We would want to have a really simple class that does all the serializing and parsing, so we declare a class like the one below.

struct JSONData;
class JSON
{
public:
    static JSON& instance();
    ~JSON();

    QVariantMap parse(const QString& string) const;
    QString serialize(const QVariant& value) const;

protected:
    JSON();

private:
    JSONData* d;
};

We begin implementing the class as follows. The static instance() method is implemented as

JSON& JSON::instance()
{
    static JSON theInstance;
    return theInstance;
}

That was easy! We now implement the constructor. One of the tricks we will be using in the implementation is this – we make use of the JavaScript JSON object to perform the serializeing and parsing for us. Towards that, we implement the constructor as follows

struct JSONData
{
    QScriptEngine engine;
    QScriptValue parseFn;
    QScriptValue serializeFn;
};

JSON::JSON()
{
    d = new JSONData;

    const QString script = "function parse_json(string) { return JSON.parse(string); }\n"
                           "function serialize_json(object) { return JSON.stringify(object); }";
    QScriptValue result = d->engine.evaluate(script);

    d->parseFn = d->engine.globalObject().property("parse_json");
    d->serializeFn = d->engine.globalObject().property("serialize_json");
}

Notice how we are creating JavaScript functions to parse and serialize objects. In the constructor we basically QScriptValues of the parse and serialize functions. Next, lets see how the parse() function is implemented.

QVariantMap JSON::parse(const QString& string) const
{
    QScriptValue result = d->parseFn.call(QScriptValue(), QScriptValueList() << QScriptValue(string));
    QVariantMap resultMap = result.toVariant().toMap();
    return resultMap;
}

Really really simple isnt it!

The serialize() function is equally simple – but for a CreateValue function dependency.

QString JSON::serialize(const QVariant& value) const
{
    QScriptValue arg = ::CreateValue(value, d->engine);
    QScriptValue result = d->serializeFn.call(QScriptValue(), QScriptValueList() << arg);
    QString resultString = result.toString();
    return resultString;
}

The CreateValue function basically converts any QVariant to a QScriptValue. QtScript module doesnt make it easy for us (no QScriptEngine::newVariant() is not useful here for all cases). We implement the CreateValue function as follows

QScriptValue CreateValue(const QVariant& value, QScriptEngine& engine)
{
    if(value.type() == QVariant::Map)
    {
        QScriptValue obj = engine.newObject();

        QVariantMap map = value.toMap();
        QVariantMap::const_iterator it = map.begin();
        QVariantMap::const_iterator end = map.end();
        while(it != end)
        {
            obj.setProperty( it.key(), ::CreateValue(it.value(), engine) );
            ++it;
        }

        return obj;
    }

    if(value.type() == QVariant::List)
    {
        QVariantList list = value.toList();
        QScriptValue array = engine.newArray(list.length());
        for(int i=0; i<list.count(); i++)
            array.setProperty(i, ::CreateValue(list.at(i),engine));

        return array;
    }

    switch(value.type())
    {
    case QVariant::String:
        return QScriptValue(value.toString());
    case QVariant::Int:
        return QScriptValue(value.toInt());
    case QVariant::UInt:
        return QScriptValue(value.toUInt());
    case QVariant::Bool:
        return QScriptValue(value.toBool());
    case QVariant::ByteArray:
        return QScriptValue(QLatin1String(value.toByteArray()));
    case QVariant::Double:
        return QScriptValue((qsreal)value.toDouble());
    default:
        break;
    }

    if(value.isNull())
        return QScriptValue(QScriptValue::NullValue);

    return engine.newVariant(value);
}

Thats it! You can now simply make use of JSON class to parse and serialize JSON objects.

