On Indian Style of Dancing

Photo- Mythical Hindu God Nataraja

In Sanskrit Civilization, Dance was divided into two forms-
1. Lasya- Lasya represents feminine qualities. It means that dancer should have ability to show female expressions, body language, and appearance in its dance.

2. Tandava- Tandava represents masculine qualities. It means that dancer should have ability to show its male expressions, body language, and appearance in its dance.

Dance is not just about the physical movement, it also means that how a dancer looks like during the performance. Therefore, dancer should take care of its appearance and clothes which it wears during the dance performance. Dancer cannot effectively portray the feelings of a man in the dress of a woman.This is an important piece of information. 

Many times new dancers think that if they are male then they should only learn male dancing style and female dancers think that they need to learn only female dancing style. It is an incomplete approach towards dance. Learn to dance in both male and female styles. It would increase your empathy towards the other gender. It would also increase your thinking ability which we limit with our gender-specific-roles.

Dancing is an interesting type of training for young boys and girls, it helps in developing interpersonal skills between boys and girls.

Learning positive things from both the genders would develop you as a complete human being.

In Sanskrit, Dance is called “Nritya.” If we divide the word Nritya, we would get two words- Nritta and Natya.

Nritta means expressing emotions and Natya means acting. Every effective dancer has ability to express its emotions through its face and body. Good acting skills help in developing the correct body-language.Dancers can easily portray the feelings of the lyrics and music through their face & body.

Dancing requires knowledge of acting and psychology e.g. dancers should know how a person reacts in love, fear, anger, etc. (this is psychology) and they should have ability to express these feeling meticulously through their body (this is acting). 

Dance is an art form which combines our mind and body. Dance dissolves our mind and body, and we become one. That is why, it gives us a special kind of pleasure.

Dance entertains and educates. Dance is used in many religions to remember God, may be because our ancestors had understanding of its soft-power.

There are nine types of emotions which are conveyed while dancing. These emotions depend upon the lyrics and music on which the person is dancing. These emotions are-

1. Shringara- It means ‘romance’. The most important thing to take care of while dancing on romantic tunes is that the dancer should lose its grace. Romance should not look like a frivolous act. Romance should have a grace in it; a melody which can tune anyone’s heart.

2. Rudra- It means ‘anger’. There are dances which requires dancer to show anger. It requires masculine movements; and excellent work of eyebrows and breathing. When we get angry, we shout. But, suppose you need to show your anger without shouting or even talking then how would you do that? Make note of those expressions and show them in your dance.

3. Bibhasta- It means ‘disgust’. Sometimes we need to project our feelings of disgust in our dance. Disgust is a mixed feeling in which we are sad and angry both. Feeling of disgust pushes us for the change. Disgust creates a hidden rebel inside us.

4. Veer- It means ‘heroism’. Hero carries positive anger in him or her. Heroic dancer projects assertiveness in its action i.e. getting into action for the justice. It is an inspirational and courageous form of dancing.

5. Shaanta- It means ‘peace’. Dancer should have ability to project peace in its actions. It helps in harmonizing the audience and creating a collective rhythm in the environment.

6. Haasya- It means ‘humor’. Dancer should have ability to make its audience laugh with its actions. It is easy to make people laugh on a verbal joke, but dance is more about non-verbal humor. Dancer should have ability to create madness around him or her.

7. Karuna- It means ‘sympathy’. Dancer should have ability to develop sympathy in the audience on the topic on which he or she is dancing.

8. Bhayanak- It means ‘dangerous’. Dancer should look dangerous in this style of dancing. People should find him or her merciless and villainous. 

9. Adbhuta- The literal English translation of this word is ‘wonderful’, but adbhuta means something more than that. It means carrying a mystic and surprise element in the dance form. Dance should have a mystic grace in it which can amaze the whole audience. It should leave with an astonished feeling. 

Anyone who could show both lasya and tandav was considered to be the complete dancer. Every dancer was required to master these nine emotions and they were displayed as per the occasion and requirement. 

The purpose of the blog was to share the lost ancient wisdom on dancing. I hope it served its purpose. 

How to be a Spiritual Badass?

