Pauses

a feeling in hindi

2011-01-27T08:21:00.000-08:00

Abhi tak woh zinda hai,
Jal kar raakh nahi bane hai.
Abhi tak woh zinda hai,
Us dastaan ki khushbi ne unko chua nahi hai.
Abhi tak woh zinda hai,
Bina mude, bina jhuke, bina khoye chale jaa rahe hai apni manzil pur,
Abhi tak woh zinda hain,
Girkar khude hone ki umang nahi jaagi hai.
Abhi tak woh zinda hain,
Kaise zinda hain,
Kaise nahi khoye hain,
Kaise usi manzil ke tukhe chale jaa rahe hai,
Jab jannat khud se mar kar hee mil paye...........

As the new year descends........

2010-12-31T06:21:00.000-08:00

As the year ends, as the new year descends I wonder is it simply a change of date and numerals, or is it something more. It isn’t really anything more than that i realize, not a real shift in anything existential, but in the psychological realm of life it leads to a shift within if thought about. A new year....bringing forth a sense of a new beginning, bringing forth the freshness of a new day, the sense that we can start all over again, that we can turn our follies into our friends, that there is a light at the end of a tunnel, something to move towards....a tomorrow.

As i sit with this feeling of a new year coming in............all i feel is a silence.............a silence that has taken much pain, much aloneness, much struggle to come to..........a silence where no mine or me exists, no sense of accomplishment or ‘i did it’ exists............a silence that comes with being in tune with something far bigger than which i can understand. A silence that descending into seems the most sensible, the most beautiful thing to do..........a silence that i urge to fill my whole life with. A silence that does not deaden, but a silence that is alive like the beautiful smell of mud after a heavy rainfall. A silence that builds a path, a silence that wills you in its own direction................a silence so overpowering and yet so invisible.

As i sit moving slowly towards the coming year.......i become more and more silent..............as though the eternal clock were ticking another chapter over, as though another era, another countless hours of sweat and toil were coming to an end for many and just beginning for many more, as though a new dawn were coming through..........as though a new consciousness were filling this planet...........and it was time to awaken..........time to awaken from the slumber we were comfortably tucked away in..............
This new year another call in that direction....another longing to deepen the space within........

2010-12-04T08:24:00.001-08:00

I watch, I stop, and then i look again..........
Theyre moving, theyre looking,
Theyre searching.......
In the diamond necklace,
In the cinnamon bun,
In the sari she just bought.......
They are searching for the same thing I search for.......
They seek too,
They look too........
I struggle,
They struggle too..........
I watch them,
They watch me too..........
And yet that that watches me..........
Do they watch that too?
The same game, a different name.........
A 100% involved....but life cannot leave a scratch on you...........
How to get there........
How to become the watcher............
How to play the game,
Involved, a 100% involved but untouched...........

2010-08-13T02:00:00.000-07:00

Last night was the most restless night I've ever had in my life. I didn't sleep a wink the whole night. I've been a case of a severely incorrectly put implant, followed by infections in my teeth and sinus for the last 4 years. Now they say its an infection in the bone and the dentist has punctured my gums at way too many places leaving me to nurse a severely swollen cheek.
I don't really like to talk about it because its too much for my own mind to handle really....but yesterday night I felt the pain moving rapidly from my swollen upper teeth region to the jaws towards my ears and down my neck and up my head and face. My ear, neck and head were becoming numb and I had this feeling of dread and despair set into my heart. I experienced immense fear within me, immense lack of faith and just a huge huge feeling of stress, strain and immeasurable fear within me. All the light I had been experiencing within myself, the settling feeling within myself that I was experiencing was overpowered by the immense fear I began to feel. My mind started to race beyond my grasp with all kind of ideas - could it be the infection travelling into the brain and heart, am I going to die..........the fear of death lunged over me like a dark dreary shadow that none of my beautiful poetic thoughts or the love that I believed I had brought into my heart could take away.
I sat to meditate in the wee hours of the night............just silent, just still.......there were a few moments I allowed myself to be, but the tension within me, the fear in my mind were too overpowering, too stressing.......made me too restless to sit. I was scared..........scared of my death..........scared of my death to such an extent that all faith, all love, all compassion, all beauty died. All the beauty that I had begun to see life with, that I believed I had finally found my path towards devotion just cracked and fell on the floor....I felt a huge, bludgenous hole in my devotion, a huge hole in my trust, in my faith.
It scared me.............it scared me at how alone I was, at how miserably scared I was..............at how my faith was so shallow, so hollow that fear of pain, fear of suffering, fear of death immediately made me so vulnerable to myself. It scared me that even those which I held in the highest of reverence, I could not feel their grace because of a darkness enveloping me. All the feelings within me of love and devotion just seemed to evaporated into thin air. I felt like an utter utter fool........................so much talk with the heart, of the heart, of love, of so much yearning and longing...........yet when death came face to face with me in the night............I was alone.....................I was miserably alone.......................
Today I feel miserably lost.............all this love, all this beauty that I was feeling..................what was it? Was it so fickle that when the moment came they just evaporated?
The only and only thing I experienced during this whole period was a certain stability on a level different from the mind. Through the fear, through the sitting up all night, through the pain, through the uncertainity.........something was there which kept me stable compared to ever before...........it was almost as though there was a distance, an every so slight distance, a space of fresh air between the despair, the dread and that something within me.
All this love and devotion seems like such a farce to me right now.....................that I will be in such love that i would be willing to happily die. That is not a truth for me.........the only truth for me I realize right now is that I must work to create that energy around me in such a way that what is happening does not touch me...............the fear, the stress, the tension may be there but I remain untouched................I experienced a small aspect of that today.................but it was not some huge faith in anyone that kept me stable as I always thought in my mind............during the fear if I told my mind to think of that which I hold in reverence, even that did not help at all....................it was the energy around that I experienced taking me through..........it was a surrender to the energy that gave me those moments of peace within..............There was no love in it......simply an intensity......................devoid of anyone or anything..........

The mind is more unsettled than ever before....for its ideas of devotion now make no sense at all. A restlessness and yet a feeling of being more straight enters.....I realize this mind will never know........

2010-08-11T05:48:00.000-07:00

I ask where I am going….
A silence responds
I ask what I am doing….
A vast emptiness I feel
I ask what is to become of me….
A smile of ease touches my lips
How have I come here?
How has this happened to me?
I find myself being set free.

Till yesterday could not let go,
Felt misunderstood, my worth unproved,
To find that which I stood out at my only mission and goal….
Three months..the first flower starting to blossom…
A new door being sent my way..
A new call, a new direction which I never anticipated….

I resist to open it, for no sense to me does it make,
Ridiculous, senseless, ‘not for me’ I find myself saying….
Yet something within longing to open that door now….
Something within more ready than ever before..
Should I wait? Am I not ready?
Many questions come my way….
But in the silence, when those questions fade….
I know that in opening that door I am following the voice of my heart.

2010-08-04T11:22:00.001-07:00

I had forgotten….
But He came searching……..
He knew………

Complacent in myself I had started to become,
He came and created chaos in my order once again,
He knew………

Feeling better, moving towards what I wanted,
Broke the illusions of where I was going, left me stranded again,
He knew……

Okay I was here, creating a niche for myself began to settle down,
Turned everything over again, made me search again,
He knew………….

Had grasped it in my hands, had a grip over myself I had begun to feel,
All was lost as he came and blew the floor from beneath my feet…..
He knew…………..

Seeking less, more comfortable I had started feeling…….
Uncomfortable he left me feeling again…..
He knew……….

Shades of a woman....

2010-07-28T02:17:00.000-07:00

A composition I just completed yesterday.........

Dance my dearest companion,
Left me last year with an injury the body could not sustain,
Tried I did so hard to hold on....but had to let go with endless pain.
Something within longing to find expression,
Art I did befriend....
Dance to it did my fingers, to its ways I found my heart lend.
Dance oh dance on paper,
Dance oh dance within,
Burning, burning....what is the way?
What is the way to the edge of night and day?

'Good and bad divide oneself'

2010-07-25T10:53:00.001-07:00

It’s almost like walking around with something else walking along with you. You can do what you want, be what you want, act all you want………but there is something very subtle watching all the time. That something is bringing tremendous freedom.
I always used to look at perfecting myself as a human being……..at some level it was so strong the need to perfect myself, to overcome my limitations and grow that I had almost grown very very dry, I now realize…shut myself in….living with a half constipated smile on my face.
At some level I had not really overcome my needs and desires, and yet the need to perfect myself had made me ensure that I termed these needs, these desires as ‘inappropriate’, ‘unnecessary’, ‘not good’, ‘low’ and was a very ‘good’ and ‘proper’ person in this world in my eyes. And now I see how so many of my acts were always ‘good’, ‘moral’, ‘correct’…..and the more of those I became, the more away from life I became….the more I was not living life but ensuring that I stood upto what I considered being a spiritual and righteous person ‘on the path’ in this world. Doing for those in need, teaching, welfare for society, volunteering to become more divine in nature and less human, eating proper proper food, all kinds of things to ensure that the label of being a very very ‘good’ person stuck onto me. As I got involved with yoga and meditation, this became even stronger….this need to do good and be good and become perfect as a human being. It grew strong and I became more and more frusterated internally.
The frusteration of ‘following the righteous path’ became so strong that I couldn’t understand why all these people who would do what they liked and eat what they liked and speak as they liked seemed so much happier than me who was nothing but miserable from within. Initially I declared within myself that these people were ‘unfit’ for spirituality, for the higher realms of life as I was so much more disciplined and regimental than they were, as I had done many more ‘good deeds’ in the world than they had. I knew that I was following the right route, of conscious self deprivation…….the only problem was why were they so happy and me so miserable?
I think it is only when I stayed at the ashram for three months this year………was part of an enormous process where the devi temple was consecrated and then spent time with the rejuvenation centre at the ashram that I started letting go of some of these ‘morals’ that I held in my head. A few times I said and did things that I thought were so right and proper, because they were completely following the ways of society, the rights and wrongs that are imbibed within us……..and that’s when a swami I greatly respect at the ashram said to me………’you and your stupid morals’, after which he said something I would have completely tabooed my mind to. That however, opened up a great window for me when I started looking at it more closely. It was true………so much of me was made of morals though I never realized it. I was never taught morals or never read any spiritual teachings, but these morals were all societies dustbin……how to be, how not to be, what to say, what to think of yourself of others, it was almost as though everything was unconsciously registered as a moral…as this is the ‘right’ way to do something. Slowly as these ‘ideas’, these ‘morals’ started to break, I felt fear, tremendous fear….how could I live without knowing what was right and what was wrong?....But as I silently watched them they brought tremendous freedom.
It felt like after centuries when I listened to something within again………I gave myself freedom to just be………I gave myself freedom to indulge, to involve itself…….being conscious, watching the whole time……….it brought a new way to my life, to the way I did things, to the way I viewed people, to the way people viewed me. I found I was making friends, talking with people I would have earlier considered completely morally inadequate. I was doing things I loved without constantly being guilty about it not being ‘socially worthy service’ or the noble way to liberation. I was eating food and enjoying places I would have otherwise discarded as ‘not good’. For the first time I started to truly experience a happiness within myself……….when I did what I liked, what I loved…….It is still an imposition sometimes from people around…..’good/not good’……..but I find myself more conscious of it…….more willing to see that in this existence there is no such thing as good and bad……….understanding my guru, Sadguru’s words…….’good and bad divide the world’. Really, in my experience they do……….they divide oneself…….

2010-07-19T10:39:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I met a very well known artist/potter. I had a chance to show him some of the stuff I was working on and get some suggestions from him on drawing and painting. He is more than 80 years of age...has grown up in Shantiniketan with Rabindra nath tagore and also worked with Gandhi. His childlike way of looking at things was very beautiful though. With each thing one could see he was fully involved, feeling the space around him......he showed my his own sketches from his student days more than 60 years ago....looking at the yellow pages of the notebook it felt like holding a old treasure. But it was so interesting to see how he drew....Earlier when he told me that there was stiffness in my hand and I should loosen up, I kind of understood....but when i saw his work, it opened something up within me.
Today after that meeting when I drew I felt something different from within.....as though i had loosened up....as though it didn't matter. I realized how on an unconcious level one gets so attached to what one is making, one is so conditioned to being right or wrong.....but his saying - nothing is wrong or right...even though i knew it....when i drew without hesitation, without worrying about the right'ness' or wrong'ness' of what i was doing....drawing became a totally different experience. I felt like i was just simply flowing with the drawing..........these are some that came out of that experience today.....
This letting loose is something I want to bring more into me as I work.....this state of being very intense and aware and yet relaxed...............

2010-07-17T03:44:00.000-07:00

What to say,
Standing in my own way.
A call that persists,
To move on despite tremendous fear it insists.
A constant voice inside,
So much noise outside.
Poetry slowly fading away,
Standing in that space between night and day……
No answers coming, trying to be that is all,
How to disentangle the ropes.. how to fall……………

2010-07-12T05:54:00.000-07:00

This composition began as I started to sketch a girl in my studio who was busy working on her canvas. There was something very Indian and delicate about the way she had worn her salwar kurta, her long hair tied in a plat and the dangling earrings. As I looked around for objects that would match that ethinic feeling, I saw a tanpura lieing in the room.....I've always wanted to make a brick wall, so decided to have the girl looking over the brick wall and the tanpura placed against it........as though the girl had just gotten up to look at the evening sky after a day at rias with her music. As the picture began to come to life I added the colourful birds and the money plant on the side as an extension of the girl's beauty itself....and her slippers off to indicate the comfort and groundedness of the girl with nature...........

Sweetness filled within, she looked out,
So beautiful this creation of the creator.....
To merge her only longing,
To become one with that she loved...
Was sweetness simply the essence? Awareness the only way?

Lillies and flowers in the jar....

2010-06-30T08:34:00.001-07:00

A friend gave me these beautiful yellow lillies on my birthday a few days ago.......I've been meaning to draw flowers in water colours for a long time and this seemed like the best time......It was sooo lovely for me to sit with these flowers and work....i felt as though their freshness were entering into me...........
In the process of this also learnt how to do my first 'watercolour wash' in the background....was also suggested that a very light background may have also been another option to bring out the brightness of the flowers.
Oh beautiful beautiful yellow lillies.................

This is another one i finished today........I used watercolours, pencul colours and also shaded with a normal lead pencil on top of the watercolour and seperately on the flowers. I thought i would give a background colour to this but my art teacher today made me see how the impact of the flower jar and the two women would be lost if I were to add colour in the background........
I've given it a few days to sit around and come back to it.........to look at it again and see what i feel.........

The way in.....

2010-06-28T10:48:00.001-07:00

Stifling, feeling caged in……
Roaring seas,
Turbulent waters
A storm, a tornado, a hurricane within……..

Why? O Why?
Me, o mine…….
I ………I ……..
All that is mine….o why?

No reasons…….
No surprises…….
Watching, observing, witnessing in and out……..
Stopping, stopping……….

A gasp, a whiff,
Open the windows……..let the fresh air in……….
How to become free?
A way out…the way in?

My first still life in water colour

2010-06-18T10:32:00.000-07:00

Tried out my first whole still life in watercolour........was really fun but once I started putting the paint on the red cloth.....it was like a race against time!!!! Water colour dries really fast and if you want to add shades it has to be done when its wet. So the drapery is ofcourse really novice......but was interesting to do it. Tomorrow I'm going to ask my art teacher to show me the actual techniques of working with watercolours....it helps me to do it in reverse....to try a few things out myself first to get a feel of it....and then learn its actual technique........
A beautiful medium though.............i loved the green sparkling gems :)

The box of jewels.......

