Grains of thought

Undefined

2012-01-11T16:27:00.000-08:00

I am strength that can't be seen
I am courage that flutters under your wings
I am sunshine hidden in your smiles
I am the words you cannot seem to find
I am the kiss in your eyes when you think of me
I am what you try to express and never can
I am felt when you don't know what you feel...
I am a surprise, I am with you - when you give yourself up to me
Don't comprehend me... I am Love
And I only grow stronger the more you try to understand me.

Pursuit of Happiness

2011-06-13T07:32:00.001-07:00

The word has come to mean so many things to me as the years have gone by. Earlier on, it was too strange a concept to really ponder about - what is happiness? Having fun and laughing perhaps? Playing with friends, being carefree. It was easier being happy I guess because we didn't need to pursue it. It was any moment where we were truly present. Free from bounds, free to be ourselves.

As the years progressed, the idea of "happiness" just happening on its own, of not thinking about it became harder. When you don't think of it - it somehow seems unattainable, and you find yourself in crossroads unable to figure out the missing link.

Then there comes the time, when you consciously make the leap to try and be happy - to pursue happiness, it is more work than you realise.

It means loving yourself, taking care of yourself. It means letting things go, it means forgiving, it means moving on. It means challenging yourself, rewarding yourself, pampering yourself when you're down. It is still the same as being a child - it's allowing yourself to be you. The only difference is that now, you are a complex human being caught in a web of thoughts. Padded on with expectations from people, with our own expectations from others and circumstances out of our control. We find that we try to attain our happiness - our own existence from our relationships. When, in fact, the only relationship you need to tend to is the one you have with yourself, with the essence of life inside of you.

All other relationships fall in line when you're content with yourself. Everything becames easier, because you stop being hard on yourself. You don't ponder on the unachievable, you live in the now and you make decisions that make you happy. Sometimes giving to someone you love, sometimes taking care of someone else, helping a stranger - while happiness is related to this other person - it is still the contentment that you find inside that should drive you.

The mind and body almost crave to find equilibrium. There is research on how simply uttering positive words, or forcing yourself to smile with no reason release endorphins which make you feel good. Perhaps because being happy is the one emotion which keeps you in the best position you can be. You are happy so you feel good, you are healthy. You are happy so you can love freely. You are happy so you can focus your energy on being productive. You are happy so everything around you feels like part of you.

It doesn't matter how long you've been in a sense of your limitations - it will shine through with happiness. Happiness is the blend of all our powers and affection in beautiful proportions that sustain and perfect each other. It is simply put - an energy that binds you to yourself.

Holding on to this happiness, this energy inside you is perhaps the pursuit. Though what I find is that happiness does not need to be searched for. It is inside you - if you let it shine, if you let it come out. It is but an emotion which can change your whole perspective, your entire interpretation of you. It is the child inside you who always wants to take you back to your carefree days of truly being free. Perhaps that is what happiness is - the freedom to allow yourself ot be happy even when the world tries to bring you down. The freedom to choose hapiness instead of your troubles. The freedom from fear, from your insecurities. Happiness is what keeps our souls fueled - the soul of power that we have within us.

Perhaps, we can all start by asking ourselves the simple question "What do I need right now, in this moment to be happy?" The closer you look, the more freely you allow yourself to look - you will see that you already have it.

The amount of happiness you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart.

Battles

2011-03-01T08:15:00.000-08:00

There is a lot of poetry that has been written personifying death. In fact, one of my favorite poems - "Prospice", does just that. Why I love that poem though is because of how Browning romanticizes death, stands up to it and refuses to let its coldness and its inborne fear to touch him... because he has hope to meet his love who had passed away through Him - the mighty dark knight - death, has now become the deliverer of love and promise..

Death has been on my mind - perhaps with so much of it happening around me. It's cast its dark shadow around us more oft than not with every year that goes by. Though what marks my mind is not the incident of death but the life that has ceased to exist.

A man's life is chronicled by so many events which when comes to an end - it feels more and more like fading dreams you desperately try to remember. Growing up, accomplishments, graduating, first job, first date, getting married, having kids - its like a story-book we all go through where each one of us is the protagonist and our own villains too. A chronicled life that we publish through our words, our actions and hope that it continues on with our essence when we no longer can pen down any more.

