My early morning routine is to open the main door of the flat,
sweep the tiny space which has an embedded black granite stone in front of our door,
sprinkle some water,
mop the black granite stone and draw a kolam (more on kolam in my next blog).
A kolam is called rangoli in the north. A kolam is a symmetric pattern drawn on the floor in chalk or with a paste of rice flour.
This is an early morning ritual in most of the south Indian homes.
As I opened the door, armed with a broom to sweep, a cockroach which was hiding near the threshold ran helter skelter to save itself from an imminent attack. When it tried to come inside the house, I tried to broom it away outside. The roach and me were trying to outdo each other with a lot of song and dance about it. I succeeded in sweeping it as far away from our door as possible without killing it. In the mileu, I fell on both knees :D
I was thankful I din't break a bone in this early morning amateur dance recital.
Despite our sealing all the entry points and fixing fine nets on all windows, some do find their way in, as we live on a ground floor apartment. I tolerate them as creatures who have equal right to live and share space on earth yet I wish they chose some other place and not my house! They are unwelcome guests.
They keep coming back even as we keep taking some pest control measures from time to time. Perhaps that is why they are called 'pests'.
Mahalakshmi.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Deep Sleep For Resting The Body
Prayers, meditation, chanting, singing hymns, etc are means of calming the mind.
When mind is calm, we sleep well at night.
When we sleep well, we get refreshed both in body and mind.
When the mind is disturbed, we may not be able to fall asleep as easily.
We may have laboured away hard physically, yet if the mind is also stressed, we find difficulty in falling asleep.
Sleeping is another form of deep meditation where the entire self is resting with minimum activity in continuing to breathe and maybe dreaming a little.
Since all these are inter-related, it is so important for us to rest our mind and body every 14 to 16 hours in a day, depending on how long we usually sleep.
I have watched men labor at real hard work for 8 to 10 hours in various places. I have noticed them (without exception) visiting the roadside bars selling cheap liqour towards dusk, whether or not they have sufficient money to buy the groceries for their families back home.
Have often wondered about this phenomenon. Have come to the conclusion that their muscles and limbs may be aching due to constant labor at work.
Contrary to belief that we will sleep well after a hard day's labor, they might need an external element to refresh their body for the next day's work, meaning they can labour away the next day after their body is well-rested.
Most of the labor force work for daily wages and the need to report to work the next day becomes their necessity if they have to put food on the table. Whether they put food on the table or not they need to drink to forget their bodily aches. It is like an instant gratification.
With time the equation gets reversed!
In the beginning, they need work to survive and need their daily drinks or stuff to forget bodily pain from such hard labor.
Later they need their daily drinks so they need to work for it!!
It's a vicious cycle from which there is no escape when drinking becomes an addiction, whether or not they have work for the day! This is the way a whole family gets affected due to one person's addiction to something.
One is bound to ask what about mental stress. To escape mental stress many take to such addictive habits.
Moderation is the key to balance oneself for everything be it prayers, meditation, chanting, getting used to intoxication. Yes even prayers and meditation which does our minds and bodies so much good, should be done in moderation only, otherwise they too become obsessions.
Look at the wonderful organ called stomach. It can contain only a certain amount of food when we are hungry or ready to eat. Such should be our need for props to calm our mind, body and soul.
Mahalakshmi.
When mind is calm, we sleep well at night.
When we sleep well, we get refreshed both in body and mind.
When the mind is disturbed, we may not be able to fall asleep as easily.
We may have laboured away hard physically, yet if the mind is also stressed, we find difficulty in falling asleep.
Sleeping is another form of deep meditation where the entire self is resting with minimum activity in continuing to breathe and maybe dreaming a little.
Since all these are inter-related, it is so important for us to rest our mind and body every 14 to 16 hours in a day, depending on how long we usually sleep.
I have watched men labor at real hard work for 8 to 10 hours in various places. I have noticed them (without exception) visiting the roadside bars selling cheap liqour towards dusk, whether or not they have sufficient money to buy the groceries for their families back home.
Have often wondered about this phenomenon. Have come to the conclusion that their muscles and limbs may be aching due to constant labor at work.
Contrary to belief that we will sleep well after a hard day's labor, they might need an external element to refresh their body for the next day's work, meaning they can labour away the next day after their body is well-rested.
Most of the labor force work for daily wages and the need to report to work the next day becomes their necessity if they have to put food on the table. Whether they put food on the table or not they need to drink to forget their bodily aches. It is like an instant gratification.
With time the equation gets reversed!
In the beginning, they need work to survive and need their daily drinks or stuff to forget bodily pain from such hard labor.
Later they need their daily drinks so they need to work for it!!
