About Spirituality

Are you Spiritual or Religious? 

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I believe that there is a difference between spirituality and religion. People who are very religious may be quite rigid in their approach to life, and follow religious books and rituals quite strictly. Spirituality on the other hand is not so stringent, it may mean that you follow aspects of many different religious, believe in only some aspects of your own religion, or develop your own views about various religious practices. Of course, the boundary between the two may be blurry. And, we may be a mix of both with either one being prominent to various extents. 

I believe I've become more spiritual than religious in the last few years. Whatever our scriptures tell us, they should be a guideline to handle our daily lives better. I've been reading Bhagwad Gita with my facilitator, Prajakta ji, in a Satsang format. And, I'm enjoying it a lot. Its given me the tools to deal with a very nasty and dark period in my life. Its given me a new direction and meaning to my life. But by no means its given me a badge to feel superior to others. Neither should others treat us differently simply because we think a bit differently. Because your thinking does change. Mostly, they teach you: 

-  to believe in an outside energy (Bhagwan), a part of which resides in you. Thus, you respect and love yourself just as you love others. The only permanent love is that of God, all others are temporary and fake.  

- The other big theme is around how stable you should be (not too happy nor sad) in changing circumstances of your lives, by controlling your mind. You can control your mind by thinking of God and chanting mantras.  

- Another thing is the the difference and delicate balance between attachment and detachment. Let go of Moh (which is from our minds and temporary) and instead love (which is from your heart, its limitless and forever). 

- Its someone else that controls our destiny. Some force in the universe determines what happens, why and how it happens. Its the concept of rebirth till we attain moksha. 

- Karma. Our karma determines what will happen to us in this life what we will be in our next life. So keep yourself trouble free and on path of saint almost.  

These 5 BIG principles may sound easy but their understanding and following is not easy. In the book they are explained with the help of many many examples and imagery and in a way that makes sense. Imagine writing 18 chapters and 700 shlokas just to make you understand what you should be doing with yourself, and dealing with life. 

I do not believe in glorifying any one entity whether its God or Guru Energy on the other hand is believable for me. There's something in the universe that controls our being and our surroundings. There's so little in our own hands and there's so much we don't know. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to be better and do the things we need to do to have a happy and satisfactory life.  I think that is why reading such book help us widen our  thinking and help us think and behave better. 

Being spiritual doesn't mean you're different. You shouldn't be treated differently either. And you shouldn't think you better than the rest. Because this is just one aspect of life where people's opinions are so varied. And everyone is right in their own way. So, if you want to adopt certain aspects of spirituality or even religion that's great, don't force anyone to do what you're doing. Similarly, others shouldn't right off the bat think that people who follow spirituality are out of their mind or are crazy and that something bad must have happened which is why they started being spiritual. That is somewhat true unfortunately, but that doesn't make us crazy for sure. 

 

How to Feel Grounded

I cant believe its been so long I've contributed to this blog when there was a time that I regularly wrote. If that why I'm feeling lost? That I've gotten too far away from doing the things that I USED TO DO and ENJOY? I've repeatedly asked this question myself and after talking at length with my friends about this, one of whom said that I might feel this way because I need to be grounded, I've realised I need to get back to my roots. What does that mean? It simply means don't forget who you are. Its true - I've forgotten who I am and what is it that drives me to a state of rapture. 

Life happens so fast to all of us that its easy to loose the real you, the essence of what makes you, you. After a lot of introspection, I believe that to feel grounded, you have to get back to doing the things you once loved that you haven't had the chance to carry on. For me, I've recognised the following things that I need to absolutely do in order to feel grounded:  

• good interpersonal relationships
• staying true to my roots, city I grew up in. 
• writing (may be this blog)
• reading (not a voracious reader but some of it)
• staying connected to those I love
• art (music, painting, dancing, crafts).
• keeping fit (swimming, gym and yoga)  

There's not a lot I need to stay grounded in peace really. These are things I invested in heavily long time back and need to consciously start investing in again. 

Unless you ground yourself quickly, your mind will wander and get restless. Wherever you are, whatever stage of life you're in, you must have that feeling of safety, and peace (within), and only then you can relax, and find your groove. 

'What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, for all that we love deeply becomes a part of us." -- Helen Keller 

Spring Break - April 2010

We had a wonderful So Cal trip Apr 10-14, 2010! This was our vacation far away from the bay area after a long time. And, boy, we had fun!!

