Womb

and when I am done

with the adventures

of my inner world,

sometimes shaken,

sometimes wounded,

sometimes fuelled,

sometimes felled,

I yearn for the warmth

of your skin against mine,

of your breath inside mine,

of your hands around me

and my little heart,

you’re my go-to place,

where I can curl up

and forget about everything else,

and rest like a little pup,

who now tired of chasing its own tail

comes to snuggle between your feet;

and then the world suddenly seems

simple, safe and at peace.

Peace

as I watched the ripples
fold in from all sides,
creasing the blue
and the rolling green,
my drifting eyes
slowed to a stop
where every line
drawn out
held worlds at war,
clinging to the shores
of certainty;
and somewhere there
between the creases
and folds
and the shifting canvas
of unexplored worlds,
I sank into peace.

and while we impose bans,
and scream ourselves hoarse
over conversions
and land acquisitions,
and Nirbhaya,
the sun still goes about
his daily business,
the birds still return
to their nests at twilight,
and a baby still sleeps
undisturbed
through the night,
lost in the bosom
of his mother.

The Infinite Well

look in
to see
thoughts
and
emotions
trickle
down
into
the
caldera -
the source,
the end
of all
iridescent
orbs
seeking
completion
in an
infinite
well
of peace.

Revisiting old energies in a new way...

Two days ago, on my birthday, my husband got a call from the person who used to drive our car some years ago. It was a pleasant surprise as we have not been in touch at all ever since he quit about three years ago. He wanted to come and meet us with his family and kind of invited himself for our Golu :) There was no other intention other than that, and I was touched that he still remembered us, called and inquired after us.

He came with his family in the evening and we sat down with them to chat about old times and catch up on each others' lives. Their kids had grown so much and were fascinated with Raghav's creations.
"Are you still angry with us?", his wife asked me hesitatingly.
I smiled and said: " Why should I be angry?"
"No...is sir angry with us still?", she added.
"No....he was perhaps angry then. But with him the anger is only in the moment....he does not hold on to it after that....he forgets about it after the moment....so, he is not angry with you'll...we are not angry at all," I replied.
She looked relieved. As if a big burden was off her.

She then went on to share that they were very happy as a family now....that her husband had a good job, which was not very tiring and stressful, and he was doing well enough.....they were contented and in peace, in spite of their troubles. Yes, they looked happy. I could feel it. I could feel them flowing with their lives. I felt so happy.

"We think of you every night when we sit down to eat," she said.
"Why? I don't understand..." I added.
"The way you both are....sir and you....we have learned a lot from both of you...about how to be with each other....yes, we fight and argue and get really angry and sometimes don't even talk to each other for some time.....but we now know that we have to let each other be....we just go away and be by ourselves for a while until it all settles down....we know that we have only each other and that we like each other beyond all that....life is so much more peaceful than it was then," she softly said, fighting the tears that were welling up.
My heart skipped a beat too. I felt a lump in my throat.....grateful to life for having showed them the way.....and making us an instrument towards that.

I mentioned to him while we were talking that after he had quit, we had stopped doing puja for the vehicles on Ayudha Puja day. He immediately offered to come and do it for us this time. That spontaneous gesture touched me. And we agreed to wait for him this time. Today he came and happily did the puja for our cars with devotion and sincerity. For nothing but the affection and regard he has for us. That moved me to tears. I love these simple acts of love, for no other reason but love.

And then I remembered the old times - how her husband came to drive our car because Srinath (my husband) suddenly developed double vision one day, and just couldn't drive anymore. He came then to help us tide over those challenging times, when I was getting burnt out doing everything including driving, as my husband could not get out of the house and even walk on the road because of his severe double vision. Those were trying times for us. I had just come back from Bangalore after my mother's tryst with cancer, and a few weeks later I was down with chickenpox.  My husband had to travel every week to Madurai for his work and needed a driver desperately. He came as a saviour to us.

I remembered how he and his wife had a strange relationship with both of us. They had a lot of misunderstandings between themselves and with their extended family, and would reach out only to us. He would talk only to me and she would talk only to my husband! I recalled how I had shared with him on our many trips in the car, snippets from our life and how we dealt with our problems, with vulnerability and how he opened up too with his problems. He would ask for suggestions and I would share my thoughts. His wife would do the same with my husband on the phone :) It was funny....those conversations we had about life!

