100 Happy Days: Day 6 - At The Cinema

Today I shed tears. I could not help it; they rolled down, unattended, staining my cheeks. Luckily nobody noticed. It was dark. I was in a cinema hall watching the film ‘Club 60’. Yes! I do cry in movies especially if the film moves me emotionally.

‘Club 60’ is a story of a couple that grieves over the loss of their young son. I cried when wife confronts her husband’s raging grief, disclosing her reasons for being stronger. It is difficult to deal with your own grief if you have to sympathize with others. One has to be strong to help other emerge out of depression. 

Sarika and Farookh Sheikh’s excellent performance is worth a mention.

One idea is clear. Happiness and pain are two sides of a coin. How one deals with it differs from person to person. Some scars are so deep that they can drown you down into depression zone, leading to self-destruction. Its only when we share the pain or understand the reality, can one find happiness.

I am glad I was able to watch this film in PVR, undisturbed and undistracted.

The beautiful lyrics on ‘happiness’ are very refreshing: “I have found you after losing you; once again my shadow walks with me.”

Sehami Huyi Jee Roshani  /  Lamhein Bujhe Huye / Kone Mein The Padein Kahin / Sapne Mere Huye / Palko Mein Aaj Phir Se / Ek Khaab Sajaya Hain / Phir Se Mere Saath Mera Saaya Hain / Khokar Maine Aaj Tumhein Paaya Hain

So here I am, with the project of ‘100 Happy Days’I am posting pictures each day here on my blog then sharing the link on my page on FB too. You can enjoy my work either here or on my page at FB at Pushee’s World

If I had to live my life over

Flash back to 1986

I am transported to a wooden house on stilts, mom says.  “Godownstairs and pluck some vegetables for me, bring okra, coriander leaves,tomatoes, green chilies and also pluck few avocados and mangoes from the trees. I wish to make a delicious lunch today.”

I love doing these small errands for mom; it is like I amcontributing to the household chore in a small way, making my bit.  Momdoes most of work on her own, we have a helper who comes to clean the house,but mom does all the cooking and gardening.  She has planted somevegetables downstairs under my bedroom window, the soil is very rich, whatevershe plants, grows healthy and instantly. I love to cook too but I normally dothat when mom is busy elsewhere and I have kitchen for me to play around withingredients, try some recipes from the cook books or sometimes follow recipesthat are borrowed from friends.

Life in Surinam was beautiful; it offered good weather and fabulous food except that in the year 1986, situation in Surinam was getting worse.

People were getting arrested on the suspicion of planning a coup against Military rule. There was no freedom of speech, there was human rights abuse and we were hearing the stories of people disappearing overnight. Business was also not good; there were no good hospitals and no good school. Many people had migrated to Holland and Indians were planning to migrate to any another country as the future of Surinam didn’t look promising.

We were planning to migrate too

I had just returned from my school and was relaxing in my room. It was not easy teaching 10 children separately and at different levels. I taught in a small private English school in Surinam and most of my students were the expatriates mainly from Brazil and India. I enjoyed teaching but it was quite exhausting.

I sat reading in my room and the telephone rang. It was a long distance call from my sister in Spain. “Come to Spain” she said, “the business is good and the new laws are being passed and they are inviting investors, a new town is developing in the South of Tenerife, there is much scope for progress”

I had two choices,either to migrate to Spain or to USA. My maternal uncle lived in USA and he too called me regularly asking me visit him.

“You must visit me first, if you like it, I will apply visa for you” he said.

I had neither visited Spain nor USA; therefore I could not decide which place I could choose. If given a choice I would never want to migrate at all. I loved Surinam. I had good set of friends, a comfortable job and good working hours. The climate was good and food was fantabulous. The only drawback was the language. Dutch was the local language and the natives spoke Taki Taki. I found it difficult to learn any foreign language.

Maybe I had developed a very strong ego too.

I had an ethnic taste. I made lot of money selling my art work. I specialized in Indian art work/painting and was often invited by friends from Indian Embassy in organizing various cultural programs.  Many times I believed that I was quite talented and could survive at any place. Europe or America, what did it matter, I felt that the world was just waiting for me; it seriously needed a talented person like me. What I didn't want was to learn a new language. I asked my sister if English was spoken in Spain and she said ‘Yes” My family respected my opinion and they were willing to go to any place I chose.

I chose Spain.

Wrong choice I made, because on arriving Spain, I discovered that nobody spoke English, even the TV programs were dubbed in Spanish. Maybe my sister misunderstood my question when I had asked her if English was spoken in her country. Maybe she wanted us to live closer to her and therefore she lied.

My ego shattered into small pieces when I discovered that nobody was interested in talking to me because I could not converse in their dialect. I wanted to converse with people but language was a huge barrier. I wasted two years of my life learning the language. I couldn't find job because Spain had strict rules and nobody can work without work permit. I worked in my brother’s retail store selling electronic goods and gift items, most of the time I was bored. Moreover, I hated the weather in winter, each night I shivered like snake under covers during winter.

