Happy New Year...

Wish all of you who step into this space a happy, safe, joyous, love-filled and self-explorative new year..

proving a point...does it matter...

'(In a controversy)......The instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth and have begun striving for ourselves.'

- The Buddha

kabhi haan kabhi naa...

was watching the shahrukh movie, kabhi haan kabhi na, today..one of my favourites...can resonate with the character...don't all children/youth go through handling judgements, condemnatioins, guilt...and crave to be loved and accepted? just as they are....more often than not, they are not able to accept themselves....love themselves..and herein lies a story of bruised self-esteem...leading to so many links - becoming manipulative to get their ways; telling lies, sulking and being bitter and irritable, angry with everyone and everything...the list goes on...Consequently, we also become insensitive friends, insensitive lovers, insensitive spouses,insensitive parents and so on... We can only share what we have within...if we are full of hurts and resentments and hate, it manifests in our relationship spaces outside...

We also become beggars for affection, craving for it in myriad ways.We want to make ourselves indispensable, often humiliatingly in the lives of people whose affections we seek; we crave for recognition in all we do...Thus , our lives are an incessant struggle to appear more beautiful, more sexy, to cook better, to earn more..the list goes on..we are constantly insecure about losing the people we care about, and strive to make ourselves more attractive/useful to them, so that they continue to need us.

it also manifests in a seeking for constant social attestation of our actions.We want to be ourselves but not at the cost of various social privileges a "conformist" attitude brings with it.Thus, we wear elaborate and burdensome masks, pretending to be what society expects us to be.

It has happened to me....as an older guy, I have learnt through those.....worked on my resentments, my hatreds, my insecurities,my tendency to judge incessantly......so many of them....i am still in process, learning even as I share.

Can i remind my younger friends, that everything is ok..it is ok the way we are, nothing wrong with it....we can always improvise, but we are not condemned species in creation....we are equally special as anyone else..does not matter if we are thin, fat, dark, short or whatever...we have our own space....life is not hurting and humiliating because of what we are or not, it is hurting and humiliating because people(including us) are still learning to love, learning to care....we are also a part of that great learning process...and very critical links of the chain called life....let us discover that sacred space within each of and enrich ourselves as well as others we meet on the way...

a fundamental human need...to be accepted as one is....and then, in that acceptance,one flowers....

humour in everyday life....

i called up a public utility service.The voice told me that I had got through to the wrong number and I was to call xxxx.

I called up the number she gave me. The same voice answered. I verified it was her. She told me that she was doing both the jobs that day!!!!!

to be or not to be...

most of the time , we wear our masks.we are afraid of being ourselves.To be "ourselves" makes us vulnerable; to criticism, to ridicule, to humiliation, to condemnation and so on..

but then , is there any other way to be, if we have to stay vibrantly alive?

integrity is a critical need in self-actualization spaces.we have remain centred there, in a dynamic awareness.

we can only "relate" from there...

judgements....

"Before you criticise someone, you should first walk a mile in their shoes.”

That way, you will be a mile away... and you’ll have their shoes! This ancient advice still holds true. We don’t know what other people are really thinking and feeling. We don’t know what they have been through or what lies ahead for them.

We take a few snapshots of their behaviour at some random moment in time and then judge them for evermore on the strength of this.

Or, perhaps more appropriately, on the weakness of it.

- author unknown

come alive...

Don't ask too much what the world needs. Ask yourself, what makes you come alive and go out and do it. Because what the world needs most is for more people to "come alive".

- inspiration from Howard Thurman

laws of karma...

Whatever you resist you become.

If you resist anger, you are always angry.

If you resist sadness, you are always sad.

If you resist suffering, you are always suffering.

If you resist confusion, you are always confused.
We think that we resist certain states because they are there, but actually they are there because we resist them.

--- Adyashanti

authenticate life...

The whole world seeks happiness as a "collective".Efforts abound in trying to make it happen.Each one of us has our understanding of the causes and solutions towards it.But our attempts only seem to add to the chaos and confusion.Thus, we crave for peace, but endlessly create wars and conflicts; we yearn for joy but end up being disappointed;all our projected ideals remain just that - projections of our aspirations.The reality remains familiar, yet there is a disconnect.
Can we see it differently?
We seem to be addressing the symptoms rather than the root causes.While components of the system remain as they are, we seek a change in the summation.Rearranging the parts can create a cosmetic illusion, nothing beyond.Thus, we play around with perceptions, strategies etc while the fundamentals remain the same.
And what are the fundamentals?
Man as an individual is ridden with conflicts.He is a 100 different parts himself; conflicts and confusions reign supreme within him; joy and spontaineity are distinctly lacking.Hurts,rejection and pain qualify the core of his being.
Given such a situation, is he capable of contributing to healing processes of the collective, is the moot question?
Insights that occured in my life indicate otherwise.When the micro processes get healed, the macro has to respond.The seeds of change lie in the micro.And a morphogenetic quantum of micro level changes can enable a paradigm shift in the macro.Yes, the responsibility lies with each one of us.To address our conflicts, pain and hurts within...just see our states integrally, without condemnation, judgement or guilt.It is just the way we are.No justifications, no explanations.Helpless....Seeing ourselves as we are unfolds a miracle in creation.It is a "happening" , not a matter of effort.A flood of creative energies flow through us re-aligning our erroneous perceptions.
Awareness is not the means to an end, it is an end by itself.
This is not intellectual masturbation.Try it out for yourself.Authenticate it personally.Do not try to love; it is pathetic; instead become aware of the absence of love; the death of feeling within, the unabashed abuse of people in our lives, cloaked elaborately in declarations of love and caring.But a word of caution; it is not easy to accept ourselves as we are when we see ourselves as manipulators and abusers; insensitive to the core.This is the greatest challenge; not escaping into guilt trips,not condemning ourselves, just seeing things as they are.Then watch the miracle of life unfold, just as it is, pristine pure and unadulterated by conditioning.

perceptions....

i recently met a person who had just been visiting some tribal hamlets.. she was aghast at their clothing and casual lifestyles and wanted to activate some help for them...

sometimes intents are misplaced due to fundamental misconceptions..we tend to judge the world by our standards...never sparing a thought to the fact that we may be destroting fundamental fabrics of existence.

