The eagle

The other day I heard a story which was in every way applicable to me.

Once an eagle’s egg somehow fell off its nest. A boy found it and now knowing which bird’s it was, took it and kept it among the incubating eggs of the prairie chicken. After hatching, the eaglet not knowing what it was roamed among the chicken, pecking the dirt like them, walking around like them, etc.

One day it saw a bird flying high above and asked another chicken what it was. The chicken said it was an eagle, one of the strongest and noblest of birds. Then it added, “don’t you go around thinking you are one, you are just a prairie chicken, just like us”. And the eaglet believed.

In spite of the fact that it could soar far above into the sky, it thought it was bound to the earth. So many of us are like that. In spite of our talents, potential and innate greatness we believe ourselves to be chickens, with our eyes forever on the ground, simply because we don’t have the courage to spread our wings and soar.

The dirt is the world of the senses, the illusion of temporary worldly things, in which I'm still lost. The sky in which I'm meant to soar is the boundlessness of spirit, the freedom of my true self, the bliss of being one with divinity.

I am ...

I am the Soul, having a mind-body experience.

The Seven Principles of Huna

Ancient Hawaiian Healing Wisdom

In ancient times the pre-warrior Hawaiian tribes lived according to fundamental laws and moral rule. The principles that were these laws are as follows:

1. IKE: We Make Our Reality. The World is What We Think It is. All knowledge Is Not Taught in the Same School. Be Aware.

Here the individual accepts responsibility for his/her life. The wonderful challenge that is the gift of co-creation is embraced and thoughts, words and actions are the tools with which we sculpt our experience from the magical substance of Life. Thoughts, words and actions have a vibratory impact upon the sensitive ethers of the space that surrounds us and permeates everything. Thoughts, words and actions leave a residual affect that we experience as our feelings. It is our feeling experience with which we are constantly engaged that constantly magnetizes our reality. How do you feel now? How do you usually feel? This feeling experience defines your reality.

2. MAKIA: Energy Flows Where Attention Goes. Be Focused.

A fundamental quality of a true master is the ability to control ones thoughts and to direct those thoughts to the highest and purest considerations. Thought forms and accumulates with other thoughts forms of a similar vibratory nature. Be mindful of what you think, what you create, what you tune into and attract. Be aware.

3. MANA: All My Power Comes From Within. Be Confident. Let The Singer Select The Song.

The most potent natural resource is the Eternal Ocean of Divine Light and Love which laps against the shores of the soul. The simple challenge of life is: will I go to the shore and commune in the Holy Instant with the Infinite Power within me. Everything we are looking for in life is born in this holy relationship, in this Holy Communion with the Greater part of I. It is accessed in stillness, it is accessed in love. Through this sacred relationship the wonderful being I am may emerge to express itself wholly upon the playing fields of manifest creation. According to your faith so shall it be.

4. MANAWA: Now is The Moment of Power. Be Here. Strike While The Iron is Hot.

Enjoy the holy instant in the power of now. Strike the metal when it is hot. Be fully, deeply present. Access through the feeling experience the power of now. The door to eternity swings open in the here and now. Gather your scattered spirit, focus, commit and in the depth of your intuitive knowing accept all you truly are.

5. KALA: All Change Is Possible. There Are No Limits.

The only thing that limits the wonder of life flowing into our world are the fear mechanisms we cling to. Let go of the rocks. Cease your clinging, trust in The Great Ocean of Life and open your heart to the infinite possibilities of existence. The time is now and the need is great. Say Yes to Kala.

6. PONO: Harmony/Effectiveness is a measure of Truth. An Expert is Recognized by the Altar he builds.

Are you in tune with Life’s song of peace filled magical love? Are you living your destiny, your Life purpose, your mission? Is there disharmony in your life, if so why?

Harmony is a measure of Truth. Truth is a living presence in Life. To the degree we are in harmony with Truth is the experience of magic in our lives.

7. ALOHA: To Love Is To Share The Happiness of The Breath of Life, with. Joy is In The Voice of Love.

The call of the times is to unify and share. Aloha is the spirit of giving. The most important thing is to give the spirit of love. By bathing in the Ocean of Love, we become that which we eternally are. By maintaining a conscious contact with that ocean, through the Holy Breath, we can bring it into our world and share it with each other. Aloha is the spirit of togetherness in Love.
Wa hou makou, ka mana hila la. E ia I ka lani, Papa he ‘e nalu la He ‘e maluna

We emanated from Supreme Grace from the powerful ocean that descended from the sun. We came from heaven. Distributed in waves we surfed here from the sun, In flight from above.

