Wants vs Needs: Corruption of Esteem Needs: Introduction

In 32nd episode of Skeletal Leap, I embark on a profound exploration of moral values and their origins. I pose a thought-provoking question: Why did humanity feel the need to create moral values if they were not inherently part of our psychobiological structure?

This episode explores the intricate relationship between our instinctual drives and the moral codes that govern our lives. From the outset, I highlight how moral values were established as a means to navigate the complexities of human existence.

These values, often perceived as necessary for social order, were born out of fear. It was the fear of our instinctual drives that, when left unchecked, could lead to chaos.

As humanity transitioned into a more structured society, particularly under a plutocratic male-dominated system, the need for moral guidelines became apparent. However, these guidelines also served to suppress individual spirit and autonomy, particularly in the context of charitable organizations.

One of the most striking revelations in this episode is the idea that while we are born with instinctual drives—such as the need for interaction, love, and adventure—we are not born with moral values. These values must be taught and indoctrinated, often leading to confusion and internal conflict as individuals navigate their desires against societal expectations.

I argue that this suppression has resulted in a spiritual scarcity, where material abundance does not equate to emotional or spiritual fulfillment. The episode also critiques the role of charitable organizations, which, while appearing altruistic, can perpetuate the very systems of oppression they claim to combat. By placing charity on a pedestal, society may overlook the deeper issues of inequality and moral corruption that these organizations can embody.

I emphasize that the true essence of human interaction should be rooted in love and connection, not in the rigid structures of moral obligation. You are encouraged to reflect on your own understanding of moral values and how these have been shaped by cultural and societal influences. As we navigate through our lives, it is essential to recognize the distinction between our natural instincts and the moral codes imposed upon us.

The episode concludes with a promise of further exploration in upcoming episodes, including discussions on the corruption within the education system and organized religion.

Join me on this enlightening journey as I peel back the layers of moral values and their impact on our lives. Tune in to this episode of Skeletal Leap and engage in a conversation that challenges the status quo and encourages personal growth and understanding.

🔑 Key Takeaways:

(00:00:01) – What are Moral Values in our Socio-cultural Evolution?

(00:09:18) – Human Morals

(00:14:59) – Sense of Duty and Respect

(00:19:48) – Loyalty is a highly respected moral value supposing commitment

(00:26:55) – How established value systems resulted in charitable organizations

🎙️ Listen to the Journey:

📽️ Watch the Masterclass:

Wants vs Needs: Corruption of Esteem Needs: Transcript

“Why did humanity feel the need to create moral values at all if they were not naturally built in our psychobiological structure?”

My name is Laadi Ojas. Welcome to “Skeletal Leap: A Living Adventure”. Skeletal Leap transforms one’s life into a personal heaven.

Today’s episode titled “Wants vs Needs: Corruption of Esteem Needs!”, I will tell you about corruption in charitable organizations.

Value systems fall under sociocultural throat chakra to fulfill the needs of self-esteem. The currency here is ‘morals’. ‘Morals’, the sociocultural currency of the next deficiency need, i.e., self-esteem, turned more important than need itself. The cultural extension of morals, i.e., value systems, started as ethical codes for social esteem but soon turned into moral codes for suppressing the individual spirit. Charitable and non-profit organizations became the face of this suppression and resulted in the sociocultural throat chakra getting closed.

Value Systems

In our journey of sociocultural evolution, our value systems have also been disintegrating and are confusing us at each and every step we, the Homo sapiens, take today.

Moral Values & Instinctual Drives:

We are born with a set of instinctual drives which are inherent in our psychobiological structure. We don’t have to go anywhere in order to learn about them. On the other hand we are not born with any set of moral values in our psychobiological structure. Hence, they are not inherent to the human being and need to be taught anew to every new child born

Is there any relationship between the two?

Certainly yes! But before investigating into this relationship, we need to ask another more important question.

Why did humanity feel the need to create moral values at all if they were not naturally built in our psychobiological structure?

Moral values became necessary because a few of those purely instinctual drives scared humans who then perceived them as threats. This happened when humans set out to create a new social order for the first time in our distant past.

Which social order were they scheming to establish?

It was a plutocratic (the rule or power of wealth) male dominated social system, operating from an already closed sociocultural root chakra, that these moral values were plotting to uphold. And the plutocrats could simply go ahead and push these so-called values using their wealth. They could apply that wealth to either bribe or starve their subjects to buy their opinion.

Wealth in the form of personal ownership of resources had very recently made its entry into human life. The ones who were either strong or cunning or both, for that matter, were able to amass these resources more than the rest, like we discussed in Episode 30.

And why were these initiators predominantly males?

It was so because males were stronger (even if not more cunning) than females. Also they had more time at their disposal to accumulate more wealth than their female counterparts. It was simply because females lost time in delivering and rearing up their kids.

The kids decidedly belonged to their mothers and not fathers since no one could establish fatherhood beyond doubt. And as they grew, they would support their mothers in the pursuit of amassing wealth. In a way, it could be seen as the wealth regained that their mothers had lost access to while delivering and rearing them up.

So, males needed a way to know, beyond doubt, who the father of any given kid was. With their sociocultural throat chakras closed, the males felt ignored as compared to the females, thus hurting their esteem. But this would only be possible if the females agreed to it as well. For this, they needed to stop following their instinctual drive to have sex with any males of their choice at any time.

Why would they agree?

Powerful males in those early societies designed a new faculty of thought which would uphold newly envisioned ‘moral values’ as essentially opposite alternatives to certain instinctual drives predominantly including sex. They did so because, by this time, their collective sociocultural throat chakras were already closed.

They were supported by so-called supernatural practitioners who enjoyed a high status among ignorantly naive early human dwellings. These supernatural practitioners, initially looking forward to transcendence, had already fallen prey to its currency named ‘faith’, thus closing the sociocultural crown chakra of the society. More on that in Episode 33.

The first of such newly established moral values declared sex as the basic sin to be avoided as much as possible. But since curbing such a powerful instinct en masse wasn’t feasible practically, a new rule was framed that one female having sex with multiple males was ‘immoral’. If she did, she would be severely punished by another new entity created by the supernatural practitioners, named ‘God’.

An Unfortunate Consequence:

In order for this rule to look unbiased between genders, it was framed as such for both of them.

But as an unfortunate consequence, it was never implemented for males as strictly as it was done for females. This was because human biology went against females. Any female engaging in stealthy sex would sooner or later conceive children and be caught for her transgressions. On the other hand, males could easily evade detection of their own transgressions without any telltale signs.

Monogamy – Marriage Comes Into Existence:

To put an official stamp on this rule, a new social institution named marriage was designed. It limited the choice of sex partners to just one over an entire lifetime as against many for as much time as desired. In some societies a male could marry several females simultaneously. But females were rarely, if at all, provided this luxury!

Monogamy, initiated under the domination of morals effecting sociocultural throat chakra, changed its shape to a new social institution, namely marriage. Marriage, designed under the domination of the currency we are calling ‘personal ownership of resources’ further extended adherence to monogamy, thereby effecting the sociocultural root chakra.

This enhanced adherence ensured that the males could be surer about being the biological fathers of their spouse’s children. It turned them all into a close-knit family, another sociocultural institution that came into existence.

Hence, before they died, the males could hand over their personal ownership of resources to their children without any doubt, like their mothers had always done. Thus marriage, further strengthening sociocultural root chakra, facilitated males to weave a close-knit safety network in their immediate familial vicinity, too.

Human Mind

Now, a new moral science was envisaged comprising a set of morals.

These were the morals that humans ought to follow even if they were directly against the calls of their own instinctual drives.

Eventually, all such social morals that were implemented went against those allegedly dangerous natural instinctual drives in one way or the other.

We as humans are born with instinctual drives alone in our mind-body system. We don’t have any sort of human emotions or morals in our mind that we start our life with.

Later, in our journey from childhood to adulthood, we learn the history of human development. We learn it in each and every subject and store it in the knowledge base of our mind. Then, as we grow, we add to that knowledge base from our own personal experiences to enhance it further.

This is what the ideal development of human mind is supposed to be like. It is a set of instinctual drives along with a knowledge base of human achievements in various subjects.

However, in practice, that is not all that our mind is subjected to during the formative years of our development. It is also indoctrinated with a value system which is not limited to morals alone. Consequently, it tries to turn them into our aesthetic values as well.

Presently, our culture very eagerly nails down several moral values onto our minds.

Sex As A Necessary Evil

We are taught by our religious culture that sex is a necessary evil. This is done at a stage in our lives when we have not even experienced it as a fully developed instinctual drive in our mind-body system. Our minds get conditioned against sex even before our body grows to incorporate it into our system. And the time it does, our conditioning starts making us feel guilty about it.

Truthfulness

We are taught that truth is a desirable parameter of integrity even when we don’t know what a lie is. Hence, the very inception of truth as a desirable moral value sows the seeds of learning how to tell lies.

Prior to sociocultural evolution, our instinctual drives may not have felt a need to tell a lie. But we may not have said we were speaking the truth either. We may have simply said we were speaking. We may not have needed either of the two concepts. Plainly speaking about what we saw and what we did may have been enough.

But the same social system that established monogamy and plutocracy realized it was suppressing extremely strong instinctual drives. It also realized people WOULD tend to satiate these drives stealthily and then claim they did not.

So, a new concept of truth was envisaged as opposite to a more basic concept of a lie. If a lie were never needed, there wouldn’t have been any need for a concept of truth to exist too. But lies entered the domain of human action owing to the establishment of a cunningly unjustified as well as an unhealthy society.

Hence, truth was designed as a moral value to stop people from lying. People, however, lied innocently only to satiate their instinctual drives and hide it from those in authority.

That is why speaking the truth should be brought down from its high pedestal. We need to peel off the facade of reverence that our moral values have assigned to it.

Honesty

Same is the story of honesty. The very inception of honesty as a desirable moral value sows the seeds of learning how to be dishonest.

Prior to sociocultural evolution, there may not have been anything like dishonesty in our instinctual drives that we needed to act on.

But the newly established and unjustified social system feared that people could plot secret schemes to rebel against its inherent suppression. The said moral termed any such possibility as dishonesty and coined a desirable behavior named honesty as its antithesis.

It is interesting to note that most so-called anti-moral values are named to be the antithesis of moral values; dishonesty vs honesty, for example. But in fact, conceptually speaking, these were morals that were actually conceived as the antitheses of the so-called anti-moral acts.

Sense of Duty

Sense of duty is a set of actions we ought to do whether we feel like doing them or not. Why do we need a stipulation like this if we already feel like doing those? And why do we need the ones being stipulated if our mind does not feel like doing those?

Our culture seems to have decided the validity of ‘duty’ even if it goes against the natural composition of the human mind. What good can we expect to come out of those dutiful actions if they don’t have the energy of our natural willfulness behind them? They will simply get reduced to a level of being artificially performed as forced rituals. We will undertake and then perform them only to keep away the guilt of not having done them at all.

Prior to sociocultural evolution, we may have lived with our instinctual drives guiding our actions and behavior. And we may not have needed a concept like a sense of duty. We may have simply acted out what our spontaneous feeling guided us to do.

It is plausible that any such spontaneous feeling may primarily have been of concern and sympathy for one another. So we may not have needed a sense of duty in order to act in the most desirable way.

But with the suppression of our instinctual drives, we wouldn’t feel such concern and sympathy for those who have themselves also suppressed those same drives.

Once again, as yet another anti-thesis to instinctual drives, the sense of duty was formulated as one more moral value. Morals were supposed to be upheld under any circumstances. Otherwise, the sin that we committed would not let us live without a feeling of guilt.

Respect

We are taught to respect our elders and seniors. We are not taught to respect our juniors. Why this one-sided approach to something that our culture considers such an important value? Therefore, respect as a value immediately strikes us as feudal in its very inception.

The human mind is not designed to respect. It is designed to interact. It is designed to share. And it is designed to love. Respect is a very formal concept that requires a distance between the two individuals involved. The respected one stands on a higher pedestal than the one who respects.

The more we respect like we do our fathers, especially in the developing countries, the less we love them. That is because respect necessitates kind of separation. And the more we love like we do our mothers, the less we need to respect them. That is because love eliminates any such separation.

It is still customary in the Eastern societies (and used to be in all societies until a few centuries ago) for fathers to act like an authoritarian judge in the family court passing sentences on kids that are generally corporal. Mothers can, at best, play the role of kids’ advocates pleading mercy for their ‘crimes’.

Same, till very recently, had been true in case of teachers in schools as well. Teachers have been preoccupied with enforcing respect as a means to extracting their desired behavior from students. This has created an authoritative chasm between the teacher and the student, thereby eliminating any possibility of a healthy kinship.

Such kinship may have resulted in the desired behaviors more organically in the first place. Laws have been made in some of these countries prohibiting teachers assigning corporal punishments to the students though they are often broken.

Obedience

Obedience, as a value, is a sub-set of respect. As a younger person, we are not supposed to question or raise doubts against the orders of our elders. This again is a very feudal value.

Here again, in the Eastern countries, kids are supposed to be more obedient to their fathers than to their mothers who they can argue with at times, though in the absence of their fathers.

Similarly they are culturally supposed to be obedient to their teachers as well. As a result, they seldom question their teachers even if they have genuine queries in their minds. Questioning teachers is not culturally encouraged as learning is supposed to be a one way communication from the teacher to the student. The students are supposed to learn by rote what instructions their teachers have passed on to them.

The human mind is not naturally designed for feudalism. And if we force it to conform, we are simply suppressing the instinctual drives we are naturally born with.

Good Manners

Good manners are all protocols in their essence. We are supposed to behave a certain way in a certain scenario. And we do so whether we are feeling like behaving that way or not.

The more we follow these dictats, the less authentic we become.

We must say, “Very pleased to see you,” on meeting someone even if we are not so. Aren’t we telling a lie which violates another moral value named truthfulness?

Faith

If we have faith, we don’t question. But our minds are wired to question. And faith as a moral value tries its best to suppress curiosity that we are born with as an instinct. Unfortunately, it doesn’t limit itself to being a moral value alone, it also plays its role as a currency for transcendence needs. As the currency becomes more important than fulfilling the genuine need as such, the sociocultural crown chakra falls prey and gets closed as well. We are going to look into it in Episode 33.

Loyalty

We have already talked about loyalty clouding real love and belonging needs as their currency through a closed sociocultural heart chakra in Episode 31. But it goes a step further from there as it assumes the status of ‘morals’ as well, closing sociocultural throat chakra along.

Loyalty is a highly respected moral value which supposes us to be committed. It is a commitment to a certain person, institution or an idea. In addition, loyalty is uniquely characterized by its blind and unconditional support for the same.

Our minds, however, are not so indiscriminate in their natural structure.

Loyalty simply stands against our judicious sense of discernment between one action and another.

Now, we can go into further details of each one of these values. We can easily show that they all stand against instinctual drives either overtly or else in a covert way.

Instinctual Drives

Eating | Drinking | Excreting | Curiosity | Movement | Play | Adventure | Interaction | Love | Grouping | Sex | Reproduction | Parenting

The moral values are nailed very hard and deep into the structure of the mind and away from the structure of the brain. They play their role very well in suppressing the energy of our death instincts and keep it so.

But, like water, energy can never be kept suppressed for long. And like water finds new channels for its flow, energy also invents new channels for its expression.

Human Emotions

The channels that the energy of these suppressed instinctual drives invents for its expression are named human emotions. Of these, the main ones are:

Desire | Greed | Hope | Happiness | Surprise | Anger | Envy | Jealousy | Disappointment | Guilt | Sadness | Fear | Anxiety | Depression

These human emotions are channelled to express the energy of the blocked instinctual drives. But they are never as innocent and as straightforward as the instinctual drives themselves are. They are rather the distorted forms of expressing the suppressed energy. And they do so in bursts rather than a smooth flow, unlike instincts.

Will vs. Will Power

Human emotions generate a new faculty of will in the structure of our mind. Will is nothing but an urge to compensate for the loss of sensitivity, joy and creativity suffered by instinctual drives.

Moral faculty is very much able to see through the real purpose behind the generation of this new faculty. And in its attempt to keep it suppressed as it was before its inception, it comes up with a newer faculty that we call will power.

Contrary to what we believe it to be, will power, in reality, is the power acting against the execution of will, not for it. Will power is armed with the appeal of being morally judicious to work against the execution of will. It does so by projecting will as irresponsible even if it cannot brand it as immoral.

Will is not a very healthy faculty in our mind but will power is even less so! Will, comprising both positive and negative human emotions, creates sharp edges in our personality. It is because will expresses energy in hot aggressive bursts and not in a cool smooth flow like instinctual drives do.

And as far as will power is concerned, its sole purpose is to block the flow of life energy. It doesn’t bother if this energy belongs to instinctual drives or to human emotions.

How Established Value Systems Resulted In Charitable Organizations

We saw how moral value systems always worked to suppress and even repress the passion and joy of the free instinctual drives of sex, curiosity, adventure and interaction.

They turned life mechanical and the masses into cogs of the incessant wheel of consumerist production. Consequently, despite the abundant material progress that humanity made, the individual cogs of the wheel always felt a sense of spiritual scarcity. The fruits of this abundant growth were never distributed liberally. Hence the masses always felt material scarcity as well.

As cogs of the wheel, the individuals also seriously limited their potential for insight. Insight could have turned humanity into a real abundant society for all and not for only a chosen few sitting at the helm of those wheels of production. However, we took the less valuable path of mere innovation, arising from a sharp mind as opposed to a truly intelligent brain. Thus, moral value systems ruined it once again.

The more materially abundant humanity grew, the more impoverished its individuals felt.

Moral value systems worked very well to keep its individuals alive enough to keep working as those cogs in its giant wheel of perennial growth. It very cunningly created charitable organizations, putting charity at a high pedestal as a liberal moral value.

Do you see the pattern yet? When esteem needs got corrupted by the currency of morality, we ended up, yet again, with an institutional manifestation of another sociocultural chakra, this time the throat chakra.

Charitable organizations gradually gained credence to such a degree that, today, a significant portion of the population is surviving on the government charity in some parts of the developing world today.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Skeletal Leap: A Living Adventure! In the next episode, I will tell you about corruption in education system, self-improvement industry and organized religion.

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Wants vs Needs: Corruption of Love and Belonging Needs: Introduction

In 31st episode of Skeletal Leap, I take you on a profound journey exploring the corruption rampant in the sociocultural institutions of marriage, organized sports, and nation states.

I begin by addressing the spiritual essence of love, emphasizing that it is not merely an emotion but a deep-seated sensation experienced through energy flow during interactions.

This fundamental understanding of love sets the stage for a critical examination of the institutions that shape our social fabric.

I further argue that the institution of marriage is teetering on the brink of extinction, with divorce rates soaring and families suffering the consequences.

I highlight that the traditional values of love and belonging have been overshadowed by the currencies of identity and loyalty, leading to a fragmented society.

This fragmentation not only affects personal relationships but also extends to organized sports, which have transformed from a celebration of skill and camaraderie into a battlefield of egos, where winning takes precedence over enjoyment.

The discussion continues further into the concept of patriotism, questioning its true meaning and the motives behind it.

I point out that patriotism, often glorified as love for one’s motherland, can lead to an adversarial mindset that fosters hatred toward others.

By examining historical examples, I illustrate how loyalty to political interests can distort our understanding of love for our homeland, suggesting that true love should extend beyond borders.

Throughout the episode, I invite you to reflect on your own relationships and societal structures, urging you to consider how your interactions are shaped by these broader socio-cultural forces.

I also emphasize the importance of deep, meaningful connections, asserting that true love can only flourish in an environment of openness and sensitivity.

As the episode concludes, I leave you with thought-provoking questions about the future of marriage, the role of fatherhood, and the necessity of compassion in our interactions.

I encourage you all including myself to engage in deeper conversations about love and belonging, reminding us that our understanding of these concepts is crucial for fostering a healthier society.

Tune in to this enlightening episode of Skeletal Leap and explore the profound connections between love, identity, and the institutions that govern our lives.

Don’t miss the opportunity to gain insight into the human experience and the complexities that define our love and belonging needs today.

🔑 Key Takeaways:

• (00:00:01) - Corruption in Marriage, Sports and Nation State

• (00:03:20) - What is Love and Its Definition?

• (00:10:33) - The disintegration of traditional marriage

• (00:11:55) - What is patriotism in sports?

• (00:22:06) - Why is Patriotism celebrated in India?

🎙️ Listen to the Journey:

📽️ Watch the Masterclass:

Wants vs Needs: Corruption of Love and Belonging Needs: Transcript

“Love is actually sensed through a flow of energy in the body while interacting. That is what makes one spiritually healthy as well.”

