2011...and counting!!!

Countless emails going back and forth wishing Happy New Year. Just realized there is a resulting thought to that wish. ...wait!!! not just to that wish...to every wish. If you think about it, we end up counting something or other with every activity, every thought, every wish

Happy New Year
Years' count

Happy Birthday
Age count

Sumptuous Dinner
Calories count

Volunteer
Hours count

Donate
Money count

Writing
Thoughts count

New dress
Opinions count

Sleep
Hours count

Run
Miles count

Fun
Moments count

Work
Appreciation count(s)

Game
Win/Loss count

Life
Every Breath counts

No wonder we live a measured life :-) Happy New Year 2011

Balcony

It is 10.30 am Sunday morning and I take my position “Standing along the balcony wall inside the house seeing the world outside with my hands over the wall and my chin on top of it”…Balcony was an extension of me. I would go to the balcony, in moments of sadness, happiness, despair, anger, frustration..... It was my place to go for anything and everything. It was my window to the world.

The moment I am out there, in that posture…my heart beats less and calmness enters the mind reaching. State of ‘stand-still’.No blinking of the eyes, but slow movements of eyes to observe and absorb the surrounding and the distractions. Distractions like these made my day. I remember I must have been 10 or 11 years old. Listening the noises around was an art. Seeing what I heard was the science. What I see: The dogs aimlessly walking around, like the sounds of goat’s walk on the road and the sweet noises of the leaves rolling, wonderful sounds of the marbles hitting (where children are playing marbles). Kids walking around kicking the fallen leaves. Suddenly I am distracted to those colorful kites streaming in the sky, kids hanging on the terraces and screaming on top of their voices. Their chatter...... was music to my ears.

Childhood they say have their own rules. Rules not only about their behavior, but how they observe, what they observe, what they conclude and how they learn. Attention and Distraction have no meaning in kids. They are constantly learning.

Today is Sunday. Every one is busy and rushing. Not knowing the beauty of a LAZY Sunday…TV volumes are high at neighboring homes, Mahabharata echoes, sound of washing and vehicle cleaning are heard. So many activities yet I am able to observe each of this activity with due diligence and focus – sure sounds are adjectives to actions around. zzzzzzzz….the wind blows and rrrzzzrzzzz the trees shake and phat phat phat the drying clothes drum..a little girl somewhere around recites the poem “Chubby cheeks…”. Millions of thanks to the creator for these wonderful activities…It is a dream world

Amma comes and breaks the dream. "What the hell" she screams. "You have been standing here more than an hour. Wasting your time." What does she know how much I have learn't in this one hour.

Thirty years later I still remember it, I can still see it and I can still experience it!!! I often feel sad, that these kids are consumed by the chatter of technology, echoes of Ipod and the experience of a world on the net.

But who knows my son will have a different story, thirty years later....

Beautifully Ugly

Beauty has no standard, or for that matter any logic. Same is with Ugliness. What makes it beautiful or ugly is not the creator but the perceiver. It is about the mind, and the intellect in action.

Images and thoughts have profound effects on the beliefs and understanding in people.
Sometimes it is the herd mentality that forces the mind to create a false standard in people's mind. Mona Lisa for example is considered beautiful by millions. But then there are some who do not think so. This becomes a classic example about the concept of beauty of a conditioned mind. It's never yours. It is a collective opinion, not your reaction.

My idea of beauty is in curiosity, in spontaneity, in reactions...I find the curiosity, the eagerness, the excitement in a kid more beautiful. I see the progression of life in these little nuances. The growing up of children, them reacting to the world with an unconditioned mind is pure beauty. Their reaction to little things, at a given moment, is so pure. How can you not call it the moment of creation of Beauty. The creation takes a moment, and because it is true beauty, those moments live with you for a lifetime. It is not a result of conditioning - of either your mind or that of the child. Moments such as these are about pure innocence. Like pure innocence is "Beauty", there is beauty in the "Innocence".

