Clearance

When the desks and cupboards get cleared....

What real fun is it to clear desks and cupboards at home and in the office. I am currently on such a cleaning spree. I unearthed quite a few treasures, the poems that I write when I was at school, the literary masterpieces that I copied out from books for my learning and understanding, the long list of proverbs that I was collecting, more recently the notes that I took during my camps with my Guru - Swami Akshara.
Now with this blog site, great possibilities has dawned on me. All those poems of mine and the others that I have copied, I plan to post it here.
As for those lectures of Swamiji on which I have taken down , this site provides me the space for more contemplation with the Sadhana Panchakam, Nirvana Shatkam, Upadesha Saram, Zen, Om, Vignan Bhairav Tantra, Dakshinamurthy Stotram and Chakra Meditation lectures that I have attended and sharing it with those who visit my site - I actually call it my home. In fact, in Tamil - Aham also means Home. So "Adikkadi Enga Ahathukku Vango," (Please do drop in to my home often.) and partake of the joy that I wish to share.

Death

Games that Potter Loves To Play

Life may not be certain
But Death is for sure
Breathing in is Life
Breathing out is Death
Waking up at dawn is Life
Going to bed at dusk is Death
Falling down on Earth
Is a blessing of Life
Rising up to heaven
Is the blessing of Death

*****

Life brings its share of experiences
But for the one who lives
Death is an experience too
For just the one that is no more
All are but dolls on this great puppet show
Made of the same stuff
Walking and talking
Yet none see the strings
Tied to the fingers Divine
Directing this comedy eternal.

*****

The Potter makes these dolls of clay
Paints them with colours many
Gives them to us childrn to play
Play with them we do
Feed them and clothe them
Dote on them and care for them
Send them to school and then for work
There are doll weddings too
Doll families they become and begin their game of house-house

*****

"Enough," says the Potter
Who often yearns for change
Simple job for Him thiough
To mash the doll back into clay
and put it back on the wheel
For some other toy to make.
But what words has the Potter
For the doll Mom and Dad
Who didn't know till then
All these funny games
That Potter loves to play.

***

Swahilya

Zen in an amusement park.

Zen and the Art of Amusement

In my day off, I decided to give up all my notions of wasting money and energy in amusement parks, to take my children Ojasvin and Omjasvin to Queens Land - along the Chennai Bangalore Highway.
I called up a taxi to take us to that place, just an hour's drive from my residence in Mogappair. It was a joy to see them in their best of clothes, all set to bounce with energy. The younger one wanted to take our teddy bear which I named Akshara after my Guru - Swami Akshara.
It was a really hot day and the children let me read Encounter The Enlightened, a collection of speeches of Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, though they told me earlier that I should be talking with them and not reading.
With tickets paid and bands tied on our hands, we walked in to hop on to the toy train that was ready to leave. For me it was like any share auto that I ride in Chennai, but for my children it was something novel to go on.
The next was so wheel - I forget what name it has (that's what happens at the end of the day, going through the rides this way and that, but don't really know what rides they were!)
With my penchant for contemplation, the different rides were but different triggers to my perception of Maya - seeing the world from a top-angle view. Just like the tora-tora, alpen blitz or roller coasters - life is full of twists and turns. Just as the mind which can go hither and thither, the rides go up and down, swing and turn, front and back. It takes just a bit wisdom to know and be with it as the show goes on.
******

In Search of Light

An article from The Hindu.

In search of divine light

Swahilya

Performing yoga regularly helps control one's inner energy While Indian wisdom has touched Western nations, it has not had much impact on the East