My name is Laadi Ojas. Welcome to “Skeletal Leap: A Living Adventure”. Skeletal Leap transforms one’s life into a personal heaven.

Today’s episode will tell you about corruption in marriage, organized sport, and nation state.

The institutions of marriage, organized sport and nation state make up the sociocultural heart chakra that aims to fulfill the needs of love and belongingness in society. The currencies it uses are ‘identity’ and ‘loyalty’. Identification and attachment turned more important than fulfilling the needs of compassionate love and belonging in society. Corrupted by the currencies of ‘identity’ and ‘loyalty’, these needs gave rise to social institutions such as marriage, organized sport and nation state.

Today, the institution of marriage has come down to the verge of extinction, thanks to the ever-increasing rate of divorces.

Sporting spirit took a big hit the moment it got redesigned on the lines of mini warfare, thereby corrupting its whole foundation.

Loyalty and patriotism promoted love and belonging in society but in an extremely fragmented way, leading to nation states. It also promoted the “othering” and hatred against the so-called enemy societies. It never had a compassionate concern for the undivided humanity despite the numerous slogans it raised along the way. This gave rise to disparate ideologies that often ended up in arms against one another. That was what happened during the Cold War that lasted almost half a century.

Result – sociocultural heart chakra shut!

Marriage

In the wake of the present human awareness, the institution of marriage seems to be moving toward disintegration. Divorces are at an all-time high creating a traumatic hell for the children whose lives are irreparably disrupted as and when a marriage breaks down.

It is too late to go back to the old community pattern of hunter-gatherers where fatherhood was inclusive. The reason is that, today, a father can very easily know who his offshoot is with a simple DNA test. Even an offshoot can do it later in life. All this can lead to many kinds of complexities in relationship patterns.

Let’s investigate Maslow’s deficiency need for love and belonging a little deeper. If we objectively look at it, neither psychology nor literature has yet been able to provide an authentic definition of the phenomenon called love. And the hard fact is that love occupies the most central stage in the human psyche as a drive. All our literature including poetry, drama, cinema and fiction thrives on love the most. Even religion vouches by it.

At times, philosophers did try to define the phenomenon, but there has not been any consensus among them yet. Humanity still understands love only in an intuitive sense. But this intuitive sense about love is the strongest among all other mental phenomena whether emotional, instinctual or moral. I think majority of humanity would vouch for it. And at least in the modern society, people marry only when they have fallen in love with someone.

So, how do we define love? It certainly has something to do with a sense of belonging. But that does not take us any closer to an objective definition of love. At best, it simply acts as a synonym.

Is love an emotion?

No. Love cannot be an emotion. Emotions have their abode in mind alone, not in the mind-body system as an organic part of it. Love is actually a mind-body state.

Is love a moral value?

Not even that! Morals are all foreign concepts nailed into mind alone while we grow up. They, too, are not there in the mind-body system as an organic part of it.

Is love an instinct?

Exactly! We are born with it in our body even when our mind has not yet started developing. The newborn immediately starts feeling a sense of belonging to their mother. Later in life, we sense it via interacting with anyone or anything through our senses. The deeper the interaction, the stronger is the sensation of love!

Thus love is a sensation. The more we have it through our interactions in-depth, the more it makes us sensitive. The deeper we sense, the stronger we love. This deep sensitivity enables us to feel the other inside out.

Why don’t we feel this sensation, then, while interacting with others all day, everyday?

Simply because we lose our sensitivity considerably as we grow up in an unhealthy environment. Here comes the debilitating role of the heart chakra sticking the chest ‘in’ instead of protruding it ‘out’ via abducting shoulder joints posturing them away from the torso as the first nature of the body.

They rather drop down via adducting shoulder joints posturing them stuck to the torso as an unhealthy habit. This unhealthy habit is responsible for closing heart chakra as it generates a defensive muscular armor (by habitually keeping the muscles named pectoralis major and pectoralis minor rigidly contracted) seriously limiting the openness of chest and arms ready to embrace anyone and everyone around.

It mentally results in keeping our ‘self’ protected from an imaginary threat of an attack on it. On the other hand, the openness of chest and arms ready to embrace anyone and everyone around plays a key role in dissolving one’s ‘self’ with an open heart chakra in combination with rest of the 6 chakras opened. This results in feeling the sensation of love while interacting with others through the day everyday. A healthy mind-body system is an acutely sensitive system. The more it is sensitive physically as well as mentally, the deeper it interacts and the more it loves.

Love is actually sensed through a flow of energy in the body while interacting. That is what makes one spiritually healthy as well.

And when a healthy mind-body system interacts in-depth with another mind-body system of opposite gender in adulthood, the two interacting personalities not only sense love but may also feel like making love between the two of them. That is how two personalities may get attracted to and fall in love with each other.

How do sociocultural systems for love and belonging needs get affected when their currencies, namely ‘identity’ and ‘loyalty’, become more important than the real need itself? They close the sociocultural heart chakra of our society en bulk. It is just like ‘identity’ and ‘loyalty’ work in closing the biological heart chakra via keeping our ‘self’ protected from an imaginary threat of an attack on it. These two limiting currencies become the central theme of the need for love and belonging. Once it happens, these currencies make boundaries around the ‘self’. This keeps people isolated and alienated from other people around them in the name of an imaginary safety and security to keep their ‘identity’ and ‘loyalty’ intact.

How much do we interact with our neighbors in the modern apartment buildings we live in these days? And how readily do we unconditionally interact with people across the boundaries of our ‘identity’ and ‘loyalty’, be those the boundaries of nationality, religion, caste, class, faith, belief-system, ideology, gender, possessive attachment, emotional attachment, moral attachment, generation, and orthodox political affiliation?

These are the tags of ‘identity’ and ‘loyalty’ that keep us away from loving people through unconditionally interacting with them in-depth.

True love never happens without deep interaction. Also, love never happens without an acute sensitivity to feel the other while interacting.

No doubt, then, that in the wake of the present human awareness, the institution of marriage seems to be moving toward disintegration. Divorces are at an all-time high creating a traumatic hell for the children whose lives are irreparably disrupted as and when a marriage breaks down.

How important is a father for a child? And how important is fatherhood for a sensitive father in today’s life?

If we look at it from this angle, traditional marriage seems to be the best solution. Even a divorce has no place in it since it traumatizes children’s life irreparably.

But divorces cannot be stopped from taking place. In fact, they are well on their way to becoming the rule rather than exception.

Even if divorces didn’t exist, marriages turn from fond to dull relationships between spouses within no time. When this happens, sex turns from a romantic and passionate affair into a mechanical rut sooner than later.

It is a catch-22 situation.

Organized Sport

Sports Vs Sportsman Spirit:

Sports and sportsman spirit have come to be in conflict with each other in today’s society. It is simply owing to the way sports have been designed and organized all over the world.

Why do we play sport?

I think a rational answer should be ‘to enjoy skilled physical activity’.

We enjoy the sporting skill that is required in order to make strong and specific moves demanded by any given sport. We also enjoy corresponding moves by opponent players or teams. This makes it an awe-inspiring scene not only for the players but for the spectators as well.

Win Or Lose:

It would be good enough if it were celebrated like a festival to inspire awe in the players and spectators. But their designers went a step ahead and tagged the same moves and counter-moves with victory and defeat. This introduced the element of ego in their fabric.

Who wants to get defeated? No one!

Who wants to win? Everyone!

Thus, winning turned out to be the prime motto of playing sport. The beauty of the skilled moves got pushed to the margin. The result became more important than the enjoyment springing out of the aesthetic of the awe-inspiring moves themselves.

We humans have a very crude habit of quantizing quality which tends to kill its subtleness.

Being an instinct, love as a need for belonging is always a subtle one. But when it gets replaced with its currencies named ‘identity’ and ‘loyalty’, we start assessing it in these terms. Our intention behind this is always to strengthen our own limited ‘identity’ and ‘loyalty’. Assessment is only possible between quantities or numbers that we start assigning to this quality.

No wonder, then, that we invent ways to assign those quantities to the quality displayed in a sporting event ending up with victory for one and defeat for another. It is again a very clear case of our sociocultural system of sport getting afflicted with a closed sociocultural heart chakra. Combined with the rest of other closed sociocultural chakras, it ultimately ends up getting afflicted with practices like match-fixing, betting, violence in sports and many more ills.

Brute Force to Win:

Then brute force becomes the rule of the game.

Let’s ask the same question again…

Why do we play sport?

This time the answer is going to be ‘in order to win’!

Where is the existence of sportsman spirit lost?

It is only left in the sloganeering aimed at glamorizing sports for the very thing they are no longer about!

Can you see how the motive to play changed diametrically opposite to the spirit of the sports this time?

And this is what inspires us to play sports in the present day scenario to win them at any cost.

Sports have been designed on the model of war.

Nation State

Patriotism

Patriotism is a highly revered value all over the world. It means love for one’s motherland.

Ironically the word patriotism has originated from the Greek word patēr, which means father. Yet, it has been used to express the love for a land that has been associated not with father but with mother.

Logically, it should have been ‘matriotism’ if it was to express our love for our motherland.

It simply shows our male gender bias. ‘Father’ crept in even in the formulation of a word that is touted as the embodiment of something related to ‘mother’.

But it is not simply a slip of gender that crept into the naming of something wrong. It is much more than that.

The Male-oriented Mindset:

The two mindsets were different…

The mindset that formulated the concept of patriotism.

The mindset that perceived the land of one’s birth as the land belonging to one’s mother.

Our So-called Motherlands:

Our political bosses condition us to be adversarial in nature. They make our soldiers kill and get killed without knowing the real reasons why.

They brainwash us into believing that they are doing so to defend their motherland from ‘our’ enemies, simply because they love it. The same is expected from soldiers as far as their emotional and moral obligations go.

How do we define our motherland?

It may be the village I was born in or the city or the district or the state or else the country! Why can’t it be the planet we were born on?

It all depends on how narrow or wide our field of vision and extent of sensitivity are.

Why are our sensitivities limited to a political expanse of land and its people? Why not beyond it as well?

An Example from Nazi Germany:

By that token, if a German spoke against Hitler in the late 1930s or early 1940s, s/he would be tagged as a traitor or a seditionist.

But there were many Germans who did exactly that. Today, they are not at all tagged as traitors, only because Hitler lost the war. Had Hitler come out victorious in World War II (WWII), they would certainly have been dragged out on the streets and hanged publicly.

Did these Germans not love their land then? Did they not love their country while Hitler ruled?

They certainly did! But they were simply not patriots in the narrow sense of its meaning. That aggressive patriotism would have asked for their loyalty to any official stand their country took against the world.

Power Rules The World:

So were they villains?

As said earlier, they would certainly have been tagged as villains if Hitler had been victorious in WWII.

Were they traitors or seditionists?

Again, they would certainly have been tagged as traitors and seditionists if Hitler had been victorious.

So, patriotism has to do nothing with the love for one’s motherland.

It simply deals with the loyalty to the interests of those who control one’s motherland. It is irrelevant how unjustified or immoral those interests may be.

It all depends on who is ruling one’s motherland at present.

The interests are not in favor of the motherland but of those who are ruling it at any given point in time.

Sedition means conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch.

A Political Conspiracy:

Isn’t it simply because our political bosses have an unwritten, secret conspiracy hatched between themselves? A conspiracy that propagandizes the love for one’s so-called motherland as one of the most sacred forms of love on earth?

Doesn’t this fanatic love for one’s so-called motherland automatically create a fertile ground for hatred toward other lands and their peoples? Especially whenever they get conveniently tagged as enemy lands by the respective political bosses of these chunks of land as and when it suits their narrative?

Rules Are Made by Rulers, Not by Ethics:

Patriotism and sedition are concepts that are defined and held up only by the rulers of the land. They have their vested interests in people being patriots and never seditionists.

Patriotism can very easily and effectively be exploited to sow the seeds of hatred for the people of other lands. It especially applies to the rulers of those lands that are in conflict with the interests of rulers of their own land. All these rules are defined and decided by the rulers of the land.

Why should an Israeli hate a Palestinian or vice versa if the two countries are at war with each other?

But man, the concept of patriotism does make them do so!

Another Example from An Epic:

In the Hindu epic Ramayana, the character of Vibhishana has been portrayed as fleeing his motherland. He requests Rama, a staunch enemy at war with his country, to give him shelter. He even reveals the most classified secrets of his own country to Rama in return.

But no one including the author ever criticizes him for what he has been portrayed as doing.

Why? Isn’t his character, the way it is portrayed, that of a seditionist or a traitor?

Vibhishana’s character is not looked down upon for what he did. It is simply because the epic was written by the author who sided with the character of Rama, the eventual victor in the story!

History is definitely written by the victors. As it turns out, so also is mythology!

Patriotism as a concept originated not out of love for our land. It rather came out of our loyalty to the interests of those who controlled our land, come what may.

It happens through falling prey to the narratives that are generated using ambiguous words and phrases acting as emotional slogans addressing the fallible psyche of the common masses. These narratives hold their superficial interests high on a pedestal arising from the already unfortunate cognitive assessment of their love and belonging needs. In the process, their mere currencies, namely ‘identity’ and ‘loyalty’, take over. Another case of sociocultural heart chakra getting closed!

Thanks for listening to this episode of Skeletal Leap: A Living Adventure! In the next episode, I will tell you about corruption in charitable organizations.

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Introduction:

In a world increasingly driven by the pursuit of wealth and resources, this 30th episode of Skeletal Leap poses critical questions about our societal structures and their impact on our lives.

I invite you to engage in a thought experiment inspired by the great Albert Einstein, challenging our perceptions of needs versus wants.

The episode deals with the concept of the socio-cultural root chakra, which I argue has been corrupted by the relentless pursuit of personal ownership and material wealth

I highlight the alarming reality that 80% of the world’s wealth is controlled by just 20% of the population, raising concerns about the ethical implications of such inequality.

I suggest that our collective focus on money and ownership has led to a fragmented society, where genuine physiological and safety needs are often overlooked.

Throughout the discussion, I draw parallels between various societal institutions, including the military industrial complex, big pharma, and the politics-business nexus.

I argue that these entities prioritize profit over people, perpetuating a cycle of corruption that hinders true progress and well-being.

The episode emphasizes the importance of holistic healing and the need to address root causes rather than merely treating symptoms, a concept that resonates deeply in today’s fast-paced, outcome-driven world.

You are encouraged to reflect on your own lives and consider whether you are living as slaves to your minds, driven by fear and greed, or if you can embrace a more aesthetic approach to existence.

I conclude by asserting that true freedom comes from within, urging you to empty your mind and reconnect with your innate sense of purpose and passion.

This episode is not just a critique of modern society; it’s a call to action for you to reclaim your lives from the grips of corruption and rediscover what it means to live authentically.

Join me on this enlightening journey and explore the profound implications of our socio-cultural structures.

Tune in to Skeletal Leap and take the first step toward a more liberated existence.

🔑 Key Takeaways:

• (00:00:01) - What is the Corruption in our Social Systems?

• (00:09:39) - Living A Comfortable Life

• (00:14:13) - Power of Business-Politics Nexus

• (00:18:37) - Socio-cultural Root Chakra

• (00:20:31) - What makes us prone to falling in the trap of an unhealthy life?

• (00:25:03) - Health of Modern People vs Holistic Healing

• (00:31:47) - Healthcare and the Military

• (00:42:05) - Art and Entertainment: Aesthetic Needs

• (00:44:14) - Skeletal Leap: Corruption in Marriage

🎙️ Listen to the Journey:

📽️ Watch the Masterclass:

Transcript:

“Let us do a thought experiment (one of the most favorite tools of one Dr. Albert Einstein). Think of yourself as an idealist for a moment.”

My name is Laadi Ojas. Welcome to “Skeletal Leap: A Living Adventure”. Skeletal Leap transforms one’s life into a personal heaven.

Today’s episode will tell you about corruption in industrial complex, big pharma & insurance, military-industrial complex and politics-business nexus.

The first casualty, as was the case with our biology, was the sociocultural root chakra.

As it stands today, closed sociocultural chakras have blocked the human energy right at the lowest level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, namely physiological and safety needs.

As explained above, the root of the problem lies in faulty cognition of reality whereby societal wants function as proxies for social needs.

Personal ownership of resources became more important than the physiological or aesthetic needs it fulfilled. Thus, money, as a means to personal ownership of resources, became a currency for the exchange of the goods and services that fulfilled these needs. Sociocultural institutions belonging to the sociocultural root chakra include the most sought after core of society at present. Physiological needs comprise the biological component of human survival guaranteeing homeostasis to the human body.

These are provided by the social systems such as industrial complexes for jobs and financial complexes to enable and manage transactions using ‘personal ownership’ of resources as its main currency.

However, this currency turned into a source of widespread corruption.

Pursuit of Genuine Physiological Needs Instead of Its Corrupted Currency, Personal Ownership of Resources (Money)

Let us do a thought experiment (one of the most favorite tools of one Dr. Albert Einstein). Think of yourself as an idealist for a moment.

What if you tell me that I will get whatever I need whenever I need as much I need unconditionally?

Imagine what would my reaction be.

If I am fearful, controlled by my mind, I could easily turn greedy. I may say, “Just change the word need with the word want and I am okay.”

Needs are physical phenomena whereas wants are psychological in their basic etymology.

What decides what I need and what decides what I want?

Aren’t these two entities the calls given by the brain and the mind respectively?

Back to the thought experiment…had I not been corrupted by my mind, I would have been the happiest man on earth to have been offered this proposal by you! I would have immediately accepted your proposal and asked you what I need to do for that.

However, let’s continue with the version of me that IS being driven by fear.

You say, “Throw the yoke of all your possessions off your shoulders and just be a free man.”

I may not believe you for a moment and retort, “Why? Do YOU want to take away all my possessions?”

“I don’t need to…,” you smile. “I don’t need to want,” you repeat.

“Won’t you like ruling the world? Don’t you want that?” I sound stupid to my own self as I ask.

“Why would I?” you give a carefree look, “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown!”

“But what would I do if I get what I need without doing anything for getting it?” I am intrigued.

“Decide it for yourself if you really feel like doing something,” you are still smiling.

“It would turn me crazy,” I retort.

“That you already are,” you show me the mirror, “A slave to your mind!”

“By the same token, aren’t you a slave to your brain too?” I challenge.

“My brain is my friend. Your mind is your boss. It keeps you scared with a threat of starving in case you don’t earn the right to live,” you sound cool.

“And your brain?” I ask again.

“It doesn’t think of future. It lets me do what I feel like doing right now,” you reveal.

“YOU do what you feel like doing. What would I do, I don’t know,” I nervously say.

“Enable me to enable my guarantee that I just gave you!” you start laughing.

I get taken aback for a moment. Then I start laughing along.

That ends our thought experiment. It tells us idealism is not as impossible as it is presented to be.

The entire question swings between two different approaches to life, ‘to have’ or ‘to be’.

Do we have a gene within us that would answer this question? If it says the fittest survives, doesn’t our thought experiment hint toward that possibility even when threatened by human-induced climate change?

Cavemen never felt they ever required any private property.

If it were in our genes, we would have started going along that track right then and there. If we did it later, something new must have conspired to do so.

I hypothesize, it was simply our mind gone greedy, trying to save itself from starving to death in future.

We had evolved to grow our own food on the fertile land.

But we hadn’t evolved to own the land primarily and go on expanding its perimeter to the last days of our lives.

Doing so through putting the yoke of all its stressful burdens on our shoulders took its toll on our health. No other species in the entire animal world ever does that. And if we got a brain, did we get it for wasting it on such petty concerns?

We certainly went wrong somewhere when we shifted from hunting-gathering to agriculture and personal ownership of resources. We thought it would give us freedom but what it gave us was slavery and disease alone. The more personal resource ownership we amassed, the more it impoverished us in other ways.

Have we ever thought how much energy we waste just in the petty pursuit of staying alive and comfortable? In fact, to secure our comfortable living in the future, we ‘want’ to amass resources that are many times more than we would ever really need. Doesn’t this amount to stealing from others who could have used those resources to live a comfortable life? But unluckily 80% of the human wealth lies under the control of 20% of the human population. The rest 80% live a life of have nots. And majority of these 20% people has acquired the 80% of the human wealth through unethical if not illegal means.

Here are two quotes of this Pareto’s principle of 20-80 distribution…

“Pareto’s observation was in connection with population and wealth. Pareto noticed that approximately 80% of Italy’s land was owned by 20% of the population. He then carried out surveys on a variety of other countries and found to his surprise that a similar distribution applied.”

Courtesy Wikipedia 2022

“A chart that gave the effect a very visible and comprehensible form, the so-called “champagne glass” effect, was contained in the 1992 United Nations Development Program Report, which showed that distribution of global income is very uneven, with the richest 20% of the world’s population receiving 82.7% of the world’s income.”

