Creator and slave

All the stars were shinning bright in the darkened night

The light was dazzling white

But at a distance, not the surface of the blanket of night

Though dazzling white

They were unable to lift the darkness of the night.

What does it mean 

Are they powerless

Without  might? 

Or just that are too far away out of sight.

Given their might and power 

Of the scorching heat and light

That any darkness is alien to them

But in a different world, at a different time frame

On this world they appear as mere twinkles

So does the human life

Sparking somewhere

And powerless elsewhere

As the question is we fit when , how and where

As man is the creator and slave of his own Hour

THE ANSWER ESCAPES

THE ANSWER ESCAPES

As if the branch is about to break, or so she thought
As if the last leaf has fallen dry and arid
So what to wait for and how to wait for how long
Oh this waiting and waiting !!!
What has it brought

Entangled is she in those what when where...
Tries and tries to break free
But like sand escaping between the inter-digits
The answers escape the harder she tries.

Was Ramachandra able to find answers to all his questions
Being God and Purushottama
Succumbed to time and destiny
How can she ever dream of escaping the mutations

But be proud of the efforts
That joy reverberates far and wide
No matter Kumbhakarna sleeps tight on one side

Dr. Anupam Jena

Keywords: Inspiration, Life, Poetry, Thoughts, Ideations.

The MAGIC

Put out the lamp and let him sleep
For he has been awake dreaming the whole night
Now it's dawn approaching
And he has to start a new day after this short sleep.

Down on his nerves he tried to sleep off his worries
But they grew exponentially beyond control
With his heart pounding breaths racing
He wakes up and decide
To dream to replace his worries

The magic he discovered
To dream of sunny days when everything is dark
When everything seems hopeless
Commit to extraordinary hard work

The Efforts that matter

Has your boss told you harsh things? Has your senior tried to show you how incompetent or ignorant you are? Has your colleague passed some really bad comment to you out of sheer jealousy or intolerance? ………….

These are some of the situations we face in our professional lives every day – someone trying to belittle us, humiliate us or simply exploit us. These are practical problems. We need to find solutions to them. We vehemently search for solutions. We ask friends, parents, colleagues for solution. Because normal human beings without psychiatric disorders can’t remain sane for a long time under the stress of constant problems. So we need solutions.

The types of solutions to professional problems can be of two types: remove the external factors like change your job, stop going to places, stop interacting with disturbing people. But these are not always possible in a professional life.

The other solution lies within us, that is behaving according to the merit of the problem – like ignoring some, protesting some and enduring some. The aim of doing all this is to maintain peace and balance in our own lives and continuing our progress in life. Otherwise we might get so busy solving problems that we may forget to develop.

We humans as long as we are on this earth, we will have conflicts. Just recollect world history and you will see that human history is by and large history of wars and conflicts. See the world now, almost half of the world is ravaged by war and one human torturing or killing another human being. The number of humans dying due to natural disasters and non-human animals is nothing compared to the numbers killed by fellow humans. I know, I sound disturbing. But what I want to say is that there is and there will always be conflicts. You may change your job, your place – but then a new set of unanticipated problems will arise at the new place.

The best policy is to change ourselves, make ourselves more battle-ready and capable of handling stressful situations. Live in this world but don’t be of the world. There will always be “gol maal” (meaning trouble) in this world – leave the gol (meaning zero) and pick-up the maal (gain).

We have to actively choose between the various options available as solutions for a problem. The best option is to put all your efforts to solve it. If trying to solve a problem is not the best option available, we can ignore it. Like we can ignore the bad remarks of a colleague who is acting out of jealousy. We have to endure some problems for some time as we have our own motives. Whatever is the path we choose, we must remember that nothing comes easily. Every bit of mental effort you are putting towards the solution of a problem needs your attention and energy. The solution lies in our EFFORTS, EFFORTS AND EFFORTS. The path you choose is not fixed and it need not be. Because none can predict, not even you, what situations you will face today. But to be capable of handling it and not losing mental balance is what our aim is. The outcome may not always be favourable to you, but you can be happy considering the amount of effort you put into solving the problem. We all want our lives to be smooth. We all tend to believe in “live and let live”. But somehow every day we face many unnecessary problems from other fellow men.

Take your time, write down your present concerns. Analyse each problem and write down the possible solutions and you may find a better answer. There is an old saying “If you want to know what your destiny is, then watch out where you are investing your time.” So invest your time and energy in search of a better life and you will find one. In the end your efforts and experiences are all yours and nobody can take that from you.

