The opaque mirror

Today in the office, I take a break from work, close my eyes and sink into my myself. An image of a mirror with a beautiful wrought iron border surfaces. I look at it fascinated, admire the oval shape, the sheen of the glass, the fine working of the metal. And yet, in spite of all my looking I cannot see myself in the mirror. And then the realisation dawns that I am that mirror.

Over the years, a layer of experiences, thoughts, impressions, opinions have collected over the gleaming surface to such an extent that the mirror no longer reflects anything. All I am seeing all the time is the grime that has accumulated on top. Only if I peel away the layers one by one, throw away the scum of dead thought and clean it all up with the laser beam of mindful awareness will I be able to get to the gleaming mirror that is me. My true self. The pure light of consciousness. The unblemished manifestation of divinity. Pure love. It is all there, always there, waiting to be discovered, to be reclaimed, to be brought to light again.

That is the highest purpose of my life.

Chrysalis

The other day I was walking in my front yard, where the grass had grown tall and was interspersed with tiny yellow wildflowers. I noticed a tiny little butterfly alight on one of these flowers. It sat there, light and airy, probing around for nectar when the wind began to blow. Hard. So hard that the flower stalks bent down and the flowers almost touched the ground. I expected the butterfly to get blown off, such a light-looking creature it was. But to my great astonishment, the butterfly stayed on the flower, clinging tightly, even as the flower swayed madly in the wind, tossed here and there. Even as the wind beat on my face and flapped my clothes. I wondered about the strength of the butterfly then, such strong legs it must have to hold fast to that dainty flower in the force of what might have been a strong breeze to me, but which was evidently quite forceful for the grass and the flowers.

I wondered then where this strength came from. Until I remembered the chrysalis. Inside the chrysalis the young butterfly goes through a period of growth. But when the time comes for it to emerge, it has to struggle to break open the walls of the chrysalis. What has been a protective cocoon so far is now restrictive. So it struggles, its efforts pushing the fluid into the wing veins so that they can open up. Its legs and mouth probably straining against the chrysalis walls, tearing them open. Until the butterfly emerges, light and strong.

It seems to me that my struggles have also been like that. Maybe this struggle and pain was necessary for me to break open the walls of my chrysalis and to emerge as a butterfly. Maybe it will give my wings lightness and my legs strength. Maybe it will also give my heart the wisdom to learn to let go of the past, just as the butterfly discards and forgets the chrysalis as it flies away into freedom.


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                       O

A violet vision in a dying day

As I go on my walk I see many flowering bushes, pink roses, spotted tiger lilies, delicately pretty pohutukawas, but today I see a vision that takes my breath away. A bush full of violet flowers, large velvet-petaled and stamens that bend into forks at right angles. The flowers hover like a violet cloud over the bush and even the ground underneath is made beautiful by the fallen violet petals among the autumn leaves.

The autumnal leaves look lovely everywhere, yellow-orange and crinkled, sprinkling the green grass in a violent contrast, on footpaths and huddling on the edges of gutters where the water gleams pink from the clouds above. I walk to the river where the heavy rain has transformed it into a rushing current. The blue waters speckled pink rush merrily along, rippled and foaming, carrying logs and leaves. But for the sound of the river everything else is still as the day dies.

The sun has set in the distant sea but its rays still linger in the sky in a reluctant farewell. The pink in the sky turns deeper into peach and then into a vivid rose as the interspersed clouds turn a deep shade of grey. The trees silhouetted on the horizon turn a dark shade of green. I wonder if we can be like a sunlit day, spread light and warmth while alive and be so gloriously alive in our dying moments that even they sparkle with joy and beauty.

As I walk alongside the stream the song of the flow mingles with the muted music of the birds in the trees. Dusk approaches rapidly and lights come on on the hills among the tiled roofs and the treetops. This is my favourite part of the day. It is as if the day is parting but with the promise that it will be back soon. Somehow there is always hope in the departing light.

As I near the house, night has fallen and the trees appear mysterious among the shadows. If the clouds clear away, soon the stars will be out and hopefully a laughing crescent moon. Everything is so perfect in nature, so effortless, so simple and so beautiful. If only we could learn to live like that.

The silence of night

I was standing outside on the balcony yesterday, in the dark of the night and it occurred to me that the night has a different kind of silence. It is the silence of the stars and the horizon lit up with pale moonlight and the quiet stillness of trees ruffled by the faintest of breezes, and into this silence falls the faint sound of an insect buzzing, and the soft occasional tinkle of the wind chime like a gentle pluck on a sitar string and this dark silence accentuated by the coolness of the night laden with the promise of rain. How can I help but lose myself ?

Before I go to bed I go and stand in the balcony once more. This time the breeze wasn't blowing, so the trees were still and the wind chime was quiet. So the silence was deeper. But there was another beautiful sound. A lone owl was calling in the hills. 'Koo-koo' it called lustily. I read somewhere that the owl calls for a mate, therefore the sound was at once melancholy and hopeful. Hope must spring eternal in the owl's breast for sometimes I do hear an answering owl call. When two owls call in unison, the sound is so beautiful I stop still and listen. 'Koo-koo' one calls and 'koo-koo' another answers in a slightly different pitch. I wonder then that owls must pack a lot of meaning into those two syllables, they must be saying all that they have to say in varying pitches and tones. Who knows, maybe they even make themselves understood. And look at us humans, so many syllables in so many languages and so little understanding of each other, so little understanding even of ourselves. The moon is high in the sky now and so the starlight is a bit dimmed. I stand in the moonlight and bask in it and feel blessed.

Later on in the dead of night, I wake up. The silence is deepest now, even though the darkness is not. There is a tiny sliver of moonlight that escapes through a parting in the curtain and gives the room a tiny glow. And in the deep silence only a humming is heard, which could be the journey of blood in my ears. I feel tempted to remain awake and listen to the silence, but sleep overtakes me.

Zzzzzzz...............

The cycle of life

One moment an insect is sitting on a branch and the next instant a bird eats it up. The insect’s life force is dramatically and instantly transformed into the bird’s. An earthworm crawls on the footpath and is trodden by a foot. This time the transformation is slower and subtler, as it turns into dust and seeps into the earth to be transformed into grass, trees, and fruits. In nature, every instant is one of transformation, of creation-destruction-creation. Only the form changes, but the essence remains the same. Watching this we accept it calmly and tranquilly as the cycle of life.

Yet when it is the turn of someone loved and close to us to die, we put up the greatest resistance to this fundamental truth, we react dramatically with grief, we withdraw into denial, so strongly do we hold on to the illusion of life. The same also happens with relationships to people, places, and jobs. Even if we know that it is time to move on, that the purpose of a relationship is over, even if it brings more pain than comfort, so attached are we to the familiar, so unwilling are we of getting out of our comfort zone, so afraid are we of facing the unknown that we cling on. Letting go is the hardest thing to do and yet it is the one thing that can truly liberate us, free us to be ourselves, help us find out true selves.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. - Mark Twain

It's Good Friday everyday

Today is Good Friday and instead of going to church I am sitting at home blogging. If someone asks me now why I am not in church mourning the death of Christ, I would say that Christ died once 2000 years ago and that was enough, I don't have any plans to finish him off every year, year after year. Besides, I feel him alive within me, so what is there to mourn? Shouldn't I be jubilant and celebrate?