2010-06-18T03:47:00.000-07:00

Since I first started making this one everyone was asking me....so whats the story behind the painting??
Actually this composition stemmed out of me wanting to mix still life shading, faces, hands, figures, leaves, the use of water colours..all in one painting.
The first thing I had drawn on the sheet was the box....as I started shading it, it started looking so tempting to me....I started imagining it to be this box that held something fantastic in it....something of intrigue and awe.....that's where the girls expression who is about to open the box comes from. As though she is absolutely intrigued by the box and wants to open it.......'desire, lust'.....
Then came the necklace and earrings....symbolizing something beautiful and precious...the blue lady holding the earring behind her back...as though hiding something away.......'greed'...and pointing to the box telling the other lady that there was something inside this.........
Then came the woman telling the blue lady to be quiet.......as though she did not want the blue lady to reveal the secret inside that box to the other woman........'possessive'

At some level as i made the drawing.......I felt the box symbolizing a holder of all our hidden desires, needs, wants.....the woman opening the box...a symbol of ones lust to possess these desires for themselves.......and the other two woman as other people racing towards the same desires.....finding ways to manipulate the other from reaching first.....
as for the story..........it is your own to tell...........

Jungle surrealism

2010-06-13T10:45:00.000-07:00

The pain, the passion, the strength....of the feminine

2010-06-13T10:41:00.000-07:00

Beautiful day!

2010-06-08T10:28:00.000-07:00

Made this painting sitting outside my art class today. I had been waiting for a day when the weather was nice and pleasant to sit outside and draw plants and trees outside and today was the perrrrrrrrrfect day. It was absolutely amazing. It actually felt like I wasn't in India but in Seattle in US at my sisters place. So sat outside to draw my first tree.
As I began to draw the tree the complexity of its structure started to make me kind of tizzy at one point! I didnt realize how the tree was divided into so many trunks and sub-trunks and sub-sub trunks and so on and then the leaves were also divided into leaflets.....was really interesting actually but was overwhelming to start with. It was a really fresh experience for me. When I showed my art teacher she told me to work alot on the shading of the branch which was very hard in my case. She said I had put hard lines on both sides of the branches and had not given the softness of shading. So have decided to practice drawing and shading roundish objects and smaller parts of the tree...the leaves, the trunk, the branches etc....
Its amazing to see the detail that is there in the smallest of smallest leaf and even blade of grass. I think observational drawing has really improved my observation power of things around me and also made me see the enormity of what creation has put into each and every little thing there is on this planet. When I walk in the park these days I am able to observe the creepers, the texture of the bark and branches, the leaf shape,size and colours, the way the wild grass is spread out near the trees, even the shades of the mud, the slight swaying and movement, the leaves falling sometimes, the soft sound the leaves on the tree make sometimes..........its so beautiful.
Today after this class many other things happened on different fronts and for the first time i see myself looking at why painting, dance have such a pull for me.......the longing I am just beginning to see is not in the action of them but the source within myself which is free of any action itself..............

Hope........

2010-06-07T07:04:00.000-07:00

2010-05-26T10:47:00.000-07:00

Made this at my art teachers studio today...........
Still haven't completed it....want to add a flower to the right hand side of the composition....but just found out that tomorrow is Buddha Purnima! What a coincidence! So decided to post this today..........

2010-05-17T04:04:00.000-07:00

A longing, a deep growing pain,
A longing, like a deep thirst that is impossible to quench,
A longing, a constant uneasiness, the dreary tiredness it brings,
A longing, like a burning flame within, as though the flames were becoming wider and wider and encapsulating my whole being.
A longing, masked by so many desires, so many ambitions to fulfill.
A longing, hidden in the shadows….its voice a constant calling.
A longing, as though one were going to explode in its energy.
A longing, unsure of what it is, unsure of where to go with it.
A longing, taking me on journeys too fearful to tread on my own
A longing, making a timid mouse a lion
A longing, burning up the body in its love
A longing, to expand, to break open, to break free.
A longing, no end and no beginning.
A longing, no goal, no destination.
A longing, the passion, the beauty, the ecstacy.
A longing, simple and yet profound as profound can be.
A longing, for each cell to resonate with the longing…….
A longing, for only the longing to remain…………

2009-12-14T04:34:00.000-08:00

As I look back..........I begin to see more and more clearly how this whole journey started. This journey that has taken me deeper and deeper into my own self......this journey that has taken me deeper and deeper into a space of silence within those layers of noise.........this journey that has taken me more and more into a realm of peace and joy into my own being........this journey that seems to have no destination, no goal.......this journey that seems so purposeless and yet so exhilirating, this journey that seems so difficult and yet in synch with my hearts calling..........this journey that had a beginning when i first took a jump into the unknown calling in my life almost 4 years ago....this journey that some call seeking.........others call a path...........and which i call........a dance into the unknown.......

As i see it now.........this journey for me started with a search for true happiness in my life. Up until then I had studied in a good school, had a good education, found ways to fit into the ways of society, found friends that were adventurous and fun to hang around with, found a job that was in synch with what I believed was the right thing to do and had not failed to create a pretty good act for my life. I am not even sure when it started taking a hold of me.........this utter feeling of being tied........this feeling of being suffocated in my own being.........this stifling feeling that started taking a hold of me. It was the beginning of my search for happiness............and for me happiness meant doing what i really love. And that is where the search began. In the midst of my job I started studying for the medical entrance examinations the following year. It was my feeling that I wanted to do something to help others..............that doing something to help others would bring me joy and happiness. The way at that time that came most naturally to me was becoming a doctor.

A few weeks into my classes for the exam...........I lost my job. For me this was like someone taking away the very base of the ground that I stood on. With my sister and mother leaving the country in a few days, and me for the first time left in an alien city by myself................I felt the whole world collapse. I broke down and cried for days. I cried alone in my room........I spent time alone for days on end. And then I got an offer for a job. It was a really good job with a presigious company...........it would probably lead me to the status in the world that i hoped to achieve..............it was everything a computer science graduate would want to begin their career with..............but to me it was another dead end in doing things that my heart was not into. I went to visit the company and felt suffocated...........felt stifled. Everybody said it was like a dream come true..........I wanted to believe it was a dream come true...................but my heart wouldnt listen...........that is the first time I felt the call of my heart.............and i listened. I rejected the job offer and sat jobless for 3 months. Utterly confused, utterly aimless.................searching and searching day and night for a career, to do something, to study in a course, to learn something that I liked, that i loved. To find that happiness that I searched for. Now realizing after 4 years................that I was searching for joy in what I would do.

This search was so utterly desperate. It was as though my whole life depended on it. If I talk about it, it almost seems crazy.............the number of sites I looked up, the number of calls I made, the number of people I met, the number of places I visited, the number of times I made desperate attempts to find it.........to find that it............that it that made everything click!

Medicine led to education, education led to coporate training, that led to teaching in schools, which led to storytelling..............which led to dance. Dance......beautiful beautiful dance.................dance to me was like I had found my soul. When I danced I felt like I had found that soul that I had lost for lifetimes too many. When i danced I knew I had found it.............When i danced nothing mattered.................it was only dance................I loved it, I loved it so much.............I was ready to give up my everything for it.................And that is when I injured myself very severely. It was almost as though the universe were playing a nasty trick on me. When I had found my hearts calling, found what i loved the most..................it was snatched away from me. Injured, in pain, I continued trying..........trying so hard to dance.............hurting myself more, in more pain that ever..............but I could not let go. I tried so hard..........until my body gave up...............and I collapsed.

My body collapsed.........and yet the mind would not give up...............there was something more also within me that wanted to see my potential realized in my work, in what i did..................then painting happened. After almost 20 years of having left my paints aside.........they came back into my life........art came back...........sharing of art with children around me came.....................and yet still there was an underlying compulsiveness i felt in my system. I continued with it despite this feeling.......searching for schools of art............searching for teachers..................searching for ways to make my place in art.........my place in the world. But I couldnt understand if art was the reason for happiness in my life then how was it that i could go weeks on end without touching a pencil or paint, being involved in something else..........and be so happy.
That was when even art fell away....................................

When it fell..............something in me fell as well. There is nothing that I can point a finger on and say....this or that fell...........but in many ways I fell. The purposelessness, the aimlessness i felt within me was harsher than anything i knew. There was no reason, no purpose to anything if i wasnt aiming towards anything. There were days i would bury my head under the pillow with the feeling that i would loose my mind, that my head would explode.

In all of this uptil now............I did not write about one of the hugest thing that had touched my life in my search for happiness as i call it, more than 3 years ago. I had attended a yoga program with Sadguru........an enlightened master in the Isha ashram at Coimbatore more than 3 years ago. In the program we had been initiated into a powerful yogic process. For me that initiation had brought an experience that i can never verbalize. During one of the meditations I had experienced the absolute seperation of myself from my body, from my mind................it had left me in awe.............it had left me crazy..........but my mind could not deal with it, could not understand the enormity of it at all.......and so even though the experience had been replayed in my head several times........it was beyond all my understanding.

In the next 3 years of my time with Sadguru, with Isha............I had many life changing experiences, I even experienced the whole chemistry of my body transforming........my mind becoming stronger..........energies in my system that I never knew could exist. And yet through this all.........I could not let go of the strong strong desire within me to keep searching for happiness through what I do.

It was only in the last 9-10 months that I began volunteering with Isha in Delhi. For me volunteering began almost as no choice. Something within me had become so strong, some feeling was so strong........like a thirst.............which pulled me to Isha..........pushed me to get fully involved........do things that in normal circumstances would leave me bored and listless. I began to experience myself doing each and every task with such utter ease, with such little effort, with so much involvement.........the involvement I began to experience while cutting cucumbers into little pieces during kitched work at Isha became the same that I would experience as I sat sketching a drawing, the involvement I experienced washing dishes became the same as I experienced flowing to music as I felt myself dance...............................I could not understand how this was possible..................
A person who thought doing and happiness were so connected.................started realizing that the joy was not in what I was doing, but rather the joy was coming from involvement.........from uninhibited, unrestricted, complete involvement in anything and everything I was doing.....from sitting silently, to doing the most intense action.

As I began to experience this more and more...............I kept getting drawn.........more and more drawn......................towards what I still do not know..............but drawn towards that feeling of involvement, drawn towards that passion I experienced within myself in involvement............

As art fell off..............the beauty of this involvement became stronger. It was as though I had finally freed myself from the shackles of joy from what I was doing. The feeling remains.......that compulsiveness comes back sometimes............I experience more and more clearly that the compulsiveness comes as a shadow of fear. As fear of uncertainity, as fear of situations engulfs me.........a dark cover of compulsiveness takes over. Yet it is softer now.............gentler to me now.............we are starting to become more and more friendly to one another.
I think that friendship has been brought by faith. I cannot fully define it............the beauty that faith has brought............like a peace engulfing the soul. Faith...........something that I had lost within myself. Something that deep within me had lived, and yet I had completely removed from the concious level of my life. Such deep pain, such deep hurt...............I had forgotten, I had lost faith in something far bigger than myself.

It is a stage in my life where i feel 'i dont know' vibrating within me..............and when I give it a chance to vibrate with all its energy it brings freedom, it brings faith, it brings reverence. When I dont allow it expression and am engulfed by fear and doubt.........i feel a suffocation, a stifling. To bring this 'i dont know' as a constant vibration in my life my journey......................how this will happen, where and where not it will take me, what do i have to do to achieve it.................I realize I dont really know...................

Isha.....

2009-11-22T04:35:00.000-08:00

I've been remembering the ashram alot lately.....have really been feeling like going there but have been unable to due to some health issues. Today I spent some time sketching things that reminded me of Isha...........it was a very relaxing experience for me.....

Joys of Sketching.....

2009-10-28T06:23:00.000-07:00

Have started doing some still life drawing now. For the past year I had been experimenting with colours, playing with curves and forms of abstract paintings. I really enjoyed giving my feelings and emotions form and colours. But for the past while I was feeling a void.....as though something in me was feeling stuck because of my lack of drawing skills. I approached many people for learning drawing, but most of them said one doesnt need to learn drawing to do abstract. However, sometimes there was this feeling of being stuck.....because sometimes I simply wanted to draw, not necessarily express a feeling or sometimes I wanted to add the elements of shading and shadows to my work. I looked alot on the net and at some books for inspiration. A book by Alwyn Crawshaw...."You can paint still lifes"....was very interesting. I realized that creating still life compositions was itself a beautiful process and have really fallen in love with shading and shadows.....it is so beautiful to see how the light falls on objects, the shades depth creates, the tint of glass, the shine of steel, the shadows glass makes......Its exciting.......to draw the world around!

In the Jungle........

2009-10-26T05:05:00.000-07:00

A pencil drawing I made today....was a quick one.....but tried to use some of the basics of shading I've been working on........I realized that while shading alot of the surfaces...it is similar to the shading of a sphere, cone and tube.......need to practice more of those. I've called it "In the Jungle".........cause as I was shading and playing with it I started to feel the birds, bats, deers and other animals among the foliage..........felt like i was in the forest!....

Pottery 101....a rendevouz with centring.....

2009-08-23T01:20:00.000-07:00

Today was my first sit on the potters wheel! Actually my mother is a potter, so as a child I've grown up seeing her sitting on it. I had initially made a few attempts myself with the excitement of a wheel in the house.....but they were all attempts that I just left at that. As a child I remember getting extremely impatient with the process of pottery....of centring, of throwing, of lifting...........it required all too much patience. I would just enjoy the speed of the moving wheel and the touch of clay.....and do my own thing with the wheel and clay really....the few times that i did! Otherwise...my favourite part was watching my mother clean up the mess after she had done her work on the wheel....I look back and think the cleaning up almost had a strange healing effect on me as of from the completion of creating something.

Anyhow.......years and years of seeing pottery, it never ever struck me that I too would one day want to experience this art form for myself. "Pottery" was like old, comfortable furniture to me really.....just there all the time with you.....it was always there, always.....so one never really thought about it, one never really thought about what went into making it, what it was.

So when there came an inner feeling within me to try out pottery....I wasnt really sure what to make out of it. Me...and pottery.....we lived together our whole lives, but it was like we knew nothing about eachother, it was like I knew it so very well and yet knew absolutely nothing about it.

And so I went for my first pottery session today.

As soon as I entered, this lady that i was learning pottery from cut a piece of clay and began kneeding it grasping it in her hands with a steady firmness. I watched her and immediately felt an urge to run away. I knew this wasnt for me, i had always known........and why was i here, i had no idea anymore. With a very distinct difficulty I find in my hand and mental coordination, specifically when the activity requires a certain amount of patience and skill with objects in hands....I knew this was going to be impossible for me. Also always being more wild by nature, I enjoyed the "letting oneself loose" aspect that many art forms such as painting and dance accomodated. But with pottery the patience, skill and immense coordination required from the very first day of this art form seemed way toooo slow and way tooo precise for my liking. I wanted to run away there and then, but just stood there, almost like a rock not knowing what to do...I felt like my whole body had become stuck and stiff...and I felt something in me say....this is going to be a reeallly long session.

My teacher made a very tidy ball after kneeding it and handed it to me, telling me to now move towards the wheel. I watched as she wiped the wheel and firmly placed the clay ball in the centre. After that she began the process of "centring". As she began centring and explaining the technique to me, I could see her hands very firmly and solidly holding the clay in place. "You must not let the clay control you, you must control the clay" she said to me. I heard what she said, and it sounded quite interesting, but i had no experiential feeling to understand it really. She most beautifully demonstrated the process and then began the process of throwing....where she began opening up the clay and then lifting it from its walls. The whole time, it was just beautiful to watch the clay....the beauty with which she handled it, with which it was playing music with her fingers...............i was just enjoying the movement of the clay...the delicate look of it, and the intricacy of the whole process itself.

Ofcourse my poetic observation of it came to a sudden reality check, when she removed the sample pot that she had just created with one movement of her hand from the wheel, crushed it back to a blob of clay and said........"Okay, now you do it." So I thought, Okay shivani.........you've gotten yourself into this, so now enjoy the ride!....and most of all the patience with which you're gonna have to do this!

