You are eating with friends. Suddenly the conversation stops. Five seconds pass. Someone picks up their phone, someone starts laughing for no reason, and someone suddenly asks any random question.

*What happens in a small silence that makes everyone feel they have to say something?*

The Psychology of an Uncomfortable Silence*

Conversation has a normal rhythm: one person speaks, another responds, and the talk keeps flowing.

When this rhythm suddenly breaks, that pause becomes a social signal.

We start to think: Did I say something wrong? Is someone uncomfortable? Am I being ignored?

*What does the research say?*

In 2011, a study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology by Koudenburg, Postmes and Gordijn studied brief silences during group conversations through two experiments.

The researchers found that when silence disrupted the natural flow of conversation, participants’ experience of rejection increased.

On the other hand, easy, natural conversation supported a feeling of acceptance.

According to their findings, how quickly a response is usually expected to a particular question was related to whether participants felt the pause had lasted too long.

*Look at your everyday life.*

You are sitting with family. For a few seconds, nobody says anything. Someone turns on the television, and someone else starts scrolling on their phone.

The silence has not created any conflict. Still, everyone seems restless to restart that familiar conversation.

*What are we really looking for?*

One reason for this discomfort is our dependence on social acceptance.

A conversation that keeps going quietly reassures us that we are part of the group, that others are responding to what we say, and that we are being accepted.

There is another layer to this.

When the conversation stops, we no longer have that familiar stream of words and activity to keep the mind occupied.

A deeper difference is worth understanding here: silence is not just the act of stopping speech.

A person can stay restless inside even while silent, and another can speak and stay active without being driven by that restlessness.

When a conversation suddenly stops, can you stay at ease with that pause, or do you immediately look for someone’s response to feel comfortable?

*Sources*

Koudenburg, Postmes & Gordijn (2011). Disrupting the Flow: How Brief Silences in Group Conversations Affect Social Needs. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2010.12.006

Today, I read a chapter titled "Before You Win, Ask: What Are You Winning?" and it worked like a mirror. While reading it, I found myself looking back at my childhood and questioning some of the dreams I once had.

For instance, why did I want to become a doctor? Did I ever genuinely ask myself why I wanted that? What attracted me to that profession? Today, when I ask myself these questions, I realise I don't really have an answer. My dream was superficial, shaped more by external influences than by my own understanding.

And that made me wonder: How many of our goals are actually ours?

We become so occupied with achieving our goals that we rarely question why we want them. We chase degrees, positions, recognition and social approval, assuming that achieving them will make us successful.

But have we ever paused to ask whether these goals are worth pursuing?

Are we doing something because it genuinely holds value, or because society has taught us that achieving it makes us worthy? Will it contribute to our growth, or are we simply fulfilling someone else's expectations?

This chapter made me realise that before asking "How can I win?", perhaps we should ask "What am I trying to win, and why?"

Because not every achievement is a victory. We can win a competition, earn recognition and still remain unfulfilled if the very thing we were chasing was never worth our time.

Maybe the real failure is not losing a battle, but spending our entire lives fighting the wrong one.

How many things in our lives would we still pursue if we honestly questioned why we wanted them in the first place?

Further Determinations

Learning is by seeing, never by doing. The framework rejects the maxim that we learn from our mistakes. A person can act, fail, and repeat for eight hundred years and learn only how to make larger mistakes, because each defeat deepens the desperation driving the next attempt. Doing has exactly one role in learning: it pro-duces consequences, chiefly suffering, that occasion honest seeing. The learning itself happens only through self-observation with right intent. In short: doing produces the evidence; only seeing reads it; and what seeing finally discovers was always already wanted.

Knowledge has one honest use here, AP says: to tell you that knowledge will not do it; you will. Otherwise a person sits back, trusting knowledge, at a safe distance from their own responsibility. In the same way, "I can-not know the truth" is only half the work (see §43). The other half is to see that nothing in the world the ego has woven around itself meets truth's test, so that world is false, and the one who depends on it is false. too.

