Under the infinite sky when we stand…

Under the infinite sky when we stand, with nothing but stars above, and the milky way going across, silence becomes the word of moment. We feel. We fill our hearts with the infinite love our Lord has endowed upon us. We feel, in silence, what we don’t speak in words. Peace so serene that even an embrace is unasked for. With hand in hand, we look up into the sky, walking on the milky way with our gazes.

Why does it feel so real? So real to brings tears to our eyes? Tears of fulfillment? Tears of joy? Tears of separation? What? The sky is dark, the stars are shining, the breeze is gentle. When do the desires creep in? Why does the mist turn so dense like it’s a bar on lungs? Like we’d choke up with a pang so miserable that our hearts will stop here and now. A sudden heaviness; a half-tear under the eyelid. Why?

My Lord knows of my heart. When we two — the two eternal souls — stand beneath the sky, speaking no word, with hearts leaping with happiness of being found by the other, the good Lord watches awestruck, taking immense joy in the serenity of the moment.

And do we cry? No, we don’t!

What is God? I need ideas!

Here I am back, this time not to tell something, but to ask all of you “what is God?” I know this is one of the toughest questions one can have, but I don’t want to know what God really is, neither do I mean to ask “does He exist or not?” (now call me a sexist for calling Him “He”), I just want to know what God is for you.

I want to know your personal opinions and not what your religion thinks about it, but if you are putting your thoughts as a representative of your religion, please put a note to let me know such. You can put your thoughts in comments, or if they are lengthy enough, you can trackback on your own blog.

I hope this ordeal would help me to get a better understanding of one of the most complicated ideas of human conception, and hopefully I will get some insight into my philosophy of God too.

The door to God: An Osho perspective

I’m not a fan of Osho
, still I like reading him. I like his rebellious, yet creative, perspective of looking at things. He tells greatest of the hidden truths in simplest of the words, often with the help of some day-to-day life stories.

Last night, as I was going to bed, I took the Osho book and opened a random page. I had not read anything in the last many days and I wanted to start with something lighter-thus started with Osho.

Once the prime minister of a king dies. The king decides to chose a new prime minister for him through an open contest. From the hundreds of contestants, he short-lists the three most eligible men for a final test. The king let the three go home with a notice to come back the next day.

All excited about their fate next day, the three short-listed candidates hear a rumor that the king has made a cryptogenic lock with the help of the most genius of his mathematicians, and the king is going to chose the one as his prime minister who will open the lock earliest. The two of them get very excited listening to this and start reading as much about cryptology and the science of locks as they can in a night. They stay awake all the night to study cryptology. The third one stays cool and takes some rest at home. The other two just laugh at him that he is wasting such a great opportunity to change his life.

The next day, the king summons them. They find the rumor was indeed a truth as the king locks them in a room and tell them about the challenge to come out of the room. The intelligent two quickly start to analyze the lock, it’s shape, design, signs on it, etc. So engaged they become in their exercises that they don’t even notice that their third colleague had just pushed the door and left out. They notice it only after the king arrives with the third friend and ask these two to stop their efforts as he has chosen his prime minister.

And Osho comments on the story: So obsessed we get about finding the answers that we don’t even bother to check what really the problem is. We put our focus on deciphering the lock rather opening the door. The door to God is just open like this, open to all, and we stay at the door deciphering the lock engaged in the scriptures.

P.S. I am thinking whether the third one was really right with his not being prepared. What if the door had really been locked?

Bless me O God!

Morning! I started the PC and was about to start work. I usually keep humming all the time, may be it at home, at work, while riding a bike, or while doing nothing (no one has ever enlightened me on how to do nothing). And I started humming an abhanga by Tukaram: हेची दान देगा देवा तुझा विसर न व्हावा, विसर न व्हावा तुझा विसर न व्हावा!! “Bless me O God; I shall never forgot thou, never, never ever!” How couldn’t I love these words, how couldn’t I!! Oh God, bless me, I shall never forget thou, never ever!

