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Is there failure? June 3, 2006

Posted by silentEcho in Spiritual, moron's Diary.
9 comments

He was smoking. He usually does despite my constant nagging about how smoke is bad for him and the people around : the usual WHO stuff. However that day we were discussing stuff and a more profound smoke was veiling my mind. I asked him about failure. And he had a lot to say.

What is failure? Is it simply that when you do not get expected results, you fail? Is there an F grade in real life to show this? I think one can't always assign an F grade to stuff. When you give a thing the best shot you could but it didn't turn out the way you wanted it to be, then is it that you failed? I don't think so. It might not be success but it isn't failure either.It is too insensitive to disglorify the efforts. Only we know what we did. If we can't value our efforts, who else will take the trouble?

Is this a self satisfaction drive? Well no. I say you didn't fail but I am not asking you to accept the status quo. THat the effort didn't bear fruit doesn't mean that you failed. All it means is that there might be better ways to do it. It's just another chance for one to be brave enough to go out there and be different so that this time, the person succeeds. There is no need NOT to rise after falling. Every body falls; those who rise, live. The world is fiercely competitive and ill-equipped in the philosophies of failure. We live in a very result oriented world. But this does not mean that there is no place for those who couldn't deliver result. Rise again, that's it.

We used to have those Main Course Books and the Litreature Readers for English in school. I don't remember in which one of these books and in which grade did I read this story about a girl whose father died in an accident and she had to work to support her mother and younger sister. But the story is very much the crux of what I want to say ( though there was nothing like failure in this story but still ). This girl went through a big emotional breakdown but she rose from the morass and finally succeeded. When asked about how she did it, she said what her father used to teach her : "Murphy's law says, 'If things can go wrong, they will.' We shall overcome."

Greatness, I think, is not just in being successful without failures. Much of its essence lies in sticking around, smiling even after failing big. That's greatness. This is what Cameron Crowe tells us in his movie Elizabethtown ( do watch it sometime and please do NOT miss HELEN STELLaR's this time around and EastMountainSouth's hard times ).

My friend had finished a complete pack by now. As the night went darker and the smoke cleared away, I found the smoke clearing away. There is nothing like failure if we give the thing the best shot we can. Let's not waste time in counting tears when there are better things to do.

The last bit June 2, 2006

Posted by silentEcho in Spiritual, Stories.
2 comments

"He was caught again." "Are you sure?" "Yes. He was caught just when he was about to cross the fence. Poor soul, one more step and he would have been free."

"Poor soul? He is a lunatic. What's the good of trying all this when he can wait?"

"He says it is better to die than to take freedom for granted."

I heard as the inmates talked. I also wondered: Why did he try it again and again? This was the twelfth time that he had been caught in a escape attempt. Everytime we doubled security on him and everytime he tried the same thing. His attempts were folied but not him. He was as outspoken and had the same nerves he showed in his first attempts, even more. It was time now for taking him to the concentration cell. It was nothing new for him though. This would be the umpteenth time he would be sent in the cell. We had never succeeded in ghetting any information from him. Neither did we succeed to crush his courage and confidence. Thrashings couldn't keep him from trying to escape.

I stood outside the cell, hearing his cries for a long time. But everytime what I heard was another proclamation of courage. Fear was absent from those cries. as absent as the moon from the new moon night. The officers left the cell and he was dragged to his cellar by the inmate-in-charge.

That night I went to visit him. He was bleeding at places and the bruises were as common as hair on his body. But he was alive. They had never succeeded in crushing him : mentally or physically.

"Hmm..uh uh."

He looked up at me. " How are you doing? " I asked in the usual hard tone.

"Fine. I am fine. May I ask, what, in the name of god, brings the Jailor himself to me?"

" It was just that I wanted to warn you against trying to escape again. This time we will not tarry from having you shot. So if you want to live, be good."

"I tried twelve times. And you know it as well as my soul does that I will not refrain from a thirteenth attempt," he said, defiantly.

"Thrashings show no effect on you. I have seen that."

"So why do you think your warning will do what thrashings couldn't?"