*****

Indian youth, at least by the hundreds go abroad in search of lucrative careers, every month. But then the country is also witnessing an onrush of young persons seeking to share India's USP — spiritual enlightenment.
Isha Yoga's Inner Engineering programme has around 300 participants in the United States while the experiential Bhava Spandana attracts around 500 people.
Thirty-five meditators from abroad are staying at the Centre in Coimbatore of which one third are undergoing teacher's training course in yoga. There are also similar programmes in Lebanon and Germany.
Jim H. Broom, a psychiatrist from Tennessee says, "One's intuition and ability to choose what is healthy, steadily increases with meditation. Negative self-defeating patterns and life-long anxieties vanish and is replaced by inherent motivation through the Isha yoga programme". Barry Taylor, an Ohio-based doctor says that most people in the West understand yoga as primarily a physical exercise for the body. But for him, the physical benefit of performing yoga is of supplementary value.
The major achievement is the ability to control one's inner energy and slipping into a deep state of relaxation. Swami Akshara, a yoga guru who visits Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur and Tokyo, has a huge following in Japan and China. "While the Indian wisdom has touched Western nations, it has not had much impact on the East. Not surprisingly, spiritual tourism from the eastern countries to India is negligible."
The inputs traditionally received from India get refined in the presence of a spiritual master. Toshie Sakada, a young entrepreneur from Tokyo, spares an hour every morning practicing meditation. "Master Akshara removed the my psychological fear and guilt. This helped me move ahead in life," she says.
Swami Suddhananda who founded the Samvit Sagar Trust at Uthandi has been taking his teachings to South Africa. In the first international Yoga Teachers' Training Course for Self Knowledge at Tiruvannamalai, 38 students from 14 countries participated...

Read on at The Hindu.

Grace

Grace

This posting is the wish of my Guru Swami Akshara. When I was speaking to him over phone today, I told him that I was able to feel his presence. His reply was, "Grace is not great. But one who is able to receive it is." Receiving grace is so important, he continued. If everybody was able to receive grace, there was no need for so many Gurus, so many masters to land on earth....Rama, Krishna, Christ... But problem has always remained with receiving.
******
I wish to share with you my experience with Grace. Grace, I discovered is present every where. But the human mind has to be reminded often of its presence. The reminder comes in the form of religious symbols, the forms of Gods and Gurus, concepts and ideas, nearly everything, not nearly...just everything. It is there inside me. It is there outside me. For grace, there is no inside or outside. It is. And even when I say, receiving grace, it is only reminding myself that it is there and I know I am filled with it.
*****
And being in grace, everything happens, so beautifully, whether it is cleaning up my home, getting some good dinner ready, managing children, typing a news story, getting to my quitest self and writing a poem from there, collecting myself in silence and going forth on stage with a talk, consoling someone in pain or grief...I can list what all Grace can do, but I can say what it cannot do - that is There is Nothing That is Not Possible By Grace.

Gracefully Yours

Swahilya.

Abhyanga

ABHYANGA

I was away from this blog site for quite some time now as I went on a three day Abhyanga programme at the Kottakkal Arya Vaidya Sala agency in Perambur.

Abhyanga is all about massage with heated medicinal oil, in my case it was a thick Dhanvanthri Kuzhambu.

During the process of massage, I discovered that ultimately, everything we receive in life is a massage, the beatings from parents, the bumps on the road, the gentle wafting of breeze, the fresh aroma from the trees, the heat from the sun, the cool waters of the sea that washes your feet, or the mud from the floor pressing your soles from beneath - anything you name it.... is a massage.
*****
After the process, people who see me say that I look a lot more brighter. It is all to do with the light within. When the light within shines, and the body is made supple and porous with Ayurvedic treatments such as this, just as a dusty 100 watt bulb that is cleaned of all the grime and dust which shines brightly, the space is given for the light to express itself.
*****

Plashtic Flowersh

Plashtic Flowersh

--------------------

On my table at office, a tiny Ganesha placed against my computer's CPU in front of me. Beside him, I placed few stalks of colourful flowers and leaves made of plastic and cloth. They are held in a throw-away plastic tea cup filled with mud and tightened by plaster of paris.
I am fond neither of plastic flowers nor matching throwaway tea cups, but this one has a little story behind it.
Early one morning when I was sitting at home in meditation, I heard my musical calling bell ring the chant of 'Om Namah Shivaya.' Answering the door, I saw a little boy with unkempt brown hair and soiled clothes. The eyes were bright and shining. He had before him a big round basket of colourful artificial flowers.
I have seen many people selling these flowers and never once was there an urge or a temptation to buy them. As a journalist covering environmental and ecological issues, I had my strong opinions against wasteful uses of plastic. I knew he was here to sell them to me and I told him to get off, with a "No thank you."
But an expert in marketing that he was, he persisted. Madam, please, plashtic flowersh, buy please. "No," I insisted. "Only ten rupees." "Please get going, I'm busy," I told him.
But I melted at the next line: "Madam, please, for my sake, small boy, only 10 rupees."
I thought of my two sons: 11 years and nine years in his place. They have the comfort of a home, education and entertainment. Here is this child, just the same age - bearing a heavy basket and hawking them.
"What is your name?" I asked. "Arjun," he replied. He said he came from Gujarat with his family searching for a job. The plastic materials come from Vellore and the flowers are done here and sold.
That did the deal. I bought two of those vases of red and sky blue flowers with shiny green plastic leaves for Rs. 20 - one for my home and one for my office - the flowers that I am writing to you about in front of me.
Ideas and ideals can change sometimes, just like that - by the look into the eyes.
**********

