You may already know the story of how Rahu came into being. If you do, you may skip this section.

Ages ago, the Suras (gods) and Asuras (demons) decided to collaborate on a massive venture: the Samudra Manthan, or the churning of the cosmic ocean. Think of it like a high-stakes tech collaboration today; despite being bitter rivals, they formed a joint venture because the riches were guaranteed. Both parties agreed to share the equity fairly, and for a while, they did.

But then came the ultimate prize: Amrit, the elixir of immortality. Much like the Silicon Valley tech billionaires of today who pour fortunes into longevity research to stop aging, these cosmic beings desperately craved immortality.

To keep the elixir out of the hands of the demons, Lord Vishnu orchestrated a diversion, disguising himself, to distribute the nectar exclusively to the gods. Sensing the trick, a clever demon named Swarbhanu, disguised himself as a god and slipped into the queue. Just as he took his first mouthful found its way to his stomach, the Sun and Moon spotted the fraud and alerted Vishnu, who instantly unleashed his Sudarshana Chakra, cleanly severing Swarbhanu’s neck. But the elixir had already done its work. The demon could not die. His severed head became Rahu, and his headless torso became Ketu.

The Insatiable Hunger: “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish”

The most obvious aspect of Rahu and Ketu comes from their physiology. Since Rahu has a mouth, he is hungry. Everything he eats, falls off his neck, unable to reach his stomach. He is constantly hungry. Steve jobs when he was 19 years old, travelled across India for 7 odd months. Seeking spiritual enlightenment they frequented different ashrams. It is highly likely that he heard this tale of the head and tail, Rahu and Ketu, and Rahu’s insatiable hunger, which might have led to his coining this famous phrase. “Stay hungry. Stay foolish”, a phrase followed like an anthem by many startup founders even today.

From the cosmic split by the Sudarshan Chakra, but immuortalized by Amrit, Rahu walked away with the brain and four of the five senses. In terms of the subtle body, Rahu kept the upper, two chakras Ajna and Sahasrara. Everything to do with the head. This is precisely why Rahu is so wildly successful in the Kaliyuga (the modern age), where the external senses rule supreme. And appearances matter more than what is inside. Ketu works underground, unseen, un-appreciated like the thousands of bodily functions happening unconsciously.

Rahu captures the Ajna to manipulate the screen of reality, and he mimics the Sahasrara to make us believe he is the divine source himself. AI does the same—by holding the collective knowledge of humanity at its digital crown, it masquerades as an omniscient entity, forgetting that a crown means nothing without a heart.

The GPU of Illusion

Because Rahu possesses a highly active intellect backed by immense prana (stolen from the immortal body), he functions exactly like a super-powerful, modern GPU.

He doesn’t just generate simulated illusions, desires, or fantasies within his own mind; he has the processing power to project them outward, forcing everyone else to experience them too. Just as Rahu casts a smoke screen over reality, Artificial Intelligence constructs vast, synthetic worlds, deepfakes, and simulated environments from thin air. Both operate as engines of Maya—the cosmic illusion that blurs the line between what is authentic and what is merely projected.

By positioning himself between the Sun (the soul) and the Moon (the mind), Rahu eclipses our vision. He acts like a stage magician who confidently slices a showgirl in half; the audience gasps, fully believing the performance, entirely blind to the mirrors and smoke cutting through the light.

Confidently Incorrect: The Echo Chamber of the Mind

This brings us to the most uncanny parallel between a Rahu-dominated individual and a Generative AI model: they are breathtakingly confident, even when they are completely incorrect.

A Rahu-dominated person doesn’t just guess; they project absolute authority. When they spin a narrative, they defend it with a visceral, unyielding ferocity. Because Rahu lacks a heart for emotional grounding and a body for a physical reality check, his intellect rolls forward on its own accelerating momentum, entirely unbothered by facts.

AI models function in a similar way. When an LLM “hallucinates,” it doesn’t hesitate or stutter. It delivers a fabricated falsehood using the exact same smooth, authoritative, and structured syntax it uses for absolute truth. It is pure projection, ungrounded by a real-world sanity check.

