Looking inwards I see
Unrecognizable hues, contours, shapes
still forming
Familiar hands slip away
Loosening their grip
As I too loosen mine
I let them go as they float down
into the past
a haze born of self imposed boredom
my mind empties of ambition and
the edges of feelings are softer
rounder
less jagged
Calmness closes over my head
and engulfs me momentarily
Friday 28 December, 2007
Saturday 22 December, 2007
Lead India?
I Settled down to watch the face off between the final 8 participants in the TOI Lead India Initiative and got up in disgust after the first few minutes. Why should this initiative with the claim of choosing a leader who will inspire a nation - "Tum Chalo to saara Hindustan Chale" be asked the name of Amitabh Bachhan's character in the film Satte pe satta and other such trivia?
Are we not choosing them for their vision and possible concrete contribution to the nation? Can someone explain this ridiculousness please?
Are we not choosing them for their vision and possible concrete contribution to the nation? Can someone explain this ridiculousness please?
Who Seeks?
I have been thinking about an old adage- If you want something really badly the universe conspires to make it happen?
For what seems an eternity, if eternity can be collapsed into a few months or years- I have sought. Ignorance and conditioning made me think I sought happiness. Later peripheral knowledge of my subject convinced me I sought freedom from destructive patterns of behavior. Burgeoning self efficacy pointed me in the direction of self actualization. But...why did, none of that feel right?
The closest I came to comfort was when I decided that I had to find a life purpose, something that wove all my efforts together, something bigger than myself, a mission that would consume me. If not then the fire of this terrible, impatient inner yearning would consume me instead. Can life force be so destructive? Can we create something larger than ourselves only through self annihilation? To stand paralysed on the threshold of impending change or impending disaster for what seems like forever is erosion. Not slow or insidious but a certain, strong, relentless incineration of the self.
But what paralysed me connects to some of the answers I recieved. The questions I had- What was my life purpose and what did I have to do to achieve it? The answer I took back – it will be revealed, in its own time.
Ah the relief of the thought! To be able to replace the compulsion to do, frantic efforts to work at making it happen, can all be replaced by preparation! Preparing my mind and my self to become a better receptacle.
There are some changes I knew I had to make. To be less egoistic, to be humbler. To think with positivism, to feel less dependant, to be less moved to fear and anger, to be moved with rightful anger, feel the miracle of littler things, to be comfortable with silence and emptiness. To know how to distinguish between principal and secondary greatness, to not expect. Did I not know I had to do all of this? When was I hoping to do them?
This then is my plan of action. Greater control and mastery instead of a desperate seeking, inward action instead of outward. Actively seeking self awareness instead of self actualization. And of course asking many, many many, times a day, the eternal question…………who seeks?
For what seems an eternity, if eternity can be collapsed into a few months or years- I have sought. Ignorance and conditioning made me think I sought happiness. Later peripheral knowledge of my subject convinced me I sought freedom from destructive patterns of behavior. Burgeoning self efficacy pointed me in the direction of self actualization. But...why did, none of that feel right?
The closest I came to comfort was when I decided that I had to find a life purpose, something that wove all my efforts together, something bigger than myself, a mission that would consume me. If not then the fire of this terrible, impatient inner yearning would consume me instead. Can life force be so destructive? Can we create something larger than ourselves only through self annihilation? To stand paralysed on the threshold of impending change or impending disaster for what seems like forever is erosion. Not slow or insidious but a certain, strong, relentless incineration of the self.
But what paralysed me connects to some of the answers I recieved. The questions I had- What was my life purpose and what did I have to do to achieve it? The answer I took back – it will be revealed, in its own time.
Ah the relief of the thought! To be able to replace the compulsion to do, frantic efforts to work at making it happen, can all be replaced by preparation! Preparing my mind and my self to become a better receptacle.
