The Yak

3 days starting trouble really. Dharamsala somehow didn't do it for me. Was fed up looking at all those lost Israeli spiritual-types, dread-locks and all, walking around with all of their psychotropic mentality. Yawn. I booked the bus to Manali on 26th night. The bus journey, wow, another nightmare, I was beginning to feel no good about this trip. And the fourth day as I woke up in Dragon guesthouse and made my way to the gorgeous Hadimba temple things started happening. I overheard two chaps talking to a man with a Yak about the possibility (!) of having the Yak sent to Kerala and housed in an air conditioned room. I laughed out, we three connected. Instantly. Two mallu boys, painters. Joy, expecially, top chap. Then the journey began and I just tagged along with them. We went to some really lovely environments, the Manu-rishi temple, its wonderful vibes, gorgeous wood-stone houses all around; then to the beautiful little town called Naggar. I can never get enough of the gorgeous pine-trees Himachal has. There's something very heavenly-looking about them. We first went to the castle, more gorgeous wood and stone. We visited Roerich's place nestled in the wilderness, never knew such places existed and then the highlight of the day - a rather post-modern looking temple built in a time when there was no modernism to be post about (!). The scenes and the views... I better not put it in words. I got to have all these photos added to the Hinterland website of photos from journeys. So much in this beautiful country. Oh, almost forgot had a lovely breakfast at Sheshbesh, a trippie-hippie restaurant by the Beas River. Managed to swing some Manali cream. X-genome, here I begin. Evening I sent one and went to Joy's guesthouse, a very old wooden structure in the lovely town of Vashist. I am now beginning to experience Benares-type hits part deux. We spoke of films and I browsed through his library, he has a space for guests to watch arthouse. He calls it "Inward Arc: Transvisionary centre for Art & Aesthetics". What fun. As I was leaving, he showed me the hot springs near his place in the Shiva temple where people dip. Lovely town, I am coming back. For sure. Funny how a Yak brought the three of us together. Eh?

God must be looking at the world today and thinking to himself
"My my, what have I done? These people are killing my trees, polluting my oceans, murdering my animals in the name of progress... my, my what have I done?"

A compendium of the world's wonders, curiosities & esoterica, Atlas Obscura, here &
Pocket films for travellers, here.

Residue

On a bus, looking out
I see the 80 ft billboards of an upcoming all-in-one shopping mall, happy families, smiling faces, fitter happier, children playing, a few cultural references thrown in like the done-to-death Kathakali cliche, ambient graphic shapes and bubbles,
I also happen to see the lines of construction workers running to their bus trying to find a place to sit on their long journey back to wherever they live - in the outskirts of the city
Like marching ants, so many of them with their yellow construction helmets, in queues, queues of yellow,
Faces full of sorrow, anxiety, trouble, thoughts of their wife back home, or child, fees to be paid, groceries to buy...
In front of them, Corolla's and Honda's passing by the busy road, music blasting, latest sound systems flashing neon pixel lights,
Such a world of contrasts, the equilibrium met,
Another take on humanity and its flourishes,
And a window into the lives of those workers, the residue of our society, the unwanted children of mankind.

In a milieu of strangers, the people who witness one's actions, declarations, and professions usually have no knowledge of one's history, and no experience of similar actions, declarations, and professions in one's past; thus it becomes difficult for this audience to judge, by an external standard of experience with a particular person, whether he is to be believed or not in a given situation. The knowledge on which belief can be based is confined to the frame of the immediate situation. The arousal of belief therefore depends on how one behaves - talks, gestures, moves, dresses, listens - within the situation itself. Two people meet at a dinner party; one tells the other he has been depressed for weeks; to the degree the listener as audience can judge the truth of such statements only by the way the stranger enacts the feeling of depression, to the degree appearances like this have an "urban" quality. The city is a settlement in which such problems of enactment are most likely to arise as a matter of routine.

- From the chapter "Roles" in The Fall of Public Man by Richard Sennett

To think that I was all these things...