We left on saturday morning - first made a customary stop at San Mateo. Then went on a flight to Santa Ana. The flight was delayed, so obviously it was a hassle, but when we reached Santa Ana, we first saw the Atrium hotel where my brother-in-law had stayed when he was in the U.S for work in 2000. At that time we had driven all the way (8 hrs.!) to meet him, and kept thinking how hard it would be to drive all that distance now with 2 little kids! Phew, so glad we flew - despite the flight delays and S1 having inner ear balance problems , it was still less tiring than driving. The cottage condo we stayed in was very nice. Its proximity to the beach was unbelievable! We all could walk there bare foot, and not worry about our slippers being washed away by the waves. It was nice to hear and see the ocean all the time. But the thing we realised as soon as we got there was that it was cold! The ocean was chilly and it was breezy (and rainy intermittently), so even the swimming pool was pretty cold.

The next day we went to Legoland. It is an amazing place with lots of complicated structures made out of legos: from people and cars to musical instruments and buildings! And it had something for each one of us ranging from a 2 yr old to 40 yr old, which is rare at these theme parks. And the weather was good for this kind of a visit - cloudy and not too cold or hot. It is very hard to visit theme parks in very hot and sunny weather. So this time we could spend 7 hrs straight with all of us in a reasonably good mood at the end of it :). I recommend this park to everyone at least once in a lifetime. That evening we ate pizza which was in a little shopping area nearby our condo complex. Then we ate icecream at cold stone. The pizza was great, but the combination with ice cream gave me a stomachache. I was uncomfortable all night. We went grocery shopping that night, and kids slept in the car at 7 pm!

On Monday morning, we had cereal and toast for breakfast. Then went strawberry picking. I had never seen a strawberry farm before. What a wonderful sight! Dark green leaves with dark red strawberries. It was an interesting experience. It had rained the night before so the field was full of puddles, but we found a nice dry spot where kids could get in and have fun gathering and eating those huge and juicy strawberries. The next thing we did was go to the flower fields of Carlsbad - this was one historic and mesmerising place! They are a few small hills full of long, neat rows of ranunculus flowers. We took a trolley ride to the top of the hill and appreciated how colorful and beautiful the fields were. The flower fields are open from Mar - May. And there are plenty of activities for kids to do - eg: run around in sweet pea maaze, stamp a piece of paper for each landmark we crossed while visiting the fields. S1 worked hard to get each square stamped and earned a gem mining activity - he got to mine stones like early miners did AND got a small bag of gem stones to own. He was very excited. We concluded flower fields trip by a large glass of lemonade from the big lemon shaped stand. Both kids were very happy with that too!

After flower fields, we wanted to eat. So we found a great Indian restaurant, called KC tandoor. The food was pretty good. Then S1 saw a McDonald's across the street and he wanted to play in the play structure. So we got icecream and let kids play there. S2 went all the way up the play structure and got stuck. Oh, I dont understand why she even went up there. The boys of the family graciously brought her down - phew! We then headed back home and S2 took a short nap on the way back.

I really wanted to hang out at the beach. So after coming back, we got sand toys and went bare-foot to the beach. Did I say that the location of our condo was just awesome? Despite the weather being a bit chilly and windy we had a great time at the beach! There is nothing like watching a 2-yr old play in sand (with a jacket with hood and shorts on), and a 5-yr old playing on the sea shore. S1 chased waves and then when they came closer he attacked them with stones and sand. He played this same game for an hour and I really enjoyed watching him do that. It was such a great and memorable sight - him running around freely on the beach, very close to the waves, with wet sand in his hand. Oh, I wish we had the camera to capture that - we are so pathetic that we had forgotten our camera at home and the iphone could only take so many photos.

We came back from the beach and went to the swimming pool which was not that warm, so we were not happy about that. But we all still went in: father-daugther sat on the stairs while mom-son had fun playing piggy back rides. And then came the moment which we enjoyed the most in the whole entire day - a dip in the 90 degrees spa! Wow, that felt perfect after the cool ocean and pool :). Kids did not want to come out! That night we ate khichdi and maggi for dinner. Then had a great board walk and kids slept in the car at 7:30 pm!

On tuesday, we went to see the wild animal park in San Diego - it was only 25 min from our place, but seemed really long as S1 had a little inner ear balance problem :). Oh well, the park was actually pretty good. The safari tour was cool - I had never seen giraffes, rhinos, falcons, zebras etc in the open before. I definitely liked this place better than San Diego zoo. We did not see the entire park because it required a LOT of walking and we were a little tired. And food there was ridiculously expensive, so if we go there again we will bring our own food. After coming back to our apt, we went to the pool and spa again. Enjoyed the spa again, and the pool was again cold. We came back to the room, ate left over restaurant food from the day before, and khichdi and cereal. Kids played for a little more time in the room, and then slept at 9 pm.

