My need...something new..

I was feeling horrible since morning. I was not even savoring good food (chole-puri and halwa on Ashtmi), nothing seemed good. I am not used to this hollow feeling. I went for a self-introspection and realized that I had not listened to good music since ages! I fumbled my CD bag, music collection in my hard disk. I was bored with all of it, didn't feel like listening to any of it. I needed something new.

I went to the music room in my house where my grandpa used to play all kinds of instruments. It was all dusty and humid. I looked at tabla, which I had played years back and don't even remember a bit about it. I looked at harmonium, on which I had learnt the basics of notes when I was in class 3...or was it class 2? I don't remember that too. Flutes were in a closet which I could never learn (my lungs are lazy). What about dholak? Nay, I always hear it in ladies sangeet. Then my eyes took me to guitar, all packed in black cover. I held it, for the first time in my life. I didn't know what to do with it, totally clueless. I sat on a chair, kept it on my laps and started slapping it the August Rush style. AND WOW! It was not bad. Kept on slapping it in different rhythms and tempos until I found a tune which atleast one would comprehend. I was excited! Called her up and made her listen to it which I think she found vociferous. But then, she always praises me.

I felt good after doing something new. I remember the times when everyday was new, I always did new things, learnt new things. I have got the zeal again to do the same with my days, "Everyday, something new".

I made it a promise to do something new

Always a new step when we dance, me and you

Oh my babe, all my life

You and me, looking sky

I made it a promise to see something new

Always a new star when I look up with you

Oh my honey, all my life

You and me, roaming by

I made it a promise to go somewhere new

Always a new road when I drive up with you

Oh my heart, all the time

You and me, sipping wine

I made it a promise to taste something new

Always a new bread when I eat up with you

Oh my light, oh my moon

You and me, listening tune

I made it a promise to hear something new

Always a new song when I listen to you

Oh my darling, oh my dove

You and me, making love

la la la la laaa.. la la la laaaa... ;)

Bulls***

I was reading an older post of mine, “Assumptions: Mother of all screw ups!!”, dated May 18, 2009. I realized how frustrated I was because of people’s opinions about love that I wrote that sarcastic post. I was even more frustrated with people who have never been in love but have so many theories about love. I know and I always knew that love is never meant to be understood, it’s meant to be felt. Still, why did I write that post? Why other’s opinions affected me? Perhaps, I was being a football of other’s opinions.

Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. It’s better not to smell all of them, thus not to be affected by them. We all have different experiences, so we have different opinions. I really need to learn how to stand people with opinions that I find narrow and bullshit. I hope I find a way soon and update all my blog readers with a tangible solution pertaining to the problem of standing people with bullshit opinions.

Not just a journey....

Excited to drop my pack at home

I took my berth, in a hope

that the journey ends soon

Behind a book, I saw a face

Acting oblivious to the obvious

I acted oblivous too

Soon with time, we obviated the obvious

Not recognising each other as strangers

The train, the door, the edge

Acting crazy, reacting hazy

Feeling cold, nothing to hold

Just a spark of warmth felt

enough to make me melt

I saw bubbles trapped in her heart

and a void in my heart to free those bubbles

A bubble freed in the Arabian sea,

with my hand in her hand in salsa pose

The bubble flew in the rhythm of my words

It flew as high as the lighthouse

as far as the sun

but as near as we were

The fall came, the bubbles bursted onto candy lips

under millions of stars

Shock and fear were all one emotion

Time changed its course

again and again and yet again

She asked for answers

I gave few forever questions

As the moments grew, times flew

It was my turn to be the sheep, I knew

Everything became a play

Actors assuming roles

Two people on the opposite poles

Holding each other yet

No matter what, the bond is unbreakable, I bet

Forgiveness and gratitute became the basis

Truly we showed our faces

Distance came, who was to blame?

No one, it's the nature's will

Connection exists and will always be

Playing on the strings of my heart's harp

A string breaks, I feel it

I hear it, I heal it

A hope to see those bubbles again

A prayer to free those bubbles again

A journey which started but never ended

A journey which was not just a journey

Mysteries of life

I have an affinity towards the unknown, not for my curiosity but for the beauty of the unknown. I like forests because it’s a mystery from inside. I like mountains because I don’t know what is behind them. I like rivers because I don’t know where they go, what path they take. I like ocean because I don’t know what is under it. A face partially covered by a veil attracts me more than a girl’s naked body. A partially veiled face is more open to my imagination; it makes my imagination flow and attracts me. And what is left to imagine in a naked body? Absolutely nothing!

While someone is missing me badly and I, without a clue, unexpectedly wake up in the middle of the night to call her. Why does this happen?

While I am thinking about someone and that friend catches my eye in the middle of the crowd. Why does this happen?

If I genuinely desire something, I get that thing, sooner or later. Why does this happen?

I cry without a reason and then after sometime I come to know that she was also crying. Why does this happen?

Why does a face that I had never noticed, it suddenly started looking so beautiful?

Why was that song played in my neighborhood, the song I was just thinking of?

I don’t want the answers. I want few forever questions. I want to cherish the beauty of the mystery. There are mysteries of life which I respect and I don’t fish in to find the logic behind them. Life is never logical, man is never rational, then why should I search for a rationale behind the mysteries of life? Curiosity might have its own reasons for existing but beauty also has its own reasons for being appealing.

Without pyjamas...

