Sadhguru touches on a concept foreign and misunderstood in the West, the concept of “joy”. Pleasantness or “sweetness” of life is a strange concept to the rigorous, practical mind of the Western-European societies. Sadhguru is a deep thinker and a master story-teller.

What is Samadhi ?

“A mirror simply reflects everything. Nothing sticks to it; no residue is left upon it, and it never makes any judgement about what it reflects. It does not discriminate between pleasant and unpleasant, beautiful and ugly. When your mind becomes like this, you are in a state of samadhi.”

Karma, by sadhguru

“If you function unconsciously, your karma rules you absolutely. “

If you are willing to be absolutely conscious, the past has no impact on you. On this blog, I advanced the concept there is no such thing as time (and got 25,000 haters in 2019 for saying it).

Sadhguru says that, aside from bathing and showers, simply standing in the wind can be effective as a cleansing process. Sadhguru gives you a simple “do it when waking up” movement to make sure you’re fully awake and alive; for obvious reasons I won’t describe it here- we do want you to buy his book and read it.

The key takeaway from the book, the tl;dr also found in his talks and interviews is to perform each action with total involvement and intensity: absolute involvement: no tinkering, no half-way jobs. Not bothered by the result. That’s your release from karma.

“Be equally involved with everything without any distinction.”

Karma, A yogi’s journey

I will tip my hat to this old Indian sage, and urge you to get his books, listen to his talks and discover your truth.

Until next time,

Your Man,

Max Cantor

When you have some spare time, I invite you to listen to this talk

“If you are going to be an expert archer,

You must shoot before you think.

Otherwise I’ll be too late.”

Alan Watts

Meanwhile, in investment banking… Steve McLaughlin of Financial Technology Partners LP is “comfortably the highest paid investment banker in America [WSJ, Dec. 5th, 2021]

Imagine you are revisiting a place -it can be anything, anywhere- and instead of enjoying yourself anew, your thoughts of having crossed that place come through. They can be pleasant or unpleasant experiences you’ve had. In this case, the thought process taking place is barring perception and clarity. You stop being in the moment and are swept down the memory lane.

Powerful events – those entrenched in memory -must be relieved where you gain some authority over them, without emotion, without judgement.

How ?

I’m going to cite here from Darth Plagueis by James Luceno , a NY Times best selling novel from the Star Wars Expanded Universe series . Darth Plagueis, the Sith Lord, is training young Palpatine, aka Darth Sidious. Darth Sidious is reliving the memories of the crime he committed upon his family.

…In telling and retelling it, in reliving it, he had finally gained a kind of authority over it, the ability to see the event merely for what it was, without emotion, without judgement. It was as if the event had occurred years rather than months earlier, and as if someone else had authored it.”

Darth Plagueis

The emotional imprint of life defining events -positive and negative – is a shackle. You don’t have to be a Sith Lord (or a Jedi) to have formed those attachments. Memory becomes a crutch. Train to unshackle it.

I will be back and tell you how.

That’s not what we’re going to be talking about today. We’re going to talk about aging, something I wrote about before here and here.

I described aging as the expansion of the memory bank. But it’s not just the memory bank getting larger. You may have heard the line: “time is passing faster as you grow older.” Ain’t that a doozy. With aging, in 99.9 % of the people out there, the recall of memory bank grows faster from start to finish (we know at the time of death you relive your life in a second or fractions of a second). Old or older people recall things from early life, they regurgitate their lives like ruminator cows chews their cuds.

So this tape goes from start to finish in the tape recorder of your memory bank more often, and also, faster. That’s what gives the illusion of the speedier time.

Pro-tip: Spend less time with old (older) people, and more time with young (younger) people to avoid the false impression that time is passing faster. The memory containers, the tapes of the old (older) are “accelerating” from the beginning to the end faster, that’s all. The washing (aka. reliving of memories) reinforces them.

As you know, after the end of the Game of Thrones series this year I got the entire series to watch from the beginning. I am a late fan of the show, I was not watching it 4 or 7 years ago.

The Night King

The Night King character in the series is the most feared and perhaps, the most vile villain. Cersei and others were villains and such, but they were “human”. I am sure there are thousands of fans clubs for every character in GoT, Cersei included, but I never heard of fans of the Night King. The Night King doesn’t seem to inspire anyone.

The Night King is a zero-feeler, zero-lover, and zero-complainer. ZFGs. Perhaps that’s why people stay away from him so much. Being human is part of “getting-hurt” and “hurting back”, after all, that’s what people spend their lives doing. And in doing so, they build up some good memories when they get old, I might add.

To call the Night King underappreciated or underrated is an understatement. People don’t favor him because he reminds them of what they are, squirmy little rats who fester in the approval and disapproval of others. Think you’re not a rat ? Well, how many times do you complain about others ? How many times a day do you feel you have been wronged ? How many times do you feel you’ve been understood and properly rewarded ?

People feed of each others feelings. Literally. That’s how they build their memory bank tapes.

Not so with the Night King. I don’t see him happier with each killing, or sadder with each loss and retreat. I don’t see him clamoring for his victories. Never saw him disappointed either.

The Night Kind could have ten “babes” sitting on his lap, and then play You see that? like in the Three Stooges’ Moe puts his fist out for Larry, Curly or Shemp to slap his fist down so it can wind in a circle and bonk them on the head.

The Night King has earned my heart. Not because of what he does with his relentless army. But because of what he is. For he is better than any of us. And we know it.

The theme of the Underdog, a prevailing theme of this blog, is relevant to all people. I call it a “meta” theme. You see, even a filthy-rich person, one at the pinnacle of their profession, will still identify with the underdog. They’ll say they’ve overcome this, they’ve overcome that, and that they are an underdog.

In Vengeance’s Episode 6 “Chosen Path” Spartacus asks Crixus about Gannicus:

“You knew Gannicus from before I did. What is your opinion of the man?”

Crixus: “He is a Champion, like us. A boon to your cause.

Spartacus: He has expressed doubt towards it.”

Crixus: “As have we all. Yet you always find ways to convince otherwise.”

Spartacus does a second round of assessing Gannicus when he and Gannicus go into the woods hunting; this time around alone with Gannicus he gauges the other’s questions.

In this episode’s ending, he doesn’t change Gannicus mind towards the rebellion. In the end, life will set Gannicus upon that path.

12 MM people have replayed this clip with the wrong title

What is he training for ?

What is he training for…? pic.twitter.com/CeVxx455X2

— Guy (@apiecebyguy) February 20, 2019

These people…they have never been in the arena. That’s why they ask the wrong question.

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