phenomenal orientation…phase II is supposed to be easy, where I won’t have to experiment at costs I bear now, when I would be struggling but there will be benefits as well…right now its plain tough. There is no clarity, no live guidance …no reflection I can see.
But then this is a phase, soon I shall steer my ship back to calm waters, soon sky will be clear and I will be able to gather the direction am heading in, hopefully. Work will be easy then, hard work I don’t mind as long as there is clarity of heading in the right direction, as long as I have the tools unlike now when who knows I might be regressing (i have the tools but little sense of direction), might not noticing things I should…missing out for worse

Most of the time I am mislead by my own misconceptions. I am mistaken in my views. Most of the time that happens, I say without exaggeration or false modesty. Personally, right now, I’d be glad to be able to talk to someone who has right view, talking to such people you get clarity spontaneously cause there is no effort required to paint beliefs. Clarity would ‘happen’ talking to such a person, you don’t need to trust, love, believe or hate them, they just impart a perspective and it rings true, may be even open up a dimension one was not previously aware of but is in need of or is receptive to. They could be talking just about anything...and it happens :))

Glimpse of Phase II told me it is easy to live life like most others do, they are not so concerned about 'observing', relative dimensions, deeper relaity and other seemingly non essential things i am occupied with. They simply are concerned with survival and other immediate things, so am I but then there is this phenomena taking preceedence over 'matter' and me taking time to settle down with that attitude, actually when everyone around you is indulging in something else there is little to look uo to, to flow with you, to contribute to the flow, u face a lot of resistance...but that's ok

I didn’t know that a phase II existed, I thought I’d have to struggle all the while, it was a part of my whole personality. The defiance, the weirdness, the discomfort and the fire and restlessness, the uprootedness, the curiosity, the race! Now as if a light tower… I can see phase II blinking.
But the storm is still there, death right ahead, one false step and I drown.

(A lot many times I am talking to people and they may be doing something wrong right under my nose. I don’t bother…u can’t stop at every nook and corner. But if someone asked me, and if I knew I would point out a miss take. If I didn’t know, I’d most probably say it. It is wrong to deny someone an opportunity to know what you already do, if you know and can easily convey.)

am sorry if this looks like I could have said more at places, or sounds a little abstract. I have been writing for quite some time and need to work before I retire for a night's rest

Lv

For in this drunken state I will jump with joy
will do dum dum and go high

For now am drunk, intoxicated
very soon i'd want to cry

Reading "Wings of Awakening" by Buddha
its working

processes, rather than the sensory data that they process, are primary in one's experience of the cosmos

Words

This author asked me how new words are formed, she wants to contribute new words to her subject to express new ideas

...


Words are formed when you 'react'

;

silence makes up the empty space between 'em, those silly words

oooooHOOOOOOO

Dunnow why this feeling of release!
Aastha said “it will be for the better whatever has happened” without knowing what was it that concerned me. Since she was that so accurate, I told her about the result, the plan, how people reacted…we had macaroni, soup, sweets and finger chips for dinner, and a walk after that. At the mess there is this guy who competes with me, its like who says hi first when we look at each other, I got lucky and they cleaned my plates…ego boost (I am easy to please! How cheap happiness comes to me these days ;)

U u u u Un Dos uuu Un dos tres

Being young washes it all, you can forget, you can move shake it
You can give a thumbs up to the system

Saw a shirt on the metro station ticket counter “break the rules” …I would never believe that…be yourself, it may make or break rules…who who’s got extra time to go out to break ‘em,!

Ooo Yeeee eeee ooooooooOOOOOOO

IIIIIiiiiiIIIIIiiiiiIIIIIIIIiiiiIIIIIIIIIIIIIiiiiIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

#there is less resistance for sure, earth element is your survival elements, pertains to health, finances, ground realities...sustenance

Pj has lesser resistance for baser, grosser things, balance ... nothing is less important, nothing higher just because it is placed higher in the hierarchy of things, just because it is rare doesn't make it awfully ah! indispensable...along the same nothing is indispensable...just feel it(last 3 words from Michael Jackson)

It Works!

Facts do not harm. They are truths, facts, the judgement we frame, the paraphernalia we create around them makes us sad or otherwise.

The result came out, quite sad. I should have felt miserable. But the thing works!!

