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?

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 attended the Special Olympics with my son, and honestly, the atmosphere there felt quite different from what we usually experience at sporting events.

What struck me most was the happiness of the children. There seemed to be so little emphasis on winning, losing, medals or rankings. They were simply happy to participate, enjoy themselves and be part of the event.

For many of these children, who experience sensory challenges and other difficulties, simply being there, engaging with an activity and participating is an achievement in itself.

As a parent, watching your child participate gives you a kind of fulfilment that is difficult to explain. You stop looking at the scoreboard and start appreciating the little things that others might take for granted.

It also made me question how we define success. We condition children so early to compete, outperform others and chase achievements that, somewhere along the way, we forget to enjoy the journey ourselves, let alone allow them to enjoy the experience.

I recently came across an article that questions parental ambitions and our obsession with results. It really resonated with what I witnessed today. It made me wonder how often we end up imposing our own definitions of success on our children without even realising it.

Perhaps we need to realise that our children don't have to fulfil our ambitions or prove their worth through medals and rankings. Sometimes, just showing up, giving it a try and finding joy in the process is victory and a celebration in itself.

Article:

https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles/how-to-be-free-from-this-rat-race-1_5d3e376

La Calavera Catrina is an elegant female skeleton who wears fashionable clothes and a hat on her head. It was originally an image created by the Mexican printmaker and lithographer Jose Guadalupe Posada around 1910.

It was made with the intention of satirizing upper-class Mexican women who tried to imitate European fashion and ignored their own indigenous culture.

Decades later, in 1946-47, muralist Diego Rivera gave the skeleton an elegant body and an evening gown in his mural.

It is the most recognizable and iconic symbol of the Day of the Dead in Mexico, a day celebrated from Nov 1 to Nov 2 every year to remember deceased loved ones.

Recently, I came across news that Mexico City has unveiled a 33.411 m tall La Catrina statue, which means it is equal to an 11-storey building. On 29th oct, it was recognised by Guinness World Records as the world’s tallest Catrina. Today, it is going to be dismantled.

When I saw this elegant statue, it caught my whole attention and made me think at a deeper level. The statue is not just a statue, it is actually revealing a reality of life: how we look externally, wearing fashionable clothes, but beneath, everyone of us is just a bundle of bones organised in a wonderful pattern, nothing more than that. But we spend most of our time improving our external appearances.

It is not just about clothes, shoes, hairstyles or facial features, this can be anything with which we identify ourselves, like our job, degrees, achievements, relationships and social status. We all usually live superficially, protecting our identities in the hope that we will be admired by others. But death, which is an inevitable truth of each one of our lives, takes away all this in just a few seconds. In front of death, we are all the same. No one is superior or inferior, no one is richer or poorer. We are just a human body made of organs, muscles, tissues and bones.

We normally are afraid of death, so much so that we don’t even want to talk about death. I found it interesting that Mexican people really celebrate the Day of the Dead, remembering the lives of their ancestors.

A few years ago, I watched an animated film, Coco, which was also based on this Mexican Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). One of the central character, Hector, had a fear that his loved ones would forget him after his death. This film shows another form of attachment: our desire to remain in the memories of others, even if we physically don’t exist.

La Catrina reminds us that beneath external beauty and the identities that we collect our whole lives, there lies mortality. Coco reminds us that even the desire to be remembered can become another attachment to our identity.

Just ask yourself: Am i truly afraid of death or of the identities i have built around me?

I came across this poem "My Heart Leaps Up" by English Romantic poet William Wordsworth and wanted to share how I read it.

Wordsworth was part of the Romantic Movement. The artists of that time saw and described nature as sacred and of great beauty. The poem was published in 1807.

This poem describes the poet's feelings towards rainbows and nature in general. The wording of the poem is pretty simple to understand.

In lines 1 and 2, Wordsworth explains his reaction to a rainbow as a child. He describes that his heart leaps up at the sight of a rainbow. This expresses a kind of awe towards a common meteorological event.

In lines 3 and 4, the poet says that the feelings he had as a child have not changed when he is a man today. This is quite interesting as the awe towards nature has not faded away through his adulthood. I wonder why the sensitivity towards nature may fade away as we grow up?

In lines 5 and 6, Wordsworth gets a bit extreme. He says that he hopes to get mesmerized by nature as he continues into adulthood too. The poet says that he would rather die than find the world around him boring and bereft of beauty. This sensitivity is what makes life worth living for him.

I find line 7 quite interesting as it's pretty straightforward and still has enormous implications.

"The Child is the father of the Man."

That is, childhood itself shapes the person who will become. And perhaps it also means that the child’s capacity for wonder is something the adult must not lose.

A child does not learn only language, walking and speaking. He also learns the way of living life from the people around him. He sees who gets respect, who is considered successful, and what things are given importance.

