THE REAL ME...

In response to:Subjectivity and Reality....

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 13:20:56 +0200

I really liked the idea in which you have put the matter of subjectivity and it sure is justified.

In response to:Doubts Assail Me Even Today...

Thu, 30 Mar 2006 06:09:36 +0200

Maybe what we believe about ourselves is a form of self affliction - nobody to blame but ourselves.

See you at my blog sometime?

In response to:Missing You a Lot...

Wed, 08 Feb 2006 19:52:21 +0100

Hello Saroj

If I could I would delete every coment I made on your journal for I put much thought into them and cared as if you were the very best of friends and a true seeker after truth rather than the shallow self-centred person you are.

kh

In response to:title-527170

Thu, 02 Feb 2006 14:31:29 +0100

Ahh dear Saroj

It is hardly surprising that you are nearing exhaustion. From what I know of the whole period of preparation and all that is involved up to the great day it is bound to take its toll. But then the day will come and there will be much joy and such a feeling of celebration and happiness for does this new union refelect a deep spiritual truth about the way all life interconnects and constantly renews itself in celebration of the whole dance of creation.

I hope that you will find time to rest and look back over the past preparations and the celebration of marriage itself and realise its deepest spiritual gifts. I have enjoyed being honourd to share this period of yours and to add my blessings from so far away. I will add more on the day itself but now I think you would want me to depart and so I will - may the light of wisdom guide you through all your days in this life.

K

In response to:Warmth of Old Relationships and Freshness of the New ones....

Wed, 01 Feb 2006 12:19:36 +0100

Wherever balance is achieved it becomes clear that all fears of the unknown were simply unfounded fears of the very nature of life itself in permanent flux. I am very conscious of the wedding day coming very quickly and add to all the hopes and good wishes you have received. And I wonder . . .

In response to:A New Relationship in the Making.....

Tue, 31 Jan 2006 16:16:35 +0100

A Postscript. Do not miscalculate the difficulties that accompany change. They may be transient and relatively easy or they mey be difficult as one looks with longing and nostalgia on the past which seemed so certain and comfortable and which we grasp at to reassure ouselves. But grasping is suffering.
I find the following buddhist perspective helps when my mind and heart are confused.

If we contemplate desires and listen to them, we are actually no longer attaching to them; we are just allowing them to be the way they are. Then we come to the realisation that the origin of suffering, desire, can be laid aside and let go of.

How do you let go of things? This means you leave them as they are; it does not mean you annihilate them or throw them away. It is more like setting down and letting them be. Through the practice of letting go we realise that there is the origin of suffering, which is the attachment to desire, and we realise that we should let go of these three kinds of desire. Then we realise that we have let go of these desires; there is no longer any attachment to them.

When you find yourself attached, remember that ‘letting go’ is not ‘getting rid of’ or ‘throwing away’. If I’m holding onto this clock and you say, ‘Let go of it!’, that doesn’t mean ‘throw it out’. I might think that I have to throw it away because I’m attached to it, but that would just be the desire to get rid of it. We tend to think that getting rid of the object is a way of getting rid of attachment. But if I can contemplate attachment, this grasping of the clock, I realise that there is no point in getting rid of it - it’s a good clock; it keeps good time and is not heavy to carry around. The clock is not the problem. The problem is grasping the clock. So what do I do? Let it go, lay it aside - put it down gently without any kind of aversion. Then I can pick it up again, see what time it is and lay it aside when necessary.

It sounds very simple and reasonable but we humans are not always simple and reasonable for we fear pain and that pain is itself painful and confusing.

In response to:A New Relationship in the Making.....

Tue, 31 Jan 2006 15:59:27 +0100

I hav no idea why but your posts always speak directly to parts of my soul and mind which immediately grasp what you are saying and feeling.

I do not think that relationships are sapped but, rather, go through cycles of change wher all that they seemed to depend on comes to its natural end. If we accept this we find we are soon entering a new cycle of relating to the same person that is rich and rewarding if we accept it though it may be difficult and uncomfortable if we grasp at the old cycle and give it attention that belongs in understanding the new cycle.

I seldom think of The Gospels but a sying comes to me. Jesus explaining in a parable how new wine must be put into new wineskins for if it was put into old wineskins they would burst.

A new way of relating to Nidhi is opening before you. No longer as your child but also as a woman who, in turn, will become a mother. Soon she will be a wife and another will occupy the place that you and your husband occupied. This calls for a large adjustment and at the time we adjust to new relationships we are pulled back to the old and to remembering all that came before this - it is a way of adjusting a farewell and a greeting that, if made generously and fearlessly will produce new spiritual riches.

