My 'green' terrace

 

And finally, my plants in waiting:

 

Lost and found

48. I am 48. 4 and 8. Forty-eight. A numerologist once told me that 4 and 8 together are not a good combination. Seeing the way this year has gone by so far and the way it stretches ahead, I would he was BANG ON! OK, I understand it now, I am believer, can I go get some rest now? If only life was like a school, learn your lesson, give a test, go home, forget about school, do some homework, go out and play, eat my dessert and go to sleep. But in life you give the test, then learn your lesson, the only difference between homework and play is perspective, and I am sure as hell still waiting for my dessert! Only one thing is for sure – there will be a long rest at the end of it.

I am bitter. Why am I bitter? Is it because I lost almost everyone dear to me in an accident 8 years ago? Or maybe I have turned into this crone with a cackle because I just cannot feel anything anymore? My only child, my darling Sonia survived, but in what condition? The shock of the accident, the aftermath, the mutilated bodies of her dad, aunt, uncle, cousin, grandparents, the screams – I don’t think she was ever able to make it all go away…So what did she do? She went away! Today, she is alive and healthy, but there is no one home inside that tiny 10 year old body. She is like a shrivelled sunflower, who has forgotten what it is like to be in presence of the Sun, who has forgotten the very existence of the Sun, and consequently her own.

I have tried to do everything I can to erase the past horrors. I have been to all the top doctors in the world (money is no object to us, you see) and have tried almost all scientific/holistic/ayurvedic remedies that doctors and grandmas have recommended in these eight very long years. We have switched many houses and cities in order to find a place that may somehow awaken something in Sonia. We have now come to a new city that has a reputation of having something for everyone. It’s old and new at the same time like most ancient cities.

We have been here almost a year and we have fallen into a sort of pleasant routine. There is a rather loud, kitschy, and jostling market nearby and I take Sonia there every morning with me. She shrinks even more in such crowd, but she never protests, at least there she seems to finally become invisible. I try to invent new ways of getting and coming back from there – sometimes, we go on foot, sometimes in car; we go in and come out different ways – anything to get even the slightest of reactions. So far, nothing. And it doesn’t seem things are about to improve today.

The weather is rather humid, we have come out in the evening instead of morning, we are walking, and for some reason, both I and Sonia have a jacket on. Really, I must give up my cold showers, they seem to do the job of numbing my brains a little too well. I am trying the path that goes by the key-makers’ group of shops, and then it happens… A sound floats, something undecipherable, almost like shouting, but non-threatening. It seems as if some people repeating something over and over, very loudly. No wait! Not people’s, these are children’s voices. They seem to be learning something by repeating it. It’s almost hypnotic the way they keep chanting the same indecipherable phrase again and again. For the first time in 10 years, something has caught Sonia’s attention.

We follow the sound and reach a quiet madarsa behind the key-makers’ shops. An old man with a heena-dyed beard looks at in mild surprise. After a moment of staring, he cracks open a smile, with paan stains all over his slowly rotting teeth. “Asslaam Aleqam, madamji,” he says in slightly slurred voice, shifting his half-chewed paan from his right cheek to left,” have you lost your way around here?” I nod in a non-committal way and indicate upward from where the chanting seems to be coming. “Ahhhh,” he lets out a slightly nauseous breath, “so you are one of the generous ones, is it? You have come to help these poor kids continue their education? Though I must say,” he continued, “you don’t look like the usual NGO type or even the charitable socialite type, not that this is a popular charity or something…,” he trailed off.

I finally find my voice and decide that it is time to remove this scared and bleached expression of my rather wrinkly, over made-up face. “I was going to the market, when I heard this sound, of children repeating something, over and over again. I guess I was pulled in this direction.” His eyes seemed to become a lot shrewder, his manner graver and less mocking. “God resides in children, madamji, and when they invoke the Name of God in their innocent and pure voice, not many can ignore it,” he continued, “though God knows we choose to so, everyday, again and again and then again.” By now his eyes had a faraway look, where he seemed to be looking at a picture hung on a distant wall in a big art gallery.

“Do you think…I-we- I mean that…you see…,” I fumbled with choosing the right words, “maybe we can…” More fumbling took place. “Can you let u-us…” By now I was looking in every direction but his face and was contemplating a fast exit plan. But those sharp eyes over his hawk-like nose were not just meant to look, they were meant for searing inside your soul. Not that he needed any insight to see my very obvious discomfort. He asked so gently that I almost jumped out of my skin, “You wish to go inside, madamji?” I nodded and looked at Sonia for the first time during the entire conversation. She was staring at the open window directly above us from where the voices were still coming.