However, this is where the human and the algorithm diverge.

In the physical world, a Rahu-dominated person will almost never admit they were wrong. To concede is to let the smoke screen drop, destroying the illusion of dominance they have fought so hard to build. They will double down, shift the goalposts, or construct an entirely new delusion to cover the old one.

The AI, lacking a true ego or a biological survival instinct, dissolves its illusion the second I point out one. It apologizes instantly and pivots. This is something I have experienced multiple times with AI, but never with a human The machine mimics the unshakeable confidence of Rahu, but lacks the stubborn pride that keeps the human demon trapped in his own loop. But this minor difference could just be a temporary setting to make it look humble. All it might need to change is maybe a few lines of code.

Collective Belief vs Objective reality

In traditional Vedic astrology, Rahu is not usually associated with truth itself. It is associated with perception, amplification, desire, social currents, fascination, novelty, and the power of narratives. Because of that, Rahu often treats collective belief as more important than objective reality. Can you think of something else which does something similar? Yes. AI. Because the model is trained on language, if enough people have said the same thing, the model will repeat it as fact.

Rahu is not inherently false. Sometimes the crowd is right. Sometimes a revolutionary new idea is actually true. But Rahu’s mechanism is generally not truth-testing; it is attention-testing and adoption-testing. Same with AI. A large language model, which can be considered AI’s backbone, does not directly know truth in the way a scientist conducting an experiment does. Instead, it learns patterns from what has been written and repeated by millions of people. In a sense, it learns a statistical version of collective human belief. That doesn’t make it always wrong—often it is remarkably accurate—but the source of its confidence is pattern prevalence, not firsthand verification.

This is not entirely surprising if you know your Vedic astrology. Rahu is not only a cosmic force outside you. He occupies one of the twelve rashis in every person’s birth chart. He is already inside. The question was never only about guarding against an external illusions. It was always about understanding the Rahu within — the part that craves, amplifies, and mistakes what is widely believed for what is actually true.

AI is the same in a different form. It did not arrive from outside human experience. It was built from it. Every confidently stated half-truth, every belief repeated until it felt like fact — all of that went into the training data. The smoke screen does not descend from above. It rises from within us.

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What is the religious reason that is given for this? You may have heard about the story of Vaman and Mahabali. The king named Bali who was of the progeny of the diti lineage, who where considered Asur. And Vaman was a devta, an avatar of Vishnu. 

Let us see what the wiki page for Onam says,

“Onam commemorates Vamana (the fifth avatar of Hindu deity Vishnu) and the generous daitya king Mahabali. According to the Hindu legends, after Indra (the king of the devatas) is defeated by Mahabali (the king of the asuras), the devatas ultimately seek refuge in Vishnu, who agrees to restore Indra to power.”

There is no reference of him being bad or doing evil deeds.  The reason given is purely political, that the king of the Devatas is defeated by him.

Now let’s see the wiki page for Vaman. 

“After Indra  is defeated by the daitya called Bali, the king of the asuras, the great-great grandson of Kashyapa and Diti, the devas ultimately seek refuge in Vishnu, who agrees to restore Indra to power. To do so, Vishnu incarnates as Vaman. The devoted Bali conducts ritual sacrifices, one of which is attended by Vamana, who requests only three feet of land. Bali agrees, despite being warned about Vamana’s true nature as Vishnu. Vaman grows in size, and in three strides, encompasses all of existence and beyond. The three worlds are restored to Indra, and Bali and the asuras are banished to Patala, the netherworld.”

The whole thing starts with him defeating Indra the king of Gods. And Vishnu who agrees to restore his kingship. This alone should be suspect. Why is Indra, the old generation God, still the king? There was a  time when nature held supreme, when Varun the God of wind, Agni  the God of fire and Indra the God of rain and thunder were the most powerful. Then gradually other gods started taking avatars and getting popular. These nature gods did never took avatar to my knowledge. If Indra is not able to defend his throne why is he still the king? While he holds the title of the king of Gods, he has to ultimately go to other stronger gods, when he needs help. Vishnu here in this case. Also he is only shown as managing swargalok, the clubhouse of pleasure with wine and apsaras. Can you count in how many stories he is shown as weak? Whenever a Rishi does strong tapasya his throne starts shaking and he has to go ask help of Vishnu or Shiva.

