u/Lady22samurai

I have been spending time with Kabir Saheb’s Naiharwa Hamka Na Bhave along with Acharya Prashant’s breakdown of it, and it touches on something deeply relatable that most of us feel at some point.

Here is the breakdown of the verses that really brings this home:

नैहरवा हमका न भावे, हमका न भावै।

This mother's home no longer appeals to me .It simply does not appeal to me at all. A plain, direct declaration: whatever this home represents- the familiar, the given, the place one was born into and has always known, has stopped being enough. There is no more pretending otherwise.

साईं की नगरी परम अति सुंदर,

जहाँ कोई आवे ना जावे ।

चाँद सूरज जहाँ पवन ना पानी,

कौ संदेसा पहुँचावे।

दरद यह साईं को सुनावै।

The Master's realm is described - supremely beautiful, and marked by the total absence of coming and going. Not even the moon, sun, wind, or water can enter there or carry a message across.

That ache has nowhere to travel through; no messenger drawn from this changing world can reach a realm defined by the absence of change. The question hangs unanswered: who will carry this pain to Him?

बिन सतगुरु अपनो नहिं कोई,

जो यह राह बतावे।

Without a true guide, there is no one of one's own left who can show this path.

Kabir Saheb admits - I cannot find my own way to that realm by myself; someone who already knows the terrain must point the way.

कहत कबीर सुनो भाई साधो,

सपने में प्रीतम आवै।

तपन यह जिया की बुझावे।

Kabir Saheb closes it - Listen, O seeker! The beloved is met within oneself, and that meeting alone puts out the fire that has been burning in the heart. Not found by reaching outward, not delivered by any external courier .Only found where the restless one turns and finally stops looking elsewhere.

At its core, this is not just an old religious song.It is a quiet, radical reminder to stop trying to settle for things that were never meant to fill you in the first place.

Have you ever hit a point where the familiar things that used to comfortably distract you suddenly lost all their flavor?

Source

https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles/naiharawaa-hamakaa-na-bhaawe-sant-kabir-par-1\_567d78c

https://youtu.be/EvOl1GQ7gqA?si=wp7xLsCchPppU3O0

https://youtu.be/FK3twltiGLM?si=1sAivnChSZYfBIB4

A few days ago, I went on a giant wheel after years. I used to love these rides..always super excited.

But this time, while it was coming down, I was so scared. I felt like my heart was in my mouth.

I guess it has something to do with age and the stories I have collected along the way watching the news, hearing about accidents, imagining worst-case scenarios and built a whole library of fears.

And that’s what growing up does to most of us .We stop simply enjoying the ride and start mentally calculating all the ways it could go wrong.

Anyway, I finally survived along with my overactive imagination.😅

Has anyone else noticed this with age that things you once enjoyed without thinking twice suddenly coming with a free dose of fear now?

I came across a meta-analysis of 52 studies on overparenting. It found a significant association between overparenting and depression, anxiety and other internalising symptoms in children and young adults.

I found this pattern worth thinking about.

It reminded me of something I read about children growing up in the 60s and 70s. They often had something today's children have less of: unmanaged time and problems.

They got bored, argued with friends and worked it out, fell off bikes, wandered around. And parents didn't immediately step in.Not necessarily because those parents cared less. There was simply more space for children to figure things out for themselves.

There is a clear difference between neglect and allowing a child to experience manageable frustration, failure, boredom and uncertainty.

An article I read 'To raise a kid, raise yourself first' says that parenting requires us to examine our own fears, expectations and need for control, rather than constantly trying to fix the child.

I guess resilience is not built by making a child's life easier. It is built when they discover themselves 'This is difficult, but I can handle it.'

I think one of the hardest part of parenting is knowing when not to intervene. A question that can help a parent is 'Am I helping my child become capable, or am I just making myself indispensable?'

Did children of earlier generations actually have more freedom to develop resilience, or are we just romanticising the past?What is your take on this ?

References-

Overparenting and offspring depression, anxiety, and internalizing symptoms: A meta-analysis Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 May 2023

https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles/to-raise-a-kid-raise-yourself-first-1\_93d120c

✍️यह उस स्त्री की कहानी है जिसने समाज द्वारा दी गई अपनी भूमिका को आत्मसात कर लिया है।

शरतचंद्र बहुत खूबसूरती से दिखाते हैं कि कैसे इंसान को बाँधने के लिए समाज कर्तव्य और रिश्तों के नाम इस्तेमाल करता है।इतना कि उस व्यक्ति को खुद को अभिव्यक्त करने की बुनियादी ज़रूरत भी नहीं लगती।

Women are often told - be successful, become financially independent, build a career and you will feel confident.