The USA of today was created by people from across the seas who felt that they only knew how to live and set the behavioural benchmarks for the world...today the world is discovering the depth and clarity of native american wisdom...and the prudishness and narrow confines of the people from across the ocean...

it has been the history of the world...

i do believe one has to network and synergize skills but lot of supposed help is top down..thus medicines which are often unwanted are shared with under-developed communities( who can forget the norplant issue in india)....initiatives tend to be resource driven rather than need based...and more often than not do more harm than good..

coming back to tribals, there is so much natural intelligence and spontaineity in their lives; in a world characterised by cosmetic smiles and highly difficult to arise laughter, they are spontaneous in their expressions and uninhibited....

i am not able to remember the name of the character froma somerset maugham classic who goes for a visit into the rustic interiors , far away from the confines of his disinfected social world which moves through definition rather than feeling, and never returns back...his peers and his fiancee feel he is stupid but again that is a matter of perspective....

reality...

Reality, mostly is not what it is, but what we have decided it is.

We first make our conclusions - then find some way to arrive at them!!!!

- Anthony De Mello

centering...

Talking or silent, moving, unmoving, the essence is at ease. The essence is at ease: that is the key word. The essence is at ease: that is the key statement. Do whatsoever you are doing, but at the deepest core remain at ease, cool, calm, centered.

~Osho

life- an experience.....

life is not a problem to be solved ; it is a mystery to be lived , loved and experienced....

-osho

learning to love.....

a recent post on www.intentblog.com threw open a q by Mallika Chopra on whether it is really possible to love a person with whom we differ on very fundamental perspectives of life and living....

i will share something which i observe to be very common place occurance...initially i used to think i was unique in feeling this way....

this concerns our relationships with our parents.....

i do not share many of life's perspectives with my mom....i lost my dad earlier and we are the two of us who share our lives....geographically and otherwise...

in my earlier years, i was constantly judgemental....saw her as a weak person , a loser in many of life's endeavours....our conversations were invariably of an argumentative nature.

i tried loving her from my mindspace...pathetic....i was expected to be nice to her..be a source of support.....which i did...but where was all the spontaineity and feeling.....there was a certain dryness, a dead habit to our interface....

an event i distinctly remember was the death of my dad when i was 14. I have found the mind to be a weird entity, capable of randomly generating thoughts...on the day of father's death, Prince Charles was getting married to Lady Diana and the event was being televised...my mind was actually flitting across the two events...making me feel very guilty...

later , when i read The Story of My experiments with Truth , I could easily relate to Mahatma Gandhi's integral expresses....of how he was overcome by lust when a parent was dying....and lust seemed to control him....lust is a pattern in the mind....

i could not deny my realities....i could not wish them away....i wished to be something which was very far from what i actually was...the way i saw myself or wished to see myself was a "projected ideal" inculcated in me by various aspects of conditioning and i was trying to live upto it....i was trying to love when i intrinsically lacked a capacity....

acceptance was the key to transformative processes within.....

i realized i was "incapable" of love and joy.....from domains from which i was operating....love and joy are not about directed and manipulated thoughts.....thoughts can hardly be controlled; most of the time they control us....as i was to learn subsequently....i cannot plan to love, sometimes thoughts force me into situations where i go after an innate need...like thoughts can create a habitual need for food out of force of sheer habit..contrast this psychological need with real hunger....

a lot of my spiritual explores and seekings addressed this innate dryness...the desert within...until the oasis within manifested in a gentle spring....just a "happening", not a matter of effort....i discovered a fountainhead within which was just there for the asking.....beyond logic, beyond concepts, beyond planning.....non-judgemental, unconditional.....just a part of my intrinsic being.....not person or activity specific.....like a river in flow....flooding all in its' wake....

the mind is not the faculty which is capable of love and joy.....it is a beautiful faculty to design a chair or a software programme.....but one has to explore beyond for accessing domains of consciousness which are intrinsically trusting, intrinsically loving and intrinsically joyous and blissful.....totally accepting and non-transactional.....

a state of being......domains in existential consciouness...

i am still exploring and discovering the potential of these realms....where one just melts away...there is no holding back....as natural as a flower in bloom or a bird in flight....

and yes..i share much better spaces with my mom.....in acceptance, not in perennial judgement....

in deep gratitude to my masters who have facilitated and enabled this evolution.....when i say thank you today, i feel i mean it much more...there is a certain depth to the words as different from the lip-service i was accustomed to in the past....

civilized?

a friend of mine was talking of a pattern in her household. Whenever her mom dropped by to see her or to stay with her, her husband and mother-in-law would just go out under the flimsiest of excuses.Her mom used to feel humiliated and avoid coming to her house.

this is not an issue for "ngo addressals"....but should we not pause to consider the abuses that are inflicted day in and day out....the ironic part is that my friend had married her husband after a torrid romance....and such sensitivity in such "love-filled" space!!!!

and the person in q is educated, widely travelled......still very lacking in fundamental human courtesies....

shocked? i am not....sensitivity and humaneness are not products of the education system...nor of our social systems..they are breakthroughs in consciousness....spiritual processes...and abuses are not inflicted on women alone..all of us are perpetuators and victims alike....

events such as the one mentioned above are not at all rare......

the personal touch....

when we think air india or indian hostesses, what comes to mind more often than not is cribs and complaints, almost habitually....read an interesting first person share on a fellow blogger's site...check it out...http://sigmund007.blogspot.com/ ......humans make all the difference, beyond roles and definitions....

close encounters....

