Tidal Wave

Photo by Manish Doshi

The deep blue
Ocean
Clear waves
Peaceful purity
I watch
I feel
From the threshold
Careful that
I Don’t get wet
So I can Turn back
walk in home
Engage with drama

I glance back at the blue
It calls me back
“Watch” it whispers
Enormous tidal wave
It drenches me
Sweeps me off my feet
I playfully give in
Then come back to my threshold again
The insistent blue wave
Now peaks higher than the roof
Breaks through the doors and windows
Floods in through me and everything
From the back of the house, out through the front
Cleansing everything on the way
Within me and the house
I am amazed at, how clean and peaceful it feels
Despite such powerful waves breaking in

And I am reminded ‘they’ will return soon
The ones that I am not done playing with yet
And their games have different rules
So I close the windows and the doors
The wave, like the romantic lunatic lover whispers
“I won’t give up – now that you are wet, you can’t keep me out”
I smile one way and annoyed in another
Proceed to hold the door shut tight with all my strength
The wave still pours in, flows through me, and the house
This time it is careful, once inside the house, not to flow higher than my ankle
Flows out the front silently, without the uproar unlike before
‘They’ arrive and I start explaining and convincing
How I tried my best, with all my strength
To hold the door, so no water comes in
I just couldn’t do better than this

I was amazed again
How they simply said “Oh the floor is wet”
Fetched the mop and started mopping the floors
I watched them from the corner
All wet and floored at myself
Wondering if they would ever want to know
About that amazing blue ocean
That visited this house
Did they even notice
That
I am
All
Wet!

Perhaps
I will just
Allow myself
To
Hang dry
As I help Them
Mop and dry
The floors
Of the house.

I woke up recently with a sense as if I had had a profound experience, and slowly realized and recollected this vivid dream. I decided to write it down and this poem is how it got described. It gave me abundant clarity in my juggle and confusion in navigating my relations while allowing/resisting the waves of transformation that keep washing over me. I am in deep gratitude for the gift of healing and awakening afforded to me in this lifetime. All relations and interactions serve a purpose in this evolution towards embodying my authentic being. Emotions of guilt and grief tend to interfere when we first become aware of how we have been unknowingly contributing to false constructs and agreements of relations. Guilt for not keeping up with our end of the agreement any longer and grief for losing some comfortable ways of being, not being acknowledged for who we truly are. It is my personal responsibility to honor the truth of what the tidal wave brings me and continue to walk with that truth. This acceptance helps me smile and continue to engage with all my Love and Gratitude.

Did you relate to the poem in some way …similar or different? I would be honored to know.

Awakening

Sunrise photo by Manish Doshi

Yes Dreams Come True
The Waking Ones often Do

Fears too Come True
The Sleeping Ones often Do

Each can be stifling to the other
Awakening within, the creator

It is so interesting to look at our life and reflect on how it is a sum total of our dreams and our fears come true. Often when we stumble into suffering that diverts us from going towards our dreams, we are actually living our unconscious fears. Our waking dreams are our desires and yearnings that give us hope, direction, trust to find our way back again to where we are actually living parts of what we always dreamed of.

I chose not to make the C capital in the word ‘creator’ above because in the tender moments when we are transitioning from fear to faith, it is hard to feel the power of the Creator, and yet we are getting in touch with our creator self within to not succumb, but to dream even more boldly.

Awakening is a short poem published on June 20. 2018. The words felt very relevant to me to repeat and put them in the form of image.

The Journey

Photo by Manish Doshi

“The journey itself doesn’t see our earthly age. It is a joy to arrive when we arrive and a delight to meet your own tribe on the same path.”

This blog platform has been a significant way of meeting and interacting with utmost amazing beautiful people who have created an indelible impact on my life journey from one day to another. They are generous hearts and souls delivering divine messages and reminders as if guide posts on the path, through their work and exchange of comment conversations, often year after year. I hope to find the ability and inspiration to share about each one who has been a contribution to me. You know who you are. An humble bow of gratitude to you.