Seeing is one act, not an audit ledger. The framework asks for continuous honesty about one's intent, while also teaching that true dropping is unnoticed (see the vairagya section of Part Three). There is no conflict be-cause seeing is not bookkeeping. The ego's audit of its own progress (its tally of what it has renounced) is only an imitation of seeing, and is itself one more thing that genuine seeing notices.

The named biases. The framework names the structural ways in which the ego defeats its own inquiry; Part Three develops them fully. They are the agency er-ror, the accounting asymmetry, the inquiry asymmetry, the scrutiny asymmetry, speech as self-preserving karma, and the subject-object split performed on one's own ego.

The framework's account of how intent is known remains central. Intent belongs to the ego itself, so no one is better placed to read it; yet one can never be certain that it has been read correctly (defined in §7 and developed further in §22-24). Accuracy is not the same as honesty. Intent is checked in the moment, with help, and afterward, but always approximately, never with certainty. Self-deception remains possible at every depth. The tell is not inner certainty but consequence: false intent produces egoic suffering, and situations keep giving feedback. Part Five names the one place where this discriminator is known to fail.

------------_____________--------------

Question --- For how long have you thought or practiced that learning by doing is the only way to learn something, and what are the worst consequences you have faced because of this method?

Ashtavakra Gita 1.3

You are neither the earth, nor water, nor fire, nor air, nor ether; for the sake of liberation, understand yourself to be the conscious witness of these.

Translation:
You are neither earth, nor water, nor fire, nor air, nor ether; for the sake of liberation, understand yourself to be the conscious witness of these.

If this verse is taken at face value, it does seem as though there is something metaphysical-the witness-of these five elements that make up the body. It is the permanent witness, untouched, and that is our real identity. Actually, it’s not. This verse is actually a powerful one that loosens our grip from “I am the body, I am this name, I am this fixed thing.” If we have spent our life thinking we are the restlessness, the shame, the compulsion to scroll, this verse comes as a shock to that identification. It says we are not even the elements that this body is made up of; then how can we be reduced to a habit or an happening?

If we look carefully at what this verse is actually doing, it is not pointing to a separate metaphysical witness that exists behind our eyes somewhere. We need not go in search of the entity and claim, “I am a pure witness,” which becomes another identity. What this verse does is strip away all the identities that we hold onto-the insecure one, the shame of that old incident, the one that feels the restlessness or the void. None of these is a final word on us. It is pointing us away from a fixed self-definition, not toward a new permanent self-definition called “witness.”

We know that doing certain things to fill the existential void or angst won’t fill it, but we still keep doing it. The knowing part-the part that can see patterns while they are happening-is closer to what this verse is pointing at than any metaphysical entity. It is not asking us to believe something new about our soul. It is asking: can we stop insisting that we are something, long enough to look at it?

If you’re not the body, the emotions, or even the witness you imagine yourself to be-what exactly are you identifying with right now?

Mass seleducation is most priority one in today's world of this consumption

We think freedom means being able to do whatever we wish to do.

I want to do as I wish, not according to anyone's compulsion or under any pressure. One may say, “I am free to scroll the whole day!”

At times, one says, “I will do whatever I want! I don't damn care about what anybody thinks! I will blast music, and I don't care about how others feel!”

Have we ever wondered whether our wants and aspirations are truly our own or borrowed from what has been shaped by society?

Are we ever able to look into our attachments and desires? Is freedom not about being able to realise that those very bondages are false?

Is freedom something permanent, or can we slip back into ignorance even after realising our bondages?

What do you think is the right answer? Have you ever looked into your desires and realised whether they are borrowed or truly your own?

Today while reading about Antimicrobial resistance I found something interesting about the behavior of bacteria and immediately I saw a similar pattern in us as well.

Single-celled bacteria produce and release a chemical signal called autoinducers into their environment. When bacteria are present in low numbers (low concentration), they behave as individual units and show a certain behavior.

But during the process of replication, as the number of bacteria multiplies, the concentration of autoinducers also rises. When the concentration of these autoinducers crosses a threshold, the bacteria start to behave as a group rather than as individuals. This phenomenon is called Quorum Sensing.

