Monsoon baby

A tropical monsoon has much to explore

it is a season when the earth teems with life

these magical signs begin before and continue even after the rains

its a time for greeting and celebration 

Being fortunate to stay in a city like Mumbai 

which is or rather used to be bio-diverse mangrove islands by the sea

not far away from the Sahyadri ranges or the Western Ghats 

become emerald green with dense foliage in the monsoons

the mountains seem alive with waterfalls , streams 

giving birth to a plethora of life-forms 

besides providing scenic landscapes 

and opportunities for escapades

the pre -monsoon showers are marked by the signalling of fireflies

flickering in the trees and bushes over the streams in the moonlight

the monsoons are marked by many activities and adventures like trekking 

and waterfall rappeling 

the end of monsoons are marked by blossoming wild flowers in the laterite mountains and plateaus of the Western ghats

The dragonflies hum and buzz over the flowers and the fresh green trees 

celebrating the new earth - rejuvenated and revived

This monsoon i look forward to new life from my very own womb,

sharing something in common with the mountains and glades of the neighbouring Sahyadris. 

Energetic

i have been thinking, feeling ,sensing and playing with energy for a while now. my experiments with energy started when i first learnt Shiv Yoga when i was 19 years old. I didn't practice this form of healing and meditation much but it did lay a foundation for my spiritual growth. Later i attended courses and practised meditation of The Art of Living Foundation when i was 23. Since then , it has been a ride. A journey into the breath, into the soul , the mind and emotions. Meeting wonderful souls from The Temple of Inner Wisdom, who had explored so much along the spiritual path.

 

More lately, i have experienced how our latent fears and emotions can suddenly surface and create a havoc if out of check. While meditation helps in this case, these emotions need to be understood and dealt with. In this phase of emotional confusion, i was recommended a book by friends and spiritual teachers called 'You can heal your life' by Louise Hays. Another book that I chanced upon at my Aerobic studio was a book called 'The Heart of the Soul' by Gary Zukav and Linda Francis. The first book contains affirmations and how to change our limiting belief systems while the other tells us how to focus on our energy centres or chakras to understand our emotions as every chakra is the seat of a different emotion. This book further led me to question how do we understand our chakras, and this further led me to Pranic Healing Foundation where I did my basic pranic healing course. Pranic healing helps one to understand better how energy works, seeing and working with our energy bodies and centres.

 

A lot of questions remain but I am excited to travel ahead, to seek new answers, to find my true vibration and to Allow and surrender!

 

Some amazing books to read if you are on this path-

Bhagvad Gita As it is

Srimad Bhagvatam

The Celestine Prophecy

Omni Reveals the four principles of creation

Autobiograpy of a Yogi

Of airplanes and nightskies and shooting stars

Airplanes

i always loved watching airplanes

planes taxiing on the runway,

planes taking off and landing

planes forming clouds in the high skies

and planes in the city skies

i can recall countless evenings

walking on my terrace watching planes

and even noticing the airlines

knowing where they went

brought feelings of hope, encouragement and inspiration

planes were symbolic of my freedom and redemption

i would actually see myself travelling to the country where the plane was taking off

and curiously enough some of these visualisations came true

until a point where sadly enough or probably they had already served the purpose

there was a new skyline in my neighborhood which covered the view of the planes flying by

and in a few years after i took off to my new permanent residence in South Bombay

the plane was a mere dash or dot in the sky

twinkling in the night skies as it flew over my new building

to some more new and myraid destinations

Night skies and shooting stars

coming from the land of tacky hindi cinema

showing shooting stars in every corny scene of a movie

it nonetheless evoked some curiosity in me to actually see a shooting star

it was one night at my vacation home in Nasik ,

lying down on the parapit of the new terrace

staring at the immense, expansive quiet skies

that i suddenly spotted a moving object

travelling at its set pace, millions of lightyears away

alas i gazed and gawked at my first shooting star

little did i know that was just a beginning

coz i now i see one every other day

even in the Mumbai skies

it takes just a moment of looking up

and admiring the universe

and voila, it puts up a show

i guess it likes some attention too:)

and yes, Bollywood cinema is in fact not so exaggerated :p

When did you last hear the word Milky Way ?