Today I want to share about one such beautiful blogger friend, Tamara Kulish.

The quote in the above image came as a part of our conversation on one of her blog post “Remind yourself that you cannot fail at being yourself” This post made me thoughtful and I responded with saying:

“Do what you want and what you enjoy – this seemed like the most revolutionary advice I gave myself at one time I remember. The sense of self-worth when not independent of others’ expectations, we lose our sense of Being and keep choosing to do things to satisfy some external standards. Your post is one perfect statement after another.”

Dear Tamara responded to the above by saying:

“We have both learned the value of doing this in our lives, you earlier in life than I did, but it’s wonderful when anyone does, whether earlier or later! There’s really no better time than now, for anyone contemplating this in their own life! It’s a truly liberating mind set!”

My heart all joyful with resonance and as if with a nod to her, I responded :

“The journey itself doesn’t see our earthly age. It is a joy to arrive when we arrive and a delight to meet your own tribe on the same path.”

Tamara then generously shone her bright light on this statement of mine and made it into a quote in this post: Your soul is the place within you that is timeless, ageless, and eternal She gifted my words back to me, to take this beautiful and powerful form, as you see in the quote image at the top. I hope you enjoyed and found value in our interaction that I chose to share, in similar fashion of her post.

Please visit Tamara Kulish to know of her expansive work of books and journals published in the area of self-discovery, personal development, finding happiness and fulfillment. Her blog posts are a treasure, each one, with her honest authentic sharing and inspiring perspectives.

Relations & the Balance

Photo : Yosemite NP, CA by myself

If you manipulate your way in changing the other person in a relationship, you will not feel the joy when that change comes. The thrill will go away quickly and the change won’t last.

If you manipulate your way of being in a relationship, the other person will reflect back the changes in you in the most beautiful way. This is a slow process of skillful transformation. Everything changes. You get to keep the authentic relation forever or let go. Let go of the expectation or sometimes the relation itself. You experience the most peaceful joy. It comes from finding yourself, discovering how you relate to yourself and strengthening that bond first.

Photo : Distances by myself

It is our patterns that shape our relations. Let go of the blame of how people distanced from you. It is important to address what is the pattern in you, and what addiction of yours were they serving? Validation, approval, connection, filling up some emptiness – what is it that you were needing?

In the space that is consciously created, the real ones always stay or return. Because you returned back to yourself and allowed them to find themselves.

No judgment, all compassion, kindness and love, for oneself and others. All healthy boundaries.

P.S. 2020 became the year of deep reflection for how I relate to myself and others, seeking another level of balance in my personal spiritual journey and authentic relations. The nature of some family, society and worldly relations managed to create dissonance while also refining my appreciation for simple happy times with my immediate family.

If you feel inclined here are some of my other posts on relationships from different times. I appreciate all thought processes shared on my posts. All exchanges of perspectives are a growth for all.

Relations – A leaf that loves the Tree

Relationships …a choice or a privilege!

Relationship Illusions & Truth of Soul

A true Relation

A Good marriage is the Best

Don’t Blow Up your Life

Truthful Commitments

Is there a Perfect Spouse?

Looking Back to Look Ahead

As we prepare to step into the New Year I felt drawn to revisit my old posts that came at a similar time. It was like visiting the previous versions of me and how the felt sense of life has kept evolving for me, year to year. This year I feel fairly removed from feeling the years as separate blocks of time. The year ahead feels like a continuum, a knowing of how I am going to be changed as a person yet there is no rawness of curiosity in it. I feel focused and open for new directions.

Following post, first posted on Jan 5, 2017. I loved repeating this to myself, so I shed some more layers of confines I place on myself. 

Step into the New …You

It is too long that you stayed in that shell …to keep others comfortable.

There are some around you who have always loved you, with whom you are amazing and it is easy. You feel safe being yourself. Then why walk on eggshells in the rest of the world? Why numb and dumb down the goodness and brightness in you ? Sometimes to the point that you feel like the most ungracious or insensitive person?

