STILL LIFE: Festival of lights - Diwali 2011

Blessings from Rishikesh Sivananda Ashram
on Diwali 2011

Wish you all have a prosperous and happy Diwali. May Goddess Laxmi smile on you and give you health, wealth and wisdom.

I am sharing in this post some powerful spiritual energy sources in India associated with Goddess Durga and Laxmi, that has made a strong impression on me. Sharing  also some of my impressions of Diwali from past year... But before that, let me introduce my friends from abroad to this important festival of light...

What is this Festival of Light?
Deepavali or Diwali, popularly known as the "festival of lights," is a festival celebrated between mid-October and mid-November for different reasons. For Hindus, Diwali is one of the most important festivals of the year and is celebrated in families by performing traditional activities together in their homes. For Jains, Diwali marks the attainment of moksha or nirvana by Mahavira in 527 BC.

Deepavali is an official holiday in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago, Suriname, Malaysia, Singapore, and Fiji.

Welcoming Goddess Laxmi with colorful Rangoli

The name "Diwali" is a contraction of "Deepavali" (Sanskrit: दीपावली Dīpāvalī), which translates into "row of lamps" Diwali involves the lighting of small clay lamps (diyas or dīpas) in Sanskrit: दीप) filled with oil to signify the triumph of good over evil. During Diwali, all the celebrants wear new clothes and share sweets and snacks with family members and friends.

Text from Wikipedia click here to read more...

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Now come and walk with me to some great places, that has left a deep spiritual impression on me and shaped my thoughts and beliefs over the years...

Durga Temple in Village

From my childhood the ancestral Durga Temple, in my country house, has been part of my growing up. (If you notice, part of this image graces the top of my blog too)

kalka Ji Temple

Growing up with four brothers, when my father moved to Delhi, Kalka Ji Temple has been our daily 'morning walk' destination. As our school was near the temple, Kalka Ji has been our destination for various ups and downs in our life, either to pray or to ask for something and Kalka Mai has always provided us with a path if not the answer. Kalka Ji has been source of inspiration for all of us for decades....

Vaishno Devi

Vaishno Devi in Jammu (Northern state of India) is one of the most powerful temple of Durga Ji, which I came to visit in my college days... My first trip to Vaishnav Devi in 1982, has been a mile stone in my belief system. The trek to the temple is amazing and needs to be experienced...
During my professional life, I came across many other powerful temples Laxmi and Durga... some of them are here...

Chottanikara Bhagwati Temple in Kerala

Meenakshi Temple - Madurai

Dakhshineshwar Temple - Kolkata

The Dakshineshwar Temple in Kolkata has been an important source of change in thinking within me spiritually as well as mentally. This temple is the place from where Ramakrishna Paramhansa, the priest of Dakshineshwar Temple at that time, spread indian spirituality and religious belief throughout the world by his very learned and knowledgeable disciples ... like Swami Vivekanada, Paramahansa Yogananda (Writer of 'Autobiography of Yogi' which I recommend to every one as the first step to knowing Indian Spiritual and Religious philosophy)  ... If you like you can read more about this temple and actually have a virtual tour to this beautiful source of spiritual energy... check my post here...

Now below are some of the holy places in India that has attracted me in my life and I keep visiting them almost every year...

Diwali and Aarti at Varanasi on the banks of Ganges

Durga Ji on the banks of River Ganges at Haridwar

Kali Ji on the bank of river Ganges - Rishikesh

As this journey comes to an end, I leave you with some impression of Diwali celebrations from last year...

Gang of Four - Ready to have a blast on Diwali...
Diwali @ 2010

And the blast...
Diwali @ 2010

Finally I leave you with lamp of lights from the temple in Rishikesh at the foothills of Himalaya... which is known as Dev Bhoomi (Land of Gods) and some, including me consider it as spiritual capital of the world..

