Towards light

Pic: Saladeen

First step is always difficult yet very beautiful. It's a pure moment, untouched, unlived, unexpected. You will be vulnerable and thats what will make you come alive. Like the first love, there's always fear of rejection yet there's a possibility of something magical to blossom. That hope, that longing for that one single moment of coming together, with your beloved, with yourself is enough for the moth to sacrifice itself in the fire. That first step is always worth it...

Advait part 23 ( Swagyan)

‘Love’ is all there is, I learned. Two years had passed and I felt my heart opening up. All my life I tried to run, tried to run away from my life and thus leaving so many loved ones behind. Acceptance comes from within, whole you are when you cease to become and just be. I am you and you are me, I felt this from a deep place within. Tell me your story and in it you will find mine. I looked up, gazing at the sky, feeling the water drops on my face as it stirred my soul..slowly I murmured..I found you at last, my life, my inspiration, my swagyan. You are therefore I am.

Fear makes you alive..

I like my life... I wondered. who would have thought following your dreams would take you here. They always scare you, scare you of being crushed by reality of our imaginations, they scare you I thought, because they too are afraid, afraid of accepting who they are. A famous writer once said "fear of suffering is worse than suffering itself", so let me suffer with joy, I reminded myself.

I liked my life... because everyday would hold little mysteries for me, people I met or things I did. Everything was so unpredictable and yet arranged so synchronically. Every moment I unwrapped, I found a little gift inside.

I liked my life... sometimes so much that it would really make me afraid, afraid of illusions I have built around me but then heart responds, isn't everything an illusion and aren't we creating our own world where we live ?

and yet again I am reminded of the poem I read in my class " To put meaning in one's life may end in madness, But life without meaning is the torture of restlessness and vague desire"

So I continue to like my life with it's fears and desires because thats what makes me alive...

you can always become a shepherd again....

"I won't go" said Mahavira to his mother and yet she lost him in her magnificent castle.
A bird in a cage with open doors is yet hesitant to fly.
The flower which gives fragrance to all belongs to none.
Lights the sky, the little twinkling star, yet all by herself in the crowd.
"Dream a dream" coaxed the old king, "you can always become a shepherd again.

A boat longing for the sea...

Photo courtsey: Nancy Poucher

I have studied many times

The marble which was chiseled for me—

A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.

In truth it pictures not my destination but my life.

For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;

Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;

Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.

Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.

And now I know that we must lift the sail

And catch the winds of destiny, wherever they drive the boat.

To put meaning in one's life may end in madness,

But life without meaning is the torture of restlessness and vague desire—

It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.

- George Gray

Note: During my film course in US, my acting teacher Karen Hirst asked me to read this monologue by George Gray. It's a poem depicting a man who reminisces his unlived life. To reflect it he engraves a picture of a boat tied in a shore in his gravestone.

Now after so many years I came across this poem and couldn't help but reflect my own life, partly afraid and partly alive :)

The foolish human heart

An excerpt from 'The Postmaster' by Rabindranath Tagore:

He felt a deep pain in his heart. The grief stricken face of a mere village girl seemed to express a great, mute heartache pervading the whole world. For once he wished ardently to go back and bring along with him that orphan girl abandoned by the world. But already the wind had filled the sails, the river of the rainy season was flowing swiftly, the village had been left behind, and the cremation ground on the riverbank had come into view. In the pensive heart of the traveler, floating along the current of the river, there arose the reflection that there were so many separations, so many deaths like this in life. What was the point of going back? Nobody belonged to anybody on this earth.
But no such philosophy dawned on Ratan. She was going round the post office building with eyes flooded with tears. Perhaps she had a faint hope that Dadababu might come back. This made it impossible for her to go away.
Oh the foolish human heart! Illusion is hard to dispel and it takes very long for rules of logic to enter the head. Even strong evidence is disbelieved and a false hope is desperately embraced in one's heart. When at last one day it runs away, severing all the artities and draining the heart's blood, then one comes around and the heart longs to be again entangled in another snare of delusion.

Happy Birthday

And I finally turn 30 :) This moment that I was dreading most now turns out to be the most beautiful. What better gift to myself than being in Ahmedabad. A long time dream come true. It’s almost been two months here and never for a moment I asked my purpose. It felt a calling, natural and destined. It made me complete. The start it self was auspicious with getting a beautiful 3 bedroom apartment as a gift from a complete stranger (Now an elder brother). Somebody had once helped Dakshesh Bhai when his vehicle broke down in highway and now he is paying it forward in so many different ways.
Like sugar in water, instantly we were dissolved and accepted by the Manav Sadhna family. It felt belonged. Their simplicity and hearts full of love humbled me and slowly I found myself opening to love again. People said I was glowing and I too felt I was smiling a lot. Compassion was in the air. Doing small things seemed meaningful. Together we cleaned bus stops and in the process cleaned ourselves, together we watched inspiring films in seva café and learnt to see goodness in all and together we meditated on wednesdays through which we went within. Unlearning was fun and being human again felt alive.

I realized the smallness of me when I saw the invisible everyday heroes around and yet I saw the divine in me with potential of infinite love and capacity to serve.
Words of king echoed “everybody can be great because everybody can serve”.

Life is indeed beautiful :)