Perspective; To Each Their Own

In a conversation...

Akira conveys, "You know what the problem with my life is? I never have anything I want. I've been dreaming to become the richest villager so I can finally afford to buy cattle and maybe a bullock cart and–"

"Dear Akira, look at this tiny snail gliding away on his path. Do you know the purpose of his life? He travels all day in the search of juicy leaves, and reverts back into his shell at the sight of predators. That is all he needs to survive. So Akira, do you have everything you need to survive?", the sage questions leaving Akira speechless. 

_ _ _ _

Perspective. When I think about this word, I remember a beautiful scene from the movie Ratatouille. If you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, well, see below. 

Perspective is the most individualistic and personal something. Everyone we know is half a glass of water, and the remaining glass is their perspective. It's your perspective that determines whether you see yourself as half a glass full of water, or half a glass short of water, whether you focus on what you have or what you're missing. Either way, it plays a very important role in our lives. 

More often than not, we outlook the role of this important aspect. We forget that it exists and we forget that it varies for every different person. For instance, an hour long workout may be a blessing to someone, and yet dreadful to someone else. Let's think of the caring husband who always remembers to bring red roses every Valentine's. If ever, he misses out on conducting the ritual, the wife is sure to conclude that with the forgone roses, the husband's love too is forgone. However, does this wife stop to think about the husband's day and probable stresses that may have been a factor behind his slip of mind? Maybe, maybe not. If she does, she's engaging herself in widening her own perspective to reach out to and see through that of her husband's, in which case she weaves a happy home. Contrariwise, if she doesn't, she's allowed dominance for her own perspective in disregarding his, leading to nothing but negativity and resentment, gradually weaving a discontent home. But, what's the point?

   

Is there really much point in feeling the need to change everyone's perspective to match your own? Where one can never have control or dominance over other people's thoughts and perspective, such feelings will only cause pain and suffering in the long run. In that case, isn't it much better to rather work on widening our own horizons, and so, our own perspective? 

Ask yourself, do you go about your life like Akira, counting only your misfortunes and losses? Or do you step away from that every now and again, and grasp the snail's attitude of counting your blessings and achieving a sense of fulfilment in your bare necessities? 

#LaughingAnanas

A Sunflower's Ego

"Akira, my beloved, why do you look so frustrated?", asked the wise, old sage. 

"Because I am! I'm extremely frustrated and angry!" exclaims the furious Akira. 

"Oh dear" says the wise, old sage as he comforts Akira. "What is it that makes you feel like that?"

"It's my friend, Habiki!", exclaims Akira. "He tires me, makes my head hurt. Whenever I tell him something, he resorts to an argument and we always end up fighting rather than resolving my problem. I do so much for him and I'm always being the bigger person. And Habiki? He only thinks about himself. He's selfish!" 

"Akira dear, come sit next to me," said the sage welcoming Akira into his space, "I would like to tell you the story of a sunflower.

"Once upon a time, there lived a sunflower who was the King of his kind back in the day. He was as bright as the Sun above us, and his charm had every flower in the field blush at his mere sight. He attracted the bees like no other, and flaunted his beautiful yellow petals all day long. His tall, sturdy stalk supported his large flower head, just as it also supported the cucumber vines that grew alongside. 

"The sunflower's pride was larger than his head, and he despised the cucumber vines growing on his stem. He would always complain that the cucumber is good for nothing, and all it can do is using his sturdy stalk to provide himself with a natural trellis. 'I am the mightiest of all,' he would say, 'without my shade and support, this cucumber would never be able to grow. I am done being used by him for his own selfish reasons, I want my freedom!' 

"With this thought, the sunflower decided to kill the cucumber plant by moving his petals to an angle and withdrawing his shade on the plant. The cucumber slowly starts to shrivel and burn in heat, while the sunflower is overjoyed with his victory. 


"As the weeks passed after cucumber's demise, the sunflower lost his charm and colour. Bees lost their attraction towards it and weeds took over all its soil, along with the nutrients in it. More so, the farmer's continuous over-watering loosened the soil in which its roots were engrained. The sunflower fell feeble. One day, his stalk wasn't able to sustain his weight anymore, and as it let loose, the sunflower clobbered down forgoing his life and his pride."