How does it feel when you get your favorite dish to eat after a long hunger pang? I felt this thrice yesterday! Imagine long rush hours of government office formalities, ambulating here and there, hunger pangs and then? Then you eat your favorite food! Wow! I got this feeling thrice in a day.

What was still to come? I had more work in the office (dad's office). Cargo had to be unloaded. Inspection, counting, and guess what? Labor was short in numbers, so? So I had to do the physical work! I just wanted to finish the work A.S.A.P., I said A.S.A.P., because it was already 2 a.m., yeah I said 2 a.m. Finally everything was wrapped at 3 a.m., I won't say again that it was 3 a.m. I was sweaty, dirty, stinky and seemed like the worst possible guy a girl would like to have sex with. To add to the pudding, my face was dark with dirt. For extra toppings, I hadn't applied deodorant in the morning. But...BUT... (of course my butt was paining but...) but to go back home, I had my bike (Yamaha FZ16, awesome bike). The roads were without a hint of traffic, clean, straight, smooth, shining with yellow road lamps, traffic signals blinking and my passion for speed. Air was cool. I, cruising at 100kph, drying up my sweat, cool wind hitting my face and my bare arms, it felt like a dream.

Now what? In the middle of nowhere, I saw an old man with white beard and white hair, white kurta (no, he wasn't wearing his pyjamas), standing on the road side. Unheeded by my speed, he attempted to cross the road (suddenly!). I managed to save both of us (or probably just myself) by passing from his side. Man! Why the hell he crossed the road like that? Did he forget his pyjamas on the other side of the road?

Or was he the face of death, trying to remind me that death can come anytime, so live as if you were to die tomorrow. Or was he the reminder of the accident that I saw in the morning where the biker was hit by a speeding bus on the ring road, and I could see his brains lying on the road? Shouting at my face that life can leave your hand anytime, so stop holding onto someone else's life and start living your own life.

Angels

Whenever a child says that I don’t believe in fairies, there’s a little fairy somewhere that falls down dead” – Peter Pan

I believe in fairies and angels as much as anyone believes in global warming. It might be childlike but it’s there in my belief. There’s a world beyond us where angels live and they can see us. They can hear us. Even we can hear them if we try to. The intuition we have is the whisper of an angel. The omens we see are the language of angels.

Angels want us to be happy. So they whisper near us in the form of intuition to tell us what we shall do. They drop omens which we should follow to reach our destination. They grant our wishes if we ask for them genuinely and passionately, and believe that they are already granted to us.

To hear the voice of angels, we have to cut out all the outside noises that dwell in our mind. When there is peace in our heart, we can hear their voices telling us everything that is infallible. You can feel that the angels love you, they care for you. They want the best for you if you are willing to listen to them. You can see them in your dreams, in your loved ones, all around you playing in perfect harmony. The butterfly that catches your sudden attention, the dream that is immaculate in your memory even after days, the beggar that knocks your door when you are about to do something wrong, the music that starts playing in the background when you see your soul mate, the child that sells you pencils when you need to write something, angels are everywhere, you just can’t see them, just hear them, feel them and be loved by them.

I am grateful to......

Lots of people pray but all they do is ask for favors from God. When they are sad, they ask for happiness. When they are poor, they ask for wealth. I believe that the part of prayer in which they ask for something is actually wasted because God knows what we want, what we deserve. We don't have to ask for it. He will give it to us when the time comes.

Thank Him for all that you have. Close eyes and count everything that you have. Name the people who have done favors for you. Remember the opportunities that were given to you. Smile while you pray, believe that you have everything that you deserve. Have faith in deeds, believe that all you have is because of your deeds and blessings of God.

Gratefulness is a virtue of the kind soul. Be grateful for everything anyone does for you even if it's the smallest of the favor. Instead of counting the times when you were not helped or were hurt, count the times when you were helped. Drop your ego and be thankful to God, the universe, your loved ones and every single soul that touched your life.

maafi plzz....

My math’s teacher often used to say "I can forgive but I can't forget". This line used to fascinate me because it had the softness of forgiveness and hardness of an unforgettable hurt. So, used to forgive anyone who hurt me but I never forget it. Later, I realized that by not forgetting, I am actually not forgiving but indebting the person with the false fact that: I forgive you. Saying that ‘I can forgive but not forget’ is just another way of saying ‘I won’t forgive’.

Resentment and revenge are evils, not for the one whom the other is against, but for the one who holds these unworthy emotions. They eat your soul like termites. They kill your peace of mind and never let you be free from your self created false self called ego. How can a wound on a false object be real? No one can hurt you, only you hurt yourself by keeping the pain close to yourself deliberately. Only you can hurt yourself by believing that the ego which got hurt is real.

Forgiveness is a virtue, virtue of a great person who lives freely. To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. If you forgive but remember that you forgave, your ego still feeds on the fact that you forgave, you are still not free. To be truly free, you have to forgive and forget.

Too good to be true?

Often you say to yourself 'it's too good to be true'. I can think of only two situations when someone says these words:

1) when you get something you don't deserve

2) when your life has become bullshit and you can't believe in anything that is good

In either of the case, you make yourself repel the 'good' situation and turn your back from happiness. You subconciously whisper to the universe 'it's too good to be true, it's false, it's not real, take it away from me, I don't want unreal stuff'. And universe gives you what you ask for.

Believe that you deserve happiness, love and everything that is beautiful. Only then you will get what you want. Don't think of what you don't want. Think of what you want. Life will become better. It worked for me. I hope it works for everyone because universe has plenty for all of us.

