Nostalgia

I had to post this because it's so well-written and reminded me of some old times ...

DIL PUKARE, AAREY AAREY AAREY by Paromita Vohra

Now, when the weather turns hot and still, making the wisp that is the Bombay winter a faint memory and the decision to buy a top floor house feel like a mistake, I head for Aarey.

I have robust friends, hardy hearties who said they walked in Aarey everyday. This I put down to wholesome extremism. As far as I knew Aarey Milk Colony (what was it anyway? A toy town made of bulging milk packets?) was somewhere in the wilds. Old people used to go there for that arcane entertainment – picnics. Going so far to take a walk? Why not pool in for a community treadmill?

Then I discovered the word pagdandi – the mud path near Fantasy Land which led to a broken wall – when you slipped through it you were…where were you? What was this place where the temperature dropped by a couple degrees and there was nothing but creepers, trees and the odd lazy dog (no, not me, a real dog)?

I approached Aarey gingerly, walking along the edges, keeping the distant line of buildings always in sight, unlike my friends who “walked till New Zealand”, which I assumed was some esoteric walkers metaphor. The roads sloped up and down, lined by prehistorically dense thickets, a moist and mysterious green. There were carpets of yellow summer flowers on the path, orange rashes of gulmohars in the sky. Supposedly, there was a lake somewhere, a café on the hill to the right but I was ok not adventuring that far in.

Soon the silence and the beauty seduced me. The criss-cross lanes, the abandoned buildings, the regular walkers with their fractional nods of acknowledgment became familiar, reassured me into going deeper till I reached New Zealand – the New Zealand Hostel for students of something dairy. It marked a sort of mid-point. Past that you were heading to Goregaon.

Aarey was a huge pool at the heart of the pavementless suburbs, us on one bank, our Sai Baba complex friends on the other. A big apple you could take chunky bites of at will, roaming randomly on a different route each day.

For a while the less intrepid stopped going, because we were scared of panthers. But perhaps the panthers and us need to fear the same people.

Now Aarey has a busy arterial road and a film studio so we have to enjoy it in sections like an orange. Febrile developers nibble illegally at its edges. Some ministers would like to make a meal of it – sell the whole lot off to solve the city’s fiscal problems.

While we can, we trudge through this secret wonderland, this enchanted wood which softens the city summer, quiets the troubled city heart.

The link is at - http://www.parodevi.com/?p=119

Despair

I oscillate between

hope and hopelessness,

I wish the pendulum would fall

and be a guillotine.

Do you have an 'I' infection?

Symptoms are similar to narcissism; obsessively talking about oneself, ignoring other people when they talk with you, thinking about what you are going to say next instead of actively hearing what the other person is saying, failing to ask meaningful questions, verbal vomiting on your friends, sending people emails asking them to join your business or like your fan page without asking them about their life or interests.

Treatment involves being Interested vs. Interesting. Try getting to know your friends and prospects first! Then if they ask about what you do - share a little...

We've all met them, some simply do not recognize them because they are so lost to themselves they have chosen to live vicariously through those others. Look for a dominance of "I" words and a lack of "we" or "you" words...

~ Jack Ricci

Elections 2011

It’s election time here and this weekend the country will go to the pools to elect a new government. In the run-up to that, TV channels have been telecasting debates and today I happened to watch the debate between the two leaders - the incumbent Prime Minister and the leader of the major opposition party. First off, what impressed me was the manner of the interviewer / mediator. No fuss, no bum-kissing, no sucking up. In true journalistic style, he introduced the participants and left them to do the talking and interjected only to cut short rambling speeches, ask pertinent questions, and call for breaks.

The two contestants were perfectly gentlemanly in their behavior. Each of them, with obvious pleasure, proceeded to point out the defects of the other party’s policies, shred to pieces their track records, and even pinpoint and highlight the gaffes and muddles the other has delivered in the past. And all this without raising their voice. For me, who grew up on the theatrics of that spectacle - the Indian Parliament, it was amazing. I sat there paying only scant attention as they discussed matters of national importance, just waiting for the drama to begin.

In the Indian equivalent, in a similar situation, the contestants would have been shouting down each other, papers, mikes, maybe even shoes would have been flying, and expletives would have to be silenced by the TV crew. It was such a great relief to have witnessed a debate with tempers kept in check, no drama worth reporting and matters conducted in the most civilised manner. It was a relief and an education.

Gratitude

The visuals are stunning and the words are simply divine.....

Watch the video here

And please take the time to ponder ....

A different way of seeing

Sitting here in my lounge on a balmy late spring afternoon, listening to my favourite music and watching the roses outside nodding their heads in the breeze, I cannot help think how simple are the things that make life beautiful. And almost free. The sun pouring down on the trees, grass, leaves and making the flowers light up with an incandescence does not demand a fee. Neither does the breeze, though not visible, indicates its movement by leafing its fingers through everything that comes in its way. And yet, how easy it would be to miss all this, the simple, yet profound beauty of it. If the TV had been switched on, or if my mind had been pre-occupied with the mundane details of life, all this would have been passed over as if they didn’t exist at all. I guess, that’s what happens with every moment, if we see things merely with the physical eye, just recording and then going over to the next experience, we miss the beauty which is inherent in every moment.

Every moment that we are given is perfect as it is, it is our minds that interprets it as being good or bad. If the expectation is met of how the moment should turn out to be, we are pleased, if not, then we react with disappointment. But if we do not meet any moment with expectation but meet it with just a open-hearted welcome, then events will lose their power to disappoint us. Each moment will be fresh and new to our experience. And if we begin to see with the eye of the soul rather than just with the mental eye, then the hidden beauty in all is revealed.

Insult

"Each situation has to become an opportunity to meditate. What is meditation? Becoming aware of what you are doing, becoming aware of what is happening to you.

