God's Tough Love

When we are beaming with success or luxuriating in wealth, we seldom feel miffed with god. In our affluence and prosperity, we take his blessings to be a mark of our good fortune. But what happens when we are ripped off of comfort and are faced with situations that challenge our faith in god? Losing a highly remunerative job, a loved one, or failing in life’s countless endeavors are examples of some unexpected mishaps. During privation, we often feel betrayed by god’s grace and his eternal love and begin to question his imperceptible plans for us. Here is a short story that would delineate our unfathomable relationship with god.    

Once upon a time, a survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small and uninhabited island. In his restlessness to save himself, he offered feverish prayers to the lord and desired that he be rescued. Every day the survivor scanned the horizon for help, but none of his efforts or prayers seemed to be paying. Days and months passed by and the exhausted sailor eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to defend himself from his unasked cast away. In his hut, the sailor had his little possessions that he had saved during the ship wreck. One day when the sailor came back to his hut after hunting for food, he found his little hut burning in flames and the smoke rolling up to the sky. The poor sailor had experienced the worst. In his anger and annoyance with the lord, he asked, “Oh lord, why did you have to be cruel with me?” Stunned with grief, the sailor asked, “lord, how could you do this to me?” and he slept feeling bitter and blue. The next morning when the sailor woke up, he was awakened by the sound of a ship that had come to rescue him. The weary sailor asked his rescuers, “How did you know I was here?” The rescuers replied, “We saw your smoke signal.” 

When it is dark and desolate, we can rarely imagine god’s mysterious and profound ways of loving us. His ways may seem abstruse yet they contain life’s refined and pragmatic lessons. When god puts us to a test, we may hold a grudge against him. In our failing faith, we may lose hope in prayers and believe that god’s heavenly warmth has left us stranded. We, however, forget that it is the god himself who wants us to be marooned, penniless, and shipwrecked, so that he could rescue us from our doubts and insecurities. It is god’s tough love that makes us strong enough to find a new purpose in our swamped and submerged life. Hence, from a fragile being during our gala times we turn into resilient individuals during our rough patch. It seems that God’s elusive plans are surreal, which cannot be questioned, but could only be surrendered to.

Copyright © 2011 - Present dharbarkha.blogspot

Video Courtesy:  Barkha Dhar

Slimy Death

A Guest Post by Farida Rizwan

Who in this mortal world can be so clever?

As to escape death and live forever.

Whoever at a time had a chance of life’s greeting,

Sure with death will have an appointed meeting.

 Nothing can escape death, be it however strong. 

Everything has an end, though some may live very long. 

The sun, moon, stars and all the milky way, 

Will have to face death, on a certain day

 Merciless death! Who all have turned into corpse? 

Once livid things, how sad they now sleep like tops. 

A painter who could depict his mind on canvas, 

A man with a voice that could sway the mass.

 A killer who for money had taken many lives, 

And the one who must have widowed his many wives, 

A being with a heart of gold or the one with temper wild, 

A mother who was yet to feed her newborn child.

 A soldier fighting out bravely in midst of a battle, 

An innocent child was enjoying his rattle, 

The one who had no fun but lived in strife, 

Along with the one who cared a lot for unfaithful life.

 The person worth a lot for his knowledge was great 

Death never cares when it is out of straight 

It shows no discrimination to any living man 

For each it has fixed a certain life span

 Carelessly it plucks from kids their mothers 

Death is a must for even those who spent their lives for others 

The wailing mother can earn no pity from death 

Nor a thousand tears can earn a single breath 

Death does not stand admiring a soldier brave 

It just goes about on its job of filling the grave 

Death is not bought or sold at any store 

It may just strike from blue or from earth’s core

 It may strike one who has trodden enough on the earth 

Or one who is just enjoying his birth 

The poor cannot sell it, the rich cannot buy it 

The weak cannot hide from it, the strong cannot tie it

 The shadow of death lurks here, there and everywhere 

It can be found hiding just about anywhere 

When it holds life with its steely grip 

Life has no chance, but to start its final trip

 When will come the dark angel, my hand to hold? 

Just the thought makes my blood run cold 

To strike the paper with pen as my hand bends 

Death must be leading how many towards their ends?????

