A delicious morning

 

When the morning sun suddenly peeks over the corner to set a blizzard of light in the sleeping vale. It triggers a shimmering lightwork in the dewy beads clinging to drooping leaves. The morning mists pleasantly launch vapory fireworks, carrying the fragrant message of love, life and living. It's like the first pure smile of a baby after opening eyes in the morning! I stand mesmerized in this little bowl of peace and harmony, completely soaked in solitude, the sunbeams going deep inside to sooth my soul, the fragrant vapors percolating deep into the pores of my heart to assuage guilt, fear, anger and of course bruises and wounds it suffered and poured the same on others during the journey, and the dewy shivering glade embracing me wholeheartedly... It gives a clue and key to life! blissful! We feel the best when in a state of expansion, as a set of a larger totality. Expand your knots of ego in such solitary corners guys! Melt in larger panorama nurtured by mother earth. One feels uncaged from a narrow, suffocating feeling that we have cemented around. Come on, let's claim our freedom that is long due! Let's pledge ourselves long draughts of freedom on this Christmas! Merry Christmas to all you out there looking to pry open the cage of miseries, suffering and restlessness! Let the coming days see you smile more and be at ease with yourself!

Rebirth

 

Lord let me be joyful to see my own death. Let my old self meet a peaceful death right here in front of me. Let a new me take birth before I shed this body. Dying of the old self and the birth of the new!

Let the hand that would have hit on impulse die and take birth to go up for a blessing on the same provocation. Let the tongue that would have spewed out poisoned words die and take birth as the one that gently rolls out delicate words of kindness, sympathy and solace in the same situation. Let the face that would have snorted with anger and hate die and take birth as a smiling face of empathy under similar circumstances. Let the eyes that saw fault in others die and get reborn as the one which see the inherent beauty in the same people. Let the heart that carries anger, hate, jealousy take its last breath and rise as a kind and compassionate chamber of my soul in its new birth.

This is a beautiful dying that all of us have to welcome in our lives. The old self dies slowly, gently over a period of time and by the time we reach the stage of physical death we are already reborn as a new person. In that case the physical death loses its meaning. We come to know that we have been reborn and there is more that awaits blissfully in changed dimensions and reshaped consciousness. Maybe then there is no fear of the physical death of this body. Maybe this is what they mean by getting liberated.

A worldly sage

 

I don’t want to be too good or too great to be finally get burdened under the weight of my own goodness. Conceptual sense of goodness and purity turns an obligation in the long run and one has to put up masks to keep it. I don’t want that divinity that would uproot me from the pains and pleasures of earthly humanity. I don’t aspire to attain too lofty a character to finally become someone who has to take up falsehoods as customs and rituals to maintain my persona. I don’t want to be completely detached, perfectly moral, neutral and aloof so as not to even hear the panicked notes of a little bird being pursued by an eagle and watch the game of ‘the stronger eating the weaker’ unfold with a saintly muse. I want to retain enough humanity to allow my kindness to respond and throw a clod at the hunting bird. Even if it hits the bird of prey I would take the chance. I don’t want enlightenment or liberation that takes me away from the sweet, common scent of humanity with its mundane pains and pleasures.

Even Buddha kept quiet when his wife questioned him about the necessity of renouncing everything to get supreme joy for himself. He had abandoned a wife and a little son; severed his ties right in the middle of the night. That to me is causing pain to others for individual salvation. When he returned as a revered spiritual king, his wife requested to be granted a meeting with the great teacher. ‘It’s my right to be allowed a meeting with him in privacy as his wife,’ she said. And the great master agreed. ‘O great spiritual master and dear husband, you abandoned me and your child and the entire family for individual salvation. Tell me whether what you have attained could not have been attained without abandoning us?’ she asked. She spoke as an aggrieved wife with feminine authority and worldly conviction. The great master kept quiet. For the first time he had no answer to this. He knew all this could have been attained even without causing pain to his family. But it would have been a bigger challenge to attain all this, which he had availed as a sanyasi, while staying in worldliness.

