Petrichor

From 2004, I've had memorable New Year Eve's. In the sense, I was witnessing something different. Let me see if my memory serves me right. 2004 - My first New Year in the US. Watched the fireworks in San Francisco. My first visit to this beautiful city too. :) 2005 - Hiked to see the Elephant seals in Ano Nuevo SP, Ca. High fever. But did not want to miss it at any cost. 2006 - Heard the fireworks from our tent. Camped in Anza Borrego State Park , Ca. 2007 - SF fireworks from Angel Island . We backpacked & camped in cold 37F. 2008 - Quiet time in Palm Springs , Ca. 2009 - A quiet night after returning from a trip to San Diego. 2010 - SF fireworks from Treasure Island sans all the crowd. 2011 will be different. Very different from what I had in mind as different earlier. I find myself in extreme gratefulness. Extreme joy & love. For nothing in particular. I feel thankful to witness another New Year. So, I AM in a different place this year too. Just a different dimension,...

So. I managed to read Robert Fischer's "Gandhi". For some reason, I did not want to read his autobiography(again). I wanted to read about him as a second person. And since this book was the inspiration for the movie " Gandhi ", I was able to relate to it better. The whole book went all "Mahatma" about him. There were words that touched the heart. "He did not want the British to have no strength to fight Indians; He wanted them to not have the heart to do so." It may seem immaterial, but what touched me most about the Mahatma was that he was not born like one. He was a normal atman with all the crap like we all have. In his younger years, he had told lies, got immensely furious on many things. But he rose over all of it. His vision made him do so. What touched me even more was that he contradicted himself on many occasions. He never settled with one thing. He was constantly learning to do what is best for a given situation at that particular t...

I have had a very different notion of what an Ashram is, all along. Or I am not sure. Did I care about to even think of one? If at all I did, I would have thought that an ashram is a dull & boring place where everyone thinks & speaks of God. No one tells lies. Everyone would(should)be morally Mr.correct. Again, I did not think women lived in an ashram. An ashram would be a painfully demanding place where you are inflicted with misery. It would be secluded from the outside world. With all these assumptions in mind, no doubt, I would conclude that an ashram is the last place you want to end up at. Ugh! I had the privilege of "living" in an ashram recently. A couple days only. Still. All I could think of it right now is, those few days were THE most happiest days of my life so far. And that is saying something. I will consider myself as one of the fortunate ones whose life has been blessed with many a child-like happy moments. I will not consider myself as a religious pe...

Coming from a not-so-traditional-but-yet-conventional Brahmin family, Sanskrit always intrigued me. Though I did not learn it, I've learnt quite a bit of Sanskrit words in the name of slokas as a kid. But nothing really meant any sense to me & I definitely did not know the value of it. Now, after all these years, I have received something from a very sacred place taught in a very traditional manner. Two days of just uttering those words with others, gives me the shivers even now. This is what a Gurukulam would have been like. When there was nothing to write down. You just listen & sing(about a hundred times) until your whole being gets it. I heard the Guru pooja for the first time at my Inner Engineering . It felt like something but I managed not to give it too much thought. There was already too much going on in the class. But every single time I've had the opportunity since then, I would find tears flood my eyes. The pooja itself, the words, the way it is done, will b...