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  • PM Houston August 2015

5 Wrong reasons to meditate

3/5/2014

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courtesy: freedigitalphotos.net
Here at CIS, I meet a lot of different people everyday. And so I tend to find myself getting into deep conversations about why they have taken up meditation. Certainly, of the hundreds of reasons I have heard, these are not the ones you should take up meditation for:

1. You want to become rich: Meditating to become a rich person is not an unfamiliar strategy to many attendees of our sessions (albeit it has taken a considerable amount of acquaintance to learn this secret). Some of us think meditation is a good 'fix' for issues that make you not so good with money. Here's a word of caution: meditation will make you a generous person. It will make you want to stop hoarding. It will also help you to think clearly. Now, WHAT you think, is entirely a different matter. If you think about striking a balance between generosity for yourself and the others around, this could really work.

2. You Hate Human Beings: This, ahem, is a tough one. For starters, unless you prefer a machine talking back at you, your personalised dose of meditation is likely to come from a human being. Plus, after a period of meditation (provided you're doing it sincerely), you are likely to actually stop hating people. Yet, those who know you, will still give you your space if they know you have been a human hater. This can make you feel ostracised.  

3. You Want to Get Back at your Ex: You have had a bad breakup and you're raring to get back at your ex. How? By sounding ultra cool in your yoga pants, heading to the well known place that is frequented by many people your age, and sharing "relaxed" time with them. This could make your ex jealous. Sorry, but whilst you will be very likely to meet someone new after a session is finished, the time you meditate is "you" time. That means no thoughts of the ex. Plus, meditating might just make you stop wanting to get your revenge. Yes. Please choose.

4. You Want to Become a Politician (or a Lawyer): You're more than just impressed by how everyone trying to get you to attend their meditation session is swearing your life will change for the better. You are very tempted to join because you have had some confidence issues lately and this could help your public speaking. Surely, it will give you a boost of confidence when you learn not to shake with anxiety as you are about to speak. People might start turning to you to see what words come out of your mouth. But beware, the words that will come out will be concise, and most of all, true. Hence, a revision of vocational plans may be in order.

5. You Suck at Studies: Your well wishers are worried that your grades at school sucked. College grades suck. And there is no good prospect of improvements at University. So they recommend that you go and learn how to meditate so you can give more attention to your private tutor. Good plan. Only not so good when after meditating for a few sessions you start to 'listen' to your heart. And then you see that millions of not so privileged people in this world need you, and not your engineering degree. You might just quit for the greater good, suddenly start writing a piece of music, start nursing the animals in your street, and frisk your parents' monies away feeding the homeless in your neighbourhood (see point 1).



6. (Bonus Point) You Want to Lose Weight: It is astonishing the number of people who think meditation is an excellent solution to their weight problems. Because it might help them focus harder on their fasting regime or new diet. Wrong. Yes, meditation will help you focus, and yes, it is very likely going to help you think clearer (and twice) before you pop something in your mouth, but fad diets are the enemy of balance. A healthy and balanced diet needs both focus and patience instead of a quick fix to starve yourself. Meditation can help you to do that. But, don't forget that to lose all that weight, you need to move a lot. Unless you plan to move after sitting still to meditate, it can take years for a miracle to strike...

So, proceed with caution.


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why the body obsession is boomeranging

1/29/2014

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Photo courtesy: befter.net 


There was recently a huge uproar when a news presenter lady in the United States was asked by a regular viewer to lose some weight. A lot of people stood up on her side, she released a very long statement speaking about how she was not going to let this affect her sense of self and deserves not to be bullied.

What we forgot during that steam was probably that the message from this supposed viewer was not urging her to lose some weight because it was her duty to look good as a news presenter, but that it sent the wrong message to the obesity driven young crowd in the country.

Without debating who was right or who was wrong, let’s just assume that this woman was anorexic. What would you have thought? You’d have sympathised with her, but still thought that an anorexic needs some treatment. Because anorexia is not normal, it is a condition when you don’t accept yourself as you are.

The puzzling situation about today is that the well fed nations (let’s just leave the huge population that has to starve for days), are now fighting against the un-achievable image the media has portrayed of stick thick women. That was never healthy. So the plus sized models pageants began to pick up. The focus is now on curves, and accepting yourself. Like being fat is something you cannot help, and like disability, and you need to just take it.

Half the problem lies in this uber lazy attitude that has been nothing but an extreme backlash from the obsession with the thin. The present day America (and even the United Kingdom) have a lot of over-sized people on the streets. You generally don’t see that stuff in the movies.

The supposed news presenter’s speech of not succumbing to bullying was hugely applauded. In all honesty, whoever wrote to her about her weight was probably doing it in good spirits and with concern. But the fact that we cannot even take positive criticism and can compare being fat to issues like being gay is beyond strange.

Same goes for the huge criticism a certain celebrity drew recently because she had put on a lot of weight post pregnancy and people told her that it was her duty to look good. There will always be a fine line between being healthy for your own good and pleasing the crowd. The news presenter woman simply does not get to be put into the same category as the celebrity woman. Whilst weight fluctuation is natural during pregnancy, years of obesity is not.

