#american visa for indian

[tushar010297]

Types of American Visas for Indians: Which One Do You Need?

Securing an American visa for Indians can be essential for various purposes like travel, work, or study. According to the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. issued over 1 million visas worldwide in 2022, with India being one of the top countries for visa applicants. Whether you're visiting the U.S. for leisure or planning a long-term stay, understanding which visa is right for your needs is crucial. The U.S. offers a variety of visa categories, each designed for specific purposes. In this guide, we’ll break down the key types of American visas that Indians typically apply for, helping you choose the one that fits your situation.

With the U.S. being a major destination for students, professionals, and tourists, it's important to identify which visa aligns with your goals. From the popular B-1/B-2 visitor visas to the more specific H-1B work visas, the type of American visa for Indian applicants varies based on the purpose of travel. Let's dive into the details of these visa types and clarify which one you may need.

Tourist and Business Visas (B-1/B-2)

The B-1/B-2 visa is ideal for individuals traveling to the U.S. temporarily for business (B-1) or tourism (B-2). It’s one of the most common visas applied for by Indians.

For example, the B-1 visa is suitable for attending business meetings, conferences, or settling estates. Meanwhile, the B-2 visa is meant for leisure activities such as vacation, visiting family, or medical treatment. Both these visas are typically issued for 10 years, with each stay usually limited to 6 months.

Student Visas (F-1 and M-1)

Indian students make up a significant portion of international students in the U.S. The F-1 visa is the most common visa for academic studies, covering students enrolled in colleges, universities, or language programs.

Alternatively, the M-1 visa is for vocational and non-academic studies. This includes technical training programs. Both these visas allow students to remain in the U.S. for the duration of their studies, with options for extension depending on their program.

Work Visas (H-1B, L-1, and O-1)

The H-1B visa is highly sought after by professionals in specialized fields such as IT, engineering, and medicine. Every year, the U.S. allocates around 65,000 H-1B visas, and India consistently tops the list of applicants.

For inter-company transfers, the L-1 visa is designed for individuals moving from an Indian office to a U.S. branch. The O-1 visa is reserved for individuals with extraordinary abilities in their field, such as artists, scientists, and athletes.

Immigrant Visas (Family and Employment-Based)

Immigrant visas are intended for those who plan to live permanently in the U.S. Indians typically apply for family-based immigrant visas, sponsored by U.S. citizen relatives, or employment-based immigrant visas, sponsored by U.S. employers.

The family-based visa is ideal for spouses, children, or parents of U.S. citizens. Meanwhile, the employment-based visa is divided into categories like EB-1 for priority workers and EB-2 for professionals with advanced degrees.

Exchange Visitor Visa (J-1)

The J-1 visa allows individuals to participate in exchange programs that promote cultural exchange. This visa covers students, interns, researchers, and scholars who wish to gain experience in the U.S.

J-1 visa holders are often required to return to their home country for at least two years before reapplying for another U.S. visa. This ensures the exchange program benefits the applicant's home country.

Conclusion

Understanding the different types of American visa for Indian applicants is crucial for making the right decision. Whether you’re a student, professional, or tourist, each visa category comes with its own set of rules and benefits. Be sure to identify your purpose of travel before applying, as choosing the correct visa will streamline your application process. For further assistance, consult the U.S. embassy or a qualified immigration lawyer to ensure you meet all necessary requirements.

[msclaritea]

Daniel Snow, the millionaire owner of RapHouse TV and The Snow Agency is not just East Indian. He doesn't even live in America. It seems as though his favorite activity is looking for and posting as many negative depictions of Black Americans that he and his Indian employees can find. If that's not enough, some of the stories are possibly being 'created'. The teenager, Noah Scurry, for example. A good student and athlete, suddenly starts writing diss raps and appears on video in a Joker mask. We know enough about Hollywood, to know that when they slap a Clown mask on you, it's the mark of death. Do the evil sons of bitches have gun men or assets, stalking young, gifted, Black children? AIPAC admitted on camera that they follow the progress of Black students as young as high school level, to see who they can approach, to boost politically. If they're stalking young black students, who else might be? Most have forgotten that very first episode of BBC Sherlock, but I haven't. The case of the serial killer was just an ordinary cab driver. He admitted that every time he got away with murder, money would mysteriously appear in his account. If you think there aren't people like that, you still do not understand how evil some people in this world truly are. RapHouse TV and Daniel Snow are evil and make money off of Black Americans, and their pain. I just wonder how much help he is getting in the creation of that pain and these stories.