There are some changes I knew I had to make. To be less egoistic, to be humbler. To think with positivism, to feel less dependant, to be less moved to fear and anger, to be moved with rightful anger, feel the miracle of littler things, to be comfortable with silence and emptiness. To know how to distinguish between principal and secondary greatness, to not expect. Did I not know I had to do all of this? When was I hoping to do them?
This then is my plan of action. Greater control and mastery instead of a desperate seeking, inward action instead of outward. Actively seeking self awareness instead of self actualization. And of course asking many, many many, times a day, the eternal question…………who seeks?
Friday 21 December, 2007
seeing
my eyes turned inwards
i think
if i think long enough, hard enough
will i be able to see who and what i really am?
i think
if i think long enough, hard enough
will i be able to see who and what i really am?
Saturday 10 November, 2007
Living a larger life
I was reading about the British MP Lord Drayson, who has resigned to follow his dream of taking part in the Le Mans race. How wonderful to have a imagination, a personal goal to nurture and even more wonderful to be able to give everything else up in order to pursue it!
Nelson Mandela said "There is no passion to be found playing small- in settling for a life that is less than the one we are capable of living"
What a pity when we settle to live small, confined, narrow lives where we realise only the smallest fraction of our potential. We start by wanting happiness and conclude that it lies in safety. And then give up every chance of happiness in the search for safety... until safety becomes our only goal.
Do I hear someone say something about circumstances, responsibilities, practicalities....?
Nelson Mandela said "There is no passion to be found playing small- in settling for a life that is less than the one we are capable of living"
What a pity when we settle to live small, confined, narrow lives where we realise only the smallest fraction of our potential. We start by wanting happiness and conclude that it lies in safety. And then give up every chance of happiness in the search for safety... until safety becomes our only goal.
Do I hear someone say something about circumstances, responsibilities, practicalities....?
Tuesday 6 November, 2007
Who reads us?
A blog is the most public of private places. A stray comment left by a reader serves to remind me of the vast amounts of traffic that finds and dismisses, or enjoys, the words and thoughts put down here.
Who reads this? Why do I, why do all of us write?
Mostly because writing is happiness. But nothing answers this more aptly than the following words by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 'The Custom House' , The Scarlet letter in 1850.
This is an edited excerpt:
'When he casts his leaves forth upon the wind, the author addresses, not the many who will fling aside his volume, or never take it up, but the few who will understand him.......As if the printed word, thrown at large on the wide world, were certain to find out the divided segment of the writer's own nature, and complete his circle of existence by bringing him into communion with it.....
But-- as thoughts are frozen and utterance, benumbed unless the speaker stand in some true relation with his audience- it may be pardonable to imagine that a friend, a kind and apprehensive, though not the closest friend, is listening to our talk. '
Who reads this? Why do I, why do all of us write?
Mostly because writing is happiness. But nothing answers this more aptly than the following words by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 'The Custom House' , The Scarlet letter in 1850.
This is an edited excerpt:
'When he casts his leaves forth upon the wind, the author addresses, not the many who will fling aside his volume, or never take it up, but the few who will understand him.......As if the printed word, thrown at large on the wide world, were certain to find out the divided segment of the writer's own nature, and complete his circle of existence by bringing him into communion with it.....
But-- as thoughts are frozen and utterance, benumbed unless the speaker stand in some true relation with his audience- it may be pardonable to imagine that a friend, a kind and apprehensive, though not the closest friend, is listening to our talk. '
Monday 29 October, 2007
Lotus
It was a belief I shared with some others that all you had to do if you ever felt lost and unfocused, was to close your eyes, capture in your heart that one moment that you think you created supreme happiness for yourself, identify what is was within you that fashioned it, and then work towards realizing that as a goal.
A good thought but naive.......
In our naivety, we failed to grasp one important fact: Man is powerful and his consistent, sustained action and intent can wreak changes in the universe.
Time and time again we focus on that one snapshot like image, turning it into the polestar that keeps us on our path. But suddenly, without our realizing it something strange has happened: because of our 'doing', the hard work we put in and the changes we set into motion, the elements of our life have been transformed. And so one day, when we look up as usual, it may happen that we may not recognize our world- because insidiously, its very fabric has altered.
