A continued soliloquy on Living in the Present (I) - Accidents

The thought and phenomenon of living in the here and now is something that I have had a love-hate relationship with for a very long time now. Love, in moments like this when the awareness and practice of here and now is strong, and hate, when it pops up as a reminder after I had forgotten to live in the present for some length of time. Hate perhaps is an extreme word. Intense conflict and struggle, maybe. Consequently, I tend to draw threads from every conversation and situation to the idea of living in this moment. In my mind of course, for the most part. This series of posts about living in the present will share some of these rambling thoughts and insights.

I realised some time back that I am a menace to myself and the rider when I travel pillion on a two-wheeler. Perhaps because of the number of road accidents that I have directly and indirectly been affected by, I am always anticipating an accident and sitting on edge, literally and figuratively. This means that every time we hit a ditch, or I spot a speeding vehicle coming in the opposite direction, which is every other second, I dig into the shoulders of the person in front of me. I let out involuntary yelps at every sudden twist, turn, brake, loud honk, bike whizzing by too close for my comfort, narrow path that we may have to squeeze through, child or pup darting out, and anything else that deviates from a completely smooth, uneventful and boring ride. The best reaction (or worst, depending on how one looks at it) is the sharp and swift intake of breath that happens when it even remotely looks like we are going to hit another vehicle. There are a couple of things to be considered here. One, the fact that it looks like we may hit another vehicle is entirely subjective. Can a fact be subjective? Subjective fact. It sounds like an oxymoron. The other point is that the swift intake of breath just happens; it is entirely involuntary according to me. However, a long time front rider and sufferer begs to differ. How can a reaction just happen when it packs a wallop of accusation, indignation, fear and the worst kind of predictions all rolled into one?  And so an average ride may go yelp, dig, yelp, dig, hiss of breath, dig, yelp, mutter, complain, dig, yelp, hiss, dig…. And I of course always defended myself. I saw no problem in this and always blamed the road, road rage and irresponsible driving.

In one of my stronger and lucid moments, it struck me that I am making a cake of myself. What does it mean to be traveling sitting on edge like I do? So every time I yelp or dig, I am actually living in the past experience of an accident that I have been through or have seen. Every time I hiss or mutter, I am living in the future with a few broken ribs perhaps or worse. Which means that every moment on that ride is a moment in vain, in death actually. I am either living in the past or the future, and not in the here and now. What an irony. An irony because this actually leaves me completely vulnerable even if an accident were to happen at that moment because my mind is not present in it. What a whammy!

The sad truth is that the sum total of our experiences and habits are so strong that such an insight does not mean immediate transformation. It could mean that for some of course, but not for this struggling soul. However, the yelps have reduced considerably, the digs and mutters have been completely eschewed from the bike rides and every hiss of breath is mentally converted to a mantra. There is hope! 

Learning from Children - Free to Love

Initially this post was to be titled 'Learning from / with children'. Then I realised that there are some things that we don’t learn with them, we necessarily learn from children, by simply watching them be, and engage with the world.

As adults many of us are often embarrassed by explicit announcements or gestures of love. And yes, that's a thoughtful statement; I am not saying it casually. The embarrassment would of course be at different levels of intensity, felt and manifested differently with different people in different situations. For instance, some of us may feel comfortable showing love to our partner, but not so with relatives. Some of us feel awkward if the expression goes beyond a cursory side-of-the-body hug. In fact, I find that many of us feel strange staying and feeling a hug completely.

The corollary to this is acknowledging love, a move of love.  We fare worse in this aspect. While I am quick to list all the wrong actions of the other, prompt with all the hurts inflicted on me by A or B, I am much slower to recognise an expression of love by the same A or B. Love is expressed in many ways, the beginning of which is physical expression like a loving look or hug. We miss most of the subtler actions of love, of the people around us. For instance, I recall now how my grandmother always served food with so much love. That is, she was very aware of how each one of us liked to eat, what went in first, what vegetables I like with certain other items on the menu, which were the side dishes preferred by my sister and on and on like this. And she served us according to our tastes, even though as children we were taught to eat everything put on the plate without a fuss. She did this for everyone but never once asked anyone about their preferences or tastes. She just observed everyone and served them. But for all this, there was no outward show of love. In my early teens then, I missed this for her outward irritability and the fact that we seemed to have nothing in common. I recollected and realised much much later how love worked through her.

I am remembering her again now, with some regret (because I never did show much warmth to her when she was alive), as I watch my daughter. There is nothing hidden in her love or its expression. And I am amazed again and again at the wisdom and simplicity she demonstrates even in her acknowledgement of it. I figure it is not so strange that the first time I thought of my grandmother and of our relationship in some depth, was when I was babysitting a 4-year old during my college days. Parmeet taught me a lot about myself, about conflicts and relationships and so much more, in the 3 years that I was with him, a few hours every day of the week.

Now it is Kaivalya, my daughter who is teaching me how effortlessly I can understand and acknowledge love . She so quickly drops her irritation or anger with something, if I just give her a beseeching look and ask for a "tight-a huggy". It is almost ruthless how she forgets the past second's hostility in this moment's love. And she goes on to give a tight hug and a bonus kiss with her slate clean. No baggage there. How do children do that? For me the joy is in how she acknowledges me. All I have to do is give her a loving look (sometimes I am not aware of it myself). If she happens to catch my look, she smiles immediately and says "I-o-dee" (which means 'I love you' in her language).  I was feeding her once and a little bit of the porridge oozed out onto the side of her mouth. Her tongue couldn’t reach it. I had been busy with taking the next spoonful, arranging her bib or something like that, that she had been at it for a while when at last I noticed her trying to reach it. I said that I'm so sorry I didn’t see, and wiped it clean. She gave a grin of relief and then insisted that she give me a hug and "i-o-dee" before we proceed with the more mundane process of eating.  How does she know when I am upset or hurt about something? She is not even two years yet.  She then does things which are very clearly aimed at bringing me out of my blues. Which of course they do. She is so forgiving about the mistakes I make in my engagement with her, she puts me to shame about all the resentments I carry. These resentments are a part of the huge wall I have built around myself that stops me from an open expression of love. She clearly has no inhibitions in showing love, in casual and deep ways. One morning I was lazy and didn’t respond to her mindfully. She indicated to me in no uncertain terms that I was behaving shabbily and she would rather be with someone who would no doubt be decent with her: "amma vendaam, appa venum" (don’t want mom, want dad). Wasn’t I quick in mending my ways! However she was not waiting to see me mend my ways. She had moved on to something that had her completely enthralled and she turned to me demanding that I see it. I can just go on describing numerous such ways in which she expresses and acknowledges love. But what sort of a memory is this, that forgets emotional gymnastics and carries no such luggage, but soaks and absorbs so much learning? How is it programmed to remember in minute detail , many things about the world and itself and yet forget some other particular aspects? What freedom. Children are so free to love, so wholly, because of the way their memory functions.