[metamatar]

Employers desire foreign workers who are accustomed to the hazardous work sites of industrial construction; in particular, they specifically solicit migrants who do not have a history of labor organizing within SWANA. In response, labor brokerage firms brand themselves as offering migrant workers who are deferential. Often, labor brokers conflate the category of South Asian with docility; [...] as inherently passive, disciplined, and, most important, unfettered by volatile working conditions. "We say quality, they [U.S. employers] say seasoned. We both know what it means. Workers who are not going to quit, not going to run away in the foreign country and do as they are told.” [...]

For migrants, the U.S. oil industry presents a rare chance to apply their existing skill set in a country with options for permanent residency and sponsorship of family members. Migrants wish to find an end to their tem­porary worker status; they imagine the United States as a liberal economy in which labor standards are enforced and there are opportunities for citizenship and building a life for their family. [...] What brokers fail to explain is that South Asian migrants are being recruited as guest workers. Migrants will not have access to U.S. citizenship or visas for family members; in fact, their employment status will be quite similar to their SWANA migration.

While nations such as the Philippines have both state-mandated and independent migrant rights agencies, the Indian government has minimal avenues for worker protection. These are limited to hotlines for reporting abusive foreign employers and Indian consulates located in a few select countries of the SWANA region. [... Brokers] emphasize the docility of Indian migrants in comparison to the disruptive tendencies of other Asian migrant workers. [...] “Some of these Filipino men you see make a lot of trouble in the Arab countries. Even their women, who work as maids and such, lash out. The employer says one wrong thing and the workers get the whole country [the Philippines] on the street. [...] But you don’t see our people creating a tamasha [spectacle] overseas.” [...] Just as Filipinx migrants are racialized to be undisciplined labor, Indian brokers construct divisions within the South Asian workforce to promote the primacy of their own firms. In particular, Pakistani workers are racialized as an abrasive population.

[...] While the public image of the South Asian American community remains as model minorities, presumed to be primarily upwardly mobile professionals, the global reality of the population is quite to the contrary. [...] From the historic colonial routes initiated by British occupation of South Asia to the emergence of energy markets within the countries of SWANA, migrants have been recruited to build industries by contributing their labor to construction projects. Within the last decade, these South Asian migrants, with experience in the SWANA oil industry, have been actively solicited as guest workers into the energy sector of the United States. The growth of hydraulic fracturing has opened new territory for oil extraction; capitalizing on the potential market are numerous stakeholders who have invested in industrial construction projects across the southwestern United States. The solicitation of South Asian construction workers is not coincidental. [...] Kartik, a globally competitive firm’s broker, explains the connection of Indian labor to practices of the past. “You know we come from a long history of working in foreign lands. Even the British used to send us to Africa and the Arab regions to work in the mines and oil fields. It’s part of our history.”

Seasoning Labor: Contemporary South Asian Migrations and the Racialization of Immigrant Workers, Saunjuhi Verma in the Journal of Asian American Studies

[dorothylarouge]

Tech rightists like Elon like H-1B visa holders because they’re a cheaper source of labor with less ability to object to wages, hours, and conditions than American labor. That’s really the crux of the issue, regardless of Elon’s (frankly hilarious, given the election we just had) efforts to talk up how immigrants Make This Country Great. MAGA, meanwhile, hates H-1B visa holders because they’re vulgar racists who genuinely believe that the stupidest burgerchud is more worthy of a tech job than the most skilled Indian compsci MS. That’s where the tension lies in this split: the rubber meeting the road of rhetorical nationalism vs practical nationalism. Too bad for Elon that he seems to have realized too late that he can’t control the latter like he thought he could!

[tchaikovskaya]

The “you can’t expect me to know about the odyssey because I’m a product of the American education system” discourse happening concurrently but entirely separately from the “we need h1b visas for Indians to fill tech jobs because homegrown Americans are markedly stupider and lazier” discourse is honestly poetic lmfao

[collapsedsquid]

What I discovered was that he was one of 500 Indian laborers who had been convinced to pay $20,000 apiece to come to the US on legal guest worker visas to rebuild storm-damaged oil rigs, on false promises that they could become green cards – the American dream. The workers had raised that money by selling ancestral land and taking high-interest loans. Turns out they’d been dropped into an American nightmare. They arrived into a barbed wire labor camp, where they were forced to pay $1,000 a month to live 24 people to a room, in trailers placed on top of a dump. They were fed frozen rice and moldy bread. And there were never any green cards.

