This blog is about me contemplating and trying to make sense of this fascinating journey called life and penning down various life lessons that I learn along the way.....
So make yourself a nice cup of coffee..pull a chair and sit back and enjoy the little ponderings that I share with you...


Friday, September 26, 2014

Our Hidden Sanctuaries, A Visual Diary and A Song ....


 
Here is an article that I had written for Speaking Tree on Meeting of Inner and Outer Sanctuaries which appeared on Sept 21, 2014.
 
 

Having been born, brought up and lived in the city of Mumbai most of my life, I have always craved for the simple village life that I felt deprived of. As a child, I would love to hear the stories that my friends had to share about their visits to their home towns during summer vacations. Among them, I thought that my friends from Goa where the luckiest people in the world for being able to live in a sea-facing house surrounded by tall coconut trees.
So, I was very excited when we got the opportunity to buy a beautiful small place of our own in the western part of Maharashtra admist the heart of  nature - not for the glamour quotient of owning a weekend home, but because this presented an opportunity for me to experience the simple village life that I craved for.
To me, village life meant a beautiful sanctuary where I could plant my own trees and follow the rhythm of nature. A place where I could go for a healing embrace of mother nature and come back afresh to handle the day to day hectic city life.
Mother Nature has that kind of healing effect on us, helps us transmute all our stored negativity that we carry around and has the capacity to fill the crevices of our jaded souls. Allowing us to experience that just being is enough we don’t have to constantly to be doing something.
We all feel the need to experience such outer sanctuaries in various forms whether it is a simple spiritual getaway, a weekend home or a relaxing vacation repeatedly to heal our splintered souls.
What happens for most of us is that after we come back from such a getaway we immediately start feeling the withdrawal blues rightaway. The peace that we experienced gets immediately washed away as soon as we are back home.
Thich Nhat Hanh explains in his book ‘The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching’ that our object of perception is already inside us. When we perceive the moon, the moon is us. The flower that we are looking at is a part of our own consciousness. In this perspective, it helps to realise that this outer sanctuary that we repeatedly crave for and the peace that it offers is already contained within us. In our daily meditations by going within we can access this beautiful place inside us.
Then we could be travelling in a train, or waiting for the bus or sitting in the office, we can just simply close our eyes and visit this beautiful sanctuary in all its beauty inside us and come back rejuvenated, well equipped to handle the daily chores that lay ahead for all of us and fulfil our roles with sincerity.
This meeting of the outer and the inner sanctuaries is nothing but a profound realisation that whatever we seek for in the outside world is already inside us, we just need to see it with the right eyes… 

 
So much hard work for a bowl of rice.....
 


It's never too early for a bit of gratitude meditation


Or some contemplation....


Or seeing the connections and cheering for the snail.......


Home is truly where your heart is....


 
On that note it reminds me.. long time, no song, right? Listening to Samjhawan sung by Arijit Singh on FM right now. Beautiful lyrics and this Arijit Singh is a truly blessed singer.... Njoy, listen to each and every word with full awareness and Smile! Your smile is precious.... 



 

Monday, September 8, 2014

There goes my glass of wine too!! And I am not even complaining...


Our daily life presents us with wonderful opportunities of mindful living and the other day a simple conversation with my little 5 year old son made me realise the powerful potential that each moment presents to us and our capacity to either harness it or ignore it has the power to plant the seeds of endless future possibilities which we cannot see today.
I would really hardly call myself a drinker and a single glass of wine maybe once a couple of months socially almost qualifies me as a teetotaller. But the other day, while we were sipping a glass of wine, on a rainy late evening, my son came there and asked me a simple pointed question. He came up to me and said “Maa, isn’t alcohol harmful for health? Don’t you know that? Then how come you are having it?” And as most adults would, I went on to explain to him that one glass of wine occasionally is not harmful and anything that is done in the right balance is not harmful to our health. He seemed unsatisfied, had a disturbed look on his face and said “But it’s still alcohol!” and then went about his way. :(
I felt very uneasy after that incident. As a logical adult, I know for a fact that one glass of wine perhaps once a couple of months does absolutely no harm to our health. But then, why am I feeling uncomfortable? What is this situation trying to teach me? I wondered. Here is a little boy bringing a lesson to me, what am I missing out here? His face kept coming to me and I could imagine both of us having the exact same conversation a few years down the line in reverse roles. I couldn’t reach a resolution. So I thought that if I let this just stay with me, it will eventually lead me to the answer.
And co-incidentally, these days I am reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s book called “The Heart of Buddha’s Teaching” and a couple of days later I reached the part on page 97 where he explains an exact similar situation about a woman having wine! He explains beautifully that the Ministry of Health in France advises people not to drink too much. They advertise on television that “One glass is ok, but three glasses invites destruction.” But if the first glass were not there in the first place, how could there be a third glass? Not having the first glass of wine is the highest form of protection. He goes on to say that if you give up wine, you’ll be doing it not only for yourself but also for your children and the society. You may not have the seeds of alcoholism in you, but who knows whether the seed of alcoholism is in your children!
Oops!! This hit me like a bull’s eye! This is a bit much of a co-incidence. Was this the resolution that I was looking for? I thought. Most of us on the spiritual path are well aware of the concepts and ideas that there are actually no co-incidences and that the universe sends it’s messages to us in strange little ways. We are well aware and well-read about the concepts of our wise new age children. But do we have the courage to act upon these messages and listen to them when they actually happen in our life or do we just simply ignore them? That is a true test of our beliefs.
So, I decided to take this message from the Universe seriously and act on it.  I went up to my little baby and told him that he was indeed right. One glass of wine is still alcohol and that I do not really need to consume it at all to feel good or comply socially. I thanked him for being so wise and pointing it out to me bravely. He looked very delighted with this and the look on his face itself was worth the decision for me. :)
Some people may call this extreme or too moralistic but I call this heart based living. Doesn’t make logical sense but feels right to me. This may not make me very popular but then again I am not here to be popular, am I? I am here to follow my deeper purpose in complete harmony with the Universe. So many people have wines and all sorts of things and this situation does not happen to them, does it? Maybe giving up wine may not be in tandem with their purpose in life, which is great for them. But it did happen to me! So I have to have the spine and respect and honour it for what it is.
And in a way I am also not very surprised as I realise that this is not way out of line of where I am naturally heading towards too.. I am already a vegetarian.. literally a vegan.. can't really consume animal products anymore....done with the lattes, milk chais, cheese, paneer and yoghurts also...So I guess, there goes my indulgence of a glass of wine too!! :) It's almost like a natural guided progression.. something which I am not even actively advocating.. Its just happening effortlessly and I am observing it.
Also today, I have no idea what this simple act of giving up my glass of wine based on my son’s observation may have an impact on mine or his future life or the society that he will operate in. And when he grows up I don’t want to hold him to it as a tit for tat and a reason for him to not touch alcohol. Ofcourse, he will go through his own experiences of what this world has to offer. But I am sure that this tiny incident is etched forever as a part of his life story and his consciousness. Maybe it will help him in his darkest hour or maybe he will probably amusingly tell this story to his grandchildren and that itself will have it’s own ripple effects on that future generation. I cannot see those ripple effects today. But I do know that today I was presented with an opportunity to plant this seed of Right Action which may grow into a beautiful tree somewhere tomorrow. Isn’t that what mindful living is all about? :)