And sometimes, what may have altered is our own perspective.
If we are fortunate, we can bring our perspective to shape our world so that we find ourselves in the center of the tapestry of our life once again, till the dynamics of our fluid enclosure and context shift ever so subtly, setting up the cycle again. Yet again.
As hard as we try we cannot escape this inevitable spiral of life.
This, I now understand, and more importantly accept, is the way of life.
The never-ending spiral, the birth and death and rebirth of relationships, action and mistakes.
To Avalokiteshvara, who looks down in compassion on all creatures suffering the evils of existence, goes the million fold repeated prayer of the prayer wheels and temple gongs of Tibet. “Om Mani Padme Hun”. The jewel is in the lotus. The jewel of eternity is in the lotus of birth and death.
May pain and pleasure not enclose me, may I enclose them- and with profound repose.
A good thought but naive.......
In our naivety, we failed to grasp one important fact: Man is powerful and his consistent, sustained action and intent can wreak changes in the universe.
Time and time again we focus on that one snapshot like image, turning it into the polestar that keeps us on our path. But suddenly, without our realizing it something strange has happened: because of our 'doing', the hard work we put in and the changes we set into motion, the elements of our life have been transformed. And so one day, when we look up as usual, it may happen that we may not recognize our world- because insidiously, its very fabric has altered.
And sometimes, what may have altered is our own perspective.
If we are fortunate, we can bring our perspective to shape our world so that we find ourselves in the center of the tapestry of our life once again, till the dynamics of our fluid enclosure and context shift ever so subtly, setting up the cycle again. Yet again.
As hard as we try we cannot escape this inevitable spiral of life.
This, I now understand, and more importantly accept, is the way of life.
The never-ending spiral, the birth and death and rebirth of relationships, action and mistakes.
To Avalokiteshvara, who looks down in compassion on all creatures suffering the evils of existence, goes the million fold repeated prayer of the prayer wheels and temple gongs of Tibet. “Om Mani Padme Hun”. The jewel is in the lotus. The jewel of eternity is in the lotus of birth and death.
May pain and pleasure not enclose me, may I enclose them- and with profound repose.
Friday 26 October, 2007
simply can't find them and make them stay
I come back to this thought time and time again: In words are my wings, my release. In them could be my redemption.
But for the moment I live in the prison of my barren page haunted by my thoughts that do not surface.
I feel words locked up inside of me, knotted up, turning over, restless in the night, knocking at the door, strangling me and choking my voice.
I wish I could release them into the night sky and watch them soar up to the moon obscuring its pure whiteness with an even greater luminosity.
Is there a goddess that helps one unlock ones words? Lead me to her someone so that I may plead at her feet.
Damned words. I feel them well when I read a line, walk alone. They come to me not just in solitude but also in the midst of life. They jump out at me: one or more from a page that mean more than they seem, hold the promise of a deeper and new thought. These are living and secret pathways to another world that could exist on a different page if I found the words that could grow into a page and perhaps that page leads to another book. Sometimes some words band together to conjure an image or feeling that was unintended by the author. Just a wisp, mind you. Almost as if you watched a cloud that seemed to form a certain shape in the cloud and then reorganized itself so that the shape became invisible. They can flit away in an instant or fade back into being just ordinary words in the multitude unless I catch them like butterflies in a net. Or perhaps like fish? Or do they, I wonder, cast the bait at me from within the page?
Gulp!
But for the moment I live in the prison of my barren page haunted by my thoughts that do not surface.
I feel words locked up inside of me, knotted up, turning over, restless in the night, knocking at the door, strangling me and choking my voice.
I wish I could release them into the night sky and watch them soar up to the moon obscuring its pure whiteness with an even greater luminosity.
Is there a goddess that helps one unlock ones words? Lead me to her someone so that I may plead at her feet.
