LOST and FOUND in INDIA

GURU, ANYONE?

noreply@blogger.com (♥ Braja) — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 06:31:00 +0000

It's so easy: you're surrounded by them....

Read it @ Elephant Journal »»» *☆.｡.•*✿

♥

THE SMELL OF THE SUN IN THE AIR...

noreply@blogger.com (♥ Braja) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 01:08:00 +0000

The weather changes all the time here; my favorite time is just ending, when it's cooler, when it's all about heavy, winter-weight linen kurtas, trousers, wraps, and winter bedding; windows closed over at night, and crisp, cold sleeping weather. Now, the sun has become warmer, all my cottons have been dragged out of the cupboard, and my favorite white, silky mosquito net drapes my bed and rustles gently under the stir of the ceiling fans. It is the tail end of winter, and we're in the warm weather. A bat of the eyelid and the world has turned a little, taking it closer to the sun...

I love the seasons in India; especially those here in tropical West Bengal. We have six seasons: winter in Dec/Jan; spring in Feb/March; summer in April/May, when the burning heat is at its peak and Bengal's tropical dampness is furthest away; rainy season in June/July, when the fat, welcome drops of rain dissipate the remnants of the last two months and take the temperature down a few degrees; monsoon season August/September, when the floods can come if they choose; and my favorite, the quick turn of summer's last into the crisp and beautiful months of October/November, when autumn lands and spreads it's loving arms...

The best thing is, if you don't like the weather you only have to wait 2 months, and it will change---like clockwork.

It never fails...

LOVE

noreply@blogger.com (♥ Braja) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 02:52:00 +0000

I want to be
where your
bare foot walks

because maybe
before you step,

you will look
at the ground.

I want that blessing.

Rumi

LIFE FEELS THIS GOOD

noreply@blogger.com (♥ Braja) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 10:20:00 +0000

This is what I feel like today: how about you?

SOMETIMES I HATE TITLES LIKE "FORGIVENESS"

noreply@blogger.com (♥ Braja) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 10:23:00 +0000

When I was 8 years old my father was killed in a motorbike accident on his way home from work.

It was around 7.30 at night when the police finally found their way to our house and knocked on our door, after going to the wrong address twice. My sister and I shared a room whose window faced the front verandah, and we saw them arrive. A strange night ensued. Understatement? Yeah, kinda...

The next morning, I went to school. I know, right? Who sends their kid to school the day after her father dies? But here’s the thing: I didn’t know my father had died. Not until I got to school. Not until that kid blurted out, “Did your dad die??” I said no, of course. I told this boy that Daddy had been in an accident, but he was in the hospital. I really thought it was a misunderstanding, that he’d heard about Dad’s accident, but that he’d got it wrong. He replied, “Well, your mum was just here talking to Mr. Green. She says he died, and she was worried about you…”

You know how in the movies it cuts to a scene like this, the girl drops her school bag and runs blindly out the room…so well-scripted, everything so artfully done? Yeah it was like that, but it was real: people calling me to stop, and I didn’t; the breath catching in my chest and tripping over sobs that were rising up from my gut; what must have been a wild-eyed stare on my face as I tore down the hallway, burst through doorways, ran into the grounds, across the paths, and down to my street.

I didn’t stop. I ran all the way, and somehow my mother was at the end of the driveway when I arrived; I don’t know how or why…she wasn’t waiting for me, she must have been outside already, because we didn’t have a phone so the school hadn’t called her. She was just there. I remember running into her arms, and the rest is blank. She held me and I cried, and that’s really all my little 8 year old mind wanted to remember.

The next time I thought about that moment was over 25 years later, after speaking with her on the phone about something unrelated. And as it dawned on me what she’d done — or rather, what she’d failed to do — I sank down into a chair in stunned silence.

She didn’t tell me my daddy had died. She went to the school and told my teacher. She was worried about me. Worried how I would last the day. Worried how I would handle life from this point on. But she didn’t tell me. She couldn’t find a way to tell me. I heard it through the grapevine…

It took me some time to digest what had obviously, for more than 25 years, spread like cancer through the relationship that was meant to be my mothers and mine. She was good, kind, pious, religious, responsible, chaste, beautiful, talented, well-groomed, clean, neat, funny, sweet, small, and gentle. And she smelled wonderful; she wore Chanel perfume, and another called Tweed. Her hair was perfect. She made all her own clothes (and ours), and was often glamorously dressed. Hell, everyone loved her.

But I hated her. I had never understood why, but in the silence of that day so many years later, I suddenly realized that she had planted a seed of tyranny in me at 8 years old, that it had blossomed into full bloom soon after, and its scent had wafted through our relationship all my life.

It’s not like I didn’t know that she’d failed to tell me. Of course I knew. And it’s not like I didn’t understand why, either: I did, of course. The poor woman had lost her husband, the love of her life, the father of her five children, in a sudden and violent accident. Police had knocked on her door in the dark of night and ripped her life from her. Strangers had invaded her home and dropped the remains of my father’s last day on the table in the lounge: car keys, wallet, personal effects. My mother was traumatized, no family around (our relatives lived in another state), and no close friends; we’d only lived in that city for 18 months.

