Happy Birthday to me

Oh yes, don't worry, you haven't forgotten my birthday. It's just that my blog turned 7 years old today and I wanted it to be a super amazing post because a 7 year commitment is something, but I guess it is just going to be like any other regular post.

Everyone knows that the virus is taking the world by a storm in a not-at-all-great way. I know people are going from panic to denial to ignorance or fluctuating among those phases. It is a difficult time, for sure. But for all of us who are fortunate enough to not have someone we love battling for their life, I have a few things I want to say (because hopefully that won't change if we all isolate).

Stop looking at updates. Do not actively try to know more. Stop watching hundreds of videos, reading all kinds of messages and news. Because while it is important to be aware, it is important to be able to live your life as normally as possible too.

Stay at home as far as you can, because it is important to be a part of the solution than potentially aggravate the problem. (That includes staying at home when you are bored. And yes, I know people who still don't.)

And now that I've said the two things I most wanted to, I'd like the rest of my post to focus more on what I think we can do. How we can be in control in such circumstances is what we need to think about. The human race struggles dealing with uncertainty. We cannot make ourselves okay with not being in control of what is happening - it induces a feeling of helplessness.

And often in such times, a set of people resort to looking for a higher power, God, praying and hoping that if they believe enough in God's existence, then maybe that 'person' will fix things. Why? Because that makes us still feel in control. Maybe our doing something - a prayer, wishes, positive thinking - will trigger someone else fixing the problem for us. And if that works for you, that's great!

But I personally don't believe that there is a higher power controlling anything. So if you're like me and don't think anyone has control, how do you get your power back? Of course, first, there needs to be the acceptance and awareness of the situation for what it is. There need to be precautions that you are taking, precautions more than sufficient. And finally you need to keep living like you always were. Stay AWAY from social media. Do your best to create positive energy around you. I was told that Kathak dancers in India instead of banging the vessel for 10 minutes did tatkar because the sound of ghungroo creates positive energy.

Allow yourself to meditate in your own way - meditation can be anything that allows you to focus your thoughts on one thing! Like I am sure without even knowing you that you have at least one hobby in the arts side of the world. Explore it, and create. Learn how to cook. Spend time with family and friends virtually. Honestly if this happened 20 years ago, what people would most wish for would be a way to talk to someone 5 buildings away, to be able to see them - it wouldn't matter if it was just virtually seeing their face! We need to be ever so grateful for technology!

Give it a thought. You have so many resources to learn whichever skill you want. You have people supporting you and creating content - from dance routines, to workout challenges. The world has shut down, but the entire world is still open for you. You just need to look for what you want. However lonely it feels, or however scared you feel, you need to begin looking at this in the form of an opportunity to slow down, get healthier, learn, and grow.

This is a perfect time to form habits. It's the time to explore and experiment. Think of it as a period of transformation. That is how we stay in control. By not thinking of it as a restriction, but realising it is a choice, and one we can actually take a lot of advantage of.

You're the caterpillar waiting in a cocoon... You will soon fly.

Lots of love, strength, patience, and determination
Kanksha <3

What is religion to me?

My journey with religion has been a conflicted one. I've grown up being made to believe in a certain set of rules. Never one to disobey unless I could help it, I kept following them. Somewhere in the middle I began asking questions. Some answers made complete sense, some did not. I realised there are actual reasons behind things that I did - things that I thought were just rituals but actually mean something more.

If you look at religion only from a restrictive and ritualistic point of view, I can see why it would begin to seem like a burden. Any imposition begins to feel like a burden for that matter - human beings like choice, and freedom. But to me, the key is to begin looking beyond the rituals and rules and start unraveling the philosophy behind them.

With Jainism, for some reason, this is particularly hard to do. I don't fully understand it, and whatever is told to me in the texts, I feel like isn't proof enough. It's like knowing the solution to a minimisation problem, but not being able to solve it yourself. Reading a text to understand the math would definitely help, but spiritual texts without scientific experimentation done yet to prove it is correct is something I have trouble believing in.

On the other hand, there are selective rules. We eat dried turmeric and dried ginger. That's because they have strong medicinal properties. Why only dried? Because for some reason that changes its nature? Why not dried carrot or dried garlic powder? Because they aren't medicinal enough? No. Because replacement medication for them is available?

But hold on, the concept is to reduce attachment from food in the first place.

Idea 1 is saying that all plants and animals and everything in this world has life.
Idea 2 is saying that I want to minimise how much pain I cause to other things in this life.
Idea 3 says: look here, if you want to reduce pain, eat only because you have to. Not for the taste, but for survival.
Which takes you to the fourth concept of: now that you are eating only because you have to for survival, let's reduce the amount of things that we eat, and the amount of times that we eat, to harm the least amount of things we possibly can.
And mixed among all of this comes a classification where somehow you know that while all life is equal, some living beings are more conscious, and you'd rather eat the least conscious ones to cause lesser pain.

I found out today that you would rather cut an apple open and leave it for a while to let the consciousness go away and then eat it, than eat it by itself. I do not understand this. At the end of the day, I am eating an apple. But apparently thought matters here.

There are lots of things that I don't understand, but I can empathise with Idea 1, 2, 3, and 4. I wish there was scientific proof to back the classification and consciousness theory. It seems there is, but I haven't read it, and I would want to conduct experiments if possible to validate (or invalidate) the same. But I don't know if that is possible yet.

I just wish people taught Jainism with those principles. I have been taught the right way to some level, in the sense that I would never harm a living thing if I had a choice. I like letting things be. I have love for mosquitoes, even though they gave me malaria thrice, and feel that they have every right to live.

I feel like it is important to be a good human being. It is important to help others. You must be kind, generous, respect everyone, have control over yourself, and peace of mind.

And that is religion to me.

Kanksha

There is power in choosing something. And helplessness in not knowing what choice to make.
On another note, I hope you all choose to stay home.