NOISE IN THE HEAD

I have often wondered how did the change within me emerge? When did all this happen, how did my perspective on things change and when did my life perfectly sync with my thoughts and my mind. And quite often in the hustle and bustle of life, we forget to tend to our thoughts and experiences. If you are new to my blog, you will soon realize I focus a lot of my writing on the mysteries of our mind and thoughts, because I believe everything we are is the result of our thoughts and thoughts live in our minds. From the moment when I grew conscious of this world, I found myself getting pulled in the mysteries of our mind, thoughts and experiences. 

  Each one here lost in their own loss, each one just wadding in their own give and take. I have often heard and met people who have become or were victims of their thoughts, they felt their minds have held them hostage for days, weeks or years. I was one of them. Every little experience feels like an analytic moment, every word or phrase or situation becomes something to deal with, there is no easiness in any given moment. The more you tried to accumulate and gather and analyze, you discovered that equally how limited were the cupped areas of your hand. We live in a society of constant noise, opinions, advices, questions, how do we keep ourselves sane in the midst of this all?

 

My advice to people who ask me this question is " stay in the moment". I know it sounds cliche' and blah blah blah opinion, but if understood word by word it makes sense. We tend to get distracted with our present situations, it feels like the words being spoken NOW are in fact echoing itself to the future and we have already analyzed everything, I call this building a bridge. Your experiences with certain words and reactions automatically starts building a bridge to save yourself from sinking, and the end result is " The bridge collapsed, you fell in the water and drowned". And the reason we build bridges is because we are uncertain about ourselves and the choices we have made. Outside influence is a very delicate thread, either you attach yourself to it or detach, but if you have no clue what relation you want to have to the society that is gathered around you, you will sink. 

So staying in the moment helps you analyze people and situations better, because when you focus only in the NOW, then your mind has no other reason to say, "when, what, if, maybe".....

If the scope of life never extends one moment then you have no reason to deal with more than one moment. You do not have to figure out your future, or come to terms with your past, because there is no future or past.  Any experiences that seem to be from the past or future are not experiences at all they are just thoughts.  Those thoughts are all just features of the present moment.

I practice my NOW everyday, sometimes talking to my friends I realize, how much I have forgotten my past, be it spoken words, situations or circumstances. And when a similar situation arises that reminds me of my past, I change my perspective right away and I try to analyze with new set of thoughts. 

 

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF WHEN IN THE MOMENT OR OTHERWISE

- IS IT LITERALLY IMPORTANT IN LIFE TO BE ASSERTIVE?

 I went through this question so many times, when trying to figure myself out. I have strong beliefs and I have accepted the fact I am a learner, every day is a new me. So the more I am becoming myself, the more stronger my beliefs. But is it really important to let everyone around you know that. 

Well in the beginning, I definitely did, and with time I came to realize there are some people I do want to discuss things with and then there are some I choose to stay hush with. I give opinions, where it matters. And they say do not keep good opinions to yourself, as your words could change some body's life, but is it? Or is it destroying my own beliefs? Or have we already created a foundation to stand on and we really don't need any more ground. Does it bring any temperament of value when we realize, that the wall that has been built around us not in consonance with the others, is impregnable and that it is important for the other to know that there can be no result in. Like I said, is it important to remain incommunicable just so you don't destroy your own beliefs?

DOES FINDING FAULTS IN OTHERS, RECTIFY A SITUATION. 

We all sometimes fall into the trap of blame games, is it really worth pointing fingers at others? I don't do that often, but I just did last night. Yes, CONFESSION TIME, and later on I realized Nahhh, it's not worth it. It does not fix a problem.

