The Divine

....in Chicago

It was another beautiful birthday with so many wishes from loved ones from India over phone, e-mail, chat and on my blog, a special milk payasam (pudding) prepared for me here, quiet meditation and just the bliss of being.
There was a big birthday gift that Chicago could offer and that was a visit to the Aurora Venkatachalapathi Temple through beautiful inter-states, where the bright sun had no power to melt the snow on the grass and trees on either sides, a view of the beautiful houses and silent roads despite the traffic congestion at some points.
Standing before the mighty idol of Lord Balaji, all alone, is indeed a very rare experience for someone from India. It just felt like being in front of the idol in Tirupati or before a similar idol at the now famous Santhana Sreenivasa Perumal Temple in Chennai's Mogappair - the deity who got this name because he is believed to bless couples with the wealth of children - Santhanam.
I have now words to describe the silence and meditation that happened at the temple in front of Lord Venkateswara, Padmavathi Devi, Andal, Ganesha, Muruga, Dakshinamurthy, Shiva and Parvathy and Hanuman. It was a feeling of meeting all your loved ones beneath the same roof. The temple is a happy marriage of Indian spirituality and American organisation and cleanliness. The feeling inside was just indescribable.
Nothing more to say beyond this....
*****

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.

Birthday...

...at home

Ever since I got a new apartment and named it after my Guru as Akshara Griha (Akshara's Home), I've been on the move. I used to love the vibrations of peace, calm and tranquility that surrounded the bright house which gave lots of room for a piece of the Universe inside it. My only job there was to do some cleaning and sitting quietly on a sofa in meditation. Everything else happened.
Now, going around the city of Chennai on my car, I discovered that it was Akshara Griha that was moving around. The atmosphere around me at office, relatives' homes where I have stayed, friends places or wherever I went had the same character to it - cleanliness, order, peace, tranquility, joy, fun, alertness and energy.
It continued in Mumbai where I stayed with a volunteer of the Akshara Foundation, Devika, in her 10th floor paradise at Kopar Khairane in new Mumbai. That felt like my home and not like someone else's.
I visited the homes of other volunteers to be pampered with hospitality and everywhere I was at home in the smiles and hugs. Sitting on a steamer going around the Arabian Sea near Gateway of India, I was at home in the placid waters and the chill winds beating against my face.
I continued to feel at home aboard Air India, listening to Hindustani Music and stories of Ganesha and Krishna being told by Karadi the Bear. Felt at home to see the smiling air hostesses, waiting to serve with a smile.
At the Frankfurt Airport, the woman staff who said, "All passengers to Chee-ca-goo come to the left," felt like a familiar voice. Practising exercises at the lounge to break the monotony of constricting seats on the flight felt no different.
Talking to a special child on board who told me to get some food for her as she was hungry and her guardians were sleeping, was a familiar scene of loving children whom I teach at the Aksharabhyas chanting classes in Chennai.
At the O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, when a staff helped me with the luggage and accompanied me to the lobby to help me find out who has come to pick me up, was very much like what happened in Chennai and Mumbai when people helped me get my luggage on the trolley.
Meeting my brother-in-law and driving home to Western Springs, to meet new-born Rishabh, his mother and grandmother was just like getting back home away from home.
At the end of this all, keeping in tune with loved ones through Yahoo Messenger, e-mail and on my blog - I find that Akshara Griha is everywhere. I am now reminded of James A. Michener's autobiographical non-fiction the title and last line of the book are the same: The World Is My Home.
*****

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.

A real life drama

....and divine help

I have always spoken about the power of Mantras. Well, today there was a drama in real life that unveiled to me the power chanting, in the most threatening crises. This morning began with meditation before the energised crystal at the Akshara Foundations in Chennai. I offered to drop two volunteers Santosh and Priya from Nungambakkam to Chennai Central to take their train at 7 a.m. to Mumbai.
The scheduled time for departure from the Centre was 5.30 a.m., but we managed to load the heavy luggage into my Maruti 800 which I have bought second hand and began driving barely three weeks ago.
Santosh started with "Jai Swamiji!" And we needed all the meditation possible for Chennai roads were flooded following the incessant rains last night. As I began driving out with my usual mantra, "Om Namo Bhagavate Sri Aksharaya Swahaha," the vehicle came to a grinding halt barely a few feet away. And again, pulled the choke, put it on first gear, as the engine revved back to life. Nungambakkam High Road was like a river in spate. Myself on the wheels, with two more people and 140 kgs of luggage, without a next word of speech we began chanting the Gayatri Mantra together and aloud in the car, behind the closed windows and the AC switched off as it would draw more energy if on.
It continued - stop and start, sometimes with the facility to go on the third and fourth gear also. At a spot on Poonamalee High Road, the traffic came to a halt as cars ahead were half submerged and floating. 10 minutes to go for the train and the traffic cop wasn't bothered and asked us to divert. Gayatri Mantra was going on as I turned into another water-logged road and splashed my way near Central Station exactly on time for the train. But information over mobile phone told us that the train was delayed. As we wheeled in to the bus bay, Santosh suggested that I enter Wall Tax Road near the Central Station and even as I was protesting that it's impossible, we moved left into that road. The vehicle stopped and water was streaming in through the windows. It was a flood inside when Santosh opened the door. He got behind and pushed and revved it up to the first gear and we neatly wheeled on to the cement floor in front of the station.
It was a victory of sorts as we hugged each other in joy at having made it. It is a different story that they returned four hours later as the trains were cancelled.
It was after that the drama began. I was alone - probably the only woman on the road, driving a car through the floods. Stopped and started and moving along, chanting and in meditation. At Millers Road, an ambulance and a bus that moved close by sent waves of water into the car that almost covered the seat. Can the engine take it. It stopped. Totally. I could have gone further only if I had oars. Within the four closed windows, I cried out aloud and prayed to my Guru Swami Akshara to come for help. His pictures are stuck in on the glass before the two front seats. It was a total cry, surrender and sharanagathi. I was helpless.
And from nowhere, the car moved in the water on the first gear. I was trying to shake the steering wheel left and right to break the flow of water and got close to a petrol bunk as the fuel touched end. But the bunk was flooded, closed and cordoned off. I tried moving further into a parking lot of a shopping complex.
A lorry and bus that whizzed past, destabilised my car with waves of water. Twice I tried going up on the first gear and twice my car drew back - two right wheels down and the left two wheels up on the slope. A total prayer the third time and my car was up on the parking lot. A man who was watching this drama said, "Madam, this is not an ordinary car." Another said, "This must have a foreign engine, not Indian!" But I know it was chanting that did it.
The rest of the day was completed with a bus ride back home, a bike ride across 100-feet road at Koyambedu which looked like a piece of the Bay of Bengal to hand over the key to my mechanic who later drove the car to his shed.
Then I went for quiet hours of meditation at the Akshara Foundations as the storm raged all around.
Mananath Thrayate Iti Mantraha: I realised the truth of these words. When my mind could have been bogged down by fear and depression, chanting of the mantras helped my mind stay tuned to the divine and allowed the grace to flow and take me through.

