Month: November 2011

Hues of Memories

Finally I got access to some decent internet. For a country seeped in IT, it’s kinda ridiculous to have an easy internet connection. Better start with low expectations.

So far the trip to India has been quite wonderful. I always like how I feel when I get here the very first moments. It’s like my brain has been away from home long enough to forget about so many things. And when I get back all those memories just pounce back. When we landed it was early morning and as we drove from Airport to home – all these memories just play a beautiful sonata in my mind. “There is the place where I used to hang out”, “There is that galli where I walked every day for an year to learn Hindi through tuition”, “There is that old debilitated house where we used to live when I was a kid”, “There goes the road where I fell off my cycle and broke my teeth”

It’s a whole different set of them when I get home. Seeing my mom – makes me feel like I am home home. We have been living in this house from the past 25 years – tiny pockets of memories locked in every corner waiting to be triggered. I love all of it. Even though a lot of the house and the neighborhood has been re-arranged I can still see the old things that used to be there instead in my mind.

The feelings stay with me for a day and then my mind gets used to it. Everything is normal and it’s like I never left the house. I adapt and get my self lost in the oldness of these new feelings.

Staying with that thought

Staying with the thought that emerges is a great skill. We are all great escapists. We excel at escaping that thought. Our whole lives are designed in such a way that it’s easier to deny the emerging thought and look for a new one.

Staying with the thought that comes up into consciousness requires courage. Because we never know how ugly, bad, raw that thought could be. It could break us. Just that fear is enough for us go on this never ending roller coaster chase of alternate thoughts.

Knowledge is seeking a new thought, staying with the existing thought is wisdom. Staying with that thought is being present and here and now. A lot of things we need to learn are in those that are dis-agreed, denied by us. That emerging thought is the greatest teacher. Every other teacher is a second hand version of chewed up form of that thought.