Adios 2009 and welcome 2010

2009...was it a good year for me? Has it made me better? This is the first question i need to ask myself as i prepare myself to say a BYE for this. 2009 has been great in terms of personal life and to professional life, but spiritually, it is STILL THE SAME or may be a bit downwards, considering that i spend less time in prayer and more time with my Wii...

Should i feel guilty about this? Is this because i got married and i have a genuinine reason like lesser private time? A part of me wants to believe the GENUININE reason, but the other part of me is calling it bluff already...I agree that time is not really an excuse, considering that i do spend around 9~10 hours in sleep and i can probably live with a 9 hour sleep and use the remaining one hour for meditation. So, what is the real reason?

Another part of me tells that i might have spiritually evolved and may be i see GOD not just in my prayer room..The excuse i'm trying to make here is that prayer doesn't need to be done in prayer hall but can be done everywhere. Again, my mind is being overzealous in making me believe things that are hardly true..If i look seriously deep within, may be i spend about 10~15 minutes of my drive to work and back home on spiritual topics, provided it was a good day..But, as soon as i enter the office building, i forget about god...Essentially, i'm not taking GOD with me to work, but instead I make him wait in the parking lot next to my car..Somehow, taking GOD with me to office place never worked..I guess, he will be uncomfortable with all the office politics and backbiting...I'm not going to play rosy eyed optimist here and i do acknowledge that i've become better at politics or may be i will confess saying that i always had a flair for office politics... So, this excuse of ME suddenly becoming philosophical and more evolved in spiritual practises doesn't work...

What is my next excuse? I have to think a bit...hmm...aah! here it is:Prayer is a state of bliss and i'm able to attain it with WII, i don't need prayer..The argument here is that prayer is not the end, it is just a means of attaining bliss. Why do i need to worry about spirituality if i can find bliss?...This probably is the most wiliest argument so far my mind has come up with. I do agree wholeheartedly that i'm a lot happier in 2009 than i was in 2008 or 2007, but does this really mean that i'm experiencing eternal bliss? I do see myself going back to anger or sorrow or the general feeling of helplessness once in a while (or more than that), but i guess, it would be impossible to have that eternal bliss, unless i'm some supremely advanced master. But, wait a minute? Am i arguing that once i find bliss, i can just *dump* GOD? Hmm...on a very superficial level, i can just say *NO* and fool myself to believe that i do indeed love god..But, if i dig deeper and start looking at motivations of my prayers and the reason for my frequent visits to temples, i'm afraid to admit that it is TRUE.

For some unexplainable reason, i do fear GOD. I do believe that GOD will punish me (or deny me) happiness if i do not follow certain rules that govern me to lead a moral life. Not that i have never strayed, but on the whole, whatever goodness that people find in me has been somewhat because of my fear for him. FEAR is the keyword here, not love, but fear...It doesn't mean that i don't love GOD...i do love him, but FEAR is also a motivation. I feel that i need to remember this more strongly than the rest of the content here...Every time i become self-righteous, Every time i have the temptation to judge people, to mark them immoral or sinful, i need to remember this passage: that my rightenousness is not my own virtue, but it is rather a example for my cowardice.

Where am i heading with this topic? Now coming back to the original question of will i dump GOD if i found bliss and contentment? I have no answer. I do know that my motivations of prayer and meditation are not arising purely out of divine love.

To sum it up, the lack of my prayer time was mainly due to me getting pre-occupied with other aspects and i do wish to change that as i enter 2010. I'm not divine and there is work to be done in my case as is with everyone else. I wish that in 2010, i will have a dedicated prayer time and that my prayer time will come because of me wanting to pray and not out of fear.

Amen!

Habits never die

I was cleaning some books and notes after my recent office move and i suddenly find this greeting card with the image of a budhhist monk sitting intently at meditation and a tag line that goes something lik "NO MATTER WHAT ROAD I TRAVEL, I'M GOING HOME"..