Somebody insults you: become aware. What is happening to you when the insult reaches you? Meditate over it; this is changing the whole gestalt. When somebody insults you, you concentrate on the person— "Why is he insulting me? Who does he think he is? How can I take revenge?" If he is very powerful you surrender, you start wagging your tail. If he is not very powerful and you see that he is weak, you pounce on him. But you forget yourself completely in all this; the other becomes the focus.

This is missing an opportunity for meditation. When somebody insults you, meditate.

Gurdjieff has said, "When my father was dying, I was only nine. He called me close to his bed and whispered in my ear, 'My son, I am not leaving much to you, not in worldly things, but I have one thing to tell you that was told to me by my father on his deathbed. It has helped me tremendously; it has been my treasure. You are not very grown up yet, you may not understand what I am saying, but keep it, remember it. One day you will be grown up and then you may understand. This is a key: it unlocks the doors of great treasures.'"

Of course Gurdjieff could not understand it at that moment, but it was the thing that changed his whole life. And his father said a very simple thing. He said, "Whenever somebody insults you, my son, tell him you will meditate over it for twenty-four hours and then you will come and answer him."

Gurdjieff could not believe that this was such a great key. He could not believe that "This is something so valuable that I have to remember it." And we can forgive a young child of nine years old. But because this was something said by his dying father who had loved him tremendously, and immediately after saying it he breathed his last, it became imprinted on him; he could not forget it.
Whenever he remembered his father, he would remember the saying.

Without truly understanding, he started practicing it. If somebody insulted him he would say, "Sir, for twenty-four hours I have to meditate over it — that's what my father told me. And he is here no more, and I cannot disobey a dead old man. He loved me tremendously, and I loved him tremendously, and now there is no way to disobey him. You can disobey your father when he is alive, but when your father is dead how can you disobey him? So please forgive me, I will come after twenty-four hours and answer you."

And he says, "Meditating on it for twenty-four hours has given me the greatest insights into my being. Sometimes I found that the insult was right, that that's how I am. So I would go to the person and say, 'Sir, thank you, you were right. It was not an insult, it was simply a statement of fact. You called me stupid; I am.'

"Or sometimes it happened that meditating for twenty-four hours, I would come to know that it was an absolute lie. But when something is a lie, why be offended by it? So I would not even go to tell him that it was a lie. A lie is a lie, why be bothered by it?"

But watching, meditating, slowly slowly he became more and more aware of his reactions, rather than the actions of others."

— OSHO, The Book of Wisdom Chapter #5



"Once Buddha was very much insulted by a few people. They abused him badly. He listened silently and then he said, "Have you anything more to say? — because I have to reach the other village in time. People must be waiting there. If you still have something else to say, when I come back I will be coming by the same route and I will inform you and I will keep a special time for you, so you can come and say whatsoever you like."

Those people were very much puzzled. They said, "We are not saying something, we are insulting you!"

Buddha laughed. He said, "For that you have come a little late. You should have come at least ten years ago. Now I am not so foolish. You can insult, that is your freedom, but whether to take it or not that is my freedom. I am not taking it."

And he said to them, "In the other village which I just passed before yours, people came with sweets to offer me. I thanked them. I said, 'I don't need sweets and I don't eat sweets.' What do you think they must have done with the sweets?"

Somebody from the crowd said, "They must have taken them back home."

Buddha said, "Now what will you do? You will have to take your insults back home. I don't take your insults — there is no other way, you have to take them back."

When you feel insulted you have participated with the person. But you are not conscious, so anybody can push your buttons. You function like a machine: push the button and you are on; push the button and you are off. Anybody can enrage you, anybody can make you smile and laugh, anybody can make you cry and weep. Anybody, any stupid fellow can do that! One just needs to know where the buttons are — and almost always they are in the same places.  It is very rare to find a person whose buttons are in different places.

Once it happened in Baroda: I was talking to a big crowd. Somebody sitting just in the front row became so disturbed by what I was saying, he became so disturbed by it he went out of control, he lost his senses. He threw one of his shoes at me. At that moment I remembered that I used to play volleyball when I was a student, so I caught hold of his shoe in the middle and asked him for the other one. He was at a loss.

I said, "You throw the other one too! What am I going to do with one? If you want to present something...." He waited. I said, "Why are you waiting? Throw the other one too, because this way neither will I be able to use the shoe nor will you be able to use it. And I am not going to return it, because evil should not be returned for evil! So you please give the other one too."

But he was so shocked because he could not believe it... first, what he had done he could not believe — he was a very good man, a scholar, a well-known Sanskrit scholar, a pundit. He was not expected to behave like that, but it had happened — people are so unconscious. If I had acted the way he was unconsciously expecting, then everything would have been okay. But I asked for the other shoe, and that shocked him very much. He was dazed.

I told somebody who was sitting by his side, "You pull off his other shoe. I am not letting him off, I want both the shoes. In fact, I was thinking of purchasing some shoes, and this man seems to be so generous!" And the shoe was really new.

The man came in the night, fell at my feet, and asked to be forgiven. I said, "You forget all about it, there is no question... I was not angry, so why should I forgive you? To forgive, one first has to be angry. I was not angry, I enjoyed the scene. In fact, it was something so beautiful that many people who had fallen asleep were suddenly awakened! I was thinking on the way that it is a good idea, that I should plant a few of my followers, so once in a while they can throw a shoe so all the sleepers wake up. At least for a few moments they will remain alert because something is happening! I am thankful to you."

For years he went on writing to me, "Please forgive me! Unless you forgive me I will go on writing."

But I told him, "First I have to be angry. Forgiving you simply means that I accept that I was angry. How can I forgive you? You forgive me, because I am unable to be angry with you, unable to forgive you — you forgive me!"

I don't know whether he has forgiven me or not, but he has forgotten me. Now he writes no more."

— OSHO, The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 11 Chapter #9

Being and experience

I am a spiritual being having a human experience.