We are also meant to love in such freedom, aren't we? We also undoubtedly loved this way when we were children. We collect so much grime along the way and fail to see clearly. I am constantly learning how she does it. Funnily enough, I keep recollecting practices and suggestions that the greatest masters have prescribed for such a love when I see my daughter's behaviour (in general, children). No jokes! Pratipaksha Bhavana is something that the Yoga Sutra and the Bhagavad Gita prescribe - replacing one thought with an opposite or another thought / action / behaviour. The descriptions are typically about cultivating and understanding opposite perspectives, countering destructive thoughts with thoughts of the opposite nature, becoming the other etc. I see her doing just this much of the time. If I give a stern look, she counters it with a wicked smile. If she just has to have a certain type of food that she doesn’t like, with every mouthful she utters a protesting cry, and then she immediately changes it by finding something else interesting to look at, or take refuge in holding me or talking to me. And so, myriad ways. Another important sutra talks of cultivating maitri (congeniality, friendliness), karuna (empathy, helpfulness), mudita (cheerfulness) and upeksha (imperturbability - towards failures, people who cant be changed and so on).  I simply watch her flabbergasted, while she practices one or more of these traits in different contexts and situations.

An all important principle underlying all others I feel is how children are able to live in the here and now. This is what enables them to love with such abandon and freedom. Because of being forever in this moment, they walk light. Nothing burdens them. They have no walls around them - of assumptions and conditionings and stereotypes and other barriers. They are free to love. They are free.

Reverence, the National Anthem and Children

Reverence is a feeling of deep respect or admiration. What happens when we revere? The way we look at the object of reverence is very different from the way we look at something not revered (so much?).  We take a moment or moments longer to pause, look and experience pleasure maybe. We do not pass judgments so easily. We are quick to discover positive aspects rather than wear the critical hat right away. Acceptance and a sense of oneness are already in place. What happens is that we buy time for 'right understanding'.

The Rev. Samdhong Rinpoche once said in an interactive session that even to prove that something (he was talking of Gandhi) is not relevant, you have to understand deeply. And that even for rejection there must be a right understanding; that is one's freedom and responsibility.

How can we embark on such a path of understanding if we do not have reverence? A reverence  that is not necessarily directed at an object. The reverence which is an emotion and attitude underlying all thought and action. If one has an inherent quality of reverence, then acceptance and love lay the road for a Buddhist understanding to begin its journey.  This kind of right understanding is not an object or a solid conclusion, opaque to the changes all around. It is a fluid and changing journey, a process. Haste, personal agendas, rigid stands and personalities dissolve by the very nature of this journey. 

We are taught not to have such reverence today. Everything around us directs us either to irreverence or a lower form of reverence at the level of submission to power and authority. We were at a cinema theatre the other day and amongst the advertisements before the movie, the screen gave the audience a sudden instruction: "Please stand up for the National Anthem." A short movie clip followed with different scenes of India, not very different from Mile Sur Mera Tumhara or Vande Mataram. The background music was of course the National Anthem. If I recall right, it was a Bharat Bala production. All of us (I think) stood. I will bypass all the discussions that can ensue around the theme of national anthem and patriotism, and only look at the Anthem as a symbol of reverence. As a society we are moving away from a culture of reverence and continue to do so inexorably. I wonder how many of us would have stood if not for that piece of instruction. Standing up is a gesture of reverence and of course there are many among us who may roll our eyes, or feel "So what? Respect is in the mind, or heart or the pit of the stomach or wherever." The irony is that more and more people who are 'outsiders' to this culture, seem to think highly of this ability to be one with people and situations and phenomena, and begin from that platform of acceptance. The irony goes further - our education and conditioning today is to remove all trace of such inherent reverence, and then relearn it from some American or European Guru twisted and tweaked beyond recognition and even original meaning, and then coated with new jargon. (No offense to American and European individuals, I only state this as a process).

Children are taught to question everything to death and scientify whatever remains. We are negating all symbols of reverence on this battlefield. Such symbols taught us as children to revere first, make a habit of it and imbibe it as a culture, before we gradually learnt its value and meaning. The take off of course is that as children many aspects of culture including social behaviour and compassion, physical discipline and so on are learned this way.  Such aspects, like reverence, cannot be imbibed by talking and discussing about them.  Children in a certain phase can only learn by doing. How can we do reverence? This is of course only if we decide that reverence is a part of 'our' culture, whoever the 'us' may be. These symbols helped us in learning and teaching reverence by doing it first, and discussing it later, after the experience(s). Much later.

I feel it deep in my gut every time I hear the National Anthem, and it triggers in me thoughts and visuals of all that is India for me, its beauty and grandeur, and all its contradictions and conflicts, its people and mountains and children and oceans, and emotions of pleasure or anger or sadness or joy depending on the current issues that may already be running in my mind. Whatever it may be, my reverence does not allow my response to stop at the shallow surface, it has to be intense, it has to go deeper, there is no other way. And every time I respond in this manner, I learn to revere more and I learn to respond reverently to other things as well. I hope and pray that in time I learn to value everything as symbols of reverence. And I pray that today's children learn to revere,  learn that they have time to stop, and experience this fascinating journey. 

Life's Like This Too

Today's post is more of a personal journal entry than anything else. I had to share it because, well, life is like this. A blessing, and a perfect moment.

The night was pure torture. I simply wanted to sink into the oblivion of sleep and kept doing so. But the mosquitoes insisted on dragging me out of my heaven. Not just me, but my daughter as well. My 19-months old daughter is a trooper but even she can take only so far. So there we were scratching and slapping and tossing and turning, well into the night. The both of us. And I was also trying to insist that she go to sleep by patting and singing to her. I felt sure that she thought I was a nutcase.

I had had one of those melancholy conversations just before going to bed wherein one feels sorry for oneself and all that is happening to her. I had managed to put myself in a true blue funk. Life was an angry-sad sigh. Lying awake helped the funk along. Despite the mosquitoes.

This morning I got up drearily from my half sleep, and by sheer force of habit and a dogged will that I not lose my discipline yet again, pushed myself out of bed to do my asana and pranayama practice. My daughter had settled into an uneasy sleep and I check on her from time to time. One hour, the breath worked its magic, and I was ready to face the day.

Then one of my best friends brings me coffee right where I am and we sit down to a good old chat. A pleasant early morning breeze, two woodpeckers knocking away at a coconut tree, and a cruising lone crow give us company as we chat about books and work and indulge in some light gossip. 

By and by, my daughter's morning voice calls me, "amma-a" and I get my morning hug and cuddle. She is content to look at the world from my arms for the moment. I am content to have her there. And there is the sweet promise of the morrow bringing her father back into town with it. "Appa vanthu", as my daughter said today in anticipation of being with him.

Despite all that we make of it, life persists in being a blessing. All it needs is this perfect moment.

From Leo Babauta - How to Become Open to Life

I really liked the following article and hence sharing it here:

How to Become Open to Life

Keep your hands open, and all the sands of the desert can pass through them. Close them, and all you can feel is a bit of grit.’ ~Taisen Deshimaru

Post written by Leo Babauta.

In many ways, I close myself off to life in all its fullness. I close myself off to others, as a form of self defense.

It happens to all of us. When you left yourself open in the early part of your life, you likely would get hurt from time to time. That pain taught us to close ourselves off in different ways: don’t let others in, use humor to keep some distance, hurt others before they hurt you, back away from anything new, and so on.

I close myself off, and miss the world. I miss out on life when I do that.

And so I’m learning to become more open. It’s a slow process, but in many small ways I’ve learned a lot, and am much more open now than I’ve ever been.