So she was, on the morning after Dad’s death, on the outer circle of dysfunctional from grief; trying like crazy to keep things together; wondering how the hell she was going to tell her youngest three children, the girls, that their father had died. She’d told the older two, the boys. But she didn’t know how to hold it together to tell the girls.

And so she’d packed us off to school. I understood. She no doubt needed space, a child-free zone, time to think. I understood. I remember being told by everyone around me at that time to “be good,” because Mummy was in a terrible state. I understood. Not to trouble her, because she was grief-stricken. I understood. To be a good girl, and not bother her. I understood.

She went away for six months, to her sister’s place in another state. I understood. My grandmother came to look after us; Mum needed time, she’d had a nervous breakdown. I understood. It was, in many ways, the best six months of my life: I loved my Gran more than anyone, and it’s always easier with grandparents isn’t it? I read somewhere once that grandparents and grandchildren get on so well because they have a common enemy…

So it was all okay with me. I understood. I didn’t find it hard: what’s so hard? Poor Mum…who could deal with that kind of grief without losing it, without wanting time out, without having to deal with five children and no family around, no support, nothing. I understood.

But as I sat in contemplative silence that day after the phone call 25 years later, it wasn’t the lack of understanding that was my problem. It was that I hadn’t forgiven her…

I've heard a lot about forgiveness: absolute, utter, pure bullsh*t, some of it...

I’ve read therapists’ advice about “forgiving yourself,” and how someone can only hurt you “if you let them,” or how, if you hate someone, that you’re “giving them power over you,” and all sorts of…well….let’s cut to the chase: absolute, utter, pure bullshit. Some things happen, and they’re out of your control, and that’s all there is to it. What amount of “power” can an 8 year old child not give their mother, or any adult? Zero.

But what dawned on me in that time of silent thought all those years later was just that: it was all those years later. Twenty five years later. More, even. A lifetime. I was little, then, and had had no choice, no input, no control, no role at all except as a bystander to what went on, nothing to do but take it, experience it. Now? I was an adult. I was in my mid-thirties. I could respond, feel, and think in any way I chose to.

So I chose to stop hating my mother (after the initial shock of realizing that I did actually hate her wore off). Perhaps “hate” is too a strong word. “Resent” would be more accurate. I resented her for so many things. Everything, as it turned out, and more as time went on: I resented her when people told me how much they liked her (which was often — she’s immensely likeable), because she’d done something to make me not like her so much; I resented her when she was happy, because she’d made me so unhappy; I resented discussions about trust and discretion and communication, because she’d excluded me from that when I was so little, barred me from the door, made me grow into a girl who would slice a relationship to tiny pieces and hurl it into the dumpster if someone showed cracks in their trust and loyalty and discretion. They could hurt you, so they had to be destroyed.

I’d push people to the extreme limit, push harder, harder, harder still, to make sure their qualification to earn my trust was strong, unbreakable, that it would kick in on auto-pilot and not shut down under duress. I wore some people out with it. And I assumed the whole time that they understood.

Well….they didn’t. Because they were adults, and when we’re big we don’t let things like that happen to us. We are far more discreet, we distinguish between whom we allow to come close and whom we don’t (and of course, oddly enough, we decide all that based on how we’ve been raised ourselves: talk about recycled…). Big people wouldn’t let me do to them what had been done to me when I was a little person. Hardly surprising…

My “understand” mechanism had functioned very well, honed and tuned to perfection, given a rich and balanced foundational life with parents in a healthy, loving marriage, brothers and sisters who weren’t abused or beaten or assaulted or unhappy or hungry or homeless or suffering in any way: just a big happy family. Normal.

But that day at the school, after my mother left Mr. Green’s class room, my “understand” mechanism also suffered a fatal collision: with reality. It went off the rails, crashed and burned. It, too, died that day in 1972…

So when I got big? I found a far easier solution: I didn’t try to understand anymore. I had done that already: it was part of my nature. I was good at it, even, especially for just an 8 year old. But it had wreaked so much havoc on me, being so understanding. So when it derailed I let it. I pushed it, even, helped it into its coffin and nailed that bastard shut. It was cremated with my father.

So this is the part where it’s all meant to synchronize, flow together, revelations abound, the end is tied up, and then, “The End.” Well…sorry, but it’s not a television show, it’s not scripted, and it’s not that trite: it’s not the reason I am what I am, this isn’t my autobiography. Sheesh…

Just that we go through life and we experience things, and sometimes when we share those times with others, it helps — even if its painful or embarrassing or revealing. Possibly more so, when it is. It shines a little light on things, gives a view from a different angle, removes a concrete block or two from the path, clears the heart and mind, lets you wake up and smell the coffee and not the rancid stink of old and faded stamps in the faulty memory that has struggled to maintain and understand something that happened way back when…

And inevitably there’s a lesson in there, too. It’s a hard one to swallow, complicated to piece together after you’ve dismantled it, impossible to speak it, sometimes. It doesn’t matter what created it or what triggers it: it’s the same lesson for all of us. It’s the lesson of our conditioned behavior, that we’re programmed by our surroundings and our upbringing and myths and legends and fairytales and expectations and movies and so many other things. And it sounds like this:

