Savvy Raj

Live Life Lovingly!

Category Archives: Learning


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On Relationships

A poignant tale…

Are we waiting for some opportunity to meet someone dear to us?

The Age Of Relationships

The story of four close friends from school, who studied in the same school up to SSC.

At that time, there was only one luxury hotel in the city.

After the SSC exam, they decided that they should go to that hotel and have some tea and breakfast. The four of them could hardly collect forty rupees. It was a Sunday and all four of them reached the hotel by bicycle at ten-thirty.

Dinesh, Santosh, Manish, and Praveen started talking while having breakfast and tea. All four of them decided unanimously, that they would meet again after 40 years in the same hotel on 1st April.

“Till then we all should work very hard. It will be interesting to see how much progress has been made after 40 years,” they discussed.

It was also decided that the last one to reach the hotel then, would have to pay the bill for that day.

Kalu, the waiter who served them tea and snacks, was listening to all this. He said, “If I stay here till then, I’ll be waiting for you all.”

All four separated for further education.

Dinesh had left the city after his father got relocated, Santosh went to his uncle for further studies, and Manish and Praveen got admission to different colleges in the city.

Eventually, Manish also left the city.

Days, months, and years passed.

In forty years, the city underwent a radical change. The population of the city increased, and roads, flyovers, and malls changed the appearance of the city.

Now that hotel had become a five-star hotel, the waiter Kalu had now become Mr. Kalu, the owner of this hotel.

Forty years later, on the scheduled date, April 1st, at noon, a luxury car came to the door of the hotel.

Dinesh got out of the car and started walking towards the porch. He now had three jewellery showrooms.

Dinesh reached the hotel owner Mr. Kalu, and both of them kept looking at each other. Mr. Kalu said, “Praveen sir had booked a table for you a month back.”

Dinesh was heartily happy that he was the first of the four, so he wouldn’t have to pay the bill that day and would make fun of his friends for it.

After a while, Santosh arrived. Santosh had become a big builder of the city. For his age, he now looked like an old senior citizen.

Now, they both were talking and waiting for the other friends. The third friend, Manish also came in half an hour. On talking to him, both of them came to know that Manish was now a businessman.

The three friends kept looking towards the door again and again, wondering when Praveen would come.

Soon, Mr. Kalu came to them and said, “A message has come from Praveen sir. He’s asked you all to start with snacks, and he’ll join you.”

All three were happy to meet each other after forty years, laughing and joking for hours, but Praveen did not come.

Mr. Kalu said, “Praveen sir has sent another message, you three should order your favourites from the menu and start eating.”

The food was ordered, but even after they had finished eating, Praveen did not show up. When the three asked for the bill, they were told that the bill has been paid online.

At eight o’clock in the evening, a young man got down from the car and with a heavy heart reached the three friends preparing to leave the hotel. The three couldn’t take their eyes off the man.

The young man said, “I am your friend’s son Ravi, my father’s name is Praveen. Dad had told me about your get together today, he was waiting for this day, but he passed away last month due to a serious illness…

He had asked me to come late because if I had come early, it would have made you all sad. Dad had said, “My friends will not laugh if they come to know that I am not in this world, then they would lose the joy of meeting each other… I don’t want that.”

That’s why he ordered me to come late. He also asked me to hug you on his behalf.” Ravi spread both his hands with watery eyes.

Everyone around was eagerly watching this scene, they thought they had seen this young man somewhere.

Ravi said, “My father became a teacher and gave me a good education to become the collector. Today, I am the collector of this city…”

Everyone was amazed, Mr. Kalu said, “Now, it won’t be after forty years, but we will meet in our hotel every month, and each time there will be a grand party from my side….”

Friends, keep meeting your loved ones, don’t wait for any opportunity to meet someone, we never know when it’s time to get separated and we may never get to meet again…

The journey of life is also like a train journey. When someone’s station comes, they will have to be dropped at that moment. Only a few blurry memories would remain!

Stay with family, feel the joy of being alive..

Keep meeting your loved ones, not only on special days but also on other occasions, and sometimes without any reason too. May the tree of our relationships be nourished by the water of love, for whom we do not have to wait for any reason or opportunity to meet.

