Breathe... Deeply...

, originally uploaded by naturewalker.

We all know how to breathe. Instinct and basic life force.

Because we all KNOW how to breathe and with very little effort can realise the change in breathing pattern in various circumstances.

When we are at peace...
When we are happy... or sad...
When we are agitated...

We only need to consciously modify our breath and breathing pattern and we can feel the emotions of that breathing pattern. In other words- by changing the pattern of breathing consciously, we can change the way we feel at any given moment.

Similarly... going back to a memory of a moment of utter bliss is not difficult. These memories make us look at our own life with a strange sense of peace and even longing when things are not going too well. What we fail to realise and recognise is the fact that we are totally connected with our environment at such times. And THAT feeling is duplicatable. Thinking back to such times, if we were to observe our wn body-

how we hold our head...
how we breathe...
how we move our arms and legs...
how we even look at the world...

... If we were to observe carefully each of these AT the moment that 'takes our breath away!' , we will be able to do ALL this - holding our head, breathing, moving, looking... at will.

What we were out of focus was the process and what we witnessed was the result. Now we DESIRE the result- we can start the process consciously and get the same breathtaking result! Starting from what was earlier the result, we can work our way back to the basis, the cause, the first principle.

It was the bliss that made us look and breathe and feel different. Now we can look and breathe and feel to kick start the process of experiencing the bliss. To the brain these are simply pieces of information- that are associated together. The experience of one leads naturally to another- order is irrelevant. It is the association that is the neural reality.

The brain and the mind, in their intricacy and their simplicity do NOT think in terms of a cause and effect. Rather things that exist together are bound to occur together.

Thus, whatever is easy to do, re-do, and re-re-do, can become a trigger for what has now become elusive.

So... if I simply THINK that I am in THE STATE- the State where I am healthy, full of energy, and HAPPY, teh mind will hunt for associations. The reasons are simply a construct of our intellect. Theyarenot the brain's natural ladder to climb. They are not the way the mind works!

Even consciousness cannot define the reality as it exists- merely as it is experienced. Though perception is reality for the individual, it is but a small figment of the whole firmament of the Universe.

Though perception is reality that defines our experience, we do not have to percieve for the reality to be.
What we experience is but a small part of the reality that simply IS.

All meditative exercises, in all spiritual and even religious traditions do nothing more than expand this circle of perception.

I said- EVEN religions- because these days being religious is confused with being spiritual. And, being spiritual is confused with a fuzzy undefinable concept of rising above reality.

In my opinion that could not be farther from the Truth. The small child does not know the science and cosmology of the sun, but enjoys the warmth of teh sun on a cold winter morning. The sun is just as real with, or without the knowledge of the celestial body itself.

We make the mistake of assuming that our perceived reality is THE reality.

And we always assume that if we go just a little further- we will be 'there'. Whereever that there is!

Scientists realise that we have only just begun to skim the surface of the Universe of Knowledge. And that fills them with a sense of wonder, awe and fascination of how the Universe is JUST right for us and for life to exist in the shape and form that it does.

Just right for us to be what and who we are!

As for the rest of us- we adopt one of the various attitudes to the world around us. Einstein said there are only two ways in which to live- one where everything is a miracle, and the other where nothing is!

The casual and unthinking, thoughtless existence that most of mankind is living makes the second attitude the more common one.

How do we forget that we are part of a fascinating Universe and that each little thing we feel and do is a miracle!?

We are all made of trillions of tiny particles we call cells. Each of these is capable and equipped to live and survive independently. Yet- the cluster that we call a person has something nebulous and intangible that none of the cells individually possess- consciousness.

The cluster has the capacity to see, to hear, to smell and to taste. And in case of humans, even the ability to THINK.

Each of these has been explained in terms of chemistry and chemical reactions by biologists- but we still do not know what goes away leaving all those cells intact - yet unable to line in that instant life is snuffed out by the reality of what we call death.

We have elaborately worked out the structure of what we call the brain and tried to explore what areas light up when we see and hear and feel etc. Yet... we have very little 'knowledge' of what is mind and what in fact is thought!

We must only make a beginning. We are likely to find connections and be able to recharge ourselves without ever having to compete with anyone else or anything else destructively.

If we have our cup full, as the Zen master says, and we refuse to empty is, our tea WILL run cold.

