You are the Universe expressing itself.... Don't die with the Music still inside you...

"Don't die with the music still inside you. Listen to your intuitive inner voice and find what passion stirs your souls" - Wayne Dyer 

Most of you are well aware that I have not been writing much recently on Soul Food Bites. I am not sure if it was a writers block or simply that my soul had chosen to experience and express itself in other creative forms recently. Between this period my vegan food website "A Sweet Vegan World" was born and it will always be very close to my heart. But whenever I would go anywhere people would ask me about  Soul Food Bites articles and why I had stopped writing them. I really had no answer. It just wasn't happening. I just wasn't feeling like it. I felt like I had nothing to say really. I guess..

But then something really got to me the other day. It was the news of Wayne Dyer passing away. 

I honestly couldn't believe that this man had died...

The reality and certainty of death always has that power to jolt you out of your comfort zone.

Why? You ask.. I didn't even know him personally right? But you know what? when I was in my darkest dungeon ..his words had the power to pull me out... Yes simple words..I held on to those words like a rope which pulled me out. Wise and inspirational words by some very wise authors. And Wayne Dyer was one of them. Wayne Dyer, Robin Sharma, Anthony Robbins, Deepak Chopra, Paulo Coelho and even Brian Weiss.. These authors unknowingly became my mentors through their works and their books.

These authors became my rocks. And Wayne Dyer was one of such a big rock. He spoke about hope, inspiration, strength and sometimes even about orbs around his head and monarch butterflies sitting on his shoulders. :) And honestly initially even I wondered if he was deluded or something but as I read more and more of his books.. his words would resonate with the deepest part in me.

And today as I looked at his picture on one of my books, a sense of realisation dawned on me. His face appeared so serene and peaceful. It was as if he had written everything he knew and believed to be true and now had moved on to his next step in his eternal journey. It was as if he had emptied himself out ..fulfilled his purpose and moved on.. Some got inspired by him, some must have called his work humbug and some don't even know who he is. But  he did what he was meant to do on this planet.. He wrote it all out...

It really made me wonder..Had I written it all out? Yes some may read it, some may not, some may like it some may call it bullshit, one day it may culminate into a book , one day it may not. But the real question is had "I" written it all out? Or was I going to die with the "Music still inside my heart" as Wayne Dyer himself would say it. Was I going to share with the world everything that I had learnt since I began my journey consciously or would I just die with all the knowledge inside me?...

If you really ask me last 6 years of my life have been so dramatically life altering that I have really prayed to God.... please give me one non-happening year!! Seriously! But then I realise life gives you experiences so that you may learn from them and share your learnings with others. All this could not be happening for no reason. I have to write it out. Weave them into beautiful stories.. Or what's the point? Right?

I believe the Universe expresses itself through us. It gives us desires, dreams, knowledge, experiences and opportunities for our learning and for sharing these learnings with others. And to express these desires is our purpose in life..The Music in our hearts.. And that's why many famous authors like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Paulo Coelho have repeatedly said that ..When you decide to follow your dreams the entire Universe supports you ....... Why? Because I believe you are simply the Universe expressing itself through you so when you align yourself with your dreams and desires you allow things to flow....allows opportunities to come your way. Yes ,we like the word opportunities as compared to the concept of the Universe supporting us..isn't it? :)

And to think about it..we are all going to die one day..each and every one of us..And it's really not going to matter how many Likes you got and how many you didn't. Even Mr. Deepak Chopra or for that matter Mahatma Gandhi have their fair share of nay sayers. But imagine if they didn't do what they were meant to do because of fear..

A friend had recently sent me a message that "The greatest challenge in life is discovering who you are. The second greatest is being happy with what you find"...How true is that! Accepting our true self is surprisingly such a challenging task. Never thought it would be like that.. But that's what it is.. right? I mean, I always wonder ..why did I choose this silly task of writing such thought provoking stuff!! why couldn't I have just chosen to be a famous movie star instead!! :) haha.. But I guess that's not how the story was supposed to go.. :) So many times we literally need the Universe to push us to finally get down to what we were meant to do! So funny huh!!

And as I stare at Wayne Dyer's serene face. I realise that even I want to die like that..after having written everything out.. Some may not read it, some may not like it, some may call it airy fairy but some sweet souls quietly read it and look forward for more and so I write for them and mainly for Me. As most of all I owe it to all my life experiences and my own soul to express itself clearly and give it an opportunity to do what it was meant to do!! Yes..it takes courage to put yourself out there..But that's the whole point isn't it?. I am not coming back all over again for it!!  What about you? :) 

Lessons of Unconditional Love from "Doggy"….

