The heart is the true kabba:)

Before we started our walk, we went to Brahma Vidhya mandir, Pavnar, to seek blessings from the elders, some of whom have walked thousands of kilometers as part of the land gift movement along with Vinoba Bhave. 

I remember having a conversation with Usha tai around ego and relationships. To expand on the idea she shared about one of the practices they follow in the ashram, Sarvanumati, i.e., consent of all. This meant that, from the smallest to the biggest decisions, all were made only after each and every one in the ashram had reached consensus. There are thirty of them living in the ashram for many years, practicing the same principle.



She explained further with an example, saying, "If I want to conduct a workshop at the ashram, the proposal will be put across to everyone in a meeting. If everyone agrees, I will go ahead. But if even one person is unwilling to attend that workshop, the event will remain on standby. Unlike the majority, where 51% wins against 49%, which happens in a democracy. 49% is equivalent to zero. But in the case of Sarvanumati, even if 99% of people agree on one thing, the 1% view is equally taken into consideration because "h one matters."

We asked her, "How do you feel when your project or something that you really want to do is put on standby or told no?"
She very gracefully answered, asking us, "What matters more to my project or my love for the other person who is saying no? Yes, to some extent my ego will feel bad becau "e "there is an "I" a "sociated w "th "my project" but if I can extend my boundaries of love for the ot" e" person doesn't really "oesn't matter."

Here is a small note by Vinoba ji that I found on ways and means to bring consensus and the difference between Sarvanumati and Sarva sammati.

On that note, SheelaTai, in a different conversation, said something equally powerful. She said, "No matter what, it doesn't mean someone's breaking someone's heart. It is a very sacred place, and it reminded me of a poem by Rum, i  inwhich says:

Circle the Kaaba of the heart
If you possess a heart.

The heart is the true Kaaba,
The other is just a stone.
God enjoined the ritual
Of circling the formal Kaaba
As a way for you to find a heart.
But if your feet walk
Around the Kaaba a thousand times,
And yet you injure a heart,
Do you expect to be accepted?

Just thinking how would the world be if we looked at each heart as Kaaba, as a place of pilgrimage:)

I am the Universe

In my dreamlike state, I had always imagined myself sleeping under a tree with the sky hanging above. On the fourteenth day of the moon cycle, my wish comes true.

I lie down on the ground under which lies a web of strong roots. Some ants are busy collecting their food.

I can see the moon peeping from the roots hanging down from the banyan branch, reminding me that ‘change’ is the only ‘constant’, yet looking at it brings some stillness to me.

I hear crickets rubbing their legs to create a symphony around me.

The leaves gently dance as the wind comes to greet me.

The cow is making her presence felt by ringing the bells tied around her neck.

Meanwhile, I hear the dogs barking far in the dark old corners of the fields. 

The night has engulfed the light, so I can’t see the river flowing beside me. But I still know she is there with me.

Likewise, there is so much that I cannot see,e but it’s all inside me; the leaf, the ant, the roots, the star, the earth, the moon, and the river. Every unit is part of me.

I am the universe. The universe is in me. The universe is me.   

Extending the gift of presence:)

There are a few events that you feel like rewinding, and this was one of them. As we were walking on the highway, we saw a dog stumbling in front of a car. The car driver did not stop. Meanwhile, a teenage boy ran towards the dog, held him in his arms as if he were a small baby, and ran towards his home. Midway, we saw him pausing and placing the dog on the road.

Swara asked me if I wanted to go to the kid, and I said yes. The kid kept holding back his tears while looking at his dead dog. Meanwhile, the boy's grandmother came running in our direction and started scolding him for carrying his dead dog home and for all the time and love that he had invested in the dog. More family members joined in the chaos. At the back of my mind, I had flashes of a few deaths that I witnessed, and how the social chaos did not let me get in touch with how I was feeling. It had taken a few years to reconnect with and listen to that voice again and to make peace with it.

