Lessons learned

Yesterday I had the opportunity to volunteer at Jeena. It was a moving experience to take care of kids with Special Needs.

Working with children having special needs teaches important lessons in life. Someone told me you have to be a Saint at heart to work with autistic kids. On the contrary I figured - one will come to the realization that we don't have to be a saint to succeed in meeting the needs of others. I think we will acquire a better understanding of the problems such children face in their development. This awareness is very significant in your future interactions with people around us. I will write more about my perspective some other day, but will end here, saying with just the awareness :
"You will never ever be impatient again when you wait for a blind man crossing the street"

Visual Thoughts

Dreams have been distracting me for years.Some I remember, some I don't.Another interesting thing about dreams, you remember the last one until you dream the next one. Before I can resolve the first, there is another one.They keep tormenting me like this.Some intrigue me, others kindle my thoughts. All this happens in a sinusoidal fashion. The ebb and flow happens every other night I dream. Sivananda (a Hindu Monk) says very beautifully "The sun is the source and the temporary resting place of its rays. The rays emanate from the sun and spread in all directions at the time of sunrise. They enter into the sun at sunset, lose themselves there and come out again at the next sunrise. Even so the state of wakefulness and dream come out from the state of deep sleep and re-enter it and lose themselves there to follow the same course again"

What intrigues me about dreams is the visual aspect of it.I am so able to remember vividly everything that happens in my dream world. It helps me to conceive my ideas and my thoughts in a visual way. It convinces me at that time, but all in a dream. What frustrates me is why cannot I think the way I dream, Visually? We think along the boundaries of the language we are comfortable with. As a result,we limit our thoughts, our ideas reflecting on our creativity and ability to innovate.

On researching I came across the life of Temple Grandin who has been diagnosed with autism.Sometimes it needs disability to achieve the impossible. She thrives on this aspect of thinking Visually. She articulates it more vividly in her paper "Thinking in Pictures"

"Visual imagination has no boundaries. Think like You Dream"

Nothing is Beautiful

Last night I had a dream, there was this wonderful lady walking down the street with a bright smile upon her face. I am trying to remember the street now, but cannot. I know I was walking to school. My school bag was carelessly hanging across my shoulders and I was distracted to everything around. Stopping by the roadside at every little debris on the road inspecting it, I was ambling along when this happened. Coming back to this lady, I noticed her smile, due to the intoxicating effect her brilliant vermilion spot on her forehead, had on my eyes. As she walked, her oil soaked thick black hair was neatly tucked into position.Her shoulders, like a queen's, stayed steady and upright. As I watched her, I was standing staring at her through the bunch of yellow flowers hanging between me and her,only about five foot distance from where I was. Thousand thoughts filled my mind. I just watched her and soon...
With little effort in her strut, she made her way down the sidewalk and out of my view.
She left my sight and I was still struggling to find who she was. Her appearance was distracting, deceiving,intriguing.... She had a compelling quality that I cannot describe. Back to reality, the dream is over but I am still hung over. I don't know if she was real, but her beauty was.

You can ask me about her, but don't ask me about the beauty, "Nothing is beautiful unless you see it"

Nature's Beauty

We all enjoy the colors of autumn leaves. Did you ever wonder how and why a fall leaf changes color? Why a maple leaf turns bright red? Where do the yellows and oranges come from?
During winter, there is not enough light or water for photosynthesis. The trees will rest, and live off the food they stored during the summer. They begin to shut down their food-making factories. The green chlorophyll disappears from the leaves. As the bright green fades away, we begin to see yellow and orange colors. Small amounts of these colors have been in the leaves all along. We just can't see them in the summer, because they are covered up by the green chlorophyll.
Like human nature has shades to it nature outside goes through the same kind of transformation. We appreciate nature!!!

Sunlight and the cool nights of autumn cause the leaves turn this glucose into a red color. The brown color of trees like oaks is made from wastes left in the leaves.It sounds like how we humans react and overreact to situations around us. We are thrilled, happy and satisfied at one thing while we are irritated, irrational and contemptuous about some others.

We see beauty in nature, yet we complain about humans. I read somewhere "The universe is perfect. Nature is perfect. Yet we complain that human nature is imperfect. How can that be?"

For a Change

Why don't I write about Change today. There has been a lot of things written about change. I have a lot of my thoughts and perspectives too, someday I can write a book..but thats for later.

There are philosophies, ideas, comments, theories on Change. I won't mess with any one of them, but just want to let my thoughts free ..on Change. Reorg is in the air at work. Earlier I used to worry about them and try to be under the radar and hope for the best. But now I like to think, transitions can be the best thing to happen for one. Come to think of it most of revolutions have happened during transitions. Internet is a prime example. It was difficult to believe we don't often receive letters by snail mail any more. The prediction in the future is that, there will be even lesser and lesser letters via snail mail. I am happy I lived through this transition. I can talk about and have my perspective on them some day. But Change Happens and we adapt...

