Good-bye "Soul Searcher"

This time 2 years ago I embarked upon a journey. I named this journey the "Soul Searcher." Today I am changing my path. I am not the same person I was when I began the journey, and with that change, I must change my medium.

I didn't know who I was when all of this began. All I knew was that I needed to soul search and figure things out. I had no one to divulge my thoughts and innermost feelings with, so I turned to the anonymouse world wide web. I worked through many obstacles, as many instances of happiness too, and developed my inner self.

Things are different now. I no longer have no one to share my thoughts with. I find, of late, that when I find myself sad, or lost in thought, I no longer turn to the "Soul Searcher." I always end up talking to him. And it always makes me feel good. He is the one I have been searching for, and now that he is in my life, I no longer turn to the world.

The purpose of soul searching had been to find myself. What I have found after these two years is not just myself, but my partner too. Today I find that my thirst for soul searching is still alive, but my prupose has changed.

The time has come for me to develop and deepen the sense of self I have found. The exploring has ceased, and the cultivating has begun. My soul searching has shifted focus, and now requires of me personal, private attention.

The transision is over. The "Soul Searcher" has brought me from childhood to adulthood, and for that I am grateful. But now, as an adult, I must maintain the person I am, and want to keep being. Now, as an adult, I am ready to sould search not just for myself, but for my relationships - with him, with the people around me, my family, work, and my place in it all.

So, today I bid you farewell "Soul Searcher," because a bend in my soul searching has come along. You took a young, confused, lost girl, and made her into a confident, calm woman. With a clear sense of self, and the continuing of soul searching, I will now begin the path towards inner peace - the new road to developing my soul.


P.S. Someday, perhaps when soul searching comes upon another bend, I might return to the "Soul Searcher" - or perhaps I might not. I will still have "Books come to life" and keep expressing my opinions on what I read. Someday, hopefully soon, I will start something new, something different.. a blog, of the storyteller, or the poet.. whichever decides to emerge from me :)

Not here, Nor there

I have a habit - which I know I'm not alone in - of listening to music while driving. So, as usual, while driving home tonight I was listening to my favorite tunes, when this bittersweet melody known as "Yeh jo des hai tera" from the hindi movie Swades came on - things changed for me. Now, I'm not a very emotional person. So everytime I do get emotional - or emotions, haha - I find that an enlightened realization comes out of it!

Tonight, that song brought tears to my eyes. I immediately wanted to know why - and on the fifteen minutes left until home, this is what I came up with to understand the emotion, and to ease it away:

The song's main line translates into something like "this is your country, your own country, there is a bond that cannot break" - and I wondered, which country was I feeling this emotion for? And I realized, it was the lack of one that affected me most. I was born in one country, and have spent 15 years in another; one I can officially be called a citizen of, and the other I still hold citizenship rights in. But does that all make any difference? They both treat me the same - they give me the illusion of acceptance, when in reality I don't fit in either. This thought - of course - just proceeded to make me sadder (as the song continued gently in the background).

A voice inside my head said something then, it said, "Perhaps you belong to the world" - This was something to think about. I pondered on this and realized that through all my soul searching and buddhist reading, I should know better than to be sad at having no attachments to any given country. The whole purpose of meditation is to let go of attachments - and here I was upset I didn't have any. Maybe the voice had a point - maybe I do belong to the world - or rather, put a bit better, the earth. I belong to the earth - as does everyone - yet most get caught up in divisions that are ultimately man-made. I believe in nature, and nature doesn't define any boundaries - it doesn't tell me that one is your country, and the other is not. They are both mine to belong in, and neither are mine to belong in - the whole earth is open for me.

A sense of relief flooded through me. The phrase "all is well" came to mind and made me laugh. Silly me! This was a blessing in disguise - not belonging to any one place - it allowed me to belong to the earth - the earth that gives me my true life. I had been wondering about my house lately - my parents were thinking of moving from a house I have spent practically my whole life in. What would it feel like to not have a home that held all childhood memories? I realized that although that sadness would not disappear, it would diminish with time. And knowing that I am of this earth - and not of here or there - makes me feel that no matter where I live, memories and people are what will make it home!