Europe is beautiful and even more beautiful on post cards but I could not adjust to the people, to the bland taste in food and the climate. After staying for 10 years in Spain, I decided to move back to India.

If I had to live my life all over again, I would choose America.

I always feel my life would have been completely different had I chosen to live in US of America instead.

My friend says, "We are the choices we make." she read about my experience and said "I am sure you are richer for all the experience you have gained and now appreciate Mumbai better, maybe dirty, crowded, lazy but it is your own Mumbai"

Yes true, after traveling around the world and living in many places, I have learnt to appreciate Mumbai lots more, I am happiest in Mumbai because I have the freedom of movement; I love the

warmth of weather and people here. I have come to realize that it's not the infrastructure (although to certain extend, it is) but to be surrounded by the warmth of affectionate people is more rewarding perhaps.....

Another friend said, “Very interesting life! I was curious if you felt that as though the experiences in Spain taught you something, did you glean insights there that then helped you grow as a person? How did you recover from the shattered ego post-Surinam?”

During my growing up years I was very aggressive, egoist and was very opinionated. But living in Spain, and not being able to communicate with others forced me to spend more time with myself. This perhaps changed me; I became introvert, reserved and soft spoken. The more time I spent with myself the more sensitive I became to people’s problems. I think I have become a better person. I don’t take anything for granted anymore. Moreover had I migrated to USA, maybe I would have never returned to the school for mentally challenged where I play a very important role of getting funds for the school and upgrading the lives of underprivileged in the best way I can.

But then, it’s all destiny....

Image source from web

Today's Post is a response to the GBE2 prompt: "If I had to Live my life over"

My Spiritual Guru is in Mumbai this week

Normally I am a late riser but I do wake up early sometimes if the duty or the interest beckons, and this time it was the latter. Like every year, this year too I had family staying at my place, during Babaji’s visit,  who would be attending Satsang all three days, but since the distance is too far (at Bayender)  and me with a weak body, I was to attend only one special one on Sunday which is hosted by Babaji, My Spiritual Guru.

That meant sleeping early at night to wake up early the next day. But New Year eve program on TV was distracting, so while the rest of the family went off to sleep by 10pm, I stayed late night watching the TV program at Star Plus Channel as we saw the change from year2011 to the year2012.

I was too drowsy to wake up at 5am on 1st day of the year2012, but the activity of my guests drinking tea/spiritual discussions/bathing etc woke from my slumber and I was ready by 6am.

We reached the venue at Bayender by 7am, and struggled in long queues to get inside the compound. Although the hall was empty inside, there were long queues at every entrance and lots of commotion outside by the people who believe in cutting queues. The stronger and influential ones always have easy way out while the rest wait patiently for their turn.

Anyways, I found a chair facing a big screen and waited for 2 hours, till it was time for discourse.

Babaji began his discourse at 9:30am and the Satsang lasted for 90 minutes, the message was mainly introspection on the things that we do and is it proper to act the way we do. There were many questions asked on behavior and attitude, which many devotees could identify. Happy to share his message with those who were unable to attend the discourse on 1st January 2012:

The topic was 'come out of darkness and get enlightened to find the truth' 

What is the purpose of life and how do we fulfill it?  We must try to understand the depth of this message and try to understand what does that darkness mean? The darkness mentioned here is not the one where you cannot see, you stumble and fall, but darkness of knowledge where you cannot see the truth.

Today everybody is wishing each other ‘Happy New Year’. We say 'Happy New year to everybody but if we don't practice the right methods to be happy how can we be happy? Just words don't suffice; if we wish to be happy then we have to make it happy. Let us ask ourselves what is there in this world to be so happy about it? We are actually reminding each to make the year a happy one!

So how do we find happiness? Money? Status? Family?  Think again, only when we have His grace, can we find happiness.

When there is hunger for knowledge then we can see the light.

To show our love for our Lord, we waste our time going to holy places, temples, shrine, but where is your Lord? These are just illusions.

If you love something you have to go and find it there, but if you are looking in wrong places then how will you find it? Everything that we do, we think whether it is profitable or loss to us, we don’t do anything unless we have a selfish motive. There has to be a logical conclusion to whatever we set out to do. We have to think before we proceed towards that goal

Atma and Paratma, (soul and Lord) both are inside us but there is a wall separating the two, we need to break that wall and unite the two.

How do we achieve that?

When we are sick, we go to a doctor, he prescribes us the medicines and we get well only after we follow the prescription, go to a pharmacy, get the medicine and take the dose. There is the remedy for external illness.

But what about our internal disease called Ego?

This disease has to be treated and its prescription is also within us. If we find the medicine within us, and kill this disease then we find the Shabd and then we recognize our Lord. But this is a long procedure and the distance has been created by attachment and other vices, thus we get diverted in different directions.

We make our own interpretation of all that we read in holy books, different books have different stories but all the religions say the same thing that there is only one truth, and that truth is God. Truth cannot be changed nor it is an external thing.