(from the site http://successultranow.com/inspiration/articles/the-seven-principles-of-huna-ancient-hawaiian-healing-wisdom/)

Vasant aayi re!

It’s spring season here in NZ. Glorious vasant ritu. And my garden is suddenly abloom with flowers. It seems that almost overnight bulbs that were in hibernation through winter have worked their way up through the earth and burst into leaf and flower. Since this is my first spring in this house, it has all taken me by surprise, for now there are flowers where I didn’t expect flowers to bloom. Flowers of the kind I’ve never even seen before. Flowers that look they are wearing dainty designer skirts with petals that go upwards and through the gaps petals that go downwards. God must be one heck of a flower designer :))) The roses are not out yet, but the bushes are full of tender leaves and tiny buds, the promise of flowering clasped tight in their delicate petals.

The kowhai is in full bloom everywhere and when the yellow flowers drop they form a lovely yellow carpet on the grass beneath the tree. My ex-neighbour told me that the kowhais around her house bloom one after another. So the tuis when they have finished feasting on the flowers of one, their beaks tucked deep into the flowers, they go on to the next and then the next. Wow! What wonderful synchronisation! How God takes care of all His creations :)))

The birds are having a busy time, feasting on berries, collecting twigs for nests. They are all atwitter among the branches, calling out to one another, exchanging notes, I like to believe, on food gathering and nest building :))) My neighbour has a brood of 4-5 hens and when they cluck-cluck, it instantly transports me to Kerala :))) Bright flowers everywhere nodding in the breeze, the sun warm on the grass, the birds busy among the trees, the sky blue and clouds white, the day long and languorous, the night soft and gentle, yes, Spring has claimed my heart and soothed my soul.


The trees are covered with young leaves fluttering merrily in the breeze. Just a few weeks ago they had been bare, raising their bare limbs to the winter sky. In summer their green will darken and when autumn comes, turn golden, yellow and orange and then drop off. The leaf doesn’t cling to the tree, the tree doesn’t grieve the leaf’s falling. When spring comes new leaves are born. And so the cycle of birth and death continues in perfect harmony. It reminds me that I must drop the old and the dead so that life continues to be renewed and refreshed everyday.

Yes, vasant ritu is a great teacher :)))

Your state of peace and joy is the quality of your life

A very concise, logical explanation about the body, mind and spirit by Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev.

Watch the video here

The art of being still

I have made it a point in recent times, if possible, to spend a large part of Saturday doing nothing. Five days a week is spent in earning the daily bread, and Sunday is spent in myriad chores, so I say to myself, surely there must be some time for rest and recreation. In the Bible it is said that God spent six days making the world, then on the seventh day he rested. Jews even now observe the Sabbath as a day of rest. But I have noticed that the malaise of modernity is such that most people do not know how to rest anymore. Rest for most people means plonking themselves in front of the TV and watching mindless stuff that producers churn out in the name of entertainment. It seems we have a great need to be entertained but no ability to rest.

So come Saturday morning, after a leisurely breakfast, I sit on the sofa and do nothing. The view outside is very pretty, trees, grass, flowers, sky, clouds. Nature brings me into a state of stillness, maybe because nature itself is so still. In the beginning thoughts come, crowding together in my mind, kicking and jostling for the spotlight. After a while of breath-watching, I am able to detach myself from the thoughts and view them as I would watch a movie being played out on the screen of my mind. The trick is not to get involved in the movie. Thoughts have this great capacity to evoke emotion and this thought-emotion dance gets us further and further entrenched in the mental-emotional process.

So if I just sit and watch this movie, slowly it flickers and fades and I am left only with silence. Of course, thoughts keep gate-crashing, but the very act of observing them makes them go away because the mind cannot be in control in the presence of awareness. It is like the mist that disappears when the sun of awareness blazes. This silence is very liberating, it makes me light and joyous, calm and still, insights become clear in this stillness, like as if Wisdom itself is talking to me, sharing its secrets.

If we can access this stillness at least once everyday, we can carry it on throughout the day. We need the mind only to carry out mental tasks, logical reasoning, vocabulary, etc, but we need our innate intelligence that lies beyond the mind to do just about everything else. Living only in the mind most people live just mechanical lives, doing what is expected of them, by family, by society. They cannot see the sublime, the ethereal, the wondrous, in everyday life. They have lost touch with the magic in life that exists everywhere around us, with the magic that lies within themselves. Having lived their entire life in the mind and the material world, they are entrapped, unknowingly looking for that elusive something, but not knowing what or where to look, continuing with the rat race until deliverance comes in the form of death. They are like prisoners trapped by the bars of the world, gold-plated maybe, but bars nevertheless. Like Jesus said, “Of what use is it to a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul”.

