Freedom

My friend Keith is still continuing to move forward in his journey, even though its at a much slower pace than before. The light is fading for sure. He seemed to have come to terms with his situation and made peace. 

He is always happy to see me. My visits seemed to be his highlight of the week. During my last visit to him I realized that he may have developed very strong feelings towards me and how I make him feel.

At the start of the visit we continued to talk as usual and at some point in our conversation he said he was sad. When I asked him why, he said because "You are taken". I can be pretty naive at times and also out of respect I did ask him to clarify his statement further. It was then that I realize he was talking about me being married. It was as if he was regretting that and also the fact that I was very much younger to him, which according to him, was a barrier for him to be with me. Now, I understand people can develop feelings for others, especially in the situation that he is in, with no family or close friends. Our friendship over the last 6 months must have become one of the most if not the only close friendship he has had with anyone in a long time. He has shared so much about his life that at times I feel like I have known him for many many years. He must have a sense close to that or he likes the fact that someone is listening and talking to him with all ears and with genuineness. He has said many times how kind I was to him.  

I am kind to people in general for the most part. It is who I am and I find it easier to be kind than otherwise. To make me unkind takes a lot of crap and even then I will simply move away rather than show my sentiments and fight. But Keith may have developed such an affiliation to it, that he may think he feels more than he ought to.

Now this is a man, who has lived freely all of his life. When I was reading his blog, I felt that he lived according to his own terms for better or for worse and that he moved with the tide for the most part and that he seemed to have little dissatisfaction in general other than when he could not get his own way. I told him how wonderful it is to live life like that. With ease and freedom. 

Then he told me about his feelings towards me. They kind of bordered on fantasy and romance and a genuine need to be loved and love. But I realized none of those sentiments it was helping him or bringing him much peace. He was obviously not happy because he wanted something he knew he could not have. 

He wanted to hold me and I let him or a while. Also I was quite confused as to what to say and do. I suppose somewhere between being held and wanting to flee, I gathered my senses. I had enough sense to tell him as gently as possible that he might be wasting his time, of which only a little remained. I also had enough recollection of our previous conversation to tell him that, it was not time for him to create a bond. He had lived his life free from any person, relationship and even death. He did tell me that he overcame of fear of death many many years ago. So in the light of all that, I told him it was not worth his while to form a bond, an attachment to me and how he feels about me. It will only imprison him. He was not prepared to come to terms with as I was saying it but I thought considering how thoughtful and deep thinking he was, he will later on ponder on it, unless of course his memory failed him. 

He was emotional. I could see how close he was to breaking down when I said, "you were simply prodding on when you met me. Then you asked me to come on a journey with you. I am and will be here but at some point you are going to have to leave me and trod along yourself". I told him that I did not want him to feel sad when that time comes. That I did not want him to feel as if he was missing something. Up to this point the only thing he has ever spoken of missing was his father who is long dead.

It was a very spontaneous conversation from my part. I had no idea he was going to put it all out there leaving me uncertain as to how to deal with him in the light of it. But considering it all, I think I told him what he needed to hear. Whether he wanted to or not was a different thing all together but I wanted him to come to terms with the fact that what he felt even though was real should not get  in his was of dying peacefully. 

The whole situation made me think of much. But mostly about how difficult it is for us to feel alone, not to be loved and even when we are loved how difficult it gets to let it go. Either way you lose. Feeling of not having someone in your corner or someone to love and have that returned is not a good feeling, but it seems neither is the opposite of it. Because both situations create our hearts to be in a prison. When there is no love, you are a prison of not being loved and having no one to love but on the other hand when you are loved you are a prisoner of being loved and having to leave someone whom you love. Isn't life an irony?! 

There must be a balance somewhere. Where irrespective of what you have and not have you can be in peace. Would that not be wonderful? I kept thinking about it but I have no answers yet. I feel it's a question to which I ought to find an answer, I think many issues within myself could be put to rest if I could only do that. 

