FREEDOM

Fully bloomed Bramhakamal flower

"And I have learned this - you know what, cars and motorbikes and elephants, that's not freedom. Being absolutely truly yourself is freedom." - Caroline Casey in her TED Talk: Looking Past Limits

THE REAL VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY...

Sunset at Waimea Bay, Kauai, HI

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
- Marcel Proust

THE JOY OF CREATING

"The greatest joy there is in life is creating. Splurge on it!" says L. Ron Hubbard in one of his poems. I completely agree. The process of creating something is mentally stimulating, fun, and in the end, immensely satisfying. And therefore, I create.

Each one of us is creative. However, as we grow older, many of us start telling ourselves that we are not creative. This is probably because we associate creativity with some form of artistic creation only. Creativity according to me, is the use of ideas, imagination and work to create something useful and functional or artistic.

When I create, I try to reuse and re-purpose as much as I can and do my small bit towards reducing waste and being green. Going forward, on this blog, you will also find accounts of my experiments in the kitchen and in and around home.  

WE FLY HIGH

I wish I were a kite that could fly high, high, high...

“Don't be afraid of opposition. Remember, a kite rises against, not with the wind.”
~ Hamilton Wright Mabie

What doesn't have wings but can fly?? - Kite (eesh that was baad). We had a good time at the Kite Festival in Berkeley this past weekend. If you are in the Bay Area and missed this one, fret not. Santa Cruz will be having a similar event in Sept. (13th, Saturday)

DRAGON

Rancho San Antonio Open Space Preserve, CA
I see a dragon. What do you see?

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.
~ Henri Bergson

Reality is what we take to be true.
What we take to be true is what we believe.
What we believe is based upon our perceptions.
What we perceive depends upon what we look for.
What we look for depends upon what we think.
What we think depends upon what we perceive.
What we perceive determines what we believe.
What we believe determines what we take to be true.
What we take to be true is our reality.
~ Gary Zukav

‘One new perception,
one fresh thought,
one act of surrender,
one change of heart,
one leap of faith,
can change your life forever.’
~ Robert Holden

What you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing; it also depends on what sort of person you are.
~ C. S. Lewis.

Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.
~Epictetus

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
~ Marcel Proust.

People only see what they are prepared to see.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are.
~ Anais Nin

ASK SEEK KNOCK

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
~Bible

Go to your bosom: Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.
-William Shakespeare

THE LONE CYPRESS

17 mile drive, Monterey, CA

It is always & inevitably lonely out on the growing edge.

I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.

Its no good trying to get rid of your aloneness, you got to stick to it all life .
Only at times the gap will be filled in, at times!
But you have to wait for those times....

~Source Unknown

GIFTS

To give and then not feel that one has given is the very best of all ways of giving.

FLUX

Friday Harbor, WA

Life is flux....yet, once in a while there are these moments of tranquil and utter bliss...and there are signs that seem to be saying "this is the way to go"....moments such as these, seem to shoo away all the failures, the uncertainities and the pain...and are often harbingers of positive new beginnings...

Here is a track for such moments...

BEYOND IMPERFECTIONS

• Practice loving people. It is true that this requires effort and continued practice, for some are not very lovable, or so it “seems”. Every person has lovable qualities when you really learn to know him. - Norman Vincent Peale

After all the Lord created all of us on the same loom w/ the same spool right?.....Here is a song that talks about overcoming the imperfections...

THE HAPPY MAN

If only this happy man's shirt could help those ailing from unhappiness...Here are some of my favorite quotes about happiness....

• If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy. But we want to be happier than other people...and that's the hitch.
• People are just about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
• Now and then, its a good idea to stop in our pursuit of happiness, and just be happy.
• There is no way to happiness...happiness is the way.

IN SEARCH

Friday Harbor, WA

रहने दे आसमान, जमीन की तलाश कर..
सब कुछ यहीं हैं, ना कहीं और तलाश कर...
हर आरझू पूरी हो, तो जीने का क्या मझा....
जीने के लिए बस एक वजह की तलाश कर...

The idea in the couplet is sort of stated here.

