Building the nest!

It was a regular Wednesday morning while I was feeding my baby her breakfast by the window sill showing her trees, flowers, cycles, dogs and birds. The birds were fluttering enjoying the weather and loved the winter sun. A constant chirp caught my ears and as I tried tracing that sound I saw a little sparrow build her nest on a tree near my house. I observed her intently and saw how she found fine pieces of straw, grass, wires and build a warm cozy nest for her little babies to arrive. She didn’t know if it was the best nest, how long will it take, is it better than the others, she just kept building to ensure it is safe for her babies.

I looked at my little baby and kissed her as I saw how life is a journey and you keep accumulating so many things on the way. You start with probably nothing and gradually en route you pick up values, culture, friends, siblings, education, knowledge, lovers, soul mates, life partners, enemies, cars, house, gadgets, experiences…

There are times when all that you’ve collected on your way is all lost and you need to start all over again and you’ve lost all energy and enthusiasm, all things material but you still have the education, knowledge, friends, parents, siblings, love and experience. Nobody can ever take that away from you and that’s all that you need to get all that you’ve lost back. So bounce back and you will see that slowly and gradually the hard work and patience will pay off and all that you wanted will be yours of course the struggle is also yours.

Also the person who has lost it all and starts again is fearless and is never scared of trying or innovating as he has now fear to lose or fall. He will succeed a lot more that he was earlier as he now does what he always wanted to do and his way. He also values things a lot more and will therefore always think more rationally and sensibly than earlier.
So build your nest today with all things necessary and don’t lose patience in your journey to get those little pieces together. It’s only a matter of time.

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When we were small!!!

This is truly inspired by my 3 month old daughter who amazes me with her little acts not every day but every moment.

Here is my lesson learnt…

When we were small everything we did was so cute… our smile so sweet, our tears so precious.

We didn’t care for what clothes we wore. Were they in fashion, were they brand new, what brand were they? Did I wear matching shoes with it? Were my hair shampooed everyday? Those little hands and small feet that cycled in the air, those innocent eyes that said a thousand words. Those cries and coos told everyone what you needed, what comforted you. One sound and the whole house would come running to see you. Wow! Blissful ain’t it.

You lived on milk alone with no other tastes. No Chinese, no thai, no pizza no pasta.
People waited for you too add some more fat. Truly fat looks so sweet only on babies. You never went to the gym to burn those calories, while you played in the garden and fell from the cycle all the chocolates and cheese got burnt.

When we were so small we couldn’t care less what people thought of us, whether they were friends or foes. Anybody who cooed back at us, we heartily cooed back with an innocent smile.
We didn’t know what ego was. There was no forgiveness as there was no disappointment.
There was only love as that was the only emotion we felt.
We didn’t know what religion was until we were taught.

There was no comparison, no envy as we were only content. The most expensive toys didn’t mean anything to us as we loved smiling just looking at the moving ceiling fan. We didn’t understand words to which we hold on so strongly over now. We just knew that somebody is talking to us and it sounded very sweet.

We trusted everybody who held us in their hands, we knew they would look after us really well. We trusted that our parents would give us the best food, values and education. We knew that the milk mom gave us was perfect, the fruits we ate were sweet; the water we bathed with was the right temperature.

We knew that whenever we fall there is mom to pick us up, look after us. Actually failure was never a fear. We fell so often but only to rise and play again.

Do you see the transition as we grow older, materialistic things precede love, you have less friends and more foes. I comes before us. Ego precedes all emotions.
Religion precedes humanity. Envy and competition comes before hard work.
Words have deeper meaning now and we try to dig and interpret those words in many different ways.
Trust seems to have disappeared completely. Once we grow up we don’t trust our parents, friends, spouses, colleagues. We just presume they will do us more harm than good.

Failure just wears us down, we cry over it and often take months and years to regain that strength to rise again. We blame people over our failure instead of starting the attempt to rise again.

I think, no actually believe that god made each one of us perfect but we just lost the goodness he gave us in the journey of life.

