What would you see in heaven?

I see people trying so hard to accumulate points so they would in the end be granted a place in heaven. Feed the poor....rescue a dog....plant a tree....visit the old folks and so on. While these are all good deeds which we should all do, its also important to know why we are doing it. If the idea is to book a place in heaven, we will surely not enjoy the moments of it. We are forcing ourselves to do good so we get a reward..then how can we experience the joy of doing such things. When our mind is set on a "HEAVEN" which we believe is somewhere above the clouds, beyond our imagination, would we not miss the twinkle in the eyes of a child receiving a gift from our hands? Would we not miss the magical moment when the bond between the giver and the receiver is created!? 

When you feel every moment from your heart and soul, heaven is there...When you feel your heart skip a beat whenever you hear your favourite music...heaven is there. When you taste your favourite food and feel how delicious it is ....heaven is there....when you see a stranger's baby smile at you and find yourself smiling at them...heaven is there...when you see your doggies running to you joyfully even if you only left them for an hour...heaven is there....when you watch the raindrops dripping from a flower of a plant you planted yourself ....heaven is there! When you hear the birds chirping away at dawn...heaven is there....When you see your children splashing water on each other and laughing...heaven is there....

I can go on and on forever...as there are no boundaries, limits or time for heaven...heaven is in every moment you breathe consciously. When you are no longer hypnotized by whatever the system made you to believe. When you are awake...you see heaven everywhere! You cant miss it from the moment you spot the first one! You will be overwhelmed by the heavens ....and you will laugh at yourself to have been missing it all for so long. 

Discover the heavens right here! Wherever we are...right now! Breathe consciously! Feel the moment! Feel the joy! Do whatever that brings you that joy. Cant help quoting RUMI here :-

" CLOSE YOUR EYES.

FALL IN LOVE.

STAY THERE." 

Stop chasing after heaven like its is somewhere else and just settle down to what you are doing and you will see heaven in every moment! It is ALL here! Not above...not below....simply HERE!! 

If we cant SEE it HERE...how can we SEE it at all...

WHY IS BUDDHA LAUGHING?

The Indian rishis and yogis have always mentioned that what we hear in the highest realms of meditation is a neverending laugh! And i am beginning to see why :) 

We are given ONE precious life to experience the 14 BILLION years old universe and what do we do??

We worry about the most insignificant things in life like...what my friends would think of me if i did this or that...what my family would say if i decided on this or that? I need to please EVERY other person in my life...even my neighbour who i only say "hi" to like once in a month maybe...so no...i will not try anything out of the ordinary...i will follow EVERY rule the society has set ....i will LIVE to fit into it and NEVER step out!

Then while fitting into this so called "system" we make ourselves miserable by fighting every instinct that proposes something out of the ordinary. "Go dance!" "No i am a super goody traditional wife and daughter in law...."i don't dance" "GO ON A HOLIDAY"! " NO!! I am the most responsible parent in the world who must ruin all my happiness so the rest in the family are happy! "GO PLAY IN THE RAIN! " NO every health article says....the rain water will make you sick!" GO DISCOVER YOUR PASSION" NO WAY! my society believes you must ONLY do whatever that brings you money! Passion is for another life! 

Yeah....these are the kinds of contradictory moments people go through all their lives...and then suddenly when something triggers their sleeping heads, they suddenly see that there is no "other life"....we are to experience life right NOW....and they panic!! Then they start doing the weirdest things...they run up and down chasing all the left out moments and cram it into their remaining lifetime. Seriously! why?? I don't blame most of them because our social system is such....brainwashed and so absorbed in it that its pretty hard to see life beyond it. 

Just imagine...we are merely infesting a rock floating in space...in a space SO vast beyond any measures of science! A beautiful form of life happening right before our eyes! We don't even know the end of it...too huge....too amazing...too far...infinite! And all we care about is what ...my neighbour might think of me! Now...why wouldn't Buddha laugh!? 

The universe without us...will go on! Only that there will be no one to talk about the beauty anymore! The universe without us in fact will be better off...and yet we live in a dream where we rule the world! But the amazing fact is....being so small...yet we have this consciousness that can experience the entire universe right from where we are!! Tell me, if theres a more exciting experience of life than getting to know the universe ourselves! We are now learning that it is possible for ALL human beings to experience it...and not like what most people think that only the yogis or rishis are able to see it....no! we are all capable...only problem is we don't even try!

