Poga Sleep

During one of the philosophy classes I dozed off for the entire 2 hours. Nothing new that I dozed off I do that in most of the classes (never for the entire duration though). But what was a new experience for me was that after the class I actually knew what was discussed in the class. Another day, another lecture I was wide awake and trying to make sense of what was the discussion all about, but for all the sense I could make the Prof. could have been speaking in Hebrew. By the middle of the lecture I was so frustrated I wanted to jump out of the window, but the thought of a midair collision with Basanti, the Bitch kept me rooted in my seat. You see Basanti has this habit of jumping in from the window, walking over to the next row and making herself comfortable next to the wall. Though she was more into sociology than philosophy and as far as I remember always jumped in in the beginning of the lecture and left after it got over, I still did not want to take a chance.

What was I saying before Basanti interrupted me. Oh yes, about dozing in the class yet making sense of it afterwards. I got to resolve the mystery today. A couple of days back I did a Yoga Nidra session at home and felt quite refreshed. Impressed I thought I should first read the book and understand how it works. This is what it revealed, I haven't finished reading the book yet. Yoga Nidra is a state of hypnagogic sleep. The state between being awake and falling asleep and it seems it is the best state to input data into the mind. It gets stored and you remember it. I won't get too technical here, it is just that the mind becomes more receptive in this stage. As you relax in Yogic Nidra but at the same time try to stay awake, you tend to maintain a relaxed state of awareness. So I was in hypnagogic state in the lecture that day, I was sleepy but I was making efforts not to sleep, so I was both asleep and awake and no wonder I could remember what went on in the lecture. In fact these days I seem to be making more sense of texts that I read in half awake state.

Hope not too many ambitious parents get an inkling of this. BSY might have to stop all their other activities and start mass production of the Yoga Nidra CDs. No but seriously, to all those overworked, sleep deprived, tired people, this is wonderful. I did a session again today and I have a feeling I might turn nocturnal tonight. I sure do plan to incorporate it into my daily schedule.

Green is love

It is that time of the year that my socks wearing friends hate. It is monsoon and it is raining. Yippieeeeeeeeeeeeee. Looks like it is going to be a good year, we will have lots of rain. I am already in 'I love the world no matter what' mood. Ya the monsoon does that to me. Everything around is so green and fresh. And there is promise of sustainable green in my wallet too. Bye-bye poverty. I just remembered, my umbrella is green too. Before the socks-wearing people go green in ____, I will move on to other pastures. Damn! pastures are green too, aren't they.

Meaning lies in the minds of the readers

We were discussing how socialisation can be done through education in the class and our professor shared this account with us. It seems a lesson was introduced in some class text book in Kerala. The lesson went something like this. A child is taken to school by his parents for an interview. The principal asks the child his name. Then asks for the father's name, which happens to be a muslim name. Then for the mother's name, which happens to be a hindu name. Then he asks what religion should he put in the form for the child and the parents reply, no religion. The lesson ends here.

When someone like me reads this lesson, I think wow! that's liberal. Isn't it nice that children are provided the impetus to think, to create broad minds. But it seems that is not what the people in Kerala thought. The religious, especially the catholic community was in uproar. They saw this lesson as the Left's attempt at promoting atheism through education. Finally, owing to much opposition this lesson had to be removed from the curriculum. To none of us in the class it occurred that there might be any hidden agenda behind incorporating this lesson in the curriculum until, the Prof. mentioned the uproar it caused. She added that it could be a case of broad mindedness on the part of the curriculum developers in Kerala or it could be that the politicians better understand the power of education to socialise children to certain ideas or philosophies than the educators do.

That brought me to religion and the concepts surrounding it. Once I was chatting with a friend and we were discussing an a particular article which had to do with some religion. Since I don't bother with any religious identity, my friend asked me if I was an atheist. I said I am not. Why does one have to accept a religion to be a believer? Why can't one reject religion and still be a believer? But I guess it is important for most to subscribe to some form of 'ism'. To develop individual identity is to tread on dangerous grounds. It is safe to be part of a group, in this case believer or non-believer. For majority there seems to be no scope for a middle ground.