Saanams Mind

Searching for some spiritual relationships she lost her way … all seemed so shallow ….nothing looked deep, all a front, a pretense to make everything look fine and dandy.But deep down she knew she was fishing in shallow waters yet drowning ,tangled up in the quagmire of her thoughts… A cobweb of mixed up feelings , a tangle of pain and laughter , confusion and realization, she was getting all tied up in the mess that her mind and emotions created.

Tangled …thats what she felt she was in this world. A mangled mess of human bonds, emotional bonds, relationships, thoughts and feelings. Gasping and holding on to straws her scrambled brain searched for some deeper meaning to life… a search for a light to brighten the darkened corner of her world ….but alas , her search always resulted in her stumbling and falling in the dark again.

What is that elusive thing that escapes her every time?. Is it clarity in thought? Is it peace of mind ? Is it oneness with God? Is it love? Is it relating to someone? Is it understanding?? Is it a search for truth?? Is it answers for questions in her mind? There she went, her mind again in a tangle of questions …. n then some more questions .

“Help…help me !! some one pull me out of this whirlpool, out of this black hole am being sucked into, help me untie myself from the tangle of my thoughts’”she cried but she seemed alone all by herself… then a voice said…” You die alone , so learn to live alone. The purpose of your life is to discover your gift, develop it as the work of your life and then give it away .That should tell you the meaning of life.”Looking around , she saw footprints that were invisible , she realized that only HE walks with her . As a warmth engulfed her and took her hands ,she knew she could move forward in the belief that God would lead her the right way.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Reinhold Niebuhr

“I never know what I think about something until I read what I’ve written on it.”– William Faulkner. I guess with most of us its the same… unless a thought gets crystallized as words they actually are just waves of vague thoughts floating in the mind. The minute they get noted down, they become so clear to you

Okay, why this sudden thought you may wonder. I was going over the past year in my mind and though it as a challenging year for me as I went through a lot of emotional upheavals the past year, I wanted to look at what good came out of the whole year. I realized that there were a few things that I should be grateful for, even though on the whole it was a real bleak year for me.

This year gave me a lot of time to introspect… to look within and build a new relationship with myself and am ever grateful to God for this opportunity to look within, realize a lot of things about myself, both good and bad.

While I realized that even though I thought of myself as an impatient person, I had a lot of patience when it came to ‘push’ I am glad that circumstances taught me that I had that strength in me to hang on to my temper, patience and actually keep quiet even when I had things to say and was pushed to the extreme. My silence in a way strengthened me a lot.

I realized a lot of strengths in me that I didn’t know I actually had. Like forgiveness, not holding on to resentment, not getting bitter even when life hands over lemons, and most of all belief and trust ,not just in God but in who I was, my belief systems and my feelings and thoughts. I really am grateful to God for keeping that intact in me.

I thank God for giving me a chance to surrender myself completely to him, to believe he knows whats best for me, for believing that every action of mine, every circumstance that I went through , all had to happen as it was his plan, something that he fated to happen for there was a bigger purpose in it for me . I thank Him for not making me regret anything that has happened in my life for every action has been led straight from my heart and its because He willed it

I am grateful for the chance to travel a lot, meet a lot of new people, experience new cultures. It opened up so many new vistas for me as my mind broadened out a lot. I feel this year taught me a lot about acceptance in every way.I also am grateful that I learnt to rely on myself, to take responsibility for my feelings, actions, reactions and also my happiness…:) No one is permanent in this world and no one stays with you forever…everything is temporary, promises empty, trust an illusion and all these have meaning only when it is in relationship with yourself and no one else. So while the going is good, the wise would just hang on to those happy moments and cherish them for it only takes a tiny moment to change it all and show you the other side of the coin.

A wonderful year where the family business is concerned and a lesson that hard work will pay off no matter how many falls you have to get up from All you need is belief in what you do, an ability to sweat it out, risk it and take a chance and put your all into it…. God and the universe pushes you to get to the goal .

