The silent sufferers

Yesterday there was some discussion about the plight of women in India. From my post, we saw how women are still subdued in spite of progress in all other areas in the country. My comment about women being burnt got me thinking about Sati and the state of widows today.

Not everyone probably knows the meaning of Sati, so let’s start with a small history lesson. In ancient India, women were treated at par or better than men. Women could choose their own mate, make their voice heard in the Government/kingdom, obtain equal share from their paternal property and enjoy other rights hitherto taken away from them. In that sense, ancient India was more progressive than modern India. As time went by scriptures and religious connotations began to be twisted to suit men’s whim and fancy and the concept of Sati was introduced. Accordingly, if a woman’s husband died, she no longer had the right to live. So she had to jump into the burning pyre where her husband’s body was being cremated. Yes, you read that right, she had to push herself to her own death! Various reasons were quoted for this – she couldn’t live alone, other men would take advantage of her, blah blah blah – but the simple unrefined truth is she was burnt so she couldn’t claim her deceased husband’s property.

Time went by and eventually after many years the practice stopped, although I still wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere in the deep recesses of the country an odd case popped up.

So you’d think that their situation now is better, right? Wrong! True, they no longer are to commit suicide for the man they “loved” but now live a life of misery. Surviving family members usually refuse to take care of the widow (remember from yesterday, she is considered bad luck) and is cast off from the home. Certain centres do take them in but the population is so large that basic caring facilities are almost non-existent. There are however, couple such cities where all the widows flock to – Vrindavan and Mathura. These were birth place and playing ground of Krishna, the much revered deity in Hinduism. These widows are told to go there and spend a life in prayer, so it is no surprise that an already fragile city is now overburdened with throngs of widows on its streets. Lack of facilities to take care of the needy means these women end up on the street, usually with no food to eat for days and being ill-treated by passersby.

The ones fortunate enough to find a roof to rest their heads are no better. These shelters or ashrams as they are called are rife with prostitution and sexual abuse. In many cases, ashrams encourage young women to sleep with wealthy donors in hopes of cashing in on their misfortunes. Deepa Mehta’s Water was a fictional but very true attempt at showing the going-ons at these institutions.

The Government can always be blamed because they don’t do enough, they don’t provide enough facilities, there aren’t enough shelters... But who is primarily responsible for such attitudes? That would be you and me. If more people would open their eyes, regard a widow as no less than a human being, our problems are half-solved. So what if she doesn’t have a husband? Why does the identity of a woman start and end with a man? Whatever happened to the scriptures and the religion preaching to honour the mother, the woman!? More than half goddesses in India are female – what kind of contradictory worship is that?

It is always easy to discard responsibility and go the easy way – women for generations in India have fallen mercy to this practice. But that time is gone. If we want a better nation, a better world we need to take action. And that starts with remodeling our attitudes because it's us who needs to change, not the widows. No, not them.

Happy Republic Day, India!

Today is India’s Republic Day, the 62^nd year since the Constitution of India came into being. To commemorate this day, I thought to include ten lesser known random facts about India, some good others bad and some downright ugly. Hard core Indians might take offense to me talking about the bad, actually reminds me of an episode when I was in school and talked about some widows still being burnt in India, some of those idiots said to me “why do you talk about the bad, focus on the good.” Well, I talk about the bad so people can know and that way there some hope for change. But here we are just having some fun! So enjoyJ

