The Tree & the Fruit

Heard an interesting question this morning, ‘When does a fruit fall from the tree?’ Answer: when it is ripe, simple! The Master’s message was aimed at delivering the idea that letting go is an essential part of the cycle of an experience, just like getting together is (the tree lets go the fruit). In fact, letting go, completes it.

I loved the analogy of the tree and the fruit since it is simple yet intense. We are hoarders, sort of (some like the word ‘collectors’ as well) and we like to hold on to ………(people/things/experiences). And we are indiscriminate about it. So while it may be beneficial to ‘hoard’ the pleasant ones, there is simply no justification to hold on to the unpleasant ones. Take an experience for example. Our experiences serve an important purpose, that of experiencing it and then drawing the learning from it as a result of experiencing it. Think of it this way, your favorite movie/s vs. the not-so-favorite ones, which ones do you end up watching more than once? Is it the same with your memories/experiences (mentally)?

I think it is also important to distinguish between an experience and experiencing that experience. The former is an outcome, a result, a past event and the latter happens in the moment, the now. Simply put, the former is an outcome of the latter. And here is one possible reason why we hold on, that when we were experiencing an experience, we were not present to experience it.  

Have a think! What have you been holding on to? Is it serving or enslaving you? Does it empower or weaken? It is time to take the best from it and let it go, get lighter, more agile……a new beginning beckons!


Just received this in my inbox. Found it worth putting here! How strong is your presence in your present? :)

Dreams - yours, mine, ours.

There’s something very powerful about helping someone achieve their dream. One feels a surge, a resounding glee on being part of a dream. They are who i call the Dreamholders.
They invest hugely in a Dreamer’s undertaking, in various ways. And in doing so, they live a part of that dream, the sweet and sour, the ebb and flow. A part of you is changed, and something inside you glows with assurance. Energies come together, collide, explode and good things happen, on and off the dream field.

After enjoying this world for less than a quarter of a century, i’ve encountered various people with various dreams. One thing is for sure, if you want to make your dreams work, the easiest way to do is to make others’ work. In my experience, there have been five stages at which i crossed paths with any person chasing a dream:

1. Unrest - when that something within you starts poking you more than usual and the universe leaves you with sly, smart signs that something’s amiss.

2. Confrontation - when the paraphernalia of thoughts, emotions and opinions get rolled together and you need to summon the courage to pick out the one that you want. The moment of reckoning.

3. Declaration - let it be known to all who you know. Release it into the wind, let the universe record it. A dream has been born and the forces shall join and rejoice.

4. Get Dirty - yes sir, roll up your sleeves. Hell,  - remove your shirt (ladies, you can ignore this bit) and give it all you got! Sweat and blood, grits and gumption. Show ‘em how much you really mean it. And contrary to what most think, it’s where the sweetest joy lies, the heart of a dream.

5. I’m at it right now and hence can’t write on it. Hey, i’m young and so are most, if not all, the people whose dreams i’ve been a part of. Our shot at the moon has only just begun. :)

(a)Mazing Memory

After reading Geoff Livingston’s blogpost on how Experience blinds you, I realized yet again how ‘experience’ as we know it has two sides to it. On the one hand, the most touted one, experience makes us wiser. It enable us to think faster, better and provide better solutions to problems. Flip the coin and you see that it prejudices us. It fine-tunes, brainwashes at times, our minds to certain ‘learnings’ which in turn block the way for any new possibility, comprehension or exchange. We become the proverbial frog in the well.

I went digging further and stopped at Memory. That’s where it all begins, doesn’t it? Experience without memory is like an unheard (unrecorded) song - it’s there but you don’t know remember it, so effectively for you, it doesn’t exist.

“It’s a poor sort of memory that works only backwards.” remarked Lewis Caroll once. It’s a known, but undeclared fact, that our memories might just be the single most crucial reason responsible for our continued existence. It’s the reason why a kid doesn’t play with fire once she’s burnt her fingers and why you know that like every post of mine, at the end of this one too, you might want to contact me for reimbursement of your time.

Memory manifests itself through experiences. Our lives today at this moment are nothing but a sum of our experiences, latent or active to our conscious. There can be no subtractions here. You can multiply it and even divide it, but no removals. And that it’s this sum that, in ways which are beyond our constant purview, determines every single moment of ours today. Every single moment.

If you were to consider my last, almost threat-like (unintended!) statement to be true, I sincerely hope you understand the ramification of memory in our lives.

Take a pause. Observe yourself for five minutes. Browse another tab. Then come back here (bad mannered readers are not my favourite).

Like I once stated in a previous blogpost, we have become slaves of our memory. It’s an invincible tool which has mastered us instead of it happening the other way round. The devilry is so cunning, so intricate that the best of us are unable to sidestep it.

“We don’t see things the way they are, we see them as we are.”

A ‘bad’ memory, usually, finally routes itself to Fear while a ‘good’ one, to Love. And then in all our acts, we operate from either of these bases. The farther we move along the time/age scale, the more we move away from our earliest memories - our most defining ones. And until a deliberate endeavour is undertaken to revive and understand those, to resolve our perspective on those, the listlessness of our current circumstances will keep on confounding us. 


