Relationship

--------- excerpt from The Mandala of Being ----------

A relationship is an energetic alchemy that two or more people create together which has the potential to accentuate the closeness or distance of each from his or her true self. How close to, or how far from, our true selves we live determines the quality of the relationships we create.

- Richard Moss

On Being

“There are moments when one feels free from one’s own identification with human limitation. At such moments one imagines that one stands on some spot of a small planet gazing in amazement at the cold and yet profoundly moving beauty of the eternal, the unfathomable. Life and death flow into one, and there is neither evolution nor destiny, only Being.”

- Albert Einstein

The day was crystal clear and sparkling .....

Today when I got out of the house in the morning the sun was shining, but it must have rained during the night because everything outside was wet. There were tiny droplets of water on the leaves, the flowers and the tiny droplets on each blade of grass shining in the sunlight made it look like the grass was wearing sequins :)) The light has a different quality when the sun shines again after the rain. The air is crystal clear and sparkling and the trees, houses, roads look spanking clean. Sitting on the train I look out as we pass the river. The water is almost still and the trees look like they are looking at their own reflection in the water. A group of gulls sitting on a sand bar is perfectly reflected on the still water. Watching the scene, it occurs to me that this is how witnessing comes about.

Your thoughts, actions, reactions, no matter how turbulent are reflected on the stillness of your inner silence. There no thoughts emerge, no reactions occur, there is just silent witnessing. Thoughts come and go, reactions rage and pass away, concepts are formed and changed, opinions rise and fall, but the witness only witnesses these temporary phenomena. It remains unchanged, unaffected, serene and calm. In this witnessing lies all wisdom. It is the link to the realm of the infinite wherein lies only innocence and pure love.

When I got home in the evening, the trees were alive with the sound of birdsong. The little ones were calling, talking, scolding but in such a musical manner it makes the heart swell with joy. I go for a walk and the sunshine is warm and invigorating. It feels as if summer has finally arrived here after much hemming and hawing and delay :) The light falls dazzling on everything, lighting up the grass to an emerald brilliance, the tender young leaves blushing rose and the leaves silhouetted against the light a translucent shade of green.

Back home while I'm writing this on my laptop I have an unusual visitor. I've left the front door open to let in some fresh air. I see a slight movement near the bedroom door and I turn my head slowly to see a jet black cat with green eyes walk into the room. I am sitting absolutely still so it doesn't notice me. It sniffs at the various objects on the floor and is walking towards my feet when it looks up and sees a pair of eyes looking into its eyes. Its instinctive reflex is to flee, it stiffens and almost turns away but after the initial fear response, it relaxes and looks into my eyes for a few seconds more and realising I'm no threat it turns and leaves, slowly and with dignity.

This is the thing I love about animals other than humans, they are living from the core, true to themselves. In innocence and in being-ness.

Childe Harold

from Childe Harold, Canto iv, Verse 178

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar:

I love not man the less, but Nature more,

From these our interviews, in which I steal

From all I may be, or have been before,

To mingle with the Universe, and feel

What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Lord Byron, (George Gordon)

Dance to change the world

A truly eye-opening, inspiring video........ Watch and change your world-view -

Dance to change the world

Notes to myself

There is no such thing as a bad decision or a wrong choice. We call it bad because the outcome was not what we expected. We made that choice sub-consciously because of the lessons that choice would bring that we were supposed to learn. In such a situation it helps to step back and ask oneself “what am I supposed to learn here?” If we don’t learn the lesson we tend to make the same choices and attract the same kind of situation again and again. Until we have learnt the lesson.

In a social gathering, you’ll find that almost all those present wear masks, including yourself. So the interaction is really between masks, seemingly friendly, happy and enjoyable. Saying things that sound pleasant, smiling to hide the pain or anger or dislike. How can such a situation be anything but false, disconcerting and dishonest?

Competition springs from the ego. Recognition from peers, glory, acknowledgement from society, my true self has no need of these. There is no need for comparing, competing or proving myself. If I am the source AND the manifestation, of what need is praise? Who is praising whom? If I am all and one, with whom do I compete? My true self knows only union, only the ego seeks to separate, compare and compete.

To be free of the need to talk, to communicate, to be sociable is for me a very liberating experience. Contact with civilisation can sometimes be a corrupting influence wherein while donning the mask of civilisation we lose touch with the purity of our true self. Doing this for too long brings about a disconnect with who we really are while we play the roles of who society wants us to be.

