Dinner with God

This evening I had dinner with God.

He waited for me at the table

as I scanned Him in the menu.

One of the Gods very kindly

poured water in the glass.

God, as water, quenched my thirst

even as God brought me the order.

God, as food, was delicious too.

I thanked God lovingly

and He became tastier

with every morsel.

I couldn't help smiling

and horripilating

when I saw and felt

God all around me,

my little Samadhi.

The Gods that waited

were all amused

at the radiant joy

on my face.

I smiled for I knew a secret

while they reciprocated ignorantly.

I smiled even more

for I knew their secret as well;

for my secret

was no different from theirs.

It was a moment of remembrance. 

Esoteric Ramayana

The Ram Janma Bhoomi verdict of Allahabad high court was declared yesterday (30-Sept-2010). There is wide spread media coverage of the event and analysis-paralysis of the situation on ground. All self-pronounced stakeholders have their versions of truth around it causing wide spread conflict and distrust.

This seems to be a good time to take a step back and see what Rama and Ramayana – the epic -inherently stand for and to introspect whether the whole conflict stands you in good stead.

I have gained this understanding from a very nice book ‘Kundalini’ written by Svoboda as a dialogue between him and his revered Guru Vimalananda who is an Aghora Master.

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Symbolically speaking, the story of Ramayana is a story of an individual soul’s spiritual journey and the interplay of various chakras and the expressions associated with each other. We all live some aspect of Ramayana in our daily lives.


Before we understand the symbolic esoteric meaning of Ramayana, it is vital to understand the symbolism associated to the main characters of Ramayana.

The characters

Rama - the indwelling spirit – the soul who is the king of the 72000 nadis. Nadis are to energy body what blood vessels are to physical body.
Lakshman – Rama’s brother represent the power of concentration which helps the soul regain it bride – Sita. He did focus his entire attention on his brother Rama – the individual soul.
Sita – Rama’s wife represents the Kundalini Shakti, the dormant energy located at the Muladhara Chakra. It is the dormancy of this energy that helps us identify with the body which we call the ego.
Dasharatha – ‘Ten Chariots’ meaning the ten senses. Five of these are cognitive incoming senses (Gnanendriya) of smell, taste, see, touch, hear and five are external expressions (Karmendriya) of eliminating, reproducing, moving, grasping, speaking.


Ravana – The devil King represents the limited ego personality that constantly contemplates its greatness.
Hanuman – He represents the prana which when properly harnessed clears the path for Kundalini (Sita) to meet her beloved soul (Rama).

The story

Sita was found when her father Janaka was ploughing a field. She was found from the earth which is an element associated to the Muladhara Chakra where Kundalini Shakti resides. Janaka is a symbolic representation of the creator who awakens the Kundalini (Sita) by removing her from the earth, nourishing her as she grows (rises upwards) before meeting her consort Rama (the soul) through the marriage. Soon after the marriage, Ram and Sita – accompanied by Lakshman - leave for the forest. When Kundalini unites with the soul, they are blissfully immersed (focused – Lakshman) within each other and immediately withdraw from the senses, which wither and die. That is why Dasharatha (the 10 senses) dies soon after Ram and Sita depart.

This was all fine until Sita chose to disobey Lakshman and strayed from her focus on Rama. As soon as this happens, Ravana – the devil – abducts Sita (the Kundalini Shakti) to Lanka which represents the earth element, the Muladhara Chakra. This means, that as soon as your concentration shifts away from the soul, you are bound to be dragged down to your limited self state.

Vimalananda says that Rama (soul) now lost Sita (shakti) to a strong adversary – the limited demonic human personality that uses her for his own gratification. Rama had to wander far and for long before He could reach Sita even as we all must search incessantly for the Kundalini once she has self identified with something other than the soul.

Rama (soul) needs the help of Lakshman (power of concentration) to search for Sita (Kundalini). Rama also needs the assistance of Hanuman (prana) to eliminate Ravana (the limited ego) and liberate Sita again from Lanka (the Muladhara chakra).

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This is the purpose of our soul - to awaken the Kundalini and experience its true universal consciousness. The day we realize that Rama dwells within all of us, the outward symbolism of Ram Janma Bhoomi or Babri Masjid will cease to matter. We will become the living embodiments of God.

Jai Shri Ram.

