The smart and the intelligent

When our children were growing up my husband often suggested "why don't you read in  your spare time," and I would argue: “What do I get by reading?” 

I was very crude and stubborn person. I still am in many cases, but I’m a reader now and have travelled a few countries. Having seen many places and meeting with people of various faiths and cultures have broaden my view of life. Now I know we don't read only to "get" something!

However, through my experiences I’ve also learned that intelligent people are harder to manage than the smart ones.

Smartness is not born with, intelligent is in many ways Why?

Because experiences makes people smart (e.g., street smart). Smart is a knowledge that helps people to survive in certain situations. Intelligent, on the other hand, is the innate ability to figure out things faster and solve problems quicker. People are born with intelligence, while smartness is a learned behaviour.

Although intelligent people learn faster than the smarter ones, they  change only when they want!

History repeats, definitely!

On my mother’s visit, we talked a lot about our past, as most mother and daughter do. We talked how brave she was to take care of the land my parents had, their big house and 6 children, among others. It was her sending all of us to school, giving in marriage and made sure we all lived in our own house, while my father lived part of the year in another province when we were young and then kept busy soul searching for him own peace. There’s no denying my mother’s contributions to the family, but I was amazed hearing the repeat from my mother’s mouth, especially because she never self-praised or believed in self-pity when I was growing up.

I was doing what my mother was doing during the last few months. I guess, it’s part of my own growing up too! Realization of we can’t do what we did earlier years make us feel vulnerable. Recounting our past achievements gives us some comfort.   

So, I scanned my past and revaluated my life, my husband and our children. I found my family outwardly beautiful and inwardly wonderful human being. They’re educated, humble and very modest. They’re courageous to ‘swim on the uncharted water’, which seemed like failure at the time!

We’re educated, have-seen people and places. But we’re parents! We acted as all other parents acted upon their children’s unconventional career choices.  On the one hand, we praised those who were doing something different, on the other hand we scolded our own children for wanting to take different paths from their pears. We thought only formal education guarantees our children’s future. 

I know our children may not become the Gates or Jobs, but they’re not a regular persons running to meet the deadlines like other children do. Most children live a routine pattern—school, job, marriage, home, saving, retirement, and look after their grandchildren—a path that starts from their birth and ends at death. No risk taking ability, no extraordinary venture or excitements in life. Everything planned and secured, so their parents can rest assured!

But that’s not how my husband and I lived. Looking back, we took so many risks and did  a lot of things our siblings didn’t do. For example, we were first to marry unknown person, moved to a totally new country, learned new cultures and mixed up with so many cultural groups. We raised  our children our ways, didn’t impose our parents’ culture or faith on them. 

A lot of ladies of my time didn’t go back to school after their marriage, I did. I not only went back for graduate school but worked for a few years, secured a small pension and wrote books on my 50s!  I read a lot of materials most ladies of my age can’t even imagine reading and I do some crazy stuff to my own amusement! I know my  mother was a courageous lady, but couldn’t do a lot of things she wanted. Her time was different, but she took so many risks and was proud of herself.  I always thought I was very different from mother, but I guess history does repeat! It’s the feeling I never had before.

Nirvana is not possible

Many religious epics say do this and that to get moksha or nirvana. Moksha or nirvana is their final goal. They believe that once they crossover the "other" side, they will not have to go through the birth and death cycle  and suffer anymore. In their mind nirvana is an idyllic place where there is no suffering.


But such place can't coexist when you believe the god/goddess created this world. If god/goddess created this world, he/she would want someone to take care of it. Nobody would design a thing so fondly and watch it destroyed!

If you're nonegodbeliever (atheist) still fact wouldn't change. For example, if the world is evolving all the time as the physicists argue, then all living being would be evolving also. Nothing would stay in the same physical form--water evaporates and forms cloud, cloud melts and comes down as rain, rain freezes and becomes ice.... Similarly, rock turns to sand and sand collects more sand and turns to rock.

Human being may look a bit different physically or mentally because of our experiences and changing environment, but we don't become extinct!

Remembering the cousin I lost

Today is the brother "worshipping" day in Nepal. Formally this day is called the "Bhai Tika" day. Since the Nepalese are spread out all over the world in this very globalised world, the tradition of celebrating Bhai Tika has come in Canada, too.

But my family doesn't follow the tradition. We left Nepal a long time ago and lived in the societies where there were no other Nepalese until fairly recently. Besides, we didn't follow many of the traditions even in Nepal.  So, not worshiping doesn't make me sad, but I do make a point of remembering all the brothers I did worshipped when I was in Nepal on this very auspicious day.

As usual, I called my brother--the one I was paired with by my parents--last night. I call this brother "Mailodai". While talking with Mailodai and wishing him longevity and wellbeing, a cousin's name came out of my mouth, suddenly. Since this cousin didn't have his own sister, I used to take him as my own brother and bless him on this day, also.

Unfortunately, this cousin died of cancer about 5 years ago.  I had not talked about him with other brothers  on this day. Why did his name came to me yesterday? I felt a bit uneasy after we ended out conversation with Mailodai last night!