Seeing Beyond

I have always been proud of my ability to read people. Those who know me well, will attest to that as well. But whether others agree or not, this is something I have knows about myself. My ability to recognize people for the most part very accurately, has made my life much easier and less of problems. It`s an intuitive awareness but it may have been sharpened by my studies in Psychology and later on as a result of meditative practices. 

When I look at someone I can go beyond who they are and the titles they carry. It seems to me that my awareness can rise beyond the tags we attach to people. Whether we like or not, we live most of our lives and our thinking, framed by what we are taught, we learn in our younger years, people we surround ourselves with, the bigger society we belong to and the values and labels associated with individuals. For as long as I can remember, I have gone beyond these frames. Whether it was my father, mother, relatives, siblings or friends I have had less loyalty to those definitions and values places by society and are encouraged to have by those around you, so that I can see the person. 

Let me explain myself.

In the culture I grew up in, it is impressed upon by our parents and elders and society that we respect those who are older to us. The rationality being that they have more experiences and more knowledgeable than someone younger, therefore those who are younger can benefit by listening to them and respecting what they know. I do not believe in this for my own experiences with my aunts and uncles, in my younger years, have shown that just because people are older to us by the number of years that they have lived, they are not capable of teaching the young ones of something worthy of listening and something worthy of trying to live up to. 

I saw the same with my father. Unfortunately, I had very little respect for who he was and what he stood for. For me what he told us were simply words that carried little weight. So, my nature inherently was to grow up questioning things around me. I was never cynical and to this date I am not. But I do question things and people, if what they say and do don`t match up. 

It did not matter who they were as in older or younger, or titles they held, parent, grandparent, boss, friend, I always took them for what they showed themselves as. Therefore titles, labels did very little in how I saw people and how I approached them. Therefore my relationship to most people was not congruent of the society I grew up in. Most did not like it and still don`t. Unlike in the UK, US or Canada, Asian countries seek people to confirm to the ways of thinking and expectations of society and those in it. I did little of that. The little I confirmed was because it was what I wanted. 

People did not like it much especially if it was not beneficial to them. Of course the punishments that are conferred to those who go against such norms were naturally placed upon me. But I never really felt it nor could they use them to tame me either. I once realized that how frustrated my supervisors were because of my  ability and lack of fear of standing my ground. But they did not fire me because I was good at what I was doing and I never put myself or the organizations I worked in trouble. In fact it was the opposite. 

But this ability became my own nemesis at a point of time in my life. I was good at seeing others. But that made me very judgmental. I had an attitude of being better than everyone else because I thought I could see them and that in itself became my attitude.

It was much later that I started my practice of meditation. During the last eight years of my practice I have mellowed quite a bit. I have become less judgmental. That is not to say that I cannot see beyond the labels and tags and frames of society, nor does it mean that I ignore them, but for me its a way to see things for what they are but not to get entangled in them. Its was to not fight with things but to leave them as they they and go my merry way, unless I am required to do something. 

More than any of the reasons mentioned above, the greatest is being able to see myself beyond the frames, titles, labels imposed upon myself. I realize that the reasons why I am able to observe people beyond their labels, titles is because each individual lives within a world of his or her own. If others do that then it must be same to me. I must live within my own world with its own unique labels, definitions, frames. This was the turning point for me. 

When I started investigating my own labels etc I realized that I was confirming to some of those myself. I was living in a little cell. The worst was that I was in my cell judging and laughing at others who live in their cells. What was the difference. I did not want to be living in my cell just to be an expert at understanding the other person and their little prison. Whether they marched up and down the cell in the morning or afternoon, whether the cell was big or small and all the rest...this is an analogy to explain me reading people. 

I realized that perhaps I ought to shift the focus on my cell and what I did within it. When I started doing this, to my surprise I found that I too confirm to ways and expectations of society. From what studies to do, to what college to go, to which job I did and what company I worked for, how I dressed, whether I had a boyfriend, whether I was married, what kind of a wife I was to many things....basically my entire life. I realized that there was little difference from me to the others although for a while I thought I was above most of them.