My prayers (my demands)

Dear God/lord/bhagwan/allah/waheguru/whatever they call you

Let me do what I love to do
Let me love what I do

Let me find them whom I love
Let them find me who love me

Grant me the sight to see beyond the horizon
Without losing my sight of what lies beneath my feet

Keep me young to play
Keep me mature enough to understand

Give me strength to fight
Without taking away my sensitivity to feel

Let me forget my limits
Without forgetting my responsibilities

I shall remain a learner throughout my life
And willing to be the master to those I can teach

Don't give me what I want
Give me what I deserve......................because I might deserve more

After 2 weeks...

It has been 2 weeks since I have updated my blog. Life had (and still it is) become a 'bloody mary', a cocktail that I hate the most. It's sour, salty and I even find it bitter. After taking my laboratory back classes (yeah, I am the one who can even get a back in lab), I thought life will be fun. My journey to Delhi was more than awesome. A nice time pass kind chic and her shy but laughable guy-friend, another guy who was trying to act oversmart (like me). I won't describe my journey as I have had so many great journeys that have led me to believe that "journey is more important than destination". The journey, I thought, was an omen to a good life at home. But the real 'bloody mary' was yet to come.

The transition from hostel life (fun!) to home (a jail where you get good food) can be so drastic that you might feel lost. I still tried to write something keeping knots of confusion and blasts of irritation aside. With all my efforts in vain, I didn't manage to write anything. I wanted to write a lot, carry on with my novel but the time, perhaps, was not right. I want to have a vacation before my job life starts, but the time perhaps doesn't want me to.

But hey! I read her blog. "Her" here is a very good friend of mine. Man! Girls can do things so well when it comes to decorations and expressions. The practical files of physics, chemistry and biology in school, remember? Remember, how girls used to decorate them and fetch good marks while boys with the same content but poor aesthetic skills couldn't reach girls' scales. "Wow" is the word to describe her blog. Do read it: http://unpolisheddreams.blogspot.com/ Her silence is expressive, her words are magical, her blog is.........
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I can't express!

Papillon

First time in a long time, a movie actually provoked my cerebrum to think deeply. Thanks to a friend of mine who gave me this movie, Papillon. Papillon is the name of a character in the movie who is imprisoned for a crime that he’s not guilty of. He attempts again and again to escape but fails. There are other characters that are unlucky or flexible enough to succumb to the circumstances. Papillon gets old but still his attempts to escape never cease. In the end, he’s a free man, free old man. I don’t care to write a review or synopsis of that movie. You can find them on rottentomatoes.com or imdb.com. But the thoughts that the movie provoked are worth sharing.

The real test of a fighter comes when he is trapped from all sides. Papillon is trapped from all sides but he finds out ways. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Where there’s belief, there’s a wish granted. His belief that he’d be free one day sets him free. Perseverance is what he possessed the most. After every failed attempt, his desire to set himself free grew and only grew.

He was so focused to escape that he didn’t even think once what he’d do when he’s finally free. He did his ‘karam’ and never thought about ‘fal’. Sounds familiar? “karam kiye jaa, fal ki accha na kar”, from Bhagwat Gita.

What goes around comes around. Papillon was always loyal to his friend and did his most to help him or keep him safe. Whatever he did for his friends, unknown people did for Papillon during his attempts. It was as if luck was on his side. But that luck didn’t come for free. He had to maintain his character and had to pass many tests for his loyalty, strength and honor.

I think the real movie started where the movie ended. Before Papillon was free, he had an aim, a motivation and a desire to set himself free. But when he was finally free as an old man, what would he have done further? Would he be happier when he’s aimless? Before he was free, he had short spans of excitement and moments of joy during his attempts to escape. Would he ever experience the same when he’s out in the free world?

Don't fuck fear...

Fear scares the shit out of me! Paradox, it is. I am most afraid of being afraid. Fear is the biggest enemy of oneself. Just imagine, if Edison would have been afraid of trying to make light bulb after failing 999 times, would there be light? Just imagine, if Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler would have been scared of revealing the truths about the universe, would there be the truth? Just imagine, if I would have been scared of relationships after failing once, would I have had so much fun with so many? (To find the right one, you have to have fun with all the wrong ones)

People spend all their lives afraid to do things that they always wanted to. Someone might be scared to try out the outfit he desires to wear, scared of what society might think. Someone might be scared to marry the one he/she loves, scared of what parents might think. Someone might be scared to allow his child to ride, scared of his child falling. Shall we stop walking for the fear of falling? If not, then why you are so scared of doing things that might shape your life or give a new direction to your life?

Whatever excuse you give to yourself for being fearful, in the end you lose. You lose time, you lose life, and you lose youth. Funny it might sound but the liner that I believe in so much is: “JO DARR GAYA, SAMJHO MARR GAYA”.

You don’t have to fight your fears. Fear is something that you create. By fighting, you prove its existence to yourself. Just face it and it will fall. Face it with actions. Action cures fear. When I was a child, I was dead scared of roaches. My father made me kill one each time I spot it. And now, I am no more scared of them. I was scared of public speaking when I was in 1st year of my college. To face my fear, I took part in a debate. I was embarrassed on stage, I turned red, my legs shivered. Somehow, I completed it. Next time, I took part in elocution. It wasn’t as bad as the debate. And since then, I am not scared of public speaking. Action cured my fear. I faced it. Fear is like darkness, you cannot dispel the darkness by pushing out the darkness from the room. But you can surely bring the light in. You cannot remove any fear by fighting it. But you can bring the action in.