Then, this morning I send my blessing to another brother of mine who lives in California. This brother I adopted when I was in my teen age. By this time my cousin brother had adopted another sister. So, we both had new brother and new sister for Bhai Tika.

I've a few other cousin brothers also, but I wasn't as close with them as I was with this one. This cousin was only 6 hours younger to me and we did so many things together. Later when we grew up, he took me around the town in his motorcycle and made other ladies of my age very jealous!

So, what made my cousin take another sister? And, why did my "new" brother asked me to adopt him? These questions came to my mind for the first time this morning after all these years.

The truth was, my cousin was forced to adopt the other sister by his father, my uncle. My uncle thought my cousin would benefit from the new sister because her social status was much higher than mine.

But as the saying goes: God works mysteriously, my cousin came to England in his early 20s, and his adopted sister stayed in Nepal. On the other hand, I came to Canada and my adopted brother moved to the US. This brother of mine was also my husband 's classmate in college.

So, we're in contact with this brother and his wonderful wife. We're making two week's cruse in Europe together. His wife and my husband are as excited as my adopted brother and I are!  All of us are really looking forward to this trip together.

AD, CE, BCE, BC and the "c" Explained

For the longest time I kept myself from remembering what all these abbreviations stand for. BC was the easiest to remember since it was directly connoted with Jesus Christ, but my brain couldn't clearly file the meaning of all others even after reading numerous times!


Yesterday I decided I'm going to end the confusions, and now  here is the way I understand them:


AD literally means "Anno Domini" in Latin language. Anno Domini translated to The Year of the Lord or In the Year of Jesus Christ. So, if the Christ lived for 33 years, the AD means during the 33 years when Christ lived, rest of the abbreviations stand for either before the Christ time or after.


But what is confusing to me is the use of the CE and AD interchangeably. They're two very different abbreviations, why are they treated as the same?


Because, we've gotten so conscious of other religions around the world and want to avoid using a particular religious reference. So, we write CE or BCE to indicate the year something had happened.

Then, there is the "c" written in small letter. Sometime that c becomes "ca". These are also the Latin words. These words come handy when we don't know the exact date of something happened in the past.


So, the CE means "common era" in English. BCE stands for "before the common era". And,  the "c" represents approximate era to indicate we don't know the exact date!


Unlike the other abbreviations (BC, BCE, AD, and CE), c is written before the year. For example, c.400 BCE means 400 years before the common era--copied from the source below.


Now the fun part:


Do you know there are more than a few different calendars that started in different times, in different parts of the world, and written in different languages? Here are a few of them:

Julian Calendar...
Hebrew Calendar. ...
Hijri Calendar. ...
Iranian Muslim Calendar. ...
Buddhist Calendar. ...
Nepal Sambat, Vikram Samvat, Shaka Samvat ...
Japanese Calendar. ...
Chinese Calendars,
and many others...


While the Gregorian Calendar is the most widely used in the Western World today, many other traditional calendars continue to be important in other regions. Some of these calendars are based the Sun (solar), some on the Moon (lunar), and some are based on both (lunisolar).  

Sources: Worldatlas, Wikipedia common, and the Khan Academy (Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker.

You can't change others

For years I kept trying to change some of the people in my circle only to get frustrated at the end. I thought they could use some of my wisdom that was derived from my years of experiences--being with the people of various races and backgrounds. My experiences have helped me change my views of the world drastically. I thought those people who I think are lacking integrity and empathy could learn some of the "mannerism" for their own wellbeing, I thought.


In my mission to 'change' others, I lost quite a few hours for a quite few years. I must have gotten older a few years in this mission of mine. I had frustrated me also to see someone doing the same old nuisance again and again. "


Finally, with the help of someone and the literatures I read, I think I got the answers now.

I've realised that we can't change others since everything people do come from within themselves--presumably from their mind, they themselves consciously have to seek for change. Nobody can change their mind for them!


I'm a Gemini. I love to share things--whatever I've, so I was offering my unsolicited advise to people. But I didn't know that people come to this world with their own past "sanskar" to live the life they had built in past life. They inner-ears can't hear me, or anyone else, in that matter. They will hear what they need to hear and will do exactly that!


My new found wisdom has released me from thinking about others and try changing them :-) 

The Have and have-not are not equal

My mother used to say “hune ra nhune lagdaina joda”. In English it translates to "the haves can’t compete with the have-nots".

I see that true in every field I look at. I see it in financial sector,  in knowledge, in looks, in experience, in skills, and so on.

Although these are natural phenomena and and existed always, realisation of this phenomena stunned me this afternoon after reading a few stories that were heart achingly terrible!

Dreams are explained!

I woke up from an incessant laugh in my dream this morning. I found a couple of my toes bended backward that pained me when I tried straightened up quickly. I was petrified.

It wasn’t that my toes pained me, it was the thought of me laughing in my dream that sent a cold chill in my spine!

