A Quest for Beauty; A Lust for Life!

Bold as Rumi [a poem]

2012-01-08T00:11:00.000+05:00

BOLD AS RUMI

If I were bold enough as Rumi

I would throw this pile

-- this burden! --

of books from my head;

I would tear the gown of familiarity

and retreat into the forest

-- the ever-perplexing, awe-stirring forest --

of my being.

But I am no Rumi.
I am grounded finer than stardust

and blown into a thousand constellations

a hundred galaxies.

I am not one thing.
I am not even nebulous.

I am a powder grounded

too fine, too fine,

and blown with the cosmic wind

in ten directions.

I take time to gather my being.

They say there is no time.

Have they been me?
Have they found, upon awakening, that their being

was not their being?

But rather through necessity or compulsion

she was a soul crushed and grounded as gold powder

mixed with the meat of a million

earthly beings?

How does she gather herself

I know not.
Rumi, at least, left me one legacy:

he said, "Sell your cleverness, and buy bewilderment!"

I lie bewildered, though gathering.

Gathering, gathering, gathering.
A mercurial being
gathering into a mercurial ball

rolling away from the touch of lecherous beings.

I am gathering.

As boldly, clearly, ecstatically

as a quiet, lost, hidden Lover

is capable of

gathering.

Amen.

~

January 8, 2012

12:11 am

Friends Say 'Do More'

2011-02-15T01:14:00.012+05:00

Click for larger image.

Death

2011-01-26T14:45:00.001+05:00

The most significant lesson of 2010 for me was death.

On the 3rd day of the year, I collapsed twice. Apparently, I was blood-less, weary, fatigued -- and had no one to talk to. That was the doctor's assessment, and it was only partially true. I had someone to talk to, but I was away from that someone in a cold, wintry town with power and heat outages. On that day, as my heart collapsed twice, I could not reach the only person who listens to me.

In the initial hours of my collapse, I did not quite fathom what was happening. I was only very sure of one thing: I was dying.

I had never, ever imagined death to be a feeling so friendless, so cold, so completely an annihilator of all attachment.

I was in the town attending a wedding, and yet I had a feeling that I had parted from the world. My chest felt a certain coldness, a darkness. At night, unable to sleep for fear of falling through, I felt myself departing and returning, departing and returning. It was all in the region of the heart. My heart felt a terrible despair, a sadness, a reversal of time. Perhaps more macabre than the feeling was my utter sadness at the lack of preparation for the moment.

When I was younger, I found life an explosion of color and energy... and yet I felt a marvelous firmness, a stillness, a base underneath it all. It was a power, a friend, a magic that I faced. Intuitively, I knew, that I would one day explode into it. I will become dust, and I will be a whole, full part of it again when I die. And only when I die. And this peculiar knowledge made me willing to die. More so, it made me embrace life with a fervor!

And yet here I was, physically obliterating, and I felt weighed down.

You know, as I am writing these words down, the whole imagery of becoming a part of 'it' again through death has made absolute sense to me. Just now. I came from that magic, after all, that I am looking at. A woman somewhere here has carried me for 9 months until I came to be a separate body. An animal here is related to another animal that I consumed at one point, and part of it still resides as my muscle. I ate plants from this Magic. I breathed out into it (I exhaled), and it breathed into me (I inhaled). I excreted into it, too. When I die, my body is going to disintegrate into this Magic again. This Magic is where I came from. This Magic is where I am going to go into.

Wow!

This I only realized now. Just now, as I am sitting by a spectacularly well-lit white window, watching the dazzling, warm afternoon sun rays strike upon the luminous green flesh of the plants in my garden. It is a brilliant scene, bursting with life and color.

I struggled a few days after my collapse with an immense feeling of darkness, of gray, of weight, of old age, of time. I felt as if I were 70 or 89, and I was about to part the world having tasted little of its fruits. I felt angered, sad, terrible.

My goal immediately become to lighten the burden that I was carrying. I returned home as soon as I could, took medicine that worked at -- I later realized -- at a very deadly bout of flu that had attacked me in early 2004. I had managed to fight and resist it, while still managing extremely hard work. But it had managed to harm me.

I had one of my most intimate prayers in a long time when I returned home. Standing on my prayer rug I felt, after years, that I was face to face with Allah. I spoke with Hu. I shared that I was taken by such utter sad surprise that I was not ready to die. What a shame it was! If I had any grace, I would leave even if I had a burden on my shoulder. But here I was, still left to live, feeling that my sole task now was to chuck this weight off.

It is fantastic that I have still put on more weight since that close brush with death. I went on to do more, and yet my pledge was that I would do less. In other words, it took me a while yet longer to slow down, to slow down, to sow down my rapid progress on the wrong path.

I finally started turning around on 01 October 2010. That is when I started a Sabbatical. What is this Sabbatical about? Heck, I don't know and I don't want to know until what I am to know becomes apparent. What it is certainly about is me sitting with myself, listening to myself. I feel relieved now.

What do I want at the end of this Sabbatical? I want to be the person who is willing to die immediately the moment death comes. This is the only state in which you will ever taste your life fully. This is only state in which you know what it means to be alive.

Amen.

Accept Me As I Am [a prayer for the profane]

2010-11-24T00:52:00.002+05:00

Accept me as I am.

A liar, a fool, a pretender.

A profane obnoxiousness full of venom

and lies.

A soul refracted into many --

all reflections mere imposters --

pining for one.

Accept this.

See me

who I am.

See me.

See the filth, the lie, the shining heart

that yearns and yearns and yearns

even in its maddening forgetfulness.

This mad woman

with a tattered robe

and a mouth full of lies --

lies and venom.

Lies and venom.

Accept me as I am.

For I am a serpent,

I am a lie,

I am a masterful delusion

that children can see through for a laugh.

A cauldron bubbling, toads croaking in the silence

while some angels double over in laughter at the drama that this is.

Yes, it's a drama.

It's an expulsion.

It's a spitting of words jumbled, uncouth, unrelated that do not belong to my mouth.

I have drank venom

and I spit it,

I spit it,

I spit it.

Such a cad of a woman.

I am in tatters

but proud.

I am mad

but vain.

I have no reason,

no notion,

no not even bewilderment.

Just a load of hateful lies to spit out. Out and out.

I spit.

I spit out that I am other than who I am.

I am me.

I spit out that I must not will to live.

I live.

I spit out that another but You is the master of my faith.

I say, "No!"

I say no, no, no, no!

None of you fake imposters,

you oblivious beings

who do not find meaning within your wondrous existence, you!

You!

You whose eyes are glued inwards,

looking into the back of their abysmal skulls,

watching your endless plays of misery or trivial happiness

are my masters.

You are liars.

You do not even know your fate.

You do not know what raced you to conception,

and what is guiding you swiftly towards your death

you self-serving dolls!

You are not my masters.

Alas! Alas! Master! They have held my soul by the throat.

They have held my soul by the throat and poured in me their vials of lies

suggesting that You are forgetful, that You do not love,

that we are not together, You & I,

living and breathing one another in one breath of

Al-

Lah.

Al-

Lah!

Breathe me.

Breathe me my Master.

I have become profane.

And You are Sacred.

I am a lie.

And You are the Truth.

I am a delusion, a whiff of dust.

And I take three spaces when I have but one for me.

Therefore You Are! You Are! You Are!

You Are.

Lead me.

.ramla

12:48 am

Sitting in the lawn

legs folded

on the grass

under the moonlight, and the warming rays of a street-lamp

Karachi, Pakistan

All The World, And I [a poem]

2010-09-09T15:10:00.000+05:00

All The World, And I

As if of all the world, and yet of none of it.

As if of the wind, the earth, the silent flowing water that runs beneath.

As if of fire that burns, and fire that kindles life. All if of all force on Earth.

As if of East, of West, of both polarities.

As if of here, of there, of in-between,

As if of in & out, off on.

As if in left, in right, in true & false,

As if in up & down, yes no.

I've found myself everywhere.

As if as far the glance stretches

and as far the ears can hear

As if wherever my sound echoes

As if in all far and all near --

I had found myself everywhere.

I was all the world,

and yet

none was I.

Until the instance

when my gaze met the world

and I saw I was that,

----

.ra

the poem had arrived as I watched pigeons congregated on trees outside Jinnah's mausoleum in Karachi

december 21, 2009

(poem was left unfinished. perhaps I perceived nothing beyond that point that day. certainly, what I began to perceive was inexplicable back then. -- September 9, 2010)

Chocolate For My Soul

2010-08-27T01:18:00.001+05:00

When I was a child, I was very still and quiet. But every now and then, I let out my disagreements with the world in One Giant Scream.

I would go to the center of the house, which was an open space, and just SCREAM! AAAAAAAAA!

My uncles were weary of this ritual. My youngest & dearest uncle once made a pact to buy me chocolate every Tuesday if I please did not yell.

That was my first Faustian bargain. I sold my soul for chocolate.

~ra

Managing Attention: Tip #2

2010-07-13T12:31:00.001+05:00

"Your opinion of me is none of my business."

—Just another wise saying

Great Person?

2010-07-12T22:35:00.002+05:00

I was reflecting the other day that there is really no such thing as a great person. Whoever each person becomes was their within their potential anyhow. That was their mandate, their chance, their place in the scheme of things.

It is no greatness to be who you are -- it is exactness and circumspection. Therefore a person who is truly noble is not one that is rising above or expanding beyond their natural space (and different people have different natural spaces), but the one who restrains themselves exactly to their natural space. This makes them 'disappear' in a sense for they are part of the same fabric that everyone else and everything else is a part of, too. Thus by way of being part of the same, we become invisible to each other. Visibility, then, is akin to the visibility of a wart on a flawless skin -- it garners immediate attention. But it is truly great?

This brings me to the case where we seek greatness by way of extending beyond ourselves. First, we must note, that a thing or a person may be stretched beyond themselves temporarily, as some kind of structural adjustment. This is not desirable and it points to something that is not working somewhere, yet it happens. It is not, sometimes, a deliberate decision. The kind of extension-to-greatness that is to be warned of is.... seeking significance. Being 'great' by being more than oneself, handling more than one can honestly deliver, consuming others' space to be, to work, to exist.

This is, oddly, considered noble. There is nothing noble about it. It may be something that arises out of a deliberate need to be a giant, or out of an inability to make decisions and keep life in perspective, or sheer ignorance of one's scope and limitations. In any case, this is tiresome. It also costs one's relationships, drains one's world, and, even, cost the planet in tangible terms. For instance, such a person would be traveling all over the town doing 3 jobs, one of which they can give up if they so choose.

It is said in Islam, which is the way I subscribe to, that true greatness only belongs to Allah: Allah being All-That-Is. Allah is not just greater or the greatest. Allah is Great.

What does this mean? It means that there is a gestalt of being. That the whole is larger than the sum of its parts, that it has an energy of its own that cannot be accounted for by the sum of parts. It is that which is great, truly more, truly creative, truly the Source. It is the creator of potential.

A human being -- or any other kind of being -- is not. It is only itself: good, bad, ugly, or beautiful -- anything, but not great.

~ra

Managing Attention: #1

2010-07-11T00:04:00.000+05:00

I'm not interested in that which doesn't work for me.

—ra

Life vs. My Smarter Ideas

2010-05-29T17:58:00.001+05:00

Woke up this morning and had an instant, clear realization: clever, smart ideas can become the inverse of Life.

'What do you mean!?', you ask.

Very well. Life comes to one, in-flowing, every moment. Our choices are at our end: how seamlessly and fluently can we accept what comes our way and act appropriately upon it? The more fluidly we do it, the more we walk far and deep into this vastness called LIFE.

Ever played a video game? This is exactly what I am talking about. It throws a reward at you, and you accept it. It throws a challenge at you, and you accept that, too. The only difference is that the appropriate thing to do (enjoy/ fight) is different in each case. But you don't resist the very act that something has come your way. Neither do you develop a smarter idea on the lines of, "OK, I got to eat a banana. How about I got an apple instead? What else can I find? Oh, not this banana, ya know!" (I am visualizing, of course, a childish video game in which you're a monkey or some such furry thing. Indeed, a real-life monkey would not go on if it decided to have better ideas about food.)

Sometimes I am with the flow. In such moment, inspiration flashes within me, and I follow it without regards for ensuring perpetuity or security.

This morning, I realized, heck! Sometimes I tend to get back to resistance. To better ideas. To try and be smarter. I stall projects with this attitude. I take longer to do a simple thing. And I give not days but years of my life away.

Hmmm!

What else could I do? I raised my hands in prayer and wished: May I surrender! May I go with the flow! Amen! Amen!

Amen.

Life

2010-05-13T21:18:00.001+05:00

Excerpt from a note to a friend

Since last night, I have started experiencing the presence of a new feeling in my heart: a love for life.

The strong dis-interest -- the nihilism -- that I had develop seems to be dissolving.

I want to do things for myself, with myself. I want to play.

.ra

Company

2010-05-13T21:16:00.000+05:00

Early this morning, I had a strange wish: I wish to be amongst humans who have evolved. For I am tired of cloaking who I can be, and I wish to see who I am.

And this miracle of being who you are can only occur in like company.

Keep Walking

2010-05-02T16:59:00.000+05:00

It doesn't matter if no one believes in you, or all do.

It does not even matter if, somehow, you do not believe in yourself.

You must keep walking.

Remember: anyone can walk with belief. The real test of keeping on walking is when you have lost belief. When you have lost a sense of direction, a purpose, and even a sense of being.

For eons, this is how those who were 'lost' in the desert (literally, 'desert-ed') found their way back & out: they kept walking. It doesn't matter if you have no direction, no compass, and nothing to go on. It doesn't matter. What you are is larger and beyond belief and directions. What you are is life itself.

Remember: it's all about the walk. The circumstances of the walk, favorable or unfavorable, are mere illusions that fold the core within them. They are here to attract and repel those who are taken by illusions.

Discard the illusions of favor or the lack of it.

Just keep walking.

Wise Self-Advice

2010-05-01T20:40:00.001+05:00

My darling:

No one can make you do something as long as you have the courage to refuse. Put all concerns aside. Put popularity and endearment aside. Consider only the truth of your heart.

Follow it without regret.

Love,

esreveR

2010-03-21T03:26:00.001+05:00

Where, then where, is my miracle?

.of dreamed have I something is ,see I Everything

.before known I've ,told ever am I that Everything

.reverse in life my living am I that feeling distinct the have I Sometimes

~ra

Paradox!

2010-03-08T17:40:00.002+05:00

By Golly!

It is not-doing that requires more struggle than doing.

Doing is obvious to the five senses, and it is expedient. It is witnessed by the other, it is a form of affirmation.

Not-doing is witnessed by the self alone. Only you know what you could do -- well or ill -- that you chose not to do. Not-doing is never manifest, never experienced by the senses, never registered by memory. It is a kind of hollowness that few can cope with.

Yet it is in not-doing that one's self truly grows to its full potential.

Adult

2010-03-08T17:20:00.001+05:00

I've met people in the East, and people from the West. People who are educated, and people who are illiterate. People who are conservative, and people who deem themselves liberal. People born in caring families, and people born in disrupted environments.

And through all these encounters, one observation stands true: adulthood has got nothing to do with how one is born or raised. It's a choice.

Wish: One Week of Peace. Absolute Peace.

2010-03-02T03:42:00.008+05:00

One week, when no one asks me for anything -- anything! -- that I haven't given already out of sheer joy.

A week when I am in communion with myself. Giving out of love and joy, not compulsion and extortion.

Enough of this extortion, this manipulation! Enough of my patience with the self-centered ways of the world!

Enough! Enough!

All I want is stillness. All I wish for is Peace ~

Within, Without: Peace ~

Quivering

2010-02-26T01:33:00.001+05:00

Be silent!

Listen to Rumi.

Hold still that quivering soul.

Wish

2010-02-14T14:33:00.001+05:00

Here is a wish:

I wish to connect with some of the best minds of the world -- masters and innovators in their area of attention -- who also possess a selfless, well-intentioned heart. That rare, rare combination!

Amen!

The Plan

2010-02-07T12:32:00.000+05:00

Travel!

To Give You What You Want

2010-02-04T02:54:00.000+05:00

To Give You What You Want

A writer's story

A long time ago, perhaps a year earlier, I wrote a mail to someone -- but I never posted it. In it was a tale too difficult to write, and yet so silly upon reading.

I wrote it in the story of my deepest-entrenched dream: I wanted a room of my own. Not just any room. There would be, in my room,

bookshelves. Ceiling-high bookshelves, at least on two of the four walls. Filled with books, the only things in this world that I love. Books, books of all kinds.

The days in which I first dreamed this, shelves had begun to carry more than books. They would have TVs and other multi-media accessories. Perhaps in some places in this world, this has been the case for long. Where I lived, however, there used to be only one TV in the house -- shared by the entire family in the lounge or an open courtyard. And all TV programs had to be friendly to all ages.