Come to think of it, I haven't even understood why his death is being remembered. It is said that Christ died to save us from damnation. Really? What damnation? At whose hands? Surely not at the hands of an all-loving, benevolent Divine Being who has nothing but love for us. Would any parent send their child to eternal damnation? If we as humans can be accomodating of our children's misdeeds, would not God be too?

It is also said that Christ took all our sins on Himself. But how? How is it possible that we sin and he gets punished? Does that mean then we can merrily go on sinning since he has already paid the price in a one-time horrifying instalment? Somehow this sin-transference theory does not hold much water with me.

Then it is said that he died and was resurrected on the third day. Cool. I don't have any problems with that. But if that's the case, he is still alive, right? Having conquered death. Then why are we putting him up on the Cross in elaborate ceremonies and mummifying him in black robes and burying him in vaults? Hmmm....

Jesus was a human being just like any one of us, but what took him out of the ordinary into the realm of the sublime was that he was able to realise his divine nature. For me the purpose of Jesus' life was to show to us that we too are capable of that. He walked on Earth to show us that we are all Christs-in-the-making. Every instant in which I am aware of my divine nature and connected to the divine being, I am being Christ. But all those moments where I lose that connection and wallow in darkness, I am being merely human, that is my sin. And so in my life Jesus dies and is born again every day. Every day is a Good Friday and Christ is resurrected and Easter comes as soon as I realise that I have forgotten my soul and it has gone into mourning. The only evil is to be in that state of darkness, disconnected from the divine source and the only good is getting back into Christ-consciousness. We do not honour Christ by remembering Him on Good Friday or Easter or during Sunday services, we honour Him by being Him.

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dancing stars and lunchtime ramblings

Last night on TV on 'Dancing with the Stars' I watched Cory the boxer dancing the fox-trot with Nerida the dancer after being coached by her for a week. After the dance one of the judges made a comment that made me think. She said 'Cory, you need to bring out your feminine side especially in a dance like the foxtrot. There can never be any doubt in our mind that you are a man, so don't hold on to that image so firmly, give expression to your feminine side as well, your soft, elegant side'. Hmmmm… that made me think. How true! How we all struggle so valiantly to put on a brave masculine front, including us women. 'Be brave, be a man', growing, little boys are told as tears well up in their eyes, as if giving vent to their feelings is some crime. And look at us modern women, staunchly and stoically we march, mistakenly thinking that by doing so we are being as strong as men and will somehow be considered equal. Why is giving expression to one's feminine side considered weak? How can softness, gentleness, compassion, giving, expressing one's feelings be a flaw?

While I was going to get lunch today, I happened to run into John, an old friend. When he saw me his face lit up, and I suspect mine lit up too. Some spark was lit, a smile came to my face and if he wasn't rushing to a meeting I would probably have got a hug. And walking down the road under the drab, dreary autumn sky feeling lit up from within, I cannot help thinking how we touch people's lives. Even in the smallest most inconsequential meetings, lives are touched and we are transformed in an instant, if only by a fraction, but transformed we most definitely are.

As I continue walking, I see glimpses of beauty in the commonplace -

Slanting hazel eyes, soft with love.

Naughty, laughing youngsters with not a care in the world, the world at their feet.

Trees happily waving their green-turning-to-yellow branches at the autumn sky.

The sun surprising us with a split-second visit.

Liquid elegance in a Swarovski shop window, crystal tamed into the most astonishingly beautiful shapes.

Elegant curlicues on the facades of old buildings.

And under it all the heart of the city, softly beating, beneath the apparent chaos, in understated harmony.

The black, sequinned veil

One night I was sitting in my backyard looking up at the night sky which had obligingly decked herself up very liberally with stars. The Milky Way cut a hazy swathe through these bright glittering jewels and it seemed as though the night was a black, sequined veil spread across the sky.

But as I kept looking up at this fabulous fabric, a shift started taking place in my mind. The tapestry on the sky started to get hazy and dissolve and each star stood out in solitary splendour as I realised that even though stars appear next to each other, they might be millions of light years away in actual space, and so the sky which seemed two-dimensional until then now seemed to stretch out to infinity, and all of a sudden in a flash of insight and a rush of joy, I realised that I was looking up at the universe.

The whole universe was out there, swirling galaxies and twirling supernovas, stars dying and collapsing and new ones being born, hurtling meteors and slow-moving planets. Suddenly the placid, calm night sky became a crackling cauldron of movement, creation and destruction. And then all thoughts dissolved in my mind and I was left gaping in a state of awe and wonder. After that the sky was no longer the limit because there is no sky and no limit, just the limitless Universe.

Who am I?

The other day it occurred to me that whatever the circumstances of my life, poor / rich, healthy / sick, full social life / solitary, happy / sad, the only and greatest treasure in my life is myself. All these other circumstances are external, they pass away or change but I, I remain. Then I began to wonder what that 'I' is. Who am I? I realised that this self-conception changes from day to day or even from hour to hour. Then who is the real I?

Then a flash of insight told me that I am pure potential. What I see of myself is the manifested form. That which I choose to express of my potentiality. In unmanifested form I can be anything and everything, but what I have become is the result of my choices from moment to moment. At any given moment I chose to be sad, joyous, envious, forgiving, fearful and that is what I become. Some of our choices become habit. In the past, unknowingly some kind of situation must have triggered fear in our minds and slowly over time we become habituated to choosing fear in similar situations. What is also unknown to us is that we have a choice every time. Out of our pure potential we have the ability to chose courage, we have the strength to confront our fears.

I have also realised that if I remain aware of my potentiality it gives me power, because now I know that I have choices and I have the power to choose, instead of succumbing powerlessly and choicelessly. Now when I am beginning to feel fear, I can choose courage instead, instead of pain I can choose joy, instead of hate I can choose love. All of them exist in me as what I potentially am , but what I become is the result of my choices.

The light of insight does dispel darkness :)

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Musings on a rain drenched walk

It is late evening and I am taking a walk when it starts to rain suddenly. First in a light smitter-smatter and then in a heavy drizzle. I have no raincoat or umbrella so I let myself get drenched. The raindrops caress my face in gentle strokes and slither down my nose and chin in large drops. And when I look up, in the bowl of the valley among the backdrop of the hills, there it is, a rainbow, a perfect arc, stretching from base of hill to base of another hill. Stark in the vividness of its colour and radiant in its beauty. As I walk, it fades slowly and disappears altogether. Then just as suddenly the rain stops, as if its only purpose had been to paint a rainbow in the sky.

Then it strikes me how effortlessly Nature does things. Without seeming to put in any effort it conjures up a rainbow from thin air. No stress, no striving, no deadlines, no bottomlines, just effortless ease. Just the intention and then the manifestation.

After the rain, the asphalt road has turned a shiny shade of black and the foliage, ah! they have turned a cleaner, crisper shade of green. Moisture hangs in the air like a secret and as I pass by trees, they give off a woody fragrance that mingles with the smell of the damp earth as shadows gather among the leaves and the sun bids a smiling farewell.

My dear Chirrikkuduka :D

Dearest Rajam,

Do you realise it is exactly twenty years since we first met in the corridors of NITIE. I don't know what you gained from that course but I not only did I gain a diploma and a fresh start to a new career but I also met you and you have remained one of my most cherished friends throughout these years. It must have been our individual pain at that time that brought us together and our determination to overcome it that took us to all sorts of unusual places. Do you remember the fair we went to in Matunga and how we tried our hands at almost all the games there. We were like two teenage girls, giggling all the time and eating pink candy floss. I hadn't done that since I was a kid. I don't giggle so much these days my dear, but I'm sure you still do.