Courtesy Wikipedia 2022

If we don’t have sufficient ownership of resources in order to live a comfortable life, we will keep dreaming of it all the time. If we have way more resources than needed, it keeps us too busy not to lose them and, therefore, to grow them further.

Why?

It is because nothing is sufficient for human greed which is driven by the human fear of losing everything one has. In both cases, we are not living a life full of freedom. We are doomed to remain slaves to the same wicked design that we ourselves created as our sociocultural structure.

It not only robs us personally of our joy of living a free life but also socially of the countless geniuses hidden in broad daylight amidst us. This is because they never become free to exhibit their talents while they are busy dreaming of and toiling for the ownership of a bigger chunk of resources.

Slaves never enjoy. They don’t enjoy because they are not free. Slave holders never enjoy either. They don’t enjoy because they are busy keeping slaves as slaves forever. Hence their slaves don’t let them be free.

They become the slaves of their slaves. I still remember a couplet that I had read in my early childhood:

Leave your birthplace

And roam around the world,

Refusing either to be a slave

Or a slave holder.

I wouldn’t be surprised if you are asking as you read this, “Who decides what is comfortable?”. Well, it is my contention that ‘Skeletally Leapt” humans, operating primarily from their brains, would answer that question organically and would arrive at similar, if not the same, answers as a society.

Therefore, we don’t really need to take any direct corrective action in order to resolve this dilemma. We just need to empty our mind via Skeletal Leap to regain our health. And leave it to our brain to take the right spontaneous decisions.

What constitutes a comfortable life would be as obvious to them the same way that existence of matter is self-evident to science and that of life is self-evident to each one of us.

Sociocultural Root Chakra: Industrial Complex

The first 6000 years after the transition from the mode of hunting-gathering to that of agriculture and cattle-rearing resulted in two strong social institutions: business and the state. Business was in the rudimentary form of loosely organized crafts, trades and services while the state gradually evolved into aggressive empires that constantly fought with one another and extended their control over further chunks of lands and populations.

Everything remained in flux for a very long period of around the next 6,000 years. Empires kept changing hands by new power centers forcing businesses to keep changing their currencies.

Much later, after the Industrial Revolution in Europe took place in the eighteenth century, businesses were able to revolutionize their speed of production. Their sizes started getting bigger and bigger needing bigger markets for their products and more raw materials for their production.

This started an era of certain European nations colonizing far-flung countries in Asia, Africa and South America mainly for the resources that lay untapped therein. The ones that missed the bus then tried to compensate later by waging the two World Wars that they eventually lost. Still, these two wars left the imperial powers’ control on their colonies severely depleted. They were forced to move out, limiting them back to their own homelands.

Since the world came out of the trend of nations attacking others to extend their boundaries and control, political control has given way to business control all over the world. The power of big business has assumed the size of financial empires, bestowing them with real powers to manipulate governments.

Business morphed into a profit generating machine more than a responsible facilitator of comforts and innovations. Politics-business nexus began centralizing unprecedented powers to control almost every single aspect of people’s lives.

As of today, business as an entity has started controlling every single aspect of our life on earth.

Sociocultural Root Chakra: Politics-Business Nexus

Power got concentrated in the hands of the cunning and the corrupt. And they took extra care to ensure that it never slipped off their hands.

All the instruments of the state that existed in the name of serving the masses actually started being co-opted by secret agenda. These agenda took care that the cunning and the corrupt were able to maintain their control over people’s lives and prosperity.

Countries were never a part of the package that we received as we evolved into a thinking species on earth.

What was offered to us was an unnamed vast expanse of land to live and move around on.

This nexus between the state and the business threatens the very welfare of humanity.

Business, as an entity, has grown so powerful that it can even make or break political structures anywhere. Both of them have their respective vested interests which generally don’t align with the genuine interests of the very populace that they each claim to ‘serve’.

Human-induced climate change is a direct outcome of this misalignment.

• During the COP26¹, the yearly UN climate summit held in Glasgow in 2021, the well-known climate activist Greta Thunberg² protested in Glasgow, saying COP26 wasn’t leading us anywhere. Only pledges and commitments aren’t going to stop temperature from rising beyond 1.5C. We do need to implement them under a strict regimen holding all parties accountable to their commitments.

• COP27 was held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, from 6 November until 20 November 2022. Its credibility was dealt a serious blow by the absence of big powers, Russia and China.

• COP28, held from 30 November to 13 December 2023 at Expo City, Dubai, United Arab Emirates received widespread criticism as it lacked a clear-cut time-based commitment to either fossil fuel phase-out or phase-down. China and India did not even sign the pledge to triple their output of renewable energy by the year 2030 and committed to coal power instead.

• COP29 held from 11 November to 22 November 2024 in Baku, Ajerbaijan couldn’t break any new ground too, limiting itself to lip service alone.

Who will ensure that the targets of these summits are met before it is too late?

Unluckily, here again, the national ambitions of the politics-business nexus are coming in the way of its success. The point of no return is very close and, when it arrives, it will be no less than Nero playing the fiddle while Rome was burning!

This, though, is only half the story of the sociocultural root chakra.

The other half of the sociocultural root chakra got closed by the corruption of our safety needs through the ‘currency’ we know as ‘public welfare’. Safety needs comprise healthcare along with security. These are provided by healthcare facilities, judiciary for providing justice, army and warfare for defense and governments for making policies.

Sociocultural Root Chakra: Big Pharma & Health Insurance

Healthcare has, of course, helped the masses in a great way but only to manage ailing conditions, not curing them permanently. It definitely did its bit in surgical interventions excellently but then fell short of energizing society cyclically.

As far as judicial systems are concerned, they do their job only up to the point where the political system at the helm of power doesn’t get challenged.

After that point is reached, politics-judiciary nexus immediately gets created by those in political power at the moment in a covert dictatorial way. We have seen it happening in more than one countries in the recent past.

Similarly, public welfare got diminished by sloganeering that takes center stage rather than fulfilling safety needs in reality. Armies have always remained an instrument of offense rather than genuine defense for safety. Warfare has been a way of life along the passage of history.

What essentially is it that makes us prone to falling in the trap of an unhealthy life?

An Unhealthy Fragmented Mind:

As already described in Episode 26 in detail, a fragmented mind is an unhealthy mind.

Okay, but what exactly do we mean by the fragmentation of mind?

Well, fragmentation simply means divided in two or more parts rather than being one single entity as a whole.

When it comes to an undivided mind, it means a mind focused at one single thing at one given time. It happens when the mind is emptied of all its motivations and left alone with its passion.

From Interest to Involvement to Focus:

When the mind is focused at one single thing like this, it works at its best. All its energies get aligned, producing a laser-like effect in order to deal with the concern in question.

Such focus comes with absolute involvement in the process that the mind is busy with.

But generally, the mind lacks that level of involvement in almost anything it lays its hands on.

Why?

Simply because it is not REALLY interested in it!

It is interested in what it is going to get out of it.

Herein lies the biggest lacuna of human health, i.e., the way humanity lives an unhealthy life.

Passion Vs Motivation:

We do an action not because that action is our passion. We rather do it based on the motivation for what it is going to reward us with.

We act out of motivation, not out of passion.

If motivation is the driving force behind our mental action, it has already fragmented our mind. Mind is doing one thing in the present and thinking about another in the future or the past, for that matter.

It is not really involved in the action, simply because it is not really interested in the action.

Motivation Is A Mirage:

It is interested in something other than acting in the present. It is rather the action of dreaming about the future when it hopefully will have rewarded us with its outcome.

Motivation and passion don’t ever go hand in hand with each other.

Motivation comes from outside. It is needed only when we are not passionate about what we are doing from within.

In that sense, we can think of punishment as its opposite. If we are not passionate, we are shown a carrot to do a thing to the best of our efficiency. If that fails, a rod as punishment is the next option that is applied.

If we are passionate from within, we neither need a carrot as motivation nor a rod as punishment.

The greed for a carrot or the fear of a rod can only make cosmetic enhancements in efficiency. Neither can ever match the efficiency that comes from passion for the action at hand. This is simply because the reward-punishment approach doesn’t enjoy the process, it is rather preoccupied with outcome alone.

But humanity performs almost all its actions out of motivation for the outcome, not out of passion for the action.

The results are always much less than optimal.

It further fragments our mind, looking for an even stronger motivation the next time. Our petty vision keeps us limited but still satisfied in just doing the job a little better each time.

But it is never going to happen!

We may come up with various acceptable outcomes that our society has become accustomed to. But we will never be able to come up with an optimally excellent outcome generating an exhilarating experience in life.

Mind Affecting Body:

This was all about the dynamics of an unhealthy mind in action.

What about its effects on the body? The body is responsible for healthy physiological processes, after all.

Well, it turns out that an unhealthy mind makes the body unhealthy too.

When two opposite driving forces pull the mind in two opposite directions, the body mirrors the same.

This results largely due to the nerves carrying two or more opposing signals from the brain. These conflicting signals confound the muscles to move in two or more opposite directions.

In such a situation, it becomes physically impossible for the muscles to follow such opposing signals from the brain.

Fragmentation Generates Stress:

An unhealthy fragmented mind makes the brain go haywire.

When the muscles are not able to follow the conflicting signals from the brain, what do they do?

They just get set in a state of limbo, which turns them rigid.

Rigidified involuntary muscles inside the body as well as the voluntary ones outside it turn the body rigid.

This rigidity manifests itself in the body’s internal physiological processes as well as its external actions.

This is how mental stress, which is nothing but a state of fragmented mind, turns into physical stress. It debilitates the body and renders it prone to all kinds of lifestyle diseases.

Holistic Healing Vs Modern Pharmaceutical Medicine:

Holistic healing is a philosophical approach to healing. It stands 180 degree opposite to the approach of modern pharmaceutical medicine. This is as far as taking care of human health is concerned.

Pharmaceutical medicine, also known as ‘Big Pharma’, is a big business with its size being over one trillion U.S. dollars per year. It is very natural that business will do its best never to let its grip loosen on such a large market. Especially when an alternative approach such as holistic healing starts growing roots in the mindset of the masses.

I would like to point out here that it is not a mere coincidence that, whenever a social institution such as pharmaceutical medicine attempts to fulfill a real safety need (health, in this case), the already corrupted institution of business takes over. It is much the same way that an individual human body in which the root chakra is closed is prone to the higher chakras getting closed as well. No wonder then, that we are dealing with “too big to fail” monsters such as politics-business nexus, politics-judiciary nexus, ‘big pharma’ and many other harmful nexuses that we will talk further about.

Scientific Validity:

The way big business thwarts an alternative approach to healing is by challenging its scientific validity. Its main assertion is that any such procedures need to undergo strict laboratory testing. Health authorities always look for convincing statistical data to establish the efficacy of any new approach to address human health.

But in doing so, the field of pharmaceutical medicine ignores the most basic philosophy of healing which is to do away with the root cause of any health problem. It is not sufficient to do away with the symptoms of the problem alone.

If the symptoms alone are done away with, the problem tends to relapse. Almost everyone has experienced this. That is, perhaps, why the modern medical approach calls their procedures ‘treatments’ and not ‘cures’.

Treatment Vs Cure:

Healing, on the other hand, concerns itself with curing an illness permanently as opposed to treating it temporarily by focusing on its symptoms alone.

Treating symptoms temporarily can be a much swifter process than curing the root cause permanently. This is the reason why modern pharmaceutical medicine has gained acceptance among the masses. In the age of fast food, people look for fast medicine as well. It doesn’t matter if it damages their health in the long run.

Treating Symptoms Alone Spoils Health:

How does treating only symptoms damage health in the long run?

It does so in two main ways:

• First, as the symptoms temporarily disappear, the patients psychologically feel that the problem has been eliminated. Hence they revert to their old lifestyles that had caused the problem in the very first place. As a result, the problem relapses after some time turning them weaker and weaker every time it does.

• Second, the symptoms cannot be naturally eliminated without addressing the causative factors. What pharmaceutical medicine actually does is that it suppresses the symptoms artificially by sending an army of antibodies from outside. It doesn’t strengthen the antibodies that the innate immune system generates within. The immune system is just not given enough time or chance to fight the illness with its own natural antibodies.

As a result, in the long run, it gets conditioned not to be able to generate these antibodies efficiently anymore. It leads to incrementally reduced immunity in the mind-body system after taking every course of modern pharmaceutical medicine.

Every new relapse of the same condition proves to be more serious than the former, complicating the treatment more complex each time.

Health deteriorates further!

Lifestyle Diseases:

Apart from normal acute diseases, there are more permanent lifestyle diseases too.

migraines | diabetes | hypothyroid | hyperthyroid | hypertension | heart conditions | acidity | constipation | obesity | liver cirrhosis | kidney failure | asthma | anxiety | depression | and many more.

Unfortunately, modern pharmaceutical medicine doesn’t have any permanent cure for them. It only has a few options to merely manage the above-listed conditions somehow.

Role of Money:

Significant resources are required in carrying out such monitored tests on sample sets of patients. ‘Big Pharma’ is the entity that funds this research and then has to make it all back by lobbying for, marketing and force-feeding medicines that only cure symptoms to a populace that, at best, gets habituated and, at worst, gets addicted to them. It is something like pop music and popular movies selling way more than classical ones or fast food more than nutritious diet.

Both time and resources go against holistic healing procedures. They aren’t effectively able to carry out monitored tests on large enough sample sizes of patients for a long enough time. Hence they are at a loss to show better statistical results in a scientifically convincing manner.

It is very much like the rich becoming richer even if inefficient, and the poor becoming poorer even if more virtuous.

Healthcare also brings in another big business as a huge commercial activity called health insurance. It benefits from people’s fear of falling ill or else dying prematurely, both of which have scary consequences to deal with. There is also a much costlier fear of losing what one has, including one’s business and costly belongings.

In a healthy society supported by strong pillars of closely-knit communities, such fears wouldn’t have rooted themselves deep enough. But since that is not what it is, an individual feels alienated, scared of being left alone in any such emergency. The only available option one finds to feel reasonably safe and secure is a legally binding insurance to take care in case any such casualty happens.

And ironically, the agency that provides this feeling of safety is one of the biggest businesses on earth. Although it does provide the feeling of a legal safety, the socio-psychological security network is awfully missing. On top of it, recurring payments for various kinds of insurance add up fast to a considerable sum to part with, every month.

The insurance companies have the last laugh with a heavy bank balance at their disposal. Even after the legal safety is purchased, the lonely individual mind never sits relaxed! It is always the mind that fears. Brain simply acts in a passionately focused manner if needed.

Sociocultural Root Chakra: Military-Industrial Complex

Army - A Social Institution Licensed to Kill:

Army is one of the most weird social institutions that Homo sapiens ever built on earth!

Is it possible for a sensitive soldier to kill an enemy soldier without feeling bad about it?

Killing a man is not like killing an animal. Had it been so, consuming human flesh could have been a norm like eating animal flesh is.

But we don’t eat our own species simply because we sense a common link among us. Even the thought of doing so invokes a strong revulsion not only in our mind but in our body too.

Won’t a real killing of a real man invoke a similar reaction in someone with a normal level of sensitivity?

It should! It ought to!

Sensitivity Vs Insensitivity:

If it doesn’t, it simply shows that the person concerned is not sensitive enough to feel bad about it.

But then, throughout the history of mankind there have been armies invading other armies to kill soldiers in wars.

Who are these people who do so and don’t ever feel a tinge about it?

One can only infer that the human mind can certainly be trained to become insensitive enough not to feel bad about killing other humans.

But is that a healthy state to achieve?

What implications will such insensitivity have on the mental health of the person concerned?

The real act of love depends on sensitivity in order for its subtleties to be felt! Will a killer ever be able to love another human being with all the soft and tender feelings?

Certainly not!

His/her act of love would also be something like an act of winning a war.

An Army Against Another Army:

That was from the perspective of an individual soldier who is trained to kill.

Let’s ponder upon it from a totally different perspective now.

How can the collective humanity justify raising armies aimed at killing other humans?

What turns certain armies enemy to one another?

Soldiers in the two enemy armies don’t even know one another, let alone being each other’s enemies!

The same enemies might have been the best of friends, had they met one another in different circumstances elsewhere in life.

Why all this enmity?

And who can guarantee it will continue like this in the future? On retirement, they may settle down in some foreign land and end up being next door neighbors. They may even turn out to be passionately fond of each other!

Anything is possible! We just investigated one such hypothetical situation.

Even if some lands are spared being tagged as adversaries by the political bosses, our sensitivities may never be with them. We may turn insensitive to the people residing in those lands.

We inherited this beautiful earth and we divided it into countries and nationalities making it look so ugly!

In today’s world, this enmity is further strengthened by mainly two kinds of narratives. The first one is the border disputes that generally afflict neighboring nations. The second narrative has to do with the ideological differences. Nations tend to resist worldviews that affect the kind of society they have designed for themselves, even if such resistance comes from thousands of miles away.

Any suspicious move by one is interpreted as a conspiracy on their behalf intending to devour the very existence of the other. In such a scenario, every nation is always in a constant state of paranoia.

Politicians very well know how to create narratives benefiting them in strengthening their control on the internal politics of their own states. They can easily turn them as a dangerous threat to their very existence as a nation. A sprawling wave of fear spreads all over in the minds of its inhabitants who, then, are ready to unconditionally support their rulers. The armies are alerted, recruiting more soldiers and purchasing new lethal arms for them. Everyone shuns their brains, panicking and acting emotionally in a haphazard manner. We have seen it happening all around the world for various political motives.

Fast Forward to The Present Day:

Let us fast forward to the present day scenario of the state.

The state changed its form in almost all countries and nationalities from feudal kingdoms to the so-called democratic republics. They should actually have been called plutocratic republics instead.

The dominance of resources in the present form of money still persists as far as formation of the governments in all countries and nationalities is concerned. It was only the form of the state that changed, not its essential character.

The cunning and the corrupt are still in power in every state of the world. Thanks to the power of money that gets them elected to represent millions of people under the mask of patriotism. This is now an irrefutable fact.

Aesthetic Needs

Arts and entertainment networks are social institutions that fall under sociocultural sacral chakra arising from the suppression/ repression of sexual gratification. The currencies it uses are ‘fame’ and ‘celebrity’. The growth needs that these institutions aim to fulfill are aesthetic needs. However, these aesthetic needs got corrupted by the currency of ‘fame’ and ‘celebrity’ into phenomena such as the ‘star system’ in the film industry.

And since the suppression/ repression of sexual gratification was an intensive as well as an extensive phenomenon, almost everyone looked forward to aesthetic experiences either in the form of a creator or else a consumer. Consuming was way easier than creating aesthetic experiences offering day-dreams to them.

Naturally, consumers of such aesthetic experiences found an element of entertainment in them. As a result, such experiences started pulling in huge crowds to their performances. Their creators and performers started acquiring fame and celebrity resulting in a special status for them in society.

This helped them to not only become rich but also objects of desire for their consumers. This also helped them in coming out of suppression/ repression of their sexual gratification. Soon, they started acquiring a larger than life stature in society, epitomizing its most sought after desires.

Thus, art, the purpose of which was to fulfill aesthetic needs got waylaid by the artist and, consequently, the sociocultural sacral chakra got closed.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Skeletal Leap: A Living Adventure! In the next episode, I will tell you about corruption in marriage, organized sport, and nation state.

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References

1. Campbell, P., Hook, L., & Pickard, J. (2021, November 9). COP26: Deal to end car emissions by 2040 idles as motor giants refuse to sign. Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/8c4a1809-902f-4582-a29e-1c83a97b9dff

2. Goodman, A., & Thunberg, G. (2019, January 4). You Are Stealing Our Future: Greta Thunberg, 15, Condemns the World’s Inaction on Climate Change. Democracy Now! other.

Morals vs Ethics vis-à-vis Natural Instincts: Morals Are to Keep Until Natural Instincts Rebel. Ethics Still Survive

I remember two different stories that took place with two different females coming intimately close to me in my life. Both of them were extremely moralistic in the most traditional way as they joined my soft skills training sessions.

I was in my late fifties. And one of these trainees was in her late thirties whereas the other one was in her early twenties. Their names were Lata and Meghna respectively. Lata was married and had two kids. She was working as a PGT lecturer in a government school. Meghna was still a student pursuing her degree course in an engineering college. Apart from being traditionally moralistic, they both had another common point they shared. They were quite beautiful to look at.

Lata had an undaunted reputation of being a committed and a faithful wife. She even had thwarted sexual advances from a senior officer from the education department promising huge benefits to her. It became public as she got a departmental complaint registered against him and got him suspended. There was still a departmental inquiry going on against him ruining his entire career.

