Possessed

Instant inspiration while idling at an airport store watching shoppers and their short-lived excitement.....forgive the man for trying his luck with poetry. Here goes....

For every man with a Rolex
that tells him time is precious
there is a man without a watch
one who wanders freely
One who wanders joyously

For every man with an iPhone
that tells him conversation is important
there is a man without a phone
one who listens attentively
One who connects easily

For every man with a Dior Homme
thats tells him world is tinted
there is a man with no shades
one who sees clearly
One who understands deeply

For every man clothed with a Brioni

that tells him appearances matter

there is a man dressed simply

one who attracts magnetically

One who loves unconditionally

For every man possessed by his own possessions

that traps him in his own illusionary world

there is a man who owns nothing

one who lives carefree, happily

One who lives his life fully

Lost

Last evening at the big temple, many folks descended for their weekly tryst with divinity. Being a weekend, the crowds were probably on the higher side. In that sea of humanity, we meandered through and I noticed a few paces away from me was a little girl. She was probably five years old and seemed to be immersed in her own world. Suddenly, the girl stopped and looked around. She seemed to search for someone with her eyes. Failing to find that person, she called out a name. I stopped and looked around to see who she was calling out to. Many people walked by, immersed in their own thoughts either asking the divine for favours or thinking of some closer to earth mundane matters. No one seemed to take an interest in the little girl. Everyone was doing their rounds of the temple in auto-pilot mode, and the distressed little girl was off the flight path. It was clear to me that the distressed little girl was lost. The little girl was now calling out someone's name loudly and desperation was creeping into her voice. I moved closer to her and heard her say "Appa". My knowledge of Tamil helped. I realized that the girl was looking for her father. I asked the girl if she knew her father's name. My intention was to get that announced on the public address system if there was one. However, she seemed more intimidated by this strange man asking her for her father's name. I pulled in additional resources, asking my wife and daughters to help the identification process. The sight of the girls calmed her and she mentioned her father's name. I walked up to the temple office and started explaining the situation to the person there. Within a few minutes, a lady with an infant in her arms appeared and the little girl's face lit up. She had seen her mother. The mother looked equally distressed and lost. She asked us if the kid had troubled us, about how she had suddenly disappeared and thanked us all in one breath. Her pleading eyes said " Don't judge me. I am not a negligent mother." We saw the pain in her eyes as she hugged her daughter and took her away. As the mother and the girl went away in happy re-union, my daughter remarked "I can still feel the shivers. Imagine getting lost....". 

Yes, imagine getting lost in a sea of humanity. Imagine your fear as indifferent folks look through you and walk past you. Imagine the rush of distressing thoughts as strange people crowd you out. Imagine the feeling of being lost. I recollect my school days when I had moved from a little hill town to the big city. In the little town, I used to walk to school. But in the city, I had to go to school by the crowded local bus. The bus was usually overcrowded and people were hanging out of the open doors. There was usually no way you could get in especially as the bus hardly stopped, it only slowed down at the bus stop and you had to jump on or off. I really felt lost in that big city transition and that bus was just a metaphor for a lot of other adjustments. I remember falling off the bus on my second week and being rather embarrassed by the fall. I felt humiliated, lonely and lost. Today, when I look around I see enough people with their fears and lonely battles. People lost in the social milieu and the humdrum of life, with no one to notice the pain. Everyone has the same fears and pain, the need to be recognized, the need to find their way. Look around and see beyond the facade of indifference. Be it at your workplace or community, there are people needing to be acknowledged. New collegues finding their way around new settings, first time workers understanding the corporate workplace. Can we help them please? Imagine being lost in a crowd. Imagine being lost in a sea of humanity. Imagine being lost in indifference. I can still feel the shivers.

Unlock hidden realms, imagine new realities

If you mix your drinks, you will wake up with a hangover. But if you mix your worlds, you wake up with the imagination of a new reality. The rational mind believes in what it sees, hears, touches. But the imaginative mind sees beyond the clear blue sky. After growing up in a fantasy world of Grimm's fairy tales, after falling asleep to the whispers of mythological stories that are not always that logical, after waking up to the sounds of Alice in wonderland, it is hard to believe that you don't imagine. What if Alice in wonderland was not a fantasy, but a real world? What if we set out on an expedition to find that crack in the world to slip into a different reality? What if? Different writers have explored that notion, Neil Gaiman's dark twist in Coraline or Jules Verne's classic tale of the journey to the center of the earth. They all talk of a hidden realm and we read it like a story and let go. But, what if it was more than a story, what if it was someone's reality?

I came across this book at the airport bookstall last week, this book called "A Step Away from Paradise". I didn't know what to expect but the book called itself a Tibetan Lama's extraordinary journey to a land of immortality. Sometimes, you are not sure what attracts you to a book. But, my casual interest in Tibetan spirituality, my intense love for deep blue skies captured so very well on that book cover and my huge curiosity about all things paradise propelled me to pick up this book by Thomas Shor. I am halfway through the book and so, this is not the point where one would write a book review. But, for me, this is the point where you roll your eyes and imagine the world differently from the one you know. This is where you begin to imagine a new reality. The book tells the story of a crazy Lama called Tulshuk Lingpa, who leads a band of followers to unravel a hidden valley of peace, prosperity and happiness. This  hidden valley is called a Beyul. Tibetan folklore has it that such beyuls, hidden realms exist in this world for believers to retreat to in times of cruelty, plunder and disaster. These beyuls are only unlocked by the right chosen Lama. I am still not at the point in the story to know if the beyul was unlocked or not, but, the beliefs and experiences of a life unlike any we can imagine is beginning to question my sense of reality. Atlantis, Avalon, El Dorado, Shangri-la and all those hidden mystical lands...are they real? America was not real until Christopher Columbus chanced upon it. The earth wasn't round until Magellan went around it. A beyul remains fantasy until some unlocks it? What if there are realms unseen by the eye? What if there are realms beyond the comprehension of a sense conditioned mind? What if you looked beyond the crazy, what if these dimensions were for real?

Knowing only what we know, we are limited by the constraints of time and space. There is a thin line between reality and imagination, the thin line called perception, or as William Blake calls it, the doors of perception. "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern" Open your mind, explore the possibility of the unreal....unlock hidden realms, imagine new realities of a borderless, limitless world of peace and happiness.