I have come a long way since then, geographically at least :))) I'm not sure about my mental and spiritual development but I like to think that suffering and joy have both contributed to my growth. However, I must admit there are still some days on which I feel like a lonely, insecure teenager.

I remember we used to talk for hours, you did all the talking and I did the listening and even though you still complain about my lack of words, I think we should do what we are best at doing. So I will continue to listen, my dear, because it gives me immense pleasure to hear you talk and even more to hear you laugh. I don't know at what point of time you took up residence in my heart but you have lived there ever since. Even though when you went away to Belgium I had thought that our friendship was over.

You probably think that I have reached some high state of spiritual development, but, my dear, my days are as normal as yours. I stumble often and fall just like everyone does. But it is true there are times when I can reach the stillness within and then the dross falls away and only pure light of consciousness remains. Once you have experienced that joy then the pleasures of the world are not worth desiring even, but the senses are so clever they insidiously draw you back and so like everyone else I wallow in the world.

My dear Rajam, as you go about your life please know that my love is with you from moment to moment. And if in a moment of quiet, my thought brings a smile on your face, just think that I have been richly rewarded :) And, my dear, also know that your love for me has been like a golden shimmering thread that runs through the tapestry of my life.

With deepest affection,

:D

A River Soliloquy

I sit by the riverbank watching the river flow. It has a tempo of its own, it flows to the rhythm of nature, the beat of the earth and slowly I relax to match its tempo. My breathing slows down, my body loses its rigidly-held tensions and it feels as though the weight of my burdens fall off and flow away with the waters.

There are fallen logs rotting in the water on the edge, green with moss and coming apart slowly. Looking at them I realize how things come full circle, the cycle of life and death as things return unresistingly to the source. How different is man, how we cling to this transitory life, this false permanence.

Sometimes ducks come out to feed, foraging in the shallow waters. Also black swans, gliding like black clouds over the blue surface, their gait unhurried, their necks graceful. A duck with ducklings joins in sometimes, the babies, balls of fluff frantically following their mother around. Love wells up inside me, and breaking the barriers of my heart it flows towards the little family, embracing them in protection. But occasionally, the duckling number dwindles and I guess the mother learns to let go without attachment.

The river is mostly flowing, the current creating a dancing, rippling surface and a quiet music, but after a heavy rain, the river is muddy and full-bodied and rushing towards the sea. But even in the speed there is calmness beneath. And on some days, the waters are totally unmoving, or seems to be. Then the surface is like a glass lake. The trees on the banks peer at their own reflection even as I do, white clouds glide on the still surface and birds flap their wings and swoop without creating even a ripple. Things are not as they seem, the river seems to say. Be aware of the illusion of things.

a workplace litany

beneath the hum of the air-conditioning
i hear a lone cicada singing.
a strange out-of-place voice
among the honey-comb-office noise.
then just as quickly it fades
as bustle and clamour pervades.

then, in a moment of quiet,
arching, it rises to a height,
a simple, soul-stirring symphony,
a lilting, light-hearted litany.
the most precious things of all,
they speak silently to the soul.

* ** *** **** ***** **** *** ** *

Truth ?

A dear friend and I were having this discussion about Truth, and he kept saying, ‘I want to find out the truth, go deep into things and find it’. And I was wondering, what truth? where is he going to find it? Is truth so limited that it can be grasped by the mind?

When I am in deep meditation, I dissolve into nothingness. There is nothing left, not even the presence of spirit. Even the word ‘nothingness’ is inadequate to describe that state. That is the closest I have got to Truth.

In my opinion, everything else are beliefs, concepts, ideas, that we hold individually or together consensually. They are signposts, illuminations, guidelines, maps to help us navigate through the mine-filled labyrinth of life. But sometimes we espouse them so passionately, make them so inextricably our own that we are sometimes willing to even kill or die for our truths. We condemn and hate and live in fear on account of these truths. We allow these to blind us so completely that we seldom realize or are even aware of the luminous light that is our natural state.

But I guess my friend was looking for answers to questions, for light on issues that needed illumination. I hope he finds them.

An old Tamil song plays....

A haunting Malayalam number from the movie 'Manichitratazhu'


Get Your Own Hindi Songs Player at Music Plugin

Come fly with me...

When I was on my luchtime walk today, I saw a little boy about three dressed in a Superman costume, complete with boots and even a red cape, but sitting in a stroller that was being pushed by his mother. It was so cute it brought a smile to my face, and so incongrous too. Here was a Superman who wasn't even walking let alone flying, I couldn't help thinking.

Then later on it occurred to me that so much like that we are too. Here we are limitless, flying spirits but once we don our physical bodies, we forget all about our boundless nature. Our bodies understandably are bound by gravity but we let our minds too get fettered with convention, dogma, rigidity, 'can't-dos', impossibilites. We don't realise that there is a realm of infinite possibility that we have access to. That anything is possible. We need to get hold of a mental Superman costume and wear it so that we can relearn to fly :)

Anyone interested in flying lessons ?

why?

if God can create the whole universe, can he not take care of my needs? then why do I feel insecure about tomorrow? why do I hoard and hoard for the future, even more than I might ever need? when I let go of these fears, I feel free. I feel like I am floatling weightless in a void. a void filled with love...

A Moroccan story

----- Another gem of a story from the book "Like the Flowing River" by Paulo Coelho. -----

A visitor arrives from Morocco and tells me a curious story about how certain desert tribes perceive original sin.

Eve was walking in the Garden of Eden when the serpent slithered over to her.

”Eat this apple,” said the serpent.

Eve, who had been properly instructed by God, refused.

”Eat this apple,” insisted the serpent. “You need to look more beautiful for your man.”

”No, I don’t,” replied Eve. “He has no other woman but me.”

The serpent laughed.

”Of course he has.”

And when Eve did not believe him, he led her up to a well on top of a hill.

”She’s in that cave. Adam hid her in there.”

Eve leaned over and, reflected in the water of the well, she saw a lovely woman. She immediately ate the apple the serpent was holding out to her.

According to this same Moroccan tribe, a return to paradise is guaranteed to anyone who recognizes his or her reflection in the water and feels no fear.

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If you think you're too small..

“If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito.”

- Anita Roddick

What can I say about her, her life says it all ! http://www.anitaroddick.com/

Sita in the forest

A long time ago when Doordarshan was the only channel on television, they used to telecast these wonderful dance programmes. There is one I haven’t forgotten even after all these years and which I keep remembering very often these days.

It was a lecture-performance and the story being depicted was of Sita and her twins living in the forest. One day, the dancer explains, they set out to collect firewood. They come to this tree and before chopping it down they bow down in obeisance and ask the tree spirit for its permission and forgiveness. Humble and contrite they realize that they are not owners but guests and the rules of hospitality must not be violated. The bowed Sita image comes to mind very often these days.

There are reams and reams of words written and spoken, miles of footage telecast and broadcast on the apocalypse that is coming. Lamentations on the world consuming itself to destruction like a parasite consuming its own host. We are all following the 10, 20, 50 ways to save the planet. And I’m pretty sure it’s all making a difference. But in my opinion unless we establish a connection with Nature, with the Earth, like the ancients did, all these efforts are going to be just superficial. That applies to all of us, rich nations, developing ones, poor countries.

