My mother used to sweetly sing me this song when i was young:

Serenity, regularity, absence of vanity
simplicity, sincerity, tenacity
equanimity, fixity, non-irritability
elasticity, humility, veracity
BRAHMAN is the only real entity
Mr. So and So is the false non entity

God am i speechless in remembrance....

Memories of childhood excite such profound nostalgia. Ahh! It's so brilliant and so sublime. While it must be remembered and called for assistance that memory idealises. Hence any remembrance is devoid of all the irritabilities and quirks that at times plague present moments.
So why is childhood especially striking? I guess that's the time when we were involved in a true awe and wonder of things around us. So there was a naive enquiry of phenomena which for the most part began to decline gradually. I guess we intuitively recognise this fact, and hence memories deliver a kind of our longing to get transported back to that state of perception.

Beginning to understand the statement that basically says: Geniuses are child-like. Old-age brings childishness.

Breaking free

Was recapitulating Schopenhauer's essay "On the Pure subject of knowing". Found it to be pertinent to quote some excerpts


"....the state required for pure objectivity of perception has in part permanent conditions in the perfection of the brain and of the physiological quality generally favourable to its activity...Let us not think here of alcoholic drinks or of opium; on the contrary, what is required is a peaceful night's sleep, a cold bath, and everything that furnishes brain-activity with an unforced ascendancy by a calming down of the blood circulation and of the passionate nature. It is especially these natural means of promoting cerebral nervous activity which have the effect of making the object more and more detached from the subject and which finally produce that state of pure objectivity of perception. Such a state eliminates the will from consciousness. Thus pure will-less knowledge is reached by the consciousness of other things being raised to so high a potential that the consciousness of our own selves vanishes. For we apprehend the world purely objectively, only when we no longer know that we belong to it; and all things appear the more beautiful, the more we are conscious merely of them, and the less we are conscious of ourselves.

Now as all suffering proceeds from the will that constitutes the real self, all possibility of suffering is abolished simultaneously with the withdrawal of this side of consciousness. In this way, the state of pure objectivity of perception becomes one that makes us feel positively happy - basis of aesthetic enjoyment. On the other hand, as soon as the consciousness of one's own self, and thus subjectivity, again obtains the ascendancy a degree of discomfort or disquiet appears...."



My footnotes:
All these constitute the profoundest truth that has it's basic form in many ideals, especially, Bhagavad Gita, Tibetan book of the Dead etc. Aldous huxley in his brilliant observations and experiments on effect of Psychedelics along with Dr Osmond, Dr Leary et al, has re-iterated the above. Only from such a standpoint, i believe, can a clear conception of "Love" be made. In any other state, it is just material wish-wash stained by pseudo moralistic ideas.

Out of a whim..

How many times have we, in moments of meditation, or pure music, or pure contemplation or pure mind alterants, felt a sense of equality and happiness among all things. Yet it aches to realise that it's extremely hard to keep that up and one gets back to the ever drowning, pulling, normal waking consciousness. This has been an eternal question, which most likely(as always) would remain unanswered unless one recognises the limitations of normal waking consciousness. However this shouldnt be mistaken as an "escape" from troubles. Just that it's at a level higher. That's my fucking opinion.

Propaganda

This is a burning issue. Has many categories. Right now i'm just gonna be focusing on the health aspect. I realise whatever i have to say might not be anything new. However, certain events have brought me to avoid dismissing this topic off.
It's pitiful that most people believe whatever they hear, or rather, want to hear. No wonder they are prime candidates for being operated on by propagandist pundits. I do not want to trivialise or simplify the issue, since the economic and psychological dynamics is too complex. But there are certain points i want to touch upon.

• The depth people go into proving claims made by propagandists is abysmally low (I'm not talking of the odd ones who actually explore into it). Chances are, if morally implicating stories, and ,one or two 'expert' opinions support the claims, it would be accepted hook,line and sinker.
• Most of the propagandist research reports that make their way into popular health magazines are funded either by political motives or industry. Hence at the outset, these studies throw honesty out of the FOV, which is one of the key factors required for trust.
  
• Common propaganda techniques: Touching FEAR, oversimplification, Stereotyping, False correlation, Neglecting possible coincidences, relying on stupidity of people etc.

Some of the examples of flagrant brainwashing i can think of are:

• Fear of mind altering drugs in general. Only the worst case incidences of drug usage(abuse!?!) have been reported to general public. Illegalisation of Marijuana. Hahaha.. where did that come from???? LSD being projected as one of the most destructive drugs ?????? Based on shit like this, the mind set of people who begin to use such drugs is permanently biased, which (according to Dr. Tim Leary) is one of the basic no-no's.
  
• All the pandemic threats that have ever hit the air waves have been big morale sinkers. They focus on the moral conditioning of people striking a rich c(h)ord with their 'conditioned' fear. SARS, Gulf war syndrome etc to name a few. Anyway, it's out of my scope to delve into this.
• All diet and hygiene boosters and the obesity syndrome. Nothing has been a bigger myth than the figure that correlates death and obesity. Popularisation of health tablets like vitamins and stuff. I say they are nothing but effective placebos.
  

As said before, i do not mean to trivialise any issue, nor do i mean this to be an eye-opener of sorts. Just that i wanted this to be a reminder before one takes too seriously any sort of bullshit being thrown at us.