Signposts...

This needs to be recorded, not so much for chronicling a particular point in history, but as a signpost for the future... rather, a fuller living of each moment:

Then there were these words of wisdom from another source:

What I am driving at is that you need to explore new horizons constantly, whether as part of the thesis or beyond it. Each will influence the other! Even in your readings for the PhD, what are the ideas that have caught your attention? If there are, let them lead you into unchartered territories!

...  Do not put blocks to yourself. I would say, there is nothing to discern here, except being solicitous about completing what you have started. I suggest what my doctor told me: eat well, sleep well, relax… and enjoy what you are doing.

And of course, the gentle reminder, about faith!

Thanks and prayers for all those who have been close to me in these uncertain moments of my journey! 

Coffee in India

The one to introduce India to coffee was a Muslim named Bababuden.  Very many considered him to be a saint.  He came from Mocha bringing with him a handful of seeds, and settled himself on the slopes of a mountain range in Kadur district, Mysore State.  This range was later named after him, and anyone can see his tomb even today if he will undertake a short trip from Chickmagalur  The origin of coffee, thus is saintly.  It was not an empire-builder or a buccaneer who brought coffee to India, but a saint, one who knew what was good for humanity. (p. 44)
[Narayan, R.K. (1990) A Story-teller's World New Delhi: Penguin Books.]

All the right words...

Mind your language

Wittgenstein, language and transcendence...

Speaking of Wittgenstein, language and transcendence...

The fact that we might even be tempted to suppose we can do that bespeaks a deeply human longing to step outside our own skins. We can feel trapped by our bodily, time-bound existence. There’s a kind of religious impulse that seeks liberation from these limits: it seeks to transcend our finite selves and make contact with the infinite. Wittgenstein’s religious impulse pushes us in the opposite direction: he doesn’t try to satisfy our aspiration for transcendence but to wean us from that aspiration altogether. The liberation he offers isn’t liberation from our bounded selves but for our bounded selves.

Metaphysical speculations, for Wittgenstein, are like gears that have slipped free from the mechanism of language and are spinning wildly out of control. Wittgenstein the engineer wants to get the mechanism running smoothly. And this is precisely where the spiritual insight resides: our aim, properly understood, isn’t transcendence but a fully invested immanence. In this respect, he offers a peculiarly technical approach to an aspiration that finds expression in mystics from Meister Eckhart to the Zen patriarchs: not to ascend to a state of perfection but to recognise that where you are, already, in this moment, is all the perfection you need. 

Found at Aeon

Does or Is

We find it reasonable and easy to answer certain direct questions about things we see around us.  But the same ease and rationale fails us when we ascend further to the domain of persons and non-material realities. 
Why does this biscuit exist?
Why does this bulb exist?
Why does this car exist?
Why does this building exist?
Why does this office exist?
Why do I exist?
Why does the world exist?
Why does anything exist at all?
Note the increasing difficulty in answering the above set of questions. Why so?

The more distanced and uninvolved we stay, the easier to answer.  The more intimate and involved we get, the more difficult it gets to answer.

Gets us back to 'know thyself'.  Same with language. 

Perhaps we have been answering the wrong question all along: instead of answering what it IS we have been answering what it DOES.  We have been answering 'what does language do?' rather than 'What IS language?'.  We have equated DOES and IS.

Perhaps we don't have an access point beyond 'does'.  To answer, 'is' we need to get out of language.  (Do we?) And there is no 'getting out of language'.

Mothers

Mum just needs to get a whiff of something and she latches onto it like a shark sensing a drop of blood!  But unlike the shark, she only wants her child to be happy and safe.  

Couldn't resist taking a pic of this drawing I found along the walls of the sports hall of a primary school sometime ago.  

The Egyptian persecution and gender persecution

History is strewn with numerous instances of persecution.  And among those groups of people persecuted most, the ones that top the list would be the Jews.  In the book of Exodus we hear Pharoah punishing the Jews in anticipation that they 'might' join the enemy!  Besides forced rigourous labour, he commands all male babies be drowned in the river. 

One can view this as a gender disparity.  Why only males? Why not all babies?  Perhaps Pharoah was not aware that in Jewish tradition, the child receives its heritage from the religion of the mother.  So one born of a Jewish woman, no matter which religion or group the father belonged to, the child would be a Jew.  Going by that lineage, Pharoah killed the wrong gender! 

But perhaps, Pharoah was not after destroying the whole race - something what Hitler tried to do.  He was perhaps only culling numbers - especially of those whom he feared a threat from: male, capable of joining wars and fights.  Females posed no apparent threat to him. 

If only modern generation, which is quick to blame the female gender for most of its faults, picks up at least the last lesson from him - even though sadistic or inhumane it may seem! 

Vehicles

We're waiting for a new fleet of cars from the hiring company.  Not that the existing ones are old. They are just four years old and in perfect condition.  So perfect that there's hardly any scratch on some of them - they've all been professionally touched up!  But compared to the vehicles we use back in India and the condition they often end up in, these are brand new!

I remember the old sumo of BIRDY house.  Then the one I used - and loved most - while at Ramanthapur.  We would get practically anything and everything in it.  Flour bags for the bakery. Provisions for the kitchen.  Bakery products to the Sunday sale.  Cement bags for the maintenance. Rolls of cloth for the ITI tailoring section.  All of these besides using it as a transport vehicle for confreres and boys!  We could take off the seats, the overhead carriage, the spare wheel (if and when it did have one),... and the tyres, wow, there were so many patches on them that the one patching them up said that the oldest tyre which he used as a stool to sit on in his repair shop, was far better than the ones we had our vehicle running on!  In spite of all these, the vehicle was great!  I loved it more than the new ones we had!

Was reminded of those 'good old vehicles' when I watched this clip from one of the God's must be crazy editions...

Cut flowers

Sitting for meditation the other day and having noticed the withering flowers at the altar, it occured to me that we bring to the altar only 'cut' versions of ourselves - pieces of time, occasions of the day, some events of the past, few bits and pieces of our inner selves.  Just like the cut flowers.  And just like cut flowers fade and wither away, faster than the ones not cut and left on the plants, so too do all these 'bits and pieces' of ourselves are like a big jigsaw puzzle before the altar, with quite a few pieces missing.

I've always preferred to place living and flowers (and plants) alive in front of the altar. That way, we do both - honour God and honour creation.  Rather than cut flowers and then place them in water on the altar, I prefer the uncut flowers or plants adding beauty with their full life - not life cut short or only when in full blossom. 

Perhaps those cut flowers are an analogy of what we actually do with ourselves too - and are happy with it.  We only bring the 'best' so to say, to God.  Not everything!