And so I began my pottery 101 lesson..........kneeding, centring, throwing and lifting..........

My first attempt was hard to say the least. I kept going back to my teacher with the "How to" questions, or the "Why is this happening to me" kind of questions. Kneeding looked quite easy among the list.........but was ofcourse a different story when I started doing it. "Too many air bubbles" or "too hard" or "too wet"...........each and every detail needs to be kept in mind. Centring, throwing, lifting....the clay was definately taking control of me....as my teachers words now started to make real and literal sense to me.

1 attempt, 2, 3, 4........I just wanted a small sneak preview of the experience of what centring was........but right now I wasnt even being able to touch it in any way....wobbly wobbly wobbly, oops...the entire clay piece just slided off wheel!!!....time after time...until that time.... And thats when it happened!

As I sat there, having asked my teacher for help, but feeling an unwillingness from the her side to respond to this need of mine....I realized it was my call to really put myself into this and make it happen. It was then that I decided... now I would take control..........I was going to control that clay.........but what did that mean? Did it mean more pressure, or more force? But thats what i had tried each time and failed badly in my attempts. Thats when I just fell silent........it was just me and the clay between my hands....that was all.

In that stillness is when I felt the essence of control.

It was the stability and firmness with which my hands grasped the clay, it was the absolute stillness of my mind that took control....and in that moment I had centred the pot....just like that!!!!!..............."I did it!!!!!" I almost jumped off the wheel as I shouted to my teacher, who came to check to see if I really had done what I claimed to do. She checked it with her own hands....and the smile said it all........."Yup, you've almost got it."

Pottery had taken a new meaning for me.............20 years of being with pottery, living with pottery, actually literally even eating and drinking with (out of) pottery all the time..............I had finally glimpsed the essence of pottery, I had for the first time experienced pottery for what it was. I felt something within me for the first time humble infront of my mother. I suddenly realized how much it had taken her to do this, to keep this up even through the most mentally and physically challenging times of her life...how centred she must have been within herself to be able to do this despite the external circumstances. I suddenly realized that there were many things I still had to learn............many many things I still had to experience...............there were so many things I still did not know..................patience, perseverance, stillness, humility.............the centring of the mind within ones being.................I was on a path of growth..........and every time it showed me that growth was an endless process and yet the most beautiful and fullfilling...............

A few to share.....

2009-08-15T08:07:00.000-07:00

2009-08-08T07:36:00.000-07:00

One of my recent experiments.......havent titled it yet.....

thank you....

2009-08-07T09:53:00.000-07:00

This mad mad frenzy to get somewhere,
Thank you for making me stop....even though it was painful....

This obsessive need for praise and approval, this inadequacy so deep,
Thank you for letting me see that in my bareness I was as beautiful as You.

This body that was moving faster than lightening, a mind that would not set it free,
Thank you for filling peace into the cells again.....thank you for giving it rest.

These people....the hurt they had caused me, the hurt so so deep, that I stopped feeling,
Thank you for letting me feel again, thank you for allowing me to open up again...

This pain...this pain that runs so deep.......so deep as though it would cover all the oceans and more,
Thank you for letting me see it....thank you for letting me see it so that I can someday hope to step out of it.

This "me" that I have become so obsessed with, this "me" as the beginning and the end,
Thank you for showing me my limitations....thank you for letting me know that there is a You beyond this "me"....

This love that I wanted to feel so bad and believed somebody was out there to give it to me....
Thank you for showing me that love was the main ingredient that you used to make me.....

Thank you...........today I just feel like saying..........thank you.

2009-06-08T05:36:00.000-07:00

I searched and searched,
I searched everywhere.
I looked and looked,
I looked and lost.
I thought I knew and I thought I knew again,
But everytime I found that it was not.
I looked in the eyes of each person I met,
I looked in the words of books.
I looked in a painting,
I looked in a tree,
I looked in what I was doing,
I looked in becoming something I always wished to be.
Each time I looked I came to a crash,
Until I stopped looking at all.
In the meaningless pit of all that was left around,
A glimpse of what I was searching for I finally found.

2009-02-12T10:07:00.000-08:00

Feelings, emotions - I want them to come today,
Allowing myself to feel again,
I want to give myself permission today.
You can cry, you can laugh, you can weep, you can smile,
Let yourself feel all the things around you,
Let there be that sparkle in your eyes.
So tired of those logical ones,
the sane ones they call themselves.
So tired of their righteous ways,
So tired of them always being so right, so straight.
Dont want to walk that road with them anymore,
Leave me to feel the feelings within,
Let me not get entangled with them,
But let me feel my way to the end, not think.
I want to feel the redness of my soul,
I want to feel the fire that burns within,
I want to laugh out so loud that I have tears in my eyes,
I want to feel the pain of those around,
I want to sing until i fall to the ground.
I want to bask in the light of love,
Put my mind to rest and not think anymore.
I want to dance, I want to paint, I want to play till I drop dead,
I'm tired of being sane, I want to be who I truly am when all is done and said.

2009-02-05T07:48:00.000-08:00

I never knew this within myself before.....I never knew how much baggage I was carrying from my past, how many people I have not forgiven for the hurt they have caused in me. I always thought I forgave easily, that even when people did injustice with me I could put up a smiling face with them afterwards and thought that I had moved on. But today I am engulfed with this huge feeling within myself, one I have not known within myself before....of unforgiveness, of not being able to forgive those who have hurt me so deeply, those that did me wrong, those that made judgements and remarks about me that were untrue, those that thought low of me, those that could not understand me, or misinterpreted what I said, those that said things to me that broke me, those that could just not understand me, understand what I needed. I feel an immense sense of anger, an immense hatred towards those people. I feel an immense feeling of injustice done towards me, I feel so misunderstood by them, which causes a deep feeling of helplessness. I am not sure how to cope with this feeling as it brings up so much anger and helplessness within, which I am not sure what to do about, not sure how to deal with. I am not being able to forgive today, and am starting to realize that in doing that I have made myself a victim of circumstances, I have trapped myself in a cage of my own making, I have let others guide my feelings and directions, I have let others cause me to become helpless.....the answer, the freedom lies in this realization.....but for now I simply observe this emotion....this emotion that seems to be lieing within untouched for so long.....this emotion causing pain that I never understood before...

2009-01-25T02:40:00.000-08:00

Today's painting....tried out a larger sized paper this time.....and in the outdoors :)

2009-01-24T06:05:00.001-08:00

Searching, searching....

Each one for the me within...

I watch the dancer finding voice through his movement,

The painter through his colours and pieces.

The singer through his voice finds connection,

The pianist as he creates tunes on his keys....

A desperate attempt to let that within outside,

A desperate attempt to find the me .....

There is silence as I watch them,

There is a burning inside.....

Expression a means....but not the end, not the ultimate dissolution....

Does it matter, for the joy that it brings beyond all else.....

Is the creator an artist too.....marvelling at the purposelessness of his creation....

2009-01-21T08:57:00.001-08:00

Flashes of fire emerge from within,

Release me, let me out of this misery of a body,

Pain, pain...how much more.....when does it end

Tired, exhausted, finished, done,

Longing become deeper than all else,

Leave it to me....I will take care comes the voice.

Too long you have tried to handle things,

Hand over your reigns to me,

Let yourself burn, burn more and more,

That's the way out....the burning.

2009-01-20T07:11:00.000-08:00

Another one from today.....I think i'm going to try something out on a much bigger sized paper after this.....it feels like dancing with colours! :)

2009-01-18T10:06:00.000-08:00

Tried out watercolours today....a glimpse from that.....

2008-12-17T01:15:00.000-08:00

I don’t understand it yet,
Soaking me in so softly, so tenderly, no need to understand it.
Drenched in this new ecstasy of being,
The feelings that had been shut off for lifetimes so many.
Coming up within me.
Bringing colour into the world,
Music into each movement of creation,
The feeling of the swaying leaves of the tree,
The feeling of the hot rays of the sun on my face in the chilly winter afternoon,
Feelings that each beat, each harmony in the music brings,
Intense emotions that the colours around me bring,
Smells and sounds I had ignored so long….
Sensations, so many sensations….that I had never known before.

Poetry my only connection to the verbal world,
Dance my only connection to the physical,
Music takes me into dimensions I cannot tread alone,
Art a means to see myself through the light of colours.
Gardening a way to touch that with which I begin and end,
I look, I look, noise then silence
Opinions, arguments, random blurting……
On the track to nowhere, yet in such a hurry to get somewhere….
Looking to compare, looking to find “what’s wrong”,
“Impossible” they say….. real world they call it,
struggle a part of life has become.

Freedom from the knot of thoughts,
For the first time in direct touch with the world…
Uncontrollable intensity….fear takes over,
What is happening?
Have I gone too far to ever come back?
Is there a line that’s not supposed to be crossed, that I’m crossing over into?
Back to my compulsive thoughts and actions….
Back to trying to consolidate the “me” once again.
But the cry of love so strong…..I will let go, I will come,
I will let the cosmic time decide when and how….
Giving in more and more the only way,
Giving in to that I don’t understand, so that I can merge into understanding itself….

2008-11-25T09:42:00.000-08:00

Wrote this after my dance class today....

They come together – each experiencing life in their own way,
Their own struggles and weaknesses they walk with each day.
Yet the blazing fire of love each one carrying in their heart,
Cries of “Open me up so that I can feel the dance in me again”, echoing from each part.

Different doors to their own being shut closed by each one.
For one it’s the pain in their body, concentration for another,
“I’m too old” for one, “I don’t have what it takes” for the other.
How to flow with these blocks constantly coming in the way,
“Just do it, keep at it,” she says, “Come what may.”

With passion burning deep within, each one keeps their garbage for this time aside,
It is only in this emptiness that into the zone of dance we glide.
As the twisting and turning begins, stuck in my own rigidity I feel,
Yet to work until my mind and body abides with myself I make a deal.

Emotions get a doorway through body and through sound,
As feeling gets an outlet, everything gets a new meaning around.
A turn is filled with passionate anguish,
A fall with crying pain,
A spin with the firm delicacy of a rolling top,
Walking with the steadiness of the falling rain.

Hour after hour, three hours go by,
The heart at peace, the body ready to cry.
I sit down for a moment, remembering when my journey into dance began,
So much within has transformed, words cannot describe it actually nothing can.
So many blocks I still carry, those fears still very much of me a part,
Yet dance gives me life, takes me closer and closer to my own being, it’s a passage to my heart.

2008-11-06T00:20:00.000-08:00

So long I have been longing,
Yet this mad world made me a madman too.
Running fast, racing to the top, has left me more exhausted than ever before.
What was it that I was seeking? What was it that I was searching for?
Searching for expansion, yet caught up in my own misery.
Sitting face to face with myself today, realize that there is nowhere to go,
Have paid the price of peace, for all my desires, all my stupid thoughts.
I look outside, the plants just sit, the clothes just hang from the wire.
The trees just stand, the flowers just bloom, but I am going mad.
What to do next? Where to go now? What am I to do today for tomorrow?
Should I do this? or maybe that? What is it that I should do?
Let me look this up, let me try this out, is this better for me or that?
Have I made a mistake, I'm sure I was better there, where should i be oh god.
This calculating mind I could not see, today I catch a glimpse,
For each thing it does the profit and loss is calculated first.
If I do this what if I'm left behind, if I do that what should i do?
Why can't I just live for once, without the constant how, when, why's.
It's been too long since I looked inside,
Outside I looked for happiness too long.
In the gratification, in the highs of life too long have I tried to find myself.
I see these people, I talk to them, they bore me more and more,
Those petty talks, those half witted jokes, just living life in its mediocrity.
They walk around sometimes up, sometimes down,
Unwilling to look deeper and deeper within.
Their laughs half hearted, their excitement from their accomplishments,
Half asleep, half alive, am I turning myself like that too?
What trap is it that I have weaved? Why is it so hard to break free?
Maybe I've just gone mad I tell myself.
These birds in the trap with me think this is their world,
What to do when you have tasted the bliss of the other side?
Oh heart of mine help me break free,Have lived in the confines of this cage too long.

2008-11-02T23:34:00.000-08:00

"Too emotional" they called me,

"Too sensitive" said some,

You have to change yourself, become more logical and real,

Stop all this nonsense of constantly having to feel.

And that is when unconciously I decided, that in the world a place for myself I would now make,

Rationality and reason would govern all my feelings, no more hurt from others would I take.

I dogdged all pain with my logic growing sound,

Meditated on become straight and shut down all involvement with life around.

Hurt I was less, but alive much lesser, the smiles grew less, the stoney face grew thicker.

But inside the beating heart that wanted to dance I could not deny,

In search of finding a balance I set out on a path so dry.

I would be logical and use my emotions to help others is the pact I made,

But as much as I tried the bubbling intensity of these emotions would not fade.

On this path of dipping into myself, my guru came and found me,

As much as I resisted such a being in my life, He shook every chord that was out of key.

"Who am I? What do you want from me?" My heart cried out in pain,

"I'm breaking down, I'm loosing myself, You're driving me insane!"

So many times I decided to let go, too much hurt had been suffered by this soul too long,

But His love so deep, this faith so strong, I had to trudge along.

"You're so young, so naive, you still have a life ahead" said all those people around,

"She's lost her mind, she doesn't know what she's doing, stop flying and come back to the ground"

The screams, the cries, the resentment grew strong, even those on the path could not understand what I searched for,

So many judgements, so many false statements made, each person carrying a heavy heart.

That is when it came to me - "How long will others decide how I feel? How long will I not listen to my own soul?"

"How long will I look towards others for solace?

"How long will I deny the presence of His eternal grace?"

I broke down that day and felt the pain of not knowing engulf me, for the first time I knew what longing meant.

And that day is when something so beautiful touched me, that even now I am not sure what has been sent.

The intensity so deep, the love so pure, had I been waiting for this all my life and more?

Was the search over or had it just begun....what else was there in store?

My body and mind cried out in fatigue, "stop it, we can't take it anymore".

That is when I realized that the journey was just beginning. This was an ocean with no shore.

Take me with you, make me fly in your colours,

I long to go deeper into what it is you are,

Take my fears and bring them to light, take my sorrows and bring them joy.

I don't know where this path takes me, I have given up for you are too sweet to let go,

All I want now is to traverse in those unknown dimensions, all I want now is to know.

2008-10-16T08:38:00.000-07:00

I always used to wonder why when people talked endlessly, stood in the limelight, part of me wanted to be that way, yet another part knew it could never find peace there. And then I changed myself to become all that.....I became loud, and tried to be funny and tried to make my own special place.....wanted to be known as "different" by people. I got all that....and thats when it was so useless, so not what I wanted. It was all snatched away from me, and I became lower than i ever had. Without the crutch of "self confidence", which comes straight from the ego, i was left handicapped, stuck in a world where people were always trying to prove their point, tell you how you were one notch less compared to them in some way or the other. I kept taking it in, knowing that I wasn't, but being unable to use my crutch as a means to prove myself a little better than them. Finally, it came head on...this feeling of inadequacy, not beign good enough, being less than others. It became such a dominating factor, that i felt i would burst. Why was i feeling this way when i knew that was not true?

And today i find something in me coming to terms with this feeling....it feels almost like lifetimes since I've been able to breathe again without the constant need of approval from others, finally being able to feel, let myself open without being worried about being hurt. Today i realized the power is within me, that source of everything is inside, that silence that we call god is within, then why do i look to others for strength, for approval, for acceptance. In my gentleness people see weakness, in my compassion people see pity, in my sensitivity people see someone who cannot do anything. I realize there is no need to demonstrate that which lies within to the world, no need to close them out, no need to do anything. Let them be, and let me be......and in letting myself just be, I find myself become lighter again........I'm coming back home to myself again.

