Happy Birthday

Nisarga Datta says What is Born is either aware or asleep or awake. So what is born? Its such an amazing question. What is Born? Something limited out of an unlimited? Is being born being identified with this body and limit myself to this confines? So being born becomes the day I start identifying with the body? The baby on birth is not identified with the body. It continues to exist as a wide expanse. Then its conditioned to beleive - or in a way we stuff a baby into a body. And an immortal being is bestowed with mortality !! So is REMEMBERING ONESELF all about remembering how it was when one was born? before this whole identification happened? and then get the whole flood of experience to remain in that state for eternity?

Chimera...

The last couple of days have been days of healing. Here I was lamenting on my distance..such a vast distance from the Divine..or the so called Objective understanding of the universe..and at some point in time even questioning my need for closure of this search..(where is this need coming from in the brain? is it the rational centre that needs closure..can there be completeness without closure..?). And then i read Keats and Wordsworth..after so many years..actually first time in the mind numbing school where the poetry was taught in a manner so brutual..and then in college..
and these poets seem to have gone through the same pain im going thrru right now..this pain of being touched by something and then losing it..

(Excerpts from Ode to a nightingale)..keats

“ ..Thou was not born for Death, immortal Bird
No hungry generations tread thee down
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad hear of Ruth, when sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn…
……Adieu! Adieu! Thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still streams
Up the hillside; and now ‘tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:- Do I wake or sleep?


Ode on a Grecian Urn

Thou unravish’d bride of quietness
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme
What lea-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape
Of Dieties or mortals or of both
In Tempe or the dales or Arcady
What men or gods are these ?What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit?what struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstacy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter;therefore, ye soft pipes, play on:
Not to the sensual ear, but more endear’d
…..
With forest branches and trodden weed
Thou silent form dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: cold Pastoral
When old age shall this generation waste
Thou shalt remain in the midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to who thou say’st
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty”, - that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.



From Prelude : WordsWorth

“….ye presences of Nature in the sky
And on the earth! Ye visions of the hills!
And Souls of lonely places! Can I think
A vulgar hopes of yours when ye employed
Such ministry, when ye through many a year
Haunting me thus among my boyish sports,
On caves and trees, upon wood and hills,
Impressed upon all forms the characters
Of danger or desire; and does did make
The surface of the universal earth
With triumph and delight, with hope and fear..”

Danse cerebre

I am sitting at the poolside of Tanglin club. A colonial slice in the middle of the bustling and exploding Singapore. There almost seem to be an immediate relief from the outside. The severity of the precision in Singapore – the way the traffic moves, the very precise way of people walking, even the trees look so precise the way they stand and the way they are shaped. A complete lack of spontaneity. Monastic. And with all these precision and symmetry there is no beauty. What is missing is movement. Beauty comes in movement. Precison is death. Its frozen. There is no place for anyone else. There are no surprises. There is no flowering. The club is a worm hole in the space-time continuum. You go back to a time where there was neither a rush nor a need for precision. A time of repose and watch the clouds pass by. There is order without precision. There is time for a dance. Like dance with its steps yet all the room in the world for a personal expression.

Sex Machine

So what is sexuality..what is the feeling..? where does it pop up from when you see a hot body floating past? where does it pop up from in the middle of the night or in the middle of a meeting?
Does the eye pick up an object and switch on a gear inside that starts off the whole process of desire..then aquisition and then quenching the desire..and then the desire just vanishes! pop! and then even when the hot body makes its mandatory and (relentless?) appearance there is no desire..no feeling..
it probably means that the simuli that comes from the eye ..needs some kind of an accumulated fuel to burn..it seems that once the desire is quenched the fuel is burnt and therefore nothing for Round2 till there is an accumulation of the fuel. It feels so silly looking at the whole thing like a machinery.takes the romance out of my passion..! but then in Mid Summer Shakespeare very nicely brings about the absurdity of the emotion of love..it doesnt really matter if the object of your passion is a donkey..its the chemicals inside that really cause all that passion..
The human machine seems to love repeating moments of pleasure..the burning of the fuel brings in the pleasure and therfore the pattern is set..
So the question is - DO I burn this fuel quenching the neeeds of the body..? what if i dont burn this at all?? what happens to the fuel? will it get burnt elsewhere? say imagination? or anger..??
its so frustrating not to know the workings of this body..! isnt there a manual somewhere..then..when the hotbody comes..the desire is quenched ..but the fuel is intact.. perpetual motion between celibacy and consummation.

