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Jan 25, 2012

WHISPERS: Withered Dreams... Haiku on Love...

Sharing some Haiku on LOVE and a longer verse “Withered Dreams...”

Lotus Flower at Chandigarh
Haiku on Love
______
A sense of deep connection
Withered within the lotus stalk
Ancient pond holds on
__
Irresistible will of heaven
Cry as you must
To find the voice of your soul
__
Flower perish
One way or another
Love flowers too
__

This is the entrance to our village Temple of Goddess Durga...
In case you are wondering, the orange shadow is flames captured one
winter night...
Withered Dreams
______________
The bells of deep knowing
Sounds in depths of my heart
Love echoes forever in her smile
In the clinging droplets of dew
All the seeds of ‘being’
Wait for an eternity to fall
To die another dream

Hidden in the petals of lotus flower
Ancient lake, cold stone heart
Holds forever onto her thoughts
A sigh buried deep
With a bit of madness
Still left within
I dream withered dreams
____________
Shashi @ 24th Jan 2012

This is submitted to dVerse Poets Open Link Night WK 28, if you would like to read really some great talented poets as well as add your own, please click here....

_________
ॐ नमः शिवाय
Om Namah Shivaya

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A Door Firmly Shut



Jan 22, 2012

201st Post and 22nd Edition of Shadow Dancing With Mind


Welcome to my 201st post and 22nd Edition of Shadow Dancing With Mind”
Though I have been blogging for almost 8 years, (First blog started on 27th Oct, 2004 – My Experiments with Spirituality but for personal reading) but this blog I started on 10th May 2010 for specific reason of sharing my thoughts with friends and public at large. The desire to know what people who don’t know me personally, think about my thoughts and getting their feedback on what I love and am passionate about, was the trigger to start this one. I am extremely happy that in one and half year of this blog, I have made lots of friends and have got such a great response on my “Shadow Dancing With Mind”. I am grateful for 80,000 plus hits and more than thousands of comments.

My First STILL LIFE at my blog
A girl begging on the path of Sufi Haji Ali's Dargah in Mumbai India
So here is my own shadow boxing with thoughts, mind and living as well as this milestone of starting 3rd Century of posts, with my 22nd Edition of “Shadow Dancing With Mind”. 

This Edition has the following topics.

TALKING POINT
Dr Sara Lazar with his team
Meditation Found To Increase Brain Size – Dr. Sara Lazar(Psychologist at Harvard Medical School)

What Yogi’s always knew since Vedic time (Almost 4500 Years ago), scientists are acknowledging it now. In a landmark study, Dr. Sara Lazar with team of researchers at Harvard Medical School agrees that Meditation Practice can help our brains to better cognitive and emotional processing and increase our well-being.

THE READER
The Kiss by Klimt
“The man’s happiness is: I will. The woman’s happiness is: He will” says Nietzsche in his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Well I have liked almost everything the profound philosopher, writer and poet Nietzsche has said in his books about various things like ‘will to power’, higher man, individualism, personality development, religion, etc. But somehow his thoughts on WOMEN have left me wondering, is that really how he thought of women? 

Kahlil Gibran
Kahlil Gibran – The Poet Of Spiritual Love, was born on this day i.e. 6thJanuary in 1883. To celebrate his birthday, I am featuring in this section of my Blog – “The Reader” his most beautiful and lovely book “The Prophet”. Published in 1923, it became extremely popular in the 1960s counterculture. Kahlil Gibran is the third best selling poet (after Shakespeare and Lao-Tzu) in the world. But before I share his profound thoughts from the book “The Prophet” on many different aspects of life, love and living, let me give you a brief note about the poet.

WHISPERS
The Chinese Girl
A section where I post my poetry, Haiku and verse’s about love, life and living....

Haiku on How I write Poetry and A Door Firmly Shut
Sharing some Haiku on how I write poetry and a longer verse “A Door Firmly Shut On The Living...”

Life and living along with a verse "The Living Is..."

