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?