Tag: My thoughts

My thoughts, Parenting, Personal

First Human Beings..

Pihu

Today, my nose was paining, my head was throbbing, I probably pulled a muscle in my right leg, and my throat was croaky with the cold. Sorry guys for starting this blog with such a gloomy line, but when I thought about the major things happening with me today, I wanted to share this with you. After all life is a mix of sweet and sour. Despite all this going on I will say today was a great day, because I managed to beat a chess coach in an offline classical game, and I helped a old lady cross the road. It makes me really happy when I get to help other people, even though it’s just small things. There are many other things that I wish I could change, For example, when I saw an adolescent boy selling corn on the street to make a living. Or, when I see so many hungry and injured dogs on the street daily.  I know the saying – “ Be the change you want to see in the world” . I believe in this saying, but I don’t believe one person is enough to set everything right. I believe it takes joint awareness and conscious action to bring a significant change. Even if everyone contributes just a little, we can change the world, for example, maybe teaching a poor kid near your house, taking in sick and hurt animals, etc. 

I hope to be that change, If not now at least when I grow up. 

I had met a special needs teacher, who runs his own Waldorf School. He told me the first and foremost principle of any educational model should be to first make human beings out of the children. Beautiful, isn’t it? I will never forget that line. If not in schools at least in our homes are we first making human beings out of our children or not?

My thoughts, Parenting, Personal, Well being

Unschooling Diaries #12 :- Clashing Dates, Evening Cycle Rides, and Apartment Cats…

Pihu

This has been such a great week, with many ups and downs and twists and turns.

At the start of the week, I had submitted my form for an Ameutur Boxing Championship to be held in Banglore. It was an inter-club tournament and I was so excited, it was going to be a lot of fun. But, here is the plot twist, the boxing tournament was to be held on 1-2 October, but it got postponed to 8-9 October, and I have the State Women Open Chess Championship on those days😔.  I definitely cannot miss it because I already missed the U15 girls one. However, it was fun preparing for the boxing tournament. It has given me motivation to work harder for the next one👍.

Meanwhile I would like to state some things which made me really happy this week. 

  1. Coming home by my cycle in the evening after boxing class


It is a wonderful feeling to return home by cycle in the evening. The air will be blowing in my face, and the weather will be nice and cool. We all agree that two wheelers in the evening is just a different mood. Yes, that time there is a lot of traffic, pollution, and the roads are not good, but sometimes when I get to see a sunset followed by beautiful twilight, I forget all about the rest.

  1. The confidence and fitness boxing has given me

I am so happy and really grateful to my parents for making me join this boxing class. Because it has given me a level of fitness I never had before, and that makes me feel nice and confident.

  1. Feeding my apartment cats

I am glad, my parents don’t keep my schedule very packed and I have time to do a lot of other stuff. Like feeding the cats near my apartment. 

  1. The confidence I have to talk to people now

This week I just noticed how confident I have now become to talk to people. Before (pre-covid) I had literally had no idea how to, if some guest had come or we had gone out, I would just become speechless ( in a literal way). But now when I go to people’s houses I can talk nicely, I can entertain the guests whenever they come. In fact I am hosting a chess meetup at my place tomorrow, and I feel so proud that I have the confidence to host the entire thing on my own now.

This is the second one, we had hosted one more last week also. Don’t forget to tune in to find out what happens tomorrow. 

Please send me a few things that made you too  happy this week, I would love to hear them. 

Chess, My thoughts, Personal

Unschooling Diaries #11 : Today was a Great Day!

Pihu

Today was a great day. From many days I was struggling to find people to practise chess with. But today we connected with over 30+ plus people who live near my house and are ready to meetup to play chess! So how did this miracle happen? How we go from 0 people from months to suddenly 3 dozen people. 

So we can say one thing led to another. Last week I had gone to a chess tournament, over there we met someone and told him about our problem. So. he added us to a WhatsApp Group where all the chess parents of Bengaluru are there. He said us to post regarding our problem over there and we will probably find someone. So over one week had gone we didn’t post anything, but today we finally decided to start the conversation. All we suggested was are chess players living around Koramangala interested to meetup and play few games. That is it and under one hour the whole group was on fire! Everybody was responding. By afternoon there were 6 different groups for 6 different areas and over 100+ people in total.