_________________________
Hope you will enjoy this edition... look forward to your comments and visit to the next Edition... please click on the “Join this Site” button on the right hand side top corner to follow my activities...
__________________
Shashi @ Jan 2012
नमः शिवाय
Om Namah Shivaya

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21st Edition



Jan 19, 2012

Remembering Hakuin Zenji - A great Japanese Zen Master

UP CLOSE & PERSONAL : Hakuin Zenji (1689-1769)

Remembering Hakuin Zenji - A great Japanese Zen master who was born on this day today, 19th January around 3 centuries back in 1689. The most famous of all koans, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" is attributed to Hakuin. His one of the most profound poetry, "Monkey is reaching" is given here, with a beautiful interpretation by Ivan M. Granger, to celebrate this day ...

Monkey Reaching for The Moon
- by Ohara Koson

THE MONKEY IS REACHING
______________________
The monkey is reaching
For the moon in the water.
Until death overtakes him
He'll never give up.
If he'd let go the branch and
Disappear in the deep pool,
The whole world would shine
With dazzling pureness.
___________________
Hakuin Zenji (1689-1769)

(The monkey mind must let go and "disappear into the deep pool" of reality. The monkey's fall represents the insight that the way is not attained through effort but through supreme yielding. When the mind stops grasping at reflections, when it fades into stillness, only then does the whole world shine "with dazzling pureness." In other words, the mind can never grasp enlightenment. When it finally gives up and gets out of the way, then enlightenment is discovered to have already come about)



Photo by Miss Acuarelas


Past, present, future: unattainable,
_________________________
Past, present, future: unattainable,
Yet clear as the moteless sky.
Late at night the stool's cold as iron,
But the moonlit window smells of plum

(The moon is often a codeword in Buddhist poetry for the individual mind attaining enlightened awareness. And plum, cherry, and other spring blossoms can represent the delicate, natural flowering or awakening of Buddha mind in early spring after the long winter of spiritual practice. So when Hakuin speaks of how "the moonlit window smells of plum," it can be understood as Hakuin poetically telling us how this glimpse of pure insight resulting from a deeply still mind holds the delightful promise of Nirvana)


You no sooner attain the great void
____________________________
You no sooner attain the great void
Than body and mind are lost together.
Heaven and Hell -- a straw.
The Buddha-realm, Pandemonium -- shambles.
Listen: a nightingale strains her voice, serenading the snow.
Look: a tortoise wearing a sword climbs the lampstand.
Should you desire the great tranquility,
Prepare to sweat white beads.
___________________
Hakuin Zenji (1689-1769)


To read more Click here ...
_________________

Hakuin Ekaku (January 19, 1686 - January 18, 1768) was one of the most influential figures in Japanese Zen Buddhism. He revived the Rinzai school from a moribund period of stagnation, refocusing it on its traditionally rigorous training methods integrating meditation and koan practice. Hakuin's influence was such that all Rinzai Zen masters today trace their lineage through him, and all modern practitioners of Rinzai Zen use practices directly derived from his teachings.

KOAN PRACTICE
BodhidharmaBy Hakuin
Hakuin's systematization of koan practice brought about a major revolution in Zen teaching. In the system developed by Hakuin and his followers, students are assigned koans by their teacher and then meditate on them. Once they have broken through, they must demonstrate their insight in private interview with the teacher. If the teacher feels the student has indeed attained a satisfactory insight into the koan, then another is assigned. Hakuin's main role in the development of this koan system was most likely the selection and creation of koans to be used. In this he didn't limit himself to the classic koan collections inherited from China; he himself originated one of the best-known koans, "You know the sound of two hands clapping; tell me, what is the sound of one hand?". Hakuin preferred this new koan to the most commonly assigned first koan from the Chinese tradition, the Mu koan. He believed his "Sound of One Hand" to be more effective in generating the great doubt, and remarked that "its superiority to the former methods is like the difference between cloud and mud".

TEXT CURTSEY – Wikipedia
To read more about Hakuin and his teachings, at Wikipedia, Click here...
_________
ॐ नमः शिवाय
Om Namah Shivaya

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Wilbur Smith – 5 decades of writing...



Jan 18, 2012

Meditation Found To Increase Brain Size - By Sara W. Lazar at Harvard

TALKING POINT: Meditation Found To Increase Brain Size – Dr. Sara Lazar (Psychologist at Harvard Medical School)

What Yogi’s always knew since Vedic time (Almost 4500 Years ago), scientists are acknowledging it now. In a landmark study, Dr. Sara Lazar with team of researchers at Harvard Medical School agrees that Meditation Practice can help our brains to better cognitive and emotional processing and increase our well-being.

