The taste...

...of Chicago

It was probably the jet lag, for I woke up at 4 a.m. and it was still dark outside. The bare elms, stripped of all their belongings, except the branches, were standing alone against a purple dark sky and the conical spruce were almost getting spruced up to welcome Christmas just around the corner.
The spaced out houses along the avenue have begun to celebrate the cheer and joy of the festive season. In the warmth of the house, I saw a drizzle of snow, falling on leaves and grass as if they were flowers from heaven. Soon there was a carpet of white all over as the night sky turned into the brightness of dawn. It was the same Sun, brightening up another side of the Earth, where it is a vision of solitude, quietness, meditation and silence.
Finishing my Pranayama and Surya Namaskar, I drew the curtains within the warmth of an Indian home, which nestles within it the sounds, sights, flavours and aroma of India and looked out into a city of picture perfect beauty. A lone truck whizzed past, clearing the snow and spreading salt along the road.
Travelling to a hospital, the shopping mall, grocery and vegetable store, on the road, around houses, in a petrol bunk, at an ATM, there was something I saw - Everywhere.
My Indian spirituality taught me Space is Shiva. Silence is Shiva. And that element is very much here, out in this city of the United States - the same silence, the same space. A priceless commodity that has become rare in India. Utmost care has gone in to make life the best one can ask for in the outside. The scope for development is endless. Technology can be applied and everything becomes subtle and refined. The investment of awareness in improving quality of day-to-day life is splendid. It is exactly a divine world of matter where all the comforts one can dream of are available. But just a tap of the heart and one says, "I have been there done that. I've had enough. The illusion has worn out. With a good job, I'd love to get back to where I came."
Seeing the staff-less and automated stores and malls, I was reminded of the hustle and bustle of people crowding Chennai's Ranganathan and many other streets. A scene at the Mumbai Airport and the message it drove home gave me an insight into the importance of spiritual awareness, what it is and how it works. A woman with a child holding her arm tripped and fell from the escalator. Some rushed to the spot to help her get up. Everybody else gathered around and just watched what's happening. I've heard people saying that in India people crowd around and watch accidents. But that day my sensors of perception thought differently. All the eyes that watched the incident were energies directed on the victim. It was that focus which is just an act of nature that helped her to get up and come out of the fall.
The awareness in the civic body here is the same - more organised and applied well - watching out for abuse of children by parents or relatives, watching out for abuse of the wife by the husband, all rescue mechanisms available at an instant in the event of a fire or an accident. Just the same everywhere, but the source of it all is plain Awareness - the magic word that Buddha spoke of, that Ramana Maharishi said through his silence, that Swami Vivekananda thundered and that anyone who is aware is aware of.