On Meditation

MEDITATION

***************

By Swahilya

It is the desire of all of us that we have to be happy, healthy, prosperous,wealthy, successful in all that we do and be recognised wherever we go. If there is one key to open all these doors - it is Meditation.

Is meditation sitting in one corner with eyes closed, fingers twisted in some manner and legs locked together? No. Meditation is the easiest activity one can do. A meditative person does not meditate, but lives in meditation. Right from the moment when one gets up from the bed, through each activity of the day till the time to rest has come at night, every activity is done in meditation.

Meditation is a process of keeping oneself in the best state of mind when thebody is at work. Meditation happens when one sees the clouds gently sails through the blue sky, feels the fragrance of the dewy morning rose as it blooms, hears the song of the cuckoo break out of the still silence and fall back into it or seeing the stars twinkle on a purple black sky. Living in tune with your environment is meditation. Being in love with the Universe is meditation. For a person living in such a state of mind, life on earth which is usually fraught with problems, virtually becomes a heaven of bliss, harmony and happiness.

"So what if I meditate?" you may ask. A meditative person finds him orherself in the best of circumstances. Everything that seems to be a stumbling block for the ordinary individual becomes a stepping stone for the one in meditation. In his world there is no conflict, only harmony, there is no hatred, only love, no competition, only progress. In daily terms, all kitchen utensils will lend their hand to help the meditative housewife in getting a delicious meal ready. A meditative boss at the office will find his subordinates listening to each word of his and executing his directions without a single word of protest.

Living in meditation means there are no more tough examinations for the student, no argumentative children for the mother, no problem like tangled noodles to face at office. Just as a student who is strong in the foundations of mathematics will find examinations an interesting challenge, armed with the weapon of meditation, one can look forward to each day with great self-confidence and cheerful energy.

So, meditation is really very easy and it is well within your reach too. SwamiAkshara , my Guru who gave me this name - Swahilya, has just now returned from a tour of the east, with his programmes galore on Meditation. Through his talks and more through his oceanic silence and compassion, Swamiji teaches us to see the bliss of the nature around us.Through his simple meditative exercises, he teaches you the art of dissolving into the inner silence where problems disappear like sugar in milk. Living then brings hope, joy and bliss.

Swami Akshara belongs to the regions of the unbounded self and cannot be defined or confined to limited ideas or beliefs. He transcends region, language, religion and country. Think global, act local is Swamiji's maxim. He is like the boundless sun of knowledge that sheds light and dispels the darkness ofignorance where ever he goes. He is the sculptor who knows the parts to be chiselled out and present before the world a masterpiece of art.

* * * * * * * * * *

I Think Of You

I think of you....

******************

When the cool breeze touches

my face, taking me by surprise

I think of you.

Looking out of the train window

I see lush green trees

On fertile red soil with

Gorges and ravines passing through

I think of you.

Mind loaded with anxiety

For solace I walk toward the sea

Standing on the shore, the water touches my feet

I think of you.

On a sweltering hot day

I walk under a merciless sun

A sudden wind blows away my bother

I think of you.

When I see children at play

Cherubic laughter driving out adult worries

Unmindful, even of their happiness

I think of you.

When I walk, lost in thoughts

I twist my foot with a wrong step

Writhing in pain

I think of you.

When caught in a maelstorm of noise

Trying to keep my head

Above a deluge of unreasonable minds

I think of you.

When I am happy

I think of you.

When I am in company

I think of you.

When I am alone

I think of you.

When I am sad

I think of you.

I think of you

When I want peace.

- Akhilananda Bharati.

New Year

********

When illness ebbs out and vitality flows

With hearts filled with love

And faces bright with sunny cheer

Bodies light with effervescence buoyance

The happy angels drive out the dark gloom

When clanging bells chime in the New Year

A time when nervousness, frustration and anxiety

Hurriedly exit through the backdoor

The salubrious breeze blows in

Ushering in hope and prosperity

Driving out despair

With a bubbling cataract of joy

That hangs around its haunts

In smiling faces and helping hands.

