Why do we need someone to feel Belonged in this world???

2025th BLOG POST

Every time I read “human beings are social animal”, I don’t know why but I just get too frustrated because this is one fact that I know is correct but I don’t want to accept and believe it. I want to create an alternate narrative that it’s not necessary to be with people and surviving with yourself with the same happiness and charm is possible. But Life makes you get closer to few people and gradually they become a habit. Their regular meetings or calls or messages or selfies become a routine and then you realize that you can’t live without their presence anymore. It definitely happens in love but apart from this, it can happen with any relationship you hold. It can be parents, siblings, best friends, colleagues, relatives, neighbors etc. You just don’t understand when a certain conversation brings you closer with a person and then rolling back to your own space becomes difficult.

 

I have been an introvert for most part of my life. I say so because there has been phases when I have been a part of a confident group which made me an interactive person for a brief time but as and when I get back to myself, I find solace in silence. Now, when I look back and realize, I see that every now and then, I always had one or more people in life who have been regularly in touch with me. It has somewhere given me the comfort of living life lonely more easily. Why? Because I know for a matter of fact that I have someone with whom I can share whatever comes into my mind. I can share even an idiotic joke with them without worrying about being judged.

 

I also observe that none of these people but became permanent in life. All came for a specific period and them got lost in this busy life somewhere. But they must surely be part of someone else’s routine now. It’s not that people don’t have time to interact but it’s just that their journey in your life was for a limited number of chapters only. Why the hell does this happen? Why can’t we have a set of people who are always with us? And even after regular such experiences, now, in my early 30s, when I find a new person becoming the one who becomes the most important person to me, knowing that they are here for a brief period of time, I keep denying myself that this time it’s going to be untrue. Unfortunately, the same cycle repeats and I again find myself waking, living and working alone. I have only myself to talk to. Every organ in the body wishes to have a person but mind wants to deny the fact. Why accepting few facts aren’t easy?

 

I then try to go back and connect the dots and find if this cycle repeats only with me or almost everyone. Well, because I don’t know much about others, I definitely get into every such person who was once the most important one for me. I try to remember how the conversations started getting weaker and finally ending on a note where there’s just occasional greetings and nothing more than that. I still can’t fathom if I have been wrong or the person on the other side was. One thing I know is that I have always been available but because I give so much in a relationship, I also expect the same from the other side. When I find that I don’t get the same love and respect, I start getting into a shell and shut myself up completely. And as soon as I disappear, it seems that the person on the other side was just waiting for this to happen to get rid of me.

 

Now, I don’t know how can the same cycle repeat every time. Why don’t I just stop expecting? Why don’t I just confront and not keep things in heart? Why don’t I just complain rather than burying all those issues within and eventually making it a reason for killing the relationship? Who’s wrong- the other person or I? How to get to the root of everything and change myself? How do I ask the other person to understand me to understand what I don’t like rather than me having to tell it verbally? I don’t know but keeping a good relationship with anyone is so tough. And after all of this, I want to just get back to myself but then why the system wants to have a friend in life in any form? WHY? Why can’t things be simple? Why can’t I sit on an endless meditation and be with myself rather than disappointing myself with having another relationship end for me? Do you have the answers? Or you have the same questions like me?

 

SILENCE….

 

WRITING BUDDHA

Yoga for Super Immunity by Bijoylaxmi Hota (Book Review: 3.5*/5) !!!

2024th BLOG POST

22^nd Book of 2022

All of us want to get into yoga and yogic lifestyle but none of us know how to start. We are aware of its benefits but we aren’t aware of which yoga activity provides what exact benefits. Our middle-class mindset doesn’t even allow us to spend on a Yoga class, retreat and we don’t even trust every Yog guru we find around us. What is it that can then help us understand the same? Can there be anything for which Books can’t provide an answer? Definitely No! Here, I would like to talk about Bijoylaxmi Hota’s latest book named “Yoga for super immunity” which is a short book of around 140 pages which will help you as a beginner to start your journey with the last answer to everything – Yoga.

 

Author has divided the whole book into small chapters each concentrating on one subject problem and tried to provide the yogic answers for all of them. I liked how author explained us the concept of prana and how we need to maintain and increase it within our system to improve our overall health – mentally, spiritually and physically. I have read importance of prana with such conceptualization for the first time in my reading experience. Author has very intelligently covered not only yogasanas but explained many aspects and types of it. Similarly, she also gives importance to eating healthy and right food. Author starts the book mainly with the chapter which talks about cleansing our system something to which all of us give the least priority. She provides multiple solutions such as laghoo shankha prakshyalana, fasting, steaming, massage and also suggest some special foods for the same.