So isn’t renunciation the easier way? Isn’t running away—even if it means to attain the salvation of humanity later—an easier path? It’s very easy to shut out disturbing mental situations from going rampant while sitting in a cave. The real challenge is to be a yogi within while moving on the worldly stage with all the earthly bearings of duties, roles, relationships, karma, dharma, everything. Like Krishna did. Like Rama did. They forged their saintliness ‘within’ right there on the stage of this drama.

I would prefer to run into situations instead of running away. To try to be stable on a shaking platform is the real challenge. It’s so easy to get poise and balance on a stable platform. The entire essence of being a spiritual person to me is just to remind myself of my core truths even while I’m walking across the illustrious, blinding bazaars of fakery and falsehood surrounding me; to be stable within even while walking in a noisy bazaar; to do my duties on the worldly stage with a perfect detachment and understanding that I’m playing this role in this drama and I have to perform it really well.

The saints are as much part of this existence as the common people like you and me are. If the God had been too partial towards the saints, they would have outnumbered the commoners by now. The real saints are joyful with the minimum that supports their life. The common people suppose that the drama on the stage will get them happiness. Not much difference, I think. To some super-galactic consciousness, taking itself to be a separate super-entity, all this would be just the same—the saints and the commoners. So don’t harbor vanity for being a saint; and don’t feel the guilt of being common. Mother existence stands equally distant or close to both the categories. Further, God certainly must be in love with his common children because He has so many of them.

If my sympathetic tears alleviate the pain of a fellow human being, I’m ready to cry. If my smile lights up someone’s life, I’m there to offer it. I don’t want to be an idol that turns liberated, impassive, heavenly and mute to all the fluctuations of fate and fortunes around me. I love being just like anyone around.

Manifesting life out of your existence

 

There is a saying that the boats which lay anchored in the harbor are safe; but this is not what they were made for. They were built to be launched into the open sea to chart their journey. In the same way, the boat of our life isn’t meant to be kept tethered in the comfort zone and safe waters of the harbor of our fears, insecurities and inhibitions. The open sea awaits to receive the boat of your life so that you can journey, experience and learn all that for which this life has been given to you.

So take out your boat out there into the sea of life. Get tossed, get stormed, get lost, sway along the waves, and keep rowing even if it happens to be the wrong direction because sometimes these take us to the right destination. And Don’t Mind. Even if you mind, it doesn’t matter because that’s how it’s going to unfold in any case.

The workshop within

 

How will you even touch someone softly if you haven’t felt the gentility of your own fingers on your skin? How will you even offer a smile to someone if you haven’t showered your own smiles at the representative of divinity, you true self, within you? How will you embrace someone if you haven’t given a warming bear hug to your soul like a beloved? How will you even touch someone’s life in a healing way unless you haven’t healed your own invisible scars? How will you make someone joyful if you haven’t enjoyed its treasures first? How will you understand someone’s pain unless you have understood the value of your own tears? Charity begins at home. All this has to start from one’s own dear self. Till then whatever we do in the name of all the gifts mentioned above is nothing but a lip service, a theory without experiential reality, a mere pretense to fulfill a duty, or even facelift measures to beat our own weakness, fear, insecurities. Others are just an extension of this very own self. So it’s better to start with the self, the nearest source to experiment all these truths and then build upon the larger scale.

The game of push and pull

 

The inspirer of lovers and the innocent muse of little children, the moon is always there in its orbit around the earth. We expect it to be there after the dark nights, its crescent first increasing then decreasing. How come it’s able to fulfill its natural duty with such unerring precision? It’s born of centripetal and centrifugal forces, the forces of opposing nature. The centripetal force of earth, born of its gravity, pulling the moon towards it; the centrifugal force, the outward force on moon when it rotates, saving it from crashing into the earth due to the its gravitational force. Perfect balance, harmony and precision!

The same is the connection between two humans, be it business partnerships, matrimonial alliance, friendship, communication or any situation involving a connection between two human beings. There has to be gravitational pull, the attraction. This attraction is born of our hopes, expectations, insecurities, vulnerabilities, strengths, weaknesses, dreams and aspirations. But the pull can be really hard. It sees us crashing into each other as if the other person is the last salvation point. We forget that he/she is also a human being with similar strengths and weaknesses. Then follows the pain, dilemma, blame and even suffering as we try to free ourselves from the other person, feeling suffocated, our sacred self violated, our sense of freedom jeopardized.