Nobody realizes that you are trying to be just the opposite, or simply trying to fit in. You value them too much …more than yourself! They are getting used to that …your misery even. And you are getting comfortable with that. In your mind you are being nice to them …stop …just stop!

They are taking your appreciation and praise, for everything about them, as your weakness, or worse jealousy. When you soar higher than what they perceive you to be (and you are still nowhere in your perception) …what will you take their unappreciation of your journey as? How will you look at their lack of acknowledging of your existence?

Look at those who really ‘see’ you. You seem to do everything right towards them.

Break the shell, crack open …Do what it takes! It’s worth it! They will find others who feed their comfort. Yes, give them the shock …stop hurting so much!

They will have to step up, to be able to understand you and cheer you in your growth. They will have to know the pain you pay as your dues. The grace you are showing as you choose to crack open and take flight.

You in your truthfulness will mourn your perceived loss of some of them, because you truly cared about them. That’s why you kept them comfortable while you suffered being trapped in an unwholesome reality.

Yes, I know you also have done some things wrong to some. Those too will reach out to you or you to them, in your growth. Just that you are not accountable to all of them this very minute, so don’t judge yourself so hard.

Go ahead take that step, a small change, break open, fly. The ones ready for growth will grow with you, or even break some towards their own growth. Some will fall away, as you both cannot see eye to eye now.

Forgive yourself, forgive them, love yourself, love them, allow yourself to Be, allow them to Be. Trust me, trust me, trust me it’s worth it. When you feel stuck and choose to wiggle out, it hurts, it’s worth it.

The ones who care for you and the ones you care for, will have to accept you as you are today. Let them know you want ONE with them, you are one of them. But be stronger on your own path. Some of them Never let go!!

Break out of anything you are keeping yourself in …one step at a time!

Following post, first posted on December 31, 2017. I have picked lines of the poem to share here because I feel exactly the same in a very different way, as I look back to 2018 and head into 2019. Title is linked to full post.

Looking Back in Time & Curious Ahead

My family at a beach on Kauai island, Hawaii – December 2017

Looking back 2016 had felt like a poetry
It’s rhythm evident towards the end
Miraculous intensities as if waves undulatory

Looking back 2017 feels like chunks of prose
Blocks of emotions riotous, faced to fend
Unbeknownst intensities dealt to come to close

Now I see tremendous success in simply Being
The freedom and liberation is sweet
Without the need to justify with achieving

A lot of life is hidden in the slow living
Follow into the next choice after deep listening

All the voices in my head that created turmoil
Most many of them were not mine

When I decided to do nothing
Exact things happened that meant something

Universe is becoming my family
Soul interactions touching me deeply

And there’s us souls committed to each other
Deemed as Family for this lifetime
We hold hands together in joy and trust
To make it through with our individual soul calling

Each of you dear one who reads
I wish you too a curious & glorious 2018 (now 2019)
May you find a ground steady as you tread
The waves of life with each twist and turn

May we all embrace the beauty with mirth
Of this finite vacation on planet Earth

Following post, first posted on December 31, 2016. Title is linked to the full poem.

Times that become the year

My family at the Sand Dunes of Death Valley, CA – December 2016

I will be on a break from this blogging space for a month from now. If I don’t respond to any of your comments this is why. When I return I will resume my visits to your wonderful works that I am going to be missing 🙂 My heartfelt Gratitude & Love to all of you and this precious virtual space where we often have our most treasured conversations. 

Innocence & Its Faces

Photo Credit: Manish Doshi

Innocence is the face of a baby born
So also that of a person reborn
Each one has faced the struggle
To show up in the world

In their painful journey of birthing & re-birthing
Gut wrenching twisting and turning
Courage and surrender both have shown
To be able to breathe
And cry a cry of relief

That innocence has known survival
Not a scent of the vices of the world
The purity if they wish to retain
The reborn must keep the intent
To be alive & born to new moments
To die to each that has gone by …

We are blessed with many rebirths
In this lifetime alone
As much they make us weep & cry
Smile to welcome each one with joy

 

Note: This poem was first published on Dec. 11, 2015, when I was about 3 months into my blog on WP. The 4 bloggers that read it that time had felt so very precious to me. The poem itself was an emotional experience in response to a curious remark sent my way. Today this poem called me back as if to check in how and if it still fits with me. I felt it natural to share it again with all my new blogger friends.

