Well said sunder, though I think the best stage may be in which the witness will again merge into the action and even the acted upon.

Harb

Hi sundar,

i agree with you but would go a little further and say for tue awakening or awareness, the mind needs to be killed.

tx harb, aachi for your feedbacks...aachi, i see it slightly differntly..i see the mind as an essential and critical faculty in functional realms...in states lacking awareness, we are used by the conditionalities of the mind and driven by it...in states of awareness we are able to be masters of the mind...elsewhere, jasjit has posted on "pain" as an energizing medium for great works to emerge through us...to me, this is an apt eg for what i am trying to convey...the pain can use us and paralyze us when we are unaware; but when we are in states of awareness, we can use the energies creatively...the energies are fundamentally the same...in a way, if we closely observe, the edifice of a lot of human achievements have their seeds in trauma...but yes, as the pain ebbs,as healing happens inside, sometimes we see ourselves bereft of energies which motivated our earlier expressions...or the pain sublimes into love...in acceptance...

adding to my comment....to me,an aspect of liberation that masters have talked about is liberation of the senses from the mind; when one is aable to "experience" without mind filters...and where the intrinsic nature of all "experience" is bliss as different from pleasure concepts, which are dependant more on content of experience rather than "consciousness platform" of expereincing.....which originate from likes and dislikes of mind conditionalities...

Hi Sundar

Nice Zen post! However I do believe the central point is killing or dropping the mind. The mind which finds new ways to hold on to illusion and becomes all the more adept when it sells the language of awareness. A famed Zen Master Sosan once said "What is worse than the mind is the discriminating mind", referring to the residue of illusory game playing it manages with its new toys of 'liberation songs'.

Here's a telling story. Buddha was being visited by a powerful and rich ruler who spent many days wondering on what to gift the Master. Keen that is gift stand out he chose the rarest of rare pearls in his kingdom. Then on after thought he decided that the mendicant might reject gems and asked for the most exquisite lotus in his land. Armed with his concept of 'rare' gifts he decided to appear before Buddha, sure that his gifts would lend him great welcome. As he bowed and offered the pearl Buddha said "Drop it!" startled the poor man withdrew his pearl thinking he had offended the Matser with the gem. He then bowed and offered the lotus, Buddha again said "Drop it!" Confused and a little annoyed he felt belittled by the rejection of his gifts. However he stood his ground and looking at the Master with genuine confusion he waited for the next command,"Drop it" said the inimitable Buddha again and in that moment he realized it was the mind/ego which the Master was referring to. It is said that he immediately saw through to the Truth and was enlightened.

beautifully said, jasjit.Tx.If i have conveyed the impression that the killing of the mind is unessential i am sorry...it was not intended...if i may clarify my perception...as we walk on the path of awareness, we necessarily have to use the mind in functional spaces of our lives..writing a software programme would still require the mind...i see the mind as the medium through which we create in functional spaces...where awareness to me makes the difference is in the realm of the thought origination and in aspects concerning our inner realms of beingthe mind is a beautiful tool in addressing issues of the functional world but is not the faculty through which inner world redressals can be addressed..teh faculty there is awareness...

and also for me it is imporatnt to see whether the manifests in our outer world originate in conditioned mind spaces or does it originate in a tuning with natural intelligence...as a faculty i see nothing wrong with the mind...as it is...it is a beautiful aspect of creation...going back to your earlier analogy of "kill your parents", i feel killing the mind entails killing the conditioned positionalities arising from an association of the self...and that happens in the flames of awareness...
and with due respect to master sozen,we do need to use our powers of discrimination in functional spaces...enlightenment has been forever associated with dysfunctionality barring a few exceptions...
possibly i maybe wrong, but when we are trying to impart a functionality to these aspects of intelligence,be it healing or repositioning perceptions in individuation spaces,such as the work of ifsha, i feel we need to use the mind effectively...
while saying the above,i see freedom not as a moving across concepts but rather as a moving beyond concepts...and seeing everything as a concept...

tx for your feedback...

Sundar

Do you think Buddha or the Zen Masters did not need or use 'powers of discrimination in functional spaces'? There is no duality left you see. all flows from one state of consciousness referred to as the 'autonomous mind". But to get there all traces of this mind have to be 'killed'. From my personal experience there is no other way, for in it reside a thousand dualistic games/manipulations.