What does it mean to be open? It means that I accept more of life without judgment, and am happier no matter what comes. It means I judge others less, criticize less, accept others more, and learn more about their wonderful particularity.

It means more than ever before I am fully experiencing life.

I’ll share a little about becoming open to life, and to others, in hopes that you’ll find it useful.

1. Judge less, accept more. It seems natural to judge others, but in doing so we close ourselves the truth about these people. The same is true when we judge all the things around us — we close ourselves to finding out more. If judgment is automatic, we should get off autopilot and be more conscious. When we notice ourselves judging, instead, pause, seek to understand, and then to accept. And then to love, and to ease suffering. We should let go of our expectations of everyone around us, and of the world around us, and accept people as they are, and see them as they really are. Does accepting mean we never change things? No, it means we don’t get upset, irritated, frustrated when things aren’t as we’d like them to be, but instead seek to ease suffering.

2. Let go of goals. Many of you know I’ve been experimenting with having no goals, but not everyone understands why. One of the biggest reasons is that when we set a goal, we limit the range of possibilities, because we are setting a fixed destination (the goal). For example, if you say, “I want to run a marathon in six months”, then you will focus your actions on the things it takes to get to that destination (marathon training). But what if someone asks you to go surfing when you’re supposed to do marathon training? Or a new race opens up that you didn’t realize would be there when you set your marathon goal — and it’s even better? If you remain fixated on your goal, then you’ll close yourself off to the surfing, or the new race. This is only one example — it becomes much more subtle (and less clear) when the goals are work goals, because the possibilities are so much broader and wide-ranging. I’m not saying you should never set goals (though that’s a possibility), but you should develop the flexibility to let them go depending on the changing circumstances of each day, each moment.

3. Recognize defense mechanisms. The defense mechanisms we build up over the years in response to painful experiences are many and varied. More importantly, we don’t realize they’re there most of the time, so they are automatic and thus powerful and hard to beat. So learn to recognize them. When you find yourself not doing certain things, ask why. Maybe it’s because you’ve had a bad experience in the past. When you find yourself hurting people, ask why. When you find yourself shutting people or experiences out, ask why.

4. Be like the sky. Suzuki Roshi had a great metaphor … the sky has substance (gases, dust, water), but it is open to accepting everything. This “empty sky” allows other things, like plants, to grow into it. Our mind should be like the sky — accept things as they are, not discriminating. By saying, “this is beautiful, this is not beautiful”, we reject some things. Instead, we can be empty. We can treat everything like it’s part of our big family. We can treat anything as if they were our hands and feet.

5. Watch your fears. Fears are the basis for our automatic defense mechanisms, and similarly, they have power when we don’t know they’re working, when they lurk in the backs of our minds in the dark. Fears close us off to others, to the world, to experiences. Watch your fears, by learning to be quiet, by listening to yourself talk in that quiet. Pay attention to the fears, shine a light on them, and they begin to lose their power. Then you’ll be freed to be open to new things, to anything.

6. Let go of control. We constantly strive for control — of others, of ourselves, of the world around us. Goals, planning, measuring our work, expectations and more — we try to control things in so many ways. Of course, we know that control is an illusion. It’s also a way of shutting out most of the world: if we can control the world, and the future, we are fixing the course of events … and shutting out other possible courses. What happens if we let go of that control? The possibilities open up.

7. Open hands. Walk about in the world with open hands. It’s a simple practice. Your hands are open, and they are empty, ready to receive the world and all that comes, as it is. Your hands aren’t closed,

‘Walking along the edge of a sword,
Running along an ice ridge,
No steps, no ladders,
Jumping from the cliff with open hands.’
~Zen verse

Satsangam

Satsang is usually the word used when people gather to hear a talk by a Swami / Swamin (what do we call a woman swami, besides 'mother'?), or a regular meeting of people reading / discussing religious / spiritual texts and matters. The word 'satsangam' means 'associating / union with good / truth' (sat + sangam). 

- There are some people with whom each moment spent or thought about is a satsangam. 

- One could feel, think and act in ways such that, as much as possible, it is satsangam for others to be with one. 

- This means that one needs to practice, practice and practice some more! 

- Sage Patanjali spoke about how such a practice should be in his Yoga Sutra (स तु दीर्घकाल नैरन्तर्य सत्कारादरासेवितो द्रुढभूमि: ।  - Practice, (which is the constant and repeated effort to remain with the object of focus) sustained for a long uninterrupted duration with the right mental focus and with conviction and devotion carried out in a proper manner becomes firmly established. (Verse 1.14)

- When such a constant and unyielding practice towards an ideal of satsangam is carried out, then it could be called satyagraha(!) which means 'holding onto truth'

The above were some of the thoughts that have taken some space since yesterday because we had a sudden satsang, and what a satsang it was. Swami Tyagananda is someone who is near to the truth of matters and even a short duration spent in terms of physical time space with him becomes timeless. I still remember an earlier satsang several years back when something he had said just stuck to me, and I had written about it in the introduction to this blog. 

He spoke a few powerful words yesterday, despite being jet-lagged and tired. They just have to be recorded somewhere and so here they are: 

1) Since he met my 10-month old daughter, the conversation naturally turned to children and growing up. So he shared this anecdote: A child is asked how old he was and he said that he was 5 years old. He was then asked how old his parents were, and he said "5!" much to the questioner's chagrin. Well, "they weren't parents before I was born, so they are 5-year old parents". As much as the child is new, the parents are new too!! This was such a new way of looking at the world from a child's perspective. 

2) He spoke of a book called Zen mind, the beginner's mind while talking about what it is to look at everything freshly, like a child. How many of us can look at that road, or the car on it, and look at it as if we are looking at it for the first time? How many of us can look at the same thing every time for the first time? Imagine, for that child, that car is altogether a new thing, she is looking at it freshly. Can we do that? 

3) Looking deeply into things led him to pointing at the table and asking, "what is this?" So we look at him dumbly, perplexed, and thinking, "Table, but of course! What about it?" Then, "isnt table a name and a form given to God? Isnt anything in the world a name and a form to identify it? What if we remove the name and form, dont we get God? This is knowledge blinding us. When we first see the table, God stands before us, however after that nanosecond, our knowledge puts the name and form on it and blinds us." This was a double whammy. 

So, what if we were to imagine all our categories as names and forms, and lump them all into one category called God, or Eternal bliss, or Light, or Self or Highest Source or whatever it is that one wants to call it. And teach students based on this category. What would we get? 

Two Heroes - One Legacy

Two leaders;

two giants of knowledge, work and compassion - both my heroes and having such uncanny parallels in their lives and message. And what a legacy of work and ideas they have built for us, independently and yet to my mind very much together.

India has had the very great blessing of experiencing these two personalities within the last 150 years.  They were contemporaries in a sense – there was just a gap of six years between them.  One was a political leader, and the other a monk. Both were intense patriots, but manifested their patriotism in their lives and work very differently.  What is striking is that amongst all the obvious differences, are the similarities, not just in their life experiences and some of their core qualities, but also in the fundamental truths that they saw and spoke about, and many a time even in expression.

Swami Vivekananda, born 1863, acquired a modern education, almost studied law, went abroad to spread the message of India, came back to serve his Motherland a public figure.

