Being Quiet

Is being quiet a sign of self-control? Does it signify that we are the masters of our environment and that we are unfazed in adversity for we know what to do?

These are interesting questions, but not certainly the first time someone has asked them. Psychologists would give voluminous explanations and psychiatrists perhaps would schedule sessions to help us discover the answer. I think even religionists would like to be in the pantheon of experts. They may tell us that a mind that dwells in God fears nothing, for it is His will that guides us and destiny therefore is not to be scared of, but prayed for. I am neither a psyche nor a shrink or for that matter consider myself religious enough. Though being neither does not seem to inhibit me from having an opinion.

Life is a lesson that we continue to learn, whether we are conscious about doing so or pretty well unconscious. From childhood we gather impressions, by impulses and by indoctrination. Five physical senses give the impulse and we act or react; environment comprising of parents, neighborhood, school, friends and the society at large indoctrinates us with a sense of right-wrong, do-don’t, and know-ignores. Some people learn about most of everything. Some master some, and average at others. Some ignore most and best at few. Some others die without making much effort at anything. That is the permutations and combinations, but the opportunities to learn neither multiply nor diminish. They remain constant, while we individually make it in some combination. Depending on which strata we achieve we manage to handle things well pertaining to the strata that we have made it to. When we faced with a situation that we have managed not yet to deal with, we have a choice: we can set about learning to handle or we can be ‘quiet’. Quiet in this sense does not mean being comfortable with the situation. It simply means that we do not see the opportunity to unravel something more about life and therefore choose to remain quiet.

People who manage to learn about most are also quiet sometimes. They are quiet not out of the inability to sense an opportunity. But the ability to sense that something they not yet know is in front and they need to collect the wisdom of their cumulative learning and energies to go about discovering their new lessons. They are about to become Columbus of the unknown – the dimensions in their own self that they have not as yet discovered.

Being quiet of the second kind is the choice of those who seek life. For in the words of Khalil Gibran:

Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.

But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart's knowledge.

You would know in words that which you have always known in thought.

You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.

And it is well you should.

The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;

And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.

But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;

And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.

For self is a sea boundless and measureless.

Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth."

Say not, "I have found the path of the soul." Say rather, "I have met the soul walking upon my path."

For the soul walks upon all paths.

The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.

The soul unfolds itself like a lotus of countless petals.

Where do they lie the ruling heart...

This poem comes from my son, Deepak:

Wer do thy lie the ruling heart!
To the wanted love it must see,
Or to the wanted dreams it longs to be
Courage it has shown in the darkest of life,
Fighting and swaying yet marching to thy end of land,
Touching those who havnt been touched,
Taking those who have been along,

Wer do thy lie the ruling heart!
To see the unseen yet unsee the seen ,
Taking roads which havnt been
Making trails for the ones behind,
For it is them who can stay wen the sun is gone

Wer do thy lie the ruling heart!
Loving those who havnt been loved,
Yet caring for those who havnt been cared,
With a dream it marches on
Only for those who dream so long.

When the rose is gone...

When The Rose Is Gone

When the rose is gone and the garden faded
you will no longer hear the nightingale's song.
The Beloved is all; the lover just a veil. 
The Beloved is living; the lover a dead thing.
If love withholds its strengthening care,
the lover is left like a bird without care,
the lover is left like a bird without wings.
How will I be awake and aware
if the light of the Beloved is absent?
Love wills that this Word be brought forth

- Rumi

When I Die - Poem by Rumi

When I Die

When I die
when my coffin
is being taken out
you must never think
i am missing this world

don't shed any tears
don't lament or
feel sorry
i'm not falling
into a monster's abyss

when you see
my corpse is being carried
don't cry for my leaving
i'm not leaving
i'm arriving at eternal love

when you leave me
in the grave
don't say goodbye
remember a grave is
only a curtain
for the paradise behind

you'll only see me
descending into a grave
now watch me rise
how can there be an end
when the sun sets or
the moon goes down

it looks like the end
it seems like a sunset
but in reality it is a dawn
when the grave locks you up
that is when your soul is freed

have you ever seen
a seed fallen to earth
not rise with a new life
why should you doubt the rise
of a seed named human

have you ever seen
a bucket lowered into a well
coming back empty
why lament for a soul
when it can come back
like Joseph from the well

when for the last time
you close your mouth
your words and soul
will belong to the world of
no place no time

Life gives a chance

It happened in a flash of a moment - literally. Barely five feet to go to the exit, the fireball enveloped me. The heat seared through my skin and thick black smoke made it impossible to breath. Five or ten seconds more, I would have become tandoor...roasted alive. Then it occurred to one of my companions to tear open the door and I tumbled out, followed by a huge fireball, movie style, close on my heels.

Rest of the events are pretty imaginable. whisked away to first aid post and transported 200 km to the nearest hospital, twenty agonizing days to substantial recovery, the support and goodwill of my staff, friends and colleagues to my wife and the tender care by hospital staff.... I suppose a mere thank you to all of them would be never enough. I presume Santosh Gupta, Choudhary, Satya, Banu Pratap, Chandrasekhar Y Pawar, Durgaprasad, Brijesh Kumar, Devika, Brinda, Anju Kumari, VK Sharma, SV Syed, Surya Bhattacharya, Ambika, Farah Patil, and my dear Mona have become now part of my living memory. May God bless them all and grant them His liberal grace in all their life's undertakings.

Throughout those twenty days, somethings else kept playing out in my mind like a gramophone record - those few moments when I stood inside the envelope of fire. Strangely, I did not feel an iota of fear. Fully aware that the fireball has me in its grip, I was conscious of just three things: one, I may last a few more moments; two, I should not change the direction in which I was going (towards the exit) for I would get disoriented soon; three, not to look around since my eyes will burn out. Keeping both my fore arms to cover my face, I just proceeded ahead, in time to tumble out of the entrance. In fact my hands got burnt in the process of opening the cover on the entrance when one of assistants also helped to pull me out.