Lets try and be children again cause we were the best and the happiest “when we were small”

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Never say Never

I always thought I was organized, set and controlled in life. I had complete control of life and I wouldn’t digress from all that was planned.

To be organized, to plan, to make pert charts was probably my biggest obsession. The smallest of task and my network sheets would crop up. I could never wait for life to happen to me. I knew I had to make life happen.

Confident, aggressive, ambitious, little proud & pompous, life couldn't be wrong with me…that was my belief, or probably most of us believe in that. Until the heights collapse, the walls narrow in, hopes sink, waves calm down and people seem scarce. the phrase.
“It can never happen to me” ceases to exist.

That’s the time god makes you believe in his existence and crushes that pride that made you into a ‘not so good’ human being. He will make you realize of his superiority, his powers and the castle of cards you thought was a steady shelter in your life.

When one stands atop the highest peak, things seem small and tiny, probably unimportant. The words in your conscience are “I will ‘never’ ever be down there.”
The road ahead seems dearer than the journey you left behind. We forget the golden rule in life;
“Rise and fall is a rule in life with no exceptions.”
Not everybody needs to walk downhill or tread the path he left behind but it’s just that, “NEVER” forget the lessons you absorbed on the way and be unaccepting to life. At any point in time remember you will need to embrace life with whatever it holds for you then

Sometimes you wish you had more control over situations that can just sweep you off your feet. When you feel that once I achieve this I progress a step further and will do this and once I achieve that I will work towards the other. That achievement that stability you wish to achieve and use as a base for next steps is a myth, a mirage that is never realized. As you move closer to what you call achievement sucks you in further more and you lose yourself to situations and circumstances.

Today you believe that I don’t want this or I can make this happen at my time, my pace or when I am ready for it. But my friend we don’t live in isolation. Our lives are so entwined with so many other people and forces that it takes, people, energy and forces to all unite at one time and make things happen. There is no either or!

It’s not procrastination but the belief or rather overconfidence that I and ‘me’ solely can make anything happen when I want it. I know a lot of people who spend years chasing bachelor hood and when the y seek companionship finally they fail to see anybody around. That carnival of people around suddenly seemed to elope. Then either it’s no companion or not a perfect companion.

I know friends of mine who tell me I will ‘never’ want to have babies, I don’t want babies yet, or its too early, or cant compromise ‘us’ for ‘it’ yet. They thought they could plan ‘life’. They craved, pleaded and begged to god to make it happen but it didn’t…
They believe that it will happen but, just the journey now seems so long.

I know some friends who believed that they were the best, life would walk to them, they looked down on people, laughed at their miseries, wondered how it would be to have a tough life. They were so happy reveling in the good life that it blinded them until god opened the blindfold and showed them life. Now those eyes are sensitive and can see through problems of all. Now those are eyes are happy to help and not judgmental

We all live in this eternal faith that “it will ‘never’ happen to me”. I will ‘never’ do this, I ‘never’ want this, I ‘never’ will have to put my hands forward. I ‘never’ will have to see downhill, life can ‘never’ be bad with me.
The battle is not with the time you need to get there, or the pace you want to progress at. Just be open and accepting of the fact that today you don’t want it, tomorrow you can’t or may not have it.

Life will happen at the pace you want it at, just delete the ‘never’ in your life coz life keeps changing and situations and circumstances make us do things we thought we’d thought we will ‘NEVER’ do.

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Everything you want, you will have

This one is from the man who inspired me to write. whose columns made me religiously read the Bombay Times every tuesday. Cyrus Merchant, he made me believe in life.

There is a place and a time where everything will be well. and you will be present there. Am I merely some merchant of hope, selling you soap for the soul each time I write, will what I tell you ever bear fruit, your fruit? That you will know and until you do, believe. Believe that this whole thing we are all a part of was not designed to end in despair.