[...]

I still can’t get over the fact that you managed to sneak hundreds of Indian men past armed guards out of a gated labor camp in southern Mississippi. How did you do that?

Without giving away all the details, over the course of months, we orchestrated this escape that was almost out of a heist film. It started with me smuggling Indian ingredients into the camp for Rajan, who took over the cafeteria and cooked these extraordinary meals that nursed the men out of their blank hopelessness into an appetite for something better.

The escape involved a lot of whiskey, cigars, as bribes for the guards, and then an elaborate but fictitious Indian wedding that let us ferry 500 men out of the labor camp into a hotel room, right under the guards’ noses.

[...]

What we didn’t know at the time was that we were up against an Ice agent with corrupt ties to the company, with personal reasons to cover up the company’s scheme and deport the men. When that became clear, we all realized this was going to be a much longer fight – and it took the better part of four years.

[olivafans]

Trump takes Elon Musk's side in H-1B visa debate, says he's always been a fan of the program

President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday sided with his top supporter and billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk in a public spat over the use of the H-1B visa, saying he fully supports the foreign tech worker program, which some of his supporters oppose. Trump’s remarks followed a series of social media posts by Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla (TSLA.O) and SpaceX, who vowed on Friday night to go to “war” to protect the U.S. foreign worker visa program. Trump, who has tried to limit the use of visas during his first term, told the New York Post on Saturday that he also favored the visa program. “I have a lot of H-1B visas in my portfolio, I’m a big fan of H-1B. “I’ve used it many times. It’s a great program,” he said. Elon Musk, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in South Africa, has been granted an H-1B visa, and his electric car company Tesla has been granted 724 such visas this year. H-1B visas are generally valid for three-year periods, although holders can extend them or apply for a green card.

The row was sparked earlier this week by far-right activists who criticized Trump's choice of Sriram Krishnan, an Indian-American venture capitalist, to be an artificial intelligence advisor, saying it would influence the Trump administration's immigration policies.

Elon Musk's tweet was aimed at Trump supporters and immigration extremists, who are increasingly calling for the repeal of the H-1B visa program amid a heated debate over immigration and the place that skilled immigrants and foreign workers bring into the country with work visas. On Friday, Steve Bannon, a confidant of Trump, criticized the "big tech oligarchs" for supporting the H-1B program and called immigration a threat to Western civilization. In response, Musk and many other tech billionaires have drawn a line between what they consider legal immigration and illegal immigration. Trump has promised to deport all immigrants who are in the United States illegally, impose tariffs to help create more jobs for American citizens and severely limit immigration. The visa issue shows how technology leaders like Musk - who played an important role in the presidential transition, advising key personnel and policies - are now attracting the attention of their base. The U.S. tech industry relies on the government’s H-1B visa program to hire skilled foreign workers to help run their companies, a workforce that critics say undercuts the wages of American citizens. Elon Musk spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars to help Trump get elected in November. He has been writing regularly this week about the lack of domestic talent to fill all the positions needed at American tech companies.

[delicatehologramballoon]

Trump sides with Elon Musk in H-1B visa debate, says he's always been in favor of the program…

President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday sided with key supporter and billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk in a public dispute over the use of the H-1B visa, saying he fully backs the program for foreign tech workers opposed by some of his supporters.

Trump's remarks followed a series of social media posts from Musk, the CEO of Tesla (TSLA.O) and SpaceX, who vowed late Friday to go to "war" to defend the visa program for foreign tech workers.

Trump, who moved to limit the visas' use during his first presidency, told The New York Post on Saturday he was likewise in favor of the visa program.

"I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I've been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It's a great program," he was quoted as saying.

Musk, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in South Africa, has held an H-1B visa, and his electric-car company Tesla obtained 724 of the visas this year. H-1B visas are typically for three-year periods, though holders can extend them or apply for green cards.

The altercation was set off earlier this week by far-right activists who criticized Trump's selection of Sriram Krishnan, an Indian American venture capitalist, to be an adviser on artificial intelligence, saying he would have influence on the Trump administration's immigration policies.

