The Right Time

Someday when I'm ready 

When the tides flow my way

And when the winds blow my sails in the right direction 

When I've lived my life to the fullest 

Traveled the seas and traversed the sands 

Mingled with the life underwater 

Stared in awe at its roaring presence on land 

I'll spend a moment to think about where this came from 

Who made the landscape of such vivid colours 

And who made the colours of the rainbow 

Who made me so that could see the many hues

Not only above but even in the shiny waters 

Who made the sky, the stars and the seas 

The winds that blow in my hair 

The drops that fall upon my eyelids 

You, and all the love you bring to my life 

The love I feel like a storm in my heart 

With the power to make me move a mountain 

And the sweet urge to hold you in my arms 

Where did that love begin? 

How could that have been anything but divine 

I may not need to wait any longer 

For in your eyes I can see His wonder 

The magic of life entwined all around us

I think I found my answer already 

I just needed to believe I was ready... 

My Tryst with Vipassana

I had gone into vipassana with a lot of hesitation and fear. Almost like it was a punishment that I had to suffer through, especially since people had told me stories of how you go crazy and the silence is really hard to maintain. It was actually quite the opposite. 

First about the technique itself and how it's taught - the method and the gradual build up make it really powerful - you first learn to focus and observe and work with your mind before going into the actual technique. It's testing both physically and mentally, but the beauty is that in the daily discourses Goenkaji actually tells you what is going on inside of you - scientifically(?!) as well as in Buddhas experience of it. Through the discourses he explains how Buddha used this technique to gain enlightenment - transcending all suffering that arises from ignorance - the attachment of craving and the displeasure of aversions. We feel both craving and aversions in our lives without realising that these are both impermanent. This causes us to build more Sanskaras and each time we react we deepen the Sanskaras, creating karma. Vipassana teaches you to use your own body's sensations and by maintaining equanimity towards both the good and the bad sensations, to slowly slowly get rid of our sankaras created and carried over lifetimes. As you slowly maintain equanimity toward to the pleasurable feeling during the light floating vibrations as well as the physically testing pains of sitting still without movement for an hour, you realise that both pass, both are transient and you just observe without reaction. You instead observe, analyse and inspect the pain with complete equanimity. Therefore a good meditation isn't one where you feel good and light, but one where you observe with full awareness (vipassana actually means seeing things as they are) and maintaining complete equanimity.  Slowly this becomes the way to live your life as well. 

He also explains the relationship between our senses (body) and the mind and the outside world and how by using vipassana and realising the Truth of phenomenon, Buddha was able to free himself from karma, and therefore the cycle of life and death.  (It's quite beautiful and I don't want to kill it for anyone who wants to go - so will not go into details)

Since I've been to tushita and kept silence before,it didn't bother me too much. Having Gopika around was tempting - we smiled maybe twice and I broke silence once only to tell her on the second day that it's too small a place to avoid each other. After that till the last day, we would be next to each other, head down, and it really wasn't a problem. 

The silence actually helps you to stay with yourself. I think a lot and almost in all my alone time live in a land of fantasy. I observed this behaviour pattern play itself out and hopefully have left it behind. 

Lots of dreams, inner children (that I did chat with), memories came up - healed hopefully! 

My test was the noise. The Pune riverside center is surrounded by a really party village with no loudspeaker laws. All night they'd have something going on and 6 nights I had almost no sleep. I finally went to the guruji and told him that instead of dropping attachments I was adding on more every night from crying and frustration from this sound (it was even Hindi or English music that I could understand or hum) - he told me to simply practice in bed before sleep and see what happens. The first time I did that I felt like my body was floating about a foot above me and wasn't really physical anymore. It was a layer of vibrations. I'm not even sure if there was any music after that! According to Goenkaji in one of the discourses, this experience is that of the true nature of matter. As science now knows, we are all energy, the physical form is of denser particles and we can only "know" this by true self experience - this was what I was experiencing.  Vipassana is supposed to be the tool to experience the true nature of life at the level of self, and therefore making it a personally realised truth - the only way to moving toward enlightenment. 

Not eating cereal was hard (I was on a restricted diet for other reasons including testing my will power) cause the food looked so good! But I think it served me well cause I found a determination that I didn't think I still had. I think I've gained some perspective about my own minds thought  and behaviour patterns - almost as if I was observing it from the outside.  My mind isn't racing anymore and I haven't moved into fantasy land even once in the last 3 days even when I've been completely bored. When I do start, I'm able to recognise it immediately and use the technique to come back completely into the present. 

I still have a backache which I developed there but it's ebbing. Our Sanskaras come out as pains and as we maintain equanimity toward them they start to go away. By not reacting anymore we don't create new ones, and then the old stored ones come out. Slowly slowly we release them one by one... one step closer to nirvana :)

Sound of Silence

These lines have been inspired by my vipassna experience. They do not reflect or speak of the technique or it's principles and philosophy, just of my experience. 

