Science meets Spirituality

Ok, to put the disclaimer this is not the end and all is well but felt a great step. Other day I was driving home from lunch and on air was the program Think from Kera, Texas. I am usually not enthusiastic about this program but this time the interview was with Ian Roberstson, clinical psychologist turned scientist from Dallas TX.

At the time I tuned in they were talking about how people can perform better just by saying “I am very excited” to themselves even under extremely stressful situation, this truly caught my attention. For this was one of the mantras we had chosen almost more than a decade ago (when I had just finished my first Art of Living course), it went something like “Fake it, till you make it”. Essentially meant keep tricking your mind and retraining it to think positive and enable to achieve bigger things by keep telling it you like what you are doing. In those days it was usually related to Art of Living things. As I listened further it went on to how athletes can perform better by keeping the mind in present moment and not thinking about the very recent failure.

I was so excited with these snippets and tidbits and for the first time in my life I Googled the program and listened to the whole interview. he talks about importance of stretching out of our comfort zone, setting up small achievable goals and going at it and most importantly importance of breathing. People who have done Art of Living course will be able to relate to lot of things Dr. Robertson is saying.

I got so excited I even ordered the book in kindle edition. I am sure I will be posting one more post when I am done reading the book. 

http://think.kera.org/2017/01/10/stress-yourself/

Carnival Cruise to Mexico

Going on a Cruise was one of those curious things that I wanted to explore ever since couple of my friends went and were very excited about the whole experience. Of course the friends experience is more than 4 years old and I did try booking back then itself only to be cancelled multiple times due to Carnival Ship issues.

Guess the saying goes, third time is the charm but in our case we succeeded the 4th time. After much deliberations and discussions we booked our cruise for middle of December and were very excited about the whole prospect.

• Boarding the ship is probably one of the slowest things one can imagine, park the car, take the luggage, then the first step of document verification and next stop for one more document verify and boarding pass issued
• They claim to have done staggered boarding but still the boarding time takes a while, so be patient
• Once on board at around 3:30PM they will have the emergency drill at around 4:00PM which is mandatory and all need to attend, no exceptions. It is one of those “what you resist will persist”, they will make sure everyone shows up and no exceptions
• Once the drill is complete, you are free to roam around and on your own
• Neither the adults only pool nor the all access pools are heated, if the weather is warm then bearable else utterly cold (specially when docked in Galveston)
• We didn't get to try out much of the entertainment portion much for our daughter was happy being in the water and they had something or the other going on on top deck
• May be different in other ships, in ours the only place to cross across the ship end to end was on floor 5 (deck with casino and bar)
• We went with the ship onshore excursions for both Progresso and Cozumel, so no comment on off ship hiring
• Progresso has some sandy beaches and somewhat reminded me of Port Aransas, water is neither blue nor brown (like in Galveston) and somewhat in between.
• Cozumel is a totally different story, crystal clear blue waters, the ocean looks like one gaint swimming pool. If you are into swimming then definitely try snorkeling while there.
• The support staff on the cruise were from all over eastern Europe and Asia. Did meet a bunch of Indians in the support staff and one couple from Bangalore
• The staff were very kind and courteous.
• Food was great, even the oily burger and burritos were great tasting
• We could have potentially used room service but didn’t find any menu to order from and the suite itself was small that we were discouraged to use room service
• For Dinner out of the 5 nights we had Indian option on 3 nights ( one night we ate in the buffet)
• The best thing for me on the ship was being off the grid, I just put my phone in the locker and kept it there for all the 5 days.
• The vastness and calmness of the ocean was to a large extent therapeutic
• Be careful of the wind gusts specially in the night
• The passengers on the cruise were all sorts and kinds
• Did I say embarkation was painful, de-embarkation was even more painful. It took us almost 4 and half hours to get off the ship and start driving
• It is not the ship facilities but the terminal to check us back into US was the slow process
• Self checkout by carrying all our bags would have saved us around 30minutes of our time
• Everything costs ~1.5X on the ship that what it would cost on land, I have to mention the duty free shops at Cozumel port was beyond joke
• They had a big sale of watches on the ship on the last day and lot of people were buying too, may be Christmas time or they did see a genuine value in those watches.

All in all it was a fun experience and definitely recommended. We did not have any seasickness to any extent, I did learn a trick that a green apple a day can keep seasickness away (may be that explains the lack of red apples on the ship).

History brings perspective

Growing up as a kid, I hated Social Studies and specially history. Looking back I blame it on the teachers who refused get us fired up about history. Thanks to my dear friends for getting me hooked up with podcasts and I am becoming a history buff. Granted I still can’t remember the exact dates of events and I am now listening for fun instead of an exam.

One should study history and not just once own country’s history but world history or at the least the major events that shaped the world we live in. I have been listening to this podcast on crusades back in the Middle Ages (1100-1300 ad) and I think it has added a new dimension to my view of the world.  

Before the crusades podcast, my interest in history had been either Indian history or the biggest event of modern times the world war II and to some extent world war I. While listening to the podcasts on ww II I was mind boggled by the scale at which the war took place and finally got to appreciate the fact that  our (Indian) then leaders like Gandhi and Nehru supported the British against the axis forces, that's a separate blog post in itself. It made me believe human consciousness evolves to an extent in parallel across the globe irrespective of the distance.

