man is made by his belief.

( kanha lahiri )

( active and past threads, requests, contact info, etc )

[backdated to Friday, 16 October]
I cannot let the thoughts and feelings of another affect me. I had no control over who I was before who was me before another's actions. What he did was done. I cannot change that, and I cannot atone for it. He lived his life, as they all did, and I must continue to live mine.

No more meditation.

I need to get out of this place.
[/end]

Shops are frenzied right now. I feel the need to stockpile bread and milk as if some natural disaster is about to occur. I loathe going out for fear of being run over by housewives shopping for insignificant trinkets.

Perhaps I should hire some help for the season; some of these book requests are getting rather complicated.

I apologize for my extended absence, particularly during Govardhan Puja. It's not very seemly to go completely into hiding on a day that celebrates one's accomplishments.

But I have returned, however tenuously, to my daily life. Hopefully it is a wise decision to do so.

I am sure I have missed much. I hope that I can re-acclimate myself quickly.

( Private )

Recently, every time I've pulled up my browser, I've seen the advert for "Paterpillars." Just what are these things, exactly? All they seem to be are bits of fur with wiggly eyes attached, relentlessly undulating at the top of my browser. Won't the Paterpillars give me a moment's rest? I believe them to merely be a thinly veiled reference to autoeroticism.

With my severely lacking knowledge of the internet, I clicked on the advert in the hopes that giving the site traffic would make it stop. Once inside, I found things to be a bit...well.

( read more )

The weather is lovely today. It almost feels like home.

I believe I will close early to take a walk around the city.

I am looking for...something. I am not sure what.

I am consistently more aware of how eastern teachings are becoming convoluted in this highly modernized western world. I was speaking to a new customer today - a young gentleman, out of school for the summer - about Buddha's Eightfold Path to enlightenment, and through the long and arduous conversation, realized just how far away from self-actualization the youth of America is in particular.

The need to have new clothing, new electronics, new hair styles - they all allude me. It is not a want, but a need. Pressing, whining, like an all-consuming heat that is not relieved until it is fulfilled. Consumerism is a drug that will destroy us all.

On that thought, perhaps I shouldn't, then, be providing consumer goods.