Just to share a personal experience with you. In my early days of practice, this 'drop the mind thing' really had me. I loved my mind (or so I thought) only because I had not seen through its self-serving games. Like you I argued at length(largely with myself) about how the mind served spaces, functions, articulation etc etc. A long, long timer later the realm came when I saw through every antic of the mind effortlessly-it is only then in absolute disgust and complete single-pointedness I surrendered to the work on 'dropping the mind'. All I can say is the liberation, transformation is mind-numbing (pun intended LOL)Only now do I know the distinction between the mind and the autonomous mind. Still miles to go but at least now I know the road without ambiguity.

And do I feel I lack discrimination/cognizance to negotiate etc? Hardly dear friend, yes I sometimes am looked upon by others as naieve, I have lost all apparent surges for 'outcomes' but only because I trust the flow that is life, and right now am in wonderment at how all ebbs and flows without my interruption and cleverness. I still get startled at my own ability to accept many, many things for what they are, act in accord with the time and situation and am hugely warmed by the desire to go even further on this road where I am becoming a mere speck in my scheme of things. And Sundar just the contrast between that fearful/struggling self and this innocuous, receptive self is keeping me in near full-time wonder. Don't know what the next stage will bring but I love the fact that I can finally, truthfully say -It matters not!

Hmm sorry got a bit long!

tx for that share jasjit...

"A quiet mind is all you need..."

Wonderful words Sundar.

Jasjit thats so true... when we stop thinking of outcomes life becomes so much simpler. Otherwise half the time we are taxing our mind with all sorts of ifs and buts.

I remember reading a line in a newspaper which changed my life. It read 'Stop running after life, Let life come to you.'

Oh, jasjit,

a loooong hug to you...i cannot add a word i cannot substract a word.

jasjit,

i think it is only here that i am rather enjoying the longer posts...

Harb Ji

Jo mangey thakur(read thakur as aware intention/desire) apney tey, eehan uhaan sach hove. We have all (Aachi, you, me Sundar and others) have desired this kind of space to talk and listen with attentiveness to fellow travellers. And imagine the backdrop of this space is a blog on sexuality and self-i.e the kernel of intimacy in the manifest world????

The play is just pure marvel. A large warm hug to you too.

sunder, jasjit, all!

perhaps my following experience - to which i call my first experience of oneness - and the comments to follow will make the understanding of the stage of what jasjit is talking about a bit more easy, or at least focussed. first the experience (excuse if some of you have already read about it somewhere):

*******

By the age of 25 I had completed my degree in civil engineering, joined govt. service, got married and fathered two sons. For the next about three years, while my friends and colleagues were busy building up their careers I found myself lost in what one may say are the eternal questions of mankind: Who am I? Where have I come from? Where am I supposed to go after my so-called death? Has my being, my "I" some permanent point of reference or is it merely a chance bubble floating meaninglessly in the wilderness of space? What is space? Where this world ends? What is beyond that? What is God? What is good and bad? What is the best way to live this unimaginably short life? Could it be that all this (alluding mentally to the world around) never have been? Were there then to be no.. nothing …forever….f o r e v e r….. N E V E R…?

Then one day while I was sitting all alone in my brother's rented flat in a big city, suspended from my govt. service, separated from my wife and two children, diseased of unattended body and dejected of unanchored mind, something entirely unexpected happened. Something like lightening but unaccompanied by usual light and thunder seemed to flux out of my head upwards, encompassing simultaneously somehow the whole of the universe into its fold…

Actually it is not easy to describe such an experience… For, initially, it so overwhelms your being that you lose all your sense of separateness, of individuality. And at long last when you regain some semblance of your sense of separateness, of individuality even then something like what the scientists call Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle - simply put which states that at deeper levels you can know one aspect of reality only at the cost of the other - inhibits its truest recollection much more description: in clothing it with words you tend to lose its essential stuff, its essential beauty, in trying to capture its essential stuff, its essential beauty you increasingly get lost to the world of words…

It was not something which had happened to me as say, an ordinary incident or even accident would happen to me: a happening, happening to me as something separate from "me," so that I could simultaneously act as an observer and a participator, so that I could 'note it down' as it happened. It had somehow involved me totally: it had somehow involved even that part of me which was supposed to 'note it down,' was supposed to act as the base on which the mechanism of my memory was to function.