"I am warning you not because I am afraid that you might escape. I am warning you because I am afraid we might have to shoot you this time. What's the good of doing this when you know there's still hope? The court might just issue a release order. Besides the security has been doubled again."

"Hope…hope. Your fears about shooting me are based on the hope that I will fail. You have hope that your security will succeed. I have hope that I will escape. I hope that you and your security will fail. The world clings to hope jailor. That's most of all we have whether we realise it or not. Let's just respect each other's hope."

I closed in on him, face-to-face now and spoke to him angrily, "I don't want to know your hope philosophy." He merely smiled and I backed off. "I am interested in why you have been so insistent on escaping when you might just get a release order. You can be a free man without this trouble."

"What's the good of taking alms when you can always do things yourself? Things taken for granted lose significance. Freedom is grabbed, fought for, achieved; NOT taken as mercy or for granted. What you call freedom is a bone thrown to the jaildog for me. I would rather die attempting to break free than take what the court throws at me."

"I knew you would say this. But still. I don't understand why you try again and again even when you fail everytime?"

"Who says I failed? Is there failure jailor? Tell me, if I give the attempt the best I could, is it failure? No it's not. It's just that there is a better way to do things. The more the freedom keeps itself from me, the more indispensable it becomes for me. The glass is full jailor, you can't keep me for long now."

"So you will try again?"

"Certainly."

"Even when you know you will be shot or that you will be beaten worse?"

" All that will do is to kill me or hurt me badly. That doesn't matter much. I will either escape or I will perish. But perish my body will one day even if I escape. This is the only truth we have here. The only thing worth knowing. Every thing perishes till the last bit except the very last. It's the only thing that remains. In your warehouses it earns nothing in barter but for me it's invaluable. It's the only thing worth having, it's the only thing we truly have. I will perish but my ideas, my soul will remain unscathed. They will live on and you will see them live. They are the last bit. Within that bit I am free, no chains or walls bound me and no bullets can kill me. Bullets kill bodies jailor, bullets can't kill soul."

I couldn't say anything. He continued, "I will escape and you will watch me escape. Have as many bullets as you can but remember all you have is hope just as I have just hope. Bullets without that are useless and so is my pursuit. Go to sleep now, it's been tiring for you to police me again and again."

I returned to my cabin immersed in what he had said. Somedays later he did it. He escaped the prison.

"What a waste of life? He could have been a free man," chief said as he threw the release orders in trash. I knew better.

"I am outside the fence jailor. I am free as I always was in the bit that your bullet missed." His eyes shined like the moon above. I could see the triumph on his face.

" I won. "

He was right; five prisoners escaped that night.

Inspired by V for Vendetta

On sex May 31, 2006

Posted by silentEcho in Spiritual.
4 comments

Just a thought. What follows is what I believe. The reader may not agree with it and may think it is too far fetched. It might be but to me it is bliss.

What is sex? A sensual, exciting way for reproduction. Or is it something more than that or may be something entirely different? When a child is in the womb, it gets nutrition through the umbilical cord. It is the tube that connects foetus to placenta and consists one or two arteries and a vein. It is not made up of ordinary skin or connective tissue and there are NO nerves in the chord. It might be that there is no sensation for the foetus except in the form of nutrition that reaches through the umbilical cord. Isn't it a bit like samadhi? No sensation of the world but still sentient. It is the highest state defined by Yog, the state of joy as I mentioned in the post On Joy . What I mean to say is that the baby is in such a state within the womb. The state of joy.When a child is born, it cries. But does it do that in the womb? I think the answer is : NO. Why is child birth so difficult? I think the basic reason might be the reluctance to separate. The reluctance from abandoning the communion which the baby in the mother's womb represents. That there can be a unity more profound than this is an idea inconceivable to me. It is this reason that many species follow what is called the Lotus Birth wherein the umbilical cord is not clamped and cut but is allowed to disconnect by itself. See the spiritual implications. Why destroy what might be the most joyful moments in one's life?

This communion is felt by the mother as well. That she can conceive a soul and that she is the creator herself is the greatest work ever done. To BE is the greatest miracle of all. She is the manifestation of this miracle.