One's own TV in one's own room was a unique thing. And modern bookshelves had come to incorporate that in my part of the world.

Well, above all, I wanted a BOOKshelf. One with books. Paper books. Of all kinds.

I estimated, somehow, that the cost of such a contraption for both my walls would be sixteen thousand rupees. Perhaps I had seen a bookshelf at someone's house, covering one wall, and it cost rupees eight thousand.

Mine, through simple multiplication, would be sixteen thousand.

I was in my early teens in those days and I determined: I shall have this bookshelf. Not just that, I will EARN it.

Ha!

I decided that in a society where it was common practice for elders to dismiss the dreams of children -- or contort them to such an extent that nothing of the original remained -- I was better off not exposing my dream to adults. What would they do? Indulge in great mathematical details, arguments over proportions, and finally present an argument about the futility of all enterprise.

"Something else will do," they'd say. As long as it is something I do not want, or naturally wish for -- that would do.

After all, the test of each absolutely sound, reasonable, and good idea was that it did not appeal to the heart. The more cumbersome, painstaking, and negating of all tender senses it was -- the more 'reasonable', 'long-lasting', and 'mature' it would be.

And the society would approve.

I would not expose my dream to such notions. For though they sounded frighteningly right -- they were frightening. And a child calls fright, fright. Not 'society', not 'God's will' -- but just plain fright. I would not expose my dreams.

Years passed. I excelled in school. I excelled in non-academic activities in school. I had dreams, dreams of being an artist, a designer, or an actor. I had dreams of making the world beautiful with my dreams.

And through all these dreams, I held onto the little dream of my own bookshelves. I also wanted a writer's desk, a painter's table, and all forms of stationery.

Some of the artwork that I created, like landscapes on eggshells, were routinely destroyed through negligence of those who visited or cleaned my room. Unfamiliar with the techniques of storing and preserving such art, I wished I had a way to secure them. A box, perhaps. Something.

I also wrote -- and wrote honestly, perhaps naively. My teenage writings were influenced by pop culture and sometimes the angst-ridden rhetoric of rock musicians and art critics. That was fine. I poured all that on the page. Nothing came in between me and the page. Once written, however, those pages needed to be hidden.

Because it was inappropriate -- nay, scandalous -- for a young girl to have such free thoughts. I had sense enough to not act upon all the wanderings of my mind, but I wanted to wander freely in the mind if only to.... well who knows why? It just seemed right. Letting the world that inevitably enters the folds of my being pass by was far better than to battle every thought, every influence, every guest who entered my being.

I knew I'd grow out of it. That it was a learning process. One that may become rubbish in a few years, but one that was worth it.

But I also knew it was not safe for my pages to be discovered. That I would warrant anger, punishment, or looks of concern if my writing and the hidden meaning of my art were discovered.

I needed a place to hide it all.

I never found any. And thus I carried with myself, over the years, a deep anxiety. A macabre little secret of a child who took to burying her journals in secret corners for fear of discovery.

There was no honor, no nobility. No glorious bookshelf.

And all I needed, I knew, were sixteen thousand rupees to make a bookshelf. In that, somewhere, could be a place where I'd file and store my art, ensuring that it was properly dated and chronicled so eternity would know how I lived my life and what dreams I dreamt. In that, I will stash away my journals -- 'cleaning them up' and selectively burning them some day when I have grown out of them.

It was well-known that a woman grew up to marry a man who is intolerant of who she was, especially if she had any secrets or dreams. I thought I would not marry such an immature man.

Certainly, there is a man in the world who is a human. Who knows that the world is here to be seen, not to be gnawed upon. And he would see me. He would see my dreams and my nightmares with just as much cool detachment and yet the utter fascination of a wondering, curious human eye -- as I do. That neither he nor I would own my history. Because I always knew, I always knew that my history is the history of a human, a female human -- and that eventually I have no 'right' upon it. Storing this history is to return that history to the world which endowed my being with these stories, this history.

Yes, I would marry such a male human, such a man. He deserved me. He deserved participating in the history of the world as I was observing it, from my little viewpoint.

It all tied up, this plan, this underlying sense.

YEARS PASSED BY...

I grew up. I finished university, which was a difficult time for me. I went in as a bright, lover-of-life on one side whose few words would infect others with hope and light. I came out on the other side catatonic, frightened, and battling the now festering multiple inner realities. My writer, my reformer, my kind inner woman, my iron lady, my little dreaming girl, my priestess and teacher -- they clashed with the pathetic slave, the soon-to-be ruthless business machine that four years of abysmal business education tried to make me. Glimmer of life left my eyes. I saw the world with hollowness.

Time for school was over. Time for lofty, tender dreams, for loving the world and its people with incredible compassion was over. Time to lift the head at night and watch the canopy of stars was over. Time to live and time to love was over.

It was time to get out and get.

As fate would have it, strange, sudden 'misfortunes' had arrived in my life. Death, dis-ease, loss of wealth visited our house again and again in rapid succession.

Actually, if it weren't for the word F-A-I-T-H that I had once carved upon my inner stone tablet, I would not have survived. I said to myself then, "All things end, and there is forever a new beginning!" And I moved on.

Yet the weight of duty replaced dreams. I got to work.

Then I don't know what happened, for it all happened too quickly -- it all happened as if orchestrated by my many inner realities which fought with each other.

I progressed quickly at work, securing one of the best jobs someone my age could have. I sought the prestige and yet I wanted to contribute through this job to the world, to all that I loved. I saw that as my passion, and my duty, and a form of love. I wanted to be a speaker, an actor, or a producer -- but fulfillment of educational degree came first.

I became a manager, always brushing past the chance of being who I wanted to be.

Such is the attachment that I would still call it 'a best job', and 'a degree from a prestigious school', and I identify myself, by a slip-of-tongue, as not the holder of my degree, but that degree itself. "I am an MBA," I say. Not realizing, in those slippery moments, that I "have" an MBA and that's not a problem. The problem was that the MBA had come to have me.

Wait. Where did the bookshelves go?

Exactly my question.

Where did the bookshelves go?

Buried somewhere in the DNA of all my achievement was this li'l dream, with my tenacious determination that I would fulfill it myself. With my money.

Yet all my life had shifted away from books and shelves. True, I had topped most exams in my university. True, my knowledge or rather the ability to acquire it became agile and formidable over time. True, that the more advanced form of' book', a computer, had entered my life and introduced me to the wondrous, dazzling world of Internet.

But that damned bookshelf! That wooden writer's desk! That tilted painter's table! That freedom to write exactly what I thought, that ability to journal exactly what I felt -- all without fear of persecution, without critique.

Where did that go?

I earned more than rupees sixteen thousand in a single month at my job. My dream was within my reach, even after inflation-adjustment and given the new styles of bookshelves, the IKEA knockoffs.

But I was too busy, too out-of-touch. To be honest, I did not even remember.

I forgot to dream, to live the dream.

EPILOGUE

There is no conclusion to this story. I have written three 'epilogues' so far, and they are all but platitudes.

I am a writer, I am not a liar unto myself. If not to be honest on the page, then where? Then when?

Only now.

There is no conclusion.

For the record, I got my bookshelves. I designed an elegant set of twin bookshelves some three years ago, and got them crafted, fitted with expensive glass. They are beautiful. I never got to pay for them -- never fully, at least. My father paid the larger part when he discovered this project that I was carrying out privately. I felt a pang, but I knew that he had been aware of my wish to install bookshelves. It was his moment of fulfillment too. I don't know.

I am a writer. I think about these kinds of things when some people would simply install a damn book case and get on with their lives. But then I don't think about the things they think about. And perhaps we all think about some things, some unfulfilled promises, some luring visions of the future until we 'deal' with them.

These things, these feelings, these childhood wishes and plans -- they are guests. But they can reside in our hearts for month and years if unwelcome, unmet, unintroduced -- for time is of no matter to them. Once arrived, they stay. Until we meet them, acknowledge them, shake their hands, and then finally take our leave to set off, again, on the long road glorious of life.

-- End --

Cry

2010-02-03T17:01:00.001+05:00

That which makes a writer cry is fodder for the writer's page. Write!

.ra

اخیر نصیحت

2010-01-29T21:59:00.001+05:00

!پاگل دی پتر

! دل دی گل سن

"No further Shall You Go!"

2010-01-23T15:22:00.005+05:00

What a moment it is when one realizes that at the end of the path, they meet none other than one's own self.

That one's self is vulnerable, open, truly bewildered, and utterly not-in-control. That one is sustained in a fascinating way with a threadbare yet potent connection that grants one all life.

There is no mastery of the affair, and no end to further comprehension. At the end, one is only left in a state of not-knowing. "I know that I truly, really, do not know."

Answers vanish.

Notions dissolve.

There is no mastery of the future. There is no way that the past can be erased such that it is not a living part of one's self. One comes only as far as the Present.

Where one is one. One is whole. One is complete. One is as one is.

One is brought back to the center, to the self, to a state of necessary obligation and acception, for beyond that circumference is a raging fire -- a friend that defines the parameter of one's being.

One is no one.

Thus far one comes, and no further shall one go.

And Allah knows best.

Alhamdolillah!

Hallelujah!

2010-01-23T02:54:00.001+05:00

Oh dear.

New Earth has arrived. Suddenly, after generations of waiting and anticipation and tribulations on the way, it has arrived.

And what do I have to offer? A reluctant hallelujah!?

Nay!

It is time to open the heart anew, to connect, to sing, to praise.

It is time to welcome the New Earth.

It is time for hallelujah!

The First Statement

2010-01-17T00:24:00.002+05:00

Note to self:

I had been reflecting about the first statement, the first declaration that makes a person a Muslim. It is:

No god

but Allah;

Mohammad is Allah's Messenger.

There is a reason why I have broken this statement down in essential phrases. I think it is possible that a person progresses through the various stages of this statement; and as they do, they are still, consciously or unconsciously, believers in this declaration.

The first stage of this statement is: "No god".

It is then followed by: "But: Allah".

Then: "Mohammad is Allah's Messenger."

This is all I wish to say at this moment as I begin to research what the Qur'an has to say on the matter of "god", or "no god".

~
(Pulled from the archives. Written on 17 January 2010. Published on 29 December 2011.)

To Banish Ignorance

2010-01-15T16:55:00.001+05:00

To banish ignorance with ignorance is compounded ignorance.

Yes, yes, banish ignorance if you will and if you're drawn to it. However, banish it with its opposite: create knowledge. Use hikmat, wisdom.

This way is what differentiates the wise from the unwise and from the ill-disposed. You cannot carry out a deed for the world with an ill disposition without making the world worse for your touch. Therefore, be careful.

Give time to your thought, your method.

Let me tell you what is the aim of ignorance: ignorance. Ignorance is to create chaos in the organized ways of Man.

You are very concerned with "rightful space on Earth," with what constitutes an elegant, straight path. One of the aspects of that is to keep your path once you've been set on a correct course. Keep your course.

Lover -- a poem

2010-01-15T02:16:00.001+05:00

LOVER

What is a lover

who did not

one day (or night)

declare the Love?

What is a cloak

which was not

one night (or day)

torn and shred?

You hide

and hide and hide and hide

'Til the core of your heart

is infused with the secret.

What perfume is this

that which not

day and night

escapes its folds?

Declare the love!

Oh you lover,

declare the love!

What is this life?

Which is not

at this moment

put aside.

Make way for Love!

.ramla

2:12 AM

January 15, 2010

At the writer's desk

Dedicated to Nimra Amjad-Archer.

The "People" Illusion

2010-01-15T01:16:00.001+05:00

Dear Prophecy:

Almost invariably, when a person says "people:, they are indeed referring to themselves. You can judge what a person thinks of their own self by listening to what they think of "people".

Indeed, by this word, the person is referring to an inner entity.

So what's the use of knowing this? The use is this: understand that each time you pose a question about "people", you are indeed posing that question about yourself.

Therefore: if you ask, "Why don't people learn?"

Then you real question is: "Why don't I learn?" Or, it is: "Why don't I teach?"

If your question is: "What do people think about this celebrity?"

Then your real question is: "What do I think about this celebrity?"

The fact is, the people illusion serves to hide our questions from ourselves, allowing us to dodge ourselves.

Beware of this.

Clearly be you.

40 Days of Transition: December 06, 2009 - January 14, 2010

2010-01-14T19:34:00.000+05:00

On my 30th birthday, I began a period I called 40 Days of Transition.

There are essentially two practices that formed the 40 Days: journaling and offering gratitude.

I bought a new journal and gave myself the task to write three pages, each day, for forty days. Ideally, I would write the pages in a stream-of-consciousness fashion, early in the morning. The idea was to communicate to my soul and find out exactly what it wanted.

I wanted to catch myself just as I woke up from sleep, with the most honest feelings brimming from my being.

The other practice that marked the forty days was a twin-fold gratitude practice: as soon as I get up each morning, I would offer Sura-e-Fatiha -- the prayer that the Qur'an begins with. It is primarily a prayer rooted in gratitude, a prayer for a new beginning, a prayer that brings one into the present. Aptly, its name is translated into English as "The Opening".

Immediately after Fatiha, I would offer gratitude for 7-10 specific things. I have kept a gratitude journal as far back as in 2006. The practice is immensely helpful, especially in a world that is populated with bad news that can rapidly replace one's beautiful memories.

I wanted to anchor myself to my reality by pinning my memories down to paper. This time, however, I offered verbal gratitude, and then got down to journaling.

"What is the aim of this journal?" a confidant asked.

I was gagged. I had no idea. I confided the truth: I want the journal to tell me what it's for.

That was the whole point -- for there indeed was a point --: to be able to communicate with my authentic self by getting past all the noise.

Tomorrow is January 14th, 2010. It will be the last day of this period of transition. I managed to offer the gratitude practice almost each day, without fail, though sometimes well after waking up. I managed to journal almost 80% of the days -- mostly skipping on the days that I was extremely fatigued. Surprisingly, there were many such days. I consider that a part of becoming conscious of my own pattern. The key is that I am the book that I am writing on the Page. Therefore what transpired in and on the journal is what my inner pattern is.

Clearly, I was absent some days. On January 3rd, I finally collapsed. In what I experienced as a death-like condition, I finally made the transition that I was seeking: concern for the world left me, and I became who I am. In the silence that I felt when I thought I was going to die, I met myself.

----

I wrote the above last night. Today, I have finished the 40 Days of Transition.

On the last day I wrote: I have turned up on the page -- with fail and without fail, but I have turned. Now, I hand this over to Allah. It is up to Allah to make what Allah makes of my journey within.

.ramla

07:34 pm

At the writer's desk

Karachi

What is Taqwa (تقویٰ)?

2010-01-13T00:05:00.001+05:00

Dear Self:

You asked me, what is Taqwa (تقویٰ)?

Answer: Taqwa is the art of managing one's rightful space on Earth.

Listen closely.

The key words of this definition are:

art of managing
one's (own)
rightful space on Earth

"Art of managing" implies that it is a constant, active job. It is not achieved once and for all, to be used up later in life from stored supplies. One needs to practice it all all living moments. One can, thus, act like a mutaqqi متقی (one who has attained to taqwa) in one moment, and unlike so in another. It is a living act and it is exhibited through action. It is not sufficient to understand or know a verbal definition of taqwa -- just as it is not sufficient to note down the recipe of a chocolate cake. The real task is to do it; just as the real task is to bake the cake.

It is true, however, that one can develop an understanding of what taqwa is in stages. And it likely that once one has attained a degree of understanding, their practice will begin to reflect that. The practice may still falter, for it is a matter of choice. Yet one can evolve their understanding of the matter -- which in turn will improve the practice.

"One's (own)" [place] is just that: one's own. Not another's. This is a key concept of taqwa. The person who entangles themselves into the affairs of the other with the belief that they can change the heart of the other does both themselves, the other, and all universe great harm. One cannot change hearts, hearts change themselves. One only has power to say, do, or enable the right thing, according to one's strength and domain.

The one who aspires to attain to taqwa is one who is primarily concerned with managing one's own self, and of participating in enabling an environment where one's own self can practice taqwa (and others may do the same). Indeed, if one strives to create an environment for one's own taqwa, one will find that one has also enabled an environment in which others can attain to taqwa. This is because the environment is outside one's self, and thus larger. The example of it is this: if one plants a tree to purify one's breathing space, one also helps others breathe in a purified space, as the tree serves others, too.

"Rightful space on Earth" is the heart of taqwa. This is related to accountability. Who is one accountable to? What determines one's rightful space? What is the key to managing one's rightful space? Who or what determines rightful space?

What faith or belief you have, whatever religion you belong to or not, understand this: the Earth is round, and your body is populating it with other bodies. No matter what the beliefs or lack of beliefs the people of the planet have, this fact is the common denominator of all humans. The Earth has a limit, and that limit can be exhausted.

If one looks at the Earth and sees that one is here to take from the Earth, all Earth and the solar system would become insufficient. For there is no limit to "more", to "taking". This also immediately puts one in competition with the other. More so, one becomes accountable to the other. The person with such a way of seeing things will need to falsify their belief every now and then as existence will come to compete with and overpower such a person -- and this person will need to lie to survive.