How to keep moving safely at an optimum distance in the trajectory of any type of relationship? We have to maintain the pull, but too strong a pull will see us being sucked into the privacy and vulnerability zone of the other person. Similarly, the outward-bound centrifugal force of testing incidents and situations will try to pull us apart, pulling us against the forces of attraction. It’s always there to make people fall apart because without it the force of attraction has no meaning.

It’s only the see-saw balance between these opposing forces that sees an object moving in a safe orbit about another body. Similarly, it’s the attraction and the challenges to that attraction that make the trajectory of a relationship between two humans dynamic in nature. It gives it mobility. The mobility makes it a journey. And the journeys are meant to make us learn lessons, to evolve and be wiser. Wise people know the importance of love, kindness, care and share.

So all you people there, be careful in your role of a friend, partner, husband, wife, colleague. Maintain the attraction but don’t allow it to pull you too much into the inner sanctified zone of the object of your attraction. Don’t simply fall over people, making them feel burdened with you. Respect that inviolable individuality in a person. At the same time, don’t allow the outward-bound forces to break the fragile bond of attraction and fly you away into the unknown, out of the trajectory of that person. Don’t be too far. Don’t be too near either. Keep a teasing distance to keep it fresh and alive. Too much of intimacy and too much of space are both bad for a relationship. Harmony is the product of a balanced equation.

With some space in between, each of the two persons can feel comfortable and can see the other in true light. We need some space to watch, to witness, to appreciate, to note weaknesses and thus guide and give support. If we crash into each other, with too much intimacy, it somehow disturbs the sacred individuality of the person. Then we see a blurred picture of the other person because he/she has crossed the zone of observance, comfort and bonhomie. It turns into a transgression. That’s why two persons, who might be almost perfect to others outside, after coming into too proximity get confused about their respective identities, make it complex and then find themselves almost intolerable to each other. They take each other as transgressors.

This cosmic law holds even supermassive galaxies in balance. Human relations are a cakewalk for its application. So hold hands softly, don’t crush; embrace gently, don’t squeeze; softly brace, don’t clutch; speak gently, don’t shout; hold talks, not debates; make love, not just violent lust; just smile, don’t snort; listen and make your point; laugh and make her laugh; gently support but slowly undo the dependencies; don’t lead or follow, just walk together; hold hands but not pull him/her into your direction, walk on a common path. These are the little tools to maintain that sacred space between two humans.

So there has to a sacred space in between, the space defined by healthy attraction, which is just sufficient to undo the outward forces of distraction. Not too near; not too far. At a perfect distance. If we meet each other at this perfect distance, we too can keep revolving around each other in an optimum trajectory for a long time.

An ode to being humble

 

Mahatma Gandhi said: ‘The seeker after truth should be humbler than the dust. The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after truth should be so humble himself that even the dust could crush him. Only then, and not till then, will he have a glimpse of Truth.’

It’s such a beautiful statement. This humbling melts the rigidities in us, the cold hard blocks that prevent a free flow of the self, putting us out of sync with life. And in the absence of a free flow, we get stuck up at a place, in a particular situation, in the past memories, in negative emotions. We negate life. We become rigid, lose our vulnerabilities, our softness. We take up a stern visage as a defense mechanism. The things, people and situations that take a little strike at our rigid opinionated self, our ego construction, are nothing but humbling tools, to break the wrong edges in us, to reshape us, to mellow us, to help us flow, to get as near to truth as possible. Keep flowing. Flow is evolution. And stay open to any chance of getting humbled. These are blessings in disguise.