It's a huge responsibility to keep that life going on - to keep that person going on. That complex person with their moods and opinions, their wisdom and their laughter... it suddenly becomes so spread out between all who they have met. Between desires and regrets and the players who spent a moment on their stage of life, hurting them, loving them - admiring them, despising them - whatever role you have, you steal that part of the person, that memory and those drops of life which exist only in your mind.

The battle of life and death continues even after - because just by having lived your life - you have handed pieces of it off to the soldiers who survive you in the battlefield of memory and recollection. Death only defeats the body, not the memories nor the spirit that is as strong and real as we remember it.

For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute's at end, and the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend, shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain and then a light...

- From "Prospice" Robert Browning

Rising

2010-09-28T09:17:00.001-07:00

Negativity - you who slowly spreads your cloak of darkness upon my spirit
I banish you with the light of clarity.
Despair - you who looms above me, clouding my judgment..
You are weak and insecure, I break you with the power of truth.

Because the blessings that have been hiding in the shadows
They are whispering hope in my ears
The arms of love, are lifting me up again
to stand on the pillars of faith that won't let me fall.

Strong as ever, unyielding, unchanging... this is my unconquerable God.
He shines in the eyes of the angels in my life.

To those who have loved me, when I have not
Who believed in me, when I was scared to..
Thank you.
I grow in your wisdom..
I bask in your inspiration.

Plight of the Conscience

2010-08-24T15:36:00.000-07:00

Warning: Authoress not reeking of optimism!

There are days when my mind ponders what it means to be a good person. There are definitions which mark good and evil clearly as opposites – as black and white. But what is the final judge – how do we decide we have upheld the virtues to call ourselves “good” or “evil”.

Is being good being self-sacrificial? Having no desire of oneself and simply using your existence to deliver joy to others? While this does sound noble – what happens to the person when the joys you deliver aren’t enough to satiate the complex human you’re trying to please? There is no satisfaction – it robs you not only of what you can achieve for yourself but also makes you realize how insignificant your efforts have been. Happiness is short lived when it is given away. When these frustrations pile up – and you demand self-worth – is that losing the title of goodness?

Is being good fearing God? Living by a set of rules that have been chosen by the wise – religion, values, learning from others? There are times when you’re faced with so many trials that the very foundation of there even being such a thing as normal let alone good exists. It is when your faith is tested that you choose one of two paths – hold on deeper to the guiding Spirit – believing beyond reason and common sense and hence preserving your goodness. But what of those, who give in to their exhaustions, the words which leave their lips and are not answered, who try to understand what is given to them and what is taken from them? What of those who feel alone - who find reason and logic to alter their version of “good” – do they still retain that quality or are these now imposters?

I guess – we all have our own definitions of what is good, what is not – what is right and what is wrong. Perhaps that is what they call the conscience. The conscience which puts in you the fear of doing wrong; which gives birth to guilt and urges you to do things which are perhaps not in the best interest of our survival instincts. The conscience should hence be our upholder of truth – of virtue, of all that is good.

But then what happens when our conscience realizes its efforts are not accepted. Its ideas are not the “popular ones” and when all you believe become echoes of someone else’s thoughts? What happens when the conscience is plagued with doubt? With insecurity and in this uncomfortable moment, it rapidly starts looking for a foothold to define “right” and “wrong” again. But how can the upholder now be so perceptible to change – are our souls, conscience, Gods all only images of what we are comfortable believing in? Images of what we don’t want to question. Are we merely puppets of our own fears – soldiers of our own internal wars, the victims who lie on our own battlefields – the tattered soul, the resilient conscience, the child of an unconquerable God?

Or is good, evil and conscience just a thought of a mere mortal trying to give our actions, our existence some meaning.