Meghna as she joined my training gave a clear statement in her introduction speech that she hated falling in love. Her statement was a plain declaration that she would marry someone her parents chose for her. She had used the customary introduction ritual to warn others they shouldn’t try to make any advances toward her.

Lata had a tendency of accumulating fat around her belly. But she always kept it at bay through religiously following a strict dieting regimen and a regular cardio workout. She was extremely concerned about keeping her figure in shape. But her strict dieting regimen was proving to be a bit too much of effort pressing heavily on her psyche. She loved eating tasty snacks to satiate her taste glands, but she couldn’t. On the other hand, she saw me eating up whatever came my way without ever adding inches to my belly. I didn’t even do any cardio workouts.

Morals vs Ethics vis-à-vis Natural Instincts: Lata Asks My Secret of Keeping Fit

She came to me after a session, asking my secret to keep my shape as fit as a teenager’s body. I asked her to breathe in front of me as I closely watched her breath while inhaling and exhaling. I found she was doing it through her chest involving her intercostal muscles.

I had always breathed through my abdomen through using thoracic diaphragm. It was one of the best cures for belly fat in particular and weight loss in general. I asked her to breathe like I was doing. It employed contracting thoracic diaphragm, a muscle located between thoracic and abdominal cavities, for inhaling air inside the lungs.

It comprised slow and deep inhalation through the nose followed by slow and complete exhalation through relaxing thoracic diaphragm back. It required keeping the thoracic diaphragm relaxed in general to keep the thrust of breathing on exhalation rather than inhalation. Keeping it relaxed kept the synergetic abdominal muscles always contracted never allowing fat to get accumulated over there.

She couldn’t follow my verbal instructions to change her breathing pattern to turn her intercostal breathing into diaphragmatic breathing. Ultimately, I had to hold her intercostal muscles with my hands stopping them from moving while she breathed.

She went breathless for a while but then she raised her shoulders and collarbones while contracting the abdomen for inhalation. She had taken refuge in clavicular breathing which was a very tiring process. It simply couldn’t be held for long durations of maximum air intake.

I locked her clavicles (collarbones) as well, through aligning them with her neck. For this I had to employ my hands holding her arms up toward her head from under her armpits. Now my forearms were pressing on her intercostal muscles tight. Hence, she couldn’t use her intercostal as well as her clavicular breathing muscles for intercostal or clavicular breathing.

She went breathless again, but I didn’t release her held up muscles. Her face went red, and her eyes came popping out. I still didn’t release my pressure until she was able to relax her thoracic diaphragm and contract it to inhale.

As she was able to do it once, I released my pressure on her intercostal and clavicular muscles. I asked her to use her thoracic diaphragm on her own again without me holding her wrong breathing muscles. But she again slid back to her habitual intercostal breathing.

I was left with no alternative but to assist her physically again for her to release her thoracic diaphragm. It was an unconscious muscular habit that kept her thoracic diaphragm always contracted not allowing further contraction to inhale. It was something like unconscious domains of mind keeping habits intact while trying to change them consciously. In fact, that’s what makes habits die hard.

Morals vs Ethics vis-à-vis Natural Instincts: My Intervention Helps Lata Change Her Posture

It went on the same way for the next few days until her thoracic diaphragm learned how to relax itself. But learning how to relax it was not sufficient to change the pattern. It also required learning to keep it relaxed so that exhalation employed double duration of inhalation through contracting it briefly.

As my intervention continued for a few days, I smelt something extra getting added to it. Although she had made a considerable improvement in changing her intercostal breathing with diaphragmatic, she still insisted on my intervention. I felt she had started enjoying my intervention at another level which was sexual in nature.

First, she started getting physically seduced and then she started mentally enjoying getting physically seduced. At times she gave me hints to proceed further by letting her torso completely loose through faking fainting. But I didn’t pay heed to those hints.

Finally, when her patience crossed her control, one day she asked me straight if I would have sex with her. I wasn’t ready for it but I found it extremely tough to break her heart by saying a curt no.

“Look Lata, there is a reason I won’t,” I slowly introduced my denial trying to make it less obtrusive.

She kept looking at me intently.

I continued, “I am not a moralist, and I don’t think adultery is a sin. But I have made a promise to my wife I wouldn’t have sex outside marriage. It’s only for her satisfaction simply because I entered a contract with her when I married her. Everyone does that when one marries because marriage is nothing else but a contract though people often break those contracts. I would rather break my marriage before I ever think of breaking my contract.”

She kept looking at me with a great sense of satisfaction on her face. Then she blurted out, “You have been my best teacher ever. I love you beyond limits!”

“I love you deeply too, Lata!” I spoke as I wondered how morals were to keep only until natural instincts rebelled. Ethics still survived.

Morals vs Ethics vis-à-vis Natural Instincts: Meghna Mimics My Accent Very Well

With Meghna, the story unfolded in a totally different way on the very first day she started her training. I was familiarizing people on voice modulation for the perusal of neutral accent while speaking English, a highly accented language. But they were finding it difficult to mimic the accent I was trying to make them reproduce.

When everyone else failed, Meghna exactly reproduced it without seemingly making any extra effort on her part. I was greatly amazed at her performance that she had come up with, in such a casual manner. I asked her to reproduce a few more samples as I spoke up those. She came up with the same miraculous performance every time I tested her.

I saluted her for doing it so easily in such an impeccable manner. But she was looking at something deeper involved into the entire process of this reproduction.

She curiously said, “I don’t know how I am doing it but when I do I feel highly energetic inside.”

“Exactly! It’s also a process of summoning up energy in your body. And you can summon it up even without reproducing voice modulation for the perusal of neutral accent,” I revealed.

“How?” Meghna went more curious, “Energy is the most important thing for me in life. How to summon it up?”

“You may not only summon it up, but you can also store it inside and keep it there for good,” I further revealed.

“What’s the modus operandi? I badly need to learn it for myself,” she blurted.

“You can only get on to it slowly and gradually. It’s not a one-day job,” I replied.

“I can’t wait,” she murmured.

“You have to,” I smiled as I said this.

As the session ended, she waited for everyone else to leave. Then she spoke,” I love you!”

Morals vs Ethics vis-à-vis Natural Instincts: Meghna Proposes

I didn’t take it as a real proposal. I just took it as a philosophical expression of her awe that she had gone through during the session. Hence, I replied, “I love you too.”

“Really? I have fallen for you. I no more hate falling in love,” she exclaimed.

I still didn’t take it as a real proposal. It was since I couldn’t imagine a girl in her early twenties proposing to a man in his late fifties.

The training kept going on with the passage of time. I had always set my chairs in a circle, and I too sat on one of them during my sessions.

One day as she sat next to me in the circle, she whispered something in my ear. I couldn’t get it in the first go as to what she had whispered. I looked into her eyes with a question in mine asking her what she had said. She whispered again, “Do you love me as much as you love your wife?”

I was taken aback by what she had said. Still, I decided to take it as a philosophical expression of her awe for what she went through during training. Hence, I replied philosophically, “Yes, exactly!”

“I have even declared my love for you in front of my parents,” she whispered back.

I got alarmed. What was she up to? I whispered, “What did they say?”

She smiled as she whispered back, “My father said he needed to join your sessions too. He wants to know what is so magnetic in your personality that changed his obedient daughter overnight.”

I decided to ignore what all she had said. I actually took it to be an immature infatuation of hers toward me. I tried to make myself believe it was a temporary phase of hers and would automatically get diluted with time.

But then what happened after a few more days shook me off up to my core. I was sitting in my office working on my computer during my free hours there as Meghna barged in. I offered her a seat beside mine on my computer table. As she sat down, she didn’t take time to come to the point she had come for.

“I want to kiss you,” said she.

I kept looking at her for a long while. Then I asked, “Why? I am 58 and you are 22. What makes you feel like kissing me?”

“Energy! That you are full of, but my peers are not! That’s what has made me fall for you,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice.

“Would you like to fall for me, or would you like to fall for energy?” I posed a real difficult question to her.

“To me both are the same,” she responded.

“Would you like to pursue sex, or would you like to pursue energy?” I reframed my question.

“I want both now,” she sounded determined.

“Okay, let me propose playing a game of sex and energy together to you. Are you ready?” I asked for her approval before proposing it to her.

“What’s that?” She questioned.

Morals vs Ethics vis-à-vis Natural Instincts: I Offer A Totally Different Proposal

“Don’t kiss me. Don’t even touch me. I too won’t. But since we are extremely attracted toward each other, let’s use this as an opportunity to kindle this attraction further. Are you ready?” I gave her a hint.

“How exactly?” she wanted to know the exact details.

“Let’s bare our bodies and try to excite the other with our gestures without touching each other. The attraction will go on increasing exponentially. That will summon up incredible energy within our bodies. And since we won’t even touch each other, it won’t even tend to leak outside. We will make it a point not to throw it out once we have summoned it in,” I explained.

“Where will it ultimately lead us to?” she went curious.

“Let that be a suspense,” I proposed.

“Sounds interesting! I am ready,” she went enthusiastic about it.

“We will have to make some preparations before we embark on to doing it in real life,” I said.

“I can see it will totally change me as a person. How did you design it so creatively?” she went all praise for me.

“I have played it before and that was what changed me as a person. But there are no limits to change. Let’s start a new journey together. And I can guarantee you playing this game is way more enjoyable than repeating the old mechanical rut of sex. It doesn’t throw out, it keeps energy while playing the game of sex,” my voice went enthusiastic.

“I am looking forward to it,” she took my leave as she said these words.

I kept wondering again how fast morals got washed off the moment natural instincts turned rebellious! Ethics still survived.

_________________________________________________________

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An Absurd Life Lessons Story About Judging Others: People Judge You by What You Have Been A Victim To

I took my family to my favorite place in Manali to Marhi on the way to Rohtang pass. My daughter had turned 6 by then. There were huge glaciers in Marhi ideal for practicing skiing. Even otherwise the way from Marhi to Rohtang pass hadn’t been officially declared open for vehicular traffic that year yet.

So, I thought I would teach skiing to my daughter for the first part of the day. My plan was to climb Rohtang pass on foot after lunch and come back before evening tea.

As we were enjoying our skiing, we thought of having a tea break in between. Sipping hot tea in that cold weather was a joy in itself. Some hot snacks together felt like adding cherries to the cake. We got friendly with two honeymoon couples sipping tea on the next table. They very eagerly wanted to visit Rohtang pass but got disappointed as they came to discover it wasn’t opened yet. I told them we would be climbing it up on foot after lunch and they could join us along.

An Absurd Life Lessons Story About Judging Others: Chilling at Marhi

In the meantime, they got another offer from a van driver who had just arrived there. He somehow had managed a special permit to drive up to the pass and offered them his services. They immediately hired him despite his charges being a lot more than normal taking benefit of his special permit.

Before leaving, they came back to us and said we could also get accommodated in the van if we wished. But I refused saying I still wanted to do some more skiing before lunch. I also added I felt like climbing it on foot. I told them it would remind me my old memories of having climbed it many times in the past.

Anyway, they left in the van heading toward the top of the pass. We went back to the glacier to continue with our skiing. After another hour and a half session, we packed our skis and moved up to the same restaurant for lunch.

An Absurd Life Lessons Story About Judging Others: Two Couples Hire A Van

By the time we finished our lunch, I spotted the same van at a height coming back down. But as I spotted it, I immediately saw it tumbling down the high ditch. It was rolling down like a ball bouncing high each time it hit the side of the ditch. Within moments it reached hundreds of feet below turning into a squeezed lump of steel.

An Absurd Life Lessons Story About Judging Others: The Van Rolling Down The Road to Rohtang

Everyone rushed toward the van as it came to a standstill. After the immediate rescue was provided, five people got evacuated out of its remains. The two husbands were found dead, the driver seriously injured, and the two wives hadn’t even got a single scratch. It was because the two husbands were sitting by the door sides with the wives sandwiched between them. Hence their bodies acted like cushions to their wives while they themselves got the entire grunt of the shock.

The wives sat in a state of shock as the bodies of their husbands were laid in front of them. The driver was semiconscious opening eyes intermittently and then closing them back.

They were immediately rushed to the government hospital down in Manali. We too canceled our program to climb up the pass on foot and returned to our hotel. It had been a close shave with death for us too as we might have accepted their invitation and died.

An Absurd Life Lessons Story About Judging Others: We Visit Another Ski Resort Auli

Three years after this accident, we visited another ski resort Auli a few thousand miles away in the Himalayas. We stayed in the beautiful tourism accommodation that was the only place to stay in that newly come up resort. In the morning we sat out in the sun waiting for our breakfast to be served in the open. There was another family sitting on an adjacent table having their breakfast. We started chatting aloud from a distance.

“This new ski resort has a potential to become one of the best in the country,” I expressed my opinion.

“Certainly yes, next only to Gulmarg!” The family seemed interested in skiing as one of them replied to my comment.

“I like Rohtang and its vicinity as well. It has some very challenging slopes over there,” I added another input.

“Rohtang gives us a shudder. We lost our son in law there three years ago,” he said in a sad voice.

“Three years ago? Was it there in a van accident?” the entire scene came to my mind as a flashback.

“Yes, how do you know?” he was surprised.

I was very much there. In fact, we could have been killed in the same accident as well,” I narrated what had happened.

“Oh, what a small world is this!” he took a deep sigh.

“What about their wives? Did they get married again?” I asked out of curiosity.

“No one is ready to marry them now,” he uttered in extreme disappointment.

“But why?” I was surprised.

An Absurd Life Lessons Story About Judging Others: The Girls Have Ill-Omens in Their Destiny

They say these girls have ill-omens in their destiny. They would harm anyone they marry. Both are still unmarried. We have lost all hopes for them,” his tone went bitter as he said this.

We kept wondering about how people start judging others by what they have been a victim to.

_________________________________________________________

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A Sinful Life Lessons Story of A Sneaky Adventure: Adventure Is The Main Driving Force Behind Adultery

I was around 40 years old when a close friend of mine gave me a phone call from his town. They had married around five years ago and had no kids yet.

“I don’t know what to do,” his feeble voice laden with depression reached my ear through the phone receiver.

“What happened?” I went worried as he had never sounded so low before.

“I had never thought I would have to face it,” sounded like he couldn’t find words to explain his predicament.

“Tell me what happened,” I insisted again.

“I just caught my wife red-handed with someone else,” his voice was just sounding lost somewhere deep within himself.

A Sinful Life Lessons Story of A Sneaky Adventure: My Friend Takes An Emotional Shelter in Me

“What did you say to her?” I immediately asked.

“Nothing! I don’t know what to say,” he was totally lost in his intrigue.

“And what did she say to you?” I came up with my next question.

“Nothing! She doesn’t seem to know what to say,” he said on her behalf.

“Are you angry?” I wanted to know his emotional state.

“I am perplexed,” his tone was absolutely indecisive.

“Are you in two minds?” I tried to put words in his mouth.

“I am in twenty of them. I am almost gone blank. Am I losing my mind?” He answered me with a question.

“Try to speak to your wife,” I suggested.

“She is not in a state to speak either. I am getting scared,” his condition was really bad.

“Give phone to her,” I thought I should rather speak to her.

A Sinful Life Lessons Story of A Sneaky Adventure: My Friend Makes His Wife Speak to Me

“Hello,” her voice came.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“What should I do?” she was equally out of her mind.

“Do you want to continue together or…,” I left my sentence incomplete.

“I don’t know,” she mumbled.

“Put phone on speaker,” I thought I should speak to them together.

As they switched the speaker on, I immediately suggested, “Come to my place by the next bus available.”

There was no reply for a while. I asked again, “Will you?”

“Okay,” the two voices came together.

“You should be here by tomorrow. And stay with me for the next few days,” I gave my verdict for the time being.

A Sinful Life Lessons Story of A Sneaky Adventure: My Friend and His Wife Reach My Place

Next day, they were there. They were not in a position to initiate talking to each other. In fact, they needed a catalyst to make it happen. And that was the role I was playing.

“Do you people want to continue together or break your relationship?” I started with the most pressing question.

They looked into each other’s eyes. Then she said, “He has every right to turn me out of his life.”

“Do you want that?” I steered the talk to what she wanted.

“No, I don’t. But if he says, I will,” said she.

“Do you want that?” I asked him.

“I don’t want to punish her. But I am feeling I have been punished. What had I done wrong?” he asked to himself.

A Sinful Life Lessons Story of A Sneaky Adventure: What Went Wrong? And Why?

“Nothing! I did it all wrong. I messed up the whole thing,” she was in a pensive mood.

“Do you regret it?” I tried to put words in her mouth.

“Surprisingly not,” her eyes went wide open.

“Will you do it again?” I questioned further.

“No,” said she.

“What do you say?” I looked toward him.

“If she says she won’t do it again, it’s okay for me. I am not bent upon making her regret,” he gave his verdict.

“Are you okay with what he says?” it was time for her to answer.

“But why is he letting me go unscathed. It’s making me feel guilty. I expected him to hit me hard,” she murmured.

“That’s what he is like. I have known him since ages. Haven’t you known him yet? He never acts with vengeance,” I said.

“In fact, I love him,” she blurted her feelings out.

“As if I don’t! Do you really know how much I love you?” he blurted out too.

“So, you people are not breaking up. Am I right?” I presented a resolution.

Both nodded in the affirmative.

“I am sorry,” she spoke direct to him this time.

“Never say sorry again,” he held her up in his arms.

A Sinful Life Lessons Story of A Sneaky Adventure: Relationship Gets Saved

“Shall we open a bottle of whisky on the occasion?” I proposed. Everyone seemed to agree. And soon the dull and gloomy atmosphere changed into a vibrant party mood.

While sipping my whisky, I came up with a curious question to my friend’s wife.

“Tell me one thing I am curious about. What exactly was the feeling that drove you toward adultery?” I looked at her as I waited for an answer.

She kept thinking for a while. Then she took a big sip and kept her glass back on the table. Taking the rest at the back of the chair, she came up with one single word, “Adventure!”

A Sinful Life Lessons Story of A Sneaky Adventure: Thrill of Adventure Pushes Her to Adultery

She further added, “I recognized it after you asked it to me just now. It was a feeling of adventure that drove me toward breaking the rules of marriage.”

“Strange!” she repeated wondering about her adventure and picked up her glass to have another big sip out of it.

_________________________________________________________

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People Love You When You Love What They Love Too

At the time of marriage, my wife and I had decided to have a kid after five years of marriage. That required pregnancy after four years and three months after it. And we easily managed that trying to match the delivery date with the date of our fifth marriage anniversary. Just for fun!

We both wanted to have a daughter very passionately. But we didn’t know what it was going to be. It could be either of the two, a daughter or a son. But then, we were extremely curious to know it beforehand in our eagerness. Sex-determination tests were illegal to get done.

A Revealing Life Lessons Story About Love Psychology Facts: We Passionately Want A Girl Child

The only alternative left was to scan the movements of the baby in the uterus on an ultrasound monitor visually. That too after many months of pregnancy! And even then, it wasn’t easy to do as it required extreme patience to spot a penis.

At times the visual scanning needed to wait for as long as one full hour to predict it with some confidence. One needed waiting for the position of the embryo to make it possible spotting the penis if it was there.

And its presence was always a surer test than its absence. Hence checking the embryo for determining if it was a male was easier than checking if it was a female.

Also, there were no provisions provided to record a graphical display of the positions while checking them live. In fact, they were intentionally not provided so that the ultrasound tests couldn’t be abused for determining sex before birth.

A Revealing Life Lessons Story About Love Psychology Facts: People Prefer A Male Child

People in our country abused sex-determination tests for ascertaining if it was a male. Unluckily our decadent culture largely preferred a male child to a female one. Birth of a boy was widely rejoiced whereas the birth of a girl was taken as a burden to carry. Sex-determination tests made it possible to get the pregnancy aborted in case it confirmed a girl child. It started skewing the male-female ratio in the society leading to a huge gap between the two. That was the reason sex-determination tests had been made illegal to get done.

We went to a female gynecologist for a regular ultrasound test meant to check if the position had no complications. It took just a few minutes. The position showed it was perfect in its development and there was no cause for worry. As the gynecologist noted down about the ultrasound report on her prescription, I came up with my curiosity.

A Revealing Life Lessons Story About Love Psychology Facts: Is It A Girl Or A Boy?

“Doctor, is it a girl or a boy?” I dared asking her.

“Why do you want to know? Do you know I can call the police and get a report done against you?” the doctor yelled loud.

“I want to know because we both very passionately want a daughter and not a son as a personal preference.”

“REALLY?” her tone immediately changed like she had got the most pleasant shock of her life. She said, “You are the first parents in my entire career who said these words. They are music to my ears. It’s almost unbelievable for me. Anyway, come with me.”