Knowing life has got NOTHING to do with religion. We came before any religion ....life came first! So Life knows better. Dive into life. Live it! Love it! feel it! Touch it! Smell it! And above all...STAY ALIVE in it!  

Go by chapters :)

Its not the first time people have asked me, "How do you have the patience to read books that are almost a thousand pages long!" My answer has always been this "I just go chapter by chapter".

When you keep count of the pages, you would feel like you have a long way to go but when you focus on the chapters you get to the end before you know it! Thats the trick! My aim is not to get to the end of the book as quickly as possible. I just get indulged in each chapter and take in whatever that happens in those pages. I am never eager to know what happens in the end. I am more interested to know how it gets to the end page by page...chapter by chapter. 

Its quite interesting how the mind works with the same total no of pages having different effect on us just by way we approach it! Life itself is just like that! All we need to do is to be in the present and enjoy and do our best day to day...moment to moment..and one day we will get to the end feeling joyful and surprised at how beautiful the journey was. Otherwise, if we are obsessed about what comes next and how it ends ...we are going to miss life happening right now.

This is why i have NEVER approached an astrologist or bothered to follow numerology or palmistry or whatsoever! First of all it spoils the fun by telling us how our life will be! Secondly, i dont trust the accuracy of any readers. I wouldnt want my life to be misread by someone who missed certain nos or calculations! No way! I always loved to see my life unfold day by day with all the little surprises and hidden agendas that keeps me grinning all day! 

Also when it pushes me downhill and gets me rolling helplessly till i hit the bottom, at least i wasnt already expecting it!! It just happens while i am dancing through life like nothing will EVER go wrong! Then i gather my strength to climb the hill again...this time i know where i tripped! So i stay alert but i still dance my way up!

A whole life story is made of short chapters and every chapter is made of a few pages and every page is made of a few sentences...and every sentence is made of a few words! Stay focused on every word....and you will get to the end without any stress! Otherwise you will be drained by the time you get to it. Why be torn between the end and now, when you can just be in the now! Let it be! Whatever it is! And LIVE every word! In the end the chapters will be complete and the book will be done! Surely! 

So dare read books of a thousand page! Go by the chapters and enjoy the pages! And when you get to the very LAST page you will feel such satisfaction for having been through every line with ease and joy! You will never forget the experience....just like life! Live it all! 

See you in the next chapter!! :) 

  

Oh My India!

Last weekend i got this wonderful opportunity to be with SWARA Community Arts Center at Publika, Solaris Dutamas for a show organised by Prevail Productions and this time i was doing what i love most....yes, taking pictures! Since Swara's photographer guy was not available for the weekend i just came in to help take a few pictures for our documentation. I was absolutely delighted as i always felt theres something about taking pictures of dance and dancers or any kind of performances on the whole which is totally satisfying. For instance you catch a move which otherwise might only last a few seconds in life...you get to freeze their beautiful expressions to be admired again and again. Sometimes you in fact get to see a lot more in a picture then in life! But only problem was, at the moment i have a simple Canon powershot camera which though is good for zooming in 30X, it is not able to freeze movements clearly as the features of this camera isn't really meant for sports or movement. Still, since we had no choice and all we needed was some pics for the records i agreed to do my best.  

This show had 10 different genres of indian traditional dance, 9 of it being classical and one folk. Truly amazing performance from all dancers! And i was pretty satisfied with the shots i managed to take! I was so happy to know that everyone in Swara liked my pictures a lot  So, i will let my pics say the rest :)

This one is my fav pic of this amazing dance called Yakshagana, originating from Karnataka, India. as i was helping her, i was amazed at the number of accessories it required, it was all so heavy and took 3 hours to get dress with make up done!

As i was helping her getting dressed up, i told her that no Odissi or Bharathanatyam dancers should ever complain about having to wear too much for performances :) 

And here she is after 3 hours with her amazing performance

Below is the popular dance genre called Kathakali, a dance form of the Malayalees from Kerala, India performed by Geetha Shankaran Lam 

Below is a picture of the awesome Kathak dancer, Nitin Shirale. I am sure you can see how graceful he is from this shot, every turn and every pose is picture perfect though he swirls like a tornado! Truly breathtaking moves and grace. This is the third time i watched him perform and i am falling in love with Kathak already! 