2008-10-16T08:31:00.000-07:00

Always looking for the crowds,
Today in my solitude I find rest,
Always wanted to be one of the "special" few,
Today in my ordinariness finding the extraordinary.

I'm tired of making myself being heard,
Tired of putting up facades about who I am,
I know nothing anymore, I am broken, I'm bruised,
Let the world move together, I simply stand by myself.

I watch them talking, I hear them laughing,
What is wrong with me I wonder,
I see Him everywhere, I breathe him inside,
Only to talk to Him, only with Him, in silence do I find peace.

There is a fire burning, can't extinguish it anymore,
Accepting the silence within, I leave the bustling crowds and take leave,
This journey must be tread alone,
Very very alone, yet Him with me every breath of the way and beyond.....

2008-09-24T01:37:00.000-07:00

I read this poem by Hafiz, and really liked it...

Someone Should Start Laughing
I have a thousand brilliant lies For the question:
How are you?
I have a thousand brilliant liesFor the question:
What is God?
If you think that the Truth can be knownFrom words,
If you think that the Sun and the Ocean
Can pass through that tiny opening Called the mouth,
O someone should start laughing!

Someone should start wildly Laughing –Now!

2008-09-12T08:53:00.000-07:00

"Normal"...I've heard this word from so many people in different ways. What exactly does normal mean though i wonder. It's one of those words that is completely open to interpretation by whomsoever is defining the word normal. Now for me normal may be totally different from your normal.
But I think the society has created "normal" based on the majority. To me it almost suggests mediocre, ordinary. "Why dont you live a normal life?" "Normal people get a job and get married" "Why don't you act normal sometimes?" These questions seem to be on many peoples tounges while conversing with me these days. Especially many people who knew me in my childhood and cannot in their wildest dreams imagine that someone who was so "sane" in their eyes, so "normal" in their view can suddenly turn so "abnormal".
In fact all these thoughts just came up as I got one such sympathy call from an old school friend. It was a rather concerned call i would say, genuine concern.....concerned about me turning so abnormal and how I would live my life in the future. She even gave me the universal advice....normal people get married at this age, are you going to live like this your whole life.
When I questioned her about who exactly she considered normal people, ofcourse I was faced with a ..... there is no hope for you.
I am realizing that these thoughts, these opinions are going to increase in the coming time. Sometimes, a few times they knock you on the head and you start questioning, and one of the biggest issues that creeps up from the back door is... fear. It brings with it the huge...."What if?" "What if i loose out?" "What if regret the way i'm leading my life right now?" "What if theyre right?". There is so much fear of doing things different, not falling into the normal pattern of life. But i also realize that the what if is only a means of the mind trying to figure out the profit and loss of life. But the beauty of life does not lie in profits and losses, what you win or loose. The extraordinariness of life does not lie in making sure that we are safe or that we have kept sufficient back up in our life...just in case something went wrong. The enormity of life lies in dwelling in the unknown, the unexplored, the insaness of what it is.............becoming insane, completely insane from the inside. In fact, you can be completely "normal" from the outside.......so normal that no one has a clue whats going on inside. Yet the insides of you are completely insane, completely going crazy, always exploring unknown terrains...........thats the way, the only way out of mediocrity......its the way to a place where normal has no meaning left anymore......or rather you realize the true meaning of the word - "normal", simply the way the universe intended you to be.

2008-09-09T10:09:00.000-07:00

How big we make this one,how important we make all its problems and ideas. Today I feel so small, so insignificant, so tinyin this vast cosmos. I feel like a spec of dust so tiny, making my issues so huge that I have come to believe that my petty issues are so important to the flow of this cosmos. Today I simply feel like a bundle of issues, a bundle of problems, a bundle of things that have no end.

What am i doing is the question that ceases to go away right now. I know its answer is of no value, because actually none of us really know what we are doing.....the beauty essentially lies in just doing. But my constant web of thoughts has taken away this privelage from me. I experience its ecstasy off and on a few days.....just being, just doing.......but then just like it came it goes away. And I am once again left gasping for air, for dear life, for some breath to save me from drowning in this misery that i have created out of my self.

Today I really feel like an issue. A huge issue.......one layer over another, over another.......I am endlessly searching for that pit, that emptiness.......I feel tired and broken today.......I have no energy to fight, to resist, to talk, to cry.........I'm starting to feel this absolute futility in writing too.....like its of no use, of no value....just giving words to those thoughts, those emotions that I want out of.....that I want to be free of.........I'm tired of this inconsistency, this facade that I see all around.........I think I'm just tired.......

2008-09-07T06:35:00.000-07:00

It is for the first time in my life, i feel this strange sort of ease in what im doing. Like i dont need to prove myself to anybody, nor do i need to be involved in welfare of any kind, nor do i need to become this or that by doing it, nor do i need to prove to myself how creative and talented i am - some of the neurosis that goes on. It is the first time I feel completely disidentified from what I am doing, yet I do it with the simple reason that it gives me peace and I feel like I am always enveloped by his grace, yet I dont have to do it either, for it is not me. Dance has given me this.

I have been with dance for almost 5 months now. 5 months that have probably been one of such intensity, that we say it has been 2 years. Out of these 5 months, 2 of them were more or less a mind created hell for me. Actually, the story in short went that after 3 months of being with my dance teacher, she had a dance tour going abroad. It was a very prestigious dance tour and she asked me to be a part of it. I was elated, I felt on top of the world, I felt this was my chance to become a real dancer. Somewhere I knew it didn't matter peanuts whether i went or not, but somewhere else i could see my senses, my ego inflating faster than i could control them. Within a few weeks of this, there were certain problems, certain issues that creeped up on the policy front...being a government agency there were certain requirements that I couldn't meet due to reasons beyond my control.........and just like it had come, this opportunity was snatched away from me.

I remember feeling like nothing had changed, I was just back to square one...........but my mind had gone on a ride of its own. Suddenly, i was left aimless, jobless...suddenly there was no purpose that otherwise I had been working towards. 4 months that were meant to be crunch preparation towards me becoming a dancer, were gone just like that. I was so devastated. My teacher felt my pain, and hoped that even though i would not be going, I would be fully involved with the rehersals, helping her with costumes, props and participating in whatever way i could. I agreed because there was such a huge urge in me to dance, that I had to put everything aside to learn what i loved.

Preparation started, a replacement for me came in, rehersals began.............and my mind started talking, or rather screaming. I couldn't take being just another person on the side...I was supposed to be special, different, important! "Why was I doing this? What would i get out of this? Why do i keep torturing myself like this? Everyone except me is going to get something from this. I'm getting such less attention from my teacher because now she doesnt care about how i dance, only the dancers are important." These were some of the thoughts in my head. It was literally like forcing myself to get up and reach there, just because something kept pulling me. I was miserable. Absolutely aimless. And about 2 months into this.........i broke. I couldnt take it anymore. I felt insulted, pathetic, unimportant and like a nobody. I remember coming home and bawling. As I was bawling, suddenly I was aware that I was watching myself bawling and had no idea why the hell I was crying. But I cried and cried till every aspect of my face was swollen. I think I cried like this for about three whole days. And most of the time I was totally unaware why I was even crying. But I knew something huge had broken within me....that constant sense of being different and special....which is the fire that sustains our ego.

And then almost like the fresh fragrance of spring appears after the ghastly winter........something happened. It didn't matter anymore. It didn't matter what I was doing. It simply didnt make a difference. For the first time I felt I was starting to become straight with myself. I was telling myself the truth. The two years that i had been searching and searching for what I wanted to do, what i was good at, was me trying to seek and find an identity for myself. I wanted to do what i was good at, so that my true worth could be realized. I wanted to become something, make it maybe. But suddenly i realized, it didnt matter....that is not what made me who i truly and really am. I started realizing how stuck i had even been about the idea of teaching. I knew i was good with children, but i had become compulsively attached to the idea of what a wonderful teacher i would make. Or about becoming a writer, poet or dancer.......so that i could share my creative thoughts with people. But it was the first time i had the experiential realization that what i did made no difference at all.

And thats when dancing became pure joy for me. It was beautiful for me to just watch the dancers preparing, to just simply be in the very presence of dance. I was no more tortured by thoughts of not getting the attention i deserved as a dancer. In fact, I found my need to become that dancer was gone. I was now doing it because it was beautiful and I enjoyed it immensely...nothing else. But it became truly beautiful because now its compulsiveness had died. It is the first time in my life i have really experienced the joy of just being.

2008-09-05T10:15:00.001-07:00

The irony yet the beauty, the meaningless of it all,
One endless show - the ups, the downs, the rise and the fall.
So ecstatic so joyous, how has it remained hidden for so long,
It can be found in the dead of the night, in sweeping the floor or in the lovers song.
The longing – so tremendous it becomes,
Bit by bit makes me to itself succumb.
The bending though painful, so joyous, ready to bend a thousand times more,
Take me with you, blow me away, I’m ready to soar.

2008-09-02T02:38:00.001-07:00

So many lives have lived in one,
Beyond comprehension his ways have become.
The sweetness of existence setting in bit by bit,
The illusion of this urgency felt at moments.
Slow down the pace, nowhere to go, no race to win,
There is nothing to achieve, simply to live is all,
The madness of this mind, the games it plays too hard to fathom.
In letting go the key exists,
He wants to take care but the reigns hard to hand his way.
What beauty, what peace, it all lies within,
That single moment, that single realization, the whole creation is within.

A few days ago, my friend made a very interesting remark. We were travelling somewhere together in the car. Having met after almost 6 months we both had alot to share about our lives, our thoughts, our feelings. I just feel talk is so useless now, but I think shes one of the few people i do still indulge in conversation with.

She was a consultant with a company in Ireland for almost 20 years, travelled extensively, earned millions, left everything, and has moved to the ashram where she teaches children full time. She's one of those people who is filled with passion and love for things around her, yet isn't afraid to live life to the fullest. As we were talking all seriously about things, she said to me - "Shivani, how does it matter what you do anyways, its all time pass!" We both laughed hysterically at the rashness yet underlying truth the comment held. If you ever made this comment to one of those "serious" people they would say youve spoken blasphemy! Because isn't it all about their business or what they're doing for the society or their children, how can you ever call their life which is so important a time pass for crying out loud. But the beauty of it lies in the fact that you can live your life to the fullest, given all you have to each moment you are here, totally involved with whatever work youre doing and loving it with all your heart.......yet knowing that in the end it really doesnt matter at all.

2008-08-27T10:59:00.001-07:00

I read this book called "The White Giraffe" today. It was filled with the smells and sounds and landscapes of Africa.....it just made me feel so raw...so close to the basics of life. It made me think back to those few months I spent in Coimbatore......where walking bare foot from one end to the other in the mud, soaking in the rain, seeing the frogs jumping all around, smelling the beautiful flowers, seeing the velliangiri mountains each day....made me feel more and more unrestricted by the little physical things that tend to annoy us in the cities. But it also made me realize, that no matter how beautiful, how raw, how sensuous the place we live in....we carry this mind wherever we go. It is ultimately this me that needs to get to peace, before i can really begin to enjoy all that existence has created for our senses to play with.

Trapped.......

2008-08-22T10:13:00.000-07:00

I've hit a wall within myself. I feel like a big emotionless blob right now. I'm realizing more and more clearly how I've shut myself off on layers and levels I was not even concious of earlier. I've been hurt so much and so deep, that I've lost touch with my own self, my own emotions. I have hid all my feelings and emotions so deep within myself, with so many ideas of my own coated on top of them that as I reach that unconcious depth, I get scared of the enormous baggage that lies untouched for lifetimes below.

I watch something so heart renderingly sad on tv, and can feel that heart beat go fast and feel tears somewhere there wanting to be released inside. But I feel like a clogged pipe. I cant feel, I am not letting myself feel and I am right now struggling with breaking out of it. I have lost the urge to talk to anyone about these things even. Earlier I would call a friend and just talk about these ups and downs, but now I've realized so clearly that it is all within us to figure out, all within us to search and get in touch with. I'm feeling claustrophobic..........I feel like giving up so bad today...........I feel stuck in my own making, my own creation...........I've weaved a web myself, and I'm the one trapped in it now.........

2008-08-19T10:30:00.001-07:00

I must have used this sentence several times on many of my blogs, but i have to say it again...I'm really in awe. I go to dance everyday and even through all the petty frusterations and questions that i put myself through, i sit back and wonder.........what a miracle this is that I am here today doing something that my heart aches with gratitude when i even think about it. It is for the first time that I am being allowed to give an open voice to the emotions, the feelings, the expressions that have remain suppressed and inside for so long. Even now there is so much we hold back, so much we have pushed so deep inside for fear of getting hurt, or letting others seeing our vulnerabilities. But this mode of expression is purely divine for me.....it allows me to dwell so deep into that world that I had tucked away, out of even my own view, to drench myself in it and give it expression in freedom.

My teacher is a form of my guru for me........she is pure feminine energy with so much fire, so much passion. I have met people in my life i considered creative, but after meeting her I am out of words as to what creativity means, and where it comes from. She brings out the creative element in you from places you have shut down, she brings to life a bamboo pole or a piece of cloth, she lets your emotions come alive and take voice, she makes you feel each thing around you until you get in touch with that conciousness that is beyond anything physical.....it is so deep in love.

Today as she handed us a circular thin branch like structure, she asked us to explore various aspects of it. Whether feeling like an infant in an embroyo, slowly awakening to the world, or experiencing it as a trap or bondage of our own making, or playing with it as ones beloved......we explored fear, anguish, pain, suffering, love and the inner world of a woman. It was a beautiful process as I felt all these feelings inside me and could express them through movement and emotion. It left me feeling lighter, more liberated and brought a smile on my face as I felt freed from something I'm probably not even fully concious about. I am just left with a beautiful feeling inside me, of unexpressable gratitude to the universe, to my guru, who has allowed me to feel again. Thank you.

2008-08-16T03:35:00.000-07:00

I'm for the first time in my life realizing that I had closed myself out, so that i could become like others. Somewhere this or that about another person, about their life was better than mine and that has always held me back. Whether i was comparing myself to those brahmacharis in the ashram, or those teachers in the isha home school, or that person who was successful in their career, or that man who was always serving others...i have spent the better part of my life
seeing what this person or that person has that i dont and that i should be like, or should have. Its the first time i feel compassion towards myself, i feel i want to listen to myself, to my heart, to what lies within myself and see what it is that i am, what i want.

I might not be mother teresa, i might not be radha or mirabai, i might not be clad in an orange robe or have taken all the right steps in my life, yet I am a being that is born out of that same nothingness all the others are created out of. I am also part of that source, of that life form that we call god. And i want to find that me that i have ignored for lifetimes. I want to take care of myself, i want to free myself from all the pain and suffering that it has known. I want to love myself. For the first time i want to be true to myself and love myself, not constantly critisize and see the negatives in myself. I too have weaknesses, i too have limitations, i too have shortcomings, yet i want to see and accept them today. I want to accept the pains in my body, i want to accept the teeth i have, the smile i have, the face that i have been born with, i want to love my voice, my body, my hands, my feet, my toes, my teeth, i want to love myself. For in loving myself, i tend to love that wholesome one that i am always in search of. For the first time i realize that acceptance is the key we are in search of to the beyond. There is so much we cannot accept, so many walls we have built that even we are not aware of. I do not know if i have made the right choices, i do not have the riches to offer god, i do not have a genius mind or a body that can do wonders, but i have something in me that doesnt let me give up no matter how broken i am, i have something in me that keeps me going when all has failed, i have something that is there with me when everyone has turned their faces away, i have something inside me that is so strong that i know no circumstance, no person in the world can crush that spirit. I bow down to the one who has helped me see it, helped me harness it and helped me realize that pure timeless conciousness that we are. He is my guru, he is the only one i live for, it is for him that each breath of mine i take.