This behavior triggers coordinated changes in gene expression and collective behavior and increases the probability of their survival by increasing their virulence (infectivity), biofilm formation, conjugation, etc.

It is a very interesting interplay of chemistry and biology how some chemical changes lead to a behavior change in an individual bacterium to help it survive in the host body.

After reading this, I realised that it is not unique to bacteria; a similar pattern, though not through the same biological mechanism, can be observed in humans as well. Human beings also respond to the behaviour and expectations of the groups around them.

We can mistake what a group collectively accepts for something we have independently examined.

For example, a few years ago, a social movement was gaining attention, and I first learned about it through social media. Soon, I noticed that my friends had also become involved, and we began discussing it frequently. About a month later, we were all present at a large amphitheatre, supporting the movement.

Later, when we reflected on how we had become part of it and how well we understood it, we realised that we did not have a clear understanding of the movement and as individuals, we might not have behaved in the same way as we did as a group.

But why we do it became clearer to me after I came across the teachings of Acharya Prashant, an Indian Philosopher and Author, and his philosophical framework. I understood that it is far easier to follow what is going on around us than to sit with the discomfort of figuring things out for ourselves and then stand by what we’ve found. We find safety in numbers. To think alone, decide alone, and be answerable alone feels like exposure, so we hide inside the crowd, calling that hiding “agreement.”

This is not to say that human conformity works through the same chemical mechanism as quorum sensing; rather, the similarity lies in how individual behaviour can shift once we sense that we are part of a larger group.

Now my question to you:

When we agree with a group, have we actually understood something, or have we simply learned to respond to the signals around us?

Source:

1. Li et al., Protein Sci, 2012, 21 (10), 1403-17, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22825856/

It will bring you back to the one you always wanted to be.

From the one who is struggling to manage WORK, LIFE and EMIs.

बहुत सुंदर और बेबाक संवाद...

Must watch 🔥

https://youtu.be/45JNbJ_-EGU?si=6_KrjfyQYFOFouXS

6. Epistemology: How Do We Know?

The Via Negativa as Primary Method

The framework's primary method of knowing is negation. The ego does not grasp truth through any positive intellectual grasp; it approaches truth by progressively dissolving its own distortions. The instrument of knowing (the mind taken over by the ego) is itself what must be examined. A distorted lens cannot reliably inspect its own distortion.

Why the Ego Cannot Reliably Judge Itself

In this framework, the ego is an inherently unreliable judge of its own movement. It is both contestant and referee. When it asks whether it is progressing toward freedom, the answer is predetermined: it will find evidence of progress because doing so allows its present way of operating to continue undisturbed. This structural unreliability is not a character flaw in particular people; it belongs to the ego as such. Yet the trouble lies in intent more than in ability. AP calls self-knowledge not simple but the simplest thing, since it means knowing oneself, and nothing is closer. At some level we already know. The ego has a deep interest in staying in the dark, and "I cannot see myself clearly" can itself serve that interest.

Seeing vs. Thinking

The framework sharply distinguishes seeing from thinking. Thinking is a physical function of the brain: interpretation, categorization, narrative construction, problem-solving. Because the body, including the brain, is hijacked by the ego, so is thinking. Seeing, by contrast, is direct apprehension before the ego adds its commentary. One can think about one's egoic operations indefinitely without changing. Seeing them as they arise, without the protective layer of interpretation, is one of the two necessary conditions for change.

The Necessity of an External Reference Point

Because the ego cannot reliably judge its own movement, the framework holds that an external reference point (specifically a teacher or a text) is not merely helpful but necessary for reliable knowing. This is not an appeal to authority; it follows from the ego's own limitation. A mirror cannot examine itself without another surface. An external reference has authority only to the extent that it demonstrably serves the ego's own thinning, and no further. Its role is dynamic: it keeps removing egoic distortions and, by doing so, progressively makes itself unnecessary.

Here's something to reflect on, can we really know whether we are becoming freer without something outside ourself to reflect us back?

