15 October 2004

What's Next

If you had everything that you ever wanted. If you had done everything that you ever wanted to do or could ever want to do. What then will you go for then? What will you want to do then?

And if such a state is not possible at all in this life time, what will you do now and how will you determine when to stop? Will there ever be a stop? If not, how far are you willing to run? For how long? At what speed? At what cost?

11 September 2004

Physiotherapy of Relationships

Time by itself does nothing more than promise change. But if one does not actively gear towards that change, it will be little surprise if the actual change does not turn out to be anywhere close to what one had expected. Sometimes, that can be good, but mostly it is a disappointment coupled together with a regret of things that could have been done but were left undone, of words that could have been said but were left unsaid.

Even though the tree bears no shade or fruit right now, it is very important that one continue to water and feed it. The greatest asset in life is faith and goodness of one's heart towards one and for all, knowing that one did one's best in all ways, always. It is a great blessing to have lived a life of no regrets.

06 September 2004

Impossibility of Insignificance

"Only that day dawns to which you are awake"
- Henry David Thoreau [Walden]

Life passes us by in a blink of an eye. Such a familiar phrase, recounted by thousands; each of us has heard it or used it as a remark sometime, somewhere, somehow. But have we really understood what it means? Surely eighty years in not a blink, or is it? What does it mean to be awake, to be in the moment? How do we look back upon our life? Why do we find ourselves repeatedly asking the question – “why me?” Is it possible to never have to ask that question again? May be that is what being awake is all about.

Every moment in the Universe presents a possibility. And in the possibility of that moment lies the potential to bring to life the impossible – that which is not yet. Everything in this world is an impossibility. Not because it could not be or cannot be, but because an infinite number of factors have to be in place for any single event to occur; and hence the uncertainty, hence the insecurity and hence the confusion.

The past is a sum total of all presents. To be awake to the present is to be awake to this connection in life. Who you are is a consequence of whom you have been, what you have lived through and the forks that you have walked as well as those that you have shunned. But this net does not end there. Your being is also a consequence of a myriad other choices made by millions of other people, of a billion other events taking place in the Universe of a zillion other eventualities of which you may never come to know. Hence the unpredictability in life.

To be awake then is to be aware of these infinite eternal connections in life and to cherish and to hold on to and to be present in each and every such moment – not because life is short, but because life is unfolding, life is happening and most important of all – it is not a random event. The importance of the moment lies in the determination our choices make in what this unfolding will be. No matter how insignificant our action, how meaningless our thought, it serves to bring about all that has been, is and will be around. In the recognition of the insignificant lies the realization of its impossibility.

14 August 2004

Wishful Desire

Many a times a wish gets granted but yet the desire goes unfulfilled. We have all experienced it most tangibly in our relationships. May be that which we pine for lies not in the achivement itself but in the promise of continued possibility and progress. Every achievement, no matter how great or exemplary, becomes just another proof of progress and we continue to seek to challenge further possibilities. The depth of desire lies not in finding but in having an opportunity to continually seek.

30 May 2004

Healings That Hurt – Hurts That Heal

Is it always a hurt that requires healing? Or do sometimes we must get hurt in order to heal? Do we ever allow ourselves to heal from a hurt completely, fully, totally? Or do we continue to hold on to a few crutches here and there because we are too afraid to get hurt again, too afraid to let go? Sometimes it takes a fall to realize that not only can we walk but that we may actually be able to run as well without those crutches that we had let become extensions to our being.

We know we have healed, not when it does not hurt anymore, but when we are no longer afraid of it hurting again.

14 May 2004

Do we do who we are?

From time to time, we all confront the question of what we should do with our lives. Over time we tend to shorten the question and ask only what should we do. The 'doing' starts to exercise a greater emphasis over what it may mean to our lives. The danger with this is that one could be busy all of one's life and yet, at the end of the journey, still find it to be meaningless and unfruitful. Much more important than what we do is who we become in the process of doing what we do. How what we do changes us to become who we become? Do we like the person we have become in the process of doing what we have been doing? Should we then, continue to do more of what we have been doing or is it time to stop, pause, take a breath and figure out who we want to be and whether what we are doing is helping us in becoming that who we want to become?

11 May 2004

How much is enough?

It is too much to expect people to realize the futility of something they do not have. Buddha may never have become enlightened if he just had enough to get by. It was only his having everything at his disposal that made him realize the uselessness of it. He realized that he could not buy happiness, health or immortality with all the money in the world, because he had all the money and power in the world. But for most of us, the idea of tying happiness to wealth and power seems like a bankable dream since we do not have either of them in excess. Only those, who have successfully made the journey to the end of the rainbow and have not found a gold pot there, realize that the gold was actually strewn all along the way and that if they had cared to pick it up as they blindly pursued the distant dream, they would have succeeded in finding their much cherished pot of gold at the end. We find happiness not in what we have on the outside, but in what it brings to life within us.

22 April 2004

The excuse to laugh

Laughter seeks reasons but pain needs no excuse to express itself.

Life, Love and Joy

Life is a void if not shared. The greatest suffering in life is to feel not needed and love is the greatest joy in life that there is.

08 April 2004

Obvious Problems

The most perplexing of problems have the most obvious of solutions - that is what makes them so eluding and frustrating

30 March 2004

Contemplation on Ambition

We as much happen to life as life happens to us. Life is often like the first flight of a little bird. Having found a new freedom in flight, it wants to fly far far away and explore all nooks and corners. The idea of being in or coming to the nest seems imprisoning as if it was the nest that was keeping it from flying. The little bird flies and covers great distances in its euphoria, challenging the winds, calling out to the skies, racing with other forms, feeling the warmth of existence on its back.

As dusk draws and hunger strikes, the ecstasy starts to fade and a deep longing for familiarity arises. The nest is no longer a prison, but home. The world is no longer a challenge, but an understanding. The frontiers are no longer mesmerizing but enduring.

But had it not been for the flight, the nest would have remained a prison, the world would have continued to be a challenge, and frontiers would have always mocked as territory unconquered.

In every victory there is a defeat inherent. And in every defeat there is a victory to be realized.

Many of the undesirable facets of life tend to be extremely indispensable. Not because life won’t be without them, but because were it not for them, one would never know what life was all about. In deep fear of darkness lies the sacred appreciation for light.