Kim

In response to:Marriages Bind the Families.......

Sun, 29 Jan 2006 14:35:06 +0100

How friendly the human life would be if we trust and believe in the universal values of brotherhood! But that brings to my concern another point, we as persons are vunerable to distrust and being taken for a ride and this fear of being hurt, is behind all such actions that make us avoid new relationships. We want to avoid being hurt and looking for an easy way out, just avoid getting into new relationships.

But nidhi's marriage has made me see the point of making new relationships from a new angle where the positives outweigh the negatives and thus we make a new initiation in the world of unknown. Atleast in this new relationship, the fear of getting hurt has taken backstage and I look forward to meet new relatives who would be as concerned for us as we would be for them.

A new bond in the making indeed!

There is much here to comment on. Nidhi's going away, the enlargement of two families into one that is bigger, the value of bonds of friendship and the fear of being hurt and of feeling vulnerable to betrayal. So much to respond to in your post!

Our vulnerability will always be a facet of our being in this world and we can handle it any number of ways. We can proceed with unnatural caution, we can believe our own eyes and respond to the immediate view but perhaps miss the detail that will later sew doubt and darken our view a little or we can adapt ourselves to seeing things as they really are, never be afraid to ask for clarity from another and open our hearts and minds and thoughts to something new and unexpected that we may repel or welcome.

I don't think it is natural for humans to repel one another but we are creatures of fear and unlike other species we have self consciousness and can go back and forth over time, reliving how we felt a day or a week before with how we feel now. This self consciousness brings with i the possibility that we may, in looking back see details in the pictures of yesterday thhat bother us or details in the pictures of today which confuse or cause bewilderment. Maybe, then, we put both pictures out of our mind and concentrate on other immediate things - pictures yet to be completed. Yet in times of tranquility the whole past may return to us and once more we face the concern and puzzlement we felt before.

Maybe, again this is a time to sek clarification. To ask directly of the detail in the picture to make itself more aware to us. This might bring peace or it might bring disturbance. The picture as a whole has altered and we see differently.

Human beings are complex beings who gifted with seeing so much must choose how to interpret everything. Yet everything is constnatly changing so we fear to lose our footing. Do not be afraid dear Saroj. New bonds are good. Worries turn often into new revelations which, once accepted, we can nurure and take care of. Whether we tend a new plant or become used to the growth and spreading branches of a plant that we have tended for many years we always have nothing to lose except old ways of seeing that, in looking more deeply, we discover promise in.

In response to:Nidhi’s Marriage: The Final Countdown………..

Sat, 28 Jan 2006 18:05:55 +0100

Ahh dear Saroj.

This is a part of life I imagine all mothers go through
"I just wondered—do I really know them or is it only a part of them that I am aware of! It is an aspect of his personality that is new to me."
There is, I think no straightforward answer. In some respects you will always know your children better than they know part of themselves, you will always know their purity, their vulnerabilities, their unconscious expressions more than they might guess for the world forces us all into a certain circumspection to protect ourselves. This is duukha is it not?
But now they are growing into the adults they will become and they seem as though they are different as they evolve and move towards their maturity. This is both delightful and bewildering for you. They are becoming their deeper selves. It is a time of joy and loss. For while you may be overjoyed at the family showing such concern and compassion to each other you are aware this that soon they will transcend your gentle nurturing of their childhood dependencies and become more self sufficient. But there is no need for sorrow or fear. You are the guardian of their formative years, the spirit of all that is coming into its full expression. You will always have their conception and genesis within you and that link will never break so there is no danger of losing them as they grow - only the danger of grasping thar each mother must overcome in this matter. For we must all let be and pass into its next expression - this is life, always changing always in motion.

Your Friend and
sister

Liz

In response to:Nidhi’s Marriage: The Final Countdown………..

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 14:28:56 +0100

I have always considered the arranged marriage to be a strength wherever I have read of it or come across it. In England it is held in low esteem because it is misunderstood and the idea of a marriage built on love holds sway. However, I wonder at this.

Love is not something which suddenly siezes one but something that grows over a period between two people who have things in common as well as interests of their own. And love takes time to grow, and be proven as love, over time and with support.

Many people of many different ages think that the excitement of romantic love is all that matters and that it will always carry them through life together but romantic love is a quick tall flame that burns brightly for just a while whereas true love is more like a hearth fir, taken good care of that gives out a consistent warmth and light which nourishes the whole family.

Ah I do not know I have these thoughts until your posts provoke them out of me. So, you are indeed a teacher!