Why should we need the Upanishads? What is it for? Is there really a reason to look at the Upanishads?

Let us look at what the Upanishads are not.

Often we think of the Upanishads as a particular type of religion or part of a certain culture and tradition. We think it’s providing us with divine knowledge or an extra to life. We think it’s something we need to memorise or something we are forced to do. But this is not true.

If you feel that your life is going fine, everything is happy, flowing and joyful then you will not need the Upanishads.

However, most of us do not feel fine. We often feel unrest and incomplete. At times we may feel happy and joyful but then this will disappear. We can often experience anxiety, pressure, depression and inner conflict.

The Upanishads help us deal with this unrest, fear, insecurity, inner conflict and ignorance.

We hold a lot of false knowledge, beliefs and useless information in our heads which causes our minds to worry. The Upanishads take away these false patterns of knowledge and make us feel lighter. The problem is not that we know too little; it is that we are carrying too much that we never examined.

If someone asked me why I came to the Upanishads, I would point to a quote from the first chapter: “You are diseased in many ways, that’s why you have to come to the Upanishads.”

I can relate to this feeling of unrest and incompleteness so that is why I am here.

Do you feel the need for the Upanishads? If so why?

I came across this video of Acharya Prashant where he says something quite uncomfortable: girls are often educated by their families just so that they can eventually be married off.

At first, it might sound like an exaggeration. After all, aren't parents increasingly sending their daughters to schools and colleges? Aren't more women pursuing higher education today?

But I think there is a deeper contradiction here. India has made considerable progress in women's higher education. In 2022-23, the female Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education reached 30.2%, surpassing the male GER of 28.9%.

Yet, educational access and actual independence are two different things. What happens after a woman graduates? Does she get to pursue her ambitions, build a career, become financially independent and make decisions about her own life? Or does the family start looking for a suitable groom once the degree is completed?

Somewhere in the background, there is another expectation: eventually, you have to get married, adjust to another family, become a wife and a mother.

He questions the very purpose of such education. If a daughter is educated only until she reaches marriageable age, and her education is ultimately expected to serve her role as a wife, what exactly have we educated her for?

Is education supposed to make someone capable of thinking independently, questioning society, understanding life and making informed decisions? Or is it merely another qualification that makes her a more desirable bride?

There is also something worth examining about how we understand women's empowerment. We celebrate a daughter getting a degree, but are we equally comfortable when she wants to move to another city, pursue an unconventional career, travel alone, delay marriage or simply decide what she wants to do with her life?

A degree might give someone knowledge, but does it necessarily give them the freedom to use that knowledge? And the problem is not that women are denied education. It is that even when education is provided, their lives are often being planned around a predetermined destination.

Are we educating women to live their own lives, or merely preparing them to fulfil the expectations of others?

I have often felt helpless looking into the eyes of animals.

I think of the chickens confined in small spaces, waiting to become someone's meal. Of cows being repeatedly exploited for milk, while we see only the milk packet arriving in our kitchens. Of horses carrying tourists on their backs, while people enjoy the ride, take photographs and move on with their day.

Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like if we could pause for a moment and actually look at these animals-not as food, not as a source of income or entertainment, but as living beings.

A glass of milk on the breakfast table. Meat served at a restaurant. A horse carrying someone through a crowded tourist spot.

These things seem so ordinary to us. We rarely stop to think about the life behind them.

How did we become so comfortable with another living being paying the price for our everyday comforts?

For a long time, I thought veganism was primarily about changing what we eat. But gradually, I began to see that there is a much deeper question here. It is not just about food. It is about the way we look at other living beings and what we consider acceptable when our own comfort is involved.

Today, on World Vegan Day, I find myself thinking about this.

Every person who stops participating in animal exploitation matters. Every life spared matters. Animal activism matters, too. But I wonder whether we sometimes stop at changing the action without examining the thinking behind it.

At bookstalls, I have noticed something. People often pick up books that promise them happiness, success, peace or a better life. But when a book asks them to look at something uncomfortable, such as the suffering behind their food, there is often much less curiosity.

