Allopathy and Alternate Healing

I recently read somewhere, that until as recently as the 1930's and 40's, healing places or hospitals existed in equal measure across various systems and methods, be it Homeopathy, Ayurveda, Unani, Pranic Healing, Acupuncture and so many others, and 'Allopathy' was but one of them. 

It's around then that the large Pharmacy companies got together to push a licensing mechanism in the US, with the committee members all being from their own league.......... and no points for guessing the outcome. That was the beginning of Allopathy becoming the primary source of healing, and all others systems being abrogated to 'Alternate' Healing methods. Allopathy thus grew to sustain the multi billion dollar pharma industry that it is today, and needless to say the largest institutes and research all got directed there as well. 

We've been so conditioned into this, that our default recourse, be it for a minor headache or the more complex and critical illnesses is only Allopathy, at times with dependency on some highly potent drugs and their potentially dangerous side effects.....such is the grip of the system. 

Not to blame the system, it works great too, and has surely helped enough number of people, enough number of times, but it also becomes important to know that it is not necessarily the final answer to all situations. A wider horizon exists, in terms of alternate systems, as also alternatives within Allopathy itself.

I believe this is where 'Awareness' helps. It's said that one needs Faith to let the healing happen. But we need to choose where to place that Faith. Taking even the habit based and accustomed decision, even if with Allopathy, with a little more alertness and consciousness helps.

And here, we need to understand we're caught in a system, so there's pressure from within and without, all with good intention.  So, it really helps to stay Alert and Aware. No one knows your situation and need as well as you do, at times not even your doctor.......helps to remember this at all times. 

Conversations with God

'Conversations with God' is a trilogy by Neale Donald Walsch. In an interview with Larry King, Walsch described the inception of the books as follows: at a low period in his life, Walsch wrote an angry letter to God asking questions about why his life wasn't working. After writing down all of his questions, he heard a voice over his right shoulder say: "Do you really want an answer to all these questions or are you just venting?" Though when he turned around he saw no one there, Walsch felt answers to his questions filling his mind and decided to write them down.

The first book of the series, was published in 1995 and became a publishing phenomenon, staying on the New York Times Best-Sellers List for 137 weeks. 

                      

The first book (I've only read that yet) stays centered around the Individual, his needs, attitudes and concerns. And, while conceptually pretty abstract, also reads like a humorous satire against existing systems. It pretty much rips through traditional organized religion.....completely does away with concept of right wrong, heaven hell, sin and punishment, and such.

It, in essence, puts the entire power into ones own hands. You create your life..there is no right or wrong....you need to make the choice..it's all about free will...what you believe, you create. 

Rather than try to cull out essence, here are some excerpts, so you can decide if you want to pick up the book.

A dialogue from God:

'if God wanted strict obedience to His Laws, why did He create the possibility of those Laws being violated?' Ah, your teachers tell you—because God wanted you to have "free choice.” Yet what kind of choice is free when to choose one thing over the other brings condemnation? How is "free will” free when it is not your will, but someone else’s which must be done? Those who teach you this would make a hypocrite of God.

The irony of all this is that I do not want your worship, I do not need your obedience, and it is not necessary for you to serve Me. These behaviors are the behaviors historically demanded of their subjects by monarchs— usually ego-maniacal, insecure, tyrannical monarchs at that. They’re not Godly demands in any sense—and it seems remarkable that the world hasn’t by now concluded that the demands are counterfeit, having nothing to do with the needs or desires of Deity.

And what, pray tell, forms the basis of your decision? Your own experience! No. In most cases, you’ve chosen to accept someone else’s decision. Someone who came before you and, presumably, knows better. Very few of your daily decisions about what is "right” and "wrong” are being made by you, based on your understanding. This is especially true on important matters.

In fact, the more important the matter, the less likely are you to listen to your own experience, and the more ready you seem to be to make someone else’s ideas your own. This explains why you’ve given up virtually total control over certain areas of your life, and certain questions that arise within the human experience.