- Akhilananda Bharati

Love +ve Love -ve

Love +ve 'n Love -ve

------------------------

Love can construct

Love can destroy

Love can bind

Love can break

Love can matter

Love can shatter

Love begets children

Love can also abort

Love joins in marriage

Love ends in divorce

Love can connect nations

Love can harden boundaries

Love is love whether It makes or breaks

Shall we chose the love

That constructs, binds, matters, joins, connects....

With hope, hope we shall

For there is a mission great to achieve

Than worry 'bout trifling hurdles.

- Akilananda Bharati.

L O V E

LOVE

-------

Can four letters express the immensity

That wells from within and chokes with joy

Can words confine the feelings unbound

Love that sends the mother's milk

To rush forth when she hears her beloved's cry

Love that springs when the little child holds

Her father's finger for a walk

Beneath the cool moon's light

Love that streams through

The sap of a tree that

Yearns for freedom with arms spread out

Love that makes day shake hand with night

And darkness again with dawn

Love that brings man and woman together

To beget their bundle of joy

Smiling into this delighted earth

Love that swells for people and country

Rushing to protect when danger rears its head

Love that answers the call of the hapless folks

Letting hands stretch forth for charity and compassion

Love that responds to a shrieking cry of pain

Love that is in man, woman and child,

In plant, animal and insect,

In earth, water and space

Love that is there anywhere and everywhere

Love that is within all and without all

The love that flows through the veins of this Universe

We search and search to seek the divine

It is here, there and everywhere

Flowing with the love that engulfs the world.

- Akhilananda Bharati.

Shivam

Shivam

******

Sitting now I wonder All my visions of childhood

Now pass by like a dream.

What I thought were real fights

What I experienced as happy moments

The times I cried not getting what I wanted

My hopes and frustrations

Joys and sorrows

All that I thought were Solid and true

Today pass by as shadows

Flashed from negative prints

On a showy movie screen.

Sitting now I know

Quietly within this body

Matter made of elements five

Intertwined and hugging together

All its physics and chemistry

Making it look what it is

In between cells is the space

Totally empty, nothing, silent

Outside the shell, the same space

Another shell is nearby

Twined sinews, blood and bones

With the same space within

Then another animal, a tree,

A building, an automobile

A river and a mountain

The forms are changing waves

The space lone and silent.

From the packed and crowded earth

I travel higher, higher and higher

The chill clouds like silvery fleece

The air gets thinner and thinner and thinner

Out I am into space,

Open, vast, empty and still

In the wideness everexpanding

Orbits the Earth, Moon and Planets

Stars bursting and shrinking

Throwing away in delight

The space moves farther and farther

No bother, no boundaries and borders

This is the same space within

That gets bigger and bigger

Locked in time, existing in the timeless.

- Akilananda Bharati.

L I F E

Life

****

Life begins and ends with us
When the energy within pulls in and expels
The first breath of divine air - life begins to tick.
And when we die, the last push outward
The body no longer breathes, we are over
So this is what life's all about
Breathing in and breathing out
Every second, from dawn to dusk
From morn to night, day by day
Year in and Year out.
Through this breathing, we have the schooling,
We do our work, get angry, fall in love,
Married we get to beget children, raise them up
And they all did live, see them grow and we pass on.
Close your eyes to think if this is all?
Plants sprout from seeds, breathe as they grow,
Animals are born from their mother's womb
And birds and insects crack out of their shells.
They too live, breathing in and out.
They think not of life, but we do,
Living like them in so many ways.
Life I discovered is when, eyes closed to the space without,
When quietly we remain witness to the space within,
Life, life, life everywhere, sitting or standing,
Sleeping or awake - life moves around
In the beggar's cry, the sick man's howl,
The father's authority, the mother's love
The child's cheer, the boss's sternness
And the subordinate's fear.
Life in the plants and in the mountains
The forests and its animals,
The oceans and rivers, the glaciers and plains -
Backdrop scenes for the gigantic drama.
Enacting their part, the actors play.
I am an actor who for long thought was real
But now I see, I am but Part of the great cinema show.
The actor, director, producer and audience,
The theatre and the set Everything and anything,
Something and nothing - Are all none other than me.
- Akilananda Bharati.

