Tana, a game changer
I have been playing with Tana lately. It’s a fantastic app where I can practically create a digital twin of my day and tweak to find what I did when and all documents when I need them. Amazing.
Evening Meditations
Evening Meditations, 12th August 2025 evening in Sheffield
A long tiring day, nothing particularly remarkable, Had worked on the divi theme for a wordpress blog, probably the hardest thing I have tried in years. Finally found a tutorial that might be useful. On another note, also got into creating a survey using Redcap Software. Another difficult to work but there should be enough tutorials and guides I suppose. I found a tutorial.
The morning Tratak meditation combining Sri Aurobindo’s method and Dudjom Lingpa’s advice on watching the mind was a terrific experience. Alan Wallace advises a 24 minute ghatika time to devote to it. What this is basically is to focus at a point somewhere between your two eyebrows, and then watch your thoughts as they come and go. Learn to watch yourself. This is soothing experience in the sense that you learn a lot about yourself in the process.There are two ways to do so:
- Watch your breaths as the breathings come and go
- Watch your thoughts and mind as the thoughts come and go
Both these activities are useful. I have set a watch timer on my wrist, then close my eyes as I lie down. Ideally, I need to sit up through the process, but lying down in bed is equally enjoyable. We have a savage winter these days here in New Zealand, rainy morning and darkness till seven in the morning does not quite help either. But I started enjoying these quiet meditations in bed.
Book Notes: Tiny Experiments
Book notes: Tiny Experiments by Ann Laure Le Cunff
I first heard about Ann Laure Le Cunff’s book “Tiny Experiments” on a couple of podcasts. The first was focused podcast by Mike Schmitz and David Sparky and the second one was on Bookworm. The book is about organising life rather than a productivity book as such. ALLC starts off with an argument about the futility of linear productivity systems and smart goals. Instead the idea here is that peoples lives are more complex and therefore it is useful to think in terms of building or factoring these complexities. She recommends you engage in small experiments to continuously improve your life.
Pact
A powerful solution is to make a pact with yourself on some regular tasks that you will do an x period of time. For example say you want to avoid browsing a certain distracting web page for 21 days (because 21 days apparently can help you to build a habit). So set a date and start on the task. ALLC gives her own example about writing the book. I have not made a pact yet but it seems a good way to stay on course.
Concept of kairos or time in quality
In the forth chapter of the book she writes about time as Chronos or quantitative time and time as qualitative or time measured in the qualitative aspects. For example some of us fare better during day (larks vs owls), she claims it for real and asks that we monitor our time as to when we are in course of our day to day we are at our best or peak. I know that I used to be quite good at night but I have also observed that my peak performance time seems to be around 10AM. ALLC would advise setting up cognitively demanding tasks around the morning in my case and set up routine tasks that may not take much thinking or admin tasks such as emails and meetings around afternoons when my energy levels tend to slack.
Sequential Time, Rituals, and Exercise
She talks about setting up sequence of tasks and warns against multitasking. One of the other points is about setting up rituals that can move you to a kairos moment. For example, slow walking or slowly brewing a cup of tea. I think it is worth doing these things as I have found a quiet time to do a rapid Tratak type meditation or brewing a cup of tea works wonders for me to being back the focus. Another point that she brings up when you find your energy level sagging is to do some simple exercises , even as simple as a short walk or moving your wrists or shoulders or static exercises.
A Nonconventional Take on Procrastination
She has an interesting take on proscrastinaton which ALLC describes along the lines of emotional issues people have. So anytime you find yourself procrastinating on something ask yourself three questions to troubleshoot: is it important to do it now?is it exciting for you to do it? Do you have the skills to execute the task at this time? If your answer to each of these questions, and you still find yourself procrastinating,it is time for you to search for external factors such as systems issues why you find yourself procrastinating. Perhaps the workload or workplace is not suited. Perhaps the context of the work.
Plus Minus Next Steps Affective Labelling Mapping
Another interesting take is on say a daily or weekly review where you can construct a grid with three columns: write the good things that happened in the day, the work pending or what you did not achieve and in the third column write what will make a difference in the next step. I thought this was a particularly insightful technique.
Two other techniques or rather experiments that she talks about in the book refers to are affective labelling where she advises what you should do if you face with adversities that throw you off. The first technique is to write your feelings (“affective labelling”). The second is to map out the consequences. Now ALLC also says that if, while you are in the second activity and you feel unsettled, a god plan would be to name the feelings and continue. The steps help you to stay grounded even in the face of extreme adversity and help you to stay on course and remain calm.