We treated him as a part of the family. He used to live very far away and would come at unearthly hours to drive for my husband. Often he would not have eaten anything. I would offer him food and ask him to sit down and eat with my husband. He hesitated in the beginning as I presumed he was not used to being treated that way, but soon felt at home. I would send stuff that I had cooked sometimes home with him for his wife and kid, and he would take it happily. He would bring his family home on special occasions and would not hesitate to do anything for us. I was being myself - open and kind, as I usually am with most people.

But soon the stress of driving back and forth every week got to him I guess and he started slipping up in his work. He would take off without informing us or call in sick very often. My husband would go off on his own and he would show up a day later for work. Both of us were angry with him and he would lie to us out of fear. We were getting tired of this.

Around the same time, I suddenly had a gut feeling that he was attracted towards me too....the way he spoke and looked at me....and I felt very uncomfortable and scared to go alone with him in the car. I also felt sad that he was misusing and perhaps misunderstanding my openness and kindness. I finally expressed how I was feeling to my husband and what I thought. Strangely, soon after I did that and we both decided that we should ask him to go, he himself came up to my husband one day in the office and told him that he wanted to quit. That made it easier for us. And that was the last we saw of him, until two days ago.

So then why did these old energies revisit me or all of us two days ago, after so many years? What was the message in it for me and for us? These are the questions I have been asking myself over the last two days. It is clear to me that this was not a chance incident. There was something in it for me. Maybe for all of us.

I feel now that we were all revisiting our old energies in a new way. Life was telling each of us how much we had grown and changed....what we had let go of....what we had forgiven ourselves for....what we had learned to face in ourselves through what had happened....and where each of us was in our journeys with ourselves now. It was clear that we had all found peace within....we were all at peace with ourselves and our lives....and the way it was unfolding now for each of us. We had moved on from fear, anger, distrust, discontentment and self-doubt into another space of peace and forgiveness which comes I think from being in the flow.

How much more beautiful can life get than this?... seamlessly merging four lives in one stitch in one instant! How much more interconnected can our lives be than this?

I am forever grateful to life for showing up at my door every moment, every day....for never giving up on me, even when I sometimes feel like giving up on it .....for showing me time and again how efficient it is in the way it works - achieving the maximum with minimum effort....yes, it is time to salute life and its never-say-die attitude! :)

Peace and Violence

Peace is not a waiting or a knowing that the pendulum that swings now will come to rest some day, some time.
Peace is knowing the nature of the pendulum and watching both the movement and the stillness.

Over the last two days, I have been watching this truly amazing DVD with my son - "Earth - The Power of the Planet", for the billionth time! It is one of our family favourites. One that we never seem to get tired of watching. Every time I watch it, I see something new. Yesterday, we watched the part on 'Volcanoes' together, and my conditioned mind at first said to itself, "Oh God! How terrifying, how destructive!", and I thought about how it must be to be in the midst of an eruption, shuddering with fear.

Later in the day, I saw a conversation in an online group about how a negative post breeds more negativity and that we should focus more on the positive. And I asked myself : "What is negative and what is positive? Why do we fear facing life as it unfolds to us each day? Why do we want to run away from life that is teaching us in so many ways, how to live?" Another voice from inside said to me: "It is like the pendulum. Just chill. Just know for yourself what the pendulum actually is". :)

But that doesn't stop me from writing and sharing this :)

Here is what I feel....
Our reflex and our conditioning makes us close our eyes and run away from anything 'violent' and 'negative', simply because it brings up a fear in us. A fear that we don't want to see. A fear that makes us feel that we will lose what we have today. We don't think that it could ever happen to us. It always happens to someone else. Just like death. We push it far away from us, not knowing that it walks with us in this very moment, as our shadow.

An earthquake kills thousands, destroys so much of what we have taken years to build. But we see only destruction. We don't see the power it has to actually create and sustain life and us. After one of the most devastating earthquakes, scientists measured and found out that the Himalayas had actually grown higher. That is how our magnificent mountains are formed. Without the earthquakes, which make mountains rise and provide the silt that rivers carry into the sea, our planet would be a water world! But we don't see it that way. Yes, we need to see what is, but deeply. We need to understand the essence of things, not look at them superficially.