I knew a similar couplet by Bashir Badr “Wo bada rahim o karim hai mujhe ye sifat bhi ata karein, tujhe bhulne ke duaa karoon to meri duaa mein asar na ho.” He is really a kind one, He should grant me a wish–if I ever wish to forget you, I wish must never be granted. And I loved these lines too, but this time Tukaram took my heart away!

In case of Bashir Badr, he wishes he should never forget his beloved one. And Tukaram? For him, the God is his beloved, and he is asking the God never to let him forget Him.

I was humming it all over the day, it was constantly going in my head while all the work was going: हेची दान देगा देवा तुझा विसर न व्हावा, विसर न व्हावा तुझा विसर न व्हावा!!

For a moment I thought did Tukaram mean that God should always keep us unhappy that we must not forget him? Nay, it cannot be such. Tukaram didn’t mean it that way. May be it was the case with Bashir Badr, certainly not with Tukaram!

Be with me! Never let me go! Hold me to your heart!! And how can I forget you? Isn’t it what Tukaram means? Never let me go!

Tukaram made my day today!!

Notes:
Tukaram (1608-1650) was a Marathi seer poet and is considered the zenith of the Warkari tradition, which sought salvation for all irrespective of caste and creed. Tukaram wrote poetry in the form of abhangas (literally something that cannot be broken). Tukaram is considered as one of the best poets the language has ever produced. Tukaram’s abhangas are still played in the households of Maharashtra.

Bashir Badr is a contemporary Urdu poet, one of my favorite.

The soulmates

: The Soulmates

Like it was an intact stick in His Kingdom. Like He had to break it and throw it away in two different directions. Like it was His plan to bring both the segments together to make them one again. How surprised were they to see how fittingly compatible they were with each other. It was a first glance; they had not seen each other in proximity. From that distance, they felt awed with how much “made for each other they were.” And they came together.

The subtleties began to be apparent. Still happy were they with each other, but now with a glitch that they were not the same that they thought they were. They were still happy with each other, but their randomly broken edges got more visible making them afraid what if they won’t match fit.

They were happy; still there was a glitch. They kept going. Time passed by. The randomly broken edges got more prominent; uneven fineness of the broken edges had gotten even more apparent. And they started looking at it carefully, and moved towards each others, tilted, turned, whirled, hugged… and lo… how happy, how heavenly happy they were to find how finely they fitted in each other. Like they were the same they had thought they were.

Saathi… (blogofreflections.wordpress.com)
Day 5: A prayer (blogofreflections.wordpress.com)
Me and my Orbit White! (blogofreflections.wordpress.com)
By the River Piedra, I flow and flow and flow… (ghalibana.blogspot.com)
The image of soul mates above is by Bebulaki taken from here.

Because you Love!

You…

You – grew such huge in a random giant – and she – tries to keep you tied – with a feeble thread!

You – on a homeless Sunday afternoon – slept here – on a municipality bench!

You – and this friend made your life a bit comfortable – shielding you from the Nagpur heat!

You – oh dear friend – how can you cover me all from in this heat! And how can I just say thank you and get away?

You – made me dream – this road – leads to God!

You – Oh dear – reflect me in your heart – to make me more beautiful.

You – made me realize – this is called life!

You – Oh my love – you must suffer on the cross – and must be crowned – because you love!

Oh, Allah, I turn to you because…

I woke up this morning with a prayer. I read it last night before going to sleep from Like the Flowing River by Paulo Coelho. It is a quotation from Qur’an (wish if he had given the exact reference of Sura and Aayat, I could find it in my copy of Qur’an). The prayer goes like:

Oh, Allah, I turn to you because you know everything , even what is hidden.

If what I am doing is good for me and for my religion, and my life hereafter, then left that task be easy and blessed.

If what I am doing is bad for me and for my religion, for my life now and hereafter, remove me from that task.

I chanted the first two lines as I just woke up and was still in bed–I could not recite the third one.

May God bless you!

May God Keep you away from all the evils, May God keep you happy all your life! I know He has blessed you with all strength to face anything, to get up from whatever, but why should He put you to tests again and again–May God keep you away from anything that may put you down!

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