These areas and questions very often include the subjects most vital to your soul: the nature of God; the nature of true morality; the question of ultimate reality; the issues of life and death surrounding war, medicine, abortion, euthanasia, the whole sum and substance of personal values, structures, judgments.

These most of you have abrogated, assigned to others. You don’t want to make your own decisions about them. In most cases, you don’t want to make your parents, your schools, your religions, your traditions, your holy scriptures wrong—so you deny your own experience in favor of what you have been told to think.

"Someone else decide! I’ll go along, I’ll go along!” you shout. "Someone else just tell me what’s right and wrong!” This is why, by the way, human religions are so popular. It almost doesn’t matter what the belief system is, as long as it’s firm, consistent, clear in its expectation of the follower, and rigid. Given those characteristics, you can find people who believe in almost anything. The strangest behavior and belief can be—has been—attributed to God. It’s God’s way, they say. God’s word. And there are those who will accept that.

The question is: Do I wish to walk this path consciously, or unconsciously? With awareness or lack of awareness? As the cause of my experience, or at the effect of it? For most of your life you’ve lived at the effect of your experiences. Now, you’re invited to be the cause of them.

That is what is known as conscious living. That is what is called walking in awareness.'

It's simple, yet powerful.....and you understand why it hit bestseller for so long.

Sujata's new Art Form

Sujata, whose Works of Art you've seen before, just launched her own cooking channel. Take a look.

Congratulations and Kudos Sujata Pawar !! I know what effort this has taken with just you and your cell phone, so the Congrats and Kudos are that much deeper.

Theekat poli is full on nostalgia to me....days and days of standing in your kitchen and watching you make it, all those thirty years back. Still looks as yummm....

And great to see you find another form of creative expression ! Good Luck pal !!

What an Over !

Not as a cricket expert, not even as a crazy fan, yet....can't help but jump for joy at that last over, though I couldn't even explain to Dhruva why I was rooting for WI.  As the last over began, with 19 required, we were taking sides on what would happen, and it looked like it would be England taking home the cup. It was that literal nail biting feel. 

And then Brathwaite was sheer magic....four straight sixes!

A picture of the moment of victory.

Brathwaite who did the four straight sixes !!

Darren Sammy, the captain spoke so sincerely and fearlessly, it was touching to see what they'd gone through to get to what they have. But get here they did ! And Samuels, who actually carried then through under tremendous pressure, what with chasing from 5 for 2, did this totally  brilliant 85, also gave an emotional acceptance speech. Intense moments all the way round.

Like I heard, West Indies loves their tough finishes...they do not get intimidated, and did they prove that true.

The Champions .... The Women's and the Men's T20 !!!

Is your phone part of your mind?

The Extended Mind again, and directly from David Chalmers.

The video first took me back....... twenty, no thirty years, to the experience of reading 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance'. Firstly as Zen was integral part of initiation into the abstract, and I guess, also because David Chalmers looks like he just got off a Harley Davidson :)

While this might have sounded like an interesting talk or thought, let's go a step further. Not just in terms of the phone doing things your mind would do, but for how it could reflect your state of being. 

Watch for instances in your own life, or those around you, and there's good chance you'll start to see what I'm talking about....... and you could see this piece of knowing shift from theoretical to experiential. 

Delivery 'boy' - Ms Sreekumari

It was wonderful to come across this write up.

She's one of the first women to ride into the male-dominated world of e-commerce delivery agents. T E Narasimhan meets Sreekumari.

Here's an excerpt:

"Sreekumari, a 42-year-old mother of two, reaches her office at Thiruvananthapuram at 8 every morning. After sorting the packets that are waiting for her, she loads the lot into a large backpack, which she then hoists on her shoulders and heads to her Honda Activa scooter, determined to hit the road.

The red bindi on her forehead and the vermilion in the parting of her hair peek out of the helmet firmly placed on her head.