Goodbye 2009….I thank you for all you put me through for I feel you helped me grow a lot more and taught me a lot more about myself, helped me build a better relationship with myself as I had focused a lot on others the previous years. Thank you for giving me a chance to face up to me, to life and the ugly truths, change what I had to, accept what I had to, for strengthening me and for helping me hold on…. all this without losing hope and trust

Welcome 2010 and I hope you will be kinder to me than the year that just went by.

Happy New year folks and may God shower his choicest blessings on you the coming year, make your dreams come true and help you grow as an individual.

“The first duty of love is to listen.” Paul Tillich.

As I sink into the comfort of a world of silence, I discover another aspect to it. The art of listening. In this world of so much of noise, more often than not we get so uncomfortable when silence engulfs us, we talk or have noise around to break that stillness. Oft late as I made peace with silence,speaking less, the want to air my opinions far far lesser than before, I have also learnt the art of listening. By that I mean really listen.

I first of all listen to my thoughts and listen carefully. Since I am in no hurry to verbalize them, I have time to process them better. I listen to every reasoning they give me, in a way bettering my relationship with myself and my relationship with my God. I listen to my heart, what it tells me, happy feelings, sad ones, memories, I listen to every heartbeat in me and I am on a path of a much improved understanding and relationship with “ME”.

I Listen to others when they talk. I dont just hear them talk, but really listen. To their opinions, thoughts, feelings, specially feelings. I pay attention to every lil detail of what they want to communicate with me and try and understand what they want to say and what they feel. Again listening helping me build a great relationship with them.

Listening has many tiny aspects to it. It doesn’t necessarily mean you have to agree to all the other person is saying, it just means paying complete attention to what the other is saying without being in a hurry to air what you feel about the topic, without wanting to pounce on them with your opinions, without wanting to correct the other persons reasoning specially when you don’t agree with what they say. Would be of no use as the other person may just hear n not ‘listen’ to you anyway. When you are in a hurry to speak your views, you are merely nodding your head whereas your mind is nowhere listening to whats being said, its busy forming sentences to say what you want to.

A Good listener is generally smart. By listening, really listening, you learn so much more. You just have to listen in quiet n sincere silence… in your mind as well. You don’t have to persuade the one talking… you just have to understand what they want to say. If you don’t, ask them, to explain it , without giving your opinion about it .

As you go along the art of listening teaches you to hear unsaid things, those which are deep within without the words. The unspoken thoughts, those which have not been spoken aloud and when you hear them tell the other person what you heard and understood. Then there will be ‘quiet’ for the other person will ‘listen’ to what you ‘heard’.

Listen because there is nothing quite like being really ‘heard’.“Deep listening is miraculous for both listener and speaker. When someone receives us with open-hearted, non-judging, intensely interested listening, our spirits expand.” Sue Patton Thoele……

I have found peace in listening as much as I have found in silence. What do you think listening is all about and do you feel listening helps???

Muharram is here! Muharram is the first month of the Islamic calendar. It is one of the four sacred months of the year in which fighting is prohibited. Since the Islamic calendar is lunar, Muharram moves from year to year when compared with the Gregorian calendar. Muharram is so called because it was unlawful to fight during this month; the word is derived from the word ‘haram’ meaning forbidden. It is held to be the most sacred of all the months, excluding Ramadan.

The word “Muharram” is often considered synonymous with the event of Ashura. Ashura, which literally means the “Tenth” in Arabic, refers to the tenth day of Muharram. It is well known because of historical significance and mourning for the martyrdom of Hussain ibn Ali (Hussain, Son of Ali), the grandson of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad at the Battle of Karbala in the year 61 AH (AD 680). It is a day of speeches, public processions, and great grief. Men and women chant and weep, mourning Husayn, his family, and his followers. Speeches emphasize the importance of the values for which Husayn sacrificed himself, his family, and his followers. For centuries Shi’a pilgrims flocked to Karbala during Muharram to see their imam and be there for the mourning.

