If I were to keep feelings aside I would perhaps become cold And impersonal Perhaps I may function perfectly Like a robot. Wonder if I would be well at all For feelings are a great balancer.
To repress our feelings And take decisions would make our decisions lopsided.
I am therefore I feel I feel therefore I am.
Whether it’s personal or professional decisions, our feelings do make a difference and play a role in our decisions. We can perhaps bring to awareness how we are feeling in the Now and use this mindfully to bring a sense of balance in our thoughts & actions. But to think or say, we can be completely devoid of it is not necessarily true for we are built in such a way where our emotions, feelings and our thoughts in every moment is deeply interconnected, in more ways than one.
Feelings of empathy compassion and acts of kindness are deeply entwined.
How you are being in the now has much to do with how you are feeling.
To do anything well you need all of you & your senses to come together. How we choose to act upon our feelings and in what manner will depend on us.
Sharing a thought provoking forward that came my way…
I was 9.
There was pensive silence at home when days after the happy news of my dads promotion in a nationalised bank he received orders of transfer as a branch manager to a small village in Rajasthan. We were then in Ahmedabad and this also happened to be the time he was building a house next to our ancestral home.
I had seen him struggle with numbers, adding, subtracting, circling staff loans and FDs he would break and putting a question mark against a few empty spaces in the total.
A house is usually a one time in one life effort so everyone goes all out and makes that one room more than what can be afforded and still finds one room less than what was needed. Javed Akhtar puts it beautifully बम्बई में बस एक ही गम हैं, हरेकके पास एक कमरा कम हे.
The joint family home housed 14 of us from age 5 to 95 years.
Today I watch both the houses abandoned and nature taking over the garden my mother used to tend for hours every day. The Jamun, the Drumstick a few Ashok, Neem and Peepal have survived but all beauty is both transient and fragile and the law of entropy powerful. The lovely flowers of myriad colours are all gone. I wonder what happened to the peacock family that came everyday and ate from my moms hand. The Bulbul, the sparrows, the parrots, spotted flycatchers, Cuckoos, a huge troop of monkeys that once in a month would upset the order of the place.
Once people leave, a home becomes a house. Initially I didn’t feel like selling and now I don’t feel like going. Time has taken away ten of its fourteen occupants.
I walk around our neighbourhood and see similar fate of so many homes once full of life now replaced or lying still.
Why do we stretch and stress to build houses? In most cases our kids won’t need it or worse fight over it. What is this human folly of attempting permanent ownership in a leased life with an uncertain tenure given by a landlord whose terms are non-negotiable and there is no court of appeal.
One day all we have built with love and EMIs will either be demolished, fought over, sold or lie in ruins.
Every time I fill a form that asks for ‘permanent address’ I smile at human folly.
There is a Zen story that an old monk walked into a Kings palace demanding he wanted to spend the night in this Inn and the guards told him, “What Inn, can’t you see its a palace?”. The monk said “I came here a few decades back someone was staying there, a few years later someone else took the throne from him, then someone else. Any place where the occupant keeps changing is an Inn.”
George Carlin says “house is just a place where you keep your stuff as you go out and get more stuff”.
As houses get bigger families get smaller. When the house has occupants, we desire privacy and when the nest empties we crave for company.
Birds and Animals must be laughing at us humans that give up living in order to build their dream home and in the end depart the Inn they mistook as a permanent residence.
Sharing an interesting read that came my way today… Life is to thrive
One day a farmer’s donkey fell into a well. The animal cried loudly for hours, while the farmer tried to find something to do to get him out.
Finally, the farmer decided that the donkey was old and the well was already dry and needed to be covered anyway; that it really wasn’t worth pulling the donkey out of the well..
He invited all his neighbors to come help him. They each grabbed a shovel and began to throw dirt into the well.
The donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly loud. Then, to everyone’s surprise, he quieted down after a few shovelfuls of dirt.
The farmer finally looked down into the well and was amazed at what he saw… with each shovelful of dirt, the donkey was doing something incredible: It was shaking off the dirt and stepping on top of the dirt.
Very soon everyone saw surprised how the donkey reached the mouth of the well, went over the edge and trotted out…
Life is going to throw dirt at you, all kinds of dirt… the trick to getting out of the hole is to shake it off and use it to step up. Each of our problems is a step up. We can get out of the deepest holes if we don’t give up…
Use the land they throw you to get ahead!!!
Remember the 5 rules to be happy:
Free your heart from hate.
Free your Mind of distractions.
Simplify your life.
Give more and expect less.
Love more and… shake the dirt, because in this life you have to be a solution, not the problem.
Your yesterday may have seemed very tough Your entire body may have taken a toll Your head and heart may have felt heavy Your eyes may have welled up in tears Your emotions choking you Your breathing may have been constricted Your muscles may have felt tight. Your steps laboured and dragging Perhaps a sense of resignment may have reigned all through the day…
Yes it may have been more than you could handle But handle you did For you are alive and kicking. Today your heart is lighter And you are breathing easy With a song on your lips And a dance in your steps Your body willing And in enthusiastic spirit Looking forward to another day To put in your very best And make it another great day!
