When Things Don't Work Out ...

ALL of us have gone through these "phases". You wish earnestly for something, set your heart on it, work hard at it, and it looks fairly achievable. Something happens, and you don't get it. You come crashing down. Your mood nosedives. At the extreme, you sink into depression. Scars are etched in some people's consciousness. Many of us wonder what did we do in order to be wronged. Did we lack in something? God knows why it happened. There you go ... you said it! God knows. Here is the simplistic analogy that helps wonderfully.

Say, you are a baby too eager to go out and play on a road. You love doing so for some reason. Alright. But that road is frequented by too many speedy trucks. Obviously, your "Father" does not want you to play. But that is not what YOU want! Your playful spirit demands what it demands. You are a child with all its naivete, inexperience, and little ability to gauge the consequences of many events. You do not realize how your NOT getting what you want at that instant moment fits perfectly with the much grander desire of your soul - and other souls who might be involved too! The child's instant desire is to play. But the child's grander desire is too live, to go through what it has come to the world for. So playing on the highway does not fit well into the overall scheme of things.

Sounds cliched? Perhaps, a lot of people come and fuss over you saying "it didn't happen because it was GOOD for you". And you hate hearing that mighty consolation. The above looks like a "turned around" version of the same? You anyway don't know about what your "grand plan" is supposed to be, and how this all fits in ... and blah-blah-blah. When you are in the "phase", you don't want to hear anything anyway.

Meditation is one key is to develop that intuitional power to foresee how things that happen are fitting in, what they are doing to you, and where you are going with that. One of the things that helps is silently reflecting on your past. What was the significance of that major event that happened years ago? Would it have been great today if that had happened the way I had wanted it then? Look at it objectively, in a detached manner.

Your Father also wants you to play, even more than you. KNOW that now the ripple of thought of playing has arisen in you - a better, more beautiful, and much more grandiose situation will be created where you may choose to play, play, and just play.

I Am your Highest Thought ...

"I am your Highest Thought, your Clearest Word, your Grandest Feeling."

~ from the book 'Conversations with God' by Neale Donald Walsch

I am sure all of us have experienced- without consciously realizing it - the quaint phenomenon of sometimes "operating out of" a different type of a space from within. For example, when you achieved unblurred clarity on some aspect, when you hit the path, the guiding route that couldn't have sprung in you given all you are and all you had done during your limited physical existence at that particular time. Know that some Divine Principle was at work THROUGH you. I had a tiny glimpse of this phenomenon working in me. Back then when I had set myself to preparing for the IIT entrance, I did not have any guidance. Many of the things that I had to prepare myself with were new and appeared difficult to fathom, and I had not known known then how to go about it. I just took to it trusting my intuition. Clarity on the difficult subject matter began to come after I had spent some time dedicatedly trying to make sense of it. And then help from the 'outside world' also started flowing in. True - you just have to start off with conviction, and things around you start arranging themselves accordingly.

How to make every choice of yours the Highest Choice? That remains a question.

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna: More Than A Perspective

KANK is a product of Karan Johar's astute, discerning, and penetrating observation of the human psyche. The movie subtly, and amazingly, points towards the most basic, the most powerful, the core desire of every being - TO BE WHAT HE OR SHE REALLY IS. Far from being a perspective, it shows how things are - matter-of-factly. The movie does not extol or eulogize Maya (Rani Mukherjee) and Dev (SRK), nor does it paint these characters in dark colors. It shows how unnatural, how "misshapen" one appears when a situation does not allow you TO BE.

Take Maya's disinclination for parties, and Rishi's (Abhishek Bachchan) appetite for them. Audiences would have cheered for Maya had she faked experiencing orgasmic pleasure in his parties, would they have not? They would've gone home in utter bliss, convinced that not only do they have to make up for every disagreeable situation imposed on them, but that life for everyone was hell.

Was Rhea (Preity Zinta) ever able to empathize with Dev's larger-than-life passion for football, his latter embitterment with life's circumstances leading him to failures, or with his sad eyes craving for someone just to walk with him? Were the two ever able to connect? No. Nobody's fault, mind you.

Countless couples throughout the world are punishing themselves. JUST FACE IT: THERE IS NO LOVE! Why have we chosen to be so tightly wrapped up in our abstractions, our stereotyped thinking, our concepts, our own monumental walls of indoctrinations? Where did they come from? Outer space?

KANK breaks barriers. Spouses finding resonance outside their formal relationships is not new to cinema. However, the craft with which KJo presents the story, the failure of our own "systems", and the propensity to be one's own self in everyone, deserves more than accolades. Beautifully illustrative is the first meeting of Dev and Maya. Dev's waywardness or lack of chivalry were turn-offs only for a while. They immediately connect. When they meet 5 years later in a hospital, Dev instantly relates to the "emptiness" that he sees in her eyes - something Rishi had probably not noticed in years.

KANK DOES NOT BRING INFEDILITY "IN VOGUE". It teaches that you should correct a mistake when you realize it. Simple. The message is exactly that! Better still, do not make the mistake in the first place. (Hope you are getting the message.)

The soul seeks to reflect upon itself. It seeks situations and people with whom it could be that which it has chosen to be.

This Morn!

This morning felt so beautiful after a brief meditation that it inspired me to "poeticize"!

When the sun is made mild by the clouds,

When you are far away from the city's concrete and crowds;

When the dew-dropped earth’s wetness is loosing itself to the Sun,

You are waking up to the ever-present newness, and nothing is left to be said and done!

Beautifyy Your Dayy!

ps: Thanks to SN for the inspiration to write!