RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR All of us know its essence, if not its subtle nuance — yet, we are, for the most part, too tense about what the future would hold for us. As Albert Einstein said, “I never think of the future; it comes soon enough.” For most people though, the future is always near and yet […]
RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR It’s a simple question with the most complex of answers. Why psychological and emotional factors make us anxious, sick, or ill? Or, why our body’s neural and chemical processes trigger psychological distress — and, upset our immune system — leading to illness? Or, why a certain number of people spend most part of […]
RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR The philosopher Plato thought that we are all in the same yacht apropos of our vision. This, notwithstanding the fact that all of us aim to be better than others while imbibing and cultivating wisdom, valour, balance, or commitment, and not being absurd, anxious, indisciplined, or prejudiced. The inference is apparent — if […]
RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Mindfulness is about guiding our attention inwards, in the present moment, and relating to the sensations we are feeling, and what thoughts and emotions we’re going through. When diversions occur — a child crying, or TV jabbering, a bird singing, a new recollection surfacing — we just let them go. The mind is […]
RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Genius, said Arthur Schopenhauer, the great philosopher, is the ‘completest’ objectivity; a decided predominance of knowledge over will. It holds up to us the magic glass of all that is essential in the clearest light. So much so, what is accidental, or foreign, is automatically left out. Genius, added Schopenhauer, is not merely […]
RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR The idea of being conscious and having sensory qualities, or perception, are independent of each other. This is autonomous of the sensory qualities that we all know — physical stimulus, physiological response, communication, psychological, or emotional experience. What does this signify? That our sensory qualities, whatever their character, or essence, are distinctive of […]
RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR It is rightly said that objects imitate life at the material level. In addition, they fulfil a psychological need. This prompts us to reorganise ourselves with good things in our wardrobe, or new shelves, too. It is, therefore, not surprising that one may opt for an expensive mobile phone as a substitute for […]
RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Sachin Tendulkar was one of cricket’s greatest ever composers. He brought to the game a new symphony — the music of the spheres. The first lyric for him took place through initiation; the second in execution. It was from there the song and stroke of the willow followed — thanks to his own […]
RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Life, in simple terms, is wholeness of being. In ancient cultures, the butterfly, the exquisite glider beyond compare, symbolised such wholeness. The wise, old Greeks contended that the gorgeous butterfly represented our soul, the symbol of life and its wholeness. They also believed that the multihued insect’s decorative wings represented change. One could […]
RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Our brain has a fundamental influence on our ‘mindful’ experience, not to speak of conscious responsiveness. It has a demonstrable pattern, or synergetic symmetry, no less. Yet, when consciousness is ‘measured’ in conventional parlance, the emergence of conscious experience seems mystifying. The argument is simple; also profound. While it is agreed that our […]