Thoughts on Aroha

At 6.45am while brushing teeth, I think about ‘Love’. Why do we love the people we love? Where does love come from? What is it in other people that we love? Here, I’m thinking of love that tends towards a higher form of love, love that does not possess, that does not have to be returned, basically love that is much more than romantic love. I feel that love manifests in our hearts out of awareness. Love is always within us, around us and in everything in this world. When we are truly aware of this, we see the source of it in other people. Now to have fulfilling relationships of any sort, these other people will need to be also aware this awareness to recognise love and share it with you. So, without awareness love cannot be recognised (and therefore shared) and it may feel as though love does not exist....although it exists in its purest form in everything you can think of. Then, why is it that we do not strive towards a higher awareness? Wouldn’t this satisfy the deepest yearnings of our hearts?

Stillness in Places

I’m forty five minutes early for the yoga class. Naturally there is no one around. Not even the yoga teacher.  It is cold and quiet here. The kind old man who opened the ashram door for me, left into the night bidding me good night. He chatted with me while tying his shoe laces. The typical questions, ‘where am I from?’ then, ‘whether I’m Sinhalese?’ It turned out that he had visited Sri Lanka, back when it was still referred to as ‘Ceylon’. Beautiful place it was he said.  I smiled and nodded. We parted.

I had forgotten to bring any reading material. But there are plenty of books here. There is a shelf full of books on spirituality, which I browse at random. My eyes land on ‘Siddhartha’ by Herman Hesse. Here is a book I’ve been meaning to find for a while. It is a tiny book with very little pages, I notice.  For some reason, I’m not in the mood to read more than a page. The words flow and sound poetic, but they flow past me. I am restless. I put it aside and decide to sift through my thoughts instead.

This restless-ness is like the noisy street outside, with its incessant noises from by passing vehicles. But just like the pauses in between vehicles, I feel the stillness inside of me. I listen for footsteps. Like the thoughts that swirl in my head, they are fleeting; making me strain to hear, to understand.

There is something about this Silence. It is different to the stillness in other places. You know, like how tap water tastes different in different countries? The Stillness here is rich and beautiful. It is calm and is seeping into my insides. This stillness makes me feel like I’m part of it.

For no apparent reason

I feel happy........

Little things

It is Sunday early morning and the house is still sleeping. I’m here sitting in my small study trying to get on with the paper that is due soon. The day is slowly breaking as Denzel comes to join me and squeezes next to me in the oversized chair. It’s his favorite and I’m sitting on it, but he lets me anyway. These are my precious moments; those that make me feel content and quietly happy.  Although it is difficult to deal with work spilling in to Sundays, it feels comforting when your more than averaged sized pet decides to snooze on your arm (never mind his 6kgs of furry weight), happily purring away while sitting on your lap. Life is good sometimes, even when it is not that great.

Those who care

Lately too many things have been going wrong. The biggest frustration comes from the constant failed attempts to carry out a successful experiment. But things are far from successful and I’m so tempted to quit, to give up, to walk away. But I can’t help but smile when there are people who step up to help in whatever way they can. It makes this struggle worth it. Some people make all the difference and I’m grateful to have them good people in my life. Sometimes, a small helping gesture is all we need to feel alive and see that glimpse of hope again. Perhaps, we are not as alone as we think we are. There are those who care...isn’t that a wonderful thing?

Memories of San Diego

So I made it to my first ever international conference to present my first ever conference paper. It was kind of a big deal at the time and I didn’t know what to expect at a conference. The biggest hurdle was overcoming nervousness before delivering my talk. The only thing that alleviated my nervousness was contemplating the situation in comparison to jumping off the sky tower (which I did last September). That put things in perspective. I also discovered that I was more willing to jump off a great height for fun (with a harness of course) than appear un-intelligent in front of a mass audience of experts. Then I quickly went on to tell myself that what other people think really does not matter. It was a very interesting dialogue I had with myself on that fateful Tuesday at 3.25pm. Soon after getting on to that podium, 2 minutes or so into the talk, all traces of nervousness disappeared. I think it kind of helped that I was standing on a raised platform looking down on people who were seated. I also realised that ‘fear’ is just a mind made thing and that people are all generally nice and don’t bite. They are there to listen and gather information and not to judge and condemn. Afterward, my theory of people being generally nice was proven correct and I was happy. The following few days felt to me like a weird sort of holiday in which I had to attend lectures and talk to people.