Each of us have our own pet theories of how the world works, different people can look at the same situation, and come to completely different conclusions about what's likely to happen next. Since these often unspoken understandings are among the things futurists are trained to look for, I thought I'd offer a short list of reasons for change

Change Happens for Power
Change Happens for Ideas
Change Happens for Progress
Change Happens for Markets

Change Happens in Conflicts
Change Happens in Cycles
Change Happens in Evolution
Change Happens in Chaos

Finally in closing I want to share an interesting quote that resonated with me..

Change is the nature of life but challenge is the future of life. So challenge the changes. Never change the challenges..
--- Amitabh Bachchan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amitabh_Bachchan

Cooking Philosophy

I agree that a lot of philosophy is highly speculative. Some of it is skeptical, and some downright absurd. Then there is the awe factor. Who are we listening to? What's the hype around whom we are listening to ? What the organization they belong to? Godmen and women have made preaching into a business.Cooking Philosophy, as I like to call it. A business of lifestyle. We have now speeches and philosophy written for them to preach, agents to publicize their charm, their social services, create groups.....has become a business. It is easy once we have that herd mentality working for you.

Speaking of which, I was highly impressed by this couple (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Indians_win_alternative_Nobel/articleshow/3553212.cms)If you decide to know what people really believe about the world, watch how they act. That is the absolute truth of their belief.

You can get a chance to study your own beliefs about the world by taking up cooking. Cooking is a marvelous art,craft with a little bit of science, which can only be accomplished successfully by the application of clear thinking, sometimes vague knowledge, some experience and a great deal of intuition. One thing is clear: when you slide a sizzler to the plate and taste it you realize what a profoundly good thing you’ve made, there is no doubt at all that you have mastered the art, science, and philosophy of interacting with reality. There is no other way to cook. Every experience is different. Each one is unique. Every comment is a variety.Irrespective of where they come from and how they react, it meets a common objective. Satisfy your hunger, fill your stomach!!! Is there a greater philosophy than this?

Tribute to Appa (Dad)

-------------- Athangarai, Chittur, Palghat Kerala, year 2005

Like every once in a while...last night Appa was in my dreams. Could not resist penning my thoughts on my last trip to India with him.One of those visits that made him happy and proud of his children. I remember he said that don't know when we will all be together again at this place..Anyways, here is one from the Diary of my Thoughts..

Ooor vandachu! he muttered. He had spent 18 years of his life in this land 75 years ago. My father, a man even at this age was stubbornly guiding the taxi driver as the old car crawled into the village. “Go straight to the ganapathian (Hindu God) kovil (temple) near the ‘Athangarai’ (the River), he ordered with authority. His wrinkles formed a strange pattern of excitement on his face. His eyes had seen several summers of hectic activity in this little village - Chittur. As little children they had infested the wall around the large motherly banyan tree guarding the kovil. As the wind traveled, this tree made a ‘pause’ of it and punctuated the days with cool refreshing breeze with the busy but soothing, sound of the leaves. Today after almost a hundred years, the ‘Alantharai (place where people get together for a siesta under a huge banyan tree)’ as it is commonly known was staunch and defiant as only it can be.

From those mischievous days as kids in the beginning of the century to the exodus of the grown up Iyers (sect of people), it has been a witness to all and everything. Today my Appa’s(dad) tired, partially blind eyes looked at the receding river from the top and lamented. I could see the moistness filling them. I had never seen this stern character so vulnerable. Over the years he had been a guiding and a motivating force for all those around him Be it college admissions, marriages, poonal, shashtiathapoorthy (60th birthday) name it; he has supervised, conducted, managed, organized it all. Strong willed and stubborn he was the eldest of eleven. He was the One who had transported each of his siblings time to time from this place i.e Chittur (small village South of India) to all the parts of the world.

‘This is my Home’ he had said as soon as we entered the village. After years of leaving this place and living in Bombay and other parts of the world, life had come a full circle for him. Raising his siblings and getting them settled…engagements, childbirths, stormy marriages, family disagreements …he had seen it all.

For him, this was where he grew up. The character that he built his life on, the smartness, the dexterity everything came from this village he loved and adored. He was most fully and unselfconsciously himself as we passed the unprepared roads. The narrow village ‘thiruvus’(alleys), long dark thinnais (verandahs)with long metal bars were sticking out. Everything seemed to be so serene and calm. Onlookers stared at our cars with curiosity. Very few recognized the once celebrated personality of the village in the car riding proudly. The broken tiles on the roof tops had been once a silent spectator of simple lives people lead considering that there had been a sudden urbanization of the village. Those lovely sleek and shapely vallaku’s(lamp) that once adorned the door steps were displace by the shady bulbs. I knew he was missing those rhythms of light and darkness, sound and silence he once adored in his beloved village. The smell of sambar, vetta kozhambu, poriyal (delicacies) , were missing. As the afternoon sunlight was breaking through the coconut trees, the shouting and yelling that once used to be the way of life here, the famous Iyer accent was all gone. A place that was a circle of arms to many of us, where eyes lit up when we came here for the summer vacations forty years back, today was arid and characterless.