When the human experience is done with I will still remain a spiritual being.

sunday special :)

looking out of my lounge on this bright Sunday afternoon ...

I am pride

My name is Pride. I am a cheater.
I cheat you of your God-given destiny... because you demand your own way.
I cheat you of contentment... because you "deserve better than this."
I cheat you of knowledge ... because you already know it all.
I cheat you of healing ... Because you're too full of me to forgive.
I cheat you of holiness... because you refuse to admit when you're wrong.
I cheat you of vision... because you'd rather look in the mirror than out a window. 
I cheat you of genuine friendship ... because nobody's going to know the real you. 
I cheat you of love... because real romance demands sacrifice. 
I cheat you of greatness in heaven... because you refuse to wash another's feet on earth. 
I cheat you of God's glory... because I convince you to seek your own. 
My name is Pride. I am a cheater. You like me because you think I'm always looking out for you. Untrue. I'm looking to make a fool of you. 
God has so much for you, I admit, but don't worry... If you stick with me, You'll never know.

Source : Facebook

Dilemma, revisited

buried land mines

in my heartscape.

how do I reach you?

love knows the way,

takes my hand.

old wounds throb.

my steps, petrified,

our meeting, doomed.

I smile, wintery.

How to photograph lampposts :)

Evening. I am out on my walk. Bright sunlight. After a while I realise that the nature of the light has changed, has become filtered, surreal, like as if God had turned on the special-effects button. I look up at the sky. The sun was inching slowly towards the horizon but was hidden behind huge masses of clouds which looked like a cotton mattress had burst its seams and floated up into the sky. Out comes my mobile. No, I don’t have a hotline to the sun and neither to the clouds. But I do have a rather good camera on it. Point and click. Unfortunately, the sun was too much in my eyes and the viewfinder was in total shadow for me to see what I was clicking. The result is the picture seen above. Not a bad picture really, the glory of the light and the clouds has all been captured, except for the lamppost sticking out, like a sore thumb, into the celestial scene.

Looking at it one would think that the lamppost was the celebrity being photographed.  But no, I have made a photographical blooper here. Even though the viewfinder was in shadow, the real live scene was right in front of me, then how come I didn’t see the lamppost. Because I was too focused on the scene being played far in the distance to see what was in the near vicinity. I took it too much for granted. This happens all the time in life. We look high and low, far and wide for something and all the time it is right there, under our nose, staring up at us. All it takes is a slight shift in our perception to see that which we fail to notice.

Awareness is all about focus. We become aware of what we turn our attention towards. That is like stating the obvious. But have you noticed that our very lives consists of what is filling our awareness. The quality of our lives is entirely dependent on what we are focussing on. Let’s look at another scene. My garden. This is one place that is an endless source of joy, wonderment and peace for me. I experience the sight, touch, sounds, smells of the plants, trees, flowers, weeds, birds, insects and get transported into raptures of delight. But once in a while, I enter this same garden wearing a gardener’s hat. Hardy-gloved and armed with sundry gardening equipment, I potter around, digging and weeding and pruning, casting a critical eye at the health and well-being of its inhabitants. At such times, my focus is of an entirely different nature. And even though it can be argued that it is for the welfare of the flora, the practicality of my focus renders me almost entirely incapable of seeing the beauty of the scene and reveling in it.

So, I guess, it stands to reason, that we can change the quality of our lives by changing our attention. By changing, as it were, the nature of the seer.

Mirror

by Sylvia Plath

I am silver and exact.

I have no preconceptions.

Whatever I see I swallow immediately

Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.

I am not cruel, only truthful-

The eye of the little god, four cornered.

Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.

It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long

I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.

Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,

Searching my reaches for what she really is.

Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.

I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.

She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.

I am important to her. She comes and goes.

Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.

In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman

Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

Sylvia Plath

The flash of understanding

I do not know if you have noticed that there is understanding when the mind is very quiet, even for a second; there is the flash of understanding when the verbalization of thought is not.
Just experiment with it and you will see for yourself that you have the flash of understanding, that extraordinary rapidity of insight, when the mind is very still, when thought is absent, when the mind is not burdened with its own noise.
So, the understanding of anything -of a modern picture, of a child, of your wife, of your neighbor, or the understanding of truth, which is in all things- can only come when the mind is very still.
But such stillness cannot be cultivated because if you cultivate a still mind, it is not a still mind, it is a dead mind.

The more you are interested in something, the more your intention to understand, the more simple, clear, free the mind is. Then verbalization ceases.
After all, thought is word, and it is the word that interferes.
It is the screen of words, which is memory, that intervenes between the challenge and the response.
It is the word that is responding to the challenge, which we call intellection.
So, the mind that is chattering, that is verbalizing, cannot understand truth -truth in relationship, not an abstract truth.
There is no abstract truth. But truth is very subtle.
Like a thief in the night, it comes darkly, not when you are prepared to receive it.

J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Joy rising

I am sitting here quietly in a quiet room. The only sounds that are perceptible are those of the birds twittering outside, the wind that occasionally raises its voice to howl and the staccato tick-tock of the clock. I wonder if this is how Thoreau felt as he sat next to the Walden Pond and thought up his writings. But he must have also felt the sun warm on his cheek, the breeze leafing through his hair and the moist earth under him pulsating with the growth of a million things.

At times like these, when the moment seems full, with nothing lacking, and oddly enough, utterly empty, devoid of anything, when the past has lost its hold over you and the future its ability to evoke fear or anticipation, when the moment is all there is, startlingly clear in its simplicity, its infiniteness, one feels a joy rising. Like a single note, it rises from deep within, sonorous and crystal clear. In wave upon wave. Then, like an exquisite fragrance it spreads in all directions until the whole being is filled and trilling with joy. The world, with its pretty or miserable images, falls away and you are left with being, just being. 