My bended toes were not the problem, they slowly straightened up and I was fine after a few minutes. But the superstition I grew up with was my problem.

You see I grew up hearing we shouldn’t do a lot of things. I was told that our dreams are future messages, but these messages are presented backwardly to us. For example, if we see someone sad, that person’s good time is coming. If we see someone in a clean attractive outfit and looks happy, that person is going to get ill or his/her misfortune is coming.

Not showing our joy in the public was another thing we were well versed on. For instance, we were told that we shouldn’t show our emotions in the public. Being happy is sort of crime—not just in mine but many other cultures. 

Our societies expects us to keep the good news to ourselves and share our problems. Because they don’t want to jinx their good luck and attract bad one!

Despite the fact that happy people spread good vibration—happiness is contiguous—we continue preaching to hold our happiness within ourselves.

In a recent UC Davis study finds that happy adolescents commit less crime and take less drug. In another study Vivian Moussa writes for Odyssey (March 2018): 

 “People are accustomed to things not going a certain way, and quite frankly, our generation is full of complainers. We like to talk about every little thing that seems to be going wrong in our lives, and then when someone is actually happy with how their life is going, we suddenly don't know how to react.” 

In many culture we’re—especially  the girls—are taught to be modest and that may be for a good reason. But showing only the Sad faces and hiding Happy faces has created distrustful  society.

The Law of Cause and Effect

My car got hit by a taxi from the second-lane a few weeks ago. With God’s grace, nothing happen to me, but our car is totalled. Since I was making the left turn, I got the ticket of $172.50 which I paid without any.

Accidents happens. Nobody consciously wants to make an accident. It just happens, and I don’t know it has anything to do with the God/Goddess or  by the power of the Law of Attraction. Car accident happens every second of a day, if not in this town somewhere else. It’s not a big issue considering our fast-track mobile-world that we’re living today! Besides, our insurance paid us more money than our car was worth.

This accident made me ponder a few serious issues: If our car was irreparable, what or who saved my life? If I had died or seriously injured, what would have my husband do? What would have our children said to their dad? What would have others made out of the accident?

My husband was seriously thinking of retiring four years ago. With that thought, we sold our house, my husband took one year of sabbatical leave and we moved our residence to Ottawa, Ontario. But my husband decided to postpone his retirement for a few more years, and we returned to our old town after one year.

Accidents are bad. They’re risky of life, reputation and money. But this accident has taught us so many things. Our whole outlook in life has changed:

1) We walk more now and enjoy the fresh air—probably got healthier

2) We  don’t feel “pity” on those who doesn’t have a vehicle—we did before

3) We discovered the local shops and restaurant—appreciate our surrounding more

4) We now think vehicle is a luxury, not a must have thing—learned to appreciate vehicles

5) We learned that driving is a privilege, rather than a birth-right—learned to appreciate our luck

6) Learned to be less “cynical” to those who have expensive vehicle.

Our car was perfectly fine, but since we’ve to make frequent long-distance trips from home to work and vice versa, we thought of trading our car with a new more luxury one last year. Then, we noticed our colleagues were purchasing expensive cars and bragging about them. We didn’t like that, and we postponed our car purchase for two more years. 

Now, we’re forced to buy a car urgently since the winter is approaching very soon. Living in a country which gets cold half of the year, we can’t do without a car at our age. So, we looked and searched for a sturdy car that drives well and gives us a good gas millage with open-mind. The dilemma for us is that we’ve only 10 or 15 good driving years, and this is our opportunity to purchase a car we like. Financially also, we can afford an expensive car. So, what are we to do?

Purchasing an expensive car means violating our own philosophy. All these years we talked about people who paid a hefty sum for a car they couldn’t afford, just so they could “show-offs”. We gave examples of the business tycoons such as Zuckerberg and Buffet and said they drive 30 or 40 thousands car. We didn’t know that some people purchase expensive cars for “legitimate” reasons, also!

Every cause has an effect, and every effect has a cause.

Leadership is an art

For years I took "leadership" as a title that comes with certain skills and seniority. I thought it was a title to which junior employees report or listen to.

Leadership was nothing like that! Just because someone report to, or compelled to listen to, doesn't make the person a leader. No one suddenly becomes a leader once he/she reaches a certain status or pay grade. Leadership title doesn't come with an authority, control or seniority, either!

Leadership is an art of persuasion (Max DePree).   A true leader motivate people to do much more than they ever thought possible in pursuit of a greater good.

A true leader influences others to be the best. Leadership is about social influence and confidence, springing out of EQ (emotional quotient/intelligence) and IQ (emotional quotient/intelligence).

Ocean of emotion--Bob Proctor

The little kid inside of a grown man

My husband suddenly paused eating and didn’t make conversation with me this evening.  I noticed him looking lost. He seemed to be trying to find a way to say or do something. 

After observing him in that situation for a few minutes, I asked my husband what he was thinking about. He smiled, and told me:

 

“I’m trying to figure out how to avoid eating this awful food you’ve given to me without making you scold me back.”