Musk's tweet was directed at Trump's supporters and immigration hard-liners who have increasingly pushed for the H-1B visa program to be scrapped amid a heated debate over immigration and the place of skilled immigrants and foreign workers brought into the country on work visas.

On Friday, Steve Bannon, a longtime Trump confidante, critiqued "big tech oligarchs" for supporting the H-1B program and cast immigration as a threat to Western civilization.

In response, Musk and many other tech billionaires drew a line between what they view as legal immigration and illegal immigration.

Trump has promised to deport all immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally, deploy tariffs to help create more jobs for American citizens and severely restrict immigration.

The visa issue highlights how tech leaders like Musk -- who has taken an important role in the presidential transition, advising on key personnel and policy areas -- are now drawing scrutiny from his base.

The U.S. tech industry relies on the government's H-1B visa program to hire foreign skilled workers to help run its companies, a labor force that critics say undercuts wages for American citizens.

Musk has spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars helping Trump get elected in November. He has posted regularly this week about the lack of homegrown talent to fill all the needed positions within American tech companies.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Noah Berlatsky at Public Notice:

Donald Trump hasn’t even been inaugurated yet, and his leading supporters are already tearing at each other’s throats like a pack of frothing and foul-smelling Klansmen over whether there are any good immigrants. “Take a big step back and F**K YOURSELF in the face,” Elon Musk tweeted Friday night in defense of immigrants who worked for him, in response to a Trump supporter with a more hardline view. The spectacle of billionaire Musk, techbro Vivek Ramaswamy, would-be Goebbels Steve Bannon, and gibbering Islamophobe and Trump-whisperer Laura Loomer all screaming and bellowing at each other is entertaining in a morbid way. Acrimony is inevitable in a coalition held together by bile, hatred, and racism. And if Democrats can get their act together, they may well be able to take advantage of MAGA dissension. At the same time, it’s important not to not over-interpret the intra-Trumper feud. Racism is a lie, which means it’s always incoherent — and racist coalitions often therefore end up fighting amongst themselves about who’s in the in group and who gets targeted by the regime. But historically, these arguments at the margins have often coexisted with massive human rights abuses. Ramaswamy and Bannon may disagree about the exact trajectory of MAGA. But they can still come together to hurt a lot of people — and that is exactly what they will try to do.

For MAGA, all bigotry is not created equal

This week’s round of MAGA on MAGA violence was ignited by Loomer, who was most recently in the news for her oddly close relationship to Trump in the weeks following the Butler shooting. On December 23, Loomer attacked Sriram Krishnan, who Trump selected as an advisor on artificial intelligence, criticizing his support for H-1B visas. H-1Bs allow highly skilled workers to come to the US to work and are especially prevalent in tech, where they’re used by many Indian and Chinese engineers. Loomer tweeted that support for H-1Bs was “not America First policy."

Musk, CEO of twitter/X, Telsa, and SpaceX, has claimed to have worked in the US on an H1-B visa himself — though there is some dispute about that — and he pushed back hard against Loomer. “There is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent. It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley," Musk tweeted on Christmas. Then Ramaswamy — co-leader with Musk of Trump’s much-hyped Department of Government Efficiency — poured fuel on the fire. He tweeted that tech companies need to hire foreign workers because “our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence.” He went on to sneer that America “celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ” and suggested Americans who have trouble getting tech jobs are “wallowing in victimhood.” In short, Ramaswamy smeared all Americans, including Trump-supporting white Americans, as lazy and mediocre — tropes usually associated with anti-Black racism. Loomer, for her part, told Musk he had only supported Trump to “protect your buddy Xi JinPing [sic].” Far right pundit Ann Coulter jumped in, arguing that Musk and Ramaswamy only wanted foreign workers because they have few labor protections and are effectively “indentured servants.” (That’s a point progressive critics have made as well.) Musk responded by calling opponents of H-1Bs “contemptible fools” and “hateful, unrepentant racists.” He also appears to have demonetized the accounts of Loomer and other rightwing critics — prompting Bannon to call Musk a “toddler.” Finally, Trump returned from the golf course on Saturday and made a policy statement. Though he’s harshly criticized the H-1B program in the past, he reversed himself and said “it’s a great program.” So Musk seems to have won for now, though who knows what Trump will say next week.