Dharma....

...and Adharma

Morality, as the dictionary describes is a discrimination between the good and the bad. In our ancient parlance it is the difference between dharma and adharma. But even from the point of view of the words both in English and Sanskrit - Adharma contains Dharma and Immoral contains Moral.
But it is a very very thin line to draw. Killing may be immoral for some, but it is a profession for another. Extra-marital relationships can be considered immoral in some countries, but there are many societies and civilisations where it is considered good cultural practice and service.
In my deep contemplation of the Ramayana or the Mahabharatha, I discovered that the confluence of the good and the bad is a necessary process for evolution.
There is no Ramayana without Ravana abducting Sita. Rama's fight with Ravana to establish Dharma is one such example of such a confluence - when two mighty energies meet, a positive and a negative force, there is a big spark created which ushers in a change in the environment.
Similarly, in the Mahabharatha, there is no scope for the expression of the Pandavas, representing the good forces, without Duryodana and his group representing the evil forces.
But just as the Sun supports all, good or bad, the wind blows for all good or bad, the rain visits evenly the high and the low terrains, space is present everywhere and does not denies itself for the bad - so there is a zone within that is the same in the good and the bad, the moral and the immoral - transcending all polarities. Done with the support of that presence within, in tune with it, in a state of Yoga, an act may be considered good or bad, moral or immoral by the society - but for the doer of such an act and thinker of such a thought or speaker of a certain word, it is the best that can happen at that particular moment of infinity.

Om Shantih...

....Shantih Shantihi

Robbie is back with his pleasant requests and I'm really happy about it. This time the topic is on Peace. Now at midnight, I'm going to churn the great ocean of Consciousness with the ladle of my mind and dive deep down to pick up some pearls that are contained in the three words Om Shanti Shanti Shantihi.

At the end of any excitement, at the end of any disturbance - all have to return to this state called peace. Peace after anger, peace after hatred, peace after war, peace after disturbance -peace is that space that happens between two events, a time to rest and gather oneself with sufficient quietitude, just like the neuter gear in the car to which we have to switch back to, between the four or five gears with fluctuating speeds.

Peace is the fundamental requirement for an individual or society to progress. Peace is the fundamental need for a mind to make its journey towards enlightenment. Peace is a necessity for meditation. It is not the ultimate goal and end result of meditation as people commonly thing. It is a by product, a side effect.

A person with peace of mind will be totally available to the work to be done at the moment. Otherwise he will be in pieces of mind with his thoughts shattered and scattered in the worries of the past and expectations and dreams of the future.

Total peace of mind happens to the one who lives in the present moment. Caught in a traffic jam. Be there totally instead of cribbing about the wastage of gas in an idling car. Sick and tired. Be there in that situation rather than worrying about the ones whom we think were the possible causes. Unable to sleep. Be there and watch the inability to sleep. In that silent watching of all situations, there is peace and when peace happens, progress happens as a result.

Moving to the next step is possible only if I am stably available in the previous step, quietly leave one foot to the next, holding the other in the previous step, grounding myself in the next and taking the other foot up. Peace is important for even an act as simple as walking. Just imagine walking with a mind lost in some disturbing event. Even a non-existent pit can make one fall! Peace is balance. Peace is living in Yoga, union with the cosmos.

Sounds have power to bring the mind to a state of peace when there is agitation. Mantras are the essence of powerful sounds. In the event of an agitation, disturbance or calamity when peace is the first casualty - chanting of the most powerful mantra Om Shantih Shanthih Shantihi will help immediate realignment and fine-tuning of the disturbing vibrations. If in doubt, try it out.

*****