Love? what does that mean?!

Its been quite some time since i got back. its been quite hectic. With hardly any sleep after my return, having to drive 400 kms and back in two days and not to mention the mosquitos in Madras! The internals have also come and passed, and now finally, i have time to sit down and do what i want to do. What do I want to do?! I haven't the slightest clue! I don't know where to start! Thoughts cluttering up my head. Im lost and all alone, I always thought i could make it on my own, I wander through the night and search the world for the words to make it right. We always have our weak moments, those vulnerable times when no mater how strong we are, that fortress in which we have locked all our feelings breaks. Its quite a difficult time. The confusion. More than the calm before the storm, its the calm after the storm that is painful. once the dust settles, the remains are seen and what a sight it is! Devastation! I also realise that the more we try to delve on abstract topics and gain some knowledge on their intricacies, the more we get tied up in them. Abstract thoughts such as Love and Love in particular are like the webs made by spiders and anyone who reflects on it, is the unsuspecting fly! The trap has been set and once you step in, there is just no going back. Mind you, i'm not talking about falling in Love. I'm only touching on the subject of thoughts on Love. What is Love?! That might sound as probably one of the most ridiculous questions. But every time i ask myself that question, i don't seem to be able to come up with an answer that convinces me! Again, let me make it clear that i'm not talking about cheap six month flings where the word Love is thrown around like a basketball and at the end of the day, its over! Is it possible to UNLOVE someone?! Why do i Love my parents?! Is it only because they have fed me, given me shelter and clothing?! Would I have still Loved them, if they had abandoned me when i was an infant?! Would I have loved the people who brought me up, or, on knowing who my real parents were, would I have loved them or despised them?! Quite the "conditional love" it seems to be! Do i love people who only mean a lot to me, or do i Love each and every human being on the face of this planet equally. I would Love, to Love all equally, but why is it so difficult?! Would it be so, because its not unconditional?! The more i try to solve this, the more i realise i can't put in equations, perform certain operations to get an answer. Is Love something that is ineffable?! I know what hate is and hate is the opposite of Love. Yet that does not seem to tell me what love is cause its only a relative position. What is Love- as an absolute entity?! Beats me!!!If we had love before, we can have it once more. anyone who can throw some light on this?!

In South Africa

The journey has been made! im here! in South Africa. The journey was long and tiring. Coupled with the flu, things were getting really difficult! The six hour stop over in Dubai was good. The glamour and the Glitz.... Phew... Just at the airport.. but what made it really good was the two hour conversation that i had with a man from Fiji.. He and his friends were returning back home from Iraq. They were serving in the peace keeping force and his friends were injured. Its compulsory for the men of Fiji to enlist in the service for a specified period of time. That conversation taught me that we all are no different from each other. I always knew it. But at that moment i realised it! Life takes us all, down similar paths. its how we walk that path that matters! anyways, im getting charged like crazy for this internet time. so will come back in some time to chronicle my thoughts.

More ZEN than ZEN

As we saw death approach us, we had to pick one of two choices. Stand up and fight, or throw all our baggage and run. Run like the wind. So we decided to stay and fight. The grim reaper! When the battle began, it ended. We realized that we were fighting none but ourselves. I am life. I am the spirit. I am not the body. I am not the mind. I am not the emotion. I am not who I am. I am the soul. I am he who is everywhere, I am he who is nowhere. I am ubiquitous. I am all pervading. I am time, I am space. I am the seas, I am the rivers. I am the skies, I am the air that you breathe. I am the sad song on a lonely evening. I am the smile on the new parent’s face. I am the tear in every eye. I am the memory in every head. I am the lesson that everyone learns. I am the mile in every smile. I am the cloud in that same very sky that I am. I am the free bird that flies. I am the breeze that blows on your face. I am the dance to every song. I am the string of every guitar. I am the first second. I am the voice of the mother that sings to the child. I am the rose on every grave. I am the blade of grass that grows so slow. I am the sunrise. I am the moon. I am the planets. I am the stars. I am the worm. I am the hand that feeds the world. I am the night. I am the day. I am the dawn. I am the dusk. I am the friend that no one had. I am the enemy that no one wants. I AM NOTHING.