LIFE AND MANAGEMENT

Was listening to a discourse by Satguru Jaggi Vasudeo of the Isha Foundation Many of his thoughts made sense to me....infact, the more I mull over them, the more they ring true....Here they are for your consumption...He says...

Fundamentally life is management. We are managing things in the external world, as a part of whatever it is we are doing in life. However in order to be good at what we are doing well, we must learn to manage ourselves, because ultimately our mind/body is the only thing that we have control over....

In doing what we are doing, we have to manage situations and essentially people. So how can one say that we are managing people well?....He says that a good manager is someone who fosters an environment such that every individual is elevated to his/her peak potential, every individual gets a positive feeling about the space in which they are operating...and every individual rises to the peak of their love, peace and compassion...

Such a simple yet profound thought! Imagine how beautiful the world would be if we all learnt to practice this simple truth...

LIFES LIKE THAT

Friday Harbor, WA

Life is interesting......Sometimes it leaves you w/ no choice and frustrates you and some other times, teases you w/ choices and confuses you.....at such times, every option seems like the right thing and one is tormented w/ trying to find the best out of all these rights......life, they say, is the result of the choices that one makes and so the process of making the right choice stresses you out........hasty decisions work best at times whereas at times the problem itself seems to disappear if one continues to sit on it......Slow is fast and fast is slow...what to do.....lifes like that!

SUCCESS IS GOOD FUN

Diveagar beach - Konkan, Maharashtra

Dear M,

"Success is good fun"...announced a hoarding on my way home..."Sure," I thought in my mind and smiled....Its funny I had never noticed the line or the hoaridng before..maybe it was the reflection-effect...your perspective/attitude decides the way things appear to you....the world seems like paradise to a person in love..everything seems yellow to the jaundiced eye...types.. you know..I have learnt from you that success is as much a function of hard-work, practice, excellence as of mental positivity, the belief that "I can win"...about the unyielding faith in the self and the fire that doesn't allow you to give up...I hope that I remember these lessons and apply them to other aspects of life as well....I am not too worried about forgetting..because even if I do...I know that you will be in the lines egging me on till the finish line...

Cheers to us :)With Love!

WEAR SUNSCREEN

Nooksack Falls, WA

Unfortunately I do not know much about sunscreen...but, I have learnt, albeit the hard way that, money is like the water coming down this waterfall....hard to keep track of when you have it coming in, easy to let go unnoticed when you are not in need....worse still, you realise its value when its gone and often that is exactly when you need it the most....and so you better keep an eye on where its coming from and where its going...'coz you never know when you'll need it....... :) ......pl. be careful w/ your money pals.....
If that did not seem like interesting advice watch this......Wear Sunscreen

PERSEVERANCE

I may not be there yet, but I'm closer than I was yesterday.
~Author Unknown

Difficult things take a long time, impossible things a little longer.
~Author Unknown

Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.
~Earl Nightingale

WHEN ITS TIME

Himalayan Peaks as seen from Kausani, India

Rain clouds gather and the temperature drops.....there is an excited anticipation in the air.....earth, men, birds, animals; all are eagerly awaiting for the water to succumb to gravity.....will it rain??....it will, but only, WHEN ITS TIME.....if it is NOT, a gentle breeze will be sufficient to carry the rain clouds far far away.....and WHEN ITS TIME the rain clouds will be summoned from their abode even on a hot sunny day and rain it will, even though you least expected it....so keep in mind this 'lil mantra..."WHEN ITS TIME".. :)....and then you will realise that denials are just delays...

Herez a song that says just this....To Everything Turn Turn Turn

Njoy!! :)

BE OPEN

"If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is: infinite." - 18th century artist and poet William Blake

CELEBRATE

You are probably thinking...."Whats so great about this pic?"....I see a dancer in this dead tree; standing erect w/ arms outstretched, ready to take a twirl.....nature teaches us so many things if we care to observe and ponder....the lesson I learnt from this tree is 'celebrate life'.....another line that comes to mind when I look at this picture is.."Don't cry because its over, smile because it happened".....

Anyhoo....herez wishing you a very Happy Diwali!

Cheers! :)