But does achievement necessarily give us a stable sense of self worth?

Interestingly, some psychological researches raises questions around this.

A 2024 meta-analysis, combining findings from 115 effect sizes and more than 40,000 participants, found that women reported somewhat higher levels of the impostor phenomenon than men. This doesn't mean successful women are inherently insecure, or that women experience this universally, but it does suggest that feelings of not deserving one's success may be worth examining.

Other research has also found that successful women can sometimes face negative social reactions, particularly when their behaviour conflicts with traditional expectations of femininity.

So,the question is not simply 'How can women become more confident?'

Real question has to be : If my sense of worth depends on achievement, appearance, relationships, social approval or even being seen as a 'successful woman' then how secure can that sense of self really be?

This is where I find Acharya Prashant's perspective interesting. He questions whether freedom can come merely from building a more successful identity, and instead asks us to examine the identity itself.

Also the research does make me wonder - What if the problem is not that we haven't achieved enough?

What if we have been taught to look for our worth in achievement itself?

And that is a real question worth sitting with.

References

*https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2025-69303-001

*https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2004-95165-003

*https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles/why-successful-women-still-struggle-with-self-esteem-1\_e648e5bcd

Rewatched Kung Fu Panda and realised Po might be the most Vedantic panda in cinema.

He spends the whole movie thinking, 'I need to become someone special' and keeps looking for that mysterious dragon scroll.

Then the Dragon Scroll reveals there is no secret ingredient. No magical upgrade, no hidden superpower, no become a better version of yourself package.

It reminded me of Acharya Prashant's teaching on identification that we suffer when we constantly compare the person we are with the person we think we should become.

We teach children- Be special. Be successful. Become somebody.

The problem is the desire to be somebody else in order to be considered worthy .

Just stop believing that you’re incomplete. 😇

And all this wisdom came from a fat panda who loves noodles. 🐼😄

Source :

Choose this identity for yourself || Acharya Prashant, with Youth (2022)

https://app.acharyaprashant.org?id=13-choose-this-identity-for-yourself-1_38f717e&cmId=m00079

Just finished reading 'The Second Sex' and all I can say is it made so much sense, esp the above lines that I am speechless at the accuracy.

Would love to know what hit you in this book.

Just finished reading 'The Second Sex' and all I can say is it made so much sense, esp the above lines that I am speechless at the accuracy.

A woman goes through pregnancy for nine months, undergoes a C- section, delivers a whole human being and before the baby has even figured out which end is up, everyone is impressed that new Mum has somehow got her flat tummy back. 😄

Especially with celebrities, we sometimes see women looking remarkably slim very soon after childbirth. And the immediate reaction is 'How?? 😳What is her secret?'.

Well…the secret may be a tummy tuck/abdominoplasty, occasionally performed along with the C-section.

And this isn't quite as harmless as the Instagram before and after makes it look.

Studies looking at combined C-section + abdominoplasty have reported complications including wound infection, wound separation, seroma, skin necrosis and thrombosis. One study of 50 women reported wound infection in 18% and skin necrosis in 12%.

Another study of 808 combined procedures reported substantial postoperative complications and recommended avoiding the combination before six months postpartum.

But the medical complications aren't actually what got me thinking.

It is the psychology behind it.

Why is a woman's postpartum body treated like a defective product that needs to be restored to factory settings?

Pregnancy stretches the skin, separates abdominal muscles, changes breasts, redistributes fat and takes a huge physiological toll. Then the baby arrives and we are somehow checking the mother's abdomen before she's even finished recovering from surgery. 😐

Healing takes time. The postpartum body is not supposed to look like the pre-pregnancy body immediately. Accepting that change , rather than seeing every stretch mark, scar or loose skin as a personal failure is psychologically important.

And this is where Acharya Prashant's article 'How to get rid of body-identification as a woman' made me think.

If my identity and self-worth are heavily invested in how my body looks, then pregnancy becomes almost an existential crisis. The body changes ➡️

I feel less attractive ➡️ I feel less worthy ➡️ I need to 'fix' the body. ➡️

I feel temporarily better ➡️ and eventually another imperfection becomes the new problem.