We have to see that without the so-called 'violence' that we have today, we will not have non-violence and the paradise we hope to reach some day called 'peace'. Both are cries of children - two different, unique children of the Universe, yearning to sit on either lap of their beloved mother, who sees no difference and embraces both with love. It is not about waiting for one to take over or win over the other. It is about watching both play with and against the other and finding joy in that. It is about knowing and trusting their essence and the nature of things. The essence and the nature of the pendulum.

Peace is all about trusting life and the way it works.

The Circle

the circle
a safe space
to be
at peace
with oneself
beads of water
on lotus leaves
bubbles afloat
upon a breeze
the empty womb
of creation
closed
to the vagaries
of time and space
yet open
to boundless life
and a fullness
of self-contained love
unity
of all things
without beginning
or end
the infinite
life-line
the wheel
of life and death
the point of no return
of coming home
full circle

Silence

Silence

she rests,

unnoticed,

like a raindrop

sitting

on a lover's rose,

full 

of her radiant self,

amidst the rain.

Peace.

She slips out

quietly,

as she came in,

into the wet earth;

a transient visitor,

a shimmering glow

of a permanence,

still elusive.

I look for a

furtive lover

in a

rain-drenched rose.

Peace

an inflamed heart
yearns for peace,

looking to a broken sky,
smiling softly
as if with a deep knowing
of times to come;

ripples stretch out
flowing with the quiet
of not knowing
when and if
they will reach
the far off banks;

puffy clouds
drift along
joining hands
and parting ways,
celebrating both
the coming and going;

peace emerges
in the staying,
when I look out
to the inflamed sky,
without seeking
that elusive sunrise.

Peace

engulfed
in the drone
of an urban morn,
a mourning heart
sinks its roots
into the grounded sky -
a constant reminder
of what could be,
if only I have
the time
and space,
to connect
inside,
to listen,
and simply be
me.

The Silent Warrior

like the ripe old leaf
awaits her fall,
even as she twirls
with the wind
on a blind date;

like the obscure spider
creates her fragile art -
a labour of love,
as she waits to make
a tryst with destiny;

when you rest
in the peace
of deep knowing
that there is nothing
that you ought to do;

when you find love
in everything you do
and do not do;
a silent warrior is born,
to fight, with love.

Being Peace

I see a tranquil pond.
I soak my roots
in its wetness,
depth
and stillness.
I am not the pond,
and yet I am.

A shriveled pod
plunges into the stillness,
seeking a closure
in new waters,
that it did not find
in the tree
from where it fell?

Old, ripe leaves
bob around happily,
creating new patterns,
of water and earth,
undisturbed
by the new arrival.

The serene waters give -
give in to the pod
that fell into their quiet folds,
give in to the dainty ripples
that make them come alive
in a new way,
give in to the old leaves
that create their own work of art.

It is the nature of the shriveled pod to fall.
It is the nature of the old, ripe leaves to float.
It is the nature of the waters to give, and give in.
Peace comes from being true to your very nature.
Peace then becomes a sedative to the senses.
Peace. Awareness. Connection.
Being Peace.
That is who I am.

Knowing Non- violence

when I rest my head every night
on a soft pillow, and sleep creeps up
quietly, like a gentle wave;
when my weary body is not awash
with despair or guilt, for
having lived another day;
when I can see the contrary
as the warp and weft, that
life weaves to keep me safe and loved;
when every cell and breath in my body
gives thanks to all life that sustains me
to renew my timeless bond with the earth;
when I know in my guts and bones
that violence is a part of every choice I make
and hold it with love and forgiveness;
when I have known what drives this world
and connects all life with an unspeakable magic
that l struggle to fathom through my human form;
I would perhaps know what non-violence is
and make peace with my life, myself and my friends.

Peace

a small white dove
grows wings
that expand
with every breath -
yours and mine,
to embrace
our world,
with gentle love,
and carry it forth
into the Light.

Take me home...

Take me home...
carry me in your arms,
as a lover carries
his beloved;
lay me down softly
under the distant stars,
let Peace draw the covers,
as they watch us make love.

Pressure Cooker

emotions abubble
come to a boil,
a heavy burden
presses down,
as I recoil;
can I hold on
to that last bubble?
just a little more?
I am scared,
I am angry,
to have to let go;
do I know
that release
will bring me
the peace?
if I can see
steam as water,
love is cooked
and released!