Indeed it makes sense to me coming from a more meditation and integral yoga background. As Sri Aurobindo writes in several of his lectures and in the Synthesis of Yoga, if you can vision yourself outside of your body and can see yourself “thinking”, that externalisation of the processes are helpful to get you in a state of grounding when the going is tough. Somewhat similarly Alan Wallace, the great Buddhist Lama, commenting on the works of Dudjom Lingpa in his book Fathomng The Mind,writes about understanding or meditating on one’s own mind. In this practice as well, you can learn to tap into your substrate consciousness. So you see that ALLC has a point in how you can remain steady in a state of adversity. I really think these experiments and strategies are worth giving a chance.
Overall, I liked how she framed the concepts of pact, energy mapping at various times, the plus minus next steps for daily review and naming emotions. At times it seemed that there are far more tools and experiments and she has covered a lot of ground in the book. The book is well worth the effort.
Zettelkasten on Micro.blog?
Using Microblogging as Zettelkasten
I was reading Sohnke Ahrens book on Zettelkasten yesterday. I stumbled upon the concept before and tried but I think I was overthinking and complicating the whole thing. Basically it asks you to jot down notes on everything sonewhere. These are called fleeting notes, basically you write and collect everything. At the same time, if you are reading something worthwhile from a literature, say a book as I am reading this notetaking book, create a reference for that book in a reference manager. Athens of course talks about carrying notebooks and pencils with you all the time. Which is good, because David Allen also writes the same in his Getting things done and I think Drafts on iPhone is an excellent example for instant thought capture unless you want to capture using camera which is a good option as well. Anyway. But the real deal with Zettelkasten that I did not understand then, was about permanent Zettels or permanent notes, as it were. You can do zettels in micro.blog.
Currently reading: Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Le Cunff 📚
Tiny experiments is a book on self improvement.
Manton writes,
“They (referring to Disney art he installed) cannot be recreated by the most advanced AI because they represent something bigger, capturing a moment in time and a film that will be watched for decades to come. I don’t actually know which animator drew them. But I know it was a great artist who — like Hayao Miyazaki — left their mark on the world in a way that AI never can”
This is more nostalgia and history but the post makes an important point about AI and art.
Attack of the lower vitals
In which I write a series of posts about working with Julia for data science through Machine Learning
Julia for plebs, part 1
In which I write a series of posts about working with Julia for data science through Machine Learning
Notes on Integral Yoga
These are my rough notes on Integral Yoga, or how I have dealt with a toxic world.
Here I am. First thing in the morning was to lie in bed, close eyes, focus on the spot between the eyebrows and pay attention. At once other thoughts crowded in, did not resist, was trying to be curious where they arose and watched them arise and recede. I have now even forgotten what they were. But it stuck with me that I need to write down somewhere this feeling.
The idea of integral yoga is a unification of five pr seven processes together. Let’s get to them first.
First of all, start with losing your ego, or better term, egolessness. Egolessness is that principle where you do not self-refer, you do not boast about yourself, but you still maintain a sense of self esteem. This is the hard part. A personal practice that was found helpful was to not refer to “I”, “me”, or in any way talk about myself for about a week. At first it felt awkward and I have turned back the dial a little, but over time the sense of “ego” has receded and that has helped a lot. Particularly in dealing with violent toxic people, this is a fantastic practice because they cannot find a Segway to attack you.
Second, train yourself to see the world in a different light than now; again, where you tune yourself to the beauty and sense you are as much part of everything as everything is as much part of you. Starting with inanimate objects to everyone around you, you feel as part of a giant unified whole.
Third, start separating yourself from your body and train yourself to visualise this. This part is a bit difficult to explain, so here is an example. I started treadmill run, but soon I was exhausted and was wondering when will it stop, I kept looking at the timer, I felt a sense of breathing discomfort as I trained. I started to put this idea of Sri Aurobindo that you visualise your body running staying apart. In a few days’ time, I realised that the sense of exhaustion receded, running was a lot more relaxing. Over time, I have used this visualisation in other aspects of my life, including here where I can visualise myself writing this piece as I type. A slow deliberate typing but that nevertheless I can watch myself “doing a thing”. Actions become more deliberate and relaxing.