Anyway, what a way of finding the answers! Off go rather the questions themselves. Off goes rather the wall itself which had actually been the cause of all those questions. The questioner, the questioning and the things questioned had somehow got dissolved into one, single whole, into one single, woolly unity!

Consequently, I got myself reinstated into my service, brought my family to live with me at my new place of posting and, in general, let my life adrift.

And again what a life it was! Eight years of almost total abandon! Everything seeming to happen as if on its own. While I seemed to be standing still, a mere spectator to events! My family, social and service lives sub-serving one way or the other the unstoppable flow of only this almost wordless life! Perhaps it was what Nietzsche meant from his life beyond good and evil…

*******
now all we have to do is to again reach this stage which we first experienced in a flash, now rather consciously, step by step...ultimately perhaps letting go even the conscious part, no doubt a long drawn affair. then you are in that stage in your normal, natural living...that stage has become your nature. kill anybody without discrimination? dunno, depends upon the cicumstances...it will be your sahaj subhai state of living to say it in punjabi. only you know what you will do now none else because your actions now cannot be analysed.

now you try to understand in the light of the above lao tze's action of 'eloping' with a 'dancing girl' never to be found again...

really jasjit,

those who were destined to meet have met. jivein dudh vichon makhan nikal aya hove lol.

i would not go beyond a few lines of a post if the post was that long at other blogs...

Harb Ji

I am overwhelmed by the story and feel silenced by myriad emotions. Will write later, at length. Just want to add your words have been articulate and amazingly expressive on such an inexpressible state.

With love and gratitude

welcome jasjit, but drop that 'ji' lol. you have already used it in another post. it reduces me from being One - good bad, chor saadh...wise foolish...luckily as yet i am not famous. at least till then...

i want to remain free for doing whatever and that may not be always qualifiable with a 'ji.' none can understand it better than you.

i have fought for freedom in my whole life. nothing is more dear to me. it is the master key even of my book. you will understand when you will read even the preface.

i have always known that at some stage of my life people will begin to compartmentalize me for want of real understanding which is in fact why i have never allowed myself to be such a onesided person anywhere...which is why i would write at many places in such a way that people will not be able to know what to make of me...so much so that some people at some other blog thought i was after some 'loose' women but that was as good for me..even could be true though their understanding of loose women and mine would be on opposite extremes you know. my loose women may turn out to be equal to their God.

of course some also went to the other extreme and began addressing me with ji but they were soon shown my REALity lol.

i know you will understand and not take it as presumptuousness on my part. you just can't.

Thank you for that truly enlightening story Harb. You have said something very important, very quietly. About how, no matter how powerful the energy experience, it still must be integrated at the level of consciousness. Whereas in that moment of awakening there is an experience of one-ness or nothingness, out side of that one must consciously work to make that state a constant experience. Which has to then mean that there is nothing really known as enlightenment. There are just different levels of awakening. Perhaps you can choose to stop at any level you desire or you can go on refining your consciousness entering subtler and subtler realms. I would love to hear more from you on this.
love
Anusheh

thats a very expressive share , harb.thank You...ur expereince says it all, maybe someday it might be my privilege to meet you...

lol, sunder, meeting me is not such a great thing. we can meet at any time. where do you live?

thank you anusheh, shall write more later.

O.k The Ji is this thing with me like say touching feet is. I have resisted,criticized fake values of reverance rituals like the above. And then I have found situations and people where something so pure touches you in one unguarded moment and touching the feet is akin to creating a beautiful verse. Same thing with Ji, something deep inside just moves me and the Ji spills out. Will not use it always, maybe never again Harb and then again who knows when that moment will strike me again.

So I am afraid you will just have to put up with me everytime that happens. LOL

lol, jasjit, as if i dont understand. even otherwise it is like - first gurbani was being forced upon you and you revolted, then you discovered the gurbani inside you and began to again even quote it...but now it is not the same gurbani as before. same is with ji, i know it is not the same now...it is even much more...yet i had my own reasons to ask you to drop it....

lol, now face to face. like buddha and the king...both naked...or totally covered...

Salute you all!