Painting : 'In Contemplation' by Ravi Varma
Source : Internet

Desires

Desires are just waves in the mind.

A desire is just a thing among many.

I feel no urge to satisfy it, no action needs be taken on it.

Freedom from desire means this: the compulsion to satisfy is absent.

- Sri Nisargadatta

Mindblowing quotes

Your experiences cannot tell you who you are; they do not define you in any way. You are not that which you experience. 
You are not a victim of your experiences. 
There is an essential essence, a core within you that is not touchable by any experience. 
This is why happiness cannot be affected by exterior circumstances; happiness is a fragrance rising from this core essence. 
This is who you really are. 


- Jac O'keeffe

Lose the hope for affirmation of being and you will find the peace and release of the void. 
Emptiness is the natural state of reality, it can only be felt/known. 
Reality is not intellectual, it is mindless. 
You must feel/know it. 
Once you feel/know it then you will be finally free.

-Steven Norquist

Happiness cannot be given or taken away by anything that life throws at you. 
It is internal, unchanging, and constant. It is still, it is calm, and it is complete. 
It searches for nothing, it does not seek anything, it is absolute, and it is. 


- Jac O'keeffe

Real happiness can never be found outside you simply because everything outside you is constantly changing. 
Instead, turn within and notice what does not change. 
Stay with this. 
Meditate on this. 
Rest in this. 
Upon doing so, surprise, surprise, you just might experience a joy and happiness that has been there all along, but was never noticed because the mind was too busy looking outside you!
- Giles Chamboraire

Before thinking about making any unverified assumptions, passing judgement, choosing sides or burning bridges, keep in mind that there are always at least 3 sides to see any story… Through the eyes of Love, the victim or the perpetrator…
- Hal Tipper

You and I have spoken all these words, 
But for the way we have to go words are no preparation. 
I have one small drop of knowing in my soul. 
Let it dissolve in your ocean!
- Rumi

And gently she flows ...

.. a blue, benign beauty with laughter on her lips, bubbles in her hair and sparkles in her steps. Pulled mesmerisingly by the sea, sometimes fast and rapid, yet at other times placid, almost still, gently she flowed. And I fell for her charms all over again.

Now that I am back, I am out on my walks again and today the river calls me towards it. The sun is inching its way slowly towards the horizon having graced the day in an almost cloudless sky. But now as I walk, it hides its glare behind white cottony clouds casting a surreal light on everything.

The park is sparkling green and heavy with grass. I feel the resistible urge to go and roll in it, to feel its soft, cool touch and smell its grassy fragrance. But no, the river is waiting and I  must go to its side before the sun dips over the horizon. 

The river as you can imagine flows in a valley that has formed between hills and throughout the year, the rain run-off from the hills gather in streams and flow towards the river. Near the point where it meets the river, all the streams converge and this stream flows between a grassy embankment, finally meeting the river in a gorgeous little waterfall.

Finally, I reach the river itself, a blue beauty sparkling between green banks. I walk down the pebbly path and sit down by the river side and let out a deep sigh. It’s been long since I have seen her and experienced her serenity, joy and exuberance.

A duck paddles by, swimming hard against the current. Bubbles float and pop into the crisp air. Birds coming home to roost call from the trees on the banks. I dip my hands into the water, it is cool and refreshing.

Soon, the shadows lengthen as the sun prepares to bid adieu. As a farewell gift, it splatters its gold onto the waters, and the river is now as a radiant bride with gold on its body and rose on its trim.

As I head back home, everything is draped in the golden orange of the sunset sky. The houses perched on the hills sparkle with reflected sunlight and even the hush in the air is golden.

I bid adieu to the river, now darkening under the azure sky and take one last shot of a beauty that is everlasting and that never fails to gladden my heart.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross quotes

"It is very important that you only do what you love to do. you may be poor, you may go hungry, you may lose your car, you may have to move into a shabby place to live, but you will totally live. And at the end of your days you will bless your life because you have done what you came here to do. Otherwise, you will live your life as a prostitute, you will do things only for a reason, to please other people, and you will never have lived. and you will not have a pleasant death.”

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” 



“There is within each one of us a potential for goodness beyond our imagining; for giving which seeks no reward; for listening without judgment; for loving unconditionally.” 



“Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose.” 
“Everything in this life has a purpose, there are no mistakes, no coincidences.” 


― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Trust and acceptance

I decided some years ago that instead of trusting another to be what I thought they should be, when I trusted them implicitly to always be exactly who they are with what they have at all times in every moment, I was never disappointed and never lost trust or loving feelings .....

~ Kristal McVicar on FB

Dignity

Dignity does not mean sticking to social norms, it is the fragrance that arises from a pure and noble soul.

- lines from the film Pranayam by Blessy

Freedom

"A superficial freedom to wander aimlessly here and there, to taste this or that, to take a choice of distractions (in Pascal's sense) is simply a sham. It claims to be a freedom of “choice” when it has evaded the basic task of discovering who it is that chooses. It is not free because it is unwilling to face the risk of self-discovery.

The free man is the one whose choices have given him the power to stand on his own feet and determine his own life according to the higher light and spirit that are in him. The slave, in the spiritual order, is the man whose choices have destroyed all spontaneity in him and have delivered him over, bound hand and foot, to his own compulsions, idiosyncrasies and illusions, so that he never does what he really wants to do, but only what he has to do."

~ Thomas Merton

Oneness

"There are people one meets in books or in life whom one does not merely observe, meet, or know. A deep resonance of one's entire being is immediately set up with the entire being of the other (Cor ad cor loquitur)—heart speaks to heart in the wholeness of the language of music; true friendship is a kind of singing." 

~Thomas Merton

Marianne Williamson quotes

Inner peace doesn't come from getting what we want, but from remembering who we are.

The spiritual path is a journey of surrendering who we aren't in order to experience who we are.