2 recent encounters stand out...

one , a svelte socialite I know, who was going through a heart break...she was feeling abused....her last date was now an "item" at local parties with her best friend..."how could he do that to me?, she was asking me. But, dont people forever do this, day in and day out? carefully masked , maybe, but is it not almost an omnipresence...do we really know to relate?when people say, "i love you" are they really meaning, "i need you" and "i need you to need me"...i wonder....

could not help contrasting this conversation with another I had a few months back....it was with a commercial sex worker who had called me to help her father out....she was on a ngo connect...i knew that this was her step father and he had been pretty abusive to her....when i asked her about her concern for him after all that she had gone through...she just said, "sometime people have compulsions....my mother likes him....he has been able to give her some happiness...in an otherwise deserted life...how does it matter if i help out.....all of us use each other all the time....sometimes individually and sometimes collectively....some subtly and yet others not so subtly....nafrat sirf humhe andhar kha jaati hai, saab, " so saying she signed off..

there is nothing glamourous...in the way she behaved....just a mechanism she had devised for herself in understanding life....

main hoon na....

main khayal hoon kisi aur ka....immortal lines from nida fazli ( i think)....

we exist in other's thoughts as they perceive us....figments of imagination.....as different from the entitities we really are....

every moment - priceless....

moments are but peeks into the infinite, the limitless...the depth with which we savour them makes all the difference....in awareness and integrity....every moment is sacred....

kuch baat hai hum sabhi mein.....

saab, aapke paas do minute hain?

The cab driver halted me as I was getting off. I knew him by face...was a regular at the cab stand just around our locale.

I paused. He wanted to talk....... about some domestic matter that was bothering him.

we connected.....so many faceless people we meet , day in and day out....histories behind each of them..legacies of experiences , of feelings.......

if we only pause to hear.....life speaks in a million languages....

a moment beyond facades and masks..a moment where just the humans in us connect, no roles we play or identities that have got created.....just human to human.....

emptiness...

music needs the hollowness of the flute; letters, the blankness of the paper; light, the void called a window; sacredness, the absence of the self.

- Anthony De Mello

gems from the Dhammapada...

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world. Speak or act with an impure mind and trouble will follow you..... as the wheel follows the ox that draws the cart...Speak or act with a pure mind. And happiness will follow you.....as your shadow, unshakeable.

~Dhammapada (the sayings of the Buddha)

high moral ground...

every now and then i see people resort to "high moral grounds"...closer observation reveals their emergence in a desperate need to mask oneself much more for obvious lack of integrity in everyday nuances...an observance, nay a judgement...as with everything else morality concepts seem to have become convenient props...to enable us face our lack of integrity in life...i have seen spouses lie to each other quite unabashedly, i have been witness to manipulative behaviours....with near and dear ones..and all this being "love"....morality, to me , can never remain isolated from integrity....something that seems conspicuous in its absence when one pauses to observe...

check this link...thought it was very beautiful and connected deep within...

www.enlightenedbeings.com/music/shania-noll.mp3

images...aaina..

was watching the movie Daddy after a longtime...never tire of seeing it....and the song by talat aziz, aaina mujhse meri pahle ki surat maange...one of my all-time favs....

completed the naseoh seminar today....very good participation....and we had a moderator from ndtv.....am hopeful of a few dynamic feedlines evolving...

met an indian stephen hawking....

he just said, if one is able to be mobile and access a "loo"....fundamental infrastructures, what not can be achieved....

though invariably a "panelist" sought for my expertise, i invariably end up only learning more......

just to give u a perspective, mumbai is estimated to have over 10 lakh people with abilities different from ours....while the indian estimate is closer to 100 million.

we have 30 out of 1000 buses which can cater to them....this is a recent development.....there are no public loo facilities....across india about 1 lakh differently abled people are supposed to have some employment....

synergizing abilities.....

hi guys, am helping organize a seminar on creative employment opportunities for the differently abled on the occasion of International Day of the Disabled(dec 3) at NASEOH. Our panelists include senior professionals from The BPO space as well from the food processing industry.we are looking for ideas..any random shares are welcome...

if u r in mumbai and would like to join us please let me know so that I can organize an invite...

knowing....

some of us "believe" in God;

some of us don't;

the vast majority of us are indifferent;

most of us do not "know"......

is not such a fundamental ignorance a critical "need" to be addressed?

i wonder..............

before it is too late.....

Around the corner

I have a friend,

in this great city that has no end,

Yet the days go by and weeks rush on,

And before I know it, a year is gone.

And I never see my old friends face,

For life is a swift and terrible race,

He knows I like him just as well,

As in the days when I rang his bell.

And he rang mine if, we were younger then,

And now we are busy, tired men.

Tired of playing a foolish game,

Tired of trying to make a name.

"Tomorrow" I say! "I will call on Jim"

"Just to show that I'm thinking of him."

But tomorrow comes and tomorrow goes,

And distance between us grows and grows.

Around the corner!

yet miles away,

"Here's a telegram sir"

"Jim died today."

And that's what we get

and deserve in the end.

Around the corner,

a vanished friend.

Remember to always say

what you mean.

If you love or like someone,

tell them.

Don't be afraid to express yourself.

Reach out and tell someone

what they mean to you.

Because when you decide

that it is the right time

it might be too late.

Seize the day.

Never have regrets.

And most importantly,

stay close to your friends and family,

for they have helped make you

the person that you are today.

conflicts....

we often or rather perenially face situations of being "unable" to decide between options.Even after taking a decision, the conflict afflicts us residually...we are always unsure...

i have found conflict to be an "intrinsic" quality of the mind, given the fact that it "judges" based on comparative nuances.Judgement is always contextual to a frame of reference, a given set of perspectives, which are in no way "absolute".

