the need to feel needed....

this post is a special for a new blog friend of mine , very young guy , from down under, he is going through his first heartbreak it seems...

we "need" to feel "needed"....and in my opinion, mistake this need, for love...

he needs her need of him and she needs his need of her...this would sum up most colloquial relationships....and when this equation gets skewed, heartbreaks occur....

i am not saying it is wrong...it just is..we need to be able to see it for what it is...

our whole life is a pathetic struggle to make ourselves more "desirable" in the eyes of the other...because of a constant "insecurity", the threat of not being needed any longer..

a mother feels threatened after the marriage of her son....she feels her "need" in his life has been eroded....

we do it at our workplaces, want to be indispensable to the boss.....so that we are not insecure of our future there...

to me, love happens only when "my need" has dissolved....until then it is a transaction....to grow in love, the "i" has to dissolve....love manifests when "i" am not....it is state of being..a river in flow....and heartbreaks are blessings in disguise for us to understand the true nature and power of love....

love is not insecure....they are mutually incompatible....it does not know fear..., "my need" experiences insecurity, fear....please note, i do not condemn it for what it is, but to avoid misery, it is critical to see things as they are....else, we will be "dis"illusioned""....

to expand our consciousness in love, to me, is the purpose of our lives, while we do keep addressing our needs as they occur....

from here and there....

Put your awareness to work, not your mind

Put your awareness to work, not your mind. The mind is not the right instrument for this task. The timeless can be reached only by the timeless. Your body and your mind are born subject to time; only awareness is timeless, even in the now.

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The Ripple Effect

The Master was walking through the fields one day when a young man, a troubled look upon his face, approached him. "On such a beautiful day, it must be difficult to stay so serious," the Master said. "Is it? I hadn't noticed," the young man said, turning to look around and notice his surroundings. His eyes scanned the landscape, but nothing seemed to register; his mind elsewhere. Watching intently, the Master continued to walk. "Join me if you like." The Master walked to the edge of a still pond, framed by sycamore trees, their leaves golden orange and about to fall. "Please sit down," the Master invited, patting the ground next to him. Looking carefully before sitting, the young man brushed the ground to clear a space for himself. "Now, find a small stone, please," the Master instructed. "What?" "A stone. Please find a small stone and throw it in the pond." Searching around him, the young man grabbed a pebble and threw it as far as he could. "Tell me what you see," the Master instructed. Straining his eyes to not miss a single detail, the man looked at the water's surface. "I see ripples." "Where did the ripples come from?" "From the pebble I threw in the pond, Master." "Please reach your hand into the water and stop the ripples," the Master asked. Not understanding, the young man stuck his hand in the water as a ripple neared, only to cause more ripples. The young man was now completely baffled. Where was this going? Had he made a mistake in seeking out the Master? After all he was not a student, perhaps he could not be helped? Puzzled, the young man waited. "Were you able to stop the ripples with your hands?" the Master asked. "No, of course not." "Could you have stopped the ripples, then?" "No, Master. I told you I only caused more ripples." "What if you had stopped the pebble from entering the water to begin with?" The Master smiled such a beautiful smile; the young man could not be upset. "Next time you are unhappy with your life, catch the stone before it hits the water. Do not spend time trying to undo what you have done. Rather, change what you are going to do before you do it." The Master looked kindly upon the young man. "But Master, how will I know what I am going to do before I do it?" "Take the responsibility for living your own life. If you're working with a doctor to treat an illness, then ask the doctor to help you understand what caused the illness. Do not just treat the ripples. Keep asking questions." The young man stopped, his mind reeling. "But I came to you to ask you for answers. Are you saying that I know the answers?" "You may not know the answers right now, but if you ask the right questions, then you shall discover the answers." "But what are the right questions, Master?""There are no wrong questions, only unasked ones. We must ask, for without asking, we cannot receive answers. But it is your responsibility to ask. No one else can do that for you."