// Parsing json strings
QString jsonString = ....
QVariantMap jsonObject = JSON::instance().parse(jsonString);

// Serializing json objects
QVariantMap jsonObject = ...
QString jsonString = JSON::instance().serialize(jsonObject)

Once we start our careers, earn some money and gather some property (home / stuff-for-home / car / other fancy things) – we inevitably land up asking these questions. Because all through our childhood we kept imagining that getting to a place of felling “settled down” is a long way off and that’s about the only thing important in life. But as we start reaching that destination – these questions stare at us. All through our life we grow up thinking that there is somehow an ultimate purpose and that our life is meant to be used up to that end. Somehow, growing up we imagined that the ultimate purpose was to get married, have kids, get a job, have comfortable stuff for leading a socially respectable life and so on. These days most of us get to this end rather quickly – and soon a we get to the question – “Is that all there is in life?”. And lo and behold – we stare at an absolute void. That void scares us. In a desperate attempt to get rid of that void – we fill it up with even more fancy goals, ambitions, habits. However the questions and the void behind them continue to haunt us. (1) What is life (or more specifically my life) all about? and (2) How should I live? And as we being our attempt at answering these questions – we notice that the “pat” answers don’t work. Rather the “pat” answers don’t seem to address the entirety of our life experiences.

We then think – “Hey, maybe someone else also faced these questions! How about hearing the answers other people came up with for these questions?”. So we ask around. And it soon becomes pretty obvious that almost everyone around us has faced these questions. And whats more – almost everyone seems to know the answer. Over and above that, almost everyone wants to “sell” their answer and claim that their answer is it! In all fairness – for the most part everybody’s answer does seem to address some aspects of the questions; but not all of it. So – we continue inquiring into the questions.

That’s when we encounter philosophy. (Atleast that’s when I encountered it). Religious texts (Gita, Puranas..), philosophical texts (Upanishads), spiritual texts (A New Earth, Power of Now etc..), theological texts and inspiring talks from people (Jiddu Krishnamurti, Bannanjay Govindacharya for example), inspiring / though-provoking movies (the Matrix, Peaceful Warrior) – all seem to offer answers or at least an opening to look at / inquire into the questions. [Jiddu Krishnamurti is an exception here. He doesn't offer answers and in fact goes as far as saying that we should not take anyone's answer, rather we should make an honest effort and inquiring into the questions ourselves and discover our own answers to it.]

No matter which philosophy we begin with – we will find that the first one that impacts us a lot seems like the only one that can impact almost everybody. When “The Matrix” was released in the year 1999 – I was very powerfully impacted by the philosophy behind it. I was able to let go of a lot (and I mean a real lot) of baggage. I was, so to speak, “enlightened” – when I heard Neo say “there is no spoon” and got the philosophical meaning behind it. And so excited I got about it – that I really wanted everybody to watch the movie and really really get the movie and experience the phenomenal positive impact that it can offer. I was almost, like many other people I am sure, an “official evangelist” for the movie. My first conversation with any new person was – “have you watched this movie called – The Matrix?”. Pretty soon my undying fanatic excitement about the movie became obnoxious, but then that’s another story. The point I want to make is this: for everybody their current philosophy is exciting and they want everybody around them to “get” it and to that end they either evangelize it or become teachers of it. This is very normal and there is nothing great / special / unique or even worthwhile about it.

But then, as with any philosophy, the power and impact can fizzle out when we are unable to make use of it in the face of new problems / life-situations and bring about a drastic change in the quality of our lives. That’s when we either invest some intellectual effort to make the already known philosophy relevant to our new problems / situations in life or look for another philosophy and get excited about yet another idea and the cycle continues.

Sometimes exploring a new idea / philosophy can be very refreshing. I recommend that you try it out. Trying out something new doesn’t necessarily make anything you already know or believe invalid. A believer of Bhagvad Gita and its philosophy need not avoid experiencing the value of Jiddu Krishamurti teachings, and vice versa. A follower of Eckhart Tolle’s teachings need not block out Landmark Education and its teachings, and vice versa. There is value in all ideas. The key thing to remember is that an idea that works for you; may not work for someone else. It is also important to remember that what worked for someone, may work for us as well. We wont know – until we try it out. However, I think we should perhaps stop trying too hard in “selling” our ideas to someone new. It is a generous enough gesture to share with someone the impact an idea / philosophy has had on our life and just leave it at that. The other person will chose to experience it for himself out of his own interest / freedom.

It is very normal for all of us to get trapped into thinking that our current philosophy of life is the only thing that works for everybody. As long as we are in that trap, we are not making ourselves available to the value of other philosophies. While our philosophy may answer a lot of questions – it is important to know that there might be other ideas that might impact us just as much. The best thing to do would be to keep an open mind and listen to everything and make up our own philosophy of life. It is really important for us to get that for something to be “useful” the rest need not be “useless”.

