The 'PIE' ('Pulling-In' Effect) of Thoughts

Around two- three weeks back I was looking up books in a bookstore when suddenly I remembered that there was a book I was meaning to read but couldn’t remember what the book was. It was time to go to the evening mass and about then I remembered that it was the book ‘The Kite Runner’ that I had been wanting to get an idea of before deciding to read it. Surprisingly enough a few days after this incident the book did arrive in my house with my cousin but I got busy doing my art of living class, blogged about it on 19th, and then two days later I found some free time to go through the book. I managed to rush through it before my cousin left the next day. But I was wonder struck. Wasn’t this book about ‘regret’ and how it courses some of our future decisions! Wasn’t this book in line with what I had blogged two days before on 19th about how negative can lead to positive! The kite had landed in my home and evidently I must have been pulling it in! This is my umpteenth of such experiences. Another of such experience in the recent past is of the famous book ‘The Alchemist’ by Paulo Cohelo which was (I felt later) strangely being pulled in slowly but surely for more than a year. I hadn’t liked the title when I first heard of it (around one and a half year back) because it seemed to be connected with chemistry and so I just presumed I would find it boring. I kept avoiding it till I read ‘Eleven Minutes’ by the same author and it opened my mind to the author. The book (The Alchemist) was finally purchased by my husband but the title still proved a put off for a week. In the meanwhile I blogged a poem “The Secret”, and it was a day or two after, that I started reading ‘The Alchemist’. Thankfully it didn’t have much to do with chemistry! As most would know, it basically dealt with the topic of listening to the heart and about omens and I couldn’t help but notice a definite element of connection with the content of the poem 'The Secret' that I had written (The poem talks about listening to the heart and not go by just bookish understanding of matters)! Had my discoveries and thoughts been pulling this book in slowly but surely thus bringing concurrent thoughts out there in the world and which further established my faith in my conclusions!

Recently I read in the paper something that I again found finally in a queer way connected to the chain of thoughts I had been having for a week.
It was about a 68 year old man who sought consolation from Deepak Chopra, because he was feeling that his life had been meaningless as he had tried to achieve ‘something’ by reading spiritual books and learning classical music but did not feel he achieved anything. Deepak Chopra as always did his best to console him. He basically suggested getting rid of self pity and focus on the‘now’

But for quite a moment I thought -there is no way that man can be consoled After all he wanted ‘something’ and he didn’t get it in 68 years! Of course there is that ready made answer we can think of, that ‘he was not clear what he wanted and so didn’t get it’. But really, just think; when you go to a clothes shop, do you really know what you might end up liking. And then the tired salesman tells you to be specific what you want! It is normal in life to be unsure what u want, but when the right thing comes in front, there is that ‘ahHa! This is it!’ moment.
Now there are really two possibilities, either the 68 year old man ‘really’ didn’t get the ‘ahHa moment’ or maybe he got his ‘something’ right into his hands but failed to notice it because he was still looking out there into the stacks and not right in front of him..
We all pull in ‘that something’ that ‘pie’ that our heart has been pining for, but only our heart knows what that something is. Our ‘surface scanning and depth blind’ brain may in fact crowd out the message from our heart and fail to notice that, what life placed in our hands in an unattractive garb is actually what our heart has been really pining for. We then squander away that wealth quite simply because we didn’t open the wrapping. We squander it because we were expecting it to be out there in the stack in better wrappings rather than sitting unassumingly in our hands!
Sometimes what keeps us from our treasure is looking with our brain rather than with our heart. The smart logical brain fails to see that sometimes what glitters may not be as valuable, and what does not glitter may end up to be worth more than an equal in gold.

We have to practice being aware of the kites that come falling into our arms while we were busy spinning a thread of thoughts. We have to see the connection the kite has to our thread of thoughts and realize that we ourselves have pulled it in. It is only then that we can value it, go for it, and make the most of it.

Art of Living

One thing I enjoy in life is making new friends, as it leads to new discoveries, a whole new perspective to life. It is decades of different circumstances, different understandings leading to different discoveries that we gain in one new friendship. I look at Sri Sri Ravi Shankar as the first new friend that I have managed to make in a new place I shifted to. I was starved for a friend in this new place and it was a wonderful coincidence that my husband should suggest that I do the Art of Living course. The course was being conducted in our locality exactly in the week that my parents came visiting us and so could take care of my kids while I attended the course. In the class, I made a new friend, as I said, in Sri Sri Ravi Shankar though I didn't personally see him. He shared his understanding and research in the study of breath through this course. People were surprised that I,  a Christian, was attending a "Hindu" course. And I was so surprised about their surprise! What in the world is "Hindu" or "Non-Christian" about breathing a bit differently!! I was later again surprised when, while researching on the breathing techniques, I discovered that some Christian sects do not consider it very proper to undertake these classes! I feel, rather, that it is essential to understand the one thing that we definitely do as living entities which is to breathe. If we can take medicines to relieve stress and depression, and that is not 'Non-Christian', then definitely using understanding of breath to relieve depression and stress is definitely not Non-Christian. We attend any class to take what we want and have the option to ignore what we don't subscribe to. 

Another point that I would like to share is "my new friend's" understanding about the positive and negative things in life. He reiterates what Indian scriptures have to say, that there is no experience of positive without the experience of negative. Hence, one cannot be without the other. Duality is the nature of everything.

Though difficult to remember in negative circumstances, one cannot argue against the truth to it. In positive circumstances, we recognise the coincidences that lead to the good events. In negative circumstances, however, we wonder whom to blame for it. We think 'maybe if this had not been done, maybe if I had said something else, maybe if I had not surrendered to my feelings, maybe if my nature was different.. things would have been different?' Why is it that we often accord God for the good in life and want to blame ourselves for all the Bad! A moment has a power of its own that sometimes makes us react uncharacteristic to our nature, but though what it leads to may be read by our limited mental faculties as negative, if we are aware, we can realise that the negative event would have changed our direction to new discoveries in life, to new experiences, and all 'so very positive lessons' which would have been inaccessible without the nudge of the negative. 

It is, therefore, possible to feel blessed to have 'negative experiences' in life, but it does not mean we would be smiling through that rough patch of negative. The same way that anything positive in life brings smile and laughter, something negative brings tears and anger and suffering. But we have our knowledge serving as a log we hold on to during a flood, helping us endure and navigate through adversities in our life.