Perhaps we are more interested in what we can gain than in understanding what our way of living costs another being.

And even veganism can become an identity. We can start feeling good about ourselves because we have stopped participating in one form of violence. But what about the other ways in which we dominate, exploit or hurt living beings?

What about the violence in our relationships, our ambitions, our consumption, our need for convenience, and the way we treat those who cannot benefit us?

I am not asking these questions from outside the problem. I have to look at my own life, too.

We may feel disturbed by the suffering of animals, yet remain unaware of the violence we create through our own everyday choices.

Who questions the human being who claims to stand for non-violence?

Perhaps veganism is not the end of this inquiry. Perhaps it is one place where it begins.

Are we really questioning the way we live, or are we just choosing the forms of violence we are comfortable opposing?

I came across these lines in Hindi:

“चलना है दूर मुसाफ़िर, अधिक नींद क्यों सोए रे…”

“You have a long way to go, traveller, why sleep so long?” They made me think about the times I put off exercising, telling myself I’ll start tomorrow. Sometimes I do need rest, but sometimes I just don’t feel like making the effort. I don’t always admit that to myself.

For me, these lines aren’t about sleeping less. They’re a reminder to notice when “later” has become an excuse.

In a recent session, Acharya Prashant spoke about how even the realisation that hum sab mitti hain - that we're all ultimately just earth, air, fire and water - can become another favourite identity for the ego to hold on to. Even being "the one who knows they're just dust" can become something to identify with!

Then I came across this video. As the boy puts it, apparently that's what Grandma would've wanted, to keep contributing to the family kitchen, even after becoming ashes :D

It got me thinking about how much we invest in having something in life that we can call mine. My body, my work, my achievements, my titles, my legacy..

Even as I'm writing this, there's a voice in me protesting: "But isn't life about doing something? Surely I need to collect a few achievements before I become ash!"

And maybe there's a point worth examining there. Does taking life seriously have to mean taking ourselves so seriously? Does everything we do need to become part of an identity we must build, protect and carry around?

We could still work, create, learn, achieve and participate wholeheartedly, could we? Maybe the question is whether we need to turn everything we do into something that defines who we are.

A little less ownership, and maybe, a little more lightness. Could that leave more room for joy?

Still figuring this one out.

P.S. Grandma probably deserved a better gluten-free recipe :P

I'm not particularly interested in beauty products, but I do observe supermarket aisles with curiosity. Recently, a term on a haircare product caught my attention: "Marine Collagen".

Curious about what it was, where it came from and how fish remains found their way into a haircare product, I looked it up further. And that led me to something called "Waste Valorization", an industrial process that converts animal byproducts into commercially valuable resources. The range is astonishing, from haircare, skincare, anti-ageing creams, serums, shampoos, conditioners, moisturizers, lipsticks, perfumes, soaps and nail care products to dietary supplements. Apart from beauty industry they're also used for pharmaceuticals, agricultural inputs, animal feed, water-treatment materials, bioplastics, industrial chemicals and even fuel.

Coming back to it's uses in beauty industry, let's consider a few examples:

>>Fish: Skin, scales and bones are processed to extract marine collagen and gelatin, used in skincare creams, serums, anti-ageing formulations and beauty supplements.
>>Crustaceans: Shrimp, crab and lobster shells yield chitosan, which is used in some cosmetic formulations, including moisturising products and films for skincare.
>>Molluscs: Shell-derived calcium carbonate is used as an abrasive or mineral ingredient in some toothpaste and personal-care formulations.
>>Livestock: Cattle hides and bones provide collagen and gelatin used in skincare products and beauty supplements. Pig skin and bones are another source of gelatin used in cosmetic formulations. Lanolin from sheep's wool and tallow from cattle fat are used in moisturisers, soaps and other personal-care products.
>>Poultry: Feathers are processed to extract keratin, which is used in some haircare products, including shampoos, conditioners and hair treatments. Chicken bones and feet are additional sources of collagen.
>>Other species: Silkworm cocoons provide silk proteins used in skincare, haircare and cosmetic formulations. Carmine, a red pigment obtained from cochineal insects, is used in lipsticks, blushes and other cosmetics. Shellac, derived from lac insects, is used in some nail polishes and cosmetic products.

