We begin to think of our spouses as extensions of ourselves - then we get frustrated when they act in ways that we wouldn’t. We say things like, “Why would you do something like that?” or “How can you think that?” These reactions overlook the fact of difference that our partners are not a part of us and that they have their own individuality. Your sweetheart will inevitably have certain qualities or interests that aren’t appealing to you. 'Otherness' is part of being married - no two people are completely compatible. Some of you as you read this are probably thinking, "Yeah, all that sounds real nice but you don't know me, my spouse or what we've been through." You're right, I don't know. But what I do know is that you will reap what you sow. Perfect marriages don't exist in the real world. But couples who are willing to put the time, energy and commitment to making their marriage work, will be able to reap the flame of love and keep their marriage growing. Mark Twain once said that he could live a full month on nothing but a single compliment.
The Virgin
--- there weretwo of us
A married woman and a virgin
To sleep with you
I had to offer the virgin in me
I did so
This slaughter is permissible
in law
Not the indignity of it
And I bore the onslaught of
the insult
The next morning
I looked at my blood stained
handsI washed my hands
But the moment I stood before the mirror
I found her standing there
The one whom I thought I had slaughtered last night
Oh God!Was it too dark in your bed
I had to kill one and I killed the other ?
Quotes from Amrita Pritam
I will meet you yet again
How and whereI know not
Perhaps I will become a figment of your imagination
and maybe spreading myself
in a mysterious line on your canvas
I will keep gazing at you.
The First Painting
I, a shade amongst other wandering shades,
And perhaps you another pale shadow
Bits of shadows midst the pervading darkness
But that's a tale of prehistoric times.
Darkness of nights and of groves there was,
They were these garments, we wore,
you and IA shaft of sunlight came in
And flashed through our bodies, yours and mine,
And spread itself on the stones it carved.
At the time it was only rounded limbs tipped with light.
Thus was the first painting of the universe made,
The leaves gave it their greens
Clouds their billowing whites,
the skies their greys,Flowers their reds, yellows, and crimsons.
The art of painting came much later.
The First Melody
And an infinite silent stillness.
Brittle like a dry, parched leaf,
Gritty like sands on a seashore
But that's a tale of prehistoric times.
At a road crossing I called out to you
And you answered my call,
And in the winds' throat there was a quiver
And particles of earth were animated
And the waters of brooks hummed in a melody
Branches of trees grew a trifle tense,
There was stirring in the leaves,
A little bud twinkled an eye,
And a bird fluffed out its feathers
That was the first song that the ears heard.
The septet of the lute came much later.
Medical research has shown that if we stimulate certain areas of the brain with a small electric current, we can give people the experience of spiritual trance. We may feel that God is touching our heart, or that the soul of a dead relative, friend or a loved one is near you. Although there is no evidence to support a belief in authentic soul travel, however, as all studies indicate consciousness only exists in the brain cells, which create it. We cannot remove consciousness from the physical body because consciousness is a physical phenomena created by chemistry, just as a firefly’s light is created by chemical reactions. That is why we find turning on or off of consciousness of people injected with drugs. Near death experiences and even certain drugs, such as ketamine and sodium pentothal, can give the feeling of being outside your body but researchers say that is just an illusion of the holographic nature of the human brain. When neural communications between the body and brain are reduced, the brain is free to project your sense of self anywhere it chooses while partially asleep or even during the preliminary stages of death. Prolonged fasting and isolation can also produce hallucinations and distortions of reality. If we inject a human being with enough sedatives, enlightened or not, he will get unconscious. If we damage certain areas of the brain we can drastically alter human behavior. We can turn our conservative finance minister into a garbage eating bum just by killing off some of the brain cells that contain the bio-computer programme of his personality. If we damage other areas of the brain, we can erase all memory. If consciousness, personality and memory are all physical phenomena of brain cells, then why does our brain dies. Our permanent identity of time-energy-space continues unharmed but there is no soul. It also means that we all achieve ’moksha’ at the time of our death because there is no personal cycle of birth and death to escape from and no magical after-life either. The psychological need for a feeling of immortality is so great that our tendencies have become part of our DNA code. Humans who believe in supernatural religions tend to be calmer, healthier and thus live longer than the non-believers. Scientists know that there is only one real life form on planet earth and that is DNA itself. DNA is like a giant vine that has taken over the world. Through the never ending chain of DNA code, we are not only closely related to other mammals but also intimately related to insects, plants and even bacteria upward into more complex plants and animals. DNA is not just a helpful chemical substance that resides inside us. DNA is our biological level identity, our three dimensional physical ’soul’. But to know the truth we must have a strong desire to see it. Every person is capable of knowing this truth. If we are ready to unveil this unseen passage, give wings to your imagination. Explore, explore, explore … as if there is no tomorrow. Enjoy as if this is the last breath.