Please accept an apprentice into the fold.

this interactive space, the emotions, the intimacy, the subtle nuances, the awareness essentials - I feel I am finally off on that amazing adventure of consciousness in each moment, awareness of every breath, witness to each moment of wonder, of being and not being... wish I had the power of your words and articulation...

brings back a few lines that have stayed with me from my childhood, my first book of poetry that my dad gifted me on my 9th birthday, the dragon book of verse - goldsmith, the village schoolmaster - "and still they wondered and still their wonder grew, that so small a head could carry all it knew..."

Today at 37, having lived through years of sexual abuse, violence, torture, guilt, loss and grief, pain and trauma, and having survived it all (with pride - on my own terms) I can identify with all that is said here since I started the journey towards discovering what made me who I am and what was the definition or the limitations of human endurance..today I can practice being witness to my own self; today I find oneness and nothingness, could be a song, could be a sunset, could be looking up at the nigh sky waiting for Orion, could be an experience like harb described... some day when I have better articulation abilities I will be able to share the story of my journey..

Until then, here are my limited words...

Your words rekindle
lost sparks into tiny embers,
my spirit trembles,
recognizing how potent these moments could be
in the warm embrace of surprised sharing..
Wonder tinges my heart again,
Your words heal, drawing me
out of exile, from oblivion,
ancient starlight creates primal magic
makes me take shaky, baby steps
of knowing and affirming
the natural identity of my womanhood...

love, blessings and gratitude

Sukanya,

at your age i was far less articulate than you. so you can rest assured that you will far surpass me. even now you have conveyed what you wanted to convey. y'know even the understanding of an experience like i have written above is close to experience. there is a line in gurbani (lol jasjit i have begun to quote gurbani here for the first time anywhere)"braham gyani ki gat braham gyani jane," which exactly means the same thing i have said above: that he/she who has understood my experience has already had one.

bravo! harb

thats a very beautiful post, sukanya...integrity never fails to connect...
and harb, thanks for that line from the gurbani...very insightful...

harb, i live in Mumbai..to me , space shares are a privilege wherever they occur...we are mirrors to each other, learnings have a sense of universality to them while they need not be universal in their manifests.Thanks.

Dear Sukanya

All is laid out in exact manifestation of our intention/desire. The events that have led you here and given you what you so beautifully articulate were your deepest desire only because as you mention the darkness of the sufering was so intense. And there is the mystery of dark and light, pain and elation in a nut shell. In the absence of the darkest moments of our life there would be no intensity to step into ( dream of) the surreal silence of a dawn. And the one creates the desire for the other. And the greater the intensity of the one (darkness) the greater the intensity for truth and beauty.

And there you have the mystery of exsitence in a nut shell. We manifest all that comes to us and all power of what comes to us lies with us. So we bow first to the darkness for its real role is to create the desire for light. In the absence of its(and our own thereof) depths there would be no search for our own heights.

So dear Sukanya the beauty you share and bring to this blog has been finely chiselled and cured in the cauldron of the past you mention and now comes the time to soar in your skies.

Happy flying.
Love

Good Morning Harb

To clarify, Gurbaani or any religious/spiritual belief was never forced down my throat. Among the zillion blessings that have been life, I grew up in the expanse of the wise, warm and receptive arbour (also my first Guru)of my bestest friend , my father. Gurbaani was his first love and yet he was well versed in all texts and exposed me to everything. In effect warning me against trying to understand any wisdom in a narrow cult/religion/sect sense. He loved Kirtan and so did I, and what was his greatest gift was that he explained/translated so much of Gurbaani for me that even as a young child I understood much more Gurbaani than behoved my years. That love for kirtan(gurbaani) courses through my veins even now though there is so much I have understood since and then gone beyond as well. I lost him 15 years ago, in physical form. Perhaps now when I hear these lyrical wisdom songs of the Gurus I feel he and I sing together.

good morning jasjit, sunder,

sunder,

we shall meet some day. consider me as you yourself. reading your words has always given me the impression that you are around and about. i am sure the little bit difference we seem to have is because of age difference. what is your age btw?

jasjit, i see. what was the name of your father? can you tell me more about you either here or in email?

tx Harb...

harb, i am 40. how old r u?