Besides that this whole thing which we so little understand, has at the helm, someone who does understand. god is too good too let it be bad for you, for long. Heaven won’t keep you hungry, it will serve you a banquet. But here’s the difficult part: you may not get your deepest hunger for whatever it is you are hungry, fulfilled here and now, accept certain inalienable truths. accept them as god’s will. A will you don’t want, hate can’t understand. One that makes you ask aloud "why is god doing this?" Yes, in the pressure cooker of your prayers, burning on the slow flame of faith, for years you asked and it is still being denied.

Don’t curse and turn your flame off, your faith may not have won for you, but it will warm you. The serenity prayer which every living adult is familiar with is more profound than we know... ‘god help me to accept that which I cannot change.’

Millions before you have resigned at the altar of his wish.... and found happiness. The house of the lord has many rooms, some will welcome us. The wisdom lies in not banging on the door that can never be opened.
At a breath-takingly beautiful lunch at six pm with a lake down below, an old friend awash with wine and some of life’s most mature living, concluded that no matter what we do and what we try, god’s way is final. Only humans rush where even angels fear to tread and then we live lifetimes paying the price.

God always gives us what we want; when will we give god what he wants? having said the difficult part for you and having said so after having seen many lose their dream, their loved one, sickness battles lost even after persistent prayers, I know that in some enchanted place where there is a perfect music, everything will be alright again. you will have what you want. and you will have who you want but not now. Perhaps even when your eyes are closed and you are a part of a world that is not this one, you will have your heart opened with joy.

God’s delays aren’t god’s denials. Sometimes he says "yes," sometimes he says "no." and sometimes he says "wait." Pray with the intellect of your soul and find out which of these three is his answer to you and then have the grace to accept, and have the sense to know that god knows what we think we know and have once and for all, the supreme liberating knowledge of that if you can be with god through life, no matter what, then life is with you, no matter what.

You only need obedience, you only need to be exceptionally good, you only need to be eternally religious or spiritual through life, on his side. Just never give up and fight the fight with a smiling soul the play is infinitely more significant than the problem.

Your life is not your problem. your problem is a part of your life, it is not your life. Cross the river if it’s stormy on this side, but don’t keep cursing, crying, the river will flow anyway.

Life will go on and you will be left behind. what kills homes, families and individuals and may be you is not your problem, but in the way you perceive it. There is more good to your life than bad. and the bad will go, it all always ends in good. that’s why they’re all working there - for us.

There are only happy endings; it’s the interruptions that are sad. I know you will be very happy because that is the eternal promise made to us.
og mandino said it beautifully: just before you were born, just before you were coming out of your mother’s womb and into this world, god whispered to you - "you are my greatest miracle" and you will be loved by me through life." then we were delivered and we forget his last words to us. Remember god’s promise to you. Remember that when you go back to him, you will find everything repaired again. Nobody is unhappy, nobody is dead, nothing is wrong in an increasingly materialistic world, I have nothing to offer you, but this - in some enchanted place, when god is happy with you, you will find your loved one, your miracle, your greatest joy... and you will remember what you read today.

Believe in your faith, it will come true. Don't lose the belief incase of delays...

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Smile

A few lines that I wrote years ago which made sense then now and forever

To smile in victory is easy,
to show a brave face in defeat, difficult

How do I take defeat?
How do I accept a set back to my plans?
Can I control my feelings when i experience disappointment?
Can I start again with courage after a first or second failure?

Do I find excuses, sulk, be bitter, complain to everybody when things go wrong,
when I think I have beensnubbed, when a better man has been given the chance I anticipated?

Adversity and contradictions bring out strong characters and help strengthen them.
Criticism should be an eye opener as regards to shortcomings

Our self relaince and conceit, our vanity and pride collapse under the blows of failure as butter melts in the sun.
Lack of success makes us reconsider our plans, concentrate our energies and improve our methods.

Most discoveries are the result of repeated efforts in the face of opposition, of tenacious will power restartng hundreds of experiments, all ending in failure except the last.
We will not be judged by our successes but according to our endeavours.


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