I constantly went after the latest Paul Smith perfume, the latest Paul Smith trousers with the little multi-coloured stripes sticking out so people could see, the Paul Smith hat, the oh-how-cool-it-is black and white Giorgio Armani watch, the Audi TT with the 19" alloy wheels (17" wasn't good enough), the Prada sunglasses (but it didn't have the red Prada strip so I was disappointed - but instead I coloured my hair red to show people how cool I was), the CK underwear, the Ikea furniture and its funny spellings. I had to get my hands on the new Adidas limited edition shoes with the lovely green laces and the 1971 Mexico emblem.

And now when I look back at all this I laugh. I guess I have grown up. A little. But I am only scratching at the surface. The journey starts here, more or less.

To see that the mind is conditioned

All that we can do is to see that the mind is conditioned and, through self-knowledge, to understand the process of our own thinking. I must know myself, not as I would ideologically like to be, but as I actually am, however ugly or beautiful, however jealous, envious, acquisitive. But it is very difficult just to see what one is without wishing to change it, and that very desire to change it is another form of conditioning; and so we go on, moving from conditioning to conditioning, never experiencing something beyond that which is limited.
- JK

"Dreams are illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you." - Marsha Norman

Labours of love

It takes 10,000 hours of practice to become a skilled carpenter or musician - but what makes a true master? Richard Sennett on the craftsman in us all.

The word "craftsman" summons an immediate image. Peering through a window into a carpenter's shop, you see an elderly man surrounded by his apprentices and his tools. Order reigns within: parts of chairs are clamped neatly together, the smell of wood shavings fills the room, the carpenter bends over his bench to make a fine incision for marquetry. The shop is menaced by a furniture factory down the road.
The craftsman might also be glimpsed at a nearby laboratory. There, a young lab technician is frowning at a table on which six dead rabbits are splayed on their backs, their bellies slit open. She is frowning because something has gone wrong with the injection she has given them; she is trying to figure out if she did the procedure wrong, or if there is something wrong with the procedure.

A third craftsman might be heard in the town's concert hall. There, an orchestra is rehearsing with a visiting conductor; he works obsessively with the string section, going over and over a passage to make the musicians draw their bows at exactly the same speed across the strings. The string players are tired, but also exhilarated because their sound is becoming coherent. The orchestra's manager is worried: if the visiting conductor keeps on, the rehearsal will move into overtime, costing management extra wages. The conductor is oblivious.

The carpenter, lab technician, and conductor are all craftsmen because they are dedicated to good work for its own sake. Theirs is practical activity, but their labour is not simply a means to another end. The carpenter might sell more furniture if he worked faster; the technician might make do by passing the problem back to her boss; the visiting conductor might be more likely to be rehired if he watched the clock. It's certainly possible to get by in life without dedication, but the craftsman exemplifies the special human condition of being engaged.

Continue reading.

Touch

God doesn't really bother revealing himself to many people.

Every creator has creations he likes, and creations he doesn't really care for. A painter would have works which he would consider un-100%. A songwriter, in a time of need, would write radio-friendly tunes to make some money. The artist would do a branding job to sustain himself. This theory, I think, applies to God too. So, in that context, what happens. There is greed, politics, war, bureaucracy, and all those things negative and stifling to the human race. The human race. Those he reveals himself to have certain jobs to do while they are here among you and me. They stand up, they start revolutions, they achieve independence of their own and of their country. Gandhi had a job to do. Krishnamurti had teachings to share, schools to found. Mother Teresa had people to help. Fidel Castro had an entire country depending on him, as did Gandhi. The Dalai Lama is here for a reason. So, all these people have had contact with God in some form or the other. There is also the other tier of people working at the grass-roots level. Like Lakshmikutty teacher in Wayanad. She sold her property to build a school for tribal children and also took it upon herself to fight for them when they are exploited by the materialists. There is the doctor in Atapadi who walks the streets everyday, going to the villagers homes and treating them for free. These people are among us. They are doing selfless work because there is a hidden force guiding them. I think that is God. But I am quite certain the percentage of people that God has chosen to touch is quite negligible. But when you are touched, He will reveal himself to you in all his living supernatural glory. He will look at you from the hearts of the simple folk, He will look at you from pine trees on cloud-covered mountains, He will look at you from the edge of the ocean, He will look at you through sunset. And that's when you will look. Inwards. And begin your work, silently. No hoopla, fan-fare free. :)