This post is a contribution to ForgivingFridays on ForgivingConnects, a blog by Debbie Roth who profoundly teaches the art of letting go.

Beauty in Resilience

Photo Credit: Atanu Chakraborty “Ladakh Old Lady – Hard Labor for Living”

Note: This is a narration of a true personal experience of a profound mental shift, I went through. This was originally posted on Infinite Living on December 2, 2015.

I was standing at the busiest intersection of Mumbai, India, just arrived from US, couple of days ago. It was the end of June and rains were expected anytime, unannounced. I was there waiting for my friend to pick me up, to take me shopping for some rain shoes.

I was much immersed in the experience of being there, soaking in life moving at a fast pace around me. There was a sense of impatience in the atmosphere as there were too many vehicles on the road, to be able to move fast enough. Mixed in, was the sun, moist heat, dust, pollution and the blaring horns from drivers.

I was going to be waiting there for 15 mins, my friend called.

My eyes lingered and then my gaze dropped down on a sight, about a foot by my side. Just inches away from traffic, on the footpath/sidewalk, on a tattered mat, was a mother tending to her newborn …maybe a month or so old. She had the baby on her legs outstretched, no clothes on the baby.

My mind drifted very briefly to some memories of how I had lovingly purchased multiple things to keep my babies in perfect health and comfort. I was again drawn back to the sight in front of me. Words came to my mind-  hygiene, safety, nutrition, sickness – but I was again drawn into the scene.

The cars and people zapped by. But the only thing real for me was the mother taking care of that baby. Perhaps just like the only thing real for the mother was her baby and what she could do for the baby.

Flies were hovering over the baby. The baby was clean. The woman had a rag in her hand and a half filled bottle of water by her. She would sprinkle a few drops of water on the baby and then wipe it off with the rag, every few minutes. It was her way of keeping the baby cool and the flies away. The mother and the baby looked content, and for what it takes, doing ok with each other.

I was filled with love and inspiration for the duo. What endurance and strength they have been born with! What beauty in that the mother making the best use of all that was available to her, to be able to give her baby all that she could!

This experience opened me up to a different reality altogether. The reality of our human arrogance that equates a good life and happiness with wealth and all that it brings.

I remember only 3 years ago when I previously visited Mumbai, I had a very different perception. I used to feel sad and have tears in my eyes as I walked past poverty and people living in tiny made up houses with their kids roaming around naked. I felt happy and also guilty about having a beautiful house and a bountiful life. I assumed they were suffering from poverty. I assumed I was happy and was supposed to be happy because I had all these material comforts.

In the 3 years in between, I went through a profound journey of self-discovery, transformation and renewal. I could now see the world through the eyes of people who have felt like their body has betrayed them completely.

People who have to show up for themselves, each day with tremendous courage to survive, what feels like their own death, day after day.

The ones that go through pain so intense that they have to continually keep tapping into the pulse of life itself to find faith, surrender and the means to help them inch towards the ability to thrive.  

Having a house, the food, the comforts, all become part of gratitude. Body and mind become the primary dwelling and the immediate place of turmoil and suffering.

There is tremendous beauty in the strength and resilience that people show, in showing up each day of their life, to make the best of what they have available to them.

To me this day, there was no difference between this mother and anyone else doing just that. Having a house is not enough. What you choose while living in any kind of house or under the sun is what makes you what you are.

In that baby I saw a beautiful being born with a purpose. One purpose was to open my eyes to this beauty. In the mother I saw a face of pure nurture and love. I felt a renewed faith that we are all very well equipped for where we are placed.

