What do you do when you are confused?
1.      Do you seek other’s opinions on the matter? Do you call a friend or a well-wisher for advice or counseling?
2.      Do you start researching (say through google) more about things you are confused about?
3.      Do you put aside the confusion and do something that is less stressful (such as watching TV, reading a light magazine, taking a nap, cleaning up the shelf)? Or perhaps, you will just choose randomly to settle the matter so you can get to other things you want to do.

Or perhaps, you do something quite different to get away from the fact that you are confused. 

But whatever you do, you may have noticed that the confusion does not go away.  It surfaces after some time. 
There is perhaps a merit is 'sitting with the confusion'.  The above approaches take you 'away from the confusion'.  What if you sat with the confusion, looking at it, not judging it, but observing its texture, its themes, its pulsations, its urging?

Have you ever done that?  What have you discovered?

0 Comments My Tribute to Mummm9/7/2012
0 Comments

 
आमा (a poem by Krishna P). 

झिकेर मुटुको टुक्रा आँखाभित्र अटाउँछिन्
भोकभोकै बसी आफू छाती चुस्न खटाउँछिन् ।
... जिन्दगी बन्छ आमाले खाएको गाँसगाँसमा
सिर्जनामूल हुन् आमा स्रष्टाको इतिहासमा ।

कोखबाट निकालेर यो धर्ती टेक्न लाउँछिन्
तातेताते भनी मीठो तोते बोली सिकाउँछिन् ।
राखेर काखमा नानी कहिले गीत गाउँछिन्
बालो सुतोस् भनी आमा हातले थुम्थुम्याउँछिन् ।

नानी उठ्छ भनी राति अल्पअल्प निदाउँने
नानी रुन्छ भनी चाँडै अन्तबाट बिदा हुने ।
नानीकै साथमा खेल्छिन् काखकाखै नचाउँछिन्
आमाले नै विधाताको सृष्टिलाई बचाउँछिन् ।





‘को खा को खा’ भनी खाना नानीलाई खुवाउँछिन्
बगाई दूधको धारा शिशुलाई नुहाउँछिन् ।
मातृवात्सल्य रित्तिन्न जस्तै दुःख भए पनि
बचरा गुँड छोडेर टाढाटाढा गए पनि ।

आमाको रूप बिग्रन्छ सन्तान जन्मिएपछि
सन्तान पर भै जान्छन् डोलीमा अन्मिएपछि ।
तैपनि हुन्छ यो सारा आमाका निम्ति गौरव
आमा निःस्वार्थ देवी हुन् कसरी नभनूँ अब !

जिन्दगानी रहेसम्म आँखाले देख्न पाउलान्
आफ्नो शक्ति भए मान्छे सेवामा जुट्न आउलान् ।
धर्तीमै छ सबै चीज खोजे मिल्छ घरीघरी
तर जन्म दिने आमा पाइँदैन कसै गरी ।


0 Comments Science - a progress?6/19/2012
0 Comments

 
Do you think science always leads to progress? 

Thanks to science, we have bridges and towers, IT communication and global transportation, medicines and contraceptives, pesticides and high yield seeds. Science has made up better off in many ways.  This much is clear.

What I would like to explore is - has it made us worse off in some important ways?

There are many areas that are not quite helped by scientific approach.  By scientific approach, we think of control experiments, deductive causation and repetitive outcomes.  For example, scientific approach lends little help when we are navigating life's events and relationships.  Here, we do not use science, so we are not worse off because of science.  This 'non scientific' domain lies out of science, neither helped nor hurt by science.

But if we take something more scientific like ' weather' where we have benefited by science, what have we lost in by submitting to science?

With science in weather, we moved away from mystery of life that was reflected in weather.   We moved away from being sensitive to weather, its messages and omens.   We no longer looked to interpreting god's moods through ocean’s tides or the thunder's roar.  In olden centuries when eclipses sent shivers down people's backbones, each day was like meeting a stranger, and the weather was his new face.  Now, like machines, we move through efficient grooves of umbrellas and air-conditioners.   We walk about as if we are in control!  Our illusion of control over the weather is easily dashed by tsunamis, floods and hurricanes.  Yet, we go back swiftly into forgetful illusion of control. 

Historical men groped in the dark.
Science gave us light. 
(And too eager to see with certainty, we surrendered
all the tools that served us to navigate life's uncertainties.
We traded sensitivity, and awe.
We shelved imagination, and humility.
In tight spaces of modern security, we saw no longer
the shared responsibility to life)

Science gave us light
And that, we traded our sight.

Historical men groped in the dark.
Modern men grope blind.
  
