A Moment’s Worth of Peace

If I was to scan my life, like we do when searching a keyword in our inbox and we find the relevant word highlighted in a few, scamper of emails or messages, just like that, if we had a choice to filter out the most serene moments of our lives, what would you find, in those scanty grains of sand?

Amidst the havoc of lectures that last well after darkness becomes still, and between the grading papers which lasts for over ten hours on weekends, between the running between (and during) gym and grocery, what do I recollect? What are my few grains of sand that cannot and will not pass through my fingers, till perhaps I breathe my last?

For anyone, I believe, those moments are not plentiful.

No. They are but a few…moments, and nothing more or but.

Then there is another question that can be posed. Are these moments indeed just peaceful, or do they cling to memory like debris to a stream that washes on the shores because they are our most happy moments? When we felt, perhaps, complete?

The wind rushes to my ears and I don’t see the servants around me, the maali (gardner) jabbing his spade into the earth to make it soft so it is easier for the roots to get the water, or the maid hurrying into the kitchen with fresh milk. I see, only the sky and my feet trying to touch it, in all their capacity. I am deaf to the world of reality around me while my own world is alive and throbbing with life. I push myself higher and higher on the swing. Where? Right here. In my thoughts. For a daydreamer, one doesn’t need to go very far to be away. Here is always there. And there one always finds everything one could possibly imagine of possessing.

Going home in a car that was a decade old already, with all the people you cared for. And we are talking. About what? We are deciding on a name. A name that matches with us sisters, that goes well with the rest of the family. A name, that best suits the red-cheeked cherub we just met in the maternity section of the hospital. And we discuss. One name comes up. No, that wouldn’t do. Something simpler, perhaps? A soft sound that is pleasing on the mouth too. Not anything too conspicuous. A few more entries are discussed while the girls in the back giggle. And finally, we are almost home, and we also have a name.

It’s chilly. I am wearing a red fleece jacket, that I still have in a cupboard somewhere, two decades later. I am running and I can’t stop laughing. It has been an exhilarating and a thrilling day, and guess what? It is still not over. I run past the log ride that splashes into the water, making the seated drenched and gleeful simultaneously. I run past the ride that has swings suspended from great height while it goes round and round at a great speed and at a great gradient. We have been on that already. But I am not alone. My sneakers make soft sounds on the grey pavement, these following and in league with five other pairs of squeaking shoes, all running, and laughing because we just got off a ride that had our hearts swinging from the pole, and we are running to another, that might as well have the organ reeling from our mouths.

It’s a big day. The students are nervous, the halls quiet, the teachers apprehensive, the staff wide-eyed. Something is about to happen, and I can’t breathe right. In frantic fervor, I keep going over again and again the past two years’ lectures. Yes, I did that. Yes, I made sure they got it. Ahan, went over that twice. Did they have enough practice? I am reminded of my sore wrist after the constant checking and grading. Yes, ofcourse, we did group work and individual assignments on that too. But what now? What if…? The results begin to get announced, and one after the other the tearful teens come over for a hug. Everyone I know, and those I don’t know congratulate me on my feat. I wish I could I say I fought back tears of pride, but no, my eyes were dry and my heart kept beating, ‘I can’t believe it.’

We are in the north. We just came back from a walk in the perfect woodlands of Scotland. And midway it starts raining. It is not the pelting rain of Asia, that creates puddles deep enough to swim in, no, these are soft rain drops that courtesy your skin and fall to earth and disappear. We are back at the cottage and I decide to take a dip in the tub outside. Eerie? Yes. Rain and a hot tub. But I sat through it, the kisses of rain cold against my warm body heated by the fluffy, colored bubbles in the tub. I sit there, awed with what I see and feel. I watch as the fog begins to settle on the mountain tops, and far off I see a shadow of a train chasing the clouds away.

The future is as certain for a believer as the past. What was, is, and what will be, is also, well, is. In my mind there is a moment, not yet come to being. How I see it, I fail to describe or make sense of it as you would expect me to. I am in the lounge with soft brown and pale hues of upholstery that surrounds me. An incandescent light emanates from the lamp on the glass top table I sit next to. The light filters on to the window and through it. It is dusk and getting dark. Everything is where it should, and so is everyone. All is well in the world, and I smile, for I knew I’d see this day. My heart fills with solace and I breathe a moment worth of peace, at last.

