2021 was a slow year for the number of books I read compared to 2020. Mainly because the deep nature of the books, which needed more time to comprehend. But the quality of the content I consumed is immense in 2021.

These are the books I read or listened to in 2021. The 14 linked titles are the ones I found to be very exciting and I have listed them in the order I’ve read them.

• Wim hof method by Wim hof & Elissa Epel phD
• Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor
• The future is asian by Parag Khanna
• The oxygen advantage by Patrick Mckeown
• Mind gut connection by Emeran mayer
• Peace in every step by Thich nhat Hanh
• Unfuck your brain by Faith G. Harper
• The heart of understanding by Thich nhat Hanh
• Are we smart enough to know how smart animals are? by Frans de Waal
• Why we sleep by Matthew Walker
• What doesn’t kill us by Scott Carney
• Fiber fueled – Dr. Will Bulsiewicz
• How not to die by Michael Greger MD
• Superlife by Darin Olien
• Breaking the habit of being yourself by Joe dispenza
• E squared by Pam grout
• Metahuman by Deepak chopra
• Becoming super natural by Joe Dispenza
• Healing back pain by Dr john sarno
• No mud no lotus by Thich nhat Hanh
• Electric body electric health by Eileen day mckusick 
• You are the universe by deepak chopra
• Heart minded by Sarah blondin
•  

Documentaries, Podcasts & Interviews

In 2021 I also started listening to conscious media documentaries, podcasts and interviews via gaia.com or spotify podcast channels. Below is the list of those conscious media that I found to be moving and very exciting. I have bolded some of the titles that were exceptional.

• Gaia – Qigong for healing by chunyi li
• Gaia – The art of loving your dreams / Mike dooley
• Gaia – Facing our trans human future – gregg breden
• Darinolien show – Dr Amy shah intermittent fasting
• Gaia – Natural resonance meditation with John gray
• Gaia – Being you changing the world – Dian heer
• Gaia – Connecting with your life now with Sam horn
• Gaia – Five levels of manifestation with Pam oslie
• Gaia – How suffering transform us – Rabi steve ledger
• Gaia – Life of peaceful warrior- dan milman
• Gaia – Thriving through uncertainty- tama kieves
• Gaia – Happiness from inside out – Marci shimoff
• Gaia – Adventures beyond the body – William buhlman
• Gaia – The choice for love – barbara de angelis
• Gaia – The energy codes w/ sue morter
• Gaia – Liberated living with kute blackson
• Gaia – Quantum physics on everyday life with fred allen wolf
• Gaia – Becoming nobody by Ram Das

I come from the eastern part of the world relatively called east by British Emperor. From there I left the east completely to submerge myself in the west, for my quest to seek financial freedom. I did everything to be like a westerner, I ate their food, I dressed like them, I talked like them, I surround myself with plastic things, I even pop pills for illnesses like them. It was quite nice to be away from hard down-to-earth eastern-ness and be surrounded by a completely new world where things were done differently, where happiness was pursued tirelessly with instant pleasures. All this time, I thought west was superior to east. The western science was so far ahead compared to eastern intuitions and folk beliefs and plant medicine that took long time to heal things, which could be solved so fast with a western pill. I was living on the western high. Because why wouldn’t I, there is so much catchy things that offers instant delight and pleasures, forget the long term whatever.  When I visit back east, I could not imagine ever living in east, in such inconveniences. I acted as if I was superior to eastern people – my people, because I have lived in the west.

Little did I know all of these mind illusions came crashing down after one big event. Ok well two. One was seeing a life threatening allergic reactions to food by someone that was a part of me. The other was my own gut telling me, “stop this nonsense I’ve had enough of this garbage American food” and deciding to send me various gut issues to finally make me hear clear of the nonsensical western life style I was living. And I listened, and years have passed in my transformation back into my old eastern ways of living, back to the earth.