I was supposed to be on my last trip with my family before my wedding

in the majestic State of Rajasthan

We travelled to the most quaint little towns

full of culture and amazing architecture

one of our last stops was the small town of Kumbhalgarh

an hour and half away from the city of Udaipur

this little town hosts the longest fort , its walls second only to The Great Wall of China

we visited the fort in the evening and stopped back to watch the Light and Sound Show in the night

after what seemed a long wait, we took positions in the amphitheatre

the wall was lit up brilliantly and the watchtower above changed colors

as the story changed its nuances

but lo, what was even more mesmerising was another light show going on

right above and in front in the night skies

we saw streams of long clouds across the skies with a million stars

some shining so bright and tons of shooting stars embarking their journeys

this indeed was the milky way

my mom, brother and i sat dumbstruck at the brilliance

in such a perfect setting

I showed my brother Harsh his first shooting star and by the end of the show

he had shown me another three

i was in awe and gratitude of the skies

Thank you for putting up that special show ;)

A load full of life

Wohhh... its been a while since ive written... n my blog is like a dead log floating in cyberspace.hmmm...

but hey just to let you know when im not writing im reading, or pondering or just looking out of the window,

travelling and busy experiencing ....doing all that takes to get some more stories to write;)

No but seriously, life has been great, very kind, generous and unbelievable

I have made the biggest and toughest decisions, met some wonderful new people, travelled to some awesome places

and of course chanced upon some really appropriate books at the very appropriate time

Along the way also experiencing my worst fears surfacing

This is the time where i chose my husband, dated him for a year, went on some lovely short trips with him, got married to him,

travelled to Bali for my honeymoon (a story in itself) ,

felt the deepest love and gratitude for my parents and siblings

settling in into my new life and new family,

playing with my lil niece Anicaa, watch her grow,

this was also the time where i finally recognised my spiritual guru Swami Vivekananda (more on that later)

In short life has been full of stuff...i guess that's why this blog has been empty ;)

Its now more than ever that i feel that every episode, chapter or molecular incidence of my life is so inter-connected and

leading the way to the next episode, chapter or molecular incidence..

Besides my husband (Kapil) and I have been exploring some serene places to sit down and meditate in deafeningly loud and chaotic city like Mumbai

and surprisingly there are quite a few.

Well, some places we have been going to are:

Ramkrishna Math at Santacruz ( meditate to the tunes of the Aarti composed by Swami Vivekanada, takes place at sunset time everyday)

Gayatri Mandir at Khar (a total chance discovery when I went to buy my bridal shoes from a neighbouring building... you know what i mean by the inter-connectedness of life...anyway this place is quaint, quiet and pulsating with energy)

Japanese Buddhist temple at Worli (evening chanting on Nam Myoho Renge Kyo accompanied by loud Japanese drums but definitely a very spiritual experience)

Hare Rama Hare Krishna Temple at Babulnath (plush, ornate.. we go here evening time when darshan is closed but the Hare Rama devotees sing and chant the Hare Rama Hare Krishna in various tunes and tones ranging from soft and melodius to loud and reveberating.. a definitely heightened spiritual moment)

Jain temple opp Bombay Dyeing Mill Compound at Elphinstone (not so quiet at the moment owing to construction projects in the neighborhood but it is beautifully lit in the evening ... the temple seems very inviting and captivating)

Just a last few words...life is fun and liberating and every day it brings us closer to the truth ... so go with it with love and surrender there is nothing there to fear :)

A New Year in the Old World

If you have been following my blog you may know what intrigues me… its always people and places. What they eat, what they speak, what they think and why.. yes it is the People’s story that is truly fascinating. If you carefully look at the world as a globe you see layers of consciousness represented through different cultures, each serving as a part to the whole.

Behind the scenes of economic capitalism, militarism, terrorism, globalisation there still remains a world cast away, waiting to tell their story or may be not.. they perhaps choose to remain aloof.

In my recent conversations, with friends and colleagues I have learnt about cultures that are still primitive yet very connected in essence to the workings of human consciousness. A thought that comes to me, is not just political or economic globalisation but spiritual as well.

A geologist friend working with an oil exploration company recently spent a few months living in Papua New guinea where he learnt about the country’s 200 odd tribes still living in so –called ‘oblivion’. Only 2 of these are marginally civilised. However they are in absolute unity and harmony with their surroundings and habitat. He also shared with me that when he travelled to Australia he learnt that the Australian Aborigines were considered ‘flora and fauna’ of the country in as late as 1920. Ironically, these humble people still don’t take offence and still choose to live their lives in their natural habitat and staying connected to the source.