A little gorgeousness. :)

Herd mentality describes how people are influenced by their peers to adopt certain behaviors, follow trends, and/or purchase items. Examples of the herd mentality include the early adopters of high technology products such as cell phones and iPods, as well as stock market trends, fashions in apparel, cars, home décor, etc. Social psychologists study the related topics of group intelligence, crowd wisdom, and decentralized decision making.

People in these herds are broken up into two groups, explains Friedrich Nietzsche, a philosopher who coined the phrase. One lended itself to the religious points of views- their beliefs and how those dictated their actions- while the other lended itself to influence by the media- more liberal and based upon what others perceive as 'right' (following trends, social norms, etc.).

Herd mentality results in the slow and gradual decay of not just our tiny circle of society, but the whole of humanity as we see it today. And to quote Ms. Rand,

"Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision."

Reminders

Visit Dharamsala, visit Bookworm, hang out near Mr. DL, visit Dharamkot, get psychotropic, drift away
Visit Manali from there, black-out, then take the Rohtang La to Leh, see, smell, think, feel
Visit Varanasi (again!), begin learning the Sarod, walk the streets, sit in boats, wash clothes on the Ganges, observe, experience, listen
Visit the Bishnois, find out the 29 pearls, sit, learn, learn, learn
Visit Santiniketan, delve a little deeper into Tagore, hang with the Bauls, listen listen (maybe) jam?
Visit Kolkata, listen to people talk about politics, art, literature, walk the alleyways, sit under Howrah, look, really look (not see)
Visit Nagaland, check out the Naga metal scene, curiously look into the world of headhunters, remember not to panic
Document everything - write, draw, film, photograph (both digital and lomo) click click click.
Pointers for the year ahead... :)

Two poems from W

Cup of the sun
Circular
A space between the sky
made to see
a life gone by

----

Green on black, kids in a line
Hand to the leaf, rows and rows
Half empty glasses, white on black
One eye looking, one hand feeding.

Admonition

If you dissect a bird
To diagram the tongue
You'll cut the chord
Articulating song.

If you flay a beast
To marvel at the mane
You'll wreck the rest
From which the fur began.

If you pluck out the heart
To find what makes it move,
You'll halt the clock
That syncopates our love.

- Sylvia Plath

"It is often assumed that those who wander are condemned to restlessness, and that the certainty of identity and self are the markers of surety, confidence, success that all of us must strive towards. There is security in solidity, in strong foundations and structures, in finding your groove and being set in your way of life. In following tradition, in keeping within boundaries, within the womb of your society and its ways.

Wandering, on the other hand, is taken to be inconclusive, an indication of confusion and unknowing. Yet, isn't it through our wanderings that we chance upon insights and experiences that teach us in ways our regular lives wouldn't, and isn't our confusion often what provides the impetus to grow in a new direction? In transcending tradition that we come to know the real scope of our potential, in breaking boundaries that we catch a glimpse of our true nature?"

- Swati Chopra "Dharamsala Diaries"

Lullaby in three

An orange blossom breeze twirls in circles, dervish-like
One hand taking, one hand giving
Blue in green, hat and the like, pointed to the sky
Heaven-faced, fantastical
Viscera sera.

Have a guava. :)

The Music of the Spheres

A universe harmonious as a harp.
Rhythm is repeated equal times.
Heartbeat.
Day/night.
Migrant birds' arrivals and departures.
Star cycles and maize cycles.
Mimosa opening during the day
and folding when night comes.
Moon and tide rhythms.
And crabs who know the tide is on the ebb
and before it goes out have their hiding holes.
A single rhythm in planets, the sea, atoms, apples
which ripen and fall, and Newton's head.
Melody, arpeggio, chord.
The harp of the universe.
that is music.
Difference between music and noise...
The bell's sound is in its form.
Or girls' legs, come to that.
Matter is music.
Matter in perpetual motion in space and time.
Rhythmical are hearts and stars.
The universe sings and Pythagoras heard it.
The music of the spheres,
rather than classical music, jazz.