 

 

I want to introduce you to this wonderful being who recently came into my life simply called “Doggy”. Why he is called just Doggy and not some proper name is the entire basis of our relationship.

 So when we started regularly visiting our small little beautiful village house, I was this typical city dweller who would walk around with a wooden stick in my hand to protect myself and my little one from some doggies who followed us around in the campus. I would often wonder why the stray dogs are allowed to walk around in the campus in the first place. Then slowly I noticed that this one particular doggy always sat outside our house, always followed us everywhere no matter what wherever we went. Sometimes I would be scared but then slowly I started getting familiar with him.

Sometimes a thought would cross my mind whether I should feed him something but then I would stop myself thinking that maybe this would encourage the whole bunch of dogs to land at our doorstep. I thought this would not be a wise thing since I had a little one to care for and protect and would be scared of the germs that these dogs would be spread around.  

But this particular one would not give up. He would follow us everywhere. Even if I didn’t give him any food he would still hang around in the verandah and spend the whole weekend around us. My son too became familiar with him and started pointing him out to me. He would say “Look Maa, there’s our Doggy.” Slowly he started being “our doggy”.

Then I began wondering that if he spends the whole weekend with us where would he be eating? So I slowly started giving him some food. Then I would notice that he would loudly bark whenever he saw any other dog near our house. He was getting territorial. I never realised how powerful his bark actually was. He never showed it to us. But whenever another dog approached our house this fellow would growl and bark at him and then again gently just come and sit on the verandah. I didn’t know what to make of this.

Then one day while walking around I happened to glance right into his eyes. I was told never to stare at a dog right in his eye, but this just happened. And I noticed such deep wise gentle eyes. He too was gently staring right back at me. I suddenly felt so safe. I realised that he meant no harm. Eyes are truly the windows to the souls and animals have souls too. I had read a lot about this. But this was the first time it truly sank in for me.

I used to think that my heart was open enough but I guess not. This doggy taught me that I could further open my heart to him too. That there were still places in me that I had not yet explored. Growing up in matchbox sized homes in Mumbai, having a pet was a luxury that I hadn’t even thought of. So I had an indifferent relationship with “pets”. I thought it was something that I did not have to bother with. Humans already have so much trouble. And that, there was already enough and more on my plate to worry about. I didn’t realise that I had the capacity to hold much more love and compassion than I had imagined. And ofcourse, with time he helped me open my heart so much that I ended up becoming an active Vegan. I realised that I had an unexplored area in my heart where I could extend my compassion to not just dogs but all animals.

After that day everything changed. I now looked forward to having him around  and he would always hang around us during our entire stay. I started taking care of his meal timings. I noticed which food he preferred and his mannerisms. He was simply just our doggy.

Then came a stage when I would wonder what happens to him when I go to Mumbai. Who gives him food? Would the other doggies be caring for him now that he barks at them, when he is with us? Taking him physically back with me wasn’t a realistic option for me.

That’s when I learnt to hand him over to the Universe. I knew he would be fine even when I was not around. I don’t need to own him, name him, chain him, train him. Nothing! He is his own being. He is his own master. He goes for his walks, comes and goes at his will. He stays with us out of his own will. He is not our “pet”. And I am not his owner.  He is simply just our doggy.

That’s when I realised what this doggy was teaching me! Isn’t that what unconditional love is about? Not wanting to possess another being. To be able to love another deeply without owning them. And more importantly, trusting that they will be feeling that too no matter what. This has been such a major lesson in my life.. letting go physically of my loved ones… my parents are in another realm, my sister stays in another continent, my besties stay in other countries and cities.. Infact, isn’t that the case with most of us nowadays? Probably humanity as a whole needs to learn this lesson to love each other unconditionally without physically possessing them. We may be spending the days of our lives making new wonderful friends and sharing lives with other good people. But deep down, given a choice, our hearts truly crave for each other. And if it doesn’t then why worry anyways…

They say that true unconditional love doesn’t mean that you are visibly inseperable. It means that you are separate and still nothing changes. If we are able to even understand this and more importantly believe that such love truly exists and is even possible. It is enough.

And that’s what this gentle soul, “Doggy” teaches me….. Let go. Don’t own me. I will still choose to come to you… And I too choose to have that faith…

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.... 

 

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? :)

 

It's A Personal Journey...