Not many people can see the illusions and the profit driven choices presented nonstop to people in western world (in fact everywhere in the world now, sadly) and perceive them as detrimental or ineffective ways for healthy living and that they been separating us from nature little by little over time. A gigantic shift in the inner energy is required to create the understanding and the awakening. Looking back I am very grateful that I left the east, because if it wasn’t for that I would have never come to realize the beauty and the magic of it. Looking back I am very grateful that I had the big events to turn things around to find my way back to the beginning.

Now I see things clearer than yesterday. Back in the east, in the rural village town of Gorakadeniya the jewelry maker’s wife would go to the store with her bag made of palm leaves wearing cotton clothes with no plastic, the store owner would weigh it and give her 500g of sugar in a paper funnel made from the newspaper. Villagers knew an insane amount of knowledge about their surrounding plants that they taught to their children. Rural farmers knew how to grow plants in combination with other plants and share it with animals. A very powerful buddhist motto of looking at every sentient beings (animals and people) as “they too feel pain and they too wish to be happy”, was rooted in everyone’s hearts to treat animals, people and even plants with respect and gratitude. There was no convenient gadgets, a hard labor of love was needed to perform the tasks. A task which would make them stronger and healthier and the end product, which would become worthy of giving gratitude for. The people very frequently walked barefoot connected to earth’s electromagnetic healing powers and sat in Yogic squat to mingle with others. In a village where the night sky would only be disturbed by a wax lighten lantern or a burning flame. A villager with chronic pain would find his way to the village doctor (weda mahaththaya) where he was treated with plants with no side effects. The plants that healed him taught him how to surrender to pain, the lessons of patience of the slow process of nature and to overcome the pain with gratitude. An earth where fallen leaves are left to decay to feed the new growth and some cleared up using rakes made from sticks in coconut leaves. I have heard stories and lived to some extent of this life where people lived in harmony with nature, without plastic, without EMF radiations, without noise pollution, without all this cancerous petroleum junk. 

But those people and me that lived there thought that we were missing something and we had to pursue a modern life to get what was missing, the luxuries, the comforts, the conveniences, the power, the status. But now I see, it was all an illusion of empty dreams, which makes you want more and more and never feel enough. The real gold had always been back in the east, in that village, but that village is no more, it too had been modernized in its innocent ways.

Life forward on this earth can only be built bringing awareness to the ways our ancestors lived, and identifying the ways that they lived in harmoniously with nature. It is very obvious isn’t it, every decision made forward must be made with the well being of our nature and earth as the highest priority. If we continue to make decisions purely for money and profits, yes we will make lot of it and some day we will be left to eat money, we may not even have that if money was all digital, in that case we’d have to feed ourselves on hard drives. Before making decisions for the future, we must leave our climate controlled AC rooms and breathe the fresh air, go touch a tree, take off our rubber shoes and connect with earth’s electromagnetic vibrations and walk on grass, and feel the earth so we can align ourselves to make the correct decisions for the earth. 

As for my life, step by step I have been able to find the gold in my current modern western life to create a new life with the essence from eastern villager. I have been eating predominately plant-based whole food, which we prepare from raw food most of the time with a great labor of love. I try to stand barefoot on my backyard in the suburbia of modern world and touch the earth and walk on grass. I try to get sunlight on my bare skin. I choose paper and wood over plastic products. Following ancient philosophies, I regularly practice yoga and meditations. I do not shy away from jumping full-on to various ancient natural practices and methods such as Ice tank theraphy, energy sound healing etc. We make plant based herbal medicine, teas, concoctions and tinctures that relieve common colds, flus, coughs, sore throats, pains very effectively without any side effects. Every fall season, we clear our leaf covered yard with a metal rake or let them decompose on the grass to nourish the soil. We are working on creating a food forest in our backyard and grow our vegetables without pesticides but home-made compost. The teachings have been laid out 1000s of years ago. But the industrial revolution has taken us away from it, and now we have to listen to the lessons again. Because if we take care of the earth and lived in a way harmonious with it, it will take care of us so we can create a brighter new life tomorrow. 