Now back to crusades podcast, after listening to almost 90 odd episodes each 25 minute long spanning from 1st crusade to king Louis crusade I have learnt the following things

• Back in those days the whole world believed in pillaging and looting of conquered territories
• Back in those days mass killing of captured population was part of common culture
• No empire or kingdom lasts for ever, Rome got destroyed by the barbarians from Europe and Byzantine empire got destroyed by crusaders, the Muslim empire got destroyed by the Mongols and so on
• Intolerance towards practice of other religion was truly up to the whims and fancies of the kings/rulers and their needs.
• If I think Hinduism has too many castes/sects, Christianity and Islam have their own with each one claiming superiority over other
• Infighting and Traitors aren't patented to India alone they exist all over the world
• Destruction of property or materials that are sacred to other religion or conversion of their place of worship to your own was also a common practice
• Feudal system and practice is not a patent of India alone, it existed all over the world
• Money and trade always and mostly trumped religion
• Catholic church in the middle ages was corrupt beyond my imagination, I never truly comprehended this till I started hearing the podcasts

In short, I have been blaming the Islamic invasion of India for destruction of property and looting and killing of innocents and I have to an extent come to terms that the world was like that back in those days and I do feel we have come a long way since then.

Venue hunt - some learning

While searching for a new location for our weekly follow ups (Art of Living) in south Austin, I learnt a thing or 2 as with my tradition if it is worth sharing then it is worth writing.

• Google and Yelp were my best friends to find the space, there were days when I used to peruse craigslist but this time around it seemed like so old
• Cold calls always helps, mostly leaving a message or through email, if they are really interested they will come back in a day or 2
• There are way more number of independent yoga studios in Austin than one can imagine. Also, it so happens most of these studios run on sublease by the hour to different instructors
• Corporate structured studios like Barr3, Todd Pilates, Yoga Yoga don’t entertain renting to outsiders
• I did come across some yoga studios who refused for they were concerned about us competing with their philosophy
• Churches were my first priority to check but most of them said no for they would be busy with their youth ministry activities on Sunday evenings.
• School gymnasiums are nice but the rates are pretty high
• From my experience the going rate for a ~800 SQFT open studio space is somewhere between $25-$35, depending on duration and hours of the contract
• What sells is the pictures of the location both inside and outside. To a large extent Google takes care of the outside pics and it would become business owners responsibility.       

The best part, in the process of searching for a venue I did learn a thing or 2 about marketing our own Art of Living center. Let me see how much I can impact that in the last 3 months as secretary.  

Proud of you Kapil Sharma

To say I am a huge fan of Kapil Sharma is an understatement, I just love his sense of humor, timing and creativity. Ever since he transitioned to Sony I have become a regular audience for all his episodes. 

That said, the episode I saw yesterday increased my respect towards him for the first time he had the para-olympians as guests on the show. Considering the show is mostly used by starts for their movie promos and most of the guests are very closely related to entertainment industry, this was a great refreshingly welcome change. 

How old is too old for a car

My beloved Volkswagen Passat just completed her 14.5 years of life with me and has been a great and very reliable car to drive around. Now with 140K+ miles on the car there is always the thought that lurks in my brain, how many more days with the same old car? the question became even more relevant couple of months ago when the mechanic told me that the solution to fix a check engine light would cost $1000 to fix (it ended up being ~$1600) to fix. Can I not keep the money and dump the VW and buy a different one? my mind said may be but my heart said vehemently no. 

My problem was 2 fold, I need to spend the money to fix the check engine light on the car or else whoever willing to buy the car would negotiate the price of the car as though it would be sold for parts. Secondly, since I am already paying for a car loan I didn’t want to add one more car payment (if I can avoid it). I guess this is the first time in the 14 years I have owned the car I did a compilation of how much I have spent over the years (last 5-6) in maintaining/up keeping the car, turned out in the last 6 years on an average I have spent $1,200/year on maintenance including brakes, tires and battery. So, technically the costs were in favor of keeping the car.   

I pretty much discussed with every one I can think of about the car (to fix it or not to) and I think the best answer came from a colleague of mine. Its not the money spent alone but also the time the car needs to spend in the mechanic shop and the inconvenience it would cause and how much of it can you bear and endure, there are advantages of keeping the old car for you don’t have to worry about car payments and if the car is sufficiently old enough you can save on the insurance too and in the end if you can find a good mechanic you can trust and bear with the car’s absence for a few days in a year then longer you keep the better off you are financially.

After going through 3 different mechanics in last 7 or so years, I think I have found a good mechanic in Brink Motorsports and true to their ratings on all websites (Google, Yelp etc), I recommend them in a heart beat for VW/Audi repairs.

Yes I did make my car street legal and have to decided to run it for another 2 to 3 years or longer if possible :).    

The industry of pet food

While talking to a friend of mine, the conversation steered towards "when so many people are dying of hunger, shouldn't the world address that first.before addressing pet food needs and organizing fund raisers for pet foods". 

Fair question, at that time I put it off saying each person has his/her own passion that they are free to pursue, some like to drive human cause while others like to drive animal causes. After a few minutes a thought occurred to me that most of the pet food sold in the pet stores are made from meat/part of the animals that are considered not fit enough for human consumption.  To my knowledge there is only 1 company called honest kitchen which has been approved by FDA that the meat used is human grade in their pet food. 

To elaborate, the meat industry in the USA and I am guessing other developed countries is so huge huge and organized and have found an answer to the question of what to do with all the left over's after taking out the meat fit for human consumption?, Convert to pet food, after raising Daisy for a year and half I am convinced that not a single part of any animal used in human food will ever go wasted, everything from bones to hide to cartilage and intestines are used in some form of other as pet food. 

I am not here trying to take a stance and saying right or wrong but this connection boggled my mind. If I stress myself further the same is true for vegetarian food cycle too, the husk the grass is all used to feed the animals, I guess I didn’t notice it back in India for it was never that organized and not commercialized like the pet food industry we have here in the USA.