Trishanku...reality sandwitch.

Before i really start let me ay homage to the food gods for a fantastic dinner at Lara Djong Grand in Jakarta. Two divine places in Jakarta - Oasis and now Lara DjongGrand. Thanks to Buddha for being in the restuarent and starting vacantly as I ate. Also a nice reminder of the real distance between us. He with nirvana..me half way between hapiness and nirvana. This probably is the worst place to be. When One is firmly planted on the ground. It really dosent matter. When one is in Nirvana it really effin doesnt matter. And when ur in the middle...your ground below is as far away as the sky above.
I have learnt not to reach up any more. i guess if its important for the universe, nirvana will probably happen anyways. If it doesnt i guess too bad for the universe. Maybe at best I will stare at death in the eye and not just go out kicking and screaming. But the sight from here is not pretty:
The mind-body seems to be some kind of a processing unit where various energies enter for some proocesses. Some energies enter thru the senses ..esp the eyes..and some enter thru the head..and they just battle it. I sometimes watch the battle from a distance..whatever the processes and all that pain and sensations. For some reasons even though I watch at a distance I hurt too...and i will continue to hurt till or if..."the energy level changes and I go so far away that finally the battle doesnt touch me"..I wonder if this "search" is some kind of a bondage..where the search keeps u in perpetual bondage of sadhana..Work..or whatever...beg plead..besech the universe to spot me..and grant me grace..the grace of eternal distance from the battles..grace of immortality..
its not in my hands..all i have to do is wait..and hope i get the pick of the draw..the awarness comes and goes..of its own voilition...i have no say in the matter..and so does my going to sleep happens..all on its own..i wonder what the hell is my role in all this..wonder why I am? is universe short of witnesses that they need people to just "witness"???
So when I am up in the morning..and my body is burning with a hunger for a touch of feminine energy, this awareness comes up that this feeling is because my energy levels have "docked" in a part of the brain that activates the sexual centres and will seek release from there. So then its got to be undocked and "channeled" into this "bank" of awareness that will in future tell me that when im horny next that I need to undock it and channel it to bank of awareness that...
What happened to the good old wank?? what happened to just seducing or being seduced and just let the kink take over?
So while i sometimes think im not the body..or sometimes I think fuck man..i am not supposed to be the body..im supposed to be this being-awareness..and with the knowledge that im not this who im supposed to be and i dont know whaT im all about..i continue to exist..like a man who's lost his name and woke up in a strange country

Shadow of doubt

SO the day goes on..trying to pull myself back..in that wonderful state where clearly the experience of pure being awareness pervades..the assumption that that im am the body is now demolished because of what Ravi said " Your shadow is following you..so are u the shadow"? Now that means this body is only a shadow following pure awareness..

Now realise so clearly Ramana Maharishi's relentless question of going to the source of the "I" - it is to show the fiction of the assumption being made that "I am the body.."
why did that assumption come? where did it come from ? was it suggested? When the birth happened, the pure awareness must have prevailed..and then firtly a name was given..and that must have immediately limited the awareness..what if we did not have a name atall?

how is the being awareness at the time of birth to be retailned? what goes wrong..? is it possible to find a way to save our babies..or do all of them get banished from the Garden of Eden..each moment there is someone banished from the garden of eden..

Sacred position of the Awareness

FUndemental shift in today’s sitting with Ravi. Ravi mentioned remarking about someone’s sharing “ Subtle energies are always trying to reach us. When, due to the right conditions the energies enter, we say WE have had a wonderful experience. WE seem to have ursurped and owned up that experience.
Then he said “breathe in the air from the atmosphere”

These two sentences shifted something for me. Firstly I suddenly realized the mechanical ness of “I” and saw the CD changer pick up the “I” CD to load it. I now knew I can watch and fight this. For 2006, this then will be my prime exercise. To watch when I takes ownership. Even the language would change. It would have to be without the “I” as though a phenomena is happening. Like instead of “I” have an idea – it becomes “ an idea is happening “.

