The Gift Of Time..

The afternoon rays filtered through the lace curtains, falling softly across my mum’s face. I was propped up on the couch in front of her, my legs carelessly thrown over the armrest.

She was talking animatedly about her favorite subject – my dad  , and his recent exploits. I watched her face, as myriad expressions flitted across within seconds and felt a strange kind of contentment. The face that had been once guilty of an arresting purity, had aged over the years and now reflected a woman with a deeper strength of purpose.

It had been about half hour after lunch, and this was one of our usual conversation periods. We would joke, and reflect – on ourselves, on our family, society, human emotions and life in general. In the kitchen, on the living room couch, in the balcony, or on the phone – the location didn’t matter; many years had passed and these languid moments of companionship hadn’t changed.

I thought to myself… Surely, there was something deeper in this than just frank, effortless, soul-soothing communication? Was I under-estimating the value of these moments?

My stream of thought moved on. With a familiar pang in my heart, I thought of how easily we forgot what life was about. It’s always, “I have yet another thing to do”, or “there’s a very important meeting that I cannot afford to miss”, or “I simply don’t have the time!”. All the while, our most basic needs are sacrificed at the altar of mindless-routine.

And as I thought more about it, it dawned on me. That this is probably what this New Year needed to be about the most:

The thought that there is much more to human life than existence, thousands of commitments, and all our precious monetary/material possessions. The thought that the world feeds off the energy and spirit of living individuals… not mindless zombies  .

The world that we all should be living in is the one that blooms with companionship, and each day brings that one miracle that owes its creation to love. A world where someone somewhere could still become a champion for under-rated (perhaps altogether-alien) values like honesty, integrity, fearlessness, and compassion.

Those moments of being-ness that I experienced as I heard my mother talk brought forth a thought that I wish I remembered more often: That as people, we all have a unique gift that only we can provide: Our Time.

I realized that the most precious gift we could give those who really mattered to us (parents, spouse, children, friends…), was a few minutes of our lives – a few fragments of our otherwise complicated existence:

• A few minutes to listen to aspects of their lives. Their thoughts, aspirations, hopes and sorrows.
• A few minutes to observe and imbibe aspects of their personalities. Their uniqueness. Their crazy yet endearing ways.
• A few minutes to tell them more about ourselves. Give them a feel of what we as individuals are experiencing.
• A few minutes to show them that it was really important to us that they were around. And that despite all the things we could be doing otherwise, we wanted to spend those moments with them, because nothing else mattered as much.
• A few minutes that we could choose to spend today… minutes that we could look back upon many years later, and feel grateful for. Especially when those we chose to give this gift to, are no longer with us.

The Gift of Time. The Gift of Love. The Gift of Life.

The Road is Long (So You Better Enjoy It)

It doesn’t matter who you are, how popular or how hated, how rich or how poor, ultimately, every single night of your life, there is only one person you have to sleep with. You.

Your spouse can send you to the couch or kick you to the curb, but only you can make peace with yourself.

The road through life is long, if you’re lucky that is. And if you’re not so lucky and life turns out to be short, then all the more reason not to waste a single moment regretting the past or fearing the future. On any long journey there will be ups and there will be downs. Some days seem perfect, and others are disasters. But no matter how your day goes, when the dust settles and you’re alone with only your thoughts in the still of the night, are you at peace?

If not, then you are neglecting the most important relationship in your life. If you can’t find peace with yourself, then you will not likely find peace with anyone. Sure, there will be those who are peaceful with you… but you know in your heart that they only make peace because they are pacifists. So you discount them, you don’t respect them, and their peace, being a product or their weakness and not of your merit, means little to you.

So then, are you happy to be you? Would you truly be a different person? Are you happy with your life?

Here’s a secret: if you are satisfied with your life, satisfied with who you are and where you are going, then you don’t have to get to where you strive to be to enjoy life.

And here’s an even bigger secret: Only you can let yourself be happy. Only you can let yourself enjoy life. Unless you are jailed for a crime you didn’t commit, and really even then too, so I guess that means there really are no excuses at all. Only you have the choice to enjoy yourself. Nobody can make that choice for you, and nobody can take it away from you. They can try, oh how you can bet they’ll try. Some people will do anything and everything in their power to make you miserable. But ultimately, they can only make you miserable if you let them.

So what’s the point? The point is simple. If you haven’t yet been able to get right with yourself, now is the time to step up and do it. And if you find yourself at peace with who you are, then it’s time to take back your own happiness, your own satisfaction, your own pleasure on this long road that you travel.

It’s time for you to go in peace. It’s time for us all to go in peace.

Women Explained By Engineers !!

Undelivered . . .

I give you flowers because I believe them to be tender. Tender here is the words of soul for all my heart and feelings revolve around it. It’s the way I feel for you. I love you beyond my capacity to understand. But you are oblivious to the fact. 

 

I give you flowers because they make you smile and that smile is worth every effort that I would love to make, just so I may see that one chirpy smile for the rest of……

I give you flowers so you may know that this is how I feel for you. I believe that flowers speak a language that transcends the boundaries of all languages. I pray someday you too would see that. I know that you don’t love me, nor do you understand the intensity with which I love you.

These roses are meant to make your day, even though I burn here, sometimes of jealousy and sometimes just out of the pain of being oblivious in your life. I know that you have some doors of the past you haven’t closed. The ones that make my life more difficult, that distance you from me. Would you shut out the others?

I know not what prevents you from closing those doors, is it the pleasure of the chase or the hunt or Is it some skewed sense of thirst for inconsequential power? I know not.

The roses I send come with their thorns, and they speak for me when they come to you. Underneath the tenderness of the wild rose lies the thorn that speaks of the pain when you act oblivious to my love. But the thorns aren’t meant for you, they are for me. They stay invisible to you underneath the tender moistened roses which are solely meant for you. They are true in their words that I care for you in ways you will probably never understand. All I can do is send this message through flowers and hope that you, someday, might understand.

Love,

Maximus

He folded the letter and kept it in his pocket.It has been five days since he has been sending her the flowers. And it has been five days of joy for him, every time he saw her face light up. The roses were beautiful, and so was she. Would she know, he never knew.. it didn't matter.

Death !!

To speak of nothingness, void, eternity, silence and stillness one must come eventually to the subject of death. And not only that, one must come to face death as part of the human condition. You and I, and everyone will die. That is certain..

Death is the ultimate and final entry into Pure Silence. At that point all the struggling, all the grasping and controlling is finished whether we wish that to be or not. Death is our final friend, our destiny as a living being. However, I offer that it is the fear of death, of the unknown finality of it, of the dissolution into nothingness, which has been the central concern of all humanity since the beginning, whether consciously, unconsciously or subconsciously. We know that someday we will not be alive and the fear is that we will not be aware as well. Consider this in yourself right now. Because there is tremendous freedom here if you admit that someday you will be nothing itself.

If you invite this into your consciousness, no matter how painful it seems, you will see the absolute joy of it all. In death the Pure Silence that you are will finally return to the source, the center, the all of Pureness itself. There you will not have body with brain, brain with thought and memory, and memory with emotion. If you consider that, at first it is a little scary. That is the reason religion has invented concepts like heaven to sooth humanity's fears about this.

It is my humble opinion that our fear of being nothing, being dead, being silent, is all related to this.

Spend a few moments right now and welcome death to yourself psychologically. Investigate the fact that someday you will be gone, your thoughts, dreams, memories, hopes, goals, desires - everything will be gone. What will be left, what is left, only Pure, gentle, loving Silence. 

This is you, right now.