Will we ever be enlightened?

That day I met an ex-colleague of mine. She was finnicky about her son's study, achievements and career. She was gurgling about how much pain she is taking to give the best to her only son. His son is exceptionally brilliant, no doubt, but very unruly and ill-behaved. The mother is responsible for this because she always criticized other teachers before the boy. Consequently, the boy never learnt to pay respect to his teachers or to behave in the class room. Another factor was that he was better in studies. So he always felt bored in the class. But if the criticism of teachers had been spared and he would have been taught to be humble, he would have been at least a better human being besides being an achiever.

I see so many mothers, including my sisters grappling with many problems related to raising their children and making them study better and be achievers. They never even think why all the children can not get more than ninety percent. Nature itself teaches us about variety and diversity. There are so many places, rivers, lakes, weathers, people, trees and flowers in this world. They all cannot be the same. If it happens, the earth will be a very boring place to live in. Similarly all the children have their own gifts. What parents, Principals and teachers should know is that the children are meant to be different. All cannot be engineers, doctors, administrators or bank professionals. Some have the talent of being an actor, a copy writer, a cinematographer, a sound recordists, a multimedia professional, a lawyer, a sports person, a writer, a singer, an artist or an entrepreneur. We should never impose our ambitions upon them. They should do what they enjoy, and love to do.

Our society, today , is undergoing a big transition. We are opening up to the world and adopting good and bad things from other countries and cultures. It's the duty of every citizen and every parent to consciously monitor what is going on in our society and our houses and stand up to the situation. God has sent us to earth to do good to others, live our lives in such a way that we can be free from sins.

There is a subtle world and an external world all of us live in. The external world in materialistic, it is about money, wealth, achievements, fame , self esteem, pride, ego and vanity. But our subtle self has divine characteristics like love, patience, loyalty, faithfulness, understanding and remaining free from all the evils and do such KARMA so that we can balance both the world. This human life is our only opportunity to be free from the cycle of birth and death and to be united with the source that has created this universe. We may enjoy and go after our happiness, but we should not be too attached to it and remain righteous and free from sins like excessive physical desire, anger, greed and a self-oriented existence so that when we go, we can at least go with the good feeling that we have not done much wrong and have lived humbly.

There are many people among us who understand the reality that we may go any time and we should live accordingly. I remember reading an article in which a school boy writes a strange essay on happiness when his classmates write on their birthdays, tours , ice-creams and new toys. He writes his essay questioning about happiness. Is happiness just living a life of convenience and getting a wealthy and comfortable life? He writes that once when he was sitting under a tree, he saw a leaf falling from the tree and he felt happy. The truth behind this subtle statement is huge. Only people who give time to think about the mysteries of this universe and our existence in it can understand its significance.

We all are just running after one happiness or the other and we also think that we are able to make others happy. We don't do it in realty because we love ourselves the most,but it is possible when man breaks the boundary of mind, reaches the heart and then moves to the soul level. And it's not easy because we are completely involved with the external or the material world. If we can keep a Buddha or an Asravakra inside, then only we can balance the two worlds; of enjoyment and renunciation. Then only our life will be worthy.

Perveens and Truths

Parveen talked over phone,
her voice tired,
not because of the body,
that decays little by little every day,
The fatigue was of the mind, the self,
which had run for a pretty longtime,
after people she thought to be holy or poor souls
she loved and helped,
Nothing draws her anymore now,anywhere,
her life feels like a frothy cup of coffee
that has gone cold.

She has changed her dwelling,
and has moved in
to the house of his foster father,
an eight six year old ailing man,
still not without a fiery temper,
and a whole tumbler of love for her
She feels better, away from the double-faced anacondas,
who ate her food, passed good time,and turned their faces
homeward, to go back
to their parents and wives.

She has learnt her lessons,
and has cut down on entertaining sycophants,
Learns music three days a week,
and has joined a laughter club
It's a solace, she tells,
and is walking in the evenings, with a huge load
of loneliness upon her soldiers.

There was a choice.
Was there a choice for girls like Perveens,
Who give and give even to strangers without flinching, yet
never complain about the let-downs, the heart -breaks.

Could she have married someone and would have
lived like her mother and sisters-in-laws,
going about doing household chores,
gurgling about shopping malls,
trendy costumes and unruly children,
living in their wells chosen by themselves or parents.
Could she have lived like them,
tight-lipped to everything,
or clever enough to get things done her own way?
Lived such an existence
that hacked at her very roots,
her being and her own existence.

She had dreamt too,a woman as she was,
of tread into a world,
holding a hand that cared,
protected and understood,allowing her her sky,
and stayed uninhibited in his own world,
keeping love unbound.

