From Deepa's Desk

  My struggles with practicing mindfulness continue…! Today I had an unpleasant revelation of sorts. You see, the kid writes his homework in the evening. I sit beside him and try to blog. The kid does everything except write. He talks about everything under the sun… actually, this is not precise. Since he too is an astronomy-lover like me, he talks about everything over, above, beside and under the sun. (Just today he had a question – What will happen if a giant sphere of 3000 degrees C strikes another giant sphere of -3000 degrees C? Which one will win? The mystery remains unsolved. Answers are welcome and desperately wanted!) So in 20 minutes, he has had his bathroom-break, drinks-break, his pencil-break (the tip of his pencil has to be uber-sharp, which means, he sharpens the same after every two words and of course, the thin tip doesn’t survive the tremendous pressure that he exerts while writing. So needless to say, pencil-breaks are much ahead in the race of ‘breaks’.) He...

  It was a fine morning when I heard, The sweet chirping of a familiar bird. I couldn’t see it, hidden as it seemingly was, But its chirps were striking all the right chords.   I said to the bird – ‘Hello! How do you do! It has been a while since I saw you. I hope all is well in your realm! Do you still have your nest in the tree of the Neem?’   The bird chirped some more, And from its chirps, this, I did encode: ‘Yes, all is well with me and my winged friends Our fun in the sky knows no ends!’   I scoffed and answered, ‘Oh, this can’t be true! ‘We are having fun!’, say this, how can you?! When for a morsel of food, you search hither and thither, This sense of joy radiates in you from whither?!’   The bird chirped in excitement, And I listened to it in astonishment. ‘The food seems tastier after a long search, It is bliss, when we have it, seated on our perch!’   I shake my head obstinately. ‘No, you are a...

  A time will come in life when it feels easier to give in To let go of hope and to let despair win. To shrug off the mantle of positivity that we had donned ‘We can face everything!’, oh, how, ourselves we had conned!   The time will come when negativity will seemingly give comfort, Will crumble around us, our gigantic and mighty positive fort, We will lament – ‘Our dreams and hopes were in vain! Oh! Holding on to them all this while, what did we gain?!”   There will come a time when the desire to succumb To hopelessness and defeat will, all our other senses, numb. ‘Why to struggle against what looks inevitable? Why not simply give up, accept defeat and in our grief, be comfortable?’   The weaker side of the mind will whisper this and more ‘Why should we put up a fight anymore? In the end, life turned out to be unfair, as they all said, Dearly, with our dreams, hopes and wishes, we have paid!’   ‘let us now embrace despai...

Today, the sweater felt stifling. Today, as I stepped out of my home in the evening, I found a pleasant surprise – at 6, there was still day-light, as opposed to all these days when by 5.30, darkness would descend. Today, the fan in the home got switched on! The weather is gradually taking a U-turn. At the Cosmos, events are unfolding. As the Sun steps from one zodiac to another, it is bringing slightly warmer and longer days. Changes are happening at the macro-cosmic as well as the micro-cosmic level! Change is essential. It is the variety of life. Without change, life would become mundane and dull. And yet, it is not easy to accept and embrace change. We try to cling on to familiarity, to comfort and to routines. It seems easier. And this, I say as someone who used to be addicted to routine. For me, things had to happen at the regular time, in the regular way, every day. A slight change in the order would make me feel imbalanced. In a Universe that is changing and expanding...

Mindfulness means living wholly in the present moment. As it is, this requires lot of practice through meditation and breathing techniques. During chaotic times as the one we are living in, it becomes all the more difficult.  I hasten to clarify that I am the least qualified person to write about mindfulness. While I am far from achieving this blessed state, I can surely share what comes in the way of achieving a mindful state. Multi-tasking: This is something that I try to do always and in which I fail spectacularly. Trying to cook two dishes at the same time? Why not? It will save time, right!? No. Neither one of the dishes turns right, and the result is a jumbled mess of both the dishes and my mood too. May be some are proficient in multitasking. But for the common mortals like me, this is a sure shot way to fail at the task.  Mindfulness is about turning every act into a meditation. So how can one do more than one task at a time and retain a meditative state? It is...