Night walks

This past week, our power cuts have been scheduled from 7.00 to 7.30 pm. Since our generator will not support the computer, I have been walking outside at that time during the last couple of days, as it hasn't been raining.
AT 7 pm it is really dark here (as it is the second half of the year). But I walk without a torch. There are a couple of porch lights and that's all. But I do love the dark. Besides since I have 2 doggie companions, I don't worry about snakes. Snakes are supposed to stay away with vibrations. So, since the younger dog (not mine, but from next door)being young and peppy, literally pounds the road, I bet the snakes keep far away.
Last night was pretty. The sky was very cloudy and there was far away lightning. At a particular spot on my walk, in a clump of trees, I saw these fairy lights blinking--fireflies. An owl hooted somewhere in the undergrowth. Beautiful! Unfortunately, my nose wasn't functioning too well. So can't tell you the scents.
Funny thing is I searched other areas for the fireflies, but I couldn't see them. It was probably because that was that was the only place-near tarmacked road--that was really dark.

Am sitting at my computer listening to Ella Fitzgerald with a background of the monsoon frog chorus. My computer screen is a magnet (in this otherwise dark room) for tiny insects, which manage to come in, in spite of the mosquito netting. Wish I had a fancy camera that could take pictures at night. Well, we have our half-hour power cut in 5 minutes. So before that here are a couple of pictures taken around here (and in school).

I was reading the latest Outlook magazine and came across this article on our women ambassadors--26 of them now apparently. The article was all about the yeoman service these women are doing and.....I started tearing up. I felt so proud of my fellow countrywomen and what they're achieving and the fact that all this is so much more possible now, and the tears just kept rolling down my face. I was looking at myself and thinking 'For heaven;s sake, why cry!' but I couldn't help myself.

"Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake."
(Rabindranath Tagore)

This poem is in the new song book at school and when I was re-reading this much loved poem, it made all the more heart-rending, all that has happened in India in the past few days--beginning from the 'Tamasha' in Parliament to the sadness of the bomb blasts. Tagore was against the idea of even Nationalism, believing truly in a world without borders. But oh oh, what our world has become, where intolerance for others who are different in thought (which comprises religion, politics, point of view) or speak a different language or look different, has increased.
But I do see a new hope dawning. Somehow, with the whole problem with climate change and how it is really affecting ALL of us, maybe the people of the world will be forced to accept that we are all one and truly need each other for our individual survival.

An allegorical Tale

The Great Spirit was busy this morning.  It was the time of the filling of the bottles.Rows of bottles lay on the grass at the stream's side ready to be filled with the cool, sweet waters from the Mighty River's source.  The bottles were of many shapes and sizes and in myriad hues.  Some of the bottles were of the finest crystal, while others were just plain glass.  Some once held perfume and still held a slight remembrance of them.  Once the bottles were all filled (and lightly stoppered), the Great Spirit gently lowered them into the stream, to float downriver towards the Great Sea.
The bottles all bobbed and floated downstream.  The crystal bottles sparkled and shone in the sunlight; the coloured bottles diffused colour into the surrounding water, the bottles that once held sweet perfumes emanated a slight scent.  Some of the bottles thought they were wonderful, some felt thy were plain and ugly and the Great Spirit saw this and smiled because they had all been filled from the same sweet water source.
As they all rushed along on their journey, some of the bottles smashed against rocks early into the journey, the water inside joining with that of the river.   Some of the bottles got pulled down by weeds and plant roots; some got stuck on mud shoals, of which some got nudges from passing frogs and fishes or even other bottles and so managed to get back into the stream.  Some went on far ahead, carried along by currents and some spun round and round, caught in whirlpools.  All gave up the water inside, back into the Mighty River.
Of the many bottles that had started the journey together up in the hills, at the River's source, only some made it to the Great Sea, their sweet water mingling with the salt of the Sea.  Only a very few realised that in reality they were all the same, because they had all been filled from the same source and made the same essential journey, with the essential purpose of giving back to the Great River the water they carried in them.  Whatever the outer shape and colour, whether long or short the journey, whether the giving back to the River was sudden and catastrophic or gradually ebbing out, they were all of the same essence and the purpose of the journey was the same, to carry the sweet water, keeping it sweet as long as possible, and then giving it back to the River.

May we all realise our purpose before the end of our journeys.

My last post was about getting rid of one's ego. This is something I have been trying to do as part of my personal growth. When I read about Mahatma Gandhi's attempt to do that and some little bit of Buddhist philosophy, it has been a goal of mine. I feel that when one's ego is no longer important, one is truly able to see the Godliness in all human beings and in all creation.

Why do I need to feel appreciated?
Why do I feel the need to be valued?
Why do I feel the need to be validated?
Why do I feel the need to be thought of highly?
It is my ego, my ego that doesn't let go.


May I learn the lesson of egolessness in this life.