Here is an article that I had written, an abridged version of which appeared in The Speaking Tree Edition of The Times of India dated August 3, 2014.

 

Most of us who are on the spiritual path would have encountered the terms spiritual ego, spiritual competition and spiritual shopping. When I became conscious of my path, I was warned of these concepts also. But I was sure that these things won't happen to me, or so I thought, this path was supposed to be full of compassion, healing, love, peace and happiness. I thought competition was a part of the corporate life which I had left behind a few years ago.

But as I trod along the path, these terms began making an appearance, albeit slowly. As people around you come to know of your spiritual interests, conversations naturally tend to steer toward it. You will be asked with anxiety, whether you practice reiki daily? How long do you meditate daily? Have you read a book of this particular author? How many spiritual workshops have you attended? Do you know pranic healing, tarot cards, angel cards, etc.? Are you part of any spiritual organization? You will be given unsolicited gyan on what a particular guru or teacher says and if you tend to disagree with that, then Lord only spare you!!

All this can sometimes cause a lot of energy imbalance and anxiety inside you. One needs to remember that at a deeper level this is a very personal journey and that it needs to be respected for what it is. There are many paths which lead to the same Source and to assume that yours’ is the only path is a serious disservice to someone else’s journey.

My conscious journey started after the sudden and tragic death of my parents in an accident when I had just been blessed with a lovely baby. This was the first time aspects of duality- death and birth, anger and gratitude, darkness and light were staring at me right at my face. This made me question every concept I knew or was conditioned to believe about life and death. My relationship with the Universe had got distorted and it had been of anger yet of thankfulness. And this confused state of mind was affecting my daily life. And I realised that to be a better person, I have to heal myself completely at a soul level.

Clarifying my purpose helped me to get back to the place of unconditional love and compassion once again.

We all got attracted to our own spiritual path in this lifetime for a particular reason. The reasons could be various for each one of us such as needing to manage our daily stress, loss of purpose in life in general, relationship issues, a need to heal some disease, a loss of loved one and so on. If we are clear about our purpose of getting on this journey, then it helps us stay true to it. Monitoring our improvements on this front helps us increase our self-confidence and thus reduces our inner anxieties to keep cross checking our efforts with others. As Thich Nhat Hanh said “There is no enlightenment outside of daily life”. If your practice is helping you in your daily life to become a better person, improving your relationship with your loved ones, healing you, giving you inner strength, then how does it matter how many hours your neighbour is meditating or how many workshops he is attending? 

To me, a spiritual journey is an inner experiential journey of self-actualization. It is about discovering the divine place within you and not outside of you. It is futile to judge others and draw comparisons on this path. It is about listening to our inner voice who has been our eternal companion in our journey and guides us towards finally uniting with our true being, provided we listen to it!

 

 

I am the soul that lives within.....

Life is the most amazing teacher. Every single day through simple daily instances it teaches you something new about your own self and pushes you to go deeper and deeper to question your belief systems. Makes you wonder about everything that you thoughtlessly judged as good or bad before. 

Worth noting them down...life's little musings... with all its contradictions and humour.. Nothing heavy today.. just some simple wonderings....

 

And the other day, a simple act of getting a photograph done got me thinking and musing over what I actually am.  Made me question what is my outer me and what is my inner me? And who sees what?

 

"I am not this hair, I am not this skin, I am the soul that lives within." - Rumi

 

 

So the other day, I wanted some instant passport size pictures done. I went to this cute little shop and the guy there quickly clicked my picture and went to take the printout. And while I was waiting there, I could see him working on his computer.  I was curious to know what is he exactly doing with my picture so I went near him to watch him work. And I was so fascinated by what I saw. 

 

This guy had opened my picture in photoshop and was working on my face. He very sincerely removed every single blemish from my face, he nicely smoothened my cheeks and made me a shade fairer. He didn't stop at that, he then went on to fix my hair too. He nicely with his paintbrush adjusted them, rubbed out the ones that were flying out of place and made me prim and proper. One part of me wanted to tell him.. Dude, I look just fine the way I am!! and I am not going to pay you extra for this "fixing." But he was doing it all so sincerely and as a matter of factly that I  just smilingly waited for the final result. I wanted to know how exactly, did this person think, I "should" look like? :)

 

And then very pleased with his job gave me my printouts. And obviously I looked great in it!! And it made me wonder, Really? Who can I even show this picture to? This is not even me. :) And even if I ended up showing it to people they would simply dismiss it as a fudged photograph, right?