Ashura is significant as the day that Allah (God) saved Moses (Peace Be Upon Him) and the Israelites by parting the Red Sea and drowning Pharaoh. When the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) migrated to Medina, the Jews told him that Moses (Peace Be Upon Him) fasted in gratitude on Ashura, and Jewish practice was to fast Ashura as well. Upon learning this, the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) replied, “We have more right to Moses than you,” and he commanded Muslims to fast Ashura. Later, when fasting the entire month of Ramadan became obligatory, the Ashura fast was declared optional, and Muslims were instructed to differentiate their fast from the Jews by fasting the 9th or 11th of Muharram along with the 10th. Many Muslims fast from the 1st of Muharram till the 10th of Muharram.

As all know, there are two groups Sunnis and Shi’as. Sunnis only fast for the reason above and believes fasting on Ashura offers the reward of having their previous year’s sins forgiven. This is based on the hadith in which the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) said: “For fasting the day of Ashura, I hope that Allah will accept it as expiation for the year that went before.”

While Shi’as observe the 10th of Muharram for an entirely different reason – it marks the day that Hussain, son of Ali and grandson of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him), was killed as a martyr at the Battle of Karbala. Ashura is a major festival of self-reflection for Shiites, and they commemorate the tragic death of Hussain with outward displays of grief and mourning.

Such displays of grief, however, contradict the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him). Ashura (10th Muharram) was not declared a holiday by the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him), who cautioned Muslims about religious innovations: “Those of you who live after my death will see many disputes. I urge you to adhere to my Sunnah (teachings and traditions) and the Sunnah of my rightly guided successors who come after me.”

This year Muharram started on December 18th (1st Muharram) and will end on January 16th, 2010.

I wish you all a blessed new year. May Allah (swt) answer all your prayers, give you good health, forgive your sins, answer your prayers and bless you with all that one desires. Strive harder to reach your goals, forgive and forget, prayer for peace in the world and remember each other in your prayers. And remember, Humanity is above all.
God Bless!!!!!

When you look for the good in others, you discover the best in yourself. – Martin Walsh

This quote rings so true. Watching the conversation going around at a family function, I noticed that the ones who were self assured and quietly confident about themselves had a lot of good to see and speak about in others , while those who seemed to have issues in themselves would comment something bad either on the physical appearance of others or take pleasure in passing some unsavoury remark on someone.

It’s surprising how many persons go through life without ever recognizing that their feelings toward other people are largely determined by their feelings toward themselves, and if you’re not comfortable within yourself, you can’t be comfortable with others. – Sidney J. Harris

A positive self image always goes a long way in determining how you view the world, for our way of looking at people and determining who they are , comes from what we know about ourselves. For example a person who lies will never believe another person because he assumes everyone is lying just like him. A person who thinks good about the others always expects others to see that in them as well, because they do not know any other way.

Accepting who you are goes a long way in helping build a positive self image. If you don’t accept yourself the way you are, warts and all, you become oversensitive to rejection from others, you lose faith in yourself everytime an old weakness surfaces, you waste time seeking for love to make you complete. Instead of looking and seeking the best within yourself you look to compete with others, material things seem to matter a lot as they give you a sense of achievement. When there is no acceptance of yourself , you cling to your past, you don’t look forward to your future as you are afraid of what it may bring forth about yourself. When you don’t accept yourself you cant face the truth and hide behind lies. Accepting that you are not perfect helps in accepting and forgiving yourself for your mistakes.

When you accept yourself you accept the world as it is . Do you accept yourself as you are, weakness, flaws n all? What do you think …when someone judges someone else are they judging themselves?

A blazing argument with mom regarding parenting and our differing styles of it had me thinking is it worth it??? Why do we argue?? Is there any point to it at all? Do we do it to impress upon others our thoughts and do we have to shout to get heard?? Is our opinion always the right one? The other person may have already have made up their mind regarding the matter. Shouting our opinions will just accomplish one thing… bullying.

Doesnt intimidation breed resentment?? Arguing just doesnt change someones opinion or perception about you. You cannot argue to get someone to like or win someone’s love . If you do ,not only are you just inviting them to use you or abuse you , you unwittingly name the price you are willing to pay for them to use you.

