Nice!

Things have been nice over the past couple weeks. I've been feeling good after a day's work so the weekdays are peaceful and weekends are usually happy too (with or without injesting stimulants). I'm enjoying life now and will take each day as it comes.

So yesterday I was sitting at the Barista near Sterling with a couple of friends and they were telling me how difficult it is to meet new women and stuff. How they so badly wanted to date someone and how the 'right' oppotunity never presented itself. As consultant philosopher to my friends, I added my two bits and told them something I had heard another friend say a few days earlier that really hit home. She said 'When you stop craving, the universe conspires to give you what you want.'

I thought about that line for a long time after hearing it. And it made sense. It's weird but I've seen it to be true. I can't figure out the logic behind it, but it works and when it does, it's the most beautiful, happy feeling ever!

Foul-tongued

I was just reading my last post and I have to say I have no idea what was going through my head when I wrote it. So vague! :) One of those moments when you look out the window with no thoughts going through your head and somewhere in between, you write a post. My ex-girlfriend would always ask me, 'What are you thinking?' when I did this and the usual reply would be 'Nothing.' Just wondering, am I the only one who trips out like this?

I digress. So, I was saying, I went through this phase, it lasted some five years, when I thought cursing was a bad thing. So instead of saying 'fuck', which I was saying in my mind anyway, I'd actually say something like 'flip'. Somehow, I was never fully convinced of this 'bad language' argument that I had been brain-washed with so I spent the last few years observing people and what they were saying, in terms of language usage and context. My conclusion is that no word is 'bad' per se. It's about the attitude with which we say something that really makes it 'nasty' or 'not-nasty'.

I've heard some of the most 'refined' people at their eloquent best tear people to shreds and I've heard 'crude' people use what we call 'foul language' to say something really nice about people.

As a result of these observations, I have decided to go back to saying what is in my head, whatever the words be; 'crude', 'refined', 'good', 'bad'... whatever. Because it's not what we say that really matters, it's the feeling with which we say something that really comes across.

So to all those tea-sipping-pinkys-sticking-out, bitching-about-their-friends, smooth-talking people, here what I have to say to you...

Fuck Y'all!

Blur

Life's a big, beautiful blur. Listening to 'Stuck in a Moment' by U2. For your reading pleasure, a few lyrics from the song:

"I'm not afraid of anything in this world
There's nothing you can throw at me that I haven't already heard...

...And you are such a fool to worry like you do
I know it's tough and you can never get enough of what you don't really need now
My, oh my

You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment and you can't get out of it..."

It's just a moment. This time will pass.

Siddhartha

'Siddhartha' is one of my favourite books. I've read it a few times already yet everytime I read it, I discover something I did not see earlier.

One of my favourite parts of the book is towards the end when Siddhartha's friend, Govinda meets him while crossing the river. A great disciple of the Enlightened Gotama, Govinda discloses that though he has searched all his life, he has still not achieved his goal of Realisation. When he asks Siddhartha for the secret of his Peace, Siddhartha gives this brilliant reply.

'When someone is seeking, it happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything, because he is only thinking of the thing he is seeking, because he has a goal. Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal. You, O worth one, are perhaps indeed a seeker, for in striving towards your goal, you do not see many things that are under your nose.'

If this little excerpt has intrigued you and you haven't read 'Siddhartha' by Hermann Hesse, you're missing out on the read of a lifetime. To know more, here's the Wiki entry for Siddhartha

A Fresh Start

With my philosophy changing drastically in the past few months, it is slowly influencing the decisions I'm making. I'm going back to a more "mainstream" job in a couple weeks. A copy writer at a small advertising agency here in Mumbai. The interview was nice, the people I met seemed to be interesting and I have a good feel about it.

I'm quite instinctive when it comes to my decisions rather than relying on intellectual analysis. And my instinct says this is something I'd like to do. I don't know how all this is going to unfold. Honestly, I don't give a rat's ass about how it will. This is what I feel now and it is what I am going to do. I don't want to make calculated decisions anymore. Thinking about where it will take me and the rest of that crap. My new mantra is 'live for the moment'.

I have no direction and I'm perfectly comfortable with it. Funny when I think about how I was a little while ago. I thought I had my life planned. But I have to say, unplanned is beautiful :)

Living the Good Life!

"The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy, you will be good."

- B. Russell

Highway to Nowhere

Like I said in an earlier post, I'm undergoing this big shift in the way I look at myself and world around. All my life, I've looked for meaning in it. I thought I had found it when I spent a year at an ashram after high school. But I was wrong. I thought I had found it in people and relationships, and I was still wrong. Then, I thought I had found it in various philosophies and approaches to life I came across. But I was wrong again. I've gone around in circles and spirals of various circumferences for a long time now. Always questioning, always seeking, yet never finding an answer that satisfied me for a sustained period of time.

So after many experiences and a lot of mental churning, I find that there nothing in life has any meaning to it. When I look back at my life, I see that I've chased shadows. Things that I thought were there but never were. When I graduated from college, I had big dreams. I had this picture of "success"... a job that would be exactly what I loved doing, a beautiful family, a nice home, the family car, fun weekends and the rest of it. I thought I would change the world. Do something to make it a better place. But it never was real, and in my mind, that picture doesn't exist anymore. Nobody can change anything.

I always thought we could determine our future, carve out a path for ourselves.But the question that came to my mind is 'Who decides what I should/could do or not do?' Is it really me? Where are these thoughts coming from? And when I question far enough, there are no answers for it.

My conclusion after all this mental ejaculation?

The world is a big play, a play of Divinity. And we're just the mediums through which that indivisble Unity functions. We are pawns. There's a larger Cosmic Law at play that our little minds cannot understand and never will. "I" am much less important than I think. I'm a little strand of this big web. Insignificant, miniscule, negligible and yet there.

Assuming this is true, the next question was 'How do I approach life now?' And my answer was to approach it as a game. It's been a liberating experience. A lot of the things that would worry me earlier don't anymore. Because nothing really matters.

Where do I derive my joy from? The journey. I have nothing to achieve, no goals. I look forward to the early morning when I can reflect in silence, the soccer game at the park or the workout at the gym, giving my best to my job, being nice to people I come in touch, reaching out to others who may have less, being with family and friends. And I'm so much at peace with myself, it's amazing.

I don't know if this will last. I like to keep an open mind. I might change my philosophy to life again tomorrow. But right now, for the first time, I can say that I am truly on the Highway to Nowhere! And, I daresay, enjoying the ride :)

"Consciousness is all there is"

Overheard...

A famous politician was criticized for issuing ludicrous statements to the press. In response to one of them, a rather witty critic of his said, 'The left side of his brain has nothing right about it and the right side of his brain has nothing left in it.'

Happy! :)

dunno why, but the the last week has been happy. nothing extraordinary happening. just a lot of mental peace and stillness. it's been fantastic! hope I can stay with it for the next week. :)

hope you're all well and enjoying the long weekend!