Weekend Reflections – October 12, 2025

Dear Blog,

Picking up from where I left off, today I want to talk about the "Harajuku moment."

This term was coined by Tim Ferriss in his book The 4-Hour Body. It refers to a crucial turning point—a sudden understanding that transforms a goal from a passive "nice-to-have" into an absolute "must-have." It’s the moment when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of making a change. This imbalance creates powerful motivation, enabling us to finally commit and follow through.

The term was inspired by the story of Chad Fowler, a successful CTO and a friend of Ferriss. Fowler had been obese for over a decade. While on a business trip in Tokyo, he went shopping with his companions in the Harajuku neighbourhood, famous for its street fashion. It was there he heard himself say, "For me, it doesn't even matter what I wear; I'm not going to look good anyway."

The helplessness in his own words sparked a sudden realization. He thought to himself that while he was successful in most areas of his life, when it came to his health, he had become the very "limp, powerless ego" he despised in others. He decided to change and, in less than a year, lost more than 70 pounds.

My Harajuku moment came when the reading on my weighing scale hit 111 kg (my height is 183 cm). I realized this was the heaviest I had ever been. If things continued on the same path, I knew I would be 120 kg before I knew it, and lifestyle diseases like high blood pressure and diabetes would inevitably follow.

Simply knowing what to do is not enough. We all know what's good for us, yet we often fall back into habitual, self-sabotaging behaviour. We don’t need more information; we need strong emotional fuel to push past complacency and take action. This is why reading countless insightful quotes and self-help books often has a near-zero impact on our lives.

Working in tandem with this raw emotional fuel is another crucial element: tracking progress. I already knew the importance of tracking from my reading of David Allen’s Ready for Anything, but I didn’t use the calorie-counting method Fowler used. I have always found counting calories to be incredibly soul-destroying.

Instead, I used a graph designed by Phil Libin (the CEO of Evernote from 2007 to 2015), which was provided as a resource in The 4-Hour Body. This graph offered a minimal-effort tool to track and visualize my progress. Its beauty lies in leveraging the power of psychological feedback rather than willpower, which is a limited, tyrannical, and unreliable resource.

The graph has a "buffer zone"—as long as you are within this zone, despite minor fluctuations, you're on track. It is important to mention, however, that this graph is a psychological tool, not a medical one.

Finding your Harajuku moment is the spark; without it, nothing will happen. But tracking is what will keep the fire burning.

Disclaimer: I am not a medical expert. This post reflects my personal experience and should not be considered medical advice. Please consult a healthcare professional before making any health-related decisions.

Weekend Reflections – October 5, 2025

Dear Blog,

Before I received the Kriya Initiation, I just wanted to get it somehow and start my journey toward enlightenment or self-realization as soon as possible. I thought that at 38 years old, I was already late. The intellectual gymnastics of overthinking and knowledge-gathering at the cost of taking action and finding out for myself have always been a big problem for me.

I don’t want to be like people who, after leading a life of moral and ethical corruption, suddenly turn religious or spiritual when they retire at 60. I believe that gathering all the spiritual or philosophical knowledge in the world is nothing compared to the direct experience of truth.

I want to experience non-duality, bliss, peace, and the unfiltered reality that realized masters talk about. The exoteric religion of rituals, myths, superstitions, traditions, and easy answers doesn’t satisfy my soul. Its superficiality irritates and agitates me.

The Acharya who initiated me advised me to practice Kriya twice daily. The Kriya he gave had ten steps, along with a short form consisting of three steps (to be used when short on time). I haven’t been practicing it twice daily, nor have I been doing all ten steps regularly. But I have been practicing the short form almost every single day since my initiation on April 12, 2025.

Whenever I feel disappointed for not doing Kriya twice a day or completing all ten steps, I remember Tim Ferriss’s words from The 4-Hour Body:

“The decent method you follow is better than the perfect method you quit.”

However, once the initial enthusiasm faded, I felt I was just doing Kriya for the sake of a tick mark on my to-do list. As soon as you sit down to do Kriya—or for that matter, anything meaningful—the mind starts throwing distractions or other tasks at you. Many times, when I sit down to do more Kriyas, say eight, my legs start aching. So it’s not just a battle with the mind but with the body as well.