Little Children Singing

I rememer this song that I sung as a kid in school:
Little Children Singing
God Delights To Hear
Little Voices Ringing
With His Praise Sincere.

I was full of children the last three weeks.
There was at first an article on 'a pint-sized bundle of energy' who won the first rank in a national talent search examination.
Then it was a day-long camp with children of Akshara Abhyas - a weekly gathering where a bundle of brilliant children learn to sing shlokas in Sanskrit and Tamil and listen to and tell stories. The camp was at the Samvit Sagar Ashram of Swami Suddhananda along the East Coast Road in Uthandi near Chennai.
The little ones were free of parents breathing down their neck as the watched a peacock and waited for it to spread out its feathers, chased four white geese, which created such a racked and filed into their pen.
Then there was lunch, games, chanting and fun which ended at the beach nearby where the tied-up ones broke loose and revelled in the shrieking and shouting that they were allowed to do.
Swahilya Auntie (myself) who sheperded them all became such a friend for them at the end of the day and they wanted more of this more often.
*****
A week later at the same Ashram, I volunteered to be a house-parent for five boarders studying in Suddhananda Vidyalaya. That was another load of fun that landed on my lap. When they were off to school, I spent four full days in meditation under an ancient banyan tree, reading in my room, watching the rain fall on the lush green Ashram, thick with the smell of nature, watching the Bay of Bengal far away at day and hearing its roaring voice at night, taking the children on a beach walk to the Jagannath Temple at the neighbouring Kanathur and having fun with the silence I am surrounded in.
Coming back to office on busy Mount Road after all the Silence was like an emergency landing jolt to my schedule and surroundings. But life's all about mixing and matching sound and silence - action and inaction, matter and space, everything and nothing.
*****

Stree Shakti

StreeShakti

----------------

Gone are the days when she bowed down to force

The centuries of endurance has taught her lessons enough.

She can no longer tolerate the shouting from the father

Asking to shut herself in the kitchen.

Nor does she have ears for her brother boss

Who can't have her in his group of friends.

Her husband she will listen to, only on her own terms.

Those who thought were strong, mighty and powerful

Please step out, for curtains are down on your show.

She will listen to the father

Who speaks with kind concern for the welfare of her future;

The brother who is capable only of affectionate talk

and goads her to enjoy the privileges he has got;

The husband who cares and understands,

Accepting her as his equal, a part of his self.

The woman of the times -She sees a friendly pat work better than a wooden stick.

Kind words provoke her into compassion for all life.

For her to listen, you have to speak her language.

And she will talk, only when you become her and yield to listen.

Times have changed and it is her turn to run the show now.

Better be audience and simply watchThere is a happy game to go.

- A K H I L A N A N D A B H A R A T H I.

Peace

A Milestone Towards Peace

---------------------------------------

When people across borders
Stand crossing swords at each other
Wanting peace, but harbouring war and suspicion.
When the drag of mundane life pulls
They live with the constant fear of annihilation
There are brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts
Little girls with colourful ribbons,
Cherubic boys with chubby cheeks.
Rivers that flow and mountains that soar
Animals that walk through forest corridors
Birds that migrate from country to country
Fish that swim in international waters
The desert insects burrow deep tunnels
Between India and Pakistan
Burma and Bangladesh.
Trees that grow tall, spread out their green canopy
Giving shade for life sans borders
The pigeons, olives and colourful balloons
Just fly in the air, the way they like
All these don't talk of war
And so they don't about peace too.
They just exist - in peace and harmony.
And you know we humans call ourselves
The most superior of these all.
We have knowledge - we create strife
We have technology - we make weapons
We know to talk - and we engage in wordy duels
We invented money, only to store and hoard
We know cultivation and we meddle with nature.
Are we superior indeed men and women
From these pigeons, olives and colourful balloons,
That just fly and fly in peaceful amity
Not confronting, not treading on each others' path
Like the water that flows around boulders
Or the slim bamboo that bends to the wind.
We are not teachers, but meek students
Who have to learn from nature's lap
How to live, let live
How to give and take
How to just be in absolute
Harmony, Silence and Peace.
- Akhilananda Bharati.

Mysticism

A paper on Mysticism, Reason, Art, Literature.....for a seminar that I never went.