2008-08-13T07:55:00.000-07:00

I'm in a strange fix today. One side of me is feeling miserable......I feel this unbearable sense of anguish inside me, as though I've lost myself so completely, that if I try to think of what all is happening, of what I'm doing, of where or where not I'm moving, I'll probably go insane...for at this point so much has become beyond my own control. On the other hand, I feel this sense of peace, this sense of surrender to the moment, to the now, that I had never experienced in my life before. It seemed like I was always in a hurry to get somewhere, to do something, to be someone. It is the first time I have had those few moments of completely being here and accepting life as it is. In those moments I have realized that is what I search for, and that is what each one of us searches for. Yet this insane mind doesn't stay in control. The next moment I am engulfed with a thousand fears, a thousand what if's, a thousand thoughts and plans that lead to anxiety and stress on a level I probably am not even aware of most of the time.
Yesterday, someone I consider very very dear to me made a few comments of distrust towards me, which was totally uncalled for. I reacted more strongly than I thought I would at the injustice of such words. After everything was said and done I wondered why I felt so crushed, so broken. Why after so much in my life, I still somewhere am constantly looking at myself for approval through the eyes of those I value. Why is it that few words of lack of trust in me made me so angry that I was ready to throw this person out of my life forever. I was left thinking what was it that made me so upset. Somewhere I am still struggling with it, for it is hard for me to bare this person, to be around this person. Why is it that we struggle so much with others opinions about us, especially those we value? I want a way out........I want to love myself irrespective of all else........I am struggling with acceptance, acceptance of everything just the way it is.

2008-07-06T10:57:00.000-07:00

In awe of creation I sit today,
Wondering how we miss the whole point each passing day.
He lives in each one of us, His presence so sweet,
Yet we wait for the day of death for Him to meet.
The gift of our destiny He lay in our hands,
Each wish of ours to fullfil, to bare our demands.
Yet in our greed to possess, all love was lost in lust,
All He had ever asked from us what unflinching trust.
The knots with which the self I've tied, trying to untie them bit by bit,
The pain it brings, the joy I feel, a flame in me has been lit.
Nowhere to go, for home is everywhere, so grateful today I feel,
My very soul, my very heart, to my guru today I kneel.

2008-05-29T05:29:00.000-07:00

Unsure of the path ahead,
Beginning to slowly let go, the beginning of surrender.
Feeling His gentleness, yet His maddening urgency driving me towards insanity,
“Want to get off” I plead yet travelled too far to get off now.

So far have come, that no matter how hard it tries, my mind doesn’t understand,
For where I am heading, what I am doing, no logical sense it makes.
Jump after jump, leap after leap, walking, gliding in the unknown.
I hold His hand, for alone I cannot walk through this terrain.

Have left the race, yet the knots of being left behind sometimes binding,
I watch them go, I walk another way.
What if I get lost? What if I get lost?
“It is only in getting lost that you can find yourself. Believe, Have faith, I am there.” He says.

So many times an etching sense of misery, of having messed up my life,
But the moments of beauty so pure, so immense, all confusion seems worth it.
So much more to learn, this is just the beginning I know,
Life – living it, exploring it, understanding it, I can give anything to really know it.

2008-05-21T09:45:00.000-07:00

I think most people have declared me to have gone completely insane! The way life is looking right now, I cant blame them.... the few moments that I do allow my mind a few words I find myself shouting.......STTTOPPPP....for crying out loud...please stop! I know this would sound slightly phoney to the logical mind, but the truth is that I know the way my life is moving, I am not really the one controlling things anymore. That's not to say, that if I wanted to decide that I've had enough....I couldnt go sit in a software company and do a job to earn some. That is a definate possibility, and one that under circumstances might be necessary to also take up. But when I say I am not really in control....it means its as though someone has taken it over to dig out and bring to you your innermost desires, and now you can just sit back and watch the play unfold! Its like someone who first holds your hand and tells you to walk along, then starts jogging with you, then starts running, and then just picks you up and starts sprinting with you on their shoulders at top speed! That's how it feels sometimes....its the best I can do to put it in words. Like this major sense of urgency in me, like this insane kind of drive in me, like i just need to generate a thought that comes from within and Boom...its there infront of me, and all thats required from me is the right action.

For people who look at life as you earn till 60 and then you do what you want.....my life is a little distasteful. I cant say I've done all the right things.....I know I'm in a messy kind of situation right now.....but I also have immense trust in that which has put me in this situation. If that which has put me here, had enough faith in me to give me everything I ever dreamt of, then that thing will take me in the right direction. I've realized this path is all about trust in that something which we can't define, which we can't prove exists, which beats in each of our heartbeats, which we feel in our heart when we listen carefully, but which stays quiet, stays silent, away from the hussle bussle of our noisy minds. But once we get in touch with that source, that source so deep, the very basis of life....then we become silent....because we know that we need to play our part, the rest will be taken care of, we need to be involved to our fullest in each act we perform, the rest will happen on its own........even when life looks to be a complete mess, we need to be aware of ourselves but have faith things will sort themselves out.....and i know they will.

2008-05-15T06:13:00.000-07:00

No words are left, silent I have become.

My being finds no need to talk, in quiet I find bliss.

I am in awe of what creation has given me,

The power of it just beginning to understand.

How much lies within, brings fear to the mind,

For in realizing its power, all mind games will cease forever.

The potential, the enormity of that which we call ourself - not distinct from that whole we call god.

I dont know what path to take, I dont know which way to go,

I dont know whats right, whats wrong,

I dont know if I'm living a mistake.

But what I do know is that my heart can never lie,

And that is the only reality I know till the moment I die.

What is dance?

2008-05-14T09:37:00.000-07:00

"What to you does dance mean?" she asked me this question today.
I thought I knew the answer so well....but the more i started thinking about it, the more I realized that the true understanding of dance could only be experiential, as to me it was like a feeling, an emotion....so hard to describe since it could only be felt. It was kind of like asking me to describe what happy or sad or estatic was.....it has to be felt, there is no description.
But, I wanted to attempt to explain it in some way through the English language. So i attempted to look inside and see what it was that I felt I was trying to move towards in the past one and a half months that I had been involved with contemprary dance on a regular basis.
Dance is something that has always been part of me. Its like one of those things you carry with you in every vein of your body....you feel its pulse whenever you breathe, whenever you sit. Sometimes my body would dance even if there was no music....for dance does not actually need music....it is a song that your soul sings using the body as an instrument. Dance in my eyes is the most divine use of the human body. All the imperfections of the physical form dissapear, the body is no more related with any of the sexual or physical connotations, but rather it is now dwelling through dance in the realm of the unknown, of the non-physical, of that dimension which can only be experienced and not talked about. Dance is simply letting your body flow in tune with the song the cosmos is playing for us.
In fact the last month or so that I've been doing contemprary dance....it has probably been one of the most blissful experiences of my life. If anyone wants to get in touch with a part of themselves that lies very deep within, if anyone wants to unlock the creativity that has been trapped for so long, if anyone wants to free oneself from the inhibitions and confines of their own identity....dance........just dance...........it is the most beautiful experience to let the body just flow.
I also came across so much stiffness in my body as i began this journey. Contemprary dance requires a great amount of flexibility, around which the moves are created. Initially, my body broke down every time after class. But I didnt give up and even now my hip joints and back is killing me......but the lightness that i feel with so much of the stiffness in the body and mind gone is hard to put in any kind of words. The different activities and exercises that are done contain an unbelievable potential to develop concentration and focus. I already find myself so much more aware of things around me than I was earlier.
Dance to me is like an exploration of our own selves - our thoughts, emotions, lows, highs, using our body as an instrument of expression. It is an inward journey that we can take others (the audience) with us into. It can be used to tell a story, bring out the characters, their expressions, their thoughts, their aches and pains, their joys and ecstasy - the dancer must herself feel these in their own insides so that they can also connect the soul of others with the feeling.
Dance.........it allows human beings direct touch with that which we call the ultimate, that what some of us call god.

2008-05-07T10:39:00.000-07:00

Out of logic, willing to jump into the illogical I have become,

For only in it freedom to feel that which is and which is not,

Free from the bonds, in emptiness it lets me roam,

Lets me do things that no sane person would ever fathom.

The madness in that which has no logic, in that which nothing has meaning,

Like drops of sweet nectar filling me up bit by bit.

2008-04-22T10:46:00.000-07:00

The bottomless pit I seem to have fallen into,

The deeper you dwell, the more confusion engulfs you.

The ride so ecstatic, like a child's persistence, unwilling to get off,

Yet the further you ride it, the more lost you get.

So lost, so lost, that surrender your only way,

You want to cry but laugh out at the hopelessness of it all!

Yet as hopeless as you feel, this belief sparking in your heart,

That it is only when you reach that depth of confusion that ultimate clarity can start.

2008-04-03T10:14:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wept so hard that you felt your body would explode were you to cry any harder?Have you felt so much grief that you felt the pain of the universe pulsating in your veins? Have you ever fallen so low in your life that there was nothing to hold on to anymore? Have you ever truly felt alone in the entire existance? Have you ever lost complete faith in yourself? Have you ever let others break every idea about yourself, until you see the bare naked nonsense that is you? Have you ever been so lost that you could not bare to rely on yourself to find the way out anymore? Have you ever been so estatic that you felt one with the whole cosmos? Have you ever felt the deafening silence of your being? Have you ever touched that core of yourself that is immortal? Have you ever felt the joy of just simply being in love, not with anything or anyone, just love? Have you ever felt so much love bubbling inside you that you felt you would explode? Jump, jump, jump and do whatever it is that your mind says "No" to.....the unknown is waiting....

2008-03-26T09:46:00.000-07:00

Back in Delhi.....it's so neat to be back. It's like so many things that bothered me, that got me uptight, that worried me.........I see so much of it gone now. Everything seems so easy, so simple for now atleast! And I realize it's because the past 6 months I was drenched in so much physical, mental, emotional turmoil....that all the nonsense, the little botherations of life just vanished!

I walk along and look around,

I am at ease, my head doesn't make that age old sound.

With a blade of grass, with a stone or the car that makes that sudden brake,

I see myself be with them, observing every colour, every sound, every move they make.

It's silent inside, it's dark, it's not there,

The spirit is on fire, I walk around bare.

2008-03-16T07:37:00.000-07:00

Going to be leaving in another week. I don't really know what to make out of it. It's almost like I was in a deep slumber my whole life, and just a week or so ago I came out of it. I feel so peaceful leaving or being here, that the fear that now lurks is that will this peace stay. I know it is for me to nurture it and keep it, for it all lies within me, and it is that power that makes leaving easier for me. Up until about two weeks ago I felt so stuck, so stuck in my creation of my ideas, my own nonsense. And then a few events occured that shook the very foundation, the very basis of what I considered as myself. Questions were raised, fingers were pointed, assumptions made, decisions taken..........left me crushed, left me broken, left me totally and completely shattered to say the least. If there was a saying, then it was true - When you are completely lost, that's when you find yourself. For me, I saw this happening in front of my eyes. There was that day, that I was walking all alone on a dark path.....I had gone through so much that neither could i turn to anyone for help, nor would talking help. Nothing would help. And that day I just walked...a wreck, alone. And that was the day i just gave up....i felt myself just walking, simply walking because there was nothing else left to do. Thats when suddenly i felt a hand on shoulder....."lets go string flowers for tomorrow's big day shivani!" I started bawling.....leave me alone i begged them, hiding myface. But that person took me and sat with me as we strung flowers. It was almost 3 hours when i realized how this simple act of stringing flowers had actually changed my life forever. It was a concious realization how i was stuck in my own nonsense, which was my own making, and the only solution lied in not listening to myself, my chit chat, my nonsense. When i became less important, and I gave a chance for that something else, that something that cannot be described to become more important, suddenly a new dimension opened up.

Always having been less of a doer, because i couldnt see the use of all the doing, the purpose of it all....now "doing" has taken on a completely different meaning in my life. For me it is a meditation, it is the only way out of this......and it all came to me with the simple act of stringing flowers....

2008-03-09T08:34:00.000-07:00

Have I gone insane I ask myself,
The resounding reply I get is in the positive!
Yet every drop of my being resonating with this madness,
I can't control it anymore, I'm ready to jump into the fire head on!
Its uncontrollable, undescribable even,
What it is is undefinable.
Yet every cell, every atom charged up, more energy inside than the body can contain.
Ready to give up this life, and a thousand more if needed,
That's how I feel today.....this is it, I've found my way home.

2008-02-29T06:28:00.001-08:00

Today was a really hard day for me. It started off really well actually....i went to the children's assembly in the morning with the 11 to 14 year olds were performing a play called the Poetry cafe. It was infact one of the best ideas I've seen in a long time. They had created a beautiful set of a Cafe with a piano and cafe tables and the whole idea was that they were selling poetry. So people would come and order poetry and they had all kinds of poems...and ofcourse my favourite...an invitation.
But after that it was like a downhill day. I wanted to get involved with a certain activity in school and was told to go talk to a certain person. Now this person is someone who is dead opposite me in every single way and both of us cannot understand eachothers' language. She was structured, by the book, by the rules on the way this had to go and in a 5 second conversation she basically asked me to fill out a formal application. I said fine, but a few minutes later I realized how insane the conversation had been and that I actually couldnt understand what an application would do in this situation. Anyways, after that I got into a trap where I felt so suffocated by this lady who couldn't understand the kind of work I wanted to do which was open ended and couldnt appreciate a certain flexibility that comes with being me. Getting caught up in this, my mind shot into a supernova of its own where I couldn't control it, leaving me totally listless the whole day. As I was just on the computer though, I realized how I wasn't even sure why i was so upset about this anymore. I realized that there are so many unconcious, hidden angles to things, that one thing may fire it up, but after that its a series of thoughts and emotions that builds up, that we aren't even fully aware of. Soon it turns into a mess that we have no idea how to control because we are no more concious of what is making us feel a certain way. It was an interesting realization for me as after the whole day I feel a little lighter now after a rather tiring roller coaster ride my mind took me on today.

2008-02-29T06:28:00.000-08:00

All the dreamy eyes gone, only the seriousness of life hits me in the face today,
The calmness the seriousness brings, yet the way it crushes everything about me.
Standing alone on the path, I find myself just look around,
No boundaries stand between me and the other.
Isn't this what I've always been looking for, yet being suffocated by the trap we've set.
No freedom outside, no freedom inside today,
The only way to true freedom this one I see clearer than ever.
Yet the path not easy, only tears fall down me today,
I want to go home, yet what is home I wonder?
Everything I ever knew falling apart,
Trying to desperately hold on but all attempts failing.
The joy of me breaking apart, yet the misery I am tied in today.
The madness that engulfs my being gripping me harder than ever.
Let me breathe I beg, Let me breathe.

2008-02-22T23:19:00.000-08:00

I sit here and think do I need to blog anymore....and i think maybe I can just stop all together. I don't have much to say anyways, and now saying has such little meaning left in my life that talking seems all but a waste of time. But I do want to share my experiences, take to others what I have experienced and not loose hope that they too will embark on a journey where one wonder leads to another, until the doors of self understanding open up.

I know I have a tendency to write on the dreamy side. I think and speak very rationally, but when it comes to penning down my thoughts, i suddenly turn highly poetic! But I've decided to try to start writing more rationally too...people otherwise tend to think what you're saying is alot of frills and fancy, it sounds very beautiful, but they just discard it as idealistic. For most people seem to have taken on the attitude that anything thats hard and difficult and mundane is real, but anything beyond understanding, beautiful beyond measure is only a dream, a fantasy.