Mahatma Gandhi, born 1869, acquired a modern education, studied law in England, practiced abroad, struggled for an Indian movement in a foreign land and came back to serve his Motherland a public figure.

There are many points of difference in the way each one's education was acquired and the process of each one's making.  But the purpose of this piece is not to dwell on these as much as to look at what each one of them having made men of themselves, saw as truth and spoke.

Their patriotism was not ordinary. It was a different quality of patriotism that understood the faults and weaknesses of the land, but looked beyond, to the strength.  Indeed, 'strength' – a growing from within was something both emphasised constantly. Both Swamiji and Gandhiji did a Bharath Parikrama before the beginning of their major work in India. The parikrama gave each of them the knowledge and authority to say that his land is of immense Ideal and strength.  Neither failed to connect the people and their practice, to their own reading and understanding of the scriptures and shastras.  Another meeting point was their thorough reading of their own traditional scriptures.  We know from their lives how well-read each of them was in their own tradition.  What’s more, both of them acquired knowledge not just of their own tradition, but also of other cultures and civilisations.  Both of them mastered the intricacies of alien cultures as well and won many admirers, friends, followers from other countries and cultures as much as from their own land. 

However, neither was merely a man of books alone.  They thrived and learnt from life, living and people.  Each came into direct contact with his land, her strengths, weaknesses, diversity, oneness during his tour on foot across India's length and breadth. 

It is a fascinating combination of opposing forces that they worked with, or perhaps – worked on that "thin edge of a sword"[1] where the extremes met on a middle path and were balanced.  Each never stopped dwelling and speaking at length, of and about Ideals.  They thought, meditated, lived and breathed idealism; which is what made Swamiji say that he preaches the message of the Upanishads, "strength, a growing from within"; and made Gandhiji declare in almost the same words that the ultimate goal for each man is to reach the strength within himself – 'swaraj' or self-mastery as he called it.  Nothing is higher than this potential.  Neither was ready to lower this ideal to every day circumstances, but each was also intensely practical and looked at the smallest details in routine daily life worked to bring quality into each moment and action. 

This way, their own lives served as examples for their followers though differently.  On this point they differ that Gandhiji as a political figure sought to be completely transparent and hence explained in great detail every word and action of his; he wrote his autobiography, 'The story of my experiments with Truth'.  On the other hand the position of a monk who has renounced everything personal in the world, holds the highest regard and devotion in the Indian psyche – so Swamiji following the traditional path and emphasised the ideas that he preached rather than his own life, words, and actions.  His life as a lesson comes down to us only from his direct followers who were blessed enough to have heard of it from the original source.  He himself only talked and wrote of ideas, Indian tradition and her path.  Here, we see one of the very core values of India that both saw and declared the place of religion in Indian life and movement. 

The very essence of Swamiji's teaching is Religion, i.e. moving Godward.  He said that each country had a goal and that of India is religion, i.e. renunciation.  Gandhiji constantly maintained in the very same vein that each civilisation had a purpose and Indian civilisation was not excess, but a giving up of wants, and that without religion, or the central thought of God, any life/work stream of India would be valueless, unethical, moral-less, lifeless.  Both advocated religious education should start at a very young age towards the overall development of the individual. 

The development of the individual is a significant meeting point for these two Teachers.  Both talk of the individual and how all growth start from within him.  Neither stops there.  Swamiji said, how if each individual tries to manifest the strength (divinity) within him, we will have a society and nation full of noble struggle and achievement.  Gandhiji takes off on the same note, and brought forth his concept of the oceanic circles, i.e. how the strength of each individual radiates outward to become the strength of the village – and so on to the strength of the nation.  This is no different from Swamiji's, 'Expansion is Life'.

Even with respect to an individual's conviction and commitment to one ideal, they both paid allegiance to "Truth", and both saw their work as their Truth.   Swamiji had an "uncompromising regard for Truth" even from his childhood and intensely sought to discover the ultimate truth all truths, with which you would know the self, the world and all creation.  He also simultaneously spoke of how the greatest philosophical truths can be found in the practical spirituality of ordinary people and ordinary things. 

We find Gandhiji declaring his life to be a "story of his experiments with truth" – and always struggling for an intangible, unseeable abstract truth.  And he continues to say till the end that he "worships the God that is Truth or Truth which is God through the service of his millions", and that he "recognises no God except the God that is to be found in the hearts of the dumb millions"  It awakens the same chords of response, as when one reads Swamiji's "would you worship the shiva in the images and temples alone? Worship and serve the shiva in his poorest and weakest children." This unshakeable devotion to Truth makes both of them be seen as rebels in their younger days.  Both challenged blind conventions, and persistently resisted the status quo if it was for nothing but the mere virtue of being status quo for years or centuries, in their own ways.  This challenge to conventional, dogmatic beliefs continues all their lives for both of them. 

It was not of their lot to acknowledge defeat, but to throw down the gauntlet every time.  Each rose with a challenge every time he encountered blind, empty ritual, conventional thought without meaning and fanaticism.  And yet, we find that both were the friendliest of people.  Both were brilliant conversationalists with quick ready wit and humour, and overflowed with compassion.  (Both of them also had sharp sarcasm ready at hand to use if needed).  It is said of each of them that he had a Mother's heart, the tenderest of hearts.  But for their own purposes, both kept it away from public view and under a veil of intellect.

Digging deeper into the friendliness and compassion, we find each one's ability to synthesise and harmonise contradictory thoughts and belief systems and function from common denominators.  Both, Swami Vivekananda and Gandhiji could bring together people with extreme viewpoints and beliefs to work together based on common ideals.   

This synthesis of ideas and a deeper insight into the nature of things that they shared, also extended to their ideas on the East and West, their respective values, strengths and weaknesses.  They differed on the point of expression in that, one was a political leader and saw in the West a system of force and civilisation, a tangible enemy to the well-being of his countrymen, and the other, a monk who deliberately kept away from politics and began at the points of strengths of every entity, be it individual or nation.  Brilliant is how each could relate profound philosophical concepts to everyday routine activity and bring them closer to practical life, and their very same idea of the Means and Ends of action - wherein both maintain that one is the same as the other, there is no separation. 

In the sphere of ideas, a very significant relevant meeting of these two great men is their vision of India and her work in the world.  Both saw India as the harmonising force of the world, as the teacher of religion (a godward movement) and Ahimsa (love) to the world.  Not a theoretical or bookish religion that would dry up social life and activity, but a strong, vibrant, active religion, or spirituality, the essence of which would reverberate in every sphere and activity of this land.  Herein, lies our lesson and how well we are able to stand on the towering strength of our own legacy, be prepared to take it on, learn from it, strengthen it, add to it and act on it.    

---

[1] In the words of Mahatma Gandhi

Meeting Bombay Jayashree and Nataraja on Thiruvathirai Morning

Romance and motherliness. Do they seem irreconcilable concepts? Not to the author of this piece.

Romance is that space and journey in a nuanced dimension, where each moment is a koan, and every action is a search for truth. Motherliness is that state of being where every koan is realised and there is only truth, nothing else. There is no 'I' in either.