I am reposting a story I had posted up a couple of years ago, which I had originally read in an old issue of The Readers Digest -

Some time ago (maybe 19th century) when the African jungles were still largely unexplored, an English explorer went to Africa for study and exploration work. He hired some locals to do the navigation and carry his gear and together they set out into the jungles. They would stay in tents during the nights and get up at dawn, cut through the bush, clear a path, do exploration, tent down for the night, next day clear some more bush, go forward etc. This went on for a few days until one morning the Englishman discovered that all his guides had gone on strike and had decided not to move from there for a few days. When he asked them the reason, they said "We have been working and moving and rushing on so fast that we feel that we have left our spirits behind. We need to stay in one place and get back into the rhythm of things so that our spirits can catch up with us".

So I spend some part of Saturdays doing nothing, catching up with my spirit, learning to be still, to just Be, from the trees, birds, grass...... This is my natural state, my authentic self, my true nature. In this stillness I lack nothing, desire nothing and yet have everything.

Experience and maya

We live in the world of experience, don’t we? Our daily life is almost entirely experiential. The information that is collected by our senses and our responses to these, the thoughts / imaginations we have and the emotions that follow, these are the building blocks of our experience. It seems that our entire lives are lived in these experiences.

Experience is not what happens, but the responses to these external events that take place in our minds. It can be said that we carry our world with us, in our minds. Take an example of two people traveling in a train. One is looking around, taking in his surroundings through his senses and a flow of thoughts then stream through his mind. That is his personal experience and that is his world. Another is sitting next to him, but is reading a newspaper, totally engrossed in it. For him, his surroundings are a blur, but his mind is actively involved in absorbing the news, imagining the events, understanding the implications, digesting the information. His personal experience is totally different and he lives in a different world than the one his neighbour inhabits even though they are physically seated next to each other.

All of us live in our own world which shifts and changes according to inputs to our minds and our responses to them. Even our personal responses to the same input would be different and would be based on past experience and memory. If we are all living in our own worlds, is there any such thing as a single, common world? If so, how can that be assessed? Is it even possible to access it? I think not. If no such world exists, what world are we living in? The only world there is exists in our minds. And that one constantly shifts and changes, has no permanence. Then the question arises: is this world even real? After all it exists only in our minds and is mercurial, dies down when we go to sleep, spring up when we wake up. Vanishes completely when we die. Surely there must be a world beyond the world of experience. If it exists, how to access it?

By realising that the world we carry around in our heads is not the real thing. That the mind is a master illusionist, tricking us into believing things that catches its whim and fancy, by constantly serving up a stream of thoughts that keeps our attention so engaged that we do not have the opportunity to look any deeper and find its deception. By strong intention and steady practice of mindful awareness, we’ll be able to see glimpses of a different kind of reality, one that does not rely on an inconstant mind. By going beyond the mind into a state of stillness a whole new world opens up, seamless, constant, eternal, full of love and bliss. It is our birthright to be in this world always, this is our natural habitat, our natural state of being. This is what we are born for, this is the purpose of our life. Not to seek wealth, fame, security and all those temporary crutches, but to seek and find, or rather, to cast away the veil of illusion and to dwell in the bliss of the Self.

Music that moves

A moving, powerful, beautifully rendered Thatvam by Dr.Balamurali Krishna

Thathvam by Dr.Balamurali Krishna

And a brilliant alapana -

Kunthalavarali Alapana by Dr.Balamurali Krishna

An evening with a legend

I am just back from a music recital by Dr.Balamurali Krishna and it’s only slowly sinking in that I had really been in the presence of a legend. Dr. Balamurali has long been one of my most favourite classical singers and I had not even dreamt that I would one day go for a live recital of his and then stand just a few feet away from him.

Sitting there in the darkened auditorium listening to the legend sing was an indescribable experience. Most of the time our emotions are the body’s responses to thoughts but there are some things that impinge on our senses and go straight to the heart, bypassing the mind completely. Music is one such. I sat there enthralled, my heart melted and quivering, and I felt that I had reached the feet of the Lord. Dr. Balamurali is a human, but surely it must be the divine in him singing and the divine in me responding.

