Namaskar

Namaskar to All from Mumba Devi Ka Pradesh

My namaste to all blogger friends from the land of Lakshmi, Mumba Devi, India. I came here for a meditation programme. But with quite some rescheduling, I have all the time to just roam around this vast city and smell its air of freedom, watch its cheerful and fun-loving people.
I am all set to fly to the United States on Nov. 30 morning. I will reach the same day Nov. 30 at Chicago, but in the land I left, it would have become December 1. Will be celebrating Dec. 2, my birthday in a different country.
Though I'm having fun in Mumbai right now, there's lots of meditation happening too.
...contemplations will continue when I settle down in a couple of days.
Love to all from Swahilya....

Sangeetham...

...to Sannidhi

Music, oh what a lovely thing it does. It gathers and integrates the being of the singer and the attentive listener. Gathers the body, gathers the wavering mind, together like a flickering flame and noiselessly, quietly, without stress and strain, takes that flame into the expanseless light, which is also dark. The sound of music leads to the silence divine where God resides.
During one of my assignments I happened to listen to a concert by T.V. Sankaranarayanan. It was a state of Samadhi to drop all my wants, desires, worries or thoughts and just become immobile behind closed eyes and just be.
As he was singing, I realised music takes both the singer and the listener to the highest state of being. They realise God. He was singing a kriti called Surya Murte and in that moment's absorbtion and cheer of listening to the music at night time, this verse followed:
Enlightenment

When there is
Darkness
On the Earth
The Sun shines
Brightly as ever
In the skies
So far awat
The brilliant stars
Burn themselves
Bright as ever
And Ever
In a Universe
Where there is no
Darkness.
*****
I was just listening to a Raga Alapana and I wrote this piece on what or rather who is a Raga.
Raga

In the fields of
Silence
Ragas are the roads
That go smooth
sometimes
Become flowing water
Fall like rapids and cataracts
Or crash like waves
On the shore
Like climbing a mountain
Sun beating down
And sweat on the brow
Trickling
Drop by drop[
Opening out gently
Like a flower
Raga is the goddess
Who takes the one
Who sings
And the one who listens
To that unseen
Called and wondered about
As God.
*****

Organized Mess....

... i.e. OM


Links and linking on my blog have always provided scope for a lot of contemplation. Especially when all the links got wiped out once by chance, I spent two hours, putting them back. But this time around, I spent quite some time on each link, as I put them on the screen. Some old ones may have gone and some new ones have been added. If anything has gone, it is only because of its relevance or otherwise to this site and if there are some you may find irrelevant that are still here, they may probably be due to some personal sentiments I may have to those sites!
I have to speak about this first link called Organized Mess, which I successfully managed to link it now. It was a treasure of a blog which I unearthed when I went into a friend's blog called Smitebite.
But I was not able to link it for a long time properly, but let it stay, all the time wondering why. Today, when I checked the url, I found it was fullempty.blogspot.com and not fullyempty as I had wrongly typed it. It took me nearly a month to find that out - such is the power of Maya which can hide my vision with even a small letter such as this!
I have now stopped wondering who this Organized Mess is, 'cos, the abbreviation of the blogsite reads OM.
I am travelling to Mumbai for a meditation camp and from there I am going to the United States for 45 days. My contemplations here will sure continue....

Travel...

....meditations

There are a lot of things happening as I am getting ready to be in the United States at the best of times - when the snow-covered and other parts of the continent jubilantly celebrate Christmas and New Year.
But as work home also remains multi-pronged and hectic, I chose to take some time off amid a gathering of what I thought was a boring group of speakers lined up by the dozen.
On my worksheet, I let my thoughts flow out as verses, rather than complain at my predicament and here they are:

Liberation

On my car
Were many leaves
From the neem tree above
There were thousands of them
That fell on the soil
Back in bondage with the Earth
But those few leaves
On the windshield, beneath the wiper
Flew away one by one
As the car went rolling.
Liberation for the moment.

Boredom Wisdom

When I sat listening to
A gang of boring speakers
I was first irritated
But then I looked through
And saw the light within
Immediately I was back to myself
Any boring situation is, I thought
Filled with the presence divine
That pushes me to myself
Experiencing Me the Most.


Bouquet

When I see a bunch of flowers
Arranged on a bouquet
That lights up the dais
My mind becomes them
Blooms and ferns
For the thing that thinks, "I"
Is nothing but my mind
And my mind does take the
Form of all that I see
So what I see is Me.
Tat Twam Asi.