She is Music's consort as well as it's mother. Listening to Bombay Jayashree is an experience of devotion and divinity. Especially in a "Prabhata Sangeetam" environment (similar to chamber music, but particularly in the morning - dawn). A Shringeri Mutt devotee-family organises Prabhata Sangeetam in their house every December season, and BJ transported her listeners to a realm of Bhakthi and I-lessness, this morning. All the musicians (BJ, the violinist and percussionist/mridangam) as well as the accompanying girls on the tamburas performed in muted tones, perfectly resonating with the time and ambience. We were about 40 - 50 people sitting in the hall (drawing room) of the house, lighted only by about 60 - 65 குத்து விளக்குs (oil lamps - oil fired floor lamps) made of brass, in the presence of Venkateswara, Shiva, Sharada and Krishna.. The unwavering flames found an answering stillness from within. Her voice and singing has that unnameable quality that turns the attention inward - the yoga sutra prescribes the path in painstaking stages to reach 'pratyahara' - a withdrawal of the senses from the external world to move on to dhyana and samadhi thereon. Here, we were all immersed in one sense (of hearing), but even that was only an instrument for something deeper. It was only when the electric light was switched on that I felt my painful knee and that the mosquitoes were making a meal out of me!

She sang songs on Sharada and Shiva (today is Thiruvathirai, a day special to Lord Nataraja - Rudra). Her planned last rendering was Sarvam Brahmamayam ('everything is Brahmam'), but on a request followed it with a தாலாட்டு (lullaby) for the Bala Tripurasundari invoked in her image there ('bala' in sanskrit means child, 9-year old child goddess). If ever surrender to the lord (wherein there are two) and the sense of oneness of creation (where there is only One) felt but one and the same, it was during those moments.

The blessing of those moments continued into the morning. Lord Shiva, whose special day it is today (one of the legends has it that Sage Patanjali and Vyagrapada prayed to Lord Nataraja and he danced the Tandava-cosmic dance for them on this day) decided that I should visit him. I met my mother while returning from the concert, and since she was going to the Appar Swamy Koil (temple), suggested that I accompany her. Though not much of a temple-goer, I went along with her. In the temple, she jogged my memory about today's speciality and told me a couple of stories including the one above - my satsanga for the day! (As children we have listened to several stories from Hindu mythology and culture including those of every festival in the year). She also got me mouth watering prasad from the temple, then gave me களி that she'd made and sent me on my way.

A morning of worship, food for the stomach and food for the soul. I am complete.

A poem. "Stray Moment"

Of what worth is my life? 
If I have not felt you.
You, who are ever with me - 
Thinking of the moutains by the sea;
Wanting to to feel the hot beach sands,
While shivering in a farm on the hills. 

You are then with me, my best friend,
Begging for attention - 
As I ignore the faint plea for solitude
In pursuit of gaiety and fun. 

You are puffing and panting,
As I gasp for breath,
Chasing after my dreams. 

You are plucking at me - 
As I do, the strings of my half hearted violin,
to pull me out of the hazy corridors
of days gone by,
A lazy sunday afternoon. 

You take a deep breath,
Hoping I will follow suit 
While I rush to finish a million tasks;
In vain, your breath? 

Leaving you orphaned,
I stray as well.

I find you now and then - 
In my niece's laughter
And the scent of my mother's pallu.
In the satisfaction of my best effort at work
And in the fulfillment of committed practice.

I find you,
When a thunderstorm makes the world howl
On a cheery Wordsworth day - walking, walking, walking...
Appear in an exciting idea;
celebrated in the unconditional love of my companion. 

I wonder at the contradiction to normal pinings - 
As a great soul explains:
"All remember in sorrow, none in joy,
If we remember in joy, where is the sorrow?"

Here I am all upside down,
I feel you with me,
In all apparent joyousness,
complete in just being. 

But forget you,
drowned in sorrow or ire.
You sigh, and I agree,
Remembering you I am complete in joy and sorrow alike. 

As I am now - 
In you - this moment! 
Stray you are no longer,
nor am I, in this conversation. 
for you are this moment, my whole life. 
-----------------------------------

Curd!

You can take the brahmin out of the curd, but not the curd out of the brahmin!!!

Something that came to me today while having lunch. Ayurvedically and yogically speaking, I have sinned. But what joy! And I consoled myself saying, rather than eating any of the junk food ridden with chemicals, it is alright to go ahead and lick curd off my plate once in a blue while...

Green Company!

Each action, small or big, counts. The TVS franchisee in Adyar, Ramkay TVS, celebrated Environment day today by holding an event for children.

I saw this invite yesterday when I went there to take my XL, which I had given for servicing. The best part is - the man at the counter, gave me a sweet smile, took my slip and then brought out a sapling and put it inside a big brown envelope. Even as I started wondering what is he doing with a sapling - (imagine - grease, black and grey, sounds of engine starting / sputtering, mechanics in overalls tinkering with bike parts, and place a fresh green sapling with pink buds in this scene) - he offered the envelope to me with a flourish! I did a wide-eyed, "OH! why?" on him, and he said "environment day, madam!" and I noticed this invite.

The sapling is an ixora, dwarf variety and I am ecstatic about it. Long live!

An afternoon at Dakshinchitra

It is holidays time, and all of us are trying to figure out ways and ways to keep the kids occupied. I remember a time when as kids we kept ourselves occupied, got into a few scrapes of course (that goes without saying!), and have turned out pretty good in life. Come summer holidays and we simply had a good time, there was so much SPACE to do it in, all kinds of space. Today, children have no space (mental / emotional / physical....) to get into one teeny weeny scrape. They are mandatorily helped to occupy themselves, and everything is available to them packaged and ready-made, even fun. What happened to plain old fashioned just-FUN? Playing-street-cricket-or-marbles fun? Roaming-the-streets-of-Anna Nagar-or-Mylapore-on-a-cycle-under-the-relentless-sun fun? Just good old unorganised fun discovered, explored, conducted, experienced by children themselves? Instead, the chennai middle class (all strata of it) try and put their children in camps and workshops so that they are occupied and out of trouble's way, and of course activities that are fun and at the same time 'educational'. So there are summer camps with science, movement, storytelling, photography, tech stuff, music, arts, aerobics, calligraphy, cursive writing (!), English speaking, theatre, writing stories, origami, jewellery making, crossword puzzles, indoor and outdoor games, carpentry, basic electronics, embroidery, pot painting.... the list is endless. If I were a kid today, I would put 'educational' in my list of bad words. We educate them through the year, and not satisfied, we continue to do the same during the vacation as well, organise and monitor them and their activities down to the last detail. The plants grow and flowers bloom when no one is looking.

Although that was a rant, the present urban reality also presents itself, which is another list - of plausible reasons for unorganised, original fun being an impossibility - times have changed, roads are full of traffic and pollution, working parents, children learn all kinds of things from their peer these days (when wasn't this true?) all they want to do is play video games (which we have brought upon ourselves), these are competitive times - picking up skills and learning new things are good for him / her and will also keep them out of trouble, where is the physical space .... and it goes on. Here, I take a turn and rather than going in the direction of dissecting these reasons (since it would be quite obvious to the reader where I come from), I would rather share (promote!) some of the interesting activities / places for parents and children / families to enjoy together in Chennai, that I have been thinking about since my trip to such a place - which still let remain some space for unorganisation, freedom and orginality.