 

But then I remembered something which made me wonder even more. Remember in the earlier days (Did I just say that!!?? ;)) Well, yeah, so before photoshop, I should say :). So earlier, when we would go to take a picture, they would give you a few minutes to fix yourself. There would be a small corner where you could look in the mirror, put on some talcum powder and comb your hair. And after this ritual you would sit there and properly get a picture taken, right? 

 

Come to think of it, didn't the photoshop guy do the same thing on my picture? He put some concealer on my face and added some pink on my cheeks and brushed my hair...but only digitally didn't he? So then, it's still me, right? :) What's really wrong with that?

 

And so many people feel compelled to do that every single day of their life, right? No, I am not talking about basic hygiene and being "presentable" here. I am talking about actually picking up a brush and painting your face... putting on some makeup to enhance our looks..that's perfectly okay, right? So why does it feel wrong if we do it on photoshop? Why does that feel like fudging? Something to think about.....

 

And imagine, if I put this picture of mine on social networks, people would actually think this is what I look like! There are some people who probably we will never meet again in physical life but we are virtually connected to them on a daily basis. And with this picture, their entire lifetime they would think.. this is what I look like, with flawless smooth skin, a shade fairer and perfect hair!!! Talk about reality...and being yourself...

But what if I put on some makeup on my actual face and post that picture. Wouldn't I be doing the same fudging? How come that's alright?

And would I feel my authentic self with people who thought and wanted me to look flawless like that? Is it even worth it?

When I get stressed or depressed I tend to put on weight...when I start healing I automatically loose all my extra weight.. sometimes I colour my hair red...sometimes I straighten them out prim and proper... sometimes I like them loosely curly and flowing. I look different when I wake up in the mornings. I look different when I feel happy. I look different when I am sad or angry....
So this outer me keeps changing all the time and sometimes not even in my control. They say, beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder and the one who doesn't see the inner me....sees who and what then?

Reminds me of the day that I was going to get my glasses for the first time with my Dad and my sister. I was in my 10th standard then so obviously I was not very happy and a bit sad then. And my astute Dad had sensed that and he very sweetly with very few words told me that anyone who can't see the real me beyond my glasses was so not worth it. And that was the biggest advice I carry with me always and in some ways it got me thinking at an early age about the joy of being my authentic self and the real me...Who was this me beyond my glasses? I found it a very fascinating idea...

But yes..there's one enhancer that I myself am addicted to.. and that's my eye kohl...my kaajal pencil...and as I ponder more about it.. I guess that's where it leads to... the eyes..

The eyes are the windows to our soul, they say. Is that where my inner me resides? :)

 

 

 



Let Our Children Just Be....

I am truly blessed to have been meeting really wonderful souls as my journey continues. And a few months back, I met a wonderful friend, Lissa and through her I had the opportunity to know about her little sister Tara. Tara, a lovely 12 year old beautiful soul, left this world on 10^th March 2014 but is still spiritually connected to all of us. This amazing soul left behind a treasure cove of wonderful metaphysical and thought provoking writings at such a young age. The Universe feels like a safe and wonderful place to be in because pure beings like her are still a part of it. And she shows the proof of her eternal existence through her lovely poems which she left behind for her loved ones and the rest of the world.

Through some of her metaphysical writings, Tara, a little 12 year old girl displays a lingering memory of our true identity, that we are not just the bodies and the physical form that we appear to be in. And she expressed it beautifully through her thoughts and feelings. Her lovely thought provoking poems simply amaze me. Makes me wonder, if a 12 year old child can be true to her feelings why can’t we all be. And she seems to keep inspiring us all in multiple ways….

Tara is a true example of our delightful children who have come down here with a mission to make this world a better place. They are wonderful, sensitive beings who possess many special unique talents and are gifted in their own way. The eternal question “Who am I?” which haunts us all throughout our lives is arising in their minds at a very young age.

Perhaps, because they have not yet forgotten the reality of who we really are. But many children these days get misunderstood because of lack of spiritual awareness of parents. In the name of “focus” we teach our children to repress all such beautiful wonderings that come to the minds of little children naturally. Many of the children are very spiritually aware and are highly evolved souls and have many questions regarding God, heaven, hell, good, bad and everything else under the sun. Sometimes, they even have answers that we ourselves are seeking. The real question is, are we prepared for them? Or are we so “intelligent” and practical that have we never “wasted” any time thinking about all this “stuff” in our own lives?