Beauty is not about seeking attention or attraction. Beauty is about capturing your mind, that realization, about the purity that exists at that given moment.....Nature is a prime example. you see it in the moonlight, in the flower, in the birds.... You are captivated and devoured by the landscape one day, some other day it is just ordinary. Beauty therefore, is not a quality of the object, it's a function of your mind!!

Beauty is not limited, not finite, not absolute. It is as much in the abstract as it is in the known. We believe in everything as a consideration of others.What will it take - for us to transcend and rise above the self realization and self affirmation.

Beauty is the state of being, state of our Mind. Its that moment of perception that recognizes the Beauty. There is beauty in everything, some perceive it some, some don't. What's beautiful to you one day is ugly some other time. What's ugly to you...is beautiful to some one else. Duality is a fact, it exists. It's the function of your mind and its perception, at that moment, at that time.

That said, even the ugly is Beautifully Ugly. I would hate to think there is anything Ugly...after all they say we have a Beautiful Mind.

Shadows

Shadows were moving back and forth trying to get my attention. The train had just left the station and I could see the landscape changing as the shadows lengthened in response to the setting sun. I was busy absorbing everything as this was my last trip to my native before I left the country for another life journey.

Shadows! a blend of 'darkness' and 'light'. There are no shadows without either of them. They invite us to read them, understand them and interpret them. Staring at them is like dreaming while you are awake.

Shadows are the absences of light.
Shadows are the reason for light to exist.
Shadows are a result of light.
Shadows are the virtue of the light they absorb.
There is light in every shadow, like there is a reason for every action

Shadows like your conscience do not reflect, you reflect on them.
Like the conscience is your follower, shadows are the followers of the object.

Shadows exist in every landscape around us, but we see the object not the shadow. Our Shadow does not come across as shiny and bubbly like our image, but remember Shadow is our guardian spirit that appears as a disguised voice - "Our conscience"

Like the Shadows punctuate the magnanimity of the scenery with a perspective, our conscience reminds us to be humble when we shine, teaches us to combine innocence with wisdom, that power be combined with compassion and love and your dreams be sprinkled with material wisdom and expression.

Conscience will exist as long you exist, you can choose to ignore your conscience but cannot shut them.

Similarly, Shadows themselves are a hole in the light and it is a fact that You cannot make a hole in a Shadow.

StreetLight

I sat watching the street light in the early morning on Diwali day, stray thoughts....as usual engulfed me.

Sometimes, I thought, we treat life like that area of illumination around the street light, forgetting there is something outside that narrow space...

Looking under a streetlight to find a lost object at night is an apt metaphor for classic approaches to our search in life. You typically search for answers to your life problems within a region or the space surrounding the knowledge we possess. It may not be where the answer is, but it’s an easy place to search! In practice the “streetlight” can be narrow and bright, or be broad and dim, somewhat like the knowledge and wisdom we possess.

Searching under the streetlight, is seemingly desirable, but if the object is actually “in the dark” it is a futile endeavor.

An old story has it that a man came across a drunk looking under a street lamp one night. The drunk said he was looking for his keys which he had dropped. After helping him search unsuccessfully under the lamp he asked the drunk exactly where he had lost his keys. The drunk replied, "Somewhere over there in the dark, but I can't see a thing over there so I'm looking under the light instead."

Like the drunk man, sometimes we are looking for our answers at wrong places.

Borrowed from a couplet; In life, I believe we have to change the way, we look at things – so that the things we look at "change"!

Marathon

Some of our life experiences are like the challenge facing a Marathon runner. Last year when me and Shilpa ran the Half Marathon, there were looming thoughts lingering in us. Some fearful and a lot of doubt if we can beat the track.

But I realize there are life experiences similar to that journey,the idea of running a Marathon is the thought that extended us physically and emotionally...It was all all about challenging us.

While we choose to run a Marathon, there are other times in Life when one gets to taste times of the darkest despair and moments of soaring hope. Like every runner has long hours of doubt, will come to times when they are sure that there is nothing left to give only to find themselves later running as if there was no such thing as pain or fatigue.