Now why am I discussing these things. This post was meant to be about sex. The dots connect. Here's how :

Sex might be a man's search for his mother or the joy he had when he was being conceived. Free from sensation yet sentient, the highest state of all. It is the drive to find that communion again. To be one, to lose himself. The same drive, in the sense of unity applies to women but there might be more in store for them.For women, it is the manifestation of her ability to create life, a manifestation of the greatest miracle of all : to BE. The drive to use the power bestowed to her. When a child is born, not only is the child born – the mother is also born. Before that she was an ordinary woman; through the birth she becomes the mother. And a mother is totally different from a woman : her whole existence becomes qualitatively different. Osho said this and I think this drive to a qualitatively different existence is what sex is for a woman.

I know it is too far fetched and too premature seeing that I myself have not had any sex. Nor can I be expected to have it soon. I think even those who have had it never thought about it this way but it certainly is the path to the sex sanctified. To me it can't be something which is just a biological mechanism of a race's survival. The idea of self realisation through it somehow appeals to me.The post has some of my own thoughts plus inputs from a Reiki session I attended.

In search of the roses May 24, 2006

Posted by silentEcho in Spiritual, moron's Diary.
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I was flipping through this book : The Mandala Of Sherlock Holmes written by Jamyang Norbu. He is probably an expert on Tibetan culture and stuff. I came across a footnote about a flower in the novel. It goes thus:

The only other reference I have uncovered of this unique plant is by Peter Goullart in Princes of the black bone, John Murray, 1959. Goullart mentions : ‘I was told by an eminent botanist that high up the slope of Minya Konkka, shooting through the snow, grew a remarkable primrose called Prima Glacialis, one of the rarest flowers in the world, discovered by a catholic priest. It rivalled the sky in the purity of its blue color and the delicacy of its contours…’

Minya Konka

Minya Konkka : see the beautiful light show from behind the peak

Goullart ends the discussion with a question that has occupied me since then. He asks:

‘…Why did the most beautiful, most enchanting and delicate blossoms on the planet grow so high and under such impossibly hard conditions, braving frost, hail, landslides and cruel winds. Out of the reach of humanity? ‘

And after reading this footnote, I asked myself : Why indeed? Why the most beautiful flower had to brave such adversities in order to thrive? And was its beauty worth it even when there’s nobody around to see it?

I thought about it quite a bit. I do not have any concrete answer to this question except that I think here too the more difficult the hardship, the more glorious the achievement. But this I think is nowhere near what it actually is. There is more to it. And I have a feeling that this question has a beautiful answer. An answer potent enough to change an entire outlook. I am looking for it, in places, in people and in my mind. I am on my journey, in search of the roses.

On Joy March 19, 2006

Posted by silentEcho in Spiritual.
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Read a piece by Barry Long from his 'The Mask' and I couldn't resist to put up a part of it here. It's so true. Have a read:

Life is to be enjoyed, to be made conscious by enjoying it. When you enjoy anything you do, you are conscious. If you enjoy dancing, you are conscious while dancing. If you enjoy gardening, you are conscious while gardening. If you enjoy your work, you are conscious while working. Every moment of your life and you are living consciously as well as joyously.It's as simple as that.

Joy or consciousness is your natural state. It's always there. It's like the sun that is always shinig above the shadow of the earth and clouds. Stop living in your own shadow, and the sun, the joy, immediately shines.

Living joyously is the joy of clarity – no problems.

This is there now, inside you, just waiting to be lived. You don't have to strive for it, search for it or make it. It's you. It's yours, your very being.

It is wonderful the way he puts joy and our conscious being at the same level. They are indeed the same. Joy indeed is our natural state. We all seek it. Just like the state of stable equilibrium, a slight disturbance from the equilibrium, the restoring force, here our soul, tries to carry us back to the equilibrium…the state of joy, divine pleasure : neither sorrow nor happiness…just joy.

Random reflections on Life… March 18, 2006

Posted by silentEcho in Spiritual.
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It is a very fast life and I think we do not get any time to reflect on our life. Not that it is required all the time but sometimes introspection might be a really good idea. Standing on the roof of my apartment one evening during such a self-imposed introspection session, I was thinking about life. There is so much here we see, hear and do. So many things we take for granted. So many things we care about too much or we ignore. I asked myself a very simple question, atleast it seemed simple to me then, What is life?