As the sage finished reciting his story, he looked at Akira fondly and said:

"Being a bigger person is not about validating our position, but rather forgoing the need to be right in every instance."

____

The sage's story depicts a powerful sunflower who saw nothing beyond himself. He felt mightier than the cucumber, and this feeling translated into his perception of being bigger and better than everyone else. The doom of the sunflower is a metaphorical representation of people who are deluded into believing they're always right and virtuous, failing to see the value of the person they're in conflict with. In the story above, the sunflower failed to realise that it was the cucumber plant that reduced the growth of weeds and assured the soil doesn't remain over-watered. All he could see was the support it provided the cucumber, and not the value of cucumber vines on its existence. 

The story portrays that strength, power and believing one is always right does not make them a bigger person. All this can achieve is the validation of one's own position, in victimising others with their own bitterness and insecurities. 

Thereafter, a person who aims to resolve a conflict and comes out of the battle feeling empowered as he confirmed to himself and to others that he was a bigger person by taking the charge of solving a conflict even though he was victimised, is still not a bigger person. 

On the contrary, a bigger person is someone who doesn't see himself as bigger or mightier than others, whether it's in their power or their action. For instance, if someone forgives the other and comes out as feeling like a bigger person because they let go of the issue, in reality hasn't let go of the issue. All they're doing is identifying with their ego of, in this case, being a bigger person and empowering it by conducting the action of forgiveness and directly or indirectly letting the other person feel indebted to them. Hence, a bigger person is someone like the cucumber plant, who goes on performing his duty without seeking any attention or having the need to feel superior than others.  

A bigger person is someone who forgoes the opportunity to be right and lets go of his attachment to the conflict situation. It's the one who understands that being right will not translate into peace of mind or any sort of fulfilment, and knows that in setting off to prove ourselves right, all we can ever end up doing is prolonging our own suffering. 

To end this type of suffering, one needs to train themselves into disidentifying from their ego and practice ceasing the need to always be right. 

#LaughingAnanas

The snake and the peacock

"O knower of all things born, I come to you with great despair in search of answers. I feel... I feel like I might die soon!", says the panting Akira.

"Akira dear, I haven't seen you in a while", says the wise, old sage as he greets Akira while peeling his apple. "Would you like an apple?"

"Apple?!", exclaims Akira. "I'm telling you I feel like I'm going to die and you're offering me an apple? How does that help?"

"Akira, my beloved, come sit next to me and have some of this apple. It's juicy, you know?", the sage emanates a comforting smile. 

Akira manages to calm down a little, grabs a piece of the apple and questions the sage, "How are people able to live so long? I feel like I might die soon. With each new emotional trauma, I feel that the poison of my negative emotions continues to spread through my body, slowly squeezing the soul out of it. I feel so weak, and I am certain I will not be able to take another blow of poison disguised in my negative emotions. And there's nothing I can do because one's emotions are obviously out of one's control, just like the weather, and obviously even if I try I-"

"Dear Akira, look at that beautiful peacock flaunting his feathers", the sage interrupts Akira. 

Akira looks at the peacock and remarks, "I'm surprised to see him so calm despite the deadly, venomous snake slithering his way towards him."

As the two indulge themselves in seeing the exchange between the snake and the peacock, they notice that the snake rises up to infiltrate his venom into the peacock's body and steal his life methodically. But just before the snake can fulfil his destiny, the peacock promptly grabs the reptile by his beak and gobbles him down like he never existed. In devouring the snake's venom, the peacock shudders and quivers, but then miraculously exudes colours all the more vibrant and plumage all the more beautiful.

"Whoa!", exclaims Akira. "I've never seen something like that!"

"Yes, quite fascinating indeed.", the sage agrees. "Poisonous snakes are the truth of life. But to die with poisonous bites is certainly not our destiny. The choice is ultimately ours, to be bitten by poison or to bite the poison."

_____

We are swarmed by, what we perceive as negative emotions, in our daily lives. And to be honest, these feelings of anger, anxiety and pain will never cease to exist as they're a part of our existence. They only get stronger with each blow as we allow them to feed on us. So, do we have a choice?