Here's our very elegant and graceful bharathanatyam dancer, Neha Mondal Chakravathy. She does the most aggressive Shiva thandavas with such lightness, almost floating around the stage, simply beautiful!

The emcee explaining about the folk and classical dances with the folk dancers 

Joyous and fun to watch :) 

Below is Geetha Shankaran's son performing Odissi!

Here's the entire team!

I always loved photography but somehow never took it seriously. This recent opportunity and the feedback from Swara members, family and friends made me realise that i should take it further :) 

Big thanks to my sitar master Samuel J Dass who trusted me with my tiny camera for such a huge and important show!! It was quite funny to be standing next to the"canggih manggih" (Malaysian term for professional/ Hi Tech)  camera persons with their huge cameras balanced on tripod taking pictures and video!! One of the photographers actually smiles at me, looks at my cam and says "that's nice" which clearly sounded like... "what are you trying to do with the toy, lady" hehehhe....but well, you just wait OK?? ;)  

The Master Plan

How often do we pause to wonder "how did i get to this point?" to realise that we did not plan it to be what it is currently. While we planned something else, with some idea about how we want to go about life and what we want to do, let it be work or family, something interferes here and there, blocks your route, puts the lights out, gets you groping in darkness, bump into walls till we find an outlet somewhere desperately and take the chance (mostly because there's no other choice!). 

Then on this new route we find some light again so we keep going in that route though it might seem blurry, but we are once again stopped! and the whole process repeats itself leaving us exhausted beyond our limits. We drop! and pick ourselves up even if its with the last ounce of courage that's left. Again groping in darkness to find another door, this time the light gets a little brighter. 

So we keep going almost believing that this will be the final route only to be blocked again! The interesting thing is, by now we have become immune to these obstacles that even the boulders on our path begin to look like little pebbles....we have gained that much strength with all the work out we got on the way. So, we stop calmly at the boulders, knowing that something or someone will soon remove it....for that's how its has been all the way, and we wait patiently instead of knocking our heads on it, unnecessarily. Soon enough, the boulders magically roll away, leaving the path free and bright for us to continue. This time we take the route knowing there will be more boulders, and yet we are not distressed by it as we also know that they too will be removed :)

It is at this point, we gain the presence of mind to pause and think about where we are! And we are surprised that we just love the place and couldn't have planned it ourselves to get there! And we wonder in amazement..."How did that happen?" 

Well if you could draw a map of these series of routes, diversions, obstacles and blackouts in our life, we will SEE that they fit perfectly into a MASTER PLAN.  

We are meant to get there but since we did not have the wisdom to find our path in early stages, we keep resisting and trying to adamantly stay on a less difficult route. But no one escapes the Master Plan.

LIFE is WHOLE, there are no individual life as it seems to be. The system is WHOLE. Every ant needs to be in its place for the system to work. The universe cant afford to let us choose our paths. Or it will be in total chaos. So, all we need to do is to learn how to fit into this master plan. The best way to avoid much injuries would be to let ourselves flow in with it. By being joyful despite the chaos of the moments. By making every point of our life a memorable one. By enjoying the simple pleasures. By knowing that the "bad" people in our lives are put there to divert our routes and emotions. By learning as much as we can from every situation. By not repeating the same mistakes. By trusting the Master Plan who always knows better! 

When we practice these things, life instantly gets lighter...this is what the scriptures refer to as SURRENDER. Leave it to the Master Plan. Stop resisting and hurting unnecessarily. 

LET GO! and DANCE with LIFE :) 

  

Mirror Mirror On The Wall!

Most girls grow up knowing who Snow White is and they also all know that her skin is as white as snow. But what some fail to realise is that it is not the skin that the magic mirror saw to be fairest of them all. It was Snow White from within, the gentle, loving, innocent and humble being that she was that made her fairer then the wicked and vain queen. The magic mirror is nothing but our conscience. We recognize who we are within. And whatever is reflected within shows in our appearance too. That is why sometimes people with the most perfect features could look ugly and those with very ordinary features look beautiful. Though most of us do not realise it, what we see in another person comes from within...its not the eyes, the nose or the slim figure or the skin tone. No, what we see is beyond all these. We see the person as reflected from within. 