Racism is stupid

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo pointed out that the MAGA spat is the inevitable outcome of “Trump’s deep-seated and extreme transactionalism.” Indeed, Trump has few real policy commitments beyond self-aggrandizement and revenge. Various people — Musk, Loomer, Bannon, RFK Jr., whoever — glommed onto Trump for fame or fortune or to advance their own agendas. Now they have to fight among themselves because Trump himself doesn’t really care enough to impose a vision, much less any kind of discipline.

[...]

It should be no surprise, then, that past racist regimes had similar debates about who to target and who to exempt. For instance, in 1933, when the Nazis issued legislation to exclude Jewish people from the civil service, President Hindenburg objected strongly. He declared that excluding “my old Front soldiers” who happened to be Jewish was “utter anathema to me.” He added, “if [Jewish soldiers] were worthy of being called up to fight and bleed for Germany, they ought also to be seen as worthy of remaining in their professions to serve the Fatherland.”

Hindenburg won that fight — Jewish veterans, including those with a father or son killed in action in World War I, were exempted from expulsion.

Hitler had a much more thoroughgoing investment in ideology than Trump, to put it mildly. But even he had to negotiate initially with members of his coalition. Hitler believed that all Jewish people were enemies of the state, but that notion didn’t jibe with Hindenburg’s lived experience. Racism was incoherent and unconvincing, which meant there was no real principled ground for absolute dictats. So someone with more power like Hindenburg could force Hitler to compromise.

MAGA-on-MAGA violence over H1-B Visas has spilled over into racist attacks by the same people who make racist attacks against people of color on the daily (looking at you, Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk).

[darkmaga-returns]

Over the Christmas holiday, a firestorm erupted on X surrounding the H-1B visa debate. The debate has centered on two factions within the MAGA movement – on the one side are so-called “Tech Bros,” represented by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the co-chairs of President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, or “DOGE.”

This group has endorsed policies like continuing the H-1B visa program, which enables companies to hire foreign workers with “specialized knowledge.” Advocates of H-1B visas justify their position on the purported lack of high-skilled American laborers available today.

Within the tech industry, where the program is especially popular, advocates maintain that there is a shortage of high-skilled computer programmers and engineers, and so H-1B visas are an indispensable part to the long term continued growth of their industry.

Elon Musk personally got involved and added a geopolitical layer to the debate: arguing that without these workers, America would be at risk of falling behind foreign competitors in the race for artificial intelligence, thus opening itself to a parade of national security horribles over the long run if countries like China and India presumably get these workers instead.

Those on the other side of the debate, people like Laura Loomer, Jack Posobiec, Gavin Wax, Josiah Lippincott, and many others aligned with the MAGA movement, stress that H-1B visas preferentially select for foreign workers over native-born Americans.

As a result, Indian and Chinese laborers are getting jobs that otherwise qualified legacy American workers should have. The economic consequences of this policy are twofold: Americans are denied opportunities to work in high-wage jobs, like Tech and Engineering – and even industries like law, which increasingly rely on foreign applicants.

[time-for-opinions]

my current problem with being Indian is that I have such a weak passport, I'll need to wait till 2028 to get a visa to meet my american sister

[gowns]

edit: putting this rant about US american myopia behind a read more

i think that a part of the myopia that US americans have (outside of the sheer amount of propaganda and bread and circuses they have been bombarded with since birth) is that they have the privilege of the US american passport (one that most US americans don't even exercise).

you can always simply "go" places. the whole world is your playground. visas, immigration, exile -- these words mean nothing to the average suburban white bread US american.

so i will see often, in comment sections about palestine -- "they should evacuate!" "they should go somewhere else!" "if they're innocent, they can just go on a trip while israel removes the terrorists--"

and ideological stupidity and ugliness aside,

it's like, no, you don't fucking understand. you don't understand the violence of the border wall. you don't understand what it means to be tied to a land. you don't understand things like, "my grandparents still remember the nabka"; you don't understand the horrors of colonial violence firsthand. your whole life has been a playground, a theme park. thanksgiving is just a day to dress up like pilgrims and indians and eat too much and watch football. and that's the closest that you get to an understanding of colonialism. that it's all a game, with smiling characters.