The truth is it did not affect me, the talk with the teacher, the whole gamut of things…it hardly matters, not that am not considerate or ignorant, or careless, it is just that you ride the wheel at times, are crushed underneath at times and move on. How do I say that the association with ‘good’ or ‘bad’ ceases to exist and experience becomes pure in itself

Give Me Your Hand

“…you pray before you eat…I have noticed you”

I looked up, was having dinner at our mess, she sat facing me, a woman with beautiful hair too conscious about it.

(Yes I do reflect on the fact “ u got another nice meal you idiot Pooja, somebody cooked it for you better be thankful, may all beings share your satisfaction, satisfaction u feel when u have a meal, when u are nourished, may all be nourished, be satisfied and grow”…) I nod a ‘yes’ I ‘pray’ (pray!!, that is how I pray)

She got talking, we discovered we from the same town, I invited her to my room …I just got a reason to do that : ))

She is doing research on meditation, psychology student, …

“We have a spiritual connection, but he is a Christian, ten years elder to me. We are Rajputs you know…I love my family, I can sacrifice anything for them.”

(I had shaken hands with her in the mess I remember, I listen)

“ …I don’t want to marry…this guy tells me you are so confused, he has had many girls in his life, we share a spiritual connection” …she was pouring it all out (you want to marry, I muse, lv)

“…I have shared my deepest spiritual moments with him” I interrupt here…woman you gave yourself here …

“He said he wanted to learn meditation from me” – ha ha me laughed, he killed you then.

“But I thought why should deny someone of a spiritual blessing” I told her she fell here, she assumed she could ‘teach meditation’ she thought she was better than the quacks who teach meditation at every nook and corner of north India, he banked on her ego…she thought she fooled him by talking about ‘spirituality’ and made it all up-and believed in her own lies!! she could laugh at herself for doing that …

“yeah I wondered about that…but you know he proposed when I was talking spirituality to him” You were just trying to talk deep…

We concluded:
1) It is time for her to get married but not to this guy she talks about
2) The good thing about this guy was that he made her positive for marriage, he worked real hard on it!
3) Spirituality should not be a criteria for match making, spirituality is not a block! It should make things easy for her, not difficult
4) She can’t use spirituality to make her ‘different’ from others, she is normal.
5) She might opt for the arranged marriage … no need to dump her family

I already know whatever you said Pj, it is just that when you say I hear my voice (my job mam, to articulate retaining the author’s meaning, my editor nature) …just that when you say it, it becomes clear. Will do it.
…Call me if you feel weak…

It is spiritual the way we met, u have really helped me, I think it is some larger scheme of things that we met like this…amazing- That translogic spiritual comment made me feel like a Quack

She gave me her hand, jerked her hair and left with decisions 1 to 5 in her pocket.

lv

Got up from my bed after one and a half hours, was lying as if I was killed on my bed. Seriously…apart from attending two phone calls I was largely lost, I mean ‘lost’, was it just a kind of sleep where u feel moving your body to go to Gurgaon is too much effort, where you realise u just don’t listen to others (it just recorded back of ur mind!) when you don’t go to Gurgaon for an interview in a well paying multinational when u badly need a job.

Why am I doing this to myself…? Pooja, man, be a Man, go out earn for yourself. Go out make your day man, get up - [ look! that doesn’t work (( ]
Looks like my all morale boosting strategies, all language is defunct

Neighbor comes and tells me about her bad planetary configuration, I personally don’t give it a flower, but you know she seriously believes that her handwash was stolen because she is vulnerable, every wrong is more difficult in her life cause she has 13 year shani…give it a flower I’d say

Lately, everything went wrong, no job, bad result, no body, no family I closed my eyes to opoortunities …

Ok I need to go for my run, my shorts are back from the laundry, how I missed them!

…yeah i’d rather be a man through the troubles, all my fellas will understand this!!