We did all the packing the night before, and left the house squeaky clean when we left on Wednesday morning. Then we spent couple of great hours on the board walk. We watched surfers for a long time - the sea was unusually calm and they had to wait to catch big waves to surf. But it was really fun for me and S1 and S2 (because SDS had a work phone call, yikes!). We sat down and watched surfers come by right under us while surfing. We also did fishing and even caught a fish - this was the first time in my life for fishing. Didn't really enjoy it, but kids got to pat the fish before we released it back.

Even though we forgot to take the camera which I really repented, we left So-Cal with really good memories. Definitely worth spending the 4 nights there. In summer it would be even more fun because you could do more activities closer to home! But going at this time allowed us to do a lot more local and seasonal stuff. The day we left was specially nice - very sunny and warm. There were quite a few people in the waves, and I was jealous. We will hopefully be back to oceanside, and to north coast village and create some more happy memories.

Michael Jackson - my personal memories

That thursday afternoon as I was getting ready for our Yosemite trip, I got the shocking, sad sad news on Yahoo main page that 'Michael Jackson is dead'. My heart stopped for a moment as I could just not believe it. I always thought that Michael was immortal and that a man with such greatness could never die.

I grew up listening to MJ's songs. In the small town of Aligarh where I grew up, my brother and I were among the first ones to buy MJ's new albums on audio cassettes, some of which I still possess. Can you believe it? They are very old but still in good condition. His songs kept us awake at night when we were preparing for our exams. In those days we did not get to see any of his older song videos - only audio cassettes. The first song of his that I ever saw was in 1987 from album 'Bad' when I was earning my bachelors degree. And I remember being totally fascinated by some of his dance moves. But there were some of his other dance moves which, at the time, I found kind of 'vulgar' specially the ones in 'the way you make me feel' and I mentioned this to a couple of my college friends who couldn't care less :(. Of course, now I think that those moves were not that bad, really. I also remember my brother and I memorizing the lyrics of all the songs in 'Bad'. His songs gave way to the interest we eventually developed in Western Pop music. And, recently I found one of my co-workers at Google who was an even bigger fan of MJ and he and I would regularly plug into 'Dont stop till you get enough..', 'Billy Jean', and 'Black and White' while working! I am not kidding. We copied his CD on our computer for easy listening and praised MJ every now and then.

Despite all his craziness and all the bad name he got (none of which I ever believed), he was such a great great man! And the greatest dancer on earth! He wrote and composed beautiful melodious music (except for, may be, 'they dont really care about us' lyrics :) and sang beautifully. He looked graceful in all his interviews and always spoke in his typical yet peculiar soft voice, though his answers were sometimes like that of a person in total denial. Specially the part of the interviews where he was asked (by different interviewers) if he has had surgeries. His answer would be either 'No, I have not had any surgery, this is a skin disease I have' or 'I have had only one surgery that of my nose' and then when asked 'are you sure just one?', then he said 'may be two'. mmm. Makes me sad thinking what he must be going through that he did not even know what was happening to him. I dont know what really happened that changed him so much. But I was in tears when I watched the program 'The Man behind the music' on 20/20. I still cry when I listen to his childhood song 'I'll be there'. I dont care what people say about him I will always always love his music. Some of my favorites are 'Will you be there (free willy)', 'dont stop till you get enough', 'remember the time' and 'world song'....great songs, great videos.

I was watching this interview of Randy Phillips on CNN, the producer of MJ's last tour 'This is it', and he said this incredible thing that I would like to add here: 'did you have any concerns that, given the history, he (MJ) would back out of this concert?' and Randy says 'the answer is yes, it would be untruthful of me to say I wasn't....but you know what, very few times in your life you have a chance to touch greatness, to me it was worth taking that risk. If you were to ask me if I would do this all over again, and the answer is hell yes.' Wow, that says it all.

See full interview here:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/showbiz/2009/07/03/ac.aeg.intv.cnn

We missed Michael for 12.5 years. We will miss him even more now.

The Problem of Girl Child (in India)

coming soon. I will write about this later, but first, MJ it is.