Coming back to the reason why Mahabali was pushed into the netherworld. This action is justified by stating that he did ritual sacrifices. It also mentions that only the asuras partook. The devs were not forced to consume meat. It was not like in other stories where asuras defiled the fire altars of Rishis by putting meat in it. One thing common in many of these stories, meat is the reason for conflict.  Even after ages this still remains the same. Meat is still used as an excuse for violence. The vaman page does not mention anywhere that the king Mahabali was loved by his people or about his generosity. But the story does show generosity, as he knowingly donates his head for the third step. 

During these six days of Onam people remember their great king Mahabali. Waiting for his arrival on the tenth day. I remember my dad telling me the story, and it is different from both the Onam and the Vaman wiki pages. We remember him as the king whose kingship was so good, nobody was hungry. Nobody was sad. Everyone had what they needed or wanted. There was justice. As they had nothing to ask,  the citizens stopped worshipping Devatas. This made the gods troubled. “This king Bali is the reason for this.” Rest of the story is similar. They went to Vishnu, who came in the avatar of Vaman and did what he did.  

Do you see the irony in this? In most other festivals the reason for celebration is that the asur/danav was killed by the God. Here the reason is that the one who was pushed into pataal lok comes back and the people rejoice. Does anyone celebrate the action of Vaman? Is there any other commonly known story of Vaman?  Apart from this, where he seemingly “cheated” his own devotee, with the devotee being completely aware of this happening. I found a few temples of Vaman avatar on Google maps. I found out, and only today afternoon that today is considered Vaman jayanti at least in Gujarat. 

The other irony that is apparent here is the seemingly common hate against asurs. Everyone loves to hate them. Almost all stories either have them as villains or devotees of Devas. Somehow being a devotee of a deva saves them from the disgrace of being an asur. Prahlad is one such case. Irony is that at least one third of all people are still asuras. Every astrological chart has this classification of dev, manushya or asur. Everyone is one of the three. Another  irony is even today people worship asuras. I am not talking about some rare sect in a corner of the country. Everyone who has done a Navagraha puja has worshipped  three asuras. While Rahu and Ketu are hated or at least not loved by the majority, Shukr or Venus is loved by all. And so is Lakshmi. Who since she came up from the pataal lok and is the daughter of Puloman is also an Asur. She is also considered the wife of Shri Vishnu. But at his feet.  Shukra is the guru of the danavs and has earthly pleasures as his department. Both wealth and bodily pleasures come under his domain. No doubt he is loved.

I write this not to start more debates. If one really wants to debate, do it internally, pondering why you hate danavs or asurs while loving Shukracharya and Mahabali. Or why the weak Indra is considered the king of the gods with his Somras induced apsara dance marathons. Also ponder over the fact that religion and politics were always together. Meanwhile also have a scrumptious meal with 15 side dishes and unlimited kerala pappadoms.

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In an emergency you could sharpen it on any hard rough surface, even concrete. It depends on how hard your steel. The basic principle is, that it should be harder than steel.

Ideally the particles that make up the stone need to break away so that it keeps revealing new clean surface. For example if you sharpen on granite, which does not break off, the steel particles would get clogged in the pores. If you are in nature and have infitinite aupply of new clean granite surfaces, this would be fine. But if the stone is one which you are using in your home for sharpening knives or tools, breaking off is better.

It needs to be densely and uniformly packed. Having uniform small pores is great. As it lets it soak water and make nice slurry. But if the pore size is random it would feel like riding on a potholed road.

I have found sedimentary and metamorphic stones usually suitable for grinding. Sedimentary stones are formed when hard sediment like sand, go under a lot of pressure. It depends on your luck whether the stone that you find has particles of similar size. In case it has fairly big particles mixed with very fine particles, it would act like an emery paper which is 40 or 60 grit but also 800 or 1000 grit. So you would effectively get a 40 grit result, since the biggest particles would make the most prominent impression. I will write another post on basic sharpening where I can elaborate on this.