Being the Best Me

The Bushman in the Kalahari Desert talk about two "hungers."
There is the Great Hunger and there is the Little Hunger.
The Little Hunger wants food for the belly; but the Great Hunger,
the greatest hunger of all, is the hunger for meaning…
There's ultimately only one thing that makes human beings deeply and profoundly bitter,
and that is to have thrust upon them a life without meaning…
There is nothing wrong in searching for happiness…
But of far more comfort to the soul…is something greater than happiness
or unhappiness, and that is meaning. Because meaning transfigures all…
Once what you are doing has for you meaning, it is irrelevant whether you're happy
or unhappy. You are content—you are not alone in your Spirit—you belong.

— Sir Laurens van der Post from Hasten Slowly, a film by Mickey Lemle
(from: http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Wayne-Dyer-on-Ambition-with-Meaning)

This quote made me realize something; for the sake of the overuse of the word "realize" it is such a necessary word, it is what this blog is all about - everything my soul searches for and "realizes".. so bare with the word and all of its meaning.. Back to the quote - it made me realize something. I have tried and tried to be happy, and I've succeeded. Next, I've tried to stay happy - a calm, peace filled happiness that doesn't relate to any thing or person or situation, but just to life in general - and I've been less than successful. Perhaps, it is because I haven't been searching in the correct way. (Is there a correct way?) Like this quote suggests, it is the meaning of it all that will sustain the happiness. Or even the unhappiness.. but it will leave me with something much beyond happiness - Contentedness.

What is the meaning of life? I think I've come to a conclusion that the answer to that will match the population of the world, what are we up to 6.something billion? What I want to explore, what I want to find is the meaning of my life. As selfish as that is, wouldn't it be great if we all knew the meaning of our lives - we would be more content, at peace even with ourselves and the world around us. It would be a group englightenment of sorts. But, alas, each to their own. Getting back to what I can do - I started thinking about my life, its purpose, its meaning. There is so much I want to do, so much I feel I would be good at, or want to try. But at the end of the day I realize, what difference will each of those individual items make? They will certainly shape me, and mold my ideals into my own ideals. So, how does that define the purpose of my life?

It's so simple I can't believe I haven't throught of it before. The purpose of my life is to be me. Whether I engage in one profession or another, or none if I choose, whether I have some object or don't, or indulge in some activity or don't, it won't matter at the end of it all. What will matter is who I was. Who I became and changed into and kept being because of all the things I did and didn't do. The people around me won't remember me for my work or my amazing skill at some random thing, they will (hopefully) remember me for me. For who I was to them, and what I said, and how I treated them. My purpose is to be me - the best me I can be, because there is no other me. This is my specific role in life to fullfill because there will never be another me. There will be others in my profession, in my house, in my town, there might even be others with my name, or clothes, or things. But there will never be another me. The me who thinks a certain way, the me who feels a certain way, the me who wants to be a certain way. Who knew it could be this simple?

Every mundane task, every "important" event must happen - I must go through all of these. That is life after all, but to search for the meaning in any of these individual things, I would come up empty-handed. Try it for yourself - and you will see. If I believe that all of this serves some purpose to making me who I am, than I can believe that the ultimate goal of everything that happens to me or around me is meant to happen for some effect on me - hence, the ultimate purpose becomes just being who I am. I was put here - just where I am - for the reason of being me - of filling the lives of those who love me, and for being filled by the lives of those I love. Somehow, I know that life as we know it and live it would be different if any one of us was not here.

Let's see how this one works out. Perhaps the realization that I am just supposed to be me will make me lose my attachments to the happiness, unhappiness, battle raging inside me. I like the feeling of content - will it last is what I wonder? I know everything will happen the way it is supposed to - the way it is supposed to make me me, and change me, and mold me, and all that. But I wonder if I will continually be able to remember my purpose, my meaning - will I be able to accept it and wonder any more? We all come, and we all leave - and most of us wish to leave a mark, but don't we all leave marks? My great, great, great, great grandparents - I have no idea who they were, or even what their names were - but I am them. There are many of us who came from them, and somehow in each of us they live on. Their marks are walking, talking, beings. Every one of us on this earth is a mark of someone else. So, why the stress, the race, the aggression to leave a mark in any other way? This is the way it has been, this is the way it is.

I don't know if the "purpose" I have come up with for my life is true or not, and I know there are holes all through my theory - but what I know I will get out of it, is a confirmation of sorts. I can relax, I can breathe in the fresh air, I can live life fully and embrace each moment for what it is. I don't have to worry about what will be, or what should be - it will happen as it will happen. All I need to do, all I have to do is be the best me.

