Category: Vedic wisdom
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Knowing and becoming
Knowledge and wisdom are two very different concepts in the Vedic thought. Knowledge is gyan (ज्ञान) and wisdom is vivek (विवेक). Gyan refers to acquired information, while vivek means the ability to discern. Unlike collecting gyan (ज्ञान), vivek (विवेक) can only ever be awakened with time and marination, but sometimes even that fails. The process…
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It’s not them, it’s you
Sometimes days after an argument, completely out of the blue, I get bombarded by fragments of it. The sharp tone, the slight pause, palpitations, and a nagging feeling that something wasn’t right about my reaction. The voice may have been mine but the words seemed puppeteered by someone standing beside me. Overcome by it, I…
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Liberating meaning
A whisper becomes a conspiracy. A glance judgment. When our need for meaning turns obsessive, everything becomes fair game; because the mind abhors the un-storied. It thrives on prediction. Often getting ahead of itself, imagining structures and filling reality with intention. Unable to work itself out, it keeps getting lost in the battle between creating…
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Yoga, yogi, yogya?
Tight tights, bendy bodies, Buddha icons, chants, incense, oils, mats, bottles, towels…namaste. There is so much more to yoga than the subculture that surrounds it. In the broadest sense, yoga (योग) means alignment. This alignment can be internal, between mind-breath-and-body, or external, between our bodies and the forces that surround us. It could also be between two…
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वर्ण का वर्णन
Description (वर्णन) of Varna (वर्ण) As the discussion was peaking, BAM! I was slammed with the ‘caste system’ argument. I always loose this one because I get too in my head about it. The trouble is real though because most of the things people say when defending something controversial either ends up sounding too desperate,…