Since coming across the ice man in “Tools of the titans” by Tim Ferris, my interest grew of Wim hof. I have read his book “Wim hof method” and another related book called “What doesnt kill us” by Scott Carney. Currently I am doing the 10 week classic course by the master himself. The master of Ice!

Into the Ice

No matter how many times I jumped into the cold, every new jump is as daunting as before. Once I get past the initial hurdle, I find that I can stay in there for 10 minutes ore more. Ice have taught me how to breath my way through high stress and uncomfortable situations.

Why I do Ice

The first 20 years of my life in Sri Lanka was passed without much of the first-world modern comforts. From what I remember it was filled with lots of great memories and never missing anything. In the current modern life, people live inside climate controlled environments day in day out never really breathing the fresh air. Wearing rubber shoes all the time and never really touching the earth and connecting with earth’s electromagnetic energy. In our modern lives we have become so disconnected from our source. However, our ancestors lived for 1000s of years without any of these comforts, yet connected with their environment in amazing ways. We read stories from our past of great warriors and giants with super strengths conquering vast land in extreme weathers without any of the modern comforts.

The modern comforts are great. It certainly makes things comfortable but it also makes us weak. Makes us rely on them so much so that we can not live without. Ice for me is one element that takes me direct to the source. It helps me get a glimpse of the hidden potentials of my ancestors’ past. Since the beginning of 2021, cold showers and Ice baths have become a part of my morning routine.

What the Ice Do

Stimulate Immune System

Turns out cold showers improves body’s resilience to common illnesses and diseases. (Ref 3) Not just that, it strengthen the body’s response to viruses and bacteria. The plunge into the immediate cold sends shock waves into the bloodstream and stimulates leukocytes (Ref 1) that helps fight infections.

Improve Blood Circulation

Ice cold water in the tank that is colder than body temperature makes the body work harder to maintain core temperature. (Ref 1) That cause the blood to circulate more efficiently, which combined with deep breathing, speed up the delivery of oxygenated blood into every part of the body.

Stimulates antidepressant hormones and improves mood

The cold water sends many electrical shocks to the brain. (Ref 1) Endorphins also called “Happy hormones” are one of them. I have noticed that I always gets out of the Ice tank feeling brighter about the day ahead and more optimistic about life and happier. The effect is more noticeable on the days I don’t jump into the tank. Quite the contrast.

Increase alertness, awareness and concentration

Going into Ice with deep breathing result in significant decrease in CO2, that clears the mind and improves awareness and concentration (Ref 5).

Speed up muscle soreness and recovery

The delivery of freshly oxygenated blood into sore muscles speed up recovery time. (Ref 1) I also practice target muscle concentrated breathing in the cold. Which I have found to relieve soreness of hurting muscle areas.

References

1. https://www.healthline.com/health/cold-shower-benefits#resistance
2. “The Effect of Cold Showering on Health and Work: A Randomized Controlled Trial” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27631616/
3. “Possible stimulation of anti-tumor immunity using repeated cold stress: a hypothesis” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2211456/
4. Wim hof method by wim hof
5. https://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/a19947976/benefits-of-cold-showers/

I keep coming at this thoughts again and again as I pass through western inventions with my heightened awareness – 2500 to 3000 years ago in the Asia, brahmans and shamans and bamunas and Vedas were fasting daily with meditations to still the mind. And these were passed on intuition from their ancestors. And then industrial revolution happened and people like Newton were hailed for discovering how things worked. It makes sense because before that people gave credits to gods or spirits for doing things like making it rain, for crops growing etc. But the science gave new understanding of why things happen the way they do and with that to be able to control it without waiting for gods. 

So that created the great science book with 500 pages (for example) and a very small microscope to inspect and dissect everything. The problem the way I see is, up until recently the western world has been trying very hard to measure the entire world and entire universe and the cosmos using this 500 page book and the tiny microscope. If a shaman comes to a white man and tell him to fast and that will heal his inside, he would say “it is not in my 500 page science book as it will heal my inside so what you say shaman is bullshit, move over I am going to bulldoze these stupid beliefs and spread my 500 page science book to your people too”. 