9 Ways to improve concentration. Economics of thought : part-2

Our brain holds all the information that was, is or will be present in this universe. All inventions, all discoveries are mere unfolding of the knowledge that is already pervasively present everywhere. Sir Isaac Newton uncovered the lid off the knowledge of the force of gravity, the force of gravity is always present since the beginning. But a discovery is made when the mind is focused on an idea or thought. And when that idea is allowed sufficient time to become a firm theory and us followed by befitting action. But the catch is there is no easy way to focus the mind, otherwise each of us would have been discoverers. The mind is the ultimate creation if god. He has stuffed every but of information that is past present and future and beyond them into the mind. If this sounds impossible,let me explain with an example. Take the example of a seed, given the right conditions and nourishments it has the power to produce the mammoth tree. Similarly a focused brain energy can do wonders.

Controlling the thoughts and focussing our attention on one idea is very much achievable. But there are no quick fixes and easy ways.  So don't expect that you will  read a few articles and know the art of mind control.All writings and lectures are for the general guidance, but ultimately you have to discover your own ways to tackle the problems of life and the ways to proceed. One of my teachers use to say "Life is difficult. if anyone is saying otherwise,he is selling something". So you have to fight your own battle. Controlling the thoughts and focussing our attention on a desired topic, like achievement of any goal, needs insight, dedicated effort and practice.Below are some steps which can help you to focus your concentration. These are not serial step by step guide, but are different ways to increase your concentration.

1. Physical well being
2. Fixed time
3. Develop an association
4. Avoid multiple inputs
5. Read something everyday
6. Avoid extremes of emotion
7. Discipline in life
8. Learn from mistakes
9. Habit forming

1. Physical wellbeing:

A healthy mind can reside only inside a healthy body. This is the most important part of excellence in life. As you might have heard genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. So to perspire we need physical fitness and persevernce. Take up a regular routine of physical exercise, be it going to gym or home based pilates yoga etc. Do whatever suits you best and something which interests you and not difficult to continue. Have a fixed time in the day for exercise, any time which suits you is OK. But do try to maintain it everyday. Sometimes we feel the urgency to do some other thing and try to omit exercise. But we must realize that,those 30 minutes of exercise will go a long way to save our time and energy.Usually while starting a new physical exercise schedule,
we tend to lose motivation after the initial four five days. So keep this fact in mind and just try to continue even if you don't feel like. After a month you will be habituated to the routine. There are numerous benefits of physical exercise. Thousands of articles are available on this topic, try to read some just to motivate yourself to start.

2.Fixed time:

The brain is like an wild animal when uncontrolled. The brain needs regular and rigorous training to be controlled. As fire can be produced only from dry woods, similarly brain will function optimally only when trained to a certain extent. One of the best ways to train a brain is to do a thing at a fixed time. If you are a student fix one particular time to study everyday. That way when you practice for a few months, the brain gets tuned to a particluar activity at a
particular time and chances of deviating or wandering wil be less.

3. Develop an Association:

Have you heard about Pavlov's dog ? If not, read this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_conditioning). There is something called
conditioning, where we train our brains to behave in a certain way in a given situation. Why do we feel deep emotions for our near and dears? Because our brain is trained to feel their sorrows and happiness. Similarly if we try to develop a sense of attachment to our work, the brain wil develop elaborate mechanism to make us happy merely by performing our work. Similar to Pavlov's dog experiment it takes time to develop an association and condition the brain, and once we stop there is again deconditing or unlearning. There are two important concepts here : one is establishing an association and second is conscious efforts to maintain the association.

4. Avoid multiple inputs:

Our brain functions best when we direct our attention to one particular task. That's what focus means, to concentrate on one thing. A magifying glass burns a paper only when it focuses the rays of the sun. Similarly we need to focus our mental energy on one activity. So don't play music while studying, even if you are habituated to it. Take up a new habit of reading, without music. Don't keep your mobile phone near you while reading or doing something serious, unless you need the phone for the work. Phone is for your convenience so use it like that.

5. Reading something everyday:

Reading is like meditation. When you read something you love, your mind is absolutely focussed on that. During that time the mind is static and wandering is minimal. Even a few minutes of reading something you love refreshes the mind. The idea is to train the mind to focus on something for some duration of time. And the best way to start is to read something you love. Once that habit is there we can extrapolate that habit for other activities.

6. Avoid extremes of emotion:

Extremes of anything is bad. Sound is audible only within a range, any sound above or below that frequency is inaudible. Always always avoid extremes of emotions. Too much anger or too much happiness produces the same effect. It destabilizes the brain. It needs some amount of conscious effort  to control our emotions, but they can be controlled. Our emotions affect our interpretation of a situation and that leads to a commensurate action. There are three stages of activity depending upon our mental status : inactivity, equilibrium and hyperactivity. Avoid the inactivity and hyperactivity. I am not saying it is easy to achieve, but with practice we can modify our reactions to a situation.