I visited Dakshinchitra, Chennai a couple of weeks back and it brought back to me all the simple joy and pleasure of my earlier, much younger visits to the place. First and foremost, the vast amount of pedestrian SPACE to simply move about - what happiness. Most of us know that it is a heritage centre / museum of arts, crafts, and architecture of South India. It is a very special kind of a museum where traditionally built houses from our villages were purchased, dismantled and relocated at the centre. The place also has many stalls with handicrafts and artefacts and also small thatched enclosures where one can try their hand at some of the art and craft. An undeniable 'educational' destination (if one wants it to be so) for a summer afternoon - one which offers aesthetic, wholesome spaces and sheer experience of culture; a veritable storehouse of traditional knowledge. I made my first clay pot, a small one, and it has been sun-drying for the last two weeks; I will now bake it in the oven.

I also got my palms covered with mehendi, which was somehow irreristible. We also saw a puppet theatre stage being prepared for a show. One can experience working at the loom, with clay, making puppets, making artefacts and products out of natural material, painting on different media, and a whole host of such activities. For those who are so inclined, there are also summer and weekend classes and workshops where children and also families together can learn some of the folk arts and crafts (both, livelihood and performance). There is something very significant about a vast pedestrians only space - feet slow down, and minds still. I saw the children there; in first glance - happy, confident, free, engaged!

Dakshinchitra got me thinking about other spaces and activities in and around the city that can be explored and which are not exclusive, elite, expensive and intentionally educational.

- The Guindy Children's Park and Snake Park

- Crocodile Bank, ECR

- In fact, the word 'park' brings to my mind - many of the parks in the city have been cleaned and 'greened' for walkers and are good spaces for an evening of walk / play / hanging out

- The Tower park, Anna Nagar (It is fun to try and race up the tower; although I am not so sure whether people are allowed to go up the tower these days)

- Vedanthangal Bird Sanctuary

- Fort St. George (there is much that can be seen and discussed about here)

- Government Museum, Egmore (Although perhaps one may argue that a museum is 'educational')

- The Marina Beach (offers innumerable past times, activities and interesting stuff, not to forget the bajjis and sugarcane juice treats by evening)

- The Eliots Beach, Besant Nagar

- Vandalur Zoo (One can tire out just walking around)

- Mahabalipuram

- Vivekananda Illam or Ice House

- The Theosophical Society (there are visitor's timings, look for the famous banyan tree and walk to the broken bridge)

If one has the mood and mind, there are the temples - A few of them that I have been to:

- Kapaleeswarar temple, Mylapore (Just walking around the streets of Mylapore would be so interesting - it is filled with a gamut of stores and activities; by evening there is a bajji vendor behind the RASI store who gives the most mouth-watering bajjis)

- Marundeeswarar Temple, Tiruvanmiyur

- Velankanni Church, Besant Nagar

- Ekambareswarar Temple, Mint Street

- St Thomas Garrison Church and St Thomas Mount

A personal opinion is that these big temples are so very free-ing for children to go to, because I have noticed that adults do not monitor kids so much inside a temple, and there is just so much physical space for them to run about and do their own thing and yet the central focus and purpose sitting right inside the sanctorum cannot be moved too far from.

A completely different kind of place and activity is Parrys (the chennai one! note the spelling). It bursts upon one with its variety of sights, sounds, shapes, and smells and colours and wares. Just walking around in the streets and exploring the different shops, places, observing the traders and people - all of it is a life experience. Some of the places to see / visit are the Armenian Church, Kothavalchavady market, mint street (dont forget the Ekambareswarar temple), Kandaswamy temple, the different bazaars (each street is a bazaar for one type of product) and it is endless. If we are in Parrys, we necessarily have to finish the trip with samosas and lassi at Agarwal Bhavan on Govindappa Naicken street (they are to die for).

The above are places that just popped up on first thought - I am sure there are more. However, it is clear that the criteria for these places are time, willingness to explore, go with the flow of kids, situations and contexts, and unorganisation to some extent. Some space for unorganisation is an unequivocal factor because it is with such freedom to conduct and organise one's own time, play, fun - such unmonitored, unmeasured, unevaluated fun that actually leads to self learning and some very important life skills (for want of a better word). However I am also not saying that children should never go to camps and summer classes, far from it; just that let us not make a fetish of "fun n learning activity". In fact, one of the best options could be to just let him / her BE, and see what comes out of that empty space - of course, set down simple checks and balances, like rules and time limits for TV and video games. Experiment and see for how long a child can say, "I am bored, or I dont know what to do, tell me what to do or let me watch TV". But, this requires patience and courage.

It is secondary (from the perspective of our summer holidays time), that during those days, year after year, even as we had tons of fun, one learnt cycling while trying to keep up with the elder children; another gained a lot of confidence after mastering the art of climbing a tree; yet another just kept collecting stones, twigs, odd material from nature just because he liked it and played with all the materials (he is a popular naturalist /ecologist of chennai today; he is also a designer); one girl just shut herself up in her room and kept dancing to popular dance numbers (she is a popular dancer and entertainment professional today); a friend just pottered around with cycles and tools and such (he works in a bank today but it is known that at home he is the plumber, mechanic, electrician all of it put together); a bunch of us explored walking and cycling on different streets and compared notes, made maps, took surveys on what people (perfect strangers that we met in the shops and on the roads) thought of the traffic and randoms information just for the 'fun' of it; a group of us put together an evening's show that included dance performances, a skit, a speech, a mimicry show and advertisements, for the adults; I volunteered at an orphanage, worked at selling a newspaper door to door, researched and wrote content for a website, took tuitions for the younger children, and got involved with other such random activity; a girl refused to do anything but read fiction (English) one summer for no particular reason and found the following year that her vocabulary had just leaped, some from the group of children in my apartment got together and helped the mothers and grandmothers with pickling and pappad-making (since summer is the time when the entire year's stock is made in many Indian households) ......this can go on endlessly.

But looking back, I realise that we taught each other so many things, all of us in our teens and younger (starting age about 6 or 7), we all mingled with so many different groups of children through these myriad activities. Of course, there is a flip side to this as well, as for all things in this world - for instance, there was a guy who got into looking at porn magazines, there were a boy and girl who fancied themselves in love with each other. Dont kill me, but none of us are in any pitiable condition or have gone 'astray' because of any of this. The guy had gotten out of his habit of porn by the next summer holidays, and the boy and girl forgot that they fancied each other by the end of the holidays. And the other children wouldn't keep quiet with this sort of a thing. They either ganged up with or against, sometimes bully someone out of whatever they are doing or snitch on them (go to the parents, although this is unpardonable) - the options are many. But we also learnt to make decisions, quick ones as well as thought out and analysed ones; we learnt to manage time; we fought and made up and then made rules and resolutions during the rehearsals for the evening show for the elders; we learnt to work alone as well as with teams and with each other; we learnt to make things interesting for ourselves; we discovered things of interest; we became adept at investigating events, people; we all learnt resourcefulness; we learnt to plan, and also have backup and contingency plans; we learnt to handle money, draw up budgets and work with accounts (sigh! unfortunately I am not among the ones who learnt this), my friend started maintaining a journal and all she did was write about her day, emotions and feelings and so on in it at the cost of being ridiculed by most of the boys (she later did English literature and Journalism and has worked as a content writer and journalist for popular newspapers and continues to do so) ... this list is endless as well - however the important fact is that all of this was accomplished without adult supervision and intervention (read: interference) except for some rules and checks that would regulate food and rest timings, and sometimes even grounding if too much rule-breaking happened.

