Aham Brahmasmi.

Whenever, probably the most discussed, pulverized, abused, misdubbed, exploited, contentious, duped and ragged to death question is set in front of me to negotiate, my favourite and perhaps now regular reply is - Aham Brahmasmi. Oh and the question, for those who are still groping for it, is - "Do you believe in God?" OR "What do you think about God?"

Eons have passed and many more will also not suffice, perhaps, to satiate our quest. Maybe, forever also might not be enough. I, and my take on it, will probably figure as a sand of grain in the vast ocean of things thought, spoken and done on this. It's like a mirage perhaps, with no end, no tangibility and no knowing which is an illusion and which not (if at all that should be important to us). Which further reminds of something that Morpheus said in the movie Matrix -“What is Real? How do you define Real? If you are talking about your Senses, what you feel, taste, smell or see, then all you are talking about are electrical signals interpreted by your brain.”

So, Aham Brahmasmi. To put it in an equation:

Aham (I) + Brahmasmi (am Brahman i.e. Universe) = Aham Brahmasmi (I am Universe/God)

(note: Brahman not to be confused with a type of Hindu Caste)

Its origin is traced to the fourth Veda, the Yajur Veda, and is hailed as its Mahakavya ("the great saying" or basically the foundational essense of the particular Veda. All 4 have one of their own). The Aham, of course, refers to the Self, the Being. While the Brahman refers to this singular reality which is omnipotent, impersonal, transcendent, omnipresent. All that is, is contained within this Brahman. You, me, them, water, stone, anger, love, cookies and iPads. It is the Supreme Being which contains us all and is formed by us all. I'd quote here a line from Sankara's Brahmasutra Bhashya which goes like this:

"Jivo brahmaiva na parah."

Brahman (Whole) is the only truth, the world is an illusion, and there is ultimately no difference between the Brahman and individual self (Atman).

The Brahman is the primordial and the ultimate reality. To move forward and beyond the literal meaning (which btw, is in itself all too powerful and if you read it and speak it with your Being, you needn't be given further explanations), this nuclear Mantra is a Nova which forgets to reduce back to its brightness. 

For me, this has been the most powerful and resonating thought. Not with my mind, but with my conscious, my Being, my spirit. All of us, all that we are right now through our actions, inactions, thoughts, expressions constitute God. We are God and God is. What stunning simplicity! It gives all the Power in the world back in my hands. All the love. All the choices. All that Is. Nothing else remains, outside of us, it's all within us.

It is an experience of 'I am-ness' - something which i shall delve upon in later blogs. For now i close it here.

For those really in the mood to continue with this post, you can listen to the only song which i know in mainstream film making, which mentions and talks about Aham Brahmasmi - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVynNDtvR9Q
For the rest, a song which has really not stopped playing in my head since i heard it, hope you enjoy the serenading and the littleness of music it plays with. "Rolling in the Deep", the cover by Linkin Park..(sing along, it feels even better!) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHtwZ07N1ic

~ Shards ~

If we don't wanna do something and resist, life turns back around and makes us learn it.


Facts are rooted in consensual mass perception, not truth or knowledge.


Circles, even circles of success, are meant to be broken.


Now that a fresh year is looming ahead, it calls for a snazzy new calendar too. Here's one, i doubt if you can have a more 'interactive' and fun calendar! :D
http://www.bubblecalendar.com/index.htm

Over the hills and far away..

On the road i walk
a sight i see
On the road i walk
somebody waits for me.


My brown
against its lavender
My brown
it makes sparkle so tender.


By the halo
it roots and sleeps
By the halo
it croons and weeps.


Every twilight
i deposit my mysteries
Every twilight
it weaves me stories.


The silver orb turned
my brown it now matched
The silver orb turned
and new recitals we hatched.


Over the hills and far away
is where it belongs
Over the hills and far away
is where it will set free the Songs.

Once when i was furtively walking back home in a relatively quieter mesh of the city, there burst upon my eyes a spectacle so silently resplendent that it for a second it took my breath away. In a company of withered, empty trees It stood there tall and weighing down with blooms a colour so soft - i knew, as It knew already, that It didn't belong to this place; beside a yellow streetlight, on a lifeless pavement where the city coughed up its dust and vile. Ever since, everytime i crossed that place, i'd look up to Its grandeur and in it i would bury my worries and nagging thoughts. With time, the blooms dulled and finally abandoned It. Not me. It tells me things that the world has taught It while i absorb and listen with the heart of a younger one. :)

I hope you enjoy's today's selection, a song which is titled and revolved around a Tree, it just hit me this evening and i knew i had to put it here - "Lemon Tree" by Fool's Garden...there's a cute li'l animation too in this one which makes it cuter! Snap those fingers and tap those toes! :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wossaYdYc14

ps. the photograph aint of It.

