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Showing posts from January, 2019

Social Media and Socializing

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In villages across India, it is a common sight to see groups of old men sitting around under a tree or in sunshine on jute string cots in winter, chatting, gossiping. They exchange news and pass their time in the evenings of their lives. It is a time of reduced energies and reduced needs. The children have grown up and can look after the farm now. Old women on the other hand gather similarly in homes where they can keep an eye on grandchildren too. The young on the other hand, get up early and rush for work on their farms or elsewhere. Their time to socialize is in evenings. However, there are some young who begin gossiping and socializing right from dawn or sometime soon after when the sun is still up and others are busy at work. They may be just bums or persons up to no good in life. The modern world has introduced the Internet so that it is no longer necessary to gather physically in groups anywhere. One can do it right from home, even one’s bed with a hand held d

A New Profile Image

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Ashok Malhotra, January 20, 2019    Our bodies are just a covering for our soul. The soul inherits a body at birth in keeping with its karma from past lives. To a large extent, this determines what a person would look like through life. If you found a lovely kindly looking person who in fact was evil, it is because the evil has entered the person’s life later in their journey through life. The opposite may also be found often. The external appearance cannot fully reflect that change yet. Some changes to one’s soul however reflect in a person’s appearance even while in this body.   Some ten years ago I had noticed a persistent blackish mark had developed under my left eye. It was not very prominent but nevertheless annoying every time I looked in the mirror. I trace this to some bad behavior on my part in the past. In an earlier post I had mentioned how during the years between 2000- 2007 I had taken to drinking, at times heavily. It was at such times, when one is n

Years of shame, years of liberation

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In our journey through life, we encounter good days, months and years and bad ones too. There are days when one is proud of one’s deeds and achievements and days when one is ashamed and disgusted. I have experienced such changes in my life perhaps much more than many others. Through life, there may be events such as loss of loved one’s and trauma. In some cases the trauma can be severe. An older note in this blog described how when a young girl faced one such trauma, her mother rushed her to a psychiatrist. Thus began a regime of modern psychiatric drugs, dependence on them, a compromised existence because of it, and years of loss for a young productive life. Fortunately, on sound counsel, this lady has escaped from this and returned to a bright active life, albeit with reduced energies for after effects of strong chemical agents can continue for some years. Some never do escape just as some never recover from a dependence on opioids when they reported to a callous doc f