In Gurubhani it is explained that Spiritual Guru is just a physical body, The journey just begins with body, He is just the medium for reaching the truth. Only humans can make us understand, plants cannot, nor the rocks nor the animals. Only human can guide a human, to understand the message, to be alert in seeing that light and that sound. We don’t have to choose the Guru, all spiritual Guru’s are the messengers of God who have same goal of showing the path, with only difference being in their way of explaining and in our power of absorbing. We should not limit our self to external form but delve inside through our devotion and recognize the truth.

The biggest Seva is 'Naam ki Kamai', but we are happy with Seva (service) of external kind. Unless there is no proper atmosphere, we cannot attain anything. That is why we need to recognize real Seva, real Satsang and real Darshan.

So what is Darshan?

Darshan is not just staring at the face of your spiritual Guru. It is deep concentration to something more internal, so much so, that every other awareness is dimmed. Have you seen the love of a mother for her child? A mother will be so engrossed with the activity of her child that she might not even hear a telephone bell.

Such is the helplessness of love, when one can see nothing but the Truth and that is the true Darshan. Since we don’t understand all these things we live in darkness.

We live in darkness hence we light lamps and agarbattis to dispel the darkness. 

But what about removing the darkness of our mind? 

Only when we remove the darkness from our mind, we can connect with the light of knowledge. Spiritual Guru helps us to dispel that darkness, he is there to guide us to the proper path.

When we buy a new computer, what do we do?

It has a blank memory; we program it, whatever is the input, the resulting output we get. If you wish to delete files from your computer, you have first to scan everything before deleting, separating the important files, so that we can remove all the unnecessary files. We have to be systematic to get the best results.

Similarly, whatever you get is what you deserve. If you do devotion, you will get the results. We just have to input  the Name of our Lord, that is why we have to do Simran(meditation), because with Simran you clean your system,. We don’t wish to be entangled with unnecessary things; we have to identify what influences us and delete useless things by meditation.

There is a tourist spot a Lucknow called ‘BhoolBuliya, which is like a concrete maze where one can get lost if he is not guided properly, to find a way out, one has to distinguish some valid points.

At every stage of our life we need a Guru, a guide.

A child does not say “let me learn on my own”, he needs his mother to help him with his first step, when he grows up to go to school, he needs teacher, when he starts working he needs the guidance from his boss, thus he need support all his life, a guidance to move in this maze of life so that he does not get lost in this ‘BhoolBuliya’

We can travel the world and stay in strange places but we will always be second class citizens, we cannot find the Truth is strange places, its only when we reach our own town, when we reach our own true home, do we find peace when Atma and Paramatma meet.

But we complain that we have no time.

You have time to stand for hours in front of the mirror adjusting your head gear(pagri), decorating yourself, going to salon, parties, social gathering, but you have no time for your Lord? How would you feel if your child said that he has no time for you?  We need our child to sit with us, spend some time with us and make us happy. We advise our children to keep good company because he is likely to pick up the qualities of his peers.  Don’t you wish that your children listen to you? If we don’t fulfill our duty towards our Lord, how can we expect Him to protect us and give us his grace by guiding us towards Truth within us? If we disobey our Lord by giving excuses then how will we reach God? If we get entangled with worldly things how will we free ourselves?

After many million rebirths, we have finally achieved a human form and if we don’t utilize this human form then we know not when we get this human form again.

There is much too much pain and suffering in other reincarnation and they, the lower species, have no powers to protect themselves. Have you not seen the horse being whipped harshly and the horse cannot protest? or a worm being crushed under feet for no fault of his?  Would you like to be reincarnated to that lower species? Human form is the top of the creation, the only form when you can realize God by devotion and meditation. While you have the superior human form, in which you can find Lord, do your meditation, it’s the only form where you can find Truth.

We should not worship out of fear, we should worship out of love for our God.

Many people worship snake, giving it milk, joining hands, trying to make friendship thinking that it will not bite if you butter it. They are afraid that it might bite if not worshipped. Man finds the easy way out by showing external devotion, praying so that Gods are not angry with him, thinking that he has done his duty but this is not enough. You don’t become chef by reading cook books, you don’t get driving license by just reading instructions, you have to practice to perfect your art, no books can help you perfect your skills.

Saint Paul says:”I die daily, that which is born from flesh to flesh and other which is born from spirit to spirit, to enter the gates of heaven, only to die a royal death.”

We listen to our Guru only in his presence and forget as soon as he is gone. The way to meditation is to close all the nine apertures of our body and bring the concentration on the 10th door which is here, at the eye center, when he tastes the nectar at the 10th door and hears the sweet music, he will see the light of Truth and he will find the divine happiness.

Going for a satsang is not just to give attendance, it is a place to absorb the message, if you cannot absorb what is preached at the satsang,

Then what is the use of going for spiritual meetings?

There is no shortage of people attending satsang/temple but if they are not attentive than what is the use? Spiritual Guru is not interested in quantity of people attending his satsang, he is only interested in those who obey him and follow the path that he is guiding them. He does not want people to sit in 1st standard all their life, he wants them to advance to a better stage and graduate to attain success.

A spiritual Guru wants his disciples to graduate by following a right path because without devotion and meditation there is no eternal peace and happiness and he will continue to live in darkness.