Discovering Myself Part II – A Blank Picture

“Moonlight floods the whole sky from horizon to horizon;
How much it can fill your room depends on its windows.” 
― Rumi

My life’s a small book and it is incomplete. The blank pages are fluttering in the commotion of my life and express their deep desire to be filled. I see incredible potential of filling these pages with the most amazing words and the brightest of colors. No, it’s not a normal book, it has my pictures describing each word written in it. Its my life. 22 years of upbringing have made me a haphazard picture of colors thrown in randomly. I have shades of Orange (read Warmth), Pink (read Love),  Red (read Anger), Blue (read Peace), Black (Read Evil), Green (Read generosity) and so many others. Some colors empower the others while some enjoy the little space they have. The color I miss the most is White.

My picture is so colorful and was painted with so many patterns and amounts which were never under my control back then that now I want to be a White Picture. I don’t want a modern art for myself. I want a beautiful picture which has a lot of Blue, Green, a dash of Pink and lots of White. We mostly misconstrue White to be a color of Peace alone, I see it as a color of Happiness, Peace and Intelligence.

By saying this I am not implying that I will become boring. I will simply take a giant leap towards my ultimate goal in life- Contentment. I can safely say, I am not content. I have hints of all those traits of Human Nature that are Spiritually Evil. The urge to possess material things along with the hint of other human drawbacks plague me.

“What we think, we become.” 
― Gautama Buddha

I say White because it is clean, it projects clarity of thoughts. I think I love God, I think he is the ultimate but secretly I don’t let him control my life. I demand, I want him to be my advisor. I don’t give in, I want him to give in to my wishes. I realize this now and I give up this habit today. While I was praying today, I thought, why is it that I have planned everything out and the slightest of diversion will upset me? Do I know the best? Better than God? The answer is NO.

I plan to surrender, to be the follower rather than the dictator. I will still have control over my life, but life and plans which are chalked out by God. I will let him choose the colors and the quantities in which he wants them to be present in my White Picture. Nobody is going to push a Reset button in my life to turn it all White. I have to give up those colors and I am going to do it starting Now. The societies wont paint my picture, I will let the powers above us be a painter This time.

“Every morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.” 
― Gautama Buddha

 

 

Nix Lapse

“Silence is the language of god,
all else is poor translation.”
― Rumi

I am constantly travelling in a time machine from one phase of life to another. No I don’t have a time machine but my mind is a good enough medium to make this wish true. I am either in my past, dwelling over something or in the future, fantasizing about things. Yes, I enjoy the present, but never completely.

My parents always taught me that my mind is superior. It should control my body. But mind is a part of our body, it was never meant to control our body. They co-exist to fulfill their parts. They are mistaken to be two different entities but they are two parts of the same energy.

Why can’t we stop these thoughts?

We are highly unsatisfied. Ask the Queen of England, she missed peace of mind, Ask the shopkeeper, he missed financial comfort. If we get a job, we want a better job, if we get a better job, we want peace. Right now, you are not reading this post in full awareness, you are constantly flying in your plane of thoughts in which your mind is sending you all the time.

I try to make my mind and body to stay in harmony with each other. They are conflicting right now. When I travel in my time machine, I sure visit a lot of places but I leave my body behind. My body stays when my mind travels.  There is no scope of any space for your past or your future to penetrate in your present as told by Osho.

When we are present totally in NOW, we are alert. Right now we are half awake. When I am in my present, I notice minute things like the sound of the air conditioner and the steps taken by the person approaching me. I am thinking but for Now. I am speaking with total awareness and my mind is in complete harmony with my body. There is no lapse.

It’s difficult to achieve with only one answer- Meditation. Pay attention to your breathing rhythm and you will be transformed in more than one way. It has helped me immensely and I recommend the same for you 🙂

“Nobody has the power to take two steps together; you can take only one step at a time.”
― Osho

Why Blogging has become My Life!

“Building an empire…one letter in front of the other.” 
― Coco J. Ginger

The warm Delhi air wafted through my room as I sat down to pen down my Love for blogging. The cup ring on the table reminded me of last night’s ‘blogging coffee’, a ritual turning me into an insomniac. 500 days of blogging and still counting. The psychic tendency to keep peeping in for new comments and reviews is blissful.