Damned words. I feel them well when I read a line, walk alone. They come to me not just in solitude but also in the midst of life. They jump out at me: one or more from a page that mean more than they seem, hold the promise of a deeper and new thought. These are living and secret pathways to another world that could exist on a different page if I found the words that could grow into a page and perhaps that page leads to another book. Sometimes some words band together to conjure an image or feeling that was unintended by the author. Just a wisp, mind you. Almost as if you watched a cloud that seemed to form a certain shape in the cloud and then reorganized itself so that the shape became invisible. They can flit away in an instant or fade back into being just ordinary words in the multitude unless I catch them like butterflies in a net. Or perhaps like fish? Or do they, I wonder, cast the bait at me from within the page?
Gulp!
Friday 28 September, 2007
Saturday 30 June, 2007
The incredible but unpredictable pleasure of writing
Oh the joy that comes from being connected to words. Words that flow out of the heart and subconscious into the mind, from there to the fingers, to the keyboard, and finally appear on the monitor of the computer.
As if suctioned out of the heart in one coherent surge.
On the occasions when this joy has come to me I have a vision of myself and the materializing words as being connected by a shimmering thread of ethereal cosmic cytoplasm. This thread, born out of the energy of the mind starts out tentative and tremulous. Gradually it gains in strength to become stronger, surer- drawing energy from the growing multitude of words on the screen; from the increasing coherence of the stream of thought that rings truer and truer until it becomes a veritable bridge pulsating with the flow of words, the flow of thought, the flow of the conscious and the subconscious subterranean wellspring that feeds it all. Magnificent!!
Cathartic.
Rewarding.
But not guaranteed.
As if suctioned out of the heart in one coherent surge.
On the occasions when this joy has come to me I have a vision of myself and the materializing words as being connected by a shimmering thread of ethereal cosmic cytoplasm. This thread, born out of the energy of the mind starts out tentative and tremulous. Gradually it gains in strength to become stronger, surer- drawing energy from the growing multitude of words on the screen; from the increasing coherence of the stream of thought that rings truer and truer until it becomes a veritable bridge pulsating with the flow of words, the flow of thought, the flow of the conscious and the subconscious subterranean wellspring that feeds it all. Magnificent!!
Cathartic.
Rewarding.
But not guaranteed.
Monday 25 June, 2007
Why Blog?
Like other unfinished business this Blog space has begun to worry me. It exists, patient and fidel, waiting for me to turn my attention to it; while I, feeling somewhat helpless, contemplate and discard possible posts. In the meanwhile I visit other blog spots wondering what others write about, cynical and dismissive at times, admiring and awed at others. Sometimes I seek inspiration, at times respite. I confess that there are times when reading what others have written is simply an act of avoidance: avoiding having to write anything on mine.
I feel a bit like a philandering husband who, leaving his long suffering wife at home visits other more colourful, vivacious and intellectually stimulating women!
OMG: such is the habit of the mind, that even a blog spot can induce guilt!
Frankly, in spite of reading a wide variety of personal blogs, I cannot understand the purpose of one. According to me it is just another way of being verbose. another way of being an egotist. Another way of doing what the world is already doing....communicating via a one way street. Sure people post responses, but.... but the joy of communication ( read verbal, read email exchange) is in its dynamism. In the flow of the thought and conversation that is shaped by the other. And then in the way that your conversations shape you! It is evolution. Conversations have the power to transform. Do Blogs?
I feel a bit like a philandering husband who, leaving his long suffering wife at home visits other more colourful, vivacious and intellectually stimulating women!
OMG: such is the habit of the mind, that even a blog spot can induce guilt!
Frankly, in spite of reading a wide variety of personal blogs, I cannot understand the purpose of one. According to me it is just another way of being verbose. another way of being an egotist. Another way of doing what the world is already doing....communicating via a one way street. Sure people post responses, but.... but the joy of communication ( read verbal, read email exchange) is in its dynamism. In the flow of the thought and conversation that is shaped by the other. And then in the way that your conversations shape you! It is evolution. Conversations have the power to transform. Do Blogs?
