Hi, I'm Vijay
I am interested in the crossroads of Technology and Mindful Existence.
- 🌱 Personal growth
- 💻 Wise-Tech and Open Source
- 🍵 Minimalism
- 😌 Mindfulness, Meditation, Consciousness and the art of seeing more clearly
- 🚀 Beyond Conceptual: Transcending conceptual information. Using concepts/words as tools, and having freedom from them... rather than confusing them for the basic reality as it is.
Mindfulness as a way of life, rather than a temporary stress relief technique used to cope with the weight of a mindless way of life.
But doesn't modern technology conflict with mindfulness and simple living? 🤔
I believe that it only appears this way because a lot of technology is both developed and consumed on top of a base that lacks mindfulness at its heart.
I believe both technology and mindful existence can combine to strike a critical balance, and form the long term way forward for humans. These are what will take us to the stars and beyond.
The way we treat ourselves and our world today is just a stepping stone in our journey of planetary growth. In the future, our current way of life will seem as barbaric as the way some of our past generations practices appear to us today. But of course, those past generations did the best with what they had, just like we are doing today. I am very grateful for it all but there is room for continued global spiritual growth, and there are more of us gradually awakening. I have been fortunate to encounter the right circumstances for my spiritual awakening and now I share it with others 😉.
Just passing on the good karma. After all, at the heart of things, we are all One 🌍.
Being a big techie and having written computer code for over 30 years now, I am astounded by the amount of wonderful physical convenience technology has brought to the world. I have personally benefited even more than most from this growth.
But past a certain point, I am equally astounded by what little this extreme convenience does in terms of improve our mental state and well being. I believe that "past a certain point" has been reached for many of us. As a result of not being able to see this clearly, we are now running ever faster on a hedonistic treadmill to nowhere - or in an increasing number of cases, a treadmill to an even worse mental state - as well as a potentially catastrophic state of our external environment. The apparent outer is simply a reflection of the apparent inner.
Our values today are increasingly based around money, possessions, sense pleasure seeking, looking good, popularity, and external validation. Most people would not even question that there is much wrong with this. But the heavy reliance on these external crutches tend to come at the cost of atrophied inner growth and health, leading to the gradual creep of mental illness, ranging from general mental fragility and neuroses to anxiety issues and depression. How can we wisely navigate all this?
Can we have modern convenience and important progress for humanity, but without loosing our minds?
Much of the world runs on a treadmill born of mindless greed, impulse and competition, possible through a financial game warped in such a way that it forces everyone to run at the speed that the greediest ones decide. And yet even the greediest at the top of the pyramid are just another slave to this system. Is there a way we can all step off it gracefully?
Stepping off the Treadmill
In 2020 I committed to developing a mindful life and decided to step off the hedonistic treadmill.
I made meditation and mindfulness a daily practice. I made my own personal spiritual growth my life's priority. I may not be fully enlightened but I do believe that cultivating the ability to see the everyday experience more clearly and directly, rather than overly mediated through words and concepts, is the most valuable thing in the world. I believe that the more people who find their own way to do the same, the vastly more wealthy the world will be, and so I am a promoter of it.
Through developing the skill of seeing more clearly, and reducing the noise in my life, I discovered the signal: what actually serves me and what are obstacles in disguise.
I naturally down-scaled my life to a 65 square meter apartment in a 5-minute walk-able neighborhood, got rid of my car, my bed, my TV and gracefully lost my attachment to alcohol, indulgent foods, and overstimulating Internet content. With fewer extraneous desires biting me in the arse, I figured out how to happily live off working 3 days a week. Then, due to rushing around less and being less distracted, this process spiraled, feeding on itself and further reduced my desires, attachments and fears, again reducing my need for money, work and so on. I saw these "obstacles in disguise" clearly and let them go gracefully.
Now in my late 30s, I am happier and healthier than ever before. My hair has grown back. My cholesterol, digestion and blood pressure issues are gone. I am a calmer, less fearful, and an all round better person (I use my lovey wife to measure this). I have a wonderful relationship with my family, wife, son and most importantly myself.
With the free time I now have, and as part of my own spiritual journey, I share my thoughts through this blog, my weekly livestream and my YouTube channels.
This work remains my copyright but is given completely free of charge, free of advertising/affiliation, free of influencer promotion, and free of paywalls, for as long as I can continue. Donations and feedback are always appreciated.
I hope you find peace and contentedness. Lets build a convenient, inspiring and mindful world for us all!