 

30-day "Blessing Way Challenge"

This is a 30-day " Blessing Way Challenge". If you accept the challenge, you will practice these four steps diligently every day for the next 30 days. After that, you will notice how much better your life has become, in every aspect, and you will practice them for Life!

To accept this challenge, make a commitment to following these four steps for a period of not less than 30 days.:

1. I will suspend all judgment and will, instead, bless every person and situation I encounter, both those I physically meet and those that simply come to mind.

2. I will actively search for the blessing in every circumstance and in those times when none can be found, I will trust that the blessing will be revealed when the time is right.

3. I will daily express an attitude of gratitude, for all the blessings in my life, even those I cannot see.

4. Whenever I feel stressed, pressed or confused, I will take a Blessing Breather, quieting my mind for a moment and focusing only on my breath, breathing deeply and slowly. With each inhalation, I will mentally affirm "I am so blessed" and with each exhalation, I will mentally affirm "I am a blessing to the world," repeating the process at least three times and allowing my body to relax completely before returning to the task at hand.

I understand that in accepting this challenge, there is a distinct possibility that my life will be forever changed for the better.

I am willing to take the risk.

~~~

Source : Internet

Pain

If you feel hurt, know that there is a way through it. Know that you will only deepen yourself and your world if you allow the pain to be there so that you can heal it. Go with it instead of fighting it. “The cure for pain is in the pain." 

– Rumi

Be

I am a leaf
Be a Branch
nourish me

I am grass
Be Earth
hold me maternally

I am a mermaid
Be the Ocean
channel me safely

I am a wave
Be the wind
caress me afar

I am a bee
Be nectar
rejuvenate me

I am me
Simply Be you
we can Be Free.

~ Dr.Deena Sadik on FB

Joy, unadulerated

priceless ...

Do good and forget

Millions of trees in the world are accidentally planted by squirrels who bury the nuts and then forgot where they hid them.

"Do good and forget".

Source : FB

Love is Being

by Native American poet Janet Marie Rogers

I would not pretend
to be someone I’m not
to make you love me
for fear
you may love
the illusion
more than me.

Love is BEING
listening to silence
content in our skin
knowing we are
the very thing
that Created us
in love.

Unsaid

So much of what we live goes on inside–
The diaries of grief, the tongue-tied aches
Of unacknowledged love are no less real
For having passed unsaid. What we conceal
Is always more than what we dare confide.
Think of the letters that we write our dead. 

~ Dana Gioia

Words

The world does not need words. It articulates itself
in sunlight, leaves, and shadows. The stones on the path
are no less real for lying uncatalogued and uncounted.
The fluent leaves speak only the dialect of pure being.
The kiss is still fully itself though no words were spoken.

And one word transforms it into something less or other--
illicit, chaste, perfunctory, conjugal, covert.
Even calling it a kiss betrays the fluster of hands
glancing the skin or gripping a shoulder, the slow
arching of neck or knee, the silent touching of tongues.

Yet the stones remain less real to those who cannot
name them, or read the mute syllables graven in silica.
To see a red stone is less than seeing it as jasper--
metamorphic quartz, cousin to the flint the Kiowa
carved as arrowheads. To name is to know and remember.

The sunlight needs no praise piercing the rainclouds,
painting the rocks and leaves with light, then dissolving
each lucent droplet back into the clouds that engendered it.
The daylight needs no praise, and so we praise it always--
greater than ourselves and all the airy words we summon.   

~ Dana Gioia

Emptiness

Emptiness is a mode of perception, a way of looking at experience. It adds nothing to and takes nothing away from the raw data of physical and mental events. You look at events in the mind and the senses with no thought of whether there's anything lying behind them.

This mode is called emptiness because it's empty of the presuppositions we usually add to experience to make sense of it: the stories and world-views we fashion to explain who we are and the world we live in.

Although these stories and views have their uses, the Buddha found that some of the more abstract questions they raise — of our true identity and the reality of the world outside — pull attention away from a direct experience of how events influence one another in the immediate present. Thus they get in the way when we try to understand and solve the problem of suffering.

Say for instance, that you're meditating, and a feeling of anger toward your mother appears. Immediately, the mind's reaction is to identify the anger as "my" anger, or to say that "I'm" angry.

It then elaborates on the feeling, either working it into the story of your relationship to your mother, or to your general views about when and where anger toward one's mother can be justified.

The problem with all this, from the Buddha's perspective, is that these stories and views entail a lot of suffering. The more you get involved in them, the more you get distracted from seeing the actual cause of the suffering: the labels of "I" and "mine" that set the whole process in motion. As a result, you can't find the way to unravel that cause and bring the suffering to an end.

If, however, you can adopt the emptiness mode — by not acting on or reacting to the anger, but simply watching it as a series of events, in and of themselves — you can see that the anger is empty of anything worth identifying with or possessing.

As you master the emptiness mode more consistently, you see that this truth holds not only for such gross emotions as anger, but also for even the most subtle events in the realm of experience.

This is the sense in which all things are empty. When you see this, you realize that labels of "I" and "mine" are inappropriate, unnecessary, and cause nothing but stress and pain. You can then drop them. When you drop them totally, you discover a mode of experience that lies deeper still, one that's totally free.

To master the emptiness mode of perception requires training in firm virtue, concentration, and discernment. Without this training, the mind tends to stay in the mode that keeps creating stories and world views. And from the perspective of that mode, the teaching of emptiness sounds simply like another story or world view with new ground rules.

In terms of the story of your relationship with your mother, it seems to be saying that there's really no mother, no you. In terms of your views about the world, it seems to be saying either that the world doesn't really exist, or else that emptiness is the great undifferentiated ground of being from which we all came to which someday we'll all return.

These interpretations not only miss the meaning of emptiness but also keep the mind from getting into the proper mode. If the world and the people in the story of your life don't really exist, then all the actions and reactions in that story seem like a mathematics of zeros, and you wonder why there's any point in practicing virtue at all.

If, on the other hand, you see emptiness as the ground of being to which we're all going to return, then what need is there to train the mind in concentration and discernment, since we're all going to get there anyway?

And even if we need training to get back to our ground of being, what's to keep us from coming out of it and suffering all over again?

So in all these scenarios, the whole idea of training the mind seems futile and pointless. By focusing on the question of whether or not there really is something behind experience, they entangle the mind in issues that keep it from getting into the present mode.

Now, stories and world views do serve a purpose.