 

In the chapter - how we can increase our healing energies- we get to know that pranayama is not just one thing but it has multiple subtypes and how we can perform each of them. Then, author moves ahead and provide us simple all-round asanas which can be performed specifically for the improvement of the nervous system, spine, digestive system, intestine, heart, thyroid, adrenal gland, kidneys, pancreas and later makes it further easier by providing particular asana which benefits the overall health i.e. Surya Namaskar.

 

Bijoylaxmi also explains many mudras and bandhas which people generally don’t know about. I am glad that I did Sadhguru’s Inner Engineering which had already taught me Sambhavi Mudra the benefits of which I have already enjoyed. I really got very cheerful to find it’s mention in this book too. The book also covers the topics such as how we can perform meditation and what we can do to beat insomniac issues. The illustrations and images provided to explain every step involved in any technique is commendable and appreciable as it makes this book a practical guide to perform it without having any teacher around us. Author’s pure intention to make our lives better can be sensed in every written word.

 

Overall, this book is great if you are a beginner. I believe that the topics that author has covered could have been elaborated further to make it a bit more explainable to the readers. Similarly, I felt book quite basic in terms of the subjects covered in it. Some real-life claims also sounded unbelievable to me. Anyway, I give the book 3.5 stars out of 5 – extra 0.5 for its illustrations and images. Give it a try if you have only heard the word “Yoga” but never had any experience of doing it before.

PURCHASE THE BOOK HERE

 

Thanks!

 

WRITING BUDDHA 

THE AGE OF ASCENT by Yogi Mahajan (Book Review: 4.25*/5) !!!

2023rd BLOG POST

21^st Book of 2022

 

I have a separate soft-corner for spiritual books and you must have understood with the choice of books I am reviewing in recent few months. This time I picked up the book by Yogi Mahajan named “The Age Of Ascent”. It’s summed up in around 170 pages and published by Rupa Publications. It also has the tagline which says “Empower yourself by knowing yourself” and it completely justifies it. There are few books which you can’t finish in a single reading or so. It took me almost 1.5 months to complete this book of just 170 pages because of the kind of subject author has chosen to deep dive into.

 

I have read many books on spirituality even by personalities like Sadhguru, Om Swami, Eknath Easwaran etc. but I can say that Yogi Mahajan has not performed a bit less than any of the eminent personalities while writing about the subject. He has chosen the extremely popular and interesting topic of 7 Chakras and Kundalini and the way he has explained each chakra in detail along with its illustrations will just make you understand a lot of things about our body and mind which we are completely unaware of. Generally, authors keep on using the word “Soul” repeatedly which sounds deep but readers aren’t able to comprehend the logics and explanations provided for the same. Here, author has used this word as minimum as possible and tried getting into the practical approach of explaining our inner self.

 

Author has dedicated a chapter each for every chakra and ended the book with good summarization with few chapters which are distinct but makes us understand how everything works in collaboration. There are many beautiful quotes and anecdotes which you’ll get tired of highlighting repeatedly. You will want to keep everyone of them handy with yourself always. Some of them are so impactful that it can make you understand things which 10 books can not write to impress you. The book mainly promotes Nirmala Deviji as a spiritual figure and Sahaja Yoga as a tool to get your chakras and its vibrations corrected and reach a stage where you are able to experience the blooming of Kundalini. Like Sadhguru’s book – Inner Engineering, the main concept is kept as a closure for reader to search the name Nirmala Devi and get associated with their community. Well!

 

Author has not shied away from giving examples from Quran as well as Christianity. He is very open in terms of explaining how every religion is speaking about the same destination irrespective of whatever path a human being chose to experience the zenith. I also admired the way book connects the whole health parameters with the well-being of our chakras. I was surprised to know that the vibrations of left and right side of our body are also distinct which can cause a totally different thought process in our mind. Similarly, every chakra is associated with few of our organs and how it will work. We can sense which chakra is losing balance based on our health issues. It then makes us aware on which chakra to focus to enable the healthiness of the respective organ. Reading such scientific element in a spiritual context was quite intriguing and made me read not more than 3 pages a day – to grasp every word properly without losing anything between the lines.

 

Overall, the book is a different experience. It might seem harder for a beginner in the world of spirituality and chakras but people interested in spirituality or have already read at least 10 books in the genre will enjoy this to the fullest. I give the book 4.25* out of 5. Recommended!

PURCHASE THE BOOK HERE

 

Thanks!