It's a vicious cycle from which there is no escape when drinking becomes an addiction, whether or not they have work for the day! This is the way a whole family gets affected due to one person's addiction to something.
One is bound to ask what about mental stress. To escape mental stress many take to such addictive habits.
Moderation is the key to balance oneself for everything be it prayers, meditation, chanting, getting used to intoxication. Yes even prayers and meditation which does our minds and bodies so much good, should be done in moderation only, otherwise they too become obsessions.
Look at the wonderful organ called stomach. It can contain only a certain amount of food when we are hungry or ready to eat. Such should be our need for props to calm our mind, body and soul.
Mahalakshmi.
Monday, December 13, 2010
The Power Of Prayers
It cannot be denied that a chant, a prayer, a hymn does have a power over our physical well-being and not just our mental well-being.
Prayers or chanting in any form heals our minds.
When the mind is calm, collected and diverted away from mundane matters, prayers act as a balm for the wounds of the mind. When the mind heals, so does our body. Our aches and pains tend to take a back seat. We recover ourselves faster this way. The obsession for the bodily and mental pains translates into obsession for chanting something positive or spiritual according to the religious beliefs of each person.
If the person does not believe in matters spiritual, he or she could still benefit with some simple phrases like, "There is a way out of all this", "Yes I Can, Yes I Will, "I Will Overcome This Situation", ..." etc. whatever one fancies depending on the problem at hand. We should also realise that when we are doing something new, it does absorb our time and attention, so we must allow ourselves to soak in for some time with that. With time the mind would have overgrown that euphoria too.
I have doubted the power of prayers in my younger days yet that's what helped me most when I was much stressed. Stress manifests into physical discomfort within no time has been my personal observation.
However, the mind has to be strong enough not to get into more problems due to someone who may take this as an opportunity to fleece our time and money leading us to more misery.
Certainly we need a shoulder to cry on. Follow good advice or cousel. Remember we alone can take decisions to solve our personal problems with as little help as possible from others.
No one else can solve our problems for us, we have to do that ourselves. When we look to others to do that for us, it could be short lived, it could be unnecessary dependance on another person who may or may not show the same interest in solving our problems for us, consistently. Moreover, in modern times, who has this kind of time for others!
Ask yourself if you cannot do that for yourself. We are our best well-wishers, so better start utilizing our own services for our own good!
I am putting this in black and white because people who come for such counselling tend to look for all kinds of quick fixes from the counsellor without trying anything on their own for mitigating their problems. One has to go through to learn how to come out of some painful situations. No one will do the hand-holding for us for long. Not forever, at least.
Thank God we have ourselves to help! Arise, awake and get cracking on your problems but do choose the positive path, though it may not offer us instant relief.
Remember it takes time to get into problems, so it takes time to recover from them too.
Time is great healer.
Soon all will be well and we will wonder we ever went through those horrowing times.
Cheers!
Mahalakshmi.
Prayers or chanting in any form heals our minds.
When the mind is calm, collected and diverted away from mundane matters, prayers act as a balm for the wounds of the mind. When the mind heals, so does our body. Our aches and pains tend to take a back seat. We recover ourselves faster this way. The obsession for the bodily and mental pains translates into obsession for chanting something positive or spiritual according to the religious beliefs of each person.
If the person does not believe in matters spiritual, he or she could still benefit with some simple phrases like, "There is a way out of all this", "Yes I Can, Yes I Will, "I Will Overcome This Situation", ..." etc. whatever one fancies depending on the problem at hand. We should also realise that when we are doing something new, it does absorb our time and attention, so we must allow ourselves to soak in for some time with that. With time the mind would have overgrown that euphoria too.
I have doubted the power of prayers in my younger days yet that's what helped me most when I was much stressed. Stress manifests into physical discomfort within no time has been my personal observation.
However, the mind has to be strong enough not to get into more problems due to someone who may take this as an opportunity to fleece our time and money leading us to more misery.
Certainly we need a shoulder to cry on. Follow good advice or cousel. Remember we alone can take decisions to solve our personal problems with as little help as possible from others.
No one else can solve our problems for us, we have to do that ourselves. When we look to others to do that for us, it could be short lived, it could be unnecessary dependance on another person who may or may not show the same interest in solving our problems for us, consistently. Moreover, in modern times, who has this kind of time for others!
Ask yourself if you cannot do that for yourself. We are our best well-wishers, so better start utilizing our own services for our own good!
I am putting this in black and white because people who come for such counselling tend to look for all kinds of quick fixes from the counsellor without trying anything on their own for mitigating their problems. One has to go through to learn how to come out of some painful situations. No one will do the hand-holding for us for long. Not forever, at least.