Spiritual Myth 1- Be Tolerant

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Spiritual Truth:- Remember my golden rule- “You would get what you would tolerate.” Never tolerate wrong things else you would get wrong things from all the directions. To lead a good life tolerate only good things. Never be blindfolded for the non-sense that is happening around you. Actively participate in making your life and the life around you beautiful. Sometimes good people unintentionally do bad things, you can tolerate them, but if you feel that someone has hurt you then do reply to that person. No need to give immediate reply, take your time and give the right answer on right time. 

Spiritual Myth 2- Remain Content Spiritual Truth:-Many people believe that we should live the way we were born e.g. we should not change our country, religion, job, relationships, the house we were born in, and we should remain content with whatever boring things we have around us. This is one of the biggest traps. Never live the same boring life and call it living. If you feel that something needs to be changed then change it. Live a great life and get rid of that everything that stops you from being the best. Never cultivate a bad relationship just because society has planned that for you. Plan your own life. Get surrounded with happy and positive people. Dream Big. Make lofty goals. Learn. Fail. Try again. If you are not expanding then it means you are dying.

Spiritual Myth 3- Honesty and Hard-work gives success 
Spiritual Truth:-Honesty and Hard work can be called foundational principles of success, but they alone can never give anyone success. The first thing you require for success is talent. No matter how much honest or hard working you are if you don’t have the talent then you would never make it. Make yourself talented. Learn about your job, initiate, innovate, give results and together these things would make you successful.

Spiritual Myth 4- Devotion is the only form of worship 
Spiritual Truth:-Reading spiritual scriptures makes me realize that God has made us so that we can woship HIM and the one who would not worship him would get punished by HIM. There are many forms of worship like devotion, charity, love, meditation, chasing excellence, penance, etc. Making offerings to God and singing and dancing in his name are only a type of worship. Find your medium of worshipping God. Which method suits you the best? Find it. Follow it or create your own way of approaching God. Unless you would not experiment with different methods then who knows what would give you spiritual peace. God is infinite and HIS search is also infinite. If HE is formless then HE is also nameless.

Spiritual Myth 5- My religion is the best 
Spiritual Truth:-Religion is only a medium to understand spirituality. It is only a way and not goal. Your goal is to find your spiritual strength and any religion can offer you that. Every human being should have freedom to choose his or her religious faith. I would prefer to have multiple faiths. I would prefer to follow Buddhism and Shaivism under scientific temperament. Never think that your way is the only best way. Your faith may be the best, but only for you. You can discuss about it, but you have no right to compel anyone to follow you. Between life and death we have a journey and we all have to plan out our own journeys.

How to produce terrorists?

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After Global Warming, terrorism is the next big global problem. Almost all the 196 countries of the world are under the threat of any terrorist activity.

As a human being, I believe that we all want to live a peaceful and healthy life. We all want to raise good children, spent time with our wonderful spouse, give comfort to our parents, and die gracefully.

Then what turns people into a terrorist? Why number of terrorists is rising day-by-day? I believe that only 10% people are natural criminals and rest 90% are just ignorant followers.

In this blog, I would share some methods which can turn anyone into a terrorist.:- 

1. Deprivation- We become aggressive when we think that our rights are being violated. It makes us fearful and this fear compels us to do things that we don’t want to do. A terrorist leader says that people of a particular community get more privilege and they are raping our women, and we become afraid of our future and present security. We also get ready to fight without even analyzing the truth. Most of the problems in the world are the result of fear and every smart human being uses it to control the other human being. Terrorists use deprivation very convincingly to ignite hatred.

2. Communication- Generating fear is not enough, we also need to sell it and selling requires communication. Terrorists propagate their agenda through the different mediums of communication like pamphlets, radio, internet videos, posters, and television interviews. I have heard that they are now developing mobile applications to spread the hatred. They want the message of fear to reach each and every human being. They want us to live in suspicion and a continuous state of uncertainty. Their over-communication is creating miscommunication in the society.

3. Need of Affiliation- Chances of becoming a criminal is higher in an orphan than the person who has a family. We want to get affiliated to a group to beat our own loneliness. Terrorist organizations give a sense of belongingness to their terrorists and esp. those who don’t have a family. They give them a pseudo-confidence that they belong to something big and give them an illusion of common brotherhood. Army also uses this, but they use it for construction whereas terrorists use it for destruction.

