The Sun in the Moon!

23/12/2007, 3:16am.
As the chilly wind blew outside, and I started to make my way back from my beloved "study" (read computer shack-let!) to my room, the gleaming white light on the balcony floor caught my eye. Having romanticised the superlatively glowing moon only a few hours back, I leaned over the rails and stared into the sky, my eyes and my eye teeming with expectation.

And behold, the sight on display on the gargantuan screen was NOTHING short of awe inspiring. For a moment or two, I just stood still, trying to catch my mind's breath. What lay before me was the stuff dreams are made of. All at once, it was inspiring, terrifying and downright awakening!
To think, that the muse that had sung many a sweet melodies to my self, could also take the form of this symbol of undeniable power (albeit borrowed), sent a million chills down my spine.

In the wonderful chaos that ensued, I managed to clickety click away an obscene number of pics, the pick of which (decent resolution) are available HERE. In spite of the inevitability of the inherent inadequacy of any form of documentation of SUCH a phenomenon, I hope SOMETHING manages to capture a fraction of the magic of nature in glory bordering on belligerence!
Sigh...

Another aspect of the experience which moved me...
The moon was firing on all cylinders, basking in its moment in the sun, (QUITE literally), and watching over as it touched a million souls all at once. IT, was living; albeit on scraps borrowed from the sun. In effect, the moon was singing a hymn of praise to the sun, through its deeds; through its act of shining like there was no tomorrow, and transforming a dark matrix of clouds into a canvas on which to paint its song.
This point led me to myself, and the people around me, and humanity in general.
WE, are little more than the dust off His feet. Taking the analogy from above, the most honest way to acknowledge and gratefully accept His infinite grace, would be to LIVE like the moon was living at that hour.
In other words, every action we do is an expression of where we come from; right from social circles, to family, to whatever we believe to be the One. Through every single thought and deed, it is not us, but the force BEHIND us that shines through.
And convinced as I am of our oneness in and with the One, I have grown to believe that one owes it to "the force behind", IF not to one's own self, to strive to achieve one's best always.

So while happiness, for us and 'our' people, remains THE goal to achieve in life, I hereby hypothesize, that a happiness without one's offering of the self to one's work, to one's dharma (if you will), to Him CANNOT be happiness at all.
The term "work" after a level 'should', I again hypothesize, become synonymous with meditation. I feel, one's bhaav to all things around one will grow in the normal course of events, till one can't help BUT shine on as a living testament for His glory.

I shall like to imagine THAT, to be THE state to be striven to be attained. Call it by whatever name you want to, but in essence I believe all of them are one in this sense.

Sigh...

Oh great moon that follows us always,
Ever unassuming of your own presence.
You, are the vehicle for the sun's glory,
For it is honourable to shine by oneself,
But blessed to spread the light to others.

This positive semblance of cosmic logic,
That You have opened our eyes to,
May it serve to guide both the best and the rest,
For the rest are but a moment behind the best,
Be with us when we need You the most.

To think of the day that has just passed,
My heart sings to You in joy,
Your eternal love all around me,
What else could I ask of Thee?
I love You and You love me,
What more do I need to be?

Kandisa...

When I grow up...

... I wanna be JUST like, ermm..., lets just call him "Mr. P, from Pp".
(For the jurisprudentially inclined, make it "whatever I've seen of, Mr. P from Pp, from my limited perception capabilities and "only human" level IQ!")

Crossing the boundaries (!) of thass...
Today I met a person, who truly LIVES the commandment that He gave us. Add to that his zeal to be of use to others, and the sense of humility and all its kith and kin...
Indeed, one must truly be blessed to even come across such people... People who know me in SPIC MACAY would know the value of these words:
"The EXPERIENCE of meeting him et al was NO less than the artiste interaction that we crave for so insatiably..."
In effect, I guess, we all are artistes in our own right. Each art being one's way to live life, derived from countless generations of experience and evolution. Also, each such entity BEING open to as deep an exploration as the self desires, I would speculate that like the 'more tangible' art forms, these too must be meditative after a certain level.

Its hard to fathom how many (if any) issues lie nearly resolved thanks to this little revelation; the essence and significance of bhaav, in the functionings of life.

The goal stands in the distance now. For good or for bad, the path in between lies uncharted and open to infinity.
Indeed, the journey, in all its glorious randomness and unassuming influence, IS life... (jurisprudential disclaimer!)

To be at the decided (yet incredibly flexible!) goal at the time of the big Farewell, would perhaps be the aim of the journey, albeit only for the stretch in our currently conceivable consciousness...