The peacock in this story sets a great example. Instead of being bitten by venom, he chooses to accept the venom. He recognizes the venom, ingests it, digests it and transforms it into beautiful colours. Just like the peacock, our challenge is to recognize our negative emotions, gulp them down and accept them, and use them to empower our minds rather than being empowered by them. 

Read a book, feed a dog, go for a walk. There are countless means of harmonizing selves with universe again, despite the blow of negative emotions. Take the initiative and transform, just like the peacock.

#LaughingAnanas

DIY Leaf Art Frame

Here a leaf, there a leaf

Everywhere a leaf leaf

Old MacDonald had a leaf

E-I-E-I-O

Painting is like meditating. Do you find it difficult to meditate? Then paint. It gets you living in the moment. When you're painting, you are only painting. You're not constantly looking at your phone, or your dog, or your XYZ. You're only painting. You're not multi-tasking, you're only painting and settling down. Your monkey mind stops to think and starts to create. Try it and experience a deep state of peace and stillness. And hey, you can always get a great DIY frame out of it.

Fall is here and with it the leaves are too. You see these leaves everywhere and in every colour. They have some wonderful shades; shades of green, shades of red, shades of brown and many more. I went out leaf picking one day and collected some of these beautiful leaves. If you, like Old MacDonald, have a leaf or two and feel like meditating on some leaf art, then here's what you can do...

Wash and dry the leaves

Stick on the leaves and paint

Frame it

_ _ _ _

#LaughingAnanas

iSpy DIY

Do you normally throw all the cardboard that you find lying around the house? Are you likely to trash out your kitchen and toilet paper rolls? Well don't! Here's why...

I had so many hand towels and random pieces of cloth lying around that one day, before trashing out my kitchen rolls, I had this vision of fabricating something out of those kitchen rolls to get rid of having to see a gazillion hand towels everywhere! 

Check it out. 

Paper holding  the rolls

1. Making the core body of the stand

Kitchen rolls molded into a hanging stand 

2. Preparing the mixture for Paper Maché

Cling film the bowl so it doesn't become glue-ey

2 (glue) : 1 (water)

3. Paper Maché-ing

Stick on the newspaper

4. Customizing

Poke in some broken hanger tops

5. Painting

6. Using

#LaughingAnanas

Akira and the Sun

"Akira, my beloved, why do you look so restless?", asked the wise old sage. 

"I feel all over the place... unsure, unsatisfied.", said the worried Akira.

"Is that so? And what is it that you feel unsure about?", prompted the sage gently. 

"It's just... I've been searching for the purpose of my life for the longest time. Sometimes I feel like I'm almost there, but then I realize I'm far off. I pray to God day and night to give me the answers of my questions. I almost feel obsessed looking so deeply into things to find the smallest of signs that can possibly explain my existence. But I fail, I fail every time. It makes me sad, you know?", confessed Akira. 

"I know. Tell me Akira, what else do you do in your day? How do you feed yourself?", interrogated the sage further.

"I don't. I don't do anything else. I spend my whole day thinking and wondering when I will find the meaning of my life.", said Akira.

"Very well," said the sage, "let me help you. Look at the Sun for a minute."

Akira complied.

As the minute was up, the sage asked Akira to look away from the Sun and point to where he was standing.

"I don't know where to point," Akira exclaimed, "I can't see you! The Sun's brightness seems to have blinded me!"

To this, the sage finally revealed: 

"My dear Akira, the man who looks at the Sun all day long, will only end up being blind. Looking at the Sun all day will not gift you its light. To earn its light, you must fulfill your daily responsibilities. Living every moment fully is the only way you can get closer to your goal each day!"

_ _ _ _

The sage is so right. In looking at the Sun all day, we blind ourselves and lose our own light. Thinking all day about our endless desires, be they love, money or fame, we end up losing ourselves only to realize that we are going further and further away from our goals each day. As they say, "a watched phone never rings".