I’ll tell you about my biggest fear, ex-fear i mean. Due to childhood conditioning, I was scared of talking girls. Although, my childhood was spent among girls only but as I grew up, I was conditioned at home that girls aren’t good. They distract you. They are dangerous! Oh my god! Stay away from them! If I was spot talking to a girl on phone, I was screwed. I got so scared of them that if a girl touched me, I used to shiver, turn red. I could never talk to any girl without stammering. If I had to take any favor from a girl, I used to delegate it to my male friend (I didn’t have any female friend then, for obvious reasons). One day, it dawned to me, ‘why am I so scared? I have to overcome it. I have to remove my fear.’ Then at that very moment, I called up Reliance customer care to talk to the female executive of Reliance customer care with an excuse that I cannot send messages. I stammered for a while but the politeness of her made me comfortable. Next task was to chat online with girls of my class. I did it, successfully. Next task was talking to them on phone. Slowly, steadily, I kept on increasing the intensity of the tasks. And the result is? (You must be knowing the answer if you have read my previous posts)

So what I want to say is, don’t fuck with fear. Just play around with it. It will fall like a mirage because fear doesn’t exist; it’s just created as an illusion.

Assumptions: Mother of all screw ups!!

My dear children of heaven, children of god, let us assume the following:
1) Love is forever. Why? Because it’s plastic. It cannot degrade, it cannot decompose, it has to stay forever. If it gets over then it’s not love, it’s some other feeling which is out of scope of love’s rulebook written by God, published by anyone who wants to.
2) There are different kinds of love, just like there are different kinds of plastics. Some of the various breeds of love are listed below:
• Motherly love
• Fatherly love
• Brotherly love
• Sisterly love
• Friendly love
• Lover love
• Neighbor’s love
• God’s love
• Son of God’s love
• Pet’s love
• Neighbor’s God’s love
• Neighbor’s God’s pet’s love
• Neighbor’s God’s pet’s brother’s love
• And many more…
3) You have to take utmost care that the specifications of different kinds of love are different. You will need those specifications while labeling your feelings.
4) You have to feel from heart and process that feeling in brain. Then the feeling has to be labeled in brain and has to be sent back to heart for confirmation. Then the feeling has to be sent back to brain where it is mixed with words. The words are then released from mouth with caution.
5) Love happens only once. Why? Because of the following reasons:
• Shahrukh Khan said that.
• It’s written by Karan Johar.
• Falling in love again and again is a sin. Love is a pit with limited place. If you fall in it again and again, where and when will others get a chance to fall in it? So, if you fall in that pit, stay there and die there. Others can manage to fall in that pit on your corpse.
6) When you are in love, you should refrain your hormones to work for anyone else. You should be incharge of your hormones when you are in love.
7) When the rule book doesn’t mention the kind of love, you should assume it to be “lover love” because all kinds of love are different. For different loves, kindly refer different rulebooks.

Cryin'

Feelings are like water. Let it flow, let it overflow sometimes, let it flood sometimes, let it fertile the land, let it be lively. If you try to stop the flow, the stagnant water will breed parasites. If you try to store it in a cistern, it will evaporate soon. If you always want to cherish the freshness of feelings, let them flow.

Sometimes, when the feelings are too much and cannot be expressed in any way, I find comfort in tears. It drains out all the unsaid, unexpressed emotions. It lightens my heavy heart. The brittleness of glass is not its weakness but its finesse .I thank nature that it has given me the strength to cry, the courage to be honest with my feelings, the finesse of being sensitive enough to feel. Eyes are the window to the soul and sometimes I love to clean that window with the product of my trapped feelings. I don’t take the shelter of bottle when I am in a rut. I don’t hide myself behind the smoke when I am vulnerable. I face it on my face. I don’t run away. I shed water from eyes as a result of my honesty with myself.

Those who say “I don’t cry” are the ones who are the weakest. They are the ones who are sooner or later suppressed by their own feelings in the attempt to suppress their feelings. They are the ones who cannot seek comfort in themselves but find solace in others. I pity on them. They are the ones who build glass walls around themselves so that they are never hurt. The glass wall might protect them from getting hurt but it will also prevent them from being touched, from being felt, from being in the real joy of love.

Present perfect

I saw a dream...

I was standing on the bridge over a small stream which flowed amidst flowers and herbs. The water was white like milk. I could feel the freshness in the water without even tasting it. I could feel the ambience touching my skin. I was gazing at the full moon. The flaws on its surface looked perfect. The moonlight was penetrating through my body into my soul. It was filling my heart with feelings. A desire ran through my spine and I shook. Instantly the desire seemed to begin getting fulfilled on its own. Her hand touched my hand. I didn’t look towards her but I wanted to hold her hand. The moment had its own glory and I had enough courage to hold her hand without even looking at her. I don’t know if I needed her or desired her. The words had lost its meanings. All I cared was that moment, the moment of wonder. I held her hand. To my utter surprise, she resisted. She turned against me and walked. I called her from behind. But she said, “I’ll come to you if you promise to stay with me in the future. I’ll hold your hand if you promise to hold mine forever.” And I was standing there awestruck.
I woke up and thought, “If you cannot give me the present moment which you have right now, how can I give you my future which I don’t even have yet.”