And I think I'm doing a good job of it! :)

One Person Can Make a Difference

How is it that some books leave an impact on us? The remnants of the book stay behind in our behind, and we find ourselves in awe of such a book. But is it possible, that some books, although normally good, feel extraordinarily good in certain situations?

A trip to India (Bombay to be specific) left me thinking about so much. I go there every couple of years - my extended family resides there - and my parents insist on us taking a trip there. I didn't realize what a difference two years can make at my age or point in life - but it certainly did. I'm in a much different position today than I was two years ago, for one, I have been soul searching. And boy is India a place to make you think!

Coincidentally, I happened to start a book called "Three Cups of Tea" while in India. I had this book for a while, but something in me decided to start reading it only at the beginning of my trip. I have summarized this book on my other blog (http://bookscometolife.blogspot.com/), so I won't go into that here, but I will say that the whole book is about an American man in the remote mountain villages of Pakistan helping the poor kids there get educated.

I happened to be an American woman in India shopping and eating at fancy places. The book made me more aware of what was truly going around me. Now, I was born in India, and have been there many, many times since immigrating to the US as a kid. But, somehow, I was never innately tuned in to the poverty and lack of education although I had seen it before. Somehow reading the book during my trip made me aware of so much more, made me aware of life and the lack thereof.

The best thing I took away from Mortenson's book wasn't that he helped poor children in "Pakistan" but that he helped poor children desperately in need. Being from a family that has deep rooted feelings against Pakistan because of the Partition of 1947, this seemed like an usual thought for me to be having. But I realized in my heart, that I was being my American self. It isn't about what culture or country we help, it is the fact that some children are being educated so they have what it takes to make smart choices. It is the race against terrorism and hatred. Believe it or not, terrorism is an extreme form of hatred, and hatred does not reside just in the Middle East or in "Muslim" countries - that in and of itself is hatred - the rest of the world generalizing in that form. I remember when I was a child and the racism I faced as an Indian in my American school - kids had never seen someone of my color before - and I'm not even as dark as most Indians! They made fun of trivial things like my accent and I began to hate the country my parents moved me to. But over time I was educated in the same school as those kids, and we all became more tolerant and aware of each other. A sense of respect grew, and by the time I reached my adulthood I loved my country, the same one I had hated because of ignorance.

Education is such a big cornerstone of life, and is so readily available in the United States, that perhaps we take it for granted. Some of the greatest minds have come from poor countries in the Middle East, India and other parts of Asia. Yet, most of these countries remain poor and are known as "developing." Why is that I wonder? I suspect after Greg Mortenson's book, that it is nothing other than the lack of education. The lucky few in these countries get educated - those whose parents have the money to pay for school, or those whose parents have some connections. But what about the average person? Everyone can go to school in the US, no matter their economic ability. Why should the child's education suffer, especially in countries that need it most, for the sake of their parent's finances? We feel hatred and spite towards those terrorists who terrorize the rest of the world and even give up their lives for their jihadist missions. But, does anyone stop to think, what if that terrorist, as a child had been given a choice? What if instead of a militant lifestyle and guns this child had been given school books and the ability to learn math, science, history, etc.?

These are big questions to ask, and problems that have faced our world and generation for quite some time now. But I will tell you, read Mortenson's book - It inspired me, and truly made me believe that one person can certainly make a difference. Coincidence or not, I was faced with what I saw as an opportunity to do my part when I was in India. My mom in conversation with me told me that the maid my grandmother kept to help her cook and clean during some hours of the day wanted to send her son to a good school. The school was asking for a huge sum just to have him admitted if he passed the interview. (Her son is like 6 years old btw) Apparently the maid knew my grandma couldn't afford to give her more than she paid her monthly, and had approached my mom for help since the bank wouldn't give her a loan on her maid's salary. My mom had meant to only ask for my opinion, but instead, I thought of Greg and how he had to desperately seek funds and work his butt off for the sake of Korphe's children. This was no Korphe, but it was one child - one child who I knew would be smart enough to get in to the school, but whose parents couldn't afford to send him there. Within seconds of thinking about the book, I had told my mom to tell the maid to not worry - I would put up half the money. Being a student I couldn't afford the whole thing, and barely the half, but upon seeing my determination to help, my mom decided to help too. (See, one person can make a difference). After coming back I found out the maid had cried in thankfulness for the money, and her son passed the interview. Who knows, maybe that boy will be the next big genius in India.. or maybe he will be one more educated, hatred-less, boy in the world.