When you argue with someone you love, not only does it leave you feeling lousy and guilty, it makes you feel unloved as well. You convince yourself that the person deserved the hurt you doled out to them. Worse still both of you care about each other and the argument leaves you feeling guilty for messing that persons mind and hurting them.

Arguments solve nothing…they just keep pushing us to the limits of our frustrations. Each one is unwilling to give up on their opinion and minute by minute it gets worse n worse. I think if you real need to scream, do so at the walls or the wind, an open place where there is no one, get rid of whats in you, at least no bad will come out of that letting out. You wont to be too disappointed if your efforts come to nothing and there is no guilt eating into you for being so out of control.

“When an argument flares up, the wise man quenches it with silence”

I don’t know how most of my thoughts replay the when am traveling .A weekend trip and on the road, the places flying past, kept my mind working. What do I deserve in my life??? I often write down my mind here in order to set my thoughts on things and I do so again when am a little introspective

Do I deserve to relive my hurts in order to keep them alive in my mind….??? Definitely not. I should forgive and let go of my hurts and forgive those who caused it because holding on to pain could be in a way a self defeating exercise. If holding on to the hurt is just a way of hoping that the person who caused it would see the damage they have done …..forget it, it wont happen for if it had to ,they would not have hurt you in the first place and the hurt you cling to can just turn into anger and you may feel victimized and the anger internalized…If you expect someone to come and repair things you are courting disappointments. So I deserve to let go of hurts in order to forgive and court peace.

Do I deserve to be respected…to be treated well ….to get the best from life?? Of course I do. No one deserves to be treated badly…so I do expect to be treated well…and with respect .I realized one thing with this, I deserve what I accept. So if some one does say or do something I do not like, its up to me to tell them what I feel or think or do about it. I deserve what I tolerate.I may accept something less because I don’t believe I deserve more or maybe because I care too much about that other person to create a scene for them. But if I respect, treat others well and go out of my way for them…. I deserve to be respected , loved and treated well.

Do I deserve to give the best and receive the best? I guess this says it more … when I give the best …the best of myself, the best of my ability, the best of every attribute i call my strengths…then its only but natural I receive the best from the world.Since I believe I am good to people I feel I deserve good from people too.So I deserve…To give and receive the best there is.

I have fallen down so many times in my life and have picked myself up n again to walk on. I am alive, my body in good working condition and I am working on getting my mind back on to it. I have lost yes, but there were many wins too… I have been beaten but I never lost hope… I remember and maybe am remembered too.. I love and hmm maybe am loved too… I have been honest and good as best as I can…I have made mistakes but have apologized and asked for forgiveness… I have been hurt but have forgiven completely…no bitterness or anger …I have let go…and am content in the peace it gives me, I have given a lot….and given it completely from my heart. I have very few regrets because I have given my best, tried hard every time and have made an attempt to set right the wrongs I have done and not repeat them.

So do I deserve to be happy???? Of course I do. Because all of the above tells me I am alive and I should celebrate it .:)

Don’t we all deserve all of this and more?

The past year if not anything has taught me something. Its taught me that a little more courage than I have, always pulls me through anything. It does not take all that much more to make life better than it is. All it takes is for you to be a bit more brave than you are right now. I admit to having days that make me feel real real low but I guess I am brave enough to risk trying to look at the brighter side and hope for a better day the next day.

You can stick to that diet plan if you just are a little braver.
You can actually do better at your job if you have the courage to work a bit harder.
The tasks you hate doing, the ambitions you have set out for yourself, the difficult times you are going through, the miseries that bog you down ,You can handle all this if you are just a little bit braver.