- Ernesto Cardenal.

Never to forget

To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and vulgar disparity for life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.

- Arundhati Roy

The conscious, the unconscious & conditioning

What is the mind? There is the conscious mind and the unconscious mind. The conscious mind is occupied with the everyday duties—it observes, thinks, argues, attends to a job, and so on. But are we aware of the unconscious mind? The unconscious mind is the repository of racial instinct, it is the residue of this civilization, of this culture, in which there are certain urges, various forms of compulsion. And can this whole mind, the unconscious as well as the conscious, uncondition itself? Now, why do we divide the mind as the conscious and the unconscious? Is there such a definite barrier between the conscious and the unconscious mind? Or are we so taken up with the conscious mind that we have never considered or been open to the unconscious? And can the conscious mind investigate, probe into the unconscious, or is it only when the conscious mind is quiet that the unconscious promptings, hints, urges, compulsions come into being? So the unconditioning of the mind is not a process of the conscious or of the unconscious; it is a total process which comes about with the earnest intention to find out if your mind is conditioned.
- JK

Ashes

The story of siblings discovering the death of their mother. They are both in their 40's. Brother and sister. The mother's only two wishes are - one, that they scatter her ashes in the Ganges, Varanasi, and, two, take the long journey from Trivandrum all the way up to UP by bus/train. She leaves behind a diary and a map of the places they need to visit on their journey. With each visit, they discover something new about their mother. A road movie where a brother discovers his sister's soul and vice versa and also in the process realise their inner worlds and the interiors of India, the villages, the people, their simple lives - a contrast to their corporate mundane city lives.

Thoughts from Wayanad (4-9 August, 09)

4/8
Back on a journey to Wayanad. Not expecting anything. In the bus, around Mysore, I experienced an intense sense of lightness. A text to Bijoy read -
"Man, I'm experiencing an intense and overwhelming sense of happiness. Something has entered. Its like time, fear, longing, sorrow are things of the past. Like being a quiet observer. Wish we were in it together seeing and learning, not judging. Wow. Feels great. Paradigm shift in its most basic sense."

It was quite something. And listening to Reich, reading some JK. Spot on. All connected. Like a rewiring of the brain. I think this maybe what I have been looking for all my life. Jiji picked me up from Mananthawadi. It was like we were meeting a day later. True, sort of, kinship. He told no one at the shop about my arrival. Lovely to surprise Jamesettan, Benny and Gautam. They were so happy. Felt like a homecoming, laughing, govoreeting. Such a lovely energy in this wonderful town. Its funny no one from the city seems so real, so unpolluted, so real to themselves. JK's words ring true here. Live examples of his teachings. God is great. Thanks to him I am now walking the visceral path.

Thoughts saved in my phone:
"Food, clothing, shelter" - A set of films about people from the Hinterland like Benny, Josettan, Jamesettan. Happy. Content with what they have, the basic food, clothing, shelter. Could be an interesting juxtaposition to the materialistic tendencies of the middle - upper middle class.
Do not renew thought, cancel all subscriptions now.

Muthuraj
At the shop, I finally met and spoke to Muthu, the drinker (thinker!). He had just downed a pint of rum, a regular activity behind the opposite bank. He spoke of his rather unfortunate existence. Over 50, unmarried, abandoned from his parents and siblings in Trivandrum living in an abject state of poverty, but having enough to buy a bottle of cheap booze daily. And over the years, it doesn't hit him anymore, intoxication and such things of the past. He told us about his strange experiences with a hypnotic pickpocketer who twice picked his wallet by making him go to sleep. He also spoke about not having had a single friend or anyone to talk to sincerely for over 8 years. Living in the absolutes of silence and alcohol, disconnected from everything. Strange. Asked him if I could film him and he said he wasn't special and didnt have anything special to say. I took some photos of him which will one day go into my book - "The Quiet Observer".