sunder,

I am 56. lol, a few years back when i thought i was some yet undiscovered godman i used to think of giving discourses at bomaby ha ha. but then better sense prevailed and i remained free and eventually wrote my book...otherwise i thought at that time that i was going to become an other osho. i have aways felt that something from my subconsciousness prevents me from getting famous, as if i know from past births that it is a very constricting something to be greatly shunned, perhaps that prevented me from taking the plunge..it is also possible that nature wanted that book to come through me, for that i see far more important for the times than just spirituality thing.

or, as i often say extending ramana maharshi's lines a bit "where science ends philosophy begins where philosophy ends spirituality begins where spirituality ends the WAY begins which includes all yet transcends all, knowing which one knows all..." perhap i knew i have to reach the WAY and for that i have to remain free...

i am sure we will meet and will have lot to talk about and i am also sure that you are going straight towards your destined goal of perhaps even the WAY.

this age 40 is very very important. in fact there are three very important stages in one's life for pradigmic shifting happenings. one is around 27-29 in which i myself had my above experience of oneness in a flash - the other is around 38-40 in which i reached that oneness once again deep inside me in a long step by step conscious inrospective journey, at the end of which i had the insight for my book. in fact i came back from those ultimate depths with and thanks too that insight in hand...for otherwise my main question then to me was 'what for have i come into this world?'

anyway, and the last is around 55, when slowly cut off from all your relatives, friends and all, all those who restrict you in any way you are left totlly free, totally on your own, to be what you really are, to be what is your very natue, so as to be able to 'flow'..there is nothing more to drop off from you. you just live in your sahaj subhai, natural state. all these periods are very very important and equally difficult. i am at the last stages of the last phase. now i dream of living, travelling with understanding yet unrelated, unrestricting people...

i would like to know more about you...will you write to me on my email...harb_singh@yahoo.com ?

tx for ur share harb...i have a blosgite, seedsofenlightenment.blogspot.com....if you feel inclined to know about me, it should give you a fair picture between the profile and the postings...should you want to anything more, please feel free to ask..

My Tribute to Masters

Anusheh, Jasjit, Harb, Sundar, all:

Infinite gratitude for bringing back Gurbani and kirtan, Rumi and Ghalib, Lao Tze et al into my present consciousness. Despite the risk of being repetitive, I must say, thank you - always felt it was a rather inadequate term to express all that I wanted to say. wish there were more expressions more terms and different ways of thanksgiving!
Please bear with me if possible, my posts are longish and these are my first attempts at posting on blogs.. am not very adept at netiquette!

Forms of thanksgiving, that i believe in: sharing and learning, in giving back, in the exchange of experience, and connecting to Masters, seekers, practitioners and layperson (like me)... there is a resonance, a bond, a rhythm, a connect, our yearning goes out like ripples into the cosmos and it manifests.
Why else would I chance upon Anusheh, one autumn dusk, at Dilli haat, only a couple of months ago because I wanted special boxes for my tarot cards, I ching and celtic oracle?

Dusk, Godhuli - all my life it has been that magical hour especially when autumn comes, when winter moves into spring.. I am fascinated by the play of light and colour in the sky, the gathering solemn darkness and sudden appearance thereafter of a solitary star, sometimes it is the perfect crescent moon... Back home we wish on sighting the evening star Venus post dusk and the dwitiya crescent moon. In fact, I practice sublimating myself in nature, brings back answers and indicators.. You see, I am a water sign. Waiting for Navaratra (my isht devi is Durga) there have been times I know she is there, its in the air, in the flowers, in the way the breeze caresses my skin..one such magical dusk I happened to stumble upon spirit peak and anusheh... here iam!

Jasjit, again your words resonate - amongst the zillion blesssings in my life, the greatest have been my teachers and masters and above them all my hero, my first teacher, my bestest friend, my Master is my father. From age 4 to 17, when I left home and hearth, he would take me out to spend quiet silent afternoons at Rajgir, Nalanda and Kumrahaar (remains of ancient Patliputra), to the Harmandir Sahib, Patna to listen to kirtan and sit down at the langar, listen to Sufiyana Kalam at Sikri, from rubaiyat at Konark, and bhajans in Jagannath Puri, to the old testament and exploring St Philomena's in Mysore, or Bom Jesus in Goa, or hear him speak on the bengal renaissance beside Michael Madhudan Dutt's grave, castaneda, steinbeck, marquez, shakespeare and byron, plath, sartre, tagore, amrita pritam, bachchan, bhisham sahni, saddat hassan manto to Taxila, mulk raj anand, the rig veda to the mandukya upanishad ... a long long list of instances places and people he exposed me to so that my spirit found its rhythm and resonance with the Universe..a la Shelley and Keats, he insisted I was a "blithe spirit" - not a girl, not a body, not bound by chains of social norms and dictates of morality..because of him I was a spirit, but only till i was 17..

