Travels

There are times when we feel like we're making the same mistakes again....except we aren't. Times when we feel like inspite of our decisions being right, they feel wrong intuitively and the things we most want to get way from are the things that we also crave the most.

Life itself seems like a journey where even though we may have learnt much, we feel still like there is much much more to learn. We start at the beginning and no matter how hard we try, we just come back to the beginning realizing that life is too magnificent, too vast and infinite for us to grasp with our little hands.

Like the Red Queen's race in Alice in Wonderland, "...it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run atleast twice as fast as that!" :-)

This poem is a sense of my travels so far:

Travels

Having freed myself
Why do I now desire
Most deeply to be bound?

Having scaled the peak
Why do I now crave
To come back down?

Or perhaps I have fallen
Instead
Not risen, not freed
Still am I tempted
And no longer sure
Of what I desire

Have I woken or
Am I just dreaming yet
Another dream?
Searching searching
I thought I had found
‘Twas an obsession
And in it I am now ground.
Maybe in circles I have
Been walking
Thinking I’m going
But only returning

A wayfarer for lifetimes
It seems I have been
At each birth, only to come back
to the beginning

The empty pull inside me
Holds no bounds.
So I start over and over
On a path where
Beginning is End
and the End is a Beginning.

--Megha (09/13/2010)

End of Life

A grave little poem to go with the grim September weather of Seattle. I really don't know where this came from, but somewhere inside, this is what it feels like. As usual I write from my experiences....but I don't know what experience would cause me to feel like this. Enjoy anyway! :-)

--Love,

Megha

End of Life

Looking ahead,
At Life in front of me,
A vast ocean I see.
Quiet, Serene, Deep and still Blue
Solemnly I sit at it’s banks,
Bathing in the racing darkness.
Waiting for a promised Ferry

Eloquent in it’s silence
It beckons me to begin
Without Ferryman or Light or
Even the Wind for my sails

My feet hesitate and
My steps are unsure.
For I know that when,
The black waters embrace
This skin, surely
I am to drown in it’s passion

There is no other shore to this Sea
There is nowhere to arrive
But a journey must be begun

The darkness is complete,
The waves hasten to
Tug at my shores
But I push them away for
Another day

The Moon rises and I wish
Upon all the stars
That my Ferryman may soon come
So my travels may end

---Megha (08/31/2010)

Learning to be Mad

In September of 2009, I went to McMinnville, TN along with 274 other people from all over the world to participate in an event that would potentially allow us to have experiences that are not so much in the physical realm. I arrived at the Isha Institute of Inner Sciences (iiis) along with 3 other participants a few minutes after 6pm (and late) on a Thursday evening. The days that followed were typical of any time spent with Isha meditators...full of surprises. Which is one of the reasons why I cannot speak of all the activities we did. :-(

There were about as many volunteers as there were participants. This place was buzzing with 600 odd people half of whom (the volunteers) were trying to make things happen in the most perfect way for us. It rained cats and dogs most of the time but that didn't deter them from bringing us food or the awesome hot teas that they are so good at making. As usual everything was so well coordinated that 3 days went by very quickly. I slept in a place consecrated by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev known as Mahima hall at night. It's a huge hall with a red dome with pillars only around the periphery and none in the middle. Even though I probably slept only about 5 hours each night, waking at 4:30 each morning I always felt well rested. There's something special about that place that every time I go there I don't need much sleep to wake up fresh as a dew!

For 3 days, we did things that would have made us look so crazy to the outside world. For 3 days we looked within ourselves and found ourselves not just inside but outside; in every person, stone and leaf. Even in the wind and clouds and the wonderful rain. My tears didn't stop flowing for 3 day...I wasn't sad, just overwhelmed by what I was experiencing. I felt so foolish for being the way I was and the way I had lived. I believed that looking inside means cutting off everything that outside provides because these outside forces are distractions. In the process I had really stopped living. As my tears washed off these imaginations and prejudices I had, something inside of me grew bigger and bigger to encompass everything that ever existed and allowed me to melt away completely. Unfortunately these experiences did not last long. This was just the jump that Sadhguru was providing so we could (as he puts it) see what lies on the other side of the wall.

I don't know what other people experienced and I'm sure all of us experience different things or even the same thing differently but all of us came out on that Monday with a fresh set of eyes and a sense of how one can live joyfully, without effort if we just remember the experiences we had and how much they meant to us. The programme is called Bhava Spandana... which literally translated means a reverberation of senses/emotions and it definitely made my resolve to continue on the path I'm on much stronger. Here's a poem about that experience

How Foolish

The night is warm

And the skies are clear.

But the streets are rife

With winds of change.

The rain that is to come

Will swallow us soon!

Completely drenched we will be

Like babies or madmen

Rocking or dancing or screaming in

Ecstasy or anticipation.

Ready to put our bodies down and watch

The Final Procession

As wood turns to ash, watch

Ourselves disappear and melt into

The sky, the sun, the rivers, the stone

Into somebody else and into nobody

Foolishly how long have I been lost

And how long before I'm found and gone again?

Oh! how much longer before it rains

And lightening strikes this slumbering seed inside?

Pulling life from the I in me until

I am not and never again will be.

--Megha (2/28/2010)