Am I the butterfly?

Just the other day I was browsing the Internet and came across a rather familiar story. It read like this:

The great Taoist master Chuang Tzu once dreamt that he was a butterfly fluttering here and there. In the dream he had no awareness of his individuality as a person. He was only a butterfly. Suddenly, he awoke and found himself laying there, a person once again. But then he thought to himself, "Was I before a man who dreamt about being a butterfly, or am I now a butterfly who dreams about being a man?"

I was wondering there should be more to it and researched a little more because that is not how I remember the story. The original story seems to be:

The great Taoist master Chuang Tzu had many disciples of which one was very dear to his Master. The other disciples were rather irky about this fact because they did not really understand why. Chuang Tzu knew about this and one day decided to teach the other disciples what it is.


He chose to do it when his dear disciple was out of town. was sleeping on a cot, suddenly woke up and started crying. All the disciples were shocked and wanted to know what happened. Tzu explained to them about his dream where he was a butterfly flying high and wide in the beautiful forest. Suddenly he woke up but did not know if he was the butterfly dreaming as a man and he was the man who dreamt about being a butterfly.


None of the disciples could solve this mystery - most could not even understand what their Master was saying. The chief disciple came back from his work and found his Master crying. He came to know of the reason from others, went directly to his Master and just slapped him hard on his face. Chuang Tzu just stopped crying, smiled and blessed him.


No one could understand what was happening. On one hand they were shocked to see the disciple hitting his Master and equally flabbergasting was why the Master blessed him for it. Then Tzu explained to them that only the chief disciple had the clarity of thought, awareness of what is real & what is not and absolute will to just 'be' with his Master, enabling him understand things which could not be said or taught. This is what makes him dearer to his Master.

Any time I read this story or remember it, I can't stop wondering am I the butterfly dreaming as a man?

Choked ... Part 2

Now it is not funny any more and I was like 'what the heck!?'. This debacle is related to my second attempt at presenting Isha experiences & this time to the STPI audience.

There was one consolation though, Abi was choking more this time! I could relate to that. When you have to present your experiences of Isha with someone whom you rarely meet and spend time with, it is probably easier. When you do the same with someone closer to you, it is a lot tougher than it seems.

I thought it was actually than the first time, which of course was the original attempt, and had tried to make it simple. At the end of it, we were wondering how we missed out a lot of things!

For starters, I missed out key points like my productivity gains and Abi's initial doubts if I would be able to even sit through the entire session that vanished later without a trace. These are things which people can relate to, especially those who are just venturing into it.

The other aspect of it was the 'perceived' relation between hinduism and yoga. Even I had such doubts earlier and it needed the magic words of sadhguru to be grounded to dust. He simply said going by this analogy if Einstein is a Jew, the principle of 'E=mc2" should be Jewish! Just because some science originated in the Hindu culture does not mean it belongs to Hinduism :-)

Anyways, now that I have blotched both the attempts (did I?) I would have to keep my speech prepared and written onto a paper the next time .. sigh....

Is this for good or bad?

Contrary to what many would like to believe, Life presents so many things to us on a platter :) That is true! Really .. If you are not convinced, think of how many time we all have enjoyed our TVs, radios, the telephone, mobiles, PDAs, laptops, etc. for most part without even thinking how they were made in the first place!?

When I say us, I mean the majority of human race as such.

And we also conveniently tend to ignore the bane of using such devices till some scientist from an obscure corner of the world ... I don't mean just some universities ;) ... finds something seriously wrong with those devices.

Just the other day, I was reading an article from the newspaper that it has been 'scientifically' proven that the radio waves or whatever type of electromagnetic waves used for cell phone communication are very harmful for the human nervous system. It is especially dangerous for kids under 11 years of age it seems.

One such 'fact' that shocked me was that spending 60 minutes in a wi-fi environment is equivalent to spending 20 minutes on your cell phone. And I have been using wi-fi ever since I was exposed to it 3 years back!

But apart from doubting such scientific analysis, are we doing enough to take any precautions in case they come true in future? More specifically, am I doing anything to handle things like my 1 year old kid playing throughout with my wife's nokia mobile or me using the wi-fi router for internet connection at home.

Sure, I have some benefits coming out of these - like my kid being calm or me able to use internet connection anywhere in my home. But in the overall scheme of things, is what I am doing or not doing a good thing or bad?

I don't know, but am surely not taking a chance with my kid's health. I am planning to use a wired LAN connection instead of wi-fi and have a dummy cell phone for my kid to play with.

Isn't it a shame if we cannot do what we could and should about something that is in our hands?

Choked...part 1

Something funny .. well, sort of, funny happened yesterday. I choked when asked to present my experiences from Isha Yoga programs and practices. Could not believe I was on the verge of crying actually but just about managed to hold it off blabbering something incoherant even to me in hindsight :)

I spent practically the whole of yesterday's night thinking 'Why on Earth did I choke during those 2 minutes'?

Was it stage fear or perhaps lack of preparation? I ruled that out because that has rarely been the case for me.

Was it because I am too emotional? Am known to get a bit emotional at home sometimes, but almost never at work. So, that is also a goner ..

Was it because it is related to Isha!? That and as I thought more I realized it was because what have got from Isha is something I cannot put in words easily. Then my process went on about how to communicate what I have experienced and bingo! Here I am writing this blog :)

Succintly putting the usual benefits I like to tell people:

• I was probably born with sinusitis or Sinus problem as people commonly know it. Plagued with it from my childhood, relief finally came to me after I started my Isha practices. Now, there is very little sign of it.
• Physical fitness has not been my forte for the first 23 years of my life. That was my younger brother's ever since he started his Karate coaching. Isha again helped me here - now I can say without doubt I am at least as fit as my brother is. Don't make any mistakes - he is still the stronger of us :))
  
• My efficiency in getting things done at work has probably doubled. What I used to take 8 hours earlier, am now able to do in 4 to 5 hours.
• Ability to concentrate and focus on job at hand has received a shot in the arm rather a tremendous boost.
• Finally, if a complete introvert like me can change for the better and interact with people in a lovable manner, I wonder what else can someone need.

I will stop with this and will continue later today with more ...