The Buddha employed them when teaching people, but he never used the word emptiness when speaking in these modes. He recounted the stories of people's lives to show how suffering comes from the unskillful perceptions behind their actions, and how freedom from suffering can come from being more perceptive. And he described the basic principles that underlie the round of rebirth to show how bad intentional actions lead to pain within that round, good ones lead to pleasure, while really skillful actions can take you beyond the round altogether.

In all these cases, these teachings were aimed at getting people to focus on the quality of the perceptions and intentions in their minds in the present — in other words, to get them into the emptiness mode. Once there, they can use the teachings on emptiness for their intended purpose: to loosen all attachments to views, stories, and assumptions, leaving the mind empty of all greed, anger, and delusion, and thus empty of suffering and stress. And when you come right down to it, that's the emptiness that really counts.

By Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight

Coming from within

We are often encouraged to turn our backs on those who do not "resonate".

May I suggest "they" are rejecting some aspect of you, perhaps a new belief or recent change, and you are simply returning the favor and perpetuating the cycle of rejection, not creating a new cycle of love. 

We only ever feel compelled to reject that which we feel is rejecting us (our ideas, our beliefs, our confidence) and we are only sensing rejection to begin with because we are rejecting ourselves on some level. We are not holding our power. We are not secure with our beliefs, and feel fragile. 

When you can hold steady in your convictions without needing to have all agree with you or share them, you are on the path to Unconditional Love - for self first - then all others. Rejection is an energy that will self perpetuate, continue to attract itself and its justification until we learn to accept and love it all.

All begins and ends within.

~ Kristal McVicar on FB

The Noble Eightfold Path

The Noble Eightfold Path describes the way to the end of suffering, as it was laid out by Siddhartha Gautama. It is a practical guideline to ethical and mental development with the goal of freeing the individual from attachments and delusions; and it finally leads to understanding the truth about all things.
Together with the Four Noble Truths it constitutes the gist of Buddhism. Great emphasis is put on the practical aspect, because it is only through practice that one can attain a higher level of existence and finally reach Nirvana. The eight aspects of the path are not to be understood as a sequence of single steps, instead they are highly interdependent principles that have to be seen in relationship with each other.


1. Right View

Right view is the beginning and the end of the path, it simply means to see and to understand things as they really are and to realise the Four Noble Truth. As such, right view is the cognitive aspect of wisdom. It means to see things through, to grasp the impermanent and imperfect nature of worldly objects and ideas, and to understand the law of karma and karmic conditioning.
Right view is not necessarily an intellectual capacity, just as wisdom is not just a matter of intelligence. Instead, right view is attained, sustained, and enhanced through all capacities of mind. It begins with the intuitive insight that all beings are subject to suffering and it ends with complete understanding of the true nature of all things. Since our view of the world forms our thoughts and our actions, right view yields right thoughts and right actions.


2. Right Intention

While right view refers to the cognitive aspect of wisdom, right intention refers to the volitional aspect, i.e. the kind of mental energy that controls our actions. Right intention can be described best as commitment to ethical and mental self-improvement. Buddha distinguishes three types of right intentions:
1. the intention of renunciation, which means resistance to the pull of desire, 2. the intention of good will, meaning resistance to feelings of anger and aversion, and 3. the intention of harmlessness, meaning not to think or act cruelly, violently, or aggressively, and to develop compassion.


3. Right Speech

Right speech is the first principle of ethical conduct in the eightfold path. Ethical conduct is viewed as a guideline to moral discipline, which supports the other principles of the path. This aspect is not self-sufficient, however, essential, because mental purification can only be achieved through the cultivation of ethical conduct.
The importance of speech in the context of Buddhist ethics is obvious: words can break or save lives, make enemies or friends, start war or create peace. Buddha explained right speech as follows: 1. to abstain from false speech, especially not to tell deliberate lies and not to speak deceitfully, 2. to abstain from slanderous speech and not to use words maliciously against others, 3. to abstain from harsh words that offend or hurt others, and 4. to abstain from idle chatter that lacks purpose or depth. Positively phrased, this means to tell the truth, to speak friendly, warm, and gently and to talk only when necessary.


4. Right Action

The second ethical principle, right action, involves the body as natural means of expression, as it refers to deeds that involve bodily actions. Unwholesome actions lead to unsound states of mind, while wholesome actions lead to sound states of mind.
Again, the principle is explained in terms of abstinence: right action means 1. to abstain from harming sentient beings, especially to abstain from taking life (including suicide) and doing harm intentionally or delinquently, 2. to abstain from taking what is not given, which includes stealing, robbery, fraud, deceitfulness, and dishonesty, and 3. to abstain from sexual misconduct. Positively formulated, right action means to act kindly and compassionately, to be honest, to respect the belongings of others, and to keep sexual relationships harmless to others. Further details regarding the concrete meaning of right action can be found in the Precepts.


5. Right Livelihood

Right livelihood means that one should earn one's living in a righteous way and that wealth should be gained legally and peacefully. The Buddha mentions four specific activities that harm other beings and that one should avoid for this reason: 1. dealing in weapons, 2. dealing in living beings (including raising animals for slaughter as well as slave trade and prostitution), 3. working in meat production and butchery, and 4. selling intoxicants and poisons, such as alcohol and drugs. Furthermore any other occupation that would violate the principles of right speech and right action should be avoided.


6. Right Effort

Right effort can be seen as a prerequisite for the other principles of the path. Without effort, which is in itself an act of will, nothing can be achieved, whereas misguided effort distracts the mind from its task, and confusion will be the consequence. Mental energy is the force behind right effort; it can occur in either wholesome or unwholesome states. The same type of energy that fuels desire, envy, aggression, and violence can on the other side fuel self-discipline, honesty, benevolence, and kindness. Right effort is detailed in four types of endeavours that rank in ascending order of perfection: 1. to prevent the arising of unarisen unwholesome states, 2. to abandon unwholesome states that have already arisen, 3. to arouse wholesome states that have not yet arisen, and 4. to maintain and perfect wholesome states already arisen.


7. Right Mindfulness

Right mindfulness is the controlled and perfected faculty of cognition. It is the mental ability to see things as they are, with clear consciousness. Usually, the cognitive process begins with an impression induced by perception, or by a thought, but then it does not stay with the mere impression. Instead, we almost always conceptualise sense impressions and thoughts immediately. We interpret them and set them in relation to other thoughts and experiences, which naturally go beyond the facticity of the original impression.