Festival of Lights - Rishikesh @ 2010

May Goddess Laxmi bless you with health, Wealth and Wisdom this year on the occasion of Festival of Lights - Diwali @ 2011


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ॐ नमः शिवाय 

Om Namah Shivaya

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Tata IndiBlogger Meet

WHISPERS : Wet and Sandy Beach

Some of my Haiku about yearning and then a long verse ‘Wet and Sandy Beach’ on a subject that some (including me) consider taboo...

Let me hold you, within the music

Of my soul, play your flowering crescendo

Till the end

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As you lie down, looking out

Into the starlit sky, do you feel my whispers

On your lips?

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When you walk bare feet

On the wet sandy beach, do you feel

My foot prints too, next to you?

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I wrote this one to participate on a lovely prompt “Poetic Taboos” at dVerse Poet’s Pub, to write something that is considered taboo like war/politics, religion and of course sex, but before I could complete it, the deadline was over. So I am posting it here...

Wet and Sandy Beach

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Passion lingers in darkness

Like trembling dew drops

As waves upon waves

Reach out

To touch, caress and pour

Into the softness of naked

Wet and sandy beach

As dark lips of the night

Softly descend to pick moist beads,

Of desire, drop by drop

Off her open waiting lips

The fingers of ecstasy bury deep

Into the folds of wrinkled

Wet and sandy beach

Slowly the warmth of her inner depths

Her soft cries and silent sighs

Reach out to engulf

Hard roughness the night holds within

Writhing sea, wild ocean scent

And sweats of desire, fall softly on

Wet and sandy beach

In throes of heaving pulsating

Pains of pleasure, dawn breaks free

As she lies spent and drenched

With the cloudburst and a sunrise within

Star lit sky, the moon light traces her skin

Leaving footprints on

Wet and sandy beach

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Shashi @ 2011

ॐ नमः शिवाय

Om Namah Shivaya

Submitting to Open Link Night WK 14 at dVerse - Poets Pub. Please click here to add your own and read some fine poet’s work...

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Love and loss...

UP CLOSE & PERSONAL: The Purpose Of Life? - Cathedral Man Don Justo

Don Justo's Cathedral in Madrid
Curtsy Wikipedia

When we look back at our life and question ourselves... where we are going, what are we doing and what this life is all about... etc, we don’t really have a clear cut answer. We rationalize, we wonder and sometimes we doubt if we are doing anything at all. Or we are just hollow and empty shell trying to fill our existence with possessions, belongings, ideologies, beliefs etc. Then you come across some people, who go beyond all this, and dedicate their whole life into something as simple as making a full-fledged cathedral, out of junk, working alone for almost 60 years... which stands at 131 Feet (40 Mts) tall in the suburbs of Madrid, Spain.

My younger brother Animesh with Don Justo, in his
Cathedral

Recently, my younger brother Animesh was travelling to Spain with his friends, he came across this amazing person and his creation of life time. His experience of meeting with Don Justo left a great impression on him and his thoughts, which I am using to write this story with bits and pieces from a BBC news coverage done by Sarah Rainsford, to fill the gaps... click here to read the full post

This is a story of a man, who was called crazy and insulted for doing an act of faith - all his life.

Don Justo – The Man With A Purpose

Don Justo - Image curtsy BBC News

60 years ago, Don Justo decided to build cathedral out of junk, with no training and just on absolute faith, all by himself. He had no training whatsoever in building construction or even brick laying but went on his mission of making his dream come true. Every morning, he will start collecting used and broken bricks, waste construction materials, oil drums etc from the nearby factories, neighbourhood and then using them to build his Church, brick by brick, just on absolute faith. He has, since then invested his entire life, all inheritance in the project as well as the land on which this magnificent “act of faith church” stands. Now he is 90 and still going strong as every morning at 6AM he walks into the Church to work as well as giving guided tour to a steady trickle of visitors who are making this DIY church, a little famous around the world.

Don Justo says, ‘"Realising my ideal spurs me on. People today are very passive, they don't value anything. They're slaves to worldly things."

