Marriage after so many divorces? Why not...

Finding a good manager is pretty similar to finding a good spouse; afterall you spend a good third of your day with him/her if not more, have to please them, put up with their yelling and tantrums and humor them. If you are lucky in finding the right one life is good and you help each other. You do the dirty laundry, take out the trash at times, polish his/her shoes at times,

ensure they are well fed with updates and ready to go. While in return they ensure you are taken care of, have a roof over your head and 2 square meals a day with maybe a vacation every now and then. Besides if you ever do the unthinkable and yell at them, they let it go and give you another chance. And like any good marriage the love continues long after the honeymoon period.In short you grow old and wise together not to mention that translates quite well into the moolah department.

However if you are not one of those lucky few at striking gold you are faced with the harsh reality of divorce after divorce till you either strike gold and join the aforementioned elite group or throw your hands up in the air and reconcile to singledom. The singledom situation is rarely the norm though so that should be comforting.

I for one have not been in the elite group so far but I have not given up yet. I face every new singledom with renewed vigor and the same level of hopes I had of my first partnership and patiently wait as the honeymoon period wanes to reveal the true state of affairs. Kind of like a kid with bated breath as he draws a quarter out of his pocket and starts the process of scratching out the silver lining off, that masks the prize announcement on the little redeem card he got in exchange in his cereal box. My very first partnership ended in slight animosity with a challenge thrown my way to find someone who treated me better and i did, or rather on hearing about the challenge the next partnership came looking for me. The animosity with the first one just grew for the very obvious question of "In the whole wide world could you nly find this one" a feeling referring to my second partnership since my first and second partners were at daggers drawn way before my entry into either of their life's.

The second one unfortuantely ended in disappointment at how poor a provider it was turning out to be. Unfortunately for me I overstayed in partnership number 2 with questions that plague most newbies...is it me? What am I doing wrong....its takes a bit to realize that sometimes somethings are just not meant to be and that the faster we move on the lesser time we spend in therapy... I was quite crestfallen after partnership number 2 especially when I found out how partner 2 was bitching about me to everyone in sight...and this is exactly when friends come in handy...a weep here, a shoulder there and vigor renewed hunt for partnership number 3 started.

I was particularly careful not to repeat any patterns here and I must say I was quite successful for the most part..I moved cities, looked in places I normally would'nt look and took it slow and easy till all my terms and conditions were accepted...i finally caved in and said I do and partnership number 3 ran relatively smoothly but the non provider mode eventually showed up. What is the use of all the service to your spouse if there is no get..just gives. But partner 3 had been better so I tried to work things out. We went in for counseling and had candid conversations about what was wrong and for a while things started looking up again but alas it was time for partnership number 4. Partner 3 failed to understand like most people that a relationship takes work..sustained work and unless that happens the affected party will get up and leave. It was a rough parting because partner 3 woke up just as I had both feet out the door and begged me to stay.

How could I have when I had already signed myself away to partner number 4. And as I thought at the start of all new partnerships in days bygone, here I am with the same dreamy look in my eye believing this is it... this is the one that will go all the way...

I sometimes look at old partners who have long been together and still going strong and wonder were they plain lucky or did they just grit and put in the work together for them to walk hand in hand growing wealthier, wealthier and wealthier. Have they worked out the perfect symbiotic relationship of provider and follower...the provider being the archer and the follower being the charioteer in this case?

Whom are we judging

We participate in contests, competitions and get judged for the level of our expertise and finesse in whatever it is that we are competing about. At work we have appraisals where someone is constantly judging our work and mannerisms and skills. But what qualifies someone to be the judge? A few extra degrees? A few extra hours of practice at the art being evaluated? How can we have one standard expectation for a skill level, and use that to judge across people who are so different? What makes them different then? Why is there a need to fit everyone into one box of assessment and grade them? Is this not unfair because everyone is on a different life-path and a different stage in their spiritual evolution and realization of being one making them different; in which case we are judging apples and oranges and not apples and apples necessarily. So in this case how do you even say that one is better than the other?