 

Obsessions…

The driving force. Obsession. A man is no man if he has no obsession and if he is not obsessed. Just like a man is no man if he is not possessed by the soul that he carries in his vessel. Obsession is the heat of the soul. Anything other than that is but, death.

Obsession.

Obsession. Dead is all that which does not have a soul. And the soul is dead that which has no passion for obsession.

God. The Higher Power was obsessed. He wanted to be known. Hidden like a well-guarded, highly secretive treasure…he was obsessed to be known. So. He created man- that man may come looking for the secrets that come after the guard. No man can find God, if he is not obsessed like his Maker.

Our Lord was so obsessed with being found out, which alas only few took that road, that he created not just man, but a mankind and everything around it which may support it. He surrounded his creation with all the signs that he may understand and know.

Man does not know. He does not walk further than the cradle. Once he crawls out of it, he stands there looking around. Then, for the remainder of his life, he rocks it.

Obsessed. Obsession. Be possessed with obsession that you may learn that there is a spark. The spark that only alights for half a second in the air before it goes out. Beautiful, magnificent, glory. For half a second. Obsession lights the way to glory.

No man has ever lived who has not had an obsession. No obsession has ever failed to breathe life into a soul and make it whole.

 

The Race to Timbuktu

There was once an old farmer, who worked hard on his lands.  His stature with time had become slightly withdrawn and bent due to the weight he carried for a living. His complexion was of dark hue because he spent many hours in the sun. He had a wife and kids. The cave extended into tunnels that provided shelter. His family ate well. His wife and he worked the farm while the boys hunted. They had good, healthy food; shelter, safety and most of all, love.

For centuries now, man has been a target to modernization, and industrial revolutions, and all such ‘-tions’ have pretty much left him shunned from all hope of the basic necessities of human life. He no longer has farms to till but he wears infamous clothing like ties to work, uses executive desks; or otherwise is unemployed. His food decreases in nutrition day in and day out and he can not do much about it as the whole world is concerned about profit not health. His house is under mortgage and of he takes the leap to the bottom of the ladder, he could easily lose his house and everything along with it; his wife and kids. And so does too, goes love out of the window.

Man left his cave where he had been perfectly happy carving his drawings on the wall, went through various forms of revolutions and reformations; got himself all modernized and finally he realized the basics had started to slip from between his fingers like sand. He thought he was running after success, and just when he thought he could play God and everything was within the palm of his hands, he slowly realized his marathon towards achieving his goals only led him to Timbuktu.

Timbuktu- the land of the all popular, yet unknown, undecided, unfathomed. It could easily be the land of the walking dead. For perhaps, all those who ever get to visit there, are not allowed back, and therein they should live forever in utter torment. As is written so shall it be.

Okay, I agree the last statement sounds rather ecclesiastical, but I really hope you can see through the window I’m pointing out from. And perhaps in time, see what is that I want to say.

Life has a weird way of saying, “nay na na-nay nay”. And as much as I hate to say it though, that is exactly what has happened. Man thought he outsmarted nature by making fruits in labs and babies in test-tubes. But Mother Nature is fierce as it can be. It has proven to man that it can easily outsmart us. At any time, man will be forced to see himself in the mirror and realize that it would have been better to have lived in caves than to ride in vehicles made out of legos that run on solar energy or even air.

Man has finally decided to go back on herbs and roots.  He is forced to find peace in meditation and spirituality or some form of Godliness, surprisingly enough when finally he was able to ‘prove’ that all rationale pointed towards the non-existence of a Higher Power. Man after all was a master of his own destiny, and everything he could possibly own or steal or kill and plunder for, was no longer his to rule and torment. But alas! Man has found himself in a catch 22 situation.

He can no longer go back to the cave, agricultural life he knew, nor can he progress forward without the fear that something, anything, and probably everything is to be doomed.  After crossing the finishing line for man’s race towards the ends of time, he now realizes he no longer has leaps and bounds to overcome, nor can he possibly live a page out of The Jettsons and live in space and quit the earth altogether after its complete ruin because the journey back has become impossible.

Standing still, a mile after the red finishing line, he stands exasperated. He wonders if the abyss ahead which he himself has worked so hard to create is his best option to work forward towards. Or would it be better to turn on his heels and run backwards, backwards towards the starting line, where he might console himself with shelter, food and love and teach himself that this ought to have been enough.