 I was so glad for the presence of my dear colleague-slash-friend, SB who was my lovely companion through that week. The two of us traversed the manicured paths of the San Diego city and shared a lot during that one week.  We found an amazing and beautiful village by the sea called ‘sea port village’. It was a sort of place that I always would love to have access to and it was a place filled with sunshine, brightly coloured shops with various curiosities, kites, Ben and Jerry’s ice creams and lots of Mexican food. There was even an open outdoor food court in the midst of trees and sheltered benches that we had ‘our’ spot closer to where the music played.  So we ate and talked, connected and bonded (as women usually do), while the sea breeze played with our hair and the sun light warmed our faces. In that place, I was happiest.

It was in the city that we found ourselves captured by the shopping malls with inevitably thousand times more variety of things to buy than back home. It was in ‘Nordstrom’ that I discovered what a fascinating thing ‘an eye brow highlighter’ was and how tempting all that variety of cosmetic brands with reasonable prices were. It didn’t help that I had a list of shopping to do for a friend back home, which forced me to sort through various makeup brands. The way we were attracted like two magnets to those stores, I started fearing for my credit card and resolved to be not swayed by the allure of such a product range. Mind you, I am a very conservative person and generally buy only what I need and hardly ever resort to impulse buying. But America managed to seduce me and I spent one whole night thinking about a ‘blusher’ which I tried to convince myself that I did not need. But morning came and I was still talking about ‘the blusher’ after which, SB kindly dragged me back to the store and made me buy it. Such were the good time we had in San Diego.

Another highlight was the scores of amazing people we met and talked with. Generally, everyone we met was friendly and interesting. This included the yellow cab drivers who regularly drove us to the house we rented on State Street. I was amazed by the colourful personalities that we came to cross paths with from various backgrounds. One cab driver was memorably funny. When one night, PL, SB and I got into a cab and asked to be driven to our address, the skinny African looking cab driver agreed and started with some small talk. It went on along the lines of:

Cab driver: Where are you guys from?

SB: We are originally from Germany, Sri Lanka and Canada but we live in New Zealand (this was our standard long answer, the short answer was that we were from New Zealand).

SB: So where are you from?

Cab driver: I’m different, I’m from my mother.

We all broke into laughter at his completely unexpected answer. Then he invited us to guess where he was from, and PL suggested that he was from Africa. Then he prompted further saying that he was from east Africa. Then PL guessed that he might be from Somalia. To that he answered with a serious face: 

“Yes, I’m from Somalia and I’m a pirate!”

At that moment, I decided that this was the funniest cab driver I had ever met.

My first impression of America (I mean Sandiego, but you know) was of awe and distant wonder looking at its beauty with the eyes of a Stanger who did not belong. One of the first things I had written down in my little red book that I carry around was:

“America feels different. It looks like a land of luxury and a lot of man-made beauty. It looks tempting and I wonder if I could ever belong here.”

Leaving that place, I must say I felt somewhat different. I suppose I could live there, except everything is so big and it is easy to get lost in that ‘largeness’ and there is far too much temptation and consumerism that I don’t quite see myself being able to belong. But certainly, it is a lovely city with plenty of Sun, Sea and a whole lot more. And I already know that given the chance, I would once again visit that village by the sea.

Life..

To me feels like a series of days that you fall apart, followed by a serious of days that you slowly learn to pick up the pieces and get used to the aches and pains, until one day you suddenly feel whole again. Then no sooner than you get used to this ‘wholeness’ which lasts a mere a day or two, you find yourself shattered all over again.