The second significant experience has been the who is breathing..and when “I” is not existing, then “I” cannot be breathing. Suddenly now the atmosphere has become a living organism for me and this Awareness is a link between the Organism – Harish and the atmosphere that is providing the sustenance of air – and my responsibility is now to ensure that this organism is nourished and taken care of. And then like Harish, all organisms now become the responsibility of this Awareness. Its like watering a plant. For a long time I thought I was the plant. Now I know im the gardener and its my job to bring the water from wherever it is and water the plant daily. And then take care of other plants so as to ensure that there is all round flourishing.

The “I am” breathing will have to change to “Am” breathing.
( TO copy in the Diary too)

Where am I?

Dec 27th was interesting. Had a first experience of not being the body..sitting in the auto at the signal intersection of airport road and the richmond road. And then the couple of days later the very core issue of questioning something that I have taken for granted..and so here goees..

So what is the basis of my assumption that i am the body? Someone would have told me that when I was a baby..and accepted this as gospel. And now what is the basis now that im grown up? For one, "I" seem to be going everywhere where my body is going. So its logical that me and the body is the same thing..but then if i can see the body separate from "I" I cant possibly be the body. During those fleeting experiences i realised that the "I" has only learnt to express itself in this body. Till it learns to express itself in other bodies..other organic life..like trees..i will have a situation where "I" = body. But what happens when i shut my eyes..then there is no body..no trees..no nothing.. I am..but where the hell am i? I try looking to estimate where im located. Have not found myself in the body..at best its a feeling in the heart..but the big question is ..if im not in the body..where am i? Am i located somewhere else..? in the sky? how do i find out where am i located? CUrrent strategy im kind of adopting is to fool the mind ..to make it think as if im back to where i was when i was a baby..and no one has yet told me that im the body. when means..just keep the feeling of "I am" all the time..refuse any impression that gets me back to identify with the body..and hopefully some door will open..and doing the sadhanas twice a day to create sufficient energy to power this ...i think we all deserve to live a better life and we dont have to have divine origins to reach out and get it..like Buddha..regular dude..who went out and cracked it..and insisted on telling everybody that he was a normal guy who went after this. He is the real inspiration man..Buddha really really rock

race of life

Mrityorma..amritam gamaya..oh mother..give me liberation from death. Liberation from death meaning death of the physical body ..is that the end of it all? Smart boys and girls from the past seem to have figured the way to create this body..so what is the technique.
It needs to be built brick by brick it appears. Create an energy reservoir, Generate energy thru food, meditation..and breathing teqniques and then save the damn thing instead of leaking it in stress, thought loops and babes. Soon the subtlest elements from our food start buidling the "immortal body" ..and soon..one can start sensing the body..till one great day..under the golden skyscrappers ..the space ship is ready..that moment, the connection with the physical body is superflous. One's vantage point of presence has shifted from one's body to this "other bodY" - the physical body dies..but voila..the other body continues to experience life..so the race is this..create the "other body" before the "physical body" breaks down..

state of mind tracking Monday morning pre 8:52 am

Mind serene. I can see thoughts coming but not touching me. I know its chemical. But there is bliss. Present moment always. With my connectedness.

part 2 at office. Will take stock if I can maintain the connection.

