Song is the ultimate offering ...

|| Japakoti gunam dhyanam - dhyanakoti gunolayas

   Laya koti gunam ganam - ganat parataram nahi || 

Meaning: Meditating just once is worth chanting verses a million times.

Being in the state of divine union once is worth meditating a million times.

A song sung in true harmony is worth being in the state of divine union a million times

There is nothing greater than song. 

True songs and poems originates from the bliss of the singer who is in a prolonged state of divine union. The saints and seers in the Indian sub continent sang innumerable songs of love, devotion and beauty. These songs form the basis of classical music in India. Singing is therefore considered the ultimate form of worship. 

"Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy" - Ludwig van Beethoven

Three days of painting ..

The Canadian landscape and seasons have captured my heart in a warm embrace. Sometimes, I try to find ways to express this beauty in my writings, but words always fall short in expressing ones feelings. Painting is the way I choose to express my spiritual reverence for mother nature.

Plien Air painting with John Pryce

I had stopped painting since my favourite instructor John Stuart Pryce moved to the Canadian west coast. I haven't felt the desire to learn from any one else.  I know for certain that John is whom I want to learn from and it is his style that I want to emulate. What is unique about John's style, is the brilliant luminosity and the play of light that brings his paintings to life.

So this fall, I jumped at the rare opportunity to spend three glorious days painting en-plien air with John. Three paintings are what I have to show for it and the satisfaction of having quenched a deep thirst.

A Kinship with Trees ..

The trees .. I have gotten to know them well over the last few years ... the ashes, aspens, birches, beeches, oaks, maples, walnut, hemlocks, pines, firs and spruces. From far, I recognize the white pine from their weather beaten forlorn silhouettes, the quaking aspen from its chandelier like fluttering leaves, the birches stand out with the pure white of their bark and I feel a strong kinship with these trees, a feeling so hard to verbalize.

Trees are sanctuaries that preach the ancient law of life .. 

Hermann Hesse's profoundly beautiful words captures what trees mean to us and to life!! 
"For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. . . . Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness." 

Indian pilgrim sites vs American national parks

What happened to the natural beauty of India ..? 

In India, every place of natural beauty, from the grandest mountain to an insignificant hill or stream has a temple because the hill and the smallest stream were once seen with deep reverence. Some ancient man saw the work of god in this pristine setting as he bowed in reverence and admiration. (Gandhi echoes this in his autobiography after seeing the natural beauty of Hrishikesh .."I bow my head in reverence to our ancestors for their sense of the beautiful in Nature, and for their foresight in investing beautiful manifestations of nature with a religious significance")

Soon the masses throng the site to find God ...  completely oblivious of the beautiful surroundings that inspired the first man. Very soon a huge temple is built and the natural area is completely destroyed to accommodate hordes of pilgrims. 

Compare this with what happened in America. John Muir, a nature lover walked the length and breadth of the country and falls in love with every mountain, river, tree and even the lowly moss. His writings inspired a generation of people who strive to preserve the pristine forests, mighty rivers, lakes and the grand old trees of America. President Roosevelt created over a hundred wildlife refuges, national forests, parks spanning over 150 million acres.

To this day and into the far future, the natural wonders of Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Glacier National Park will continue to inspire people as they still reveal the magnificent glory of the creator!!  I can't say the same with Indian pilgrim sites like Badrinath, Kedarnath, Ganges, Sabarimala or the Pamba river.. all of which have been reduced from their former glory to mere concrete and filth. 

Real and Fake: Even the plants can tell ..

Creepers won't grow on nylon ropes .. 

The creepers of my cucumber and beans plants were getting hopelessly entangled. My father, resourceful as he is, started a project of building a stand of nets for the creepers to grow. I gave him all the ropes I found at home. He picked out only the jute ropes and left out all the synthetic ones.

He told me that the creepers won't grow and wind on to the synthetic ropes. The jute ropes were ok but not ideal. The best ones for the creepers are the "coir" ropes made from coconut fibre.

I learnt something today, that even the plants can tell the real from the fake!! 

Peace,Salam,Shalom,Shanti

The Jewish greet each other with Shalom (peace) and the Moslem with Salam (peace) and the Christians with "peace be upon you" and the Hindus chant "Om shanti shanti shanti-hi" or "peace peace peace". Despite the difference all the religions of the world understand that "peace" in every man is of utmost importance over everything else. Not happiness, health or wealth but simple "peace of mind"! Without this inner peace, man is violent and destroys the peace around him.

Black Elk

Black Elk, a medicine man of the Lakota tribe once said ..
"The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realise their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers ... This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this. The second peace is that which is made between two individuals, and the third is that which is made between two nations. But above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is known that true peace, which, as I have often said, is within the souls of men" 

Bon Echo: Give me solitude-give me Nature ..

Mazinaw Rock at Bon Echo

A year or two ago, I overheard one of the painters in my class talking about painting at Bon Echo. I learnt after that several famous Canadian artists were inspired to paint the breathtaking scenes of the Mazinaw Rock and lake. Ever since I've been drawn to this place.

The beauty and serenity of this place has attracted nature lovers, poets, artists and philosophers for eons. To the aboriginal people, the Mazinaw rock holds deep spiritual significance. For me the place is special because of its long history, its connection to poet Walt Whitman and the high ideals of the people who sought and found inspiration here. This year we camped here in the midst of nature .. to renew our souls and as Whitman said... "to grow in the open air, and to eat and sleep with the earth" .

Give me solitude—give me Nature—give me again, O Nature, your primal sanities!  - poet Walt Whitman