Spinning the webs

 

The reality is dimensionless but it has infinite potential for the generation of pseudo-realities. We have assumed certain dimensions. And once we assume something—on the basis of our neural networks—it’s already granted that we will generate a model to validate our assumptions. Once we arrive at a conclusion, it isn’t something preexisting absolute nugget that was there to be discovered. It has been generated. It is an act of creation out of the pool of possibilities. It’s the manifestation of the will to see something in a particular way. It’s the crop of the seeds that we ourselves have sown with our effort and awareness. And what we generate is a mere temporary phenomenon spinning around the unknown axis.

The chutney of unhappiness

 

Harender isn’t too happy with life. There isn’t anything special about it. Most of us aren’t. But we need to consider a few facts. He is reasonably fit for his late forties. He has children, wife, a steady source of income. About income you may very well generate an idea that he drives a car worth 1.5 crore rupees. It’s a black Volvo behemoth. Then what makes his life almost depressive quite frequently?

He has two sons. The elder son’s height is the missing link in a scheme that would have made him a happy father. The young man is five feet in height. He is in good health but seeing him looking up to people gives the father a lot of pain. Harender thinks that this world is for tall people. I think he has forgotten about his achievement. Standing at 5’4” he has built a real estate business that gives him good money. He has forgotten that height was hardly the matter when he built up his business from scratch.

I think we humans are habituated to pain. We just devise some reason to feel discontentment with life. He knows that nothing can be done about his son’s height at this stage. But the worried father in him has taller plans for his short son. ‘The bride has to be minimum 5’5”!’ he says emphatically. So carrying his pain in his big car he is looking for a tall bride for his short son to ensure that his grandchildren would be very tall. I hope destiny gives him joy and they have a very tall bride in the family to undo the gloom.

The candy floss of joy

 

All of us are gifted. All of us are blessed. All of us are extraordinary. All of us are adorable to mother existence. With one condition attached—all of us are unique in all these blessings. But our senses are outer bound. We are looking at reality through what we see outside of us. That makes us forget all our unique gifts and blessings as individuals.

Most of our pain and suffering is born of the comparison of the self with others. We find ourselves in a hostile environment, surrounded by the superior or inferior competitors. Long before we realize, we are part of the rat race that is forever taking us away from the incomparable self. The comparisons widen as we move further on. Judgments—both for the self and others—creep in. We are then in a perceptibly hostile environment. And how will one feel at ease by staying in an apparently hostile environment? There is always threat, fear or anxiety. We are always on our toes.

I know that we have to be part of the rat race to meet the basic necessities of life. We can do it if we always remember that all these are the means to an end. The end is one’s own self. So stay in the rat race but irrespective of the results always remember that you are unique. You are gifted, blessed and extraordinary. The moment we compare ourselves with others this blessed feeling vanishes. We have to practice to feel blessed, loved, gifted and extraordinary. Just telling the self all this on a regular basis will be sufficient.

Your tiny nest of wellbeing

 

Try to build a little nest of friendship that would cozily hold a few friendly people who would always care. I think friendship is the bedrock of all relationships, be it lovers, husband, wife, children, siblings. It’s the foundation of all that survives the vicissitudes of life. Don’t ask or expect too much from yourself or the other person. Just be a friend first, and all partnerships acquire a better shape by default. And be such a good friend that if at all circumstances force you out of a partnership, even with all the related losses you still are at least left as a nice old friend. Friends to begin with, friends to end with. Not a bad situation I suppose.

Reparation and redemption

 

Greying, thinning hair and pepper and salt beard. These are the changes in me that I reflect over. It’s just natural to spot the change within and without. But aren’t the little saplings of banyan and peepul that I had planted are handsome young trees now? Yes, they are! They are the expression of my youth. They are me. If you ever get bothered about age, do something fresh and young in nature, where you will always see the traces of your youth expressed in those creations. Plant trees, for example. Keep doing it periodically so that you always have some young tree lad youthfully swaying to the breeze as an expression of the youth of your spirit.