Be careful what you think you understand, be careful of “being your own guru,” because you could be really wrong: even if you’re being good and kind and patient, even if you’re intelligent. Seeds of righteous thought and acceptance sow fields of misdirected paths and criss-crossed rows of undecipherable, lifelong resentment: don’t let them.
Like Rumi says, let the wound be the place where the Light enters you…not the place where hard, dark scars are formed. Let go of so many old ideas that you’ve formed to protect yourself, or thoughts that insist they’re right. Because you could be really wrong. Shine the light of knowledge into your heart, open the curtains, fluff the cushions, blow the dust away, and let. it. go.

One whose mind, intelligence, faith, and refuge are in the Supreme Reality is undoubtedly washed clean of all misgivings and is in perfect knowledge in everything concerning transcendence.

~ Bhagavad Gita

There. Wasn’t that easy?

♥

I'M DYING

noreply@blogger.com (♥ Braja) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 03:29:00 +0000

I just wanted to prepare you for this upcoming event. Not my imminent departure, but the dye-ing festival of Holi. I know it's spelled "dyeing," but seriously, correct spelling vs. killer titles? I'll take the latter....

So...India's color spectacular, Holi, is about to bombard us. Literally. They throw color bombs. This here is not fiction <---- but is what happens when you go out in the street in the beginning of March. Who said India was mad? Not me: I don't have to. A picture paints a thousand words...

I'ts the season of color and festivity in India, and while it's not so big in Mayapur, I've spent my share of Holi festivals in northern India where it's insane. For one day and night, everyone bombards whomever they see with powdered dyes by the mountain-load, and squirt water pistols and guns with colored waters.

Me? I'll be indoors outwaiting the loons, but just a word of warning: I have this stockpile, so I'm armed and colorfully dangerous ---->

So what is it, this bizarre colorful explosion? India has about 250 of those a year, but this one has deep roots. The origin of Holi is in Vrindavan, a village north of Delhi, and famous as the home town of that world-famous cowherd boy, Krishna. You shoulda guessed he'd be behind something like this....

Krishna and his consort, Radharani, had many different pastimes in and around Vrindavan, but this one takes place in Radharani's village of Varshana, a beautiful village in Braj-mandala, or the circle of Braja, whose capital is Vrindavan. In Varshana, the most famous version of Holi is played in the sprawling compound of the Radharani temple atop the huge hill.

The women of the village are armed with sticks, and thousands gather to witness them chase the men away, while the men, protected with shields, sing provocative songs to invite the attention of the women. Beats the heck outta "Valentine's day," if you ask me! Spectators shout "Radhe!" or "Krishna!" repeatedly, depending on who they're supporting, and songs are sung in the local Brijbasi language.

Holi's origins: Holi is a game, a gentle one that uses colored and deliciously scented water made from flowers and natural pigments. Beautiful silver water pump shooters were hand-sized, and delicate. It was a pastime that Krishna and Radha played: her with her girlfriends on one team, Krishna and his cowherd friends on the other....very sweet and beautiful.

GOODNIGHT, WINTER...

noreply@blogger.com (♥ Braja) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 23:42:00 +0000

In the quiet of the day, Summer walks slowly and softly down the road, enters the gate, and looks around...with a soft 'thud' that raises a little cloud of dust, its bag drops gently to the ground; the smell of the earth changes, winter officially withdraws the remnants of its presence, and a new resident moves in....

The impermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons: they arise from sense perception, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed.

Bhagavad Gita

FABULOUS MORNINGS, FREE OF TYRANNY

noreply@blogger.com (♥ Braja) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 00:19:00 +0000

It's early Saturday morning...very early. The cold season has left us at last, but the nights are still deliciously frosty, making sleep easy. A shennai plays a morning raga from a nearby temple; I love the sound of the silent night broken only by that simple, sweet melody.

Thought for the day, which perfectly matches the pic, don't you think?

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

~ Thomas Jefferson, or Lily Munster. I can't remember. Or both. Or maybe Lily was Thomas Jefferson?

SCARRED FOR LIFE -- BUT THAT'S JUST THE PARTS YOU CAN SEE...

noreply@blogger.com (♥ Braja) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:54:00 +0000

I can look in the mirror and see the deep facial scars, and wonder why the insides don't heal as fast...

I can make it dramatic, suspenseful. Should I? Just a simple report is enough, but a tweak here, a pause there, and they become horrifying, breath-taking. Or I can tell it as a spectator, in third person, like I wasn't even there. That doesn't look right, but in a way, I kind of wasn't...

On one level, the accident wasn't so bad, when I think about it. There's always someone worse off, always someone suffering more, always something more violent, vicious, horrifying, than what's happening to us at any given moment.

But that doesn't change what is. What "it" is was a huge Indian road truck, Tata Trucks, they're called, enormous raging behemoths of cargo, barreling along the highway in the early morning hours as our car quietly, smoothly, and (we thought) safely delivered us to the airport. We were near the end of a 2.5 hour drive from our home in the village of Mayapur; only 15 minutes from the airport as I looked at my cellphone and said to my husband, "Well...we made it. We'll be there in 10, 15 minutes."