Wordless World

The time spent on this planet till now has been laced with an unrecorded list of moments, of evanescent sensations, of the blinks of an eye which have fused subtle hues to my life - like the loops swirling across the surface of water when a loaded paintbrush kisses it gently. The water's colour changes, but ever so quickly drowns within its density.
I'm going to try and recount such moments, some of which have happened once and some which never cease to happen. I doubt if anyone can excavate any word/s for any of these, atleast to my satisfaction. Do you have an Expression for:

1. when you spy upon a splendid solitary singer serenading; unaware that someone's listening?
2. when you spill grape juice on your white tee?
3. when you swallow a wicked joke and/or the bitter truth for a friend who's distressed?
4. when after days of waiting for exams to ceasefire just so that you can sleep without an alarm, you wake up with the first sun ray in your room?
5. when you want to purchase something and you browse, procrastinate, plan, browse, procrastinate, re-plan, browse, procrastinate, re-re-plan and the day you decide to buy it, the store decides to shelve it?
6. when you get the last ticket to the first show of the first day of movie which?
7. when the morning you had thought your toothpaste tube will famish, you manage to squeeze out just enough paste to get you through that day?
8. when cruise alone on a road painted with rain and its hues?
9. when you manage, after a day of making funny faces, to eject that bugging food particle out of a crevice in your teeth?
10. when you share a silent, mutual laugh with a complete stranger on chancing upon a mutual object of observation or interest?
11. when you just about to shut shop and a colleague gleefully, politely dumps some urgent pile of work on you?
12. when a new pen starts off scratchily and betrays the silky smoothness you were prepared for?
13. when you're the last one to cross an intersection just when the light turns red
14. when you think you've put up your jazziest profile pic ever and no one seems to notice it, let alone 'like' it?
15. when the song that has been playing in your head since morning suddenly erupts from an unexpected source in the vicinity around you?

I invite you to add to this list. I'm sure there are many treasures lying hidden within.

I give you a song today which might confuse you, it did to me. Confuse about what? I leave that to you to decide - "a Song on the End of the World" by Csezlaw Milosz.. and tonight, sleep like your mother's favourite child. :)

My Carousel

Lightening, smoky
and from the cocoon of dawn
breaks forth
my cotton candy morn.



My heart rides the wave
I roll, i rumble,
the sun has never been softer
the bridges crumble.

The dusky veil
fairy dust in the air;
molten twilight
the spirit switches gears.


The loon beckons me to join
the mist shrouds
yet the call resounds;
Twinkle toes, ballet poise
taken up in arms
i listen to none but the Pied Piper
On and on goes my carousel.

Moony goes Loony tonight! And oh so enchantingly. :):) This eclipse comes only second to the one i witnessed many years back on a freezing winter night - i woke up @ 2:30am to feast my eyes on it. Today's made it much easier though..inshallah, nihaayiti khoobsurat tha :)
The song for tonight, one of ever so favourites when it comes to the Moony one, "Moondance" by Michael Buble.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABxlQkIOfmA

Trickster Twins

Much time has passed since i came across this outlandish yet silly sounding word - 'paraprosdokian'; yet it still hasn't left me. Reason enough to share it out here i believe. The word's rarity was pressed even further right now, when i typed this word and Blogger's dictionary refused to give it credential as a legible word. Either Google thinks too less of its users' vocab or we think too much of its reach.

All can be pardoned, as Paraprosdokian has emerged as only a 20th century neologism and has come to connote "a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part." Simply put, it creates an anti-climax of varying types and degrees, depending on one's perception and attentiveness. Oh and intelligence, too. Well, guess that last one may exclude many people from being a possible appreciator. Did i hear the word 'offensive'? I'm sorry but if i agree, we'd both be wrong.

And at this juncture, allow me to throw in another similar psycho-linguistic stunt with a throwaway name - Garden path sentence. It refers to "grammatically correct sentence that starts in such a way that the readers' most likely interpretation will be incorrect; they are lured into an improper parse that turns out to be a dead end." Tricky waters indeed; needless to say, only the sharp man the boat.

Both of these end up catching us off guard, throwing us back to where we started. No wonder, these twins are loved in the community of comedians & satirists. Public personalities have gone on record with either, controversially at times, which include:

1. "You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing—after they have tried everything else." - Winston Churchill

2. "If i could say a few words, i would be a public speaker." - Homer Simpson

3. "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it." - Groucho Marx

4. "Mark my words. No, Mark, i really need my words." - Stephen Colber

5. "I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather, not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car." - Bob Monkhouse

If i could extend it to a bigger stage - could one have a Paraprosdokian Life? Would one like to have one? A life which belies the beaten path and  near the end, churns up something no one, including you, had ever anticipated, given your history? The thought conjures up an arresting, tempting scenario - the kind that would make for a hot-selling biography once you're gone. Find another career Jobs. So, lets see, on one hand it could make you famous, while on the other hand, i wear on ring.

ps. If you tried to spy examples of either of the aforementioned figures of speech, apart from the quotes mentioned, you should find 3 of 'em. No more, no less. Exactement troi. Don't look at me doubtfully. I admit i used to be indecisive. But now i'm not so sure...

The song today, will be a personally Paraprosdokian one for me. By the Band named Touch and go, the song "Would you?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izBbP2kro-c