I open the card and see that i bought this last year while returning from copenhagen after i was disillusioned with my previous team. I had some handwritten notes around how not to expect things in life, about how not to worry about progress and success etc. At that time, it sounded motivational and probably inspired to make that big leap, but now, it totally seems out of context :-)...what with the big push i have been making for the next promotion and all, about my desire to achieve seniordom and be appreciated/acknowledged for all the great work i have been doing...isn't that ironic? We talk about religion in times of disappointment and then move over to materialism at the first smell of success?

Food for thought for me is that i have this innate habit of competing and it is a mountainhill for me to become all serene and non-competitive. But, does religion exist for only those who are comfortable about accomplishing nothing? Do people like me remain in this world of materialism? I have no answers...

On the way to copenhagen

This week i had been to copenhagen...this was actually my second trip, exactly a year later. The last time i was here, i was in a transition phase...just like the traveller who has lost his way and was wandering in the same place over and over, knowing that he wasn't getting anywhere and because of that was getting frustrated. Why frustration? Why cannot he simply try something else? Because that requires backing your instincts and doing something different than what he usually does. Did he do that? A curious reader might ask...let me say that there was no other option left other than to do it...this is my other theory...if something is bound to happen to you, it will happen eventually, no matter how much you try to resist it...just like that annoying salesman who doesn't quit ringing the door bell until you open the door..So, success and failure are not one-time shots...they are recurring opportunities that you need to grab or avoid...In the end, life is not about winning or losing, it is about living, enjoying those little moments of joy, keeping your self intact when you are scared and then backing your instincts and doing things that you shouldn't regret LATER.

This time of the journey was more about a traveler who has finally found a way that was going somewhere and who was zealously working his way up on the path. It was about admiring the scenic beauty on the way, taking the time to take those byways and wander into something beautiful and then coming back to make up for the lost time by taking a quick sprint...it was more entertaining and the changes of wind are surely working...

What do you learn from this? Well, i learnt that in life, there will always be mistakes and that you should never be afraid of making mistakes...in fact, failure is a parcel of life and the only way to avoid failure is to never do anything...the sad part of that is that you will never get to experience life...Apart from all these cliches, i'm strongly becoming a proponent of doing something where you stink so that you never get your head becoming all big and you can appreciate to admire everyone and to recognize the fact that you are not perfect, just like everybody else..

On the whole, this trip has been about reminiscing the old days, seeing that things always have a way of working out for themselves and then thanking god for being there, guiding me in life and helping me to become a better person (although far from where i believe i should be).

Amen!

P.S: I have had some interesting conversations about liberalism v/s conservatism, big government v/s little government, but in the end i'm coming to the conclusion that both have their merits and demerits but the one that looks at things in positive attitude is what i will support (and hopefully god will as well)

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Wats going on?

it has been a long time since i wrote and i dont even know where to start...many good things have happened and some occassionally small glitches have happened as well. I spent my birthday in vegas, which was fun...can you imagine? On your birthday, being in vegas, surrounded by the lights and looks as if the whole city is one big cake with all those shining candles, eagerly waiting for you to blow them off and make a wish...i was with some family as well and it was a fun day...Did i make any birthday wish? Yeah sort of...it has been a long time that i have been wanting this and i thought it might be good to put it in action this year...well, meditation and yoga! it has been a long time since i even bent my back, so any attempts at yoga might be material for comedy...i remember the last time i tried it was definitely like that...I will try to search some yoga/meditation classes in the next few weeks of holidays and will try to find a place where i can go and practise regularly. Well, wish me luck and keep your fingers crossed :-)...May be, i will come back with a smile and become the typical stereotype that people associate with yoga practitioners...

Books? What have been upto? I have been reading the tale of a divorced lady and her attempts at reconciling her life in italy, indonesia and india...it is called eat,pray and love...the book is kind of interesting and eliminates the usual drama associated with relationships and makes it a very personal, firsthand narration of how people attempt to deal with problems and how they get back to life...Afterall, life has to move on and sometimes you have to forget your miseries and move forward in HOPE!