Peeing in public v/s multiple orgasms

Those men in metro train were discussing about privileges given to women and were whining about how men are becoming victims of harassment by women, how being a woman is an advantage, blah blah blah. All they were discussing was crap to me. Women, on the other hand, discuss how it’s an advantage for men being men. That sounds crap too.

When God was distributing gifts to man and woman, it would have been completely man’s and woman’s choice to select gifts. Man would have chosen supreme physical power, woman would have chosen superior communication skills (both verbal and non-verbal), man would have chosen logical skills, woman would have chosen better memory, man would have chosen ability to pass on genes to as many offsprings as possible while woman would have chosen the privilege to carry a baby and be a creator of life. When all gifts would have been distributed by God, 2 gifts would have been left.

Man and woman would have been fighting over it but man being physically stronger would have snatched the gift of his choice which is the ability to PEE WHILE STANDING. So woman was left with the last gift and she had to take it. Now the last gift that the man took seemed advantageous to him so he took it. Are you wondering which gift was the woman left with? Ok I’ll tell you. The last gift that the woman had to take was MULTIPLE ORGASMS. And I think it’s a much better gift than man’s gift of peeing while standing. It’s a convenience to man but woman’s gift was pleasure, sheer pleasure.

Now, I hate it when girls and boys brood over themselves being a girl or a boy. And I despise it even more when they choose to be a feminist or a male chauvinist. Come on! Men and women are supposed to stay in harmony. They chose their own abilities and disabilities in the beginning of the evolution. They perfectly complement each other. Being a feminist or a male chauvinist won’t help the world in any way. The world cannot exist without either of them. Let’s understand differences among to the two sexes and accept it.

I don't believe in sacrificing for others..

Ok, it's not my speech but I place a lot of belief in what this speech tries to put forward. I could have written my own words but then, after reading this extract from the novel, The Fountainhead, I could not find a better way of expressing my thoughts.