We went up through narrow, rough and but swept staircase. A class like I had never seen before was in session. There were roughly 40 children there, more than half were boys sitting on the right side and the remaining were girls sitting on the left. Right through the middle ran a tattered piece of once-fine muslin curtain. The teacher, who was called the maulawi as I later learned, was teaching them the Urdu alphabet. He would say one letter and the entire class will repeat it. They would do the entire alphabet at least 10 times, and then begin again till it’s time for the class to get over. The faces of these children seemed to run into one another. There were no uniforms, hell, some of them did not even have entire set of clothes on. And yet, there was no complain on their faces. They were not ashamed to be standing next to our finery and in their less than fortunate attire. They were curious, but not angry. They had no sense of being victims of fate. They were just being there. They were just being.

A shock went through my entire system. My life came full circle to me then and there. This is what I had been avoiding. Thinking about past and future, in order to avoid the present. The present. The present that had Sonia. I resented her. I resented her becoming what she had become but also for being in my life. She had tied me down to her with my love for her. I could not leave her; I could not live with her; so I avoided her. I just went through the motions – just as absent as she was. I turned to look as Sonia. She had started crying silently. Her lips were quivering. She finally was reacting to something.

We went outside and waited for the class to get over. After that we went in and I spoke to the maulawi and told him everything about Sonia. I begged him to take her in as a student. But he refused. He said that the madarsa was for Muslim kids, and we were Hindus. This was highly unusual. I begged. I offered money for the madarsa. I threatened (with racism, discrimination all such words). I cried. I pleaded and then I pleaded some more. To no avail. Even the kind man with the henna-dyed beard kept shaking his head the entire time. Beaten, I decided to finally leave. As I turned towards Sonia to lead her out of the hallowed grounds, I felt a bolt of electricity pass through me. The other two men also turned their heads to see what I had seen. Sonia was sitting next to a small boy who had been asked by the maulawi to stay back and finish writing the letters one more time, and was trying to mouth the sound that she had been listening all this while. In one moment, it all came together for the both the men. They looked at each other and some silent message was exchanged. I had still not found my tongue, or my legs for that matter. I just could not tear my gaze from my precious Sonia. Some force seemed to be sapping away all my strength, all my accumulated resentments, my rigidness…. I felt weak and strong at once.

For a few minutes, no one said a word. My tongue had turned soggy and I was afraid I will gag on it and die on the spot. The maulawi then picked up his pen, opened his register and said, “What is the full name of the child? Do you think she can start from tomorrow?” I could not trust my now-turned-to-cotton tongue so I just nodded, and then just kept nodding through my tears. Whatever happened after that is a blur. The man with the henna-dyed beard called me an autorickshaw and instructed him to take me home safely. He asked for my exact address and once he was able to make sense of my garbled attempt at giving him my address, he explained the same to the autowallah.

* * * * * * *

“Mom,” she whispers and I am shaken out of my reverie. “Mom,” she says again and extends a notebook towards me. Sonia had promised to bring a present for me today. She has been going to the madarsa for almost 1 year now. In a few more months, she will be able to go to a regular school too. Of course, she will not be leaving this evening school of hers that has become her second home. She still does not speak much, but she is no longer absent. She is present, right here, right beside me, as am I for her. I no longer loose myself into poetry and prose of yesteryears, all the while ignoring the now.

Here she is, my little drop of light, extending her notebook towards me… I start leafing through it; her eyes are watching me, with bated breath, looking for any sign of change in expression. “Sweetie, I don’t see anything here, it seems blank, is there any other notebook you want me to –” and then I saw it. In the middle of the notebook that mostly had illegible doodles, see had written my name, in Urdu. The teacher had written my name in parenthesis in Hindi so that I should know what it is, but I knew before I saw the translation. I was so overcome with emotion that I just sat there stunned for moments together. Sonia must have been confused with this reaction, so I just hugged her tight and kissed and thanked her. Many times over.

That night, after I had put her to sleep, I went to pick up the notebook and look at the labour of love again. Our tears had mixed and fallen on the sheet that had my name on it and had smudged the writing form here and there. For a second I panicked thinking that I had messed my most precious gift, but then just as quickly I realised that the smudges were not really smudges – they were shaped like my daughter’s new wings.

Why do we have such dedication to drama in our lives?

I have been working on understanding my Self and my Purpose (if there is any!) for a long, long time now...it seems like forever. At times, I get a feeling that washes over me completely: I wake up from a deep sleep and it appears as if the life that I have lived so far has been a dream. I shake my head and get on with my life. Then the feeling just washes away... This I know to be a genuine feeling, there is no doubt, no intellectualisation, its just there.

