(Picture of Asherah, the Goddess of ancient Palestine)

“The Goddess doesn’t die. It is the faith that dies, the faith of the ungrateful crowd of mortals.”

 

(Goddess of ancient Palestine: Read full article at http://alkman1.blogspot.com/2006/12/goddess-of-israelites.html)

 

A Voice calls me from the wilderness, and I heed Her call… reaching out, searching for Her in the wilderness… only to reach just one step closer to Her… when I feel I have satisfied Her wish, or have lost my way, only to recoil back into everyday routine.

 

The day I will reach Her, I would have reached the Ultimate state of Ever-Compassionate Self, what people call as Enlightenment.

 

-x-x-x-

 

I search for Her in Her idols in temples, in the call of the muezzin to adore Her, in the ecstasy of the Dervish who is in love with Her; in Uma’s music meditations that attempt at making us reach the land where She resides.

 

Yet I am far from Her.

 

Everyday I see countless people bleed, in rend of separation from Her. Some of them try to reach Her with their Mind and Words, a means I found was limited long back. She is beyond the grasp of the Intellect. To reach Her you don’t pass through the channel of the Mind, you take an entirely different way… a new consciousness that is not the Mind, which is beyond the understanding of the ordinary Mind.

 

In Her Name I also see countless people live in constant fear. Why! religions and spiritual-orders even spread lies about Her, dreading Her, killing their sexual instinct (Her creative aspect), hating their body (Her ‘creation’ aspect), and turning away from relationships/ love and Nature (Her many Forms through which she mingles with us in everyday life).

 

And yet in all this, amongst the chaos and mess that my mind sees the world in, I hear Her soft sweet laugh like the tingling of tiny bells… She laughs at our Ignorance of Her.

 

When I heed her, and put my head in her lap to find solace, I see Her hands in the Abhaya Mudra: telling us Not to Fear, asking us to take refuge in Her, to have faith in Her… for to worry is not our business… It is She who takes care of the world, and we cannot understand Her ways… Only total Faith, relentless seeking to find true wisdom within, and accepting Her totally will help us heed Her call…

 

And if you listen quietly… you will feel the rend of separation in the chaos of your mind, and when you traverse that land of mind, go beyond, into the Stillness… you will have a glimpse of Her land…

 

Just a glimpse yet… And you will become a seeker…

 

But please don’t get lost in the wilderness… there are traps spread everywhere by the untrusting… the infidels… the ones who dread the Goddess… the ones who have lost their way… and have gone astray… Please don’t get lost!

 

Only the Goddess can show us the way.

 

-suresh

 

 

“I ask my gay sisters and brothers to make the commitment to fight. For themselves, for their freedom, for their country … We will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets … We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions. We are coming out to tell the truths about gays, for I am tired of the conspiracy of silence, so I’m going to talk about it. And I want you to talk about it. You must come out. Come out to your parents, your relatives.”
-Harvey Milk

As money runs out in my bank balance, and pressure from mom builds up to get her to stay with me in some rental apartment, I grow anxious and depressed.

 

I have been missing my yoga classes now and then, as a result.

 

I consult my yoga teacher about my mental condition and he opines that I should not get into too much of religion or spirituality.

 

Upon reflection, I feel he is correct and decide to deposit my rudraksha mala in the puja drawers again.

 

At The Yoga Institute, they follow the yogic way of the Gruhastha, i.e. of the common worldly person and not that of a sanyasi.

 

It is true that Faith is essential to one’s life, however excessive Faith can lead to depression. Or excessive reliance on the religious way

 

-x-x-x-

 

Now I concentrate on taking up my job again, so that I could build my nest again with mom to accompany me in it.

 

With that, the much-needed fresh air of occupation with self-expression at the workplace will set in.

 

There are problems in life. However with good advices, reflection and the daring to take some dynamic decisions, one can go a long way in finding solutions.

 

Life flows, like water it has no form.

Here begins the prose of Dervish Uddish: The one who lives on the edges of society Between the daggers of the Clerics And Stones of the common public Who is unafraid to speak the Truth Allah grants him the sacred Endearment of the term Sufi Sufi, is walking on the path of the Lord A gunnysack for robe, For protection against Climate A dervish possesses no shame for his body Sensuality overwhelms him, his Breath reeks of the wants of his flesh: It is his offerings to Allah, the most Magnificent And Merciful, who created him so. He accepts Allah with all the cravings Within his body, Stripping himself to face craving; Fasting to face hunger; Thirsting; to have A Glimpse of his Beloved… The Lord He may sing or dance Laugh in Madness Or cry in Fear… He is the servant of Allah, Most Magnificent and Merciful. He walks on hot roads, The pain confuses him, As his beloved within his heart Insists “Just one step more, my beloved, One step more” He serves the poorest of the poor, Begs for others, And lives on the alms Ever in remembrance Of his Lord He has no peer, no relative And hence no fate, no destiny He has no money, no belongings No people to call his own… The nights see him devouring The skies in search of his beloved And the dawn sees him asleep In the arms of his beloved He may see glimpses of his beloved In men and women around, Girls and boys, And the old… Even as he walks the streets He chants – One more glimpse, One glimpse more… It is a trait granted to him By the Grace of his Beloved -Allah…! You may pity him for his state, But know that Allah has chosen him Above all others, For His own sake

A thousand words have been said,

And yet the Truth remains hidden…

 

There are those who speak

And there are those who search in silence

And none, says Uddish, have found it

Who have relied on their common consciousness

 

Glimpses are rare,

True Teachers aren’t found

Scriptures miss it totally

And the Society abuses it…

 

“If you ever wanted to experience it”, says Uddish

“You will have to lie in my beloved’s arms…”

 

It is a much known fact in the medical circles, and I have got it straight from the horse’s mouth. A colleague of mine who is a doctor told me that patients who are too poor are often abandoned in hospitals by relatives who cannot afford the medical expenses or are too overwhelmed by the responsibility of having to take care of a patient.