Told ya - slaves.

The Springboard

I yanked my muscles upwards, every ligament screaming silently. Pain shot through my body like a skewer striking through meat, slowly; agonizing and numbing.
The voice urged me, again, “More! Stretch it as much as you can. You are almost there.”

“There? There where?” I thought to myself and cursed that voice, in my head, which seemed oblivious to my suffering.

“Just 30 seconds more.”

And i started counting, slowly, so as to meet an unexpected early end and gain a handful of joy at that. 30 turned to 50 and seconds turned to minutes, but the call to abate never came.

Soon, my eyes closed, not able to face the lights anymore. Time got burnt in the furnace of the torment. That voice now, came as if from a deep, far away valley. I could feel the blood throbbing, rushing to meet the crying need of my body and brain. Breath came in and went out, heavy as iron.

And then it happened, just when i thought i would pass out. The misery paled and melted into a sweet, faint tickle in which my body immersed. The brain stopped counting the count of pain and dove in, too. Eyes still closed, the world around me felt like a distant dream. Like a slow-motion, surreal video in which everything was in motion, except me.
I had finally found the end of the springboard and, gracefully, as if i’d done it all my life, jumped off.

I felt something on my cheeks and realized that tears were tickling my skin. Years trickled down and the unsaid evaporated. They came slowly at first and then they raced down copiously. Churning out more and more, discarding more and more from within me. The corners of my mouth twitched and a smile rested on me.


I thought not, i felt not.
Yet, there was
an awareness
of untangling of knots.

I thought not, i felt not.
Nothing was had
yet, everything that ever was,
was got.


~ This was an attempt to describe the experience of my first and only Catharsis session till date.

A Clappy Tale

Had deleted these and many other photographs clicked in Mcleodganj (hence the low quality, blurry texture). They resurfaced in my memory today and i pick out some stories to share here. One is this. Click on the photos to weave it. Short hints are provided with each. ;-)

tipped point

The despair set in

With close, 

And stalled again

With open.


The spirited wafts

Left him high and dry,

Memories tricked

Joy remained shy.


That gray morning when

The gravel was eating him further,

It burst through the sidewalk

Giving his eye a shudder.


The colour unidentifiable,

The hope too unbelievable.

The gold trickled warmed his hands,

Down went the knuckles

And it seeped into his core.


I close it today with a song which is probably the only song i first heard live and liked it instantly. Our college band had played it and the lead singer had carried it off pretty gracefully. “Telescope eyes” by Eisley.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxGJ4gXtwMw

lavender talks

On the road i walk

a sight i see

On the road i walk

somebody waits for me.


My brown

against its lavender

My brown

it makes sparkle so tender.


By the halo

it roots and sleeps

By the halo

it croons and weeps.


Every twilight

i deposit my mysteries

Every twilight

it weaves me stories.


The silver orb turned

my brown it now matched

The silver orb turned

and new recitals we hatched.


Over the hills and far away

is where it belongs

Over the hills and far away

is where it will set free the Songs.

Once when i was furtively walking back home in a relatively quieter mesh of the city, there burst upon my eyes a spectacle so silently resplendent that it for a second it took my breath away. In a company of withered, empty trees It stood there tall and weighing down with blooms a colour so soft - i knew, as It knew already, that It didn’t belong to this place; beside a yellow streetlight, on a lifeless pavement where the city coughed up its dust and vile. Ever since, everytime i crossed that place, i’d look up to Its grandeur and in it i would bury my worries and nagging thoughts. With time, the blooms dulled and finally abandoned It. Not me. It tells me things that the world has taught It while i absorb and listen with the heart of a younger one. :)

I hope you enjoy’s today’s selection, a song which is titled and revolved around a Tree, it just hit me this evening and i knew i had to put it here - “Lemon Tree” by Fool’s Garden…there’s a cute li’l animation too in this one which makes it cuter! Snap those fingers and tap those toes! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wossaYdYc14

ps. the photograph aint of It.

beyond the dawn…

We’ve cooked our heads

and singed our hearts.

The hunger feeds on us;

the thirst drinks us.

Burn it through

raze till nullity -

Pregnant ashes

cries afreshed.

Take me some place

beyond the dawn

into the blue heart

dissolved in the music.

We go, oh we go

deeper but higher.

Newer but unwired

no more blare

no more jagged

we turn into one another, singing

the notes fuse - no brake, no gear…

image

The song for the evening “Stigmatized” by The Calling. A song often underrated. What a misfortune. Coz “if i give up on you, i give up on me..” :):)

the head-stand

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods;

There is a rapture on the lonely shore;

There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar;

I love not man the less, but Nature more…

- Lord Byron

“I am Super Tramp..(looks at the apple)..and you are Super Apple!”

“Mr. Franz, I think careers are a 20th century invention and I don’t want one.”

“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greather joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”

- Christopher McCandless a.k.a. Alexander Supertramp

A man whose story made my life do a head-stand; and never feel like going back on my feet. I remember ever so clear, the night i finished reading about Mr. McCandless, i was ready to stuff my bag with a few necessities and whatever cash i had saved and stashed somewhere, and leave. Just leave. Where? No one knew. The world was out there and i had to savour it before it was too long. It took my friends’ ‘rational pleading’ and persuasion that my time would come (:P) that i decided that perhaps tonight could be spent in a quilt. After that, many less nights were spent akin. And i can safely say, most days too.