 

My husband’s response made me laugh. I found his arguments so funny that I couldn’t stop laughing for at least ten minutes. 

 

For the first time in my entire life I saw the other side of my husband. I always thought he was strong, demanding, and got everything he wanted from me or anyone else. I never knew the little kid residing inside of him.

Culture and Character

Build your character not your personality. Character strong on at least one ethical ground, “ethical” such as “s/he doesn’t lie” or “we can count on her/his words” or “s/he can keep secrets,” are built into your character. These personal traits help others understand who you are and how they should treat you.

These traits are instilled in us by our family and also by our close circle of friends. These traits are later reinforced by the society in which we live. We carry these personal traits with us wherever we go. 

We also carry some outward character traits to which I call "personality traits". Traits such as giving, kind or politeness help us make our living because our societies like them.  Although, our societies are fooled time and time again by the people who carry these traits (the deceivers), the only way to find out who they are is to deal with them and learn for the future.

Personality traits and Character traits sound like a person’s identity, but they’re not!

I see Cultures the same way: There are phony cultures and there are real ones. How do we know which one is which?

All cultures started with the “paganism”. Paganism is the oldest non-categorized, non-politicized and none manipulated religion in the world. This is the original  and most authentic religion in my opinion!

Pagan religion is based mainly on nature. Followers of paganism focus on nature and spirituality, not so much dogma and doctrines. 

Most literatures define paganism as “not one of the main religions,” because they only recognize events from the medieval period. But the human history didn’t start from the medieval period. Even with the “black hole” period, a lot had happen on the earth and some of them were recorded. Unfortunately, these records located outside of the Western world. Because of that the western literates rather ignore them!

Since religion is one of the major issues of cultural equation, I want to  establish a simple definition of religion before moving into what I want to say about a real culture and a phony ones. 

Most of the visual cultures posted on the FB are based on the phony religion which are based on certain gods/goddesses. These cultures are based on a lot of dogmas and doctrines.

But think about those personal traits for a minute. Do you like if somebody says something and does something else? Do you feel like going back to the person who deceives you not once but two or three times?

Similarly, why do my immigrant friends living with the “failed-culture” that you thought was not good for you? 

You left your birth country to start a brand new life in a “just” society where you and your family would make a better life. But if you build a society just like the one you left behind, what mission have you accomplished?

I termed failed culture because you youself have talked so much against your birth-country. You’ve said the people there being dishonest, family-values being broken up, politicians taking part in crimes and corruptions… 

Hypocrite maybe too strong word to call you, but how do I describe you if you've two standards: One for you and another for others to follow?  

7 habits of highly effective people

The meaning behind the Character Ethic and Personality Ethic is so compelling and profound for me. I had read Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits quite a few years ago and thought I had understood what they meant. But I had not!


I accidently opened THE site gain this morning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFc08j9eorQ and realized how much more there is for me to learn from Mr. Covey’s principles.


If you’re new to these principles, pay special attentions to his 4 quality of a good characteristic person under his Character Ethic category. However, you must read everything under his “Character” and “Personality” ethics to understand character ethics are rooted in a person’s character, while personality ethics are only seen on the surface but not under a person’s value system. This, I found as profound as the Law of Attraction is!


The four ethics under his Character Ethics are as follows:


#1. Integrity

#2. Humility

#3. Courage

#4. Modesty




Under the Personality Ethic, there are the:


#1. Public Image

#2. Social Interaction

#3. Appearance




While the personality ethic can be used to build your character, most people use them to manipulate others, which in the long run others will find out who the person is.


There are so much more you can learn from Mr. Covey’s principle than I can write here. I hope you visit the site and enjoy the presentation here. I do hope you chose to be the “Will Smith” and make this world better than what you were handed on before you leave .


Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFc08j9eorQ

Working to live or live to work?

There’s a man who works to live

Who works to live, he works to live!

There is a man who lives to work

Who lives to work, who lives to work!

There’s a man who loves to work

Who loves to work, who loves to work!

There’s a man who thinks he knows

Who thinks he knows!

There’s a man who believes he does

Who believes he does!

There’s a man who he thinks he is

Who he thinks he is!

There’s a man who forgets who he is 

Forgets who he is!

There’s a man who hates to quit

Who hates to quit!

There’s a man who’s overly hardwired, or

Ridgely programmed or ridgely programmed!

He thinks of the Gates and the Buffet

He thinks of the Chomsky, but not the Polansky!

There's a man with is own philosophy, 

who loves his work and lives to work!

Today's Seniors: The Prospects and Problems

Our government and the Canadian households are challenged by the burgeoning seniors’ population and their problems associated with them. For example, a Canadian survey in 2014 showed, over 6 million Canadians were aged 65 or older, representing 15.6 percent of Canada'spopulation. The survey predicts that 23 percent of the Canadianswill be seniors by the year 2030. Another study shows that loneliness/boredom is the number one concern with the elderlies. What can we do to tackle these problems and harness the prospect associated with our seniors?