#as I lay killed the HR called up and asked if they could reschedule the interview on Monday…(how did they know I am lying killed on my bed!!) I said that will be cool, the HR had an air sign I guess, knew I was speaking some trqansplanetary position and asked if I even remember the name of the person I was speaking to…Ghosh, madhumira ghosh…Madhurima she said sweetly. I was close. So her call was one of the calls I attended I mentioned earlier, the other one was from my brother…he is kinda cute and finds me amusingly evil, godless beliefless evil, iasked him to ask his god to pray for me to help that...I loooooove Dire straits I listen to right now....very soon I'd be in my shorts, tie my hair tight and R U N

Yesterday you told me 'bout the blue blue sky

And all that I can see is just a yellow lemon-tree


They are pulling the place down, construction goingon everywhere. Main gate of the department is close, come from the back gate. Main entrance of the library is a danger zone, debris can fall on you. Do not venture near any cemented structure in my university, it may crumble, or you may see workers throwing down debris from fourth floor instead of carrying it down no sign boards to warn unsuspecting innocent students and their tormentors.
Decosntructing to build AC lecture halls, pavements, grand entrances ... my author hurls elite abuses at these guys ...in her words
"our --- univeristy has funds for breaking and laying the same floor again, for this --- lecutre hall with staircase --hundred students, but nothing for funding research"

Library looks like somebody's home with a cooler pl;aced for our convenience, clean patches with tables and chairs where u can sit and study and new staff in the library trying to arrange the books in shelves...I am amused, my linguistics section is next to the section on Religion! ...opp. to Literature

The Female Sex

We are different.

Females find a strong expression of their sexuality, independently. Like the phases of the moon they experience a cycle which gives them a stark, blood red, almost painful evidence of their fertility, youth and sexuality every month. Closely linked to their physical and psychological states their menstrual cycle reflects and sometimes governs the female psyche.

With a man, a woman can complement his realization of his sexual (well) being. Men do find an extended, solid expression of their manhood again related to increased blood flow, an orgasmic energy which multiplies tremendously with the female element. This expression intensifies with a stimuli or (semi)voluntary expression. For a female past puberty, the menstrual flow is completely out of control (say involuntary) inescapable period unless under the influence of medication. Their conscious mind, if kept under the shrouds of ignorance may not link it to sexuality in the first place. Yet the influence is there, the sexual state has ensued and the hormones have started moulding the body. Now, with full expression of sexuality at the physical level, lack of sexual expression or a mind yet ignorant of sexual activity will create a split, a duality which is equally difficult for a teenager or a young woman to handle.

It is crucial to understand that a female may or may not find full sexual expression even when with a partner (equally true for a male). Female sexuality is not a mere functional phenomena, and not a purely physical at all levels. Nor is it limited to a set of thrusts which may help a man achieve orgasm, and leave the female still unattended.

Why is ‘she’ so unpredictable, so hard to tame, yet so servile and painfully vulnerable? Why is she so easily damaged, raged, luring and limp? We can retain these questions for later, important questions!

In spite of such a strong self expression of sexuality at the physical level you would find that it is the woman who seeks dependency from men socially and personally, numerous men will testify the latter. It is not just the prominent features like breasts and the monthly discharge which constitute a strong physical expression of female sexuality but also long hair, elaborate decorative dressing and numerous other prominent factors they deliberately shroud themselves with. Why (?). It is as if beauty is directly associated with feminity, as if in beauty they find an expression of their own sexuality, their own feminity, a trait more identifiable with the females than males! Male sexuality finds expression at less physical planes like competence with other males, stamina, endurance and success, power driven social structures like marriage testify this. Unlike the female desire for commitment from the male which has roots in jealously and physical comparison with other females, the male desire for compatibility and commitment from the female is rooted in concerns like security and preservance of social structures like family, fatherhood and inheritance, genealogy. Commitment from a female in such a structure is desirable but commitment to the female is not necessary to preserve the social structure. Prostitutes therefore live on the thresholds of society and barred from social structure or ‘family’. Do these concerns or expectations from a mate drive men away from a complete sexual self expression within marriage? Well, it does. So many will opt for ‘arranged’ marriages and not marry their ‘hot’ girlfriend because it is a question of family now, all men understand this question. Along the same vein, a man too sexually attracted to his wife is a concern for family members and friends, the man should be in control, a married man that is, in context of his wife. He can let the rein loose with another female, therefore may find and desires a self expression outside ‘marriage’. It involves risk but has greater promise, many would venture to take the risk. Does it complicate their life? Yes! And raises moral and financial questions as well, pressure! Nobody likes pressure of this kind.

What happened to the female sex in such a marriage? Did she find security, did she find happiness? Ask her, and she will say ‘yes’ in blissful ignorance :)