When a river inside us flows.......

I was on the banks of Hoogli River and watching a magnificent bridge lighted up. The tributary of river Ganges was as enormous and I could see her far until my sight reached.

The river flowed on, not knowing where it is heading to. It has had a humble beginning and there is no choice of choosing its destiny. It has many downfalls, but every waterfall it creates it makes it stronger and establishes its uniqueness on earth. Pebbles and stones laid in its path created   mayhem but also gave it its song. In levelled areas it looked as if it is standing still, but deep current carried it along. In turbulent areas it put off people who did not realize that the turmoil is due to obstacles laid in its way, and not due to any fault of the river.

Having reached the plains, the river picks up tons of momentum. It establishes its eminence, and people look at it with revelation. It offers itself to be wedged, it can carry ferries and ships, it nurtures so many lives within rivulet, and it is the source of sustenance for agriculture.

Throughout its journey the river watches its own revolution, almost as a bystander. It feels so innate, since it is not in its control of its fortune. It watches its early morning devotees offering flowers and salutations, it experiences dirt filled bodies emerging cleansed from within its body, it absorbs the ashes of the burnt dead reverently thrown into its swirls along noiselessly, it watches villages and cities, it witnesses the rise and fall of civilizations. It welcomed habituation on its shores when people wanted to settle down happily enjoying its life sustaining water.

Through the ages, countries have been divided along river paths, wars have been fought, dams have been built and canals have been drawn away. People have been baptized, they have been cleansed, they have offered prayers, they have travelled on it, and they have merged their sins with it. Never in so many centuries has anyone stopped to sit by the river and probe its heart, search its deep currents – to ask what it wants.

The only thing that the river is ensured is that its journey will come to an end one day and it plunges itself to a massive body losing its identity.  Such is a human life. Some flow with the currents, some try to battle with the life’s decisions and directions. The end result is the same – merger with the higher self-but what is important during the passage of time, whether we quenched someone’s thirst, whether we carried someone on our shoulders, whether we fortified someone’s life or whether we destroyed something on the way. The choice is ours.

Look back, to see where are our rivers flowing.......

Trails on Ascending

What is within this earth’s crust   
What is within the depth of my soul
What is the purpose of my life’s journey
What created what is!

What lies without …

What lies in the serenity of a morning
hike through the forest, covered by
colossal trees, pelting through the pebbles
Cascading a bed of mountain stones
How is mighty and majestic pinnacle
That shows off to sky
The zenith of life, and the summit to reach. 

The crest pulls us with endurance
As tedious the life’s pathway too
To pursue, to trail, to hunt or to chase
All to ensue the purpose of life

Uphill, sometimes we give up
A twinge unquenchable
What made me to give up …
A constraint, a situation, sometimes a choice

But, the cry within is pinching persistently
To recuperate, to rebound, to spring up
Just to reach the apex
To excavate the edge, to ascertain the
Gentle, Calm, Mighty, and Majestic from the depths of my soul
to the world around me…
Life is All-Surrounding, lingering to behold.

The way we are ...

We hold on to things the tightest,
when we are forced to let them go-
We always want things a certain way,
when know they can’t be so.

Dreams always last the longest,
when they are furthest from our reach-
And the lessons we can learn the most from,
are often the very ones we teach.

The grass is always the greenest,
when it lies on the other side-
And the truths we preach to others
are often those we can’t abide.

We hold fast to the things in a storm,
which are most likely to blow away-
And yet we neglect to wear sunscreen,
on a bright and sunny day.
We spend our time trying to see things,
when perspective is one thing we lack-
And we never appreciate what we we’ve got,
until we can’t get it back.

We expect the whole world to give us a break,
and yet ironically we’ll find-
That when others come asking the same of us,
we tell him they’re out of their mind.

We tell everyone what’s wrong with this world,
and we do nothing to make it right-
We complain about families falling apart,
and yet do nothing to keep them tight.

We preach about loving our neighbours,
and we teach children right form wrong-
But we never set good examples for them,
when real chances come along.

We complain about not having enough time in our lives,
to do what we must do-
Yet if we were given more hours in a day,
we’d use up all that, too.

We desire to be close to all those we love,
yet all too often look on from afar-
And when it comes to the truth do we want to change,
or remain forever as we are ?

Reach Out!

“If you reach out to the world with all that you have, like a star, you can never be hidden no matter where you are”.
This is a rich country but still we are required to call ourselves as developing nation.
Our society has affluent culture and tradition, yet discernment is a major part of it.
People are open & broad, they are obliging & co-operative yet we suffer from distress & miseries.
It’s an unusual combination of contradictions.

