'Good and bad divide oneself'

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…….

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...............

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……………

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....

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.....

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

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 :)