So what should we do? Stop dreaming, stop desiring? Not at all. We are bound to dream and desire, but it's the losing of self that we should learn to keep away from in dreaming and desiring. We can only reach our destination if our journey is well planned and fully lived. Else we'd be stuck in our journey, losing our way at every crossroad and possibly running behind mirages that never existed...

I didn't eat food for 7 days...

Specially dedicated to Mayuri Tailor; thank you for always inspiring.

No food? What about water?

During this 7-day period, I renounced any form of food. However, I was still consuming water. In this form of fasting, I would consume only boiled water, from sunrise till sunset, and none after. 

Why would I do this type of water fasting?

1. To cleanse. We take showers every morning to clean the outsides of our bodies, but what do we really do to keep the insides of our bodies clean? Not much I believe. Even if you try your best to eat the healthiest foods in your daily lives, I promise you are still ingesting lots and lots of toxins. In this case, your best option to get rid of these bodily toxins is to cleanse your body. Fasting is the most natural and effective way of cleansing your body, for real. 

Here's how it works. When you stop ingesting food during your fast, your body will have a lot more energy than usual as it ceases to expend this energy on digesting food. This allows your body to invest time and energy in removing the built-up toxins that your body must've housed for decades.

During your fast, you will experience your body undergoing a complete cleanse in several forms:

• Your urine will be as clear as the water you drink
• Your body odour will cease to exist and you will no longer require deodorant
• Your skin will start to naturally glow and you will notice that your acne, dry skin and any other skin conditions saying goodbye to you, leaving you with a rejuvenated skin
• Your body will excrete odourless stool - the unimaginable!

Try it and see for yourself!

2. To be able to take a step back from our routine lives and observe ourselves and the world around us as a third person. In my experience, fasting allows for this. Withdrawing from the sense of taste allows a step back from the day-to-day habitual eating that we conform to without thinking. We are able to better focus on the idea of 'eat to live' rather than 'live to eat'. The idea of renouncing food might seem extremely bizarre, but is it really? Try it to realize that eating, in reality, is not the essence of our existence. Surely we need food for our basic survival, but its the indulgence in food that is not required and strips us from our natural state of being. 

Practicing this fast can help you pull out from your ego and see yourself in the light you see everyone else in, as a third person. A reduced indulgence to your senses also helps you reduce your sense of self, and you will be more able to see the world beyond your own perspective with an increasing sense of compassion. You will also be more equipped to differentiate between an action and an actor. Being able to hold an objective view of the world as opposed to the one that's subjective from one's own perspective, I believe, is an extremely important quality to develop and harness. This allows for a non-judgmental view on events, alongside enabling you to act practically rather than acting impulsively and irrationally. 

For instance, imagine yourself in a situation where you're in a fight with your best friend. With an objective view that helps you separate your best friend as an actor from their action of misbehavior, you are more able to think rationally about the problem and think of solutions to end the problem. Alternatively, with a subjective view that bases its judgment only on your own perspective, you are more inclined to indulge in a blame game whereby your ego blames the entire fight on your best friend, sees you as a victim and your friend as a perpetrator and refuses to find a solution. 

You decide, which one is better? 

3. To be able to meditate and reach your desired state of mind faster. It's true, meditations can go deeper while fasting. An empty food-less body is far more likely to experience the higher chakras in a meditative state. I definitely recommend fasting to those who want to meditate, but have difficulty in doing so. In my experience, fasting makes meditation so much easier in that the intensity of the train noticeably diminishes. This is because once your digestive system is shut down, the vibrations in your body owed to meditation are permitted to flow through your body with a lot more intensity.

Try meditating at the end of a fasting day and see for yourself! 

