natural human resistance

theres natural human resistance to change. we all fall into patterns and habits that eventually constrict our lives, but which we have difficulty breaking anyway.

rilke described the problem in this simple way

whoever you are: some evening take a step out of your house, which you know
so well.
Enormous space is near....

direct experience

from travels, by michael crichton

i see my travels as a strategy for solving problems in my life. whenever things got bad, whenever things in my life werent working, id get on a plane and go far away. not to escape my problems so much as to get perspective on them. i found that this strategy worked. i returned to my life with a new sense of balance. i was able to get to the point, to know what i wanted to do and how to go about doing it. i was focused and effective.

in every instance, it was because i had gone away and found out something about myself. something i needed to know.

my own sense is that the acquistion of self-knowledge has been made more difficult by the modern world. more and more human beings live in vast urban environments, surrounded by other human beings. the natural world, the traditional source of self-awareness, is increasingly absent.

furthermore, within the last century we have come to live increasingly in a compelling world defined by electronic media. the media have evolved a pace that is utterly alien to our true natures.

and i think that this constant assualt has made us pliable in a certain unhealthy way. cut off from direct experience, cut off from our own feelings and sometimes our own sensations, we are only too ready to adopt a viewpoint or perspective that is handed to us, and is not our own.

unaccustomed to direct experience, we can come to fear it. we dont want to read a book or see a museum show until we've read the reviews so that we know what to think. we lose confidence to percieve ourselves. we want to know the meaning of an experience before we have it.

we become frightened of direct experience, and we will go to elaborate lengths to avoid it.

i found i liked travel, becasue it got me out of my routines and my familiar patterns.

learnt in pushkar

your i can is more important than your iq

the secret of happiness is simple:

find out what you truly love to do then direct all your energy towards it, once you do this abundance flows into your life and all your desires are filled with ease and grace.

imagination is more important than knowledge - einstein

experience is the name everybody gives to their mistakes - oscar wilde

across the religions

each work has to pass through these stages:

ridicule, opposition, and then acceptance

swami vivekananda

to understand everything is to forgive everything

buddha

god is with those who persevere

koran

goan proverb

god made grass, man made booze - who do you trust?

curlies bar, anjuna

john lennon

you may say that im a dreamer, but im not the only one

beggar on train to hampi wearing t-shirt with slogan on