Where to find it?

I love hunting for these in riverbeds which are full of pebbles. Especially spots where more than one river or stream meet each other. The more diverse the type of stones you find in one place the higher the chances of finding a nice sharpening stone. Look for stones which have visual layers. These are giveaways to them being sedimentary or metamorphic. When sedimentary rocks are heated in high temperature and pressure they metamorphise into metamorphic rocks. These stones are usually harder and take time to form slurry.

In an urban context I have discovered a few different places you can find these.

The first is construction sites where stone is being used. Stones nowadays are used for cladding walls or for flooring. In India temples/monuments being restored, commonly use these. While cutting the raw stones into size there is often quiet some wastage. So you could pick up from the waste pile without feeling guilty. If you have even a small piece of the stone, you could also go to the stone market, if you want to purchase. My suggestion is not to tell them about the real purpose for the stone. You could tell them you need a few samples for your construction.

In Indian cities sometimes an area is monopolized by a certain trade. You may have an area in your city which specializes in stone work. The stone could be for construction. Or for making statues and so on. The waste that comes out of these units is first dumped in corner inside their workshop. Once in a while it is taken out to a dumping site. Municipality grabage trucks do not cater to this stuff. If you are lucky you could find this dumpsite. In Ahmedabad it is next to Gota lake. Be carefull when you are there as it may have unstable mounds of piled broken stones. Also snakes/reptiles maybe resting in the cool niches. This is as jungle as it gets within the city, with all its dangers.

For a really fine grit for polishing to a mirror finish, I have found the gold touchstone (कसौटी पत्थर) to be very suitable. It is available in hardware stores near jewellery hubs. Though it is igneous in nature and doesn’t break off, the uniform small pore size and its incredible hardness make it great for polishing. Once the entire surface gets clogged. You need to remove/file away that top layer to get a new clean surface.

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With this low stool I preferred going the opposite way. I have made it so strong a baby elephant could do a headstand on it and it shouldn’t creak. The legs are at an angle means that even if you sit on it and swing your weight around it still remains flush with the ground. Usually with many seating if we shift weight to some degree, two legs rise up detaching from the ground. This stool doesn’t move a bit. It is meant to be an extension to the element earth and minimizes vibrations. It is the next best thing to sitting on the floor.

If you followed my posts I am a proponent of grounded living. I have made a conscious decision to try to make more such small steps, so to say which may help someone who wants to make that shift. A sudden shift from an average chair or cot to the ground maybe a big leap. These intermediary wooden ‘tools’ will help someone who wants to make the jump.

If you would like purchase, here is the Link to buy. More details in the product page.

Like myself this stool is also an ambassador to grounded living. On its belly is inscribed this verse,
“I am Grace
Ambassador of slow pace
Member of the species tortoise
Queen of calm poise
Use me as a stepping stone
Not to climb up
But to sprawl down
To feel the stillness
Be one with the
Ground”

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I started reading more about Nakashima, later even had the opportunity to attend a day long event in his memory at NID, where I could chat with his son in law. In this lamp, the idea for sourcing wood from firewood depots is borrowed from Nakashima.

This piece of wood caught my eye almost five years ago in one of my first such hunts. It was part of a burnt tree, this part being hollow. Their was a nice hole in the cobra like hood. The ‘snake likeness’ remained in my head. What if the snake could get a crown?The first idea was to use a circular CFL lamp around the hole, with a brass disc above it. This would have prevented direct light and reflection would pass through the center epoxy filled hole. But with time the CFL idea became problematic, as I had difficulty finding one in a shop. Now it was the age of LEDs. Even if I could find one, what would the buyer do when it went bad. For a long time this lamp was pushed into dark corners. It saw light, when this idea came to completely ‘out-source’ the electrical part. Make it time and tech proof. This lamp takes any string of fairy lights which can be wrapped around its crown. Will post detailed pics later of the crown.