What is life? It’s a question that comes to the mind several times and in several forms but very often than not we do not know the answer to this question. May be it’s good that we live what we do not know because if we knew everything about life then it wouldn’t be any fun. No surprises, nothing. Why live it then?

As one sees many times in life, life is worth living but more than that it is worth seeing as well. In fact it is sometimes better to look at life than only living it. This is so because merely living life puts it into the domain of time where we might not have time to understand life because of the pressure dealing we undertake every moment. However looking at life brings it closer to heart and mind, in the domain of experience and emotions. This makes, I think, it easy to understand life and to feel it.

Another question that often comes up is : Why does life go on at all? I mean why does not everything come to a standstill and we remain what we are? It seems such a good idea to some about being in the childhood or teens throughout. I myself sometimes think that it would have been better if I had been a child always. No worries, no tensions. But this does not happen. And it is good from one view point : it breaks the monotony of a singular life. Life proceeds because may be the world looks more beautiful from the other end – the place that might be the place we really ought to be. Life probably is a necessary delay on our way to this place. From where we stand, it might seem ages before we sleep but from the other end ages seem to be seconds – absolutely nothing. But certainly it’s not that only the years in life count. As Abraham Lincoln puts it :

” It might seem from this end that it’s only the years that count but from the other end we shall see that in the end it’s not the years in life that count but the life in the years. “

This means that life is about filling life in our years, making every moment breathe and vibrant with living spirit so that in the end we sleep with peace. But filling life and living it needs a certain grit. Not everyone has it. This is why not everyone ‘ lives ‘ lives life in the real sense of the word. Most of us speak about what life is and what we wanted it to be.. To most of us life is not the party that we hoped for but since we are here all we can do is to dance. But that is a wrong attitude. I think we get satisfied very easily and we do not search for more. Or even when we do it we do it with a pessimistic mindset – cursing life, saying things like ” if only…” et cetera. We should search for joy. Half of us are not able to follow our own instincts and what our heart says. We should do that and we should stop taking things around us for granted because these things will not always stay. It’s might be a good idea to appreciate and value life. It knocks at everyone’s door only to find that most of us don’t open the door, welcome her and make her at home and so, embarrassed, it shoos away. I think we should not allow this to happen. We should learn to love life and live it on our terms. It is difficult to live life on our terms. Those who are able to do this really live their life, others are mere parasites. They haunt their bodies with no identity whatsoever other than that of breathtakers, food eaters and other things one can think of. Read what Steve Jobs said ( Commencement Address, Stanford University ):

” Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. “

Life finally at bliss comes to those who live it. And this, as I remarked earlier, needs a certain grit because living life in its true sense is not just having nostrils to breathe in air but doing so while underwater. It’s just like handling a rose to handle life, we will have to endure the thorns. Life is what Maya Angelon said :

“ Life is about survival. You may encounter many defeats but you must not be defeated. “

It is all about laughing out loud even in the face of difficulties and in slaying them. The more difficult the hardship, the more glorious the achievement. True! If it hadn’t been difficult to ‘ live ‘, everyone would have done it.

Life is short but wide and if we hear real close, we will here what life has to say, something very similar to what Robin Williasm said as John Keating in The Dead Poets Society :

“…Carpe, Carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary. “

All life takes is all we have to give. Let’s just grab the here and now of ourselves. Decide what the purpose is, forget past – good or bad. This is so because good causes desire to live back those days and the bad causes frustration. I think we should care about future only to the extent to which it does not hinder our present. Osho gave a more extreme version :

” Existence knows only one tense – the present. It neither knows the past, because it is no more, nor does it know the future, because it is not yet. “

Life is a verb and NOT a noun. It is ‘ living ‘ and NOT ‘ life ‘. Hope you get me here. So let’s live life. Let’s escape into it instead of escaping from it. And as the workers from the floor below pack their stuff and the sun sets beyond the horizon, I have understood that Life is worth living. I know this because I have one to live. About what I posted in this post, I would like to add one more thing ( Churchill ):

” The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes. “

I am not sure but I might be right…