“Meditation, it seems, is very effective at controlling the stress response. At Harvard University, Dr Herbert Benson and Dr Sarah Lazar are trying to find out why. Using an MRI scanner they are looking inside the meditating brain and discovering that meditation not only controls our heart and breathing rates but allows us to become more alert.
- BBC Exploration on “Dealing with stress

Here is an excerpt from the study by Dr. Sara Lazar as reported by William J. Cromie of Harvard News Office.

MEDITATION FOUND TO INCREASE THE BRAIN SIZE
_________________

People who meditate grow bigger brains than those who don’t.

Sara Lazar (center) talks to research assistant Michael
Treadway and technologist Shruthi Chakrapami
Researchers at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found the first evidence that meditation can alter the physical structure of our brains. Brain scans they conducted reveal that experienced meditator boasted increased thickness in parts of the brain that deal with attention and processing sensory input.

In one area of gray matter, the thickening turns out to be more pronounced in older than in younger people. That’s intriguing because those sections of the human cortex, or thinking cap, normally get thinner as we age.

“Our data suggest that meditation practice can promote cortical plasticity in adults in areas important for cognitive and emotional processing and well-being,” says Sara Lazar, leader of the study and a psychologist at Harvard Medical School. “These findings are consistent with other studies that demonstrated increased thickness of music areas in the brains of musicians, and visual and motor areas in the brains of jugglers. In other words, the structure of an adult brain can change in response to repeated practice.”

Those most deeply involved in the meditation showed the greatest changes in brain structure. “This strongly suggests,” Lazar concludes, “that the differences in brain structure were caused by the meditation, rather than that differences in brain thickness got them into meditation in the first place.”

Lazar took up meditation about 10 years ago and now practices insight meditation about three times a week. At first she was not sure it would work. But “I have definitely experienced beneficial changes,” she says. “It reduces stress [and] increases my clarity of thought and my tolerance for staying focused in difficult situations.”

TEXT Curtsey
By William J. Cromie
Harvard News Office
To read the full article, Click here...
________

Now here is a video from Profound Meditation Program at You Tube, which gives a little bit more info on Meditation and The Brain. Have a look...



______
Shashi
नमः शिवाय
Om Namah Shivaya

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Shiva Mantra

WHISPERS: Haiku on How I write Poetry and A Door Firmly Shut


Sharing some Haiku on how I write poetry and a longer verse “A Door Firmly Shut On The Living...”
In Chinese Garden - 2007

POETRY
______
When love is stark white
And silent
Blood drops perfectly in place
__
With white empty pages, I met
On the path of living – Love
Now it’s soaking wet – Blood red
__
With bit of madness
Still left within, I bleed
Red words on dark white pages
__

Holy River Ganges in Rishikesh

A Door Firmly Shut...
______________
The river cleaves mountain’s heart
And leaves
In murmurs of wild stream
Flowing away to cold depths of living
An ocean of memories hides
Behind the distant fragrance of dream

There must be a heart dying somewhere
As many suns rise
And many moons softly fade
Into oblivion
How does it matter
If mountains crumble around
You are hinged to living
For just another sun to shine
Just another moon to die
On the little ripples of last river’s night.

Stripped down to its bare soul
Casting all the attachments of living
Along its shore
An unknown path, river unfolds
Shards of life settle appropriately
Bleeding every color of red
Deeper in the pain, I plunge
Above, A red little boat drifts alone

Solitude is a company
Poverty of love is my wealth
A door firmly shut on the living
____________
Shashi @ 18th Jan 2012

______________________________
This is submitted to dVerse Poets Open Link Night WK 27, if you would like to read really some great talented poets as well as add your own, please click here....

_________
ॐ नमः शिवाय
Om Namah Shivaya

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The living is...

Jan 11, 2012

WHISPERS: Haiku and The living is...


Sharing some Haiku about life and living along with a verse "The Living Is..."