Another story that unravels the mysteries of our planet, revealing its many untold stories and faces.. is the story of an island country in French Polynesia called New Caledonia. I had never heard about this place until my French colleague shared with me his experiences living there as his mother was a French government official posted there. The people of New Caledonia were unmasked before the world, yes, there were people from New Caledonia caged and displayed at museums in Paris in the 1900s as samplings of this strange, distant island! The people of New Caledonia represent and celebrate the human spirit as much as their French counterparts in Paris. Their music is very groovy and they have a thrilling game to mark the beginning of youth and read this carefully it is nothing but- bungee jumping!

As a history student I have read and learnt about many civilisations but rarely do we hear about the remote worlds of New Caledonia, Papua New guinea or even Samoa (another country I learnt about from a half Samoan). There are more places than you know, or you read about in your newspapers. Even if we choose to ignore what happened to all the Native Red Indians of America or whether the Mayans were so evolved that they merged with divine consciousness or did they just get dismissed by Spanish gunpowder. It will remain a mystery.

Personally, I consider people all over the world as a part of a larger jigsaw puzzle.. some are more obscure and choosing a path of resilience to maintain the spiritual balance of humanity while the others are still killing each other and stealing each other’s resources.

Energy contributed by Kapil Bhatia

In the course of your life, there are certain events that we witness or experience that gets a person to think. These may be random occurrences, can be passed off as just being at the right place at the right time. At times they are too personal to you to let moment go, these are the moments that get you thinking on a cosmic level, from a new perspective.
The gravitational force of a burning mass of gas holds the universe together. Astrology attempts to explain the inter linkage of humans and the universe we inhabit. What fascinates me the most is the existence of this invisible force, an energy that connects you with the universe.

A strange incident early this morning got me thinking down these lines again and now that I am down to writing about it, let me narrate the whole story.

I went to the comedy store last night with my regular gang of alcoholics; our plan was simple, drink alcohol and laugh. That is exactly what we did, got home (drunk) and passed out. At 5:15 a.m. I got up to drink water (Not common practise for me, when I am drunk and passed out). As I was crossing the Mandir at home, I saw papaji bend over trying to plug a new electric dia. Hunched over, with a bad back, he was struggling to straighten himself. He felt dizzy and lost balance. He was about to fall when my hand broke his fall and stabilised him.

Back in control of his body, papaji sat on his chair in front of god, joined his hand and bowed his head. He then asked me plug the dia in. I did just that, drank water and went back to my room. Needless to say, I didn’t get sleep after that. I kept thinking, was it coincidence that I was there at the right place at the right time. What was it that drove me to the kitchen? At the precise time that I needed to be there.
Around 10 a.m. Papaji asked me the same question. What was it that got you there, when I was just about to fall? I did not call you. Woh kya shakti thi jot tere ko mere kol leayee?
Papaji, mein bhi yehi soch raha tha.

Papji, being a religious man he is said – yeh bhagwan ki shakti hai
Me being a spiritual man thought we are connected, it was the energy that binds us that woke me up.

I have come to believe in this invisible force, this energy that connects you to nature. We are all connected with one another. It depends on the level of energy you show towards another person that makes it telepathic. It is no coincidence that these strange incident occur with-in family, very close friends or loved ones. When there is unconditional love and genuine care then the positive energy that you radiate towards the other person has actual healing powers. It can cure depression and eradicate diseases.

It is compounded to a truly magical level when you have a group of people that emit the same frequency of energy towards each other. Like a family, old group of friends, some couples I know.

That is when the magic truly begins. Look back upon your life, has a person or animal unexpectedly shown up for when you needed it the most. The people that come to your mind are those that are your positive influencers. These people are either those that you emit positive feeling towards or those that emit positive feelings towards you, sometimes the energy level is mutual (that is wonderful).

I strongly believe that it is our genuine love and care for each other that took me to Papaji exactly when he needed me. Being connected through this telepathy is a real and simple, not some out of body experience.

We all have these energy emitters in our lives; we need to be thankful for it. It is a single moment of grace that increases the frequency of this energy. It is a simple thing we all need to do in our mind, thank them and move on with our busy lives but be assured the positive energy will vibrate around you and your loved ones and the connection is always in coverage area.

When you're awake....

O life is like a dream
when you' re awake
it's not easy to see
but you will know
that someday you will go
in that direction
there couldn't be
a more perfect timing
for your self- realisation
when you reach this point of life
you will realise
that every moment of it was created
to take you there
everything good, everything bad
all the people you met
were god-sent
to help unravel this mystery
and one day you will see
that it is when you're 'Awake',
life is like a Dream.....