For the Landmark Education fanboys – “For Landmark to be valid, spirituality need not be invalid”. For the spirituality fanboys – “For spirituality to be valid, Landmark need not be invalid”. My recommendation is – listen. See whats available in all ideas and STOP selling one idea / philosophy / individual as the only idea / philosophy / individual that will make life work. I don’t think one size will fit all. Your ideas / philosophy / guru is just as valid as mine.

Living a transformed life is just like that. One has to distinguish his/her being present, slipping into bad-faith (or running a racket), choosing “what-is”, getting present to his/her strong-suits and act, being in integrity and so on – every moment and all the time in order to be transformed. It doesn’t matter if one has been distinguishing all of that for the last 10 years – if one isn’t doing it right now, he is not transformed.

1. both the cycle and the car passed by you and
2. the car moved faster than the cycle.

If you dwell on this for some time you can quickly figure out the following.

1. that the cycle and car moved past you was observed only because you were standing still.
2. that the car moved faster than the cycle was also observed because you were standing still.
3. that the speed of motion of the car as observed by you and the speed of motion of the car as observed by the one riding the cycle are two separate things.

This idea of speed/space relativity is not new to any of us. We have all studied about this in our physics class at school.

Read the full interview here- http://timesofindia.indiatimes​.com/entertainment/bollywood/n​ews-interviews/We-couldnt-affo​rd-rent-Hrithik-Roshan/article​show/9492955.cms

Most of us go through our lives with a expectation for life out there to “come and do it for me” or “come and do it to me”. Its like we go out into the world and interact with the life out there and expect the world/life to make things happen for us. For example, we want the politicians to make the country a better place for us, we want the movies to make us laugh/cry/sing etc, we want the girlfriend/boyfriend to make us happy, we want the spouse to make us feel special, we want the job to bring satisfaction to us, we want the money/social-status/property to talk to the society and bring some respect/reputation for us, we want our friendships to create happiness for us and so on.

Take a look at one of the most powerful relationships in a person’s life – MARRIAGE. Off-late, I notice a lot of marriages translating into divorces – atleast in my friends/relatives circle. In most cases it appears as though one of the partners in the marriage expected to get something out of the relationship by imposing an expectation on how the other should make them feel. And when that expectation did not turn out, they went for a divorce. I can understand if the marriage turned into divorce after the couple stayed together for a considerable amount of time and then figured that the marriage was not working. But the instances that I am talking about are the ones where one of the partners enters into the marriage with a firm commitment to break it up!

I recently tumbled upon a short-movie on YouTube that kind of describes what I am talking about here (although the woman in the video does consider going for a divorce not immediately after the wedding, but after sometime). Take a look at it here.

It is almost like people enter into a relationship to feel complete OR to feel great OR to feel happy OR satisfied OR to make one’s life happen (whatever that means). I like the way Werner Erhard communicates this.

I just picked up marriage, because it is one of the most powerful relationships in life. But this kind of “come-and-do-it-to-me” outlook is also observable at work, with friends, with politics, with finance. The problem with the “come do it to me” outlook is that – life almost never “does” it for you. Therefore we kind of start feeling that life is not working for us. We really are trying to navigate with a wrong map!

Unless we come from a space of being whole and complete – we really have nothing to contribute to life. Unless we are clear that we are alright, whole and complete – we will always navigate through life looking for pieces to pick-up and put-together to make us feel whole and complete. If we can just take a moment and get really present – it becomes very clear that we are already whole and complete and that nothing needs to be added or removed from who we are!

Just yesterday I was reading the second chapter “Seeing and Knowing”. VSR talks about how it is a misconception to think of vision as re-projection of images, captured by the retina, on to an internal mental screen for the brain to then interpret what was seen. He opines, based on research and exhaustive study, that once the images captured by the retina of our eyes gets converted to “nerve” impulses and pushed to the brain – they are no longer treated as images. This means that the brain doesnt do as much image processing as it does “symbols” processing. The brain works on the symbols and significances captured in the images captured by the eyes. The brain is more concerned about what the image means, than the image itself. He also goes on to say that the brain is continuously guessing an interpretation of what is being seen by the eyes and finally picks up one of the guesses, that is most close to the model of reality that it has internally created. In effect, what we “perceive” is mostly a “guess” of what’s out there.