Back in the serenity of the house on the hill, Jiji and me opened a few beers. I sent some x-genome. Blast-off. We spoke of so many things from the lack of soul in most people to commitment. A lot of fun. Earlier, we went to meet the mad Paris Mohan at his place closeby. He is too caught up in himself, its hard to be around people like him. I always have the urge to tell him "a good man is a great listener". We spoke of his pretty maid, who has been unlucky, stuck with a drunkard. Very sophisticated but alas. What would life have been if she was married to a cultured, real human being. Hmm...

6/8
So, Jiji and me decided to go to the One-teacher Alternative school in the hill. Mathanchettan joined us. It was quite stunning, this small structure set against a marvellous mountain backdrop. Something bit Jiji's feet. Mathanchettan walked into some bushes and plucked some turmeric that Jiji pasted onto the bite. People of the earth, really. "Inspiring, something I would have no clue of", my cityhead realises as I quietly observe. The kids were a bit nervous, at first, to see us, the people from the otherworld. As soon as I got the camera out, it was a whole different scene as everyone wanted to be in it, laughing, jumping, pushing. Very refreshing to see this innocence, still uncorrupt by the commercial world. Took lots of photos (which will go into the book?), and filmed them eating their kanji and payar. There were two striking girls. One seemed like Bhagawati, one like Kali. Two faces of the same person. Both such beautiful faces. Wonder what it is that makes one child smile and laugh and another frown. Could be an interesting study, eh?


7/8
Nature is the essence and the landscape of the heart.

Its truth, its oneness is its harmony with the trees, the birds, the rivers, the lakes, the sea, the sky, the clouds, the stars. Over time as one is influenced and preconditioned by the two pillars of society, ie parents and teachers, the poor vulnerable heart gradually loses all sense of realism. The heart then, controlled by the mind, is taught to dissolve into an infinite grid of the second-grade, of monotony, of the dullness of acquisition, of the expanses of greed, of wanting to be this and that - to compete. The mind now begins to think like a machine, not questioning, not probing, not asking. It quietly works within a mechanical pattern and follows presets. This pattern eventually kills that landscape.

When will all pre-existant, pre-conditioned, preset thought end? When will the real observation begin, when will the real meditation begin, when will the real introspection begin? When? In time, now is the only choice you have. The landscape is waiting to be discovered.

----

Visited Mathanchettans gorgeous 10-acre property nestled right in the heart of the forest. Quiet, real quiet. The apt place for "Hinterland". So Jiji and me made a business plan to propose to "we dont know who". And a secret voice inside me tells me to give up all motive, give up the silly pursuit of these things. But, no, hinterland is special, its important. Its my responsibility to the next generation, our only link to the future. All JK-inspired.

8/8
Funny how Gautambhai heard my "Vertigo" ringtone and immediately felt it was the Koyaanisqatsi theme. Classical music, basically. Bernard Herrman vs Philip Glass. Hmm...

Ideals?

The ending of a quality such as violence or greed is not a matter of time, and it does not come about through ideals; it has to be done immediately, not through time. We get caught up in the gradualism of ideals when we are concerned with time.Please do not jump to conclusions or say, “Without ideals I shall be lost”, but rather listen to what is being said. I know all the arguments, all the justifications of ideals. Just listen, if you kindly will, without a conclusion, and try to understand what the speaker is talking about; do not block your understanding by saying “I must have ideals.”Ideals have existed for centuries. Various religious teachers have talked of ideals, but they may all be wrong and probably are. To adhere to an ideal is obviously to postpone freeing the mind from violence, greed, envy, ambition and the desire for power. If one is concerned, as one should be, with righteousness, which is the foundation upon which rests all true inquiry into what religion is, then one must investigate the possibility of ridding the mind of violence, of greed, of envy, of acquisitiveness, not at some time in the distant future, but now.
- JK