Street walking

Streets are the soul of any city. Walking on the streets of Calcutta for eg. Is like losing yourself in your old family album discovered quite accidentally from the attic. Your walk is not just slow and leisurely, you actually stop at points, savouring the sepia tones of the city, its crowds only part of the group photo, its dust only the dust flying off the album. That is the soul of the city. It is in a time wrap – in its most romantic sense. Its not stopped or decaying. It is just continuing to move within the same dimension – like listening to an old song that you don’t mind listening again and again. And then suddenly a gem from the past, a sight of an old book long forgotten, and the warm glow in your heart – when the ripe bossoms of nostalgia crush themselves over your chest. Walking in Paris is a lot like walking in Calcutta. There is the essential past that really is playing in front of you with the patina of the present almost there to ridicule itself. Walking in paris or watching the city pass in front of you as you sip your café au lait you see how Calcutta and Paris share the same soul. I think its really the sensuality of the energy of both cities. The sensuality that expresses itself in Paris in its art, cinema and the soft flicks of the cusine on your tongue. In Calcutta, its in the languid strain of its Rabindra sangeet, the passion of the bargaining in the fish market and the sudden rush of your lover’s sweet saliva as you bit into a rasgulla. HongKong is slow and languid.l You could call it Calutta. But Hongkong has no passion. The Streets are full of people. No one’s in a hurry. But there is a blandness to the walking. The neons flashing and the plasmas screaming don’t help. All the props seem helpless against the quiet mass of sleepy people that throng the streets. Its frustrating. Why is this city so expressionless? Is this a curse by some dragon princess? Or has the coldness of the skyscrapers in glass and steel seeped deep into bones turning their blood into mineral water and emotions into diet passion? Washington DC and New Delhi, as slow but with a difference. You cant miss the cold power in the under currents. Here’s a slowness of secure power. Like a quiet purr of a Jaguar. People as warm as cadavers greeting you with the temperature of a morgue and social behavior as efficient as a philharmonic. Even sex would be as per position # 23 of the Manual. In Hong Kong, it would be position #23 too, but there would be people assisting. New York and Bombay are pure sex. The energy hits you as you embrace into the city. There is an unexpectedness in New York and Bombay. No rules. And the promise of some adventure that gets your heart thudding. Its just the way you walk on the street. Fast. Very fast. And its not laboured. Its just the sheer excitement – a mix of taboo, a large dash of power, and the sheer freedom of anonymity that New York and Bombay gives you. You can just be your self. These cities don’t judge. They don’t even care you exist. Yet you know that your heartbeat has added to the city’s heartbeat. Your are part of it yet its not imposed on you. The city wraps itself around you, so you and the city have both an independent and a combined persona. Unlike the langorous sensuality of Cal and Paris where there is a suspended desire at the hem of each skirt or the sari pallu, in New York its very vocal. No stolen kisses or a careless caress of the breast tip here – its like mouth jabbing kisses and crotch grinding, frantic and instant gratification – like a pit stop in an F1.

Automatic for the people

How do i fight my passivity? This completely pre programmed responses-that this machine seem to be giving. Cruel word responded with cruel words. Kind words likewise. Pretty face and want to possess. Hint of a breast and ready to mate. All the buttons of this machine is in everybody else's hand. How do i disable the buttons. Make a fresh response. Each time. Become human. Again.

apple of my I

How do I therefore unlock myself and get free? There is the half eaten apple of desire. There is our past, like a clock ticking in the heart. Key is out there somewhere but cant find it..slender threads link us to the mother tree.. i need help to find the key...even tho the door may be open..

Anniversary

Happy anniversary to the blog for surviving a year !

body shop

hmm..it appears that we have bin fooling ourselves for a long time. firstly it appears that "we are the body" seems to be just a notion.. its only in our minds..someone i guess decided to put it in our heads...seems like a massive virus attack on civilisation..the Great Forgetting :-) maybe this is what the bible talked about Adam and Eve..needed to chekc out their vacation in the Garden prematurely! so if we are not the body..and we actually experience it..then i guess it is immortality...wow...so that's really what immortality all about..consciousness without the body..

so the eternal question of what am i doing in the world..what is my purpose..what is my destiny..all therefore goes gracefully out of the window...for the cause and effect seems to be a problem with the mind..and without body..no-mind..please dont mind.. and so we just are...! purposeless..?? kind of deflating i must say..considering my world domination ambitions..or the thrill of cracking a deal..means nothing in the cosmos..even less significant than a fart of an old star..then why do i get horny?

more later...

Bhagvad Gita for Dummies

The Gita has two streams of thought flowing - an ethical stream and a metaphysical stream-dealing respectively with what man ought to do and what God is.

Work Alone are thou entitled to and not its fruit. So never work for fruit nor yet desist from work.

A man of even mind puts away here both good and evil. Therefore strive for Yoga. Yoga is skill in action.

No man can be ever free from a life of action by merely avoiding active work. and no man can ever reach perfection through mere renunciation.