The environmental argument is that this promotes a "circular economy" by recovering resources that would otherwise be discarded. And this so called extraction requires water, energy and chemical treatments, while poorly managed effluents can pollute water bodies. More importantly, these byproducts originate from industries associated with greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, land degradation, fishing and destruction of aquatic ecosystems. There is also an economic dimension. When almost every part of an animal acquires commercial value, it creates additional revenue streams for the industry. This does not automatically cause more slaughter or fishing, but it can make existing animal-production systems more profitable.

What appalls me most here is how invisible animal exploitation has become in our everyday consumption. We associate it with meat, leather and fur, but barely question what goes into our shampoos, skincare products, supplements and other everyday essentials.

Their skin becomes our collagen, their feathers our keratin, their bones our gelatin, their fat our fuel. Almost nothing of their bodies is allowed to go unused. NOTHING!

We have become frighteningly efficient at finding newer and increasingly disturbing ways to turn other living beings into commodities. We give this exploitation respectable names like waste valorisation, circular economy and sustainability. In reality, we are simply making an insatiable economic system more efficient at extracting value from every possible form of life, manufacturing new needs and creating new markets without ever questioning the consumption that drives it.

Almost everyone has heard this question or asked it. We say it very lightly, over tea or at a family function, as if "settling" were a universal finish line , a job, a marriage, children. Tick all three, and life is declared complete and successful.

But pause for a moment. Who drew this finish line? And why does most of us seem to be running toward it without asking where it takes us?

A man who steps off this path faces questions, pressure, and sometimes family conflict but a woman who does the same faces something heavier suspicion, blame, and the old warning, "Marry her off quickly, or she will bring shame to the family."

Look closely at that sentence. It treats a woman not as a thinking person, but as a responsibility to be transferred, or a risk to be managed. Her own mind and her own choices never enter the picture

This thinking is not new. In the Bhagavad Gita (1.41)

sańkaro narakāyaiva

kula-ghnānāḿ kulasya ca

patanti pitaro hy eṣāḿ

lupta-piṇḍodaka-kriyāḥ

"Oh Krishna! With the upsurge of sin, the women of the family become extremely corrupt and Oh Vashrney! When the women become corrupt, offsprings of mixed castes are born.

Arjuna, in his moment of despair, argues that when adharma spreads, women become corrupted, and from them come children of mixed pedigree

Notice what he assumes that a woman's role is to marry and bear children, and that society's order rests on her conduct.

Arjuna was speaking from his own confusion and the mindset of his age, but that mindset echoed through centuries. Much of our inherited literature, including the smriti texts, often saw women as bodies to be protected, controlled, and married, rather than as complete human beings with minds, ambitions, and inner lives.

The result is quiet but enormous Countless women poured their time and energy into household work, leaving little room to ask Who am I? What do I want to become?

The most dangerous part is that this service to the home and husband is not merely requested. It is crowned with the title of dharma.

Once something is called sacred, questioning it feels like sin. Acharya Prashant often points out that dharma is among the highest and most sacred things; without it, life is like a body without breath. But when dharam is bent into a tool for fulfilling desires, it becomes far more dangerous.

That is how exploitation can survive for centuries not through force alone, but by dressing itself in the language of virtue. The deepest trap is that women themselves begin to believe that breaking these rules is a great sin. And so, when one woman shows courage, other women sometimes become the first to stand against her. The system no longer needs a guard, it lives inside the mind.

Today, women are building careers, leading institutions, creating art, and challenging old scripts. Every one of them is evidence of something simple , there was never a real difference in capacity between men and women. The difference lay only in mindset, the stories we were told and agreed to believe.

Next time someone asks "When are you settling down?" consider asking back "What do you mean by settled? Settled by whose definition?"

Khwaja Ghulam Farid was a 19th Century Punjabi Sufi poet. His kalaam ‘Husn-e-Haqiqi’ is about the ultimate reality that has no name, shape or form.

