The Health Q
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) 1715 6165 | Library & Archives Canada Entry
Contents
“I found the moon” [editorial note];
Rajmah Chowl [recipe];
What is happiness and success?
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“I Found the Moon” [editorial note]
by Parmjit Singh, PhD
This is what our three year old daughter says every time she catches moon in the sky. And there is noticeable gleam in her tiny eyes. She jumps up and down unable to contain her excitement of having found a supposedly mysterious shape hanging in the space.
Her excitement is infectious; it rubs on me and forces me to look at moon through her eye. Every day she sees it with a fresh eye, there seems to be no preconceived notion and may be she is unaware of the fact that moon is there everyday, sometime hidden, sometime visible.
More than that what captivates me is her propensity to look at moon with pure innocence. She looks at other things with same freshness everyday as well. When we go to park together she gets excited for things she has already seen. There is some sense of purity in her experience: every time the expressions are fresh. She goes on the same slides but her excitement has a ring of novelty. She rides the same bike every day but her experience betrayed by sheen in her eyes and face is always different.
What strikes me most is that she practices mindfulness every day. We humans are mostly stuck in rut—caught up by familiar patterns and habits. For us moon is just moon, it does not excite us the same way it does a three year old. For us walking is just walking and we do not stop to pick up pebbles on the road to admire them. How mindless we become as we grow older. Habits claim us.
Only if we could look at moon everyday with same freshness as our daughter does, our experience of life will be entirely different. Habits and familiar patterns imprison us and once we overcome our usual reactive behavior toward things, our perception opens up. And with that, life becomes colorful and meaningful. [HQ]
Rajmah Chowl [recipe for kidney bean & rice]
by Bhupinder Singh
[Serves 2 Adults]
Ingredients:
- 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
- 1 teaspoon chopped ginger
- 1 teaspoon chopped garlic
- 1/2 chopped medium Red onion
- 1 chopped large tomato
- 2 cups of soya nuggets
- 1/2 cup chopped green pepper (not important)
- 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
- 1 teaspoon coriander powder
- 1 teaspoon garam masala
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 1 can (450-500ml) of Large Red Kidney Beans
- 4 teaspoon cooking oil
Open the red kidney beans can and boil it in large bowl with 3 parts of water (you can use emptied can for this). Add nuggets and salt to taste along with garlic and ginger (you can add red pepperika if you want it hot). Bring this to boil on high/medium heat.
This process should be done on medium heat: On a separate pan, heat the oil and add cumin seeds in it. As they start to crackle a bit add onions and green pepper in it. Stir fry them until they go golden brown and add the tomatoes in it. Keep mashing this into a paste until you see the paste starting to leave the pan surface or oil. Add this to the above bowl containing boiled beans. Mix well. Add cilantro, black pepper, coriander powder and garam masala in this and mix. Let it cool down for approximately 30min.
Variation:
- You can experiment with adding or subtracting few items for e.g. Replace nuggets with hamburger or Chunks of Potatoes (gravy would be thicker in this case to add more water).
- Instead of using red kidney beans you can try mixed beans: red+white+black
Tips:
- If for some reason your gravy is too thick add more hot water or if the gravy is too thin add 1 teaspoon of Corn Starch.
- Always make sure the onion and tomatoes are properly cook else they would float uncooked over the beans and won’t look part of the meal. Patience is the key.
- Serve with steamed rice or naan/pita bread. Usually this meal is bit heavy so keep rest of the items light.
- Avoid having salad containing cabbage, cucumber as it would be an explosive combination (mean gaseous)
- In case the beans in the Can are bit hard and not soft add a pinch of Baking Soda (NOT baking powder). This would ease the boiling and softening process of beans.
Recommendation
Try 1 teaspoon of Rajmah Masala instead of garam masala
Bhupinder Singh is an artist and software engineer based in Regina, Canada. His paintings and photographs can be seen at Bhupi.ca.
What is happiness & Success?
by Dr. Avtar Singh
A successful life is the one that has fulfilled its purpose. A fulfilled life is the life filled with contentment and gratitude for what is as is. A fulfilled life is the one that has no more left to be filled – desire or objective. A successful life is the one that has reached its destination and no more left to go.
The root cause of the non-success or failure is the ego, which is the veil on the consciousness or awareness to realize the oneness of the truth (Ek Onkar Sat Naam).
Just as the boundaries of a mass confine the mass-energy within a bounded space-time, the boundaries of the ego (beliefs, convictions, and moralistic commandments no matter from what guru or master) imprison the consciousness or free will of a human being.
Just as the mass/matter can never fill the universe, mere material objectives/goals can never fulfill life.
Just as the mass/matter is afflicted with time and evolution, all successes of the ego are temporal to be superseded by more new desires. Just as the work done by or on a mass or body creates entropy, the thoughts and actions of or by the ego create suffering and failures.
Just as the complete dissolution of mass into energy dissolves space, time, and entropy, the complete dissolution of the ego dissolves desires (unfulfilled objectives), stress, and suffering.
Just as the complete dissolution of the mass to energy increases its wavelength to infinity, a complete dissolution of the ego expands (fulfills) its awareness to the wholesome universe.
Just as a mass can never be accelerated to the speed of light by any force no matter how large (a mass gets heavier and heavier by way of a forced motion), an egotistic individual can never be enlightened by any amount of teachings, beliefs, or morals imposed upon him/her or borrowed from a master.
A true master is the one that demands no faith or belief in him from his pupils. A true master is the one who, by way of his own experience, provides guidance to the pupil to be his/her own light (App Dipo Bhav – Buddha) or achieve self-realization (Nij Ghar – Nanak) or nurture selfless (egoless) love (Jesus).
Hence, (scientifically or Holistic Relatively speaking) there is only One and the only Key to the success or fulfilling the purpose of being human and that is to Dissolve-the-Ego (achieve self-realization) via free-will to merge into the Oneness of the Wholesome Truth (Ek Onkar).
Guru Nanak summarized the success of life clearly as follows: “Houme Bujhe Taa Dar Sujhe” If you uncover the mystery – the ego being the root-cause (of suffering and death), you have found the door (to the success or fulfillment of life).
Dr Avtar Singh has Doctor of Science and Master of Science degrees in mechanical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Earlier, he obtained his Bachelor of Engineering (Honors) degree from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India. Professionally, he has been involved in state-of-the-art research and development in various fields related to science and engineering over the past 30 years. His recent book is entitled “The Hidden Factor: An Approach for Resolving Paradoxes of Science, Cosmology, and Universal Reality”.