Government of Canada has made every effort, ensuring that the seniors have access to information, services and benefits they need. But the seniors have many other needs, apart from the financial and healthcare benefits. Although, many seniors can't survive without the government's financial and healthcare benefits, they've other needs also. For example, studies shows that most of the seniors are bored and lonely. In today's nuclear family system, most senior can't expect to be looked after in their own home by their own family members. Invariably they end up taking refuse in some Centre when they reach to their end-of-life-cycle.


But most seniors are better off financially than the younger generation according to Maryalene LaPonsie who writes for the US News. Marylalene sites "In 2000, 45- to 54-year-olds topped the index, with 75 percent being financially secure. By 2014, that group dropped to 68 percent, while the score for 65- to 74-year-olds increased to 69 percent. The group with the lowest financial security is 25- to 34-year-olds, with only about half (56 percent) being financially secure in 2014".


So, today's seniors don't just impose problem on the younger generation, they bring job prospects for the young people also.


Furthermore, taking care of seniors shouldn't just be government's responsibility. The family members and the public at large need to remember their own responsibilities with regards to their seniors. Since both of these groups benefits from the seniors' saving and tax payments, government alone shouldn't be the one to blame for our elders' problems including their boredom and looniness.

Tracking down my ancestry

My father was aloof and didn’t share much about his past with us, his children. He didn’t talk about his family either. The few stories he shared with us were not pleasant and, since, his only sibling died when I was very young, I really didn’t know about his side of family until a few month ago.

I thought I didn't care about my parents’ root until a few months ago. Then, I got a chance to visit my father’s birthplace and discovered very intriguing family history:


My father’s great great-grandfather moved to Dhading from Gorkha destrict five generations ago. His name was Laxmi Nath Adhikari, but he is mostly known as the “jame budha” in Dhading. Jama means long skirt and budha means an old man in Nepali. So, if my father’s great great-grandfather wore long skirt, was tall and fair and his last name was “Adhikari”, there is a fair chance that he came from a Rajput family in central and northern ancient India.


I don’t know exactly what year my ancestor had left India, but it should have been during the Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India around 1500 AD. Since the Islamic rulers treated all the non-Muslims (Hindus, Buddhists and Jains) awfully and forced them to pay taxes or face the prosecution (if they wanted to keep their religious freedom in India), my Rajput ancestors must have fled to Nepal to avoid all that and to raise their family peacefully.


The fact that my father's last name is Adhikari could be another clue that my ancestors were the Rajputs.  Adhikari in Sanskrit means the one with power (adhikar) over someone of something. Since the Rajputs ruled some central and northern parts of ancient India, their descendants are called the “sons of the king” or Adhikari!


Another reason for me to think about my ancestors that was is that two of my great aunts lived in Tripureshwor, Kathmandu. Tripureshwor was already a fully developed town by the time I came to know these aunts. Since they lived inside the crowded allies, my great aunts were fair-skinned and delicate.

But my parents had moved to a suburb and won several plots of land. That meant we grew our own food, sun-dry some of them for later use when I was growing up.  So, when our  aunts visited us in the village they helped us sun-drying the grains and collect them from the straw-mats wearing their face masks.

Two other clues were that one of my father’s relatives lived in a palace-look house near Gorkha (the Shah Kings’ palace at the time). My mother said the family of this relative spoke the “palace-language” and lived luxuriously!

And, of course, my own father was raised by the “hajuria”. Hajuria is the title given to a king’s close-encounters or advisor. In my father’s case, his god-father played cards with the “second-king” of Nepal, Juddha Samsher Jungha Bahadur Rana.

The second clue is that my father’s family belong to Rishi Kashyap. Kashyap rishi was one of the seven original rishis who supposedly wrote many of the stories (hymns) for the Upanishads.

For example, it is believed that all Hindus are the off springs of the original seven rishis or “Saptarishis”. It is also the belief that our “gotra” tells us which rishi was our forefather, since gotra is the term used to indicate our family linage.

So, my father’s side of family came from the Rishi Kashyap and they carry Kashyap gotra. Knowing I could be the descended of Kashyaparishi and my ancestors may have ruled some parts of ancient India was pretty cool!

Past life connection

I’m very close to two younger ladies. One of them could be less than half of my age and another one could be a few decades younger. They’re hardworking, conscious and kind. I met them at a friend’s place a few years ago. I didn’t make special efforts to be their friend, they just like my company and I like theirs. Was I related to them in my previous life, I wonder?

One of them calls or texts me to say "good morning" or "good night" every single day. She shares her stories with me freely and offers her love and understanding to me also. With all the other people in her life, why me? I wonder why she put so much trust on me?

I’m a believer of past life connections and the notion of reincarnation.  I believe that people return to the earth to finish their unfinished business in their past life, or the  universe brings them back to keep the world go round and around. Either way, it proves that our soul never dies. It keeps returning to the earth and the cycle of birth and death continues.

When we think the birth and death cycle this way, we can understand why we meet with some people, like or dislike them, accept or reject them, etc. 