The weightlessness of a joyful, loving responsibility

 Osho tells a beautiful story of a Sanyasi named Bhavani Dayal. He was on a pilgrimage in the Himalayas.. it was a very hot noon and he was moving up the hill with his bedroll on his shoulder ...he was sweating and breathless because of the weight and the steep climb...in front of him a small hill girl was carrying her brother on her shoulders. She herself was small and that is why she was also struggling, panting, sweating ..all  breathless. The Sanyasi said to her, 'Daughter you must be feeling a lot of burden and weight on you.' The girl said, 'Swami ji the weight and burden is on you. He is not a burden, he is my brother.' The Sanyasi was shocked. A small girl taught him a big lesson of life. Where there is love, there is no burden in life. It was joyful for her to carry the physical weight of a little brother, while he joylessly struggled under the physical weight of his belongings.

Belated Diwali Greetings

 

Light a little lamp of friendly bonhomie and care among your small circle of friends and family. We should always remember that there are a few people who would have tears of sympathy for our pains, smiles on their lips for our gains, a friendly hand to help us rise among slippery rains. It’s a very tiny lamp burning with its little wick, throwing gentle pale rays around us, helping to light a stage, a tiny stage in the infinite darkness around, the stage that defines our existence, a stage that is set up for us to understand the meaning and purpose of this life. It’s a very small lamp and needs tiny drops of the oil of trust, support, encouraging smiles, tears of empathy, gentle words and an assurance that we are there around you, keeping you safe from the darkness ready to encroach from all around. It’s a gentle light, with soothing rays. But it lights up our lives like a bright sun, helping us move over the little troubling pebbles of life scattered on the path.

Keep this little lamp burning. It’s a delicate, fragile light but has the strength the beat the darkest clouds of loneliness and pain. And like all delicate things it needs a very careful, gentle attention and protection. Keep your little lamp of hope and friendliness burning. Keep it safe. Keep your palm around the glow to save it from the chance winds. Keep supplying tiny drops of love, care and share. This is your little lamp to help you on your journey. Keep praying for the light of your tiny lamp. Keep it glowing.

People will come and go from the little dim-lit stage around the tiny lamp. That’s inevitable. But you have to keep your little flame alive so that you aren’t in dark when someone passes by you. Maybe others need the light of your little lamp. Keep it alive. Keep alive the flame of hope, love, belief in people, happiness and joy. And when you light lamps on Diwali tonight, see the sanctity of your little lamp in all the flames around. Wish you all a very happy Diwali! Belated though!

Dharma enwrapped with adharma

 

There is a beautiful episode in Ramayana. Sri Ram looking for Sita Mata finally reached the southern coast of India. There was a vast chasm of the sea separating his monkey army from the mighty Ravan’s bastion, Lanka. There were two choices for him to get back his wife: First, through persuasion if possible; second, to wage a war if that was the last resort left. As a righteous man, Sri Ram sent his ambassadors to persuade the Lanka king and return Sita Mata without unnecessary bloodshed. All options were nullified by Ravan’s ego and pride. So war was the only option left.

Sri Ram faced a daunting task of erecting a bridge and fighting Ravan’s mighty army. Before starting on such a huge test, it was thought befitting to seek divine intervention in his favor by performing an elaborate puja and other rituals. It involved performing a yajna to propitiate Lord Shiva and seek his blessings. Only Ravan, the best Vedic scholar and a Brahman, was suitable to conduct the rituals and the grand ceremony. To Sri Ram’s council of war advisors and other allies it was totally outlandish to seek the priestly duties from one’s enemy. They were shocked and surprised to hear the Ayodhya prince’s intention to have his enemy as the officiating priest for the ceremony. They were but mere mortals having a typically defined sense of one’s enemy, of seeing one’s opponent in binary colors only. But Sri Ram, an evolved soul with enlightened self, saw a persona in totality. He could see one’s utility above the boundaries set up by the ego and pride. He could see the littlest star of light shining in a dark personality. 

Hanuman flew with the message. The proposal was met with much consternation, guffaws of laughter and thunders of anger in Ravan’s council. Everyone expected their powerful king to spit on the proposal and insult the carrier of such a preposterous scheme. They were shocked when the Lanka king looked serious and gently agreed to the invitation. Ravan, the proficient Vedic scholar Brahman, was no ordinary being. He well understood that as a Brahman he was duty-bound to accept the proposal to officiate a yajna ceremony. He himself was great in his own ways beyond the strict confines of arrogance and pride through which we know him usually. Even at his worst with his pride, arrogance and haughty demeanor he remembered his duties as a Brahman.