Tips 

• Only continue your fast till you feel fine physically. Do not fast if you start feeling weak, stressed and close to fainting. There is no point in putting your health at stake to commit to a fast. Your body is very important as it's a temple that houses your mind. With a broken temple, it'd be very tough to reach your mind. 
• Only continue your fast till you feel fine mentally. Do not fast if you start feeling mentally weak, irritable and moody. This beats the point as these feelings will disrupt your willpower, meditation and your overall well-being.
• Try to keep your body hydrated with water, as you don't want to have your body dry out. You might find yourself feeling sick of water, but try to maintain a continuous consumption of water. If you are not able to do this, I would advice you to drop the fast.
• Feed your mind with not just meditation, but also good reads as this will strengthen your willpower and harness your mind. 
• Fasting should not be mistaken with dieting or taken as a means losing weight. Trust me it will not work. As soon as you end your fast, you will gain back all you lost, and really there's no point of putting your body through that if losing weight is your end goal. You're much better off exercising! 
• Be careful in what you eat once your fast ends. For a few days after it ends, I recommend you keep yourself on liquids such as soups, lentils and these:

Raab

Sugar Water

Warnings

• You will urinate a lot more than usual - D'uh!
• You will start losing weight, which you will also gain back very soon once you drop the fast
• You will stop producing stool after the first two days - don't worry, this is absolutely normal!
• You will feel either very cold or very hot - again, this is normal
• You will need to eat healthier food once your fast ends to rebuild your stock of vitamins et al

Let me know...

If you'd like to share your fasting experience, or have any more questions about fasting, do let me know! Leave a comment below or send me an email on laughingananas@gmail.com and I will get back to you!

#LaughingAnanas

Akira And His Best Friend

Akira: I have a new friend. He knows everything.

Kabira: Everything?

Akira: Yes. He knows how the world was created and he knows how it will end. He knows the future and he is aware of the past. He knows who my best friend is and my worst enemy. And most importantly, he says he knows what decisions will be best for me!

Kabira: That's great! I hope you find your happiness...

A few days later...

Kabira: Hi Akira. I haven't seen you in a while. How are you? 

Akira: Confused, and maybe a bit upset.

Kabira: Why? What's wrong?

Akira: I'm not sure.

Kabira: What about your new best friend? Does he know?

Akira: I talk to him all day and night. He told me that everyone else in the world is conspiring against me. He's my only friend and he's always by my side. But, for some reason, I still feel very lonely. I feel sad and hostile.

Kabira: He said the whole world is conspiring against you?

Akira: Yes. In fact, he told me I shouldn't be speaking to you either because you secretly wish for my unhappiness. I'm speaking to you only because he's fast asleep right now. If he wakes up to learn that we interacted, he will be very disappointed in me. I better go...

Kabira: Wait a minute Akira... This best friend of yours, what's his name? And where does he live?

Akira: His name is Ego, and he lives in my mind. 

#LaughingAnanas 

iMeditate

Day before, I went to a Meditation Centre to celebrate a friend's birthday. She goes there often, but it was my first time. It's called the The London Centre of Self-Realization Fellowship. 

To briefly introduce... 

This centre is managed by members of Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF), an organization founded by Paramahansa Yogananda. The purpose of this SRF centre is to provide a communal place for people to practice the teachings of Yogananda, indulge in group meditations and provide spiritual support to each other. The centre runs on a schedule and is open to everyone who wishes to practice meditation. They also have a library with a great set of books and audio tapes that you can shuffle through, or buy of course.

My Experience

I'd gone for an hour long meditation class with a whole bunch of people who were also going to meditate along with me. The place looked insanely serene. As soon as you walk in, you cease to speak. The only language of communication in here was that of silence. Entering a place so silent, in a hustling bustling London, almost felt unreal! I was surprised to see how many people turned up to experiment with this type of practice. 

People from all sorts of different religions were there together, practicing the art of meditation. The service started with a prayer and a short story that was read by an old lady who ran that particular meditation practice. FYI, the person running this service is subject to change. Following this, we sat in meditation for about 40 minutes. 

It felt amazingly peaceful! That silence from all the noise of the city and the noise of the mind got me feeling formless. The undying voice of the mind finally seemed to take deep long breaths before uttering each new sentence. There was a time when it completely stopped speaking! And the body? Don't be afraid if your body goes numb, it's only a good sign. 

It really was a beautiful experience. As the service finished, I woke up with tears in my eyes to find this energized spirit and stillness within me. This feeling is the best gift you can give yourself. 

Turns out, it was a great way to celebrate her birthday, and an extremely productive hour. I definitely recommend it!

              

#LaughingAnanas