Then I started to investigate what makes us confirm to these things. It is when I started investigating the reasons as to why we want to be labelled, need to have a definition that was accepted, I played the part that was given to me, that I realized how to get over them. 

I have changed much over the years. I still pose a challenge for those around me because of my unconventional thinking and behavior but this is not purely because I am questioning every tom, dick and harry. But its because I am questioning myself. I realize that I can change and that is okay. That we need not confirm to things unless that is what I want and it makes sense to me and my own development and well being. My motives to being different is not to fan my own feathers so to speak but to bring about a sense of ease and peace within myself. 

Each one of us have expectations of our own selves. We define who we are. We give importance to certain parts of ourselves and less to other parts. We like certain things about ourselves and dislike other things. We feel comfortable with certain parts and things about ourselves and less comfortable with others. We have a need to be accepted and cherished and loved by those closer to us and by larger society. We need to receive a sense of value for our contributions. All of these things and more, are our own cells, frames and boundaries. 

When I questioned myself, I asked why must I have frames and boundaries for myself to begin with. I realize to the degree of the views, affirmations of myself to that degree I will behave and operate in. But what about what I cannot see and or don`t want to see. I realize that I must go beyond. 

The more I did this the more free I felt. This was not and still is not an easy journey for me. This also does not mean that I live in a way that is harmful to myself and others around me. Quite the opposite really. 

I have found that the more I lessen myself of these boundaries the more free I become but it also comes with a lot of accountability towards own self. Therefore I am disciplined by my own freedom..I`m sure that sounds like a contradiction but as ironic as that sounds, that is exactly what it is. I have so much accountability towards myself that I don`t waste the time I have anymore. 

I don`t work except for about 10 hours of volunteer work I do. So quite frankly I ought to be very up to date about all the reality TV shows, news, whats happening to my friends and relatives and sleeping plenty. But I don`t have time for much of it. I am busy with myself. I meditate almost everyday for an hour. I do exercise on a daily basis. I read a lot. I contemplate and watch my thoughts so that I have little time to engage in fantasies and thoughts of future and past. I spent little time grappling with things that I cannot control but wold love to have the illusion of doing so. I keep a blog. I cook very inventively. Play the piano and teach myself new songs. And when there is nothing to do, I do nothing at times and if not then I will watch some TV. 

So see beyond myself has been a revelation and a transformation. My work is not yet finished. I believe I will do so until my last breath. But I have also never felt the level of meaning of my own life and the worth of my life as I feel it now. I feel a sense of accomplishment, joy and a sense of well being I have never felt before even when I was at the peak of my career earning lost of money with praise from society and those around me. I don`t have people cheering me on from every corner and praising me what a great job I do. But I feel it in my heart from deep within. Although I won`t go as far as to say that the external acknowledgements aren`t completely important to me as of now, I find that I expect it less and in the absence of it I don`t feel sad or isolated. I feel more connected than ever before.

Again I want to state that this has been a journey of eight years and I am not finished. It`s evolving as I write my blog. Even I am curious as to how it will evolve in the future. The journey beyond myself is the most fascinating journey I have ever undertaken, it is also the most time consuming and slow journey of all, reading myself is the hardest and digging deep through self imposed and self accepted barriers is the hardest of all. But it is also the most educating, most transforming and most rewarding journey of all. I intend to continue it. 

Lessons from Cecil the Lion

A few weeks ago, Cecil the lion was killed by a hunter. Cecil was a lion in an African National park. He was shot and killed by an American recreational hunter. Cecil was 13 years old. There have been international media attention over the killing and outrage from people, conservationists and politicians all over the world. The man who killed the lion is also under heavy criticism and attack by the media and the public.

I am not a wild life conservationist but having said that I am for conserving life, period. It was indeed very sad to hear such a magnificent animal being hunted for pleasure. I do not believe in hunting anything for a sport, so yes I was greatly saddened by his death. 