So here was Ravan surprisingly at the puja venue to officiate and conduct a ceremony meant to seek blessings for the victory of his enemy. His role as the conductor of those rituals and ceremonies demanded a flawless approach, an approach that should not be allowed to be tainted by his other self as the head of the army that would be fighting against Sri Ram’s soldiers. So he gave his best as the officiating priest of the ceremony conducted to get Lord Shiva’s blessings for victory in the impending war.

Ravan expertly inspected all the arrangement and found something missing. ‘You have made the arrangement quite nicely O Ram. But there is something very important missing. As the host of this ceremony, you cannot install Lord Shiva’s idol without the company of your wife. As per shastra edicts, however high and mighty a person is, he cannot perform this ceremony without his consort,’ Ravan explained the missing link required for the successful performance of the rituals.

Sri Ram, the ever-poised and mentally balanced sage warrior, kept his composure and thanked the great scholar for his pious sense of duty in his role as a conductor of ceremonies. ‘O Lanka king, you have righteously followed your duty to make it a flawless arrangement and pointed out the thing that needs to be attended to. Now kindly suggest a solution to the problem because it also is part of your duty,’ the graceful Ayodhya prince gently said with a smile.

Even in the face of war with his rival Ravan knew his dharmic duties and suggested a solution. ‘I shall arrange to get your wife here for the successful performance of the ceremonies. But you have to give a word that she will be allowed to be taken back to Lanka after the puja is over,’ Ravan said. Sri Ram agreed to it.

So all the arrangements were made and the great scholar Brahman expertly conducted the ceremony. The flawless performance meant that Lord Shiva would be blessing Sri Ram’s army with victory. Moreover, as the chief officiating priest of the grand ceremony of exquisite rituals it was Ravan’s duty to bless the puja host with victory. To Ravan it was a challenge to fulfill his dharmic duties as a priest even if it meant blessing his rival with victory. ‘Vijayi Bhava!’ Ravan fulfilled the last of his priestly duties. To him it was nothing short of victory in the game of ceremony proposed by Sri Ram. The great Brahman in him knew that he was cursing himself with a defeat by blessing the enemy with a victory.

Ravan was now convinced that he would be killed in the war. Such mystical levels of puja to earn the blessings of Lord Shiva would surely bless the puja host with victory in the war. On top of that he himself had to bless the host with victory. One more puzzle faced him. As the officiating priest he was duty-bound to accept some dakshina from the host. He was in a dilemma. As a rich, proud king he had been a giver of charity all his life. But now he had to adopt the role of a humble Brahman receiving the charity from the puja host with full humility. Taking any material wealth would have wounded his pride because he had even imprisoned Kuber, the lord of wealth. But he had to perform this duty as well. As the officiating fees for the puja performance he asked Sri Ram to respectfully stand near him while he took his last breaths in the battle. Later, when Ravan was dying on the battlefield Sri Ram kept his word and respectfully stood by the mighty Lanka king. The victorious Ayodhya prince stood there in utmost humility and paid respects to the departing soul. His supremely balanced self didn’t show any trace of pride and haughtiness that we usually see in victorious kings and princes. No wonder, we worship him as Bhagwan.

From this episode we can say that there is no absolute evil, there is no perfect darkness in a persona. Ravan, whom we portray as the symbol of all-pervading darkness, had his own light of truth and duties deep inside his soul.

We are part good, part bad. We have to keep lighting the lamp for the good in us, to help it maintain its righteous glow. And we have to keep fighting against the darkness of the bad in us. This is the war of the soul to attain a righteous self. After defeating the enemy within, we have to emerge victorious and reach home, triumphant, like the great prince Ram coming back to Ayodhya after winning all the wars. Then we are entitled to light lamps in celebration of conquering the darkness. Then it’s the festival time for the soul liberated from the darkness of fears, hate, anger, jealousy, judgments. Then we become the rulers of the kingdom within the sanctified precincts of the soul, our very own Ayodhya.