Then I discovered I was a body, a woman. When I fell in love, (incurable romantic, still am) left behind my world, fought tooth and nail to be with and beside the one I thought was my destiny. Harb, you are so right about the ages and the paradigm shifts! 10 years of pain, abuse and social ostracism followed..I found myself completely alone, bereft of advice or support of any kind, but then the idea of individuation stayed, the seed of the spirit slept in its coccoon. Until the love of my life left me for someone else, until I lost two babies (one miscarriage an outcome of violence, and the second an abortion 2 years ago )- at 29 the first awakening of self happened.. almost a decade later, today I understand, now my "self" finds expression again..

Three years ago I started the process of weeding out unnecessary people and emotions from my solitary survival, cutting myself off from everything familiar and dependable, that is the time my step by step journey in introspection and subtler realms of self, of dreams of intuition began... i have no master, no teacher - except books and music, nature, food and travel and my witness self..

Turning points came - first with the supercyclone in 1999 that devastated my state left thousands in grief and destitution. My work took me to orphans, destitutes, widows, and as I faced, coped with the pain and suffering of fellow beings, my own began to disappear. In 2003 my mom was diagnosed with a very rare cancer and it so happened I had to nurse her alone for 2 years.. She lay dying, in coma and complete delirium in an ICU in strange Vellore and I sat outside the cancer ward ICU numb with the pain of all that was around me.. again it was dusk, and I must have dozed off - I dreamt of a lady in maroon telling me to chant the Mahamrityunjaya and invoke lord shiva, that if I did Ma would come back to us and if she did I had to visit a Shiva temple for 9 Mondays in the month of kartick as thanksgiving.. for 9 days I chanted the mahamrityunjaya by her deathbed, on the 9th day still in coma and delirium, strapped by leather belts, her hands rose in salutation.. I knew she was coming back!

When we got home to Bhubaneshwar, I started the 9 mondays visit to Lingaraja but every 4th or 5th visit was interrupted by my menstrual cycle. This went on for 3 months; one night I broke down in exhaustion and frustration and said to the powers that be - how could I a woman complete 9 Monday visits without a break; my cycle owuld come in betweeen anyway... would you believe it my periods stopped from that month until I completed the pledge!

Since then, it has been a voyage...like Capt kirk aboard the USS starship enterprise in Star Trek, to go where no man has gone before!

Harb and sundar, would love to meet you, and sit and listen and absorb..

Jasjit, thanks to you and anusheh, my wings begin to take flight again..

When I left school in 1983, my english teacher had written from Shakespeare in my yearbook, which I found weird then but in retrospect love her for it - " we are not alone unhappy, this wide and universal theatre presents more woeful pageants than the scene wherien we play"...

i studied psychology and i work in development - our work manifests the divine's will. people call me naive, an emotional fool but today, I still love the eager child inside me, the earnest teenager, the enchanted lover and the willing friend inside me. I used to hurt so much when I was called a 'misfit', papa made it all right saying i was ' ms.fit"'... was destined to find you, was destined to share this, wouldn't trade it for anything else..

love

sukanya, you are a phenomenon.

within the next few years you will be an other woman...a great somebody...

you are now in a special phase....in this you will first have to become completely alone/emppty to fill up again. i think what you are describing above is a part of that journey...you will now consciously arrive at the experience which you had at the age of about 29. whatever suffering you went through were necessary for undertaking this journey.

some time i will explain the like experience to you to which i call my second experience of oneness.

I myself felt like seeing you pic...though i feel a bit intimidted by your readings..i know only a few names...from among them.

where do you live?

you have a poetic prose!

harb

sukanya,
it is as much a privilege and part of my learning experiences that we have connected..harb used a beautiful word, phenomenon...i guess we all are "manifests" in the realm of happenings..a process within processes..sometimes running inside trains even as the train is running!!!..in the hope we reach destinations faster...
loved that comment of ur papa..ms. fit....we belong in space and time....critical links in the fabric of life...absolutely no q of misfitting...sometimes we meet dexterous tailors on the way...
if our flows are meant to intertwine on our ways to the ocean, we will meet..even if for a pause..

the mystique of life...giving birth to the mystics in us...