Sreekumari is ready for the day.

A resident of Chempazhanthy, a suburb of Thiruvananthapuram, Sreekumari is one of the first women to ride into the male-dominated world of e-commerce delivery agents -- or 'delivery associates' as they are called at Amazon. 

Until recently, she contributed to her family income by working as a tailor from home. In January, her sister who works at the residence of Divya Syam, Amazon's service partner in the region, told her that the e-commerce company was looking to employ, for the first time in India, women as delivery agents.

To qualify for the job, all she needed was good communication skills, basic knowledge of English and a scooter.

Sreekumari jumped at the opportunity.

She says it did not scare her that she had never stepped out of home to do a job until now. After a two-day training, which included traffic rules, personal security and operating mobile applications, she says she was ready.

She now delivers around 40 packages a day riding on her two-wheeler within a 3-km radius of her office. Many of the deliveries are to Technopark, the city's information technology hub.

For every package delivered, the service partner earns a fee of Rs 30. Sreekumari and the others are not willing to reveal how much they earn in a month, but say it is more than what they have ever made.

Encouraged by her success, two women known to her have also joined the company as delivery associates. There are currently seven women, including Sreekumari, who work as delivery associates. Seeing them, she says, more women have started enquiring about the job and what it entails.

The Kerala initiative is Amazon's first-of its-kind delivery station. Recently, another one opened in Chennai. From management to product delivery, women run the show.

Samuel Thomas, director (transportation), Amazon India, says the company decided to launch the pilot projects in Thiruvananthapuram and Chennai based on the interest women here showed in joining the workforce.

Sreekumari, meanwhile, wraps up the deliveries by 3 pm and then heads home, back to her sewing machine."

Great Going Amazon !!

Choice - Look beyond the Framework

CHOICE - One of the choicest of words :)

When we choose, when we make a choice....it's that sweet sweet experience of freedom. At whatever level, whether to eat chocolate ice cream or vanilla, to wear pink or purple, to work at this company or that, to work or to not, to live in this city or that.....each is an expression of your own self.

What we, however, need to be aware is of is, how much we might be letting the framework limit our choices.

When we choose, we typically choose within our field of vision, within the given paradigm, within the existing framework. What happens when we question the framework.... push that boundary.....stretch that comfort zone. 

That's when it helps to be aware that the framework is built mostly on stuff like conditioning, pattern, expectations, habit, and an underlying fear of breaking through those.

There are times and situations where tweaks don't help, they need paradigm shifts, but the moment we think of that huge step.....want to stretch the boundary, there's a torrent of questions, constraints and fears that hit us. And they almost form a wall.

Awareness helps acknowledge and articulate all those .......see all the reasons for or against....know the significant ones from the not so significant ones. There's a clear hierarchy of importance there.

It's about being able to parse through all those to reach that one deep reason, the ability and courage to dig through those questions and constraints to the real 'why' of it, and that's the space of clarity. That's where facing consequences of a choice becomes a lark.  As written by Sadhguru, it's the space of real judgement 'There's a consequence to each decision, as also to each non decision. Are you ready to face the consequence?'

Let's do this through an example: In Google, I've seen folks not happy with the kind of work they're doing, but looking at solutions only within Google. And what influences the decision? The allure and comfort of Google, the perks, the branding, the freebies, the travel, the food....it's a tough list to resist :). It's so difficult to see beyond that. The peripherals have clouded the important.

And this list, in a more subtle form, exists for any new move you want to take, especially if it's pushing the boundaries.

Choice is to parse through the layers of peripheral and get to the core. While on the one end it gets you to where you really want to be....on the other, it gives you the strength to handle even the most difficult of situations.

Clarity.......make your choice......and that's when you can live wholeheartedly, give wholeheartedly, a hundred percent in whatever you do.....enjoy the chocolate ice cream, and not fret over the vanilla..... or find a vanilla chocochip......whatever....but by choice :)