Nowadays I feel happy when I hear that someone has passed away. For the soul the earthly existence is a very binding one, bound by body, limited by time and space. It has taken on a earthly form for some reason, maybe for an experience or a lesson. Maybe it seeks realisation. It longs for escape from the trap of illusion, it longs to be free again. Death of the body and mind gives it that freedom, to merge with limitlessness once again. Why would it want to be trapped in ignorance, in darkness, when it can be the light it truly is and be one with infinite effulgence.

Life's most vital discovery

----- excerpt from www.superwisdom.com -----

Several people were on a walk with author and spiritual teacher Vernon Howard. While crossing a large paved parking lot, he called everyone’s attention to a little flower that had broken through. He pointed out its perfect relevance to our inner task. The seed’s yearning to express itself was so strong that a thick layer of concrete could not stop it.

People possess many different fears, but perhaps the largest one is unseen. It’s the fear that we’ll not be able to handle or contain the tremendous power of the awakened Heart. Therefore, we hold ourselves back. We live a life of reluctance. In this reduced state of energy all our problems “miraculously” appear.

Our inner difficulties are not what they appear to be. Worry, regret, fear, anger and loneliness are symptoms, not the cause. What is the real problem? It is a dormant Central Power Source. What is our purpose? To awaken this source and shatter the concrete of false beliefs and shallow thinking.

It is fascinating to discover that the location of the Central Power Source has been known for thousands of years. Throughout the Bible the power of the Heart is referenced more than 800 times. The dictionary defines Heart as: “The vital center and source of one’s being, emotions, and sensibilities, the central or innermost part of a place or region.” People often point to their physical heart as their spiritual heart, but ancient wisdom places this source in the region of our breath.

Different cultures have highlighted the Heart’s supreme value in life and spirituality, even health and well-being. The Japanese have long referred to this domain as Hara. The Chinese have named it Dan Tien. One of the Bible’s most interesting statements is in Proverbs 4:23, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” Shakespeare chimes in, “Go to your bosom: Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.” Buddha declares, “The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart.”

At the turn of the century Russell Conwell wrote a great little book that illustrates this thought entitled Acres of Diamonds. The book opens with a story about a wealthy man who sold his farm and journeyed to foreign lands in search of diamonds. Some time later the richest diamond mine in history was discovered, and it was found right on the land he once owned! The good news for us is this domain is still entirely our own. We can rediscover the rich life we have in fact never lost.

Sufi mystic Al-Ghazzali declares the glowing Heart wisdom:

“The first step to self-knowledge is to know that thou art composed of an outward shape, called the body, and an inward entity called the heart, or soul. By “heart” I do not mean the piece of flesh situated in the left of our bodies, but that which uses all the other faculties as its instruments and servants. In truth it does not belong to the visible world, but to the invisible, and has come into this world as a traveler visits a foreign country for the sake of merchandise, and will presently return to its native land. It is the knowledge of this entity and its attributes which is the key to the knowledge of God.”

Excerpt from the site -

http://www.superwisdom.com/2009/05/superwisdom-seven-vital-secrets-for-a-rich-and-purpose-filled-life-the-books-introduction/#more-1086

the surprising science of motivation

Watch an interesting talk presenting surprising new ideas on the science of motivation.

Dan Pink on motivation

Intellect

Albert Einstein once said, 'We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles but no personality. It cannot lead; it can only serve.'

Come, let’s be free

Would that your silence
lap against the shores of my silence,
how beautiful would that be.
Would that in that silence
our true selves be revealed,
how liberating would that be.
Would that we lose ourselves in that silence
and find the Source,
how divine would that be.

Words are so limiting, so inadequate
to convey our abundance,
why seek comfort in their confines.
Like cages that imprison birds
and arrest their flight,
they force us into little packets of meaning.
Let’s free ourselves of words,
even the cages of our bodies
and be the limitless beings that we are.

A different way of looking

Look at yourself as a tree would see you, or as a rock would or the sea would. They would not see your gender, your colour, your race, your medals, your achievements, your talents, your wealth, your status. They would only see your Beingness. Everything else has been put on, layer upon layer upon your true being. Even your personality, your traits, your character, your values. Observe how they change over time, according to circumstances, how we alter them to suit ourselves. How can our true self be anything so mercurial, temporary, illusionary?

Look at the earth as the earth would see itself. It would see no boundaries, no fences, no countries, no divisions. It would only see bountiful plenty. It would see the richness and the amazing diversity of life and the inevitability of death. And below it all, the hidden intelligence that pulsates in all. Even though we fancy ourselves to be God’s greatest creation for the earth man is just another form of life. It makes not concessions for us, gives us no special treatment. For most of the animal kingdom, man remains their greatest enemy. Maybe we need to go outside of our mind, set aside our ego and look at ourselves as nature would see us.

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.