In the soft petals of love
There is everything that one has
To suffer; should suffer
__

Every step on the path
Breaks the journey
Into two opposites
__

Pleasure and pain
Entwined in such a cosmic way
They draw each other in their wake
__

The living is...
______________

In all loving
There is freedom of wills
One to command
Other to obey
And all loving
Needs its beauty of soul
In order to sacrifice

The more I tire of being
In vice of senses
More I find in your love
As the flowers effort
To flower beauty
Becomes an objection to
Its nature

One should just flower
In living
Nothing else is beyond
The beauty of soul
And
All living is
Only a species of pain
____________
Shashi @ Jan 2011

______________________________
This is submitted to dVerse Poets Open Link Night WK 26, if you would like to read really some great talented poets as well as add your own, please click here....

_________
ॐ नमः शिवाय
Om Namah Shivaya

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No One Is there in Living...


Jan 10, 2012

WOMEN ! - Nietzsche's thoughts on women are quite dogmatic, in my opinion...

THE READER: Thoughts on Women by Nietzsche

“The man’s happiness is: I will. The woman’s happiness is: He will” says Nietzsche in his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Well I have liked almost everything the profound philosopher, writer and poet Nietzsche has said in his books about various things like ‘will to power’, higher man, individualism, personality development, religion, etc. But somehow his thoughts on WOMEN have left me wondering, is that really how he thought of women? 
I tried to rationalize (because his thoughts on other things are quite powerful and deep) by thinking probably that was how in the 18th-19th century women were thought of. But still, I cannot believe what he has said about women are his true thoughts... or we have lost something in translations. But then the translations by R J Hollingdale are quite true to the author in other cases.
Any how, I don’t agree with all this, but then wanted to know what others think about these thoughts of Nietzsche on...
WOMEN
The Kiss - By Klimt c 1907

If you admit to a woman that she is in the right, she cannot refrain from setting her heel triumphantly on the neck of the defeated – she has to enjoy the victory to the full; while between men in such a case being in the right usually produces a feeling of embarrassment.
– From Assorted Opinions and Maxims 209 (Published in 1879 as first supplement to ‘Human – All Too Human’; 2nd Edition published in 1886

Would a woman be able to hold us (or as they say ‘captivate’ us) if we did not believe that under certain circumstances she could use the dagger (any kind of dagger) against us? Or against herself: which in a certain case would be more painful revenge (Chinese Revenge)
– From Gay Science 69 Published in 1882 and 1887

Everything about Woman is a riddle, and everything about woman has one solution: it’s called pregnancy.

For the woman, the man is a means: the end is always the child.

The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.

Let man fear woman when she loves. Then she bears every sacrifice and every other thing she accounts valueless.

Let man fear woman when she hates: for man is at the bottom of his soul only wicked, but woman is base.

Whom does woman hate most? – Thus spoke the iron to the magnet: ‘I hate you most, because you attract me but are not strong enough to draw me towards you.’

“The man’s happiness is: I will. The woman’s happiness is: He will”
- From Thus Spoke Zarathustra Part I: Of old and young
___________________________
Translation by R. J. Hollingdale

So there you are... what do you think...? Or do you think I am wrong in assuming his thoughts are puritanical and dogmatic?

______
Shashi
ॐ नमः शिवाय
Om Namah Shivaya

To know more about Nietzsche and his thoughts about 'Higher Men, Will to Power etc,' read my feature on ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’ – an amazing and profound book (A must read). Click here to read...

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Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Nietzsche


Jan 6, 2012

Kahlil Gibran - The Poet of Spiritual Love

THE READER: Featuring Kahlil Gibran
Kahlil Gibran – The Poet Of Spiritual Love, was born on this day i.e. 6th January in 1883. To celebrate his birthday, I am featuring in this section of my Blog – “The Reader” his most beautiful and lovely book “The Prophet”. Published in 1923, it became extremely popular in the 1960s counterculture. Kahlil Gibran is the third best selling poet (after Shakespeare and Lao-Tzu) in the world. But before I share his profound thoughts from the book “The Prophet” on many different aspects of life, love and living, let me give you a brief note about the poet.