You can carry it on, just to keep your promises. You can carry it on because it is comfortable, convenient and cosy. You can carry it on because there is nothing else to do. You can carry it on because if you disrupt it, it is going to create much trouble for you. Relationship means something complete, finished, closed. Love is never a relationship; love is relating. It is always like a river, flowing and unending. Love knows no full stops; the honeymoon begins but never ends. It is not like a novel that starts at a certain point and ends at a certain point. It is an ongoing phenomenon. Lovers end, love continues. It is a continuous process. It is a verb, not a noun. And why do we reduce the beauty of relating to relationship? Why are we in such a hurry? Because to relate is insecure and relationship is a security, relationship has a certainty. Relating is just a meeting of two strangers, maybe just an overnight stay and in the morning we say goodbye. Who knows what is going to happen tomorrow? And we are so afraid that we want to make it certain, we want to make it predictable. We would like tomorrow to be according to our ideas; we don’t allow it the freedom to have its own say. So we immediately reduce every verb to a noun. You are in love with a woman or a man and immediately you start thinking of getting married. Make it a legal contract. Why? How does the law come into love? The law comes into love because love is not there. It is only a fantasy and you know the fantasy will disappear. So it is better to settle down before it disappears. Before it disappears do something so that it becomes impossible to separate. In a better world, with more like minded people, with a little more enlightenment spread over the earth, people will love, love immensely but their love will remain a relating, not a relationship. And I am not saying that their love will be only momentary. There is every possibility that their love may go deeper than your love, may have a higher quality of intimacy, may have something more of poetry and more of god in it. And there is every possibility that their love may last longer than your so-called relationship will. But it will not be guaranteed by the law, by the court, by the policeman. The guarantee will be from the inner self. It will be a commitment from the heart, it will be a silent communion. If you enjoy being with someone, you would like to enjoy it more and more. If you enjoy the intimacy, you would like to explore the intimacy more and more. And there are a few flowers of love, which bloom only after long intimacies. There are seasonal flowers too; within six weeks they are there in the sun but within six weeks again they are gone forever. There are flowers, which take years to come and there are flowers, which take much longer to come. The longer it takes, the deeper it goes. But it has to be a commitment from one heart to another. It does not even need to be verbalised, because to verbalise it is to profane it. It has to be a silent commitment; eye to eye, heart to heart, being to being. It has to be understood, not said. It is so ugly seeing people going to churches, temples or the court to get married. It is so ugly, so inhuman. It simply shows that they can’t trust themselves, they trust the policeman or father of the church more than they trust their own inner voice. It shows they can’t trust their love, they trust the law. Forget relationships and learn how to relate. Once you are in a relationship you start taking each other for granted. That’s what destroys all love affairs. The woman thinks she knows the man, the man thinks he knows the woman. Nobody knows either. It is impossible to know the other, the other remains a mystery. And to take the other for granted is insulting, disrespectful. To think that you know your wife, your friend is very ungrateful. How can you know the woman? How can you know the man? They are processes, not things. The woman that you knew yesterday is not there today. So much water has gone down the mula mutha or the ganges; she is somebody else, totally different. Relate again, start again, don’t take it for granted. And the man with whom you slept with last night, look at his face again in the morning. He is no more the same person, so much has changed. So much, incalculably much has changed. That is the difference between a thing and a person. The furniture in the room is the same but the man and the woman, they are no more the same. Explore again, start again. That’s what I mean by relating. Relating means you are always starting, you are continuously trying to become acquainted. Again and again, you are introducing yourself to each other. You are trying to see the many facets of the other’s personality. You are trying to penetrate deeper and deeper into his realm of inner feelings, into the deep recesses of his being. You are trying to unravel a mystery, which cannot be unraveled. That is the joy of love: the exploration of consciousness. And if u relate and don’t reduce it to a relationship, then the other will become a mirror to you. By exploring him, you will be exploring yourself too. Getting deeper into the other, knowing his feelings, his thoughts, his deeper stirrings, you will be knowing your own deeper stirrings too. Lovers become mirrors to each other and then love becomes a process. Relationship is ugly, relating is beautiful. In a relationship, both persons become blind to each other. Just think, how long has it been since you saw your wife or friend eye to eye? How long has it been since you looked at your husband or friend? May be years. Who looks at one’s own wife? You have already taken it for granted that you know her. It is not so, it is not really so. Nothing ever repeats; everything is new every day. Just your eyes become old, your assumptions become old, your mirror gathers dust and you become incapable of reflecting the other. Hence I say relate. By saying relate, I mean remain continuously on a honeymoon. Go on searching and seeking each other, finding new ways of loving each other, finding new ways of being with each other. And each person is such an infinite mystery, inexhaustible, unfathomable that it is not possible that you can ever say, "I have known her," or, "I have known him." At the most you can say, "I have tried my best but the mystery remains a mystery." In fact the more you know, the more mysterious the other becomes. Then love is a constant adventure.