But men are a rare, almost extinct species ,
not available any more.
Parveen still tries to do with working,
cooking, cleaning, doing the interior,
sometimes sleeps on the floor,walks ten miles in a group,
and reads Shelly to Jhumpa lahiri, and Rushdi too,
albeit with a little distaste,
and is having her yoga lessons, and Thumri.

Perveens have to be alone, because they have wings.
Though betrayed a hundred times,she
still gets up and runs to help people
holding her heart,
She has to be the Perveen she is,
without denial.

'It's mid-life crisis,'
The psychiatrist told,
'this disinterest in things.
You should have married.'

'I had tried' she mumbled,
I had searched, and mingled,
What I got was the prospect of a few needs fulfilled,
and so many things, that could have killed me little by little,
plucking my feathers one by one
I didn't find my reflection, in whose shadow,
I would have happily toiled and rested.

Now I die too,
but it's not a man,a self-declared demigod
whose imposing self is suffocating and killing me,
little by little,
at least I am able to breathe while I die,
and can respect my gift.

I imagined her,
Standing on the roof of her foster father's giant house
Looking at the sky,
With sadness and weariness
largely written on her face,
and her eyes scanning the farther horizon,
Thinking nothing in particular,
Standing with her lovely hair scattered
around her beautiful face
that betrayed nothing.

The Grand Mother of Time

At eight six years, all that
a widowed woman can do is feel lonely, yearn to have
lots of people around,
whether they ignore her or pamper.

An old woman might be living with the son,
the only son or one of the many.
And would try to disburse, whatever love her shrivelled
heart can disburse,
she would worry unending about her grandchildren
coming home late, and would be rudely ignored or
dismissed for being unnecessarily fussing, like an old witch
but she would persist, thinking that
she can still teach them things,
things from her good times.

She would long for the old relatives,
who will walk with her down the memory lane,
She would talk to them in her lingo
that only they can bear and understand patiently.

Nobody would care to listen to her stories
of suffering, of difficulties, of how she never bowed down
before fate and fought her battle and won,
raising her five children and giving them good lives
Only her daughters would, daughters always remember mothers
and comb her sparse hair or bring the sweets she likes to eat
but would not be given
The sons would be too busy,earning money and tending there children,
never teaching them to love their mother.

An old widow 's eyes holds nothing much,
but a vacant , dazed look in the hollow pits and numberless
wrinkles around them
telling that she still has life in her,
and a desire to see her grand children grow and marry,
and have children, but her body too weak to do the massaging
or soothing of a baby,
but her heart holding enough love to guide her family
for another generation.

Death is quite unpredictable.
May be at times, she would be praying to God,
to let her die,now that she has been rendered useless
and her work is done,
but her strings would be pulling her earthward,
her daughter-in-law, taking care of her bath and every morsel
trying her to keep her rooted.

She would be cursing her wrinkled skin and
weak bones, and would be dreaming of small impeding joys,
that God may allow her still,
She would be sitting with her swollen legs stretched on a low table,
reminiscing, sighing and waiting
for love,life and death.

How to go beyond and find peace?

Sometimes we find ourselves in very difficult situations. Nothing around us interests us and we feel that life is just dragging. As for me, once there was a time I had seen light and was in a blissful state;where you neither feel happy nor unhappy. After a time I find that my soul searches for something,keeps doing so, and I am disinterested in life. This happens to me despite the fact that I have , though limited, have access to material comfort, I do have a middle-middle class life, have parents , a couple of sincere friends, sisters, relatives and known and unknown people to do good and smile at. Still why this unhappiness gnaws at my being every moment, whether I am in a crowd or I am alone. While we are with people, we feel a lift of spirit, but that is untrue and temporary, it is born of mind and connects to the mind only. And to be really happy we need a higher being with whom we can communicate because only the soul is imperishable, body and mind are untruths which will be destroyed, the day our soul leaves our body and moves elsewhere.

I recently read about how to be at peace. The advice is to drop trying to find peace. If ever we want or desire anything, we will not get it if we try or run after it. Because all the beautiful things in this world simply happen on their own. There is no effort. A flower blossoming, the moon shining, the river flowing, the rain falling, people falling in love, babies smiling. all these things happen on their own. Miracles can happen if we drop everything. The idea is beautiful, but I still will have to understand and assimilate it so that I can be in such a state.

Another theory is to meditate and visualize ourselves as divine beings and to purge our mind of all the negative thoughts. We should interact with with love and compassion all the time. Talking to others with love will take us to a higher level. I still don't know how to do it properly. But I want to do it because it makes others happy and creates positive vibes. On the whole the atmosphere is charged with love energy.