A tummy tuck can tighten the tummy.But can it tighten the insecurity?

That's the question I am interested in.

Going for cosmetic surgery is finally a woman's choice.

I am just wondering why, after creating an entire human being, a woman is expected to immediately start apologising for the stretch marks. 🤔

The postpartum body doesn't need a 'before/after'..maybe it just needs time to heal.❤️‍🩹

Source

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20809378/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31342126/

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/46109118\_Abdominoplasty\_Combined\_with\_Cesarean\_Delivery\_Evaluation\_of\_the\_Practice

How to get rid of body-identification as a woman? || Acharya Prashant (2019)

Read The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka.

It is about how one develops her identity around her utility in family or society .What happens when suddenly she stops being that image she has created for herself ??

It made me question the way I am spending my life. How many of the responsibilities I carry are truly necessary, and how many are roles I've created for myself and now feel compelled to keep playing?

This novella left me with a question: If everything I do was taken away, who would I still be?

We often romanticise childhood as a state of natural innocence as if children are born pure and it is society that corrupts them.

'Lord of the Flies' book by William Golding makes that idea rather uncomfortable.

When a group of schoolboys are stranded on an island, away from parents, teachers and the rules of civilisation, they don't remain the innocent little angels we imagine children to be. Fear, tribalism, power struggles and violence emerge remarkably quickly.

The 'beast' they fear eventually turns out to be something within themselves.

This reminded me of an interesting idea I came across in Acharya Prashant's discussion on the Myth of childhood innocence -a child may be uneducated, but that doesn't necessarily mean uncorrupted. A toddler is driven by immediate desires and impulses, though awareness of those impulses comes much later.

And science gives us a more nuanced picture too. Developmental research shows that aggression and prosocial behaviour both emerge early in childhood.

Children aren't born simply good or bad, they have multiple tendencies that are shaped by temperament, relationships, parenting and social environment.

So that is where the role of education lies.Perhaps civilisation, education and self awareness are what teach us what to do with the animalistic impulses we already possess.

'Lord of the Flies' is disturbing precisely because the 'beast' isn't an alien creature. It is human nature without the restraints we take for granted.

Source :

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33973244/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19030496/

The myth of the child’s innocence Acharya Prashant (2018)

Still relatable..😌

Recently I came across a situation .

A parent of a severely disabled girl, approaching puberty, was worried that her daughter might never be able to manage menstrual hygiene on her own.

The parent asked a very simple question: could we remove her uterus so she doesn't have to go through this?

The question sounds practical and perhaps even compassionate.

But then how many of us who have never lived with severe disability have any idea what such a decision actually means?

For the parent, it may come from love, fear and genuine concern. For the child, however, it is still her body. And hysterectomy isn't a harmless way of stopping periods. It is a major, irreversible surgery. There can be bleeding, infection and injury to surrounding organs, and the loss of fertility is permanent. If the ovaries are removed as well, she would enter menopause immediately, with consequences such as hot flushes, vaginal symptoms and increased long-term risks to bone health. Even when ovaries are preserved, menopause may occur somewhat earlier.

Medical guidance therefore generally encourages less invasive and reversible ways of menstrual suppression first.

But the deeper question is not medical.

Acharya Prashant often asks us to look at how 'my' can turn a relationship into ownership- my child, my responsibility, my decision.

A child may be completely dependent on us. But does dependence make the child's body ours?

And yet, if that child genuinely cannot care for herself, is it enough to simply say, 'respect her autonomy ' while ignoring the enormous responsibility of the caregiver ?

Well..I don't have an answer.

Perhaps that's exactly why this is worth thinking about. Because some philosophical questions don't arrive as philosophy. They arrive at home, during puberty, through a frightened parent asking: What am I supposed to do for my child?

What do you think??

References:

Marquez-Gonzalez et al., 2018 systematic review on hysterectomy and menstrual hygiene in women with intellectual disability

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). (2022). Clinical management of menstrual issues in adolescents with disabilities m

Pradhan et al., 2022.

https://sundayguardianlive.com/feature/when-protection-becomes-possession-true-rebellion-begins-where-roles-end-136145/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/indianexpress.com/article/legal-news/karnataka-hc-allows-hysterectomy-intellectual-disability-case-10751499/lite/

Saw this pic while scrolling, which made me laugh.

Ever came across this situation?😅