Week 13 Reading: Shri Krishna of Dwarka Part A

For this week’s reading diary, I chose to read Part A of Shri Krishna of Dwarka re-told by C. A. Kincaid. As always, the author introduces the concept of good and evil, yin and yang, darkness and light in Chapter 1: The Coming of Krishna, when Lord Vishnu brings two hairs – one white and one black – to life. He creates Balarama, a serpent incarnation of Shesha, out of the white hair and Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu himself, out of the black hair. These Indian epics have taught me something about revenge: it is always the monster who possesses such great vengeance within himself. I was reminded of this by Prince Kansa who is a demon. I think there is something to be learned from this in real life – the power of forgiveness. How ugly it is to be filled with vengeance and how wasteful it is to spend so much time and energy on this black hole from which nothing good comes. In this reading, the power of the galaxy is once again mentioned: “at midnight on the eighth day of the dark half of Shravan when the constellation Rohini was visible in the heavens…” I love how much meaning is placed on this!

Constellation of Rohini, located within the constellation of Taurus. Source: AstroVed.

I was so shocked by the vivid massacre of all the baby boys that occurred in Chapter 2: The Childhood of Krishna. I did enjoy the explanation of how Nanda and Yashoda came to raise Krishna and Balarama as their own children. The story of Putana who took the form of a beautiful woman and would then poison the baby boys was awful! I don’t understand how some of these things were thought up, but I know that in the end good will conquer evil.

Week 12 Review

Finals are coming so soon and it is kind of terrifying! Just as equally terrifying if not more so, was Amy Burvall's mash-up of Gwen Stefani's Hollaback Girl called Black Death. Although this video was quite informative of the historical catastrophe called the Black Death, it mostly just caused me to have nightmares (kidding, kind of).

Here it is:

Week 12: Famous Last Words

As it is called the Famous Last Words blog post, I thought it was only fitting to include a quote for thought. This is one of my favorites by Roald Dahl:

Source: Uplift My Mind. 

"If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely." This is one of my favorite quotes because I truly believe that your thoughts dictate your actions and also those vibrations you give off, or your persona. It's the theory of mind over matter. Furthermore, some people believe that by manifesting your dreams or goals they are more likely to become your reality. Manifestation may not be for everyone. To be honest, I find it very difficult. But, it makes sense that if you really dwell on an aspiration, it is more likely to become a reality. That is not to say you can just sit around thinking about this goal you want to reach but if this goal is at the front of your mind as you go about your daily tasks, it shouldn't be surprising that you are more likely to prioritize with that end goal in mind.

I think I believe in this idea that your thoughts can change your reality so much because of the book that I read called Switch on Your Brain by Dr. Caroline Leaf. I talked about this book in both my first Growth Mindset blog post as well as in my Deserted Island Books Learning Challenge post. It is an easy read and Dr. Leaf provides such revolutionary ideas supported by research that I would recommend it to just about anyone. The book proposes the idea that positive thinking leads to growth, while negative thinking hinders growth, and I couldn't agree more! This isn't to say that I am positive 100% of the time but I do try to think positively and catch myself when I start to have negative thoughts.

Learning by H.E.A.R.T. Challenge

I am always trying to do one thing a day to make myself a better person or just for my own well-being. This could be as simple as enjoying a mug of warm tea. Some days I will practice yoga - this is one of my favorite options but this semester has been too busy for me to get to do it often. And sometimes, I volunteer, which is always so fulfilling. You can even try the whole "pay it forward" idea where, for example, you could buy the person in line behind you at Starbuck's coffee and hopefully they will in turn do something nice for someone else. And even if they don't, at least you made someone else's day a little better. So when I ran across this image on Professor Laura Gibbs' Learning by HEART blog, I was very excited.

Source: Learning by HEART.

I just love everything about this picture: read books, limit television, stay close to friends and family, let your heart be your guide. And I am a HUGE advocate of exercise. I have to exercise or else I get so cranky - it's actually crazy what I big difference it makes in my life!

