Aren't they liars and hypocrites?

I met her last Saturday. I didn't know her before that. All I knew was that she was a grad student at CMU. I thought we had a candid conversation. I had a good first impression of her. She said she wanted to go with dating instead of an arranged marriage, though I would have expected otherwise of her, with her being the elder sibling and all; that she would try to be responsible and lead her brother with the currently popular and safe approach to a long and happy life. It's probably outdated in this generation, isn't it?

Indeed, I asked her if she found or is seeing someone. She gave me an answer that sounded like a NO to me, but just a few minutes ago, I saw proof that was a blaring 'YES' to my question. "Ha! Such liars!" was the first thought that came to my head as soon as I saw that scene. She was holding hands with a guy and was walking down the street. She didn't notice me, maybe because they walked past me and could only see my back, or because she was mentally lost in another world filled with maya-like happiness.

Anyway, having been in the same situation around a year ago, I can try to understand her situation, but is it any of my business? My interest in her didn't climb past the 'I just know her-she is a friend' threshold in the first place.

You might be thinking this is one bizarre situation or probably an outlier and I shouldn't generalize based on one of those, but haven't I seen recurring proof that I am right in this case? Did I not ask that Mongolian girl to have dinner with me, not give her my card? And wasn't I promised a call later? And boy wasn't I disappointed when I saw her days later performing the same exact act this girl was showing off minutes ago! Count rises to two now!

Probably the worst among all these cases is that of an immediate relative, but it still is not my right to judge or opine unless asked. I still don't want to take risk by making that public.

Count = Count + 1; Number_Of_Liars = 3. Output_Status = Surprise!

All that I learned from these experiences is that there is as much intellectual diversity among women as there is among men. And I don't mean that in a positive way. This is particularly important because having grown up with two sisters and an extremely (probably overly) patient, giving and self-sacrificing father, I had until now always placed the race of women much above that of men. I had no idea that I was headed for utter disappointment when I landed in the "big bad world" and saw things with my own eyes.

Time to judge me? or time to judge women?

What do I ultimately want? I want honesty and truth when it comes to the "fairer but darker inside" sex. If I can't have that, please give me the strength to live without them, the determination to pursue and infer them from experience, and the perseverance to keep trying when I can't find them because I couldn't see the wood for the trees.

Limiting language

The protagonist in the movie "Smart People" says, at one point, "We respond to literary texts using precisely the same fundamental interpretive categories as authors and poets use to create them. So there's no need to posit any kind of unstable ontology or ruptured consciousness."

I thought that was an excellent comment on literature and the work of literary critics. Do you understand what that means?

Shallowness and forgiveness?

What is the relationship between the two? Are you shallow if you can't forgive someone? Are you deep if you are understanding? Are you shallow if you are selfish? Are you deep if you are selfless? When it comes to things that matter, will you trust people, even if you know you will be hurt? Is that plain carelessness, or omniscience? You are your own judge. Nobody knows you as well as yourselves.

Your opposition

Your opposition is essential for your existence. It keeps you in control. It helps you learn right and wrong. It proves that you know nothing. It proves that you know everything. Without it, you will wallow in ignorance. Without it, you will turn into a pig. It hurts you to help you. Nice concept, isn't it?

Love, trust and life

It's very easy to love someone. You don't have to do anything, just give them what they want. Be happy that they are happy. If you can't, just tell them you love yourselves more than you love them. But, is it easier or harder to trust someone than to love someone? You don't need to know anything about that person to love them. It could just as well be Endorphins and Dopamine rushing through their receptors. It takes more to trust a person. It takes reciprocation to trust them. It takes knowledge to trust them. It takes experience, happiness and suffering with them, their past and their present, their reaction to truth and lies, their understanding and their love to trust them. It takes both your lives to trust them.