A simple man at heart Don Justo kept on referring Animesh, as brother, all the time and said he loved people from India. He has special memories about Indira Gandhi and remembered to comment on her son Rajiv Gandhi and his wife Sonia Gandhi’s love story.

Talking about his influences for starting the epic journey, he said he just felt like doing it. He had paternal land and nothing else more urgent to do... so he travelled around a lot and read about Cathedrals in Europe. Then went on designing and constructing as and when materials and thoughts came to him! He has never felt like stopping ever since and still comes daily, though his output has slowed down over the period, but never stopped.
  

‘"Now everybody worships me. Before they said I was crazy. Now I don't know what they say. But now, whoever comes here, since he or she didn't realize why, has the opinion that this is art. It's me the one who has to keep his feet on the ground and to measure everything with the same weight." (Video Transcript - Thanks to Jacob Insua)

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So far, the town council has tolerated the illicit structure, which lures a steady trickle of visitors to the nondescript suburb. Some suspect the chaotically-constructed church will not outlast its creator.

"It's very difficult to get a license now," says Pablo Queralto, an architect working for Mejorada council. "For example the bricks don't meet minimum standards, either in themselves or the way they've been laid." But he described the eccentric edifice as an icon of the town now, unlikely to be torn down.

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Part of the text Curtsy: BBC News

What are we doing with our life? 

Is there any motivating factor in our life as powerful as Don Justo’s, which will keep us going, brick by single brick creating something that will be there forever, long after we have left, as his work will? Are we still passionate about something in our life?

One of the great Indian philosopher J Krishnamurti said, ‘Passion, as state of mind, is a state of being, your inner self, that feels very strongly, highly sensitive – sensitive alike to dirt, squalor, poverty, riches; to the beauty of a tree, a bird, to the flow of water... To feel all this intensely, strongly, passion is necessary. Because without passion life becomes empty, shallow, and without much meaning. If you cannot see the beauty of a tree and love that tree, if you cannot care for it intensely, you are not living.”

So what is the purpose of your life?

Here is another beautiful talk (Shared by my brother Animesh again), which I think you should read too, as that post is complimentary to this one here....

TALKING POINT : How Will You Measure Your Life?

Here I leave you with one of my Haiku on the lines of Don Justo's life

Mural on the walls of Don Justo Church

In your passion, intensity

The beauty of ‘now’

Burst’s forth in living.

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Shashi @ 2011

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ॐ नमः शिवाय

Om Namah Shivaya

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How Will You Measure Your Life

TALKING POINT : How Will You Measure Your Life?

My younger brother send me this wonderful talk “How Will You Measure Your Life” given by Harvard Business School professor Clay Christensen to the graduating class of 2010 on their request to address them, “not on how to apply his principles and thinking in their post HBS careers but how to apply them to their personal life.” I liked this article very much, specially the way he explained about the active search for meaning of your life, is the most crucial to lead a satisfying and happy life. I am giving below are some of the main points from that talk...

if you would like to read the full article, click here...  

But first a little bit about the professor and by the way, he is also a board member of Indian software giant Tata Consultancy Services...

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A Brief Biography

Clayton M. Christensen is the architect of and the world’s foremost authority on disruptive innovation, a framework which describes the process by which a product or service takes root initially in simple applications at the bottom of a market and then relentlessly moves ‘up market’, eventually displacing established competitors.  Consistently acknowledged in rankings and surveys as one of the world’s leading thinkers on innovation, Christensen is widely sought after as a speaker, advisor and board member.  His research has been applied to national economies, start-up and Fortune 50 companies, as well as to early and late stage investing.

His seminal book The Innovator’s Dilemma (1997), which first outlined his disruptive innovation frameworks, received the Global Business Book Award for the Best Business Book of the Year in 1997, was a New York Times bestseller, has been translated into over 10 languages, and is sold in over 25 countries.  He is also a four-time recipient of the McKinsey Award for the Harvard Business Reviews’s best article and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Tribeca Film Festival in 2010.