A Revealing Life Lessons Story About Love Psychology Facts: Gynecologist’s Tone Suddenly Changes

She got her next appointments postponed to a later hour. Then she took us back to her ultrasound laboratory and made my wife lie down on the bed again. She once again switched her system with her ultrasound monitor on and started looking to spot a penis intently. Also, she very cordially made me sit beside her and kept explaining as she went on scanning the changing positions.

It took her more than an hour to reach a probable conclusion. She hadn’t been able to spot a penis through the entire 360-degree rotation of the embryo during that time. The absence of a penis was what we were looking for so passionately.

In the end, she declared, “There is 99.99 percent probability you got a girl child in your womb.”

A Revealing Life Lessons Story About Love Psychology Facts: Gynecologist Predicts A Girl Child

I sprang up with joy and almost started dancing. The doctor kept looking at our enthused faces with a satisfied smile.

She took us back to her consultation room and congratulated us once again for having our most passionate desire fulfilled.

I took out my wallet to pay her for what all she had done for more than an hour. But she asked me to put it back in my pocket.

“This is a gift to you from my side. You kindled a new hope in my heart that things may change for good. You have already paid me way more than I ever expected from you. Go get ready to welcome your daughter,” she called for her next patient as she said this to us.

I learned how people love you beyond all limits when you passionately love what they love passionately too!

_________________________________________________________

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Patriarchy Flows in Our Blood, We Need to Change It All by Way of Transfusion

After my marriage in 1981, we had planned a long honeymoon in my hometown in the Himalayas. It was a very pretty and homely hill station where I had spent the initial 16 years of my life. It looked down at a beautiful valley toward its south and up at snow-covered high hills toward its north. I was eager to show all that scenic beauty to my wife. My home was at the most central location with a sprawling view of the valley from its bedroom windows.

We reached there in a few hours. My elder brother’s family lived there along with my mother as my father had passed away two years ago. They were all ready to host a warm welcome to my wife on her first visit over there.

After a long session of introductory chit chat, we went out for a leisurely evening walk on the mall road. A leisurely evening walk was the main characteristic phenomenon of that town’s culture. All inhabitants of the town made it a point to have an evening walk on the mall road every day. It acted like an evening club out in the open on which everyone socialized with everyone else in the evening.

A Disruptive Life Lessons Story Breaking Down Patriarchy: My Brother Throws A Drink Party

I met tens of my old acquaintances spending a few minutes with each one introducing my wife to them. By the time we reached back home, it had already gone dark. My brother had arranged for a drink party before the dinner.

As we sat down for a few sips together, I noticed there were only two glasses served on the table. I asked for a third one for my wife which my brother didn’t accept.

He said, “We don’t have a culture of women drinking in our family. Don’t ask for something that hurts our cultural values.”

I was overwhelmed with a weird feeling, not knowing how to react to it. I also belonged to the same culture, but I had not even an inkling of what he was saying! I had started drinking later in my life after I had left my hometown to a liberal environment. In that environment everyone was welcome to share sips despite their gender.

A Disruptive Life Lessons Story Breaking Down Patriarchy: Patriarchy Raises Its Head

Finally, I said, “Okay, then please remove my glass too. You can enjoy your sips alone.”

“No, how is that possible? It’s a party in your welcome. How can you not be a part of it?” said my brother.

“But you are forcing me to opt out of it by not welcoming my wife equally,” I replied.

“She is more than welcome for everything else here except this,” he tried to justify himself.

“That’s why I have also pulled myself out of it. You please go ahead,” I repeated my stance.

“No, but that’s not okay,” he insisted again.

“Then this is not okay too,” I tried to make him aware of how he was insulting my wife.

“What?” came an ignorant question from his side.

“What you are doing is considered insulting women in the present-day culture. It’s an obsolete patriarchal culture that you are advocating sitting in your posh drawing room in this beautiful town. Mind it you are giving it a bad name,” I said in a very cool voice not matching my words.

A Disruptive Life Lessons Story Breaking Down Patriarchy: Patriarchy Breaks Down

He kept looking at me for a long while. We were all sitting in the midst of an eerie calm. It was like a war of nerves from my side challenging a long-established patriarchy rejecting it on its face.

I broke the silence saying, “Look, you are just 8 years older than I am. And then look again which decadent culture you are siding by. That is a huge gap of an entire century between the two of us today.”

He was still looking at me without blinking his eyes. Finally, he stood up, went to the kitchen and brought the third glass for my wife.

And the next moment, we all shouted, “Cheers!” including his four daughters along.

It wasn’t less than a major surgical operation with blood transfusion replacing every single drop of patriarchy flowing through it.

_________________________________________________________

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Introduction:

In 29th episode of my podcast, I take you on a fascinating journey through the intricate web of sociocultural evolution.

Drawing parallels between Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and the chakra system, I unveil how our societal structures can hinder genuine human connection and fulfillment.

The episode opens with an exploration of historical perspectives on sociocultural evolution. I discuss the shift from unilineal to multilineal approaches, highlighting how societies adapt to their unique environments.

I emphasize that modern anthropologists are now questioning the very concept of cultural evolution, suggesting a need for new frameworks to understand the relationship between culture and environment.

One of the most intriguing aspects of this episode is my introduction of the concept of “multi-unilineal” sociocultural evolution. I argue that while some cultural patterns may have evolved similarly across the globe, others have developed uniquely based on local contexts. This nuanced view challenges the binary thinking that often dominates discussions about cultural progress.

As the episode progresses, I dive deep into the analogy between Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and the sociocultural chakra system. I posit that our basic physiological and safety needs correspond to the sociocultural root chakra, while love and belonging align with the sociocultural heart chakra

This connection prompts you to reflect on how societal pressures can corrupt genuine needs, transforming them into mere wants. My insights on the sociocultural chakras reveal a profound truth: our collective mind often distorts our understanding of needs.

I argue that this distortion leads to social diseases, such as consumerism and the rat race, where personal ownership of resources overshadows communal needs.

You are encouraged to consider how these sociocultural dynamics affect your lives.

My call for a collective awakening has the potential to resonate deeply, as I suggest that opening our sociocultural chakras could lead to a more harmonious existence.

It all concludes with a thought-provoking invitation to reflect on our individual and collective roles in shaping a more fulfilling society. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in personal growth, cultural evolution, and the intricate dance between our needs and wants.

Join me on this enlightening journey and discover the potential for transforming your life into a personal heaven.

🔑 Key Takeaways:

• (00:00:01) - Skeletal Leap

• (00:00:48) - Sociological and anthropological perspectives on sociocultural evolution

• (00:05:49) - Sociological cultural chakras

• (00:09:20) - Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

🎙️ Listen to the Journey:

📽️ Watch the Masterclass:

Transcript:

“As I was building up my case against our sociocultural structures getting erected by the mind, an analogy dawned upon me.”

My name is Laadi Ojas. Welcome to “Skeletal Leap: A Living Adventure”. Skeletal Leap transforms one’s life into a personal heaven.

Today’s episode will tell you about sociocultural chakras on the lines of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs turning to wants and thus affecting sociocultural evolution negatively

Before we get to the social approach of Skeletal Leap, let us first look at how societies and cultures evolved, from a sociological and anthropological standpoint.

There have been a number of historical attempts by anthropologists and sociologists to understand how sociocultural evolution takes place. These attempts study how sociocultural institutions change over time, thus weaving together different evolutionary theories.

Most of the nineteenth century approaches based themselves along unilineal evolution¹. They believed that all of humanity socioculturally evolved along the same process worldwide. It was only that some of them were ahead of the rest who would, nevertheless, follow them along the same path in times to come.

On the other hand, most of the twentieth century approaches based themselves along multilineal evolution². They believed that different societies evolved along their specific historical contexts. They rejected the theory that every society would be evolving along the same cultural progress sooner or later. They argued that different societies adapted to their own uniquely different environments, technological breakthroughs and outside cultural influences. Multilineal approach also rejected any similarity between cultural and biological evolutions. It argued that cultural patterns in far-off lands were genetically unrelated.

But in the latter part of the twentieth century, several multilineal anthropologists shifted their approach. Through numerous incremental shifts in sociocultural hypotheses, they arrived at Marxism. Marxism made a speedy entry into the world of politics adopted by almost half the population worldwide. The lens that it used to look at sociocultural development was dialectical and historical materialism. But toward the end of the twentieth century, it started crumbling down under its own weight. You may know it better as the fall of the Soviet Union or the falling of the Berlin Wall.

The most modern twenty-first century anthropologists have taken another step to reject the very concept of cultural evolution outright. They are rather exploring new approaches to the relationship between culture and its environment. One of them is a general systems approach exploring emergent systems including political, economic and social interactions among cultures.

As a special mention here, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins came up with his book The Selfish Gene³ in 1976. Dawkins’ book was voted as the most influential science book of all time in July 2017 on the 30th anniversary of the Royal Society. He proposed a gene-centered hypothesis of sociocultural evolution stating that genetically related individuals cooperate the best between them. And genes replicate themselves better when they themselves get benefitted, at times even at the cost of the entire organism. ‘Selfish’ replication may model culture successfully via memes that are self-replicating units of human cultural transmission analogous to genes. 

This is where we are, at this moment, as far as understanding sociocultural evolution is concerned. And, in my opinion, this is not sufficient.

‘Multi-unilineal’ Approach

I think we have missed something very basic. We either look at sociocultural evolution as being entirely unilineal or else entirely mutilineal. Reality looks to be somewhere in between. It very obviously has always been a combination of both, in my opinion. Some parts of it have always been unilineal, not necessarily through intercultural interaction but independently evolving on their own. Some other parts have certainly been mutilineal, varying from culture to culture depending on their specific genetic histories and environments. I would like to address them all with a new inclusive name ‘multi-unilineal’.

Let us look a little deeper into these multi-unilineal patterns of sociocultural evolution all around the world

These are the patterns that essentially evolved almost the same way, yet slightly differently, in their local hues throughout the world.

Surprisingly enough, all our sociocultural institutions have majorly been erected by the mind and not through the dictates of the brain alone. The brain had worked independently when it devised wearing leather and burning fire to ward off cold and cook food. The same was true of inhabiting caves and inventing languages. And these were four supremely intelligent inventions that all tribes and races arrived at in differently similar ways globally.

But the sociocultural structures erected by the mind were unfortunately not so intelligent. They were flawed at best and harmful at worst in their design. And why it happened so was because the mind subjectively attached itself to its faulty apprehensions of threat to life, in other words to its self-preservative instincts. Hence, it cunningly took control of the brain’s activity in its fearful stupidity, thereby turning human needs into wants. All these structures were multi-unilenial in their evolutionary process.

Sociocultural Chakras

As I was building up my case against our sociocultural structures getting erected by the mind, an analogy dawned upon me

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs⁴

Before I come to the analogy, let us take a little detour. Abraham Maslow came up with ‘A Theory of Human Motivation’ in the year 1943. Later, he refined it in ‘Motivation and Personality’ in 1954 introducing Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. 

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs comprises physiological needs, safety, love and belonging and esteem as deficiency needs, and cognition as a growth need. Growth needs further include aesthetic, self-actualization and transcendence needs.

And now, let’s come back to my analogy. I find that the lowest two deficiency needs, namely “physiological needs” and “safety needs”, are parallel to the concerns of the root chakra within the chakra system. The third need from the bottom, “love and belonging”, parallels the heart chakra. The fourth deficiency need, “esteem”, is akin to the throat chakra. Moving to Maslow’s growth needs, “cognitive needs” parallel solar plexus chakra while “aesthetic”, “self-actualization” and “transcendence” needs find their chakra equivalents in sacral, third-eye and crown chakras, respectively.

Now that we have established that Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is analogous to the chakra system, I would like to bring our attention to a second analogy.

We know that an individual autonomous mind generates closed biological chakras in the human body by corrupting skeletal anatomy. I asked myself if a collective autonomous mind could have generated similarly closed sociocultural chakras in human society. The modus operandi could have been the corruption of social needs into societal wants

Things started getting distorted since the very beginning of our evolution into Homo sapiens. It all started with pursuing cognitive needs. We, as a society, cognized reality within what was a suffocating environment dotted with threats and challenges.

And that perceived reality continues till date.

Humanity is yet to take a sigh of relief, thereby seriously corrupting its breathing pattern.

It was this corruption that gave birth to a blocked sociocultural solar plexus chakra. Acting out of the mind’s fearful perception of so-called threats and challenges, humanity has always been in a hurry to control the environment which is a mirage in itself.

Just like the solar plexus charka leads to asthma and other diseases in the body, this sociocultural solar plexus chakra, i.e., hurry to control the environment, gives rise to social ‘diseases’ such as the ‘rat race’. And thus, humanity handed over the reins of cognition to its collective autonomous mind instead of a spontaneous collective brain.

We know that an open solar plexus chakra means renewing the brain continuously and thus energizing it cyclically. Unfortunately for us, since our sociocultural solar plexus chakra got closed, it left the collective autonomous mind stuck at its aggressive cognitive wants rather than needs. 

These wants individualized personal ownership of resources used to fulfill genuine social needs before.

As this personal ownership of resources assumes a bigger-than-necessary stature, social needs start turning into personal wants. Needs are the realm of the brain while the mind is the abode of wants. Thus, they get corrupted and end up in sociocultural chakras in the hands of a collective autonomous mind. After all, human society is just a collective extension of multiple human bodies. And these sociocultural chakras would tend to block collective human energy flow exactly like biological chakras block individual energy flow.

Let us now combine the above two analogies, i.e. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs vis-a-vis chakra system + sociocultural chakras mirroring individual chakras

When individual energy flow gets blocked at the base of the chakra system, it results in a closed root chakra. Similarly, when the collective human energy flow gets blocked at the base of the chakra equivalent in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, it does so at the lowest two levels of social needs, i.e., physiological and safety needs. Same would be true about the deficiency needs of love and belonging and esteem needs as well.

It is my contention that we, Homo sapiens, find ourselves today struggling with an imbalance in the mind-brain equilibrium as we go along Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs from the lowest (physiological) deficiency needs to the highest (transcendence) growth needs. Individuals and societies that are stuck in making ends meet, i.e., meeting their physiological needs, tend to operate primarily from the brain.

As they ‘climb’ up the Hierarchy and their deficiency needs are met, a major shift seems to occur. This is where the mind starts taking over and the brain’s functionality starts getting stunted inflicting the lower chakras as well, along with the higher ones.

In other words, needs start yielding to wants. It is no surprise, then, that most of the growth needs are governed by the concerns of the mind way more than those of the brain.

Real Needs Overshadowed by Greedy Wants

This had its debilitating effect on the sociocultural equivalent of sacral chakra, namely aesthetic needs, as well. And it did so by negatively affecting the quality of sex that humanity was meant to enjoy. When sex gets frustrated, it tends to take refuge in its sublimation through arts in creative and aesthetic pursuits. This sublimation is the handiwork of none other than the mind!

In the process of sublimation, however, the mind does lose a little bit of its control as emotions give way to passion and sexual frustration yields to a broader creative perception. This works, but only partially, as a therapeutic process that addresses the aesthetic needs in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs at an individual level. In society, this partial therapy addresses this sociocultural sacral chakra in the form of cinema, poetry and other artistic expressions. However, the unaddressed part of this chakra results in the social disease that we know as ‘consumerism’. And we have even given it a rather ironic name, ‘retail therapy’. No wonder slogans like “the more, the better” appear to provide solace to our frustrations

Moving higher along the Hierarchy, the growth need of self actualization aims at discovering one’s inherent talents and developing them further. It results in achieving one’s full potential as far as socially productive soft skills are concerned. This is synonymous with the concerns of the third eye chakra. However, once corrupted by the mind at a social level, it leads to an analogous collective third eye charka resulting in social ‘diseases’ such as ‘professional qualifications’ as a want that is detached from the original need.

Transcendence needs are the ultimate that an individual in a society can cultivate, giving oneself to something beyond oneself. It enables one to create one’s personal heaven for oneself. At a social level, it parallels the sociocultural crown chakra which, when closed, leads to the social malaise of ‘acute insensitivity’. Consequently, opening this chakra sets the highest levels of collective human consciousness. Simultaneously, it sets all the lower chakras open as well, automatically addressing their related sociocultural ailments.

This has the potential to turn human life on earth into a collective heaven. 

However, in reality, the collective mind fragments itself exactly like the individual biological mind and, thus, belittles every single real need in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and, by extension, its analogous sociocultural chakra.

When it comes to our collective needs, human societies use various ‘currencies’ to enable exchange of these needs between their individuals or groups. It is these currencies that we used to fulfill real needs which later started assuming bigger stature in an individual mind, shifting the focus from needs to wants. As a result, those currencies got corrupted away from their original purpose and became ends in themselves as opposed to serving as mere means toward the ends which have always remained as those underlying needs

These corrupted currencies have led to several institutions in our societies that, I contend, are the physical manifestations of the underlying sociocultural chakras.

Within the construct that I have presented above, we can now look at sociocultural evolution in light of genuine needs getting usurped by the mere wants for their corrupted currencies.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Skeletal Leap: A Living Adventure! In the next episode, I will tell you about corruption in industrial complex, big pharma & insurance, military-industrial complex and politics-business nexus.

Be a part of Skeletal Leap Community! Subscribe to Skeletal Leap Newsletter. Click on the link in the description to subscribe.

🔗 Series Bridge:

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🔑 Unlock the Practical Plan:

To truly master the Skeletal Leap, you need the step-by-step memoir and the associated practice codes found in the book.

• Get the Book: The “Resource Codes” for this chapter’s PDF practice plan are found in the Amazon Paperback Edition.

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______________________________________________________

References

1. Morgan, L. H. (1907). Ancient society, or researches in the lines of human progress from savagery, through barbarism, to civilization, by Lewis H. Morgan .. H. Holt.

2. White, L. A. (1959). The evolution of culture. Mcgraw-Hill.

3. Dawkins, R. (1976). In The selfish gene (pp. 15–15). essay, Oxford University Press. “At some point a particularly remarkable molecule was formed by accident. We will call it the Replicator. It may not necessarily have been the biggest or the most complex molecule around, but it had the extraordinary property of being able to create copies of itself.”

4. Maslow, A. H. (1973). The farther reaches of human nature. Penguin Books.

An Eye-opening Life Lessons Story About Love and Marriage: Marriage As A Tradition Is The Enemy of Uniqueness in Relationship

Marriage is a tradition in all the cultures over the world that got established in each one of them separately. This happened when there was no direct or indirect communication owing to large geographical distances among them.

Does it mean that all human tribes through their separate journeys on the paths of evolution thought alike? Does it also mean that marriage as a sociocultural institution was a part of natural sociocultural evolution worldwide? We cannot take it for granted and need looking deeper into what established it as a global lifestyle.

Anyway, I personally could never accept it as a natural bent of my cultural orientation as an individual since childhood. On turning an adult, I started having affairs with females around. But having even a deep emotional affair with one never stopped me from getting attracted to others too. I surveyed many people including both genders who in their most intimately expressive moments admitted multiple attractions affecting their minds. It was another thing that the majority shrugged them off ‘nipping the evil in the bud’. But the fact was that attractions did instinctively arise before they were morally shrugged off.

An Eye-opening Life Lessons Story About Love and Marriage: An Affair Develops

Anyway, in 1980 at age 29, I was directing a theatrical production in a satellite town of Delhi. It happened so that an affair developed between the heroine of the production and me during its rehearsals. It went on fine until her parents got to know about it who raised a huge objection to it. We ignored their resistance and kept meeting each other stealthily. We weren’t very keen on marrying each other and were happy with our affair going strong.

After around a year, we made a program to visit my hometown in the Himalayas for a few days together. For this, we needed to inform her parents. We went to them and informed them about our program about leaving for the trip the next day.

On hearing what we had in mind, they immediately got alarmed. They had never known our relationship had gone so strong by then. Going out of station together as two opposite sexed friends like this was unimaginable to their cultural mindset. They realized things had gone out of their hands by then. Their minds raced fast to mend the situation so that it would become acceptable to them.

An Eye-opening Life Lessons Story About Love and Marriage: Her Parents Object

“We cannot allow her to go out of station with a stranger like that,” said her father.

“But our purpose is not to seek your permission, we have rather come here to inform you about our trip. Moreover, I am not even a stranger to her anymore,” I registered my objections to what he said.

“You said you people are going to your hometown. Won’t your parents have any objection in your coming along with a girl unknown to them?” said her mother.

“I don’t think they will,” said I in a matter-of-fact voice.

“Maybe because you are a boy and not a girl,” came her father’s logic, “or maybe we aren’t so modern as your parents might be.”

“And if you are bent upon going out like this together, we need to get you married before that. Get married at 8 in the morning tomorrow before you leave,” said her mother this time.