Thank God we have ourselves to help! Arise, awake and get cracking on your problems but do choose the positive path, though it may not offer us instant relief.
Remember it takes time to get into problems, so it takes time to recover from them too.
Time is great healer.
Soon all will be well and we will wonder we ever went through those horrowing times.
Cheers!
Mahalakshmi.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Floating On A Cloud
We get a feeling of floating on a cloud when we are onto something which we are doing with our whole heart and passion. The things happening and people around us become secondary, meaning we continue doing our routine work but our thoughts are in the new passion.
Many years back, when I was into learning the Lalitha Sahasranamam by heart, I had this heady feeling. There are about 1001 names of the divine Mother plus the opening and closing lines invoking her blessings.
My mother would always put on the tape of the Lalitha Sahasranamam sung so wonderfully by the Bombay Sisters, Saroja and Lalitha. If I sing it, I owe it to my mother for playing it loud at home and the Bomaby Sisters for singing it so beautifully. They are all my gurus.
This composition has a lot of ragas which I may not be able to identify by names, yet the tune got embedded in my mind long before I had the opportunity to learn the divine names. Meaning the tune floated without my being too keen on the lyrics all the years in the past.
All that changed when my elder sister from Chicago told me of how powerful singing this hymn really is. That was a period of a lot of confusion for me from all around. My mind was full of thoughts of solving some very pressing problems which involved major decisions all on my own. Those were hard times and the mind was clogged with doubts, fear, confusion, fate, futility of all actions, etc.
This divine song was recommended by my sister as a remedy for showing me the right path.
She also joked that Goddess Kamatchi is the CEO and we have to ask help and SHE will oblige.
I grabbed at it like the last straw for a drowning me. My sister had bought a tape and a book for me to follow. When I put on the tape it sounded all too familiar due to my mother listening to it for years together, without fail each Friday and each day of the navaratri and here I was blissfully unaware that this was Lalitha Sahasranamam indeed!
I knew the tune by heart and all I had to do was to follow the text to fit the tune.
Due to power cuts which Chennai was famous for during those years, I thought memorising the whole hymn would make me less dependent on the vagaries of power supply so I went about memorising it. What bliss I found during the week that I tried this divine exercise. I could sing much of it without the book by about a week of starting.
Later I honed it by singing it every single day, anytime, anywhere as I am reasonably fair singer.
Without my being aware, my mind was kept away from my struggles for some time, though I was very much with the problem. The mind had got a powerful diversion from the pending problem. With time the problem got solved smoothly.
Is it the power of Lalitha Sahasranamam, I wonder. It is something much more than that.
The mind needs a mantra, a chant or anything to divert us from our everyday work which has to go on and cannot be stopped for any reason.
It is this diversion which makes the mind calmer.
If the diversion is of a harmless nature like chanting a mantra then the mind reaps tons of benefit.
Should the diversion be like going to a bar to have a swig or two, going out to see any movie, smoking, doing stuff, then it gives the mind a high of a different kind, yet it leads to more problems to not only us but others around us too. Both are addictive yet there's a subtle difference in them. Choosing mind diversions wisely is the key word.
The passion with which I would wait to get back to singing the hymn would make others around me think I am out of my mind, yet I forgot all about my earthly problems for some time.
This is what mantras or chanting divine names actually does to a mind, whether troubled or not. The other day I had the time and opportunity to watch on youtube, MS Subbalakshmi amma singing the popular Tamil song "Kurai Onrum Illai.." What a blissful state she was in while singing it. It was like she was unaware of the entire audience in front of her. The bhakti comes through and we forget the voice, the tone, the raga, the accompaniments. Its the bhakti(divine) and the bhava (passionate expression) which takes us away into some higher state of divine bliss.
Our minds need some diversion in the form of mantras always.
It may be anything: Ram-Ram; Allah-Allah; Jesus; Narayana, Shiva-Shiva or Jai Mata Di. It will take our troubled minds away from the problem. When we cut our thoughts off our pressing earthly problems and return back later to think about it, we see it in a different perspective, we get leads to solve it in ways other than what we thought was the best way.
Stepping back from time to time with everyday work is good for a troubled mind to heal itself. A peaceful and refreshed mind is better able to solve issues in a peaceful and balanced way.
Jai Mata Di!
Mahalakshmi.
Many years back, when I was into learning the Lalitha Sahasranamam by heart, I had this heady feeling. There are about 1001 names of the divine Mother plus the opening and closing lines invoking her blessings.
My mother would always put on the tape of the Lalitha Sahasranamam sung so wonderfully by the Bombay Sisters, Saroja and Lalitha. If I sing it, I owe it to my mother for playing it loud at home and the Bomaby Sisters for singing it so beautifully. They are all my gurus.