Cheers Mr. P sir!
God bless...
Be happy..

Joy and Sorrow

This is just a little theory that has come to my head over the last few days. I don't know if its as significant as THIS ground breaking discovery, but still.

GENERALLY,
In life, the happiest people are the ones who've been face to face with the deepest forms of sorrow. People who've been pally with the lows, tend to appreciate the highs better, while the others tend to wallow in a sense of complacency flavoured with despondency. You could call it another example of the fundamental law of relative experience (warm hand cold in moderate water, cold hand warm in cold water). Without doubt, it does fit that mould of logic.

To elaborate,
In order to feel TRULY sad, one needs to know the meaning and value of real joy, and vice versa. So even though this implies, by corollary and by the sheer inseparability of the two, that:
"The saddest people are the ones who've been face to face with the deepest forms of joy",
I'd say it's the cost one pays for being alive.
In fact, to even term it as something as taxing as 'cost' would be a misnomer. Experiencing everything in all its glorious entirety is, to my mind, THE basic unit that builds an active life, sprinkled with the magic and wonder that keeps the fountain of youth from drying.
As in, after a point, joy and sorrow (should) lose their disparateness, to the extent that they give to one, nothing more and nothing less, than a sense of previously subliminal bliss; a bliss stemming from the very fact that one has the POWER to FEEL, and that one is blessed/fortunate enough to be in such a position.

So in effect, what I'm saying is, one must marry both sorrow and joy, in order to truly live any one of them. The other comes along for no real cost, except for the temporary phase of potential affliction, following which it becomes as good a partner as the first.

To conclude,
Be happy, be sad, but LIVE each moment of both.
And always remember, every single event is there FOR a reason, and personally, it helps to believe in SOME form of Intelligent Design, even if It is this.

Live, love, believe.

PS: And for the SERIOUSLY cynical in our midst, feed on THIS.

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And talking about life with its joys and sorrows, I can't help but share this little clip from Southpark. Its BEAUTIFUL...
As the video description says: "Southpark trashers, eat your HEART out!"

High on Coffee and “Taare Zameen Par”

Pre Script: In case you've got the song in the title, then I'd request you to play it while you read this, just so as to give you a better idea of exactly what happened. In case you don't, then you can find it here.


The day is Friday, December 07, 2007, the place, Nescafe @ College, the company, SPIC’s blessings. In this delightful configuration of circumstance, with a nice hot cup of coffee in hand, we were sitting, and thassoing in the ‘usual’ flavour.

The Nescafe people had the radio on, and playing was the title track of the movie mentioned above. Neeraj had just described a ‘snail scene’ from it, which was delicious to the extent of unfathomability, that too in his narration. Wonder how beautiful it must be in person.

Anyhow, title track playing, caffeine injecting, the consciousness of June ’08 approaching rearing its head beknownst to the self, and the general atmosphere starting to grow, I started to observe the unassuming steam emanating from my cup. As the different streams rose from the surface, bound by nothing but the laws of immaculate and perfect randomness, the fleeting nature of its existence hit me.

For JUST a second, I could see every single drop of water that came together to form that mystical and sublime phenomenon. To see how something as insignificant as the steam from the piping hot cup of coffee we so habitually devour, could actually be an assemblage of a million distinct entities; each with its own story to tell; each with a sense of identity, despite, or perhaps BECAUSE of the seamless manner of their integration into the beauty that is rising steam, was… well… beautiful.

Just as I was starting to paint the biographic sketches for each droplet, the line came flowing to my ears,

“Kho na jaaye ye… Taare zameen par…”

And I knew then, the stars in question were nothing but THESE naïve and unpretentious little being-lets. The entities here of course, referring not only to the java bean emanations, but all their myriads of cousins as well, to be found every single place we go. Be it the sight of a lonesome bird in flight, or the sense of having seen a life being lived in the duration of a second; it could be the way the little pup responds to its first rendezvous with a second hand ball, learning unconsciously its first lessons of critical and logical reasoning, or how that which we fear the most turns out to be the best element in our existence.

In essence, we must live, dream and aspire to reach ever changing targets of excellence; we must compete with our best, and strive to win every single time. However, whenever He gives us a tiny little gift, in the form of the aforementioned stars, it is in fact a chance to live the love, even more pronounced.

Live in the present, and be happy for the truly countless ‘little stars’ scattered all around us, in a pattern of near conspicuous randomness.

He loves you. He is all around. You are Him. Love the One in all of us. I love you.

Be Happy.