The mind then posits concepts, joins concepts into constructs, and weaves those constructs into complex interpretative schemes. All this happens only half consciously, and as a result we often see things obscured. Right mindfulness is anchored in clear perception and it penetrates impressions without getting carried away. Right mindfulness enables us to be aware of the process of conceptualisation in a way that we actively observe and control the way our thoughts go. Buddha accounted for this as the four foundations of mindfulness: 1. contemplation of the body, 2. contemplation of feeling (repulsive, attractive, or neutral), 3. contemplation of the state of mind, and 4. contemplation of the phenomena.


8. Right Concentration

The eighth principle of the path, right concentration, refers to the development of a mental force that occurs in natural consciousness, although at a relatively low level of intensity, namely concentration. Concentration in this context is described as one-pointedness of mind, meaning a state where all mental faculties are unified and directed onto one particular object.
Right concentration for the purpose of the eightfold path means wholesome concentration, i.e. concentration on wholesome thoughts and actions. The Buddhist method of choice to develop right concentration is through the practice of meditation. The meditating mind focuses on a selected object. It first directs itself onto it, then sustains concentration, and finally intensifies concentration step by step. Through this practice it becomes natural to apply elevated levels concentration also in everyday situations.

~ Gilles Chamboraire on FB

To Be Read In the Interrogative

A great poem by Julio Cortazar.

Have you seen
Have you truly seen
the snow the stars the felt steps of the breeze
Have you touched
really have you touched
the plate the bread the face of that woman you love
so much
Have you lived
like a blow to the head
the flash the gasp the fall the flight
Have you known
known in every pore of your skin
how your eyes your hands your sex your soft heart
must be thrown away
must be wept away
must be invented all over again

Keep me away from ....

“Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.”

~ Gibran

Silence becomes us

I rested, gently,
against your presence,
as sunlight would against stone
or wind-whispers against water,
silently.

Into that fragrant space,
we dropped our unsaid words,
as the moon would its beams,
or the gul-mohur its flowers,
soundlessly.

With the silence, they merged
like the river and the sea.
Where were you, where was I?
into the silence we had melted,
willingly.

I found, then,
that the sky had entered me
and stretched for eternity,
and yours was the music that danced,
joyously.

ambar ki ek paak suraahi ...

ambar ki ek paak suraahi
baadal kaa ek jaam uthaa kar
ghut chaadani pi hai humne
baat kufr ki ki hai humne

kaise iss kaa karz chukaaye
maang ke apni maut ke haathon
umr ki suni si hai hamane
baat kufr ki ki hai humne

apnaa iss mein kuchh bhi nahi hai
do dil jalte uski amaanat
usko wahi toh di hai hamane
baat kufr ki ki hai humne

~ Amrita Pritam

Living beyond limits

A most inspiring video talk that will make us rethink our limits. Proves once again that the boundaries that we set for ourselves exist only in our minds.

Living beyond limits

Being still

The western mind is obsessed by doing more and more

restless and constantly on the run

just cannot sit still into being

the grace that descends…

just by being…still

being leads to being

- Swami Rajneesh

Seek not love

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” 

~ Rumi

Hidden slavery

"Many a Man thinks he is buying Pleasure, when he is really selling himself a Slave to it".

~ Benjamin Franklin

Are you willing?

What you can do and what you cannot do outside is always a question of capability. 

But when it comes to the inside it is just a question of willingness. 

~ Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

The Voice of the Rain

by Walt Whitman
(1819-1892)

And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower,
Which, strange to tell, gave me an answer, as here translated:
I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain,
Eternal I rise impalpable out of the land and the bottomless sea,
Upward to heaven, whence, vaguely form'd, altogether changed, and yet the same,
I descend to lave the drouths, atomies, dust-layers of the globe,
And all that in them without me were seeds only, latent, unborn;
And forever, by day and night, I give back life to my own origin,
and make pure and beautify it;
(For song, issuing from its birth-place, after fulfilment, wandering,
Reck'd or unreck'd, duly with love returns.)

Inner light

Let us not waste the precious meditation time thinking over intricacies of the universe.
Instead, we can use that time to keep the mind still so that the soul can come in contact with the inner Light.
By absorption in that Light, the soul will awaken to the truths lying within us.
Then there would be no need for questions, for we will experience for ourselves the truths within.

- Sant Rajinder Singh

Clarity

A mind that sees very clearly does not choose, there is only action
- the lack of clarity comes into being when there is division between the `observer' and the observed.

- Jiddu Krishnamurti

The glass bottle of our ego

When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego, 

and when we escape 

like squirrels turning in the cages of our personality 

and get into the forests again, 

we shall shiver with cold and fright 

but things will happen to us 

so that we don’t know ourselves. 

Cool, unlying life will rush in, 

and passion will make our bodies taut with power,

we shall stamp our feet with new power 

and old things will fall down, 

We shall laugh, and 

institutions will curl up 

like burnt paper.

~ D H Lawrence (1885-1930)

Dealing with criticism

Never allow anyone to rain on your parade. Remember that no talent, no self-denial, no brains, no character, are required to set up in the fault-finding business. Nothing external can have any power over you unless you permit it. Your time is too precious to be sacrificed in combating the menial forces of hate, jealously, and envy. Only God can shape a flower, but any foolish child can pull it to pieces.

~ Og Mandino

Eradicating the delusion of 'I am'

A questioner asked the Buddha:

"I would like to know about the state of peace, the state of solitude and of quiet detachment. How does a person become calm, independent, and not wanting to grasp at anything?"

"A person does this," replied the Buddha, "by eradicating the delusion of 'I am'.

By being alert and attentive, he begins to let go of cravings as they arise.

But whatever he begins to accomplish, he should beware of inner pride.

He must avoid thinking of himself as better than another, or worse or equal, for that is all comparison and emphasizes the self.

The person should look for peace within and not depend on it in any other place.

For when a person is quiet within, the self cannot be found.

There are no waves in the depths of the ocean, it is still and unbroken.

It is the same with the peaceful person.

He is still, without any longing to grasp.

He has let go the foundations of self and no longer build up pride and desire."

-Sutta Nipata

We

You and I
Beloved Being
Fish of One Sea
Birds of One Sky
Souls of One Love
Leaves of One Tree
Drops of One Ocean
Pieces of One Puzzle
Grains of One Desert
Siblings of One Family
Cells of One Organism
Pearls of One Necklace
Beauty of One Divine God
Breathes of One Consciousness.


—Dr. Dheena Sadik 2011

When Death Comes

by Mary Oliver

When death comes

like the hungry bear in autumn;

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;

when death comes

like the measle-pox

when death comes

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common

as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,

tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,

or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

~ Mary Oliver

Are you fleeing from Love ...

Are you fleeing from Love because of a single humiliation?
What do you know of Love except the name? 

~ Rumi

Gurudev says ...

The hand that’s all logic is like a knife that’s all blade. it makes the hand bleed that uses it.

