Dag Hammarskjöld sums it up

I recently read Dag Hammarskjöld's Markings. A collection of his diary reflections and was deeply touched.

"To preserve the silence within--amid all the noise. To remain open and quiet, a moist humus in the fertile darkness where the rain falls and the grain ripens--no matter how many tramp across the parade ground in whirling dust under an arid sky.”

“When the sense of the earth unites with the sense of one's body, one becomes earth of the earth, a plant among plants, an animal born from the soil and fertilizing it. In this union, the body is confirmed in its pantheism.”

Please .. allow yourself some leisure..

Why do we long for leisure? Why?

The reason is that it is in leisure that we really tune in to ourselves. We get close to our true nature. It allows an opportunity to express what we truly are. The best work of art, the best music, the best poems ..everything that is true and beautiful is created at leisure.

Don't mistake leisure for free time! Leisure is free time minus all the distractions, all the noise. We pack too much into out free time that we are truly leisure deprived. We have a dream, a vision of what leisure is, but we never allow ourselves the luxury of a bit of leisure. We pack it in with TV, music, news, activities, internet .. anything and everything.

People are more tired after a vacation. The minute the vacation is over, the longing starts all over again for a slower pace, a quieter life. You don't really need an expensive holiday, fancy location to relax and enjoy.

Just allow yourself some leisure right where you are!!

Essence of Hinduism

I write this for my children when they reach an age to understand and ask questions about the religion of their birth.

When I was at a school going age and studying in a Catholic convent, I was frankly ashamed of my religion. So many gods..elephant god, monkey god, sun god, snake god. The list was endless. The Christians were taught that there is only one God and the son of god is Jesus Christ. There seemed to be a good structure in Christianity. You have to read the bible, go to the church every Sunday. Hinduism had none of it. We were not forced to go to the temples. We were not forced to study any scriptures. We were really free. We occasionally went to the Hindu temples and did the rounds. I asked God for the things that I want. But it never felt true for me. I forced myself to do it because I thought that's how things should be.

I have come a long way. Over the last several years, I have come to believe that "the invisible power in all of nature is what we call god" . We are part of it and hence a part of god. Every bit of creation is god. Animals, plants, sky, birds, trees, snakes, ants - everything!!. That's why Hinduism allows anything to be a god. There is no restriction and that is the beauty of Hinduism. The truth about Hinduism gets masked in all the rituals, mantras, festivals, but the truth is still there, albeit hidden.

Living in harmony with all things in nature, cherishing it, protecting it is the real Hindu way of life!

My 2 cents on the photography obsession

Both my husband and I are not much into photography, For one, we both don't like to carry things. We don't wear much jewellery and don't wear a watch. Basically, we like to roam free without being chained down by things like a bag, jewellery, expensive sunglasses, camera etc.

We also rarely go over our old photos. I attribute this to our intensely involvement in what we are doing in the present complete with all our senses .. mind, body and soul. We experience the moment and are not concerned about capturing the moment for later. In the obsession about capturing the moment, you have really lost the moment for yourself.

The Sufi Way of Thinking

I am reading a book about the Sufi's "The Sufis by Idries Shah and Robert Graves". In many ways it tells us how different the Eastern way of thinking is from the Western way. In the west, it is all intellectual, but in the east, there is a lot of instinct and perception involved.  In the west, we rely on experts to tell us everything about the world. The eastern way is for every man to find out for himself the truth. The Sufi way is the same as the true Hindu and Buddist way.