Give

This probably isn’t the right time for me to be sitting in front of the computer. I should be studying. But then again, when have I ever done the right things at the right time?! This life that is given to us is too precious. This, I realized while I was traveling in the local bus today. It is my contention that everyone must travel in the local buses of India at least once in their life times. To Mad-ads, you too must really go in those buses once. If you look carefully, one has a lot to learn about life. The most important thing that I gathered from today’s travel- I am one of the luckiest people around. I really shouldn’t be complaining about anything. All of us, we all just wrap ourselves around our own little tiny worlds and don’t see beyond it. There was this man sitting right across from me on the bus. he had a shirt on with most of the buttons gone. His trousers were torn. He didn’t have any footwear on. But, he didn’t care about his clothes. That is not to say he didn’t have any worries. He had causes of worry which made worrying about his clothes insignificant. The frown and glum look on his face was galvanizing. All through the journey, I somehow longed to see him smile. But it was not to be. A man on a bus carrying brooms to be sold in the city. He didn’t have much of a ‘Life’, to put simply. No partying, no pub hopping, not wondering if he should wear his red tie or his black tie to work! We have people struggling to get their next meal, and we have people buying cars and gadgets with limitless zeros following a digit. HOW? Does it not bother people that the man sitting next to them might starve to death over the next week, while they, sitting right next to him might be able to save his life. Materialism knows no bounds. But it is sad to hear people say that, they spend cause they have the money and they cant help it if the others can’t. I’m not being cynical here, but that is something that I hear from a lot of people. In these years of my existence, I’m disappointed to say that there have been hardly any instances where I have seen people GIVE. If someone does give, its in expectations of getting something in return. There was a line that my father used to repeat quite often when I was younger. It was, “I cried that I didn’t have shoes, until I saw a boy with no feet”. For many years I mocked my father when he said this. I ridiculed him saying a boy with no feet needed no shoes and so his statement was quite redundant. But today, I realize how true it is and what meaning is attached to that statement. We never think of how lucky we are. We need to learn to count our blessings. A song that I learnt long back in kindergarten- ‘count your blessings, name them one by one, count your blessings, see what God has done’. We have all that we need, yet me want more. Man’s greed for material wealth is something that can be wiped out only by gaining true happiness. Happiness and satisfaction. True happiness is something, I for one know cannot be obtained with materials. The only way of making it yours, is by giving and giving and giving. The joy associated with giving, is simply immeasurable and out of this world. For those who haven’t experienced it, try it. Put a smile on the face of that man in the bus. The next time a child comes begging, give him some food. The government will not allow you to give him a job. If he has no home, try to arrange for him to move into a ‘home for the needy’. Visit him once in a while and see the glow on that child’s face. ITS OUT OF THIS WORLD! Try it.

Hope

Hope. Is it an emotion? Is it a thought? Or is it a force of nature? Everybody hopes for something. Dreams give rise to hope. The little child that you throw up in the air hopes that you catch him and when you do, his trust in you is reinforced. So Hope leads to Trust?! I guess so. Everyday we all hope that things go fine. Things go the way we want them to go. If they do, great! But, what if they don’t? Do we just hope more, or do we give up? Someone I care a lot about and respect had to say this, when I asked her what she thought of hope? She said, “ It can be good at times, or it can be illusive”. Good at times! How does one know if the hope that they are bearing in their hearts is Good! Or illusive? I guess no one knows. They are lessons to be learnt by getting hurt. You fall, you hurt yourself. You hope that the next time you jump across the pit, you wont fall. You run, you jump and you fall again. Hope grows, so does the depth of the pit. The more the hope, the bigger the fall. Now, am I confused between hope and expectations? It is well known that expectations lead to a downfall. But that my friend is the difference between an expectation and Hope. Cause with expectation, it’s a walk in, walk out scenario. It didn’t happen? It didn’t! But with Hope, there is still that factor of hoping against hope. That tiny glimmer of hope! The fisherman hopes that he can catch fish. His wife hopes that he gets back to shore safe. The fish hope they don’t get netted!! With hope is annexed- prayer! It is only the fatalist that can hope, cause it is only the fatalist that can pray. With prayer comes devotion and with devotion comes that one true pure emotion of all- LOVE. Food for thought.