Philosophers can take it on from here and come up with a whole course on reality and perception .

Over the years, I have found out something about me – I am generally glad to find a punch-bag. Everytime I encounter situations that are uncomfortable for me, that are an irritation for me or that show me in bad-light; I simply go to my punch-bag and beat it up. The more I get present to this habit, the more I am present to just how petty and nasty I am!

I have gotten rather clever and good at picking punch bags every now and then; just so that I can keep them around for when I need them. If I took you to my godown and showed you all my punch-bags you would not be all that amazed – because there is a good chance that you have atleast some of them in your own godown. I have a punch-bag called – “I did not have a girlfriend in high-school”. I have another punch-bag called – “I was not smart enough to get into IIT”. Yet another one called “I was dumped”. “I was humiliated in front of….”. “My mother did not allow me to go out and play sports enough”. “My friends did not keep in touch all that much”. “Some people keep too much in-touch”. “The Police don’t do a good job”. “Politicians are corrupt” And so on. I am sure you can recognize some of my punch-bags from your own godown.

Punch-bags are very comforting. They give an opportunity for ventilating stress that gets accumulated during the normal course of events in life. But the unfortunate part is that I go to my punch-bags very often; almost as if I am uninterested in making space for the events/people/places that show up in life. Everytime I am up-against or in-the-face of a situation that is uncomfortable – I simply dont provide myself an opportunity to be there and experience it fully and may be even transcend it. Because, it is that much more easy to go and beat one or more of my punch-bags. I have done it before and I know that I can beat em up as much as I want.

But this habit is limiting the range of things that I can experience in life. It is limiting my ability to be creative in the face of unpleasant situations. When I discovered this for the first time – I tried giving up my urge to go to my punch-bag and beat it up. And that exercise actually revealed something for me.

I live in a place called Girinagar in Bangalore. Near my house is a public hall where all sorts of cultural and political gatherings take place. Everytime an event takes place, the organizers install those annoying loud-speakers on light-poles all over the locality. Unfortunately though, one of their favorite light-poles is right in front of my bedroom. Usually the events happen around the evening; but the organizers start playing loud music from morning 8 AM! And I am sure no one wants to be in this situation, especially on a Sunday morning – where the “awakening” normally happens around 10 AM. So, anyway, everytime this thing happens – I get irritated and angry. I go beat-up my punch-bag that says “politicians are goondas” and/or “the police dont do their job”. The way I beat the punch-bag is by hurling curses at random imaginary cops and/or politicians and making the scene at home even more irritating for my wife. But, the last time this happened, I gave an opportunity to myself for giving up my punch-bag(s). First I created some space for the loud-speakers and noise to be. This really relieved me of the effort that I had to invest in making them (organizers, police and politicians) as enemies in my mind. I called up the nearest police-station and shared with the cop on the phone what I was going through. He told me to speak to his superior, and then to his superior and so on. Until I managed to speak to the SI of this locality, who was kind enough to visit me at my place and really resolve the issue within minutes. I spoke to the organizers and shared with them that Sunday is really all the my wife and I get to relax and that we really would appreciate if they did not play the loud music. So they turned off the loud speaker near my house, but continued to play light-music near the venue. The Police also gave me the phone number of the local corporator, who also assured on phone that he will ensure control of noise pollution when events get organized. Events still do get organized here and they still do put loud speakers, and I sometimes still have to go talk to the organizers/police – but the these days they are far more sensitive to noise pollution than they were before. So giving up my attachment to 2 of my punch-bags payed-off! It gave me an opportunity to connect to police and corporators, people who I had never connected to in life before. People who I thought are ones that I should always avoid and stay away from. What I discovered was that they were infact very happy to be of support.

Inspired by this – I am giving up all of my punch-bags now. I have emptied that godown. When I am present, I can even catch myself unconsciously stocking up new punch-bags and give it up much before they constrain my ability to just be with things and create space for events/people/places to show up in life.