Well its been about 5 months here I would say. I came here in September last year, and with about a month or more away in between, I've spent most of my time here. I won't say its been easy at all, its been probably the hardest thing I've ever done. First I have a major allergy towards the so called "spiritual people" of the world, and on top of that living with all of them under one roof in an "ashram" was the most incomprehensible thing I could ever think of. I won't say there haven't been days, and maybe more to come where I'm at wits end with this place. All I can do is think of leaving, and all the plans I can formulate for once I get back to the city. I also can't say its easy for me to live here....there are actually 5 rats that have been foudn in the room I'm living in! + lizards all around is an everyday phenomenan, you cant walk alone too late in the night for snakes lie all around.....some of my biggest phobias hitting me in the face day in and day out. On top of that, I've worked here where people are coming from all kinds of backgrounds. Having grown up in an intellectual family, always making friends that have more of an intellectual bent, when I first started working here I thought I was going brain dead. If you started to explain logically why something should be done a certain way, it was as though you were talking to a dead wall! They just wouldn't get it! Ofcourse there were those few that I could talk to that still kept me going at that time. But the beauty of it was that I slowly lost the compulsiveness in me towards logic, towards doing things in a certain way, for things to be in a certain way. It was as though things struck me in the head so severely for the first time, and in this environment where the awareness and energy are so high that you can feel it in every pulse, for the first time it didn't matter anymore. And this didnt matter anymore was not in a "who gives a damn" way, it was more that I just could see things the way they were without my little judgements and ideas creeping into everything. If I define it, it sounds petty to me, for the feeling is something I have never experienced and feel blessed to get a glimpse of it every now and then .... a glimpse of the complete freedom that we are. This complete freedom is illogical, irrational and sometimes when my mind wants to make sense of what it is that makes me feel so alright, so like things are perfect just the way they are....the mind can't make any sense of it. Because till a point things were making sense and I could logically say this happened and so now i feel this, but in the past day I've felt something that makes no, absolutely no sense. It is those few glimpses of how it feels to just be, simply be.....and that is all I want, nothing else.

2008-02-16T02:52:00.000-08:00

As I come out of the one week silence program, I find myself wanting to live in this silence forever. The stillness that this silence brings, echoes with the deepest parts of my soul. This one week has been the most exuberant one week of my life. To me today I feel more blessed to have experienced this than anything else in the world. As I sit here in awe of the source of creation, I can't help think how complacent we all have become in our ignorance. With dimensions impossible for the petty logical mind to dwell in, we are happy thinking that we know all there is to know, that anything deeper than what we know is for the foolish, for the so called fake spiritual of the world.
Yet I have compassion for I too come from that aspect of life where logic was the basis of my life. Anything that I had not experienced, that were not known through the five senses was unreasonable and for people who were a little conkey in the head. What I didn't realize is that just working with the mind is more being a psychological case than being in touch with our original nature, who we truly are. I pray and can only hope that everyone gets to experience the maginificence, the beauty of being alive one day. That everyone truly experiences who they really are, the limitless of themselves, and how limited they are stuck in the petty thing we call the mind.

2008-01-29T19:37:00.000-08:00

What to say anymore, for words sparse have become,
Living each day, feeling each sensation in my body a reality has become.
No need to speak, no need for approval anymore,
All i want is for others to experience this someday and will reach out one day I'm sure.
Is all this possible, the logical mind left finds ways to disprove,
But no more its slave, no need for it my feelings to approve.
It chatters endlessly in the background, I hear it now and again,
But more aware of it than ever, not to fall into its deadly trap.
Oh how beautiful, how miraculous this life without the mind to live,
Hard to contain the joy I feel today, open your arms the universe is out there waiting to give.

Looking back and now....

2008-01-05T22:34:00.000-08:00

I've been at home the past few days, back from Coimbatore and with alot of pain in my teeth. So I've pretty much been resting, relaxing and today as I was just going through the documents on my laptop, I happened to open up my old folder of write-ups. Since I've been 10 I've always owned a diary, but I also tend to write all over the place. Sometimes I scramble for the nearest sheet of paper, small note pads, big sheets, newspapers - I've perhaps written on them all.
For the last two years that I've had this laptop, it too has borne the brunt of alot of my writings - happy times, not so happy times, reflective thoughts, just rambling, deep thoughts, absolutey silly ideas.........it's been with me through it all. In fact sometimes this laptop feels like its my best friend in the whole wide world, cause it's been there with me when all others had given up on me, or I was on the verge of giving up!
So anyways, today I just happened to go through some of my old documents and realized how at every step I've been searching. Whether it be trying to understand people, why my friends were behaving in a certain way, why all my relationships weren't ever materializing, trying to figure out what it was that interested me, going through pangs of becoming a doctor, a councellor, a psychiatrist, a corporate trainer, a dancer, a storyteller or a teacher..........I was always seeking something beyond which my understanding. It's funny now to see those lists of what i like to do and what i dont like to do, as an attempt to understand what profession I might be more inclined to. Or that document named "Feelings" after a night of partying with my friends where I came home crying because I couldn't understand how people could just have fun with eachother, talk garbage and then go home and forget about eachothers existance completely. Or those "thinking" documents where I would just blab about my thoughts on my life. At each and every step, I was feeling stuck, stuck in this mind and trying to understand so many things that just weren't making sense, yet I so desperately wanted to come to terms with.

And then I noticed, that for the past 4 months, since searching has not just become a notion, but has taken on the very essence of my life, these writings have become less. It's almost like I can see my thoughts, my actions more clearly now, and I see myself as having the power to make or break those thought patterns. I've realized how there is no end to the thought process, to understanding things. One needs to break it by getting into a space of no-thought. Even then breaking old patterns of being, certain states of compulsions is so hard, because to break them we have to be fully aware and alert at every moment, which is very difficult. But it is interesting to have those moments of almost becoming an observer of your life, rather than constantly being drowned in the process of questioning and thinking.
I've found that my reading habits have also changed. Earlier its almost like I had a magnet in me that would automatically get attracted to the "spiritual' section of books. Krishanamurthy, Sri Aurobindo, even the doctors of pyschology people........I would just read them like applying some soothing cream to my soul. Now I find a distinct change, as I don't find the need to read those books anymore, with the very clear realization that everything they talk about, all the knowledge of the world, all we are seeking is within us if we look carefully.
For the past few days I've been reading children's books.........going back into the land of fairies and gnomes and witches and monsters. Back into the fairyland where dresses are made of blue mist and yellow sunshine, where they pick out stars from water puddles and sprinkle dew drops on leaves in the early morning hours. Back into the land where things aren't that complicated and life unfolds in rather magical way. It's a great feeling to be back there....where chairs look like people, doors look like soldiers, you overhear the conversation between your car and the truck standing next to you on the red light, the patterns on the bathroom floor tell you a story about a king and witch, where things don't need to make logical sense anymore.............it makes me think......when the mind is afar, that is when the twinkle in the eye reappears.....

2008-01-05T06:07:00.000-08:00

Today I feel plain and simple selfish, self - centred almost. Yesterday I got my two lower molars removed cause they had gotten really infected. The pain that followed was seriously intense. I also had a bad cough, tonsils and my lymph nodes were swollen, so whenever I coughed I felt like my head was going to explode into a thousand pieces! I was pretty cranky, irritable, whiny and had no energy to do anything but lay down. And my dad was there with me through it all....not saying anything to me for all that i said, just being there for me, just helping me in whatever way he could. And there I was demanding, cribbing about my pain. But he ceaselessly, selflessly just kept doing all he could to ensure I was comfortable.
It was somewhere between all this that i realized how in my life, being the youngest, I'd never really offered myself so fully to another person. I feel others pains, I empathize, I want to be there. But I realize how many limitations I carry through them all. All of a sudden it struck me how a mother gives to her child without wanting anything in return. He cries, throws tantrums, gets upset....but shes there, all she has eyes for is the well being of the child. How beautiful that is, to give without expecting anything in return. How beautiful it is to just love. I'm wondering somewhere if I have missed just loving, just offering myself to another person completely.

Feelings

2008-01-04T07:48:00.001-08:00

I feel grateful today for all I've known,
I feel grateful today for all that I've been shown.
I feel blessed today to create the destiny for myself that I choose,
I feel peaceful today for no more do I care of whether I win or loose.

I feel pain today, my body resonates with a numbing discomfort that doesn't leave,
I feel physically drained out today, no more tears left to even grieve.
I feel worn out today, no more energy left to even smile,
I feel silent today, a silence that fills my being from mile to mile.

I feel a longing today that has soaked me in its splendour,
Cannot leave this path anymore, it has become my life's endeavour.
I feel a fear lifting off of me today, a fear perhaps of the unknown,
There's a sprout it seems, there's hope after all for the seed that was once sown!

2008-01-03T06:50:00.000-08:00

My sister is leaving back for US today. She was here for about two weeks, out of which I was able to spend about a week with her. It's funny how different we both are in so many ways....we both probably find it hard to relate to one another, have different views on alot of things in life - what's important, what's not, we both have taken different life paths, we both have very different personalities....for me planning ahead is like torture....for her things need to be planned, things need to be well organized. We clash so many times with eachother on so many different accounts, both meaning well for the other, yet finding it hard to even communicate with one another so many times. Yet somewhere in both of us we know that each one's heart means well for the other.......all the little squibbles, all the arguments in the end are meaningless. For when the other is in any problem, the other is there, each step of the way.
My sis is leaving today, and I'm feeling this sadness inside. I'm feeling restless. Why does life have to be such that we end up in different parts of the world? So far away from eachother that more than half our lives are spent communicating either through email or phone? I'm feeling restless cause I know those childhood times when we used to sleep together on one bed in one room, talk all night, wake up in the morning, get ready for school, have our breakfast together, study together........all that can never come back again. It's just coming and going........meeting and parting..............how hard farewells are..........how hard are the goodbyes.

2008-01-01T03:38:00.000-08:00

First of all...happy new year! Havin said that...this year i probably rang in the new year in a way different than I had ever imagined in my entire life. And believe it or not it was the best way I've ever rung it in!!!! I spent it with my eyes closed in the shrine in the Isha Ashram. And it was one of the most beautiful times. It was so different from the way I always used to celebrate it...with the new year parties or sometimes even just watching tv. It was a beautiful time for inner celebration.....without the desperation for external stimuli.

Well its definately been a while since I've jotted down some stuff on my blog. I guess the past month or so has been indescribable in terms of words....i fell short of words, i fell short of thoughts. Alot went wrong in that month....but alot went right too. Things I never knew about myself came bubbling to the surface for me to face, for me to come to terms with. I probably had to deal with people I would under normal circumstances of life keep completely out of my life. People who were narrow, blocked, closed to new ideas, learning. People who would constantly belittle everything I valued in myself, people who I had to listen to because they held a greater position of authority than me....and in order to hold my commitment, i would listen to them no matter what it took for me. In the midst of all this I fell sicker than i have in my whole entire life. And left alone to deal with it and the closest doctor 40 kms away....going back and forth everyday, eating more medicines, getting injections day in and day out, loosing that glow on my face that I always prided myself for, loosing for the first time that zest for life.........somewhere between it all I broke. I tore apart in a way that I wanted to give up so badly. I just wanted to break and fall apart and never get up. I was questioning each ability of mine, i was wondering if i had any talent in me, i lost all confidence in myself and i started turning into a nobody. There were days I was walking around like a ghost...pale, my face down, expressionless. People who knew me to be a cheerful, happy person would look at me and look away for fear that i was going through a depression and didn't want to intrude in any way. Others looked at me and said I had become dull and lifeless. And the truth was I had. I felt really lost, really helpless. And from that something happened........I'm still not fully aware of it, but I know this distinct change I feel in myself. It's a kind of freedom from things. It's like I don't have to hold on to my confidence or my abilities or my talents. Because that's not what makes me who I am. It's like even being nothing I am so free, so happy. It's hard to fully define it yet, because i think i havent understood it yet either. But there is a bud somewhere that I see has begun to bloom.....i need to nurture it, water it and give it time.............it might just be the beginning of something I've never known..............

2007-12-06T06:40:00.000-08:00

I sat down to write my blog and nothing comes to my mind. What should I write because its almost like i'm living on a per second basis, without thinking most of the time. There really has been no time to dwell in those thoughts....just doing, just doin, sometimes crying, sometimes laughing, every moment something different. I've been living out of my suitcase for over two weeks now.....don't know where I'll be moved tomorrow.
For now i'm dealing with just whats coming my way.

2007-11-27T03:40:00.000-08:00

The past two days have been hard...full stop.
It's like every crutch you hold on to, to ensure that ego of yours is intact has come falling apart. Crutches - these notions and ideas that you have about yourself. Whether its - i'm so smart, i'm this and i'm that...........when none of that remains with you, you fall apart. Because, then you remain as a nobody. Yesterday i was overwhelmed by this feeling of no self confidence. I had probably not experienced that kind of feeling since my teenage, pimple strucked years. But being faced with that feeling of low self esteem, of becoming very concious about one self, of not feeling very good about oneself....when that came tumbling back, I broke. I broke and cried and sobbed like I havent in years.........and then I gave up, I threw my hands up and decided I was going to pack my bags and leave, leave for a life that was more managable, more in line with what my mind wanted. But what would i be going back to.......layering myself up with all those falsities once again!
As low as i was feeling, with those layers gone and feeling completely exposed and vulnerable.......the lightness inside me cannot be defined through any words. We had day long workshops the past two days........ususally during such workshops I would find myself asking questions, slicing down the presentation, debating and arguing with the presenter..........but today I found that worthless..........today I really felt that words have very little value.......our ideas and beliefs about things hold very little importance. What holds importance is what you do, just doing what is needed..........that's all. Making yourself like elastic........even if someone comes to punch you in the face, there is no resistance........so you just stretch as far as the person stretches you and then immediately come back to equilibrium......

2007-11-25T07:12:00.000-08:00

I'm here, I'm there, I'm everywhere,
I'm lost, I'm gone, no me exists anymore,
I'm more serious with life than I've ever been,
I feel myself fooling around alot less.
I want to scream for lost I feel,
More at home I feel than I've ever been.
Want to run away and hide under the deep blue sea,
More ready to face the world than I've known before.
Should I cry? should I weep?
Should I laugh out loud with joy?
Where am I? how did i get here?
Far away from loved ones yet to them also very near.
Drenched in a space that gives life to the dead,
None of the nonesense important today, it doesn't matter whats thought or said.
So many feelings, thoughts and emotions today......
And so I close off and pack up my day.

2007-11-23T06:41:00.000-08:00

New things happening all the time here. Today I found out that I'm going to be co-working with two other people on theatre and drama with children. I was really quite excited but have never done theatre myself and so the butterflies I felt flying in my stomach were pretty uncontrollable too! But as I began talking with the other person about possible scripts and curriculum for theatre activities, I realized how theatre can be a means of self expression for children, and that is something that definately I want to do. I want to find ways that children can learn through self expression....whether it be creative writing or poetry or drama or dance or storytelling.....each of these gives the child some way to express their inner selves. It is because these methods help the child learn and express freely, without any outside pressure, that the child opens up and learns in freedom. These methods also provide a child the freedom to interpret ideas and concepts in their own individual ways.....giving a whole new meaning to creativity in a child's life. Lots is happening....I gotta loosen my hands which sometimes feel tied and get down to action......lots of planning to do.......I'm scared and excited all at once!!!!

In Isha again........

2007-11-22T06:45:00.000-08:00

Today has been a very emotionally draining day. It's one of those days where my mind won't give me any moments of rest.......where it is constantly pounding me with questions and thoughts........"why are you doing this to yourself?","what were you thinking taking something like this on?", "How are you going to stay here for one year.....it's not possible, leave, leave, run as fast as you can", "tell them it was one big mistake and this is not for you.". And as much as I try these thoughts are engulfing me....it's like they've trapped me and no matter how much I struggle they are not letting go of me right now.