7. Discipline in life:

This is a more general term , but one of the most powerful way of affecting you. General disciples in life like sleeping and waking  up at a particular time, having a regular diet, maintaining a clutter free surrounding etc. You have to invest few minutes to arrange your room , bed, clothes etc. Those few minutes will make your few hours more productive. Unless you invest some minutes you won't get the returns. Like if you arrange your stuff in the evening your morning will have more available time to invest in other things. These things create an environment conducive to enhancing our mental focus.

8. Learn from mistakes:

A weekly review of progress is necessary to know how you are doing. Discard anything tht is not working for you. Sit down and think out your own strategy. Plan the next week. As a wise person identify your mistakes early and rectify earliest.

9. Habit forming:

Whatever is written here, or in fact in any article will be effective only when it is turned into a habit. To get a new habit we have to do a thing  repetitively for around a month. So for the first month don't do frequent review of your progress, just try to stick to a routine. Like a child takes its own time to grow up, similarly a new habit takes time to be internalized. Just stick to it. Dont expect overnight miracles.

Keywords: Inspiration, Writings, Concentration, mind control, mental focus, economics of thought

I promise

Promises to keep
Dreams to enliven
wishes to catch
Prayers to offer
From darkness to enlightenment

This prayer I offer at your feet
Pick me up and nurture me
For left forlorn
My soul will watch my dreams
dissipate in the hurricane of decadence.

Show me light
Show me the path
I promise to traverse
Enduring the endless pain
For my soul enjoys the eternal pleasure
Even if my physical barriers suffer.

There is duality but proceed

(source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AThe_Long_Road_Ahead.jpg)

Satan stares and sighs sluggishlyThe yawn fades slowly
Then the jaws droop and the lids fall
The steam moves on ecstatically

The air goes thinner and the bliss thicker
the dark clouds  lurk beneath
And the rainfall and windy ways
Become hazy and bleaker

But the ways taught me to walk
To strive further and further
The sharpest gravels and sweetest dreams to counter
The baby steps it took care of
My biggest misdeeds were forgiven off.
And it carved my paths
infused in me the strength to traverse off

Why then my steps quiver
Why then I feel the shudder
Thinking about my melancholic sojourn.

The labyrinth of life spun perplexing and wide
The lone traveller searches it's fate
With hopelessness  and hope like ebb and tide.
 

Economics of thought

Thoughts flow in our minds ceaselessly except only during stage III or IV NREM ,the stages of deep sleep  probably. Whether we are actively thinking or not, thoughts just never stop, unless of course we control it actively. Thoughts make or break our lives.  Sometimes thoughts are insurmountable and creat a virtual reality, what we call as psychosis or madness. We as humans beings are programmed to remain connected to reality, to think within the relm of realism with momentary allowances to hover in the clouds of virtuosity. Our reality is personal to us. We create our own reality and we dwell in them. So is it just a free flow of thoughts we are controlled by? Sometimes such is the situation. People who have done good things in life, those who have excelled in life have been able to control their thoughts rather than being driven by thoughts and emotions.

The central concept of the economics of thought is letting into the brain only those thoughts and informations which are necessary for growth, development and success and absolutely cutting off unnecessary and useless information. Like the unstoppable flow of a river, our thoughts are unstoppable. We create dams on river to utilize the power of water for varied purposes like irrigation, electricity production etc. Similarly we can put a dam on the free flow of our thoughts and channelize the energy towards better ideas hence better actions.

Ultimately our aim is to produce better action. Life is chiseled into shape by our thoughts and actions. Act for the sake of the sole pleasure of performing the action. If you are a student you should study for the sole pleasure of reading, no need to worry about results. Achieve excellence and results follow.

In today's world information is opulent: switch on the internet and the tsunami of information follows. We encounter information worthless to us. In such a scenario it has become even more important to apply the principle of economics of thought. Rather than just aimlessly searching for something good, we need to first find out what we are looking for and then to search for it. Entirely cutoff the unneeded information. We must remember that we can contribute to our lives and to this world only when we concentrate on very specific goals and excel on those.

So coming back to thought economics. I will tell one instance of mine, I am an interventional cardiologist (simply saying I am one of those doing the angiographies and stenting). Some time back I was going to do a complex cardiac intervention. So I called up my guru ( my teacher) and asked for guidance. He told me to go through all the available literature on that particular topic and I did so. The procedure went off fine. This was a simple day to day instance of how concentrating on specific tasks leads to success. The concept of learning and working needs to change. The concept of extensive knowledge (knowing something of everything) needs to be replaced by intensive knowledge (knowing everything about something). In that process of knowing everything about something, the knowledge and insights we gather are invaluable. Any task we face, any problems we encounter has has a solution. The type of outcome depends on how much time energy and mental focus we have invested in searching for a solution and what we have learned in the process.