That Point of Enlightenment & The Observer

There is that point of enlightenment which, in my opinion, does not lie in total and selfless physical renunciation. Its a simple look inwards. An eye opens. There's only two we physically have... a third one we could say. It sees. It observes. Everything outwardly, physically, tangibly and everything inwards psychologically, emotionally, intangibly. This I'd like to call The Observer. At this point, ego, "I", pain, suffering, loss, attachment, things, everything, just about everything becomes external. Only a real point is you. This point is open to giving, to love & to live. That point cannot contain the burdens of these innumerable separate "I" things. The poor self is now not poor anymore. It holds a force stronger than anything in the world. And it doesn't need to justify that to the world through saffron robes, 2 foot long beards, vermillion dashes, white robes, turbans and the works. It silently observes listens and learns. A new thing every minute. Yet, it only keeps to observing. At this point, all thought is killed. The motionless silence is just about everything. Everything is there. Just there. Somewhere but not here.

A change that is not of time

Surely, this is the fundamental question that one ought to put to oneself—how to bring about a change which is not of time, which is not a matter of evolution, which is not a matter of slow growth. I can see that if I exercise will, control, if I discipline myself, there are certain modifications; I am better or worse, I am changed a little bit. Instead of being bad tempered or angry or vicious or jealous I am quiet; I have repressed all that, I have held it down. Every day I practise a certain virtue, repeat certain words, go to a shrine and repeat certain chants, and so on and so on. They all have a pacifying effect; they produce certain changes but these changes are still of the mind, they are still within the field of time, are they not? My memory says, “I am this, and I must become that.” Surely, such activity is still self-centred; though I deny greed, in seeking non-greed I am still within the self-enclosing process of the “me”. And I can see that it leads nowhere, do what I will; though there may be change, as long as my thinking is held within the process of the “me”, there is no freedom from struggle, pain.
- JK

Wildernest

A place,
Small wood, small twigs,
The dedication to the art of building a home, a tree of figs.
Contrasting with the world's pace.

A space,
Quiet, undeterred by unwanted noise,
Simplicity, tenderness, not by choice.
Contrasting with the outside race.

The need of the hour...

Is there the urgent need to do a Decalogue of films on JK's teachings. So, you have one on Love, one on Fear, one on Death, one on Religion etc etc. I have written to the KFA (Krishnamurti Foundation America) to explore the possibility of getting access to audio and video archival footage of the man. To take this idea further, do we have camps for students and youths across the country introducing them to these films. So, Hinterland, but in a broader sense, a camp introducing today's generation to JK. I wouldn't be surprised to know that majority of today's school-going and college-going children haven't even heard of the man, let alone know what he has spoken about. During these camps, we should have the kids read chapters from his books. All of this should be filmed and should form an important part of the message within these films from the camps. No? I think its very important. If Gigi and me manage to get the Wayanad property on lease, I think this could really be a possibility.

Human?

I wonder if any of us has wondered why the human being, throughout the world, is perhaps the only animal that is so corrupt - I am using the word 'corrupt' in its basic sense of being broken up - so contradictory, so self-deceptive, and so extraordinarily dishonest. I wonder if we have ever asked ourselves why human beings live that way, saying one thing and doing another, thinking one thing and acting in a totally different manner. All the indications throughout the world are that there is a great degeneration taking place. We are becoming more and more mechanical by following a routine, by following a certain tradition, and by following some leader, some guru - generally self-appointed. Why do we, human beings, follow anybody at all? - except that perhaps when we are physically ill we need a doctor, a surgeon or a dentist. But, psychologically, inwardly, do we need anybody at all to help us to step out of this corruption, this confusion, and this extraordinary sense of insecurity that exists throughout the world? I wonder if we are aware of all this? Or, are we all self-enclosed, with our own little families, our own little jobs, our own little gurus and, therefore, we just forget the rest of the world? So, I ask why a human being, man or woman, has become so utterly degenerate. I am using that word very carefully. To 'degenerate' is to not create oneself; it is not flower in goodness and in beauty, but all the time to destroy oneself.
- JK

Want (Pt. II)

Have you realised how many times you begin a sentence with the words "I want"?