Ultimately the challenge for each runner will be to face down their own inner selves. They will strip away the smallest doubt of claim, until they must recognize and conquer their own physical & mental limitations. It will be at once, the most agonizing of hells and the most uplifting of experiences.

I guess those moments of training last year was preparing us for the future and leading us to believe that we can beat the track, beat any challenge in life that seems unconquerable, with a strong will and focus.Yes we can!!!

Life challenges are the ones that help you discover who you are and what you are made of...

Strength

Life takes us through strange situations. It motivates you, teases you,makes you happy and many times humbles you. "I am strong" I would think, to handle all these.

But there are moments when you think through those difficult moments and realize "of course your are strong". This time, it was different : I also realized, I am strong, not only because of me, but because of people around me. Or may be, even more humbly put : I am stronger because of people around me.

I guess strength is more of how you combine yourself with other well wishing bodies around you. there are has been many a mention about : a flock of geese flying in formation can move faster and maintain flight longer than any one goose flying alone. Synergy is a law of nature.I believe, we should use these subtle laws of Nature to help us encounter turbulences in life.

I would apply the same logic and acquire "Strength through Synergy" People who share a common cause and wish; can get where they are going quicker and easily, because they are traveling on the thrust of one another.

as humans, we more than have the sense of a goose, we stand by each other, protect one another and sometimes make new friends who seem to be going in our direction. Belief and Conviction will take us to the destination.There is hope.

"Your strength is not yours alone, but the strength of the people around you.Every moment is different, So do things differently. One plus one equals more than two."

Dedicated to all the good Samaritans around me

Monk Wisdom Series: Three Idiots

Being a novice,he was always afraid to ask questions in a forum to the teacher. Today an interesting thing happened.

It was circle time at the Monastery. All the disciples were seated around the Master. Amongst the disciples were the Terrific Trio. They always had the most thought provoking questions, that amazed the disciples. Every time the Master maintained his composure at the most stupid questions and answered them calmly.The Trio made it a point to cynically accept the advice from the Master and questioned it further another time. The novice monk watched the tug of words between the Master and the trio and wondered."Where do they get the guts to ask such stupid questions and sound intelligent?" It always appeared to him that the Master gave them a lot of respect, when he answered. For the Master,it was not about the observer, but about the observed.He detached the question from the questioner and answered on its merit.In his mind there were no stupid questions, but only stupid minds. Mind you!!! he never believed there were 'stupid' people.The novice monk observed, Mind plays games and overpowers consciousness. Purity of Mind brings sanity to consciousness.

Time passed by, the stupid questions never ceased.A Chinese Military chief passing by, heard about the Master and had stopped for the circle time. The Terrific Trio were in full form. They were intentionally trying to be different and difficult shooting questions at the Master frequently. The Master always used these situations as an opportunity to provide more wisdom to his students. The Master had always looked at the seekers as a whole and not a fraction of three.

Circle time was ending and it was soon going to be meditation time soon.Just before the break, One of the trio complained as usual "The Meditation that you teach us is ineffective".The other two agreed and in a raised tone added "It cannot teach me how to concentrate, much less meditate." "Teach us a more reliable technique". On hearing this the other students tried to explain,how it was working for them. Soon the discussion turned ugly and distressing. Seeing the commotion, the Master raised his hand and that meant silence. Silence it was. The monastery went through a pause.

The teacher then signaled to the Chinese Military chief who then summoned 3 archers. He divided the water from his vessel into 3 glasses and gave it to the Terrific Trio.Handing it over to them, he ordered "Take this cup of water and carry around the entire periphery of this courtyard." Then he looked at the archers and said "Follow them!!!if they drop a single drop shoot them!!!" the archers drew their bows and followed the Trio.In the next 20 minutes they had learned how to concentrate.

"Smart is not about being different, it is about making a difference"

That day the lesson was not for the three but for all the thirty, such was the power of the teacher..calm but decisive in his teachings..