in vacant or in pensive mood

I have played enough basketball and volleyball and rate myself 7/10 in both. I used to have a great jump/vertical and could almost touch the ring and easily cross the men's high net in volleyball too. But what I lacked in both were good coaches. Coaches who could correct my approach and jump. Since basketball interested me more, I learned a lot watching NBA. The best compliment I got in my college days was being called KOBE. I definitely had that MAMBA spirit (but more because I had a similar look that he had in his rookie years). Anyway, I had picked up a good jump shot for basketball and even had a decent ball release too.  But things weren't the same in volleyball. Although I could spike hard, my fundamentals were wrong and I never knew it. That is, until now - when I have become the volleyball coach for college students of my alma mater. As a coach now, I was observing the approach to a spike in volleyball more closely and observed that it is very different than a pull up j...

Gravitational waves are produced by moving, accelerating mass that are assymetrical and non-spherical. Every single piece of mass in the universe is producing gravitational waves - detecting them though, is where things get difficult. Which is why, most gravitational waves, or even the existence of that concept, was proved when they managed to detect two black holes collapsing into each other. It was a celestial dance that literally sent waves across the universe. Now imagine brands having such waves. Every brand is producing some sort of a wave. But the faster the motion and acceleration, the bigger the wave and easier to spot them. D2C brands or digital first brands think they are creating a lot of waves but fail to realize that they are in a field with some of the heaviest brands that have huge gravity and mass. They are brands that are in constant motion. They attract huge crowds and their waves are louder and more easily detectable. The waves of these smaller players usually get d...

Prahlad had, much to the disbelief of his father Hiranyakashipu, convinced that he sees God in everything. Even after repeated attempts to help him see the truth, the father chose blindness over faith.  The last nail in his coffin quite literally was him asking if God existed within the inanimate lifeless pillar, to which Prahlad obviously replied YES. Yet unable to believe, Hiranya ordered his men to break open the pillar only to come face to face with death. The story at that time seemed ‘kiddish’ but over time, one realizes that these fables are not to be taken literally. They all bear some deeper meaning, a philosophic or spiritual truth that one understands or experiences later. Being a student from the Aurobindo Ashram, I am quite aware of Sri Aurobindo's philosophy. It says that Matter must make itself aware of its dormant nature and use the physical body to help manifest the Divine Life upon earth. This philosophy makes one look at all objects not as just things composed of...

When one goes for a massage, the masseuse usually can sense the knot in the muscle and press down hard on it to release the much needed tension and provide a rewarding relief. And most often, somewhere during that painful process of him/her squeezing away that ball of pain, we hear him asking us to relax and not tighten our muscles further, thereby augmenting his already busy hands. It's quite tough actually - to be relaxed when one is weighing down on your already tight muscles. The simple act of what we thought would be a soothing massage with some nice Japanese music therapy is turned in to a fantastical fusion of orgasmic 'aah's with hurtful 'aaahs'.  But the act of kneading, although causing immense momentary pain, feels awfully wonderful later on.  It's in this dance of one's tightening and relaxing of the muscles during a massage that got me thinking of something quite strange. The idea of being straight and tall and erect needs some constriction of t...

Today, I began re-reading a book, and in the first sentence itself, a word arrested me. It's not a new word nor an unfamiliar one, but one that I've never paid attention to being used in that context before.  The word was culture. That's a word I know, or at least in the context of social, intellectual, artistic culture. But this time, it came after physical and that made all the difference.  Physical culture? What on earth is physical culture. And just like that, I entered a rabbit hole, going deeper into the meaning of the word, but also, dipping myself in the ocean of Sri Aurobindo's and the Mother's writings. Because the word in that context isn't something new in their writing. It's just that I have never quite seen it, paid attention to it nor spent time interpreting it till now. The book I am reading is Sri Aurobindo and The Mother on Physical Education. Being a student of this education system, I have been taught and even learnt about why physical ed...

Peace and meditation are supposed to go hand in hand. And their intricate lifelong linkage almost seems like they are interlinked. If one meditates, one is at peace. Or if one is at peace - they are in a meditative state. But the truth is far apart. The two definitely seem close together but they are like 2 parallel tracks that your eyes get deceived to think they join at the end. Well, eventually perhaps, at a spiritual level they do but by then you get to see that the two aren't co-dependent anyway. Coming back, how often have we seen people in a meditative state. What we assume is meditative is a quiet body. Shut-off from restlessness, from movement. Steady, at ease - but not at peace. You see, while the body is absolutely immobile - the mind is on a never-ending journey. We are told that a meditative state is when one shuts of all ideas and thinks of 'nothing', harder said than done as always.  It's tough to switch off one's mind. Peaceful body - check. Peaceful...