Should we forget some people because that's the only way we can make them happy, through non-interference. But even the slightest effort to forget is so painful?Why it hurts so much with some people that we lose interest in life though we know that attachment is foolishness as death is the immediate and ultimate truth of the world. Can forgetting and non-attachment can take us to a state of no joy-no happiness ? But is that a perfect state? Or should we behave like people who operate at the mind level and do just that what gives them happiness and convenience. Doing that also is a lot painful for people like me. People who suffer in this world are people who operate at the heart level. Because they listen to their heart ans can not listen to the mind.

This conflict of mind-heart and soul is never ending. People like me, who contemplate a lot also never find peace in life. They are always in search for that divine connection which can light a fire, will let the body pass through the mind and going beyond the heart, would become one soul with someone. Alas! We leave in a world where people speak of being practical and clever,so that they can live happily. I wish I could ever do that. But we are a foolish species, people like me, and their heart keeps crying without noise, and blood keeps dripping from their hearts unnoticeable.May be some day we will be able to drop everything and attain that detached, blissful state, where, instead of shunning people, we can spread love. It's still a long way.

The birds started off and flew
homeward in a formation, changing positions,
yet keeping the shape.
Their chirruping filled the evening air as
the sun started dipping down
beyond the hillocks.


Birds have a strong instinct of fear and danger, I knew,
As the light faded in the shy,
I measured the distance from the pigeon
that walked tiptoe on the street,
but in an instance,
before I could understand anything,
the speeding wheels had run over its delicate frame.
It took only three seconds for it
to flutter its wings and die.

The boy from the nearby shop, ran down and
sprinkled water on its wriggling body,
to no avail,
It was cold as a pebble on a morning beach,
I was filled with
no sorrow but the terrible remorse of misjudging the distance,
and a tremendous sense of guilt
of killing an innocent bird.

Later, lying on bed,I kept on thinking why
a bird as fast-moving as a pigeon, did not fly away?
And consoled my guilt-ridden heart, that
may be its death was imminent
and I was only an instrument that destiny chose
to take back one of its children.

Whatever was the connivance
of destiny with life,
My heart will bear the scar for ever,
that I killed an innocence bird on a street,
one afternoon.

MOTHER

A magic wand,

that feeds, washes, cleans, tends,

worries, scolds, loves, does everything

and bears everything,

unrecognized, taken for granted,

yet loving, protecting

and defending.

She whose tears, when they flow,

they do silently, unnoticed,

She, whose heart returns love even when neglected and

uncared for,

Beaten by fate, abused by men and children,

she persists on the path of a giver,

Her journey of love unending,

She keeps a home together,

And when the birds have flown from the nest,

And a restless spouse

saunters around, smug in his escapades and ego trip,

she guards the house,

alone, with her diseased and decaying body,

she goes on with her duty, her chores and her arthritis,

Sometimes mumbling about negligence,

sometimes crying silently out of helplessness.

and with the burden of feeling unwanted,

her tears nobody to wipe.

With children well settled, and paying visits that double her work,

which she does relentless and happy

She forges a bond with God, in the evening

of her wearied existence,

The world gradually seceding back,

She embarks on another journey, alone,

happy that she has done,

Whatever there was to do.

She is the shade in scorching afternoons

she is the aroma of earth in the first rain,

She is the coziness of a blanket in winter

She is an answer to a fill in the blanks question,
Who bridges the gaps and cements bonds

She is solace in distress,

She is the cool lap to keep the head on and feel safe.

She is the gardener,who nourishes and nurtures the plants

watering them every hour,

and accepts her nonrecognition, working in quietude,

She withdraws gradually, when the time is ripe,
still mothering,

with a few questions and a lot of answers in her eyes

She who gives away her life to others,

with the complete knowledge that,

her children may forget to change the garland on her image

long after she is gone.

We love you, mother!

Today's mother's day. I had made my mother's day in my odd little way. She is happy. Mother's don't look forward to material gains from their children. Love is reflected through the medium of materials given to mothers. If it shows that we love our mothers, then mothers are happy. The only kind of love that is unsoiled and unconditional on this earth is mother's love. Even a father's love cannot equal a mother's love. It is because it is only mothers who bear the children in their womb for nine months and feed them their milk. Children don't retain that memory, they cannot. But mothers cannot forget. They never forget that their children are a part of them. It is not that fathers don't love their children. Fathers are providers and guardians to protect the children. They are prosaic and their connection is mostly on a worldly way. But mothers are sheer poetry. Their love flows unbound.