Tara’s words in her poem …Who am I?

Who am I? Am I a human?

Am I an animal? Am I a soul?

Or just a body?

But though now I lie in this bed,

One day I will be on my own feet running and all of my dreams will come true.

But I still have to find who I am…..

In the above poem, this little 12 year old girl feels the need to find who out she truly is and knows there is much more to her than what simply appears to be.  Have we tried to really find who we are? All souls are beautiful and pure when they come down and are full of such wonderings before they get polluted by our limited conditioning.

And as a mother of a boy, it also makes me wonder, would we have been so accepting of our little boys too? A boy writing metaphysical poetry! That’s all fine, but he has to be focused, strong and aggressive to “do” something “real” in life, right? We probably would have even secretly worried a bit about him.

Imagine this very familiar scene, A bunch of little boys are playing in the playground and somehow the ones who are most aggressive, loud, dominating and wanting to control everything will always be labelled as a potential “leader” material by some observer. And to be nice, nobody around defies this label given to such boys. But you think the other boys are not listening and learning from this? Ofcourse, they are. So what has happened here? Firstly, the aggressive boy’s behaviour gets encouraged and secondly, silently the other boys have learnt that this is what one has to do to be a leader. Leader? Really? Leader of what? And where will such a leader lead us to? Seems like not a very nice place to me.

A boy writing metaphysical poems would probably be seen as an aberration and a cause of concern for his parents. There seems to be no apparent place in today’s world for thought leadership or so we think and hence end up inculcating wrong values. And where did this all imbalance start? At that playground… when nobody taught fairness, the importance of being kind, compassionate and caring towards one’s own friends to these little boys. How many of us would come back home and openly name and discuss these control dramas which people knowingly/unknowingly play and how each unique child can handle these situations without emulating another child? How many of us put our energies and thoughts in this direction?

And then we watch the television and complain about crime against women and innocent people and feel horrible about these same grown boys….. But where did this all start? Where did they learn that aggression and manipulation is what gets you things? At that playground, when some parent thoughtlessly tried to show off their leadership assessment skills….and others were too “nice” and kept quiet or discuss this uncomfortable situation openly with their children.

Children are just pure children. We are the ones who begin slotting them in gender roles and fixed templates. We forget the importance of letting them grow as holistic people and not just as boys or girls. The path of self-actualisation requires us to balance our masculine and feminine energies and not supress either of them. It’s important to encourage sensitivity, kindness, creativity, responsibility, co-operation and assertiveness in all humans…both girls and boys equally.

Yes, we all are worried about the future and the careers of our children in today’s competitive world. But thinking from a scarcity mentality won’t get us anywhere. If we just allow our children to be who they are and help them in exploring and honing their various unique talents, then they will develop high self esteem, and will love to put in the required hours to master their talents willingly and then eventually be successful and fulfilled in their life. It is us parents who are not aware enough and hence have a very closed view of careers and life which we pass on to our children. Just to give a simple example, if our child likes music then our closed mind only imagines him playing in a rock band or a classical concert and we discourage him to go ahead with it as a career. We never imagine that maybe this child will open music schools countrywide or will make music education accessible to everyone or teach a better way of learning music to the coming generations or combine his love of music, maths and science and come up with something totally new. It is our limited imagination and awareness which makes us worry and transfer our insecurities to them and want them to be a certain way and grow up in a certain fixed template. Imagine billions and billions of children growing up in a few fixed set templates about life. Really?

To me personally, Jonathan Livingstone Seagul is one of the best books that you can read to your child and help them celebrate who they really are and how only by truly being who they are, will they shine and end up finding their “own” tribe.

Tara is a beautiful example of our wonderful children who are immensely wise, unique, thoughtful and talented. It is us parents who need to realise and remember this sacred responsibility that we undertook. We need to be more aware and be open to their unique talents and to the idea that they may end up being teachers, healers, writers, artists, musicians, sportsmen or take up careers and life paths which our little minds cannot even imagine at this point in time.

Also Tara’s writings and her thoughts inspire us adults in a way, that we don’t need to “Be” something to write out our pure thoughts and wonderings. She truthfully wrote what she had to because she was connected to her Source and her intuitive wisdom. And aren’t we all? She was not worried who will publish her material, who will read it and who will like it? She just simply wrote. She just simply was, who she was and hence inspiring us all to “Just Be” who we are....

I AM that I AM…..and that’s enough….

You can read more about lovely Tara and her writings on http://estrademagazine.com/tara-chazot/