Howard Roark's
Courtroom Speech

From The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand

     “Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light. He was considered an evildoer who had dealt with a demon mankind dreaded. But thereafter men had fire to keep them warm, to cook their food, to light their caves. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had lifted dardness off the earth. Centuries later, the first man invented the wheel. He was probably torn on the rack he had taught his brothers to build. He was considered a transgressor who ventured into forbidden terrritory. But thereafter, men could travel past any horizon. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had opened the roads of the world.
     “That man, the unsubmissive and first, stands in the opening chapter of every legend mankind has recorded about its beginning. Prometheus was chained to a rock and torn by vultures—because he had stolen the fire of the gods. Adam was condemned to suffer—because he had eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Whatever the legend, somewhere in the shadows of its memory mankind knew that its glory began with one and that that one paid for his courage.
     “Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received—hatred. The great creators—the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors—stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The airplane was considered impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anesthesia was considered sinful. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.
     “No creator was prompted by a desire to serve his brothers, for his brothers rejected the gift he offered and that gift destroyed the slothful routine of their lives. His truth was his only motive. His own truth, and his own work to achieve it in his own way. A symphony, a book, an engine, a philosophy, an airplane or a building—that was his goal and his life. Not those who heard, read, operated, believed, flew or inhabited the thing he had created. The creation, not its users. The creation, not the benefits others derived from it. The creation which gave form to his truth. He held his truth above all things and against all men.
     “His vision, his strength, his courage came from his own spirit. A man's spirit, however, is his self. That entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego.
     “The creators were not selfless. It is the whole secret of their power—that it was self-sufficient, self-motivated, self-generated. A first cause, a fount of energy, a life force, a Prime Mover. The creator served nothing and no one. He lived for himself.
     “And only by living for himself was he able to achieve the things which are the glory of mankind. Such is the nature of achievement.
     “Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. Man has no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons, and to make weapons—a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from a single attribute of man—the function of his reasoning mind.
     “But the mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain. There is no such thing as a collective thought. An agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise or an average drawn upon many individual thoughts. It is a secondary consequence. The primary act—the process of reason—must be performed by each man alone. We can divide a meal among many men. We cannot digest it in a collective stomach. No man can use his lungs to breathe for another man. No man can use his brain to think for another. All the functions of body and spirit are private. They cannot be shared or transferred.
     “We inherit the products of the thought of other men. We inherit the wheel. We make a cart. The cart becomes an automobile. The automobile becomes an airplane. But all through the process what we receive from others is only the end product of their thinking. The moving force is the creative faculty which takes this product as material, uses it and originates the next step. This creative faculty cannot be given or received, shared or borrowed. It belongs to single, individual men. That which it creates is the property of the creator. Men learn from one another. But all learning is only the exchange of material. No man can give another the capacity to think. Yet that capacity is our only means of survival.
     “Nothing is given to man on earth. Everything he needs has to be produced. And here man faces his basic alternative: he can survive in only one of two ways—by the independent work of his own mind or as a parasite fed by the minds of others. The creator originates. The parasite borrows. The creator faces nature alone. The parasite faces nature through an intermediary.
     “The creator’s concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite’s concern is the conquest of men.
     “The creator lives for his work. He needs no other men. His primary goal is within himself. The parasite lives second-hand. He needs others. Others become his prime motive.
     “The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive. To a creator, all relations with men are secondary.
     “The basic need of the second-hander is to secure his ties with men in order to be fed. He places relations first. He declares that man exists in order to serve others. He preaches altruism.
     “Altruism is the doctrine which demands that man live for others and place others above self.
     “No man can live for another. He cannot share his spirit just as he cannot share his body. But the second-hander has used altruism as a weapon of expoloitation and reversed the base of mankind’s moral principles. Men have been taught every precept that destroys the creator. Men have been taught dependence as a virtue.
     “The man who attemps to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves. The relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption. It is impossible in concept. The nearest approach to it in reality—the man who lives to serve others—is the slave. If physical slavery is repulsive, how much more repulsive is the concept of servility of the spirit? The conquered slave has a vestige of honor. He has the merit of having resisted and of considering his condition evil. But the man who enslaves himself voluntarily in the name of love is the basest of creatures. He degrades the dignity of man and he degrades the conception of love. But this is the essence of altruism.
     “Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but to give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before distribution—or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement.
     “Men have been taught that their first concern is to relieve the sufferings of others. But suffering is a disease. Should one come upon it, one tries to give relief and assistance. To make that the highest test of virtue is to make suffering the most important part of life. Then man must wish to see others suffer—in order that he may be virtuous. Such is the nature of altruism. The creator is not concerned with disease, but with life. Yet the work of the creators has eliminated one form of disease after another, in man’s body and spirit, and brought more relief from suffering than any altruist could ever conceive.
     “Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.
     “Men have been taught that the ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the ideal of virtue. But the creator is the egotist in the absolute sense, and the selfless man is the one who does not think, feel, judge or act. These are functions of the self.
     “Here the basic reversal is most deadly. The issue has been perverted and man has been left no alternative—and no freedom. As poles of good and evil, he was offered two conceptions: egotism and altruism. Egotism was held to mean the sacrifice of others to self. Altruism—the sacrifice of self to others. This tied man irrevocably to other men and left him nothing but a choice of pain: his own pain borne for the sake of others or pain inflicted upon others for the sake of self. When it was added that man must find joy in self-immolation, the trap was closed. Man was forced to accept masochism as his ideal—under the threat that sadism was his only alternative. This was the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on mankind.
     “This was the device by which dependence and suffering were perpetuated as fundamentals of life.
     “The choice is not self-sacrifice or domination. The choice is independence or dependence. The code of the creator or the code of the second-hander. This is the basic issue. It rests upon the alternative of life or death. The code of the creator is built on the needs of the reasoning mind which allows man to survive. The code of the second-hander is built on the needs of a mind incapable of survival. All that which proceeds from man’s independent ego is good. All that which proceeds from man’s dependence upon men is evil.
     “The egotist is the absolute sense is not the man who sacrifices others. He is the man who stands above the need of using others in any manner. He does not function through them. He is not concerned with them in any primary matter. Not in his aim, not in his motive, not in his thinking, not in his desires, not in the source of his energy. He does not exist for any other man—and he asks no other man to exist for him. This is the only form of brotherhood and mutual respect possible between men.