In between, the grandmother looked at us and identified us as parikrama-vasi, so she invited us for tea at her place, but we declined for the time being and stayed with the boy and the dog. Swara intertwined the chaos and asked the boy if he wanted to pray for a few minutes for his dog. Tears kept flowing while we held hands and prayed in silence. I could feel the pain of death, my own attachments, pain for lack of space for expression, and for being vulnerable.

One of the family members gave him a washed shirt as there were bloodstains on his clothes. He silently changed it. His mother asked him to go after the buffalo that he had left on the farm so that they wouldn't eat away the harvest. With a heavy heart and a little hesitation to leave the dog, he started walking towards his buffalo. Before we left that spot, Swara asked him if he wanted to cremate his dog, but he denied it, partly, I assume, because of social pressure. We saw him slowly walking toward his buffalo as we started heading toward the highway.

We looked through our bags to see if we had something to share with the kid, and we found some grapes someone had given us in the morning. Swara went to him and share, along with coins and told ,him to do an act of kindness with that money. Before leaving, she extended a big hug to him. 

When Swara started walking towards me, the boy called her and started checking his pockets. Swara thought he would be giving the money back. Instead, he took out the two ice candies that he had gotten for him and his younger brother and shared them with her, saying one is for her and one is for your sister:) I was witnessing this beautiful moment from a distance,e and this time it was tears of love flowing from our eyes. We knew how priceless those ice-candies were to the child, and to witness his giving, especially when he had lost something very close to his heart, was invaluable. We were walking through one of the driest patches, with no trees on the road, on a sunny morning. This encounter with the little kid made our hearts drenched in unconditional love, and we were reminded of the song Arun Dada sings, which includes the line, "Ankho ma pani to have ne jai nathe bhetar bhinash thate oche". (Water in the eyes comes and goes. But the moistness within never dries)    

While reflecting on what just happened in the last hour, I realized I might have witnessed the accident, maybe prayed, and silently walked ahead. It was a gift my co-pilgrim extended to me, which I experienced as the power of presence. I was thinking that in the later years, the boy might remember us. Not sure of that, but I would at least make an attempt to pause and share my presence next time. Grateful to my co-pilgrim for being the torchlight; where my consciousness ends, she gently shows me a step further:)

The Mother

A dear friend shared this song with us during our pilgrimage. And I feel so grateful to her because this song felt like an expression of our unsaid experience of being carried by an unknown yet known force gently across rivers, oceans, mountains, thorny roads, marshy land, and thick forest trails.

If asked, how would you describe the smell of the wildflowers, the breeze touching your eyes, or the smile of a newborn child? How would you describe the love that you have received from your mother? I might be able to share her actions or say her "doing" part, but not the essence of her "being" and the omnipresent love that I feel at all times. Likewise, it is hard to put into words the unconditional love, care, and compassion that wrap us day and night. 

As the artist shares, this song is a dedication to the feminine, to birthing, to compassion and love, to mother nature, mother earth, mother Reva, to all the mothers before me, to all the mothers after me, and to all the mothers around me.   

  

"She is a boat, she is a light

High on a hill in the dark of night
She is a wave, she is the deep
She is the dark where angels sleep
When all is still, and peace abides
She carries me to the other side,
She carries me to the other side...

And though I walk through valleys deep
And shadows chase me in my sleep
On rocky cliffs, I stand alone
I have no name, I have no home
With broken wings, I reach to fly
She carries me to the other side,
She carries me to the other side...

A thousand arms, a thousand eyes
A thousand ears to hear my cries
She is the gate, she is the door
She leads me through and back once more
When day has dawne,d and death is nigh
She'll carry me to the other side,
She carries me to the other side...

She is the first, she is the last
She is the future and the past,
Mother of all, of earth and sky
She carries me to the other side,
She carries me to the other side..."

p.s- We even have a version of this song by Rev. Heng Sure.