And yet, you can never know anyone enough to trust someone. Nobody is perfect, which means you can only trust people on a limited basis. Don't be scared, but be cautious. Be daring, but don't be stupid. Mistakes are only as grave as the consequences they cause. You can never know what's going to happen. Do the best you can, do what you think is right. That's what everybody does - what they think is right.

There exists no eternal truth. Even if it does, it's beyond reason and rationality. There will always be people who will need proof, and are fearful of belief. There will always be people who will believe, and eschew reason. As long as there are humans in this universe, there will be variance and difference. It takes just one person for differences to exist - you. There need not even be someone else to argue with you. You can be your own hindrance, your own conscience. You are the master, and you are the slave. You are the engine, and you are the car. You are the fuel and you are the exhaust.

What you do with what people do to you, depends on you. What people do to you depends on what you do. The world is centered around you. The world is within you. That's duality. A particular flavor of duality.

Happiness

To the hunter, prey gives happiness. To the sailor, reaching his destination gives happiness. Who are you and what gives you happiness?

Scary reaction leading to self-blame

They cannot bear to hear the truth about themselves. When they hear it, they can only do one of two things. Yell at you, or lock themselves in a room and cry. Both scare me. What should I do? Not telling the truth makes me suffer. Telling the truth makes me suffer. Do you see another side to the coin? Looks like this is a biased coin, just like unfair life. What would you do? Suffer or suffer?

Spikes in my heart rate

They helped me suffer, they helped me lose. I resent them, I despise them. They caused me to confuse reason with emotion, good and bad with right and wrong. They tread upon me. And before I realize it, they helped me grow up and be strong. Maybe a little too much I grew up. Maybe a little too strong I am. I have aged, but the body hasn't. Am I in the wrong place in this world? Maybe a tad too early in life I quit looking forward to the beautiful reality. Or am I afraid to take drastic steps, having been trained always to take the safe course?

I read somewhere that life is a series of rough drafts being torn one by one. When will the document be complete? Or are we not supposed to finish? Haaaa! Save me, O life!

Engineless car

The car was on a dirt road. Something yanked the engine out of the car and pushed it on to the highway. Now it's just a metal shell. It can only go so far as the push can take it.

This illustrates what happens to a person when he/she loses their drive - the soul.

Anti-realism

The question is not who, the question is when. The answer is "not now".

The meat on the bone

Together, they make the body. The meat cannot stand without the bone, and the bone need not exist without the meat. Everybody wants the meat, but nobody wants the bone. Bones are piling up around you and meat is accumulating inside you. Look around you! Soon, the bones will fall upon you and crush you!

Dead fish in the river

It goes wherever the river goes. It has no will of its own, no direction of its own. It will rise with the water, and fall with the water. It loses slight parts of itself on the way, but the other living fish don't care. They have their own wills and directions. Ends up eventually in the sea, it will. And now, it's lost in oblivion, and its body decays. It becomes nothing, which makes up everything.

Secrets and lies

They grow old and they grow wise. They tell you what you want to hear. They forget what they want to say. When they say what they want to say, you explode! They had been hurt by small explosions in the past. They won't be comfortable near a huge one. So, they forget what they want to say.

So clever!

You say they should grow up, and yet they won't. You say they are pigs, and yes, pigs will be pigs. They will never turn into horses. If the pigs give you what you want, why do you want them not to be pigs?

You know what they want and yet, you cannot give them what they want. You want it too, but you don't want to say it. You are lucky to have the opportunity to get morally outraged when they ask, but when you say what you want, they simply get bored. How unfortunate it is, that they get to be just bored but you get to be so outraged?

They are so desperate and stupid, and yet you cannot keep them happy. So clever!

The coin's other side

They say without meaning, and they mean what?

They show you they are worried and you tell them not to worry, but they solve their problems without your help. What do you get? Their worries. You are now miserable, and you feel cheated forever by their race.

Slice the coin, but each slice will still have two sides. What should you do?

Don't touch it!

There it was. I touched it and it gave me pleasure. I pulled it closer and it broke. What was its purpose? Why was it there? I should have just ignored it. It would have at least existed.