We all have myriads of problems, excruciating job schedules, sick relatives, money troubles, but we don’t forget to eat, do we? Most ofus are strapped for time, but we still make space for love and laughter, don’t we? This connection with the Earth Mother and the spirit that underlies all things is just as existential. Then why do we put it aside? Without it we flounder about lost in the maze of the senses, in a world created by the ego, moving towards artificial goals.

Surrounded by comforts and noise, by mindless activity, we have lost that connection with the elements, we’ve forgotten that we are made up the elements ourselves. We tend to think of ourselves as executives and professionals and powerful. As rich and well-informed and doing better than the neighbours. As having fun and being financially secure. But is that our true nature? We cannot see beyond the labels. We have lost the connection with the source of all things and until we regain that connection all other journeys are going to be futile. That is the only journey worth taking. And we must do it not for our children, not for the planet, but for ourselves.

How can we put our external world in order when our inner world is in shambles? How can we rebuild the planet when our own house is in need of fixing? How can we save the world when we haven’t saved ourselves?

Therefore, I remember Sita in the forest.

The Moment of Dawn

This day when the world over people are celebrating the birth of the messenger of peace and love, I thought I would share a gem of a story I found among the other priceless gems that make up ‘Like a Flowing River’ by Paulo Coelho.

The Moment of Dawn

During the World Economic Forum at Davos, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace, Shimon Peres, told the following story.

A Rabbi gathered together his students and asked them:

“How do we know the exact moment when night ends and day begins?”

When it’s light enough to tell a sheep form a dog,” said one boy.

Another student said: “No, when it’s light enough to tell an olive tree from a fig tree.”

“No, that’s not a good definition either.”

“Well, what’s the right answer?” asked the boys.

And the Rabbi said:

“When a stranger approaches, and we think he is our brother, and all conflicts disappear, that is the moment when night ends and day begins.”

My Lord calls to me

My Lord calls to me
in the early morning light
‘kuhu-kuhu’ she sings
in joyous dulcet tones.

My Lord enfolds me
in the early morning mist,
ethereal and uplifting
like mother’s love.

My Lord sings to me
from the violin’s bow,
gliding on the strings
in heartrending melody.

My Lord looks at me
from beggar-child eyes
in desperate hope,
for alms, for love.

My Lord comes to me
in hands that help,
voices that comfort,
and hearts that hug.

My Lord whispers to me
amid the clamour of worship,
“Be still. Just be. ”
“I am in the silence”.

Look ! This is Love

----- poem by Rumi, Sufi saint -----

Oh, if a tree could wander
   and move with foot and wings!
It would not suffer the axe blows
   and not the pain of saws!
For would the sun not wander
   away in every night ?
How could at every morning
   the world be lighted up?
And if the ocean's water
   would not rise to the sky,
How would the plants be quickened
   by streams and gentle rain?
The drop that left its homeland,
   the sea, and then returned ?
It found an oyster waiting
   and grew into a pearl.
Did Yusaf not leave his father,
   in grief and tears and despair?
Did he not, by such a journey,
   gain kingdom and fortune wide?
Did not the Prophet travel
   to far Medina, friend?
And there he found a new kingdom
   and ruled a hundred lands.
You lack a foot to travel?
   Then journey into yourself!
And like a mine of rubies
   receive the sunbeams' print!
Out of yourself ! such a journey
   will lead you to your self,
It leads to transformation
   of dust into pure gold!

- Rumi

Beyond labels

I am a human being who writes. This insight flashed within me one day while I was in the shower. Aaahhh! Warm water on bare body, great source of inspiration :))) But I decided to follow the thought further. I am a human being who sings in the shower, who has a job, parents, siblings, friends, who cooks and gardens, got a surgery scar on the back, black hair and black eyes. And then it dawned on me that these are all external appellations. That is, even if all these details change, 'I' remain essentially the same. Eg, if I were to lose my job, my experience of life might alter slightly, I might be hard up for money and might get a bit stressed, but the core of me, my essence will not change. Neither will it change if I stopped going to church and started visiting temples or doing the namaaz. Or if I lost my old set of friends and got myself another. These labels that the world puts upon us adheres to us so much and we start identifying ourselves with them so totally that we lose sight of our real selves almost completely.

But how do we free ourselves of these labels? I thought let me play around with the language a bit. Instead of saying, I am a wife, sister, friend, Indian, employee, kind-hearted, passionate - I could say, I am married, I have brothers and friends, I was born in India of Indian parents, I have a job, I show kind-heartedness sometimes, mostly I do things with passion. But these and all the other labels that are stuck on me do not even begin describe who I am. Undoubtedly, these lables are useful for practical purposes and are useful for defining the roles that we are required to play. But I can change all or some of these around and still remain quintessentially Me, free of labels and free of the strings and connotations attached to those labels.

So then, who is this Me? Where do I find myself? When I have done away with all appellations, what is left?

I find myself in stillness, when the mind is totally silent, an awareness arises, alert and dynamic, loving and pulsating with life. Sometimes this awareness expands to fill the whole universe, sometimes it is aware of another loving presence, a laughing, rollickingly jolly presence. A comforting, healing awareness whose presence brings Bliss. Then I realise that there is no Me, just the Divine.To be quintessentially me all the time, to be free of the mind's attachment to labels, to be that awareness every moment, now that is the challenge!

The Sound of Trees

----------- excerpted from ‘Krishnamurti to Himself’ by J.Krishnamurti ----------

OJAI, CALIFORNIA

Friday, February 25, 1983

There is a tree by the river and we have been watching it day after day for several weeks when the sun is about to rise. As the sun rises slowly over the horizon, over the trees, this particular tree becomes all of a sudden golden. All the leaves are bright with life and as you watch it as the hours pass by, that tree whose name does not matter – what matters is that beautiful tree – an extraordinary quality seems to spread all over the land, over the river. And as the sun rises a little higher the leaves begin to flutter, to dance. And each hour seems to give to that tree a different quality. Before the sun rises it has a somber feeling, quiet, far away, full of dignity. And as the day begins, the leaves with the light on them dance and give it that peculiar feeling that one has of great beauty. By midday its shadow has deepened and you can sit there protected from the sun, never feeling lonely, with the tree as your companion. As you sit there, there is a relationship of deep abiding security and a freedom that only trees can know.

Towards the evening when the western skies are lit up by the setting sun, the tree gradually becomes somber, dark, closing in on itself. The sky has become red, yellow, green, but the tree remains quiet, hidden, and is resting for the night.

If you establish a relationship with it then you have relationship with mankind. You are responsible then for that tree and for the trees of the world. But if you have no relationship with the living things on this earth you may lose whatever relationship you have with humanity, with human beings. We never look deeply into the quality of a tree; we never really touch it, feel its solidity, its rough bark, and hear the sound that is part of the tree. Not the sound of wind through the leaves, not the breeze of a morning that flutters the leaves, but its own sound, the sound of the trunk and the silent sound of the roots. You must be extraordinarily sensitive to hear the sound. This sound is not the noise of the world, not the noise of the chattering of the mid, not the vulgarity of human quarrels and human warfare but sound as part of the universe.

It is odd that we have so little relationship with nature, with the insects and the leaping frog and the owl that hoots among the hills calling for its mate. We never seem to have a feeling for all living things on earth. If we could establish a deep abiding relationship with nature we would never kill an animal for our appetite, we would never harm, vivisect, a monkey, a dog, a guinea pig for our benefit. We would find other ways to heal our wounds, heal our bodies. But the healing of the mind is something totally different. That healing gradually takes place if you are with nature, with that orange on the tree, and the blade of grass that pushes through the cement, and the hills covered, hidden, by the clouds.