Last time I had landed in the Isha ashram at Coimbatore I had felt the bliss of being part of the natural beauty that surrounded this area and the rawness that could be felt. Today on my way to the ashram, I couldn't see any of that........all that I was bound with were these thoughts. Every mile closer to the ashram that we would move, I wanted to run back to the airport and catch the first flight to Delhi. When I reached the ashram nothing went right either. I was given a room I didn't want to stay in, things were too quiet for my liking and I couldnt help wondering how exactly three weeks ago this place had seemed so perfect to me. Today it was far from perfect.........it felt more like prison to me. Maybe because I was prisoned in my own mind...............

The evening has brought with it some relief. During dinner I met some of the people I am going to be working with in the school. I shared with them some of my fears, insecurities and feelings of how I had no idea what I was getting myself into. The openness with which they responded to me brought in me the realization, that it was this openness that keeps pulling me back. It is the people here who just look at life as it is, without the mind games we play........the humbleness with which they talk, the compassion with which they understand how you feel, the courage they give you to keep following your heart, the passion that drips out of each word they utter, each action they involve themeslves in, the calmness with which they carry their own selves.........when I see these people...........I realize why I am here............

Leavin' on a jet plane.........

2007-11-21T11:03:00.000-08:00

Well its 12:30 am.....4 hours before I wake up and will be 'leavin on a jet plane.......don't know when I'll be back again!'.............:-)
Im nervous, i'm excited and I don't know what I'm doing..........totally have no idea why I am doing this.........
But there is no other way...........something is pulling me with a force so strong that I cannot resist it........
Now will see you in Coimbatore...........

2007-11-20T10:29:00.000-08:00

As I began my journey through these unknown paths....the person beside me in the picture...who I fondly call 'aunti'....gave me my first break more than an year ago, as I began working on a project totally unrelated with my field at the time. As we started working together I noticed how very different we were in so many of our views, yet her love for what she did and her interest in sharing her learnings with everyone around her was something I always admired! There were things we didn't quite agree on....yet somewhere the way she valued genuine people always kept me glued on! As time has gone by, we both have gained alot of respect for eachothers differences..... Today as I got ready to go on a new adventure....I went and said my goodbyes......

here we are........aunti and me.....

2007-11-20T08:28:00.000-08:00

Just finished most of my packing........though some is still left! Gosh.....sometimes I can't believe how much I've been travelling.......how many times I've packed and unpacked, how many times I've taken out those suitcases, sorted out the clothes I want to take......it's really unreal when I begin to think about it! I was really the last person on earth who enjoyed moving around from place to place.........I was more of the kind of person who feels comfortable and secure staying at one place, and likes travelling that once or twice in a few years kind of person. I never knew life would take me in a direction where I'd end up doing the exact opposite!

I still get those butterflies in my stomach when I'm leaving, still feel this nervous excitement, still almost feel like running away from the adventure that I've taken on.......yet at the same time realize how much more comfortable I've become with the change of moving from one place to the next. This feeling of no excessive attachment to one place has set in slowly. I know I have like an extreme attachment to home.......making it very difficult for me to leave.......maybe its because being a close knit family.....home was always where I was given the chance to completely express myself emotionally......it was also the place where I got the most space to go deeper into myself and it made me feel most emotionally secure. So, I guess I still find it hard to leave this cozy niche of mine..........but I know there is a definate difference. And I know that once I leave, then its fine.........it's like when you keep pulling at a tight rope over and over again, slowly it becomes looser, it slowly looses the tight grip that it earlier had. That's how I feel.

But I'm excited..........for this is going to be an adventure of a totally new kind. This time in one place for a whole year........one that will make me really adventure living with the bare minimum........for now I'm excited........

Thank you to a dear friend...............

2007-11-19T10:06:00.000-08:00

How is it that after spending time with some people you feel so energized, so rejuvenated, so refreshed, while with some others you feel fatigued, tired and just plain simple bored. I guess it depends on the kind of conversation you have, the energy exchange you experience and just how the other person's presence makes your own being feel. Today I met for lunch with a friend who just makes me feel at ease and I find it so easy to share a conversation with. Anything either of us say is completely unjudged and looked at in a totally different perspective. I find it so easy to share my weaknesses with them.......in fact one can almost talk about anything under the sun and its easy because there is such a mutual feeling of empathy and compassion for our human limitations. No one is out there to give advice or to make you feel better or with the ever ready......"Don't feel like that" or the "That's not true, you're such a nice person, you shouldnt feel like that...." People seem to always be ready to make you feel better. Sometimes what you want is a friend who can just listen and be there.........not someone who can tell you that you don't have that weakness, or that youre the best........but rather someone who knows that the other person is just sharing their awareness about themselves. And that person too knows his or her own limitations and so understands what it means to share one's problems..........they may not necessarily be problems that need a solution.......but rather problems that help us dwell deeper into our own selves............
I want to thank this friend for being there for me.............sometimes we feel we're like soul sisters..........because the similarities are just too strange to be true. Thank you Prerna...........thanks for just listening and not judging me..........thanks for sharing that passion for life...........thanks for striving for perfection...........thanks for understanding others limitations because you know your own.............
Thank you.................

An overwhelming feeling....

2007-11-18T09:55:00.000-08:00

So many changes, so many decisions, commitments.... Its a lot for me to take. I’m finding it hard to even breathe right now. There is still an inexplicable calm somewhere within me, but there is a definite unrest that resides along side of it. I just feel like being alone, feel like going into a shell, feel like going back into my mothers womb…….it’s scary to be outside, scary to face the world, and right now I’m finding it harder than ever. In fact I want to just cozy up with my head on my mothers shoulder and cry………cry harder than I’ve ever cried before……….cry because I’m feeling insecure, I’m feeling defeated of a lot of things that I wanted but have had to give up, feeling scared of treading alone on a path which I have no idea will take me where, cry because neither death nor life is giving me peace, cry because I’m feeling stuck……..feeling stuck in a body that makes me think, feel stuck in a mind that makes me see my compulsions, feeling stuck in my compulsive behaviour which I can’t let go of that easily, feel stuck not knowing, feel stuck not having any control over where my life will take me.

I don’t want to be that strong person any more, I don’t want to have a fighters spirit anymore……..I am angry right now……angry at myself, at the universe for not letting me live a life where I could just go to work at the 'normal' 9-5 job, come home, be in the comfort of my home with family, friends. Why do I have to be this strong person, who wants to break. Why can’t I just be happy with a normal lifestyle? Im feeling tired today. Heck, I don’t want to be thinking anymore, I don’t want to be reflecting, I don’t want to understand myself any better, I don’t want to be sensitive and kind and gentle………I don’t wanna strive for the highest……..I just want to be very very mediocre. Yes…….that’s what I want to be……I want to remain just as mediocre as I am. I don’t have that energy to go out, I don’t have the energy to move to the callings of my heart……it’s taking too much of me, it isn’t satisfied with anything but my life.

I don’t want to miss anybody….I want everyone I love near me. I don’t want to have to deal with the goodbyes anymore…….I’m tired of being strong in the face of lonliness. I don’t want to have to resist temptations anymore……..i wanna fall for my temptations, I want to be weak and a coward today……….I cant take strength anymore…….i cant.
I think I should just sleep……..maybe that will recharge my batteries………..maybe tomorrow will be different.

Random blurting...........

2007-11-17T11:27:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I feel like I'm getting a bit dumber day by day when I'm at home. See its been like this for almost more than an year now, that my life has been rather nomadic.......for people who like life to flow in a certain way, who expect a certain pattern out of life, they've pretty much given up on me. For the new people I meet, when they ask me the standard question..."So what do you do?" I really have no idea what to answer. I remember reading a book, or watching a movie, I cant remember which one it was, in which the guy makes up different occupations to see the expressions on the other person's face. I'm soon planning to do just that. I mean its better than getting into what I do. Because to explain what I do in a way that makes sense, I kind of have to explain my life history atleast partially in the past one and a half years, and when i start to go back into the past to build momentum for the now of what I'm doing..........I usually find the person whose listening in a bit of a daze. At the end I usually get a half awake - "Oh okay, thats good!" . But there are then the others who want to find out more and more and more..............now its fun to answer alot of their questions, but then soon I find that my own life in the past year is making little sense to me at some point, so it just starts sounding really pretensious and a big farce. So on account of all this, I'm planning to think of a profession that I've always thought as really cool and make it up depending on the person. For example, if I meet a bank accountant whose really bored with his job, then maybe I can say something really fancy like I was in the army for a short time, but now..... Or if I meet some top shot executive of a company, who has very little time to talk and just asks a rather polite - so what do you do? I could say.......I'm a professor in philosophy and see where that goes. Or if I meet a rock climber I could say I work for an IT firm and am really bored with life staring at the computer the whole day. I would basically want to be something really unrelated to the other person's job, and take on the opposite attitude that the other person has towards his or her job and start a conversation. I think it'd be rather fun to see how that person views the profession I've taken up and also get into some rather interesting arguments about life and priorities and choices. I'm not very good with arguments though.........sometimes I just feel things and can't find the right words to express them. Now in a debate where its all about logically reasoning your point with the opposing view point........sometimes I really don't do that well. I mean if in the course of a firey debate on an issue if you say something like...........'I can't tell you why, but I just feel this is true.' I'm sure they'd just plain laugh or say I'm crazy, and the worst part would be that then they'd become even firmer that their view point was correct since I didn't have an argument. So i usually avoid these debates. I'm sure if I really wanted to, and read up on the topic I was supposed to argue on I would be able to pull off a pretty good defense.........but then, I dont really see the point of it.

I believe experiences change points of view, not a verbal volley of words with someone. I mean I might have a really good reason why what i'm saying is true.........and the other person might throw their hands up for they accept defeat........but do they still really truly agree now with what I say, have I managed to change their opinion? I don't know....

Anyways.........getting back to me feeling dumber day by day when I'm at home. I think this entire transient period of working on all varied types of projects, travelling to different places, being exposed to alot of new experiences, people........has been quite a bit for my mind to take. I don't really conciously try to think back on things too much, cause theres no point reminissing , but rather taking what you can from your experiences and moving on. But sometimes I find I need to slow down and stop, and when I stop I find alot of mental and emotional catching up to do, which I'm not even sure if there is any need for, but still I sometimes find myself needing to do it for my "mind's" satisfaction. And because I get that time when I come home, I find myself in alot less "action mode" and more "thinking mode" when I'm at home. And I just sometimes feel like I'm not really engaged in too many productive endeavours when I'm at home, but rather busy making sense of life.........of all the changes I've experienced in the past almost two years now. And because its boggling to my mind, so I become listless.......and find it hard to do anything. And with that I find my body becomes stiffer and definately I feel dumber, like my brain cells are dying every second....
I'm leaving in a few days for a really big experience, an assignment I have taken up for an year. I feel happy I got to unwind at home for sometime before i set forth. In fact, part of me enjoyed this period, even though it was a switch to "thinking mode". Because during this time I got to be alittle away from things, got to go into my cacoon, got to be in a comfy cozy environment almost preparing myself mentally, physically and emotionally for the new journey. But I slowly hope this need of mine to cacoon at home will start becoming minimal..........maybe this new experience which will bring stability for one year, something I have not seen in a long time......maybe this new experience will be what I need to reduce my cacoon time at home. Or maybe the cacoon is necessary for the metamorphosis into a butterfly.......?

A few thoughts after 'shopping'.............

2007-11-17T07:37:00.001-08:00

I'm so so tired right now...........just got back from shopping. It's saturday evening and it feels like the entire Delhi has decided to step out of their houses today! Oh shopping!!!! It's funny how once upon a time I used to love it so much........when I lived in Canada I used to live really close to a shopping mall which was just downstairs from the bus terminal. So very often after work I would get off at the terminal........and go shopping!!! It was in fact one of the largest malls in canada and I used to love going around it, finding new shops that I had never ventured into before. I'd love seeing all the new clothes and the latest designs of tops, jewellery and skirts that had made their way into the shops.........and somewhere secretly wished I had either become a jewellery designer or a fashion designer. What fun it would be to come up with all these funky ideas!

What entertainment shopping used to be. In fact today when someone said to me.......seems like everyone is out shopping and I said...."yeah, its the only source of entertainment in delhi"........and they said......"why only delhi?"..........to which I thought.........yeah true, all over the world. It seems like shopping has become one of the biggest passtimes. And if you don't wanna shop then just sit outside, sit around........watch people coming in and out...........observe their mannerisms, what they're wearing etc. etc. Maybe shopping gives people a sense of newness or an adrenaline rush. Seeing that shirt on the hanger and imagining how it would look when you wore it work the next day, or just the abundance of clothes and shoes and jewellery and shawls and whatever you want hanging outside, inside, everywhere..........calling you, yours if you're ready to pay a small amount for it.........makes one feel good. You feel in control, feel there are atleast some ways you can make yourself happy........sure, money cant buy you love, but it sure can buy you that yellow top you've had your eyes on!
Or shopping also gives you a feeling of being around people.........kind of a community feeling, where everyone is there for a similar purpose.....to eat, hang around or actually buy something. Brings a kind of ease to people to be in that sort of environment. Even though everyone sometimes appears so busy in the market place.......it sometimes seems everyone is on a mission, or like that face that you can see during exam time stress of a project deadline!!!! And nobody wants to miss out on anything.......so everyone is frantically looking around everywhere........and that push and pull all around because oh! so many things that seem so beautiful, or at least taking a closer look at!

I'm not sure what it is.........but for me shopping has taken a different face for now. I do it when its absolutely necessary, that's about it. But it's quite an experience here in Delhi on a saturday evening.........you should definately check it out...........i'd say if you're like me and shopping has lost its magnetic charm........you'd atleast think about it after a day in the delhi shopping streets!

2007-11-15T04:43:00.000-08:00

Can you feel what I feel, do you feel that craze?
Do you know what I know, have you been through that maze?
Do you see what I see when around me I look?
Have you too taken the time to write the chapters of your book?

Do you suffer like I suffer because of causes to you unknown?
Do you hurt and feel the pain, or numb have you grown?
Can you listen to your beating heart, or has reason become too strong?
Are you still as human as me, yet for divinity long?

Can you say you are nothing and still walk around with grace?
Can you stand in the mirror with yourself face to face?
Do you spend those few moments feeling grateful your're alive?
Do you stand infront of the enormous redness of the setting sun and in it wish to dive?

The power of two statements....

2007-11-15T04:14:00.000-08:00

'Unlimited responsbility' and 'the moment is inevitable'....are two statements I was first exposed to as I attended the first Isha program I had ever been to, now almost more than an year ago. I remember at the time this was constantly drilled into our heads through different examples, talks and methods.........I felt I would explode if anybody uttered those words again! I had definately heard enough about it, and sure, it made sense and it was like this "too good to be true" kind of deal.........but no, I definately had not achieved nirvana yet and its implementation seemed almost impossible on a regular basis.
But today, more than an year after these words were said and maybe even forgotten for sometime..........they have become a living reality in my life, and the only thing I have to thank for this is the meditations and yoga that became part of my life with Isha. I find these two statements creep into the smallest aspects of my life, and help direct me deeper and deeper inwards........so that I become in complete control of the situation, and I am no more just a puppet of the circumstance.
Whether I'm in a crazy state of anger, or feel very very hurt by someone's action, or feel let down..........I turn to myself, for I know the answer in the way something has made me feel, and why things happened the way they did lies within me. And the more I start to understand my own mind, and carefully start reading into my own intentions and behaviour........its almost like Eureka!!! It's almost like you can nit pick exactly why so and so happened, how you allowed so and so to behave a certain way, how you must take full responsbility for whatever action/reaction you encountered.
It also allows the "why did this have to happen to me?" or the "How could he/she do that?" or any such questions that usually have no answer, to remain unanswered and not become a source of botheration that they usually tend to become. These questions otherwise nag us and keep moving us externally......to things/people that we have no control over.
In some ways I guess these two statements are also the beginning of surrender........surrendering to the universe, or even to yourself. You are no more an "accident" as someone says.........you are now a "concious choice".