Apparently everybody was facing this issue of offline playing practise. We ourselves were struggling from such a long time. And it took just a 2 simple steps to resolve it. The saying is true ” The best solutions are often simple yet unexpected.” Look around you, is there anything you are struggling with right now? Maybe talking to your neighbor, friend, or somebody will help. This is one thing I have learnt in life, and is now firmly engraved in my mind with what happened today. Talking to people always helps.

My thoughts, Personal

Unschooling Diaries #10 :- What is the Greatest Spirituality?

Pihu

Today, my mom and I went to Ashram to take a Level 2 Kriya Yoga class. So, basically Kriya Yoga is a path of spirituality, like the Gyan Yoga, or Bhakti Yoga. To get initiated into Kriya Yoga you are required to complete 4 levels, and 9 – 11 classes. So, my parents and I had taken L-1 together, around 3 months ago, and my dad had also completed his L-2 last month. 

But this time I felt the teacher was not that good. Like many people won’t come back, simply because the class failed to touch their hearts. This event reminds of a quote, I wrote about a few days ago:- Life should be chiefly service. Without that ideal, the intelligence that God has given you is not reaching out toward its goal. When in service you forget the little self, you will feel the big Self of Spirit.” On the first line I had written how Yogananda Ji, means to develop a seva attitude in everything we do. There is a nice story from my Vrindavan trip related to this

On Janmashtami a group of the volunteers were decorating one of the ashrams. So everybody was trying to decorate the altar, because that would be the center of attention. I was blowing balloons with another volunteer. Inwardly I was thinking, ‘what an insignificant job, I want to do something important too.’ Naturally with this thought process even the action was being done halfheartedly, Then, a bit tired I  went around the Ashram to take a look as to what was going on. When I came to the entrance I saw that some of the staff were decorating it, and they all were working hard doing a good job. So, I got inspired to help them. I noticed that there was a shortage of balloons. ‘Oh, so this is where they were getting used” I thought. I quickly went inside and blew up many balloons of different colors and helped them decorate the entrance. Decorating the entrance was as important as decorating the altar, after all the entrance was going to be the first impression of anybody that was going to come. That day I realized that even blowing balloons was such animportant task, its fruit might not be taking place in front of me, but I was helping someone. This means that all jobs are equally important, and everybody should do their work diligently and honestly.

Coming back to today’s L-2 class. Today, the teacher had a very important job, she was preparing everyone for initiation into Kriya. Unlike the L-1 class, which was taken very nicely and almost all students had come back for L2 and L3, I don’t think there will be this much success rate in this class. There was no personal interaction, no proper explanations, etc. Because she lacked that enthusiasm, that thought of “oh, today I just want to fill these people with the essence of kriya yoga” was not there.

So, this is why I consider doing your job correctly the greatest spirituality. Today, she could transform some people’s lives and consciousness forever but she failed. Similarly if governments functioned honestly, parents parented correctly, schools thought properly, we would live in a different world. Think about it. Are you doing your job properly?

My thoughts, Personal

I Started Reading “The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran 

Pihu

The Prophet is a collection of philosophical poems, which took more than 11 years to perfect. Yes, you heard that right, Kahlil Gibran spent 11 years re-writing and perfecting this book. No wonder it is one of the top sellers. 

It is to my great fortune that I had this book kept at home. I started with the first chapter and knew from the first page itself, this was going to be a one-sitter. But considering that it was already late and I had to wake up at 5 am, I decided against it. I have completed almost half of it, and It is so good, I have no words. 

I believe it should be made compulsory for all parents and teachers, especially the chapter on “Children”. Not only for parents and teachers, it should be taught at school too because it contains many lessons from important topics in life like marriage, work, time, etc.

To quote one of my favorite lines from the book:-

“ Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and walks grinning in the funeral.”

-The Prophet on ‘houses’.