This way of seeing the Earth also establishes an outside-in ethic, where one is compelled by many. The person with this vision will be overwhelmed with choice because as far as his eye travels, he will wish to take. This will make him a poor decision-maker.

To see the world this way is to become a slave of the world, even if "taking" and "more" appear to be a kind of freedom. One becomes accountable to many. Know that the definition of "god" is: "that which the self is ultimately accountable to". A person with an inclination to take, to have more will have many gods--- whether those gods be physical, emotional, or conceptual.

There is no limit to which this person is accountable or manipulable, for he wishes to overtake a planet full of billions of people.

If, however, one looks at the Earth and sees that one is here to give, to contribute, then the extent of that person's accountability immediately shrinks to one, and that one is their own self. Giving is limited to the extent to which a person can give. Therefore, such a way of seeing automatically establishes a parameter for each person to operate within.

The ethic of a person with this perception is an inside-out ethic. This means that such a person is introspective, aware of their being, and that their task is to live their own potential. This person is concerned with a constant refinement and cleansing and improvement of the self, aimed at becoming a worthier contributor to the world.

Focus and enhanced decision-making is the outcome of this way of being. This is because this person deals with one unit of existence that is their own Self. Such a person is collaborative, and is able to discern their part of the larger task of life & the universe.

This person's wants and needs have limits, for this kind of a person wants "less". While "more" has no limits, "less" has limits. Having less than a certain limit can cause hunger and death of the Self, therefore an automatic, rational limit is set. This person, then, also understands the very concept of rights.

What are the rights of one who wants less? And how do they compare with the right of the one who wants more?

The rights of one who wants less are essential rights, and they are also elegant. The best example of this is found in traffic. What kind of traffic behavior results from a mindset of wanting all the space? What kind of traffic behavior results from managing one's rightful space? There is only as much space a vehicle can take -- and it cannot go any less than that. So the one who maintains rightful space will use the space with elegance. There is no limit to running one's vehicle all over the space if one is focused on taking space. Anything can happen when a person decides to over-speed, under-speed, zig-zag, or otherwise attempt to snatch others' rightful space. It is chaos, while rightful space leads to organic design.

The one who is answerable and accountable to their own self has only one God. This experience is only possible through one's own self.

Finally, "the art of managing one's rightful space on Earth" implies that the one who practices taqwa is a being with an inner strength. By way of asserting only rights that pertain to the self, this person is also rightful, for what they wish for themselves, they can wish for the world.

So this, my dear self, this is what taqwa is.

I pray that may you attain to taqwa -- may you know and practice the art of managing your rightful space on Earth. Amen.

- END -

A backgrounder note for the uninitiated reader:

Taqwa is one of the fundamental tenets of Islam. It is the only basis of differentiation and nobility amongst humans. Islam asserts that people are honorable not on the basis of their wealth, physical beauty, social status, pedigree, popularity, children, race, accumulations, ability to speak and overwhelm -- but on the basis of taqwa. The word is often translated in English as "piety". Its meaning is often said to be "fear of Allah". One must ponder, though, what is this 'fear' of Allah?

One of the statements that Qur'an makes it: "Wherever you turn, there is the Face of Allah." (Chapter 2: Verse 115).

Must Man fear whichever way he turns? Yes, if he is looking at it with a view of taking it -- for it will take Man out. Those who attain to taqwa fear transgression beyond their limits. If wherever one turns is the Face of Allah, then to stop oneself from transgressing upon it all is the fear of Allah.

It is thus that one of the companions of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him explained Taqwa thus with an example: "If one is walking through a forest where there are many thorns, one walks carefully so as not to get pricked or get one's clothes torn."

Finally, it is said that Islam is not a religion, it is a way of life. (There is a parallel with "the Tao" here.) Islam refers to 'the way' of being and how to conduct oneself in the world. The fundamental of this way is 'taqwa'.

You are advised to do further exploration on your own, and consult your own heart and innate sense on this matter.

.ramla

Triangulation -- a poem

2010-01-07T21:06:00.002+05:00

Triangulation

You hear

What I say

You say

And I hear

You are

And I see

You see

Who I am

You know

And I know.

I know.

When I know

And I know,

Why

this triangulation?

Why

When I say

You hear

You repeat

So they hear

What you say

Why

When I see

Who you are

Then you show

So they see

Will they see?

If they could

hear and see

then they would

hear and see

Why speak?

I am

And You are.

Let this be.

~ ramla

January 07, 2010

At the writer's desk

Two Types of Advice I Ever Gave

2010-01-06T12:44:00.001+05:00

There are only two kinds of advice that I have ever given.

The first kind is: "Follow your heart". To follow your heart, prepare yourself to be aware, to listen to yourself, to discern, to be truthful. Build courage through practice so that what your heart says, you will be able to act upon. Do not do ill to others for that, in the longer run, prevents you from doing the right thing for yourself. The illness you do to others builds a trap for you, through you, by entrapping you in your ill value.

In this advice is all the wisdom I have ever known, or can possibly ever know.

The second kind of all advice I ever gave was simply 'bad advice'.

I observed that the human soul is stirred by the first kind of advice, but people tend to solicit and urge the second kind. For the first is a silent kind, and the second is words.

And people choose to fill their life with words, with more.

May God lift the veils we willing put on our senses!

2010: My Resolution

2009-12-26T16:39:00.000+05:00

2010 shall be The Year of Relentless Pursuit of Knowledge for me.

B'ismAllah!

~ ramla

Intellectuals and Idiots

2009-12-23T02:48:00.004+05:00

I have seen little difference between intellectuals and idiots.

The little difference is that intellectuals know that they are being idiots, while idiots are sincere.

In my life experience, I vouchsafe, I have gained more from the sincere quality of the idiot than the contrition of the intellectual. The first is purity; you can dismiss the fluff of idiocy from around it. The latter, at its core, is mal-intent. Evaporate the content of intellectualism, and you shall be left with something ill, distracting.

.ra

Irony [a poem]

2009-12-23T01:32:00.000+05:00

I have found it easier to practice faith in the company of 'sinners',
I have found belief in the hearts of those who apparently deny.
I have seen character in the impious,
and wisdom in those who babble incoherent.

I have felt love in those who are frigid in presence,
and care in those who bark.
I have seen earnestness in wretched dogs,
as they are spurred with arrogance by those dressed in white.

I have seen something of the world.
Its reality is upside-down: an irony.

.ramla

aka The Prophecy

First published on Facebook

Friday, 18 December 2009 at 21:39

Disbelievers [a poem]

2009-12-23T01:15:00.001+05:00

"Nay, nay, nay!"

What is the anthem of the disbeliever,

the distruster of his own ear and eye,

but Nothing!?

Nothing is what he gained

at the end of his enterprise

which spanned, alas!, nothing-at-all!

There is nothing to be added to his repertoire,

nothing to be gained from his wisdom

(but the inverse of it).

Beware! For you may lose something of everything --

you may lose its essence, its loveliness --

through the constant chiseling of its somethingness, its tangibility,

by the disbeliever's blunt blindness.

His aversion to the experience of what-is.

In the company of disbelievers, gold is dust.

Diamonds are stone.

They negate and thus, are not themselves.

They don't see, and thus, you shall not be seen.

Because you are meant to be known, believe and be believed.

~ramla

At the writing desk

dec.23.2009

1:12 am

Begin

2009-12-23T00:53:00.001+05:00

With small steps. One at a time. Now.

Again.

.ra

See

2009-12-21T19:46:00.001+05:00

Dear Prophecy:

If you want to see how the world really works, imagine, for an hour, that you are not there.

The Dream of Prophet Abraham (peace be upon him) and Humanity's Leap of Consciousness

2009-11-28T16:24:00.001+05:00

Assalam-o-Alaikum:

Dear Self,

Today is Eid-ul-Azha. A day of sacrifice, a day of remembrance of
Prophet Abraham (peace be upon him)'s gesture of faith.

Sacrifice, however, was the way far before the time of Prophet Abraham
(peace be upon him). To give one's dearest thing away is a tradition
as ancient as humanity. To give away from one's possessions enabled a
human to move on, to ascend higher in character, to become empty, to
enable change.

The Qur'an acknowledges that there was a time when a fire would leap
down from the sky, and devour a sacrificial offering, as a sign of its
acceptance. I understand that this occurred in the most primal times
in human history, perhaps before the discovery of fire that could be
intentionally created through firestone. And that, at that time,
'religion' was a naturalist tradition.

A better phrase than 'religion' is 'the way' (which is what the Arabic
term 'deen' refers to. 'Deen' is not religion, nor is it ritual. Deen
is 'the way of life'.). It is true that 'the way' evolved with human
consciousness. If it is hypothesized that religion has evolved, and
that with advancement of human knowledge that which was once deemed
'beyond comprehension, beyond reach' became both comprehensible and
with human reach -- then this is exactly as it is.

'The way' is essentially the same, and yet it has evolved. To take an
example, spontaneous chemical reactions must have awed and even
overwhelmed the earlier Human. Today, humans replicate them in labs
and fabricate them in factories. Yet, the elements (as identified in
the periodic table) remain the same. Perhaps these elements were
200,000 years ago as they are today. Perhaps their relative
proportions have changed. Perhaps, the half life of many is incredibly
short. The fact is, however, that their totality has remained the
same. Total Earth has remained total Earth.

Human consciousness has evolved. The way we witness and describe and
identify and classify existence has evolved.

In order to evolve, to go ahead, humans have traditionally given up
that which was the dearest to them. Because that is the culmination,
the 'fruit', of the state they are in out of which they seek to
evolve. When one gives up the most significant outcome or achievement
of a state (or stage), they are free to move on to the next state (or
stage).

Sometimes the situation compels a human to seek that advancement --
that is, they reach a visible roadblock -- and sometimes an inner
voice, a curiosity, an inner urge, one's 'own idea' become their
inspiration to seek that advancement. Either way, it's one and the
same.

Prophet Abraham (peace be upon him) ushered in a new era in human
consciousness. It was he who rebelled from ancestoral gods; and he
broke away from a naturalist religious tradition too. The story of the
young Abraham in the Qur'an shares that he looked upon the sky and
observed the stars, the Moon, and the Sun. When he each rising, he
mused, "This brilliant object there in the sky must be
What-Governs-My-Affairs!" Yet as the stars, the Moon, the Sun -- each
progressively more luminous than the other -- set in the sky, Abraham
(peace be upon him) despaired of them. In each instance he declared,
"This cannot be my Lord!" until, finally, the most brilliant of them
all -- the Sun -- set too. At which the Prophet declared: "My Lord is
the One Who created all these finite objects!"

With this declaration, an era of consciousness in which the human
engaged with the Primal Mystery through natural phenomena ended.
Nature no longer frightened or dominated Human. Human became
integrated with Nature. Another era began.

This was the era of cognition as we know it today. One of the
underlying abilities of cognition is to alter one thing into another
through a metaphorical bridge.

Have you ever walked through Earth's cultures and realized that there
are some cultures which simply do not comprehend idiom or sarcasm --
anything which is not literally what it is? I once visited a mountain
village at the foot of a glacier -- as remote as they could get. In
that primal territory, I realized, people did not understand a joke or
even knew it was a joke. I participated in a joke that a group was
pulling on the villagers. Shortly, we realized, we were in trouble and
perhaps being cruel -- because these people took us for our word
(about a 'marriage proposal'). We thought they were playing and making
conversation. But they were 'serious'.

Upon reflection, I realized they could not be otherwise. They lived in
direct touch with earth and their world was limited to a tiny village.
They had meanings ('a goat means food, economic power') but no
metaphors. Everything was direct.

So it was to the ancient human. Everything was itself. Phenomenon
spoke to them directly. Language was encoded as pictures of the thing
that it referred to, not as symbolic alphabets referring to that
thing. You can look at a cave drawing and tell that it spoke of a
bull. You cannot look at contemporary modern languages and tell what's
what. This ancient language had meaning, but it had no metaphor. It
could tell a story by painting a literal scenery of the event, such as
the story of a hunt. If this story had a 'moral, it would be fairly
clear.

Why, then, was cognition needed? Why turn one thing into its symbol?

One reason that comes to mind is 'portability' of information. Symbols
could point to the truth -- once again, as in equations of chemistry.
This also allows, for all practical reasons, a wider distribution of
knowledge which could now be encoded. "C-O-W" can tell you what is
being referred to without the need to touch or see the actual object.
It also facilitates learning by seeing.

More critically, it allows transformation -- an alchemical reaction
that turns one thing into another. This is exactly the point made by
the story of Abraham's intended sacrifice of his son.

Cognitive understanding, and working with symbolic language, is the
hallmark of the Abrahamic evolution in human consciousness. Abraham
defined the transition point when he saw a dream in which he is
'sacrificing' his son.

Let us pause for a moment, and come back to 2009. Much work has been
done in the field of symbols and, too, dream interpretation. Even to
this day, many people see dreams that appear to be literal, but are
indeed metaphorical. 'Being naked' (possibly) means getting rid of
pretense, being free, or even exposure and shame -- depending upon how
the seer of the dream takes nakedness in waking life, within their
cultural context.

Once metaphor is understood, the meaning can be, too.

Prophet Abraham (peace be upon him) was at the cusp of a transition of
consciousness. According to the Qur'an, the comprehensive knowledge of
dream interpretation first manifested through the gift of another man,
Prophet Yousuf/Joseph (peace be upon him), who was the progeny of
Prophet Abraham (peace be upon him).

Quite appropriately, Prophet Abraham (peace be upon him) saw a dream
in which he 'gives up' his 'dearest thing' -- that being his son at
that time. This was the same son, from slave girl Hajra ('Hager'), who
had already been rescued from death in the desert which later became
Makkah the city as a child. An everlasting foundation, Zamzam, had
burst forth as a deserted Hajra searched for water fir his child.

According to tradition, Prophet Abraham (peace be upon him) did not
immediately act upon the dream. However, the dream recurred. Finally,
he shared it with his son, Ishmael (peace be upon him) who said, "Dear
father! If this is what you see, then act upon it. You shall find me
obedient."

Remember, at that time, humans were in direct touch with their
inspiration. They had no access to television, experts, and remotely
accessible data. To act quickly upon what appeared in their mind was a
matter of survival to humans, who had no 'sight beyond sight' as we
are granted today through electronics.

Prophet Abraham (peace be upon him) followed the ancient literalist
tradition of taking a scene as it is, and prepared to physically
sacrifice his son. Sacrifice, as has been shared, meant giving up,
going on, going up and ahead. Sacrifice was noble. This dream was a
noble call, to the Prophet's understanding.

Tradition has it that even as Prophet Abraham (peace be upon him) was
about to slaughter a blindfolded but willing Ishmael, he heard a sound
that declared, "Stop! Your intent of sacrifice has been accepted! You
do not need to slaughter Ishmael!" It is said that Ishmael was
'replaced with' a ram.

Finally, Prophet Abraham (peace be upon him) had interpreted his dream
in a flash of inspiration.

And that was the moment when the human collective crossed over into
the new era of consciousness: the era of metaphorical language and
cognition. The beginning of an era where humans could gain knowledge,
transport it, and use it to bring transformation.

It was apt that the very thing that became the first symbol, through a
dream, was Sacrifice: giving up the fruit of the life lived thus far,
so a transition is made into the next moment.

Alhamdolillah!

~
by: Ramla Akhtar
on: November 28, 2009
Eid-u-Azha, 1430 Hijri

Free

2009-11-21T01:42:00.000+05:00

Piling up all the books that are not mine, but which made their way on my shelves over the years. They must return to where they came from. Or I shall make up for the loss of the owner otherwise (sadaqa in their names, perhaps). One must not be in debt when one is wrapping up their business in the world. Why must one wrap up? For one truly LIVES the day that one is FREE of this world -- to the best of one's ability.

2009-10-18T03:33:00.000+06:00

For long, I had been hearing from the Universe: "I shall take from you. Give it to me!"

This made me sick. Could *this* be the Face of God? What am I hearing? What could be asked of me? Why is it so dreadful, so opinionated?

Today I heard one word: "Share". I heard this voice not as a command from the outside, but a word from the inside.

Share.

And all of what-has-been made sense! I was not listening to the inside that was willing to give. So it took the Universe to drum the message onto me. This is Benevolence.

Share, share, share! Share freely of the gift that is free to you. Share your word.

Share.

Give up, willingly. And see through the door that is not.

Ache

2009-09-13T03:34:00.001+06:00

It is my intent to 'complete' the business of this blog -- this 'Quest
& Lust' -- and move n. I shared as much with friends.

Yet, a closing statement to share on the blog hadn't occurred
naturally to me yet.

Today, I have summoned my energy to deal with some old, yet unfinished
business. This blog *started* with that business. That is, the fall of
2004 - when my heart broke and scattered as dust.