We will feel the lack of energy and will want to get it from somewhere. The Energy of the Universe is finite. So... taking it from others around us is a competition that makes one less in teh process of making one more. What we forget in this 'competition' is that the Universe has enough for everything that inhabits it.

We must open ourselves to the experience.

Meditation allows us to have that experience of getting out of a restricted and restrictive and limited circle of competing with fellow beings. It allows us to reconnect with the Source, with the Flow of free energy of the Universe.

The first thing to understand or even simply accept is that we do not know all that there is.

That does not alter the fact that IT IS.
And being open allows us to get a tiny glimpse and a shimmering feeling that 'something' has changed- increased, enhanced, become a little more.

Identifying that 'something' can come later. Or it may not come at all.

It would need a seeker.
It would need an attitude.
It would also need a sense of wonder and curiosity and total confidence that to be more we need not make anyone else less.
We could each start at whatever point we are. And we must keep moving- gently, surely. Because the Flow of the Universe and of the Energy is inevitable and WILL affect us. Even if we do not know it, or do not accept it.

It will have to work harder to cross the walls we erect, but it will affect us.
It will have to break the barriers we build, but it will affect us.
We can and will feel it working much faster by simply recognising that such an experience is possible.

The Masters say that whatever you believe in will be seen and will happen. For any belief to be part of your 'mind' it must have a corresponding energy in the environment- both internal and external.

For us to believe in the Divine, we have to base it on some perception. For us to live as an athiest, we base 'that' feeling on something we perceive.

Anyone who lives and believes anything- has to base it on something! He has to indirectly believe that something is making it all possible.

Few of us, however, even begin to seek!

And it can start now... with this breath- in this moment.

A morning in Paradise

, originally uploaded by naturewalker.

The Lodhi Garden is described as an Urban Oasis... And it is.

It is breathtakingly beautiful and paeceful despite the many people who throng to the lawns on most mornings.

And there are all kinds of people...
Young people who think they are never going to grow old and the old ones who know they will never grow young.

The old are more aware of the invincibility of Time and the young are more confident about their own. Neither view is conscious. Strangely the spectator who sees the two extremes walking the trails of the urban oasis realises the momentary nature of all human existence. And the futility of it all.

There was the old couple ambling along. They were bent over at their shoulders, both f them. They held on to each other's hands as if both could prop up the other but not hold up their own. They were smartly dressed for the early hour of the morning. The lady was dressed just as a lady would be- a muted steel grey dress with white shoes. The gentleman was exactly the picture you would see in a book- dressed in grey trousers and white shirt. They were totally engrossed in each other and were having an animated discussion about some family matter... oblivious to all who crossed their path or walked along at their own pace.

The two had all the time in the world- strangely- human beings begin to have all the time in the world when they have so little left! And they were not in a hurry. They were more in the moment than anyone else in their surrounding.

The snowy white hair were forming a divine halo around their heads and the peace on their faces was in defiance to the lack of it in the world around them. So easy it is to find whatever we are seeking if we have just one more sould we can share it whole-heartedly with!

And there was the other who had less aura and more tiredness in their faces, in their clothes as well as their walk. They were silent. But they were together. Their eyes seemed to be glazed with the myriad scenes they had seen and lived in the past. They were now resigned to life a of waiting. With so little time left to grace this world- it seemed like an eternal wait for something more meaningful in the hereafter.

Paradoxically, we have no time in our youth because we are so busy running that we cannot make out that we rae running to catch our own tail. And yet- youth is the time when we rae most prepared to face life- we have time ahead to reap the crop we sow, an we have, hopefully sown a good crop.

And then, we slow down some. We find that the time no longer runs so fast that we cannot catch it. We have little left in the treasury, but it moves ever so slowly.

The bottomline however, is not that the time moves fast or slow... it is that we move so fast or so slow that the Time mirrors our movement. Some call it Relativity... but is not that, too. Time is just another co-ordinate in space/time. It is we who move through time, not time that moves.

We are but a figment in the firmament of the Universe and we are simply momentary bubbles that will burst- sometimes in a moment and sometimes in a littlelonger than a moment.... But it the moment that is real and experienced by Man... a moment that forms a part of his Eternity... and the History of teh Universe.

Becoming watchful of these moments slows doen the Time for all of us. We suddenly find we can fill much more of a living, learning and loving in the same time.

We realise- by slowing ourselves down that it is possible to slow down our experience of Time. And our individual reality, too.

No time for regrets.
No time for pain.
No time for anguish.

And... Time... for everything- still.