Jokers Court

2010-06-18T07:10:00.000-07:00

Why am I here again...
The deafening sound, the quiet embrace.
It all seems too familiar
Too eager to welcome me back

I can't be here again...
The tumbling walls know my failing grasp
The joker laughs at my fallen stature
The bonds weaken, the chains tighten
The questions begin, the answers run

But I am here...again.
Pain new, pain old,
Lines blurred, feeling slurred
The joker dances in the shadow of the flame
The shackles begin to melt away

The ashes beneath my feet
The molten scars across my ankles
I scramble to reach higher ground
Clutching my bleeding heart, I emerge.
Slowly I stand and greet the smoky sunrise..
I say, "Here I am. Again."

- R

Liberation

2010-02-19T08:13:00.001-08:00

Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate...
but that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some; it is in everyone.

And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give
other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

~Nelson Mandela

Today

2009-12-10T16:06:00.000-08:00

Today is the day that we’re living in. It soon slips away and becomes yesterday and yesterdays soon becomes part of another time.

Time creeps upon us all and takes us through so many journeys. We live so many lives in our one life, it’s quite amazing. We start off as innocent infants looking at the world like it’s anew – learning in the lap of love. Life is beautiful and shielded – our parents guard us from the harshness of the world, giving us a fairytale land to live in.

Slowly we morph into an awkward age, where life starts seeping through the guarded nest and you enter a world of confusion. Realizing you’re one of a kind in a sea of millions – discovering your identity, experimenting with new choices and in the end starting to realize what you believe in and what you don’t.

The thing is, with every chapter we are living a life we will never get back to again. In that life, we grow accustomed to our surrounding, our homes, our friends and faces around us. We live that life and can’t imagine it any other way. And then it suddenly all changes. The changes seem overwhelming at first- we’re unsure if we can make it on our own, if we can make the right choices. And then we soon get so carried away in the sea of change that we almost forget what being anchored felt like.

Then a time comes while you’re drifting in the sea when you meet a memory from an old life, your heart immediately responds. Your mind takes you away to that moment – and you’re surprised how far you’ve come. It could be as simple as an old outfit in which you could never imagine the “new” you in, an old photograph, your child giving you advice and nurturing you, and you smile remembering teaching them the same words that they use now flawlessly. An old friend who talks of things you did and said and you almost don’t remember. And then the rush of memory comes – the rush of desire to suddenly go back or shy away from that time.

We disassociate ourselves subconsciously from where we are and imagine that life – the desire to reconcile the two becomes overwhelming and suddenly we want it all. There are things you always miss - like your fathers voice, your moms cooking and warmth, your all night talks with your sister... While it is kind of sad to realize you can’t have the carefree days of not worrying about anything other than what to do with your best friend on a sunny day – I think aging is a very beautiful process. It’s like leaving a mark of yourself in every life you’ve lived. A reminder of how far you’ve come – how many lives you’ve touched. All the new roles you’ve assumed – from a child, a sibling, a friend, a spouse, to a parent to a grandparent. Always added on, never removed…these consistent relationships are the threads that tie all the endless lives together. A bouquet of sentiment that grows in your arms – a bouquet which has brought you to where you are, to this life you recognize – this day – today.

Yesterday is today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream.

Self

2009-10-06T17:43:00.000-07:00

This blog is dedicated to a very special friend of mine who faced a hard battle in life, and somehow in the darkness, she found her Self and is today happy, strong, content and unafraid. I am so proud of you – you know who you are :)

Self is a small word but encompasses each individual’s existence. But how much do we know Self? Self somehow ends up being this elusive friend which travels with us come good/bad, changes shapes and colors to match our surroundings, thoughts and moods. .. and yet, somehow remains a stranger to most.

Self provides us with means to bring to life our crazy ideas or protects us from our fears by convincing us we’re right to be scared. Which is probably why we have words like self-esteem – the power which Self uses to make us feel worthwhile and good. Self-conscious – the fears Self brings upon us and makes us aware of being in a situation that is uncomfortable to us. It’s almost a safety mechanism - heightening our senses, keeping a lookout for danger, watching every move – trying to make an exit.

Self is very shy in a lot of ways – it somehow always expects us to make contact and find it. It wants us to reach within and get that shred of Self-confidence. The power to do anything, to be proud of yourself – we somehow need to find the right amount of Self to do that with. But the problem is, we all need a Self and sometimes when it’s hard to find our own we tend to follow others Self’s. Going under their influence and using somebody else’s opinions as our thoughts.