Growth Mindset: Resiliency

For this week's Growth Mindset challenge, I read an article from The New Yorker called How People Learn to Become Resilient by Maria Konnikova. One reason I believe that resiliency is so important is because of its role in emotional intelligence. According to Management by Angelo Kinicki, emotional intelligence is "the ability to monitor your and others' feelings and to use this information to guide your thinking and actions." Furthermore, recent research shows that those with high emotional intelligence are more likely to be associated with:

1. Better social relations for children and adults
2. Better family and intimate relationships
3. Being perceived more positively by others
4. Better academic achievement
5. Better psychological well-being 

All of these byproducts of high emotional intelligence are traits that employers look for in their employees, because, to name a few reasons, with these traits you are more likely to get along with your fellow employees and also because if you are not distracted by your emotions, you can work more efficiently. Resiliency plays a huge part in emotional intelligence because if something negative does happen to you, it is important to be able to bounce back quickly and not let your emotions get the best of you.

Perception is key to resiliency. Source: The New Yorker. 

How do you perceive everything that happens to you? As my mother always says, you can look at your glass half empty or half full.

Tech Tip: Reverse Image Search

For this week's Tech Tip, I used Google's reverse image search where you can upload an image and google will give you its source. This tip could be very handy in the future so I am glad that I learned about this neat tool. Here is the image that was provided by Professor Laura Gibbs to practice the reverse search:

A scene from The Ramayana. Source: V&A Collections.

Google also provided me with a source for this from Pinterest where I learned that this image (circa 1820) depicts Rama sending Hanuman to Lanka. 

Week 12 Reading Diary: Ardhanari’s Secret

One of my favorite ways to learn in this class is videos. I think I enjoy this especially because in an online class sometimes it is nice to be able to learn in ways that more resemble a classic learning setting. Although this class has taught me to be proactive in critical reading and analysis, it is still nice to be able to be taught through visuals and audio such as in a video.

For this reason, I decided to continue my study of the 7 Secrets of Hindu Calendar Art videos. I definitely recommend these videos as I have found them to be highly engaging and informative. The main idea of Ardhanari’s Secret is that God is stillness within, goddess is movement around. One thing I found interesting is that the male trinity is associated with verbs, which include creating, sustaining, and destroying (this last one really caught my attention) while the female trinity is associated with nouns, including knowledge, wealth, and power. Because the gods can create, sustain, and destroy, they are doing and, therefore, active. The goddesses, on the other hand, are passive. From this a patriarchal society would see women as passive objects, the one to whom things are done. Their attributes – wealth, knowledge, and power – can be created, sustained, and destroyed.

There is another side to this argument though and that is that the gods and goddesses are dependent on one another. Just as a female holds life within her, she cannot reproduce without the activity that a male provides. Obviously this brings to surface the ever-debatable question of gender superiority. But I don’t think that is the point. I think that the point is that both genders are equally important because whether active or passive is better, does not matter. What matters is that both are necessary for life and progress. This made me think of a quote that I saw earlier this morning: 

"The worst enemy of life is not death but stagnation. Movement will set you free.” – Andrea Balt 

From this, I once again gather that if it is movement that will set us free, we must, both male and female, work together in balance. This idea of balance is important in Eastern cultures. For example, these ancient Hindu ideas of gods and goddesses align perfectly with the Chinese philosophy of yin yang (one of my favorites!):

Yin and Yang. Source: PreventDisease.com.

I also wrote about these ideas of balance in my Week 11 Reading Diary: The Churning of the Ocean. In this story of Vishnu, evil, as in the asuras, and good, as in the devtas, both occupy the earth and thereby bring balance to it as in the yin and yang. This is Vishnu’s concept that detached engagement brings order. I think this encourages toleration – that we shouldn’t feel the need to change others who are different than us but that we should accept them and live peacefully on this earth, a very Eastern concept. I would really like to learn even more about balance and the yin and yang because I truly believe it is essential for a happy life. I think that the source of the above image, PreventDisease.com, says a lot about how essential balance is to a happy life. Another picture on this website made me laugh, so I included it as well:

Source: PreventDisease.com.