Revealing Reality by Considering the Context

A few hours after arriving in the United States, I tried recording a short video to capture the strange feelings and emotions that I was experiencing, but my thoughts felt too incomplete and scattered. Now that I've had two weeks to process everything, I feel like I can articulate what's going on a little better.

On my last day in India I was taking a taxi to the airport when I felt the driver suddenly tap the brakes. I looked out the front window to find a seven-foot bull strolling up the highway into oncoming traffic.

The cars were all traveling at high speeds but they barely slowed down and instead just swerved around the giant creature. It was as if they were simply avoiding a pothole. That's when I realized that I wasn't even surprised by what I had seen. Continue reading →

Video: Always Live Mindful and Conscious

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Join me as I cook dinner and contemplate the need for always living mindful and conscious. The book mentioned in the video is The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (aff). It's a fantastic book and if you haven't read it, I really recommend you pick up a copy.

Living mindful and conscious is a choice that you can make at any moment, even this moment right now. It's not magic and it's not something you need to have special powers to do. Try it right now. Become aware of how you're sitting, your posture; how your neck feels; relax your jaw and mouth; take a deep breath and collect yourself.

It doesn't take a few hours, or even a few minutes. This takes a few seconds. No matter how busy you are, you do have time to do this exercise. And by doing it, you're going to improve your entire day. Or at the very least, this moment.

Video: Eating a Cashew Fruit

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Have you ever wondered what a cashew looks like straight from the tree? The farm where I'm staying in India has dozens of cashew trees growing (they're harvested for good money).

One day, while exploring the farm, a cashew fruit dropped from a tree and almost hit me on the head (maybe if it actually hit me I would have discovered a universal law). Continue reading →

My First Substantial Vegan Dinner on the Farm in Ujire, India

I cooked my first substantial vegan dinner on the farm in Ujire, India using rice, channa dhal, and onion's that I purchased from town and some local veggies that were growing on the farm.

I have since gotten more creative (standby for future videos!) but there's something beautiful about the simplicity of a meal like this: It never leaves me feeling like crap and it always fills me up (thank you fiber)!

A Tour of the Farmhouse in Ujire, India

Here's a quick tour of the farmhouse I'm staying at in Ujire, India. It's relatively remote, about ten miles from town and about two miles from the main road.

The area where the farmhouse is situated is called Malajoti, a name given to it long before the current owner came into possession of it.

The mountains you see are part of the Western Ghats, which is "one of the world’s ten 'Hottest biodiversity hotspots' and has over 5000 species of flowering plants, 139 mammal species, 508 bird species and 179 amphibian species".

I'll work on making another video of the areas around the farm, which are really worth seeing!

Contemplating Contentedness

In this video I contemplate a feeling of content that I began to experience after spending one full week living the lifestyle of my dreams.

This video was shot on my first night staying alone on a remote farm in Ujire, India.

I'm still working on correcting a few annoyances with regards to making videos (for example, I say "umm" and "you guys" way too much). If you have any other suggestions for me, please let me know. I'm shooting for semi-structured clips; I don't want the entire thing planned out, but at the same time I don't want to be umm'ing throughout the whole video.

To Video Blog or Not To Video Blog?

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This is my first "video blog post" from Bangalore, India. I'm thinking of mixing my writing with one or two video blog posts per week. The video would allow me to give everyone a better perspective of the places I visit. Maybe I could even shoot other videos and then compile them into mini-documentaries.

My writing and photos wouldn't go away -- the videos would just complement them and give me another way of reaching out to you, my wonderful my readers. 🙂

Thoughts? First impressions? Please leave feedback below!