Dispensary were setup in villages – where people for 1000s of years lived using Ayurveda and herbal medicine, which were instantly transformed when the instant relief from a pill could cure things where herbal medicine took lot longer. This for me is the biggest catch of the science movement. The instant comfort, the instant relief from pain and suffering, is heavens to the one suffering utter pain. But the science was giving these comforts only using their 500 page book without any knowledge of how this instant relief could effect under long term use. 

The universe we live has an insane amount of intelligent that can not be expressed in a 500 page science book (which science is only now realizing). Since industrial revolution where science book was created – about 100 years of science methods has been bulldozing indigenous ancient ways of doing things on the earth for previous 20,000 years or more as if they did not matter any more. And has been ditching and not even considering anything that is outside the science book. 

Only in recent times the science has started opening their eye to things outside their book with the invention of bigger microscopes and generations born with science ways started seeing health issues in unexplainable ways according to the science book. Children born with food allergies like never before and various other ailments that never existed with our ancestors. 

And now with the bigger microscope science started seen things and ideas from east and from our ancestors that were earlier ditched as horse-shit beliefs. Science discovered microbiomes in our gut and how much intelligent there is in them that was previously neglected but was mentioned in ancient text and medicine. Latest science has now discovered that fasting is indeed good for your gut. All those shaman and brahmans 2500 years ago indeed had great wisdom which was ignored and it only took science that may years of ignorance to arrive back at the same ancient insight. 

What I am saying is science is not complete, we should not ignore what is not explained or impossible in science, because with bigger and bigger microscopes, science will come to prove again and again that what was earlier thought as bullshit is indeed true. If going down science path, this must be understood before viewing everything from science and its 500 page book. 

People lived 1000s of years before us had vast intuitive wisdom that was passed on from generation to generation. They lived and they experiment and that’s how they arrive at their conclusions and beliefs. This ancient wisdom we must not throw away just because the science book can not explain it or science says it’s bullshit. Because one day science will catch up to those ancient wisdom. 

This makes me wonder if the ancient vasthu shastra that people believed, may indeed have effects on what happens or not happen. Science says everything is made of atoms and inside an atom there is 99% space which is energy. So mater is energy and earth is constantly in fluctuations with magnetic field which is energy and cosmic energy. Alignments with these energies or not may in fact have effect on what happen. Vasthu shastra is only one of the things and there are many other ancient beliefs like those that may eventually come to show us that they were indeed accurate all those years ago.  

When I write code, develop algorithms or programs, I do them to the fullest of my skills – with all I know. Once I wrap things up, I know I did the work to the best of my abilities.

A year later, or even couple of months later (sometimes) revisiting the same codes or works, shows me see how lousy the work was. The future re-visitation allows me to adjust the code or even re-write them to a better, more efficient and logical way. This too will be dwarfed by another future visit eventually. Knowing the updated version’s dwarftation, should I have not bothered creating a better version?

However, if I did not write the code yesterday, I would not have the expanded realization of better version of the same code tomorrow. Today’s work must be there for it to be dwarfed by tomorrows work. It is an infinite continuation of the cycle for it to improve little by little, with an end no one knows when.

Wildfire Smoke

2 weeks ago Oregon had a bad wildfire spread from multiple wildfires, burning about 200k-300k acres of forests. In my time in Oregon, this is the second bad wildfire that happened closer to where I live. With the wind blowing north, the smoke from wild fires became so bad that an otherwise blue sky at noon looked brown and orange as it was 6pm. The smoke got so bad that it started coming through the doors and windows at night. All we could smell inside the house was smoke. It was like a nonstop campfire.

The Need for Fresh Air

In the need to get away from wild fire smoke, to breath a lung full of fresh air we decided to leave town and head east. When you breath fresh air, when you have fresh air at an abundance, we never think of the fresh air we breath. We take that simply unnoticeable fresh air for granted. Only when the fresh air is scares, and all the fresh air is now smoked air, then only you start to realize the lack of fresh air.

