Do thorns feel pain?

Frosty silver clouds

Dirt specks on the windowsill

The lone cactus weeps

My first attempt at Haiku

Me, Baba and Mahatma Gandhi

People leave us and we do not have control over when they have to go. We will all have to leave one day to. As the cliché goes, death is the only constant in life. I was having a discussion with my son yesterday about how in the future intelligence and maybe even consciousness could be built into robots and if that happens how life could become perpetual. He made an interesting observation; he said, “ Dad if there is no death wouldn’t life get boring? As there won’t be any excitement for doing anything? Right now we try to do as many things as possible in our lifetime, but if we are supposed to live forever then there wont be any urge to do things”. Indeed, death is not just a reality of our life but in a sense it also provides a meaning and maybe even purpose to our life. We must celebrate death and lifetimes of people have who departed. People don’t just depart; they stay back through memories and through their influence on us. And far as influence goes, my Baba is the most influential person in my life. So today on the anniversary of the day he departed I want to write about a small anecdote, which has left a big imprint on my being.

  I grew up in a community, which hated Gandhiji. Nathuram Ghodse who assassinated Gandhi also belonged to the same community. I feel that this hatred for Gandhi probably is a means to justify the heinous actions of someone who was their own or there are other deep reasons why it exits, which I am not aware of. But the fact is that when I was growing up everyone around me hated Gandhi. Young minds can be easily influenced and from a very early age I accepted this hatred as my own emotion, slowly as I grew up into adolescence my emotions converted into opinions. I started becoming proud of these opinions. I still remember vividly how during a trip to Raj ghat , while all my friends were paying homage to Gandhiji by his Samadhi, I was standing far away fuming at how badly the man had destroyed our nation. My opinions were slowly turning into beliefs I used to often discuss my clear hatred for the man in front of my father. Baba never reprimanded me for my strong opinions neither did he try to change them with reason, the only thing he would do, each time I criticized Gandhiji, was to ask a simple question: “Its fine if you hate Gandhi but do you know the man? Before having opinions about anyone should you not at least know the man? “ Most times I brushed aside his suggestion with a long list of reasons why opinions were correct.

By the summer of 1998, I had moved to the US already well in my 20’s, I was awed by the reverence the West had for the man. My father’s constant enquire of “knowing the man” started strongly lingering in my mind so I decided to read a book which was in my small library at that time. The book was called Life of Mahatma Gadhi written by Louis Fischer. I cannot recall how the book ended up with me but I will never forget the sense of shock I felt as the book grew on me. The book sent tremors in my strong beliefs. After that, I could not get enough of Gandhiji so I got my hand on My Experiments with Truth and that book fundamentally changed me as a person. Gandhijis life story today is a key part of my moral fabric. Over a period of time as I have explored Gandhijis life story more closely, some perceived flaws in him might have manifested in my opinions of him but regardless of that my reverence for him keeps growing every day. My views today are a complete contradiction of what they were prior to the summer of 1998. Regardless of whether they have made me a better or a worse human being one thing is for sure that my views about Gandhiji today are absolutely my own views and not borrowed misbeliefs from anybody.

The best gift that my father has given me is the freedom to choose. He never imposed his views on me, so much so that, I was completely free to choose opinions which may not have been grounded in reality. It was completely okay to flirt with god or accept atheism. There never was never any force to choose any particular career, only a suggestions that the consequences of my choices are also my own. My father nurtured my free will at the same time through constant enquires he kept my opinions honest. Without any preaching, he taught me to always challenge my opinions and make sure that my beliefs are my own and not imposed or borrowed from others. There is no doubt that my father has hugely influenced who I have become today, good or bad is for others to judge. Honestly it does not even matter much because, thanks to Baba, I will always remain open to change!

The Truth

A Flower is a Flower.

Regardless of whether it symbolizes love or tragedy

Love is Love

Regardless of whether it causes pain or ecstasy

Pain is Pain

Regardless of whether it is by intention or by accident

Intention is Intention

Regardless of whether it is for good or for evil

Good is Good

Regardless of whether it is by truth or illusion

The Truth is the Truth

And always worth fighting for says the warrior of light!

Belief II

I believe in:

Failure without fear

Victory without pride

Class without prejudice

Confidence without arrogance

Competition without opponent

Relationship without expectation

Journey without destination

Wealth without money

Religion without god

Society without division

Philosophy without justification

Communication without interpretation

Belief without hesitation

Spirit

I walk with ghosts of each past life

As we scale mountains beyond time

Oceans stars suns and skies

All fuse in one to become my eyes

We gaze together, the spirit and me

Watching the moment when all came to be

Straight from the Heart

On a New Years day it seems that time is progressing faster. The old year takes away all the sorrows of the past and the New Year brings in new hopes for happiness. Or is this is just another illusion our mind traps us in? As at best, time is continuous and in actuality it probably does not really exist except in our minds. Yet, just to honor eons of imprints left on my mind, I have decided to follow my mind. So I have decided to bring a change today only because today happens to be first day of another new year. I have resolved to write something straight from my heart.

I am sure that everyone has been taught, at some point of his or her life, that whatever you do you should do it with your heart. The problem is that no one teaches us how we are supposed to live with our heart. If we start to live with our heart the society as we see it today will stop existing and maybe that’s the reason why we were never taught how to live with our heart. Our mind is not us, it is an organ just like our heart, our hands or legs. It is a very powerful organ, so powerful that it misleads us to believe that we are our mind. We never think of our self, as being our hands or our lips or eyes. Yet seldom we are able to differentiate between our self and our mind. Our mind forces us to live the way it wants us to live.

Mind is not only a powerful analytical instrument but it can also transmit and influence other minds. In fact none of our thoughts are truly ours they have been implanted in our mind by other minds. What this creates is a network of thoughts the origin of this network dates back to Adam or whoever the first being was with mind. These thoughts are not pure they change with each transfer. This creates a very complex web of intertwined thoughts, which in the India philosophy is called the maya jaal. Strong minds are able to shift the fulcrum of the web of thoughts to create religions, ideologies and society, as we know it.

Very rarely, individuals are able to transcend the web of thoughts and think of thoughts that are so pure that they change the course of human evolution. These are individuals who are truly living with their heart. But this does come at a cost. Jesus was crucified, Darwin was (is being) out-cast even today. Buddha taught enlightenment through detachment from every thought, even the thought of god. His philosophy got so warped, by the existing dogmas, that Buddhism has become the fourth most populous religion of the world and Buddha has become god. Einstein must consider himself lucky that most people could not (and still do not) comprehend his genius. He got away by just being called a mad scientist.

We are all held captive by our mind. Our mind is not really ours but it is formed by borrowed thoughts and ideologies. The more we grow up, the more entrenched our mind gets in the web of thoughts. I am who I am today because of imprints of ideologies, social norms and expectations left on my mind from the day I was born. Anytime I tried to venture out of this web I was severely punished. Now I am so afraid that I have just decided to follow my mind.

Nothing I have written here is pure. These are all borrowed thoughts just like every thing else I do. I have failed again in writing from my heart. But that’s okay, breaking resolutions is socially acceptable.

And in about a year it will be New Years Day again!