I looked toward my friend who gave me a silent nod for her parents’ proposal. Even I didn’t have any qualms regarding getting married or not. In fact, it didn’t make any difference to us. At least that was what we felt.

“We have no problem in getting married if it gives you peace of mind,” I said finally. It was 12 o’ clock at midnight that time.

We decided that we would go for a simple traditional marriage at 8 in the morning. After that I left for home to have a sleep before our marriage.

An Eye-opening Life Lessons Story About Love and Marriage: We Get Married

At 7:30, my friend came to wake me up and we hurriedly left for the venue of the wedding. There were around 15 people who had come along from their side. From my side, I was the only person present. All the rituals got performed within an hour and we were conferred the status of wife and husband. There was a certificate provided as a proof of marriage that her parents carefully kept with them.

We were free to go to my hometown now. I went to the telegraph office and sent a telegram to my mother saying, “Got married.”

Within a couple of hours before we left, my mother’s reply telegram arrived saying, “Congratulations! Visit home.”

And we boarded the bus headed towards my hometown together. As we occupied our seats, we relaxed ourselves after a hectic schedule of the last few hours.

An Eye-opening Life Lessons Story About Love and Marriage: I Try to Keep Our Marriage Unique

We had a unique relationship that her parents had tried to turn into a traditional one. But we were resolved for it not to turn into a run of the mill kind relationship.

I said, “What do you think we should do to keep our new traditional status still unique?”

“You suggest,” she threw the ball back into my court.

“What if we don’t stay under one roof? I suppose that may keep it very unique and fresh throughout our life,” I suggested.

“That’s okay but it will hurt my parents who may think we have ditched them,” she rejected my proposal.

“But think how fresh it will keep our relationship. No expectations, no protocols, no over-familiarity and hence no contempt! We will meet each other only when we passionately feel like doing so. And that too if the other one wants so as well,” I enumerated the benefits.

“But it may land us up in social trouble. People may start thinking we have relationship problems. Rumors spread like wildfire,” she expressed her apprehensions.

“Why to bother about others? I have seen people living together and dragging relationship even when they have gone sick of seeing each other’s face. It’s a fact that too much familiarity breeds contempt. Living together all 24 hours brings them a bit too close to each other. We need to keep a minimum gap to keep our romance alive. I suppose you know it very well,” I put my point across.

“I do,” she seemed to agree with me.

“Then?” I needed listening to her subjective reaction.

“But it’s scary,” I could see her visualizing living alone from her face as she said these words.

“Every adventure scares the adventurer, but that’s what makes it worth doing it,” I commented.

“But should we give each other this much of freedom?” she was sounding anxious.

An Eye-opening Life Lessons Story About Love and Marriage: Lover Turns into Wife in Her Spirit

I immediately came to assess that the mere ritual of a traditional marriage had turned my lover into a wife. A wife who had started putting safety first and freedom or romance afterwards as something secondary! The mere ritual of a traditional marriage had killed the entire spirit of adventure that she was always full of.

I immediately understood we had committed a blunder, but the sad part was we had already done so. And once we had committed it, we needed to go along with all the commitments made to each other lifelong.

And we did so. We are living ‘happily’ with each other to date. It was only that the spirits of uniqueness, adventure, freedom and romance took a little dip. Everything else went fine.

_________________________________________________________

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A Simple Life Lessons Story of Mind Reading Powers: We Can Read Others’ Minds through Mirroring Their Eyes

In 1980, I once went to my friend Somesh’s hometown at a distance of three hours of drive from Delhi. I had another friend of mine along with me. On our way back from there, Somesh’s family arranged a vehicle heading to Delhi carrying two females along who we were not familiar with.

We introduced ourselves to them and started chatting about casual issues. After some time, there was nothing left to chat about in a casual manner.

A Simple Life Lessons Story of Mind Reading Powers: Let’s Play A Game

It was then that I spontaneously came up with an idea of playing a game among the four of us. I had never played this game in my life nor had its design in my mind before.

I proposed everyone to look at other three people’s faces for as long as they wanted. The target was to guess as closely as possible what kind of thoughts they were having in their minds. There were no winners and no losers to be there in the game. It just aimed at having some interesting fun together.

Once a round was over, everyone was free to shake off their thought of the earlier round. Then they could implant a new thought for the next round and the game would continue like before. There were no time limits in the game to stick to.

A Simple Life Lessons Story of Mind Reading Powers: Trying to Read Minds

Everyone tried to read everyone else’s mind to the best of their creative ability turn by turn. But most of them were wild guesses not matching others’ thoughts satisfactorily. Even if they came a bit close to them by fluke, it was very remotely so when they did.

I employed another technique when my turn came. I looked at the expressions in the eyes of the person I was trying to read the mind of. Then I tried to copy the same expressions into my eyes as closely as possible. Doing so kind of transposed my mind to a totally different feeling that started telling its own story to me.

I hadn’t yet made my readings public but when I did, all three of them were taken aback. They thought like I had done some magic to read their minds so close to what they were really thinking. They asked me how I did it, but I just smiled and didn’t divulge my secret out.

We played many rounds in three hours that our vehicle kept running on its way to Delhi. Every time similar results kept repeating themselves. The game kept turning more and more exciting with my guesses coming closer and closer every time. No one else could come even remotely close to what I every time came up with.

A Simple Life Lessons Story of Mind Reading Powers: They Think I Am A Magician

They thought I was a magician who had learned this secret from someone before. They kept changing their thoughts and challenging me with new ones time and again. Even I was surprised at how I had hit the jackpot by mirroring their eye-expressions into mine. The technique had made my way into their minds not only to their contents alone but also to their feelings. It made me empathize with them at the same time I was reading their minds. In fact, I wasn’t reading their minds, I was rather feeling their minds from within themselves.

Time flew on wings, and we didn’t even realize how fast three hours had passed. We took leave of one another and went our ways.

But the next day, I saw the same two girls looking for me near the grounds of National School of Drama. One of them said she wanted to speak to me in private. We sat down in a remote corner of ground, and I asked her what she wanted to say.

A Simple Life Lessons Story of Mind Reading Powers: There Comes A Proposal

What she came up with was sufficient enough to take me aback. In fact, she proposed to me for starting an affair between the two of us. I couldn’t find words to say no to her thinking she would get hurt if I plainly refused her. But I had to since I was already in the midst of an affair with my present wife.

As I hesitantly told her about my current affair going on, I saw tears rolling down her eyes. I spontaneously mirrored her eye-expressions and found my eyes had gone wet as well. I had started feeling her from within herself again.

We both kept shedding tears without uttering a single word after that for more than an hour. But surprisingly time again flew on wings, and we didn’t even realize how fast a full hour had passed.

It was empathy that drove me as I kept shedding tears with her for one full hour. Her friend came in looking for her after having waited for her return for long. The two left with an expression of gratefulness in their eyes.

I learned that day how powerful the eye-expressions were and what all miracles they could perform. And not only could they perform miracles, but they could also change us into extremely sensitive persons.

I learned eyes were the real windows to the mind, that day!

_________________________________________________________

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A Sly Life Lessons Story of Ignoring The Hammer of Justice: Justice Is A Concept Alone, Not A Reality

In 1978, two people from our theater group in the valley applied for admission to National School of Drama. One was Shivani who had turned my ex after a fierce fight between the two of us by then. And the second one was I.

The two of us weren’t even at talking terms with each other. It simply showed we both had badly hurt each one’s expectations from the other. But the expectations were still alive though in a badly hurt state. We were still bothered about them. We weren’t free from the concern for the other and that was why we had stopped talking to each other.

Anyway, we both harbored a lot of bitterness within as we went for facing the interview for selection. Our behaviors vis-a-vis each other very conspicuously revealed telltale signs of something extremely wrong going on between us. Otherwise, why wouldn’t two candidates from the same town seen at least casually talking throughout interview processing even once? People guessed it all.

A Sly Life Lessons Story of Ignoring The Hammer of Justice: I Do My Act of Voice Modulation

As I appeared for the interview, I was asked to present a voice modulation sample of my choice. In fact, this presentation was the main criterion of selection. I enacted a deeply emotional and a highly challenging poetic monologue of at least three minutes of duration. My voice naturally had a very deep base notes and my abdominal breathing added a reverberation to its modulation. As I started rendering the presentation, all interviewers suddenly turned alert in their sitting stance abandoning their seat rests. I felt I had gone into a trance-like state while presenting my piece. A deep silence pervaded the interview hall.

And when I finished my performance, the silence still kept continuing for a long while. There was no doubt it had been an extraordinary performance without needing any comment from anyone around.

A Sly Life Lessons Story of Ignoring The Hammer of Justice: The Director Praises Me

Finally, the director asked me, “You are so highly qualified and also worked as a scientist in defense ministry. What makes you join a professional course in theater now?” he was looking at my admission form as he spoke.

“Passion! I have decided to follow the call of my heart now onwards which I never did before,” said I.

“What’s your specific field of interest in drama?” he shot his next question.

“Writing and direction! But I recently discovered I have some acting talent as well,” I stated in a matter-of-fact voice.

“That is obvious. We just witnessed it,” he murmured before he officially declared, “thank you gentleman, the interview is over. You will soon hear from us.”

“Thanks a lot, sir!” I said as I made my way out.

A Sly Life Lessons Story of Ignoring The Hammer of Justice: I Get Rejected

The interview results were out the next day. And when I checked it, my name wasn’t there in the list of selected candidates. It was unbelievable. Everyone was expecting I would top the list. But strangely, I hadn’t been selected at all. Shivani was ranked fifth among selected candidates.

Somesh was also present there and he was equally shocked too. He immediately managed for my stay in the vicinity and lined up my recently written play for performance. A staff member from the drama school took up the direction. The director of the school took up composing music for the play himself. That started my professional theatrical journey in the National School of Drama right then and there despite my admission rejected.

It was an ambitious project and the best theatrical talents joined hands to make it a memorable performance. As the school director completed his musical compositions, he invited the play director and me to his place. Unlike a corporate meeting, it was a work cum pleasure get together as is customary with artists everywhere.

A Sly Life Lessons Story of Ignoring The Hammer of Justice: The Whisky Party Chat

We sat on pegs of whisky going through all the musical compositions that the school director had composed by then. Whisky and music made a very good combination to enjoy joining the elements of the play together.

At one point while setting the lyrics with the musical notes, the school director turned very emotional. Partly it was whisky showing its effect as well.

“This composition has come out to be great. Lyrics are equally great too. I must congratulate you for having created a great piece of art as a play,” he mumbled.

“That was why you had rejected me in the interview!” I turned a bit satirical.

He immediately stood up straight saying, “I remember it all. In fact, you had topped the list of successful candidates.”

“Then? What happened?” asked the director of my play.

“You know this head of the acting department! No one knows him better than I do. He had set his evil eyes on Shivani. And he guessed this man would be the biggest hurdle in his evil flirtatious designs. So, he vetoed him out making an excuse that he had an exceptionally pronounced vein on his forehead. He argued it was a sign of an impulsive emotional state which could turn difficult for the school to handle. That son of a bitch!” his face turned bitter as he blurted out the truth.

“But wasn’t it unjustified? How did you agree to it?” exclaimed the play director.

A Sly Life Lessons Story of Ignoring The Hammer of Justice: The Sly Theory

He slowly sat down and looked at both of us as he said, “Do you think justice really exists?”

We just kept looking at his face.

He continued, “What we call justice is just our concept of it. You see we have formed Society for Prevention of Cruelty toward Animals. Which animals are these? Certainly not the ones that we gulp down into our stomachs every day! Can you show me a single example of real justice throughout the world through its entire history? Every country has its different code of justice the way it deems fit. Can you even say that the food chain of nature is a justified design? The bigger fish eating the smaller one! Justice is nowhere there,” he kept blurting his emotions out.

He stopped for a while and then said a single sentence before refilling our glasses, “Sorry! We had our warped justice which said that we couldn’t veto someone else’s veto. I couldn’t veto the veto of that cunning head of the acting department. I am really sorry!”

_________________________________________________________

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A Life Lessons Story of My Best Teacher: Real Teachers Are Not Found in Classrooms Alone

At times in our theater group, we had our rehearsals going till late at night owing to the pressures of performance schedules. But since Shivani and I had started an affair by then, she didn’t bother much about getting late. I was always there to drop her back home safely at any hour. Others also offered their company along.

A Life Lessons Story of My Best Teacher in Life: The Four of Us Stop at A Tea Shop

After such a late rehearsal one day, I set off to drop Shivani back home. Two other members joined us along. On our way back, we passed by a tea shop that kept open all through the night. We decided to sip tea together before proceeding further. There were already two people sitting over there sipping their tea on another table.

We chatted about adding new elements to the upcoming performance while sipping tea. Such unofficial spontaneous meetings at times proved to be more creative than the official ones. They were truly brainstorming in their nature.

A Life Lessons Story of My Best Teacher in Life: The Police Hit A Child Outside

Suddenly we heard a loud cry of a child as if he was hit by someone. We found it was the tea vendor’s employee who was being bullied by the night police patrol. They had hit him with their baton on some issue we knew not. We didn’t want to get involved in the affairs of the police, so we kept being silent observers. But one of the other two sitting on the nearby table raised his voice loud, “Hello officer!”

The officer casually peeped inside from where the voice had addressed them. Then he tended to ignore it and kept hitting the child.

“I am addressing you, officer. Respond to me,” he again raised his voice toward them.

“Who wants a response here inside?” the officer peeped inside the shop again but couldn’t ignore the call this time.

“I am the one,” he raised his hand.

“What’s your problem?” shouted the officer.

“It’s not my problem. I am asking about yours. I want to know why you are hitting this little child so mercilessly,” said the man.

“Do you really want an answer?” The officer challenged him armed with the power the state had vested in him.

“Yes, I do want an answer,” replied the man fearlessly undeterred by the officer’s challenge.

“Okay, come out in the open if you want an answer,” the officer dared him out.

The man immediately stood up and went out where they were hitting the child. His companion followed him out as well.

“Tell me now. I am out in the open for an answer,” he dared the officer back.

By now their focus had got shifted from the child to the man challenging their authority.

The officer kept staring at the man for a while. When the man didn’t let his gaze down, the officer again asked, “So you want an answer, right?”

“Right,” said the man.

“Okay, come to the police station with us. You will get your answer in detail over there,” the officer tried his next scaring tactic.

“Well, I have no problem in going to your police station if you are more comfortable answering my question there. I just want my answer wherever you give,” the man said in a very cool voice.

A Life Lessons Story of My Best Teacher in Life: All of Them Move Toward The Police Station

They all started moving toward the police station. By that time, we had also finished our tea. Without a single word uttered among us, we automatically started following them as if pulled by a magnet behind them. The road had gone absolutely empty by then at that hour.

“The best of all the gutsy soon start panting inside a police station. Some of them even wet their pants,” the officer painted a macabre image of the police station to scare him.

“I don’t mind that. You said you would answer my question in the police station, so I am going there with you. It doesn’t matter to me what all happens there,” his tone was still the same way cool.

It was time for the officer to get alarmed now. Who was this man not losing his cool despite the impending threat of what could happen with him there? He himself started getting scared a bit now.

“Who are you by the way? What connections have you got?” the officer wanted to clarify.

“Why are you getting scared? I am an ordinary man. I really don’t have any connections too. So, you can try any of your methods you are trying to scare me with. In the end, I simply want an answer to my question,” the man said in a matter-of-fact voice.

“We also have some experience of who sounds like what. The ones who don’t have any approach shout out the loudest of their imaginary connections trying to scare us. And the ones who really have them never disclose before they set off using them in real action. I can bet you have very high connections,” the officer was in a mood to hush up the matter now.

“That’s for you to decide. I simply told you the truth I don’t have any. I am on my own alone standing in front of you in my personal capacity. You can do whatever you feel like doing. But I just want the answer to my question,” the man still insisted on what he really wanted from them.

A Life Lessons Story of My Best Teacher in Life: Four of Us Follow Them A Little Behind

It was a war of nerves that the police had already appeared to have lost in a pitiable manner. The officer didn’t want to take any further risk.

“Let’s compromise,” the officer suggested as they stopped moving ahead. We also stopped where we were, trying to listen to every single word they were exchanging.

“Sorry, I don’t want any compromise, officer! I just want you to answer my question,” the man still stuck to his ground.

By then, the officer had really got frightened. He offered an unconditional apology,” We are sorry we hit the child.”

“But why did you?” the man still didn’t accept their apology.

“We found him an easy target to take out our grudges we had to suppress within,” he was looking ashamed.

“Now I got my answer. I just wanted to show you the mirror. Do you see how ugly you look in the mirror?” his tone was again the same way cool.

“Sorry sir, we will never repeat it again,” the officer looked like an erring child caught.

“And if you are so frustrated in your job, why don’t you resign and do something better? There are hundred and one better ways to earn a living,” the man still sounded equally cool.

The officer kept looking down in shame as did his entire team along.

We all dispersed as the police left from there, but I got my best teacher in the man forever. And that too when I didn’t even know his name. What he taught me alone was way more meaningful than everything together all my teachers had ever taught me in classrooms.

_________________________________________________________

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A Revealing Life Lessons Story: Everyone Is the Same Way Naked Under One’s Clothes

I was 27 when I shifted from my hilly hometown to the valley below to join a theater group there. I was an aspiring writer and soon I got a mentor named Rohit Roy who was an established writer himself. Luckily, he was also a member of the same theater group and appreciated my writing style a lot. He was all out to help me whenever he could, wherever he could. I was welcome to his place all 24 hours of the day. At times I slept there at night as well. His wife took me as a family member too.

I revered Rohit to the point of having an unquestionable faith in him. Therefore, I said nothing when he directed a play written by me and changed its subtle end with a gimmick. It was despite my feeling that doing so had robbed it of its real soul. But I kept mum.

A Revealing Life Lessons Story: I Start Writing A New Play As Does Rohit

Anyway, I started writing a new play. At the same time, it coincidentally happened so that Rohit started writing a new play too. Two new plays were going to come into existence and hence everyone in the group was excited to welcome them. We both took around a couple of months to complete our scripts.

Incidentally the script completion coincided with Somesh Garg’s visit to the group, a theater activist from National School of Drama. Being an extra-intelligent person, he enchanted the group with his presence. As the new plays had already been completed, Somesh suggested a play reading session for both of them together. Rohit offered to host the session at his place with tea and snacks to make it more enjoyable.

A Revealing Life Lessons Story: The Play Reading Session

At the specified time, the session started. Somesh was ready to take notes in his notebook while the session was in progress. The first part started with the reading of Rohit’s play giving him the due respect of being a senior writer.

After the reading was over, it was time to review the play by everyone present in the session. A detailed discussion went on concerning different aspects of the play. Somesh’s notes had been the most elaborate ones as he was professionally trained in theater genre. Hence his participation in the discussion was also the most vocal. His opinions seemed to affect others’ minds as well.

In the end, everyone was supposed to give a star rating to the play in a step of half-a-point out of 5.

Rohit’s play received a whopping 4 out of 5 stars by the members of the group and Somesh.

After a refreshment break, the next was the turn of my play to be read. The same procedure was repeated again. Tea kept being served continuously by Rohit’s wife through the session.

After the reading was done, a lengthy discussion followed. In the end, the star rating was given.

I was hardly expecting 3 or 3.5 out of 5 at the most. But to my utter astonishment, my play received an exceptional 4.5 out of 5!

A Revealing Life Lessons Story: Star Rating

I wasn’t emotionally ready to ingest that much of appreciation and that too in comparison with my mentor’s play. Although it wasn’t a comparative review but it turned so as the two reviews were placed back-to-back. My eyes automatically fell on Rohit’s face and I could clearly see it turning pale. But he kept his composure and congratulated me. I wished the two plays shouldn’t have been read back to back together. But the arrow had already been shot. What had happened, had happened.

It had already turned quite late at night. Everyone took leave of one another and left. Since I lived alone, Rohit’s wife suggested me to stay back as I wouldn’t get food anywhere at that hour. She said I could stay there overnight. I agreed.

It wasn’t that Rohit’s play was criticized or got any bad reviews, but everything got centered on the star rating. Even his star rating was exceptional, but its sheen had gone paled when kept along my star rating.

We had a relationship of a mentor and a mentee with the mentee revering the mentor. It needed a gap of levels and a distance between the two as far as the creative skill levels were concerned. But all the gaps had been bridged and all the distances had been vanished in that day’s play reading session.

Rohit didn’t speak much while eating and soon after the dinner, we all went to sleep.

A Revealing Life Lessons Story: Rohit Wakes Me Up At Night

At night, at around 3 o’clock, I heard someone waking me up from my deep sleep. As I opened my eyes, I saw Rohit standing by my bed.

