Can an orchard be turned into jam?

There’s a Chinese proverb that claims that with patience an orchard can be turned into jam!

 I wonder if the idea of making men peaceful, one at a time and then adding it all together to create a race opposed to self-destruction is even possible?

Whether its possible or not, in truth there is no available alternative other than individual inner transformation.

Years back, tormented by severe anxiety and a racing mind that just would not shut up, I was suffering deeply. I decided to take up meditation to help calm myself and slow down. Unfamiliar and alien to the concept of a quiet mind, I sat pretending upon my cushion day in and day out, simply following the guidance I had received in my classes. I really wasn’t sure of what I was doing.

Overtime I learnt to quiet my racing mind and control my anxiety in most circumstances. I still suffer, sometimes deeply, from time to time but I recognize what is happening and I’m able to change my course.

 I have to admit that the work that I have put in is far from over and it will probably take a few lifetimes before I’m enlightened J

However, as a result of meditation, the most surprising revelation to me has been, that with concentrated effort the hardest to shake off beliefs and counter productive conceptions that I had about my self and my life can be changed forever.

 To those who are skeptical I would ask that you simply observe your mind for a few moments without judgment or interference. You are likely to find a stream of thoughts and emotions that flow through. You will notice that though internally things are constantly changing you might be holding onto the belief in the existence of a self that is definitive and stable.

This clinging is what causes us to often react in short sighted and selfish ways that can also be very harmful.

Cultivation of contemplative sciences enables one to let go of the most stubbornly held destructive ideas and notions. A sieve like mind that simply allows concepts to flow through improves the quality of life and our interactions with others.

 As a result, the angry aunt, the cynical cousin, the critical elder, the racist bus driver will continue to bother you but compassion can be extended quiet easily as you recognize their clogged and clustered mind states that blocks the renewing experiences of peace and love.

Unfortunately contemplative practices cannot be externally enforced. Internal transformation is slow, hard and challenging work that takes decades to bear fruit. 

Science while improving life has proved insufficient in enlarging our sense of wellbeing. Force and violence can keep the dark and unexamined aspects of our lives contained only for a while. Detailed recording of history, its instruction, religions, advancement in technology have not been successful in establishing structural changes in our psyche.

Be it the heartless extermination of the Jewish people during the World War, the senseless slaughter that plagued the varied communities in Bosnia, the still hard to comprehend extermination forces that acted out in Rwanda or the atrocities in modern day Syria, what we encounter time and again is everyday humans who have simply lost all points of references.

It is perhaps time to give the softer arts of contemplation and inner transformation   a place and a fair chance in civilized worlds before we run amok destroying each other.  

In my mind, of all the fears both real and imagined to which we have gotten habitually reactional, the only one that threatens life itself is the complete erosion of love and compassion.  Power hungry regimes, rulers and leaders cannot enable us. Change, can be brought about only by ordinary, everyday people.

On why the travel ban strikes too close to home....

On why the travel ban strikes too close to home….

Of course the travel ban does not include India and I’m free to travel in the time being! But the sheer arbitrariness applied in the selection of the countries upon which the ban has been imposed in unsettling and fear inducing to say the least.

To all those who wish to remain silent in the face of this inhuman atrocity, I wish to remind - that it could very well be you stranded in an airport somewhere, suddenly removed from a life that you have established while your loved ones scramble to make sense of a world from which you are absent.

As a first generation immigrant from India, I am all too familiar with the immigration and the visa policies of the US. They are some of the most stringent policies in the world, to which thousands of people like myself have willfully subjected ourselves with the understanding that it is essential for the country to have confidence in the people that it brings into her protection. The process is a long drawn one, involving reams of paperwork; interviews and fingerprinting to make sure that you are a decent human.

It isn’t easy and there are no assurances of getting a visa or a green card simply because you have applied for one or have been patient.

What shocks me is that after all that, this government still assumes its okay to simply pull the rug from under the feet of millions of innocent people, be it, green card holders who have spent decades formulating a life in here, educated professionals of Syria whose life has been turned upside down by war, mothers with young children who are forced to leave home with only just as many belongings as that they can carry, young boys of Sudan who have had to walk miles and miles to get away from their oppressors or Iraqi citizens who have worked along with American soldiers and assisted them……… what sense does it even make??

International travel is hardly romantic, especially when undertaken in the confines of the economy class, which composes of the majority of the world populace.  Very often the only factor that encourages one to repeat travel is the simple joy of being re-united with loved ones or beloved friends.  And now, to imagine being stranded in an airport somewhere, forced to return without being able to hold your loved ones or in worse cases to return to the very scum that you were trying to protect your family from is both appalling and inhuman.

I cannot imagine being stuck with my young children in an airport somewhere not sure if I can return to the life that we’ve worked hard to create out here or for my kids and myself to be stranded here in the US while their travelling father is informed that he cannot return.

Its time to put yourself in the shoes of those immigrants and imagine your life from their perspective for a change!

Before you pride yourself with the life that this country has offered its immigrants it is time to wonder about what they have had to lose to accept your offering.