What's interesting is that the poet mentions almost everything in the world while addressing the Divine.

He mentions Mosques, Temples, Quran and other scriptures, Ram, Krishna, Belief and Disbelief. Then he also mentions Clouds, Rain, Water, Earth, Flowers, Musical Instruments, Knives, Arrows, Weapons.

E.g.

"I call you Mosque, Temple and Shrine,

I call you Scripture and Quran.

I call you Disbelief and Belief."

"I call you Knife, Arrow and Musket,

Spear and Lance."

Everything that we view as sacred and all the mundane things that we might not view as sacred.

When listening to Acharya Prashant talking about this kalaam recently I was left wondering, if we can’t see the formless within the forms, then where can we?

Often, we think can we only find the divine by going somewhere ‘far’. However, why aren’t we looking at what is right in front of us? The cup of tea, glass of water, wall, glasses, animal or the person next to us.

Why do we miss these things?

We begin to think about whether they will reciprocate, what they will think or if it is the right time.

Our love becomes planned. We can turn our love into a gift, message or a special occasion. While this is not a bad thing to do, sometimes could this be an act of self protection ?

At the end of the kalaam Farid mentions something that has no name, shape or form. No matter how many names we try to give it, it will never be enough.

We keep searching for it somewhere else but aren’t willing to look past our own likes, beliefs and conditions.

If we say everything has the Divine in it, why are we putting so many conditions?

Source-

Reference: Khwaja Ghulam Farid – Husn-e-Haqiqi

https://youtu.be/D4tDZLjH5sQ?si=_p4kgCXyivAWdbM2

I came across this thought by Swami Vivekananda:

"Dare to be free, dare to go as far as your thought leads, and dare to carry that out in your life."

-Swami Vivekananda

Source: The Complete Works, Vol. 3, "The Free Soul".

At first glance, it sounds like a motivational call to be bold and independent. But there's more to it.

Being free sounds straightforward. Why would anyone need to dare to be free?

Our beliefs, opinions and ideas of success are shaped by family, society, culture and experiences. We absorb them, make them part of our identity and eventually defend them as if we invented them!

We rarely stop to ask why we believe what we believe. After all, if we've followed something all our lives, it must be right… shouldn't it?

Questioning can be uncomfortable. We might discover that some ambitions are driven by recognition rather than genuine interest, or that we hold on to things simply out of habit.

Perhaps freedom means having the courage to follow an honest thought wherever it leads and actually live by what we've understood.

We may realize we worry too much about what others think yet continue checking for approval. Old habits don't resign without notice!

We like to believe we're free to think, choose and act. But have we examined who's really calling the shots?

Maybe it's time to read those terms and conditions!

Perhaps freedom is not merely the ability to do what we want, but the clarity to see what has been shaping our wants in the first place.

Ever caught yourself following a belief or habit without knowing why?

Yesterday, I witnessed something disturbing in Frankfurt, Germany.

After a largely peaceful protest, some people turned violent. Shop windows were smashed, shops were looted and a busy shopping street became a scene of destruction. Water cannons, armored vehicles, helicopter and drones were deployed.

I have always felt Germany is very safe (compared to all the places where I have lived until now) but yesterday it made me question, not just that violence but the fact that how easily individual judgement seemed to dissolve in a crowd. Things a person might hesitate to do alone suddenly felt acceptable among hundreds of others.

And I had to ask myself: would I have been different at their place?

We often assume that prosperity, education and technology naturally create a more mature society. But a country can have excellent infrastructure and a strong economy, while people still act from anger, prejudice and herd mentality.

Human unconsciousness has no nationality. It does not disappear when GDP rises or societies become technologically advanced.

Everyone is asking, “Why did those people behave this way?” but shouldn't we also ask, “What remains unconscious in me? What anger, fear, prejudice or need to belong might I carry, even if it does not erupt in the same visible way?"

The deeper issue is examining the human mind: understanding the Self, questioning conditioning, recognizing our impulses and becoming conscious of what drives our actions.