~~~

All men and women have poetry in their hearts, and it is necessary for them, as much as possible, to express their feelings.

~~~

Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting aside the lamp because the dawn has come.

~~~

Do not say “it is morning” and dismiss it with a name of yesterday. See it for the first time as a new-born child that has no name.

~~~

He who wants to do good knocks at the gate, he who loves finds the gate open.

~~~

I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument while the song I came to sing remains unsung.

~~~

I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.

~ Rabindranath Tagore

Saturday stunners

The lion who breaks the enemy's ranks is a minor hero compared to the lion who overcomes himself.

~ Rumi

"God has denied you nothing. Only you can deny yourself."

~ Alan Cohen

In any situation, ask yourself, "What is the gift -- and have I given thanks for it?"
And, "What is the lesson -- and am I learning it?"

~ Marianne Williamson

Inner power

You are innately designed to use your personal power. When you don't, you experience a sense of helplessness, paralysis, and depression-which is your clue that something is not working as it could. As you begin to understand the immense power and love you hold inside, you will find an unending surge of joy, light and love that will nourish and support you all the days of your life.

~ Susan Jeffers

Unrecoverables!

There are 5 things in life you cannot recover: A stone... after it's thrown. A word... after it is said. An occasion... after it's missed. The time... after it's gone. A person... after they die.

Life is short. Break the rules. Forgive quickly. Kiss slowly. Love truly. Laugh uncontrollably and never regret anything that made you smile.

Enjoy Life!

Try this ...

A five-word sentence that could change the world..

"What would love do now...?"

~ Neale Donald Walsch

Hu

(by Sri Aurobindo)

In the blue of the sky, in the green of the forest,

Whose is the hand that has painted the glow?

When the winds were asleep in the womb of the ether,

Who was it roused them and bade them to blow?

He is lost in the heart, in the cavern of Nature,

He is found in the brain where He builds up the thought:

In the pattern and bloom of the flowers He is woven,

In the luminous net of the stars He is caught.

In the strength of a man, in the beauty of woman,

In the laugh of a boy, in the blush of a girl;

The hand that sent Jupiter spinning through heaven,

Spends all its cunning to fashion a curl.

These are His works and His veils and His shadows;

But where is He then? by what name is He known?

Is He Brahma or Vishnu? a man or a woman?

Bodied or bodiless? twin or alone?

We have love for a boy who is dark and resplendent,

A woman is lord of us, naked and fierce.

We have seen Him a-muse on the snow of the mountains,

We have watched Him at work in the heart of the spheres.

We will tell the whole world of His ways and His cunning:

He has rapture of torture and passion and pain;

He delights in our sorrow and drives us to weeping,

Then lures with His joy and His beauty again.

All music is only the sound of His laughter,

All beauty the smile of His passionate bliss;

Our lives are His heart-beats, our rapture the bridal

Of Radha and Krishna, our love is their kiss.

He is strength that is loud in the blare of the trumpets,

And He rides in the car and He strikes in the spears;

He slays without stint and is full of compassion;

He wars for the world and its ultimate years.

In the sweep of the worlds, in the surge of the ages,

Ineffable, mighty, majestic and pure,

Beyond the last pinnacle seized by the thinker

He is throned in His seats that for ever endure.

The Master of man and his infinite Lover,

He is close to our hearts, had we vision to see;

We are blind with our pride and the pomp of our passions,

We are bound in our thoughts where we hold ourselves free.

It is He in the sun who is ageless and deathless,

And into the midnight His shadow is thrown;

When darkness was blind and engulfed within darkness,

He was seated within it immense and alone.

('HU' is the name by which the Sufis call the Divine Presence!)