The compere informed us that Dr. Balamurali can sing in many languages and can play many instruments. He was a child prodigy and gave his first public performance at the age of six and his first full-fledged performance age at the age of eight at the Thyagaraja music festival. He then went on to give more than 25000 performances, compose ragas, make great innovations in Carnatic music, compose and direct music for films and act in films singing his own songs.

I found it interesting that he only sang songs in praise of the Lord. And I thought how apt! After all God is the only truth there is. And love. But then the two are the same. Why sing of pain and suffering? After all they are illusionary and passing. And so as the notes climb and fall and the music flows out of him so effortlessly, I know I am in the presence of the divine. Where else would such purity, such wealth of spirit, such genius come from?

After the singing he took a break and came back to the stage and signed autographs and posed with people even though he’s almost eighty and had just given a long recital. There were no airs about him, no pompousness, no show of superiority. He posed obligingly with whoever came close and smiled warmly at all as though he was just one of us, not a living legend. There was an elderly lady who couldn’t climb the steps to the stage, so he very kindly got off his chair and sat on the stage so that he could be on the same level with her. Only the truly great can be this humble.

I went and stood close to the stage and took some photographs. I wanted to touch his feet but I was so overwhelmed by his greatness that I couldn’t bring myself to do even that. I was content just standing a few feet away and being in his presence. Driving back home, I was so overcome with emotion, I wept tears of joy. It was an undreamt dream come true. To be in the presence of a genius, to get a glimpse of divinity, to be transported and transformed by greatness. Surely it was a once in a lifetime experience.

Dear God

I am writing this to you even though I know you are everywhere. In the paper and pencil when I write, in the computer where it will be posted, in all the screens where this letter will be displayed. You are in all these places and everywhere else, so why write.? Because I like writing to you. :)

You were right when you told Arjuna that he must think of you always. Whenever I think of you, all my sadness, misery, tensions, even happiness vanish. I am filled with the most exquisite peace, bliss and love. The world flickers and becomes indistinct and then there is only this vast silence where there is no desire, no thought, no emotion, just ineffable bliss.

When I think of you all my thoughts, words and deeds are right ones. There is no question that it will be otherwise. I wish to remain in this always. I do not understand the reason why I came into this world because its illusions make me forget my true nature. I’m sure my soul that is you, had a good enough reason. But now that I am in it, I would like you to show me how to remain aware of my divine self always. How to remember always that I am you when the world intervenes and tells me otherwise. That is all I ask of you, dear God.

There are a lot of things I would like to talk about. Maybe some other time. I’m sure you don’t mind waiting. After all you are beyond time.

Love
from love to love for all is love

Abundance

It is indeed a blessing to realise that we are whole and complete in ourselves. That there is a whole universe within us. That we lack in nothing. That we are luminosity itself. We are love. But sometimes it so happens that we lose touch with our inner light, our inner source of love. And craving for it we go outside, among things and people, looking for that spark to light up the apparent darkness, to fill up the imagined emptiness. But no matter how much love we receive from outside, or the amount of food we fill our insides with, or the tons of money we spend on ourselves, unless we reconnect with our own inner light, we are going to wallow in darkness and craving and misery.

The whole consumer / fast food industry thrives on this imagined inner darkness. People consume because it the only way they know to fill the inner void. They try to fill it up with things, or casual affairs, or alcohol, mindless TV watching, mindless activity, endless empty conversation and so on. Of course, with no success. When all it requires is a journey inward to find the source of abundance and love. That which no one can take away from us except our own mistaken belief that we are poor and unloved.

Look! Look closely!

--------- this one is dedicated to you Ushasam ----------

Look at a leaf. Any leaf. Small, big, round, spiked, shiny, matte... Look at how it just sits there at the end of a branch, nodding slightly at the wind. Feel its aliveness. Feel its vibrancy. See how it quietly, without any sound, gently giving and receiving, in quiet symbiosis. It does not think about its own greatness. It does not think how much it is giving to the world, how much worth it has or does not have. No, not even fruits think that. Look beyond, its shape, its colour, its texture. Look beyond its physicality. Drop your mind and look beyond the apparent. Even though it has a boundary and is attached to a stem, feel it open to the universe, a part of it and one with it. Feel its silence. Feel its joy. Feel it’s Beingness.