Can we move a step backwards and observe/witness this....we normally focus on the "content" of conflicts and are unable to resolve/dissolve it...

can we see it differently?

rather than focus on the "content" of conflict, can we focus on the "process" of conflict...

i have done the latter and the results have been awesome....we cannot resolve/dissolve conflicts while operating from realms of the mind, for we are a "part" of the conflict there.Resolution/dissolution naturally emerges when we step back and observe....from beyond the realms of the mind....the "witness" consciousness...

the "witness" consciousness operates from the realms of the "heart"....which is intrinsically "incapable" of conflict....to move there, one has to keep observing until one just "sees" that there is "conflict"...non-judgementally....not it's content.....

reposted from "The World of Crazy Nutt"

We convince ourselves that life will be better once we are married, have a baby, then another.Then we get frustrated because our children are not old enough, and that it will all be well when they are older.Then we are frustrated because they reach adolescence and we must deal with them.Surely we will be happier when they grow out of their teen years.We tell ourselves our life will be better when our spouse gets his/her act together, when we have a nicer car, when we can take a vacation, when we finally retire.The truth is that there is no better time to be happy than right now.If not, then when?You life will always be full of challenges. It is better to admit as much and decide to be happy in spite of it all.

For the longest time, it seemed that life was about to start. Real life.But there was always some obstacle along the way, an ordeal to get through, some work to be finished, some time to be given, a bill to be paid. Then life would start.

I finally came to understand that those obstacles were life.

That point of view helped me see that there isn’t any road to happiness.

Happiness IS the road.So, enjoy every moment.

Stop waiting for school to end, a return to school, to loose ten pounds, to gain ten pounds, for work to begin, to get married, for Friday evening, for Sunday morning, waiting for a new car, for your mortgage to be paid off, for spring, for summer, for fall, for winter, for the first or the fifteenth of the month, for your song to be played on the radio, to die, to be reborn…before deciding to be happy.

“Happiness is a voyage, not a destination.There is no better time to behappy than…NOW!Live and enjoy the moment.”

Now, think and try to answer these questions:

1 – Name the 5 richest people in the world.

2 – Name the 5 Miss Universe winners.

3 – Name the last 10 Nobel Prize winners.

4 – Name the last 10 winners of the Best Actor Oscar.

Can’t do it? Rather difficult, isn’t it?Don’t worry, nobody remembers that. Applause dies away! Trophies gather dust! Winners are soon forgotten.

Now, answer these questions:

1 – Name 3 teachers who contributed to your education.

2 – Name 3 friends who helped you in your hour of need.

3 – Think of a few people who made you feel special.

4 – Name 5 people that you like to spend time with.

More manageable? It’s easier, isn’t it?The people who mean something to your life are not rated “the best”, don’t have the most money, haven’t won the greatest prizes…They are the ones who care about you, take care of you, those who, no matter what, stay close by.

Think about it for a moment.Life is short!

And you, in which list are you? Don’t know?Let me give you a hand.

You are not among the most “famous”…

Some time ago, at the Seattle Olympics, nine athltes, all mentally or physically challenged, were standing on the start line for the 100m race.The gun fired and the race began. Not everyone was running, but everyone wanted to participate and win.They ran in threes, a boy tripped and fell, did a few somersaults and started crying.The other eight heard him crying.They slowed down and looked behind them.They stopped and came back…all of them…A girl with Down’s Syndrome sat down next to him, hugged him and asked, “Feeling better now?”Then, all nine walked shoulder to shoulder to the finish line.The whole crowd stood up and applauded. And the applause lasted a very long time…People who witnessed this still talk about it. Why?Because deep down inside us, we all know that the most important thing in life is much more than winning for ourselves.The most important thing in life, is to help others to win. Even if that means slowing down and changing our own race.…

“A candle loses nothing if it is used to light another one”

centering....

it is very critical to be in touch with ourselves; our cores.....else , our lives tend to get merely reactionary....peer influences and pressures run our lives rather than our fundamental needs space....we are caught up in a struggle to conform, in a struggle to impress....sometimes we waste a lot of time and effort in things that may really not mean a lot to us.....just because it is a peer group perspective.....

centering also makes us realize that we are not "know-alls".....our knowledge is very limited in its perspectives..every moment makes us learn fresh aspects of life and living...it makes us humble..we don't have to "try" being humble....when we see things as they are, humbleness automatically emerges....in intelligence.it makes us better "learners"...we are constantly on guard against the emergence of egoistic positionalities in our lives.....

spending time with ourselves rather than being outward directed all the time is the key.....

Once, we travelled by horse and cart. Letters took days to arrive. Now we hurtle along... and e-mails cross the globe in an instant. Are our lives any the richer? Do we feel happier, wiser, or more fulfilled? It's not an easy question to answer fairly of course - for we weren't alive in those olden days. But even in the time we can recall, technology has altered radically. And are there fewer depressed or unhappy folk in this world?

- jonathan cainer

recently, a friend of mine and myself had an explosive argument regarding this aspect. we differed in our viewpoints.i do feel man is constantly improvising on things he can live with; the technologies surrounding him and it does add value to his lifestyle.no deniance there.but, in terms of things to live for.....we have to pause and do a double take....personally, i do not see any significant developments in this regard.....joy, love etc....do not fall into category of metrics and evaluation as we know them to be.....but then they are significant impact parameters...when we look at quality ofd life....

courage...

The seed cannot know what is going to happen, the seed has never known the flower. And the seed cannot even believe that he has the potentiality to become a beautiful flower.

Long is the journey, and it is always safer not to go on that journey because unknown is the path, nothing is guaranteed. Nothing can be guaranteed. Thousand and one are the hazards of the journey, many are the pitfalls - and the seed is secure, hidden inside a hard core

But the seed tries, it makes an effort; it drops the hard shell which is its security, it starts moving. Immediately, the fight starts: the struggle with the soil, with the stones, with the rocks.

And the seed was very hard and the sprout will be very, very soft and dangers will be many. There was no danger for the seed, the seed could have survived for millennia, but for the sprout many are the dangers.

Yet, the sprout starts towards the unknown, towards the sun, towards the source of light, not knowing where, not knowing why. Great is the cross to be carried, but a dream possesses the seed and the seed moves.

The same is the path for man. It is arduous. Much courage will be needed. This small wildflower has met the challenge of the rocks and stones in its path to emerge into the light of day. Surrounded by an aura of bright golden light, it exposes the majesty of its tiny self. Unashamed, it is equal to the brightest sun.