In that mother and baby, and all other contrasts around me, I see no suffering, only beauty, grace and strength!

 

P.S. This post is a contribution to ForgivingFridays on ForgvingConnects. It is in the forgiving non-judgmental perspective of our circumstances is where we find our strength and happiness.

New Beginnings

Photo Credit : Manish Doshi “Sunrise”

Do you look back and wonder how you survived those times?
Those times that it made no difference whether day or night?

Do you look back and wonder what kept you living?
Those times how come you didn’t imagine dying?

Do you look back and see just how you chose to live?
Those times when it was death of a thousand kind?

Do you now see the brilliance of Life?
New Beginnings as if awakened by a beautiful sunrise?

Don’t ever give up, keep going …
It is a miracle all that is waiting.

 

Related post : Go seek that which is waiting for you!

PS : This post is a contribution to ForgivingFridays of Forgiving Connects.

I am a yoga teacher …actually I am not.

Photo Credit: Manish Doshi “Be present as you make your way”

Question: What do you do?
My answer: I am a yoga teacher.

Just that I don’t identify with that answer ever.

So what do I do?

My true answer:

I create space for people to rest their thoughts, feelings and emotions, and help them access their own clear voice that leads them to their truth and joyful living.

That is the answer that feels true to my heart. When I begin teaching a class my name, different tags of relations and society, our acquaintance if any, all that disappears. I lead you through an experience that is called yoga practice. I help you tune in with your breath, energy, body and sense of being. We take a dip in the pool of Infinite Living.

The practice helps you get clear in your mind, truly knowing and sensing what is going on within. Your time with me is a safe space to allow all that comes up in your body, mind, and emotion- no judgments. It is designed to help you be attentive and listen in.

I help you build skills to navigate through all that and listen to what your truth is and where your joy is. It is not an hour mind vacation after which you walk back into the same stress you live in. You know something about yourself or your life better than before as a result of your own attention. This happens in a group class too.

Do I continue in this relationship, or walk out? How do I find joy in my continuing relationship? Am I content with my current health status and how my doctor is addressing it? Do I quit my job, or continue? Do my food habits truly nourish me? Does parenting really have to be this difficult? How supported do I feel through these life changes and choices? What do I really want? I am worried, I have depression, anxiety, insomnia …

I facilitate these above experiences for you, as you find your own answers. We vibrate together with the joys and tears of transformation as you find your own relationship with yourself. My utmost contentment is when you need to see me less often, for our private sessions because you are now skilled at finding your clear voice and true choice. Your chronic pain has disappeared, digestion improved, or any other body issue addressed through therapeutic focus of yoga.

We are like lone kayakers in this Infinite ocean of the universe. If we are very present with the life currents, then we are skilled at the navigation. We have but this short and sweet vacation on this beautiful planet. We meet with each other, sometimes in happiness and sometimes in misery. Each one of us has our own path to carve through.

I have been blessed with teachers, with whom I continue to hone my skills. I have been blessed with students with whom I can share this powerful work, so I can pass it on just like I received it.

Teacher, student tags are just our convenience. What I do as work is create safe space for your pain, feelings, emotions – no judgment – so you feel positively empowered, inspired and supported through life and choices.

 

 

P.S. Dear wordpress friends, I apologize for my absence on your work, that are my joy to read. I will visit you soon.

HeartBreak

Photo Credit: Manish Doshi ‘Sunrise on Kauai’

Sunrise on Kauai – No matter how much the clouds of misperception take over, the true light of the sun manages to appear in all its glory and beauty, as the glowing orange pressed down and the golden lining on the surface. There is no stopping of the brightness leaking on to the cloud right above, in the vicinity, turned all gold and glowing, the beauty of it all is ours to see.

 

P.S. Dear Friends, I have enjoyed the process of creating these picture quotes a lot lately 🙂 This is the first that I am sharing with you here. Let me know what you think, I will keep sharing more.

 

Yoga – My Work & Life