The Weft and Warp of Mysticism in Literature and Art

- By Akhilananda Bharati

On the role of poetry, Sri Aurobindo says in his essay on The Human Cycle: To us poetry is a revel of intellect and fancy, imagination, a plaything and caterer for our amusement, our entertainer, the nautch-girl of the mind. But to the men of old, the poet was a seer, a revealer of hidden truths, imagination no dancing courtesan, but a priestess in God's house commissioned not to spin fictions, but to image difficult and hidden truths; even the metaphor or simile in the Vedic style is used with a serious purpose and>expected to convey a reality, not to suggest a pleasing artifice of thought. The image was to these seers, a revelative symbol of the unrevealed and it was used because it could hint luminously to the mind what the precise intellectual word, apt only for logical or practical thought or to express the physical and the superficial, could not at all hope to manifest. My personal experience in mysticism and a corresponding development of my latent talents in music, photography, poetry, journalism and>sports can be taken as an ideal example to explain the relationship>between mysticism, literature, art, reasoning and every aspect of the>thinking mind on planet Earth.>Mysticism is described in the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary as>the belief that knowledge of God and of real truth may be reached by>directing one's mind or through spiritual insight, independently of>reason and the senses. "There is a strong element of mysticism in his>poetry", is an example the Dictionary gives.>My plunge into Mysticism or I prefer to call Spirituality started>when I joined a 13-day programme called Sahaja Sthithi Yoga, devised>by Sathguru Jaggi Vasudev. Involving a compact course on Pranayama,>Meditation, a bit of Yama and Niyama on food and other habits, though>I did not have any idea what I was in for when I joined, I found that>the whole programme was like going through LKG to Std. XII.>Whatever were the inputs, there was a drastic change in my perception>of people, situation and things. The meaning behind the Carnatic>music songs and all the Sanskrit slokas I learnt in my childhood>began to reveal itself. My voice acquired a new tenor and my vocal>and instrumental music, besides my conversation acquired much depth>and ease.>While my photography before Yoga were people-oriented - the subjects>being mostly my children, members of my family and myself, post-Yoga,>I indulged in taking pictures of vast nature, of people whom I met>and had a significant feeling to convey - but totally unconnected. So>much is the contribution to art that a difference in mental>perception can contribute.>I equate here the practise of all forms of Yoga with Mysticism.>Another major result of my Yoga and meditation practise was that one>fine day, I started writing poetry. Till then, all my writing was>confined to news stories, some features with poetic expressions. I>have written a couple of poems when at school. But my poems on Women,>Friendship, Anxiety, Hope, Peace,on the Gujarat Earthquake, a diary>full of them culminating with the latest one on Vande Mataram and>Life, in English and Tamil trace the expanse of my thinking - i.e.>from my teeny-weeny individual self to the Universe and beyond.>I have also a word here to say about my participation in seminars.>While earlier, I was a journalist contained to my beats, after Yoga,>I was invited to participate in seminars and present papers. The>trend I noticed each time I spoke, the moderators and audience made>it a point to say that it came straight from the heart. Nevertheless,>I was able to feel the impact of what I spoke - touching the heart of>the listener.>Mysticism I feel makes the person more intense as all practices like>Yoga and meditation works on the physical and energy bodies and the>mind infusing freshness in action and thought. In my experience as a>journalist, I have noticed the difference between the works of art in>any area, whether it is fabric design, music, pottery, acting or you>name it anything. A person in tune with nature, some call God or>Divine, either through practise of Yoga and meditation or just prayer>- a spiritual being rather than a physical being, their product is>richer in tone with more depth and feeling than those who are not in>tune with any such practises.>The reason I observed was that, in the case of a spiritual person, he>has surrendered his ego which gives him the energy to travel vaster>expanses than those who think from within an iron wall of the ego.>The former's actions are light while the latter hovers on the gross.>So Mysticism adds colour to painting and photography, depth and truth>to poetry and brevity and conviction to prose. The weft and warp of>mysticism in any area of knowledge whether in science, reason, art,>literature is the factor that binds that everything in the Universe>looks different but in fact it is one. With the veil of Maya or form removed, a mystic painter, literatteur, musicianm artist or scientist>discovers that every form and object in the Universe is one - Sarvam Brahmamayam.
*****

Vande Mataram

A poem I wrote that like much. This is India as she is now and fast galloping towards that golden destination of the Light of the World.