I hope that Nidhi's marriage is blessed with many petals, blessings all through the days to come and burns like a good, well tended hearth fire.

Liz

In response to:A Dilemma....

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 14:12:35 +0100

It must be very difficult for young women to decide where they stand in relation to tradition within a country that is so quickly modernising to meet Western trends and I hope that India may find a way to take some of the good things that have been developed while rejecting the amoral attitudes so prevalent here and imported from America.

Although I think it must be difficult for other countrues to believe there is a great concern for the losses of family life and a proper concern for the old and the young alike and America and its value system has long been seen, by many of us, as a seriously negative factor for the way we have abandoned values that were once highly regarded worldwide, not least our diffidence and and a reluctance to support American expansionism.

In response to:The Eternal Mother in ME............

Thu, 26 Jan 2006 16:58:51 +0100

I continue to read your entries with pleasure and a sense of the great loss that has occured with the breakup of the family in our society makes me ever more fearful that The West who take these things as normal now should spread its decadence so far abroad. Change is inevitable from generation to generation but we have suffered such a quick change from an agricultural rural country which still held the family close to its heart to a completly industialised nation which follows America and has little concern for its children. Things come too easily here. A true home is the place we make not only from our love for each other but also the memories and items that keep our memories alive and remind us of all that is good and familiar and worthwhile the love, joy and sorrows shared and the work done to make a house a true home.

Blessings on each one of you.

L

In response to:Togetherness or Love.....

Thu, 26 Jan 2006 16:28:01 +0100

What a difficult word Love has become! The Ancient Greeks had five words for Love, of which Agape was the highest and most pure being comppletely unconditional. But your sentence,

"I think it is this feeling of togetherness where we feel that life without the other just could not be possible, "

says all that may be said about Love and encapsulates it beautifully.

Thank You. That is something I wholeheartedly agree with and only regret that it takes patience and loyalty and forebearance to learn - virtues which seem to be disappearing from our western culture and were never fully passed on to the younger ones in our society or have been poisoned by the influence of the media.

How sad it is in this country that our children are made to feel and look so old whn they are still young.

In response to:The Person who Gives Me Strength....

Thu, 26 Jan 2006 10:35:17 +0100

Hello, Blessings. I am very happy and honoured that you accepted my invitation and this posting of yours has deeply moved me. I feel I can enter your feelings of all that time ago and share the struggle between your deepest most spiritual self, bonded to your husband and child, and the practical self that gave you the calm and strength to go on with the interview.

Of course your love and concern for your KS and your natural instincts as a mother were overpowering but they did not allow your practical needs, to appear composed and confident at the interview, to be overcome. A third power, perhaps the principle of balance, aloowed you to know and honour both parts of your nature and, though naturally panic stricken when you emerged to be reunited with Anshu and KS and could not immediately find them they were nevertheless safe and nurtured by the compassion of another.

There is so much to learn here, or to re-learn and give thanks for. You write so vividly that I felt the great distance and differences in our life melt away as you allowd me to share your experiences of 1982 and your source of strength,the love on your husband's face has so much to teach of our need for love made manifest in another.

I am just starting the day here in England and your simple but powerful recollection has moved and inspired me.

I wish you happiness and many blessings

EK

In response to:The Eternal Mother in ME............

Tue, 24 Jan 2006 04:08:17 +0100

I've just been engrossed in your posts, so interesting to read and beautifully written.

Thank You.

L

In response to:Keeping the Spirit Alive.....

Tue, 03 Jan 2006 00:05:48 +0100

It seems the mother's role is the same all over the world, that is to give our daughter's support when they need it.
Whenever there is a problem, 'mother' is the first person our daughters call.

In response to:A New Year...A New List of Resolutions......

Sun, 01 Jan 2006 16:24:33 +0100

A happy new year to you too Kaloo.

New years's resolutions cAN sometimes be hard to sustain.

In response to:Kaizen and ME......

Sun, 13 Nov 2005 10:40:10 +0100

I am studying NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) this process is the background of all self improvement books ever written. You can change people and yourself by the use of belief changes, swish patterns and anchoring which allows you to enhance the good feeling you feel about yourself whilst removing the negitives. I do recommend reading about it, and to get started get NLP for dummies.

In response to:The Real Me...

Thu, 22 Sep 2005 08:13:22 +0200

you've written a very interesting post. you could go the way you've started, searching for the real you from the beginning of life, but you could alsocheck out each of your actions and choices today, and that too would help you understand the real you. I wish you luck in your adventure and your choice