BELOW ARE some of many random thoughts, which keep haunting me, and keep me mesmerised ,they keep me hooked to you .These are all courtesy Khalil Gibran .I remember when Amrita (Pritam) spoke of first melody, first painting , first words . I envy them to have thought and said it before I do. I curse myself for not being the first painting ,the first melody, but I am there, I was there and will always remain…..will always remain …. You ask me how I became a mad woman. It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen—the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives—I ran mask less through the crowded streets shouting, “Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves.” Men and women laughed at me and some ran to their houses in fear of me. And when I reached the market place, a youth standing on a house-top cried, “She is a madwoman.” I looked up to behold him; the sun kissed my own naked face for the first time. For the first time the sun kissed my own naked face and my soul was inflamed with love for the sun, and I wanted my masks no more. And as if in a trance I cried, “Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks.” Thus I became a mad woman. And I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand enslave something in us. But let me not be too proud of my safety. Even a thief in a jail is safe from another thief. When My Sorrow Was Born And my sorrow grew like all living things, strong and beautiful and full of wondrous delights. And we loved one another, my sorrow and I, and we loved the world about us; for sorrow had a kindly heart and mine was kindly with sorrow. And when we conversed, my sorrow and I, our days were winged and our nights were girdled with dreams; for sorrow had an eloquent tongue, and mine was eloquent with sorrow. And when we sang together, my sorrow and I, our neighbours sat at their windows and listened; for our songs were deep as the sea and our melodies were full of strange memories. And when we walked together, my sorrow and I, people gazed at us with gentle eyes and whispered in words of exceeding sweetness. And there were those who looked with envy upon us, for sorrow was a noble thing and I was proud with sorrow. But my sorrow died, like all living things, and alone I am left to muse and ponder. And now when I speak my words fall heavily upon my ears. And when I sing my songs my neighbours come not to listen. And when I walk the streets no one looks at me. Only in my sleep I hear voices saying in pity, “See, there lies the man whose sorrow is dead.” The Pearl And the other oyster replied with haughty complacence, “Praise be to the heavens and to the sea, I have no pain within me. I am well and whole both within and without.” At that moment a crab was passing by and heard the two oysters, and he said to the one who was well and whole both within and without, “Yes, you are well and whole; but the pain that your neighbour bears is a pearl of exceeding beauty. Body and Soul A man and a woman sat by a window that opened upon spring. They sat close one unto the other. And the woman said, “I love you. You are handsome, and you are rich, and you are always well-attired.” And the man said, “I love you. You are a beautiful thought, a thing too apart to hold in the hand, and a song in my dream.” But the woman turned from him in anger, and she said, “Sir, please leave me now. I am not a thought, and I am not a thing that passes in your dreams. I am a woman. I would have you desire me, a wife, and the mother of unborn children.” And they parted. And the man was saying in his heart, “Behold another dream is even now turned into mist.” And the woman was saying, “Well, what of a man who turns me into a mist and a dream?” Khalil thanks for these pearls of expression, these stanzas talk to me, explain to me, I was losing my voice, my expressions were dying.
When my sorrow was born I nursed it with care, and watched over it with loving tenderness.
Said one oyster to a neighboring oyster, “I have a very great pain within me. It is heavy and round and I am in distress.”
About Me
- Rudrakshha
- On a religious journey to know me. A wonderer and on an eternal journey to know myself Eternal vagabond. Unconventional,Esoteric,Rebel, Unpersuasive,Erratic,Enigmatic are the words prescribed in general to define me. Started Rudraksh foundation Using psychotherapy focused on providing individual and couples counseling services. Specializing in work related stress, womens’ issues and family mediation services. Interested in academic work as well, and perhaps advising corporations on mental health issues.Meditation camps,reiki,stress management and Aura healing,Individual and group therapies. Spend around twenty years in Journalism and working for various corporates, To name XEROX CORP, MAX NEWYORK LIFE, AVIVA INDIA
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