I reiterate: none of the above were our objectives. We were just out to enjoy our holidays. And we didnt have any of it pre-planned, designed and packaged for us. We just went out there, and HAD FUN!

Guru Vs Teacher

In continuation with the earlier post "Celebrating Guruhood", I had a conversation with a friend about using the word 'guru' casually and my friend's contention was that we do not call all teachers, Gurus. Which is true. That is exactly the point in my life - my greatest blessing has been that most of my teachers have been Gurus to and for me.

I used the words Guru and teacher knowing full well what I was doing. There is really no translation in English for the word 'Guru', however the nearest is teacher, and if more teachers were like Gurus, we would get somewhere. Even taking the etymological guru - to be one who dispels darkness with his light of wisdom or even as one who goes beyond qualities and form, and even taking it to be spiritual ignorance that the Guru dispels, that is exactly what I am saying - that my teachers have always thrown light on one spiritual aspect or another, and so in that sense they are all Gurus for me.

Celebrating guruhood

This Vijayadasami post is to celebrate the tradition of "guruhood", and all the gurus I have had and those I continue to have, and acquire.

Gurus are people who actually seek you out. And then proceed to take over your life in ways as never before and never after. They give you all of themselves, their time, heart, thought, opportunities, challenges, provocations, work, more work, laughter, tears, food... they might even grow and cook it for you. They might throw in free massages as well. And of course, knowledge. Mind you, you didnt ask for all of this, no sir! You will resist in overt and covert ways, you only wanted to learn sanskrit, or music, or maths and in fact not even now, sometime in the near future... So sometimes you will hem and haw, other times you will fight and struggle upfront, or even try and use strategic ways to only just take what you want and quit the place. But you underestimate your opponent. In true martial artist alias guru style, they will ignore you, swat away your tantrums like pesky mosquitoes and with great love give you what you need. Or what you think they think you need! I havent figured that one out yet.

The thing is these people are life teachers. They show you how they take on life, how to live. But the best part is, they don't look at it this way. When they see you, they dont see you the way you perceive yourself, they are equipped with long sight as far as you are concerned. They see you as your potential actualised, and are constantly pushing you towards that vision. The details of that vision might change, but that doesnt matter. Their work is to push, provoke, challenge, raise, support and season you. Sometimes they will drag you kicking and screaming too. No newfangled notions of individuality and choice here, my child!

I have heard it being said that for true learning to happen, both the seed (teaching / ideas) and soil (student/ taught) should be okay. (As an aside, it is interesting that the teacher as an entity is not mentioned) And so, if the student is the soil, I have come to believe that the fertility of the soil is FAITH. And this faith lends reverence to the process of learning, and facilitating learning. It is my experience that my gurus never really taught me, they have always been facilitating my learning and this is my greatest blessing till date. If faith is at the heart of this process, then the gurus become wish fulfilling trees. Their energy and engagement with you is at the level of a spontaneous perception and insight, a no-mind plane where they facilitate not just your learning, but your well-being and happiness in life. Then you will find them giving you all sorts of stuff that you need, right at the time that you need them, without ever really talking of any of it. There is a communication that happens without the minds participating at all. This can happen at various levels of intensity and understanding, and gurus can be for a season or a lifetime. But come to you they surely do, and if you are armed with faith and you hand over that weapon as well to them, they will make something out of you, or help you make something of yourself. Go figure that one.

One last thought: even if the faith is there, the fight is there too. The seasoning and the molding happens in and through this process of resistance and struggle. And my gurus might call it my arrogance, when I say that the fight seasons them too. They are learning in the process too, and a true guru is more aware of it than the student. So, fight with faith!

Working with the soil

Working with the soil and tending plants, especially saplings - I have always theorised about how important it is for each one of us to be connected to the earth this way, especially children. Today I will say it emphatically. Fresh after my gardening session. Yes, I have harvested dals and done some weeding a while back in a farm. However, the joy and meditation of preparing a soil bed and planting tender saplings is unbeatable and a fundamental experience of life, I think.

Weeding first to clear an area and removing roots, stones etc.,

then loosening the soil with the help of a hand shovel,

"one has to be careful about the smaller creatures (millipedes for example) and not kill them as much as possible" (as my teacher and companion for this gardening session told me),

setting up a fence simultaneously so that the pups don't dig up the saplings,

adding cow dung manure to the area and further mixing and loosening the soil,

making alternate rows of ridges and troughs taking care not to harden the soil,

then at last planting the saplings.

"Planting the saplings" cannot adequately express the gentleness, delicate handling and complete attention that the little lives require to be put (roots first!&#!) into the soil. The roots shouldn't go too deep in otherwise they would just muck and die. The soil should be closed around the roots just so. Quoting my gardening teacher, "closing the soil around the roots is like hugging someone - it can't be too tight that you squeeze the life out or frighten them off and it can't be too loose that they don't feel it at all." It has to be from the heart! Just handling the soil with just the right pressure is, simply life. Children would do this best I think. In fact, children must do this and then, tend to them and watch their saplings grow, and grow right along.

Just as I will. After planting my saplings, I poured water into the troughs and sprinkled some on the plants. Tomorrow, it will be time to add dry leaves for mulching, so that the soil or the sapling does not get dry. Then watch the saplings take in sunshine and grow, as the roots catch, spread and drink up water. I am a child again.

Cauliflower manchurian and Red Cherry Blossoms

We were out on the bike at 9:45 p.m. for a family chore. K, my husband, usually tries one strategy or another to keep my mind occupied elsewhere away from the road so that I don't ride the bike by proxy sitting pillion. As a result of one of these strategies, in this particular instance I was narrating the Zen story, Red Blossom Cherry. In the story, a man is being chased by a vicious snake and running from it he reaches the edge of a cliff. He jumps from the fear of the snake, and clings to a tree. There's a landing ground below, but before he can land, he hears a lion's roar from below. The branch he's clinging to starts dangling. In the midst of all this, he spots a Cherry. He plucks it and eats it. The snake is the past, the lion future and the present, the red blossom cherry! I was narrating this story because we were discussing the movie, Right Here Right Now (by the way, a must-watch, which tells a brilliant story of possibilities of living this moment and not living this moment, all in half hour and with no unnecessary dialogues).

After finishing the chore, we spotted a favourite restaurant on our way back home and impulsively stopped for a post-dinner snack (dinner had been an era back at 7:30 p.m.)! Both of us ordered the unhealthiest possible junk on the menu, deep fried, heavy stuff. I asked for the dry cauliflower manchurian. After inhaling almost all of it and ensuring deep satisfaction of the palate, I commented on the nature of my snack. That "yogically" speaking (I am a serious student of yoga), I have violated all rules given by my guru. And also that "ayurvedically" speaking (we follow the ayurveda system of medicine for health and wellbeing), I am probably going to suffer from an increase of vata the next day.

Pat came the answer: Your learning of yoga is the snake of the past; and the effect of the food on you is the lion of the future. The cauliflower manchurian is your red blossom cherry! (with a wicked smile, no less!)