Look. See that? Those sharp-pronged thoughts that arise and wrench at the veil that sits politely hiding the heart-tearing realities of the emotions and pain these memories evoke; the world stands still for a moment, and I can see the two eyes of that truck, switched-off headlights, lumbering into our path. Because that is what's underneath it all: the memory of every horrifying second that followed.

Well...we didn't make it to the airport. I told the driver he was going to "hit that truck." And then nothing.

On the surface, unconscious. Seemingly before the truck even hit. That's a beautiful thing. Not a sound entered. Before the truck ran over our car, crushed it to a pulped mess of metal, breaking everything in its path, including me, my husband, our driver; nearly killing us all in the process. Unconscious...but the mind and soul never are, are they? Always something inside us sees, feels, experiences everything...

I regained consciousness once, as they wheeled me from the ambulance into Emergency. I was upset that the nice lady with those huge scissors was cutting off my favorite shirt, and managed to express my chagrin.

It's a comedy routine: broken into a thousand messy pieces, bloodied beyond recognition, torn beyond repair, sparkling with the shards of a million pieces of shattered glass, yet bitching about my favorite shirt. Monty Python would be proud of me...

But I'm lying: it wasn't the first time consciousness returned. It had tried before then, but was overwhelmed and backed off, safe in the blackness and pain-free zone being offered, like a cushion to a street beggar. And I took it. Oh, did I ever. Because the alternatives were too harsh, too soon. That hospital verandah they'd dumped us on, for instance...I didn't want to wake up there...I really didn't...

It was a top level hospital in Calcutta, an ambulance sent on request to come and collect us from the outlying small town we'd met our truck in, just out of Calcutta. The hospital enveloped us, first class surgeons trained and specialized and honed in Europe and Britain awaited our arrival: neurosurgeons, plastic surgeons, orthopedic surgeons, eye surgeon, back and neck specialists, general theater surgeons, you name it.

The first one wasn't like that, though...dredged from the recesses of the mind somewhere, a memory that a tiny country hospital near Madhyamgram rejected us, too badly injured, too near death for them to help. We were roadkill. Their ambulance -- which had been called to pull us from the mangled insides of the car and deliver us to safety -- left the hospital grounds again, this time with us inside, dropping us at a another, nearby hospital. They, too, rejected us...what could they do? So they laid us on their verandah. We were going to die, anyway. Best it not be inside...

The room I finally woke in was beeping, pulsing, hushed but buzzing, stainless steel and white light, fabric-sounding movements, quiet voices, a clipboard hanging from the bed with a list of injuries: a hip savagely wrenched entirely from the hip joint, shredding muscle, tissue, tendons, pressing its dislodged self against flesh, trying to escape, but hanging uselessly; an arm with both bones snapped, ligaments and tendons slashed and torn, glass ripping at nerves, numbing everything; my face, held together with nearly 100 stitches, a nearly lost eye on two sides; my shoulders dislodged; my thoracic spine, "one tiny fraction from breaking," they said, a lump the size of a soccer ball protruding from between the blades, a mass of damaged muscle and tissue; a sacrum that couldn't speak, it was beaten too badly; legs that wouldn't walk, they were too bashed and bruised....all beaten, broken, ripped, torn, slashed, and scarred, from the ankles to the tip of the head, which I wouldn't be able to feel for 2 years; my forehead is still numb, my hips don't work, I've had 5 surgeries. I could go on...

But as they moved us onto their verandah, my husband's phone slid from his pocket. The policeman pressed the 'dial' button, and contact was made: suddenly we weren't "nearly dead foreigners" in some nameless village in India. We had connection. Someone knew us. Communication went into full swing. As we lay there dying, that big smooth hospital was dispatching its ambulance on the 30 minute drive to find us. Even when they did, I tried to escape. I nearly made it. But they resuscitated me. I wonder if they should have.

I talked a lot but remember nothing; a week in Intensive Care, and only 10 minutes of memories. My husband lay next to me in a coma; then, when he woke, an induced coma so he wouldn't move. The room didn't scare me. Nothing did. But I couldn't stop talking. I remember only talking. And talking. But inside, I was as quiet as a church mouse. Everything in there had moved. I wanted to look at it through a microscope. So I would close my eyes and let it come...

I loved the quiet. It's there still, almost 3 years later. I go there a lot, inside to that silent, awe-making place. It does that: creates awe in me. There's very few words other than that to describe it. It's vast, full of everything, yet empty. Full of people, but I see no one, unless I summon them, or they come to me of their free will. Full of life, but it was death that brought it close, opened the door, pushed me through...

My face was almost ripped off; that's how it was described to me. I asked them for a mirror. They would smile and say no. I would smile back, but my mouth was split in 5 places, torn through to the teeth, so I stopped. I didn't think much about moving, because I couldn't; I didn't have to. I was cocooned. I didn't hurt, because the pain had been coerced from the room by someone whose name I think was Morphine, whose slow, silent drip filled my body with numbness and my heart with love.