This world is fettered by work, UNLESS it is done as a sacrifice. Therefore, O son of Kunti give up your attachments and do thy work as a SACRIFICE.

Therefore always without attachment do the work thou hast to do for a man who does his work without attachment wins the SUPREME.

There is nothing in the three Worlds O Partha for me to achieve nor is there anything to gain that I have not gained. Yet I continue to work - for if I did not continue to work unwearied men all round the world would follow my path. If I should cease to work, these worlds would perish and I should cause confusion and destroy these people.

Better is one's duty though imperfectly done than the duty of another, well done

The works of a man whose attachments are gone, who is free and whose mind is well established in knowledge melt away entirely being done as a sacrifice.

THere is nothing whatever that is higher than what I am O Dhananjaya ; all this is strung on me as rows of Gems on a string ( a central consciousness pervading all things)

Goodness binds one to hapiness. Passion binds one to action and dullness veiling knowledge binds one to negligence.

There are three gateways of this HELL leading to the ruin of the soul - LUST, WRATH and GREED. Therefore let man renounce all three.

Penances - The Worship of the Gods, of teachers and of the wise, purity, uprightness, abstinence and non-violence - these are said to be penances of the BODY

The utterance of words which do not give offense and which are truthful, pleasant and beneficial, and the regular recitation of the Vedas - these are said to be penance of speech.

The serenity of the mind, beneficience, silence, self control and purity of the heart - these are said to be penances of the mind.

These three fold penances practised with perfect faith by men of balanced mind without desire for gain is said to be a "good disposition"

....for sacrifice, gifts and penances purify the wise. Even these works should be however done with surrender of attachment and of fruits. This O Partha is my decided and final view.

But renunciation of any duty that ought to be done is not right.

The wise man of renunciation, who is imbued with goodness and whose doubts are dispelled never hates a duty that is unpleasant.

The steadiness by which one never fails in concentration and by which one controls the activities of the mind, the life breaths and of the senses - that O partha is of the nature of goodness.

Search Diary Aug 22nd

This week went by again without any progress. Be it breath awareness or relaxing the body's tiny and small tensions. I hope this week will prove better. I must place an awareness chant and monitor it on the following :
-breath
-speech
-body awareness

God give me strenght please. Also the new diet that I am doing should clean me up. I am so convinced that there is a divine hand in my diet.
Great quote from RigVeda " Desire was the first seed of the mind"

Ramana Maharshi....

How to get rid of fear?
All fear is nothing more than thoughts. If there is only ONE then there cannot be a second.

Quote from Ramakrishan....
"god can be realised ...but who takes the trouble to do so? People will shed tears for wife, children, or possessions..but who will weep for the love of god?"

Present moment

This is the present moment. As I type. The sound of the keyboard, the sight of the letters being born on the screen, the sound of the car that is passing by, the touch of the plastic on the tips of my fingers. This is the truth because the mind is dead right now. Only my senses are alive. This moment is eternity. Right now, I have exercised by evolutionary right of being aware that I am aware. Soon i will lapse into being an animal - doing things quite unaware and mechanically.

I wonder if i keep on typing like this will this keep me engaged in the present moment forever. Is this why they say physical work and strain are an important part of the spiritual search because doing physical things with awareness seems far easier than doing mental things like meditation with awarenes..

the world is so full right now with noises and light. the moment is beautiful. it is real and there are no opinions. there is not even me.

reality bites

The senses dont make any sense any more. The World is a projection inside my head. Like the kernel of a coconut. Or being in the centre of the universe till the lights of the planetarium comes on. So what does the real world look like? Beyond the senses. Shut your eyes. Close ur ears. Clamp the nose. What then is left? The mind - that is the combination of all the senses that sucks you to its world. Shut the mind too. What remains? Silence. Now is there something beyond silence? How long should the silence be till the door opens? The mind stands between me and the door. Its chattering creases the silence and hides the door. Silence. It is the key.

getting the divine to ascend into the heart

during the day, the soul vanishes. as though the devil needs to earn the living. then morning comes and the soul rises for a few moment. gives a glimpse of eternal solace. then hte masks are put on again. the dance with the devil begins. the sacred sap is exchanged for the ego's survival and the night comes again for the soul to apply the healing. when can i cross over?