So why is this? Isn’t Self enough on its own? Why do we have needs for others? The answer is yes – Self is well, self-sufficient :) All it takes is for someone to become Self-aware. Yes, become aware of this Self inside us. Get to know it, get to understand it. We’ve it all inside of us – happiness, confidence, securities, love, positive thinking – it’s all there when you become friends with your Self. You understand what you’re made of and you break the barrier between you and Self (your-Self)and become just You.

You. It’s hard shedding away the layers the world has put on You. But now that You has become one with Self, you understand – understand your needs, understand yourself such that the demons that kept you awake, kept you afraid, kept you empty – are gone. You understand where you are – where you want to be. And now when a whole You meets another person – you won’t be the one whose Self is compromised with. You will be able to give what you want to and enjoy what’s given to you – simply because you don’t need it anymore. You don’t need any other Self now.

I am not promoting being alone – but the fact is when you’re in a crowd or a relationship somehow you can be lonely – it’s the missing Self. When you’re found – you can just reach out to Self in moments of loneliness, pains, or any other moment and give Self a bear hug. Give you into Self and know you’re ok – you’re always going to be ok.

The battle now is to keep true to your Self – to not be influenced. It’s the hardest battle to fight – just keep looking within – you will find you’re already self-confident, self-determined, self-efficient, self-satisfied and eventually self-realized.

To be nobody but yourself in a world that’s trying so hard to make you somebody else, is the hardest battle you will ever fight. Never stop fighting. – E.E. Cummings

The Moment

2009-08-10T12:33:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when you wake up in the morning, or lay down to sleep, or in just a space of silence during a routine day - some moment of time suddenly creeps up on you. It makes you smile, it stirs up an old memory.. and just for a minute, a moment passed by gets another moment to live on.

It's strange how sometimes you even know these moments when you are living them. For me, it mostly seems to be the moments which make me feel like I am shedding skin, going through a personal change, a realization or a confirmation of a belief I've had.

So as I pen these words, I have a lot of these memories running through my head. And while I might not write them all down - they do generate a strange sense inside of me.. a tingling of a sort. The feeling you get when you're ready to embark on a new journey.. to a new land, with a mission, with a purpose.

One such moment I will share is meeting a friend I've know my whole life after so many years.. the smile I saw on her face in the airport took me back to the amount of times I had seen that bright smile. Chasing my dog around the fireplace, running from trouble, or vanilla yoghurt and magnum classic smile :) The closeness which we shared - all that love reconnected so easily even after so much time had passed us by. Friend of mine who I grew up with, saw the world with, we conquered so many things hand in hand.. and even though we're apart now - theres this comfort that out there, no matter what happens - i know, she knows - we'll be there, in the timeless moments we've lived in and will keep living in :)

A whole avalanche of moments pour down on me now, faces, family, songs, dances, laughter, tears.. everything that encompasses life. A whole world lives inside every close relationship - you experience so much through your relationship with them and through their experiences. You expand your horizons and touch something you never would have, if you hadn't opened yourself up to this person. But somehow moments don't seem to have barriers... for a stranger can give you that feeling.. that sense of purpose or worth.

It's strange how we're so fast to forget the bad and almost romanticize the good. It's strange that so many disconnected moments seem to come together in your mind and create an image of yourself that helps you identify who you are. This is life.. this is a dream.. this is a movie which we're watching - each shot is a moment of time, always flowing, always lingering on - living for as long as you let it. As long as we keep them safe, give them the breath of memory - they help us remember who we are, what we are capable of, what we stand up for...and most importantly remember the dream which makes you feel warm inside..

Life is a dream we're dreaming

The rabbit in the burrow...

2009-04-16T19:01:00.000-07:00

As a lot of people know - I am the proud pet mother of two beautiful cats. Today I had an interesting experience with my older girl, Meethi. She goes out into the lawn every time the sun is bright. Today was not much different - she had a lot of entertainment around her too. With spring finally here - the birds were chirping and squirrels were running about. Now Meethi is usually a very gentle spirit (and a lousy hunter if I may say so) - so I usually don't have to worry much about her disturbing the happy scene. She usually scampers under a bush and watches, chatters, enjoys the fresh air and comes home happy as ever.