those who have passports go on honeymoons, backpacking across europe, jetsetting across latin america, whimsical safaris, serene resorts on islands where you can imagine the entire population as your waitstaff or entertainment

which is an experience that is so far removed from -- This is my land. There is nowhere to go. There are guards at the border. We have to move heaven and earth to perform brilliantly in school and maybe possibly be accepted into a university and maybe possibly get a visa and maybe possibly I can earn enough money to provide, to help my family, to save--

the juxtaposition is so jarring to me. this is everything that goes through my head when i see those comments -- "why don't they just go, if they're innocent?" go where? how? do you even think for two seconds? this "conflict" is like a football game to you. you can just tune in and comment on it so dismissively, like you're making fun of a fumbled pass. but it's real people's lives, and their reality is so different from yours, and you don't even stop and think why you are living in such a different lived reality.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

I'm not an African American. I'm an American. I was born on American soil. But I did go back to the motherland, and I loved it. And made millions going back to the motherland. But I was born in America. When the Europeans came to the native Americans. Well, they liked to call them the native Americans, but the Indians' land, we don't call them European Americans. So, I don't want to be called an African American. I'm an American. You can call me a black American, but I'm an American. When I competed in the Olympics, they didn't say I'm African American, they said "that American is fighting out of the red corner or out the blue corner. I love America. I love this country.

Americans don't quite realize how weird they look to the rest of the world. The fact they segregate linguistically is just bizarre. They have the same flag, the same national anthem, the same "football," spell words like "aluminium" incorrectly.

Arnold Vosloo is "African-American." He migrated from South Africa to the US. Oprah Winfrey is just American. Born and raised. She's not an immigrant. She's not visiting. She's not on a temporary visa. She doesn't hold dual-citizenship.

A couple of years ago, I stopped using the term "African American" entirely for exactly this reason - it was a whole Jesse Jackson thing anyway. You're Americans. If it's ever relevant, black Americans or white Americans.

[ndbookstudy]

i am that, nisargardatta maharaj, ch. 96.

Questioner: I am an American by birth and for the last one year I was staying in an Ashram in Madhya Pradesh, studying Yoga in its many aspects. We had a teacher, whose Guru, a disciple of the great Sivananda Saraswati, stays in Monghyr. I stayed at Ramanashram also. While in Bombay I went through an intensive course of Burmese meditation managed by one Goenka. Yet I have not found peace. There is an improvement in self-control and day-to-day discipline, but that is all. I cannot say exactly what caused what. I visited many holy places. How each acted on me, I cannot say.

Maharaj: Good results will come, sooner or later. At Sri Ramanashram did you get some instructions?

Q: Yes, some English people were teaching me and also an Indian follower of jnana yoga, residing there permanently, was giving me lessons.

M: What are your plans?

Q: I have to return to the States because of visa difficulties. I intend to complete my B.Sc., study Nature Cure and make it my profession.

M: A good profession, no doubt.

Q: Is there any danger in pursuing the path of Yoga at all cost?

M: Is a match-stick dangerous when the house is on fire? The search for reality is the most dangerous of all undertakings for it will destroy the world in which you live. But if your motive is love of truth and life, you need not be afraid.

Q: I am afraid of my own mind. It is so unsteady!

M: In the mirror of your mind images appear and disappear. The mirror remains. Learn to distinguish the immovable in the movable, the unchanging in the changing, till you realise that all differences are in appearance only and oneness is a fact. This basic identity -- you may call God, or Brahman, or the matrix (Prakriti), the words matters little -- is only the realisation that all is one. Once you can say with confidence born from direct experience: 'I am the world, the world is myself', you are free from desire and fear on one hand and become totally responsible for the world on the other. The senseless sorrow of mankind becomes your sole concern.

Q: So even a jnani has his problems!

M: Yes, but they are no longer of his own creation. His suffering is not poisoned by a sense of guilt. There is nothing wrong with suffering for the sins of others. Your Christianity is based on this.

Q: Is not all suffering self-created?

M: Yes, as long as there is a separate self to create it. In the end you know that there is no sin, no guilt, no retribution, only life in its endless transformations. With the dissolution of the personal 'I' personal suffering disappears. What remains is the great sadness of compassion, the horror of the unnecessary pain.

Q: Is there anything unnecessary in the scheme of things?

M: Nothing is necessary, nothing is inevitable. Habit and passion blind and mislead. Compassionate awareness heals and redeems. There is nothing we can do, we can only let things happen according to their nature.