1. The Kumbh Mela (or Grand Pitcher Festival) is a huge Hindu religious festival that takes place in India every 12 years. In 2001, 60 million people attended, breaking the record for the world’s biggest gathering. The mass of people was photographed from space by a satellite.
2.  India leads the world with the most murders (32,719), with Russia taking second at 28,904 murders per year.
3. Cows can be found freely wandering the streets of India’s cities. They are considered sacred and will often wear a tilak, a Hindu symbol of good fortune. Cows are considered one of humankind’s seven mothers because she offers milk as does one’s natural mother.
4. India has one of the world’s highest rates of abortion.
5.  Many Indian wives will never say her husband’s name aloud, as it is a sign of disrespect. When ddressing him, the wife will use several indirect references, such as “ji” or “look here” or “hello,” or even refer to him as the father of her child. -- This is becoming less common-place.
6. Rabies is endemic in India. “Delhi Belly” or diarrhea is commonplace due to contaminated drinking water.
7. A widow is considered bad luck—otherwise, her husband wouldn’t have died. Elderly women in the village might call a widow “the one who ate her husband.” In some orthodox families, widows are not allowed near newlyweds or welcomed at social gatherings. – Still happens in rural areas.
8. India is the birthplace of chess. The original word for “chess” is the Sanskrit chaturanga, meaning “four members of an army”—which were mostly likely elephants, horses, chariots, and foot soldiers.
9. The temples of Khajuraho are famous for their erotic sculptures and are one of the most popular tourist attractions in India. Scholars still debate the purpose of such explicit portrayals of sexual intercourse, which sometimes involves animals. -- Thought: why is talking about sex still a taboo!?!? Umm....
10. The official name of India is the Republic of India. The name “India” derives from the River Indus, which most likely is derived from the Sanskrit sindhu, meaning “river.” The official Sanskrit name of India is Bharat, after the legendary king in the epic Mahabharata.

Man's Search for Meaning

So Blindness didn’t go anywhere with me, it got to a point I started ignoring the book in hopes that I would still finish it – God knows how! So the logical part of my brain concluded that I was done and promptly returned it to the library before the irrational side had a chance to protest.

Recently I’ve been keeping a few books on hold, so since the next one had arrived it made parting with Blindness easier.  Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl is a book that details his experiences as a concentration camp inmate and describes his psychotherapeutic method of finding a reason to live.

In moments of torture, Dr. Frankl describes how he found the zeal to hang on to living with experiences that we otherwise don’t pay much heed to and how they helped him see love is the quintessential force in this universe.

An example of Frankl's idea of finding meaning in the midst of extreme suffering is found in his account of an experience he had while working in the harsh conditions of the Auschwitz concentration camp:

“... We stumbled on in the darkness, over big stones and through large puddles, along the one road leading from the camp. The accompanying guards kept shouting at us and driving us with the butts of their rifles. Anyone with very sore feet supported himself on his neighbor's arm. Hardly a word was spoken; the icy wind did not encourage talk. Hiding his mouth behind his upturned collar, the man marching next to me whispered suddenly: "If our wives could see us now! I do hope they are better off in their camps and don't know what is happening to us."

That brought thoughts of my own wife to mind. And as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time and again, dragging one another up and onward, nothing was said, but we both knew: each of us was thinking of his wife. Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.

A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth -- that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way  – an honorable way  – in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory...."

Undoubtedly, it is a hard book to read but it is teaching me a lot about how to approach life and how lucky are we to have found love. The one thing that resonated with me is his attitude of choice. He says we have a choice at every stage in life – we may not have a choice about what happens to us but we do have a choice about how we act once something happens. We can choose to accept it and work with it or fight it and be miserable.

Dr. Frankl’s primary purpose in life was to help others find theirs. "We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering."  



Thought of the day

If only every parent could see the wisdom of Khalil Gibran's words, we could build a better humanity.

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Blindness

I must admit I am terrified of being blind, in fact sometimes I dream about it and when I wake up my palms are usually sweaty. Absolutely horrifying prospect! I like to think our dreams are sending us a message, the sub conscious and super conscious is at work and I usually try to find out what they mean, so when I find out that dreaming about being blind means you are ignoring the most obvious thing in front of you, isn’t every encouraging. The proverbial “turning a blind eye” applies quite literally to this instance.

But this post isn’t about me going blind or my dreams – it’s about the book I am reading and yes it is called Blindness. Supposed to be a literary piece of art, the author, Jose Saramago, is a revered Portuguese writer and over the years many of his books have been translated into English. In 2008, Blindness was turned into a movie starring Mark Ruffalo and Julianne Moore.