Lately, I’ve been using the mental model of the Internal and External World to sustain longer sittings, a concept I picked up from the introduction to Essays and Aphorisms by Arthur Schopenhauer. From the beginning, thinkers have distinguished between the apparent world (what we see and experience) and the real world (the hidden, fundamental reality).

Immanuel Kant believed that our mind imposes the categories of time, space, and causality on whatever we perceive, creating the phenomenal world we experience. Beneath it lies the unknowable thing-in-itself—reality as it is.

Schopenhauer accepted Kant’s idea of the phenomenal world but went further. He said that we can gain insight into the thing-in-itself by looking within. By looking inward, we find a blind, striving, and ceaseless energy—one that exists not just within us but throughout all of nature and existence. He called this energy the Will.

The Will makes us chase one desire after another. If we lack what we want, we suffer. If we get what we want, the satisfaction is brief and underwhelming, soon replaced by boredom. Thus, life swings like a pendulum between the pain of wanting and the emptiness of having.

So whenever I sit down to meditate and my mind tries to pull me elsewhere, I remind myself that my mind, fueled by the blind Will, is dragging me toward the external world of pain and boredom. At that moment, I must use my intellect to nudge my Will to retreat inward.

The relationship between the Will and the Intellect is that of Master and Servant. The intellect can only hope to persuade the Will—it cannot command it.

Schopenhauer said that Art, Compassion, and Asceticism are the three ways to achieve temporary relief from the suffering caused by the Will. So when I sit longer in meditation, I’m practicing Asceticism—denying and mortifying the Will, striking at the very root of suffering. And yes, I have experienced peace during longer sittings. In those moments, I don’t feel like getting up or doing anything else. I simply want to be. My hope is that one day my intellect will completely turn the Will inward. Reading Schopenhauer, for me, has been nothing short of a genuine spiritual experience.

Another thing that has become firmly rooted in my mind—thanks again to Schopenhauer—is this thought:

“Health so far outweighs all other blessings of life that a truly healthy beggar is happier than a sick king.”

I’ve decided to make health my number one priority in life, even ahead of my career. I’m writing this so I don’t forget.

The turning point came last year when my weight reached 111 kg. I was mocked and advised to lose weight not only by my colleagues but also by my own family. I hated seeing myself naked in the mirror during my morning showers. I decided then to take action.

I started reading The 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss and following the Slow-Carb Diet. Even before reading the book, I watched four summary videos to get started quickly. I also joined a gym. Later, reading the book gave me more nuance, though I haven’t finished it yet.

The book taught me that my goal shouldn’t be weight loss but body recomposition—building a better physique by both losing fat and gaining muscle. Because of this, the number on the scale can be misleading. Currently, my weight is approximately 87 kg—just four kg short of my goal of 83 kg—but I’m not obsessing over it. This framework radically simplified my diet, and the results have made the process addictive, despite its monotony. I now have a system in my head that makes food decisions for me, saving time and energy.

My transformation: Feb '24, Jan '25, Jul '25 (clockwise).

Recently, when I went for a short walk after lunch with the same colleagues who once mocked my weight, they laughed again—this time because I refused to have a Gulab Jamun or Kachori after lunch. On another occasion, they called me an "extremist" for refusing snacks. People will always laugh or criticize, driven by ignorance.

This isn’t the first time I’ve lost weight. My relationship with weight gain and loss spans over a decade. Since joining my organization twelve years ago, I’ve lost around 20 kg three different times using different methods, only to regain it all back each time.

Most people in my organization (and similar ones) have a typical body structure that I find unpleasant to look at. For men, it resembles the belan (rolling pin) used in Indian kitchens. Why does it disgust me? Perhaps because it’s the physical manifestation of the mental inertia these people suffer from—a quality famously described as Tamas (darkness) in Indian philosophy.

I think I should wind up now because I have other tasks to do. But I’ll pick up the thread next time—I have more to say on this matter.

Disclaimer: Just sharing my personal journey here. I'm not a doctor or nutritionist. My results are based on my own experience with the Slow-Carb Diet. Please consult a healthcare professional before making any major changes to your diet or lifestyle.