We all walk on this earth for a purpose with our own footprints. It is the footprints we leave behind that shape what is now. These are my footprints on this wonderful planet thus far.
Current Footprints
Breathing Methods – A new footprint I’ve started in 2021 is nasal breathing at night and breath holding to create alkaline state of body with the help of Wim hof method. Which is a simpler version of ancient tibet Tummo breathing. I also practice interval breath holds during warm ups on my spin bike.
Meditations & Path of the enlightened one – Growing up in Sri Lanka, one is very much surrounded by buddhist teachings and practices. When I came to US, I sort of let go of those root foundations and it had been amazing to go back to them away from modern consumer culture & ephemeral happiness. When I was little I used to do breathing meditation (anapana sathi bhawanawa) and focus meditation. I have gone back to my old ways and have been meditating before everyone wakes up. I use “Insight timer” app most of the time. In align with this I also practice Yoga more regularly.
Vegetarian Food – Not until I came to US I realized the amazing variety and amount of vegetables Sri Lankans eat. That too I realized only after living in the lack of it. When I came to US I discovered the delicious fatty & salty food manufactured in factories and I ate like a westerner. I embraced the western life completely only to end up with stomach and health issues after years of eating those food and supplements. I have since switched to eating whole vegetarian foods since November 2019. It has been amazing to eat live food with the spices I used to eat such as asafetida, turmeric, fennugreek, mustard seeds, ceylon cinnamon, fresh ginger roots, coriander, cumin, thunapaha (curry powder) etc. I also eat various grains like: masoor lentils, split mung dal, mung dal, chickpeas, toor dal & urad dal. In the western countries we are constantly reminded, you need lots of protein every day from meats and supplements. Living in Sri Lanka, I never heard of the need for protein or the need to lose weight. I have come to realize it is only an illusion pushed by big supplement and meat companies wanting to make fat profits. Vegetables and grains pack just as much or more protein that we need. Two of the biggest animals in the planet, gorillas and elephants eat mostly plants, and they will knock you out with one blow 🙂 We are the sum of what we put into our body. We can not expect harmony and peace, when we feed our bodies with animals who died with anger, fear, and sadness. Besides livestock farms generates 50%+ greenhouse gases in the world.
Fermented Food – I have been including fermented food regularly in my diet as natural ways to get pre and pro-biotics. Some of those inclusions are kefir, sourdough bread and paratas (with natural live yeast) and various fermented mixes like salsa, sauerkraut, pickles. I also make appa or appam (hopers), wade (vada) and thosay (dosa) using fermented dal and rice.
Ayurveda – Similar to food, medicine from my roots is driven by herbal ayurveda medicine that treated whole body and the root cause using whole herbs and plants. Not extracts of sorts. Modern (Newtonian) Pharmaceuticals are great if you get hit by a truck. For minor chronic ongoing health issues I strongly believe in ayurveda and natural herbal medicine along with Bhawana (meditation) If we can resolve minor health issues naturally and mindfully, they would not grow to be severe. I have dive into hrebal medicine too after seeing first-hand the unexplainable side effects of western pharma meds over long term use, over generations. My frequently used ayurvedaic gems are Siddhalepa, Samahan, Paspanguwa and Asamodagam.
Sustainable Life in harmony with nature – In the old Sri Lanka, in villages, when a person go to the store, a cashier used newspaper to put flour or wrap fish and you would bring your own glass bottles to refill with oils from the store. People used bags and baskets made of pan, thal (palm) or ola leaves. This was just common sense. There were no plastic bags. The life back then was lived in more harmony with products made from things that eventually decayed back to earth. Then the world found plastic, and here we are today making billions of tons of plastic, using them once and throwing them into the ocean and eating them back up as micro plastic particles in fish, killing animals and destroying oceans – destroying our source. We went out of our way (for the sake of science, for greater convenience) to discover these technological advancements, driven by instant joy and happiness. But now after consuming those for 50-70 years we are realizing the best way forward is in harmony with nature and not destroying it. I believe we are in oneness with the nature and that we must protect this planet for us to feed from it and to survive. We have done more harm to this planet in the last 100 years than the millions of years before that. I believe we can take the good things from scientific advancements (align with nature) to future and create a new version of existence in harmony with nature.
Footprints of Past
I grew up in the wonderful tropical island of Sri Lanka surrounded by nature and buddhism, in the busy city of Mount Lavinia. I always loved occasional visits to spend time in my mother’s village in Gorakadeniya. Sri Lanka was a developing poor country and much of my childhood I wanted to migrate to a developed country to seek financial abundance. Through series of miraculous events, my dream became true and I got the opportunity to come to US to study Finance and Business Management at Purdue University.
After graduating in 2008 during a financial crisis I had a hard time finding a full time job. Little did I know that happened to be one of the best things that ever happened – not being able to get a full time job. If otherwise, I would be minding someone else’s business today in a cube farm, locked into a 9-5 cycle of rat race.
Because I didn’t get a job out of college, through hard times I created a website advertising web development and graphic design work, which soon picked up to become regular contract work with big companies. In 2011 I developed a WordPress event calendar plugin based on minimal designs that let users own their event data. Later I renamed this amazing plugin as EventON. After being able to help an ever growing number of customers around the world with EventON, in 2013 I decided to stop all contract work and solely focus on minding my business, minding my EventON.
Looking back at the past footprints, I am very grateful for the struggles I had in life, which made it possible to realize a way out of it – the missed opportunities and the unimaginable opportunities. William Shakespeare once said “there is no such thing as good or bad, only thinking makes it so”.