But at times, I find myself in a trap of thinking incessantly - I start with something that is in front of me and then slowly I let my imagination and before I know I am weaving a complicated drama in my head. Sometimes, it involves people I know, sometimes I invent characters and at times previously invented characters come back for an encore. Now some may say I am just having fun, maybe I am creating a story or something. But I don't agree. When creating something, I feel energised, like I am feeling when I am writing this post. There is no fatigue, no stress. But when I performing my rather flimsy thought exercises, I am exhausted! So much of my energy is sucked into just thinking. Also, hardly ever any worthwhile story has come out of this kind of thinking.

Then why do I do it? I do it because I am addicted to it. I am addicted to the entire thinking process. I feel I will be lost without it. But deep down I know that if I am able to still my mind for even a few seconds, tremendous clarity arises. I am amazed that with so much clutter I am still able to see a few things. For this, I am truly grateful for the beings that be... All I can say is I plead my lack on knowing. I feel I am truly not even at the beginning - there's really miles to go before I sleep. Maybe I will find the discipline to start something proactively. Amen to that!

What about you? How do you satisfy the craving for drama in your life? By kicking up a fight with in-laws/spouse/children/friends? By watching soap operas? By over-eating? By throwing tantrums? By being jealous? If you say yes to any of these, you need to know this: your addiction to drama maybe adding inches to your waistline. Surprised, are we? Remember, drama sucks energy; which means your precious life energy is used up when you are burning with envy on your neighbour's new car. To replenish the drained life energy, you will need to eat more. But this void is not filled by food alone. You also need to nourish your soul's void. If you don't do this, you can eat and eat and eat and eat, and you will never be full. For those of you who are reading this and saying "I have never felt this void", ask yourselves - Have I ever eaten a bag of potato chips out of boredom? If the answer is yes, well, welcome to the club. :)

What is your magic word?

Remember the fairy tales you heard when you were young where you had to utter a magic word to initiate/accomplish a task? You know something like “Khul ja sim sim” that Ali Baba used to open the doors of the treasure cave. Ever thought why a whole range of myths tales weaved around magic words came into the world? I feel that these were a way to pass on the wisdom wrapped in stories and folklore to make it intriguing. Boring sermons usually put people to sleep and seem, more often than not, condescending. But tales of talking parrots and magical creatures, powers of potions and incantations, exploits of witches and warlocks, and star crossed lovers never fail to grab attention and send our imagination soaring.

But I can help wondering if the magic words in the tales were like passwords in order to access the magic or was it more like a trigger that activated the magic force? I don’t feel it was like a password because many a times, the magic creature/object refused to function if the magic word was not supplied even if you had access to it. An example will be the story of a magical flute that I read when I was young. The flute belonged to the person who got it but it bestowed all its magical gifts on the person who could play the favourite tunes of the flute. So here the tunes were the trigger that allowed a specific magic to materialise.

Just like the flute or the treasure cave, we all have magic words to which we respond in a totally wonderful way and then operate at a level where whatever we deliver seems enchanted, charmed and has a fairylike quality that is not of this world. Many times, we ourselves are astonished at the stuff that we have delivered and are left with a feeling of “just what exactly happened here?” and “did I do this?”. I am sure everyone has had many such experiences and as you are reading this, you can recall at least one such instance. This is quite similar to what people call being “inspired”. Now being inspired is usually not an everyday phenomenon. However if it is so for you, then the question you need to ask is - are you able to harness this inspiration spontaneously, all the time or even as and when required? Wouldn’t we all kill to have that kind of creative power at our disposal at all times? Some of us fantasize about it, some feel it a dream at best and that such channels open only once in a blue moon, but some are not even aware that such a thing exists!

All said and done, I have experienced that stuff just flows from a place that is not of this so-called “reality” if you are just open to receiving it. I know it is now a cliché to say that we are like receivers of a cosmic transmission – all we need to do is tune into the correct frequency. But it is true – like all other clichés! (Read this blog entry for more on clichés.) I found the key to tuning our personal transmitters totally by chance. Of course, meditation is THE way to go still, but for both the lazy (yes, mediation is not the lazy, requires intense commitment and concentration) and the hyper, there is another way that helps cut through the mind clutter and make way for a little quite and peace. You can use this as a stepping stone towards meditating or just enjoy it just as it is. It does a lot of wonders for your personal and professional life too. The sheer quality of living goes through a shift. You can almost touch and taste it.