Waiting for godo

I was brought up in a circle. A sphere of customization and conditioning that taught me to stay within the limits of the circle. The circle was a line etched around me. There I sat and waited my turn. My turn lasted a lifetime. So I sat there, because I was told to. I stayed within the circle and never crossed the marked line. I was told to wait. To wait for godo. So there I waited for godo. To come and help me walk the distance from one circle to another. The other circle was also marked out especially for me. There too I was expected to live a lifetime. A lifetime of waiting, till another godo came along to repeat the migration that happened centuries ago.

But this time, the new godo did not turn up. I despaired. I became desperate. The anger and the hatred boiled within me. I waited for over a century for godo but he did not come. The anger changed into something weird. Something I did not think would befall me. Misery. In misery I wept, in misery I moaned. The agony crippled me. I could no longer move.

Shrubs, roots and bushes became to grow around me. They thought I was like them. That I could not move. I belonged in the dirt within a circle etched out for me. Like the plants. I was made to fit in it. I still waited. Godo never came. Agony and misery made way for something new, glistening. The unspoken words of horror and anguish started to well up in my eyes. I was so tired of waiting, that I could no longer move a muscle to wipe what ran down my cheeks. My wait seemed to be useless now, for godo was not showing up.

I let the tears fall and let them become a well around me. It swirled like waves of the ocean, making complete rounds around me like I was some sort of a sink unplugged. The tears swished and swooshed. But I did not stop. I cried on for another century, because a tiny part of me still said that godo might come.

Then there came a time, when instead of the torrents of tears, locks of white hair took their place. Age had changed me. The water had run dry. Godo did not still come. My hiccups of sobs were replaced by a sharp breath of courage. The ground beneath me became my only anchor. The sky above became my guide. I wringed myself out of the roots and the shrubs that had found a place around me, prisoning me, strangling me. I broke free. Stood up.

I felt the hard ground beneath my bare feet. Godo had not come for eons till now, because godo was not going to come. He had never intended to. He never existed. It was an old woman’s tale. I looked over my head at the blue sky and for the first time in life, I smiled. I picked up my right foot and stepped outside the circle they had made for me. I was no longer going to wait for godo to help me. I was not going to wait more. I smiled yet again, beaming with my knowledge. I was the one I had been waiting for. I was godo.

Burying your own dead

In life, we tend to carry baggage with us that mounts up with time. Till the point we are buried deep into it. This baggage, be it emotional or grief, or whatever- has a tendency to stay with us all the time.

It’s not the weight of the world, or the responsibility of success. It is the past, with its terrible narratives. The person walking down the street might not see it, your colleagues at work won’t notice it, even your closest might not sense it. But it’s there, all the time, weighing you down, inch by inch.

Today, you need to know that after the phase of forgive and forget, you need to learn how to burry your own dead. The dead is the past. The leaf of the page has turned, the past is history, the now is the present where you will learn to breath, and the future, as always is uncertain. That last part is an empty page in the diary. But everything before is done, gone, so why still carry the baggage?

Throw it away, trash it, burn it- the leaf has turned, there is a new beginning, a new start, an empty page ready for an entry. Burry your dead past, that is the only way to move on and start anew.

Dealing with Pain

There are many forms of pain to which man is susceptible to. Physical pain, emotional pain, loss, grief, pain of being alone, pain of not being accepted, pain of being looked down at, pain of not being seen at all.
Pain exists, and each one of us have our way of dealing with it. Some restore to lashing out, transferring their pain to those around them. Some of us shun ourselves from the world. Others restore to drugs. Few of us go to therapy.
Life although we say is short, but the moments of pain last longer, much longer than we hoped they would.
With time, I have devised a simple rule to deal with all forms of pain. It only requires you to control your mindset. Like the ‘mind over matter’ theory.
It’s a simple 80/20 rule. Which although is very popular in the management sciences for totally different reasons and hence connotations, but I have remodeled it suit my pain management techniques.
I believe that if a person can ignore 80% of the pain, be that a neurotic boss or a bad marriage and try to endure the remaining 20%, he can be on his way to a much healthier, happier and better life.
There is no manual on how to make your life less miserable. The only thing you can count on is you. Change yourself and dance around the confused world while you’re at it.
Remember, ignore the 80% and you’ll be left to endure the least, 20%. Do note that the only difference in your life can come from you.
Applying this rule takes a great deal of courage and yes, patience too. But it isn’t impossible. Give it a try and let me know how it works for you!