I do not carry the attitude of pointing fingers only because I know I am not perfect either and who is to tell what's right and what's wrong. What seems right to me, could be wrong to somebody else. My beliefs are very hard to get along with, I personally do not agree with a lot of people, not because I have an Ego, because I know my thoughts. I have gone through numerous changes, circumstances, heartbreaks, friends, stupid people and in the midst of all these changes I was improving myself. The more I went to the core of my beliefs, the more I realized I do not need to agree otherwise, only because we are all different. What has one got to do with another.  In fact, in my previous blog, I had thanked some my friends that had wronged me, because of their ego and pride, I found myself. If they would have not hurt me or given me the most negative experience of my life I would have never questioned my beliefs or myself. If they would have not challenged every opinion I had, I would have not found the answers. Because of them I learned to understand things better and that made me more confident and stronger within myself. I accepted whatever happened and emerged gracefully out of it and so can anyone. To correct our course, we have to understand the dubious purpose we’ve been given, understand what it is making us do, and reject it in favor of something that actually works for us. None if us are built as one. We are all different, even those that think we are not. We are all indispensable and dispensable together. Either we learn from each other or we choose to go our separate ways. Viewing the world inwardly is simply doing your best to see what’s there before we make any judgments, to simply observe how it looks, feels, and sounds. All you’re applying to the moment is attention.

The best way to deal with life, your thoughts, your mind, it to keep it flexible. Change is inevitable. If we stay rigid, so does our minds and change becomes a curse. Always learn to accept, to improve, to let go... And the Noise in your head, is like a child throwing tantrums, it in fact is teaching you patience, acceptance and endurance.

Sometimes we leave everything to be figured out as we go along also tests our faith in life and our core beliefs about it. It is rarely the case that everything goes completely according to plan. We are forced to choose — to either accept what the road throws at us and find happiness in it or fight the multitude of things that don’t go according to plan and find unhappiness in everything.

Yoiu have a choice with everything in Life. Either stop the noise in your head and learn or eventually go deaf. 

To find Calmness in th Noise, you have to re-write your script in Life, change your thought process, observe others in the things you lack, learn and grow. Do not judge, and compare only to make you better and not worse. It's all in your Head. 

EMERGENCE

They say the Uncertainties of Existence never has answers, it's a role we as humans play everyday. It's reinventing ourselves, like clay moulding itself to a form. Life shows us it's strength and weakness, and you are an opponent doing like wise. We prepare ourselves for the best, the worst, the uknown future, the forgotten past and the moment. They say our experiences shape us into who we are today. But they also say our brains are the most amazing healers or killers. Our experiences haunt and tease us so mischievously, sometimes it could feel like a silly game of charade without realizing behind the facade there is no face. It is disturbing to us mortals, either way. I stopped planning and preparing, I started Living. I went through a spiritual growth within and found numerous paths that could lead you to the most amazing Life, the Emergence was not in factual, was like an invisible road leading me and all I had to do was to put my Faith in every step I took. Some of us live in constant fear of the consequences, and some have diligently worked out options, were there to be a situation. I would presume that many presume that this option does not exist in most. But it does. And it does in numbers and the thinkings of those that value outcome. I was faced with a situation recently that threw me of my perspective for a bit, it was like revisiting a house or a road that has been abandoned by many, and in the midst of all that, I felt the invisible path opening up to me again, but before all that happened, my automatic response to the whole situation was Defense Mechanism. In my mind Defense Mechanism is a close related cousin to the past experience and they both are going to be the cousins of the newly born moment. I believe in closing the books of past and not signing the lease with the future and emerging with the moment, but Belief in perception is a boon and a curse. The race between reality and its perception, is one that has pervaded our ethos. Wise are they that can project convincingly, reality, before perception overtakes it. After my Emergence with these spiritual paths, I was tested for the first time, and I guess I did fail for a couple of hours, engulfed in my cyclonic thoughts and emotions. What with a life that bears such intense scrutiny of the smallest decision, it has made me come to truly understand that we put our life into every act that we do, however seemingly small or inconsequential. Perception shall always require greater care and address It has the capacity to be of lasting impact. Any impact that lasts, is reverential in its construct. My reaction to my situation was infact not real, my perception took a form of reality and presented it to me.  It may not be what it is meant to be. But then meanings in such situations possess alternate meanings as well. And the alternate meaning would be the joy of just being in the moment with a person, or the situation itself but to my dismay I threw myself off the balance beam and fell knock hard, even though again in my perspective I could be hundred percent right but wisdom forbids excuses and depends on what you as a person relay. Sometimes when we are faced with a situation, we don't know what to believe, how to react, how long before we have the right to react, these are questions that have answers hidden within us, but then as mortals we re-question the question that need answers, then the answers need convincing ability, then the convinced ability is another rarity. In today’s most cynical atmosphere, it has a short life. My most awaiting moment turned into a moment that got cut short, even though I mended it, it was still a moment cut short. For at what singular point in one’s life would it ever be good and right to determine conclusively? It is our perpetual determination and perpetual self-determining that exist at one and the same moment, and neither can be fixed: they must be tirelessly recreated, you have to keep Emerging from one path to another to keep that creativitiy going, otherwise we are going to be nothing but bunch of atoms moving about purposeless. Our canvases are so full of what we need to get and what we did not get, both in our gains and losses. To imagine a state where desiring more does not exist would be silly, as even wanting less is a desire. But, to see what we get as what we are given is a perspective that takes effort and discipline turn our attention to. And I strongly believe the more we keep looking for answers, the more we evolve within. Nothing in Life is achieved without struggle, not in the world alone but the struggle of emerging within yourself, re-inventing yourself and constantly searching for answers.  The unsounding call to a higher purpose of love, passion, connection, growth. In consequence, I have come to see criticism, both from myself as much as from others, as a commensurate blessing. It has provoked me to constantly re-assess all that I ‘do, say and believe’. To question. To inquire further. And has always lead me to the answers, that I need. I have never felt the need to listen to the sounds of others to guide me, because I have found my voice within and my soul and my body have emerged as one being and still there is learning that must be constantly re-discovered. That is the point. There is the destination. This is my persistent faring. It's a pity that we can’t often see beyond what we want to get.

