Author: Arun Elassery
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Inaction Is Happiness
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(The following are two excerpts from chapter 16 – ‘Mending the inborn nature’ and chapter 18 – ‘Supreme happiness’, from ‘The Complete Works of Zuangzi’, translated by Burton Watson. This is the third and final blog post of collected excerpts from this 2400 year old prose-poem by the Chinese sage Zhuangzi aka Chuang Tzu. Hope…
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The Perfect Man
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(The following is an excerpt from chapter 13 titled ‘The Way of Heaven’ from ‘The Complete Works of Zuangzi’, translated by Burton Watson. The book is a 2400 year old prose-poem by the Chinese sage Zhuangzi aka Chuang Tzu. I had shared a long excerpt from the book last week and I thought that I…
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The Empty Boat
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(Recently, on the SIDH WhatsApp group someone shared the translation of a 2400 year old prose-poem by Zhuangzi aka Chuang Tzu. I tracked down the original and thought it would be nice to share it here as a blog post. The following is an excerpt from Chapter 20 titled ‘The Mountain Tree’ from ‘The Complete…
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Intermediation
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When I was growing up in a government colony, we had a grassy ‘ground’ between the rows of two-storey flats. This meant that in the fifty or so homes surrounding the ground there were enough children to play all sorts of games. The grassy ground was large enough to allow us to play football and…
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India Wins the 2024 T20 World Cup
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India beat South Africa by seven runs in Barbados to win the 2024 Men’s T20 World Cup. I thought it was fitting to have this week’s blog post showcase the confidence that this unbeaten team showed throughout the tournament. The following are quotes from two of the Indian team stars. . . . Question: aakhri…
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Ramana Maharshi on Mind
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Maurice Frydman, who edited and compiled Nisargadatta Maharaj’s Marathi satsang recordings into ‘I Am That’, was also a devotee of Ramana Maharshi. Some of his dialogues with the Maharshi are available in a slim book called ‘Maharshi’s Gospel’. The following excerpt about the ‘mind’ is from this book. Devotee: How can I control the mind?…
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Ramana Maharshi On Silence
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Maurice Frydman, who edited and compiled Nisargadatta Maharaj’s Marathi satsang recordings into ‘I Am That’, was also a devotee of Ramana Maharshi. Some of his dialogues with the Maharshi are available in a slim book called ‘Maharshi’s Gospel’. I found out about this book recently and quickly bought myself a copy. Take a look at…
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Rushing through life
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I was recently on a superfast night train from Bangalore to my hometown in Kerala. I got up just before dawn and stood looking out of the door watching the land slowly wake up from sleep. The train was travelling very fast as we raced through the monsoon-wet, lush-green landscape. Nearby, streams wound their way…
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A Self-Sufficient Civilization
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In 2017 Dr Claude Alvares gave an entertaining, hard hitting talk at NIT Kozhikode about the disconnect between the subjects we study in college and the reality that we inhabit outside the classroom. We are a self-sufficient civilization, said Dr Alvares towards the end of this talk. This and many of the themes he highlights…
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On Inadvertence
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The online Merriam-Webster dictionary defines Inadvertence as: a result of inattention. This word comes up many times in Nisargadatta Maharaj’s conversations collected together in ‘I am That’. I have been recently thinking that what Maharaj says about inadvertence or inattention gives pointers to a powerful spiritual practice. Take a look at the following excerpts and…
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Learning is effortless
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Principle 1 of true teaching: Nothing can be taughtAll learning happens within the child. No teacher can have direct control over it. The teacher is a helper and a guide. They can only attempt to draw the attention of the student to where the knowledge lies and thus assist him/her to see it.– From ‘Learning…
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Narayan Ashram Retreat
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I have just got back home from the SIDH retreat at Narayan Ashram. This retreat was unique in many ways. Firstly, Narayan Ashram set at an altitude of 9000 feet on the India-Nepal border is very difficult to get to. Our 35 participants arrived in many difficult ways but most of us reached Delhi from…