This composition has a lot of ragas which I may not be able to identify by names, yet the tune got embedded in my mind long before I had the opportunity to learn the divine names. Meaning the tune floated without my being too keen on the lyrics all the years in the past.
All that changed when my elder sister from Chicago told me of how powerful singing this hymn really is. That was a period of a lot of confusion for me from all around. My mind was full of thoughts of solving some very pressing problems which involved major decisions all on my own. Those were hard times and the mind was clogged with doubts, fear, confusion, fate, futility of all actions, etc.
This divine song was recommended by my sister as a remedy for showing me the right path.
She also joked that Goddess Kamatchi is the CEO and we have to ask help and SHE will oblige.
I grabbed at it like the last straw for a drowning me. My sister had bought a tape and a book for me to follow. When I put on the tape it sounded all too familiar due to my mother listening to it for years together, without fail each Friday and each day of the navaratri and here I was blissfully unaware that this was Lalitha Sahasranamam indeed!
I knew the tune by heart and all I had to do was to follow the text to fit the tune.
Due to power cuts which Chennai was famous for during those years, I thought memorising the whole hymn would make me less dependent on the vagaries of power supply so I went about memorising it. What bliss I found during the week that I tried this divine exercise. I could sing much of it without the book by about a week of starting.
Later I honed it by singing it every single day, anytime, anywhere as I am reasonably fair singer.
Without my being aware, my mind was kept away from my struggles for some time, though I was very much with the problem. The mind had got a powerful diversion from the pending problem. With time the problem got solved smoothly.
Is it the power of Lalitha Sahasranamam, I wonder. It is something much more than that.
The mind needs a mantra, a chant or anything to divert us from our everyday work which has to go on and cannot be stopped for any reason.
It is this diversion which makes the mind calmer.
If the diversion is of a harmless nature like chanting a mantra then the mind reaps tons of benefit.
Should the diversion be like going to a bar to have a swig or two, going out to see any movie, smoking, doing stuff, then it gives the mind a high of a different kind, yet it leads to more problems to not only us but others around us too. Both are addictive yet there's a subtle difference in them. Choosing mind diversions wisely is the key word.
The passion with which I would wait to get back to singing the hymn would make others around me think I am out of my mind, yet I forgot all about my earthly problems for some time.
This is what mantras or chanting divine names actually does to a mind, whether troubled or not. The other day I had the time and opportunity to watch on youtube, MS Subbalakshmi amma singing the popular Tamil song "Kurai Onrum Illai.." What a blissful state she was in while singing it. It was like she was unaware of the entire audience in front of her. The bhakti comes through and we forget the voice, the tone, the raga, the accompaniments. Its the bhakti(divine) and the bhava (passionate expression) which takes us away into some higher state of divine bliss.
Our minds need some diversion in the form of mantras always.
It may be anything: Ram-Ram; Allah-Allah; Jesus; Narayana, Shiva-Shiva or Jai Mata Di. It will take our troubled minds away from the problem. When we cut our thoughts off our pressing earthly problems and return back later to think about it, we see it in a different perspective, we get leads to solve it in ways other than what we thought was the best way.
Stepping back from time to time with everyday work is good for a troubled mind to heal itself. A peaceful and refreshed mind is better able to solve issues in a peaceful and balanced way.
Jai Mata Di!
Mahalakshmi.
Asking For Help
At one time or the other we all need help with something.
Blessed are those who get help without asking.
The lesser mortals have to ask for help.
Asking for help is not so easy for some. The fear of asking and being rejected or getting no for an answer most often puts people away from even asking.
Besides it depends on the type of help asked for.
Unmindful of whether the answer is going to be positve or negative, one must be prepared for either. Feel blessed if help is offered. Move on if the reply is negative. Either way it would help to communicate whenever one needs help.
Remember no one will percieve that we require help and come forward. We have to ask as that alone is the key to many locked doors behind which opportunities may lie. Knock anyway and find out!
Cheers!
Mahalakshmi
Blessed are those who get help without asking.
The lesser mortals have to ask for help.
Asking for help is not so easy for some. The fear of asking and being rejected or getting no for an answer most often puts people away from even asking.
Besides it depends on the type of help asked for.
Unmindful of whether the answer is going to be positve or negative, one must be prepared for either. Feel blessed if help is offered. Move on if the reply is negative. Either way it would help to communicate whenever one needs help.
Remember no one will percieve that we require help and come forward. We have to ask as that alone is the key to many locked doors behind which opportunities may lie. Knock anyway and find out!
Cheers!
Mahalakshmi
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