I know I couldn't have reached there before, that quiet place. I don't know how I would have gone through it in normal circumstances, without the ripping, shredding trauma of everything being torn from me, inside and out. I don't conclude that going through this is the only way to arrive. But maybe it takes something similar; or maybe for others, it doesn't. But it does take something that is, on all the very quiet and deep levels, so much more than we ever think we can survive, go through, emerge from...

The orthopedic surgeon lied to me. Later I punched him, but I swear it was only reflex (though it was with my good arm). Not muscular spasm kind of reflex: more "killer instinct" reflex, when he tried to look underneath my arm and lifted it, went to twist it to see the underlying side...even when he was the one who had inserted the two titanium rods to hold it together, had stitched the jagged, L-shaped tear in the flesh, had sewn up the torn ligaments and ripped tendons, knew of the numbness in my hand, the frozen thumb and fingers, knew that that arm wouldn't turn, but mindlessly tried anyway. So I punched him. "Sorry," I said, and left the room. I never went back, but found Dr. Das instead.

Dr. Nandy, he was my plastic surgeon, yet he saw deeper than the others. He wasn't a "beauty" man, not like a plastic surgeon in Hollywood, trying to youth-ify or beautify. He was a scientist, an older, cultured, gentlemanly, precision-perfect surgeon, whose craftsmanship has deleted almost all traces that day stamped on my skin. He stood at my bed and told me it would happen, but I couldn't feel the right side of my face, and when I touched it, it was foreign. I didn't really believe him, but I didn't care, either. I was happy. He knew it. I think he knew about that quiet place. There was always a question in his eyes, a tacit understanding that we didn't give air to...

It's too long a tale to tell. I could write a book. Well, I did...it's published soon, but it's not just about the accident. Possibly more about the quiet place, and where it lives every day, even on its days off. And more than that, it's about how I find it in the dark.

Like today. It's early afternoon, it's a fresh spring day, but it's dark; I get like that sometimes. Only since the accident. Only since everything inside moved around enough so I could see that place I hadn't before seen...all those things must have been hiding it. I'm glad they broke, glad they were shattered and fell and gave me a clearer view of what I'd been looking for. Even if sometimes I want to hide from it...

Some people don't recognize me. Not because of the facial scars: they're hardly visible. It's the other things that moved and shifted that day which they find hard to recognize; some of those things left, died...some grew out of the rubble, and took root, are growing still. I water them. I try to, anyway...

I look at the scars, and while I limp and cry and rage at the one-step-forward-two-steps-back routine my hips and back cling to, and while I thank Patanjali and Mr. Iyengar for the yoga, and for my so very gifted yoga teachers, for the rubber mat makers, the cushion-making man across the river, and for trains so that I never have to get in a car again....I remember that all people see are the scars, and as they fade, so too, they think, my pain fades, my healing has reached its goal, it's all over. "You're all fixed, then?" they ask.

Oh, if only you knew. It's not over, "healed." It's never going to close, the opening inside that was created that day. I don't want it to. It won't grow more cells and cover the gaping slash, it won't knit bones and create a strong door to replace the one that was torn off. No. I don't want that. I want it open. I want it to never "heal."

Because it was my healing. Oh, that's a nice ending, don't you think? Isn't that tidy?

No wait: I'm not trying to be clever, wanting to impress, making misery a special thing that I "own." No. I told you, it's a quiet place. There is a lot left to say; it's not that there isn't. But I think I'd have to love you, and know you love me, before I could tell you.

Because it's love, that place inside. That's what I found in there. That's what opened up. And that's what heals...

You see?

♥

5 THOUGHTS YOU'LL HAVE AT THE TIME OF DEATH

noreply@blogger.com (♥ Braja) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 02:54:00 +0000

No point in avoiding the inevitable. So let's get on with it, shall we?

Five thoughts you won’t have:

1. “I wish I’d had more plastic surgery.”
2. “I’m so glad I watched every episode of Desperate Housewives: it has given me a deep sense of fulfillment and inner peace.”
3. “I really regret not buying those midnight blue Hardtail rolldown yoga pants.”
4. “I have absolutely no fear of what is about to happen: I have money in the bank and good insurance.”
5. “I’m so glad I chose this peach silk nightgown: it really works with my complexion….”

Five thoughts you will have:

1. “I wish I hadn’t been afraid to think about what is going to happen next.”
2. “I wish I’d been a better person.”
3. “That was fast.”
4. “I want another try.”
5. “I think I left the oven on…”

Five thoughts you hope you’ll have:

1. “This is it: I have no fear, I am surrounded by love, and I accept this.”
2. “I have the spiritual strength and understanding to face this moment.”
3. “I don’t want to come back…”
4. “Whatever state of being one remembers when he quits his present body, in his next life he will attain to that state without fail.” (Bhagavad-gita)
5. “Bitch, get your hands off that diamond necklace.”

originally posted @ Elephant Journal »»» *☆.｡.•*✿

YOGA TEACHERS: NOTHING BUT A VEHICLE

noreply@blogger.com (♥ Braja) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 02:21:00 +0000

... drivers whose cargo is precious, navigating the hazardous paths of a sacred practice: do they have what it takes to reach the destination?