Dear Dear Sukanya

My first response to your post was just a long smile and I remembered the first conversation we had in the office. Indeed all is pre-arranged for a purpose, all we have to do is become attentive to every moment and see how it is offering us our 'aha' moment.
I will echo what Harb said "you are a phenomenon" and great discoveries of your awesome soul await, closer than you think.

Its been a privelege to meet you.

love

'Indeed all is pre-arranged for a purpose.' That is so true Jasjit. Whenever any relationship has not worked out for me, or I have not been able to achieve what I had set out to I tell myself that it must have not happened because there is something BETTER waiting for me in the future.

This has always helped me move ahead and reach that 'better' thing.

Sukanya, we never realize how the various experiences- good and bad- that we go through actually help us to become stronger. Its only in retrospect that we realize the new qualities that we have gained as individuals.

Unfavourable experiences are at times like a boon. They give you a jolt and wake you up to make you look within yourself and introspect. your Self.

well said, chaitali,

dukh daaru, sukh rog bhaya...

yes always thinkig that all this is for my betterment...because it ACTUALLY IS. it is our own play..for ourselves..how it can be otherwise...

Anusheh,

thank you for taking interest in what i had to say...

[Which has to then mean that there is nothing really known as enlightenment.]

anusheh, what is really known as enlightenment is what is really known as love-at-first-sight. the only difference is that in the latter you have an experience of oneness with a particular person while in the former you have the same experience with the whole of nature. and just because you are having this latter experience at the far deeper level of your being now.

[There are just different levels of awakening.]

of course all do not have that experience of love-at-first-sight just as all do not have the experience of oneness with whole nature, so the different levels of awakening may only refer to
our going towards them step by step till we are able to have such experiences on both the counts...but there is no more awakening in both the case after the experiences which i have described above.

after we have had such experiences our going there consciously now cannot be called different levels of awakening...it is just to realize that same awakening now in a conscious step by step process...in which we do not really awaken to any new states but just remove the debris of the world of relativity yet covering our that state in the far corners of our minds. something quite different from a child's awakening to new and new states. this is like our reaching the stage of platonic love in the case of love and state of what i may call total masterhood in the case of mystics.

the third state towards 'normality-wards' as sometimes i call it is again absolutely not awakening to any new state but just coming now to your sahaj state...all this may be difficult to understand because normally all these three stages of experiences take many individual lives...specially the last one is...

and then there is some difference between females and males which i may write about some other time...

Thank you for that Harb. "and then there is some difference between females and males which i may write about some other time"...I would like to also hear about this as I too am convinced there is a difference. Your experience of it would be of great value.

love
Anusheh

Sukanya

you have brought blessings into our lives as well. It's never a one way street:-)

love
Anusheh

Harb,

am truly touched by your kind words, makes me a little shy and sheepish too!!

I live in Delhi, moved here from Bhubaneshwar (where I belong and where my family is) 3 years ago. I wanted a fresh start, away from the baggage of the past, away from the dependencies on support systems, from complacencey, comfort and familiarity... to complete anonymity and emptying out.. it was a challenge I gave myself to begin that quest of "self". To begin the process of emptying out and being alone with myself. It has been a struggle but I am happy with myself, happy with the progress I am making..

I have no regrets whatsoever, with all that happened and absolutely no complaints, bitterness or resentment for that part of the journey of the last 20 years.. there was so much learning so many discoveries that have transformed me. I recognize and accept that the darkness and pain were all part of the journey, otherwise I wouldn't be here today. My spirit grows from that period, got strengthened, I found my spiritual connects and bonds...and I got fascinated, enchanted with the concepts you speak of - oneness, the state of sahaj subhai, becoming aware of and witness to the limitless beauty of the deep inside processes, being one with the Universe and finding the Way on my own...who I am and why am I here, and what do I give back and what do leave behind...

Hame sharminda na karein, please do not say you are intimidated. I know very little, and when I read through these posts and when I talk to people like you, Jasjit and Anusheh, my gut response is that there is so much more to learn, so much more to experience, so much more work to do on myself and for others who need me and so little time. I don't want to be a great somebody, please dont take my saying so amiss; I yearn to manifest my true self, just that, for whichever reason that I am here on earth, and for whatever that i was blessed with this life and the people in it.