     “Degrees of ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man’s independence, initiative and personal love for his work determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man. Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn’t done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence.
     “In all proper relationships there is no sacrifice of anyone to anyone. An architect needs clients, but he does not subordinate his work to their wishes. They need him, but they do not order a house just to give him a commission. Men exchange their work by free, mutual consent to mutual advantage when their personal interests agree and they both desire the exchange. If they do not desire it, they are not forced to deal with each other. They seek further. This is the only possible form of relationship between equals. Anything else is a relation of slave to master, or victim to executioner.
     “No work is ever done collectively, by a majority decision. Every creative job is achieved under the guidance of a single individual thought. An architect requires a great many men to erect his building. But he does not ask them to vote on his design. They work together by free agreement and each is free in his proper function. An architect uses steel, glass, concrete, produced by others. But the materials remain just so much steel, glass and concrete until he touches them. What he does with them is his individual product and his individual property. This is the only pattern for proper co-operation among men.
     “The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man’s first duty is to himself. His moral law is never to place his prime goal within the persons of others. His moral obligation is to do what he wishes, provided his wish does not depend primarily upon other men. This includes the whole sphere of his creative faculty, his thinking, his work. But it does not include the sphere of the gangster, the altruist and the dictator.
     “A man thinks and works alone. A man cannot rob, exploit or rule—alone. Robbery, exploitation and ruling presuppose victims. They imply dependence. They are the province of the second-hander.
     “Rulers of men are not egotists. They create nothing. They exist entirely through the persons of others. Their goal is in their subjects, in the activity of enslaving. They are as dependent as the beggar, the social worker and the bandit. The form of dependence does not matter.
     “But men were taught to regard second-handers—tyrants, emperors, dictators—as exponents of egotism. By this fraud they were made to destroy the ego, themselves and others. The purpose of the fraud was to destroy the creators. Or to harness them. Which is a synonym.
     “From the beginning of history, the two antagonists have stood face to face: the creator and the second-hander. When the first creator invented the wheel, the first second-hander responded. He invented altruism.
     “The creator—denied, opposed, persecuted, exploited—went on, moved forward and carried all humanity along on his energy. The second-hander contributed nothing to the process except the impediments. The contest has another name: the individual against the collective.
     “The ‘common good’ of a collective—a race, a class, a state—was the claim and justification of every tyranny ever established over men. Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness ever equaled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism? Does the fault lie in men’s hypocrisy or in the nature of the principle? The most dreadful butchers were the most sincere. They believed in the perfect society reached through the guillotine and the firing squad. Nobody questioned their right to murder since they were murdering for an altruistic purpose. It was accepted that man must be sacrificed for other men. Actors change, but the course of the tragedy remains the same. A humanitarian who starts with declarations of love for mankind and ends with a sea of blood. It goes on and will go on so long as men believe that an action is good if it is unselfish. That permits the altruist to act and forces his victims to bear it. The leaders of collectivist movements ask nothing for themselves. But observe the results.
     “The only good which men can do to one another and the only statement of their proper relationship is—Hands off!
     “Now observe the results of a society built on the principle of individualism. This, our country. The noblest country in the history of men. The country of greatest achievement, greatest prosperity, greatest freedom. This country was not based on selfless service, sacrifice, renunciation or any precept of altruism. It was based on a man’s right to the pursuit of happiness. His own happiness. Not anyone else’s. A private, personal, selfish motive. Look at the results. Look into your own conscience.
     “It is an ancient conflict. Men have come close to the truth, but it was destroyed each time and one civilization fell after another. Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
     “Now, in our age, collectivism, the rule of the second-hander and second-rater, the ancient monster, has broken loose and is running amuck. It has brought men to a level of intellectual indecency never equaled on earth. It has reached a scale of horror without precedent. It has poisoned every mind. It has swallowed most of Europe. It is engulfing our country.
     “I am an architect. I know what is to come by the principle on which it is built. We are approaching a world in which I cannot permit myself to live.
     “Now you know why I dynamited Cortlandt.
     “I designed Cortlandt. I gave it to you. I destroyed it.
     “I destroyed it because I did not choose to let it exist. It was a double monster. In form and in implication. I had to blast both. The form was mutilated by two second-handers who assumed the right to improve upon that which they had not made and could not equal. They were permitted to do it by the general implication that the altruistic purpose of the building superseded all rights and that I had no claim to stand against it.
     “I agreed to design Cortlandt for the purpose of seeing it erected as I dedigned it and for no other reason. That was the price I set for my work. I was not paid.
     “I do not blame Peter Keating. He was helpless. He had a contract with his employers. It was ignored. He had a promise that the structure he offered would be built as designed. The promise was broken. The love of a man for the integrity of his work and his right to preserve it are now considered a vague intangible and an inessential. You have heard the prosecutor say that. Why was the building disfigured? For no reason. Such acts never have any reason, unless it’s the vanity of some second-handers who feel they have a right to anyone’s property, spiritual or material. Who permitted them to do it? No particular man among the dozens in authority. No one cared to permit it or to stop it. No one was responsible. No one can be held to account. Such is the nature of all collective action.
     “I did not receive the payment I asked. But the owners of Cortlandt got what they needed from me. They wanted a scheme devised to build a structure as cheaply as possible. They found no one else who could do it to their satisfaction. I could and did. They took the benefit of my work and made me contribute it as a gift. But I am not an altruist. I do not contribute gifts of this nature.
     “It is said that I have destroyed the home of the destitute. It is forgotten that but for me the destitute could not have had this particular home. Those who were concerned with the poor had to come to me, who have never been concerned, in order to help the poor. It is believed that the poverty of the future tenants gave them the right to my work. That their need constituted a claim on my life. That it was my duty to contribute anything demanded of me. This is the second-hander’s credo now swallowing the world.
     “I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone’s right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need.
     “I wished to come here and say that I am a man who does not exist for others.
     “It had to be said. The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing.
     “I wished to come here and say that the integrity of a man’s creative work is of greater importance than any charitable endeavor. Those of you who do not understand this are the men who’re destroying the world.
     “I wished to come here and state my terms. I do not care to exist on any others.
     “I recognize no obligations toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no part in a slave society. To my country, I wish to give the ten years which I will spend in jail if my country exists no longer. I will spend them in memory and in gratitude for what my country has been. It will be my act of loyalty, my refusal to live or work in what has taken its place.
     “My act of loyalty to every creator who ever lived and was made to suffer by the force responsible for the Cortlandt I dynamited. To every tortured hour of loneliness, denial, frustration, abuse he was made to spend—and to the battles he won. To every creator whose name is known—and to every creator who lived, struggled and perished unrecognized before he could achieve. To every creator who was destroyed in body or in spirit. To Henry Cameron. To Steven Mallory. To a man who doesn’t want to be named, but who is sitting in this courtroom and knows that I am speaking of him.”