Or is competition and judging fair for the exact same reasons - that we are all one and hence I am in fact just judging my own self; trying to better myself? But in this case then the whole concept of competition is a facade because how can you compete with your own self and be better than yourself?

So whom are we all being judged against - our own selves or someone so different that the point of comparison is mute? Or should we change the first requirement of all competitions so all souls participating are on the same level which would bring me back to the first point that then there would be no point competing. So then why are we all wasting so much time in our lives comparing and entering contests and judging and getting ourselves shattered with the outcomes? Whom are we judging really?

Everything else is but a dream !

So I don’t know if I am shaking because of all the coffee I had this evening or if its from the movie “Inception”. Now that I mull over the question I think it’s the movie that’s gotten me in this state. How do I know if I am awake or asleep just right now? How do I know what level I am in? What’s my token to keep check on what’s real and what’s not? Then again maybe this is not real. And all the incidents and people in my world are afterall my projections….imperfect projections of my own sub conscious and I am my own subject in my own dream filling it up with all these experiences so I can learn lessons from them and believe that the lessons I learnt are from my own thoughts and creations, but are they really my own thoughts and creations or simply what a higher self of me wants me to think is “my” independent thoughts? Have I then truly created this world? To live in a world that lasts a lifetime but that’s probably only a few minutes or seconds in some higher conscience of mine? How would I ever know? Do I need to die to wake up and realize what is true; to unveil what’s beyond this life and existence? Do I need a kick to jolt me out of this dream where everything is so real and yet not so real? I cannot wait to explore what’s beyond when I wake from this state; probably a glimpse of which I have already tasted once during my meditation where I was indeed living in a world created by myself….but then who is this me? What level of subconscious is this “me” reverberating from? Is that why I have started feeling a sense of detachment at times from this world? Because a part of me realizes that I am asleep and my sub-conscious is jolting me to realize that its time; time to wake up to a new reality? But the true question to ask is why am I here? What brought me here? But if I created all this who is this “I” in the first place? So am I the architect and the subject in this dream? Whats the goal? Whats the purpose? I need to self –enquire, go deeper so I can rise, rise above all that seems to be. I need to push the elevator to the top floor and see what’s there. I need to find my token and keep looking for whatever it is that I am here to take back with me as I rise above !! And till I can do that I need to be the architect of my own dream and continue to build without letting any of the events pull me into limbo, without letting any event get larger than the dream itself. But what if I create a dream so intricate for my own self that I don’t know how to navigate it? Is that what a “messed up” life is supposed to be? What happens to people who create these daringly bold mazes that they get trapped in? is that why we traverse life’s; or in other words die to wake up and then sleep so we can be born again to continue our search; kind of like a diver who needs to return to the surface every now and then for a breath of fresh air only to dive back into the thick dark strange ocean full of endless possibilities to continue searching and building what he seeks to achieve? How far down should I dive to retrieve what it is that I am here for? I guess I will know when its time or that’s probably why I am building these people around me. All I need to do now is dream on and not fear what events I have to traverse in my dream because what I wake up with is what really matters…everything else is but a dream !!