Q: Do you advocate complete passivity?

M: Clarity and charity is action. Love is not lazy and clarity directs. You need not worry about action, look after your mind and heart. Stupidity and selfishness are the only evil.

Q: What is better -- repetition of God's name, or meditation?

M: Repetition will stabilise your breath. With deep and quiet breathing vitality will improve, which will influence the brain and help the mind to grow pure and stable and fit for meditation. Without vitality little can be done, hence the importance of its protection and increase. Posture and breathing are a part of Yoga, for the body must be healthy and well under control, but too much concentration on the body defeats its own purpose, for it is the mind that is primary in the beginning. When the mind has been put to rest and disturbs no longer the inner space (chidakash), the body acquires a new meaning and its transformation becomes both necessary and possible.

Q: I have been wandering all over India, meeting many Gurus and learning in driblets several Yogas. Is it all right to have a taste of everything?

M: No, this is but an introduction. You will meet a man who will help you find your own way.

Q: I feel that the Guru of my own choice can not be my real Guru. To be real he must come unexpected and be irresistible.

M: Not to anticipate is best. The way you respond is decisive.

Q: Am I the master of my responses?

M: Discrimination and dispassion practised now will yield their fruits at the proper time. If the roots are healthy and well-watered, the fruits are sure to be sweet. Be pure, be alert, keep ready.

Q: Are austerities and penances of any use?

M: To meet all the vicissitudes of life is penance enough! You need not invent trouble. To meet cheerfully whatever life brings is all the austerity you need.

Q: What about sacrifice?

M: Share willingly and gladly all you have with whoever needs -- don't invent self-inflicted cruelties.

Q: What is self-surrender?

M: Accept what comes.

Q: I feel I am too weak to stand on my own legs. I need the holy company of a Guru and of good people. Equanimity is beyond me. To accept what comes as it comes, frightens me. I think of my returning to the States with horror.

M: Go back and make the best use of your opportunities. Get your B.Sc. degree first. You can always return to India for your Nature Cure studies.

Q: I am quite aware of the opportunities in the States. It is the loneliness that frightens me.

M: You have always the company of your own self -- you need not feel alone. Estranged from it even in India you will feel lonely. All happiness comes from pleasing the self. Please it, after return to the States, do nothing that may be unworthy of the glorious reality within your heart and you shall be happy and remain happy. But you must seek the self and, having found it, stay with it.

Q: Will compete solitude be of any benefit?

M: It depends on your temperament. You may work with others and for others, alert and friendly, and grow more fully than in solitude, which may make you dull or leave you at the mercy of your mind's endless chatter. Do not imagine that you can change through effort. Violence, even turned against yourself, as in austerities and penance, will remain fruitless.

Q: Is there no way of making out who is realised and who is not?

M: Your only proof is in yourself. If you find that you turn to gold, it will be a sign that you have touched the philosopher's stone. Stay with the person and watch what happens to you. Don't ask others. Their man may not be your Guru. A Guru may be universal in his essence, but not in his expressions. He may appear to be angry or greedy or over-anxious about his Ashram or his family, and you may be misled by appearances, while others are not.

Q: Have I not the right to expect all-round perfection, both inner and outer?

M: Inner --- yes. But outer perfection depends on circumstances, on the state of the body, personal and social, and other innumerable factors.

Q: I was told to find a jnani so that I may learn from him the art of achieving jnana and now I am told that the entire approach is false, that I cannot make out a jnani, nor can jnana be conquered by appropriate means. It is all so confusing!

M: It is all due to your complete misunderstanding of reality. Your mind is steeped in the habits of evaluation and acquisition and will not admit that the incomparable and unobtainable are waiting timelessly within your own heart for recognition. All you have to do is to abandon all memories and expectations. Just keep yourself ready in utter nakedness and nothingness.

Q: Who is to do the abandoning?

M: God will do it. Just see the need of being abandoned. Don't resist, don't hold on to the person you take yourself to be. Because you imagine yourself to be a person you take the jnani to be a person too, only somewhat different, better informed and more powerful. You may say that he is eternally conscious and happy, but it is far from expressing the whole truth. Don't trust definitions and descriptions -- they are grossly misleading.

Q: Unless I am told what to do and how to do it, I feel lost.