Dear friends, when you are reading this story, if someone comes to your mind, do talk to them for two minutes. We have all the facilities! ♾️

“We must take time for the people around us and enjoy the beauty of life.”

Life

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Power of Hands

Hands can create nurture

Construct and destruct

Such is the power of Hands

And the choice is our hands

Hands that care to nurture life

Is a blessing for nature. 🙌

The Caring Hand – Sculpture in Glarus, Switzerland by Eva Oertli and Beat Huber. Photos and about: https://streetartutopia.com/2022/06/02/the-caring-hand-sculpture-in-glarus-switzerland-by-eva-oertli-and-beat-huber/


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Infinite Possibilities

Take a moment to acknowledge

Your energy is where your attention is

Tune in to abundance that is in and around you

Sense the possibilities in the potential

Worries become negligible

In the immensity of possibilities

That you actually are.

Tune in to your infinite self

Savvy


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Caption this capture?

Taken while walking along the shopping streets somewhere in Europe when it caught my attention….

The first three words that came to me was, interesting, intriguing, ingenious.

There was also a certain simplicity that was striking.

Would are your thoughts when you see this photo?

I caption this ‘Cupclock’

Care to caption this capture ?

Savvy


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Body intelligence

Art of life

Is about living

With care and consideration

Being aware of moderation

Everything is best in balance

For excess is wastage

Of precious resources

When body mind and soul

Choose in consciousness

Tap into your body intelligence

Savvy


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On Worship & Flowers

Couldn’t resist sharing it.

Divine gratitude to the sender

THE FALLEN FLOWERS 🌺

Every morning I saw an elderly gentlemen 👴 picking up flowers 🌸💐 fallen under the tree 🌳and neatly keep in a basket 🧺, meant for temple 🛕 visits. His activity was making me curious

One fine morning 🌄 I saw him again, and decided to quench my curiosity.

I asked him, Uncle, I always see you picking up these freshly fallen flowers 🌸🌺 from the ground. What do you do with them?

I use it to worship deities and gods in my house 🏠, he replied calmly.

Now this was new. Haven’t heard anything like this before. So, I asked him again, “Why will you put fallen flowers 🌸🌹, when there are plenty on the plant itself?”.

I am helping the flowers 🌸🌻 fulfil their purpose, to be with the God in their last days. They also have life, they also want to be with God like you and me in our last days, isn’t it, he asked me. I just nodded and he continued.

People pluck the buds 🌷 which have not even bloomed, and some only pluck the one’s which has just bloomed, not even letting them release their fragrance. Everyone takes what’s beautiful and leaves the plant stripped off its beauty. See, how these plants look like, stripped and deserted.

He continued, every flower 💐 has a purpose, to be with the God. While everyone takes away what’s there on the plant, I choose to pick them up. It’s not their fault that they fell down. They also deserve to be with God.

You also try it, you will find peace and happiness in doing it. I find it, that’s why I did it. I am too old support anyone, but I can help these flowers 🌻🌻 meet their destiny.

I could just nod and smile 😊

With this new inspiration and thought, I decided that let me also try picking up fallen flowers 💐 for worshipping.

I crossed a hibiscus 🌺 tree and saw few flowers fallen under the tree. As I bent down to pick up, I heard a voice

“You don’t put fallen flowers to God”, it was my Mom speaking to in my head, and then I stopped for a second.

“God is only looking for your emotion & devotion towards him, so go ahead and pick up”, it was again my Mom speaking to me in my head

After much deliberation and looking at both sides, I picked the flowers 🌸🌻 and put it in my palms. I could feel goose bumps and my heart 💖 started racing. It was a very different kind of love I was feeling inside my body for these flowers 🌹🌸.

I got them home 🏡, washed them and placed them where they deserved, at the feet of God.

This entire experience was overwhelming. I felt good and nice about myself. I felt as if I have saved someone’s life or helped someone come out of misery. I had never felt this level of contentment before with flowers atleast. And I feel, I will continue to do this. Pick up who has fallen down.