Channelizing your energy in a more positive and focused direction needs practice and practice. There are two phenomena in the brain to help us with our selection of thoughts. One is called “GATING” and the other is called “NEUROPLASTICITY”. Gating in simple terms can be explained as two persons trying to pass through a narrow gate. Since it is a narrow gate, only one person can pass through it. Similarly the brain regulates how impulses reaching it. When we are concentrating on something our brain automatically cancels out all the other impulses, otherwise we would have never been able to concentrate on something. Putting in a straight forward way - a bad feeling or emotion can be replaced by a good idea. The good thought has the power to “gate off” the bad thought. Just you have to let the good thought prevail.

There is another term called neuronal plasticity. That means every time some information passes through our brain some micro synapses develop in our brain, and over time as the same type of information passes repetitively, the brain connections become fixed. Flow through such fixed connections occur preferentially to others. This is central to learning and memory. Memory is an exquisitely complex process. Some memory are called explicit memory (like remembering your lessons) and some memory are called implicit (the subconscious performances e.g., skills and habits, emotional responses, habituation, sensitization). Here we have the capacity to master our brains to memorize the positive thoughts. Just like how we remember to balance during bicycling through numerous repetitions and permanent changes in the brain connections, we can train our brain to be happy, positive and to give good response to any situation. No situation is good or bad in themselves, it’s our reaction which makes it good or bad. If we train our brain to behave in a good way rather than react in a bad way to a given situation, we have achieved a major step forward for peace, stability and success in our lives. By repetitively and consciously selecting the right thoughts and discarding the wrong thoughts, we can train our brain to give preference to the good ones. When these thoughts are supplemented with befitting actions we achieve success in that domain.

So remember:

-Everything starts with a thought

-Choose the right thought

-Discard whatever is unnecessary and meaningless for you

-Repeat and repeat your thoughts

-Supplement with matching actions

-Repeat thoughts and actions till becomes a habit

- Keep on doing it.

This is a general discussion on the economics of thought. There are many more to come. Thank you for reading. Your comments are most welcome.

Don't let it go wasted

We come stand and stare, a rolling stone is all we see
Was somewhere now somewhere reckless and free
Spare me the agony and the violent spree
For I am nor I was and never will be thee

The green algae I can see clearly
So why this fuss
Why say a rolling stone gathers no moss
Show me which explorer discovered by sitting and thinking merely

Move as we must with the currents of time
Step we must forward take and never look back
Save for reflection and revery from time to time

Otherwise this life and our time is wasted
Like committing a crime.

THE CHOICE IS OURS

Life flows like the unstoppable course of a river till it attains its final destination merging with eternity. As the river loses its identity when it mingles with the sea, the life becomes eternal when we merge with eternity. Is that all about our lives, a beginning and an end? Are we born to wait for our transition from temporal to timelessness, from mundane to the singularity? What is it then that we strive for in our lives? We strive to live life in its fullest extent, be it happiness or sorrow, melody or melancholy. I know this sounds like an exaggeration but when we sit down and reflect, we can acknowledge that ultimately we all are in the pursuit of happiness. To enrich our lives. The money, the fame whatever it is, it’s an enrichment.

In our journey on this earth we encounter friends and foes, prosperity and adversity, but we are compelled to move. We are powerless to hold the ceaseless flow of time, our alignment with the universe lies with accepting the trend of time and to move on. Time heals everything similarly time kills everything. Our life has an expiry date and it’s an unchangeable, non-negotiable truth. It’s our choice to be useful or worthless in life. Ultimately in the currents of this universe we are mere mortals, but with a significance.

The basic idea is to work and to move on in life. No matter what tragedy or ill luck we face, we must understand that we are neither the first nor the last to experience such disaster. Sometimes when the personal pain is unbearable try to generalize it and feel sorry for the persons who have felt the same anguish before you. That helps to cut down the pain. The aim is to get over the suffering and establish equilibrium and balance in life. We face problems, losses, fights, mental anxieties every day and in spite of everything we live and work and still dream of good days. The day we lose our dreams we are dead.

Living a peaceful and prosperous life is not an end to be achieved, but it’s a process of finding happiness, pleasure and mental peace in everyday life. There is no magic moment post which life changes for good. But everyday should be a conscious effort to be balanced in life with mental equilibrium and avoiding the extremes of emotion either good or bad. Mental peace and happiness in daily life comes through practice. Practice to be happy, practice to avoid unhappiness, practice to do good work and practice to control the thoughts.

No matter in whatever situation we are in, we have to either cure it or endure it and there is no third option. THE CHOICE IS OURS.

Keywords: inspiration, daily living, happiness, mental peace

THE BEGINNING

Standing at the base of the tower
High upward I do stare
With my never-ending enthu and hope
To leave no stone unturned
To reach there.