Text and Image curtsy: Clay Christensen website

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How Will You Measure Your Life?

HBR.org July–August 2010

by Clayton M. Christensen

My class at Harvard Business School is structured to help my students understand what good management theory is and how it is built. On the last day of class, I ask my students to turn those theoretical lenses on themselves, to find cogent answers to three questions:

First: how can I be sure that I’ll be happy in my career?

Second: how can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and my family become an enduring source of happiness?

Third: how can I be sure I’ll stay out of jail? Though the last question sounds light hearted, it’s not. (Two of the 32 people in my Rhodes Scholar class spent time in jail. Jeff Skilling of Enron fame was a classmate of mine at HBS. These were good guys—but something in their lives sent them off in the wrong direction)

How to be sure, we find happiness in our careers

One of the theories that gives great insight on the first question—how to be sure we find happiness in our careers—is from Frederick Herzberg, who asserts that the powerful motivator in our lives isn’t money; it’s the opportunity to learn, grow in responsibilities, contribute to others, and be recognized for achievements.

Create a Strategy for Your Life

A theory that is helpful in answering the second question—How can I ensure that my relationship with my family proves to be an enduring source of happiness?— concerns how strategy is defined and implemented.

For me, having a clear purpose in my life has been essential. But it was something I had to think long and hard about before I understood it. When I was a Rhodes Scholar, I was in a very demanding academic program, trying to cram an extra year’s worth of work into my time at Oxford. I decided to spend an hour every night reading, thinking, and praying about why God put me on this earth. That was a very challenging commitment to keep but I stuck with it—and ultimately figured out the purpose of my life. My purpose grew out of my religious faith, but faith isn’t the only thing that gives people direction. For example, one of my former students decided that his purpose was to bring honesty and economic prosperity to his country and to raise children who were as capably committed to this cause, and to each other, as he was. His purpose is focused on family and others—as mine is.

The choice and successful pursuit of a profession is but one tool for achieving your purpose. But without a purpose, life can become hollow.

Allocate Your Resources

Your decisions about allocating your personal time, energy, and talent ultimately shape your life’s strategy.

People who are driven to excel have this unconscious propensity to under invest in their families and overinvest in their careers—even though intimate and loving relationships with their families are the most powerful and enduring source of happiness.

If you study the root causes of business disasters, over and over you’ll find this predisposition toward endeavours that offer immediate gratification. If you look at personal lives through that lens, you’ll see the same stunning and sobering pattern: people allocating fewer and fewer resources to the things they would have once said mattered most.

Avoid the “Marginal Costs” Mistake

This theory addresses the third question I discuss with my students—how to live a life of integrity stay out of jail). Unconsciously, we often employ the marginal cost doctrine in our personal lives when we choose between right and wrong. A voice in our head says, “Look, I know that as a general rule, most people shouldn't do this. But in this particular extenuating circumstance, just this once,” it’s OK.” The marginal cost of doing something wrong “just this once” always seems alluringly low. It suckers you in, and you don’t ever look at where that path ultimately is headed and at the full costs that the choice entails. Justification for infidelity and dishonesty in all their manifestations lies in the marginal cost economics of “just this once.”

Remember the Importance of Humility

One characteristic of these humble people stood out: They had a high level of self-esteem. They knew who they were, and they felt good about who they were. We also decided that humility was defined not by self-deprecating behavior or attitudes but by the esteem with which you regard others. Good behavior flows naturally from that kind of humility. For example, you would never steal from someone, because you respect that person too much. You’d never lie to someone, either

I think that’s the way it will work for us all. Don’t worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved; worry about the individuals you have helped become better people. This is my final recommendation: Think about the metric by which your life will be judged, and make a resolution to live every day so that in the end, your life will be judged a success.

Text Curtsy HBR.org July–August 2010

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ॐ नमः शिवाय

Om Namah Shivaya

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An amazing poet: Pablo Neruda                          Don Justo: Meaning of life