Say it and lose it

I want to learn how to act. But if I act, how will you know what I am trying to tell you?

You ask me what you want from me. You ask me what you can do for me. But if I tell you, the purpose is lost. You will do whatever I ask you to do. That is not what I want you to do.

The moment I tell you, it loses its significance. The second you ask and I answer, it's importance vanishes.

Squeezed

Everybody needs me, but nobody wants me.
I gave you everything, but I received nothing.

Don't keep polishing the nails, for they are dead and they have no inner beauty.
Bananas are yellow and coconuts are brown, but they are both white inside.

Homelessness

He doesn't belong to this world. He doesn't want to feel attached to names and numbers, religions and nations, groups and kinds. What am I? I? What "is" I? It's almost impossible for him to spend a day without using the word "I". He wants to use the third person to refer to himself. His soul is craving to be separate from his body. He feels homeless everywhere. He can never tell if it's good or bad. Experience tells him there exists no absolute good or bad. All definitions of good and bad are subjective. One has only to use these terms to get on to something higher and "better". But, what IS it?

He believes in God, but he never saw a point in talking about it. The concept of God is extremely personal to everyone. But, sometimes he can't keep it to himself. He now thinks that the idea of God is an extremely useful idea to live an easy and "good" life.

Once you define death as just non-existence of life but not an actual state, then is it better or worse to "live"? In this world of attachments and desires, how does one remain pure and perfect? He knows something but he can't explain it. He is limited by words and language. Someone told him that linguists couldn't take the idea that language is limiting. Language is a tool. Just like a book. When you understand what it's trying to convey, it's no longer useful. That doesn't mean books and languages are useless. Their purposes are temporary. Permanence only exists outside this so-called "reality". This world is transient. "Maya", it is called, according to "The eternal law". Why is the pursuit of the absolute so hard? Why is he not "there", instead of trying to keep "going" there? Who put him behind this veil and made him want to get out? He wants to use the idea of God just to refer to whatever is outside this virtual reality. God will help you when you are in need, but He is not always good. He will also make you suffer in this world to let you know that this world is not real, and only He is the absolute reality. This is why he and He are spelled differently. Wow! The "he" is trying to reach Him with His help.

This reality is full of frustrations, needs and wants, feelings and thoughts, desires and miseries! Oh God! Help him find peace! The last thing he wants to feel is fear. The only fear he wants to have is the fear of fear itself. How can he do that?

Hindus upset over Hollywood film "Love Guru"

Please read the article at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7460522.stm

before you read my opinion on the issue.

I agree with Dr. Chopra that "the premature outcry against the film itself is religious propaganda". The best part I like about Hinduism is the tolerance it promotes towards other people's beliefs and practices.

"We all know when you show a person with a sari and a mark on their forehead that will be associated with Hinduism." If you have seen the movie "Khuda ke liye", or "In the name of God", and understood what Naseeruddin Shah meant by "Islam mein Daadi hein, magar Daadi mein Islam nahin hain", then you will see what my point of view is: "Hindus wear saris and marks on their foreheads, but saris and marks on foreheads don't make Hindus." One can keep arguing out the details: the points that support your view and the points that support my view, but arguments don't usually address the issue, they merely say "Here's an issue that worries me."

Changing the rating to disable a section of the population from seeing the film is not the way to go, I say, that is not Hinduism. If you are worried that young teenagers might get a skewed view of the religion, you must educate them about the religion and what it exactly is about. If the teenagers who see it think that's what Hinduism is about: Saffron robes, holy beads, saris and Tilakas (forehead marks), then that is what you are making them think. Tell them, that is not what that religion truly represents. Hinduism recommends you to find your own purpose of life and find your own way to achieve that goal. That requires adaptation to varying times and conditions. That means the time has come to question the adherence to dressing and bodily decorations - and it's for you to decide whether or not to keep and support that "tradition".

Religion is always an interesting issue to talk about!