Drilling deep into objective minds and subjective experiences, today’s minds are really hungry for unconditional & serene listeners.
Responsibilities, roles, duties, tasks, manifold management at multiple places-all makes this society into a small world of involuntary actions and motorized living.
Let us think for a while and count for how many relationships we give time genuinely. It is indeed sad to say that many of us have no time for most intimate relationships. We search for words if ever the conversation extends for more than a hour or two. We are too engaged to talk and share. We are too busy to have an update, we are occupied to attend them. We are in demand for ourselves even for a call.
Ah! There comes a day we realize this facet of chaotic life. Just to release all the bars, hug children around, get a gift to spouse, meet parents to say you care… and blow horns to announce. “Let’s get together”. There comes the evening with all of them in bright colors fully clad and decked, children playing around, ladies forming a cluster, above sixties another. One can breath eat, drink and talk in full zoom. As slowly the time ticks, everyone feels elated to have met. Yet again this cycle repeats once a year or twice.
If we can call this as sharing, we can also call a blank paper as currency. All it means is, physically both are papers, but currency has a value. It makes difference. Recognize the value addition in relationships.
We all stumble while journeying through this life, we find comfort while we have hand to hold. You should have been a holding hand before you can hold on to some one else’s. That’s sharing.

Nature gave us one tongue and two ears so we could hear twice as much as we speak. Listen is the main ingredient. Add fragments of trust, respect, care and warmth. Maintaining confidence is the final icing which bakes relationship much tastier & healthier. That’s sharing.
Being kind with no conditional assumptions that all we say should be accepted. Watch out on advices, suggestions and words to cease it with limitations. That’s sharing.

Try to remove your shoes before you can virtually imagine wearing someone else’s. Understanding and empathizing positively makes sense only then. That’s sharing.
All said and done, this is not a new topic that I started to revolutionize. We know facts and essentials, but we still loose out on small truths.
We realize the rudiments of abundant hungry hearts and thirsty minds for that speck of care & share. But do we reach out!


Truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.

Ego–Gets Deep As You Delve

Off late I see lot of folks tossing around the word EGO and they present the word seeming to have comprehended the meaning around it.
But often it seems to me, as an unknown factor and sometimes a complex concept to apprehend.
What is Ego? was my question, and I was startled with the vivid flavour of responses I received.


a) Ego is I, it creates my icon
b) Ego is my emotional energy
c) Its ME becoming bigger than MYSELF
d) Ego is ‘Aham' (Sanskrit)
e) Its my consciousness
f) Ego is the one who helps me in giving my identity.
g) Ego is my shield
h) It's a physiological and a psychological tie
i) It is my reflection/shadow
k) EGO…. Ahhh! It just needs to GO… from I
l) Its my best pal, it follows me all the time, I am lost in its absence.
m) Ego is still a stranger for me
n) Ego is an enemy within, it curbs my growth.
o) Ego is our ideas, persona & it represents oneself.
My thought process crisscrossed all these notions. Each reflection can be contemplated with innate concepts. Yet it seems to be a complex constitution.
In a common dialect one approaches to say Ego as ‘pride about oneself'. Physical body, mind, intellectuality, emotions, possessiveness towards ‘me' and my things. Conceit of ‘I' ness and awareness about oneself.
A spiritual concept of ego is that, a dark circle surrounds a bright soul which eventually adds negativity and pulls the flow of grace from almighty.
But, for a moment I am still inquisitive to know about the ingredients of that dark circle. It's a subtle picture in my mind.
I some times think that ego is that part which wants to create an impression of ourselves. It is a fear of creating& retaining that image. It is insecurity which does not want to get disclosed. Ego is also an apprehension towards failure when it is settled in a cosy zone. Ego is happy with appreciation. Ego strives for being called perfect and wants to be called as perfectionist. Ego is false humility and a deep rooted thought that gets satisfied with being called as superior. Ego does not want to seek help. Ego is also being with feeling of all in control with the sole reason being ‘I'. My thought flow just kept streaming like a current which encouraged to excavate more on cognitive perspective of E…G…O.
The most fascinating part of our cognitive mind has three distinct states.