A car slides up to the kerb, long and sleek and adorned with all the latest trinkets from designer companies whose brands are recognized worldwide. The driver, Teacher, has a passenger to carry, a special passenger: Ashtanga Yoga is its name. We'll call it Yoga for short.
Watching as the driver pulls the car to a standstill, Yoga looks at the vehicle and shakes its head in grim amusement. Labels, tags, logos, emblems, designer names, and an unidentifiable number of kitsch accoutrements cover every inch of the vehicle, each one boasting pride of place...or so they all think.
Teacher pulls up next to Yoga and quickly scrambles to help Yoga into the vehicle. It's a heavy load, this Yoga: the real thing. It slides in the back, taking up the entire seat, its limbs spilling out and filling the trunk. "That's a lot of baggage," Teacher thinks to itself. True enough: 8 limbs are no mean feat to carry around. It's not like they can go anywhere on their own. Yoga carries them everywhere...
They all have their own names, each of these limbs, and it was Yoga's father, Patanjali, who named them. But it's Yoga who introduces them to people, decides which order they'll be presented, and how they'll be shared amongst those they meet. It's Yoga's decision to make. After all, they're Yoga's limbs.

First there's Yama, then Niyama, and after those, Asana. Then there's Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, and Dhyana. Of course there's Samadhi, but Yoga is a bit private about that limb...

We won't go into detail about them: the depth of personality and character of each limb has taken up volumes of books, thousands of hours of discussion, and has maintained for centuries -- hundreds of them.
The detail is there in Patanjali's sutras, literally "threads," intricately drawing together the individual elements that are collectively the enigma of human existence, deftly creating a tapestry of beauty and wonder that explains the mastery of the mind and senses, embroidering road-maps that weave around the obstacles to spiritual evolution.
For thousands of years, since Patanjali brought Yoga out from those sutras to meet the world, the limbs have been known by those who are on a first name basis with Yoga.
Patanjali knew, when he introduced Yoga to everyone, that it was a lot to leave behind. But he also knew that so many chauffeurs, assistants, servants, helpers, all kinds of people would come to love Yoga, and help in so many ways to see that Yoga was delivered, limbs intact, to all corners of the world.
But some aren't so careful with Yoga. Some treat Yoga's limbs like separate entities, fashionable accessories, trendy optional add-ons. They don't care for the entire being of Yoga. But Patanjali cares. A lot.

Those limbs are Yoga. Would you leave home without your limbs? Would you care if people acknowledged only 1/8th of you, and ignored the other 7/8ths? Would you feel respected, valued, worthy?

"Oh, but that's not what we're doing!," Teacher is behind the wheel, thinking to itself. "No, no...we have respect for Yoga, it's just that...well...all that other stuff, that baggage....who has the time?! No one really needs to know that....I mean, hey, it's great if they want to, but y'know, it's not really essential to the poses, is it? Everyone is an individual: everyone has the right to choose, and we must respect the rights of everyone! That's yogic!"
From the back seat, Yoga listens in humble silence to the unstoppable, baseless thoughts of Teacher, and shakes its head in quiet wonder at the random conclusions drawn by an uncontrolled, uneducated mind. Looking at Teacher in the rearview mirror, in a sombre, deep voice, Yoga says quietly, "So you don't want to take me into this class? You just want to take one of my limbs, Asana?"
Teacher nodded, "Well, uh, yeah, if you want to put it like that, then that's your choice, I'm not going to judge you. It's ok, though, Yoga...I mean, really, people love Asana. It's so...spiritual in the studio!"
Yoga sighed. "And the other 7 limbs? What do you suggest I do with those?"
Teacher kept driving. There wasn't really an answer to that, after all....

If yoga is more than "exercise," shouldn't its teachers be spiritually and philosophically qualified?

BROKEN, BUT NEVER NOT WHOLE

noreply@blogger.com (♥ Braja) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:41:00 +0000

The sum total of me is not this body: it will dwindle, falter, fail, and ultimately be reduced to ashes.

It has had it's day in the sun, its weekend in a bikini. That it is no longer fit to do some things again doesn't disappoint me. I like the shifting balance of life, but the journey is bumpy. It has thrown me off, bruised me, broken not only bones but illusions of youth and ability that linger and tempt and haunt the fool in us all.

I bow to those youthful pursuits that are fleeing daily and leaving me with a new view of life. Their departure doesn't disturb me: like boisterous children promised a trip to the zoo, their excitement at what lies ahead is an explosion of noise and chaos and preparation that will lead to some semblance of peace and order.

They are the things that rule the body and it patiently awaited the day when something else would reign supreme.

Now it does.

Of the material body there is no endurance, and of the eternal soul there is no change.

~ Bhagavad Gita

♥

RUMI: WHY HE ROCKS THE WORLD

noreply@blogger.com (♥ Braja) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 05:31:00 +0000

800 years after his death, Rumi is world famous, his words bouncing from site to email to blog across the globe, his poetry touching hearts daily...