Fourth, keep a calm heart at all times. Life throws challenges. The way to keep calmness as I have found is to go silent and go deep inside. In times of stress and in the presence of toxic people and toxic conversations, close your eyes, go deep inside and feel the presence of your inner self, then detach your inner self and watch the interaction. As if you are controlling your own mind from outside. This is not easy, nor intuitive but the practice helps to overcome challenges.
Fifth, start recognising the attack of lower vitals. In Sri Aurobindo’s letters and writings, the word “vital” refer to emotions and think of them as motivational forces for action. In Sri Aurobindonian perspective of Integral Yoga, vitals are tiered lower, middle, upper vitals. The lower vitals are the emotions of fear, greed, hatred, jealousy, intention to do harm. These are part of Nature, prakriti, that visits us from time to time in the path of Integral Yoga, inevitably. There is a struggle between these base feelings and our strife to get on the path of Integral Yoga. The first rule is to recognise the play of lower vitals, then reject them. On the path of progress towards integral yoga, Sri Aurobindo talked about three aspects: aspiration, the state of recognition and yearning to move to the next stage, rejection of these base sentiments that bring in divisiveness and despair, and surrender. The word surrender here refer to the sentiment that we leave the results with the Divine Mother and continue with our lives doing what we do, putting our best efforts in the process. Philosophers like Banerji and others who have studied Integral Yoga has described this as concentric and vertical aspect of consciousness. The concentric state are defined metaphorically by three concentric circles — the deepest circle is the inner psychic. The inner psychic is our true “self”, the reflection of the “Brahman”, in the Vedic concepts according to Sri Aurobindo, and we can focus on this heart centre (this does not refer to the anatomical or physiological cardiac centres) in our meditation and feel the inner calm. Just outside of this circle is another metaphorical concentric ring that refers to the “mental being”, the mind that perceives the world and makes sense of it. Outside of that metaphorical circle is our outer body, the senses and the part that interacts with the world. Sri Aurobindo in Synthesis of Yoga has emphasised in focusing on the inner psychic and that spiritual centre as the guiding spirit. As I write this, the daily practices to deeply focus on that calm inner self is critical for facing the toxic outer world. The philosophers and scholars who have commented on SrinAurobindo’s viewpoints have also commented on the vertical ascent of the consciousness from a lower base. Sri Aurobindo called that mind to a state of Overmind, a state of being that “descends” into the open mental state and prepares one for the “descent” of the Supermind, a “gnostic” state of Omniscience. I do not understand this aspect well enough to write here, but for most practical applications of Integral Yoga, to combat a toxic world, most of us may use most of Integral Yoga without a completely understanding either. This brings us to the sixth aspect of regular daily practices (TBC)
Inner Excellence and Integral Yoga
I was reading this book on inner excellence and was thinking of Sri Aurobindo’s principles of Integral Yoga. In Integral Yoga, there are seven principles
- There is no Ego or egolessness. You give up your false sense of separate existence
- Complete surrender to the Divine. You do that because there is no separate ego and you strive to be one with the Truth, Consciousness, and Bliss that pervades the Universe
- A system of physical balance, so be physically balanced. Sri Aurobindo’s talked about “hatha yoga”, the yogic posture. But it seems reading Sri Aurobindo’s writing the precise nature does not matter as long as you have a system of practice.
- A system of mental balance, or Rajayoga, where the idea is to focus and concentrate the mind sonmewhere in between two eyebrows. Pay attention to your thoughts but do not be attached. Let them come and go
- Knowledge focused ideas where you realise that you are part of an evolutionary process and play of Sacchidananda everywhere
- Your work. The work does not focus on outcomes and you remain unfazed at all times. The work is a surrender to the Divine Forces. Interestingly, this is a point of convergence between Inner Exprience and Integral Yoga.
- A process of Love to the Divinre. Again, another overlapping theme between inner excellence where Jim Murphy writes about the power of knowledge, courage, and love and talks about surrender.
Sri Aurobindo’ derived these themes from his reading of the Vedas and Western text and canons but also his personal experiences. His was a very much here and now practical point of spirituality not just for personal inner growth but for a population perspective.
New Yorker in their Lede reports a valliant effort to save data
New Yorker’s Lede on preserving data where they describe how people are preservign data taken down by Trump administration.
Ok, so you can use micro.blog to write 300 character posts with photos and voice. It is excellent for short posts and you can post links, and some editing like bold and italics. You can post photos like this: … and you can add voice memos, as in a podcast, OK.
