This article of mine was published in Life positive September 2012     as Meeting of Shiva and Shakti                                  

                                         Being Whole

                           � �               K. Geethanjali

 

I sat at   my desk red faced. Red faced because I had just blown my top in my staffroom. It had   been a hectic day at school. After a morning of invigilation and aching legs I had been called to complete the school magazine which had to go to the press that evening. Just as I had reconciled myself to a tiring morning I heard that I also had to get my corrections ready and marks calculated. Different people pulling me in different directions. Being human, there was only so much I could do. ‘Here’s where I have to say no.” I thought. My aching knees  took over and I forgot that I needed to be calmly assertive. The aggressive part of me surfaced and there was anger in my voice as I explained how unfair it was to expect me to do three or four things at a time.The coordinator listened to me in silence and then calmly showed me how to delegate the work to someone else so that all I needed to do was supervise and how I could get help for completing my calculations. A simple solution where I could complete both jobs.It  had only needed some clear thinking.

 I was shamefaced.Here I was, a meditator, supposed to be calm and poised all the time and I had just messed it up by blowing my top.’ What example of a meditator am I giving out?”I chided myself. Just then my friends entered. I had just joined the school and had formed a close bond with a group of teachers who seemed to share my wavelength.

“We are planning to go for a movie now.’ One of my friends said. It was a Saturday and we could leave early.

’Hey,” I squeaked indignantly. Then why didn’t you call me too? I would have loved to join you all.”The answer my friend gave me surprised me. ‘I know you enjoy get togethers because it’s all about unity but we really didn't think you would enjoy a good comedy.”

“That’s why I avoid meditations,” another friend who was part of the movie team quipped. ‘I like my laughs and jokes, I like movies and madness in my life. I don’t want to have to go all serious and prim and proper. Spirituality is so boring.’

“Excuse me!”I did a double take, “Do I give an impression about being a goody two shoes who is serious and sober all the time?”

This was just not my day. A sense of ill use overcame me. Who are they to create images of me? Who are they to assume that I won’t enjoy a movie ?Who are they to decide or assume that I am supposed to enjoy and reject anyway. Don’t they know that I always enjoy a good laugh and a good movie? Okay perhaps I don’t go much to movies but that doesn’t mean I’m a frog in the well that never enjoys a good one occasionally’

I stopped. I too had just being doing that- building up an image of how I wassupposed to behave and appear to other people. I too had been building an image of being poised and calm when that was not really the case. Now I had to accept that I was upset when I was upset, laugh when I wanted to, howl my guts out or gossip a little to express my feelings. Perhaps in the future I would be a stable centered person  who would express the finer aspects of her humanity but now I was who I was and I didn’t need to build an image of perfection before my time. Life was fluid but I was tying it down to a solid image of life. That was only further blocking the flow of Life’s perfection.

Another friend was speaking, “We really are sorry. I remember that we had a teacher here who was deep into spirituality. My, we have never seen her angry or laugh. She was always so prim and proper. Almost frozen, she used to smile a lot and got along well with others but she never joined us for an outing unless it was to a temple or pilgrim centre. She was always preaching about the evils of getting caught in the world of Maya. Sometimes it was informative but on days when we just wanted to have fun, her wise saws would irritate us. That’s when I decide that spirituality wasn’t my cup of tea. As I said ,I love being human, I love the warmth and joy of expressing myself as a human, laughing when I want to, crying when I want to without thinking that I am a piece of God who cannot be hurt and thus should not cry. I like my ice creams and the gooiest chocolate .Thanks, meditation may make me peaceful but I still want my fun.”

This was my day of doing double takes. Suddenly it was okay to be human. What was not okay was hanging on to human emotions after they had been through you. I could enjoy a movie to the hilt but once it was done I would not  go overboard with one experience  and long for another such experience. At the same time if life brought me such an experience again  I would not by pass it but drink life to the lees and enjoy

 every drop of it.

‘Hey, I said “meditation doesn’t mean you a boring preachy goody two shoes. It only helps you enjoy your life to the maximum.When you meditate you access your inner stillness. As you progress, this stays with you. Then you do laugh when you need to cry and love and lose but you don’t suffer because you don’t get stuck in those emotions. You go through them but there is something playful at the base which brings you back to the centre by telling  you, ”Hey come on, don’t take yourself so seriously!”Remember all this is just a game.”

Previously I would hold on to a hurt and carry it with me.When you experience things with joy and let go you are flowing with the creative force. Maya means getting stuck with emotions or situations. Now my inner silence helps me to let go more easily. Maybe I will reach a place where I am able to detach from the emotion the minute it surfaces, but I do know I will never suppress my emotions and become a cold block of emotionless ice.  If a person has become too serious about herself that only means she has not balanced her spiritual and human self. She must have focused only on her spiritual part ignoring the human. It’s about going through all of life as a human while at the same time going through it with an ease and playfulness. However this playfulness will not emerge if you are caught up only in the other facet of life-just being human .It will arise when you honor your humanity and your divinity at the same time. I was upset just now but my higher self or inner silence brought me out of it saying ”hey enjoy it all as a game.’ So the next time you go for a movie count me in!”