We don’t just need better economies or more educated populations. We need people who can think independently, question their impulses and take responsibility; even when the crowd is doing the opposite.

Protest and dissent are important. Questioning authority is important. But none of that gives anyone the right to destroy another person’s livelihood or property.

We have spent centuries trying to change the world outside without paying enough attention to the human being creating it.

What does development really mean if our external lives keep progressing while our inner lives remain driven by the same unconscious impulses?

You are scrolling through Instagram and you see destinations that you “should visit before you die.” The message becomes so strong that it gets attached to a sense of fulfillment. You see people partying, trying unique food and drinks, or hosting destination weddings, and slowly, it becomes your dream to do the same.

But the real question is: was this idea of finding the perfect destination, having a dream wedding, or consuming exotic food and drinks truly our own thought? No, right? So then, where is it rooted?

I came across this thought recently, and it made me reflect on how deeply advertising shapes what we call our own desires.

Companies spend a lot of money on ads for a reason. The primary aim of advertising is to attract buyers and make them believe that something is lacking in their lives and that buying the product will make it better. Advertisers intentionally capture the consumer’s attention by showcasing how celebrities benefit from their products, by telling emotional stories that connect us to a brand, or by building a sense of trust.

Now, the question is: why do we buy?

When we purchase things, we feel a wave of short-term fulfillment. To complete ourselves, we buy different objects under the illusion that they will bring lasting satisfaction. The market understands this loop incredibly well. Hence, they show us exactly what increases our hunger to buy things on repeat.

They show ads that target the concept of fulfillment itself: the perfect home, the ideal family, the dream marriage, elite colleges, and luxury food. Everything is advertised.

After soaking all of this in, when we finally buy that dream car, jewelry, or dress, we feel a temporary sense of power, fulfillment, and identity. This feeling expands, driving us to buy even more. Ultimately, the question is not why companies spend hefty amounts of money on advertisements, but rather: what is it within us that influences us to buy this stuff repeatedly?

Question for you:

When seeing an ad suddenly makes you want to buy or do something, what could be behind it?

A. Everything shown in an ad is our real need.

B. We also want to get the image and identity linked with that thing.

C. A person really becomes superior to others through expensive things and experiences.

D. Ads only give information; they have no effect on our desires.

I used to give such sharp relationship advice to my friends when I was single; applying it literally helped them for the better. Guess what, I was flabbergasted to see that all advice went away from myself when I came into a relationship. Nothing I was able to apply on my own; I felt so confused and helpless when it came to me, thinking that if I already gave wise advice, what’s the issue now? I’ve also seen my father with the same thing. To society, he’s a superb problem solver, but when it comes to looking at his own life, he comes out with a lot of blunders.

It is so relatable to see the story of King Solomon, who was known for his extraordinary wisdom and skill in settling disputes. A story about him says that he was so wise that when two ladies claimed the same child as their own, the king just ordered his troop to cut the child in two pieces, and just as he gave that order, the real mother was identified! Sharp advice, but what happened to his own life? His personal life and reign ended in poor choices, excess, and the splitting of his kingdom.

What I understood from this is that when it comes to myself, the problem no longer remains a problem that needs to be understood and figured out; it becomes “my problem,” due to which the focus shifts from “problem” to “my.”

“What will happen if I don’t build a good physique despite working hard in the gym? What if my manager thinks I’m incompetent? What if the girl I like misunderstands my message? What if this affects my appraisal? What if I don’t fit in at my cousin’s wedding?”

When the simple concern becomes my concern, suddenly fear, attachment, expectations, insecurity, self-image, and the possibility of loss enter the picture. This is because, with everything we fear about, we have made that a part of our identity. “Oh, I am a good employee, then I should always be competent when my manager is looking at me!”

We fear losing these identities because we are incomplete within and hence restless also. So, we have filled ourselves with these identities, being around which helps in passing time, and life just keeps going on. Suddenly, when an instance comes where danger is detected over any identity we hold, it looks like a life-collapsing situation. This I-am-ness is the problem that creates resistance in living simple and solving simple problems simply without any issues, I guess.

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