BY: Farida Rizwan

Copyright © 2011 - Present Chaptersfrommylife.blogspot.com

Photo Courtesy: Chaptersfrommylife.blogspot.com

About The Author: 

Farida Rizwan is an inimitable and an inspiring blogger from Chaptersfrommylife.blogspot.com. She believes that every piece of her life has been like a chapter that has always left her with an inevitable lesson. A striking yet touching chapter of her life surrounds around her strength to survive stage 3 Cancer. Farida believes that the disease left an indelible mark on her personality besides providing her the power to reinvent her life in many ways. Farida today yearns to be a self-actualized individual. She believes that sometimes god chooses the direction for us and we just need to believe in his chosen route for us.          

Silent Treatment: The Hidden Abuse

A Guest Post by Life Riddles


If you are in a relationship of any kind, at one point or another you are going to encounter it!

It is not: Time Out, Giving some space, lay off, Cooling off or any other fancy description, It is a form of abuse called: The Silent Treatment,

Do not let the name fools you though; this is one serious relationship breaker that keeps bugging you or your partner until one of you cannot take it anymore and call it quits. It is a form of social rejection that affects couples everywhere and everyday, at its worst; it is Continual Silent Treatment, where the person gives a partner utter silence for days or weeks on end, and some will make the effort to avoid being in the same room!


The causes

Every relationship is composed of Passive and Aggressive partners with a variation in the degree of aggression. Which in turn reflects in the way each of them uses the silent treatment:

• The passive partner uses silent treatment as a form of defense: Ignoring the problem will make it go away, or as a reaction to a hurtful situation which demands some space to think things over.
• On the other hand; the aggressive partner uses silent treatment as a measure of control, or as a punishment for something his or her partner did. Now we are talking about Abuse

The effects:

• Physical: Silent treatment triggers what is called “Social pain” in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex of your brain, the very same location of actual physical pain.
• Emotional: Since it is a form of social rejection; it affects the caudate nucleus of your brain provoking a mix of negative emotions including: Frustration, intense anger, and eventually, resignation and despair.
• Psychological: You will suffer from low self esteem, a sense of loss and not belonging, increased stress and loss of control.
• Behavioral: The constant fear of receiving the silent treatment casts a shadow of uncertainty in your life, you begin to watch closely for every word and action on your part and you second-guess yourself: Am I doing the right thing? Am I saying the right words? In other words: You try hard to avoid it, which changes you onto a person that is no longer YOU.

How to deal with it:

Keep your anger in check:

Reacting to silent treatment in anger reinforces the abuser sense of control over you” Hey, it works! I’ll use it again” and the episodes keep on coming.

Apologize first, ask WHY later:

You cannot read minds so might as well start a conversation anyway; apologizing for something you did (or did not) is the softer approach in any conflict. And then ask why, you have the right to know if that person is giving you the cold shoulder for a reason. If your apology or question falls on deaf ears; do not blame yourself and start looking for a way out of that relationship.

Express your feelings:

Admitting to your partner your pain as a result from him/her giving you the silent treatment is not giving up control, it is simply putting the issue up front and center, it shows your intent on keeping that relationship going.

Have an open mind:

To what your partner has to say about his/her reasons that ended up with the silent treatment. Make sure you do not ridicule them no matter how trivial they sound; after all, we all have different personalities.

Do not fight silence with silence:

That would make things even worse, it leads to a complete breakup in communication, besides, one of you has to be the grownup!

And finally,

Explore the alternative:

Ending an unhealthy relation is far better than staying in it and ”biting the bullet”, life is too short to spend in hate, anger and daily turmoil.

Copyright © 2011 - Present Life Riddles
Photo Courtesy: Anonymous


About The Author: 

We are a husband and wife who love to blog about everyday’s life; we take turns being logical and emotional; though she is stronger on the emotional side by nature, we share the good times as well as the bad times and look forward to the challenges of a new day.

You could only imagine what would:  She Said and He Said as our pen names bring to the conversation,
Life is a big riddle; we all live it!!

It’s Tough To Be A Man

Historically, men have been known to act as muzzles that have prevented women’s liberation and empowerment from happening in full swing. Men have also been adduced as self-proclaimed czars who have taken away women’s privilege as their appanage. In doing so, men have often been read and remarked as mischievous, perverse, and wicked in their willful means. But not all men are same just as all women are different. Reading a man’s motives may sometimes appear tough while at other times his feelings may be as playful as a tot who sprouts in love. For many of us women, the men in our life have been our life’s axis and we have revolved around them in different garbs. They have been the charmers’ on a date night, or have been our lovers, partners, and confidants. They have also been our greatest pals who have taken a charade of impositions on themselves to save us from the grind. But at other times they have also been our grave abusers. In both ‘either/or’ situations of life, men have shown their zing triggered by their testosterone levels. As our loved ones with a midas touch, they have soaked away our troubles and pain in their steadfastness. At other times, however, they have left us stranded and harrowing for help on life’s empty shores. But most of the time they have been just men, adamant or ardent who love to pursue their true blue nature in anything they embrace with their masculine verve. Yes, they are men, a human species who are judged on their virility and gauged for the many roles they play in our lives as fathers, brothers, husbands, or sons.