Appa (Dad) was even more excited by now as we neared. “I want to go to the ‘Athangarai’” he reiterated. The ambassador taxi ambled through the narrow alleys and reached the huge banyan tree. We stopped and alighted. My dad drew his cane and helped himself out rather shakily, but there was conviction in his eyes. He moved his cane and stepped out of the car stretched. Looking up at the sun he drew in the fresh air and filled his lungs. I could see he was satisfied.

“This is my home, the country where my heart is. Here is where I dreamt, I hoped and enjoyed.” could hear him mutter.

Appa passed away the following year. I think now he knew that was his last visit to where he spent his childhood. His eyesight was gone, but he experienced every grain of that soil when he walked barefoot on the sand, every smell in the air when he breathed..Life had come a full circle for him. He had visited America for several years to spend his summer with his children at their homes, this time around he had all of them with him at his favorite place…..He was happy!!!!

“ Love where you are. Live where you are. We can only adequately love and belong to the earth, be good stewards of God’s creation, if we can love and belong to our community. We can only live wisely in our chosen place when we recognize its connections to the rest of the world” My dad will always connect me to the Athangarai forever…

Set it free

Oh! gosh, its only day 2 and I am already under pressure to write the next one. I am sure the pressure will be much less as days go by....

Let me start with a Khalil Gibran's quote today:

“You may chain my hands, you may shackle my feet; you may even throw me into a dark prison; but you shall not enslave my thinking, because it is free.”

So rightly said. It is so true, no one can stop you from thinking. But think about it: are we not the prison for our thoughts? we think and think and think....and there are thoughts, thoughts and even more thoughts. Where are they? they are just locked as prisoners with us. Prisoners of our minds.

Thoughts can dance,
Thoughts of a dancer

Thoughts can paint
Thoughts of a painter

Thoughts can dream
Thoughts of a dreamer

So think to be one...

"Consider minds not as prisons but as the windows to the world.Unleash your thoughts and set it free, that will make room for more"

...maybe that is one more reason for my Blog!!

There is a new MONK in town

I've been asking myself several times over the past few years "Should I start a blog? The answer has always been "yes, I should"...and finally today i think that urge has beaten my procrastination tendencies to hell... Good and Bad things come with it, I will be aware of these as guiding principles when I blog

The Good

• I will blog something that helps somebody - Think of your blog as a way to pay what we have learned from others. This blog will be more of what I have learnt from others than mine. Sometimes, it is more of what has impressed me than what I do or I cannot do
  
• By writing out my position on something I will be be forced to crystallize my thoughts on a subject for now and later. That does not mean I will forever have the same view. We change, world changes, situations change and hence my positions will change. I am hoping I will very frequently use my blog as a way to "pre-can" arguments and explanations for later, when I will learn more about it. I think that the simple act of expressing yourself is a good way to learn.
  
• Later in life I want to go back and read over old posts and see how my ideas have changed, how I have changed or matured to be euphemistic :-)
  

The Bad

• I end up being wrong. Somebody will write a comment that tells you why my views /approach is wrong and they'll often say. "It should be like this" or" I dis agree" I will end up being wiser from the experience.
• I look like an idiot. Again, I have learned something
• There are so many good blogger's out there, how could I compete? It's not a competition. Besides, good blogger's come and go. There's often a trajectory of writing a flurry of really great stuff, then waning. I know it happens to me. I start things ambitiously but get distracted and leave everything half done. This might be one of them. That's just the way I am. Anyway, I will look at fresh perspectives in reactions and comments... maybe it will change my perspective and help me continue blogging...

Remember MONK WISDOM is not mine only, but its a bouquet of thoughts, opinions, ideas I gather from what I learn/hear/read from sources other than me. Once in a while if you are patient, you will read few nuggets of wisdom of mine. Oh! yes one other caveat: spelling mistakes, grammatical errors will come with it. That's the charm about blogging....I care, yet I don't care:-) as long as i can gte the p=int a*ross

Tomorrow always comes, and with it, the chance for improvement, recovery, and renewal. But our hope, if it is to have any depth or meaning, must rest on something greater than ourselves . Every once in a while we face the same situation and the next time we are better prepared. Events and situations in life are experiences. Every experience is different. I want my Blog to be THE experience that makes a difference!!!