But then again we live in a time where killing, whether it is for fun or for sheer anger and frustration or for mental illness, is prevalent. It also does not seem to matter whether we kill animals or human beings. Shootings in public places, schools, theaters seem to have gone up rapidly purely from what is seen in the news media. Wars erupt and bombs go off like mushrooms all over the world. Life does not seem to hold much value anymore.

This is not the first time a precious wild life animal was killed for fun or for money. Many animals are killed everyday for sport be it as small as a fish or as large as a lion. Animals are also killed for money. In the same breath, human beings are killed everyday as well. Irrespective of the reasons human beings are killed at the hands of other human beings on a daily basis.

It is wonderful that there is such an outrage towards killing of an innocent animal. We need to speak up. There is much media attention and outrage when mass destruction on human lives happen anywhere in the world through shootings or bombs or any kind of violence. But I find that like anything else, we cry out for a while and when the dust settles people get on with their normal lives, until one day something similar happens again. 

Talking about these incidents and drawing media attention alone isn`t enough. We need to take accountability towards these deaths. When we talk about accountability we usually leave it to our governments, politicians, church, or human and animal rights group...but we never stop to think, perhaps the accountability lie in each individual. Oh no...that would be too close for comfort, wouldn`t itÉ

It seems that we live in a time where we put little value on lives. Be it humans or animals or any other living being of any kind. I am sure people would want to disagree with me on this. But if we look deep within and when it comes down to it, we are good talkers and sympathizers. As long as the dead person is not mine we don`t have a need to stand up an take stance. Do something. 

It is ironic that in the US the constitution itself gives the freedom to people to bear arms for self protection, when in fact it is the single most reasons why so many human lives are destroyed every year. I understand we need to protect ourselves from danger and harm but there are many alternatives for self protection other than bearing a weapon.I have also found that in many countries wild life hunting is a sport. I personally know of someone who goes goose hunting. The justification is that, they have permits to kill them because of over population. It`s an act of balancing! We are good at waging war, in the premise, that it is to protect innocent lives. But in a war there is little time to figure out who is innocent and who is not. 

When we pardon any kind of killing of beings, we create in our mind a habit. A habit to lessen the value of lives of certain beings be it animals or humans. Who gives you the right to assign a value over someone else`s life. 

Life and living is precious to all. 

It does not matter whether it is human, a lion, a goose or a wasp. For Cecil, his life was precious. He wanted to live his life just as much as you and I want to live our lives. Then why is it that we cannot apply the same rule to all other beings. 

In the US I have seen many people grieve over their loved ones deaths over shootings. But they will not for a moment think about giving up their guns. I see Muslim women and men cry over their dead children in the war zones but yet, they themselves will carry bombs or support terrorist groups that kill others children. I see people killing animals for sport and not think how they would feel if their family dog or cat were to be hunted down. 

We need to take accountability for each of ourselves. We are good at getting together to protest a killing or a bomb but once we go home, we dare not throw away that gun in our closet. We dare not think, how would I feel if my own mother, father, child, sister, brother, wife or husband were to be killed in this mannerÉ We think very narrowly, so it serves our purpose. It gets the job done for me, so I will continue to live that way. But what we forget is that if each one of us thought that way, we will not be able to go out and about in life like the way we do. We take much for granted and until it is taken away from us we cannot fathom the danger we create in our lives and in society due to our own inaction. 

It great to mourn Cecil. It`s great to fight for the injustice of it. But let us take Ceicil away and put ourselves in front of that gun or bomb. Then what would you doÉ Do you want people to protest once the gun goes off or do you want them to do something before it doesÉ 

Digging Deep

I have been following the Bruce Jenner transforming himself to Caitlyn Jenner. I have watched it with great curiosity. Gender related issues have plagued us for as along as I have been born and even before.