Right at birth their social conditioning is different than us women. They are gifted with more freedom and a greater degree of choice. They are taught to be courageous and impudent with occasional reliance on expressing their inner emotions. Perhaps it is one reason that men don’t cry much and they also don’t hug always, but when they do they suffice it with sheer wholeness. Their strength and warmth is also their brute force that keeps us women feeling shielded against the unsought swords, lances, and arrows. Not only this, but man’s cognition and their wisdom is the kingdom of their competence and capability that fills up all the shallow holes of our life though sometimes men can go berserk too. This is when they get tangled up in the fine threads of life, such as when draggled in an extra-marital affair, or when dogged by their dear mother if they support their better half, or when they get caught up between a pertinacious wife and a nagging and provoking daughter. Well those are some of the terrible times when our men are clasped in two worlds! For no rhyme or reason, these clasped men are split apart like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle until they use discretion and gumption to fit all the pieces together to make a clear picture. It’s the man’s foresight, maturity, and emotional stability that we women can always count on. When our beloved men use these gifted qualities in real life situations, they score over other men who don’t. Also, it is our men’s love beneath their logic and not their indiscreet acts that inspires us to look up to them. So let’s stand up in ovation for the many men in our lives who cheer us as our fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons. These men do and can make a difference in a woman’s life.

Copyright (c) 2011 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot

Photo Courtesy:  fotolog

Jaycee Lee Dugard: A Trauma That Sparked Hope

One can hardly envisage Jaycee Lee Dugard’s dark somber past looking at her bright, unruffled face, and tranquil emotions. Appearing in an interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer, Jaycee exhibited incredible verve and optimism. Her insinuations for future appeared as clear and pleasant as a sunshiny sky. Sitting calmly with an immutable balance while talking about her past wounds, Jaycee not only looked magnificent, but also majestic. For someone whose life was wildly tangled as a child, Jaycee’s grandeur as an adult was indeed moving and inspirational. Her story dates back to 1991 when Jaycee’s life took an unexpected detour while she was just 11. Jaycee was kidnapped by a pedophile from a school bus stop near her home in South Lake Tahoe, California, and held captive for 18 long years.

As a child ensnared in a dungeon at her abuser’s backyard, Jaycee was subject to grave and unending sexual assault. Jaycee’s abuser, an ex-convict and a man in his late fifties was a sexual deviant and a chronic drug abuser. He mortified Jaycee with social isolation, and continual threats that ultimately led to a rebuttal of her true identity while she was under house arrest. In her predator’s sexual captivity, Jaycee at 13 and 15 was forced to bear two daughters with him. As a helpless child who was unknowingly nestled into motherhood, Jaycee saw a new meaning in her lost life with the birth of her two daughters. She says that her daughters brought her companionship during her imprisonment years with her captor. But in the midst of her solitude, and physical and mental cruciation, Jaycee never ceased to hope. While jailed to a circumstantial silence, Jaycee constantly dreamt of a reunion with her beloved mother though she was coached to forget her past and feel secure in her captor’s den than in the open air. In the lock and key of her abuser, Jaycee lived a chilling life until she was miraculously set free by an investigation sparked by the campus security of UC, Berkley.

Submerged into darkness like the unsinkable titanic, Jaycee narrated the deepest fears of her captive years on public television. She, however, seemed unfettered by her past and portrayed a persona of a cheerful, confident young woman who today is inspirited to resurrect her stolen years. It seemed that for Diane Sawyer interviewing Jaycee and listening to the unspeakable was nothing less than a phenomenon. One could see a stupendous Diane bedazzled with Jaycee’s strength and intentions of evolving out of trauma. For millions of onlookers Jaycee stood as an example of a lost child who had ultimately found her way home from a deadly maze. As a victim once, but a survivor today Jaycee certainly is a miracle of life. Her past represents a picture of woe that ultimately was destined to culminate in peace and joy. Most of all, her daunting account, her endurance, and the ability to embrace her past as it is and move beyond it indeed is a vestige of hope. Jaycee’s life is a journey of faith and holding on to the power of belief that even though life may appear as a rugged terrain, it does leave us with notable lessons. Jaycee’s story is not a reminiscence of her past, but a renaissance of victory and pride. 