Brief Biography
____________
Khalil Gibran, Photograph by Fred Holland Day,
c. 1898
Khalil Gibran born Gubran Khalil Gubran, (January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931) was a Lebanese American artist, poet, and writer. Born in the town of Bsharri in modern-day Lebanon (then part of the Ottoman Mount Lebanon mutasarrifate), as a young man he emigrated with his family to the United States where he studied art and began his literary career. He is chiefly known in the English speaking world for his 1923 book The Prophet, an early example of inspirational fiction including a series of philosophical essays written in poetic English prose. Gibran is the third best-selling poet of all time, behind Shakespeare and Lao-Tzu.

Gibran held his first art exhibition of his drawings in 1904 in Boston, at Day's studio. During this exhibition, Gibran met Mary Elizabeth Haskell, a respected headmistress ten years his senior. The two formed an important friendship that lasted the rest of Gibran’s life. Though publicly discreet, their correspondence reveals an exalted intimacy. Haskell influenced not only Gibran’s personal life, but also his career. In 1908, Gibran went to study art in Paris for two years. While there he met his art study partner and lifelong friend Youssef Howayek. While most of Gibran's early writings were in Arabic, most of his work published after 1918 was in English. His first book in 1918 was The Madman, a slim volume of aphorisms and parables written in biblical cadence somewhere between poetry and prose.
Khalil Gibran

Much of Gibran's writings deal with Christianity, especially on the topic of spiritual love. But his mysticism is a convergence of several different influences: Christianity, Islam, Sufism, Hinduism and theosophy.
______
TEXT AND IMAGES FROM WIKIPEDIA

Now coming back to the book...
The Prophet, is a book composed of twenty-six poetic essays. The book became especially popular during the 1960s with the American counterculture and New Age  movements. Since it was first published in 1923, The Prophet has never been out of print. Having been translated into more than forty languages, it was one of the bestselling books of the twentieth century in the United States.

In the book, the Prophet of God after spending his years with people of  Orphalese, is planning to leave for a journey deep into the ocean, from where he may or may not come. The people then gather around and as him questions about life, living, love, work etc and he replies them in kind of poetic essays. While reading this book of poetic essays, I have had noted down a lot of his thoughts that invoked a deep sense of understanding within me. Only some of them I am reproducing here... 
(To read my full selection, click here...)



written by
The Coming of the Ship 
And she hailed him, saying:
The Prophet By Kahlil Gibran
IMG Curtsey Itunes
Prophet of God, in quest for the uttermost, long have you searched the distances for your ship.
And now your ship has come, and you must needs go.
And he answered,
People of Orphalese, of what can I speak save of that which is even now moving within your souls?

On Love
·         When love beckons to you follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
·        Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself. But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

On Marriage 
Gibran's home in Bsharri
·         You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore. You shall be together when white wings of death scatter your days.
·         Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
·         And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

On Children
·         Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
·         You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

On Work
·         You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth. For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.
·         Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

On Joy and Sorrow
Khalil Gibran memorial in Boston, Massachusetts.
·         Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
·         The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
On Freedom
·         And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfilment. You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief,

On Reason and Passion
·         Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against passion and your appetite.
·         Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.
·         For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction. Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion; that it may sing; And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes. And since you are a breath In God's sphere, and a leaf in God's forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.

On Pain 
Khalil Gibran memorial in Washington, D.C.
·         Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
·         Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity:

    On Friendship
·         Your friend is your needs answered. He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
·         For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.
·         And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit. For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.
·         For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill? Seek him always with hours to live. For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.

On Prayer 
·         You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance. For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether?

·         When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet. Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion. For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive.
·     God listens not to your words save when He Himself utters them through your lips.

On Beauty 
·         Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide? And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech?
·         And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy. It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth, But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.
·         Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror

On Religion 
The Gibran Museum and Gibran's final resting place,
in Bsharri, Lebanon.
·         Is not religion all deeds and all reflection,
·         Your daily life is your temple and your religion. Whenever you enter into it take with you your all.

The Farewell 
And now it was evening.
And Almitra the seeress said, "Blessed be this day and this place and your spirit that has spoken."
And he answered, Was it I who spoke? Was I not also a listener?
Then he descended the steps of the Temple ...
_________
As the book was so full of profound thinking, I could not post all that I liked here, as it was getting to be a large post. But in case you would like to read my full selection of thoughts from the book, click here...


______

Shashi
नमः शिवाय
Om Namah Shivaya

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Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Nietzsche