The sound of silence has a hum

It beats with your heart along a strum 

Sometimes a whisper, sometimes a drum 

The sound of silence has a tick tock

Moment to moment you hear only the clock 

Brings in the peace as life's cradle does rock

The sound of silence has a step 

It moves along with the rise of each breath 

Only to part at the time of death

The sound of silence is your best friend 

To tame the monkey your mind is, it's ways to mend

To not race, to waver, to fly into fantasy, as it usually tends 

The sound of silence has a wave 

As into your mind the pathways you pave 

Into the treasures where deep secrets are saved 

The sound of silence is where it all begins

Before the noise, the hum of silence rings 

And then starts the final ending...

Just for This Moment

Just for this moment
I will not anger
I will instead allow myself
To feel deep compassion and gratitude
For bringing you into my life
With your constant poke and all your strife 

Just for this moment
I will not worry
I will enjoy this sunrise, soak in the sunset
And know that everything will come up eventually to rise
And deep down, it's only but a moment's strive

Just for this moment
I know not how
Life will turn out to be eventually
So I choose this moment
With all it's glory
For that's only all that I can truly ever know


Just for this moment I choose myself
I choose to love and to care
To see myself in my own light
To feel my greatness beyond compare

Just for this moment
I will acknowledge You
And love You, know you're always there
Let my life lay surrendered in your lap
Knowing only you know of my very next moment 

The Dark Night

There comes a time
When we heed a certain call
It's the shout for help
The whisper to hold on just a little bit longer
For dawn is just around the corner

The soul must make it through it's darkest night
The brave must face their deepest fears
For but not from the depths of despair
Do we find our greatest strength
And the courage to go through the full length

What is the point of this much pain?
Of turmoil and testing, of horror and shame
The metal must burn to find it's true mettle
It's not forever, it's a matter of when
For the sun simply must rise again 

In You I Have Found...

This poem was written on Guru Purnima and while I truly thank all my gurus, this one is dedicated to Rukhs, my reiki teacher. With love.

In You I have found....

.. My direction
For I was going  no where
And you showed me a way
You still hold my hand
And help me to stay
On a Path of love
Of grace and of joy
On a road less travelled
And you tell me why

... Myself
For I didn't know who I was
When I first came to you
Lost and confused
Unable to think too
You taught me to love myself
You showed me how
You told me I could grow wings and fly
You still make me push and plough

... My faith
For I didn't have anything to believe in
At best I was agnostic
In only a few moments of your touch
The world became fantastic
Surrounded by divinity in your presence
I found myself in touch with god
You may only be the bamboo if you insist
You're actually His lightning rod

... My teacher
For I was looking for a guru
Not just for a healing or for Bach
In you I found so much more
While only doing reiki for a lark
An ocean  of compassion and patience
For questions, tears, tales and talk
A guide, a friend, a teacher, a mentor,
An example of love above it all

Proof of a God

Someone put this up today. And stirred a fire in my belly. I reacted with words that offered no console, and no proof. I undid all my reactions and then thought of the struggle that our personalities go through - a struggle of faith - and we then label this personality as atheist,  agnostic, non-believer and worse of all, scientist. 

Let's work with atheist. If you ask science or religion or anyone else for proof of the existence of a God then know that you can't be atheist. Your at best agnostic for lack of a better word. Unfortunately, and much to your despair, by the mere fact that you question and ask, you leave place for doubt. And that's shifts your belief completely, creating the space for a chance that you may find your answer. 

Unfortunately, those that believe that science or religion will provide that answer will be left empty handed. Science can only work with what the physical senses can acknowledge and further to that, with machines that can capture the intricacies of what we cannot perceive with the outwardly senses. And that's why we know what protons and neutrons are, and how the amoeba and our DNA are structured. 

Science cannot prove the existence of love. Yet, conditional or unconditional, we all feel love. If not for our partners, for our pets and children. Respect, separate from love. And each of these emotions are all real cause we feel them. Inside of ourselves. Within our souls, maybe? ;)

Religion on the other hand has banned science from the exploration of all things esoteric. The mystical ways of the world are matters of the church and not of science. Historically, we know that religion has been used by most clergy, whether the church or the Brahmin caste, to control masses, to create fear, and in that to create the greatest gap between people and their individual relationship with God. Leading people to believe that somehow only through realised beings such as the clergy themselves, can God speak and connect. Therefore should and can religion be trusted with the burden of proof? 

An agnostic has hope. He awaits that somehow religion or science or whoever it might be will come up with an answer to this existential question: is there a God? And how can we prove that? 

Before Newton discovered Gravity, there was gravity. It existed every day, and every moment. Yet only when he actually investigated it, and looked for the many ways that it influenced life, did he put a name and number to it. That's science.The forces of nature, the forces of life, all continue to exist and evolve whether science understands or accepts them. Science is an aftermath. 

Let your journey to find God be the same. The burden of proof lies with you and not with science or religion. Whether you look for a form outside of yourself or find the Divinity within, or just look at the magic around you in each moment, with each breath you take, when you feel love, hope, or the lack of it, ask God to show you. When you leave the proof of burden on God, and wait for your very own miracle, it'll happen. Another great scientist said, "Coincidences are Gods way of remaining anonymous."