I am sure, we have all experienced this, we meet someone for the first time and think they are absolutely gorgeous or handsome but then after getting to know the person suddenly they seem very ordinary, or even ugly! While some that we thought looked very ordinary, gradually look prettier and prettier day by day until one day you think they are the most beautiful person you have ever met. Ever wondered how that happens??

Obviously, it is the inner beauty that overpowers the outer physical appearance. The more human one is the better they look. This is why i neither believe that "Black is beautiful" nor "White is Lovely"! It has got nothing to do with colour. We need to recognize people beyond colour to see who really is good looking!  

What inspired me to write this is the recent posts on FB trying to prove that those with darker skin tone are beautiful and to be proud of it and so on. But it made me wonder....what has the skin got to do with beauty?? Dark or fair, tall or short, plump or slim doesnt capture the attention of the magic mirror for the mirror recognizes only the person inside! While we are desperately trying to improve our appearance on the outside the mirror goes on reflecting from within. And it does not only recognize us but also superimposes that image from within for everyone to see. We can never hide it! We can hide the marks on our faces maybe...but never whats inside!

This doesnt mean i dont believe in make up or dressing up. That too is necessary but we have to remember that it is just the toppings....you can make the cupcakes with the most beautiful toppings but the moment people eat it, it is the taste of cake itself that matters, right??! Toppings are only for viewing pleasure which may look good in photos too but the review will surely be based on the taste!! Just the same, we need to work on the inside more then the outside if we want to look good :)

So keep your magic mirror polished for it reflects who you really are :) 

When Moths stick to you!

Two weeks ago i was in Fraser Hill, Pahang for a holiday organized by my music school, Swara Community Arts Center. It was my first time at this lovely hill resort. Unlike Cameron Highlands which has been commercialized to the level where the nature of the hill has been altered totally, it was relieving to see Fraser untouched with its greens and misty hills intact! 20 of us including children, parents, students and our Sitar Master's family stayed in a huge bungalow perched amidst the serene hills. We all fell in love with the environment the moment we stepped out of the car and started breathing in the fresh, cool air.

There were nothing but hills all around us....and the sounds coming from the jungle was absolutely soothing, below are the pics of the views on the right, left, front and back of the bungalow.

The garden and view

While we were all indulged in the surroundings...something interesting happened. Master's brother in law came walking to me with a grin pointing his index finger and i noticed a small moth on his finger. And i said "hey lets take a pic of it before it flies off! but he coolly said...it is stuck to my fingers, wont fly off!...then he walked around trying to get the moth to fly off....but it stayed comfortably on the tip of his finger. So he walked into the bungalow and placed his finger on the dining table and tried pushing the moth so it would shift itself away from his finger...and it finally did. Then i was watching the moth...and touched it lightly to see if it would fly off but instead of flying off she decided to stick to my index finger! hahhaa....i was delighted. Can you blame me? I mean how often do we get moths sticking to you like magnet? Most of the times it is us stuck in the traffic jams of KL! So i happily walked around the bungalow with the moth, showing it off to my other friends and everyone was amused!

So here she is....first time meeting a leaf moth up so close! she sure looks like a leaf with wings!! so pretty! I couldn't help talking to her. Asked her to reveal the secret behind her beauty. And she told me this..

"Just stick to nature...she is the secret of all secrets"

Simple! right?? And that explains why everything seems haywire in the city....we are so far from nature...what do you expect! The moths cant even get anywhere near you through the concrete walls! We have blocked ourselves from all sources of energy and then we go on complaining about life! 

After having a few minutes with her, i decided to put her back home, reluctantly walked to the garden and placed her on the leaves of a plant and said....thank you for the message. And i will see you again...sometime, somewhere...in some form ...till then...bye with love :)

There she is....happily one with nature...  

So that was one experience at Fraser Hill...theres more to share. To my delight, our master took us hiking in one of the many beautiful trails in Fraser. Will share pics and the experience in my next post :) 

Till then....just stick to nature and watch out for the moths :)