I loved the posts on enlightenment and awakening. You put it so beautifully - the sense of "love at first sight" with the myriad manifests all around us. Am waiting to hear more on the "male-female difference" too and I also believe that there is a difference. Did you say you wanted to see my picture? am sorry I didn't understand that line

Jasjit, since the time I met you and from the time I browsed this blog and the posts here, it has been one 'aha' moment after another.

I am only an apprentice, on the quest, sometimes I like to think I am a warrior in the army of light...

love
sukanya

Wow...dukh daaru sukh rog bhaya... awesome

Harb, you deserve a big thank you hug for bringing us this line..

Anusheh, you are my fairy spirit with the magic wand et al; and I love you..

lol sukanya,

yes i wanted to see your picture...your photo..what is there to understand in it? of course you said you want to meet...i also want to meet, to meet all of you...but meeting may take time...so i thought of asking your picture...i have seen the pictures of all others...

lol, i love to see the picture of women after all i am a man!

you may send it to my email address if you cannot post it here....though i dont see any problem...or is there any problem about which i do not know...jasjit, you may know more...

harb

PS: your idea of getting lost is interesting...in fact i myself have been contemplating it for the last about a year...only i could not decide where to go..sometimes i even thought of going to osho ashram pune...i even thought of asking jasjit how much i will have to pay if i decide to live there of course if they allow me...just what came in my mind not that i have decided on anything...

Harb
Where is there to go really now? And I would say least of all to an ashram or commune. However I do know people who run resonable places to stay around the OSho Commune if you wish to go there. I have never lived there so canot say what it will be like. perhaps you can check out their website first and get an idea. It is a very beautiful place no doubt with exceptional food.

I'm afraid posting pictures in the comment boxes is not technically possible.

jasjit,

really on one level it is even 'what to write now' not to talk of 'where to go'...yet there are wheels within wheels and so we will have to slide down them by and by...

i didn't really want to live in the ashram but yes at a time i thought so...but then thought they will not know me so they will think i too was after just sex like so many other people and so may not allow,....anyway what i really wanted was that i will get food and shelter without much ado and a bit of like-minded company which will be there for the asking and not there for the asking...that is all...actually i do want to live somewhere where i will be able to get food and otherwie remain lost...though again it may remain a dream...i dont know for tomorrow...my book is releasing in march 2006 and it may make me famous and then there may begin quite an other life...ok as it comes...

all said, i will like to visit pune though so for that i will need the adsress of those people you are talking about...i will ask you when i will be ready...

Harb

let me give it some thought and maybe I can think of other places. will send you a mail if I come up with anything.

hey harb, if its a serious explore in your life, there are lot of facilities for the aging, including very private spaces...an ngo, Dignity Dialogue is looking for people to invest in a resort like bungalow facilities in a place close to BBY called Karjat, the place would have lots of shared facilities and is hardly an hour's drive from Bombay......also one has observed a lot of people, especially foreigners who come to igatpuri for vipassana as well as from the osho commune in pune, take up long leases on properties at places such as pahalgam...though not exactly a commune, a community space share is available...u can take ur pick, should you ever need it...do not know exact details, but surely some explores will lead u, should u feel a need for it...alse, as u mention we maybe watching you on tv picking up an award for a best seller....and you maybe busy signing autographs!!!!

lol sunder, you make me laugh...i do not want facilities for the aging but for the younging...lol.

of course your suggestions are otherwise interesting and i will explore them more with you by and by.

and as for my book i have never thought of it in terms of a best-seller...but in terms of breaking a new path...i cant see it selling much..as some professor put it..ordinary scholars will not be able to appreciate it...and there are not many extraordinary scholars..of course, beyond extraordinary scholars things may turn full circle and even ordinary persons may come to understand it..for all it at the end says is that we begin from dust and end into dust...

sorry sunder..i think i took the word as aged rather than aging...aging i am...no doubt...

aging we all are, no doubt, harb...likewise, the last words on your achievements vide the book release were intended in a lighter vein..i am sure the book will reach to those it is meant to reach...the words and wisdom shares therein would have their own intent of outreach drawn from so many factors and parameters...