Brings me to this thought ..How brave are you?? Are you brave enough to stand by the truth no matter what the consequences?? Are you brave enough to face up to your own decisions without hiding behind lame excuses? Are you courageous enough to face life and its uncertainities without hiding behind people? You dont actually have to climb Mount Everest to prove how brave you are…but you just have to gather a little courage instead of being cowardly .Are you brave enough to be natural? The person you are ,with no pretenses, no false image? Are you brave enough to admit to not being perfect, to own up to mistakes and ask for forgiveness for all those mistakes of yours that may have upset another?? Are you brave enough to stand by what you believe in completely?? Can you face life head on with a ‘come what may I will weather this ‘attitude? Are you brave enough to get up and walk again after life trips you and pushes you down many times? Are you brave enough to weather the challenges that relationships bring and yet manage them well?Are you brave enough to smile through all your tears? Brave enough to see hope in every dark moment in your life?

Are you that brave? If you are, you ,I guess have all it takes to live a life that is “Worth” living. A little bit of courage, a bit of being brave. If not…it doesnt take all that much to develop that courage… maybe you should try getting a little more brave

When I speak about love here, am not talking just about the romantic kind of love but love that exists in every relationship. A person loves you because they love you… no excuses , no conditions…its there and if there is love then it is there anyway , there is no need to wait or try to win that love. No explanations are necessary as explanations cannot make sense of love anyway. If one has this powerful burning need to be loved, or there is a powerful reason to be loved, then that love is very precarious and can easily disappear.

If people tell you they love you because of this, that and attach conditions then that is conditional love that will disappear when the conditions are not met. The sad truth is these people who proclaim to love you don’t really do so even when their expectations or conditions are met because they have a whole new set of rules and conditions for you to follow. This is more about control issues than love. So this is not actually love , its more one wanting a control over another’s life and sadly this kind of love doesn’t last nor is satisfying as once the conditions are met it is often found that a new set of conditions appear.

If one feels love is going to rescue them, that is a clingy kind of love and is dissatisfying as well. They cling so much to the one they love, initially the loved one may feel secure but in time it gets smothering and difficult to handle. They then begin to reject that love. On the other side, the one who rescues you again begins to control you.You may start disliking yourself for being weak and needy.

The only kind of love that I feel is real is the one that comes without conditions. One that just exists for itself, no reasons, no explanations no conditions no excuses…it just is. This love loves you for what you are, the way you do things, your personality, sense of humor, or just because of the way you make them feel good about themselves. This love is the ‘one’ one has to be true to because this person mirrors you the best. There are no tests for acceptance, there is no search for anything more, they are just being themselves and are grateful for it.

What would your thoughts be on this?

Once again was reading through some stuff and came across an article that spoke of how communication is a good way to bind relationships. Reminded me of a couple of my relationships that went way south because of ‘silence’ or lack of communication. Following are a few reasons I came up with to probably try and figure things out for myself.

Sometimes people don’t tell you why they don’t want things to go better and you are left wondering what it is which is actually bothering them. I guess either they care too much about you and stop talking so as to not hurt you with the truth or they just don’t plain care anymore of how you feel about that relationship and them. They do not probably consider you important enough in their life for them to make explanations that can improve things between you.Maybe a third person is putting pressure on them to break off contact with you and they don’t know how to tell you about it. Contacting you may be too upsetting for them to handle. Maybe you have done something that has annoyed them into completely breaking off all contact with you. Maybe they do not realize that we are all here on borrowed time and life is way too short for these little things to go on.

But all you can do is try. Try to figure out why. Try and apologize and try and patch things up again. If it doesn’t happen you know the satisfaction of at least speaking out what was in your mind and making an attempt. You have no unsaid words left in you and that can give you a lot of peace.

Words unsaid and emotions hidden always leave an outcome in your life that is not so good for you…it leads to a blowup, a buildup that can burst someday or which may seep into other areas of your life… When that happens the small minsicule problem that it was at the start can actually turn out into a humongous problem or probably turn into a ‘burn out’.When that happens you start losing out the passion in your life as you allow your words, emotions to be suppressed within you and they have no expression. Communication is an useful tool to balance emotions and it always helps to put words to what you feel.Unspoken words are the restraints that bind us and prevent a normal healthy relationship. The trick is to use the words positively and not make the words your mantra but just a healthy way to express yourself.

So never let words go unsaid….