I was first exposed to it, during my stint in journalism as a teenager soon after high school. But it was related to issues between men and women. Then during college I realized that there was not to it. Gay and lesbian issues were spoken about at the time. I had a lesbian lecturer who did developmental psychology. I do not remember thinking anything usual about any of it. I guess I had an open mind even at the time. Men being with women or women being with women did not put me off. I simply saw it as a relationship. Perhaps my lack of experience in intimate relationships would have led me to see things in a more neutral way. 

Exposure to transgender happened during the time when Dancing with the stars featured Chers daughter who had transformed herself into a man. The entire story was fascinating. Again I was not at all put off by it and I do not remember having strong objections to it. I felt that we need to be able to live the way we wanted without having to give in to the pressures of society. It's a belief I have held very close to my heart from a very early age. So for me gay/lesbian/transgender or whatever, it was someone expressing their right to live the way they want. As long as their way of life did not cause harm to anyone else, why should I judge them? Right?!

I felt the same when Bruce Jenner transformed himself into Caitlyn Jenner. 

I have watched the last two episodes of "I am Caitlyn". While I still support anyone's decision to live as they see fit for themselves, I feel that sometimes we get lost in the appearance of things rather than the way things truly are. 

It's great that there is much awareness being created about transgender issues and the personal struggles. I think we need to do that. But at the same time I can't help but feel that it was only yesterday that we had the same struggles about gay/lesbians, the gender issues between men and women, the struggles of blacks vs white.  

The more I look at these issues, be it women, men, black, white, Asian, gay, lesbian or transgender or any other there are some very common underlying themes that spring up. I think this is where we need to focus rather than trying to divide ourselves up as unique groups having unique needs. I think the more we do this as a society, the more we will isolate one another. The more we will feel we are different to others, when in fact we are not. 

At the end of the day, no matter what labels we want to put on ourselves we are all living human beings. All of us have a need to be seen and be heard. We have need to be respected, loved and accepted for who we are. We want to feel that we matter and that our life can make a difference in the world. These needs and emotions are common to us all. In the same way our positive and negative emotions are common to all of us as well. Pain is felt by everyone, even if their skin color is black. Happiness brings joy to all. Anger does not change its hue just because your skin is white or black or brown. Love feels the same whether you are a man, a woman, gay, lesbian or transgender.....

For me it's hard to believe that we humans possessing such a wealth of knowledge and capacities to see beyond billions of light years, cannot see what lies right inside them. We are so capable of building telescopes to see the farthest galaxies but we build walls so that we cannot see the person next to us. We build biases and prejudices so high  and thick that we cannot see human emotions in the person right next to us. Must we human reduce humanity to nothingness?

It's a shame that we cannot turn the light and cameras on what unites us rather than what makes us difference. Perhaps that will not sell enough advertisements? I don't know....but it's a tragedy that we cannot focus on what makes us similar to the extent that we can empathize with others, we can see someone else's point of view, forgive and let things be rather than fight over labels that we have put on ourselves. 

Freedom: What is it?

I had this interesting conversation with a hospice patient of mine last week. During my visit I noticed that he was not really happy. He was kind of making noises like sighing and wasn't smiling much. I have known him for a while now. He a very private guy. I waited for a long time before I decided to ask the following:

Me: Are you not happy?
He: No.
Me: Why not?
He: Because I'm not free. (I  knew the answer but I wanted him to say it)
Me: What does freedom mean to you?
He: Ability to move about. (He's bed ridden and is not allowed to go out anymore)
I waited a while before responding.
Me: To me freedom feels different...
He: Oh Yeah
Me: Yes. To me freedom is to be able to be happy and peaceful no matter what.

Then silence.

This conversation left a print on me. I could not but think about it for the rest of the day. It bothered me in many levels.

First, I felt greatly for him. He's not happy in his last days because something he had cherished for so long, his independance, is taken away from him. I don't want him to be sad but he is and there is little I can do to persuade him to be otherwise, right now. The other was, how freedom meant very different things to each of us. He felt it was his movement and I my happiness and peace. Another was how we get set in our ways of seeing ourselves, that even when the odds are against the very things we've practiced and done for long, we don't budge. We do not seem to possess an ability to shift gears, even its in our best interest. 

