Kindle Notes & Highlights
It looked like this technique was doing something after all. Slowly but surely. However, the crawling pace of growth reminded me of my nosy aunt who would visit us when we were children. While we couldn’t really tell the difference, every time she saw me and my sister, she only talked about how much we had grown since she last saw us—less than a year ago.
I had created a block in my own mind that wouldn’t let me share this little adventure with colleagues or friends.
I had once talked about this at length with Banka, who again dismissed me by reminding me that I care too much about what others think about me.
I started making a disproportionately massive deal about the energy of people around me, and of the places where I spent time.
When something good happened, I struggled to mask the excitement and appear equanimous. After all, that’s what established Yogis naturally do. On the contrary, if something bad happened, I blamed it on Karma. I found myself using the words ‘bliss’ and ‘consciousness’ way too much.
Any illnesses were attributed to the misalignment of the chakras.
‘Sometimes.’ I just said it to have the last word, though I didn’t mean it.
It is said that routine and repetition are linchpins of any worthwhile pursuit.
Under the guise of this unassuming question,
hemming and hawing
pants and t-shirts stained with the remnants of the day’s meals. Students mixed with retirees.
I slumped back into my seat like a defeated child. I felt as if Banka had already tipped her off to my brewing internal conflict.
I rolled my eyes and lifted my shoulders in silent protest.
attending these hippie love-ins.
‘First they laugh at you. Then they wish they were you. Then they join you.’ He paraphrased Gandhi’s quote with the conviction of Churchill. He knew exactly what I was thinking.
Have you ever tried crying loudly alongside a crying toddler? Suddenly when you cry, they go quiet. This felt something like that. As the sound of the music outside became louder than the noise inside, my mind was forced to rest. Later, I learned that the sounds enunciated in kirtans have been in the collective consciousness for thousands of years, and they carry subtle intentions to quieten the mind. Whatever.
It was the kind of silence you experience when you dive deep into a swimming pool. The feeling transported me to the session at the Waldorf. It had a comparable energy. Time stood still. I had never experienced such a contrast between sound and silence before.
wisecrack
It was also the first time I had ever understood that the sublime could be only a step removed from the ridiculous.
Just like the world appears saturated in a shade of pink when looking through rose-tinted glasses, my mind began finding faults with everything and everyone as if it had put on complaining glasses.
He wasn’t trying to convince anyone, but there was conviction in his presence.
Sometimes only he laughed at his own jokes, but the childlike innocence behind it came through clearly. And I was beginning to feel at ease with him.
Had I finally found something that did not bore me, or had my mind just fallen into a steady relationship with boredom? I guess only time would tell.
liked how he could deconstruct the most esoteric topic into a palatable form; easy to internalize and digest.
Some of these fraudulent personalities would garner large followings by preying on weak minds full of desires or helpless hearts seeking some relief. Even today, there is no dearth of such individuals who take advantage of people’s faith.
was a lot more open to the concept of a guru. And her conviction was strangely comforting
I was cautiously optimistic, but in a strange way. Cautious about following a guru, and yet optimistic as deep within me, Gurudev felt different. He definitely didn’t fit the mould of the stereotypical guru I held in my mind.
common. Effort. They were all frontal cortex activities. They all required some form of work—concentrating on something or not thinking about anything. They appealed to my logical mind, but they did not help me escape it.
It elevated the quality of my meditations. I couldn’t fathom how it worked. But it did.
The mantra would cut off the repetitive and connected thoughts in my reeling mind.
Sahaj taught me the importance of the balance between effort and effortlessness. The gentle effort to bring the mantra into the awareness, and then simply letting go.
‘Tonight, when you sleep, feel that you have dropped everything and given everything to the universe—your body, your mind, your breath, your thoughts, your feelings, your environment—everything is offered to the Divine and you have nothing now. Have nothing and be nothing.’
He didn’t step out immediately. He waited for me. I parked the car and walked to the other side. He then stepped out. He embraced me in a warm hug. For a moment, I lost my sense of where and who I was.
It’s fascinating how both chaos and orderliness coexist so seamlessly. I can’t even tell where one ends and the other begins.
An airplane doesn’t really experience a traffic jam in the air. But on the ground, it’s different. Is it the same with our mind? Amidst daily life, the mind is filled with so much clutter. Yet, when it logs on to a different dimension—often during meditation—it experiences a different level of peace and quiet. Little thought traffic.
Sometimes being in action gives an illusion of progress. Like how one keeps changing lanes in traffic only to realize that the change wasn’t really helpful.
This was perhaps the first time I realized how much Gurudev’s words meant to me.
gazebo
The most important spiritual growth doesn’t happen when you’re meditating or on a yoga mat. It happens in the midst of a conflict. When you’re frustrated, angry or scared and you’re doing the same old thing, and then you suddenly realize that you have a choice to do it differently . . .
I scanned the room in the hope that I could somehow identify this other misfit. Misery loves company after all.
‘Everyone can laugh when things are going well. It takes tremendous courage to smile through when the world around you comes crumbling down,’ Gurudev said with a level of conviction I had never seen before.
talking about how the disappointment of failure is amplified by underlying desires.
‘You don’t lose the self . . . you just lose the sight of it, hence the restlessness and agony,’ he added.
It is not down on any map; true places never are.
Life is a mystery to be lived, not to be solved.
Letting go or accepting is not the same as dropping something.
Faith begins with acceptance—an empowering response to a tough situation, which has not yet changed. A sense of comfort that somehow the dots will connect precisely as they are meant to be.
Faith transcends logic.
‘Now that you have done all you could, just get yourself out of the way and give the universe a chance to perform.’
Like a caring teacher who repeats the same concept several times to a slow student, the universe remained persistent and patient with me while I took time to understand what faith really is. It is all about stepping aside and giving permission to the universe to flip the difficult situation into a miracle. On the other hand, logic demands to only trust that which you know. But where is the fun in that?