-Unknown author

out of the closet....

insights to life and learning can never be complete without an understanding and acceptance of the sexual urge....

my learnings in this space have been tough...have floundered, fallen flat....

the teen years were horrific...cyclones of lustful thoughts overpowering me....accompanied by guilt....i belong to a social generation in india which can be termed the "in-between"..I am honestly glad that issues of sexuality are more openly discussed these days in india....i almost felt it was "wrong" to feel those urges...i never understood where they originated....i only knew there was nothing i could do about it....i could not stop its emergence within and fear of social ostracization would not allow me any expression outside....it was as if you were a "criminal"....

i had lost my father when i was 14...and being a lone child....had no one to discuss these aspects...my mother came from a very "positional space" on such aspects...dont blame here..she had inherited her conditionings....i saw her judging and condemning scenes on television( not much to them in those days anyways...)........i was afraid of falling down in her eyes....and in the eyes of a very judgemental society....

the cyclones within only seemed to grow....in my learnings later, i realized the link of lust to guilt, suppression, boredom, meaninglessness....a catch 22....

lust is miserable..makes you vulnerable....awkward....embarassed....we make fools of ourselves more often than not ....face condemnation....add to this conventional religion and other spaces..even recently, someone told me they are "baser" instincts....while respect their pov, i wonder however...for me , everything can be sacred...

a lot of insights and learnings in this space....critical personal need to understand the same...

it took me a lot of personal breakthroughs in conditioned and fear spaces to be able to accept myself with "lust"....i saw myself as being thoroughly "capable" of using people under the influence of such a cyclone within....it has been "fear" of ostracization which prevented me, not any morality standards...

activities seem to get sanctified in india through institutionalization....in my explores through human spaces and in my capacity as an "informal counsellor"to innumerable fellow humans over the last 10-12 years, I have come across horrors in institutionalised spaces....unconscious use and abuses...."rape"; i perceive it as non-consensual and forced acts....is very common....in institutionalised spaces....basic civilities and courtesies seem thrown to the wind, under the influence of the cyclone of lust...

even in conservative india, i have come across horrific instances of fathers/uncles raping their daughters/neices....their suppressions are unmanageable and it is socially unacceptable for them to visit red-light facilities....they are "decent" folk....raping their daughters and forcing them into silence is a very convenient option....and more horrifically, when i have spoken to some mothers about this , they are silent co-conspirators....it is more important for them to protect their husband's images in society....

in another instance, i came across the wife of a diamond czar raun away..and feel ridiculously frightened....she came from a poor family....the czar had met her at a regular pick-up spot - a dance bar....was an elderly man and got obsessed... in a mutually beneficial transaction, they got married....but she was kept as a prisoner..she could not meet anyone..he was frightened....she was sexually unfulfilled....

the only way out, use her money to link up with her driver who used to stay in the servants quarters......until he started blackmailing her...

sounds like a movie....it happens more often in real time than one would imagine....only carefully camouflaged and suppressed....

sad , but true...

this happens in the land which gave the world a treatise on love-making, the kamasutra...

like any other activity, our perceptions and the attitude we bring in make all the difference..the space can be an abusive space, enhancing our vulnerablities or it can be sacred , sensitive space, helping us free ourselves....healing space....it can be an artform, spiritually elevating and nourishing....or it can take us into further abyss of vulnerability and misery...

denial is no solution.....and condemnation , in my opinion, is a pathetic social management mechanism....a brushing under the carpet syndrome, a temporary convenience...

it is critical to remain centred and be aware....of our vulnerabilities...else , we invite abuses stemming from our vulnerabilities...the same can make us insensitive and unconscious abusers too....freer functional spaces in the western cultures , in the absence of a dynamic awareness, have also led to so much chaos and confusion in this space.

mutual respect is the key in any interface.....it is important for partners to be friends...and an integral awareness of our real selves in the space....