Memories

I remember those days when I was allowed to be an innocent little girl who admired my mother enjoying Seetha Kalyanam as she sat with the transistor perched precariously on the 2 legged rickety wood stool …she always liked listening to cassettes on that “transistor”, as it was known back in the days, since not only was it new but also thinner than the older monstrous player cum radio that we had, with the long antenna, that I so loved extending out all the way coz it would rise to touch the roof of the room….anyways… the monstrosity of a player was always only used to tune in to some tamil songs at 4 pm as the milk was boiling and amma was braiding my sisters’ hair, with me running around buying as much of play time as I could gather without popping up on her radar for not having done my school work….evenings were meant exclusively for the thin new transistor player and as she sat with one ear pressed close to it and eyes closed Maharajapuram Santhanam transferred her to another planet….a planet that I wish I could have accompanied her to for she looked so peaceful while there…away from all the chores and duties and responsibilities….away from everyone, where she could be whatever she wanted…even the little Paru who never forgot to hold out her little finger lest her ring not be seen in the photograph….the face is etched in my memories …. still green and fresh as if from yesterday….and that is one of the memories I will take to my grave…on the days when appa was at home he would join her on that planet…. I will always remember fondly my dearest amma and appa of those days….I wish I could have halted time so those innocent days never ended !! If only wishes were horses ….and then as the evening matured they would go back and forth discussing ragas and singers and songs bygone and there would be perfect harmony…dinner done, the music would continue and we would all lie down with the lights off as BMKrishna or MS or Santhanam weaved in and out of our dreams….sometimes if it was too early for lights off, I would make my bed right in appa’s lap and curl up like a little dizzy pup tired of chasing its shadow....

If tomorrow never comes !

We plan and plan and plan and plan only to wake up and find that tomorrow has its own plan in store for us….like a sand castle that we build so painstakingly only to find that the tide razed it to the ground to make a pattern of its own. And yet we wake up day after day to create the same old plans … what if the concept of tomorrow or the future; the next minute is erased from our permanent memory or pushed beyond the grasp of our minds? Will we then be free? Free to cherish the breath as it enters our body at this very instant and just be?

Shree Rama Jayam !

Lets see ...the more the number of hands that Ravana had the more he could multitask especially during the war – imagine one hand using the mace the other using the bow and arrow and so on and so forth. Then the more the number of heads the more the number of minds he had to play games, plot strategies and of course multi-task. More heads meant more eyes to watch out for enemies and more mouths for self propaganda. And then of course there’s the single body which meant lesser sleep and rest needed and more time to appease the supreme Lord with his veena playing skills to receive rich gifts in return. The single body also meant lesser time to maintain/groom himself and oh did that all not translate into more time that could be spent doing the above mentioned tasks that the hands and heads excelled at? He got to be king and live in pomp and luxury. He died a miserable man but for the most part his life was filled with abundance.

Now let’s examine the worthiness of being Rama. He was a man with an absolute sense of justice, obedience, intelligence, limiteless patience, kindness, boundless compassion and steadfast sense of duty or dharma. But he did not have the umpteen heads and hands to connive and conspire so as a result he got to live in the wilderness for 14 years of his life with no real benefits, without the love of his near and dear family, even without his immediate family – his wife. Besides every demon worth his name attacked him and oh need I remind you that the lack of heads and hence eyes just made it that much more tough to watch out for these demons? He did not get promoted to be king and continued to perform the same activity of protecting sages through the 14 years. In the end he came home to victory but for the most part his life was riddled with insufficiency.

So..

In this ruthless corporate world today should I be proud that I am a Ravana or ashamed that I am one? Or should I aspire to be one? Or reconcile to the fact that I am Rama? Is it time to re-interpret the Ramayan for the next generation?

© May 1^st 2010

Knowledge – from within !

Stuffed to the brim with mom’s comfort food I finally managed to pull myself back out into the cold where everything needed some warming up, my car and I included. I turned on the engine and the radio cranked up. As I mindlessly listened to the blabber something caught my attention. A lady had called in to get predictions regarding her son’s education, career and marriage. The astrologer on air ranted on about planetary positions and their implications and my mind wandered off on a channel of its own just as it had so aimlessly wandered in to tune into the little conversation.

My mind sure has a mind of its own, I must say !

If everything that’s goes up comes down, every night is followed by morning, even the darkest cloud has a silver lining, there’s always light at the end of the tunnel and good follows bad which follows good back….why do humans need astrologers and psychics and predictions about the future….Even if faith and hope are such strained fleeting earthly emotions that need the constant assurance of fellow passengers, should it not be sufficient to know from within that if one is going through a tough situation and challenging circumstances the good times are bound to follow and everything is afterall temporary only?