M: By all means do feel lost! As long as you feel competent and confident, reality is beyond your reach. Unless you accept inner adventure as a way of life, discovery will not come to you.

Q: Discovery of what?

M: Of the centre of your being, which is free of all directions, all means and ends.

Q: Be all, know all, have all?

M: Be nothing, know nothing, have nothing. This is the only life worth living, the only happiness worth having.

Q: I may admit that the goal is beyond my comprehension. Let me know the way at least.

M: You must find your own way. Unless you find it yourself it will not be your own way and will take you nowhere. Earnestly live your truth as you have found it -- act on the little you have understood. It is earnestness that will take you through, not cleverness -- your own or another's.

Q: I am afraid of mistakes. So many things I tried -- nothing came out of them.

M: You gave too little of yourself, you were merely curious, not earnest.

Q: I don't know any better.

M: At least that much you know. Knowing them to be superficial, give no value to your experiences, forget them as soon as they are over. Live a clean, selfless life, that is all.

Q: Is morality so important?

M: Don't cheat, don't hurt -- is it not important? Above all you need inner peace -- which demands harmony between the inner and the outer. Do what you believe in and believe in what you do. All else is a waste of energy and time.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Matt Keeley at NCRM:

MAGA world is fighting over the H1-B visa, which allows nonimmigrant aliens to work in the U.S. in specialized occupations. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) entered the fray with a new screed blaming youth culture. The main fight over H1-B is between big tech and immigration hardliners in the Republican party. People brought over to work on a H-1B visa have specialized skills. These skills can be in any industry—for example, the Department of Labor’s own page specifically calls out “fashion models of distinguished merit and ability” as eligible. But it’s tech workers at the center of the latest row. H1-B visas became a flashpoint following President-elect Donald Trump naming Sriram Krishnan as AI policy adviser, according to Newsweek. Though a naturalized American citizen—and thus not covered by the H1-B—his Indian heritage caused some, including Laura Loomer, to suggest that Silicon Valley is icing out American workers from employment.

[...] Citing her experience owning a construction company, she blames American culture for not “[respecting] hard work and productivity.” “Too many of our young people, are killing their bodies and minds on alcohol and drugs, wasting years and money earning useless college degrees, chasing unrealistic dreams, spending all their time trying to be the next you tuber/content creator/social media influencer instead of pursuing a useful skill set/trade/education in order to become a part of our much needed American workforce,” she wrote. “If you fall in this category, put down the selfie light, and go apply for a job and replace the H1-B visa holders and all the other skilled labor jobs that foreign workers are taking and American companies are desperately trying to hire,” she added. “It’s called building a career, you work your way up.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has come down on the Musk/Ramaswamy side of the H1B fight while mocking youth culture like an out-of-touch boomer by telling young folk to “put down the selfie light.”

[darkmaga-returns]

Well, how about this “fly in the ointment, monkey in the wrench, a pain in the a--” (Die Hard, 1988)?  Just when we thought everything was in place for a single-minded new era — a closed border, reduced inflation, and an end to wokery (among relief from other insane policies of the Biden regime), we have an internecine war on our hands.  Who knew that Vivek and Elon both viewed us as lazy, retarded, and unskilled, unworthy of the jobs millions of foreigners, mostly Indians, have been imported to fill?

Eternally grateful to both of them for stepping up to support Trump and to volunteer their brilliance in an effort to reduce government waste, which is in the trillions of dollars, we thought they grasped the nature of the principal problem with immigration, illegal and legal.  We were wrong.

Like the rest of the left, Vivek and Elon share the belief that foreign workers, not just the “highly skilled,” are desperately needed here in the U.S.  For Vivek, it’s about our tacky culture — prom queens over math whizzes. Vivek and Elon, it turns out, are as dismissive of the American people as the MAGA-hating left.  Disappointed!  It can’t possibly be that these H-1B visa holders are paid less and thus save the tech companies who hire them millions of dollars.  Is it possible, as many very familiar with the scam know, that the whole point is getting cheap labor to displace equally qualified Americans?

What are H-1B visas?  The popular visa, created in 1990, allows U.S. employers to temporarily offer work to foreign nationals who have “theoretical and practical application” of highly specialized knowledge.  Applicants must have a bachelor’s or higher degree in a specific specialty subject, or equivalent, as a minimum to enter the U.S., according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.