Rumi's theme was timeless: he was driven by and wrote endlessly of love in separation, of union with his beloved, of his longing and desire to restore that union, the root of our souls, which he wrote had been cut and was the cause of all our suffering.

I want a heart which is split, part by part,
because of the pain of separation from God,
so that I might explain my longing
and complain to it.

His love for and use of music, poetry, and dance as a connection to God was deep, more reflective of an advanced and intense spiritual path than his own background gave him leave to express: a personal experience most would voice in similar ways now, 800 years later:

All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.

While often the modern trend and so-called "similar" expressions remain bound in the impersonal realm, Rumi had a specific goal: attainment of God.

You are the Essence of the Essence,
The intoxication of Love.
I long to sing your praises
but stand mute
with the agony of wishing in my heart.

300 years later, in 15th century India, Sri Chaitanya would speak of the same longing and separation. He took birth as an only child in the tiny village of Mayapur, West Bengal. Though his Vaishnava tradition, practices, background, upbringing, and surroundings all differed vastly from Rumi's, both spoke and lived for the same purpose: to experience the intense longing and painful separation from the source of the soul that one must acquire to attain union with that very source, God.

While Rumi's expression came through poetry and the written word, Chaitanya's was through song and dance (which would have warmed Rumi's Dervish heart), his life dedicated to chanting the Hare Krishna mantra and encouraging everyone, everywhere, to somehow chant the names of the Lord to reach the state of consciousness required for ultimate union with God: a process much the same as Rumi's own love for spiritually expressive song and dance.

And in a mood that could never be disconnected from their main theme of separation and suffering in longing for their Beloved, both embraced and encouraged the pain it inevitably brought. Rumi acknowledged the pain as he would a guest, placing with delicate ease a welcome mat at his door, requesting its footprints to leave evidence of its visit, to trust the host with its presence.

This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
Still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight...

Be grateful for whoever comes
because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

His own son, Sultan Walad, was responsible for the order of Mevlevi, which was based on Rumi's writings and the practice of Sama: more commonly known as the "whirling dervish." Sama embodies the mystical journey of spiritual discovery of the self, ascending through mind and body to love, to ultimately attain union with the Divine Person. One returns from this spiritual union more mature, able to love and to be of service to humanity without discrimination for religion, belief, bodily designation, class, or nation.

My head is bursting
with the joy of the unknown
My heart is expanding a thousand fold
Every cell,
taking wings
flies about the world
All seek separately
the many faces of my Beloved.

No wonder we love him so much. Rumi was what today is a difficult-to-comprehend mix of cultures and environments and influences: a Muslim Sufi theologian mystic poet. His path was unencumbered by religion, tradition, or mental perception, but borne from creative love, the urge to reunite the soul with its Divine Source, which he understood was the goal towards which everything and everyone is moving.

Dance, when you're broken open
Dance, if you've torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of the fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance, when you're perfectly free.

Rumi's work is still read in its original Persian form in Punjabi, Sindhi, and other Pakistani languages. It gave birth to Urdu, developed under the influence of Persian, Arabic, and Turkic. It peaked during the Moghal Empire rule -- whose emperors made it the official language of their court -- and is still spoken in Delhi and surrounds.

So many words in the English language -- words like cash, peach, lemon, orange, magic, and serendipity, along with so many others -- all stem from Persian origin and perhaps serve to explain a rather elemental portion of Rumi's longevity of fame in the western world, to help connect the ease with which millions across the globe relate with him through his words more than with possibly any other poet/writer/mystic in history; words that sprinkle our daily language and allow us to understand how much we have in common with Rumi...even in the most simple way.

Rumi's history, unsurprisingly, is a remarkable one, but it was his meeting with dervish Shams-e Tabrizi that took him beyond the extraordinary, both in his own life and in terms of his historical contribution to poetry, mysticism, and expression. Shams traveled throughout the Middle East in the search for that person he referred to in his prayers as "someone who could endure my company." He found him...

Rumi's meeting with Shams was his turning point.   His love for Shams and the grief he experienced over his death found their expression in his poetic outpourings, and resulted in the first of his life's major works, Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi.

I sleep and wake in love’s afflictions,
my heart turns on the spit of passion’s fire.
If you abandoned me to best refine me,
You are wise and I’m without you unrefined. ~ (Divan 319)

Soon after, his scribe and student, Hussam, told Rumi that if he were to write a book, it would become the companion of every troubador, and that "they would fill their hearts from your work and compose music to accompany it." Rumi, in response, wrote the opening lines in the second of his life's great works:

Listen to the reed and the tale it tells,  how it sings of separation...

He spent the next 12 years with Hussam, dictating the six volumes of that work, Matnawiye Ma'nawai (Spiritual Couplets), to his scribe. Those works are easy to source online or in print. Do it...

I said, please reveal this to me
I am dying in anticipation.
Love said to me,
that is where I want you:
Always on the edge,
be silent.
You dwell in this hall of
images and illusions,
leave this house now,
and be silent...