SOCIAL MADNESS

Friday night, late night shift at work and decided to meet up with a friend for a cup of coffee at a near by coffee place. European style ambience, with books, the air filled with the aroma of green teas and unlimited versions of coffee. It's always the first human reaction when a person walks in and all eyes point in one direction to see who's the new customer. My friend and I scan the place, well the first thing was all the eyes staring at us and vice versa, and the odd moment when you have to look away and get busy doing what you came in to do at the first place and that is COFFEE, and then the second mission is to grab whatever chair you could find and confirm your spot before the next intruder grabs it. Don't we all react to how we are being perceived at the moment?  So here we are chit chatting, while every now and then your eyes dart at people coming and going, a girl stuck on her kindle with no eye contact whatsoever, and there was a man who was making rather too much eye contact and there goes my signals of ignorance and I have no intention of throwing a smile back, on the other side a group of people engaged in perhaps a very important discussion, loners with their laptops and study books, a college student with her ipad. My friend came up with an idea to approach strangers and just ask them something stupid or maybe do a some sort of a candid show! My reaction to my friend's suggestion was a chokeful of coffee with intense coughing to regain my composure, and then my reaction "NO WAY, ARE YOU FOR REAL? " 

And I tell you, he was FOR REAL.... Well the idea was postponed until the next time, in the meantime,  it kept me thinking, why is it so hard to approcach people or why do we build defense mechanism when being approached?  Are we really living in the world of constant doubts and dangers, or it's the way we have woven ourselves in an intricate set of social norms and rules? As a blogger and aspiring photographer, I have an observing eye, and I love that. It helps me learn and understand different social norms and why people do what they do but the question is what are people going to do? As people, we are approached in different circumstances all the time whether you are grocery shopping, filling up gas or just having coffee and the question I always have on my mind while being aproached is "what is the fine line between being rude and just ignoring to being polite and responding? "