This is not sentiment or romantic imagination but a reality of a relationship with everything that lives and moves on the earth. Man has killed millions of whales and is still killing them. All that we derive from their slaughter can be had through other means. But apparently man loves to kill things, the fleeting deer, the marvelous gazelle and the great elephant. We love to kill each other. This killing of other human beings has never stopped throughout the history of man’s life on this earth. If we could, and we must, establish a deep long abiding relationship with nature, with the actual trees, the bushes, the flowers, the grass and the fast moving clouds, then we would never slaughter another human being for any reason whatsoever. Organised murder is war, and though we demonstrate against a particular war, the nuclear, or any other kind of war, we have never demonstrated against war. We have never said that to kill another human being is the greatest sin on earth.

---------------------------------------- end of excerpt --------------------------------------

.........

I know that He exists.
Somewhere - in Silence -
He has hid his rare life
From our gross eyes.

'Tis an instant's play.
'Tis a fond Ambush -
Just to make Bliss
Earn her own surprise!

But - should the play
Prove piercing earnest -
Should the glee - glaze -
In Death's - stiff - stare -

Would not the fun
Look too expensive!
Would not the jest -
Have crawled too far!

- Emily Dickinson

Life and I

Life has a lovely way of intruding. Here I am happily cruising along, metaphorically sitting and listening to birdsong and watching the sun go down in the azure sky, when life has to intrude. It knocks on your door and when you refuse to open, it breaks the door down and barges in anyway. It's 'lesson time' it seems to say. Time to pull up your socks and tighten that loose belt of yours, it says with a wry smile on its face. So here I am rudely waken up from my somnolence and wading waist deep in lessons, some of which I hope to imbibe one of these days, once I get a quiet moment from crises that is.

"But what's the point?" I say, "of all these lessons, after all I'm gonna die one day, right? And the lessons to be buried with me, unless I write a ruddy book of lessons (hehehe). "

"But that's the whole point" my soul butts in. "I am here to learn lessons and will not be swayed by a fickle mind."

"Ok, ok, but why get bloodied and bruised in the process? I still carry some old battle wounds and they still hurt in the night sometimes."

"That's because you are so darned stubborn and won't learn from the lessons that life throws at you."

"Well, I guess life should just leave me alone then and let me gaze at the stars like I want to"

"But that is where I want to be too, among the stars, if only you would not get so embroiled in the dramas of life. If you wouldn't take each event in life and turn it into a major production, but instead remain detached and look at it from my point of view, then you could be flying all the time. But you have to get stuck into each event and take it so personally and get a mighty inflated ego if it's a 'success' and a badly bruised one if it's a 'failure' and keep swinging from one to the other in a great attempt to keep yourself in the forefront and keep me seperated from the real business of learning lessons."

"But why can't I learn from other people's dramas? Why does it all have to happen to me?"

"Well, you could and you would if you were quiet enough to observe what's going on beneath the surface. Besides, they are here to learn their own lessons, so they attract into their lives dramas that teach them the lessons they wish to learn. Isn't that amazing?"

"Not really, I don't think my father-in-law would agree, lying in hospital with a IV tube into his arm and a tube into his peeing apparatus, both of which he keeps pulling out"

"I guess that's also the reason why he is living so long and his soul's still with his body. If only people would stop resisting what is and stop insisting that life proceed the way they want it to, and wait quietly for their soul to speak to them, they would know what the real purpose of the experience is and then they would then experience infinite peace."

"So, what the lesson that you have come to learn?"

"Connection with the Divine, connection with the Self, connection with Love, which is all the same thing actually."

"...and what is preventing you from learning that?"

"You! With your incessant chatter, your judgements, your insistence of living in the past or the future. Your 'what-ifs' and 'if-onlys', your insatiable desire to be in control all the time. Your inability to accept things as they are and insistence to change them to fit your limited world-view, all these interfere with my connection with divine wisdom, with stillness and my experience of love which is quite different from worldly love."

"Hmmm… you're right, maybe I should be quiet." (Goes into mute mode, at least for now :)

(plagiarised from various sources, notable among them being 'The Power Of Now' by Eckhart Tolle)

Relationships

Here is a wonderful selection of quotes from the wise on all dimensions of relationships.

"So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it." (J. Krishnamurti)

"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves." (Carl Jung) "To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment." (Ralph W. Emerson)

"Let me tell you something: If you ever let yourself feel good when people tell you that you're O.K., you are preparing yourself to feel bad when they tell you you're not good. As long as you live to fulfill other people's expectations, you better watch what you wear, how you comb your hair, whether your shoes are polished -- in short, whether you live up to every expectation of theirs. Do you call that sane?" (Anthony de Mello)

"The person on a quest for wisdom and spirituality always has a choice facing him: Is he to live in the way others live in order to please them or is he to live in the way his own standards call for? If he lets them pull him down he loses what has taken him many, many years to develop. Somewhere at some point he must take his stand, must plant his feet and refuse to budge any farther." (Dr. Paul Brunton)

"A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates when he becomes a conformist." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

"If a foolish man is associated with a wise man, even all his life, the foolish man will understand truth as little as a spoon understands the taste of soup." (Buddha)

"There is one thing that, more than any other, throws people absolutely off their balance - the thought that you are dependent upon them. This is sure to produce an insolent and domineering manner towards you . . .they soon fancy that they can take liberties with you, and so try to transgress the laws of politeness. This is why there are so few people with whom you care to become more intimate, and why you should avoid familiarity with shallow people." (Schopenhauer)

"A singular strength of mind is therefore required to enable a man to live among others consistently with his own ideas and convictions, to be master of himself, and not fall into the habits or exhibit the same passions as those with whom he associates." (Spinoza)

A disciple confessed his bad habit of repeating gossip. Said the Master, "Repeating it wouldn't be so bad if you did not improve on it." (Anthony de Mello)

"It was once the authority of the priest that held us, and now it is the authority of the expert, the specialist. Have you not noticed how you treat a man with a title, a man of position, the powerful executive?" (J. Krishnamurti)

A Man interrupted one of the Buddha's lectures with a flood of abuse. Buddha waited until he had finished and then asked him, "If a man offered a gift to another but the gift was declined, to whom would the gift belong?"
"To the one who offered it," said the man. "Then," said the Buddha, "I decline to accept your abuse and request you to keep it for yourself." (Buddhism)

"Everything great and intelligent is in the minority." (Johann von Goethe)

"If everyone were nice and pleasant, I would have no opportunity for practical training; so I should be glad to have people to practice on." (G.I. Gurdjieff)

"As you acquire more and more spiritual light, a wonderful thing will happen by a definite spiritual law. What happens is people in love with darkness will move away from you. They want absolutely nothing to do with you. The torment of being unable to pull you back into the mud is too great for them." (Vernon Howard)

"So long as men praise you, you can only be sure that you are not yet on your own true path but on someone else's." (Friedrich Nietzsche)

"Take another example - a roomful of guests in full dress, being received with great ceremony. You could almost believe that this is a noble and distinguished company; but, as a matter of fact, it is compulsion, pain and boredom who are the real guests. For where many are invited, it is a rabble - even if they all wear stars. Really good society is everywhere of necessity very small. In brilliant festivals and noisy entertainments, there is always, at bottom a sense of emptiness prevalent. A false tone is there." (Schopenhauer)