For those facing life’s uncertainties and insecurities, science provides a poor crutch, and no compass!

कुनै कुराको वास्ता गर्नु भनेको के हो ? के यो बारे तिमीले सोचेका छौ ?

वास्ता गर्नु भनेको विचार पुर्‍याएर काम गर्नु हो । के तिमीले घरपालुवा जनावोरको जतनसाथ रेखदेख गर्छौ वा आफ्नो लुगा ध्यान पुर्‌याएर धुने र पट्याउने गर्छौ ? 

यदि कुकुर पालेमा काइँयोले त्यस्को रौं कोर्नु पर्छ , त्यसलाई खाना दिनुपर्छ , हिंडडुल गर्न लग्नुपर्छ , स्वास्थ्यको हेरचाह गर्नुपर्छ । बगैंचामा रुख विरुवा रोपेपछि त्यसको पनि रेखदेख गर्नु पर्छ , त्यसमा मलजल थप्नु पर्छ , पानी नपरे पानी हाल्नु पर्छ । यो सबै चिज जतनसाथ गर्न अरुहरुप्रति - अनि जनावर , रुखविरुवा , सरसामान सबै चीज प्रति - विचार पुर्‍याउनु पर्छ । तिमीले विचार पुर्‍याएर काम गर्दा वास्ता गर्न थाल्छौ । 

I believe in working in a team, with other people. Working with the right people leads to inspirational work.  My spirit of cooperation is too lenient, and I end up often working with wrong people which leads to an abuse of my purest motives.  And both the journey and the outcome suffer at the end. 

To have the 'right' spirit of cooperation, I should be rigorous in choosing who to work with.  Competence alone does not suffice, 'values-alignment' is needed too (and vice verse).
 
Here's a pertinent quotation on cooperation by JK.
" Reformers -political, social, and religious- will only cause more sorrow for man unless man understands the workings of his own mind... When you know how to co-operate because there is this inward revolution, then you  will also know when not to cooperate, which is really very important, perhaps more important. We now cooperate with any person who offers a reform, a change, which only perpetuates conflict and misery, but if we can know what it is to have the spirit of cooperation... then there is a possibility of creating a new civilization, a totally different world."

खुला इज्लासt was an hour long show, which I edited down to 15 minutes for youtube to address the problem of indifference.

Nepal's civil war, and the political falling out, can be viewed from the individualistic perspective.  In that, I mean, the 'quality of individuals' that we are in Nepal.  I outline the following salient points from the TV show:

1. Possibility: Nepal has a  prospect of being a cultural melting pot for diverse individuals, based on 3000 years of history of being just that. Nepali people have integrated 'Live and Let Live' attitude to life.  This promise of co-existence is peppered with selfishness (of 'minding one's own business') and 'pride' (lack of self-criticism).  
2. Problem Visible: In the last 2 decades, politics (of new democracy) have over-run all non-political institution, like social, religion and cultural.  We the common people stayed quiet 'minding our own business', listening only to political advisers and international well-wishers who, by now, are proven incapable.   Now, politicians are over-running the sanctity of our personal life (by stirring suspicion against one another, among neighbors who have lived in peace for centuries).  
3. Problem Invisible: Nepal people prefer a integrated/diverse culture, not the culture of territorial exclusion (which is ironically what the 'inclusive' policies have yielded). We want to respond to that, yet we don't change ourselves.  We keep blaming the politicians, their dirty tactics and power-negotiations, and we keep hoping some political savior will save us.  We keep looking for external solution (because we are used to be governed by kings, feudal ones or political ones).  
4. Solution: If we can look inwardly, we will see that we have to become our own solutions as others/outsiders/politicians cannot give us the solution.  We can begin by learning to care for others (however we define 'us', everyone else is 'others').    Perhaps, if we become better people, we would be able to govern ourselves, with or without the politicians' cooperation.
5. Conclusion: We Nepali people do not know how to care, and that's what we ought to learn to do, if we want to continue 'Live and Let Live'. 
   

Have you noticed often often one fails to do the right thing, be it to eat healthy, do exercise, be patient etc.? 
How many times would they have to fail, and for what reasons, for us to conclude that they are 'incapable' to change?

Think of all those resolutions one takes in birthdays and new years...and promised me make to our friends, family and ourselves, on self-improvements? From sleeping habits to eating habits, from talking to listening, from obsessing to procrastinating, perhaps we are less capable of change than we'd like to think we are!


If we are INCAPABLE, then we could stop trying to change...and use our energy to adjust to this new realization that we are incapable. Are we capable of THAT?