Speech that changed my thinking

Stanford Report, June 14, 2005

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

V for ............ ssshhhh it's forbidden

Once lost, you don’t and you can’t gain
But you feel like losing it again and again
It’s not dignity
It’s just a lack of opportunity
What is it?
It’s virginity!

Such a hyped up topic, isn’t it? I don’t understand how a piece of tissue determines the character of a girl. I don’t understand how a boy’s character is inversely proportional to how many times he has had 2 seconds of pleasure (that’s the duration of orgasm in men.. No, I don’t use a stopwatch). Sex before marriage is considered a sin and no sex after marriage is considered a problem. Why are we so resistant to change? Change is a natural phenomenon. Change always occurs whether you want it or not. If society doesn’t want to change, that doesn’t mean that individuals aren’t changing. If society still considers sex before marriage a taboo, that doesn’t mean its individuals are not practicing it. What hypocrites we Indian are! We gave the world Kamasutra, and now we are the ones who go ga-ga about sex. The basic problem is ‘resistance to change’ (about which I’ll post some other day, kyunki aaj mood nai hai, aaj sirf virginity ki baatein karne ka mood hai).

If someone has lost ‘V for Virginity’ before marriage, what is the big deal about it? Just because society has conditioned us, we carry the load to the future. We always carry society’s conditions on our mind and fail to think for ourselves. Virginity just means innocence. One can lose his/her virginity (innocence) without having sex too. If someone loves someone so much that he/she desires to feel the other’s body completely, and fulfills their heart’s innermost desire, does that mean he/she isn’t innocent (virgin)?

V for Victim

Victims, victims everywhere. These days I am surrounded by victims of fate. Everyone loves to self sympathize being victims of circumstances. Of course, that’s the easy way. It’s so easy to feel pity on oneself, it’s so easy to feel sympathy on oneself, it’s even easier to cry over your fate and blame God or luck or the supreme power for all your misfortunes. It’s never their fault, it’s always someone else’s fault. They love to believe that there’s nothing in their hands and they’re powerless. They fail to think that if it’s never their fault, they can never take responsibility, if they cannot take responsibility, they will always be victims. But that’s what they love to be: Victim! That’s what is easier to be: Victim! That’s what they think will make them moral, to be a: Victim!

Courage is what they lack. It takes courage, efforts and strength to be a master of circumstances. Responsibility is what they cannot take, responsibility for their actions. They cannot choose the tougher path which is to take everything in their hands and stop blaming other factors for their misfortunes. It’s easier to be happy if one has courage to be happy. The secret to happiness is freedom, and the secret to freedom is courage. They just cannot let themselves free from their self created shackles. Shackles that hold them to the past, shackles that bound them to think that being a victim is the solution to all their problems, shackles that don’t let them move on.

Victims believe that people who are happy are immoral. Their mind is conditioned on a sub-conscious level that it’s immoral to be happy. The one who moves on is probably the one who never loved or who never considered others as important. The one who has courage will go to hell and God will punish him for being happy. The one who believes himself to be the master of circumstances is despised by the victims and secretly envied too. Victims cannot stand anyone being happy. It makes them even more miserable. By seeing misery around them, they feel less miserable, their burden is lightened and they can console themselves that the world is miserable so it’s perfectly natural to be miserable. But the truth is that being happy is in accordance with nature. There’s always a harmony in nature. Birds sing; flowers and trees dance to the wind; animals also live in accordance to nature. But we humans always go against nature. Nature has given us all rights to live our way. Victims just don’t have the courage to accept the rights.

I am sick of victims around me. They induce sadness around them. I am tired of catching their diseases by trying to pretend that victims are good people and I should do something for them. I cannot do anything for them. They have to do something for themselves. Let me handle my own life, they can handle theirs if they want to.

P.S.: the name of my blog ;)

Is marriage really the end of love?

Socrates had a quarrelsome wife but when disciples asked him whether they should marry, he always advised them to. "If you are fortunate you'll get a good wife. If you get a wife like mine, you'll still be fortunate as she will help you become Socrates!"

But people like Socrates are rare. Most men cannot handle the misery, and either escape or get frustrated. The same goes for women as well. In her marriage, a woman may find the most terrible person who makes life hell for her. In fact, in most Indian marriages, women suffer more than men. What is the way out of this misery?

German politician Gabriele Pauli recently proposed that marriage contracts should be valid for seven years; after that couples who didn't feel the proverbial itch could renew them, else walk away. This may sound radical but it isn't.

People are divorcing faster today and most of the marriages in the so-called first world don't last more than three years. Those that last have little life in them.

Love is like a real flower. It doesn't live longer than it's meant to. But when love is converted into marriage, it starts to lose its tenderness. It acquires a plastic nature; plastic lives for as long as you wish it to but doesn't pulsate with life.

Love, like life, is always insecure. It cannot promise to be forever. That's why it is really very precious. One moment of real love is more valuable than an eternity of plastic life. But most people with deep insecurities go for a plastic marriage rather than wait for the real throbbing life of love, for they are scared to live alone.

Osho calls marriage the ‘coffin of love'. He says: "They all say that love is eternal, never dies. Absolutely wrong. Real love dies sooner than unreal love. Unreal love can live long; it is unreal, how can it die? If you are pretending, you can pretend as long as you want to."

Osho also tells us: "Love needs only one thing, and that is courage. Courage to die into the other, to drop your own identity, your ego. Millions have decided not to love, but then life is misery, life is hell."

"If one really wants to live, one must be ready for insecurity, and love brings the greatest insecurity in the world because love cannot promise tomorrow. Love is of the moment, for the moment, in the moment. Love can only speak for this moment, not for the next; the next remains open, vulnerable, insecure." "Love may be, may not be. Love has no guarantee whatsoever. Which is why people choose marriage over love. Marriage is secure and safe, guaranteed by the law and the government and the society and the church-something they can depend upon. But in that very choice they commit suicide for they will never really live."

"Life itself is insecure. Life knows nothing of security. Death is very secure, so those who are cowardly choose death instead of life. They choose the false and the plastic instead of the real. And those who are courageous, they choose the real. They go with it, wherever it may lead. They surrender to it. They are ready to go into the uncharted and the unknown and the unseen." And they truly live...
By SWAMI CHAITANYA KEERTI

SOURCE: http://spirituality.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2410988.cms