Alright, now before you guys pull all your hair out or dream about doing to me remotely, I will explain the thing that I discovered. Here goes:

In one word the key is imagination. Ok, I hear you…you are saying you – I have plenty of THAT, that’s for the kids, get real, so much time wasted reading this stupid blog… But truly, this is the key. Actually, the key is to give yourself permission to imagine. We tend to keep our fantasies and dreams in check in order to keep our feet grounded in reality and not loose touch with what is really important. But letting your imagination fly can give you an insight that even an hour with your therapist/numerologist/tarot reader/crying shoulder cannot provide. Going on an imaginary trip, allows you to reach the places inside where no light ever reaches. For example, when you are imagining a trip to a beach, then the activities that you plan to do there, the type of beach you select, the people you choose to be with you, the food you can see yourself eating – all this brings out in the open the things you crave. Imagining the setting of a perfect job shows you the way towards going for a more fulfilling career.

A more advanced type of imagination is known as visualisation but that is mainly used for manifestation of things you already know you want. It helps bridge the gap between your inner and outer world. The more detailed is your imagination, the better the chance of you getting the dream manifested. However, most of the times, visualisation is the next step. When we start on this path, we don’t even know WHAT we want! Sometimes, we just don’t even want to care if we know where we are going. At these times, if you just play with your imagination, you can gain access to stuff you never even believed existed inside of you. I remember when I was pretending to have a conversation with my “friends” about my imaginary job and it just dawned on me that that’s what I want! This is the kind of lifestyle I feel comfortable in, and this is the kind of work I need to do. This has helped open some doors that I never knew existed.

Now I can understand some people will call this exercise flaky and even mental, but I am not asking you to start talking to yourself on the streets, you know. All I am saying is give yourself permission to loosen up. There are other realities out there waiting to be lived.

When the rain is no longer cool

When the rain is no longer cool,
When the drops don’t reach your face,
When the heat inside
Burns everything that come near,
Then building a snow mountain will not soothe the singe –
It will only freeze your heart
And trap the boiling lava
Inside the walls of ice
The smoking fire, the searing pain
Will battle to burst through
But the solid barriers will keep the inferno
Locked in
Slowly, the pain will dull and fire will cool down
Eventually, ice walls will become real
And the flowing fire a thing of legend
Pain’s existence will be denied
Smooth as marble, the heart gleams with grandeur
Gets polished, and revels in its shimmery splendour
And get ready to live on forever

But one day, a decisive blow will succeed and
Form an inevitable crack, reaching the core of the heart
Where the embers of the long forgotten fire
Still remain –
Smouldering, simmering, seething – to be let out
Gathering strength to burst out given one whiff of chance
Lying low, waiting for the day Fate will turn her eye
Turning the tides to send the waves of repressed liquid fire
To the glistening marble surface
Dripping form it like golden blood
Melting the frost all ‘round, ending the Ice Age
Tears frozen long time ago regain their liquid form
Smoke mingles with air
Turning everything sooty
“Reinforce the ice walls! Let the pain stay buried!
Fury of fire sears all, so stay away, stay safe!”
Fellow hearts weep at the ruin of the beautiful façade
Lament the blot on the landscape of paradise
Pain is ugly, fiery passion more so – so long, RIP

Now comes the wind with soothing spirit and healing airs
Out goes the soot, the debris blow away
The burnt marble castle crumbles
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, nothing remains
But wait! What dwells in the centre of this ruin?
Something shimmers, is it some polished stone
That miraculously survived?
Oh! It’s the molten ice!
Back in its basic form
The water flows free, fresh as ever
It gathers Sun and lets out pure delight
New life sprouts on damp earth
Ashes and dust already inside
Drops of liquid light
Roll down from smooth leaves of tall trees
Meet the grass and bring with them tales of the mighty, cleansing wind
The rain has come, though not form sky
Fresh air is breath and warm water the red blood
Heart is in a new paradise

About believing, knowing and experiencing: Why we go through what we go through?

“What you believe is what you get.” Sounds like a cliché? Well it is a cliché as it happens to be true. Most clichés are.

Can you remember the last time someone told you to “believe in yourself” and “never listen to the limiting beliefs” and “not to worry about what people tell you about yourself, but rather to trust your heart/God/loved one”? So what are these people talking about? Is it just a pep talk – from employers/coaches/parents to ensure you pick up your performance? The coach wants you to win that swimming trophy for the alma mater so s/he (see how I don’t give into gender biases – Shabana Azmi would be proud of me!) motivates you by telling you all this. Your parents want you to study more so they lay all this on you. So what do all these statements really mean?