to me, no activity is "right" or "wrong"; our valuations are purely contextual....any activity can be heightened to the greatest levels of spiritual fulfilment and joy, very liberating....or it can further push us into vulnerability, misery and suffering....our contexts are a matter of choices we make....nothing absolute about them....

let not standards of morality emerge and be implemented purely in an ambience of fear and enforced adherences.....let us tackle the fear....and let dynamic and spontaneous moralities evolve in our individual spaces...the way we chose it....

let love express itself as a nourishing, healing and enriching state of being in spaces we chose to share..love is not an activity or a pre-defined space of interface...it is a state of being, a fountainhead within ourselves, which manifests as a flood....in spaces we flow through....lust, the miserable, vulnerable aspect is absent in love spaces....creative , aesthetic mental, physical and spiritual interfaces happen....moments of liberation...

happy diwali....

a very happy, safe and self-illuminating diwali to all of you and your dear ones....

prisoners of blue prints..

a few years back , i lost a very close friend to a gruesome murder. While the incident by itself was traumatic, it was qualified by an added dimension...

those days, i used to be randomly intuitive and sometimes just predict...typical college level past-time..for me , it was not an acquired skill however..it just had randomly happened and i enjoyed a reasonable reputation...

it was the ganesh utsav festival in our locality....as volunteers , we used to stay the night in the pandal...one such night , at about 2 am, this friend of mine insisted i read his palm....i was reluctant, but he kept persisting...i just glanced at it, and the words just sprang out of me...take care..u are in line for a violent death before ur birthday..his birthday was on dec 6th.

a hushed silence followed....the entire group was aware that this friend had started moving in undesirable circles....he had gotten into drugs, the underworld etc through routine college networks...and was on his way out of such connections...an unacceptable happening in such equations....we also knew the personal traumas that had made him gravitate thus...

we decided to organize what is known as "fielding" in mumbaiyya parlance...one of us would always be with him to avoid any untoward flare - ups...thus it was for about 2 months...

on dec 1st , i was with him at our local khatta....those were not the days of mobile cell phones...it was twilight hour...

i was called by somebody saying there was telephone call for me...i went in...it was a dud call...and in the meantime , my friend had been butchered with 13 stab wounds.. i had to do the honours of identifying and claiming his body...

while his death was itself a shock, a deeper personal q troubled me...i had been able to predict because there was something predictable...a pattern which led him there....so what about free will and the power of our choices....it rankled me no end...i felt a lot of resentment at my ignorance on this fundamental aspect....there were various theories but none that i could actually authebticate for myself...they were just theories, nothing more, for me.

was a critical trigger in the process of my explores..i did discover to my dismay that we were indeed prisoners of a blueprint, a set of patterns accumalated from myriad sources...next q , are we condemned in such space?

i discovered that , the blue print is a mind impress....a kind of a pattern from past life impressions, fundamental childhood decisions and so on.....most of these blueprints take shape by the time we are 5-6 years old..a few even happen later....

and it is possible to be liberated of the mind...when we discover spaces beyond the mind....

this does not imply that "we lose our mind".....

the mind is a wonderful faculty that we have to use....unfortunately, it has begun using us....

for me, understanding the whole dynamic of grace played a critical role in this process...i am still in process...learning by the moment.....

but i am experiencing much greater freedom inside me than say `10 years back when these questions crippled and paralysed me...i am able to breathe...

i see the world as multi-media classroom designed to set us free....through the bridge of events that occur in our lives...each event comes with its learning...but then we have to learn to learn...

i am no special human..just a face in the crowd , with a desire to live, not merely exist...but then, life had pushed me to corners from where I had no choice but to find a way or to succumb....in a way, i see that as a blessing in disguise...

guess, there maybe as many routes and discoveries as there are humans..unique domains of explores....in our own universes...

i wish and pray that every single human who experiences such suffocation within should discover these dimensions beyond their blueprints..which can set them free....if they so desire it...

reality check....