The moon and me

Scared as a child when I was
of the frightening dark,
the moon in the sky I was shown,
in my heart to create a spark
of a semblance of support
up in the distant sky.
That waned in my heart
the fear of the dark nearby.

In youthful love when I was,
in the wild years of adolescence,
the moon in the sky I was shown,
with beauty being its quintessence.
I likened my love to the moon,
wherein I searched for her face,
her lashes in the lunar shades
and her smile in its nightly grace.

The first heartbreak devastated me,
as the season of love altered its stance.
The moon in the sky I was shown,
pale it was even in resplendence.
Its light for me carried no hope,
as it lumbered through the clouds
in eternal state of remorse
even as I wrapped my soul in shrouds.

Lost in a desert I was for days,
hunger and thirst battered me bad.
The moon in the sky when shown itself,
water in its shine, I perceived.

The moon was the same at all times.
I always discerned it differently.
It was always about me and never the moon,
for it only reflected the inner me.

Suicide

I burn myself every moment
in the fire of introspection.
I drown myself often
in the ocean of self-abnegation.

I hang myself sometimes with
insults whose memories I snooze.
I bury myself with my ego
through fights I choose to lose.

I butcher myself in the moments
I abstain from reacting.
I run into the wire when
I refrain from judging.

I slay myself in
moments of real observation.
I pulverize myself to dust
in a state of meditation.

I kill my old self everytime
I choose to refine
I commit hara-kiri whenever
I preempt my whine.

I mutate my parochial self
when I exercise charity.
I discard my old skin,
when I live out of spirituality.

Whenever I change myself for better,
my worse self commits suicide.
Humanity, in every moment,
executes a collective genocide.

We all kill ourselves in
our moments of transformation.
Shame - we recognize the only suicide,
to our eyes, which is visible.

My name is Khan - what clicked with me

1. There are two types of people: The world is born out of duality. We just cannot do without divisions of gender, religions, nationalities and so on. But never in my memory has a movie so simplistically hammered in the message that if you want duality, then keep this in your mind – there are only two types of people: Good and Bad. Every other division is irrelevant.
2. Fear is not bad: Crowd gathers on the road around Khan when camera zooms in from behind, signifying someone approaching the melee. A very recognizable voice asks the crowd to disperse and gives a piece of advice to Khan, “It’s ok to be afraid. Just don’t let the fear within grow big enough to block your progress.”
3. BC - AD - 9/11: Most of us around the world remember what we were doing and where we were when 9/11 happened. The same cannot be said about any other calamity where more people would have died. That is the impact of 9/11, and it has surely changed the world. However, I have not seen any movie put the impact of 9/11 in one simple statement as it does here.
4. Khan’s Monologues: Khan pens his experiences in a diary. He also talks to his beloved through this diary. The power of simplicity is exemplified many times as he makes us chuckle, laugh, cry and get goose bumps through the heartfelt honesty of his words.
5. Satan: The only time Khan seems to get angry is on meeting the instigator. The music score at this point is pure adrenaline stuff. For a non-violent man like Khan, stoning someone requires biggest emotional upheaval – and the crescendo matches the catharsis. Symbolically speaking, Khan accomplishes his Haj on that day; stoning satan is a ritual performed at the Mecca during Haj.
6. Storyline: For a change, Karan Johar focuses more on universal over romantic love. However, the leading romantic pair of Bollywood have not allowed the romanticism a renegade treatment. The movie portrays a fine balance of selfless individual love that collectively lead to universal love.

A Quest to Define

What, why and how?
asks man's mind.
For his own good,
must answers he find.

He is in a hurry
to know and identify.
He must name the discovery,
to label and classify.

All he ever comes across
must be controlled;
a friendly discovery must be tamed,
an adversary conquered.

Only in knowing the unknown
he feels more secure.
But every knowledge leaves behind
a hint of something more obscure.

The more he knows,
the more there is to know.
The more he defines,
the more he feels insecure.

He feels safer
not in the strength of his adversary,
but in the knowledge of
the power of his enemy.

His bigger fear is not the known
but the fringes of the unknown.
For in his knowing, lies
the genesis of conquering.

The mother of all fears
is his not knowing himself.
These conquests are a means
to define his own 'self.'

This quest to define
he must win,
to conquer his own
fear of the unknown.

Until he knows his true self
the fears will drive him.
The day he truly 'knows,'
his fears will cease within.

So will end his urge to control
and with it the need to define.
He will not want to rule everyone,
so he will let everything just be.