When we are faced with a very difficult situation we have a choice: we can either be resentful, and try to find somebody or something to blame for the hardships, or we can face the challenge and grow. The flower shows us the way, as its passion for life leads it out of the darkness and into the light.

There is no point fighting against the challenges of life, or trying to avoid or deny them. They are there, and if the seed is to become the flower we must go through them. Be courageous enough to grow into the flower you are meant to be.

~Osho

freedom...

freedom is not merely about shifting across "concepts".....freedom is seeing everything as a "concept" and flowing through life from beyond them....

song of the bird....

The Master was never impressed

by diplomas or degrees.

He scrutinized the person,

not the certificate.
He was once heard to say,

"When you have ears to hear a bird in song,

you don't need to look at its credentials."

-anthony de mello

colloquial relationships....

man does not know "love".........man knows to use and to be used.....love is beyond realms of the mind....beyond transactional spaces...a defn of colloquial relationships in the words of my master goes thus, "He needs her need of him; she needs his need of her".....nothing wrong in that if we see it for what it is....we like to cloak it in declarations of love.....fooling ourselves......manipulations,mistrust,suspicion deceit, dominations, subtle abuses, cosmetic moralities.....everything emerging purely in aspects of conveniences....so many people expressing moral indignation over the presence of dance bars recently....an enforced closure....to me morality is conspicuous by its absence in the way human beings who function as bar girls and whores have been treated..every human being is in a market place today where emotions are traded for security.......what are we talking about....people fall in love , rarely with other humans, more often with bank balances and other security nuances...it is a quality which permeates every aspect of our lives today and we express indignation at social manifests of it.....judge harshly when we ourselves are an intrinsic part of it.....are we any different from those we tend to judge....

and not to mention the horrors that abound in "institutionalised" spaces....institutions don't sanctify human interface; the attitudes people bring in, do. so much rape one hears of in marriage spaces and so much abuse.....subtle games of control.....can things be more immoral?

Morality is a dynamic born in respect....

morality aspects, today, are mere conveniences to mask our lack of integrity and fundamental immoralities .....

these have nothing to do with love as i have known it..unconditional, accepting, nourishing, enriching, not transactional.......i have experienced such spaces with my master....just a state of being.....not a set of activities.....transacted in exchange for security......

love is a river in flow flooding all in its wake....

the thirst....

tap rahe te hum
huott pyaase te
akela hi tha tere khoj mein..

batke te hum har mod par
pyaase te hum tere pyaar ke...

maiya mori, maiya mori,
pyaasa hi ta...

chalta raha, girta raha...
jalta raha , bujhta raha..

takte kadam, lamha safar
takte kadam, takte kadam..

dhoonda kiya us naav ko
le jaye jo us paar jo...

maiya mori, maiya mori...
pyaasa hi tha....

friendship-john walker.....

with the falling of leaves ,
the masks of green are stripped off the hillsides;
revealing the uniqueness and diversity of each ridge and valley;
rock and stream , hitherto unseen......
It is in the winter,
when the hills bare their innermost selves ,
we can look at the hills as old friends,
few others can understand....

So it is, with people;
Most of the time we wear our masks.
But during the difficult times, during the winters of our lives;
we shed our facades and reveal all the intricacies of the unique beings we are.

It is in such moments that friendships are formed and people experience each other as few others ever will in such spaces.


to me, friendship is the most beautiful of concepts in relationships.....fundamental to the whole aspect of relating...... unconditional and accepting....

authenticate for urself....

The whole world seeks happiness as a "collective".Efforts abound in trying to make it happen.Each one of us has our understanding of the causes and solutions towards it.But our attempts only seem to add to the chaos and confusion.Thus, we crave for peace, but endlessly create wars and conflicts; we yearn for joy but end up being disappointed;all our projected ideals remain just that - projections of our aspirations.The reality remains familiar, yet there is a disconnect.

Can we see it differently?

We seem to be addressing the symptoms rather than the root causes.While components of the system remain as they are, we seek a change in the summation.Rearranging the parts can create a cosmetic illusion, nothing beyond.Thus, we play around with perceptions, strategies etc while the fundamentals remain the same.

And what are the fundamentals?

Man as an individual is ridden with conflicts.He is a 100 different parts himself; conflicts and confusions reign supreme within him; joy and spontaineity are distinctly lacking.Hurts,rejection and pain qualify the core of his being.
Given such a situation, is he capable of contributing to healing processes of the collective, is the moot question?
Insights that occured in my life indicate otherwise.When the micro processes get healed, the macro has to respond.The seeds of change lie in the micro.And a morphogenetic quantum of micro level changes can enable a paradigm shift in the macro.Yes, the responsibility lies with each one of us.To address our conflicts, pain and hurts within...just see our states integrally, without condemnation, judgement or guilt.It is just the way we are.No justifications, no explanations.

Helpless....

Seeing ourselves as we are unfolds a miracle in creation.It is a "happening" , not a matter of effort.A flood of creative energies flow through us re-aligning our erroneous perceptions.

Awareness is not the means to an end, it is an end by itself.

This is not intellectual masturbation.Try it out for yourself.Authenticate it personally.Do not try to love; it is pathetic; instead become aware of the absence of love; the death of feeling within, the unabashed abuse of people in our lives, cloaked elaborately in declarations of love and caring.But a word of caution; it is not easy to accept ourselves as we are when we see ourselves as manipulators and abusers; insensitive to the core.This is the greatest challenge; not escaping into guilt trips,not condemning ourselves, just seeing things as they are.Then watch the miracle of life unfold, just as it is, pristine pure and unadulterated by conditioning.

to relate....

to relate is to respond.....
to respond emerges from knowing oneself...
knowing oneself as one is, is enlightenment...
relationships are schools for enlightenment....