Torn to Pieces

Man has a tendency to go around in circles. He wastes time in doing that. Seven yesars later he finds himself exactly where he first started out to be.
What went wrong? What brought him back to stage one once more? Why again is he faced with the same circumstances over and over again? During the process, he dies a million deaths, to be reborn again. And he once more learns how to breathe.
Man is torn to pieces. He although apparently is ‘one’ to the eye on the outside. But he has parts of him that are laible and answerable to duty. To his conscience. To his desires of the heart. To his wishes that never get to be put on a list. Other than that everyone wants a piece of him. His parents, siblings, children, spouse, friends, his boss, his subordinates. Yet he keeps himself together knowing that he is in pieces.
A desire unfulfilled chips a piece off of him. A child takes another. The spouse takes many. His bucket full of duties takes more inches off him. Till the time he doesn’t recognise the person staring at him in the mirror. Till the time he no longer knows who he is. Perhaps that is why the world has been quoted to be a place of trial and procreation.
Everyone has to face trials, but not everyone gets to procreate, at least not biologically. Man is in pieces. And he has no idea who he is. He could better define himself when he was five than now when he is thirty-five. Maybe that is all the trial is about. Keeping it together when the inside is in a million shreds. Man then learns that he is lost. He doesnt know what to do or where to turn to for solace or guidance.
So he does what he ‘can’ or what he ‘ought’ to do and lets time decipher on its own who he is. So he finally learns that it was never upto him to decide who he was in the first place. Time alone passes the verdict. And perhaps then he might understand the reason behind all the trials and suffering. When the verdict tells him that he is now who he was meant to be.

About Discipline

Recently I have realised that I lack the knack of discipline. Yes when I went to preschool they taught me how to sit in a chair and not run about the class room. Later in kindrgarten they taught me how to speak politely and not yell and throw a tantrum when I wanted something.

They also taught me how to say ‘please’ and ‘thank ‘you’. Through out my education there was a reward and punishment system intact so as to make me a better ‘man’. At home was no different. I learnt to be ‘nice’, ‘well behaved’, ‘groomed’.

The world had done its job right and proper. They all had a hand in making me a literate, educated person. No more a cave man, no more like the kids in the streets who had no idea that to steal food and fill their starving tummies was a bad bad thing. They (the world) beleived I was finally disciplined, a better person,  a better human being.

However,I realised that discipline had nothing to do with kindergarten and college. It had nothing to do with learning to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. The social conditioning had only one aim, only one purpose. To make sure that I fitted in with the rest of the ‘disciplined’ class.

I sadly realised that my mind was not a disciplined place at all. And hence my actions, my decisions, everything that I have been doing for the last thirty years has been nothing but chaotic.  So perplexed and helpless I tried to Google how to discipline the mind. You would be surprised to know what I learnt.

The search results showed that yoga was a great way to discipline the mind and so was meditation. Without tying to brag, yes I occasionally do yoga and meditate. Without a teacher though, but I do it nonetheless. I also leant something else. I found out that every method to discipline the mind and hence yourself was one form of spirituality or another.

So to my utter disbelief I learnt that if I wished to discipline myself especially the mind I ought to go back to spirituality. Find the truth within so that I may be in peace enough to be disciplined in the head. I learnt that my degree did me no good as a person. I learn that thank you and please were never a standard of being groomed. Maybe they are in the artificial social ambience and perhaps that will always be the standard there. But I learnt that to be disciplined, I needed to embark on a spiritual journey not go to kinegarten.

The Art of Doing Nothing

We have been conditioned to do something all the time. Even when we don’t want to, even when we feel that we would rather stay in bed and just lay there, we still find the courage to get out of bed and make ourselves useful. The thought of sitting idle for the modern man is almost akin to sin.

I beg to differ here on such a notion. We spend our entire lives running. Running after food, running to work, running to manage the house, running to please everyone, running to look after the kids. Do you notice the constant theme here? Running. Doing something, anything, all the time.

