Life, oh life, what are you trying to tell me?

"Main hu manzil,
main to safar bhi,
main hi musafir hu,
main hi musafir hu!" (Hindi)

This is one of the most soulful songs I have ever heard. Translated, it means:
I am the destination,
I am the journey,
I am also the traveller,
I am also the traveller.

The more I learn from life, the deeper my conviction grows that we are already where we are supposed to be. Enlightenment is not in the future, it is not a destination we constantly struggle to reach. It is in the here and now. Thank you Eckhart Tolle, for expressing such deep wisdom in so simple a language.

When Meerabai sang, I was,
When Buddha taught, I was,
When Mahavir walked, I was,
When Jesus suffered, I was,
I, the eternal witness, was, am, will be.

Am I the wave or the ocean?

Dear Universe,
If there's only one thing I can learn in this lifetime, please tell me :
How can the wave know itself to be part of the greater reality that it is the ocean?
Yours gratefully,
Sheetal

Life is a gift!

Lake Shrine, LA

20th July 05

"Life is a gift asking to be unwrapped and the ribbons sit waiting inside me"

Sitting in this beautiful Lake Shrine, I can't help but reflect how grateful I feel to life for having given me these awesome opportunities to travel and learn so much about the world and myself in the process. I keep reflecting on this question in my most quiet moments:

How can the wave know itself to be part of the greater reality that it is also the ocean?

Many times have I felt that I am a wave in the ocean of humanity, asking to wake up to the reality that beneath the illusion of name and form, I am the ocean, I am one with everything that "IS".

Reminds me of an interesting story. Two waves are playfully bouncing along the ocean, not a care in the world. Suddenly one of them looks terrified. His friend asks him what happened to which he replies: "Look, look, we are nearing the shore and are going to crash onto the beach. Are we going to die? What will happen to us?" His sagely friend, the other wave replies, " Silly, we are the ocean. We were created here and this is where we will merge back into. We took on a name and form and got lost in that illusion of a separate identity. Wake up, we are all one and the same. The important thing is not the name or form, but the essence, the gist, the juice beneath the layer of name and form."

How can I wake up from this illusion?

In service,

Sheetal

Love, peace and happiness is not a destination to be reached out there, but a space within ourselves that we must realize.

The Power of Commitment

"Any idea, however powerful, is absolutely fascinating and absolutely useless until we choose to use it."
Richard Bach

I feel that all of us have the potential to do everything that we dream of. The problem is when we only sit and dream. What is needed most is the courage to act on your dreams. Once dreams connect with your commitment, they become a vision.


"Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: the moment one definitely commits oneself, then... a whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.
Seize this moment, whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Why I choose to wander?

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. "
Howard Thurman

In my quest for "truth", I have gone through numerous books, met Gurus, tried various spiritual practices and worshipped at holy places around the world. All this in the hope of finding the answers to some of fundamental questions that intrigue me, questions like:

Who am I?
Does God exist?
What is the purpose of life?

The more I sought answers, the more confused I got. That's when I read a quote that has influenced the way I lead my life, a quote by Jiddu Krishnamurti that says, "Truth is a pathless land".That's when I realized that I was seeking life's answers through prescribed paths and not really "thinking out of the box".

I decided to explore life, the inner as well as outer by actually stepping out of the box, out of the conditioned thinking patterns that have been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I decided to be childlike in my curiousity and bold in my attitude towards my explorations. Thus began my wanderings in the pathless land of truth.

My wanderings have taught me a lot and I wish to share the fact that 99% of the times teaching meant stumbling onto truth.

There are many who have followed the same path, one of wandering. I have learned through their experiences and wish to share what I have learned as my offering to the universe.

"What do we leave behind when we cross each frontier? Each moment seems split in two; melancholy for what was left behind and the excitement for entering a new land"

Ernesto 'Che' Guevara

I wish to share my journey, my wanderings with a prayer in my heart that it may inspire others to start their wanderings, their wanderings into the pathless land of truth.