"If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought or deed, I will gladly change. I seek the truth, which never yet hurt anybody. It is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance which does harm." (Marcus Aurelius)

"Spirituality is awareness, awareness, awareness, awareness, awareness, awareness. When your mother got angry with you, she didn't say there was something wrong with her, she said there was something wrong with you; otherwise she wouldn't have been angry. Well, I made the great discovery that if you are angry, Mother, there's something wrong with you. So you'd better cope with your anger. Stay with it and cope with it. It's not mine. Whether there's something wrong with me or not, I'll examine that independently of your anger. I'm not going to be influenced by your anger. "
"Only a very aware person can refuse to pick up the guilt and anger, can say, 'You're having a tantrum. Too bad. I don't feel the slightest desire to rescue you anymore, and I refuse to feel guilty.'" (Anthony de Mello)

"Make not a close friend of a melancholy, sad person. He will be sure to increase your adversity and decrease your good fortune. He goes always heavily loaded, and you must bear half." (Francoise Fenelon)

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured and far away." (Henry David Thoreau)

"Condemning others makes a man oblivious to his own faults, which therefore flourish unrebuked. Many individuals hide their own serious flaws behind a critical spirit. . . They cannot stand the painful operation of being themselves corrected. Such persons expend their energy and intelligence on superficial activities and so have neither time nor vitality left to concentrate on essentials." (Paramahansa Yogananda)

"To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive." (Robert Louis Stevenson)

"Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared." (Buddha)

Requiem

My mind
splits open,
into the chasm
that opens,
I plunge
headlong
in free fall
into darkness,
total.
Groping,
clutching
at a hand-hold.
In the silence,
absolute,
thoughts depart,
feelings fall away,
but my soul -
it finds itself.

Dusk Chorus

Singing,
scolding,
twittering,
clucking,
screeching,
fluttering
birds,
producing
a bouquet of sounds.
I, on the park bench,
drinking it all in.
Soul,
dancing
to the medley.
Rising,
to be one with them.

Let's play the drum for Lord Shiva

I had the occasion to watch a solo Bharat Natyam recital recently in which in one of the pieces the dancer plays tribute to Lord Shiva. Before the actual dance, he explains to us what the piece is about. Among other things he tells us that Nandi, Lord Shiva's vahana loved to play the mridangam for the Lord. He played the rhythm for Shiva's Tandav with absolute joy and devotion.

Then when the dancer starts dancing he depicts Nandi playing with such passion and joy and ecstasy that I was totally floored. I couldn't help thinking "Wow! Look at Nandi play for Lord Shiva, if only we could play like that". If only we could go about our daily life and act and talk and think like Nandi played the drum for Shiva, wouldn't that be awesome. If underlying each of our actions there was love, just like Nandi had, wouldn't our drumbeat be just as ecstatic. Wouldn't our actions then be free of any expectation of acknowledgement or recognition, after all we are playing for Lord Shiva, right? Applying the laws of karma, if our actions are performed with love, wouldn't love then return to us. Isn't that a super deal?

So, just like Nandi did, let's play our drum for Shiva. With love and passion. After all, this life too is a Tandav. This life too is a celebration and a creation.

random snapshots - 2

the wind in the trees,
song birds and wind-chimes
playing ‘antakshari’
cat nestled in my lap
loving strokes on velvet fur
or is she stroking me?

moonlight on the carpet
in lacy filigreed patterns
God’s little love message
your scent on my breath
long after you have gone
souls refusing to part

a voice on the telephone
tender, motherly love
a child I will always be
ashes of my dreams
poured into my pen
how the poems bloom!
~~~

Spring blossoms and godly contests

Ah! Spring is here! There are flowers everywhere and red, tender leaves at the tips of branches. Our plum tree is aglow with buds turning into blossoms on all the lichen-covered branches with not a single leaf in sight. The daffodils are out in full bloom, whole beds given over to these smiling, yellow-headed bell-shaped beauties. It lifts my heart and brings on a smile whenever I see daffodils nodding gently in the breeze.

The variety of flowers is amazing, from tiny star-shaped white flowers cascading over fences to large magnolia and rhododendron clusters. When I go on my walks I pass a tree bare except for pink flowers. I stand under the tree looking up at the blue sky visible through the lattice of delicate pink. And I feel like a queen.

Once I saw a tui bird, a distinguished gentlemanly fellow with a dark green body and a small white pompom at its throat looking like a bowtie, having his meal. It had a long tapering beak which it tucked into yellow bell-shaped flowers and drank deep of the nectar. then it skipped on to another branch and did the same. I stood watching it in fascination until it few away.

At the crack of dawn, the ‘Dawn Chorus’ starts its combined singing, sweet, dulcet tones combine with chirrupy warbling to create unusual melodies. And just as quickly they fade away as the birds take off for the day in search of food and other pursuits. The same is repeated in the evening as the birds come home to roost. Occasionally a lone owl calls in the dead of the night.

There is an ongoing contest between the rain god and the sun god. For the past few days the rain god has been winning, so the rain has been steadily falling even at night when I wake up to the steady beat of the rain on the roof. My office window looks out to a verdant view. The mist sits on the hilltops and the folds between the hills and it looks like the hills are in dreamland with their heads in the clouds. The trees and the grass are a fresh shade of green which only rain can conjure up. And the red-tiled roofs contrasted against the green looks striking. The windows are sprinkled with tiny streams of rain water which look more beautiful than any decoration.

But the sun god watches from behind the clouds, smiling. He knows his day will come, when the clouds will disappear and people will look up smiling at the blue sky and bask in the sunshine, and his light will wink off faraway windows, and dance on the surfaces of leaves rustling in the wind, and shimmer on the tops of rippling waves.

The rain and clouds are only temporary while the sun is always there even if you don’t see it sometimes. Just like God.

random snapshots

clothes drying on the line
fluttering madly in the wind
longing to be free.

sunbeams on the water
peering into the depths
greeting sunbathing fish.

cars lined up on the highway
gleaming metal on black ribbon
playing ‘catch-me-if-you-can’.

a voice on the telephone
energy impulses / sound waves
makes or breaks a life.
long, intimate silences
on lazy languorous afternoons
when only the Soul speaks.

insect-buzz and birdsong
in the silence of a forest
God listening to Himself.

~~~

The bridal night

The night is cloudy and still. A lone owl hoots in the distance. A sad melancholy sound. The trees are unstirring, the birds asleep. But in the sky a spectacle unfolds. The clouds move across the sky in a slow, dreamy motion. Soft, pale and wispy, they are lit up with a gentle glow. Suddenly, the clouds part and the deep black sky appears. Stars twinkle one by one. And then she emerges, the ethereal bride, half her face in shadows, the other half blushing a soft shade of red. And just as quickly the clouds hasten to cover her face, as if afraid of the evil eye.

But I am patient, I stand in the cold night air, wrapped in a blanket, looking up at the sky. The clouds have taken on a pink glow and glide across the sky like a bridal procession. Then they grant me one more glimpse. The dark sky reappears, more stars twinkle and the bride reveals her face again. The shadows are deeper and the blush has brightened. She laughs at me and I laugh back at her. The blushing bride in a dreamy sky. On the night of the total lunar eclipse. A celestial hide-n-seek. A surreal, moving, memorable experience.

I dwell in Possibility

I dwell in Possibility
A fairer House than Prose.
More numerous of Windows
Superior--for Doors.