In fact sometimes when we have nothing to do, we apply the old maxim to ourselves, “keep your hands busy.” So we run to the kitchen and start baking. Or for neat freaks like myself, I start tidying all the cupboards and drawers in the house. It isn’t so bad either. After all, nothing kills a man more than boredom, right?

Wrong.

Cultural and social conditioning has developed our DNA in a way that we cannot stand idleness. We just have to stay busy. It’s important. We don’t exactly know why, but it is. Most annoyingly, when the old lady asks us at a tea party what we have been doing lately, there should be a two feet long list of things we did in the past week for us to talk about. The longer the list, the greater is our credibility. The greater the credibility, the greater our rankings in respect and honor.

Although I would say that at certain age groups, like that of teens or below, one should be kept busy at all times. Even if that means shredding the newspaper and then gluing it together. Yes, an idle mind in children could be a devil’s snare. But what about those of us who are over 25 years of age? Should we run too all the time because that is the way it always has been and if not we would be stoned for doing nothing.

Youngsters of today have this new term I quite like. It’s called ‘chilling’. When you ask them what they’ve been doing all day in their room, they’ll tell you in a one word, ”chilling”, and you understand. To give this slang a more profound name, I call it the art of doing nothing.

Once you learn of this special art or skill, you’ll find yourself at a greater peace. I realized that since the time I started honing this great skill, I have plenty of time to reflect and ponder. Many a times I find myself sitting by myself, smiling into space. The moment when you zone out of this reality, you can look over with a birds eye view at your own life. You see things that you wouldn’t otherwise which are perhaps only at an arms length.

The art of doing nothing helps you accustom yourself to a greater perspective. Which is otherwise usually lost in the fervor of busy hankerings of the day. The art of doing nothing is a noble art and should be practiced from time to time.

Meditation, too, if you please is designed according to the same principle of the art of doing nothing. While meditating you do, well, nothing. Nothingness, I believe is one of the profound theories of philosophy, but why go into the mundane details, when I am telling you to practice this honorable art at least for a couple of minutes everyday. And if someone asks you what you’re thinking or doing, just smile and say, ”chilling”.

Everything Changed Man Remained

From time immemorial man has made so many changes around him. In Hellenic times, ancient man thought to himself that he was far better than the cave man. After all now they lived in stone houses and ate bread. The wheel was invented and then iron was discovered. Man was so proud of himself.

During the Victorian era, man was still proud. He had come a long way. Now he worked in cotton mills, wore machine made clothes and the cobbler made him fine pair of shoes. The women consumed with vanity wore bonnets and rode in horse driven carriages. Man was ever proud.

The renaissances unlocked the creativity in man, and he made paintings and sculptors, buildings and cathedrals, colleges and castles. Man thought to himself that now at this moment in time he was reformed, a groomed man. A man, who ate out of china plates and used silver cutlery. Man had come a long long way.

The industrial revolution changed the old world as it was; perfection with speed, accessible to everyone- made man so happy. He now thought that he traversed centuries and couldn’t imagine a better standard of life.

Then came along the ultimate technology. Man surrounded himself with speaking metal: mobile phone, televisions, desktops, laptops, iphones and tablets. The touch screen technology became an epitome, and man marveled at his great works. What a fine acumen man had been bestowed with. What awe he had brought into this world.

Man in his pride changed everything around him. And was prouder still because he knew that this was not the end of the ladder. He could climb still, and fill the world with greater wonders. Man was and is so proud of himself.

The above narration reflects the glass-half-full theory. The down side to man’s pride is that although he worked magic and changed the world as the ancient man knew it, man is still just that, a man.

Human nature has not evolved. Surrounded with plenty of knowledge and technology, living in air-conditioned homes, riding a Mercedes, owning trinkets and treasures, man is still the same. The man thinks, acts, reacts, and responds exactly the same way as the much abhorred cave man.

If man wishes to be truly proud, then after eons he should have been evolved into if not an angel, but a ‘better’ man. Alas! That did not happen. Man loves and hates as the man of the Hellenic times. He kills, envies, sabotages, infiltrates, disbeliefs, spreads fear, has resentments, nurtures evil, not unlike the cave man.

Man is so proud of himself, he thinks he has created wonders, oh what a joy for the silly ancient man! He never suspected that changing all that is around him, would not change who he is. A man. And just that. With the vices and the good he was born with, and these he takes back home whither he came from. Unchanged, ungroomed, unlearned, doomed.