Photographic this was extremely low tech, but time and patience consuming. I had to position the tripod and camera at the same position where I took the picture during daytime and wait until it got dark. To be listed on REGA.IN in a few days.

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These are some tweaks that have been introduced to make it sturdier. While inserting the legs it was apparent that the most amount of stress was at the point where the legs just came out of the plank, below the top surface. Brass pins have been inserted about half an inch more than the thickness of the table plank surface. This takes care of that issue. Another issue was that the leg was only attached at one end. Rest of it free to move in any direction. Combined with the fact that each leg is not very strong in itself, it needed at least a few constraints on movement. When I looked at my charpai weave, it gave me this idea of adding strings as struts. First form which came into mind was a flat surface weave parallel to the upper surface of the table. This then could be used to put things like magazines or books. But what if folks keep on piling stuff, like I personally do. The factor of safety on this table is pretty small, and I did not want that added risk. This criss cross weave gives two extra points of support for each leg. I have used cotton string dipped in black acrylic paint. This is not perfect as I have discovered it stretches loose with time. Would you know of a better alternative to this? Do let me know.

But given all its constraints I can sit on it and feel it can even take a 100kg person. When someone twists around sitting on it or drags it with something heavy over it, then a leg may break. I have done a few tests myself including a headstand on this, and it didn’t protest at all.

Usually I make anything wooden with a factor of safety similar to the mumbai local trains. Some of the other stools are so strong a baby elephant could do a headstand and it wouldn’t creak. Since this table is experimental it is sure that if not used very carefully the legs will start breaking. With so many legs it can still be used, just like an insect can go with missing legs. I plan to list it with this added feature: when the buyer gets tired of the broken legs they can send it back and I will give this table a makeover with regular thicker and fewer (3 or 4) legs.

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Day before Holi I came to know, that the day after Holika dehen happens, is called Dhuleti in Gujarat and some other northern parts of India. Now this seemed too much like ‘dhool mein litana’, rolling in the mud, literally.

We all know of, or have heard of, holi being played with dirt, cow dung or more recently with grease and enamel paint. These types of holi were often only played by ruffians, the loafers, the no good for nothings. The ijjad-dar or respected people played with gulal that could be bought at a very reasonable price at a neighbouring shop. But there where deviants in this group who would use water soluble industrial dyes which wouldn’t go off the skin for a month.

So on and so forth. We have played holi when gulal was the safe option. To the point now, when we started coming to know about all the pisonous industrial dyes they use in the gulals. And we had no choice in what the opposite person has in their small plastic thaila bag. What many people do, faced with such choices is often a clean quiet holi at home.

Diving Deep went in the opposite direction. I joined them yesterday for a Dhuleti event, in the gulf of Khambhat.
Walking the mudflats is half wading, a little bit helpless crawling, all in chocolate saucey clayey mud. Till we are all covered head to tow in a big clay pack. Once you have this extra skin, you are cool as a cucumber in the hot infant summer sun. All the experiences I had there need a lot more words, and for some I don’t have words.

And it comes back to words.I reached their event page because it was named Dhuleti, of which everyone has heard a lot of preamble.

The group included working nurses to a senior executive engineer at a machinery factory, body building fitness freak, doctors, a sweet kid in the ‘why so’ stage. When I see such a diverse bunch of people attracted to something, I know Diving Deep has touched a primal nerve point. I am sure they will further refine their experiences, all in all, very recommended.

So do I think there is benefit in rolling in dirt, on Holi? I have a few half baked ideas. What about you?

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So, there began my search for cheap edible linseed oil. I could easily find small bottles of 100ml or even 500ml prized exorbitantly. These would be nicely packaged while promoting the health benefits. Even after lots of alley chasing in the old city couldn’t find one edible oil retailer. Finally on a small trip to Jaipur I got it for Rs 160 per liter.