I realize that there is little I can do to make him happy, unless he makes up his mind to be okay with the present conditions. But I hope my continuing visits might bring about a few moments of happiness and delight. He loves coffee and doughnuts and chatting about his past experiences.

But I certainly can learn and change from the lessons I learn from him. Perhaps I might even be able to be of help to him. But my main priority is to see this for myself.

Freedom, means very different things to many people. I found that I was judging him as he responded to my question. I felt that my way of thinking about freedom would make him adjust better. I felt that if I were in his situation that my thinking might make it possible for me to cope with things much better. But later on as I began to dwell on these things deeply I realized how our views and opinions on the very same thing can be so very different. It also shapes us, biases us to think and behave and feel differently. 

For me freedom might mean being able to maintain my happiness and peace under different conditions but for him it's being able to move. Now who am I to say that is wrong? For him it is everything. His past experiences and life style has made him the man he is, thinking the thoughts he thinks, even if it's making him feel unhappy. For another freedom might mean, having a lot of money to get whatever they want. For another freedom might mean getting out of an unhappy marriage. 

At the end of the day, we will see and judge the world from our own unique vantage point. I believe, with much certainty, what I think makes sense. But I bet all others think the same way as well. Isn't that amazing?! We each have a unique world we live in, conditioned by a set of circumstances and experiences....that it feel so very real to us. To me, my world makes sense! It may not make sense to another but to me it does.

Looking at this guy I thought the same. But how do I know that my world makes sense for real. Do we have a set of values or standards that we measure our lives against? I don't know. Perhaps they have or they don't. But I know I have. But how will I know that what I measure myself against is absolute and not relative? As I'm writing this I feel that if for the most part I can maintain my happiness and peacefulness I must be measuring myself against something that makes sense. 

It's been a while since I have started meditation. The practice of meditation has lead me to see that for the most part we measure ourselves against whats around us. Our parents, siblings, friends, teachers, culture and those we respect and so on. But I feel that this is a relative way to live and see ourselves and capabilities. Everything is measured against something else...someone else. I feel that this is not a good way to live. I can see why young women feel utterly disillusioned because they want to look  like movie stars or model. Do they know what they are measuring themselves against? 

When I was little I used to travel in trains with my parents. One day I was sitting in the compartment when I realized that we were moving. There was another train right next to us. But once we passed the other train I realised that we were still at the station and that it was the other train that had moved. I was tricked. I see the same situation when we live our lives in relative mode. Relative to things around us. We are left confused!

I have been looking and searching to live without measuring myself against the relative world. It's not an easy task. Everything and everyone around you lives relatively that you cannot but get caught up in it. But my meditative practices have been a great help in keeping myself at check. My practice has allowed me to see that qualities like, kindness, compassion, generosity, anger, ill will, jealousy are things that are pretty common to all. While they have varying degrees of being outwardly demonstrated they are common to all. The cluster that belong to positive attitudes/emotions continue to bring a sense of peace and tranquility while the others continue to shake the very ground that's beneath you. 

I have decided that what I do and think should be aligned as much as possible to the positive attitudes/emotions. It gives a level ground. When I do things I do them so that they are based on these emotions. When my actions and words have a foundation of positive attitudes and emotions I find myself being peaceful and tranquil. 

The times that I'm running around like a chicken with its head cut off is when my actions, words and thoughts are dominated by the negative emotions. So when I look at freedom, I want to look at it in terms of what could bring about positive emotions in me. If I have a headache, can I feel peaceful? No, because it's hurting me. I could go to a doctor, I could take medicine and if that reduced my headache then I might go back to being happy. What if my headache does not go away despite these remedies? Then I will be unhappy right? Yes, but I have found something in between. I have found that allowing and accepting things for what they are and for however long can also bring about peace and happiness. I don't have to exert much energy for it. I just have to find my groove which isn't easy all the time. But when I do it works. 

I wish that my friend finds that groove within himself. It will bring about a sense of peace to him.