Id, Ego & Super ego - Sigmund Freud's structural model of our psychic functionalities.
Id – Intrinsic drives – A "Pleasure Principle" coerce. The steer is just basic impulses of momentary need. It does all that which is required at that moment of time. It displays with no mask. So, it seems to be selfish that strives for immediate satisfaction.
Ego- works on reality principle. It is the organised part of our personality structure. It provides logical reasoning for intrinsic drives. It justifies providing sense to the world around us. Being conscious is within ego, but all actions of ego need not have to be conscious.
Super-ego is a jury. A judge who lives within us.  Super ego is driven by those principles plus a layer of positivity and negativity on it. If your action is favourable to your ego, if it results with right remarks, it gives you a proud feeling. Once when the impression is set, it thrives to keep up the standards always by judging right versus wrong, true versus false. On the contrary if your deed is not acceptable to your ego, it leaves a bitter feeling of guilt and inferiority.
After realising different genres of ego, I can employ right term in the right event instead of a generic idiom E…G….O.

But I am certainly convinced that EGO is not "Edging God Out". We neither can corner ourselves from reality, nor can we edge a life within ourselves.
It is Emotions in motion which aligns itself with sensibleness and pragmatism. Whether we call these emotions to be residing in mind or heart, it is the spirit of verve and vivacity.
It is actually alluring to know that there are even defence mechanisms in ego, which I will explore very soon and share my learning's. The thirst of exploring never fades, as the information keeps impending. I will investigate what phase of ego is this!!!

Confronting The Child Within

"Why are you crying Mommy! Come, I will give you a hug."  Saying so within no second he gave me a warm bear hug with his little hands around my neck. That was my four year old kid just few days back.

I was completely down as I had lost my much-loved uncle and was feeling low, hollow and helpless.
While we try to teach our children all about life, Our children teach us what life is all about.
The warmth of love was so pure that I wanted my inner child to take birth within me again. I wanted to re-live as a child who just is as innocent and as playful one can think off. I wanted to be a kid again for whom worldly affairs is far off and can see only people it relates to. Energy, creativity, innocence and chastity is so virtuous that it's an ultimatum of being alive.

Call it as ‘divine child', ‘wonder child', ‘inner child', or ‘true self'  or ‘real self', its just that how do we confront a child within all of us.
Undeniably we carry a child within ourselves. This inner child is created by parents, society, and all people who are involved during this augmentation of childhood.
If the child is not heard and accepted, it establishes to create an inter-reliant false self which generates emotional traumas and always feels like victims eventually leading to emptiness, disturbance, zero self confidence with bundle of apprehensions at all stages. On the contrary, the child with attention and acknowledgement builds the fortune for oneself and people around.

But, no one really knows how many people have been loved and guided in healthy ways. So this is one of the most important concepts for us to understand: we all have an inner child, and we have many more inner children inside of us as well. Most people are aware of some of their inner children. The process of opening to the world of the Inner Child enhances our choices in miraculous ways. There are dozens of ways to connect to this wonder kid within which heals, loves and feels happy. In my case, a thousand words might have got communicated which was replaced by a warm hug. That's why a picture dominates a kid's world rather than words. During the transition from childhood the "Wise-kid" becomes dominant with left brain as chief ascendant and keeps beating the inner child to emerge. Adult and Parent of what we address in TA (Transactional Analysis) transpires. This is where often the internal battle begins.
But, a profound thought would be to nurture the inner child with love rather than muffling and secluding it. It heals, it relaxes after all we need some balance out of life and re-living childhood-ness in adulthood is an experience with difference. Its never too late to begin anything.
The wonder kid within has the following faces and all of us live few moments within this nutshell to confront the inner child.
The frisky child is the child which loves to play. It is a frolicsome kid with full of vivacity and exuberance. The energy store house is never empty. There is a spark from within which twinkles with enthusiasm.
The stubborn child which wants what it wants. No compromises. You cannot expect any deal to strike with concession.

The mischievous child is naughty, It is certainly not negative to hurt & harm because adulthood would become alert with super ego to judge.
The fearful child feels scared and in-secured. Some times behaves awful with anxiety. All of us go through this phase one or the other time.
The desolated child strongly feels isolated. Feels comfortable either alone or with selected few based on situations. Not surprisingly, there are circumstances that this feeling of segregation might get extended. But, its alarming if this remoteness continues more than a month.
The inquisitive child – There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of this child.  There are seven million. Curious, interesting, and enquiring seems like an unquenched thirst for this inquisitive child.
This is just an insight towards the possibilities of a child within. There are many other selves as well. In reality all children are imaginative, innovative and artistic, the challenge is to remain one as one grows up.
Its an experience with difference to develop the ability to identify the child within and nourish with adequate attention and admiration to give oneself a profound healing experience.

This is one of the thoughts I always remember when a child within me awakes.

Bitter are the tears of a child: Sweeten them.
Deep are the thoughts of a child: Quiet them.
Intense is the grief of a child: Soothe it.
Soft is the heart of a child: Do not harden it.