The notion of "karma" also makes sense when we think about the cycle of birth, death and the incidences in between these periods. Karma justify our fortune and misfortune. Karma explains why we think of the way we do. Karma also tells us why we meet someone and stick with that person even when we dislike that person so much. So much so, that some people refuse to give up their relationships with their husband or other family members, boyfriends, or whoever even after suspecting that they maybe murdered one day from their very hands! 

I think there are reasons for everything happening in my life or anyone else's in this matter. We're here in this world either to payback or to get paid. In another word, we're back to balance our accounts of our past life and create new ones for the next life. 

Life is a balance-sheet

My husband keeps his accounts balanced every single times.  For example, if he eats little too much the day before, he skips his breakfast the next day. If he goes to bed a little earlier than his usual bedtime, he wakes up earlier than usual time and goes to work. If he can't sleep at night, he gets up and start working on his paper, or whatever work is pending. If he is upset with an outsider, he takes his frustration out with an insider. If he is happy, he shows that too.  You know what I mean? His balance sheets are always balanced!

I was always amazed at my husband's ingenuity. He reads and watches a lot of motivational articles/shows to pump him up. So, I thought of watching a motivational show on how to get up early in the morning. 

My problem of getting up early morning wasn’t about waking up, it was about not going to  bed on time, the speaker on the show said.  "Sleeping has to be at the same time consistently every night," she emphasised. People can’t wakeup because they don’t go to bed early enough to give them enough sleep. "It's not the waking problem people have, it's the problem with their bedtime," she said confidently.

You see, our body needs only so many hours' sleep every day. Sleep hours differ from person to person, depending on the individual's needs, but people do wakeup after certain hours. Humans are built that way! 

This discovery helped me find an answer of my another question. I'm a bad sleeper. I feel that I've never gotten a good night's rest. I feel that my mind and ears are always active. So, when I wake up at night, I get anxious but stay in bed.

That was my problem number two! Sleep comes only when body is relaxed--I've known this for years. So, lying down in bed and hopping to fall asleep again meant not only I was losing sleep, but also losing time that I could have used to achieve something else. 

Moral of the story is life is a balance sheet. If our balance sheet doesn't balance, there is a good reason for it!  

"Life is a series of delicate balances. When one balance is lost, another must be found"
Source: Unknown

Our carryover life

My inner mind knows I can’t make everything I wand or desire happen for me or for anyone else.  Moreover, I see some truth in the saying:  “luck and wisdom go hand-on-hand”.  How else can we describe thousands of unexplainable incidences happening everywhere in this world? 

As much as I like to believe that luck is made with hard work and good attitude, there are the evidences that mental capacity of every normal baby is the same, but some of them know exactly who they want to become when they grow up, but others never can figure out. Why some of them seek others advice, while others hate to be told what to do? We’ve seen these phenomena among the children born and raised by the same parents in the  exact same environment.

There are so many why’s I can think of, but can’t explain. So, I know it’s not me to make my fate or anyone else. Still I worry sometime and lose several nights’ sleep.  This is life. In life we need to work, worry sometime and engage in good/bad karma to carryover to our next life.

Power of thoughts

Please don’t  remind me of my past 

Instead, tell me what I can do to change my tomorrow

Let me be pure soul, peaceful and full of love
Love me and show me that you care

Tell me that everything will be alright, again

Instead of telling me that everything is bad because of me!

Remind me that people are capable of changing

Remind me that people are capable of loving

Send me the positive vibration now and then, reminding me that

Good things are coming!

Don’t be hurt and prevent others from hurting me 

Send me the good vibration and I’ll send you mine

By accepting the way we’re,

Let’s change our destiny 

By changing some of our bad sanskars with the good ones

By doing all this, you’re creating your destiny, and 

I’m creating mine!

Feeling myself again

After going through a full circle of sadness, I’ve come back to myself now 

It’s hard to express how I felt all these years

Living with no hope and sadness everywhere

Then, I realized I can’t change my  past 

But I can my future if I try!

I’m reading a lot of literatures these days

Some are academic and lot are spiritual

They’ve given me some hope to change my future

Solving my problems are within my power

One-by-one I can make things right,
if I hold my thoughts and look at the bright side.

I started changing my thoughts, like the bulb I replaced today

The hallway was dark when we moved into its way

And remained the darkness for the last 25 days

Today I decided to replace the burnout bulb with the new one

It’s done now, no more darkness in our hallway!

Today I fixed the patio screen door in our balcony

It was off the track for the last few days

It came off the track when my husband tried opening it wider

He tried putting back the screen door, but couldn’t find a way

Today I decided to fix it, but I couldn’t the first three times

I pushed the door a little inside and put it back on its position

I did it with my persistence efforts and determination!

Our consciousness survives bodily death

Our consciousness is not created by our mind or made out of the physical materials, says Dr. Alexander, the American neurosurgeon and author.


I always believed there is a spirit-world that no sciences so far are able to explain. In fact, I had expressed my belief on these issues in my book “Longing to Belong: An Immigrant Woman’s Story”. The spirit texts are under the title, My Mother’s Visit.


