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Tuesday, November 3, 2020

profiling my chess journey.





I am profiling my chess journey.  Goal is to reach Fide rating of 1700+.

Life is all about giving yourself challenges and think of something stiffer once you reach there. In that spirit, I have set myself this rather tough target.


The reason why this is a STIFF target is that (I feel) till the age of < 16 , your brain is firing on all cylinders and those neurons are creating new pathways. This is the reason why you see kids aged 8 leap jump from minuscule ratings to IM levels (2400) within few years.

Whereas you don't hear of such feats amongst us old men/women. It is difficult to unlearn the kachra and create new pathways...


As part of that journey, yesterday I successfully executed a Stafford gambit classical checkmate in 8 moves. It was so romantic that I thought I need to profile this in my hall of fame wall.

here enjoy!!!


Sunday, September 27, 2020

Transpersonal psychology. Final understanding.

 


Secret to success, both in material world and spirituality is “FOCUS”.

Call it many names; end of the day it boils down to one’s ability to shut off noise and single-pointedly concentrate on the given task at hand.

There is no such thing as multi-tasking. It’s a typical HR lingo invented by “ANAL”sts doing their arm chair intellectual thinking.

If we break it down further, we realize that Concentration or focus or being in the zone is dependent on a lot of factors. Consider that as an effect, we need to control or channelize the cause in order to have a desired effect.

You cannot wish your way into concentration. It doesn’t work that way!. The whole “The Secret” AKA ‘Law of attraction’ has brainwashed the younger generation into believing that they can attract anything in their lives if they constantly think about it.

While the statement of, ‘Law of attraction’ is an axiom and absolutely true. Problem is, our mind thinks a million thoughts in a day, your 2 hour of manifestation meditation will be like a needle in the haystack and therefore your predominant majority of thought process will have its way!!

Out of these million thoughts a day, majority of them is what we call in our programming language are “loops”.   It is a logical pre-programmed sub-routine, an amaygdala reaction to a given stimuli. The pre-program is deep rooted and is derived from combination of your genes, upbringing and conditioning, none of which is in your control. As if that is not daunting enough, the program is SUPER fast and works in nano seconds (or faster, which no time unit can measure). By the time your thinking mind gets activated, the decision is already made. Your pre program has already judged the situation, decided on the bias and executed the response.

In that effect, despite having a thinking mind at our disposal, we are ALL slaves. Our response to a given situation is not a deliberate decision. We live in an illusion of control.  We think that we have deliberately come to a given conclusion, whereas in reality, decision was made seconds before we owned it.

The famous libet experiment talks about it in detail (google it, it is outside the scope of this blog)

Spiritually speaking, crux of all religions (the ones that I have read) is to go beyond this conditioning. All the enlightened masters (of past and present) allude to the same state where this “Default mode network” is conquered. Where, instead of a constant chit chat happening in the background, you witness blank silence. 

That blank silence if reached at higher planes is a spiritual experience and if experienced at lower materialistic planes is what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi explained in his book “ FLOW”





In this state, anything you concentrate on becomes your bitch. You own it, it is as if the thing is revealing itself to you. Time slows down, and you feel you are working in a limbo outside the time space continuum.

I had a couple of occasions where this happened to me. One was a psychedelic experience and other was while playing cricket in younger days.  This bowler (from salwan school, fastest in delhi back then) was at his peak and throwing bullets and somehow I had hit a purple patch where I was almost playing out of my skin. My skill level improved to match the challenge of the occasion and it was almost as if someone else was playing using my body.

Question is, can we induce this state at will, or even this is part of the bigger plan, will happen when it is suppose to happen.

Meditation experts claim that this state can be achieved by constant practice. Psychedelics, ofcourse are a shortcut, but like any other shortcut, would have its repercussions.

Another fascinating thing I am reading these days is Holotropic breathwork ( goro ka pranayama)

Prof Stan Grof has done some interesting work on this. It is about reaching altered state of consciousness by regulating the pace and duration of your breaths.  

I know Ed Seykota also uses that in his Trading tribe sessions and if you read the details provided by victims (I mean participants) , it is nothing short of hair raising once in lifetime shit.

This is a fascinating and never ending topic, for time being, lets leave it here. Time to play some poker.