“What happened? Is everything okay?” I got worried.

“I just discovered why your play got 4.5 out of 5-star rating. It’s because you have used a gimmick in your play at the end that everyone fell into the trap of. But gimmicks never make a great piece of art. I think you should change the end and get another reading done for your play,” mumbled Rohit.

Although I didn’t agree with what Rohit said but I apparently acted as if I fully agreed with him. I didn’t want him to keep feeling bad about his star rating not being as good as mine anymore.

I didn’t even tell him about what he had done to the end of my old play while directing it recently. I hadn’t liked the end because he had replaced its subtle ending with a noisy gimmick himself that time.

I also didn’t want him to realize the awkwardness of telling this to me by waking me up at 3am!

I just kept mum and acted as if I fully agreed with him.

When my acceptance convinced him about the validity of his assertion, he felt relieved and went back to sleep peacefully.

But I learned a precious lesson from this entire episode. I learned that reverence was not a right thing to have for anyone anywhere on earth. I learned everyone was the same way naked under one’s clothes.

_________________________________________________________

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An Intriguing Life Lessons Story: One Who Has Guts to Renounce Attracts Others

My freelance venture of group training sessions picked up reasonably well. But the best thing that it empowered me with was the freedom to do what all I was passionate about. It enabled me to make my passions center-stage while slipping silently to a secondary role for supporting me financially.

One more thing that helped me in establishing myself as a brand was my tag of being an ex-scientist. But a much bigger tag than this was my guts to have renounced such a coveted position. Somehow it gave me a bigger than life-size stature in people’s eyes professionally as well as personally.

An Intriguing Life Lessons Story: Shivani and Her Narcissistic Ego

Anyway, in one of my last memoirs, I had mentioned about leaving my hometown to join a theater group in the valley below. And to my utter surprise, I found my recent acquaintance Shivani as a member of the same theater group. Soon I discovered that she was the heartthrob of almost every single person in the group whether married or unmarried.

And she knew it well. On top of it she enjoyed it as a narcissistic pleasure. I found it ugly and hence kept a personal distance from her. That seemed to challenge her narcissistic ego in a big way but as it wasn’t my concern, I didn’t bother. I knew I wasn’t a narcissist but feeding a narcissist’s ego wasn’t my cup of tea. That was how my personality had grown up like.

So, the relationship between the two of us that went on for months together was a kind of love-hate relationship. She looked forward for me to join the queue of her emotional admirers as their heartthrob. The more she found it difficult to achieve, the more she kept turning critical of me.

I was no less so. I could never appreciate her acting skills and openly criticized her performances. That was another blow on her ego. Her problem was that she couldn’t write me off owing to my performance as a writer director. More important was my bigger than life-size stature that my renunciation of a coveted career had imparted to me.

An Intriguing Life Lessons Story: I Play An Actor

Then it happened that another director wanted to cast me as an actor in the lead role in his play. I tried to avoid but he somehow convinced me. I played the role of Jesus Christ who had to carry his own cross for his crucifixion. It was a very intense role that I received a lot of accolades for. That was the first time when Shivani came up to me and genuinely congratulated me.

“You are not only a writer director, but you are also a great actor!” her eyes were shining as she spoke.

“Thanks a lot for appreciation!” I humbly said.

“I know you never appreciated my acting. Earlier I thought you had no right to criticize me as an actor since you never wore an actor’s shoes. But now you have established your authority to criticize my acting. My salutes to you!” she really saluted as she said these words.

An Intriguing Life Lessons Story: Somesh’s Weird Plan

Very shortly after this episode, another weird episode took place. A theater activist and entrepreneur named Somesh Garg visited the valley in connection with a business project he had started there. He was from National School of Drama, where Shivani and I were planning to take admission in the coming session.

It was a premium institute of the country in the field of theater. Its pass-outs easily got an entry into the glamorous world of Bombay film industry as well. Somesh also visited our theater group and interacted with every member as if he was assessing them all. Everyone was enchanted by his presence in our group.

He stayed there for a couple days. Before leaving the valley, he requested me to meet him in person if possible. I went to his hotel where he was staying and asked him what he had called me for.

An Intriguing Life Lessons Story: Somesh Asks for My Opinion

“May I ask you for a personal favor?” he said.

“Say,” I went curious.

“I found you the most intelligent and trustable person in the group,” he looked at me intently.

“I don’t know. I have never been so sure about myself,” I smiled.

“I don’t think I have assessed you wrong,” he insisted.

“Well, in that case it has inflated my ego. Tell me what personal favor you are asking for before it gets deflated back,” I smiled slyly this time.

Somesh kept laughing for long. Then he very slowly asked me in a very low volume,” What’s your opinion about Shivani?”

“My opinion? She is very beautiful,” I again played naughty.

“Don’t tease me now,” Somesh requested.

“Okay, in my opinion she is a mixed bag of virtues and vices,” I gave my frank opinion.

“If you have to describe her in one word, what would that be?” Somesh took it a step further.

“Could I use two, one virtue and one vice?” I sought for a little more flexibility.

“Go ahead,” said Somesh.

“Adventurous and manipulative,” I described her in two words.

“The first one needs passion and the second needs sharpness,” he smiled as he tried to analyze my description.

“Okay, now tell me what personal favor you are asking me for?” I straight came to the point.

An Intriguing Life Lessons Story: Somesh Requests for My Help

“I have fallen for her. And I can provide to her all she wants from life. I want to marry her. Could you advocate my case to her?” he straight came to the point too.

“You are employing a very shabby method. It’s risky for you. If you want a thing done right, do it yourself. What if she shoots the messenger?” I warned him.

“There is nothing indecent in what I am proposing. Why would she shoot the messenger?” he put his logic forward.

“I am not talking of decency or indecency. I am saying what if she shoots the messenger with her Cupid’s arrow?” I clarified my warning.

“I have full faith in your trustability,” he smiled.

“An open door tempts even a saint,” I smiled back slyly.

“I could have done it on my own, had I been stationed here in the valley. You spend long hours with her every day and that’s what you can utilize to plead my case my lord. Will you?” Somesh looked at me with high hopes as he smiled.

“No guarantees! I can just try. The final verdict rests with the real Lord sitting up in the sky,” I gave my verdict.

“Fair enough! I will remain thankful to you for my entire life,” Somesh held my hands with a feeling of gratefulness.

An Intriguing Life Lessons Story: The Execution

After Somesh had left, I sat with Shivani on a free day and presented Somesh’s case in the most attractive words. But what happened was what I had feared the most. She actually shot the messenger with her Cupid’s arrow. And she didn’t just shoot him with one of them, she rather kept emptying her quiver until the messenger fell.

I was hit so hard I couldn’t avoid falling for her. My warnings given to Somesh had come true. Soon we were in each other’s arms.

“You know what attracted me the most toward you?” she asked softly.

“I don’t know. It always intrigues me when someone gets attracted toward me,” I expressed my wonder.

“Your guts to renounce! You don’t run after things and even have guts to renounce what you already have. Like you renounced your luxurious engineering career for a new freelance venture. It was this that got me attracted to you the very first day when Rahul had introduced you to us. I know you too have been attracted to me all along even if for my beauty alone. I know my beauty has spoiled me as a person. People chase me for it and I enjoy when they do. But you never chased me once. And now you are ready to renounce me for Somesh’s sake! How do you do that? I never could. But I love the ones who can. I do love you,” she stopped speaking only when her lips got stuck on to mine.

Life had taught me another precious lesson that day.

_________________________________________________________

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Introduction:

In this 28th episode of my podcast, I take you on a thought-provoking journey through the evolution of Homo sapiens and the pressing issues of our time, particularly climate change.

The episode, titled “Homo Sapiens: Ultimate Gains and Losses to Date!”, talks about the duality of human achievements and losses, revealing how our advanced cognitive abilities have allowed us to dominate the planet while simultaneously leading us to the brink of ecological disaster.

I begin by reflecting on the unique advantages that Homo sapiens possess, such as our ability to communicate complex ideas through language and our capacity for abstract thought. These traits have enabled us to form large groups and cooperate effectively, allowing for unprecedented advancements in technology, science, and culture.

However, this success has come at a cost. The very myths and stories that helped unite us have also contributed to fragmentation and conflict, leading to wars and social strife. As we stand at a critical juncture in history, I emphasize the urgent need for a shift in our mindset.

We must recognize that our relentless pursuit of growth, driven by fear and greed, is unsustainable. The consequences of climate change are already evident, with melting ice sheets and extreme weather patterns threatening the planet’s biodiversity.

I quote renowned naturalist David Attenborough, stating, “What we do in the next 20 years will determine the future of all life on Earth.”

A central theme of the episode is the distinction between the mind and the brain. I argue that while the brain is an intelligent organ capable of spontaneous perception and subsequent action, the mind often distorts reality through emotional attachments and preconceived beliefs.

To navigate the challenges ahead, we must “empty our minds” of outdated narratives and prejudices, allowing our innate instincts to guide us toward collective action for the greater good.

You are invited to consider the implications of this paradigm shift and the potential for a unified human experience. I call for a worldwide cooperation that transcends competition, likening it to the immune system of the body that can turn against itself.

If we fail to unite, we risk our own extinction as a species.

In conclusion, this episode is a wake-up call for all of us. It challenges us to confront our past mistakes and take immediate action to protect our planet. By fostering a mindset of cooperation and understanding, we can pave the way for a sustainable future.

Don’t miss this enlightening episode of Skeletal Leap, where we explore the intersection of human evolution, societal beliefs, and the urgent need for change.

Tune in now and join the conversation about our collective responsibility to the Earth and to each other.

🔑 Key Takeaways:

• (00:00:01) - Human Gains vs Losses

• (00:11:32) - What to Do Now?

🎙️ Listen to the Journey:

📽️ Watch the Masterclass:

Transcript:

“What to Do Now?

Today, if we are humble enough to learn our lesson, we need to take immediate action.

How do we do that?”

My name is Laadi Ojas. Welcome to “Skeletal Leap: A Living Adventure”. Skeletal Leap transforms one’s life into a personal heaven.

Today’s episode will tell you about human achievements vs losses through homo sapiens bipedal evolution.

We humans have been extremely successful in achieving an unchallenged control over the planet we live on, something none of the other 8.7 million living species could even dream of. Homo sapiens are ruling the planet at present like dinosaurs once did.

As a species, we have made immense progress in creating tools that gave us the power to establish the said control. The tools kept getting more and more sophisticated as did our brain’s ability to think in abstraction. We, the sapiens, had another exclusive advantage at our behest. We could communicate much better with one another through the use of our language that was way superior to that of other Homo species.

Hence we were better able to cooperate in groups while fighting with our competitors for the purpose of dominance over them. Neanderthals who were physically stronger and other Homo species could not do it so effectively among themselves and slowly went out of existence. 

It was then that the Homo sapiens discovered the power of the mind in creating mythological stories, thanks to their superior language. And then, they soon started believing in them! As this happened, it acted as a double-edged sword. It started imparting an autonomous status to the mind as separate from a reviewer of the brain’s perception and action. It helped the Homo sapiens, driven by their fictitious beliefs, to start cooperating in bigger and bigger groups to achieve dominance over the planet as a species.

But then, humanity didn’t stop over there. It allowed these fictitious beliefs to turn into a unique kind of auto-immune disease, not of the individual but of society. A disease that we have been dealing with the repercussions of, ever since.

Wars became the order of the day.

Marked by the dominance of massive groups cooperating among themselves in an effort to annihilate other massive groups, these wars paved the path for the competitive growth of Homo sapiens’ civilization.

Since then, the story of the growth of human civilization has remained much the same to date. That is why and how these mythological stories acted as double-edged swords. Though they created vast cooperating groups furthering tremendous growth and development, the said growth always remained fragmented. The groups remained disparate, miserably failing to operate as one single cooperating group of a species called Homo sapiens. 

This was the power of our fragmented minds following our fragmented beliefs via our fragmented stories that took dominance over the marvels of the spontaneous brains of a unique species that we, the Homo sapiens, were. 

Nevertheless, the power to think in abstraction was a great leap in the evolution of the human brain. It gave birth to new disciplines in science, arts, technology and commerce. Human culture started prospering with inventions of digits and letters resulting in mathematics to calculate on one hand and language to communicate on the other.

Today, we marvel at our own achievements within such a short span of time, evolutionarily speaking. Once we, the Homo sapiens, started galloping along the track of new discoveries and inventions, we never stopped. It has been too fast an evolution of the brain in too short a span of time.

Overall, our brain size has increased 2-3 times within the last 3 million years, starting with the species named Australopithecus¹. This was a group of hominins from which humans are supposed to have descended. These 3 million years is quite a small fraction of time when compared to the 3 billion years of life on earth. And surprisingly, that process of evolution is still on! And at the same break-neck speed!

The Tipping Point of Crisis

We have almost reached the edge of the point of no return from the harmful effects² of human-induced climate change.

As of today, the two major ice sheets at Greenland and Antarctica are melting speedily. If the greenhouse gases are not stopped from emitting further, the rise of the global sea level is going to cause havoc.

If the global temperature ultimately increases by 1.5-2.0 degree C, the melting of these ice sheets may become irreversible. Higher rainfall and higher flooding events would engulf the northern hemisphere. It would end up in the extinction of quite a few species of plants, insects and vertebrates. Under extreme weather conditions, there are going to be way more spontaneous forest fires. And we have already started seeing all these effects in just the past few years!

As David Attenborough said,

“What we do in the next twenty years will determine the future of all life on earth.”

Who is to be blamed for it?

Our mind, our society and our culture! Who else?

Our mind is greedy. It is greedy because it is fearful. We, as a species, wanted to progress as much as we could, as fast as we could.

We over-exploited our planet’s resources, without giving it back what we took from it. Earth wants to take everything back now.

Isn’t it a lesson for our mind? Isn’t it a lesson for the way we have structured our society? Isn’t it an indictment of the value system that we have erected human culture on?

Where did we go wrong? What was our earliest mistake?

Remember I had said that the mind gets subjectively attached to its faulty apprehensions of threat to life, in Episode 20? It overrates the instincts of self-preservation. On the other hand, it suppresses and even represses death instincts. That is how it distorts reality and corrupts human action. It is because all death instincts including curiosity, interaction, adventure, love and sex turn us passionate, insightful and people-centric.

On the other hand, self-preservative instincts turn us stupidly emotional, greedy and self-centric more than people-centric.  They want growth as much and as fast as possible whereas death instincts are way saner in their approach. In its greed, humanity sided with the fastest possible rather than sustainable growth that is in tune with all of nature and, therefore, would have given rise to a different paradigm of ‘quality’ of life.

That is why and how the brain is way more intelligent than the mind. In fact, the mind can very easily go stupid. Brain never does.

That was our very first mistake. In fact, that was our Original Sin, if any. We gave the entire reigns of comprehending psychedelic (in-cognizable) reality in a cognizable way to the mind. Reality is right, only its cognition is not. We shouldn’t have made the mind an autonomous entity having the power to comprehend reality anyway it likes. It should have been kept subservient to the brain, the real master of perception and action.

Had we managed to do that, psychology as an autonomous science would have been redundant. It would rather have been a subordinate discipline under physiology or neurology.

Even with our bloated, fragmented minds, we can still get rid of our old prejudices for/ against fragmented groups that are busy cooperating within themselves in order to compete with or even annihilate others within our own species. Today, we can give credit to our expanded awareness of undivided humanity and stop believing in the fragmenting stories created by our fragmented minds all those thousands of years ago!

I know I am asking for a big, huge lot. I am asking for a paradigm shift in our comprehension of reality. For this to be possible, the mind needs to comprehend reality as per the neural dictates of the nervous system. It needs to follow commands of the brain and its entire nervous system without trying to affect them at all. As it right now is, the mind limits the efficiency of the brain by corrupting its perception and consequent spontaneous action.

That is how, in its greed, it gave a signal to the best of the human brains to make so-called progress as fast as possible. And look where that has brought us today!

What to Do Now?

Today, if we are humble enough to learn our lesson, we need to take immediate action.

How do we do that?

We simply need to empty our mind of all the garbage it has collected in the past thousands of years. All its beliefs, all its attachments, all its prejudices, its morals and emotions! It needs to be left alone with what it is there for, i.e., the subjective cognition of instinctual awareness. It should be left alone as the sense of ‘I’ with just the set of instincts human nature has already provided us with.

We can afford to do it today although we could never have done so till date without risking our very existence on the planet. Right now, no other species is left to claim its dominance on the planet. We don’t need to compete with our siblings any more.

Competition has already played its commendable role in safeguarding us up to this point of time. But if it continues, it will turn against our own self, as a species. Where else does this happen? In our own bodies. Exactly like the immunity in our bodies that competes against foreign entities to protect us sometimes turns on itself leading to autoimmune diseases, our intra-species competition is threatening to wipe us out.

What we need today is a world-wide cooperation or else, we will run our species out of existence. It will be nothing less than a suicidal act on our collective part.

Cooperation over competition! Brain over mind!! Even better, an empty mind!!!

Okay, what does the mind do when it is left emptied?

It gives a cognizable meaning to the psychedelic perceptions and spontaneous actions of the brain without generating beliefs around them.

We need to go agnostic in the truest sense of the word. When that happens, we stop living in our past and/ or future with emotional attachments to them. Passion replaces emotions. We are able to centrally fixate our passionate attention on the perception and action of the very present moment. Central fixation makes it possible for the brain to spontaneously think the best without being distorted by emotional thoughts of the mind. When this happens, action is the next spontaneous step taken by the brain instantaneously. Even artificial intelligence (AI) will never be able to match the human brain since, even at its best, it can only achieve speed but never spontaneity.

In my first language named Hindi, past is named ‘bhoot’ meaning ’ghost’. I find that hilarious. It seems to me to be the best description of the past. Past is dead and we keep emotionally clinging to its ghost or to its cousin, i.e., its own projection as the future. These ghosts masquerading as thoughts possess our brain and limit or distort its capability to spontaneously think without any deterrents. 

Thinking is the handiwork of the brain. Chewing the cud of thoughts is the handiwork of the mind. Thinking and chewing the cud of thoughts are two diametrically opposite actions. Let us start thinking as real intelligent organisms. Let us stop chewing the cud of thoughts as stupid dead ghosts.

Let us tackle these impending emergencies of human-induced climate change in an absolutely intelligent way…while we still can! And that absolute intelligence can only arise from an empty mind.

But what’s the modus operandi of emptying the mind?

We have already discussed this in all its conceptual details as Skeletal Leap in Episode 26 and Episode 27. However, that is at the level of an individual. It is my contention that a similar approach can be extended to society, as a whole.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Skeletal Leap: A Living Adventure! In the next episode, I will tell you about sociocultural chakras on the lines of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs turning to wants and thus affecting sociocultural evolution negatively.

Be a part of Skeletal Leap Community! Subscribe to Skeletal Leap Newsletter. Click on the link in the description to subscribe.

🔗 Series Bridge:

This masterclass is a 19-week journey through my book, The Mind-Body Connection. If you missed the foundation, start here: The 16-Part Prequel: 14 Core Principles.

🔑 Unlock the Practical Plan:

To truly master the Skeletal Leap, you need the step-by-step memoir and the associated practice codes found in the book.

• Get the Book: The “Resource Codes” for this chapter’s PDF practice plan are found in the Amazon Paperback Edition.

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______________________________________________________

References

1. Brami, M. N. (2019). The invention of prehistory and the rediscovery of Europe: Exploring the intellectual roots of Gordon Childe’s ‘neolithic revolution’ (1936). Journal of World Prehistory, 32(4), 311–351. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-019-09135-y

2. Lynas, M., Houlton, B. Z., & Perry, S. (2021). Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Environmental Research Letters, 16(11), 114005. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966

A Daring Life Lessons Story: Challenging Authority Needs Responsible Guts

At age 26, on heading back to my hometown after resigning from my job, I had joined a postgraduate literature course. This was before I moved down to the valley to join a theater group a few months later.

A Daring Life Lessons Story: The Principal Raises An Objection

As I filled up the form and submitted it, the principal raised an objection. He said I didn’t have a graduate degree in literature; hence I didn’t qualify for admission in a postgraduate course. I showed him the rules allowing a graduate degree in technology as a sufficient qualification for any postgraduate course in literature anywhere.

It rendered him answer-less. But then he picked up another point in the form where I had declared myself as my own guardian. He said it wasn’t permissible. Actually, he was looking for any possible objection to my admission as my initiative had scared him about my intentions.

A graduate engineer had never applied for a postgraduate literature course in his college before. Why I was doing so generated a fear of the unknown in his mind. Hence he wanted to reject my application on any grounds he could put his finger on. It was an obsessive precautionary step on his part to stay away from any possible trouble if ever.