You can help what you look like. It is not rocket science. If we are lazy about our lifestyle, it is our choice. Expecting fair treatment on the basis of disability is one thing. Being fat is not a disability. And if it is, then it is about time we treated it.

Lily


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5 things to mull over

1/14/2014

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Two weeks ago, on a regular Wednesday morning, I packed my purse to walk towards the bus station in Manchester when I found the queue was too long. Some sort of delay in the bus route meant we all struggled to find space under the roof of the bus stop when it was pouring. A young boy next to me, Joshua, stood with his mother. He must have been 4 to 5 years old, I couldn’t tell.

“Why is everybody so late today?” he asked. His mother patted on his head and looked on. What followed was a string of long chatter from the young boy that entertained the entire crowd for several minutes. I had to make mental notes of what he said, and this is what I managed to put together:

1. When it rains, nobody tries to help the old man by the chemist on the roadside. And he gets drenched and coughs.
 
2. My friend told me that black people are nice and then I gave him my Pokemon card. (Joshua is black).
 
3. If we can bring the cows and pigs to the cities, we can have more nice pets. (his mother didn’t have the heart to tell him at the time, that animals are usually slaughtered)
 
4. We can plant trees and grass for the cows in the town centre because there aren’t many around.
 
5. If the bus driver knew that someone was always watching over his shoulder, he wouldn’t be so late.

As I carried on my journey there afterward, I looked back and thought how much the boy had said in less than 10 minutes. Irrespective of our faiths and backgrounds, some universal values always seem to reflect in childhood. The real test of our rearing and self help is how much of it stays with us throughout our lives.
 
Some very simple things to mull over but if these five ideas from Joshua could stay with us, we might just have a happier life.

Lily


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the happenings of us

9/16/2013

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As the four of us kept procrastinating much, while the prep for podcasts is on, we thought of more ways to keep in touch with our friends.

So here it is, the first of the four – Lily, writing to you, as I thought a hello was long due. We’re a newborn baby in the eye of the public – check the ages of our Facebook or Twitter accounts, it isn’t much really! But the fact is CIS has been a work in progress for 15 years. And 15 very, very difficult years.

Now an avid follower of our posts enthusiastically asked us what kind of charity we are. Of course the multitude of subjects we keep posting on, that must be very confusing really!

The answer lies in what our supposed ‘tagline’ or whatever is: we want world peace, starting from within. And to do that, you need lots of tools, meditation being a big one that we emphasize on. But there’s more coming, there’s violence/alcohol/drugs/terrorism/pollution whatever you want to name it, we want to tackle it, in whatever way we can – as individuals, as a team. Everyone can.

As far as the being a charity thing goes, well, we aren’t even a registered charity yet. The reason being the Charity Commission in the UK won’t register us until we have an income of £5,000 or more. Really, any student would earn more than that. But we don’t.

CIS is a little plant that’s grown out of a lot of effort (and genuine monetary investment) of us, (now, we don’t want to brag) and is non profit and will always stay so.

Of course, as things progress, we feel, we need to do more, and for that we need your help.

So in the future, even if you can’t drop a penny, just know that there is more to charity than money. As long as you believe in whatever we do, let’s say, the charity has already started.

Love,

Lily


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our own flying carpet

4/12/2012

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It’s been a month since the first blog update. It’s taken time for the second one to re-appear. The good news is that it’s taken time not because there was not much to report but because we had overwhelming amount of stuff going on around us.

This post is going to focus on our own little magic flying carpet. We do have one but it’s going through one good knit to take its first flight.

Couple of days ago, something interesting happened, the donation wall on our website, which was tested and then forgotten about, received its first donation of a dollar from a lady we don’t really know. While Marvin, Andy, Jeff and I had been racking our brains in managing our own lives, jobs and the great cause and work CIS is to all of us, sometimes the morale has to dip a bit.

That is not to say we believe any less in the cause. Like my previous post will explain, our research has been ongoing for 50 years (yup, some generations have been involved), our efforts have been put in since we were, well, kids maybe. All under the banner of CIS. But going out in the world and asking people to join hands with us – well, this is the first.

The response has been overwhelming. Our first video was produced just a week ago and we’re extremely thrilled by the positive feedback we have received. Your messages, or the unexpected dollar, it makes us feel that we’re not alone. And this cause will continue.

Every so often there are predictions of the world ending, or yet another war, or one more threat comes by. Amongst it all, there are people who have much bigger things to think of. Like what they will eat for dinner, or lunch or if they will ever eat at all.

In a world with such great distances, where the likes of us cannot each travel and feed people, or cannot afford to send them bags of food, what we can do, is feel. Feel from the mind, and from the heart. Just with feelings, wonderful things can happen.

That is the power of mind. And that, we shall use, to change the world around us for the better. On our little flying carpet.

Thank you one more time, for your thorough support. It is greatly appreciated.

Love,


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    LILY

    Lily likes to talk about love, and all the good and happy things in the world. She puts her nose in many things so her blog is likely to talk about relationships, psychology and spirituality.

    It generally starts with telling you what we really are doing, and sharing with you great stories of love, happiness and contentment in the world. The sort of stuff that go with meditation.

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