The Fresh Air we take for granted

Never did I think the fresh air I breath was so important and how badly I wanted to breath a bit of fresh air to get a break from smoke filled air, until it was no longer available in the air.

We pass along so many things in our lives that we take for granted – unnoticed in its consumption. It is these simple things in life, that we take for granted, that makes the life on earth so precious. What small things are you grateful for?

Nansen Summit is the summit of Mount Sylvalia that is close to where I live, with an elevation of just shy of 1000ft. Only after living here 2 years, I realized that I should ride up there. So for the past 2 months I have been riding up there (5 times total so far)

The Ride up (The struggle)

My bike ride start at 328ft and its a grueling ride when starting out to reach 973ft in just 2-3 miles with some parts of the ride incline at 13-20%. When I first started I was stopping at least 6 times to catch my breath after topping my heart rate to 180bpm+. Today I only stopped twice on my way up there.

The Amazing View (The Reward)

Up on the top the view is amazing and there are 2 benches to rest my beating heart back to rest. Sometimes its overcast, sometimes its an amazing sunrise and the view of the valley down below is unbelievable.

I can see where I live down in the valley along with constant buzzing noise of cars down below on the highway. Its almost like I leave behind my daily life and rise up above into the heaven or the sky to look at the life I am living in the down below. Such an amazing awareness to see from up there.

What am I doing down below in the valley? this life we live, created with moment to moment. Small moments that we can make as big as we want only to realize that it was only a small moment in the realm of all moments.

The daily routines and the things we do like working to make money, building houses, paying bills, grocery shopping, buying things online etc – that we in our minds have justified as important things we must do as part humans. Why? because that is what our parents told us we should do, that is what other humans do. In a way – an illusion created in our minds to keep us in the illusion forever not to be awaken from it.

Struggle for reward

Ride up to Nansen summit is hard and grueling at times. Its the struggles in our lives – the struggles that we must endure to reap the rewards – the peaceful summit. Struggles we must go through to realize that we need the struggle to fully embrace the rewards.

I think humans have created shortcuts for the struggles – i could have driven my car up to the summit. Would the views up there be as equally transcendent as it is from a hard ride up? May be not as rewarding. May be it is, but the effects will die out much sooner. The shortcuts we humans have created that we call science, technological developments – gives us the rewards super fast without the struggle. We think that is amazing we can reap the rewards thanks to science without going through all struggles our ancestors did. Soon to realize that the summit arrived from a car is only another summit that can be topped by going to a better summit easily from a car. Or may be to never realize that and go on about life as unconscious as we were on the drive up to summit.

Struggle is (dukha) pain, suffering and it is part of life, a part of life that we must not skip to arrive at the summit awaken and be rewarded with amazing views that will change the soul of who we are.

The Ride Down (Awakening)

Everything that goes up must come down. Just like that the 973ft climbed up must be climbed down to get back 🙂 You thought the amazing view up in the summit was it. The adrenaline filled fast ride down is the last part. I love speeding down hill, specially on this straight road after a curve that I can shot at 36-38mph – just exhilarating!

I dont think any motorbikes or cars drove up to summit coming down can replace the sheer feelings and the joy I feel paddling down the hills, that I know that I paddled harder to get up to.

So we must question the shortcuts we take to skip struggles. How many of us go on about our lives taking shortcuts and never realizing the meaningful long struggling ways just because we never struggled and are used to taking shortcuts. Struggle is part of life, let it be, embrace it as it is. Struggle well!

US economy and the global economy -for the best part- is run by consumers. And these consumers empower big corporations to exists. This whole so called economic system created by humans, and only make sense to humans, and is fully and wholly worshiped by humans, fuels the consumer cog wheel system to keep it running as long as no one steps out of it.

What if tomorrow everyone on earth realizes that they dont need “stuff” to make them feel happy, or to do something, or to make their life better? At some point in the past on earth, these big consumer conglomerates did not exists. So what if it was like that tomorrow. ZERO – what if there is zero interest by consumers to be a consumer tomorrow and for the next 30 days..