Thursday 24 May, 2007
Striving To Be, Striving To Remain
Does life have to have a purpose?
Recently I have begun to question the importance of contemplating the purpose of my life. It seems indulgent. As if, only if the end is good enough, will I apply myself in the present.
My despair of not knowing what my purpose is, my impatience in wanting to know it, is an attempt to find meaning to be able to carry on living. It seems imperative that only if the conclusion of my life, experiences, learning and action is of some significance, will it be worthwhile.
Or do I mean: ‘will it be considered worthwhile’?
Gradually I have come to be surprised by a new understanding. I have begun to understand that life has to be lived in the waiting. Lived in the waiting. Waiting, emptied of all seeking, and opened therefore to all that can be found along the way. Waiting that is willing to accept the unexpected, the unimagined or the un-coveted.
Waiting then, is my new mantra. I endeavor to empty my life of meaningless actions that stem from external values and create empty days that wait for the goal to be revealed. Days go by without any revelation and yet I know I have to wait, witness, remain in readiness for action and stave off all emotions, especially despair hopelessness, and thoughts that may cloud, even contaminate this state. The goal then, for now, is preparation.
Doing this is like climbing a glass mountain with flip flops.
My determined intent is constantly in conflict with trespasser emotions. Expectations and disappointments, yearning, despair, hope, sadness, hurt, anger take me unawares. Resolute, I wage war against them knowing they will distract me from the wait. Yet, they overpower me and the goal becomes happiness, escape from hurt, reassurance or comfort. Goals that lead me back to the external, away from the source that exists within me. I strive to find a way back to that inner wellspring where intuition and a knowing will lead the way. That is the voice I will pay heed to.
This then is what I am doing. Like the stone that finds its way to the bottom of the lake effortlessly, by just being itself, I need to remain myself and trust that I will be guided to my destiny. Myself and remaining. In those two words lies all my action. And in the waiting…..
Recently I have begun to question the importance of contemplating the purpose of my life. It seems indulgent. As if, only if the end is good enough, will I apply myself in the present.
My despair of not knowing what my purpose is, my impatience in wanting to know it, is an attempt to find meaning to be able to carry on living. It seems imperative that only if the conclusion of my life, experiences, learning and action is of some significance, will it be worthwhile.
Or do I mean: ‘will it be considered worthwhile’?
Gradually I have come to be surprised by a new understanding. I have begun to understand that life has to be lived in the waiting. Lived in the waiting. Waiting, emptied of all seeking, and opened therefore to all that can be found along the way. Waiting that is willing to accept the unexpected, the unimagined or the un-coveted.
Waiting then, is my new mantra. I endeavor to empty my life of meaningless actions that stem from external values and create empty days that wait for the goal to be revealed. Days go by without any revelation and yet I know I have to wait, witness, remain in readiness for action and stave off all emotions, especially despair hopelessness, and thoughts that may cloud, even contaminate this state. The goal then, for now, is preparation.
Doing this is like climbing a glass mountain with flip flops.
My determined intent is constantly in conflict with trespasser emotions. Expectations and disappointments, yearning, despair, hope, sadness, hurt, anger take me unawares. Resolute, I wage war against them knowing they will distract me from the wait. Yet, they overpower me and the goal becomes happiness, escape from hurt, reassurance or comfort. Goals that lead me back to the external, away from the source that exists within me. I strive to find a way back to that inner wellspring where intuition and a knowing will lead the way. That is the voice I will pay heed to.
This then is what I am doing. Like the stone that finds its way to the bottom of the lake effortlessly, by just being itself, I need to remain myself and trust that I will be guided to my destiny. Myself and remaining. In those two words lies all my action. And in the waiting…..
Monday 21 May, 2007
stepping in stepping out
My first blog. Words like leaves sent into space. May they fall where they will.
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