Look at yourself. Body, thoughts, emotions. Where are these felt and experienced? In the mind. It is the mind that registers the existence of the body, that knows itself to be thinking, the thoughts of which give rise to reactions in the body that are felt as emotions. But look at the mind itself, always moving, always changing, never constant. Can anything as inconstant as that be true? Happiness, misery, moods come and go, even your own self-image changes according to the nature of your thoughts. Can anything eternal come from the mind? Look beyond the mind. There is something that never changes, that was not young when you were a baby, is not an adult, will not be old when the body grows old. Is constant, unmoving yet vibrant. Is not confined to the body. Is beneath and beyond your every thought and feeling. Is eternal. Is unbound. Is free. Feel the silence. Feel the Beingness. Feel the bliss.

What opens us to someone else?

(article from the Dominion Post dated 24th Sept ‘09)

by Neil Rosenthal

Let’s say you were looking to love someone – or to love someone more fully. What would you do to achieve that goal? Pamper her with jewellery? Compliment him? Romance her more? Spend more time together? Bring her flowers? Seduce him?

Well, not exactly. Not that those behaviours wouldn’t be appreciated, but rather they are only partial answers to the question of what it takes for us to be more loving. The real answer is that we require the five As: attention, acceptance/approval, appreciation, affection and allowing. Those behaviours taken together opens us up and make us feel safe, secure, loved, valued and cherished.

Attention. Attunement. Noticing what someone is doing, how they’re doing, how they’re feeling, what they sound like, what they need and want. When we feel someone’s genuine and friendly attention, we feel more deeply known for who we are, and it creates greater degrees of connection, trust and safety. Attention is about bringing someone into our focus, so we no longer see that person with as much blurred vision. To desire attention is to desire a listener who focuses on you with kindness and respect, who takes you seriously and who values how you feel.

Acceptance / Approval. When you feel accepted, you feel worthy. Trusted. Approved of as you are. Supported. The more secure you feel regarding how accepted you are, the more you will be able to open up and love more freely. So how do we accept traits and behaviours in our partner (and in ourselves) which are self-destructive, self-centred, morally wrong, foolish and risky? The answer lies in seeing beyond someone’s weaknesses to his or her inner being, where we can see his/her inner beauty and potential. It is only then that we can speak against a behaviour without speaking against the person.

Appreciation. To feel greater levels of self-confidence and self-worth, we need to feel recognised, appreciated, respected and valued for what we are, what we give, what we do and how we are unique and special. We thrive when we are encouraged, and appreciation is encouragement. It also fosters greater closeness.

Affection. Touch is essential for opening up and remaining intimate. From holding hands to making love, expressing ourselves physically helps us stay connected and secure in each other’s presence. But affection can be more than physical. It is also about feeling and communicating that you genuinely like someone else, and like being in his / her presence. You are also being affectionate when you are kind, considerate, playful, romantic, compassionate, thoughtful and empathetic.

Allowing. In a relationship, when I am allowed to be my authentic self, to express my deepest needs and longings, to trust in my own judgement, to go after creating my life’s goals and ambitions and to explore my own unique path and interests, you are allowing me the ability to create my best self. My best self is the self I would be if I weren’t devoting so much of my time and energy to meeting everyone else’s needs, expectations and demands. So if you want me, you cannot be controlling of me, or put so many nasty demands on me that I wind up losing myself in order to take care of you.

The five As are eloquently articulated and described by David Richo in his book How to be an adult in Relationships (Shambala). They are the essential ingredients of love, respect, security and support. All of them make us more loving both when we give and when we receive them.

Neil Rosenthal is a marriage and family therapist specialising in intimate relationships.

Just in passing

I remember a train journey I once undertook from Kerala to Mumbai where for the most part I did nothing but tree-gazing. I was in the ladies compartment with other ladies for company but travelling alone and just sitting at the window looking at the trees outside. Which were densely packed and verdant in Kerala but grew sparser as we travelled through Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. I remember I got through the whole journey without feeling the need to lie down except at night when it was dark outside and the trees invisible, and with no mental tedium that is usually associated with such long journeys. It was somehow more fascinating than talking to my co-passengers, engaging in small-talk and exchanging pleasantries. It was during that journey that I realised that trees have a character of their own, no matter how deformed, broken or dwarfed they might be. They in their wooden silence communicated far more than humans do in their animated talk. Maybe it’s because trees can’t be anything else but themselves. While humans beings are role-playing most of the time. It must have been a truly memorable journey because that’s the only one that stands out in my memory all these years and so many other train journeys later.

Two ways to look at a tree

Let’s say we are engaged in the joyful occupation of looking at a tree. I’ve noticed that there are at least two ways in which we can look at a tree.