But today was different. Today she found a rabbit burrow and before I knew it she caught a little baby bunny and jumped back trying to get inside with it. The bunny was screaming for its life like a frightened bird. Finally I intervened, allowing the bunny to scamper off and having to face the wrathful look of my cat stolen of her rare hunting prize :) She didn’t harm the bunny, she hardly can with about 16 teeth missing and I think she probably wanted to play with it. Regardless, she scared the li’l fella!

Now if you’re wondering why I am sitting here blogging about this – let’s get to the point :) So initially I was pretty mad at Meethi for traumatizing the little bunny. But when her innocent eyes would glare back at me – unsure if she is in trouble, unable to control her entire excitement of actually catching a prey and also perhaps a lil angry at me for interrupting her proud moment- I started thinking and realizing how easy things are for her to understand. How an animal’s instincts are so simple and strong. And throughout it, how they seem to retain their innocence.

I know everyone hasn’t had the experience of a pet – but for those who have, must know of how easy it is to communicate with your pet. It almost makes you realize how our explanations, words and behavior seems so pointless and almost utterly silly. When all it takes is a simple smile and a warm touch to say a thousand words to your furry friend. How easily they can convey their feelings – hardly using any words. How they can love you unconditionally regardless of who you are, who your demons are and where you’ve been.

So after this whole drama was over – I was looking at the burrow and saw the li’l bunny peeking out. His eyes rapidly scaling the horizon and then promptly jumping out to munch on some grass. After such a long, traumatic experience – he was ready to move on with life. To do what he must. Sometimes, its amazing how much we can learn from creatures who are supposed to be less intelligent than us.

I had a strange day today and it made me think a lot about human intention. I don’t know if I am more like that rabbit in the burrow than I realise. Whenever life has thrown me a stone, I have cowered in for a short period of time and immediately jumped back on to do what must be done. Have I lost touch with emotion or have I just kept life as simple as it needs to be?

There are so many things I wish people would do and say like the bunny. Like Meethi does –with simple words, without complicating life more than it needs to be. Without complicating our feelings so much that we ourselves lose track of our own self respect, our own feelings. We completely become unaware of life as a whole. When instead we should be using our senses… using our minds, hearts for what they are meant to do… Not hiding in the burrow – but coming out and eating the grass of life even after almost losing everything that signifies it.

Whatever the struggle...continue the climb.

Borders of the world, borders of the mind

2009-03-17T10:56:00.000-07:00

So after having an interesting experience in Vancouver - I started thinking about boundaries. A long time ago I once read an essay written by my sister (I wonder if she even remembers!) about how man has gotten so power hungry and drawn all these lines in the world. Claiming this area to belong to him and that area to someone else - dividing lands into countries. She started musing whether someday man will start claiming the sky and the moon. This part of the sky belongs to me hence you can't stand underneath it :)

Well she might not have been too far fetched with the idea of claiming rights on the moon. Apparently U.S.A and Russia have full rights on the moon and they've begun selling acres of it. You get a legal deed sent to you! No kidding - it's actually quite official and worth quite a bit :) Now you can finally look at the moon and say "I own a piece of that!" Oh, the thrill!

Anyway before I get too side tracked and start talking about how commercial everything has become - let's stick to my topic! So in Vancouver, I went through a visa stamping process which like a lot of people turned out to be quite frustrating for me. While waiting in my hotel room trying to figure out whether I will be heading back to India or actually head back to my life I had been living for the last year or so - I really started thinking. The whole idea of visas, of countries - it started to seem so baseless. What if there were no countries? What if it was just Earth and its boundless beauty?

As idealistic as that sounded... I also began to realize how far we've taken the idea of boundaries. We protect what we believe is "ours". We fight, we strive to improve and shield dangers from lands which we beleive belong to us. Maybe if we started adopting Earth as our own, maybe we'd move so much further in preventing global warming and so many other issues, that attack Mother Earth's underbelly. But it's easier staking claim on more visible things I guess.