Thank you Chris, the head-stand is more alive, more raw, more everything. I hope you smile wherever you are. “Happiness is only true when shared..” :)

Songs for tonight, two songs from the motion picture on the man’s life - Into the wild. One, is the first song i heard and the opening piece of music gives me goosebumps till date; “Hard sun”. The other is the one which never, ever ceases to make me fall back and look around once - what are we thinking? Are we even aware? “Society” in Eddie Vedder’s unfaltering, haunting voice..plunge yourselves, the night is long and uncluttered.. :)

the nameless friend

I trudge; heavy, eroded

Depleted, i collapse in your lap.

My universe is spasming,

but my screams are muted.

My universe is saturated,

but my spirit is empty.


Your Sister wraps me

her embrace ever so tender,

Your Mother cradles me

leaving nothing to render.

Your warm Hearth,

thaws the winter in  me.

Your vibrant Children

infuse deep their glee.


Ever so often

i come to your shrine,

bereft of any token.

Ever so often

i deposit my fears,

my grace, my mojo - woken.


These lines stem out of my immense, bottomless love for Nature and in this case, for its soldiers, the Trees. I happened to visit Cubbon Park, which lies in the heart of Bangalore. Each tree was like a painting, poetry frozen in forms so graceful, so stunning, so moving. Trees are considered sacred and still worshiped in parts across the globe. Their groves are our oldest temples. They hold within themselves eons old wisdom. The stories of Tree Spirits (a type nature spirit) are all too familiar for any of us who’ve read fantasy. I don’t think it’s fantasy, i believe they exist. An ethereal existence visible only to the intangible senses. Trees are my nameless friends; best part - they can’t escape me no matter what crap i share with ‘em. Hehe!

“If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer.  But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.” So resounded Henry David Thoreau. Aye, couldn’t get closer to truth.

There are two hindi film songs which never fail to get back that skip in my step, never fail to resurrect my mood. One of which i share here with you tonight.. “Kholo kholo” from the movie Taare zameen par. Open up! :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GBx8NHW5Bw

L_O_V_E

Their hands held on to each other,

the pain was unreal but one.

None knew where the hurt came from,

but the scar had deeply run.


Their eyes groped the river within,

while the heart closed its eyes.

The sun shone darkness,

the truth was same as lies.


Immersed together in the roaring sea,

the throes pulling ‘em apart.

The hands clenched tighter; digging further

and it was then that they went back to the start.


The realization sunk in,

as the agony subsided.

The pain hid in their togetherness,

and rose up as afar they glided.


Contrary to what many might want to believe, that these lines carry with sadness and separation, through these lines i’ve tried to highlight how when a relationship, and not just a romantic one, turns parasitic, it would be termed anything but Love. Most of us are so deeply immersed in our insecurities and hollowness of our own identities, that we try to fill ‘em with the presence of others, especially that ‘special one’. It’s what one of my younger friends, terms ‘filling in empty spaces’ (shall write about it some other, right now i’m short on time).

Nothing could probably explain better, how Love (or any relationship) ought to be, than these lines by Kahlil Gibran, the Poet of Life. Once again, this whole post pertains to relationships of Love of any kind imaginable and forged by humans. The night is raw and eager. Savor and soak.


You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore

You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.

Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.


But let there be spaces in your togetherness,

And let the winds of heavens dance between you.


Love one another, but make not a bond of love.

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup, but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread, but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone.Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.


Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.

For only the hand of life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together.
For the pillars of the temple stand apart.
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow…

to look at the mountains…

The firmament peeks below and discovers leaves of a book; each a chapter with its own fragmented story but coming together to shoulder a majestic story unfolding over centuries - to be scaled and learnt.

I let my eye take me where it can and the silent challenge of their rugged beauty stares back at me - to be conquered and learnt.

~ Difference in perspectives or difference in positions?

the constellation within

On such a clear sky,

when the stars pierce through you

join the dots, discover the pattern

and see where the arrow points to.

The secrets are all here

so are all the answers,

Let the pull work on you

and take the dive deep under.

It’s the escape, it’s the destination

The differences are but our own creations.

Unleash!

Tonight’s melody is from the Swell Season. A slow number that tugs at your quieter dynamics - Papercup:


Paper cup
Ain’t got no worries
Got no
Got no dog in this fight
Paper plane
Take this note straight to her if her heart’s still in the fight

Maybe time will decide
This restless spirit can’t survive on breadcrumb trails no more

Paper saint
Will you hear her when she calls
You got no dog in this fight
Paper bird
Take this offering from her hands
This simple trail back to the light

Maybe time will provide
Give you the strength to decide
I hope it’s not too late

Maybe time will decide
This restless spirit can’t survive one breadcrumb trails no more

Maybe time will provide
Give you the strength to decide
You know it’s not too late

Paper cup
Ain’t got no worries
Got no
Got no dog in this fight…