Here is a piece on that topic in my book that I so passionately wrote: “…my attitude towards living and dying has changed after my mother’s death... In those early days of my mother’s passing I used to read a lot of “psychic connection” books. One of them was “Making the Psychic Connection,” by James Van Praagh. This book made me believe that I could actually connect with my mother’s spirit and talk with her if I developed certain psychic skills.


Dev and I used to discuss “spirit” things a lot in those days. He used to tell me, “If the spirits of all the deceased existed, where will they be? We’ll be living and breathing with the spirits; it’s not possible!” And, he used to give me all the statistics of the dead people in this world:


“Say, the average population of the world was 2 billion (there were fewer people living before our time) and about 10 percent of them died each year. It would be 200,000,000 dead people each year. Now, multiply this number by 4.5 billion (it is estimated that our world is 4.5 billion years old). How many spirits would be there?”

However, I had argued with him that our earth is only one of the many planets in the universe, and I have read that if we can achieve deeper levels of awareness, we can feel the presence of the spirits everywhere.

Moreover, I have witnessed the presences of spirit right at my parent’s home and had told him some of my experience of a family member’s spirit visiting me that I still remember vividly…

PS: Dev is my husband’s middle name. Since this book consists of my family-stories from both sides, I didn’t want to use his formal name.

Why me, why us?

I like to believe that the world I’m living in is designed by the God. If it was designed by a human, it would have been perfect, because humans are greedy. We’re opportunistic and always go for the best.


God, on the other hand, is unlike humans. He/She loves us all, and treats us all the same way. His/Her main purpose of creating this world with all the living being is to keep this world go around-and-round, never stall or end ever!


In the process of creating the world, first God created the earth with beautiful meadows with grass and brooks. He/She landscaped the land with low-hills with trees and shrubs and high-mountains with snow and icecaps Then, God added ponds and rivers in the dropped a few species of fish and see-animals. God also added some dense forests in earth and created small and large animals and birds to wonder around.


God, then, created humans and programmed their minds each differently. To some He/She gave a good mind, capable of making the right decisions every time. To others God gave not-so-clever mind to keep these human in confusions. God also created a few humans with bad mind. These bad-minded-humans occasionally create problems in the land they live in. God thought the world would progress and regress this way, never go to any extreme. After creating all these, God checked his world and made sure it isn’t imperfect.


I was born in this imperfect world in which I can eat whatever I like and chose to do what I please. There’s no restriction to anything here and no shortage to anything one wants to ponder. I gave birth to my children here. They believe they also have choices to eat what they like and act how they please until they watch this video below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnu8t51mVoU

Meaning of Gracefulness

I keep reminding myself that I should spend rest of my life being graceful. But the word “graceful” carries some attributional problems. These attributes are related to the outward look (physical), which is not what I would like to talk about.


So, I decided to search on google and I found this:

“But being graceful and living with grace mean that you put that grace before these other emotions because grace is much more important. It means gracefully letting things go that are not meant for you. It means going beyond your inclinations of trying to get the upper hand or revenge on someone who hurt you.”


I really liked the "letting things go.." part, but rest of the presentation--such as the God’s
grace and the unpredictable “energy” of women are not the answers I was searching for!


Source:

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/talk-about-graceMar 14, 2016

Parfit's Persons

Philosophy is just some logical arguments. Some of these are more logical than others, but they're arguments never-the-less. Some of these arguments  supports some events in the past--already proven to be true--and some may turn out to be true later in time. 

The question: 

"What makes a person the same person over time?" 

And the answers:

"A person is the sum of his or her hopes, fears, and past memories; nothing else really matters--but try telling that to the pauper".

According to the source, they both fall in the same category.


Source:
Mind and Metaphysics
30-Second Philosophies

The other side of Basu Sharma

It happened on the birthday of my soulmate, the trailblazer of our families from both sides, the first professor in Canada from Nepal, and the 2018 Award of Excellence winner, Basu Sharma!!!

My husband had been serving for the Atlantic School of Business for many years. He had chaired the conference three time and coordinated many projects for the association. For all his efforts and dedication, he was recognized a Big way last night.

A part of the citation read: “In 1997, 2005, and 2015 he was the conference chair. In 2004 Basu was one of the small group of people who “helped to anchor the fledgling executive, offering experience and deep knowledge of the association” and in 2006 he became our second ever President of ASB. Apart from ASB, Basu also served for two terms of the Executive of the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada in the late 1980s and helped to establish the Management Education Division…”.

Everybody thinks my husband is a true academic, but he has the “other side” they don’t know. They’ve not seen the child-like Sharma-boy!

I Remember You All

On the death anniversary of my mother-in-law, I'm remembering the three categories of people:

A good citizen who did her best to raise her children—one of which has been working hard and paying taxes to the countries he went/goes,

A woman who dedicated her entire life in making others understand what a real suffering feels like—so elegantly without showing her anger or frustrations,

And there the third category of people who live/lived their lives in anger, resentments and chose/choose a violent pathby the way of ignorance or by blaming others, or by cheating or even taking others’ life/ lives.