Only one who had ever to undertake the task of reconstructing a heart
anew after such devastation can understand me. Perhaps.

What have I not seen meanwhile?

Light, dark. Friendship, estrangement, triumph, glory, bleakness,
wonder, compulsion, glory, debasement. I have experienced
enlightenment and dark, bleak moments that stretched upon days. So,
too, I have seen much sickness and ailment. How I have got through
these days and nights, only Allah knows.

Above all, I have seen that the human spirit, even when crushed to
crystal powder and mixed with common earth can retain its quality,
shine through, and, remarkably, gather itself again.

I have witnessed the miracle of creation through a prolonged state of
hanging on the verge of death.

I have lived.

For days now, I have experienced a paradoxical state: immense power of
spirit, extreme debilitation of body. My mind has never been sharper;
my heart, never been so powerfully connected. And yet, I have hardly
been so helplessly frail even as I enjoy a good state of health.

Today, after about a month of a bizarre sleeping pattern whereby I
work all night and sleep all day, I have found energy with me. I awoke
before noon. Then I turned to a task that as demanded my attention for
years. Something that is tied like an anchor to my being.

I turned to sorting out my papers.

Thousands of papers, accumulated over the years. A few disruptive
events meant that those papers -- those thousands of papers -- have
all mixed up.

Junk, and once-useful things expired over time mixed with my precious
creations: my writing and art. All things I wrote -- all prayers,
dreams, wishes; all stories of various ventures; all observations of
Nature & Man; all manuscripts and stage plays; all poems written by a
teenage me... *sigh!* all letters unposted; all chronicles of the
days; all things I learned and taught -- all them, all them beautiful
things lie there mixed with piles of brochures; notes from
conferences; memos from offices I long departed from; wedding invites
and birthday cards; course catalogs from universities I never applied
to...

When did I get into the business of accumulating? Of dreaming and
hoping for many multiple contradictory things?

Sometimes I wonder if I dreamed on behalf of everyone I ever met.

Yes, that now seems to be the case. Oh so clearly!

I looked into their eyes, and I knew where their soul longed to be...
and I made a note of those dreams. I saw those dreams so well and so
clear, they often settled in my vision of things to be -- and I never
really realized so.

I have dreamed and I have dreamed of ten thousand things. All
originating from that single soul and its longing that is common to
all people of the Earth.

"I have dreamed for you all!"I shout into the vastness of the Universe...

The Christmas of 2008, I was having a word with a wise, gentle woman.
I was in pain, confusion. "Why do I do this, Sofie? Why do I see the
world this way? Why do I see in people what they don't see in
themselves! Why does it hurt me when they do not follow their path!?
Am I being obstructive, intrusive?"

"You see them," she assured in calm, "with God's eyes. You see them as
they are."

Ah! Yes. Seeing them as they are, not how they delude themselves to
become! See them with the eyes of The Creator. A creator. See them as
they are!

... And this is what a writer does: she listens, she sees. A writer is
the consciousness of a world that is still waking up. A writer is no
being of her own -- she is borrowed from ten billion souls, and
returns to them. She is the string running through the world. She
passes through all the beads and pearls, hidden in their core, and yet
not them.

I think my real work, too -- my creative projects and outcomes, my
pages -- have hidden themselves among all that paper.

To sort the Pages from the paper aches me, but it is (I see as I write
these words) the necessary ache that precedes all creation. It is an
ache that all writers endure, thrive in.

It is an ache I feel. It is an ache worth "having".

.ra

--
Saturday, September 12, 2009
The Writer's Room
Karachi, Pakistan

You Are Sufficient!

2009-05-26T02:47:00.000+06:00

Honestly God, thank You! If You weren't there or Your belief wasn't in my heart, I don't know what I'd do!

You, indeed, are sufficient for us.

A Fragile Formation

2009-05-06T21:45:00.001+06:00

As our existence continues to pare down, we are only left witnessing the marvel of how fragile though absolutely firm it is! Every good word and thought that we could previously ignore or dismiss or bury under the sands of mundaneness now matters -- as if on it depends our precarious existence!

Oh what intensity has it taken for us to see the elemental Truth!

Carry on, carry on!

Advice of the moment [April 16, '09 -- 0304 hr]

2009-04-16T03:06:00.001+06:00

Give up.

Test Post: Blog-by-email, with images

2009-04-12T11:48:00.001+05:00

Attaching images to posts right from within Gmail -- and blogging from email. Let's see if this works!

Faiz Mahal, Khairpur Mir -- a memory

2009-04-12T11:45:00.001+05:00

This beautiful palace is located in the town of Khairpur Mir, in the southern province of Sindh in Pakistan. I photographed this while on a visit in March 2006. A fascinating place with vast gardens and yes -- many abandoned artifacts that could serve well as restored antiques. Marvelous!

(P.S. If you can see this image inlined, this means that this amazing new Gmail labs feature has worked -- and now I can blog with images right from Gmail! This memory is a demonstration to this effect!)

You, Alone

2009-04-08T15:23:00.001+05:00

As it is, no matter the human friends one may have, there is one chamber of the heart that always remains vacant. Nothing fills it, it is meant to be vacant.

It is to that chamber that I retire when the goings on outside get aplenty to pay attention to. It is a chamber of such intense aloneness, in terms of what we are used to, that it can unhinge one for an initial while.

No more does it unhinge me. I have always known how to retire to this place.... to be alone in the presence of who I truly am.

The world? It can keep spinning. The people? They can keep changing and searching for permanence.

There is no permanence. Not where they are looking.

The impermanence silently guides to where there is permanence. Must know the meaning of impermanence! The gregariousness of being points to that chamber that houses no-thing. Stand still within the crowds, and you will being to see.

~~ Oh, I just want to retire. To meet You in that space where You come to reside, no matter what my choices or the lack of them. There is a space in my heart where only You live, inevitably.

You, and You alone.

Prayer for Today, March 28th, 2009

2009-03-28T10:43:00.002+05:00

Liberate the human who lives within my heart!

~ Dancing With the Universe ~

2009-03-20T21:47:00.001+05:00

My dear God of Awe!

Today, I have looked at the Universe in utter fascination! Today I have danced with it so fluidly!

Reams of my self have unfolded from within me! I twirl, and unfurl! And unfurl ~ And unfurl ~ ~ ~

Everything, every word, every thought seems to have a singular imprint on it. It all seems to be I. It speaks to me as One, and I?

I don't speak at all. It is not my place to speak, but to listen. I have spoken enough. I must now, only, watch in wonder.

Which I do, I do!

Making a Decision

2009-03-20T01:55:00.002+05:00

Dear Self:

Let's make the decision today. Right now, about this life... about this ever-branching life.

You know the path that has your heart on it. Shall you, or shall you not take it?

If you cannot make up the mind about the path of the heart, then pray, honor this confusion. Take a moment. Take a deep breath. Write about it. See where the writing leads your soul. Never be afraid to explore your own "Yes" and "No". This is the only choice you have.

Enjoy the process of arriving at your decision, much as you would experience the joy that the decision, once made, will bring you.

The Tao of Being

2009-03-10T00:53:00.001+05:00

I was going to make a wish, but that is foolish. One must enjoy their contract of being.

The Deception of Phenomena

2009-03-09T03:51:00.003+05:00

Dear Self:

Do not let phenomenon lie to you. Do not let good or bad actions deceive you.

The true measure of a human's quality is their character.

If character is well, all is well. Whatever they did, wherever they wandered -- all that brought them to where blessing is: in upright character.

If the character is ill, whatever that has preceded in their life has been in vain.

And those who show illness of character -- leave them. Leave them all no matter their numbers and ranks. Leave them without fear, regret, or remorse.

Now what does 'leave' mean?

It means:

- stay away from

- detach from

- do not take the burden of

- let be

- part company from or association with
- etc.

Some people we can physically or transactionally 'leave', some people we leave in the sense of giving up on them. Letting them be to their devices.

Why do I warn you? Because character elicits character in humans. Who you are with, makes you.

Be made well, because you shall in turn make another.

Watch your heart; watch all signs of illness in it closely. Where does it come from? Inquire upon yourself.

No! It is never old-fashioned or foolish to practice this. This is the only thing of worth you can achieve in life by your own work. Aspire to it.

Honor yourself, your heart, your space. Honor another, their heart, their space. Honor yourself, your heart, your space.

This is how it is.

Sleep well. ~

Honor -- Part 2: What is Honor?

2009-03-08T15:52:00.003+05:00

So, if honor is nothing more than our fragile attempt at earnestly, carefully holding the flowing waters of life in our hands ... watching them slip and flow on and on as we manage to lift our hands up every now and then to our parched lips and take a few sips of that water of life -- if this is all that this is, then I wonder why my heart is aching at all?

If I have just witnessed someone I trusted with a confidence, behaving somewhat dishonorably, perhaps I must have sympathy. Their hands are trembling, grappling at what water must flow and belong to another... and this shows the insecurity of their inner state of affairs. Who snatches water from the hands of another without, ultimately, coming to the realization of the futility of it? Can you pinch water? No. It is a flow, it is held in our hands only when they are still, and bound together in humility. Never otherwise.

Whosoever attempted to snatch the flow harmed themselves first, and then, to an extent, harmed another -- eventually never ending up with anything themselves. What shame!

I am, therefore, not a snatcher. If I snatch from another, I snatch from my own right to hold. I snatch moments from my own life that could have been beautiful.

Of course I only manage it to the best of my flawed ability. I have been tempted, I have doubted, I have washed my hands of my own affair in order to find another.... but I have always been returned to the condition of my own humility.

As these words get written themselves, I am realizing what I have always felt honor to mean.

Practicing honor is one's ability to withhold oneself from behaving in any way that harms another, that takes from another.

Only I can truly withhold myself from the desire to take what rightfully belongs to another, for even if my body is chained, my heart can keep an evil intent. And if I am put to death, I would have died in a state of holding that desire.

Now what is evil?

Evil is to act as though one is separate from the rest of existence.

It is only this which enables one to behave in any of those innumerable ways that humans identify as "evil." It is not the action itself that is evil, rather the thought that went behind it. Which is why, when someone gets in an accident because their car slipped on ice and killed a pedestrian, they are not held accountable. One who sped past red lights and ran into oncoming traffic, that one is held accountable for behaving as though they were not a part of the traffic.

Honor -- Part 1: How to Live With Life

2009-03-08T15:14:00.003+05:00

A few moments ago, the idea of "honor" grabbed my attention. A reel of thoughts and stories from my life played in my mind, and I was able to look back at a few incidents through the lens of honor, or, its evil twin, dishonor.

In no certain order, I thus blog what came to my mind.

I don't know what honor really means, but I know that I treat myself with it. Closely linked to the word "honor" in my mind is an image of holding something up in outstretched palms, holding it delicately like we'd hold water in our hands, preventing it from falling. And now as I write this analogy I realize that none can prevent water from slipping between our fingers. Perhaps, honor here is not water -- that flow of events -- but the act of honor itself is to hold your hands together in this humility.

So truly, I realize, I cannot hold flowing water in my hands. What I can do is to earnestly put my hands together, and lap up whatever water that is ordained for me. Only that is what matters, and that is what is honor and honorable: the intent with which I cup my hands together. Only in this way I know how humble my existence; how tremendously it is at the mercy of everything; how fragile is it nobility.

I am glad I am writing this down, because my heart was aching. I experienced the evil twin, dishonor, a few moments ago.

And now that I see how fragile honoring the flowing waters of life is, I can write -- perhaps with some necessary detachment -- about what I feel. I want to write down a few random stories.

A Trillion Billion Friends

2009-03-08T05:05:00.002+05:00

It's 4:28 AM. I am not up & writing at these desperate hours because life is fun and I want to sit in front of a screen Facebooking & blog, blog, blogging my life away.

I sit and write because there is something intense and compelling that I have been going through for years -- something that has done much to me and yet in the end, it has simply handed me a pen and commanded, "Write!"

It is my life. It has been happening to me. And it wants to be written. (Therefore if there is an illusion amongst any of the readers that I do this to attract any further "life (drama!)" -- especially one that is not mine -- then, pray, know that I don't. I don't want to know any more or to think anymore. My writing isn't to create turbulence or catastrophe. It is to reach stillness. It is not to gain, but to give. That is all I have: nothing!)

And now this thought was parenthetical because it is an aside. As can be noted, the subject at hand is "Friends."

I felt, a mere three days ago, that I have no friend. Now whenever I confess to that particular feeling, it sends many of the dear people whose lives have served me and mine theirs in friendship, in considerable shock. Why am I writing this when this is not - what - I - intended - to - write!

I write this because writing wants to be written. It takes its own course. It is because my heart is telling a story and I am the figurative pen, the literal keyboard. I have no command over this story.

Now, for any dear soul which is confounded -- join the come & go club. At this moment, I am no longer in the club. I am not confounded myself.

At this moment, my friends are countless. I tell you how so.

I was retreating to my room for the night when I noticed the pillow and the covers on my bed ready to comfort me for the night. I stopped in amazement. What a human quality that is! To hold someone together, to cover them, to give them warmth. In some way, to aid their sleep. It is a quality so human, it is divine. I wondered.

I looked around at things in my house. The chair I sit on, the cushions I lean on, this computer that aids me so greatly in my writing and living that I would have been dead without it -- and I mean it: this machine has saved my life. It has given me a life. I looked at my bed again, the clothes that I am arranging. Earlier, when the power went out, I chose to step out in the lawn, lie down on the grass, and bathe in moonlight. Question and Answer, the two curious kittens who reside in our garden, came and hopped over me. This is what they do; I am family to them. Question, indeed, insists upon a greater companionship -- hence the name. Together, Q&A as I affectionately call them, decidedly accompany wherever I go in the house. They want to offer enacting their kitten fights and -- yes, this too! -- giving their "clean-up licks" to me. I am part of their family, the Big Sistah Cat. They are kind enough to not see me as human, but as just another cat.

I am touched. I am touched by what the plants do too. They dance when I am with them. Now every avid gardener knows but hides the eccentric fact that plants can understand (human) sound and respond. They also have a sense of visual attention. I am aware of their presence and their language; so well, that sometimes I forget to notice.

It took a set of inanimate things this night to suddenly break this spell of feeling physically cut off, wandering, and alone.

I have noticed tonight after a long, long, long time how everything is connected to me. It is connected to me, it is my friend. The thought that I am the product of all my life had been swirling in my mind like dusty little windwhirls on a summer afternoon. Now, I just get it. It's not a mental twirling thought. It is a fact.

I am embraced. I am embraced by trillion-billion of atoms, certainly even more... all of them innumerable things. Expectations manage to lock in my attention on a few set of atoms, and often those are people. More often, those are not even these atoms, but thoughts.

Cold as it may seem to think you are embraced by atoms -- for God's warm sake!! -- this is exactly what I mean.

Warmth and life have a way of reaching to us. Through our beds and shoes and machines. It is a marvel how life holds us together. It is a marvel how care has a way of getting through to us, being around us. I simply marvel at all these things and the comfort of friendship they provide. I also marvel at how my life is designed such that everything makes me happen, makes me live. I marvel at how it all seems to be coming in my direction, placed around me, in an attitude of service and giving.

This is really what it is!

I also marvel at why my attention for years had become locked in a very few things! How long has it been since I have felt that it is not only other mere mortals who bring life to me? Quite a while.

Tonight -- by this early morning that is about to come -- I have felt again that which is the truth: I am in the comfort of a Friend. And it is not a friend who isolates me into desperation. But makes me desperate until I see the marvel.

Why, a rather persistent friendship this is, and one that gives me more than a calculable number of friends. It gives me as many friends as there are ways of counting everything in the world -- and then it gives me everything.

What Is The Middle Path?

2009-03-05T14:17:00.001+05:00

Dear Self:

I want to re-teach you something that you must remember, especially in these times when the illness in human hearts has come to surface; our potential energy becomes kinetic. That is, what was inside has now become apparent. Therefore, these are busy times.

I want to remind you of The Middle Path, and how this is the only path to welfare.

What is The Middle Path?

For long, it has been understood to be the total of good and bad divided over two.

This is impractical, and makes no sense. A mind can be lost over reasoning this out. This, in other words means, indecision. Indecision is an unhelpful act to everyone in the situation, for it stops the flow of events. Flow is life. Block is death.

Therefore, this is not what the Middle Path is.

The Middle Path is the ability to stay one's natural course, no matter the ebb and flow of events.

The word "middle" means to stay consistent whereas the two extremes are the ebb and the flow. Neither the ebb nor the flow are favorable or unfavorable -- it is only our selective perception which thinks so.

This is why humans have been invited to observe how everything in this existence modulates on those two extremes. From light waves to the currents of the ocean to the flow of day & night to pendulums that swing; from seasons to sleeping patterns to moods to energy for work; from tea and perfumes that make you active or sleepy to clothes that are meant for these contrary purposes too -- everything in the world remains in motion through fluctuating between two polarities. This is how your heart beats, too, or you will die if it only let blood flow as through a tap, or, well, stopped.