It's always a hard one, because we are living in a world full of doubts of the other, there is no specified law or book or system to prevent you from tricky situations but sometimes in doing so we also end up loosing a good moment of conversations with people. And if you do decide to interact and the conversation turns out to be pretty good with a total stranger, do we later feel that we spoke a little too much about ourselves, after all he/she was just a stranger? Normally strangers quickly glance at each other and then look away, we demonstrate that we recognize the other person's presence, are not seeking an interaction, but incase we chose to interact, what tricks do our minds play? I grew up interacting on all occassions and everywhere and anywhere, be it a resort, a customer, an acquintance, while flying, airpoirts, but those experiences didnt always turn out to be pleasant, as I was risking a lot of behavioral pattern for the other person to evaluate, in short it's revealing too much of yourself in terms of openess, shyness, introvert, extrovert or just like Georg Simmels “blasé attitude” theory, of revealing our detachment from the world, display the impersonal nature of our societies and are indicative of the over-stimulation of crowds. Interaction with strangers is a very touchy thing to do. Eye contact, and the "head nod" are the most typical ways of communicating with other people nowadays. It's the feeling of uncertainty that fill up the gaps. People emerge as a set of characteristics and as a perceiver we are obliged to further investigate the norms such as, what is he wearing, does he look civilized or shabby, what car is he driving, what's his body language- calm or edgy, a trouble maker or peace maker, does he look groomed, a man with a mission in life or just some random punk?

I guess somewhere in our minds we are looking for a simple description in a world of complex phenomena.

UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN

BUBBLES  2006-2015

"Our real self, the soul, is immortal. We may sleep for a little while in that change called death, but we can never be destroyed. We exist, and that existence is eternal. The wave comes to the shore, and then goes back to the sea; it is not lost. It becomes one with the ocean, or returns again in the form of another wave. This body has come, and it will vanish; but the soul essence within it will never cease to exist. Nothing can terminate that eternal consciousness".

                                                       ~Bhagavad Gita

Monday January 12th my baby girl succumbed to cancer. After two months of fighting it, life finally decided it's the end. My blog is not only about bubbles and how her life ended, it's also the deep understanding of death and letting go. Bhagavad Gita says, Attachment is the cause of suffering, and loosing my first pet Stella, I had understood why I had grieved tremendously when she had left me, that was the day I understood how wrong attachment is. Loosing Bubbles has been painful, my family and I have been trying to understand the fact, she is gone and it's time to move on. Easy said than done, but I guess that's what Life is, for everyone. 

I have always learned something from my pets. And she taught me a lot. Unconditional love, patience and letting go. I know some people might find it weird or might think , "O god, it's just an animal", but for me it has never been that way, I don't live in blind faith but I do believe very strongly everything is made under the same hand, whether you call it God, The supreme, The higher power, etc, etc.... I grieve the same for animals as I do for humans. And I am also very happy to know the fact there are so many people out there, who really have that understanding and care for animals. It makes grieving easy when someone really understands why you grieving. I am thankful to my Friends and some amazing people, that don't live under the shade of Ignorance. Animals, if you connect, you will see they teach us a lot, but the ignorance has to be shed away to understand the world of energy and connection, between humans and animals. Seeing Bubbles die, made me also realize how life really is short and we all die the same way, and while she was in the process, I was understanding the whole soul and body detachment and nothing material matters when it's the end. They always say when you see mortality before your very own eyes, is when the realization is true and honest. Now when you take the same example of Mortality with humans, what's the point of all this fuss and drama in life, because when you reach the end, nothing matters. Within days you are back to dust. 

Feeling the sadness and the pain is a process, but letting go is a practice. It rained tremendously the day she was passing away and as soon as she passed away, the rainstorm stopped, it felt like the heavens grieved. Her eyes were peaceful, as if she understood  God's Law, and if she was letting go herself, I have to let her go too. I believe when you don't let something go, they get stuck in between worlds. And it's time for me to let her go. She is in good hands now, and until we meet again, Rest in Peace Baby girl. 

Pets are humanizing. They remind us we have an obligation and responsibility to preserve and nurture and care for all life.