The question is then, what is happening in you, one moment to another And what are you doing to alter the effects of the moment. And what actually alters everything. Simply put, your own thoughts And the power of your choice Choosing one thought over the other.
Trust life to show many colours every day but know you have the choice in how you choose see and perceive it.
Every day can be good or bad day… But it’s in the way you chose see it… That changes the day!
Just a while ago, yesterday, few days ago, a week a few months or can’t remember the last time you were really angry?
There are many causes of anger and often, the root is in irritation, frustration neglect or abuse or even unfairness.
Often anger comes and goes…
But when you are unable To let go of habitual anger It’s a path of distress That leads to self destruction Anger poisons the mind & body Leading to rage when out of control. Yet, its part of being human.
Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. Buddha
When anger has an emotional attachment and it gets difficult to let go easily. Mindfulness then is the path to emotional freedom.
Seneca the ancient Roman philosopher had a very relevant remedy for anger… He said, the greatest remedy for anger is delay.
How you choose to channel your thoughts And effectively manage anger Is what makes all the difference.
How do you express anger? Are you assertive or aggressive? This is what matters more More importantly when angry Can you say what’s on your mind Can you even speak in a clear way? Or are you emotions clouding you?
Perhaps you are suppressing anger Then chances are it may surge And unexpectedly so. So instead, can you channelize your anger? For then you control your anger Before it controls you.
The best kind of learning is in the sharing of thoughts and ideas, for it kindles more learnings.
I share today this interesting and profound para forward translation from Tamil by my mother to which I too have added a few verses.
If it interests you, pls feel free to contribute your thoughts here… The message in the translation is very relevant. I sincerely hope it creates a chain of collaborative thoughts.
Today is Gurupurnima. And I take this occasion to thank my mother my first Guru & all the teachers in my life for the learnings in the sharings as well.
The fish which swims in water, doesn’t know that it’s end will come by its food only.( Ignorance)
How much ever beautiful the deer be, the tiger doesn’t appreciate its beauty, it is behind its taste. (Pride, arrogance)
Translation from Tamil by Anjana
There is no pride in Beauty It matters not, in times of survival
The frog becomes prey to snake by its sound only.(boasting)
In spite of knowing it will get killed , the scorpion bites ( haste)
The way to one’s downfall is ignorance, pride, arrogance, boasting and haste.
Anjana
Adding my musings to it this morning…
The wisdom of Mindfulness
Ignorance may not be bliss after all. There is no pride in Beauty It matters not, in times of survival Your so called assets can be a weakness That makes you and marks you out.
Without mindfulness Moves become meaningless For one move can decide life’s fate Without survival tactics Life cannot exist.
Beauty pride vanity speed Gifts & Riches of any kind Abilities and skills… Be it your voice or earnings Mistake not these your strengths.
For true strength Is discretion And discernment In what how when and where. And in moderation & mindfulness Lies the Wisdom Of Balance.
Continuing in a series on Life and Living … The subject of Beauty brings to mind its paradox As mentioned in my last article I would like to reflect on this with my readers and fellow writers and work in collaboration towards a certain consensus if attainable .
Here is a beautiful reflection of the thoughts of this reader who starts by visualizing in the vebalisation of the beauty in the elemental awareness of nature and culminates her standpoint in the beauty of nurture…
Of a mother and child and the beauty in a loving heart.
Thank you to my dear mother Anjana for your exemplary examples. Rest assured I certainly will be reading these lines often.
“Anything that pleases the eye is beautiful..How much exquisite or breath-taking the physical beauty may be… it’s just skin deep. Beyond that all is same.
A wise soul has this awareness. Though the elements may be the same, their arrangement makes the difference. But there is beauty in the wilderness too.
The dancing flames of fire, the eruptive flowing and glowing lava of the volcono, the blowing sand making patterns on the sands of deserts, the mystery that lies in the underground caves, in the depths of the oceans, in the vast space that surround us , there is beauty in everything. A thing of beauty is a joy for ever.
Above all beauty has a connection with love in the heart. Even the so assumed ugliest child looks beautiful to it’s mother. After all beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. Can anything be more beautiful than a compassionate and kind heart that sees goodness in all.”
The lines above have an sensitive emotive and reflective quality which is engagingly beautiful to me.
When you deeply believe
You are bound to manifest
In the deepest intentions
Such is the way of creation
And the power of belief
On memories & thoughts:
Your memories are your thoughts that arise
They are a vision a feelings of things that were…
But in the power of belief they begin to have power over you. Your emotions come into play.
On Awareness of thoughts
But in your depth of awareness you realise thoughts come and go, then you also realise that you are above your thoughts and therein you begin to sense your limitless self.
Being alive and having life Are two different things All have a life Many acknowledge it Few live it with will But far few live it with love Life is life after all It’s in you How you choose to live. Life is for you to acknowledge Know you have this one life Care to live life lovingly?
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