 

A patient thus abandoned thus becomes a liability on the hospital staff.

 

It is then a common practice in hospitals that such a patient is taken out for a morning walk by someone from the hospital staff to be abandoned far away from where they cannot return!

 

This happens in most of the hospitals and even though it is shocking for a medical intern in his/her initial years as a doctor, one “gets used to it”.

 

I wonder what becomes of that abandoned patient then? What happens to him/her in the city noise where no one has the time to even look at him lying on the side of the road, no one to assist him?

 

I wonder if there can be anything worse than being a victim of Intended Neglect!

 

Even as I have been focusing on Yoga as a career choice, yesterday at BasicIndia I felt there I receive something that is beyond much I pursue even in Yoga.

 

What do I pursue in Yoga?

Career: Money, Survival

Knowledge: Of my self, which is the ultimate aim of Yoga beyond the Asana and Pranayama

Self-Therapy: Individual physical, mental, emotional, spiritual well-being the product of which could ultimately be freedom from my anti-depressants and anti-anxiety disorders and the resultant drugs.

Duty and Service: Helping others have health- mental and physical

 

For this, I have been following a Yogic lifestyle for years now.

 

The journey started with Vegetarianism more than 15 years ago (Ahimsa- One of the Yama –self-constraints of Yoga to prepare one for the practice of the technique of Yoga for self-realization)

 

I did not think much of Yoga then, but the Chetana (the Knowledge beyond our intelligence and senses) knew… I would say. It is devoid of the limitations of time and space.

For the last one year I have been following a routine that involves waking up as early as 3.30am in the morning (Brahma-mahurrat), eating breakfast by 5-6am, lunch by 11-12pm, and dinner by 5, so that I could go to bed by 7.30-8. Abhyanga (Oil-massage) was a regular thing, and cleaning of tongue, all of which are of Ayurvedic (the Indian Science of Medicine and Healthcare) pre-requisites to a better physical health and mental-spiritual well-being)

 

So even as in the last 10 years I went through the heart-breaks of relationships and search for love, turbulent days and weeks of self-searching, at the back of my mind Osho’s adage that I was following the path to become simple and not mere duping myself by being a simpleton, helped. That is the principle of Tantra. And I learnt only last month that Yoga is actually a branch of Tantra. Yoga is a Tantric way.

 

So even as I prepare myself for entrance tests to my Post-Graduation in Yoga Studies, and the seven-months rigorous training at the Yoga Institute, I find that going to BasicIndia sessions helps me look beyond received knowledge and set-practices by helping me have my own experiential journey in which I explore for myself on a path that is exclusively mine.

 

For e.g. yesterday at the BasicIndia weekend session, there was this moment when the realization came that there is much beyond the Intelligence of our own body and mind, there is this sea around, the table, the furniture, the cat, and other people who are as much a part of my own self. And unless I can accommodate them as a part of my consciousness too, I remain limited, constricted, self-centered and highly self-deceptive. And even as the words may scare somebody, we already know to do it, it is only that it is so simple that our complex mind stops us from letting go and really begin “the process of self-integration with the outer reality” to use my words.

 

No book on Yoga has taught me such things, and for this experiential journey I am grateful to BasicIndia.

 

P.S: Yesterday I freaked out with Suresh D, we went out to have Chinese dinner at a good hotel, and I boozed. I broke my vow of Vegetarianism by having fish (prawns, my childhood favourite)! Later we lied down on the beach looking at the sky.

Thanks Suresh D, and thanks BasicIndia.

 

 

 

 

Wearing a Rudraksha mala around my neck has become something of an issue.

 

The other day, I met a student of mine at the Yoga Institute. And the next day I was flooded with calls by my students asking me if it was true that I have taken up sanyaas  (renunciation of the world)!

 

On that fateful day, I also happened to wear a saffron T-shirt, so I don’t blame the student for the misconstrusion.

 

A friend meeting me after almost 10 years, gave me the name of “yogi” because of my pre-occupation with Yoga for some time now. It was a joke and I loved the name yogi, and wonder now if I should use that name as a sign-off before my actual name.

 

My elder brother harassed me endlessly asking me if I have decided to take up Sanyaas with all my changed routine of Mantra-chanting, wearing the rudraksh mala, and Yoga-practice. So much so, that his “genuine care” became a constant harassment and a huge intervention in my daily routine and I fled his house sooner than planned.

 

I have been watching with amusement and bewilderment all these reactions all this while, and today morning decided to take off my Rudraksha mala and deposit it safely in the drawers of the Pooja-altar.

 

Anything that sets you apart in clothing can best be avoided. It saves you the need of much explanation and people leave you alone to pursue whatever it is that you are pursuing as long as they don’t know or see it.

 

-x-x-x-

 

Now I have been put up with two guys in a rental apartment. The tragedy is that I have to sleep right between these two hot people! Imagine a straight guy having to spend the night sleeping between two hot chicks and be chaste! Understand my misery?

 

Dharma sankat (The test of patience!)

 

-x-x-x-

 

This Samsara is a place of test, so says yogi Suresh, where being natural has to be suppressed!

 

Arrey Samsara, Samsara!

P.S: Also saw the movie ‘Milk’. It is a beautiful portrayal of the life of a  Gay rights  Activist and the historical revolution of this minority community against prejudiced anti-gay laws in the United States of America in the early 1970s. A movie not to be missed!