A Daring Life Lessons Story: I Raise My Objection to Principal’s Objection

“Do you mean I have no right to education in case I don’t have a traditional guardian?” I questioned.

“Don’t you really have one? It has never happened in the history of the college before,” said the principal in an apprehensive tone.

“There is always a first time for everything anywhere. And I am an adult which confers a right on me to be my own guardian. Isn’t it?” I was determined to declare myself as my own guardian.

He was again rendered answerless. Hence, he decided to give a clear voice to his apprehension.

“No one with an engineering graduation up one’s sleeve ever takes admission in a postgraduate literature course. What are your intentions behind doing so?” he was looking straight into my eyes.

“Nothing malafide!” I started laughing.

The principal couldn’t stop me from getting my admission. But he did alert the head of the literature department to keep a watch on me.

A Daring Life Lessons Story: My Tussle with The Head of Department

Next day when I attended my first class by head of the department, he asked all students to introduce themselves. He chose me to be the last one to do so and very cautiously listened to every single word I spoke out. I had already spoken it all in other teachers’ classes before and attracted my class fellows’ attention. We had all become quite friendly as a group by then.

“I don’t consider you to be a bonafide student in my class,” the head passed on an objectionable comment.

“You are insulting me, sir!” I raised an objection.

“No, I am telling you the reality and warning others to stay away from you,” he attacked me again.

“What makes you say that?” I asked him to clarify.

“I told you I don’t consider you to be a bonafide student in my class,” he repeated his assertion.

A Daring Life Lessons Story: Tit for Tat

“I don’t consider you to be a bonafide teacher in this college,” I gave a tit for tat back.

“How dare you say that to a head of the department?” the head roared.

“The way you dare say the same to a student officially admitted to your class,” I kept my tone cool.

“You will need to ask for an apology for having said that, right now here in front of the class.”

“The same should apply to you as well, sir,” my tone was still cool.

“What does the class say on this? Raise your hands who say he should apologize,” the head looked toward students.

No one raised their hands.

“Please raise your hands who say he should apologize and not I,” I again gave a tit for tat back.

All hands were raised.

The head kept looking at their raised hands for a while. Then he announced, “I won’t teach this class until all of you make him apologize in public.”

A Daring Life Lessons Story: I Challenge Authority of The Head

His subject was literary criticism. And I was sure I could teach it very easily as per syllabus in case he refused. I said, “No problem! I will teach it for the entire session in case you don’t.”

“And fail everyone in the university exams! Literary criticism isn’t a joke to understand,” he ridiculed me.

“I challenge you not a single student will fail in literary criticism in case I take a responsibility to hold classes. Please raise hands if everyone is ready,” I asked the class as I challenged the head.

All hands were raised again.

The head left the class saying, “Don’t call me throughout the session if you face any problem.”

“Don’t worry sir. I won’t let them face any problem,” I challenged him back again.

He left the class fuming in rage. I had to take up an extra responsibility of preparing my lectures to teach my class fellows for an entire session. I did that very responsibly. And everyone passed comfortably with me ranking first in the final exams held by the university.

Had it not happened so, I wouldn’t have been able to forgive myself throughout my life. I was happy I had the guts to challenge authority in the most responsible way. That was the reason the head also apologized to me after the session was over and results were out.

As the session got over, I left my hometown to join a theater group in the valley below.

_________________________________________________________

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We Need to Reject Our Mentors If and When They Start Dominating Us

By age 26, I had decided to make a change of career in my life. Along with being a scientist, I had some extra skills at my behest including various different soft skills. I planned to train corporate and open groups in soft skills as a freelancer. Such offerings were much in demand, and I could deal with them very easily.

Job Vs Freelancing

The reasons for my decision were more than one. First of all, I wasn’t happy with the quality of research we were made to do as scientists. Secondly, I had started getting suffocated in the binding that a job ties everyone with. You turn a slave to your employer whoever that employer is.

But as a freelancer you become a free soul altogether. You get the freedom to choose your own pace whenever you want. You are not even tied to a single place to work from. You could go to any place on earth and advertise your training workshop. You yourself become the brand of your own freelance business. And that’s all you need to do along with really training the groups!

That was what I did and took a bold step to resign from my luxurious job. And that’s what I have been doing to date since then. Anyway, when I started it, I headed to my hometown the very first.

My First Mentor in Life

One of my old friends there suggested me to visit someone who had become the talk of the town recently. As he told me his whereabouts, I discovered his younger brother had been my class fellow in school. Later his younger sister who was a lecturer in a degree college had also become a very close friend of mine.

Anyway, I went to his place and introduced myself. His name was Rahul Negi and he had recently returned from Kenya where he was the principal in a college. He was 38 years old, and I got impressed with his knowledge in the very first meeting. Soon we became best friends, in fact not friends, rather he became my first mentor in life. We did many projects in the town together that made us quite popular over there.

But there was one thing about his personality that always intrigued me. Whenever I asked him about his younger brother, he always told everything in detail about him. But when I asked about his younger sister who had been my very close friend, he always evaded the question. By that time, she had already got married.

My Mentor Introduces Me To His Friend And His Daughter

Anyway, he once got me introduced to one of his friends who we met along with his daughter walking on the road. They were not from the town but had come from the valley below.

After a few days I was walking alone on the bus route outside the town. As a bus crossed my way from the opposite side, I heard a female voice shouting ‘hello’ from within. I looked back as the bus had moved a little distance by then and found a girl waving at me. I couldn’t recall if I ever knew that girl. I wasn’t also quite sure if it was I alone or someone else she was waving at. Hence, I didn’t wave back and went my way further.

Next week, I again heard a voice shouting ‘hello’ from the other side of the road. As I looked up, I saw a girl pointing toward me. Again, I couldn’t make it sure if it was I alone or someone else she was pointing toward. Hence, I started checking my left, right and back if there could be anyone else who she might be pointing toward.

“Hey, I am talking to you,” she said aloud as she crossed the road and came near me.

“Do we know each other?” I was intrigued as her tone voiced like she already knew me well.

“I waved from the bus last week and you didn’t wave back at me,” she complained.

“Have we met before?” I was still confused.

“Have you forgotten? We got introduced by Rahul Negi the other day. I am Shivani Bisht, Dev Bisht’s daughter,” she reminded me.

Shivani Takes Me To Task Lovingly

“Oh, I am really sorry. I am not very good at keeping names and faces in mind,” I apologized.

“That happens only when they are not important to you,” she smiled.

“Yes, name and faces have never been very important to me. What interests me is the personality,” I admitted.

“Or maybe my name and face aren’t even worth remembering,” she teased me.

“No, both your name and face are so beautiful! How can one forget them?” I tried to undo my folly.

“And still you did! No one else has ever done it in my life,” she went a little boastful of her beauty. In fact, she was really exceptionally beautiful.

“The fault is mine,” I again apologized.

“No, I am wondering what a kind of man you are,” she really sounded like wondering.

“Weird!” I gave a concrete word to her vague wonder.

“Yes, of course; but very uniquely so!” she was still looking at my face with a sense of wonder.

We took leave of each other. While we were going our ways, she again called me back from behind.

As I turned back, I heard her saying,” I would like to meet you again.”

“I too certainly would,” I said before I left.

Later it came to my mind how we would meet as we didn’t have each other’s whereabouts. But it was too late by then. Those were not the days of mobile phones and social media yet.

After a few months, I went down to the valley to join a theater group there. And to my utter surprise, Shivani was also a member of the same group.

I specialized as a writer director in theater. Within a year, situations took a dramatic turn which ended up in an affair between the two of us while we were rehearsing together for a new play. That was a weird turn of events I will be writing down in one of my next memoirs further. But when her father came to know about our affair, he raised an objection and complained to Rahul, my mentor.

The Tragic Life Lessons Story Starts Unfolding Itself

Rahul came down to the valley and met me at the venue of rehearsal. He took me away and accused me of having given him a bad name in the eyes of his friend.

“How does it give YOU a bad name?” I curiously asked.

“It’s because I had got you introduced to them the very first,” he replied.

“But she would anyway have been there in the play even if you hadn’t introduced us. We would still have met and might have fallen in love with each other,” I gave my logic.

“Don’t argue with me. It wouldn’t have been a blot on my face then. What you have done is morally wrong,” his tone had gone bitter by then.

“I don’t understand how and why falling in love can ever be morally wrong,” said I, innocently.

“You have taken an undue advantage of my introducing you to them,” he still stuck to his point.

Suddenly, it struck to me why he had always evaded my questions about his younger sister. I immediately realized that despite his intellectual superiority, he was a patriarch in the deepest traits of his personality, emotionally.

“I considered you my mentor to date, but not anymore. You or anyone else has no right to dominate me for what I do or what I don’t in my life. And since you, my mentor, have done so, I reject you as my mentor with immediate effect. Goodbye!”

I shook hands with him and went back to my rehearsal.

_________________________________________________________

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A Top Adult Game That Summons Up Deep Healing Energy Has All Elements to Change Us As A Person

I went for a series of treks to the inner reaches of Lahaul Valley in Himachal. For this series of treks, I had made Manali as my intermediate station on the way.

I look for a plain stretch of land on the bank of River Manalsu to peg my tent.

I looked for a plain stretch of land on the bank of River Manalsu to peg my tent. The river originated just a few miles away from the snowy peaks around and its water was absolutely transparent. It made bathing, washing and drinking water very comfortable for me to manage. A mile away from the pegging spot, it joined grayish stream of River Beas unfit to consume as drinking water.

What an ideal stretch of land was this to peg a tent and enjoy all those facilities around! I decided to spend a few days there before moving further ahead. A couple days later as I was basking in the sun outside my tent, another trekker approached me. She was carrying her rook sac on her shoulders and looking for a stretch of land for pegging her tent.

Another Trekker Looks for A Stretch of Land for Pegging Her Tent

“Could I peg my tent adjacent to yours on this beautiful stretch here?” she kind of asked for my permission.

“I don’t own this land, so you have full right to settle yourself down anywhere you feel like,” I smiled.

“I hope we are gonna be a good company. I’m Maya Brown from California,” she introduced herself.

“I am Laadi Ojas, native to this land. Surprisingly we also have the name Maya in our culture meaning illusion. I hope you aren’t an illusion and so you are welcome here,” I showed my friendly gesture.

“Maybe I am a ghost and gobble you up anytime,” she laughed as I helped her in pegging her tent. It had a bright red color making a beautiful combination with my bright yellow tent.

I Help Maya in Pegging Her Tent

The more the merrier! We started having a very good time together. She told me her stories of California while I familiarized her with the Indian culture. She was a professional traveler and wrote her travelogues of wherever she traveled. Then she clicked photos of her treks and sent her travelogues along with her photographs to a few American magazines. One single travelogue fetched her enough money sufficient to manage six months of her travel. I thanked her for introducing me to a new avenue to travel for free and sustain myself while I trekked.

After another couple of days, we planned to move further on our trek to the interiors of Lahaul together. In the beginning, I found it a little difficult to get on to her American accent while listening to her. But very soon I started speaking the same accent myself pretty fluently.

We planned to move further on our trek to the interiors of Lahaul together.

She told me her story of how her parents had separated from each other recently when she started feeling lonely. And then she took a decision to leave them both and never marry in life herself. That initiated her into turning a professional writer along with a professional traveler. She was very happy traveling to distant lands and interacting with unknown people writing their stories in her travelogues.

We crossed Rohtang Pass on the first day and entered Lahaul Valley at Khoksar on the other side of it. It was a very rich valley as people grew some very rare crops there which straight got exported internationally. The average height of the valley was around 10,000 feet above sea level. Two rivers Chandra and Bhaga flowed through it merging their waters at Tandi with their confluence named as River Chenab.

Next day, we moved further from Khoksar and walked around 25 miles to reach the confluence at Tandi. We were taken aback by the expanse of its beauty that the two rivers had created through merging into one. We found a rare thicket on the side opposite to the village and pegged our tents inside it. Then we moved out to enjoy the scenery created by the confluence. Maya clicked a number of photographs catching the beauty of Chandra, Bhaga and Chenab separately as well as together. Then we moved up to a tea stall enjoying hot tea along with Maya capturing images of locals over there.

Confluence of Chandra and Bhaga Rivers at Tandi in Lahaul

Dusk had already started falling by the time we reached back our tents. We started sipping red wine with our readymade dinner together.

“My trip to India is gonna come to an end,” said Maya as she took a big sip of wine.

“Are you going back to California? Why so soon?” I had started relishing her company quite a lot by now.

“Not back to California, moving forward to China now! And it’s not soon. I have been traveling through India for the past one year. It was only that I met you so late. I wish we had met before,” she said as she looked deep into my eyes.

I kept looking into hers too.

“I want to make my last few days with you more memorable before we part forever,” she blurted.

“Are you proposing sex?” I could smell what direction our company was gonna take us to.

“Do you accept my proposal? Yes, I am proposing sex,” she again looked at me intently.

“Could I suggest something else making our last few days together more memorable than that?” I asked for her permission.

“What’s that?” she went curious.

Summon Up Deep Healing Energy with This Top Adult Game!

“We have already got attracted to each other a lot. Could we continue increasing it further with our bare bodies exciting but not touching the other? Simple sex will simply dilute the attraction. I wanna bear it while turning it unbearable,” I completed my proposal.

“It will pull my soul out of myself. Yours too!” her eyes turned wide open like popping out as she imagined what it was gonna be like.

“If imagining it alone turned you so excited, think what the actual game could do,” I put my point across.

“What if it tears our bodies from within?” she smiled naughtily.

“It will become eternally memorable in that case,” I smiled back naughtily too.

“Sounds challenging!” she turned serious now.

“It’s the ultimate adventure, summoning up energy and keeping it within without throwing it out. Are you ready?” I asked for her final approval.

She didn’t reply but started baring her body in response. I followed suit. We went inside her tent and switched one of our torchlights on.

Summon Up Deep Healing Energy with This Top Adult Game!

Time stood still. We forgot we were tired. It was a state of flow we had entered bearing the unbearable. We lost track of time until the rising sun told us the night was over. We were as fresh as waking after a deep sound sleep for long. We didn’t feel like stopping playing our game, but we respected the call of the sun and wore our clothes. We hadn’t touched each other even once throughout the night. But we felt we had kept having a 12 hour long orgasm every single second of it.

We kept looking forward to playing our game every day for the next few days we were together for. Our game changed us as a person making us feel we had been together since eternity. Taking each other’s leave while she left no more instilled any feeling of missing the other. We felt like having developed a bond of indomitable energy that would keep us together till eternity.

We taught each other, we learned from each other, and we went our ways thanking each other from deep within!

_________________________________________________________

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A Loner Is One Who Never Feels Lonely Alone, One Who Feels So Needs Company in Relationships

I had always been a loner since my early childhood. But the majority of people needs other people around them whether friends or strangers, or even foes.

Alone But Not Lonely

This is a story of my return from a solo trek I had already completed.

I got caught in a snowy whirlwind on top of Rohtang Pass in the Himalayas

I was on my way back via Rohtang Pass when I got caught in a whirlwind on top of it. It was at a height of more than 13,000 feet above the sea level. The intensity of that freezing whirlwind went on increasing as I tried looking for a shelter around. But I found none as far as my eyes could see.

I decided to lie down where I was. I had thought it would push me less than if I kept standing in front of its rotating gusts. But it was of no help as it started rolling me along with my rook sac on my back. It was better keeping standing than lying down on its rocky surface.

Every single freezing gust of the whirlwind threw me away 10-15 feet to one side and then to another. It kept tumbling me wildly without giving any respite in between. My body was exhausted and I reached the verge of losing my consciousness. I came to feel it was the end of my life and I would be dead within a few minutes. I had been braving the whirlwind for half an hour by then. I had no strength left in my body anymore.

I was rescued by an army truck

As I was about to give in to my impending death, I suddenly saw an army truck passing by. I shouted at the top of my voice and started throwing snowballs in the direction of the truck. My shouts died down in the noise of the wind but my snowballs luckily drew the attention of the driver. As he looked toward me, I started waving my arms wildly above my head.

Within seconds, four men got down from the truck and ran toward me. Before I lost my consciousness, they had already supported my body in their arms.

Marhi, a shanty hamlet of roadside restaurants between Manali and Rohtang Pass

We got down at Marhi, a shanty hamlet of roadside restaurants between Manali and Rohtang Pass. It was at a height of 11,000 feet above the sea level. They made me lie down in one of those restaurants where they had burnt logwoods to keep it warm. I was served with a hot glass of sweet milk and taken care until I came to my senses actively. They suggested me to take rest and instructed the restaurant owner to take care of me. Later I pegged my tent and shifted inside it. Soon I fell deep asleep.

I was fully refreshed as I woke up the next morning in my tent covered fully inside my sleeping bag. By that time, the sun had risen quite high in the azimuth indicating it was late morning. I had slept almost for 15 hours like a log. I freshened up and stood out in the sun to soak its heat.

As I sat out in the sun outside the restaurant, I took out my mini folding magnetic chessboard

As I sat out in the sun outside the restaurant, I took out my mini folding magnetic chessboard. Then I started playing a game moving pieces from both sides in turns.

There was a white-skinned foreigner sitting on a nearby table having his breakfast. He found my style of playing from both sides in turns very interesting and innovative.

“How do you play from both sides against your own moves,” he smiled as he asked me aloud.

“I assume two different identities while playing from two different sides,” I smiled back looking at him intently.

“Don’t you find it difficult to switch identities so frequently?” he sounded curious.

“I don’t get emotionally attached to either of them,” I gave my explanation.

“But the two thinking minds are the same. Don’t both think alike?” he again put his point across.

“They think their best both the times from the angles of their pieces. Angles are what change them as two different minds,” I smiled extra-wide this time.

“Interesting!” he exclaimed and asked, “Could I join you from the other side?”

“You’re welcome!” I made room for him taking some of my stuff to my side of the table.

Alexandre from France joins me for chess

He got his breakfast shifted to my table and introduced himself to me. “I’m Alexandre from France. I’ve been trekking in the Himalayas for quite a few months,” said Alexandre.

“Alone?” I went curious.

“Yes, I always travel alone. It gives you a lot of freedom,” he expressed his opinion.

“And I always live alone. It gives you a whole lot of absolute freedom,” I expressed mine.

“Are you a loner?” asked Alexandre.

“I think yes. I never feel lonely,” I replied.

“Do you never miss your relations?” Alexandre curiously asked.

“No, I am so busy interacting with new people around that I don’t get time to miss my old relations. I like making new interactions more than missing old relations,” I smiled as I asked him back, “do you miss yours?”

“I have been trekking alone for the last five months, but I am not sure if I am a loner or not,” replied Alexandre.

By that time, I had set the chessmen for a new game to start. We made our initial moves quite fast. But soon the maneuvers on the chessboard started getting complex. Our moves went on getting slower and slower as they turned getting more and more complex.

A young couple kissing passionately outside their tent in snow

In the meantime, a young couple had come out of their tent that they had pitched nearby. As they came out, they started passionately kissing and hugging each other. Alexandre kept looking at them stealthily in between his moves. For me my moves were more important than stealing their love-making looks.

Alexandre’s attention toward them went on becoming more and more compulsive in between his moves. He had started taking a lot more time to make his next moves by now.

I needed to remind him, “It’s your move, Alexandre!”

“O yes,” he moved his attention back on the chessboard. But before he could make a move, his eyes had again turned toward them.

After a few minutes, I again reminded him, “Alexandre, it’s your move!”

“O yes,” he moved his attention back on the chessboard again. But then again, before he could make a move, his eyes had compulsively turned toward them.

After a couple minutes, I reminded him the third time, “It’s your move, Alexandre!”

Alexandre Starts Feeling Nostalgic Lonely Alone

He pushed the chessboard away as he said, “Let’s not play right now. I am missing my girlfriend back in Paris looking at this couple’s passion for each other. I’ll go back to France now and kiss her and hug her with the same passion.”

I simply smiled and said nothing.

“We have our farms in the outskirts of Paris. And she loves me as much as I love her,” Alexandre seemed like needing sharing his emotions with me.

I kept listening to him intently with a compassionate smile on my face.

He went on speaking, “I have realized I am not a loner. I miss my old relations very strongly. I need company with my relationships.”

I stood up, went up to him and hugged him compassionately.

“We will complete our game if and when we ever meet in life again,” Alexandre’s eyes had gone wet.

I laughed out loud saying, “That time it wouldn’t be another interaction between us like today. It would rather be a revival of an old relation that we have established today with our interaction here.”

Alexandre started laughing too!

We packed our bags and moved back to Manali together.

_________________________________________________________

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Skeletal Leap Book 1: The Mind Body Connection

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