Human sickness is to assume either polarity as permanent. So we think that either aggressive or pacific behavior alone is the answer, forever, always.

But you se? Sometimes the times are so aggressive that life become impossible. Sometimes life is so pacified that useful ambitious flees from the hearts. So noither appraoch alone is the answer.

Life lies in between the ebb and flow.

The Middle Path is to remain consistent despite these fluctuations, even as we witness that the pendulum of humanity or events (ah, same thing!) has become stuck in one direction. To stay the middle course is not to resist, but to persist.

The real course that events take is that middle course -- just as light waves do. Neither do they remain stuck in the upper arc, nor the lower.

Now why do I remind you of this?

It is because the events of today have reaching a proportion and number so vast, the human mind cannot encapsulate them if we see things in terms of these events.

Forget the events, focus on the principal. Remember you life is to stay the middle course, and also know that the middle course is the shortest and the straightest path to welfare. This is not merely a religious or philosophical notion, this is a mathematical fact. No matter what your belief about the world may be, this is true. This is observable, morally or scientifically.

Stay the middle course, and stay on it with firmness.

I can tell you one thing then: you will surprised how the fluctuations will pass over or under you -- but no harm shall come to you. None.

Maintain quiet on the ebb and flow, and the middle ray of light will take you straight out of the darkness.

If you follow this, in this will you find both wisdom and liberation.

---

Reminder

2009-03-04T19:27:00.001+05:00

Dear Allah:

You have very strange ways of reminding me that You alone are The
Friend. Oh the unreliablility of being!

Rising Slowly [a poem]

2009-03-02T15:52:00.002+05:00

THIS SIGH!

There is a sigh
Trapped
In the depth
Of my heart.
Like a bubble
Of fish breath
Under weighted tons
Of sea.

All I ask now
Of my Self
And my patience
Is to witness in silence
The slow upward rise
Of this bubble, this sigh.
This sigh,
This bubble sigh!