Many writers and poets have written great things on mothers. When we were children, people used to have three four children. The mother had to take care of all the children and love didn't exhibit it in an ostentatious way as work kept them very busy. I had a working mother. So, we never hankered for any special attention and we sisters kept busy with one another too. None of our parents had the time or tendency to pamper us. But even then, I have felt, how deep and sacrificing a mother's love could be. I remember the time I suffered from severe clinical depression and used to cry for hours symptomatically because of the disease. My father stood by me and provided all kinds of medical treatment possible, but I clearly remember my mother crying helplessly sitting by me. That crying face can never be effaced from my memory. Once I needed money badly, I didn't have the amount and told my father about it. I needed it for my thesis. My father didn't give it to me but casually told that take it from your mother when she gets her salary. It was time to pay to the person who had typed my paper and I was feeling awkward about the delay in payment. I told my mother about it. The day she got her salary, she put the entire amount on my palm without thinking. I will never forget it till the last day of my life. These are only two incidents, all these years there had been innumerable, small little incidents that occur in our daily life, she has been so caring, No doubt fathers love us and stand by us in the time of distress, but but mothers are a different species altogether. What makes them different from the fathers is the complete lack ego and unmixed love. Whether they are ill or okay, happy or sad, they shower their love on us in many ways.

Thanks to the new age of living and thinking, the parents are pampering their children like anything because they have only one or two children, and the children, after learning to fly, don't care for their parents as much as they care for their jobs or say, their family. We belong to the times when technology and science are the callings of modern man. People are becoming materialistic and mechanical. The emotional quotient is going down day by day. Today’s mothers are different from yesterday’s mothers in the sense that want their own space and want to pursue their careers and hobbies besides nurturing a family. There is nothing wrong in it too. But a mother’s love is the most condensed and unsoiled kind in the world even today, as love as a word is changing its connotation. It is incomparable, sparing the mothers who are different for reasons like illiteracy, lack of intellectual level, casteism, selfishness etc. I have a soul sister whose mother stopped talking to her three years ago as she wanted to marry a boy from a lower caste.

We live in the modern era, yes. We want our mothers to be literate, liberated, enlightened, cool , open to new ideas and tremendously loving. Had I been a mother, or if I get a chance to be one in this life, natural or foster mother, I will be one such mom. Beyond all boundaries, not possessive, and happy in the happiness of my child. After all, I cannot take out all the nice things I have gathered and the bad things I have purged my mind of. This is the truth that we all will go from here to the death's valley, and before going , why not be tremendously giving. That needs a big sacrifice, the complete annihilation of ego. It is the only thing that destroys and kills love mercilessly.

While I am writing my blog, my eyes are swimming on a page of today’s news paper. It holds two articles on the mothers who are struggling against odds like poverty and jail confinement while trying to give their children good lives. Besides these there are so many poor mothers who lose their lives or their children while giving birth. The government machinery is also not too kind to them. We need our mothers to be safe during childbirth, eat healthy food and get love from every section of their personal and social life to survive and live. Female foeticide has to go down or we will not have enough girls to be mothers. We have miles to go before we are eligible to be children of our mothers.

THE UNDYING DEATH

Look, you stand beneath a lonely tree,

In the shade,

Beyond the shadow, the heat of the blazing sun

is forgiving nobody,

There is no sign of water or relief for miles.

Still you stand,

Holding your love

To your breast, because when it entered you,

It entered into your blood, your marrow.

The beloved became a stranger,

Because after three years of soul-connection,

Suddenly the world dawned on him,

And his mind showed him where his happiness lay.

It lay in everything except your love,

which emptied itself for him, body, heart and soul

and breathed him

each moment of joy, laughter, tears and life.

So you stand alone,

Because in your veins flow so many words,

So many moments and so much longing,

A longing that goes beyond the distance

of time ans space, beyond the hills,

the towers and the rivers,

Eternity became its time,

Eternal turned its self.

Even though the patterns of the scenes

would change,

no new life or time could overrun it,

Or mitigate its presence.

A body can get fatigued of love,

A mind can quarrel, bite and sting,

A life can get tired of the mundane monotony

Of daily existence,

But a soul will not forget its course,

Because there is nothing that lies beyond.

The body and the mind

can gather maggots and rot,

But the blue waters of love will never

cease to cascade down the hillock,

where we exchanges spirits some day,

The witness forests standing by its sides

Will also never dry up.

Why do these water drops overflow

the brink of the eyes, unnoticed and silent

And subdued sobbings break

the sacred solitude , that is solely your own?

The nameless flowers in the garden turn pink in desire

sometimes, and the absence hurts,

but sanctity covers it with its white pall,

Because nothing that is, forever, can die,

Even in utter aloneness, and utter pain.