- adapted from Anthony De Mello

international holiday...

today, the 13th of november, happens to be an international holiday..celebration all around...

it is my birthday!!!!!!!!

mere coincidence that it is a sunday...

perceptions...

One day a wealthy man took his son on a trip to the country with the firm purpose of showing his son how poor people live.They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.

On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, "How was the trip?"

"It was great, Dad."

"Did you see how poor people live?" the father asked.

"Oh yeah," said the son."So, tell me, what you learned from the trip?" asked the father.

The son answered: "I saw that we have one dog and they had four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end.We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night.Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon.We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight.We have servants who serve us, but they serve others.We buy our food, but they grow theirs.We have walls around our property to protect us; they have friends to protect them."

The boy's father was speechless.

Then his son added, "Thanks, Dad, for showing me how poor we are."

humbleness-an attribute of genius...

Man's evolution into higher realms of consciousness is a direct factor of the extent of his awareness on his own levels of ignorance of the basics of life....

- inspirations from albert einstein

"logical" pitfalls....

This story is pilfered from a friend's blog....

Two builders are seated either side of a table in a rough pub when a well-dressed man enters, orders a beer and sits on a stool at the bar. The two builders start to speculate about the occupation of the suit.

Chris: ‘I reckon he’s an accountant.’

James: ‘No way – he’s a stockbroker.’

Chris: ‘He’s no stockbroker. A stockbroker wouldn’t come in here.’

The argument repeats itself for some time until the volume of beer gets the better of Chris and he makes for the toilet. On entering the toilet, he sees that the suit is standing at a urinal. Curiosity and the several beers get the better of the builder.

Chris: ‘Scuse me…no offence meant, but me and my mate were wondering what you do for a living.’

Suit: ‘No offence taken. I’m a logical scientist by profession.’

Chris: ‘Yeah, so what’s that then.’

Suit: ‘I’ll try to explain by example. Do you have a goldfish at home?’

Chris: ‘Er…mmm…well yeah, I do as it happens.’

Suit: ‘Well, it’s logical to assume that you keep it in a bowl or in a pond. Which is it?’

Chris: ‘It’s in a pond.’Suit: ‘Well then, it’s logical to suppose you have a large garden then?’

Chris: ‘As it happens, yes I have got a big garden.’

Suit: ‘Well then, it’s logical to assume that in this town if you have a large garden then you have a large house?’

Chris: ‘As it happens I’ve got a five-bedroom house…built it myself.’

Suit: ‘Well, given that you’ve built a five-bedroom house it is logical to assume that you haven’t built it just for yourself and that you’re probably married?’

Chris: ‘Yes, I am married. I live with my wife and three children.’

Suit: ‘Well then, it’s logical to assume that you are sexually active with your wife on a regular basis.’

Chris: ‘Yep! Four nights a week.’

Suit: ‘Well then, it is logical to suggest that you do not masturbate very often?’

Chris: ‘Me? Never!’

Suit: ‘Well, there you are, that’s logical science at work.’

Chris: ‘How’s that then?’

Suit: ‘Well, from finding out that you had a goldfish, I’ve told you about the size of your garden you have, the size of house, your family and your sex life.’

Chris: ‘I see. That’s pretty impressive…thanks mate.’

Both leave the toilet and Chris returns to his mate.

James: ‘I see the suit was in there. Did you ask him what he does?’

Chris: ‘Yep! He’s a logical scientist.’James: ‘What’s that then?’Chris: ‘I’ll try to explain. Do you have a goldfish?’

James: ‘Nope.’

Chris: ‘Well then, you’re a wanker.’

Ramayana - the US version...

Laughed my guts out at this article I received on e-mail..…

A young second generation Indian in the US was asked by his mother to explain the significance of "Diwali" to his younger brother, this is how he went about it...

"So, like this dude had, like, a big cool kingdom and people liked him. But, like, his step-mom, or something, was kind of a bitch, and she forced her husband to, like, send this cool-dude, he was Ram, to some national forest or something... Since he was going, for like, something like more than 10 years or so.. he decided to get his wife and his bro along... you know... so that they could all chill out together. But dude, the forest was reeeeal scary shit... really man... they had monkeys and devils and shit like that.

But this dude, Ram, kicked ass with darts and bows and arrows... so it was fine.

But then some bad gangsta boys, some jerk called Ravan, picks up his babe (Sita) and lures her away to his hood. And boy, was our man, and also his bro, Laxman, pissed... And you don't piss this son-of-a-gun cuz, he just kicks ass and like... all the gods were with him... So anyways, you don't mess with gods. So, Ram, and his bro get an army of monkeys... Dude, don't ask me how they trained the damn monkeys... just go along with me, ok... So, Ram, Lax and their monkeys whip this gangsta's ass in his own hood. Anyways, by this time, their time's up in the forest... and anyways... it gets kinda boring, you know... no TV or malls or shit like that. So,they decided to hitch a ride back home... and when the people realize that our dude, his bro and the wife are back home... they thought, well, you know, at least they deserve something nice... and they didn't have any bars or clubs in those days... so they couldn't take them out for a drink, so they, like, decided to smoke and shit... and since they also had some lamps, they lit the lamps also... so it was pretty cooool... you know with all those fireworks... Really, they even had some local band play along with the fireworks... and you know, what, dude, that was the very first, no kidding..., that was the very first music-synchronized fireworks... you know, like the 4th of July stuff, but just, more cooler and stuff, you know.

And, so dude, that was how, like, this festival started."

subtle abuses....

a family i know has been contemplating a shift abroad for better prospects...or should i say, the man in the family has been.....

his wife is also employed....

but then it has been taken for granted that she will be interested in the shift too....her resistances are ignored...there is a distinct lack of sensitivity in the addressal of the situation...

a child wants to take up "arts" in college..his mom is insistent that it should be "science"....

the child's pleas are of no avail....

a husband plans a surprise family outing.....the wife "sulks"....habitually....

my mom asks me where I am going as I leave the house...as a routine response, i resent her asking me....feel she is intrusive...bark at her saying that I am carrying my handphone should she feel the need to get in touch....

everyday violences we inflict on each other?sensitivity is sometimes conspicuous by its absence in shared spaces....

we find it much easier to behave nicely to total strangers....

dignity...

the only kind of dignity which is genuine is that which is not diminished by the disrespect of others.