As you must have guessed the book is about people going blind, at the drop of a hat. It starts with this one guy waiting to drive his car at the traffic light only to realize he cannot move it anymore because he has been struck blind. Moments later, people come by to help him and one by one at some point they all become blind too. So it’s a blindness that is contagious. I sure don’t want to be anywhere near that city!

With the epidemic of blindness spreading, the Government takes all the blind people and isolates them into a mental hospital with very little supplies and food. As more and more people arrive at the hospital, the situation becomes desperate and the blind are fighting for whatever limited resources are available.

One woman, who is among the blind, fakes to be so she can be with her husband and she is watching their plight. So far it sounds like a sordid, grim tale of human tragedies and how we deal with them. I can only guess what's coming next is the cannibal nature of humans and how we deal with our surroundings when the survival mode kicks in.

Blindness hasn't thrilled me yet but maybe that will change.

Same Soul, Many Bodies

One thing I love about Mumbai is the countless street vendors selling books at next to nothing. Granted these are not original versions but really who cares! In the humdrum of the wedding, that we were there to attend I managed to stop at a local bookseller (I now realize it would have made a good picture) with his massive piles of books! This guy had everything from Indian to British to American authors, really quite a collection.

I promptly began sifting through the books and picking out the ones to take back with me. Just before paying the man asked me lend or buy? Not having stayed there for so many years, I had practically forgotten how these vendors operate. There were 2 ways to read these books – one was to of course buy them at dirt cheap prices (especially when you convert the rupee to dollar) and second was to lend them at next to nothing costs. The man would make a journal entry of the books you’ve borrowed, you pay a nominal fee and return them at a later date when you can borrow more or end your association with him.

I of course bought the books – 4 books – for under $10! I had struck gold!! One of them was a book I was looking to buy just before I left New York. Actually I stepped into Barnes and Noble and then decided against paying over $10 for one book, the same one I found in Mumbai for $2. I was happy!!

So last week, I started flipping through it – Same Soul, Many Bodies by Dr. Brian Weiss. I read enough by now to not be flabbergasted by reincarnation proofs and people being able to remember past lives so this book was just my curiosity for their experiences.

The book didn’t disappoint – what I liked most about it was Dr. Weiss didn’t use a clinical approach to document these experiences, instead he divided them into different emotions and then explained the issues of the people who came to see him – Love, Meditation, Spirituality, Anger Management and so on.

People from all walks of life – rich, poor, fat, thin, pleasant, obnoxious came to find a cure for their symptoms. Some came because their partners thought they needed help, others came under pressure from their parents. A young girl who wanted to be a doctor but couldn’t pass chemistry and math classes learned how pressure can cause frustration and how to better use your experiences to enhance your life. Another 30-year old man came because he read too much sci-fi and his parents thought he needed help. He didn’t act like a 30-year old, his parents thought – but when he went under he remembered a life from 60,000 years ago when he was a part of a highly evolved caravan who had traveled millions of miles to teach beings the importance of spirituality. In his past and future lives (yes in this book Dr. Weiss talked about regressing patients into their future as well), he realized he had always been associated with the stars – as a scientist or an astronaut which enabled him to understand his present day obsessions and chart an appropriate course for his life.

That got me thinking – our current likes or dislikes could be explained from experiences we’ve had in the past. For instance, I love acquiring more knowledge about the universe – can’t get enough of it! My husband loves Egypt, the pyramids (he has never visited yet) and the stories associated with the pharaohs. Was he one of them?

The one feeling of satisfaction that was reiterated for me was that we are immortals – we will never die and will always be surrounded by the souls we love and who love us. Yes, some that we don’t love will come back to us as well – but the trick is to let them go, not with anger but with love and compassion.

I am making a list of all those wretched past boyfriends, really who wants them back in another life? Indifference was easy, but compassion? Now, that’s the challenge!