very often, we create our own associations with labels...a friend of mine, on a personal match fixing endeavour, networks through various websites and the like to meet up and explore suitable prospects...

the other day, he was very excited about meeting a highly educated person, who worked in the ngo sector with the mentally challenged...my friend plays a critical role in supporting a spastic nephew, whose mother killed herself soon after the child's birth, unable to face the situation...while checking out prospective alliances, this is an aspect my friend critically addresses...

other things being acceptable, my friend expected this prospective partner to empathize with his perspectives of support regarding the nephew...

it did not happen....primarily on account of the dependency of the spastic nephew....

i would not like to judge the other person in q...

but generically, guess, it is much easier to deal with "issues" as "issues" rather than as realities in flesh and blood...issues are much easier to handle at "safe distances" from ourselves...

was closely associated with events leading to the engagement of a friend of mine...some random observations.....

the situation was chaotic...far cry from streamlined event management!!!when the family conversed with each other, it was in monosyllables or more often than not an argument....if tenderness and civility were any indicators, they were very poor performers...there was discernible harshness...impoliteness, intolerance all round....

yet they were all connected to a common objective, my friend's engagement..it was a big event for each one of them...

to a casual onlooker, it may seem like a battle of wits all around...daggers drawn with the consideration of every issue...

hardly, the stereotype image of a household in harmony...

have observed similar situations very often...

wonder whether it is my stereotype positioning of tenderness , civility adding to better harmony which needs a re-examine...mebbe it is just a different expression of love!!!

which brings me to another observation...it is so easy to be good and nice to absolute strangers including the rickshaw driver who drops u....but it seems so difficult to be civil and courteous to our parents, our spouses, our children etc...constant and harsh judgements, unforgiving, intolerant,..........we are rarely able to be friends...

not the norm, but a very frequent occurance....

our universe..created by our minds...

couple of interesting posts on fellow blogger spaces on the horrific things wo/man is capable of inflicting on him/herself and on others...

guess, happy people spread happiness and cheer, unhappy people can only spread what they intrinsically possess, deep down...to me, the energy one brings into shared space is a critical aspect....while one may try to be good and caring conceptually, what manifests is the conflicts within...

while welfare and immediate perspectives are called for at individual and collective levels , somewhere one has to explore the root causes which contribute to such happenings...every human life is a story, a saga...a legacy of pain and suffering acquired from hurts, fears, conflicts etc...and this finds manifestation in the world outside...more often than not...

horror stories of abuse such as the ones shared are more frequent than one would like it to be....neither is it limited to the under-privileged or the illiterate...add to this , subtle dominations, mind games of one upmanship and various other automated reactionary patterns, as i see them;

the kurukshetra within the mind is what manifests outside...the mind is the creator of our universes...

beautiful things also co-exist, but fewer and far in-between...

life, to me is an artform to be savoured and celebrated....but , somehow, the most beautiful things tend to get convoluted and contorted....joy and love sacrificed at the altar of dead habit and unconscious mechanizations....within mind space...

moot question....do events cause suffering or vice versa....

for me, the reality is that the external world is a manifest of our inner state of being, both at micro and macro levels...individually and collectively....emerging from deeply set patterns of mental formations and conditionings...

to liberate oneself, one needs to take responsibility...it does not matter who or what caused it...and assigning blame....that takes us no where. just maintains or aggravates the status quo...we owe it to ourselves to break free.....of stifling patterns that create a blueprint of our lives and imprison us within...

integrity in awareness...the key....

space and time...

To locate a thing you need space, to place an event you need time; but the timeless and spaceless defies handling. It makes everything perceivable, yet itself is beyond perception. The mind cannot know what is beyond the mind, but the mind is known by what is beyond it.

- author unknown

a sufi express...

dil hi nahin tho dil ke saharon ka kya karoon,

jab pas tum nahin tho , baharon ka kya karoon...

-from a sufi lyric...