In life, we always want to be around nice and beautiful people. We want to see ourselves with people who belong to our stature, and look down on people below our status

But, the real satisfaction comes when we help someone and make their life better. Be it a human, animal, bird or any other form of life.

So, why not flowers 🌸💐
THE FALLEN FLOWERS 🌸

Have a Great Day and God Bless Us All👌👍😊🙏👍


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Yes You can.

Sharing my artwork today …

Yes You Can

If you only see

The myriad patterns

And colours of life

You will live to create

If you could only believe

In the vividly of the moments

If you could only sense

The magic life is meant to be

You will

Paint your life with joy in the flow

Unwrap this gift of life lovingly!

Just believe you can

And yes you can.

Savvy


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What if?

Nature Photography by Savvy Raj

What if ?

Flowers were green and leaves blue

All that you believe, flipped the script

Reality turns an illusion

And illusions a reality

Random thoughts turn specific

And what you focus on gets out of control.

Truth is…

Life is so much more than what you see

So different from your expectations

So many possibilities in this now

Trust life to unravel the pathway.

Hold on to hope in your heart.

And keep the wonder in you alive…

Savvy


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Motivational….

Some of you might have read this before but I have posted it as it’s worth reading again and again 😊

Motivational Story – The Bamboo Tree

A man got frustrated with life. Despite all the hard work and effort, failure was all that he learnt. Feeling defeated with life, he left everything and exiled himself in the woods. There he met a Hermit. The disappointed man shared is failure with the hermit. “Give me one good reason not to quit?”- He pleaded the Hermit

“Look”, the hermit said, pointing towards two plants. “Do you see that fern and bamboo there?

“Yes”, the man nodded.

“When I planted the fern and the bamboo seeds, I took very good care of them. I gave them water, light and fertilizer. Within a short period of time the fern quickly grew from the earth”, the hermit continued.

“But despite the Bamboo seed being watered and nurtured for years, it did not outwardly grow as much as an inch. In fact, nothing at all happened in the first year. There was no sign of growth. But, I did not give up on the Bamboo seed and continued to water and nurture it. By the fifth year, a tiny sprout emerged from the earth. And within six months, the tree grew a hundred feet tall.”

“So, did the bamboo tree lie dormant for four years only to grow exponentially in the fifth?” the hermit asked. Baffled by the question the man kept quiet. “The answer is quite obvious. The little tree was growing underground, developing a root system strong enough to support its potential for outward growth in the fifth year and beyond. Had the tree not developed a strong foundation, it would not have sustained its life as it grew.”

“Did you know that all the time you had been struggling, you were growing strong roots”, remarked the hermit

The man learned his lesson that day. He learnt the value of persistence and hard work. The fern and the bamboo stood right in front of him as he walked towards his life to continue to work on his dreams


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Musings in the moments

This week finds me traveling  yet again to another city.
I realize  the sights and smells that greet me as I  set alight also set the expectations.

Yet one thing has never changed  in all my travels
My inate ability to wake up at dawn no matter when I sleep.
In the hotel room I am suddenly  abound by precious time. I also enjoy the practice  of having warm water with a just  slight dip of a teabag for a second so its more flavored water than tea.
I sense many moments of great  connectedness in this  unadulterated time of sipping tea. I love it best propped in bed with my feet all tucked in the warm sheets The warm concoction ever so gently bringing in the old familiar fuzzy feeling of being at ease, and accommodating my palate and me to the sensations of a new place. Over many such moments  of serendipitousness & the familiar deju vus that wash over me, I have been privy to my musings in verses that flow effortlessly.
Like I am doing in this now…

Moments  matter and your movements in the moments  matter a great deal.
Hold this moment that is,  in rapture and awe
It’s precious  for it will slip away
Never to meet again in posterity.
But in creating  a ripple effect of positivity through the movements in the moment
What is the future can  manifest from this now
Care to alter your life for the better.
Alter your moves…

So what’s your kind of move in this now?