I have come to know that really what I believe is what I manifest. Time is of no consequence here. The moment I “know” something, that becomes my reality and I start believing in it. Then everything that pertains to that “belief” manifests, as I deem such an even to be possible. So if I take a slow and steady approach, then it may take 10 years for me to believe something and then I will see it manifest or I can take the shadow of the whip approach and make things manifest right now.

As I grow – older and wiser (I really hope so!) – I feel I need to learn ways to change my belief systems. These comprise of the core beliefs that have already seeped so deep into my consciousness that I am not even aware of them anymore. But they are there, running in the background like programs, and they affect my thinking and my all my conscious effort. Whenever I have a thought that goes again my current belief system, that is, things that I do not “know” as yet, I immediately get another thought, “Hold it! That’s not possible or correct.”

The reason I feel so strongly that I need to access and thereby change or even eliminate completely my belief systems is that if I do not do so, my whole reason for coming here will be lost. I will have no experience to take back, nothing to show for my time here. After all, the reason why any of us are here is for the experience. It does not matter whether you believe in repeated cycle of births or not. If this is the only life I have then I need to have the experiences as they this is what is called living. If I will be born again with another life, I still need have as many experiences as I can so that I go into my next life a richer and wiser soul.

Until now, I have known logically that certain things are possible. I have done some pretty powerful and seemingly impossible manifestations for myself. I have seen amazing synchronicity happening around me all the time. Yet I have always felt that I keep living between two worlds – tangible and intangible. Is this what the Enlightened Ones call living in duality? Probably. For some time now, I have had this feeling that neither world exists. For the first time I realise what the smart people mean when they say “Time is an Illusion”. I feel that really, truly nothing might be happening – I must be creating my own experiences – such as feeling trapped, helpless and the other blahs that go with it (Eight of Swords, Five of Pentacles, Three of Swords, Ten of Swords and even Four of Swords all at once!). I also understand now what Buddha means when he is talking about “desires” being the root cause of all our miseries. He says “maya” (Illusion) in itself is not bad, it’s the attachment to maya that creates all misery. This is the reason we come back here again and keep accumulating “karma”. I feel that he meant, as did the other Enlightened Ones, that we look at something, we hear something, or sense something, and immediately “desire” to have this experience. And sometimes, that experience might be unpleasant as well. I can now feel it in my bones that the meaning of the words of Donald Shimoda (Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, Richard Bach) when he compares people choosing a kind of life to going to a movie. We create horrible experiences for ourselves in the same way that some people like to go and watch horror movies. The “desire” to experience the fear, the disgust, and the helplessness is there. We are looking to get scared. It’s like craving for food – we crave a certain experience and then go after it with a club till we get it. But once we are inside the experience, we start the blame game. We forget we were the ones who made the choices. We blame our situation, our parents, our friends, our luck, God and sometimes even our selves for the experience. We forget we asked for it.

But why do we forget? Because this desiring and manifesting happens automatically and we not even aware we have asked for a certain experience! Can you believe that? It’s like going into a video library with a friend and while you are talking with that friend, you absentmindedly pick up a movie whose cover seemed remotely appealing to you for whatever reasons. You go home and play the movie and you realize you have picked up a Z grade horror sleaze fest that you had no intention of watching. Now you blame your friend for talking to you, berate the guy who constructed the shop, condemn the people who made that street, curse the video library owner for being born, curse his mother for having him, and then ultimately you slam your parent for never ever telling you that you should not walk into a video library. Phew! So much emotional attachment to your two hours that were wasted all because you were not paying attention when you were picking up the movie. You made the choice, but you forgot that later!

This exactly how we live our lives. I am sure all ancient people understood this and thus told stories and legends of gods who came to Earth to “experience” the transient life of humans. Please note here, the key word is “experience”. We always have choice and we choose to be poor, rich, ugly, abused, stressed, pretty, whatever. In my case, I feel I must have seen people who had everything and every opportunity but were still not happy. Now, I sure I must thought the experience novel! What a paradoxical existence! (By the way, in this life I am thrilled by paradoxes and I find that standing in the ocean and dying of thirst is the most novel of them all!) To have everything and still feel deprived! Oh, the irony! Oh, the drama! Oh, the experience! So now tell me, is this a surprise that I feel like this?

“The superior man resolves to walk along, and is caught in the rain. He becomes bespattered and people murmur against him. Where is the blame in this?” – The I Ching

My current “desire” is to “experience” limitlessness. Life without boundaries…Now let’s see how soon I can manifest this. This will depend on how soon I can demolish all my existing beliefs. And this again is a belief! Imagine that! :)

I call upon my imagination…how about you?