A new look ...

2007-11-15T02:06:00.000-08:00

Finally got a new look to the blog of mine. I think I like it more than the previous look....tried to choose a simple template this time, also gave it a subtle background colour so that the content keeps the person's attention rather than the colours. I've changed some of the fonts to make them more visible, and changed the blog heading so that it now has a description. I'd been going through some other people's blogs too, and realized how a small yet impactful description really catches the eye of the reader, and gives the blog a whole new feel. I like its look for now....but will keep playing around with it for sometime.
I remember when I was younger and would go get a funky haircut or highlights in my hair....my mom would say......you only do such things to your hair when you're feeling unsettled inside! That would make me so mad at the time........ofcourse I'd find ways to completely retaliate to that comment, and am not sure if I still agree with it. But I'm realizing as I spent the last hour or more completely revamping the look of my blog site, that somewhere this urge in me to change the look of my blog came from this inner realization that soon I will be turning to a new chapter in my life. And with this realization I am looking at cleaning up things around me, throwing away unnecessary garbage that I don't need to carry along.......similar to what people do before diwali, or new years, kind of almost unconciously reorganizing my life before I head on.

The last chapter of my life had begun when I had left my job at Redknee in Canada.......it had begun with the need to understand myself, to understand what made me tick, what I had wanted to do in my life. The chapter before that had been of university life......where probably the most essential things on my mind had been related to my social standings.......all the fun that I wanted to fill my life with, all the friends that I could hang around with, all the trips with my friends that I could squeeze in.......somewhere lost in a zone where I was always dependant on things esentially beyond my control for my happiness. This chapter after university, after being at a job that made life as routine and mundane as it could be.............this next chapter where I was discovering myself........seems to be moving onto a new chapter soon as I take up a job with the Isha Home School in Coimbatore.

I am not sure what this next chapter will bring with it.....feeling both nervous and very excited to read on. I have a feeling the next chapter will be more about commitments.....more about jumping in head on into whatever comes my way, taking up things and seeing them to completion, about doing whats necessary and leaving "myself" behind in a way I never thought possible before. I know alot about me is going to break....there are going to be times I'm gonna want to run away, want to just come back to my old comfortable style of living...........but it will be when I can hang in there day after day after day...........that something beautiful will emerge. And it is to experience that beauty, which emerges from it all.........that I will stick in there, that I will be stubborn as hell, that I will have to be stern with my mind....letting it know over and over and over that i am not its slave anymore....that I know what's better for me than it does ..............that's the only way.

It's just a movie.......Whats the big deal? or is there?

2007-11-13T06:18:00.000-08:00

I just came back after watching a big bollywood (indian hollywood) blockbuster called 'Om Shanti Om'. It's been produced by one of the biggest actors of bollywood of recent times, Shah Rukh Khan. There are alot of emotions and thoughts in me that I felt fluttering as I sat there in that hall for almost close to three and a half hours.One part of me felt absolutely repulsed after watching such a glamour filled movie, with such little substance. In India, a country where cricket and bollywood are more closely paid attention to than any other big headline. I feel so sad that an actor who can influence so many young minds, has so much power over young thoughts and actions, chooses to use his influence in such a gross manner. Entertainment I agree should be something that people can enjoy in those three hours........it doesnt have to be some deep or very thought provoking movie. But it could atleast be something that adds a little less violence, a little less evil thinking, a little less hatred in the world than there already is. I personally came out of that movie remembering one scene that stuck in my memory, because the emotion filled with it was so intense.

It was of a lady being burnt in a room on fire, begging the man on the outside of the window who started the fire to save her. But he leaves her, as she stands crying. To me that scene was very intense, very very unnecessary and just made me feel very very "not good". And as this scene was playing I found myself even unable to sit still, felt myself growing numb and wanted to run out of the theatre. I looked at the 11 year old sitting next to me, munching popcorn and just staring at the screen, with no signs of emotions on her face or body language. To me it was very very shocking, how insensitive we have become to things around us. It makes me realize how we don't even react to people in misery anymore, the unconcern is dripping off of most people. I am feeling sad today...........im not even sure why if you ask me. I know its rather stupid to get emotional over a movie...........but it is instances like these that make me feel strongly, which I then put words to. I feel hurt today, feel worried today...worried for the young, innocent minds being exposed to entertainment like this. As I saw a whole two rows of teenagers sitting ahead of us, I couldn't help but think in what ways the movie would influence their minds. Another "fun" afternoon with their favourite actor........another bunch of minds turned completely numb, completely dead to emotions. Another bunch of minds only taking out of the movie.......the songs, the glamour, how she looked and how he looked, how he acted and how she acted.............but not even thinking about those very subtle aspects that hit their minds, that insensitivity being generated in them as a preventative measure to allow their mind from becoming agitated, that goriness that seems so "alright, whats the big deal..it's only a movie." Entertainment definately impacts a society like India's in a great way.........this movie just made me think more about the way it influences the new, fresh minds. Today we are looking at education not just being a mechanical information gaining process, but rather its main purpose to generate sensitive and aware individuals..........what are these kind of movies doing? What exactly is the role of these kind of movies in society?...................Aren't they outright dangerous?

Hiccupin through old times..... :)

2007-11-12T03:06:00.001-08:00

Was in a nostalgic mood today...so put together a small collage of some pics I had from my university days....Wanna add some more....will update it as I find more of em'..... :-)

Hurt........

2007-11-12T01:38:00.001-08:00

Haven't we all experienced hurt in our own ways? When we even sit down for a few minutes and think about the different experiences that have caused hurt in our lives, we react in different ways. Some people avoid the topic completely, as they dealt with the hurt by shutting themselves off from that aspect. They may have cut off the people, closed off from them, or may have taken themselves out of the environment that was causing the hurt to eliminate the feeling from their lives completely. However, when thinking about the experiences with those people the hurt is still very real. It may simmer down over time, may not be as significant as it was earlier, but one is weary of that person now, one is closed to that person/people in some way.

However, there is also another way to deal with hurt which brings freedom from it........brings in love and compassion for the people who may have caused the hurt. The love for the people increases, however there is now no compulsion or attachment or expectations associated with them. This doesn't mean that involvement is less in any way.........it is just that the affect of their behaviour does not touch you anymore, for your involvement with them is unconditional. For this I feel one has to let one self feel the hurt......not cut the situation/people out that cause the hurt.......but rather embrace them and the hurt they cause with open arms. And then slowly, as one observes the actions that cause pain to them, one observes one's own behaviour and feelings around those people more closely........one becomes more in control of one's own feelings. One slowly realizes that these people came into ones life for a very important reason..........to teach them to love truly unconditionally, to teach them to enjoy each and every person for who they were without expectations, to interact freely with life.......they brought a freedom to one's soul that one becomes thankful for. And in that thankfulness, hurt no more remains hurt but changes into a beautiful experience called life.

"I dont know"

2007-11-11T02:46:00.000-08:00

I have deemed myself ignorant for now. I can't understand things anymore. In a way its a very liberating feeling.....feel so much freer from the constant binds to know everything, to understand everything, from the constant struggle of holding on and being able to admit freely....that yes, I don't know, its a fact that I don't know. What don't I know......I don't know what all this is? I dont know where we are coming from, where we are going, I don't know anything about anything really.......I have ideas about things, and maybe even a few beliefs, but no, I don't "know". In it there's this freshness, like I'm living each moment like a child, looking at things afresh.
Yet, sometimes fear crops in. Fear of not knowing, fear of letting that vulnerable part of me out that knows she does not know, fear of being trampled upon by others, fear of not being good enough, fear of not being that person I always thought of myself to be, fear of letting myself unfold into nothing.
It makes me realize why we have wrapped ourselves with this cover of who we are. For when we admit that we do not know, we become transparent to both ourselves and others. We are allowing others to see our flaws, our weaknesses, allowing people access into those holes that haven't been filled, we are letting people feel better about themselves through our own short comings. We don't generally like that......for we like compliments, we like people seeing our strengths, we like admirations and accolades, so that we feel good about our own selves. Despite every reflection into oneself, all attempts to make oneself transparent, negative comments still hurt somewhere.....and in that hurt we again decide to close ourselves, for we feel that we are not understood, we feel our innocence is being taken for granted, we feel alone in our own knowledge of who we are, we become exclusive in the people we let in, in the people we really let know who we are. But this exclusivity is only an outpouring of fear and hurt..........and in this exclusivity, we are excluding a part of existance from ourselves..........we are deeming them unfit for involvement............a heavy price to pay in the end.
I strive to completely accept that I do not know.........for this feeling comes and goes I find........sometimes I find myself struggling for a grip, as though I am falling and need to hold onto something.........in those moments I hold on to those petty ideas I have........but I know it is only when I allow myself to fall, freely fall..........that I will truly know.

2007-11-11T00:01:00.000-08:00

I'm tired today, I can feel it today,
Tired of being on the go, tired of finding the way.
I want to lay down and sleep a dreamless sleep,
I want to tread in shallow waters and not go in the deep.

I don't want to question, want to live by the rules today,
Tired of taking the path lesser travelled, in one place want to stay.
Want to brace myself and beg it to slow down,
Want to keep the smiles away and allow myself to frown.

I don't want to reflect, nor laugh, nor cry,
I just want to stay still until the rivers dry.
No thoughts passing by, no worries, no emotions I feel,
My life played to me I want to watch on a moving reel.

2007-11-10T23:49:00.000-08:00

What is it that makes us tick? For some people it's their children, for others its the work they're doing, for some its the new person who has just come into their life, for some its their hobby whether its dance or painting........what is common in all of these? It seems to be something that is free from any kind of show or pretense, something that makes people feel true to themselves, something that they're around or when they're doing has no sense of fakeness to it......they are truly being there because they enjoy it immensely, there is no compulsion in it.
Then I think sometimes, wouldn't it be beautiful if each moment of our lives was like that. That each moment we are doing something that we enjoy immensely, that gives us such joy that when we are doing that, then there is no sense of time or space, or no compulsion involved in it. But for that I guess it's important to take time out now and again and review what we're doing, reflect on how it's making us feel. Maybe at one time it was the best thing to do.......but now we may have grown and need to move to something else. I think sometimes it is this fear of change, fear of instability that creates stagnation in our lives.......we are comfortable in our routines, in our daily lives. We feel that by just adding a few sparks here and there we can rid ourselves of the monotony we create. But isn't that just mediocrity i wonder? If we have the capability to enjoy each and every moment of our lives to the fullest, but decide to live a life which brings only a few moments of immense pleasure and happiness........then have we settled in for mediocrity?

Falling in love.............

2007-11-07T09:36:00.001-08:00

Why do we have such a dreamy picture of falling in love in our minds? The whole idea of falling in love has been so glamorized that now looking at being with someone simply without the whole jazz before it seems almost boring and not good enough. I'm also wondering what does falling in love actually mean? It's hard for me to distinguish between enjoying and feeling comfortable with someone, and being in love with someone. If we're in love with someone, should it really matter if we're with them or not. We just love the person for who they are, or for how they make you feel, but it may just be that they're not the ones you can be with. I'm wondering what it really means to be in love with someone? Does it mean that you want to be around that person all the time? Does it mean that you want to physically be with that person? Does it mean that this person is more special to you than others? Does it mean that you feel like you can just be yourself when you're with this person?
Everywhere the whole idea has been so commercialized...whether valentines day, or movies, or posters or commercials........everywhere the idea of being with someone, of being loved and in love with that special someone is thrown in your face.........over and over again. But why should one relationship be so special compared to others......why is it that people seem so much more involved with that one person compared to others? Why aren't people involved the same way.......maybe not physically, but mentally and emotionally with each person they meet? What does it mean to fall in love? Does it mean that when you are with this person you finally feel complete......you finally feel at ease with who you are? Does it mean that you can finally put down that guard we call our ego before that one person? Does being in love with this person make you love yourself more? What does it mean to fall in love?

2007-11-05T01:08:00.000-08:00

Why are we so obsessed with theories, with proofs, with reasons.........why is it that for everything we need a logical explanation otherwise we discard it as frivolous, as insignificant? Why is it that anything that cannot be justified, is considered not worthy enough? Why is it that our feelings, our intuitions about things have taken second place in life? I may just feel so and so way about something without having any clear cut reasoning for it........but it is so difficult for one to accept it because we are so used to having an explanation for everything. I guess the mind feels much more at ease when we can give it a reason.......otherwise we are treading on very flimsy territory. For we keep cross questioning ourselves, we keep wondering if the decision we made is stupid, or if it is the right one. When in fact, time and again it can be seen that any decision made with the gutt is always the right one. But why is it even then so hard to trust our gutt? Maybe because in trusting our gutt we need to surrender to the unknown.......we need to loosen our grip from things we have control of.......and in doing that tremendous courage is needed........breaking down of the ego, of what you know as yourself is needed.......something that is very difficult to do...........

Thinking....

2007-11-03T03:46:00.000-07:00

Today I'm thinking about how impulsive we are sometimes when we get emotional. It's almost as though all sense is lost when that burst of emotions comes, and we make some moves, we hurt some people that we later regret. For me it was a mail I sent two days ago in rather an impulsive state. An anger fluttered in me, I didn't know what to do about it, I wrote this mail and even though some part of me told me to just sit on it, the "Send" button was pressed. After that ofcourse....the other person's emotions were gravely hurt, alot of restlessness created in both minds and I thought to myself why is it that even being so aware, we sometimes do such silly things out of a compulsion.
In my head it was probably the best thing to do at the time, but somewhere it was also a way of disturbing the other person's peace of mind because my own had been disturbed. But I realized, that hurting that person only hurt myself in the end. Maybe somewhere I felt that without this person feeling the same emotion that I was, they wouldn't be able to empathize with me. Later on when I reflected I realized, when in anger towards someone, we almost unconciously want to hurt that person in some way. It is such a strong need in us that we make attempts to do it in the most grossest of ways. How difficult it is to be in complete control of ourselves when someone hurts us or we get angry. Infact, anger and hurt are so closely connected themselves...usually found together. I feel sad today for what happened......I guess after anger and hurt are gone...they leave a numbing sadness which fills me today.

On coming back home....

2007-11-02T03:46:00.000-07:00

Unsure of what all has happened i find myself today,
Like in a daze, yet very alert, rare thoughts come my way.
Music soothes my soul, an intense love fills my heart,
So beautiful everything all around, of everything I find myself a part.

A new journey getting ready to embark,
A strange peace fills my being, lighted with a new spark.
Calmness set in as with my heart in sync I feel,
Resistance less today, gone is a layer of the peel.

Questions, uncertainities, annoyances easier to let go,
Giving myself the time i need, letting myself move slow.
Accepting the losses, life for whatever it has been,
In a new light myself and others I have seen.

I just got back from Coimbatore today. Back in Delhi at home for sometime. There's a strange kind of acceptance and calm in me that almost seems unfamiliar. For almost as long as I remember there was almost so much turmoil and conflict within me, almost like I was searching, searching, searching all the time. I was looking for something that I could never find and was always so restless within myself.
It is for the first time that I feel I have found what I have been looking for forever, I have found that which gives me the peace I have always been looking for. Part of me knows that it is not an easy decision to go live away in the school in Coimbatore. But the other part of me knows that that's exactly what I have to do. It is where I find myself alive and on fire. My heart burns with a desire to bring that little difference in a child's life and I know this place gives me the freedom to learn and do exactly that.
I feel so grateful today to the universe for taking me on paths completely unknown. And a very real realization has come that the more we jump into the unknown, the more we feel the fear and do it anyway...the more something bigger than we can imagine is there with us, holding our hand each step of the way.