Of Chambers as the Cedars
Impregnable of Eye.
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky.

Of Visitors--the fairest,
For Occupation--This,
The spreading wide my narrow
Hands To gather Paradise.
- Emily Dickinson

If only I could

If I could have your shoulder again,
I would soak it with my tears.
If I could have your lap again,
There I would lay my fears.

If I could hear your voice again,
I would stop still and listen.
If I could see your smile again,
With joy my world would glisten.

My love of music I got from you,
My passion for books was yours too.
Your gentleness lives on in my heart,
Nature and beauty a lovely part.

The trees you planted grow tall and strong,
The house you built weathers on and on.
Your presence I sense in the fragrant scene,
When you left, you became one with me.

Eulogy

Your hand on my head is gentle still,
Your kiss on my forehead tender,
Heartfelt are your blessings still,
Your love as always overfull.

Why would I weep and moan and groan,
And rend my clothes asunder?
From this useless shell, empty and worn,
Oh gentle spirit, long have you flown.

Death may have pulled a trick on us.
And torn this bond asunder,
But how can there be a goodbye
When I hold you deep inside?

My place of worship

I have a litle forest in my backyard, tall trees grow close together along with ferns and bamboo and flowering bushes and the ground is carpeted with brown, rotting leaves. On sunny days, sunlight slants in and lights up the spaces in between. Leaves rustle in the still air and sometimes birds call in lilting cadences. This is my place of worship. The trees standing tall are the columns of the temple and the bushes are the altars. The birds are the unrehearsed choir and the camelias are the offerings. Here my soul bows to a gentle presence, here my soul sings His rhapsody, here I touch His soft-footed feet, here I find my God.

Twenty Special Secrets

1. When two people meet, the prize always goes to the one with the most self-insight. He will be calmer, more confident, more at ease with the other.

2. Never permit the behavior of other people to tell you how to feel.

3. Pay little attention to what people say or do. Instead, try to see their innermost motive for speaking and acting. (Now, apply this very same rule to yourself and you become an enlightened person!)

4. Any friendship requiring the submission of your original nature and dignity to another person is all wrong.

5. Mystically speaking, there is no difference between you and another person. This is why we cannot hurt another without hurting ourselves, nor help another without helping ourselves.

6. When we are free of all unnecessary desires toward other people, we can never be deceived or hurt.

7. You take a giant step toward psychological maturity when you refuse to angrily defend yourself against unjust slander. For one thing, resistance disturbs your own peace of mind.

8. You understand others to the exact degree that you really understand yourself. Work for more self-knowledge.

9. Do not be afraid to fully experience everything that happens to you in your human relations, especially the pains and disappointments. Do this and everything becomes clear at last.

10. The individual who really knows what it means to love has no anxiety when his love is unseen or rejected.

11. If you painfully lose a valuable friend, do not rush out for a replacement. Such action prevents you from examining your heartache and breaking free of it.

12. Do not be afraid to be a nobody in the social world. This is a deeper and richer truth than appears on the surface.

13. Every unpleasant experience with another person is an opportunity to see people as they are, not as we mistakenly idealize them. The more unpleasant the other person is, the more he can teach you.

14. You can be so wonderfully free from a sense of injury and injustice that you are surprised when you hear others complain of them.

15. We cannot recognize a virtue in another person that we do not possess in ourselves. It takes a truly loving and patient person to recognize those virtues in another.

16. Do not mistake desire for love. Desire leaves home in a frantic search for one gratification after another. Love is at home with itself.

17. There are parts of you that want the loving life and parts that do not. Place yourself on the side of your positive forces; do all you can to aid and encourage them.

18. You must stop living so timidly, from fixed fears of what others will think of you and of what you will think of them.

19. Do not contrive to be a loving person; work to be a real person. Being real is being loving.

20. The greatest love you could ever offer to another is to so transform your inner life that others are attracted to your genuine example of goodness.

- Vernon Howard

Father

One night a father overheard his son pray:
"Dear God, Make me the kind of man my Daddy is."
Later that night, the Father prayed,
"Dear God, Make me the kind of man my son wants me to be."

-- Unknown

The Imposter

Laugh not your lifeless laugh,
Shake not your fleshless bones.
You have stalked us through life,
Through every living moment.
Relentless, you have followed us
Through our nights and our days.
You have cast your shadow on our sleep,
And eaten with us at our table.

But now your stealthy steps bring no dread,
Your deathly pallor frightens me no more.
For I have pulled aside your dark mask,
Unafraid, I have looked you in your face,
I have parted the veil and exposed your lie.
For all I can see is life everlasting,
A journey endless, a peace eternal.
Proud death, you are but an imposter.
---------------------------------------------

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting. - Wordsworth

--------------------------------------------------------

Writing

Writing is essentially a solitary activity. When a writer writes he enters the dark cave of his mind, where no one else can enter, sets fire to his soul, fuels it with his joy and his pain and everything else in between and hopes that the ensuing light will pour into his pen and transform itself into words. After he has done with putting it down, he has finished his work, he has answered his calling. A writer who seeks fame and recognition is a peddlar of his soul.

Haiku

The ashes of my dreams
I have poured into my pen,
Look, how the poems blossom !

A place called home

There is a place called home
Where my spirit moves among the trees
And rises as sap into the leaves
And rustles as the wind beneath birds’ wings.


There is a place called home
Where yellow wildflowers sprinkle the grass
And always amaze me with their love for life
And fairies dance beneath the toadstools.

There is a place called home
Where my spirit sings to the drumbeat of rain
On the roof, and stands in awe to the moan
Of the wind wailing against the walls.

There is a place called home
Where my spirit soars to the twinkling stars
In a cloudless sky and trips across the Milky Way
And the moon rises laughing behind the hills.

There is a place called home
Where my spirit rests in the hollow of the valley
Nestling among verdant hills lit up with the laughter
Of a hundred, babbling, sparkling brooks.

The crumbling conversation

I stand before your door, dear friend,
Desolate, begging, bowl in hand,
Asking a crumb, a stitch, a caring hand,
This broken heart with which to mend.

But talk you would of the weather vane,
The howling wind, the thundering rain,
While my heart lashed with stormy pain,
Seeks a solitary, soothing word in vain.

Of war and peace you talk of next,
Of orphans, widows, of seething unrest,
While peace has fled my ravaged heart,
And sleep is but a fleeting guest.

Surely India cannot be left behind,
The wealth, the growth, the prospering land,
My hunger meanwhile gnaws and growls, and
The bowl grows heavy in my hand.

Where are those radiant, open lines of trust?
Those shining pathways to your heart,
How well you play a stranger’s part,
While the bowl sadly crumbles into dust.

The serene air

The day dawns misty and rainy, the hills outside our window fade in and out of the mist like specters. The rain is a fine spray on the windshield. As the train runs past the sea the hills in the distance are completely obscured by the mist and the bay looks like an open sea, vast and endless. There is no colour visible except varying shades of grey from white to a shiny, steely blue, and Mt.Victoria rises in the distance like a ghost hill, mysteriously stripped of the dwellings clinging to its sides. In spite of the dark, brooding sky and the colourless landscape, I feel a serenity matched by the floating mist, the still air and the gentle presence of God in the wind gently caressing the steel sea.

Love or Sacrifice?