“All the world’s a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.” 
― Seán O’Casey

It was the summer of 2012, June, I saw the first Golden rays of the sun strike the snow clad Himalayas. The fire inside me was no less than that of the rising sun rays that day. It was the third year of my Mechanical Engineering, life was slipping away, the dream to write was slowly leaving me like those volatile childhood days. It was 10am when I did my routine internet surfing and saw MM’s blog again, a habit. I scrolled down to the last to see “Site powered by WordPress”. I clicked on the hyper link to see, “Create your own free blog”, I snatched my life back from the grips of that timeless monster back in a second.

I found my Love!

I spent the rest of my days clicking around photos of the small hill station. The post office was my first destination. I had no direction so I did some stupid movie reviews, fashion tips and ended up finding my niche in social issues. I wrote stories, articles and some poems. My readership grew from some hundreds to thousands!

The most intriguing verity being 98% foreign readers. They felt connected to my writing and came back each time I had to say something. They cried with me after a story, patted my back and changed my life forever. During this time, I wrote to MM, thanking her for this life changing development in my life.

“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.” 
― Lisa Mantchev

My email to MM

 

I got an awesome job offer from the States to write for nonprofits as my focus and interest revolved around social causes. It grew from a part-time job to a full-time job. I am living my dream. My words have a meaning now and they are helping in a thousand ways now. I have a total of 6 blogs and now I blog all the time, literally all the time. 

Blogging is my life now. My laptop’s running for 18 hours a day and a major portion of it is blogging. Its humbling to see people’s reaction to my words, to read their life’s stories and be a part of it. I have made some amazing friends, shared some wonderful stories and fallen in love every day with something new in blogging!

“At the end of my life, with just one breath left, if you come, I’ll sit up and sing.” 

Pouring my heart out in my blogs has helped me evolve from a short-tempered teenager to a placid individual. I have grown from a self-help-book reader to a writer who shares her thoughts on life. I breathe through blogging, it is my love, my life and I owe everything to it. I protect it as a gift from God. It is my Empire and I love to rule here 🙂

Hum akele hi chale the, Log ate Gaye, Karwan ban Gaya

 

PS: This post is for- http://www.missmalini.com/mega-haul

The Secret Key to Happiness- Its really small, so don’t lose it!

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
― Rumi

The root of mostly all our miseries are expectations. We always outdo ourselves in our eyes to help others and then expect the same service from others. It is not entirely wrong but it not right either. Why do we have expectations? Why are we so greedy that for every action, we want an equal or bigger reaction that exceeds our expectations?

Think of the last time you were sad, are you sad right now?Do you have a grudge now? Go to the root of that emotion. I bet you see a person failing your “set of rules.” It is a peculiar human nature which only sees outwards. We are a perfect judge of what others are doing to us & how they are affecting our lives. We fail to look inwards. We are extremely good at building images of others but an equally pathetic artist of how our image should be drawn. When in doubt, go back to the root of your problem, you will see a face who did something wrong to you, smile, forget and forgive because she/he was never meant to follow the rules created by you for others.

We must not chalk out laws and regulations of life for others. We must not always follow a strict rule of action-behavior. I have no right to expect anything from others. What I do for anyone is due to some good intentions and concern. My priorities in life are different from yours. I don’t expect you to walk the same path as I do and I don’t want you to expect the same from me.

The big secret to always stay happy is to realize the fact that society has made a social model of fundamental regulations, but to follow them or not is in our hands. Every social set up passes down rules on -how-to-behave-with-others. It is not right. We must always understand that the other person is not bound by some rules that you created or know. He/she is free to choose. We all have the freedom to speak in a certain way, to act in a certain way and to have a certain paradigm. 

I am not in any sense justifying wrong or evil. I am merely asking you to break the barrier of those rules which you have made for others. If the other person is not responding to your genuine call then understand that her/his priorities are different in life than yours. You don’t have control over it now and you wont have it in the future. Sure you did all those great things for that person, but remember that you did that out of love, care and concern.

I love these words by John Bunyan- “You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.” I came across these words when I was writing an article for one of the nonprofits I work for and I think it has a deep hidden meaning other the context of helping the destitute.  The joy I get after helping someone who is never going to return the favor is blissful. I apply the same rule in all my relationships too.

Sure I love my family and other people. But I don’t expect them to behave in a certain way or to respond to me every time. I give them the freedom of choice, if they want, they come to me and if not, they don’t. I don’t leave any stone unturned to make these relationships work and that is because that for me is My priority. It should not be a burden for them in any way.

Adopt an attitude of silence towards the external environment and see the magic unfold. It works for me. I hope the same for you!

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
―

PS: This is an excerpt from my journal and inspired by C.S Lewis.