“Yeah said my friend “and after that what about a meditation workshop?” As we laughed I knew that we had stumbled on an important secret of life. Life was all about being human and divine simultaneously. Enjoying life to the hilt while at the same time being stable, knowing that you are the one who is orchestrating it all, being human and being divine .As Deepak Chopra says we need to be in two states of consciousness at the same time. The human creative Shakhti consciousness and the static Divine Shiva consciousness . Balancing both and carrying them along at the same time is what life on earth is all about. Then Life will not only be peaceful and it can also be fun!

 Published in Life positive as  Thank you                                

                    From Grumbling to gratitude.

                           K. Geethanjali 

“Grumble, grumble…” I went as I banged my iron box on my sari. “The work never ends here.

I was being a typical harried lady whose maid had not come and who had to juggle house work and school work.’I wouldn’t be surprised if I go up in smoke one day.” The iron box banged harder. The phone rang out. My husband who had been feigning deafness the past half hour thankfully grabbed his mobile. As I heard a hint of excitement in his voice, I pricked my ears. After a suspense filled 10 minutes I got to know what the call was about.

Good news and bad news. My husband had got a well deserved promotion. The bad news was that we would have to leave Bangalore and shift to a smaller town.

A shock wave ran over me after the initial excitement. Leave this place and the house I loved living in? Why ,only yesterday I had been marveling at how I would wake up to see the sun peeping over a tree which stood out in the next compound and how as I closed my kitchen door for the night I would see the moon peeping out behind the same tree.

I felt a sudden rush of tears as I thought of leaving the school I worked in and all the children I have been teaching these past few years. The sound of the baby next door crying made the tear drop fall down. I loved this quiet neighbourhood and though I never came out and spoke to the other ladies in the evenings being too busy with my work, I had a sense of bonding with them.

Leave the neighbourhood where my Doberman Quincey had a host of friends and enemies? Though those dogs were always sleeping when I came home I knew about them all-the the brown Pomeranian who had a nasty temper, The chocolate coloured Labrador  who was not as sweet as she looked, The huge Alsatian ,Tiger who had a ready bite but who would turn tail at the sight of my Quincey.

I thought of that happy street dog we called d Avvai Shanmughi because she did look like a mature wise old aunt, She would kick open our front gate with her paw and sprawl happily all over our yard not moving an inch unless  she wanted to.

I had never realized how much joy all these creatures had brought me just by being themselves.

The next two days (while we were deciding as to whether to take up the post or not ,)were spent in a state of heightened awareness as I realized that I might be losing all this. Suddenly every little thing appeared precious, the sound of the little boy studying next door, the koels fighting on my favourite tree. Even the things that had irritated me like the sound of Quincey barking when she heard the baby next door cry, made me appreciate life as it was showing up here and now. The phone calls of my friends brought a smile to my face even if I happened to be in the middle of some important work. The most difficult students I had agonized over suddenly seemed so precious now that I could be losing it all.

Funnily enough we did not move. We decided that the time was not right for us to leave a city of opportunities like Bangalore just when my son was growing up and  needed all the opportunities he could get here.Maybe it wasn’t a decision many would make. Leaving a lucrative opportunity in a smaller place for a smaller opportunity in a larger place but the long and short of it is that I am still in my favourite place. However as a person I am different.Every morning when I get up I realize that I am blessed- blessed to be going to work in the school I go to. When my students aggravate me, I tell myself I might not have been here dealing with them .When I cook I feel blessed that I can still hear the small boy saying his tables, I can still listen to the baby experiment with his first words,I can still see my koels getting on with life on my tree, I can still laugh at the antics of Quincey and her friends.

As I open my kitchen door I see the branches of my favourite tree.A star is now peeping over it. My moon has passed on. These mornings I don’t see the Sun. He too has passed on .Suddenly I realize that the respite I have got is temporary. Like the moon and the sun , I may have to move on, to new cities ,new places. I may have to let go of these friends and creatures near me. But life has given me an extension of staying here and now I am determined not to waste any moment  grumbling. Now I realize that each moment of life is precious. It is in the knowing that nothing here is permanent, that every thing can pass away as it is ephemeral ,that Life becomes so precious.

 I am determined to approach each moment and experience and person in gratitude when and as they appear as I never know how long I can experience them in the form they appear in.

I have moved from grumbling to gratitude and that has made all the difference in my life.