You dont diminish the majesty of The Niagara Falls by spitting in it.

- anthony de mello

events, the cause of misery or misery, the cause of events...

happiness and unhappiness are rooted in the way we meet events, not in the events by themselves....

response...

a friend was conversing with me....the conversation was not as i would have liked it to be....saw resentment and anger well up inside of me...

my expectation is born in my own image creation of the person....

i had a choice..to focus outside and spell venom or to look within....and see the cyclone emerge...and then act....

case 1: reactive

case 2: responsive....

learning through relating....

but my choices manifest only if i am aware....not otherwise...awareness is freedom...

a sufi lyric...

aawaz de rahi hai
meri zindagi mujhe...
jaoon main ya na jaaoon
tujhe dekhne ke baad.
ab kya ghazal sunaaoon
tujhe dekhne ke baad...

life-the artform....

i like reading about mystics....a certain song and dance to the most mundane of activities....a kinda spring in their step....krishna.....playful, heroic, rebel, spiritual leader, warrior, romantic, friend, lover..ahhh..the hues....has been such an inspiration for indian cultural expresses....

so also the sufi masters...

so many hues life has to offer....melodies, colours....

if we were able to only experience it...the joy of connecting to things and people around us....so much mystery, so much adventure...and so aesthetic....beautiful....

what then makes such a lovely experience so mundane and boring at times...our tendencies to judge, to compare....as different from merely experiencing...

we never connect....from our cores....to anyone or anything...that could make all the difference...we connect through the filters of our mind...

life can be an artform...to be celebrated , if we so chose it..else it can be a mundane chore, a dead habit...

celebrate life, celebrate existence....moment by moment...to me, it is very spiritual....

shoes....

A great and foolish king complained that the rough ground hurt his feet, so he ordered the whole country to be carpetted with cowhide.

The court jester laughed when the king told him of this order."What an absolutely crazy idea, your Majesty," he cried."Why all the needless expense? Just cut out two small pads of cowhide to protect your feet!"

That is what the king did. And that is how the idea of shoes was born.

The enlightened know that to make the world a painless place you need to change your heart - not the world.

- Anthony De Mello

ego.....

Ego is the thinking mind. The thinking mind, the ego, the "me" are all the same. They are different names for the same thing, which is an illusion. It is the nature of the monkey-mind to jump about and chatter. Mind is merely a collection of thoughts, or a collection of impressions which makes up this "me", this self image. The ego is the identified consciousness. When the impersonal Consciousness identifies itself with the personal organism, the ego arises.

-unknown author

personally, i feel the ego is a beautiful tool for facilitating interconnect...it has to be used rather than the other way round...it uses us and that creates misery...

losing centredness....

yet another childhood friend is landing at a detox centre...so many biting the dust...relationships collapsing, drug, alcohol and sexual escapades going berserk and outta control.....people paying prices they had never imagined they would have to pay....

the key to succumbing is in "escaping" unconsciously.....not daring to face what life has to offer and making choices as a "response"...not being able to relate to what life has to offer...and choosing to escape by numbing ourselves....somewhere shirking responsibility....for our own joy and happiness...cribbing about the world and the people there....quick to ascribe our failures and shortcomings to everything around and about...

the unhappiness within spreads as an epidemic outside...chronic , crippling....we try to battle the situations outside..without candidly exploring ourselves.....

i am not condemning and judging.....but it is painful to watch....

religion has been as much of an escapade....as different from a authenticated , personal self-authenticed process of discovering and living from our centres....

keeping up images....to "fit in".....very rarely being ourselves....afraid of our loneliness, which may have the answers....but we chose not to stay with it..accept it.....

we have to light our own candles from within....and walk in that illumination....groping in the dark can be very miserable....

from here and there...

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.

I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.

I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love for your dream for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon...

I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain mine or your own without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful be realistic remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day.

And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure yours and mine and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here.

I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains y ou from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
Unknown author

positionality - the root of bondage...

is freedom about repositioning of our conceptual perceptions alone or is it about seeing everything as a concept and responding in our own comfort zones without limiting positionalities...

it is positionalities which make us miserable....

we are unable to accept people with contrarian positions....and life seems like a battle ground....

a father is comfortable with the "arranged marriage " mechanism, while his daughter is not...she is comfortable with a different mechanism....a different concept of relating platforms...

perfectly fine, as long as they are responsible for their own adherances and do not try thrusting their viewpoint on the other....

and can share a beautiful friendship in their relating space inspite of differing perspectives...

but that hardly happens....

and thats where misery lies.....in trying to convert the other to one's own point of view....or incases where domination is possible, enforcing behaviour modes....domination is violent....

"positionality" ( an ego-centric location in consciousness) is normally "reactive"......never responsive....and limits our abilities to relate, for we are constantly judging others by empirical standards we have set ourselves....judging is always contextual....

when we are able to see and be aware of our own "positionalities" in life, whatever they may be....we see them for what they are..contextual emergences in our space....based on our conditionings, our experiences....and we respect emergences in other's spaces too....in an acceptance born in understanding of the underlying processes....

then , we don't judge...we are able to relate....from a domain that is beyond concepts....from a deeper core of our beings...

in process...

we go after things as we desire them....we win some, we lose some....but underlying everywhere is the fact that we can learn..sometimes, we learn more in our losing....

being centred is to be aware.....to be a learner even as we experience....

we are always winners when we are learners....

integrity....

we are so many things to so many people....sometimes, we behave in ways that are expected of us in certain spaces....

in few spaces, if we are lucky, we are ourselves....rare moments...with our fears, our insecurities, our candidness without fear of rebuke, condemnation or judgement...we are not afraid of being our real selves...the relationship, if we are sharing space, is not at stake if we be ourselves....