I remember when I was in high school studying history - back in those early centuries when lands were being fought over. Kings would go out to conquer and expand their territory - it would give them a sense of power. They would build their kingdoms, protect their people and grow stronger. Now that we zoom back to 2009, I wonder how far we've moved. We might have more or less settled on the boundaries of the world - settled into countries that we've been alloted to. But today - I think the real battle is with the boundaries or rather the borders of our own minds.

We have limited ourselves in our thinking - we've grown accustomed to our own lives. It doesn't mean we don't have good heart or pure intentions. But we've found solace in simply living out the routine of a life. Seeking momentary happiness and finding shelter in our safe lives. We've gotten scared and yet gotten used to acts of terror. They don't shock us as much.. the word terror or terrorist is part of our diction now. Some of us have held onto our race with deep ownership and others have shunned people on their beliefs. I wonder if things really were like my utopia.. if we really did embrace Mother Earth as our world - what would happen?

No one would bomb their own backyard... no one would hate their sister or feel the need to prove themselves. We'd prolly get closer to the true meaning of life. Truly discovering ourselves, discovering our humanity - the feeling that makes us the race we are. The most "intelligent" race with powers to do amazing things... to create, to evolve, to provide, to love, to spiritually be whole with each other.. We would be using everything inside of us and find out how deeply we are linked to each other. Every person, every creature, every being of life.

We would be propelled by passion and not invest in outcomes. We would truly be alive and beautiful. We would be amused by difference.. we would not judge, we would not be afraid, we would be safe... we would be grateful, would be humble and would heal, we would open our arms and embrace life as a whole... life, earth...the world we might stick our flags and put up our borders on... but a world which no one can claim rights on... a world that belongs to us.

Where there is an open mind there will always be a frontier.

To communicate or to talk

2009-03-04T10:22:00.001-08:00

My first blog – what do I write about? There are so many things which have found a place in my mind recently. I guess a lot of it can be put under the word “communication”.

The problem with communication ... is the illusion that it has been accomplished.
So what does it mean to communicate? I guess to a lot of us, it’s probably simply putting together a strand of words, some feeling if we’re lucky, and vocally sounding it. Maybe saying all we can on a topic and moving on. To me that is mere “talking”. But is that the end of human communication? No. We’ve a deep treasure inside of us which we don’t use very often. A gift which gives us the power to truly express ourselves... be it through the play of eyes, a touch, a baby’s babbling or an unspoken love.

Love – it makes us so strong and so weak at the same time. It’s probably one of the most honest forms of communication we have with ourselves, our conscience. It is the bridge which connects us makes us the best person we can ever be … or to our demons. Be it the love of a wife caring for her dying husband for years because she’s not ready to say goodbye. Or be it the love for a country or border which makes a person leave their love, their lives and go out there for a feeling, a desire, a purpose which even they might not fully comprehend. Or the love for a God, the most beautiful painting in the world – still veiled to the deepest of devotees –a love based on belief. Or the love a parent has for their child… watching, slowly trying to understand every movement, every word… truly tapping into human-listening.

Babies are fascinating. They appear to be so helpless in our concrete world – but if you think about it, they have no chains, no barriers to their minds or bodies. They are free in all they do, and say, they are truly fearless beings and have their minds open to the window of the heavens – an ability that only a few will retain.

I once read about a doctor who identified that babies share a universal baby language. And that in fact, he was able to determine what babies mean. For instance, “goo goo gag a” means “feed me” and “Ga GOO ga daba” means “diaper change” – of course this is not very accurate as I’ve all but forgotten my baby-tongue :) As awesome as it sounded, it was pretty interesting imagining doctors listening to 100’s of babies babbling and then finally yelling “Goagl! – uh I mean Eureka!” It’s strange how deep our desire to put things into “logical containers” becomes. Something which we can easily understand and not have to use all our senses to figure out…

So as age dawns on us – is it impossible to communicate? No, not really – I guess we just need to unshackle our minds, remove the layers the world has put on us – layer after layer – of reason, of rules, of appropriateness and truly speak. Release the power inside you which though dormant, is not dead… reach out to the inside of who you truly are and set free the ocean of words, feeling, emotions – speak with hand, eyes, mouth and soul… speak who you are…

And pray someone is listening :)