The unknowable void

 Anything can be written, thought, felt, analyzed, interpreted about an empty page. Its emptiness is the limitless, infinite womb of creation. Its nonbeing is the soul of the entire substance of being. The word is an echo of the wordless. The noise is a mere chiming announcement on the timeless clock of silence, intimating the eternal presence of silence. The manifestation is a mere indicator of the presence of the eternal, unknowable void.

Givers and takers

 

I have seen a few wonderful old women beggars—even though calling them ‘beggars’ would be almost a sin but given my inability to find a suitable title for them I use the word beggar—who would put out their hand with such grace, dignity, motherliness, humility, kindness, gratitude and smile that it appears like a mystical treasure, almost a blessing by a saint. Remembering them I feel that it would be incorrect to call them ‘takers’ because even though a coin passed onto their palms they gave back something far more substantial and deep, something that touches your soul, enriching you in a profound way. And after getting softly, gently touched by their presence, as you walk away, the material burden on you minus by a metallic coin, you feel enriched in a mystical, soulful way.

In contrast, I remember many materially rich people travelling in costly cars, clad in brand clothes, adorned with gold and platinum, the ones whom we mistakenly term as ‘givers’. When they give something to a poor person, something very small that wouldn’t even match the cost of biscuits for their pampered dog, there is almost a malicious frown on their face. The frown, the outer lines of the poverty of the soul inside, conveying deep sense of fear, insecurities, dis-ease and absence of joy in life despite all the material wealth around. They appear to ‘give’ something but do they actually ‘give’? In fact they seem to ‘take’ something from the poor palm spread in front of them. I think with that look of hatred and repulsiveness they take away the last semblance of dignity and self-respect still surviving in a corner of the destitute person’s heart. They take away the smile and belief in humanity somehow still lying in tiny bits in the soul of that poor person.

So we have to think and observe it carefully. Not all beggars are just ‘takers’; many of them are ‘givers’ of some invisible substance comprising genuine smile, blessing, gratitude and kindness. They appear to take a little coin or morsels of food but in reality they are returning something very-very big in its subtle proportions. Also, not all rich charity givers are just ‘givers’, they are takers, almost robbers, of the last traces of humanity lying in a poor person. They appear to give something but in reality they are taking back something far more precious.

A drizzle of flowers

This is just one-fourth of the flowers that drizzle in a flowery, scented rain from the two Parijat trees in the yard. Scented, dewy, flowery nights; and the rain of flowers on cool mornings. With so many flowers around no wonder I find my spirit dancing, intoxicated with the beauty of the countless blooms and scented breeze.

The smile of a stone

 

Life invincible 💪 A crack in the concrete wall. Some chance seed of a flower. Rains. Dew. And you have a little flower on the top of a tiny plant. The triumph of life, the urge to manifest from unknown to the known. Is the flower separate from the stone? No. It’s mere extension of the stone from its cracked lip, its mouth open to the possibilities. I would say it’s a smile on the stone’s lips.

Even in its barren womb the stone has the probability and potential for life. All it needs is a little crack, some drops of rain and a chance seed to transform that potential into reality. The stone smiles. The flower isn't something separate from it. It's merely an extension of it.

Manifestation is just a set of probabilities coming together from the infinite, ever evolving fabric of potential and probabilities. And of course it needs a set of appreciating eyes to witness this Leela...to complete one little circle within the greatest circle ever ... things going round and round...little cycles within the bigger cycles and still bigger ones to follow... going so big to again fall back into a point... nothingness and everythingness just the same same..  

Happiness

Happiness is primarily an acceptance of one's situation in life. It might not come to you even in a palace if you don't really settle inside the walls and within your skin.  You are a cranky host, so it will avoid you. And it will definitely come to visit your slum hut if it finds you an unashamed, guilt free, kind host. As an old, poor charwoman, whom Somerset Maugham meets after many years in 1949, when there had been lots of developmental works in the meanwhile, says to him: "They have cleaned up the slums and the dirt, and all the happiness and joy has gone with it."