Being an Indian woman, years of conditioning have taught me to sacrifice. Sacrifice my needs, my wants, my desires, my dreams for the needs of others. But in my book sacrifice is a bad word. If you are giving up something for someone else it should be out of love, willingly, it should be an act of love, a giving, then it blesses you and the receiver too. But sacrifice implies that you are doing it out of obligation, it is forced out of you by conditioning, by a sense of duty, there is an element of force to it, albeit hidden. Or it is done out a hidden fear, as if you might lose something if you didn’t sacrifice..

So we have been taught to sacrifice, we are told the rewards are many, all to be reaped in the afterlife. And maybe there are rewards in this life too. For sacrificing allows a person to feel morally superior, self-righteous even, all the brownie points that you collect to be redeemed according to the Law of Karma. And often it is used as emotional blackmail, as in “I sacrificed my life for you and you can’t even do this little thing for me….”. It gives you leverage over others. But in the final analysis, in total honesty, if can you look deep into your heart, it is quite possible that you mind find anger and resentment, a touch of bitterness even, over all the things that you sacrificed, because you did it not out of love.

Therefore, above all, love yourself. Like Buddha said “You can look the whole world over and never find anyone more deserving of love than yourself”. Then you are brimming with love and it flows in all directions towards all things. Then there will be no need to sacrifice, because all your acts will be acts of love.

All things are possible

Today evening as the train goes by the sea, I can see the clouds sitting atop the hills, grey clouds with rosy plumes like exotic birds, and the water rippling silver with the faintest touch of pink. And the folds in the hills lit up by the reflected rays of the setting sun. And I ask God how he paints a masterpiece on the sky every evening. He says, "All things are possible with me, all things are possible with you too". Somehow it is very comforting to know that my life is in the hands of someone so loving, so creative and so encompassing.

You come to me, always

On gloriously alive mornings,
The golden light slanting.
You come to me, laughing
As playful sunbeams, tripping,
Dancing, kissing my face.

On bright, sunlit afternoons,
Walking towards the hills,
You come to me, smiling
A beauteous vision of wildflowers
Around a sudden bend.

In the hush of twilight,
As the night falls gently.
You come to me, joyous
On the velvet wings of birds
Coming home to roost.

In the still of the night
Shadows asleep ‘neath the trees.
You come to me, soft-footed
As silvery moonbeams, treading
Tiptoe across the grass.

In the warm embrace of sleep,
Mind still, heart at peace.
You come to me, singing
Sweet melodies of spirits
Mingling, merging, becoming one.

Like a dream come true……

A Return to Love

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate,
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous -
Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people
Won't feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone,
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously
Give other people permission to do the same.

- Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love

Trees

I think I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth’s flowing breast.

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray.

A tree that may in summer wear,
A nest of robins in her hair.

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

- Joyce Kilmer

Flower musings, pumpkin and lemon

It is Sunday morning and I am in the backyard. This part of our yard is secluded; it is cut off from neighbours’ eyes by fencing and from our house by thick clumps of trees, like my own piece of paradise. The cranberry bush is laden with fruit and I pluck them off and eat the sweet, juicy berries as a prequel to breakfast. The pumpkin vine in the vegetable patch gleams a tender green, the leaves with tiny translucent spikes, and a pumpkin in the early stages of infancy. There is also a single bloom, yellow and radiant, with a bell like base flaring into the delicate petal. I peep inside and to my wonder and surprise there is a bee inside, doing a kind of dance which I’m sure only the bees know the steps of. It is such a wondrous sight, nature in the process of symbiosis, giving and taking, wordlessly.


I walk past the clumps of trees, giving off a woody fragrance, exclusive to trees on early mornings or under damp, moist conditions and my heart rises in joy and gratitude like as if the trees had just sung a ghazal. Past the bird bath, the water turned rancid and brown, and the elegant ferns with fronds rising like fans fit for queens, till I reach the lemon tree. There are a few flowers and fewer fruit, nature is winding down for winter. Lemon flowers have this most delicately exquisite fragrance and when the tree is in full bloom, I just stand next to it and drink of the smell or when I am passing by, a whiff hits me and makes me pause and remember that the beauty in life lies in the tiny, imperceptible things that we so often unknowingly pass by.

Weekends, among other things …………

There is a practice here in the workplace that I found a bit odd in the beginning – asking about your weekend. I used to find it difficult to answer at first, but then I realized that it was just a means of starting a conversation. You are free to say anything you want, even invent something and often it leads to other discussions that can get quite interesting.

Then one day I said to a friend “why do you ask me what I did on the weekend, I might tell you all that I did but not what I experienced. I might not tell you that I stood on the balcony at night and watched the full moon rise over the trees and even the clouds that hung over the moon couldn’t dilute the magical quality of the light that filled the sky and lit up the hills, the trees, the grass, the house with a gentle, dreamy light. And in spite of the moonlight, the stars twinkled and the universe that stretched out into eternity, God’s benediction everywhere, His lovely smile everywhere.

Or that the petals of the rose that felt velvety to the touch, God’s love and his joy of creation in every fragrant whorl, as if God’s saying to me, ‘Let you every act be an act of love, my child. Let your every thought, every word create beauty, bring harmony, introduce joy’.”

Daybreak

Today morning I am catching the early morning train which is rather unusual but such a treat. The day is just breaking and patches of silvery sky are visible behind the clouds. The river gleams silver into the distance where it meets with the sea. The is a lone paddle boat in it, the rider gently paddling away like a ghost oarsman. As we come to the sea the scene is eerie, the hills are in shadows and water is a rippling sheet of silver, the light cast by the sunlight escaping from behind soft, cottony clouds has a mystical quality to it. There are a group of oarsmen rowing a canoe in perfect unison. Wellington gleams dully in the distance caught by stray patches of light, willing it to wake up.

Daybreak is a herald of new beginnings, like God has kept his promise and it is up to us to seize the opportunity. It brings hope and light into the darkness that has gone before and the light breaking out through the gaps in the clouds fills my heart with gladness and joy.

Surprising enough the train is full, Wellingtonians like to start early. But the sleep tugging at my eyelids reminds me that I am a nightbird still.

The Deep

I want to go,
to the middle of the sea,
and lie face down,
with my back to the sun,
looking into the depths.

At some point I will succumb
to those watery arms.
Body racked, with want of air,
until I start to inhale,
water filling up the lungs,
also the stomach,
bloating, exploding.

I don’t know when
my soul will leave the body.
Will it be sad?
Disappointed ? Glad ?
Will some animal dine on the shell?
Or will it be washed up
on some forgotten shore?

A thin line of reason
holds on to this life,
but the desire is long gone.

One heck of a lady

There are lots of things about Kiwis that are commendable but their die-hard spirit and independence often stand out.

My friend's 80 year old mother suffers from Leukemia (incurable) and her Dad (also 80) from Alzheimers, who sometimes has difficulty remembering who he is and who his wife is (who is the old lady with grey hair in the other room?). Both of them live by themselves and refuse to move into the children's homes. Her Mum drives herself and her husband around, does the shopping, housework, pays the bills etc. When her blood count drops, she requires transfusions and last month she had to be rushed to hospital with a clot in the leg.

So yesterday when my friend said to me that her Mum's going to Australia alone for two weeks, I was surprised. I asked "Why?"

"Oh ! She's got cousins. She has put Dad in a respite home so he'll be okay. She said she needed a break and wanted some time to herself".

All I could say was 'WOW !"

I know that different people will call it different things, but I call it 'nurturing yourself'.