Passport to the center of the soul

When reading about aliens and abduction theories, the last thing you expect is for the author to start talking about the Source, the energy that powers us all and the One. But Passport to the Cosmos does just that -- Dr. Mack has analyzed the effects these abductions have had on people in a very novel way.

Rather than focusing on the vailidty of the abductions, he has looked at their effect on the abducters -- how they evolve, what they experience and ultimately how they come to terms with dealing this highly debated topic.

You got to hand it to these guys, if I were abducted I don't know if I'd have the balls to say -- "hey this alien dude took me up in a spaceship and performed all sorts of experiments on me." Fear of being ostracized by family, friends and society, losing jobs and credibility are but some of the things these experiencers had to embattle on their way to giving themselves peace and their ordeal legitimacy. Still, the larger population remains skeptical.

But can you even blame the larger population if someone were to tap you on your shoulder and say, "when these creatures took me up there they had sex with me and showed me labs where hybrid babies are being generated. I saw a few of those and felt a deep sense of affinity for one when the blue-bodied freak said to me, yea, that one's yours."

So am I convinced? Honestly, I don't know but how can you ignore so many people when they report the same thing? And how can you ignore when people change for the better? Most of these experiencers though outraged by the ordeal and facing emotional, mental and physical scars -- some of which may never heal -- talk magic! The words they speak are so beautiful and their attitude is such a dramatic shift. People who before never thought of the planet leave their high paying jobs to work in order to save the planet from the destruction the rest of us are causing. They say they are shown images of such catastrophic destruction that their eyes are "opened" and they realize what we have in the Earth.

The spiritual growth is also immense -- most say when abducted they feel in the presence of divinity. The vibration they experience is unlike anything they have ever experienced before, every cell is alive and their sense of self is heightened. Brain waves of these folks have been measured and to everyone's amazement they match those of highly experienced meditators (like the Buddhist monks).

It is really unfortunate that some of them undergo such brutal trauma but in the end what comes out of it is a transformed human being, a person who values what he/she has, understands and works towards getting closer to the Divine Source we are all a part of and works towards making this world a better place for all of us.

Who cares if what they report is fantasy! If fantasy can make me act the way they do, I'm all for it. Just don't expect me to write about my abductions;-)

And just like that, 2011 is upon us!

Please no comments on how I'm late in wishing (better late than never, I say)!

May going forward life be peaceful, joyous and healthy for everyone on this planet! Our constant struggle is to evolve our consciousness to the point where we can be better friends, parents, children or simply human beings. Perhaps this year will teach us how to do that and where we can find that reservoir of selflessness hidden deep inside us.

For me personally, I am going to make it a year of growing patience. I believe each of us has a distinct lesson to learn in each lifetime and for me this lifetime is surely about developing patience; and to implement it in all walks of my life -- not just personal but also incorporate into my work ethic, in my rushed judgement of others (at work, home or while walking on the street) and give everyone a chance to showcase themselves. 

Patience with work is perhaps the biggest area of growth -- not rushing to finish things but taking my time and making sure its done right. Sometimes its hard not to do so, especially when you have a mountain of emails in your inbox (yes, it happens to me too; albeit sometimes) or when there is a cascade of tasks waiting for your attention or when what you are doing is ridiculously boring. No matter what, I will concentrate on the present and focus on what I am doing right now, properly.

That said, its also going to be a year where I let the soul speak louder than the mind! By that I mean, if a thought arises in my heart I will be spontaneous and implement it and not wait for my brain to catch up and analyze. So if I see a homeless man and my first thought is to get him food, I will do so before my brain says, "you know what, that's really not necessary. Why don't you get your ass home in this bone-chilling weather?"

I don't believe in New Year resolutions because the resolutions I speak of above shouldn't be implemented only when a New Year begins but should always be worked on. I have only begun to realize how important these are to me this year so I shall begin now!

What about you? Anything specific you are working on this year?

P.S.: I will talk about my experiences with Passport to the Cosmos shortly.