I remember you, but at different breaths.

Karma for people like me

This post is for people like me, who doesn’t believe in rituals but is hungry for knowledge about Karma.

"Do your duty, but do not concern yourself with the results," says Lord Krishna, according to Bhagwat Gita, verse 2.48.

Why does the lord say this? How can we motivate ourselves to do things if we can't even anticipate the enjoyment from the results? In an era where people need incentive to lift a finger, how will this work?

Lord's answers will surprise you, as they did me with these:
"A number of factors come into play in determining the results—our efforts, destiny (our past karmas), the will of God, the efforts of others, the cumulative karmas of the people involved, the place and situation (a matter of luck), etc. Now if we become anxious for results, we will experience anxiety whenever they are not according to our expectations. So Shree Krishna advises Arjun to give up concern for the results and instead focus solely on doing a good job. The fact is that when we are unconcerned about the results, we are able to focus entirely on our efforts, and the result is even better than before." These texts are copied directly from:
https://www.holy-bhagavad-gita.org/chapter/2/verse/47

BG 2.48: The verse is a very practical solution to the vicissitudes of life. If we are sailing in the ocean in a boat, it is natural to expect the waves of the ocean to shake the boat. If we get disturbed each time a wave rocks the boat, our miseries would be endless.And if we do not expect the waves to arise, we would be expecting the ocean to become something other than its natural self. Waves are an inseparable phenomenon of the ocean. Similarly, as we wade through the ocean of life, it throws up all kinds of waves that are beyond our control. If we keep struggling to eliminate negative situations, we will be unable to avoid unhappiness. But if we can learn to accept everything that comes our way, without sacrificing our best efforts, we will have surrendered to the will of God, and that will be true Yog.

Key points:

You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions. Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities, nor be attached to inaction.

On my brother's death anniversary

I grew up with my four siblings, my elder sister was married off by then. The one above me was the youngest among the three brothers. I called him Sanudai. He loved piquant chutney made from garden fresh tomatoes and herbs. So, golveda ko achar was his specialty when I was growing up.

Sanudai would often start making this achar with only a few ingredients, taste his creation by dipping one of his fingers in the sauce and savouring it on the tip of his tongue. Then, he would run to the garden and come with a few other items. By the time he finished his achar, he would make a few trips to the garden, add these new items in his achar and invent a totally new dish than when he started!

Someday sanudai roasted the cherry tomatoes in a mackkle (a coal-burning pot), half of which would be wasted—they would burst open in the fire and lose the precious juice. 

Other days, he would roast a few cloves of garlic and our kitchen would fill with garlicky smoke. Once he roasted the green chillies to go with his tomatoes. Unfortunately, everybody started coughing and my poor brother was scolded badly.😔 

But the point is whatever he did, at the end his golveda ko achar always turned out heavenly that we all loved!

Sanudai is gone, but his golveda ko achar is still in my tongue! This is one of the stories in my recipe book that I wanted to share publicly to honour him. As I edit this book, I'm thinking of him and missing terribly! Rest in peace my dear sanudai. I'm sure to meet you somedays! 💖

Immigrants' English

Immigrating to a new place means starting your life allover again. If you've migrated from a non-English-speaking country to a "English" country, it would mean learning to read, write and communicate in English, before you can look for a paid, or even unpaid job. This can take you years!

I was in such situation. I had a very limited vocabulary in my brain with regards to English language. I could read a little and write even less in English language. My communicability in English language would have been about three years old child's level.

It took nearly 30 years for me to be where I'm today. But my children think my English is not good enough. "You write immigrant-English, mom". People can tell you're not a native-speaker when you speak and definitely know you're not "born-in-Canadian" when they read your Facebook posts.

So, should I feel bad that I don't speak like my children do? Should I stop expressing myself because my English is not as good as an English woman can express?

I tell myself "No"! I try reasoning myself that language is just one medium of communication--just like the math, music and visual arts are. As long as my audience understands me, I should be fine.

I've many professional friends from abroad. Some of them have heavy accents and some don't. Even the ones without any noticeable accent are often asked "sorry, say it again?" The "whites" automatically assume people with colour can't speak English!

In my case, however, they have stopped asking me to repeat, and my husband says I speak better English than he does. 

You see, he came to USA as a graduate student. He came with a master's degree in Special English and he was teaching in the only university as a lecturer. His command in writing English had impressed the department-head a great deal in the US. But, yes, my husband does have a mild accent when he speaks English. 

On the other hand, I hadn't even completed my bachelor degree. I had to work very hard in learning to speak and write English. However, most of my speaking-English came from first-hand and on-the-job. This maybe the reason I've less accent when I speak!

My English maybe less perfect than my children's, but I've a lot more people's skills. I do a lot of things around my house and I'm interested in just about anything. This should compensate what I'm not. I should be able to live with this and keep in mind that there is a room for improvement--not just for my English but in all other aspects in my life.