Jaipur bomb blasts

I was going to write about Jaipur bomb blasts but by the time I got to it there were two more serial blasts, one in B'lore and another in Ahmedabad. Every time the blasts occur I feel very sad. It is the same pattern in every blast.
- Serial blasts rock the city: Mumbai, Varanasi, Malegaon, Samjhauta express, Hyderabad, Jaipur, B'lore, Ahmedabad.
- Blasts occur in crowded areas and are timed perfectly
- Ministers of the state, or foreign countries condemn attacks
- JeM or Indian Mujahideen (its a new group of terrorists btw) claim or dont claim responsibility but their hand is suspected in every blast
- High alert is announced in other big cities
- Simi/ISI are blamed for supporting terrorists
- Terrorists send warning/threatning emails/letters to police stations or city administrators
- Some people are arrested (but they are probably released because of lack of evidence)
- Compensation is announced to the relatives of innocent people who lost their lives
- Repeat cycle

Familiar, isnt it? The thing I hate to see after all this is that certain politicians in their interview say, oh this has become a part of our lives, oh this is a global problem. They dont have the guts to face this threat and do something about it. Seriously, I am really scared that I have been in some of these places where the blasts have occured: bombay local trains, lumbini park hyd, jaipur. And I could be among the ones that are directly affected by these blasts.

The root cause of this problem is way to complex for me to understand. The history and politics that go behind this growing menace is mind boggling. But what makes a terrorist a terrorist? Of course, it has a lot to do with their circumstances and upbring. But I really believe that irresponsible parenting is one of the factors. I sometimes visualise a terrorist as a 6 month old infant or an innocent 3 yr old, and boy, what did they know? How did they turn out to be that way? Parents should take some of the responsiblities of how their kids turn out to be (half of it is the genes though and environment shapes us up too, of course).

Well educated parents raise well read, patient and thought-oriented kids. So, it is very important that people around the world go out and gather knowledge about so many wonderful things in this world rather than just their religion.

I heard excerpts from the speech of our prime minister on the eve of Independence day. I thought it was a great speech. He mentioned that education and employment are the prime focus. He also said that he does not want to make promises, he wants to deliver. I wish he addressed the nation more often - twice a year! In my eyes, he earned my highest respect. I think he knows the priorities of our country very well. With Sonia by his side, it seems like the country has two prime ministers who get along really well. That is actually a good thing. I hope that along with the prime minister, most country men want the same thing, a strong, prosperous and healthy India. Let each one of us work towards that, and then I hope that the terrorism problem will go away. Forever.

Some of my Fav Songs/Videos

So, after a long break I am back to my blog. I did not find any interesting news to write about, so I compiled a list. A growing list of songs/videos that I like a lot and watch often. They are all on youtube, of course, and quality of some videos is pretty bad and volume always needs to be adjusted. But, oh well, I enjoy them!

1. Bathiya and Santhush (O Saathi) - This is a good hindi song from Sri Lankan singers. And watch the cricketers dance :)
2. Iraj, Ranadu (Ahankara nagare) - This was a hit when we were in Hyd. Its in Sinhalese. Look at the little girl's dance - its hard to move like that!
3. Iraj, Sangeeth (Ran ran ran) - Another Sinhalese song - yesdi's favorite
4. Jazzy B (Naag Sambla) - Jazzy B has a great voice. Check out the bhangra steps in the back.
5. Jazzy B (jinne mera dil luteya) - Jazzy B in his amazing voice with Apache Indian
6. Movie Karam (Tinka tinka) - Nicely done
7. Mauli Dave (Mayya Mayya) - Mauli became a star after this performance in sa re ga ma pa.
8. Dido - I really like all these songs by dido. Even Shonu likes em.
- White Flag
- Thank You
- Here With Me
- Dont Leave Home
9. Baha men (Who let the dogs out) - I like this one partly because its Shonu's favorite!
10. Len (Steal my sunshine) - A one hit wonder from a bro-sis team. It has special lyrics.
11. Kailash Kher (Bam Lahiri) - This is a great but weird video of this sufi song by Kailash.
12. Lighthouse Family (High) - I still cry every time I watch/listen to this song.
13. Ali Zafar (Sajania) - Ali Zafar is a Pak singer. Entertaining video.
14. Adnan Sami (Tera chehra) - Of all Adnan's songs, I like this one the best.
15. Prajakta (Mogara Phulala) - This is a classic Marathi song. I just love the original song sung by Lata di.
16. PCD (Buttons) - Caution! hot hot. This is a wonderful car song.
17. Nelly Furtado (Say it right) - Wow, what a song.
18. Justin Timberlake (Be my love) - Justin T has been in Time's 100 most influential people. Now I know why...
19. Janet Jackson (Runaway) - This is such a jem by Janet. I don't know why she acts total crazy at times.
20. Everything by Michael Jackson, of course! Don't you miss him? But this Bhangra Michael Jackson will crack you up :).