_Prophecy
March 02, 2009
1550 hr

My Other Way

2009-03-01T02:26:00.002+05:00

Only to say, I feel alone, separate, and desolate. Because I think not like them.

~~~~~~~

OK dear blog, you must know. I just want to howl. Bloody well climb on a rooftop and ROAR my throat stupid.

GHAAAAAA!!! AOOOOO!!!! HAOOWWWW HAOOWWWW HAOOWWWW!!! GRRRRR!!

Phew! Ok, that was good. Two animals inside me needed to GET OUT. The one, a fierce Lion. And the other, a desolate Wolf in the wilderness.

I feel two things at once. One, an intense sense of being alone. Of traveling with a pack where I am an outsider - because my heart is different; its nature is different; its song is solitary.

The other, a satisfaction. In the knowledge that indeed, my path is divergent in some fundamental way.

I could have been rebellious, except I am not rebellious against the situation, just because of it. There is something in the situation that tells me like a wise teacher to go away. Go my other way.

I somehow remember this feeling; it was mine since I was a child. This essential voice in the heart that gave up more and more of the given, and diverged, diverged, traveled its own path just to discover another land.

Such is the nature of discovery. It has a great deal of aloneness in it.

I have, though, persisted.

And you know, I am profoundly and emptily (of intent)-fully (of heart) grateful that I persisted - until the Truth I saw in my heart, and they all saw in theirs, was finally revealed. And when it was, we were all, at once, at the same place.

Except that I had come to that place the other way.

The Untold [a poem]

2009-02-26T15:26:00.002+05:00

The Untold

There are conversations
that cannot be had
the way we have
ordinary conversation:
by turning to face someone
and uttering a few words.

There are conversations
that are made
by catching the eyes of another
and beholding them with our eyes.
Letting the windows of one soul
open into those of another.

There are conversations
that are finer and subtler
that those made by ways of seeing.
These are conversations
of feelings that move whichever way they choose
in the chambers of our hearts.

There is, though, a conversation
that is finer and subtler than these all.
It is the conversation that is not.
It cannot be had with any other
or even our Self.
It is just what it is.

It is a conversation that we are having
whichever way we turn or not
wherever side we look or not
whether we are awake or not
whether we know we are
having this conversation, or not.

It is the conversation of which
we are the alphabet.
It takes place with us
and despite us.
Within us and
without us.

....
December 29, 2008
by: RA
aka The Prophecy

This rather rambling and perhaps yet unfinished poem was written two months ago. I began composing about one thing, and ended up with this. Well!

So Much Within

2009-02-26T15:04:00.001+05:00

Sometimes my mind just paralyzes. I sense there is so much within, that through the little aperture of the mouth and the slow medium of my hands writing, communicating day and night lately, it still all just splutters forth. Often, an incoherent babble.

The act of communicating, over time, renders a form to the exodus of the mass of ideas, thoughts, and knowledge within. I must keep writing. The practice will lend itself grace and form over time.

Life Update: February 10, 2009 - 1:17 AM onwards

2009-02-10T01:51:00.001+05:00

Alhamdolillah - all praise be to Allah! - I am well tonight.

Yesterday I started a healing routine. Actually it's still not a routine - my life is still very disrupted - but it is healing all right. I have also started a new journal. I am considering starting a dedicated (series of) blog(s) on healing as I have done quite a few experiments in the field. However I do not think I shall be adding anything to the body of knowledge except some of the techniques I have developed myself, for myself.

My belief, though, is that each person has an absolutely individual and unique approach to something. So my techniques will not work for another. What I have always been interested in, far more than any technique, is learning the ability to master a technique. This is not the same as learning the technique itself.

There are some fundamental principles and "secrets" to each art or science. I am far more interested in learning those, and also going through the process of transformation which enables me to learn the art or science. The knowledge itself is secondary to the transformation. To give an analogy, we pick the weight to build the muscles, we do not build muscles to pick the weight. This is because of the weight and our muscles, it is the muscles that is us. We work with and on that which is us or closest to us in a situation. In that way, we achieve a more permanent shift and development. And we are able to master the change of phenomenon. The weight, in this analogy, is phenomenon: The material, the tangible, the destructible, the unreliable.

So. I am wary of using a technique that makes one bypass transformation. I do not want answers as much as I want to formulate questions - my questions. To me, a technique is not my savior or my master - it is my servant and my tool.

When I felt that I had acquired that level of responsibility, I decided to use a couple of techniques. For physical healing and well-being, the technique in question related to acupressure plus affirmations.

Yesterday I started a journal to outline the issues I want to address, their various aspects, and what I believe are underlying causes. On an inspiration, I listed all the significant events or "turning points" of my life - those which have been disruptive events. I want to examine my memory with respect to that issue and determine if it still emotionally disrupts my life.

A few such events in the past year have, in some sense, nothing to do with my personal or family life. They are national or world events - political and religious affairs. Yet these matters now form a significant part of our consciousness. There was a time when it was easy to be on top of these events because understanding and discourse was limited to a few people who could reach agreement or disagreement swiftly amongst themselves. Yet the scope and depth of information and people involved is much vaster and deeper now. To take stock of the Totality is an enterprise.

I have realized today that I am not being obsessive or, to put it politely, constrictive about this review. Rather, it is an exercise in being aware and deliberate.

Now I will say, for the record, that for most of my life I used to make good use of paper and pen to make a rational, written analysis of affairs and situations. Then I gave the practice up and thought that this was being non-manipulative, open to chance, and fresh-approached. I think now that for a good long while, it was useful that I dived in to this Cloud where I lost all control and sense.

Years later, a sense of organization and clearer thinking is returning to me. I am able to make use of my pen & paper again. Does that surprise you that for years I have not been able to make any use of any organizational tool? Paradoxically, it's only when my life is once again embracing the great uncertainty of being that I am able to make any use of rationality again!

The meaning of everything, really, is in its opposite!

I must sleep now. This blog, I realize, is quite unhelpful to anyone who has no idea of what I am talking about. And for those who have had similar experiences, well - what use is it! Somewhere in the recesses of my mind is this aim that I must write anew about these life experiences, lifting the veil this time. Well, guess what? Actually that is exactly what I am doing these days. Having given all chaotic activities up, this is exactly what I am devoting myself to!

This and the still great uncertainty of being!

Good night!

Are you really giving love daily - self-test

2009-02-06T22:25:00.004+05:00

This one came in a newsletter. Very useful.

The truth is that too often we look for love to come our way, when the best way to receive love is to give love on a daily basis.

Here is a quick quiz to see if you are really giving love daily. It is based on holy scriptures that read: Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not boast. Love is not proud, rude or self-seeking and love takes no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth. Love always protects, always trust, always hopes and always perseveres. Love never quits. [1 Corinthians 13]

Now, to take the test, say your name everywhere you see the word LOVE and see if the scripture still speaks the truth. (ie. Ali/Miriam is patient.......that one might get a bunch of us right there!)

If you find that you aren't being love, then perhaps you aren't really giving love to its fullest. Take time this week to be the love you wish to receive and watch how love begins to come your way!

Cleaner, Leaner, and "Better!"

2009-01-30T03:17:00.001+05:00

Yes! YES! YES!!!! I have just finished with the day's unusual work: I put everything on pause, and just deleted - deleted - unsubscribed in the virtual world. I deleted close to 2000 stored messages from Gmail. When I turned to Facebook, I found I was a member of an astounding 210+ groups! I am down to about 140 now. My unread emails counter on Gmail was reading 516. As I am about to turn in for sleep, it's down to a cleaner 67. Over the weekend, I intend to make my virtual world a new place, ready in alignment with my life priorities.

Internet overwhelms me now. The social networks are too buzzy, and my email is too stagnant. IM has too much talk. Clearly, I was in need of a personal policy. I was rather unaware that I even had an issue until on November 21, 2008, I attended a talk on the Attention Economy. The subject of the talk was the two-word summary lesson I walked away with.

Earlier I had written on the subject of Attention itself, partly irked by the constant barrage of "political opinions" of the layperson who insist upon being taken seriously and start petitions and protests at the drop of a hat (missile?). When you're in Karachi, Pakistan, there's no power for 10-12 hours a day, you've got work to do and the city can face unpredictable security situation - this kind of dishing out of attention on the frivolous is not just a luxury, it is obscene. Attention is currency. Either we're spending it right and prudently, or we're wasting. Speaking of the Internet being too "full" for attention, shortly after the seminar on Attention Economy that suddenly alarmed me to the Attention Crunch coming - I found support in Seth Godin's warning.

So I wasn't getting crazy and edgy for no reason. I couldn't stand another Facebook soap opera episode, another friend-of-a-friend bringing their problems to my home-office dead in the middle of when I am writing yet another article for Triple Bottom Line. After all, how many times can I go over the same stuff that I graduated from back in my teen years? Same information. More of the same information. And then some.

I had to let some people go. And only when I gently (or not so!) detached in the virtual world did I realize the oddity that I was living: hey, since when does it entitle a person to delve deep into my private life with their private petty affairs and "political" activism which, pray, is no more than forcing people to rally around Facebook applications?

I often take great care in inviting people to event, putting them on a group mail, or tagging them in a note. I have hardly ever forwarded emails in my 11 years online. I usually do not promote my blogs or spam others with requests to promote my stuff. Unless there is a national emergency - even during which, I have attempted to maintain calm and design rather than stir hysteria.

But I did still sense that I could be doing the same at some level so to begin with, I have started practicing economy and selectivity with my words. Above all, since I do tend to write a lot, I have figured, finally, that this is my talent and I better clearly consider it my calling. I am still not over the wordiness and the long explanations that wormed into my DNA at some point. Yet this realization that words could be my gift to life as they are life's gift to me - this simple realization! - has allowed me to bring many sweeping changes in my life. Creativity is a priority and just when I wanted to word an explanation of the events, along came Better by Merlin Mann. He's said it all. Attention Overload is a de facto universal phenomenon.

And sweeping it is! I have been cleaning my room out for weeks now with long breaks. It's full of my papers and art and what-not. I have sharpened my priorities and opened a Facebook Page to organize content, contacts, and conversations. I feel happier engaging with my loved and dear ones as the public noise is walled off. Tonight, I have deleted much from the inbox and I am certain - much more from my attention.

That's it! Hallelujah!

Stayin' Alive!

2009-01-22T23:15:00.002+05:00

I don't care if I myself thought it sacrilegious a mere few weeks ago, but George Sampson helped me rid myself of my religion. I am dancing - and it's all for God!

*dance*

Two Types of Plans: The Plan That Fails

2009-01-07T16:16:00.015+05:00

Plans are of two types: space-based, and time-based. The first one is spatial - in a coherent and beautiful form, it is always growth outwards from a central point over space. It is organic in nature. The second one is based upon measurements of time - it grows from one point in time to another. It is linear in nature.

The space-based plan is built inside-out, and its values are determined intrinsically. The time-based plan is built outside-in, and its values are established extrinsically. The first type takes its being from one. The second type shapes one.

There is oft a warning about plans that fail, urging one to have no plans. This concept may also be known as a "goal-free life." On the other hand, awareness and meticulous planning are deemed a virtue.

This is a contradictory situation: have no plans, have plans. What is the truth?

The truth is that both statements are true - but each relates to one kind of plans. It is the time-based plan that is set up for (likely - and in this age, highly likely) failure. This is because Time is a product of our perception. It is a by-product of Space. The speed of the unfolding of Space is Time, and the unfolding of Space is the unfolding of innate Design. In terms of a human, Space is the unfolding of a human's design: their innate talent, preferences, personality - and their context.

When a plan is set up in time, attention is taken away from the space-based plan - the kind that is demanded of one, the kind that is the able expression of one, the kind that succeeds when one commits. Though success here is not measured against any external variable, but is the fullness and the quality of expression.

There are two kinds of energy described in the physical science: potential - energy at rest; stored energy - and kinetic - energy in movement. The total energy of any being is potential plus kinetic. When the being is at rest, almost all energy is potential (I say almost, because some is in movement within the system). When the being is in movement, the potential energy transforms into kinetic energy.

How to bring a plan to life?

Attention is a primary human energy. Being alive, in a sensory meaning of the word, is to have potential human energy. Paying attention is the kinetic, the moving, the active, the dynamic form of energy. Attention is life in movement. It is life, lived.

When we give attention to a space-based plan we engage art, science, and every gift that is human. We bring energy to elements and arrange them in a space which could be conceptual, physical, or virtual (in the computer-world sense of the word). According to the level of innate energy and clarification of the intent of a person, the plan unfolds and "manifests" (materializes) at a certain speed. The higher the energy and the clearer the intent, the "faster" the plan unfolds.

It does not matter what the timetable of the plan is. There are plans that appear to be fulfilled by a certain time but they have no innate quality. Therefore, they do not fulfill their purpose and are soon in need of repair or elimination or renewal. Of course, even the best-laid plans, the spatial kind, arrive at the same conclusion. Yet it is the life lived and the way it was lived that mattered.

The question is: "Is a plan - for its entire existence, from conception to initiation to completion to end - a source of increasing fulfillment? Or does it increase a sense of emptiness and loss?"

Of course, a space-based plan is also bound and often measured by time. Yet in this one, space comes first, time second. Time is determined after the space is established. Time is a slave to this, not master. This is how time must be lived: with a quality of presence, and fullness.

And this is all I know of this matter so far.

Image credits: Top - user ba1969 @ sxc.hu | Bottom - Eye Scapes @ Makezine Blog

Dues

2009-01-07T16:15:00.001+05:00

DUES
a poem

I owe myself a few things.
These are dues that I ought to pay.
Above all - attention!
And then, gratitude.

So it is my practice henceforth
that no matter what the society
and its constructs of doing-doing
and staying forever in a state of lacking
attempt to make me believe -
I shall not believe them.

I am worthy of my own trust, my admiration,
my attention upon my affairs.
My engagement with the world
is mine, and no one else's.

This is my life
and it is for a reason that I am myself,
and not another.
And another is not I.
We are by one another, but not another.

And in this is much wisdom.

by:
_RA
aka The Prophecy

The Healing

2009-01-05T23:29:00.011+05:00

The year that just passed yesterday, 2008, brought me that which I had not experienced in a long time: rest. Sleep. And ultimately, healing.

Almost exactly a year ago, I underwent a secluded meditation that aimed to empty the self out, amongst other objectives. Days later, on the New Year night, I woke up in shock from a dream - only to feel a great deal of something leave me. I had just read excerpts from Eckhart Tolle's book Power of Now, with my attention drawn in particular to the phenomenon of the "pain body" - an unconscious entity within the self that thrives on suffering and, of course, unconsciousness. It is that part of the egoic self that thrives on pain to further its illusion of separation.

At this point, I will go on a small tangent suitable for the strong-nerved. It is this "pain body" (by any other name) that some believe possesses the human - "possession" here referring to that paranormal/extraordinary phenomenon that is described variously in clinical and spiritual literature but essentially refers to the same condition. In movies on the subject, it is shown in its extreme form, within the extraction of the pain body referred to as an act of exorcism. That, of course, is literal truth to some and a commentary on the condition of the individual or collective psyche to others.

Yet everyday people are overwhelmed by strong emotions that would seem utterly absurd should one be able to step back from and out of the context and just see the situation and the characters within. The greed rampant in the world, for instance, has led to more destruction and chaos than an individual in a scary movie possessed by distorted, horrific, growling demons. We are faced with a crumbling planet and collapsing social-political-economic systems with staggering monetary and intangible costs. We are perfectly used to a media that brings murder, insanity, vulgarity, crassness, and abasement of all kind a mere few inches away from our body. And we engage in this theater.

By the end of 2008, many, many people and societies around the world have become acutely aware of this phenomenon that may go by any other name. There is a hue & cry for self-restraint, and an active global shift towards "doing good." Entire communities have sprung up around causes of goodness such as care for the environment, promotion of values of motherhood, and paying-it-forward. At the same time, a process of individual and collective purge continues, with very visible effects.

A year ago, on the night of December 31st, 2007, I woke up a start from a dream where I was being shown into a hospital. Within that swaying state of consciousness within sleep and awakening, I sharply felt something leaving me. I thought I heard a scream and I let out what I considered a sharp yell, but what came out of my lips - as I felt like dead weight - was a faint whispering addressed to my roommate. She thought I whispered in my sleep. As I lay in panic, I felt... empty. After a spike of fear that had lasted only a few seconds, I thought the subject of my roommate and my discussion that eve before we retired to bed - the pain body - had indeed suddenly dashed out of my system. My roommate had been reading through the book Power of Now and had brought the passage to my attention, as part of my work on cleansing my Self.

Later, I picked out Eckhart Tolle's book and found that he himself had experienced a much more intense version of the same experience. The cleansing of his self from the whirlpools of past and future were spontaneous and sudden.

My route remained more academic - I was thinking about it, and thinking about a thing makes it grow - and therefore it took me an entire year to proceed with a further "clarification of my intent," as my spiritual method puts it. Certainly, thre were no rituals like we see in the movies to drive out the egoic self - rather a very contemporary approach that involves an opening to life while gently cleansing the heart of malice, envy, fear, greed and other such ailment of the self.

The result has been a revelation of my life purpose - the meaning which emerges after our inner resistance dissolves. Yet I have not obsessed over outcomes. I have - after a long time in my life, after spending a great period in the academic and corporate world as a "Type A personality" - honored the journey more than any destination that I could preconceive. I have, therefore, rested, slept and wept a great and unprecedented deal the entire year of 2008.

To have honored myself and to have accepted my own condition, even as the world around me experiences its own painful ego shattering, has been a tremendously liberating, rewarding experience of my life.

Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find
all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.
- Rumi

Image credit: "Saturday Afternoon" by Edson Campos - from Art.com

Bond of Trust: Two People, One Encounter

2009-01-04T02:52:00.003+05:00

Last night, half an hour past midnight, the doorbell rang. It startled me.

I was writing - the windows of my room, that faces the gate, were lit up. I could hear people in the streets, playing winter night sports perhaps. I could hear the laughter of the watchmen though I was not sure whether it was the street watchmen indeed? For a bare month ago, they were driven out of the city amidst tense ethnic strife. I hadn't caught up on whether they had returned, for I have been hibernating deep in the bowels of my home for weeks, oblivious to the world.

I thought I'd check.

With a woolen shawl wrapped around me - both to protect from the cold and to appear imposing to any possible intruder - I stepped out and asked, "Who is it?"

Through the wide slits of our gate, one can see outside-in, inside out from quite a distance. A young boy who appeared scruffy from his hair replied in a broken voice: "Help me! My mother has just died in a hospital!" He did not specify what did he need.

For anyone who lives in highly insecure urban areas such as Karachi - and for myself, whose family has faced a good deal of violence and robbery the memories of which still manage to disturb my sleep - this is ample for alert and suspicion. This is how would-be robbers trick one into opening doors. This is how "they" gauge whether there is a tender-hearted fool in the house who can also produce money at slight prompting. This is how we are used to thinking in Karachi.

I briefly considered the inconvenience of unlocking the door to our terrace upstairs, peering out from the balcony on to the street, look out for accomplices, read the boy's face and body language, and then proceed with a moral analysis of how much money should I give him.

And then I considered the state of my own mind: addled with fear.

For the past few weeks, I have been in a retreat - secluded in my house and mostly in one room - allowing myself to turn out and throw away the conditioning by others from within me, along with the much more dangerous conditioning by my own mental constructions. To just be. To be closer to being a purer human.

If, indeed, this boy who was probably still awaiting an answer outside as I stepped back in after replying with a vague, "Hmmm... OK." (which in my language can also mean, "OK, wait there!") needed help - if he was telling the truth - what would I do?

I sometimes see images of myself... consoling the desperate, putting a hand to their head, and sharing the gifts of God with them: food, comforts, and other rights that humans have over one another. My cowardly turning away was not in conformity with this image.

So I said to myself: this boy, whether a liar or someone who tells the truth, obviously is a person in need. Secondly, his exact story may be true. And if there is indeed a soul out on the streets in the night, looking for consolation or support or charity as his family died perhaps in very desperate conditions, who would help them? Who would be the keeper of the brothers and sisters in desperate need? That there were people in the street and indeed children cackling somewhere in the laps of their young fathers celebrating a late night playing outside on the weekend, gave me some comfort.

I decided: liar, mugger, or truly in need - one thing is for certain. This person has come from God, from within the vastness of this Universe to my door. I do not know what is in his heart. But I can master what is in mine. And my heart choose to believe. To trust. To honor the guest of Allah no matter what his character. For a man might intend to hurt me, but not my God. I do not have the power to help or not help a person. Who am I give or withhold? I have only the power to choose the state of my own heart, and act accordingly. I have only the power to serve from that which is given to me, or to let fear or greed prevent that.

And so, I made the decision: I will choose trust over fear. Love over division.

I went and took a little cash - for my newly faith was weak and still tainted with fear - and stepped out in front of the gate again. The boy, partially covered by the gate's design, appeared to be leaning against it. I asked again, just to make conversation and to gauge the quality of his soul through his voice: "What do you want?" He repeated something broken but made no specific demand. I think he repeated that his mother had died. Some flashbacks of being held up at gunpoint flashed through my mind. My mind whispered that I was a fool who let other people believe they have lots of spare cash. I half expected see the barrel of a gun pointing in my direction through the slit.

I took a deep breath. What a shame that my mind lives in such imaginary violence as if it is really happening! I inched closer to the gate, taking cover behind the adjacent wall, hastily shoved the money through the slit near the wall, stepped back and said: "Take it. Take it!" His fingers slowly pulled out the money. I walked backwards closer to the door of my room, keeping an eye on him - for a diminishing fear for myself, and a growing concern for this urchin. Then I turned back, and so did he.

Believer's Refuge

2009-01-03T17:14:00.003+05:00

"Take refuge in the Cave
God will spread Hu's* grace over you, and will endow you -
