Why do I persist with meditation? It has been about 20 years since I attended my first Vipassana course. The instructors require you to meditate 2 hours daily and attend one 10 day course every year. All of which I haven’t done. I had what I call a mystical experience in the year 2006. Extraordinary […]
Category Archives: Self Help
The Best Self Help Books
I spend some time every week answering questions on Quora. For those of you who have not heard of quora.com, it is a question answer site which can give you good guidance if you have any questions you need answered. Quora has been funded by about US$ 225 million by private investors. It is a […]
Here’s how to train yourself (or somebody else) to become a Genius
In this blog post I would like to write about a book that I haven’t as yet read. The book is Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool. Ericsson is a researcher and a scholar who has devoted his career to answering the question – What’s the best […]
The Importance of Money
How important is money in your life? Here is a passage from the book Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham. The book is an acknowledged classic and has been praised as a work of genius. Pick up a copy of the book. Despite being a classic it is easy reading and entertaining and it is […]
Napoleon Bonaparte on being slandered
I am supposing there is nobody reading this post, who is of a mature age, who has not been slandered. In this day and age libel suits and claims for damages are mounting and making the headlines. Recently Anil Ambani filed a suit against NDTV for Rs 10,000 crores as damages. His accountants and lawyers […]
Its raining insights
I had the book, Of Human Bondage, by Somerset Maugham in my bookshelf for a long time. I don’t even remember when and where I purchased it. I had made some years back to read the classics and then never got around to reading the many classics that I purchased. Just last week, out of […]
The Perils of Reading
I have been deeply influenced in my life by the books I have read. This has affected me in ways both good and bad. I recently came across a couple of sentences in the book, Of Human Bondage, written by Somerset Maugham which diagnosed my situation so well that just these two sentences are worth […]
Why Chinese Culture was Unique
My aunt in Pune commented on a past article about the Chinese saying that she could not agree and there is much that she does not like about the Chinese nation. So, I am now pinpointing those aspects of the Chinese that fascinate me. The first aspect is that the Chinese accept that the average […]
The Art of War
This article is about the great military strategist, Sun Tzu, and his classic treatise The Art of War. I still have the James Clavell edition with me which I purchased more than 25 years ago. There is much in the book which I did not understand when I read it but even one insight – […]
Learning from Chinese Culture
I would like to write a couple of articles about what I know of Chinese culture. This is the first and I will start saying that in the years gone by there was almost no mental ailments amongst the Chinese people. Mental ailments were so uncommon that persons who had them were worshipped as messengers […]