there is a lot we would like to be, but we are something....when we are in touch with ourselves....

that is the real "we" ...

to me, such moments, if they happen are moments of life, moments of integrity, moments of rare friendship...unconditional acceptance....we may be with our selves or in a space share...with a fellow human...or with a spiritual master-friend.....

these are spaces for evolution....for growth, spiritually..

real, intrinsic change cannot be created through effort...it is a "happening" in realms of unconditionality....in realms of love....

it is a process of healing....in creation....

a rose does not have to struggle, to try to spread its fragrance....it is just a happening when it is itself.....

domestic violence....

domestic violence issues discussed in a few blog spaces...

behind closed doors, horrors abound...in so called civilized, educated society...subtle dominances, mind games, manipulations, suspicion, mistrust....the list is endless...violence is not just physical...and either sex is capable of it...

a recent article talks about an editor of a british tabloid booked for violence against her hubby..ironically, she carries on a very vociferous campaign in the media against domestic violence...

in india, i have come across couples who have hardly interacted with each other in life...even after 30 years of marriage, the wife is afraid of expressing an opinion...recently, i was shocked to observe at an acquaintance's houses, ladies were dissuaded from participating in critical decision making processes of the household..and the person in q is a freq global traveller, an mba...he has to have the final word...

i have seen senior citizens absolutely ignored....marginalised in families....decimated to a vegetative existence...i have seen senior citizens dominate with an iron hand too...

violence will manifest when we are unable to accept people as they are, with the choices they have made... violence happens when we thrust our choices on to others...

converting people to "our" point of view...an endless pursuit for a lot of us...winning a point is more important...and in this war too, as in all wars,there are no winners...everyone is a loser...relationships get bruised...underlying tensions qualify our interactions...one is on alert every moment....to protect oneself...to judge lest we be judged...

discussions and interactions can still be very nourishing with different points of view...when it is not the "positionality" which is more important...positionality makes us poor listeners, poor learners; closed people...to me, that is again an escape, we dont want to feel threatened...

can't people with differing viewpoints still be friends...i think it is possible when relationships happen from the domain of the unchangeable, from our cores....not "images" relating to each other....images will keep changing....perspectives would keep evolving....and one has to relate from beyond domains of such emergence....the mind can transact under a set of conditionalities.....it is incapable of relating...not condemning the mind, it is just not the faculty.... for unconditional relates....

we carry so many conflicts within us...there is so much violence within....and it manifests unconsciously through our actions...

and all of us crave for peace...peace within can manifest outside....we cannot have micro pockets of conflicts create a macro manifest of peace....it will only be cosmetic...

i experience moments when positionality takes over...every now and then...and those moments are capable of immense violence, harshness....in expression...as awareness levels increase, one minimises such events....but makes me realize that each one of us is capable of the same.....it is a quality of "positionality".... and to me, positionality is an emergence in "fear".

hazaar examples in the ngo sector....of people from oppressed communities turn oppressors...we often become what we hate...

each one of us is "capable" of hate, abuse and all that we dislike conceptually..very thin dividing line....if we desire a change, the key is in integrity and awareness...and in acceptance..of ourselves as well as others....the seeds of any change lies in acceptance, not in rejection....

and while all efforts at alleviating such situations need to socially go on, it should be accompanied by each one of us discovering wellsprings of joy and love within us....we can only share what we have....only happy people can spread happiness...

fear is the key........

fear seems to be the key for so much of the horror stories that abound..when securities are threatened, people can react strangely and abnormally....the meekest of us are capable of killing under the influence of this emotional energy...when deep-seated positionalities are challenged, when our fundamental platforms of complacent securities are threatened...

all or almost all of our actions emerge from domains of insecurities and fear....deep down , they are reactionary in content, not pro-active...so called choices we make of breaking the mould hence remain cosmetic....while the underlying violence and conflict remains, a contextual change in its manifestation is sought; just replacement of one concept with another with no fundamental changes....

we change events causing the misery, the misery continues to exist....

vulnerabilities...

deep down , man seems so vulnerable...appearances can be so deceptive as I have observed time and again....my work has given me the opportunity to interact with "pre-defined" vulnerable cross-sections of society as well as iconic cross-sections such as bollywood, the world of musicians and artistes and so on....confident gestures and postures more often than not were very superficial and elaborate masks for the cyclones of insecurities and vulnerabilities within.

i remember an incident when a well known cine star was upset with a hoarding that had been put up at juhu....adjacent to a hoarding featuring a soon to be introduced debutante....the age difference was obviously there...add to that , in this age of technology, a wrinkle had managed to find its way on the vinyl of the star's forehead...

it was catastrophic for the star...the release of the picture was stalled until the hoarding was "rectified" with an elaborate enrichment with a show of biceps and the like...

dont blame them, we like to keep up our images and feel secure in them...

we also find people taking security in various positionalities, for and against...scratch a bit and you would find no depth...merely a cosmetic replacement of conceptual adherences, nothing more... deep down, the same vulnerabilities, the same insecurities; infact , very often more pronounced as the additional burden of elaborate masking is involved...

man may fight superstition outside, but continues to be superstitious; only the format of expression changes....

changing activities we indulge in does not make a difference; if we are seeking change, it has to be in our attitudes....

we hate a movie....changing a screen would not help.....the dvd needs to be changed...or shut off...else, we may keep changing the screens and the same script continues....very often the story of our lives.....underlying vulnerabilities and insecurities remain through paradoxically diametric events...

the seeds of our liberation do not depend on the presence or absence of certain activities...they are independent and can flow through activities , whatever they may be...

as an eg.....i have interacted with tribals who are natural in their scanty clothing....i have also seen icons and models seem so awkward in their attempt to live upto their "images" of glamour.....for me , it is not a matter of clothing; that is an aspect of their personal choices..it is rather a q of their comfort in naturalness....artificiality can be so burdensome and self-inhibitive...

some may chose that.....which is fine, if it is in awareness....