whatever your outward condition -
with all that your soul may need."

-Qur'an, Chapter Al-Kahf (The Cave), verse 16

...And so, because this verse has affected me deeply, I remain hidden, in my refuge, in the proverbial cave... until times are rendered anew. Until I am ready to emerge, as WHO I AM.

* "His"

Two Politicians and One Nation

2008-12-29T15:20:00.001+05:00

I just have to say this, unformed as this is....

There are two political leaders for whom my heart is saying contrary today to what it used to say.

One is Benazir Bhutto. I am usually careful of doing anything that I shall be ashamed of later, something I cannot account to myself. But against the voice of my own heart, I said unkind words about her after her death, remembering her as a "corrupt politician" that Pakistanis once cursed. Suffice it to say that my view of us Pakistani and our curses has changed more significantly than anything else. I think we cursing people should hold ourselves to task before we are held to task (as it is happening right now). Also, my view of what is corruption and what prompts is, what is it, and how others perceive it is also rather evolved. I do not accept corruption, but I see a new definition of it. In summary, there is a corruption that is real corruption - that is the rotting of a heart. And then there is corruption that is arbitrarily defined. And then there is that legally defined corruption that happens much more often passively (i.e. by the "victim" or totality of the system) - but is only attributed actively and tangibly, i.e. to a person taking money. I think today that it is not just that a person does wrong, but that they are silently, subtly, and by way of inaction and unfairness supported in their ways by the larger world.

Each has to transform themselves alone.

As of Benazir, I would think that another case applied to her: that is of repentance and transformation. Certainly the woman who came here is not the woman who had left this country: one who was much less maturer and inappropriate. I also sometimes wonder how much fortitude did she show in becoming the Prime Minister in the first place, and being a woman in the second place! How often is it that a woman truly shows the collective spirit of those around her, for a woman is a tribe, she does not walk alone. For whatever wrong she did, how much was really her fault? The situation cannot be accounted for in terms of facts, many of which are not known in legal truth be people. But there is a truth larger than that and that is the voice of human hearts -and in that voice, she is forgiven. She is not vile.

A year ago I may have dismissed eulogies for her (though I felt my heart rebuking me as I did so), but soon after I admitted the voice of my own heart. I forgive her. And not just that, I say she inspired me for this entire year of 200 to give my last bit of flickering hope to this country. What this country has now chosen for itself is its own choice.

The second politician is George W. Bush. Yes, that man whose bad end we have all been ardently wishing for.

No President walks alone either, in a democratic world. The decisions of a leader depend upon him and on his character. But this is not the age of one lone hero/ villain especially in complex political systems such as that of the USA. We humans seem to be carrying our political memories from the days of kings and queens. The system today is not so arbitrary.

I do not say that George W. Bush is either a wise man or one with exceptionally good intent. But I do feel today that he has had much more ill ascribed to him than really belonged to him alone. It is entirely possible that he only managed to bring what was already doomed to its catastrophic end. And I also would dare say, much as I revile war and aggression - that the nations that suffered from these aggressive acts should have been more proactively engaged with the world.

Of the one who commits violence and who seems to be dead by it, we tend to hold the first as responsible. If a fast car hits a man who was rushing across the road in darkness, whose fault is it? It may be the car's fault, but to stop at that conclusion and not attempt to create pedestrian bridges and well-lit streets is to have poor vision. Indeed the people who I find most disruptive and harmful are the one who beat the point of the "aggressor's" fault to death and engage for ages the energies of everyone else also to reach that bland conclusion.

The act of wrong is obvious. How to correct this in the present and for the future is not obvious to the blind. That remains the quality of the vision of only a few.

We must broaden our vision and open our hearts enough to be able to see that the victim and the victimizer are both born into a skewed world; and of the two, one assumes the active and the other the passive role. Yet both are in the same drama.

That is why I also detached from the movements of the "Civil Society" in Pakistan shortly after I protested against Musharraf's unwise handling of the events of March 2007 and thereafter. I think the one who protests and says statements like, "Stop.... " actually plays along in the drama and does nothing more than attract more violence. From animals to predators to street thieves to dictators, each violent force will go again and again for such people - this is a psycho-forensic fact. For whoever is genuinely interested in change, the real task is to stop themselves from acting in the drama.

There is One Nation - and yes I just put that in the caps - that has really used its own ills to transform itself. Of the significant nations of the world, this nation is definitely the first. That is America.

America is a much-hated country in the world as of 2008, and certainly the most hated nation before November 2008. From friends to foes to the apathetic, people fear America and despise its system - and fear is hatred by just another name. The ills of any nation - its waywardness, its hysteria, its lack of empathetic human values, its incompatibility with the rest of the world - were apparent in full force in the American nation for the past eight years.

It was like an infection that fully came to boil, and it had distorted the face of America.

For a person or for a nation, this is a truly horrid and painful situation to be in: when you think you want to be beautiful and loved, but you are all ugly and repulsive.

As the year of 2008 ends, though, it can be truly said that America dealt with the dark night of its soul - and grew through it. Look anywhere in the world and you shall see the worst of all people as the leaders of the nation - the people most hated and loathed and suspected by the nations are ruling them! This shows how morally bankrupt and weak the world is, for its worst men are in positions of power, telling lies that everyone knows are lies, raping entire countries - and still they are in comfortable power! This would astound a political analyst alien brother from Mars!

The only nation, so far, that has managed to arrive in the next era of inclusive, collaborative, enlightened leadership is the USA. Barack Obama's election is as much a wonder of people's power as of his own character. Persons of character and promise mean nothing in politics if they are not acknowledged by the common people - it is a dance of the two. (Though having character only takes one: the politician. And making correct decisions takes only one: the citizen.)

This is just the beginning of human nations renouncing old dogmas and schemas. The quicker a nation allows its old constructs to fall apart today, the sooner it shall be liberated from a world that we are all tired of. This is the way to liberation.

It is no wonder, thus, that the whole world erupted into cheer at the election of a highly unusual politician as the President of United States - one who is, in the spirit of the times, collaborative, calm, and collected.

As the history of humanity continues its inevitable evolutionary march on an ever more densely populated planet, we need a spirit that gives rather than snatches space from the other. We must also let go of our history, and appreciate that all that has happened thus far is a great human experiment. And that what we need right now, in this present, is a forgiveness of the past, a fearlessness about the future, and an absolute conscious presence in the world as-it-is, NOW.

Not to Say

2008-12-27T13:22:00.002+05:00

What do you say when the thing you want to say is the thing you must not say for, at some true level, you wish it not to be true.

Naive!

2008-12-27T03:22:00.001+05:00

LOL! Prophecy! You are SO NAIVE! I don't think you get it yet, do you?

You. Are. The. Fundamental. Unit. Of. Your. Existence.

Forget Oneness or duality - if you do not exist, nothing does or ever will!

Come on, you knew this as a child! Remember, my clean-slated soul, remember!

The Single Most Useful Piece of Advice...

2008-12-27T01:24:00.001+05:00

... that I have got all this month, or perhaps year. Perfect note on which to prepare for the next year:

Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find
all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.
- Rumi

Inspiring source: What Love Demands

Timely Advice

2008-12-27T00:24:00.002+05:00

Shut up, my dear, and write.

Grace

2008-12-25T03:34:00.002+05:00

While it does not say much for our character and fortitude if we have to get things out of our way before we can start living, it does say something of the way we have been living our lives thus far. Admittedly, the moment we become present and realize that we ought to "correct" something, we cannot suddenly break into a new life situation in terms of things and people.

However I like to believe we can. And that we do, eventually. Still, it depends upon our fortitude and indeed upon the larger will of Being. There are, of course, essentials that never change such as blood relations. To attempt to sever our very foundation leads to a very quick death, remember that. People who break ties too often, die.

Let there be no admonishment of self for the past. That is guilt, too often sold as a virtue. Being your true self in the first place would ensure you do not enroll yourself into a situation where you eventually cannot get along. Know that I am not suggesting we attempt to eliminate unfavorable situations - or that what we perceive as unfavorable - and make our lives a pursuit of ill-defined pleasure. I am suggesting that we consistently choose to flow with our life. That's it. We all know when and how we choose to go where we don't want to, and don't go where our heart calls us.

As it is said there is no right or wrong path - rather a path with your heart in it, and everything else. The difference is not of right or wrong, but what you want to live and what you won't. A far more crucial matter is of acceptance and non-acceptance. The Land of Right and Wrong is for those with lesser vision. Let them be.

If you are glad that your path is clearer in any way, for God's sake and for your own, be thankful and happy. It is not what happens that matters as much as our attitude towards it. Do not laugh at people even in your privacy. Have compassion - have absolute compassion even if you are not meant to associate with a person, event, or idea in your life. Choose not to see them as much as you see yourself - for you are the fundamental constant in the changing equation of your life.

Teach yourself compassion, and practice it! There are matters that do not even need our actions. They appear to us, and then they dissolve. We do nothing more than observe them. Let them come, and let them go. Do not think that you are the lord of every bit of your life. There are other people in this space where we co-exist. Let them be. That is your freedom. Do not choose the version of freedom that enslaved minds envision: a situation where they face nothing. That is the vision of freedom of one who is essentially a captive of their own entity.

In this space, there will be rise and fall and growth and perishing. Observe more than you interfere. Grace is the engagement you allow yourself - of course you can opt for the inappropriate and then get to see the results.

Acceptance is of two kinds:

First, you accept yourself.
Then, you accept the moment.

The acceptance of self is in the form of ever -evolving knowledge. The acceptance of the moment is to do the appropriate thing. Over time the two build on each other, but if there is a first move, then it's the one that you make by choosing to accept yourself. For you are the source. You are the fundamental integer of Being.

Prophecy, do not read as much into the story as in your outlook towards it. The message in the moment if for you to just be. You feel happy. Feel it deeply. Feel gratitude even if there is no reason. Make compassion your way. For the next few days, make it an active practice to behold a situation or person that you hate in Love.

Perhaps to begin with, hold yourself in Love. I must practice the same? I feel there is too much ordering of you.... How parental!

All right, let compassion begin at heart, shall it? "I forgive my own self!"

This is Christmas Eve - the world is commemorating Christ, peace be upon him. In his spirit, let there be overflowing love and light within!

Let there be Love! Let there be Grace! Amen, amen!

Dua

2008-12-24T20:19:00.001+05:00

I pray today that I don't lose heart in staying alive. Amen!

Reason to Stay

2008-12-23T02:15:00.001+05:00

Prophecy,

Life is but an instance of a wave's separation from and return to the
Ocean. It is too much of me to presume that I shall live until the
morning to tell of what I learned this evening - a stunning, marvelous
realization!

I discovered it as I was writing this evening. Over the hours till
midnight when I spent a few moments gazing at the star-filled sky, it
grew as a well-integrated revelation. I marvel, as usual, not on just
what I learned, but in the manner that it came about. I am as yet
ungrateful for it superficially, but my heart is on to connecting that
next, that very significant dot! With it, I hope, comes the Gratitude
that shall set me free! I be-lieve in it!

Ah, look! Here I have told you the whole story about the story whereas
all I was saying is that I cannot even grasp the entirety of my
realization in words tonight.

I am still writing; and a moment ago there was yet another door unlocked!

But let me stop here just to say: I am presuming that I shall have a
tomorrow to finish transfering the thought in words. Yet I intend to
live that much longer.

We live to fulfill our debts, did you know that? Except, of course,
the very unfortunate who die indebted. And then there are debts we
still carry. I don't know the difference between what we pay back and
what we carry forth other than that I sense there must be some - of
intent, perhaps?

I speak too much when I'm excited, eh? This too shall pass as a way of being.

In my phone's Word doc archives is a file named 'Heart Universe.' One
really must not presume, so this file contains what my ealization of
this eve!

Now on a related note - Pray, Prophecy, that I learn to live a life of
absolute readiness for death! Pray there are no debts of the kind a
human can pay back to a living human! Pray there is strength and the
correctness of time to do what I must do, just then!

It's 2:19 am Prophecy! Not a time for the wise to stay up without
reason! May you learn to master the art of living with Seasons and the
Time - only then will you always be ready, not in debt of your own
life, and have all the time to do a thing when it's meant to be done:
I.e. in the moment that it arises! Amen!

The Most Fearsome Dictator In The World

2008-12-20T03:41:00.000+05:00

The biggest evil we commit is of a subtle, unseen kind: it is to lend our mind to another, unquestioningly.

From political leaders to family, to religious men to loved ones, no one is the master of our minds. We alone should master this machine - and master it, not be its slave. Most people, however, who are intelligent and well-read are the slaves of the little, brilliant machine called the human mind. They are used by it: by its data, its patterns, and its imaginative projections. By the stuff it memorizes and regurgitates. By its cold calculations of the best advantage. By its instinct for its own survival, at any cost.

In this condition, they fare even lesser than animals - for even animals are capable of training their minds than be trained by it.

We humans are often quick to point to figures in our families or localities or nations or our own world as "dictators" or "tyrants." Especially in the political sense, there are dictators that we "all agree upon." I'd put that in quotation marks because this universal agreement is an assumption - perhaps not all agree, and certainly in identifying historical figures as dictators is to come up with a label that satisfies the mind. And that is a far bigger danger!

The most fearsome dictator in the world is the human mind on auto-pilot.

It is a mind that has been fed dogma, data, theories, factoids, pictures, presentations, fixed dreams, visualizations - and then turned on. It controls an individual like no dictator can. It is inflexible and hardened over time. After all, the brain's patterns are reinforced after usage, quite literally creating an imprint.

After all, if the definition of a dictator is one who dictates, and if dictation is "to control or command, to prescribe with authority, to say or read aloud to be written or recorded by another," then truly the entity that conforms to this definition is the human mind running on its own. Most people are not aware of how when their senses of perception and communication are not feeding into the mind as much as they are being fed by it. And that the words and actions they are undertaking are being directed by the mind's automatic commands.

Once, a few years ago, I got used to watching the formulaic Indian soaps. I used to work for television myself, and was familiar with how actually the formula for the dialogs are created based on market research about basic human nature. One day, I was talking to someone who offered to tell me the background truth about a situation that deeply concerned me and about which I felt I was in the dark. And as they said, "I want to tell you...," I interjected with a cliched line offered at just such moments in the soaps: "Neither do I know, nor do I want to know!" This declaration was so unneeded and dramatic that there was a brief what-the-heck pause in the conversation. And I had a rather amused feeling, what had I just said? Wow!

That little incident just grew in significance as it became a thread that I pulled, and somehow I ended up undoing quite a fabric of automatic programs running in my mind. In those days, I was also reading Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The book refers to the "scripts" that are taught to us by the society and other sources.

The fundamental truth to know, though, is that we accept those scripts - and that we have the absolute ability to override and completely erase those scripts. Most self-help teachers teach us to "write our own script." This only goes as far. To be able to become the writer of our own script, we first have to empty the mind entirely while training ourselves to write an able script. And it is vital to know that the level of self that runs on scripts is not the same as the very evolved self that is able to write a meaningful script. In between these two selves lies the ability to read our own code - to know who we truly are - and to act upon that ability.

This is the quality of a human being who is free of dictation and tyranny. It is an absolutely personal and individual choice.

After all, how often have we seen in history that the most seemingly powerful, fearful, vile, and watchful dictators have been challenged and finally reduced to nothing by ordinary individuals with simple ideas? It did not matter if the dictator was a person or a system. All it took was for a challenger to say, "No!"

What was different about those who rose? They were people who were free in themselves while others about them allowed their minds to take them over - and of course I would not suggest that there were rather physical forms of limitations and tyranny that has kept people enslaved. It is, indeed, not just a mind game.

The point is to remind us that we are free. And we are truly free when we are free of the entity that truly enslaves us: a sleeping mind.

The Art of Decision-Making

2008-12-19T03:40:00.000+05:00

Losing your mind and your memory is an art.

Prophecy, no one really tells us what to do. This is the beauty of adult life.

If they indeed are telling us, then either we are living in a society that is immature - or they are indeed deciding for us when we cannot make up our own minds.

Force is relative. If you are not exerting it, someone else is. For the purpose of your life, it must be you who must be exercising the force, by making decisions. It's called "being alive" by another name.

Yet decisions are the outcomes of a process. That process is up to you and within you, for it is relative to you.

An a conscious adult, Prophecy, we should be acutely aware of our own energy and its shifts. What value are we experiencing, and how is it changing? Say, we experience strangeness or excitement when we enter a new city - that's the value. And then after a while it diminishes - that's the modulation or change of the value.

The city can be large or small; its people can be many or few; yet our feeling is ONE. It is centered in us.

The city is not going to tell you in your human, coded language - your Urdu, your English, your French - to live or go. It has a language of its own, and your heart is the translator. When the lights and sounds no longer call you, they are suggesting to you that you consider a change in scene.

This is not a metaphor. This is truly a language. Everything has a language - elements, minerals, plants, animals, children and the deaf and dumb. Yet only the perceptive hear that which is not said in their own language. As it is, not every word is spoken. Language is part of a whole. Not everyone sees this wholeness. The blind and the seeing are not equal.

Those blind to the space that is part of the wholeness will not see the room to grow. They do not grow as a consequence. Shift happens in space within which shift can take place. One has to have a fine perception to sense shift. And be wise enough to act upon that sensation.

This sensation tells us "what to do", often more clearly - nay, definitely more clearly and with honesty - than human language can . It does not, however, command us like the voice of the mind does. The choice to act upon it is solely ours. This is human freedom.

So Prophecy, to wait to be told is a sign of immaturity. To wait for a situation to go from "telling" to "screaming" is lethargic and pathetic or apathetic - you pick what you like.

A mature heart is sensitive to its own change, and it acts upon what it is sensing. To decide in the moment, one has to let go the mind's chatter and the persistence of memory - for they are the true enemies of decisions.

And that, my dear, is the art of decision making.

(Written on December 16, 2008)

Remember Who You Are?

2008-12-19T03:28:00.001+05:00

Weh! Weh weh weh. Tsk tsk! Hmmph!

I am helpless in the face of my condition. Like a sneeze or paralysis, the condition of the heart just occurs - and I have no control over it.

Thank God!

My heart tells me what to write, what not to write. Who to speak with, who to be silent with. When. What moment. "Yes now," it says, "end this." Then it says, "Go ahead, and do as I suggest." The voice of the heart is quite distinct from the mind's. It has none of that cold, mechanical quality of the mind. The heart has a voice that is intuitive, tender, and loving to the other. It is the voice that broods when we are nasty to others. It does not tell the difference between one and the other.

And so as it is, my heart demands complete seclusion. Well, almost complete. And I have no control over it. I just witness how the whole scheme unfurls; thankfully, I am able to get over my feelings of redundancy.

But I am rambling! I had to tell this: once again, I was perusing through the beautiful book Women of Sufism and reading a passage about Michaela Ozelsel's khalwa (Sufi retreat) experience.

It is a passage taken from her diary, kept during a traditional 40-day khalwa in Istanbul. Therein she speaks of her experiences, raw and evolving with time. She spoke of the trembling - that, in the words of Rumi, an essential trembling - of a lover. Except that she did not use the word "lover," but I shall use it to refer to a seeker.

She writes of how she cried - how she overcame her self's complaints by expressing exaggerated gratitude - and then... she writes of zikr!

Zikr! Remembrance of the Lord! That in which hearts find true satisfaction!

And then I could read no more. I closed the book and realized, "Oh dear God! Quite despite myself, I am not only experiencing solitude, I am also enjoying it! I feel love and I feel connection. And I feel I want to give, I have no expectations, indeed I do not want anything from anyone. My soul is laughing! And yet, suddenly, there is something that I miss!"

Could it be....? But of course! How I have brought myself to see my life as a story being written. I am so comfortable with it. I flow with the words. I am the story, indeed. My teacher says, "Events are God's vocabulary, and Time is God's grammar." I must be the story!

The key is to achieve a state of such stability in the heart that we see the design of this story as benevolent. Begin in the name, the word, that is All Merciful, Compassionate. Then begins the story, I.

What a state of ecstasy that put me in! I wondered - wow - how could I not see that this seclusion, too, is written by the One Hand That writes it all. Why would the Hand write this? And why would then this reading of this particular book that I had been unable to read for the past few months come into my story - now?

It is all so visible. Seclusion. Almost exactly after a year of when I undertook my own khalwa. A return, a remembrance. I have been woefully forgetful of my practices. And yet my heart has been delving into zikr spontaneously these past few days. I am here. I am exactly where I a supposed to be. Secluded, with a choice to remember.

I remember through my writing, and I remember through the chants. The task is clear, though: remember, remember!

And my heart whispered, right this moment, "Remember who you are?"

Seeking Cover

2008-12-18T19:44:00.003+05:00

These words, found in the beautiful book Women of Sufism a few nights ago, spoke so strongly to me.

Take refuge in the cave:
God will spread His grace over you, and will endow you --
whatever your outward condition --
with all that your soul may need.

Chapter Al-Kahf (The Cave) 18:16

I have somehow picked up the book again to read at bedtime nowadays. This passage glowed and attracted me as I was reading about the Sufi spiritual practice of khalwa (the secluded meditation) - that I have also undertaken. What a practice!

I undertook it for two nights spent alone in a room; the meditation that is essentially a replication of the experience of death emptied me first, and then filled me with Divine Presence. These days, as I have secluded myself to empty myself, as I seek stillness, and I seek cover for my own heart, perhaps nothing cold have resonated so strongly with me as this Qur'anic passage about a group of young believers and their dog who seeked refuge in a cave.

May my heart be blessed with Grace! Amen!

Confirmation - Acceptance of Self!

2008-12-18T03:47:00.001+05:00

"You may attempt to do 100 things in this world, only Love will give you release from the bondage of yourself."
- Jami (Sufi)