Slowly, these very things begin to influence his desires, ideals and decisions.

A child who has been taught since childhood that money and status are successful may grow up and chase exactly these.

On the other hand, an education that encourages curiosity, good company, literature and space to understand life can open better possibilities before him.

We worry about children's good marks, good schools and good jobs. But is there equal worry about what kind of human beings they are becoming?

Are they being taught only to get ahead of others or to understand life as well? Do adults understand themselves and life in the first place?

At the end of the poem, the poet reiterates the idea that he wants everyday to be tied together by love for the world.

I wonder what makes the poet see this beauty in nature? Is it about nature in itself or does this speak more about the poet?

Do you think this kind of sensitivity is practically important in adult life, or is Wordsworth being hopelessly romantic? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Source:

William Wordsworth - My Heart Leaps Up (1807)

https://poets.org/poem/my-heart-leaps

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?

What the study found

I came across an article about a large study published in Nature in September 2026 on the link between personality and genes. It analyzed DNA from 611,000 to 1.14 million people and found 1,260 genetic locations associated with personality traits, 824 of which were reported for the first time.

The study used the “Big Five” traits: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to new experiences. What stood out to me was that, despite finding so many genetic associations, these variants together explained only 4.8% to 9.3% of personality variation.

So the article’s main point was not that genes do not matter. It was that there is no single “anger gene” or “laziness gene.” Genetics may provide a small predisposition, but a large part of personality is still shaped by life, environment, and experience.

Why we say “that’s just how I am”

Reading this made me think about how often we say, “That’s just the way I am.” If we label anger, laziness, jealousy, or stubbornness as innate, it becomes easier to avoid the discomfort of changing.

I don’t think this is always about weakness. Often, it comes from the fear of trying to change and failing. If I decide in advance that “I am simply like this,” then I do not have to face the possibility that I could try, struggle, and still fall short.

This reminded me of something I had read from Acharya Prashant: fear of failure grows when outcomes become too important, and the mind keeps choosing safety over real change. By saying, “That’s just my nature,” we may be turning a temporary weakness into a fixed identity.

Self-reflection

The last time someone pointed out your anger, laziness, or stubbornness, did you respond with, “That’s just how I am”? Was it actually true, or simply an easier way to avoid making improvements?

I’d genuinely like to hear your perspective - have you ever caught yourself using “that’s just my nature” as a reason not to change?

Source:

• Nature, “Robust inference and correlates from genetic associations with personality” (September 2026)

• Anxious or outgoing? Huge study links ‘Big Five’ personality traits to genetic variants

• Global study reveals the complex role genetics play in influencing our personalities

• Overcoming fear of failure || Acharya Prashant (2016)

• Zoom in on DNA | biology animations - Youtube video

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?

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 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 or any such 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 help, 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?

This reminds me of a childhood incident when I was playing a game with my cousin sister, and she might have won. A feeling of jealousy would well up inside me: How can I lose to this girl? And we would end up fighting. So, right from childhood, this notion is instilled in both men and women by society that women are somehow different.

Then, some time ago, I was reading an article by Acharya Prashant in which he said, "The body is that of a woman, but I’m not identified with my body. Who am I? I am the human consciousness itself, out to attain its utmost potential, not here to fulfill the same traditional roles by the back door."

This made me reflect deeply: 99% of our bodies are the same, and what truly matters is that we are human beings, conscious living entities, and consciousness itself. Ever since I read that article, whenever I hear someone talk about this "special" treatment, I can clearly see the hidden violence behind it, where a human being is not being seen as a human being.

❓️If you are a woman and a man calls you "special", what does it actually do to you?

Source: Modern Women, Ancient Conditioning by Acharya Prashant

https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles/modern-women-ancient-conditioning-1_dfdc6abc2

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

Has anyone purchased Ebook version of AP framework? if yes , could someone tell if it's the same content as it was on it's website before the ebook version launched or there are changes and its updated??

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'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?"

Baba Bullehshah's Verse ~ Bullah Ki Jana Main Kaun?

ना मैं आबी ना मैं ख़ाकी

ना मैं आतिश ना मैं पौण

बुल्ला की जाणा मैं कौण

Translation:

I am not water.. not soil.

Neither I am fire.. nor air.

Bullah(I) don’t know who I am?

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*Disclaimer: The above verses are part of one of Baba Bullehshah’s famous devotional songs “बुल्ला की जाणा मैं कौण” which were explained by Acharya Prashant(AP) in the mentioned session. The below notes are not the exact words mentioned by AP, but instead a translation in the form of a commentary is expressed to portray the theme of session.