Vande Mataram

-------------------------------------

The soul of India is waking up
Shaking free of her decades-long slumber
She began her sleep in the complacence of freedom
Which she got from the British rule
Achieved with much blood, toil, sweat and tears.
After five centuries of slumber and struggle
Manage herself, she could.
But her children's egos dismembered themselves from her unity.
They forgot her compassion and non-violence,
Her ahimsa and satyagraha, today they laugh at,
Satyameva Jayate is now an empty slogan
That decorates her tables, badges and flags.
The tri-colour of herRenunciation, Peace and Prosperity,
with the wheel of Dharma standing still,
Now embodies her national inferiority complex.
The force of her sages and saints
In the truth, love and peace they espoused
Is today mocked by tanks, guns and nuclear installations.
Jana Gana Mana and Vande Mataram were tunes that inspired.
Today they are metres for lewd limericks of college kids.
When her national bird is fit for lining tables of wedding feasts,
Her proud tiger is being chased out to extinction.
Her national flower today is a symbol,not of unity,
but of political prowess and religious fanaticism.
Her national game, today no strength commands,
With her children falling for the excitement of filthy lucre.
She stands today an ugly mess,
Her green fields shaved,
Her mountains denuded,
Her water polluted,
Her air choking,
Her soil full of lifeless muck,
Corruption, violence, untruth and terrorism,
Are enacting their gory drama.
But halt...She has now awakened
With a new consciousness
With fresh energy
With a gruesome fire
that will extinguish her diseases.
For somebody is here Knocking at her heart
She is now standing to survey the scenes
Everything that happened
During her 50-year long sleep
She is getting her weapons ready
To fight the enemy now, seeping through her veins.
Weapons - neither swords nor shiny armour,
But love, compassion and hard work.
The next era of toil begins.
Breathing in fresh energy
Breathing out moral force.
India is up on her feet,
An emerging global superpower.
- Akhilananda Bharati. (This was my name a couple of years ago, until my Guru, Swami Akshara gave me this name Swahilya.)

Kichenette Soul

My friend Parvathy Vaidyanathan has authored this book with an attractive white cover of kitchen cutlery set against a pure white background. An article that appeared in The Hindu has also been posted at a site called nonduality.com
Stoveside' meditations
BEING A housewife, closeted within the four walls of the kitchen amid pots, pans and ladles, dishing out culinary delicacies for family, friends and relatives need not always be drudgery. It can end up in something as creative as getting together a 162-page anthology of poems, as Parvathi Vaidyanathan's `Kichenette Soul' will show.
The `By-the-stove-pondering by a homebound woman on Life, Meditation and Spirituality' has been published by Grow books. Ms. Vaidyanathan attributes the inspiration for her book to her Guru, Swami Akshara, who encouraged her to drop "scribbling on bits of paper and get them on to e-mails which took shape as a book." she says.
She says that waking up at around 4 a.m. to transcribe her Guru's tapes on to computer files were her most meditative moments. "Before 7 a.m. each day when my family wakes up, although I was with my pots and pans, all the creativity happened."The collection of over 110 poems on topics ranging from the market place to mindscape has been published in a paperback edition.
Santosh, a II Year BBA student, has done the page setting and cover design.
Priced at Rs. 55, it will soon be available in leading bookstores. Phone: 2847 3836/9840 438438.
The author is reachable on phone and through e-mail vijivaidy@vsnl.net.

Pope John Paul II

Just thought I would type a Blog on what's on my mind right now. It's 2.30 a.m. I am on night duty in my office as a reporter in the leading newspaper - The Hindu. Though the Italian media has said the Pope is Dead, the reports are unconfirmed.
I really like the big picture of the Pope that I see in front of me now - hands in prayer and eyes looking up lost in contemplation. I wait with the rest of the world - in Silent Prayer.

Aham Alone

A H A M

Thought aloud about my wish to express myself and there was my colleauge Ramya, ready on the keyboard to get my blog going. And here am I with my first post. Aham as the title of this blog goes means ' I ' in Sanskrit. And Swahilya is that ' I ' which does not mean just this name and this person, but everything that is in this wide, wide vastness called the Universe.This is just a starter and I have more to share with my poems, a book on my trek to Gomukh, the source of the Ganges, my unceasing contemplation on any object, situation or person who come before me.My special thanks to Ramya, whose persuasion has made this technology shy Swahilya to go blogging.

Namaste.