4. Employment- It may sound odd, but many people are involved in terrorism because it gives them employment. Terrorist organizations hire poor and aimless boys, and girls. They promise them training, money, food, etc. They give them a direction in life (though that direction is a type of misdirection). They manipulate their ambitions to fulfill their own objectives.

5. Religious Sentiments- I am writing this point in the end because I didn’t want people to look at this whole blog from the point of view of the religion. There are different layers to this problem which I wanted to talk about before saying anything about the religion. We are emotional about our religions because it is something which we inherit from our parents and forefathers. Religion teaches us way of life and art of remembering the Creator. Any threat on our religion moves us deeply and it gives us a spark to do something. Terrorist organizations manipulate our religious sentiments very intelligently. They connect their whole plan of action with religious philosophy and compel us to act as per their guidelines. It depends upon us that whether we want to use religion to live a better life or kill innocent people who had no fault other than being from a different community.

I don’t know how people would react on the above points, but what I am writing is because I demand to live in a united and peaceful society. It is my small step to make educated people like you aware about the truth.

Anyone who thinks that I have written this to target any religion then let me tell you—I am a Hindu, born in a Christian Hospital. My best friend was a Sikh and my neighbors are Muslims.

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Basic techniques for finding humor in your daily life

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Humor is like salt. It is required in the conversation, but only in a small amount. Too much or absolutely no use of it would ruin the whole conversation.

Before cracking any joke, always keep few things in mind :-
1. No need to make everyone laugh because everyone would not understand your joke

2. Avoid cracking jokes in front of strangers and unknown gatherings because you would never know that how people would react on them.

3. Remember, humor is like a two-edge sword. It has potential to protect you as well as damage you. So, be prepared for the consequences.

There are some basic principles of creating humor, they would not make a professional comedian overnight, but they would help you in finding humor in your daily life.They are as follows:-

1. Tell them the Truth- Let’s take an example, I am committed to lifelong learning…because most of the time I feel like a fool. This punchline sounds funny because it has an honest confession in it. People are afraid of telling the truth and anyone who tells the truth is considered to be mad. People laugh on honesty with an open heart. You can tell the truth about society, culture, art-forms, politics, etc. and people would burst-out laughing because no one expects you to tell the truth. Most of the cartoonist actually tell the truth with an exaggeration and everyone finds them to be a genius.

2. Exaggeration- Let’s take an example, after eating my hostel food even death prayed for death. This is an exaggeration. We all know that death can’t pray for death. Exaggerate a normal situation as much as you can and it would turn into a joke. Normal human beings would understand that when you are exaggerating the matter and they would start laughing because they would figure out that you were lying.

3. Weird Logic- Let’s take an example, don’t worry if you don’t have a valentine on Valentine’s Day….many people don’t have AIDS on AIDS day. This statement shows a weird logic. We all have some basic power to reason, but giving a weird logic requires creativity. You need creativity to say absolutely non-sense thing which has some slight element of logic in it. The more weird your logic is, the more humor it would generate. 

4. Mimicry- Mimicry requires two things (i) Frustrated Actor (ii) Ability to observe others. If you don’t have ability to observe others then it would become very difficult for you to do mimicry. Mimicry is not just about changing your voice, it requires proper gestures, postures, and expressions. No one likes mimicry with a flat face. Good acting skills would help you in presenting yourself properly.

5. Vulgarity- Anything that you are afraid of saying in front of your mother is vulgarity (I hope you understand). You would generally get a mixed type of audience. Many people like toilet-jokes and many people dislike them. Many people like jokes on politics and many people would not tolerate even a single joke on their political party. Surprisingly, vulgarity connects people more quickly than any pasting gum. People understand sex-jokes very easily. Say something vulgar and they would remember you till death. But, as a precaution, avoid cracking sex-jokes in front of religious people because they believe it would hurt their chastity.

To make any situation funny just follow any two or more principles mentioned above and the whole incidence would turn into a hilarious event because they are the basic principles of humor. Execution of these principles requires madness and it comes from inside. So, I can’t tell you how to be a mad person. You would have to find your own madness to give your jokes a personal touch. 

Keep Smiling !!!