Friday, June 28, 2019

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 that they follow in the ashram, Sarvanumati i.e consent of all. This meant from the smallest to bigger decisions all were made only after each and everyone in the ashram comes to the 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 everyone in a meeting. If everyone agrees to it, I will go ahead. But if there is even one person who is not willing to have that workshop, the event will be kept 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 to one thing, 1% view is equally taken into consideration because each one matters."

We asked her how do you feel when your project or something that you really want to do is kept on standby or is told no?
She very gracefully answered asking us, “what matters more “my project” or my love for the other person who is saying a no? Yes, to some extent my ego will feel bad because there is an “I” associated with “my project” but if I am able to extend my boundaries of love for the other person the “I” really doesn’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 matters what happens but don’t break someone's heart. It is a very sacred place and it reminded me of a poem by Rumi which 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:)

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

I am the Universe


In my dreamlike state, I had always imagined myself sleeping under a tree with the sky hanging up. 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 of ‘change’ being the only ‘constant’ yet looking at it is bringing some stillness in me.

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

The leaves gently dancing 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 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.   


Thursday, June 13, 2019

Extending the gift of presence:)


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

Swara asked me if I would want to go to the kid and I said yes. The kid kept holding 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 behind 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 connect and listen to that voice again and 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 denied her invitation for the time being and kept standing 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 cloth. He silently changed it. His mother asked him to go after the buffaloes whom he had left in the farm so that they don't eat away the harvest. With a heavy heart and a little hesitation to leave the dog, he started walking towards his buffaloes. Before we left that spot Swara asked him if he wanted to cremate his dog but he denied, partly because of the social pressure I assume. We saw him slowly walking in the direction of his buffalo as we started heading towards the highway.

We looked into our bags if we had something to share with the kid and we found some grapes that someone had given us in the morning. Swara went to him and shared it along with a few pocket change that she had and told him to do some 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 back the money. Instead, he took out the two ice candies that he had got for him and his younger brother and shared it with her saying one is for her and one is for your sister:) I was witnessing this beautiful moment from a distance and this time it was tears of love that were flowing from our eyes. We knew how priceless those ice-candies were for the child and to witness his giving especially when he had lost something very close to his heart was invaluable. We were walking one of the driest patches without a single tree on the road on a sunny morning. This encounter with the little kid made our hearts drenched with unconditional love and was reminded of this song that Arun dada sings which has a line saying, “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 that my co-pilgrim extended to me because of which I experienced the power of presence. I was thinking in the later years if 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:)




Wednesday, June 5, 2019

The Mother

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

If asked, how would you describe the smell of the wildflowers or 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 in words the unconditional love, care, and compassion that wraps us day and night. 

As the artist shares, this song is a dedication to the feminine, to birthing, to compassion, 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 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 dawned 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



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 o...