I kept asking myself as to how come I did not panic; how the mind remained absolutely clear and unfazed. While a score of explanations like upbringing, training, attitude, physical stamina, etc, kept popping up, the simplest of the explanations holds the fort - life gives a chance. It always and in every absurdly hopeless situation too, it gives a chance. Like Paulo Coelho says, the symbols are ever present. It is upto us to take it and move forward or ignore and be done with.

Osho in every breath says that it is being aware which is essential. Be aware. Awareness is life and not being aware is death. Life calls for an awareness of our being that is beyond mere physical senses. It is transcendental in nature. Every time there is a close call, believe that life is actually giving us a chance. Take it. 

I am my own puzzle..unsolved

Friends are the touchstone of our life. They reflect the real you and many times the reality that they reflect back puzzles you. This is what I felt when a friend of mine asked me a simple question - what do I think my objectives in life were?

Having scored half past a century, I was smug in my comfort zone that I have reached where I want to and the remaining life is just to be lived off the brownies that I have already earned. That is when this poser from a friend came. Sitting back, I reflected on the so called brownies in my kitty. The more deep down I went, the more I realized the transient nature of our objectives in life. The more you garner, the more appears necessary. The playing field never has a definable boundary. That is when I begin to feel that the actual playing field is not outside in the physical world that surrounds me. It is inside. The more the heart craves, the larger the field becomes.

So do I become a Buddha? Give up 'desires'. Stop moving and the field ends there. It is nice to imagine that the mind (and the heart) could be frozen. Like Osho says "be still". Being still is not a product of the control that we have on our mind. It is rather the awareness that we have no desire to control. To be in control is an acknowledgement of desire. It is also an acknowledgement of fear - the fear of having to face the unknown which by controlling we want to avoid encountering.

All our life we try to control things around us. In reality, it is the desire to feel secure in the environment that we feel we keep under our control. Fallacy though it may be, for the forces of nature and those around us exercise larger influence over our life than what we think we control, we still believe that we are in charge.

If that be so, then what objectives do I have or should I have? To control or consciously let go? MDQ - million dollar question. There is an interesting line in the song by Olivia Newton-John:

If you love me, let me know.

If you don't, let me go.

I can take another meaning

of a day without you in it....

Though the song may be on a romantic note, the deeper meaning is worthy of reflection. Let go of control for in essence we own nothing.

Coming back to my friend's question...well, the debate is open.

   

Imaging our gods - the science behind god-making

One of my friends recently sent me a message asking whether I knew that the Shiv Ling is made as per scientific principles. I asked him to explain the scientific principles. He replied saying he was told emphatically by his guru that it is written in the shastras that Ling is the ultimate expression of divinity and therefore it is the most scientific physical representation. I asked him to find out which ‘shastras’ and ‘what is scientific’. He replied that he felt offended by such agnostic questions coming from me.

I was taken back, though it was nice to see someone so devoted to his guru. While I expressed my sincere apologies to him for offending his sensibilities, I thought I must also share what little bit that I do know.

There are two periods of Indian history when India can be said to have reached the pinnacles of intellectual acumen. First was from 2500 to 500 AD and the next is from 400 to 1500 BC. In the first period came the Vedas and Upanishads as the result of a peaceful pastoral Indian community searching for the purpose of life. The second period saw the birth of Vedanga (the six sciences), mathematics, astronomy, astrology and a host of other sciences. One of the Vedangas is the science of constructing divine images called SHILPA SHASTRA. In fact experts believe though Panini and Patanjali of 500 BC were familiar with images of gods, no evidence exists of constructing ‘pratima’ for worship. The art and science of constructing images for worship grew thereafter and in 1500 AD, the SHILPA SHASTRA was written.

There are very few experts who can be said to know the Shilpa Sashtra now. In the early 1930s, Dr AN Tagore, Dr A Coomaraswami, Mr OC Ganguly, etc were considered to be expert art-critics with deep insights into Shilpa Shastra.

It is Shilpa Shastra that defines what measurements are to be taken in constructing images of gods. Measurements in Shilpa Shastra are in ‘angula’. An ‘angula’ is 1/4^th of a ‘musti’, meaning closed fist. Sukra Niti, Maya Sastra and Matsya Puran further give various measurements and criteria for constructing the images of gods with stone, metal or even painting them.

The measurements are for three purposes – to give aesthetic beauty, to mark the purpose of that particular image and to physically symbolize the god as described in Purans. For example, gods with the thumb of the open palm of either hand touching the chest symbolize ‘protection’. That means the bhakt will seek to be protected by the deity. The image with the palm touching the abdomen symbolizes ‘vardhan’, that means the bhakt will seek boons. There may be deities with one palm near the chest and another near the abdomen. This deity is worshipped for both protection and boons.

Now let us see the construction of Shiv Ling. In the Shiv and other Purans, Shiv is the only god described as TRIMURTHI. Brahma, as we know is just Brahma. In so far as Visnu is concerned, we say ‘Sivaya Visnu rupaya, Siva Rupaya Visnave’ – meaning both are same. So, TRIMURTI is a god who has to be represented as the one carrying out all three functions in equal measure. Also, he cannot be represented in human form as the description of Brahma, Visnu and Siva is quite distinct from each other. Therefore, Trimurti is represented as an oval (all encompassing, the whole), mounted on a circular platform with a base. Each of these segments is to be of equal height to symbolize that He carries on the three acts of creation, protection and destruction equally.

This is the science behind Shiv Ling. Have a great day.