Savvy


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A true story

During the course of a Management Seminar, Mr. T.N.Seshan, former Chief Election Commissioner shared an experience he had while travelling in Uttar Pradesh with his wife. As they were travelling by road, they saw a large mango plantation filled with sparrow nests. Seshan’s wife decided to carry two nests to their home.
The police escort called a young boy who was grazing cows and asked him to bring down two nests and offered to pay him Ten Rupees.
The boy refused as Seshan raised the offer to Rupees Fifty.
The boy told Seshan and his wife, “Sahib, I will not do it for whatever you will give. Inside these nests are baby sparrows. If I give those nests to you, in the evening, when the mother sparrow returns with food for the babies and does not find them there, she will cry. I do not have the heart to see that.”*
Seshan and his wife were taken aback and felt small. Seshan later recounted that his position and the IAS label melted away in front of that little boy. He stood in front of the young boy feeling as small as a mustard seed. He added that after returning home, this incident continued to haunt him with guilt for several days.
Education, position or social status is never a yardstick for the measure of humanity. Let’s not forget that knowledge is to know and understand the beauty of nature. We don’t achieve anything by gathering a lot of information as long as that information does not get transformed into wisdom. And wisdom is useless as long as we don’t apply it in our daily life.


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Spatial Awareness

Crown shyness

Crown shyness is a phenomenon observed in fully grown trees of the same or often even different species where they maintain a distance between themselves and do not touch each other at the top forming a canopy with interesting gaps possibly for sunlight to enter or even to keep leaf eating insects from spreading .

There is much to understand and learn from nature

It’s amazing to see the wisdom of nature manifest in so many different ways around us.

Spatial awareness between trees are a striking example of the wisdom of balance in nature

There is always a reason, a wisdom we are yet to know…

After all

It is the very nature of Nature
To be the great balancer
To know when to rise and fall.
To know when to give and take.
To maintain the equilibrium.


Savvy


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On track!

To all my Care giving friends the lightworkers , the mentors and spiritual guiders, the motivators and healers on their special journey stepping in tandem with their calling! Keep going… you are on track!

Savvy


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On Wholeness

A share from ISHA UPANISHAD

The Shanti Mantra :

Om purnamadah purnamidam purnat purnamudacyate | purnasya purnamadaya purnamevavashishyate || Om Shantih Shantih Shantih hi||

This is One of the greatest gift to the humanity.

The concept of Zero comes from this very Shanti Mantra.

In linear mathematics, we will always find that when something is taken out from something, that something from which things are taken out lacks.

If we take some furniture out from a room then that room is minus those furniture.

That means this room is not what it had before.

This is a linear thinking.

But here the Rishis gave us a completely different outlook towards life.

The spherical thinking is :

That is full. And this is also full.

This fullness has come from that fullness. And in spite of this fullness having come from that fullness, that still remains full.

A mother gives birth to a baby.

A baby is also complete. The mother is also complete.

Just because the baby is born, the mother is not lacking something. In fact, it has added to her glory.

The concept of Zero, without which nothing could have happened in this planet.

No computer technology, no science could have progressed.

That has (its) origin here in this very Shanti Mantra.

From the fullness, comes out the fullness, and still the fullness remains fullness.

We can go on analyzing this very Shanti Mantra on various levels:

Spiritual level, Material level, level of Mathematics, level of Physics etc.

It is pregnant with huge information.

When we share our Peace with others, our peace will not be lost.

When we share our Knowledge with others, we won’t lose the knowledge.

It remains complete inside us.

Similarly, this Universe, in fact it is multi-verse, enormously huge, is dynamic. Many things are being born here everyday and dissolving back into it everyday.

Still both the manifest is complete and the unmanifest is also complete.

The Rishis say Shanti Shanti Shanti – three times.

When our environment is disturbed, we cannot sit there and think about or contemplate on Knowledge.

When the Knowledge is to flow and transfer, the environment needs to be Congenial.

Our body-mind complex needs to be fit on the third level, the level of the Self, the Being and Inner Peace. Hence Shanti-Peace is emphasised.

A Peaceful mind can probe into something beyond, can grasp that something which cannot be grasped by the little mind.

The intellect cannot access to things which our spirit can get access to.

And for that the wholeness is essential.