What's the Time?

Time and tide wait for none? Time is the fourth dimension? Time is the ultimate healer? Looks like time is quite important. Time lost cannot be got back. Time is eternal. Time is actually an immeasurable quantity. It is absolute. It is blasphemy to divide it into units. However, some things have to be done no matter how wrong they are. We know of the three dimensions- Length, breadth and height, or our three axes. Time is the fourth dimension? John Gribbin explains it quite well. Are wounds meant to heal? Does time really heal wounds? I beg to differ. Time does nothing to heal your wounds. It just makes you numb to the pain. The wounds however remain raw and every once in a while, when you let your guard down, time steps back and you feel the pain. Healing those wounds in your prerogative, not time’s. With time, as you get used to the pain, you see that there is no point in leaving the wounds raw. A major chunk of this realization comes from the fact that beyond a certain Time, you realize that the only person who will be left licking their wounds even after eons will be you, and that is because you keep victimizing yourself. The more you victimize yourself, the longer the wounds remain raw. With the passage of Time, our friend- the fourth dimension teaches us that there is no point in victimizing ourselves. It is like the early morning coastal sunrise. It reveals all. So time is not the healer, but the attractive entry sign to the healer’s. It lures you into forgetting the past and helps you make that crucial choice of wanting to be healed. Some however revel in victimizing themselves. For them I have no words. If those neuralisers really worked, it would be amazing.

holy matrimony.. whaaaa???

It has always intrigued me as to how people say they always want to get to know the person they want to get married to, prior to stepping into holy matrimony. Once they find they are incompatible, all that was shared is just lost. Excess baggage. They all want to travel light, but no one is willing to do what it takes to make sure that they do! Is it really that difficult to accept people as they are? Is it really that difficult to Love someone unconditionally? There is actually something remarkable in the concept of arranged marriage. First thing, you accept your counterpart for who they are. There are no expectations. Also the arranged marriage is something which is tested and tried over the ages. It has worked and still does. The result I think is quite visible for everyone to see- lowest number of divorce rates.
Marriage is all about give and take, isn’t it? I wouldn’t know. But that is what I believe it to be. Sacrifices have to be made. Speaking of sacrifices, its not just in people who have been legally bonded, but in any relationship, sacrifices have to be made. There are times when one of the two has to step down. Its not a competition! Its high we all realize that there is no harm in loving someone unconditionally. People make mistakes. Aren’t they allowed second chances? This love and marriage and tricky things. They more you give in them, the more you get. The more you love, the happier you are, and when I say love, I mean unconditionally. To see people separating just after a few months, is quite sad. Values are thrown out of the window and hearts are broken. For what? A measly misunderstanding which could have been sorted out with a single sorry, or even a shut mouth. But then comes out best friend EGO! EGO says, “he/she who has happiness in his/her life shall take me into his/her bosom and I shall do the rest for him/her”! Someone once said, So what’s the glory in living, doesn’t anybody ever stay together any more? And if love never, lasts forever, tell me, what’s forever for?! Food for thought.

Nothing in particular

Seeking Inspiration from Sid, i commence with this. I see this as not just being able to reach out to people who might stumble on what i say or write, but also as a means to chronicle my thoughts. However allowing people to look into my thoughts is a little intimidating. Anyhow, lets see how it goes. As far as realisation goes, one is that money is one of the most primary things inlife. However, a key factor when it comes to it is not to be enslaved by it. As they say in the verbatim- roti, kapadaa, makan. A gross translation would be like this- food, clothing, shelter. Money is needed only for these. It is avariciousness that probably leads to most disputes. Cravings for control over people, situations and even entire nations is driven by the greed for power and money, and in the current scenario, the former can be bought with the latter. What can be done about it, you ask? How about an uprising? How about teling them that such things will not be brooked. We are not to sit by and watch the dog getting stoned(no pun intended). Food for thought!