♥

KILLER HEADLINE...

noreply@blogger.com (♥ Braja) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:51:00 +0000

This arrived in my inbox this morning from the extremely (otherwise) classy Malene Birger, Danish designer.

"Slutspurt." Seriously. It's a word. Those Danes...no wonder my marriage is so... ...interesting.

CALCUTTA BITES

noreply@blogger.com (♥ Braja) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:12:00 +0000

The chubby, perfumed woman entered the restaurant and slid into the heavy wooden chair, sweeping her long, untied hair aside so she wouldn't sit on it...

...the thick linen tablecloth, the shining glasses that sang crystal notes when tapped, the perfectly aligned cutlery: everything appeared to satisfy her. Her plump cheeks grew rounder as her red painted mouth squeezed itself into a smugly contented smile. The seams of her clothes squeezed and strained and bulged as she wiggled herself to comfort. Her kajal-lined eyes peered above black-framed specs and raked the room. Like a Bollywood movie set. She was the star in her own lunch hour. She could feel it...

Her friend arrived, towering above the table, big hands lifting the heavy chair too easily, the soft silk sari too delicate for the build, pale pink lipstick too pretty for the firm jaw, the haircut an over-zealous endeavor at femininity, the deep voice quietly alarming.

Long streams of Bengali flowed from them, interspersed with fragmented, random English, phrases not existing in their mother tongue. "Tara swami ye patha na bala ucita, this is only my opinion, na?" They waved oversized menus around as they spoke, their huge and obnoxious size lost on Pouty and She-man, who were huge and obnoxious in their own charming ways.

Plates of food arrived. Pouty picked at bones, pursed lips blowing at steaming rice, puffed air making hot clouds. Small round lips parted, small sharp teeth dragging at a long green chili. They both spat words and bones, parking the latter plate-side, unleashing the former between bites, most landing on the hapless waiter whose excessive and obsequious "yes, ma'ams" somehow deserved the slap.

Elegant drinks clashed with lusty mouths. Heavy gold bangles clashed with china. Cutlery clashed with teeth. War was declared.

Pouty and She-man ruled.

FEAST

I sat and watched the core
of suffering humanity
feast upon life, ravishing each moment
like it were the last
the whore illusion smiled back
the red slash of her mouth irresistible
she gorged, but on the weakness of the willing
"are you happy now?" she asked
indifferent to their bleating responses
they sat back sated
wanting more
"no one is happy here," she thought
the relentless stuffing of the body
does not feed the soul

5 THINGS YOU DON'T NEED TO HEAR THIS WEEK

noreply@blogger.com (♥ Braja) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:42:00 +0000

Because nothing p*sses us off more than being told all the time...

Read it @ Elephant Journal »»» *☆.｡.•*✿

♥

HIDE YOUR CHILDREN

noreply@blogger.com (♥ Braja) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:23:00 +0000

Two dead children were found at the back of the local school, their kidneys and eyes removed. An otherwise quiet village, where the most unusual, interesting, or exciting thing that happens is at a local temple on a festival day, or when a cow or bullock or goat runs loose down the main street, or when the boats crossing the river go on strike.

Lock up your children, nowhere is safe. And if you think it's different where you are?

I wouldn't want you as a parent...

LOST and FOUND in INDIA

GURU, ANYONE?

THE SMELL OF THE SUN IN THE AIR...

LOVE

LIFE FEELS THIS GOOD

SOMETIMES I HATE TITLES LIKE "FORGIVENESS"

One whose mind, intelligence, faith, and refuge are in the Supreme Reality is undoubtedly washed clean of all misgivings and is in perfect knowledge in everything concerning transcendence.

I'M DYING

GOODNIGHT, WINTER...

FABULOUS MORNINGS, FREE OF TYRANNY

SCARRED FOR LIFE -- BUT THAT'S JUST THE PARTS YOU CAN SEE...

5 THOUGHTS YOU'LL HAVE AT THE TIME OF DEATH

YOGA TEACHERS: NOTHING BUT A VEHICLE

... drivers whose cargo is precious, navigating the hazardous paths of a sacred practice: do they have what it takes to reach the destination?

First there's Yama, then Niyama, and after those, Asana. Then there's Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, and Dhyana. Of course there's Samadhi, but Yoga is a bit private about that limb...

Those limbs are Yoga. Would you leave home without your limbs? Would you care if people acknowledged only 1/8th of you, and ignored the other 7/8ths? Would you feel respected, valued, worthy?

If yoga is more than "exercise," shouldn't its teachers be spiritually and philosophically qualified?

BROKEN, BUT NEVER NOT WHOLE

~ Bhagavad Gita

RUMI: WHY HE ROCKS THE WORLD

While often the modern trend and so-called "similar" expressions remain bound in the impersonal realm, Rumi had a specific goal: attainment of God.

Dance, when you're broken open Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance, when you're perfectly free.

KILLER HEADLINE...

CALCUTTA BITES

5 THINGS YOU DON'T NEED TO HEAR THIS WEEK

HIDE YOUR CHILDREN

Dance, when you're broken open
Dance, if you've torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of the fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance, when you're perfectly free.