The first way would be to look at the tree critically. As soon as we begin, the minds starts a running commentary comprising of statements, observations and questions. Something like – “The tree looks so beautiful / green / bare / wilted. I wonder how old it is. But I can find out only by cutting it down and counting the rings. But it certainly looks old. I wonder if there are any birds’ nests in it. What kinds of birds would be nesting in it? Does it produce flowers? Or fruits? How does one tell if a tree’s fruit is edible and not poisonous? Maybe in the old days people tried eating all the fruits and when they found it tasty and no one died, they pronounced it edible.” And on and on. At the end of half an hour, our brain would have worked out a number of things about the tree and worked itself up trying to get a cerebral understanding of the tree.

The other way would be to simply watch the tree. If any thoughts come up to watch those as well. Eventually the thoughts would all die down and there would be only the tree in all its Beingness. After a while the barriers that separate you and the tree might begin to dissolve and you may begin to feel that your being is one with that of the tree’s. It wouldn’t even matter that you are one kind of living being and the tree is another. And that you communicate using different means. Because you would have reached a state where it can be said that you are in communion with the tree, that the tree and you are one. After that there could be a realisation that you and the tree are both pure consciousness of which you and the tree are manifestations. That can be said to be a state of pure love. This state, of course, can be reached with anything, whether living or non-living.

Unfortunately, most of us live in a world where we don’t get a chance to look within ourselves, let alone watch a tree. We mostly only look at CVs, bank balances, health test reports, other people's successes, and of course the mirror. Our lives are almost entirely lived in the external, in the world. Outside events and experiences determine all our joys and miseries. We fail to notice that there is an inner world that is vastly more powerful, more magnificent, more blissful and which encompasses the whole universe, not just the world of the senses. That the joy present in this world is totally independent of the outside world and can be accessed anytime, regardless of the circumstances.

Sometimes we need to watch a tree / a cloud / raindrops / sunset / cats. Or just observe silence.

Footnote : Most societies, even the most materially prosperous ones, are still living in ‘survival’ mode. The poorer ones are just trying to survive in the physical plane, ie trying to keep body and soul together. But once this need has been met we construct more and more elaborate models to keep what we have acquired and acquire more and more. Then it has more to do with the ‘survival’ of the status quo. And as more success is achieved the subtle shift in the status quo ensures that more prosperous societies struggle and stress out as much as poorer societies do, trying to keep themselves in the ‘income bracket’ / comfort zone and to move further up. Thereby condemning themselves to perpetually being in ‘survival’ mode.

Dignity of labour

On the first day as President Abraham Lincoln entered to give his inaugural address, just in the middle one man stood up. He was a rich aristocrat. He said, "Mr.Lincoln, you must not forget that your father used to make shoes for our family." And the whole Senate laughed, they thought they had made a fool of Abraham Lincoln.

But Lincoln, and that type of people are made of an entirely different mettle. Lincoln looked at the man and said, "Sir, I know that my father used to make shoes in your house for your family, and there will be many others here ... because the way he made shoes, nobody else can. He was a creator. His shoes were not just shoes, he poured his whole soul in it. I want to ask you, have you any complaint? Because I know how to make shoes myself, if you have any complaint, I can make another pair of shoes. But as far as I know, no one has ever complained about my father's shoes. He was a genius, a great creator and I am proud of my father."

The whole Senate was struk dumb. They could not understand what kind of man Abraham Lincoln was. He had made shoe-making an art, a creativity. And he was proud because his father did the job so well that not even a single complaint had ever been heard.

It does not matter what you do. It matters how you do it - of your own accord, with your own vision, with your own love. Then whatever you touch becomes gold.

I am That

That which throbs in my every heartbeat,

that which lies awake while I sleep,

that which rests in the gap between my thoughts,

that which negates me, destroys my ego,

that which transforms me into nothingness and everythingness,

I am That, I am That, I am the Brahmah.

Soulmates

Soulmates come into our life to teach us lessons.

When the teaching is done they leave.

That is inevitable.

Wisdom lies in letting them go.

Joy lies in being grateful that they came into our lives.

P.S. The laws of the soul are implacable and wise.

Haiku

Sometimes it is enough

to just be there

and just be yourself.

My need, a wound,

bleeds into the night,

bleeds me of joy.

Long dark night of rain,

long night of the soul,

brilliant, glorious morning.

Attention

Anything you nurture and pay attention to flourishes,
anything you neglect dies,
this is a law of nature.

P.S. this also applies to relationships.