An "uncivilised" bath, almost.

I got the opportunity to have an almost-"uncivilised" bath after nearly 8 years, i.e., a bath out in the open, under the blue sky, birds flying overhead and the vibrant smell of nature - the fresh, tangy and minty fragrance of air where there are trees around, and of course the most pleasurable significant of all, this God's own breeze vying with sunshine to hit my skin in hitherto completely unexposed regions. In other words, a bath in the lap of Mother Nature. I call it 'almost' because it was not wholly in the wild. I was on the terrace of a house with the facility for such a bath. The house is located in a green surrounding and having a garden as well, away from pollution. Hence, I was not in the sterilised environment of a modern bathroom, closeted away from the healing touch of nature. Imagine the pores of all my skin soaking in sun and air as Nature wanted us to soak them in. I felt as complete and uncivilised as an animal would. Of course, I have never been able to find out from an animal how it feels as a creature of Nature. But I wish we could understand from them what it is to give to Nature and take from her multifold, and live as one of Her family; and so stop becoming more and more civilised and move farther and farther away from Nature, her nature, and her gifts - like taking an uncivilised bath, but oh so gloriously healthy.

I think it is these havens of uncivilisation that are keeping mankind still happy and going, in all the flurry refinement and ostentation of civilisation. Wherever we are uncivilised, we dont need to be developed, civil, polite, urban, pragmatic, rational and sane; We are free to be pagan, wild, content, insane and undiscovered. Discovery and development seem to be the yardsticks of a civilisation. And we discover different civilisations to have them clash with each other as well.

We humans need to continue giving ourselves enough uncivilised baths to wash away the dirt of civilisation.

Stay this moment

Stay! Stay a moment,
Stay here with me.
Don't go so fast,
Or you will miss this moment
And miss me.

I will no longer be able
To speak to you clearly -
and tell you of wondrous things
show you the joy of love
or its bitter-sweet pain.
or the learning of achievement
or even the pleasure of failure...
Hurry along in this way -
Your lover I cannot be.
I cannot feel your breath
nor your hand, nor heart.
How can I guide you
to the gentle warmth of sunshine,
Or to the biting cold
of another jealous poet?
You are so far ahead,
and my voice gets weaker.
How can I make love?
My whispers you cannot hear.
You talk to me no longer,
and you are in a race.
You may perhaps win accolades,
But not me.
Don't go so fast
Or you will miss me.


Come Along!
Come along with me.
or I will leave you behind.
I cannot describe the preciseness
and the blurriness of now,
and their strange play
if you lag behind.
I cannot become your violin,
and sing the song of melancholy
neither can I dance,
taking you with me in ecstacy.
the smell of flowers blooming on the roadside
mixed with smells of dust and urine,
You will not know,
You are not here with me.
I am desolate
I am losing you,
but you dont know it,
as you search for me
hanging back.
You need to come along
to be here with me,
this moment.

If you stay a moment,
If you still a moment,
You will know,
I cannot be in the past,
it is an illusion.
I cannot live in the future,
I have not created it yet.
I breathe only this moment,
I dance only this moment
I love only this moment,
I can give you only this moment.
And fool that you are,
you do not recognise
that being your Muse,
I can only be in the here
I can only be in the now
I am goddess only of this moment.
Live this moment, live me.

Where is the power?

I got up this morning to an alien stillness in the air. I wondered idly what it was while brushing my teeth, then going to my customary chair with some reading and writing material (I am on recuperating holiday and cannot and don't have to rush with work). But what is this silence? It stupefied me since I can hear birds chirping, a dog barking somewhere, the noise of the pressure cooker from the neighbour's house... It is not that my husband has already left for work; he is a rather silent and softspoken man anyway and so it could not have been the absence of his voice.

I sat on my chair and tried to apply all my powers of heuristics to the problem. I slowly realised that I could hear a sound that I had never heard before, it must have been a bird calling but I had never heard it before. I went to the window and started looking out for the birds. I could hear crows cawing of course. But gradually to my utter delight I distinguished at least six different bird calls and NOT squirrels, which were also squeaking by the way. (Some mistake the squirrel's repeated squeaking for a bird call). I also spotted a couple of them - the sun bird, the woodpecker, and seven sisters.

After the treat, I came back to my chair a few feet away from the window still listening carefully to identify newer bird calls. I gradually started hearing occasional vehicle sounds from the road. I live in a green campus, and slightly away from the road. The sound of bikes zooming or the horn of a bus is common, but now I could hear noises that were further down on parallel roads. Since I was into investigation anyway this morning, I started listening to those sounds as well. I could make out when a car was nearing, and on which side of the road it was, ie in which direction it was going. In a while I realised that I could make out whether a bus was slow or fast even as the sound came nearer, became louder and then slowly went farther away, and faded into silence. I fancied I could hear angry horns as people rushed to work, and a stray leisurely one.

Time went by and I still hadnt figured out this silence, a silence despite all the sounds around me. I realised I could feel and hear my breath.
And felt it s-l-o-w-i-n-g.
I...n and o.....u....t.
I....n a.n.d o.....u.......t.
The air in me seemed to be still. I wondered whether I was going to stop breathing any moment now, my time had come.

I was distracted by the curtain at the window flapping and after less than a minute felt a gentle breeze on my face and shoulder. I was fascinated with this and waited for the next flap. The curtain flapped and I counted the seconds till the breeze reached me. While I waited for the next flap, the curtain blurred, and the sight of the trees out in the backyard sharpened. The branches and leaves on the tree top waved at me madly and sure enough in a short while, the curtain flapped and I counted the seconds till it hit my face. So I knew that this morning this was the direction in which the breeze came. I made a mental note to ask my husband about these directions of the breezes here (He is rather closely connected with them and knows them well). Meanwhile I went back to playing with the breeze. The tree top moved, and when I whispered "Now!" it hit me - I stopped short of jumping in glee; thankfully, because my poor injured knee would have waged permanent war against me if I had tried that kind of stunt. I now started timing whether with every instance, the time that the breeze took to reach me from the tree top was the same. Then I also realised that the speed also seemed to reduce as it reached me inside.

I felt a movement near my right ankle and acting on instinct I slapped on it. A mosquito. Me?!! I caught a mosquito?! How is that possible? I have made history - I could never get them, I didnt even manage to get the one that gave me chikun guniya. As I was ruminating on this, I felt the air next to my left cheek change and slapped - a mosquito again?!!! I was flabberghasted. What was happening to the world today? And I swear that I felt it coming even before it sat on my cheek. How did I feel this air next to my skin move? Did I really? I have never felt this before, unless I am anticipating a movement. And as tiny as a mosquito? But it was unmistakeable, and twice. It was something to do with the silence. I was certain by now.

The shaft of sunlight coming from the hall window through the curtains, a good 15 feet or so away was now at a sharp angle to the floor. More perplexity. I hadn't even realised being aware of it, but I had been. I knew that it had been at a gentle angle to the floor a while back. When had I noticed it? I was by now ready to bang my head in frustration, it was to do with this confounding silence and stillness....

when all of a sudden, clacking, whirring, buzzing, humming, jangling.... the power came back. And the stillness shattered. I am still wondering, why do we call electricity 'power'? It feels like an oxymoron to call electricity, 'power'.