What if no one buy anything from amazon tomorrow, like amazon make $0 in sales tomorrow, what if walmart get no sales for their stuff (except for groceries) and what if no one buy anything for another 30 days, 6 months. 

Amazon would make $0 in sales for infinity. They might try ramping up their advertisements and marketing (to super power their effort to convince to their hardest how you need their stuff) until they run out of money. Their whole advertisements and marketing will have to be shut down because there would be no return in it because no one would be buying regardless of how much they advertise. The whole advertising and marketing efforts and departments would become pointless and will be shut down. The product developers (to develop things that they try to convince us, we need and we can not live without) would no longer be needed. Real spiders would start building cobwebs between amazon robots in distribution facilities.

For better part of the whole western world and now most parts of east as well are run purely by people being consumers. People, wanting to try the next best thing. Better phones (for example), that we are – consciously and subconsciously – told we need to have better life to take better pictures, to capture the moments. How we lived our lives for 1000s of years without the need for those better phones are beyond forgotten. Next thing we know, we are hooked into these stuff, these things like a drug addict, for their cool features (the definition of coolness is defined to us by these product companies, and have created in us a need that we need these features) 

If we are lucky we will realize, that all these stuff and the features, does not make our lives better. We have given them too much power, such that the other parts of our lives have gotten weaker, and that had made us wanting these feature and stuff more and more to compensate for the weaker parts of life.

We have given so much power to these consumer product manufacturers that it looks hard to imagine a way without them. And with that enormous power they have come to control more parts of how other people live on this earth.

When those companies only care about making more money off every person by selling stuff (stuff that they dont need in the first place) the fundamentals of our earths eco system is being threatened. All these stuff we need are made mostly from plastic, more and more plastic is created, every discarded stuff for better stuff leaves piles and piles of plastic to be decayed over the next 500 years well after you have left this earth. 

But some may say it is too depressing to think of this sad (yet real) side of life on earth. Why worry about the sad side when you should be enjoying the stuff right now. So we continue to consume the stuff made by stuffers, who try their hardest to convince the non-stuff users that the stuff is what they need to make their life better, to make it easier, to make it comfortable. Consuming the stuff that gives immediate happiness that fades away sooner than lines drawn on a stormy beach. Next thing you know, you are dying next to stuff everywhere that you have attached yourself soo dearly to and cant let go of, but you know you will not take them with you when you die. 

Next time you buy a stuff, think for a second, if you dare to spare a second of your busy life, do I really need this stuff to be happy. If you dont bother to look at the reality you may say “yes I do” and grab that stuff, so the stuffers can continue to make money and you be sucked into their stuffers vacuum for life, until you decide to step out of it. 

Despite what we think or try to convince ourselves, we all have a choice. Does stuff in our lives really need this much of our attention?

Lauterbrunnen valley in Switzerland is one of the best places I have been to where you can easily find the nature at its best display. This painting is from my trip last year and it is a great reminder to look back at while in COVID19 lock down.

These are the interim shot during the painting. This painting took me 2 months to complete as other things in life gotten in the way of importance.

Towards the end of the painting I spent several more days to further improve on the fine details of the painting. It is amazing how the fine little details add soo much to the painting and bring it to the life.

Switzerland is just breathtaking and every where you turn up in the great alps, is just another view worth painting. The painting of Männlichen is based on a photo i took from a point on a hike to Royal walk up in the ridge. I got up here from the cable car that I took from Wengen (also should note you can ride on top of this cable car.) 

Here are the progress shots of the painting as I documented them at the end of each painting session.

And the final end point of the painting.

Reflecting on the Progress

It is a relatively hard challenge for me when every time I must make the next painting layer. I think because of the overwhelming amount of details i must add to it. But what I realized is putting a base layer with relatively similar colors to actual image, I can cover a lot of the surface and not be overwhelmed but feel accomplished and in that moment not worry about having to do finer details. Once the surface is covered with a base layer it is easier to add finer details which further defines the structure of the painting to its realistic view.

This painting is available for sale at this moment and kindly contact me if you are interested in the painting.