 

WRITING BUDDHA 

What made my last Delhi trip special.. :-)

2022nd BLOG POST

Recently, I was in Delhi for an official trip for around two weeks. I remember days when I used to think why people are sent of an official tour and what purpose they serve being there. Some time has been travelled since then and I have been to Delhi thrice in last 8 months. There are certain agendas that you have to fulfill professionally but I look upon these trips also as a reason to celebrate my relations with few people with whom I have been physically away since last few years or I can say, decade, too. Hence, every time I am asked to be in Delhi, I make a list of people I wish to meet up whom I haven’t met since long.

 

There was a phase in life when I wasn’t doing great academically and because of few experiences, I had also gone into depression. This happened when I was in Junior college. Mostly, when you are in such state of mind, you seek support. The first people that you look forward to are your family members, relatives and friends. You are okay if your neighbors, classmates, colleagues aren’t with you but when the people with whom you expect support doesn’t turn out, you automatically start distancing yourself from them. The reason for this is not hate but love. Because we love them, we end up getting disappointed too when we don’t feel the same love getting reciprocated. It’s a different story when years later, you get matured and start thinking what you have done for others to expect anything from them - you realize that you have yourself been centered around your life without considering what others must be going through.

 

Well, coming back to the topic – this is the reason why I stopped visiting my relatives after a point of time. I didn’t attend important weddings of my cousins as well as didn’t become a part of a recent funeral too. None of this ever affected me. But I don’t know what happens sometimes to your whole structure of thoughts and notions that you break it in a second without worrying about what would you answer back to the people with whom you kept sharing about your resolution to not do certain things in future. I believe that the supreme force who’s controlling decides it for us. Something like that happened with me in my recent Delhi trip. I managed to meet all our close relatives. I met all my taujis, taijis, chachajis, chachijis, buajis, fufajis and even the cousins who were in town and showed equal interest in meeting me. It was such a pleasant experience.

 

After the trip, when I was traveling back, I was just thinking about what happened suddenly. I never talked with anyone much. I never tried meeting anyone before. How did I then end up meeting everyone in a single trip itself? Am I seeing life with a different lens over my eyes? Or are blood relations so strong that irrespective of whatever you think about each other or how far you live from each other – the bond ends up bringing everyone together in tough times? This is what we have kept seeing in our Bollywood movies, isn’t it? In the end, all the blood relatives end up coming together despite of not being on talking terms for life. Is there some truth to it? I don’t know. I am still thinking loudly.

 

The way everyone welcomed me in their home was so loving and pleasant that I am still in the same aura even after coming back to my home – my favorite city. No one can fake love. If there’s faking around, you can sense it well. But what I sensed was immense love, liking and well, sympathy for me too. I don’t like being sympathized but sometimes situations demand it and you should accept that too. I traveled with my cousins without having any elders around and I got to know them better than before. I saw my elders getting into senior citizenship and it scared me thinking that there will come a phase when we will start losing the older generation. Immediately, I felt more responsible and talked to myself on meeting everyone as much as possible. Maybe, these Delhi trips are planned by Universe to bring me closer to people with whom I share my blood and understand them more in order to learn more about life – including their perspectives too. Everyone has led their life differently and in every home that I stayed, I observed something very distinct from others. Yet, there was some similarity. And that I believe is because of the same family all of us belong to.

 

Because I don’t have my own siblings, I just hate calling my cousins as cousins because I treat all my younger ones as if they are my younger siblings. I like seeing them enjoying. I love spoiling them for the time-frame they are with me. Though I also become a bit obsessive about their careers later on and keep on insisting them to perform well but when I am there with them, I like seeing them spending their time with me on things they love doing. I am always open to them regarding spending my day as per their plan and likings. I impose nothing of mine. This is something I have missed all my life and I ensure I don’t let the opportunity go now.

 

After some years, all of them would be parents and will not be able to afford that immature carefree period anymore. Hence, I want to be there as much as possible with them – I know it’s selfish because I may be trying to fill that empty space in my life but it is also out of pure love for them. I wish best for them. When I find some of my brothers taller than me now, I understand the happiness my elders got seeing me getting taller than them. I used to think, then, as a child, about why do people feel happy seeing others getting taller and good-looking than them. I understand that so well now. I also get annoyed when I find them taking life too easy and spoiling their constructive years in destructive habits.

 

Well, in the end, I would like to ask all of you who are from my generation – Are we not becoming, thinking and preaching like our parents and relatives did which we never liked? Haha!

 

Thanks!

 

WRITING BUDDHA