                                          ~James Cromwell

INCLINATION

They say your thoughts and Imagination comes alive while you are asleep. At least it does a lot for me, so I have created a habit of leaving my tablet on my bedside, and the other night, while I was in between my sleep pattern, my mind just opened up the longing I have been having. The longing of visiting the sea. Like my previous blog, I call it the "Sirens of the Sea". And probably everyone who follows my blog, already know I am a beach baby. The sea is my source of everything. I can never imagine living anywhere with no oceans surrounding the border lines. And this is what unfolded in my dream....

I can't believe I am here, is what her mind was saying. Starring at the endless ocean she realizes how far her dreams could stretch, she needs the willingness like the waves to pull her as far as she wishes. Her eyes blink several times to adjust her vision of doubt " the doubt of not believing where she is". Above the sky was as clear as the ocean or she should say the ocean and the sky were in total agreement, with a little warm breeze, as she would put it... Hugging the body like an old companion. She was a stranger here. She lays down starring at the ocean, whispering a little plea... " I want to ask you a question, she asks"... She blinks a couple times as if she knows the ocean is listening and responding with every wave. And Nature responds to her in her "NOW" moment. Whatever you feel, and as far as your eyes can go you are in the THE moment. And the moment was knowing you are sitting in from of a majestic, beautiful, powerful creations ever created and despite that, the big majestic sea lays untouched...

 

THE ART OF GETTING LOST

These are all the shots taken while I was lost. I call it " The art of getting lost". When it comes to direction sense, I am born with a syndrome. If the medical journals search deep they will find a mental imbalance when it comes to people and their sense of direction, they may have already come up with it and researched and written books, selling them in Barnes and Nobles, and maybe I am not aware of all this... But one thing, I am sure about is, as I am getting older I am loosing my sense of direction, even the GPS has given up on me. The little voice that guides everyone everywhere and anywhere, I bet she mumbles a curse when I miss a turn and she has to re-calculate it all over for me. Sometimes the woman in the GPS feels like a threat to me, because I feel like she will loose it or acquire a Bipolar Disorder while giving me directions. I have no shame in admitting, yes I am really bad, I will get you to your destination though. Let me clarify, having lack of direction does not mean I am one of those lame drivers that drive under speed limit or stop at a green or keep the blinker on while my turn is still a mile away. I give comfortable rides but with several GPS's and high tech direction gadgets installed and hooked up in my car ( some of you might say, she still get's lost, after all this?? ) Well sometimes, YES! It's surprising to me as well, after having driven in 7 states by myself and I can still remember the roads from Chicago to Michigan to New Jersey into Florida.

But there is always a flip side to everything, getting lost has made me discover beautiful places, awesome views. One thing I guarantee, if you ride with me you will find nights with drizzle, fog laid over a lake like a blanket on a cold winter night, sun rays sneaking through an unusual looking tree. When you are lost and there is no one on the streets but you and your car, you already know you own the night. A warm drizzling night in your car, your vipers creating a rhythm of it's own against the windshield, street lights, quite coffee places almost abandoned by the rain that humps and thumps the ground, you approach a traffic light that splashed red to stop you, and you stop, looking through the wet windows in silence. The fog that has started to cover up the lights into a hazy view, and the quite music playing in your car, that takes you to memory lane here and there, finding your way out while cruising through a moment that's liberating you, enchanting you, opening up your senses to another dimension while your mind still working out a way to get to familiar side.  And you drive for miles, a new vision, you suddenly stop thinking and get taken away by sights and sounds from the familiar. You want to break your routine of turns and stops, the familiar traffic lights and coffee places, unfamiliar faces and you are now " Alice in Wonderland".  You feel a child-like excitement and curiosity. Eventually we all get home... But the journey is what matters. I learned to draw my own maps now, I find my way around and sometimes I purposely try a different road, just in case I might find something new, just hoping my GPS lady doesn't give up, and if she does, I will be leading my way. Sometimes when I am driving home at night under a clear sky with the moon moving parallel, I feel like it's lost with me and trying to navigate it's way home. Every turn and direction I change, It changes too. And I mumble, "Are you lost like me"? OR "are you following me"? Whatever the case, we will get home. Getting lost could turn out to be liberating, don't worry about the wrong turn, it could be the right one!