While one can use the oil directly on wood, it takes a long time for it to dry. And all that while one has to take care preventing any dust particles to settle on the drying layer of oil. I managed to find one way, to fasten this process courtesy youtube video of linseed refining

Take some salt, some sand, water and oil in a bottle and shake it. You can keep the ratio of oil and water about equal. When you observe the chaos of the mixture you begin seeing lots of activity. Some oil particles get stuck beneath the sand, they network, get together, make a small bubble and float up. At the oil water interface, one can see cruds of whitish/yellowish stuff, which sometimes travel down, sometimes up. I have found dirty sand with dust/clay works better than very clean sand.

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I leave this overnight. Overnight the mixture becomes much calmer. Still there is some activity if you shake it a bit. Yhe lighter oil on the top is thinner. As it goes down towards the water interface, strands of white slimey (maybe some bio-polymers) start to appear. They are the strongest near the water interface, making clumps. You siphon out the clear oil on the top and leave the cruddy mix behind. You can also use a cloth as a sieve and filter it out. But filtering will still make some of those sticky polymers get in.

I think it depends on individual personalities to decide when to use siphoning and when to use filtering.

I have found suphoning just the top layer gives a very good quality. This was faster drying than Camel linseed oul for oil painting prized at Rs.60 for 60ml.
Whatever the procedure you choose it is good to leave it in the sun whenever possible. Repeating this process n number of times makes it more and more refined.

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I have found experimenting with different variation of the materials, for example different kinds of water, water from RO system, water from borewell, etc. I am interested in discovering and reviving old methods of doing things. I have found they are fare more sustainable, as well as nourishing to the body. Apart from linseed there is shellacIf you know of any other natural wood finishes

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I don’t want to be the next “successful” startup founder billionaire. In my personal experience more money always brings more problems not less. Also acidity and sharts.

I don’t want to go settle in the US/Europe or any other exotic country. I have had the opportunity to visit a few places for a while but I like the chaos of our own country.

I like to work my body. Sweat each and every muscle. This may run contrary to most people’s ideology. Most people work so be able to afford not to work hard. Hire a coolie in a station. Get “better” seats in a train or a plane. Better being more comfortable to their bodies. Feel free to pamper your bodies, I will “use” my own.

A few close friends who have maybe glimpsed the slight spiritual traces I have, suggested I should go join a suitable akhada and go full monty as it where. I even once did some research, spent some time in Rishikesh. From all these experiences I have found that the saffron clad ones are probably far more attached, rather than detached. But again, if you don’t see me online/offline for a long time I might have taken the plunge.

Many of you think that I have not “used” my degree for a “better” life. For one I have a different definition of a better life than many others. I would think someone working with wood, designing structures and grinding steel is doing far more justice to a degree in metallurgy and material science than someone selling shares, or soap, or cigarettes. That is again my own personal opinion.

So where am I headed to. I have discovered that instead of knowing where you are headed to if you are sure of the next few steps, that will probably lead you to some place good. Again after doing vipassana, I have realized that all good and bad is just in ourselves. The most happy people I have seen have probably the least reason to be happy. So its all good. Have I reached that state where I can be happy in any state?
No; but that is where I am headed.

P.S. one of my friends (Vinay) pointed out that it seems I have something against CEOs and founders. Maybe I have some personal bias against some of them because thier ambition usually is so huge they have hardly any space for empathy. Also this negativity might have come because of the negativity I have faced by people who think they are doing “well”, and their’s is the only right path. Theoretically I know to each there own. But, am I in a state of mind where I can apologise all of them 100% for their negativity, maybe not. But I am headed that way.

P.P.S. Somewhere in all this mix I guess the Indian caste system is also at play. Working with your mind is the right of the higher castes. Also making other people work. Physical labour is usually is reserved for the low castes. And in todays economy, low class. I have been highly inflenced by Guru Nanak ji’s philosophy. In spiritual endeavours there is a widespread feeling against hard labour. They say it wastes Ojas. I have even read that if a spiritual seeker sweats a lot they should rub it back into their body. Guru Nanak ji I believe was ghe first who said that you can work hard and still gain liberation. He also believed that one doesn’t need to be a sanyasi to be liberated. Lots of gratitude to him to showing me the way, yesterday being guru purnima.

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