If I have made "accept your self/ another/ this moment in Love" my realization in this month of December - and if my belief in the power of Love as the greatest healing force in the world had been reinforced through experience - then this quote I found during a random Twitter search is an affirmation of all that I am feeling at this moment.

Love, that is found in our heart and nowhere else; Love, that is given and not taken or demanded or hoped for; Love, which is the most benevolent form of attention - it is this that sets us free from the only entity that truly possesses us: our lower self.

What You Accept

2008-12-16T03:38:00.001+05:00

When you start accepting yourself, you will experience such a fullness, such a richness and wholeness that your wanting will leave. You will then come to know it were not "your" wants at all. They were just wants, that occupied your heart. They can leave, and you can keep your heart.

You see, all ailments of the Self are holding the space for your (healthy) choice. There is no vacuum; so something holds the space until we replace it with what we acquire after transcending. We begin in a state of fall, only to rise. This "fall" holds the place for our "rising." It is like rising steps.

Honor yourself every step of the way. And to honor yourself demands that you discipline yourself.

Have you seen people with fit bodies, and people with out-of-shape and unhealthy bodies? The difference between the two of them is their discipline - and their honor for their own Self. The one who disciplines themselves (reasonably, of course) is the one who honored themselves. And the one who honors themselves is the one who accepted themselves.

What You Want

2008-12-16T03:33:00.001+05:00

Prophecy:

It is your not wanting that has set you free.

How does it feel?

It feels like no-thing. Not desiring is nothing in itself, for it were, that would be desiring or fearing yet something else.

You see this is the process. It can be achieved in an instance or step-by-step. Do not worry whichever way that is. You do not have to choose this, indeed do not attempt to!

You are a story, like many others, that this Universe tells itself. Be your story, do not attempt to become it or to achieve it.

Divine creativity does not exhaust. It is powerful so it examines itself under ever newer conditions. You are the condition that you are. It is only for the perception of duality that the faster is better than the slower, or indeed the slower is sometimes said to be better than the faster. Put that duality aside! Who knows when it is better to be fast, or to be slow?

Haven't you experienced the traffic when it slows down in sleet and ice? It is better to be fast, or to crawl?

The answer depends on the circumstances, and often the circumstances are not perceived by us. In fact the sum of circumstances is perennially beyond perception.

So do not coerce yourself. You are who you are. Want neither more, nor even less. It is grace to accept yourself and your circumstances as they are. You see we often argue with our circumstances for we are not accepting our Self.

Accept yourself. Acceptance is not want. It is still. Want moves. Acceptance is living, and want dies.

Be the Change. How?

2008-12-14T19:50:00.004+05:00

On my birthday, someone wished me and said I had the spirit "of wanting to be the change."

All spiritual practice puts a great emphasis on NOW, on BEING. Somehow the word "Be" in this oft-heard axiom struck me afresh as it addressed me more personally.

"Be The Change." Not become. But be.

Be. As you are.

Curious!

In a flash something connected in my head. I was struggling a bit in letting go some associations, a bit of (physical) baggage (all my stuff!) - and it seemed that a birthday, especially as it occurs in the last month of the year, is a good time to "close." I was sorting through my head and thoughts too when this came about.

Be the change.

How often do we try to become the change! Altering ourselves unnecessarily. There is a subtlety in BE THE CHANGE.

It suggests that we are the change. And in just being ourselves, we live out the change.

There is a letting go implicit in this phrase, for it acknowledges that every new human is a change unto themselves. That truly our highest purpose is to live out who we are, as individual selves - yet live collectively.

Human knowledge is at a rather advanced stage today. We have mapped several natural systems in the mathematical, chemical, physical, biological sense. We can see how each system contains individual elements that behave true to their own nature,yet co-exist in the system. They are at once individual and collective.

Living this way is not just possible, it IS. We do not do anything with this knowledge, we just come to know it.

We are the change. I am the change. My highest task is to unlock my own code and to live it. This is my highest service to myself and to collective humanity.

Now this simple notion helped me de-clutter my mind of the various to-do's, un-do's, and undones. It has lent me focus again. Meanwhile I am clearing out my stuff, journaling much more extensively and just being. And somehow, in being just my true self, I am being all the change I am!

P.S. Life is funny. It is exactly 4 years ago that I learned the secret of happiness during a meditation. Now, I see the lesson in me.

Speed of Change

2008-12-14T17:52:00.001+05:00

Be patient with yourself. Be aware that you have taken upon yourself a great shift. There is no specific speed at which this change must occur for you. That is why, while you must not push yourself through the process, neither do I ask for you to slow down.

Just be.

Winter, 2008 [free verse]

2008-12-12T23:26:00.004+05:00

Winter, 2008

It is this December, of 2008,
that I have truly rested after years.
When I have separated rest from the constant need
to do something.
Fearing that if I won't be
doing something -
one or another -
I will perish as a person.

That I owed something to the world
the need to stay afloat, to stay in touch,
to, in short, constantly do something.

That I had, somehow, the weight of the world
upon my shoulders.
That I must carry it across.

Perhaps, to a degree, this was all right.
Of course the past, anyhow, is all right.
It is the Present that matters.
If at all!

Yet it is not our actions, but our intentions
that are our true life.
Or the value that we derive from life.

It is this winter of 2008
that I have truly
had a free intent in a long time.
Partly, as I feel that there are more shoulders
shouldering the world. That we now have
more able people, more dreamers
living their dreams. And that indeed
the world that will come later is better than
what we have seen before.

Partly, because not just my universal soul
but my individual self has come to rest.
A rest as absolute as we can have
in a relative world.

I have stopped conversing compulsively;
answering every bit of flake that flew
in my direction. I have stopped
honoring the trivial. I have come to value
that which is valuable, in truth.

It is this cool winter - that is still warm enough
to inspire a bit of free poetry -
that I feel no fear, no obligation, no compulsion.
That whatever I do comes from my own
deep wish to be. Therefore, right now,
I do nothing and just be.

And all this has led me to poetry and writing....

There is a quality about winter
that we lose in our resistance against
what we perceive to be the
inconsistency of seasons.
We want everything to be permanent.

Only the essence of anything is permanent,
eternal, timeless. Its doings are not its being.
Being is still.
Doings shift. So do seasons.
The beauty of winter is that it is still.
When we are used to running, pursuing a dream,
we can hardly appreciate the glistening, clear, icy
stillness of winter and a full moon night.

When we just are, neither running nor reclining,
we are.
We are still in the midst of all that goes on,
we are aligned with winter. It is a season to rest.
It is cool, restive, reflective. It allows moments of
gatherness within: that precious art of self-collection.

If we lived with season, with winter as it is,
perhaps we would experience that which I,
this winter, have been blessed with:
not doing, but being.

By Ramlas
aka The Prophecy

You Want Something?

2008-12-12T19:25:00.001+05:00

You know what, I just got tired of living other people's dreams. May be they should do what I have always done. As Will Smith put it, "You want something? Go get it. Period."

I is happy! Chuckle

2008-12-10T19:37:00.001+05:00

I'm happy happy happy happy happy!

No reason. None none! Just happyyyyyy!

Thank! You! God!

P.S. OK: there is a reason. I is no longer be needed to carry the weight of the world! I is free! People is awakened!

Good morning, people! You took so long to wake up, the Universe had to ring all sorts of alarms! From the world of finance to the earth right beneath your feet, everything has been shaking you out of your stupor!

Let's get up and going! NOW.

Nervous

2008-12-10T02:10:00.001+05:00

It has been at least 11 days since my heart told me to surrender the last bit of my grand plans. I feel only the slightest shade of blue and actually, a great of absolutely nothing. It is that time of my life that I have decided to dedicate solely to myself. I have no specific outcomes in my mind, the only thing I know is that this FULL STOP is significant in itself. It should, by the very nature of its utter ambiguity, restore my faith. And make me still.

I am bringing back a certain discipline and a drive into my life. These few days of "me time" are the buffer zone between now and what is to come. They, however, are my now. If I were to die any of these random moments, I want to be ready. That is all I am preparing myself for.

And being ready is to give and to give up. I have to give something up. I thought of making a little act out of it... but I think my intent has already shifted the reality. A friend reminded me: "Our actions speak so loudly that what we say cannot be heard." I do think my actions are clearer, and they deliver a loud & clear message in this particular case. It is all about intent, and I have determined mine.

But I still feel just a tad nervous, may be because I want to be. I feel excited too! I am just being. It is interesting to be in the space of not knowing.

I have a little decision to make on how to make closure on that which I must give up - but in the world of spirit, I know, the closure has been made. Life is beautiful. I am still awake. I shall go read the lovely book I spot on my table. It's called Women of Sufism.

Doing No-thing - III

2008-12-09T04:26:00.002+05:00

Continued from part II

The Gestalt of No-Thing

So. I have been a rather driven spirit all my life. This particular period in my life which has stretched over several years is a bit of a swamp in terms of activity compared to the previous ones. It is a rather bigger nebula than those I previously attempted to make stars out of.

For the past four years in particular, I have had no definition or description of what I am doing. Where am I going. I have no idea.

I have only the vaguest of ideas that everything I want to do is one that a young woman in my society, from my background, does not typically do. There are women much more fashionable, rich, and outgoing than I am. Yet I have only rarely encountered one who is free, as a human. One whose freedom is based on who she is, not what or who she depends on.

I want to travel independently, investigate news and phenomenon, talk to strangers, and spend nights and days alone in far out places such as seas and mountain tops. Wilder than that is the notion that I want to be a human who has an independent consciousness. One who is essentially free.

This simple wish has taken me into an entire Universe of shapeless dust and cloud, one that is waiting to be formed through human will. It is an enormous task, and one that can hardly be named. How do you describe something new with old words and concepts? Often the quest has been to find those very names. What a quest! It has taken me to dig deeper and deeper to lay a foundation of being.

Contemporary society is so high on individual achievement, it holds no concept of generational achievement. From very early on in my life, I have been comfortable with the notion that all dreams that occur to me are not necessarily to be lived out by myself. Perhaps, I shall dream and another shall get to fulfill! Then I won't need to live old enough, and they would not need to start from the scratch and grow old laying the foundations. I am not afraid to lost interest in ideas that spark in my head, to let them just lie around after they effused through me. Perhaps, I am just the bringer of the idea, and another is the designer, yet another the executor.

We are all inter-linked.

And so it is that the only valid suggestion that occurs to me, completely intuitively, is to write my life story.

I have always wanted to write a book - everything from a text of history to books of religion and occult, to science to romantic novels. Textbooks of English and tomes of poetry. Books on business. Even film scripts. Yet what I am doing now, at this God blessed hour late in night, is to write my story. Much as this task absorbs me, I have an intuition that this is a book that is asked of me to be written. I simply obey the command.

The more I write it, the more the memory and strength that had fleeted me in the past ten, seven, three years return - these years arranged in this very magical sequence that marks "cataclysmic" events: my enrollment in a mind-altering, confining graduate business school (1998), the complete abolishing of my family's wealth one night (2001), and the end of my last significant relationship (2005).

What can I say? I only write.

Gestalt means, simply, whole. The applied principle also suggests that the whole is larger than the sum of its parts. A definition occurs to me: Gestalt = stuff + space. Space is where stuff is created, and kept.

I see and sense this space. It has no name - for names are limitations, and limitations are for stuff, not space. It is in this space where I live.

It may appear to observers, and even to my self at occasion, that I do no-thing. It is, however, a state to which I have arrived partly through deliberation and partly by forced inevitability. As of right now, even though I feel I may not be living up to any "goals," I know this non-doing and just-being is something in itself. This halt is a journey. What matters not what happens to us, but what we perceive and what we learn.

The only goal that has, thus, occurred to me at this moment is simply this: clear out your life. Live Lighter. Most people do this at a time of a transition that they have planned. Me, I always was unable to bring myself to get lighter because I did not know what I would do with the space, and I feared my space would be filled with another's commands, not my dreams. Yet my fears have come to pass, I have conquered something I am unaware of. I am shedding of the weight of being for no particular outcome, except that this particular lightness must be experienced - what happens thereafter will reveal when it will.

I have spent this entire day addressing this particular subject partly because it matters so much to me, partly to encourage myself, and partly to affirm another who may relate to these circumstances.

We are inter-connected. I have no idea how my dreams, my work, my writing, my working on my own self, my thus far impatient and henceforth gentle removal of blocks may weave into the life story of another. It does not even matter, for all stories beyond me.

I found this beautiful verse in a lovely note by Irving Karchmar, it makes for an apt closure now:

Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find
all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.
- Rumi

~ The Prophecy

Doing No-thing - II

2008-12-09T04:03:00.001+05:00

Continued from part I

Goals, or Journeys?

Yet it's true that when I started teaching myself, I had no outcome in mind. I only had a passion to learn, and day to day, I lived my passion under a certain self-discipline. I sometimes see my work in life as "bringing the unknown into known" or "making method of madness." I enjoy that kind of thing. It is like delving into a nebula, and fetching a stone or a star. You don't know, but you can be certain that if you develop your own method and you commit yourself to it, you will form a star from a nebulous dust.

To me, the outcome did not matter, I just revel in the journey and took every step of it. I had no complaints about a new life. I did not blame my books, nor my teachers nor myself. It was simple enough to my mind: if you have a challenge, overcome it. By the way, this whole analysis of a "colonial lens" did not bother me at that time. Indeed, I was only 11, but I was able to rigorously discourage and conversation that I thought empowered any other force than myself.

What does it mean? It means that if you find cooking difficult, do not say, "They have difficult recipes, the recipes were developed for ovens, I only have a stove." Just learn to cook. Everything that comes between a challenge and your mastery of it is nonsense. It is an illusion, designed to keep half-hearted people away from the final mastery. Often the journey itself is the achievement.

I understand I am not the only kind of human in the world, and some are motivated by other ways. Some students focused on grades and positions, and that got them to study. I studied for the love of knowledge, and I ended up amongst the top three, always. To each their own.

Not Outcomes, But Preparation

Years later, in 1998, I also taught myself A-level Accounting in 3 months, and ended up in the top 3% of all exam takers. 97% percentile. Highest amongst my fellow students - who had all taken private tuition and dreaded what would happen to the carefree me.

This time I had set myself rather specific goals, on paper, only in terms of scheduling my self-study routine. I don't like discussing my plans with nervous people, so I studied solo and focused. If this may help anyone, here was my only strategy in terms of grades: Know what is the cut-off point of failure, beat it early on during the exam, and then enjoy the paper. In that way, you have paid your dues. If failure is below 40%, secure 40% marks by carefully and quickly attempting as much part of the paper, throw in another 10% as a cushion, and then just enjoy answering the question.

I never planned any high grades, but I always decided not to fail. That was the technical part of studying; the truth is, I have loved studies, and I actually enjoyed exams.

A further ten years down the lane, as I reflect upon life, it seems that I clearly did not define achievement in terms of outcomes, that being the grade in the school context. Achievement to me was something that I controlled, which was my schedule and preparation. That was my mastery. It so happened that in a far easier exam, Business Management, I fell sick during the paper and needed to leave the room which I was not allowed to. I lost concentration, and got a B, which surprised everyone since I was star in that class and a back-bencher in Accounting. During O-levels, I had received a B in English Literature, and an E? - or was it a D? - in English Language. I had somehow chosen to do the English-as-first-language version of the later exam, and lost all my focus because I did not know the meaning of the word "rubble" which was the key word in a compulsory question. That experiment failed in terms of grades, and succeeded in terms of my fascination with a level of English that was not being taught at our school, but one which I attempted to hack at in the future.

Continued in part III

The Unknown: a haiku

2008-12-09T03:42:00.002+05:00

Fear not the Unknown
Do what is needed of you
Subsist with the Source!

by Ramlas
aka The Prophecy

Phew! Must do what is to be done. To tell the truth, my heart is rather in joy.

Fortitude!

¤ Live Lighter! ¤

2008-12-08T18:55:00.002+05:00

How does a person who sees space and perceives things as whole rather than as parts attempt to 'streamline' their life?

I have had a long-term habit of keeping things. It turned into hoarding, which yielded stuff and has ended up in clutter.

Now anyone with a basic know-how of the art of space (feng shui, for instance) can testify that clutter creates blocks in life. It's true. Not only is stuff overwhelming in itself, but it get in the way of our change - and change is Life by another name.

Even if our stuff/ clutter is organized and clean, it is taking up our time and energy. There are people who clean and fold and unfold the same un-needed clothes again and again.

So I'm in my room right now, clearing stuff. I must confess that it's already been four years since I had a stark realization I should straighten things out. Yet back then, I was supremely distracted by career & life, not too well, and did not know how to let go.

I've done many things since then, changed the world in my own ways, started my consultancy, enhanced my social circle, trained myself in new disciplines, engaged in conversations, and inspires change along the way. I've overcome a chronic pain condition, taught people, and started writing. I have undertaken a spiritual pilgrimage.

Yet I still feel a kind of stagnation. Something keeps my external situations just the same. Without a doubt, I can say: it is Stuff. Too much stuff; I only use less than 5% of it.

Early in 2008 I started an experiment: how little can I survive on? My entire income for year has been less than Rs. 100,000. True, I've drawn on my savings, but not much. All I did was to dramatically reduce consumption. And I have survived rather well. (The experiment wasn't very well focused, it may have social costs; I intend to be more middle-of-the way starting 2009.)

So. A chance encounter with a techie somehow dissolved my resistance about putting my life online. I have been wary of Google having all my data, but I worry no more.

1. I'm used to it now.

2. I don't have things to hide.

While I started unabashedly putting stuff online, I also got time to think: why am I holding on to stuff? Let's keep psychological explanations out. Most of my stuff includes books and papers, and
there is one single reason I held on to them: I wanted to share the knowledge within!

As I have been journaling, and writing my memoirs with a rather specific objective of sharing them (OK, publishing! I admit!), I have felt a great flow of energy within.

Now, the two streams are joining into one flowing: my attempt to live lighter, and my sharing of my story.

In other words, the more I share my gift, the more I don't feel the need to hold on. And as I reduce stuff, the more I have the unblocked energy to grow!

GIVING OF OUR GIFT GROWS US, AND OUR GIFT!

I must go over one thing again though: one must have enough assets to be able to operate well, though. My consumption starvation has not been entirely healthy. It may have prevented me from sharing more. Yet I was spending time in spiritual reflection, and many across the world were dramatically cutting back on our consumption just to compensate for the over-exploitation we've done as a specie - and to become desperate enough to find another way... and I joined that experiment.

I believe the year 2009 would bring a balance to the journey, and I shall explore the middle path as advocated by my faith!

Amen!

Doing No-thing - I

2008-12-08T16:10:00.006+05:00

So last night I realized, fabulous! I am so well behind on most of the goals I had set myself. Actually I had not even bothered to set them - which I think is rather an act involving motor skills: actually picking up a pen and setting your goals on paper. (Pen and paper here could be digital, of course.)

In my life,I have often transcended my situation by setting myself goals.

How to Learn a Language

I have done things like teaching myself O-Level English back in 1990 when I came to Karachi from Faisalabad, and found myself woefully inadequate when it came to the knowledge of language. In Faisalabad, we read English even though I went to the top school, that being Faisalabad Grammar School. Yet the culture of Faisalabad was a culture of Faisalabad, it did not even venture as far as emulating Lahore, the more metropolitan neighbor. People did not speak English in Faisalabad.

When I came to Karachi to live with my parents, having lived previously in a large joint family headed by my paternal grandmother, I faced a different world. People were decidedly more shrewd, savvy, and calculated here. The pace of life was faster. I was a quiet, observer kind so I did not break ice with people for a few years to come - but I did embrace my new life.

So one of the early challenges that I faced was in school. First, schools here had a more pluralistic demographic of students: children came from multiple ethnic backgrounds. The society was more open. Girls and boys were not separated and certainly did not have gender issues on their mind - rather they were focused on personal achievements. We were only in 6th grade, and already, the people were quite savvy in getting along independently in the world. One of my first challenges was with language, or rather speaking at all. I was not talkative, and often adamantly refused to join the chatter. The other part was a bit embarrassing to me. I was a top student in my previous school. Here, I was challenged with a more sophisticated level of education, the high point of it being the English Language. Now, schools in Pakistan make a great deal out of English. It is a matter of status and distinction. And in 1990, when Pakistani society still did not have open media, I'd say we still saw English through the lens of a colonial mentality. That was the awkwardness part.

However, a language itself is a language and English, without denial, is a useful medium that gets one to connect with the people of the world. Period.

I had, now I realize upon reflection, a healthy approach to the issue. It was simple: "I have to learn."

Thus began my personal learning campaign. I picked up text books, an Oxford Dictionary, and a notebook. I underlined every word that was unfamiliar in the textbooks, checked the meaning and the pronunciation in the dictionary, and copied the word and meaning in my notebook. Then I constructed sentences. I read aloud passages from the textbooks. When I was gifted an electronic dictionary four years later, I searched all the idioms, copied them in a notebook, and learned their meanings. I practiced them (unnecessarily) in conversations and verbose essays. My teachers could not get through my writing which was often a string of big words, antiquated idioms, and olde spellings.

While many find it embarrassing, I can assure this: the fastest way to learn a language is to copy the accent. It is a delightful activity. Besides, there is a kind of gestalt effect in it. Copying the accent not just teaches us words and meanings, it somehow reverse-engineers the culture behind that language.

I have only visited two countries so far in my life: Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage, and South Africa for pilgrimage of a spiritual kind. But my knowledge of the the world is wider and deeper than this limited exposure. The key is to understand language and tone - and television and the Internet are my media to language.

And so, 19 years later, after enduring critique for fake accent, big words, and other bizarre experiments in learning languages - I think I have ended up fairly well. When I write or speak now, people find it compelling enough.

~~
Continued in part II

Seasonal

2008-12-08T01:17:00.001+05:00

I am enjoying the slowness. There is no hurry to get anywhere.

Winter is a gift of a season to lay back and relax, be slow and gather energy. If only we humans live more in tune with the seasons!