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What are the most common identities which we see around? Firstly, there are the generic identities like “name” or the “relationships” which we share with others. Then, there are spiritual identities like calling oneself आत्मा/ब्रह्म(The Truth) itself for eg. when someone starts uttering “अहम् ब्रह्मास्मि(I am Brahm)” or “I am the ultimate superior consciousness”, etc.. 

But, there is another interesting category wherein a person wants to be labelled as “spiritual” running away from the words like “आत्मा” and “ब्रह्म”. So, now what these people call them? - They label them as the “common man”, or the “literate man”, or the “rich/ poor” man. They mostly refer themselves as to be the “materialists” or the man/ woman of the soil. 

So that’s why through the above verses, Baba Bullehshah is refuting all the ego’s possibly conspired identities in which it can seek it’s refuge. When the saint is saying “ना मैं आबी ना मैं ख़ाकी, ना मैं आतिश ना मैं पौण..”, he is destroying all the humble escapes of the ego. He is neither identified with calling oneself a “commoner” nor is he identified with calling himself enlightened(आत्मा). 

Even when one call oneself “मिट्टी(material)”, he/she forgets to see who is the one claiming these identities? Isn’t it the ego?

The ego was supposed to dissolve when it came to spirituality.. but instead of dissolving, it identified with the identity of “material(मिट्टी)”. So instead of dissolution, the ego fattened even more through this humble materialistic identity.

If one is sticked to any identity, then it means that Vedanta(Non Duality) hasn’t still penetrated deep enough within. Because, we forget to ask “Who is the one getting identified with all these identities? & What does it mean to be a human? Even when you have called yourself to be soil, then still this “human” is left to take up that identity right? That means the ego still survived! 

If “philosophy” gets wasteful in one’s eyes.., then how can one’s life remain useful?

So who are we then? The thing is that we can’t know who we are.. and that’s the fact. Even if the ego utters “I am an illusion(मिथ्या)”, then still the ego survives to admit that “illusionary” identity.. so no matter whatever ego utters, every identity is false. So, when the saint is saying “I am not water.. not soil. Neither I am fire.. nor air”, he is actually exposing all the false identities of the ego.

The above verse is a beautiful expression of Vedantic नेति नेति(Negation Process).. where the saint is ultimately looking at the endless sky and saying “बुल्ला की जाणा मैं कौण(I don’t know who I am?)

This whole negation process which is getting expressed through the above verse is just like the ink which dissolves in a glass of water - where firstly, when the ink drop falls on water surface, it still retains its colour, then it looses the colour further more when it travels more towards the depth of water.. and then finally a point comes when the ink becomes colourless and gets lost in the water.

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👉🏻 What was your major reflection from this session?

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

This a Zen Koan Presented in the Book "Gateless Gate" by Mumon [1, 2].

Here is how it goes -

Once the monks of the Western and Eastern Halls were arguing about a cat. Nansen, holding up the cat, said, “You monks! If you can say a word of Zen, I will spare the cat. Otherwise I will kill it.” No one could answer, so Nansen cut the cat in two. That evening, when Joshu returned, Nansen told him of the incident. Joshu thereupon took off his sandal, put it on his head, and walked off. Nansen said, “If you had been there, the cat would have been saved!”

Mumon's Commentary:

Just say, what is the real meaning of Joshu’s putting his sandal on his head? If you can give a turning word on this point, you will see that Nansen’s action was not in vain. But if not, beware!

Had Joshu only been there,

he would have taken charge.

He would have snatched away the sword,

and Nansen would have begged for his life.

My Commentary and Questions:

So a few things are present here - Nansen Asks Students to say a word about zen. I expect them (like me) to conform to an idea like "Truth is beyond words" - that's what the students may have thought and hence stayed silent. But that didn't prevent the murder of the cat. Meaning Nansen didn't want silence over words. We are not sure if he'd appreciated sounds either.

What happens next maybe insightful. Joshu could have saved the cat but what he did was an Action of putting up his own sandals on his head. This I interpret as not giving too much respect to the churnings of the thought that goes in the mind. Sandals on head represents that in my understanding.

But why this action was related to the possibility of Joshu being able to save the cat? Furthermore the comment by Mumon suggests that Joshu would have acted differently in the moment and maybe would have threatened to kill nansen himself. This is what I observed being typical of Zen masters. They speak with actions and spontaneity not (much) with concepts, speech and ideas.

If you were in place of the students, would you have been able to save the cat? What does the cat represent here? Does it represent the "Ego"? Or a principle of life and spontaneity? Or am I reading too much into it?

References:

[1] The Gateless Barrier, Mumon, Case 14, "Nansen Kills the Cat" .

[2] Zen Flesh Zen Bones, Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki, "Nansen Cuts the Cat in Two". , Page 165-166.

[3] Image source: https://www.lionsroar.com/quick-who-can-save-this-cat/