Copyright (c) 2011 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot
Photo Courtesy: ABC News

If Education Was…

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” The profundity of this thought reflects upon the significance of knowledge and self-expression. For centuries, education has been an uplifting attribute of self-awareness. Education leverages one’s personality, character, and moral consciousness. As a spearhead to extricate the self from dogmas and nuances of fear, education has been the handbook of insight that edifies positive behavior, indoctrinates intellectual expression, and stimulates self-exploration. But what happens when education is no more than a paper qualification? Or when an educated mind is stormed by pseudo effect that supersedes logic by bigotry and narrow-mindedness? Most people identify education with know-how and erudition, a mechanism that benefits them with employability and professional development. However, education is rarely taken as a supplement to enlightenment, open-mindedness, and refinement of the self. Had education been the core of mastery in life, man would have been much wiser and content than he is today. Negative thoughts, sulking behavior, greed, jealousy, anger and betrayal would thus have been replaced by joy, good nature, and peace of mind.

Moreover, violence, carnage, and abuse would have been infinitesimal currents in the life’s oceanic expanse had education been the force behind life’s flow. But the truth is that it is not. Perhaps it is one reason why many educated professionals live a duplicitous life where they perpetually craft ill means to put down others. For instance, many cases of dowry harassment and assault in India involve in-laws who are educated professionals, but have still made their daughter-in law’s life a living hell. Being educated and belonging to respectful families, these in-laws forget to be loving and respectful to their son’s or brother’s wife. They apparently forget that education does not teach them to suppress someone’s belief system, curtail their aspirations, or command their life. In such unfortunate and indeed unexpected circumstances, delicate relationships go haywire. Education also does not preach double standards where there are contradictory principles set for family members, such as privileges for the daughter and boundaries for the daughter in-law. The situation worsens in cases where an educated sister-in-law (who is a year younger to the daughter in law) acts as the second mother-in-law with her list of pretentious demands. The relationship decays when the same sister-in-law (aka junior mother-in-law) with her obsessive personality meddles in the day-to-day affairs of the married couple. The sister-in-law’s excessive intrusion of the married couple’s privacy puts the couple’s life on the edge. What then is the purpose of being educated if we do not learn to be progressive in our thoughts, or learn to be less self-indulgent and give time to new relationships? It’s like bringing a budding flower from someone else’s garden to replant it in your soil and expecting it to grow without any nurturance. The same flower may survive thinly for a couple of days in your garden, but without love and open air it would ultimately perish. Having the depth to understand such sensitivities in relationships is not just a matter of degree, but a matter of maturity and mindset. 

Copyright (c) 2011 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot

Photo Courtesy: Myspace

Live To Inspire

Inspiration is like the lotus that rises from the sludge and is untouched by the impurity of pond. It’s the illumination of soul that is unstirred by repugnance of life. As spur of hope, inspiration is the internal mettle that keeps us moving even if the sun is down. As an internal coach, inspiration often emboldens us at the end of the road to be resilient and change the axis of our life. Such grit is a gift beyond age and above reasoning to uncountable souls across the globe. Today I am sharing the narratives of some such souls whose life is a sketch of inspiration.

At 9, she was impeccant as a flower that sprouts with charm and chastity. Unaware of the hurl, she was betokened in; Nujood Ali was married to a man in his 30’s. Post marriage, her turmoil seemed endless with harsh beatings and repeated rapes by her elderly husband. However, Nujood had once heard that judges could grant divorces. At 10, Nujood broke away from all traditions and sneaked into a taxi to the nearest courthouse. When she encountered a judge, she declared firmly: “I want a divorce!” and the rest was history. Nujood’s courage and determination is kindling millions in their fight against child marriages. As Nujood shares, “at first, I felt ashamed about what had happened to me. But I passed through that. All I want now is to finish my education and become a lawyer." Today Nujood attends a private school in Sanaa, Yemen and aspires to board her dreams.

She lived in a village near the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. She was abducted and sold into slavery when she was just 12. Her life was bondage to physical & sexual abuse. At 18, she was sold and sent to London for life of servitude and drudgery. After years of affliction and agony, Mende Nazer finally managed to escape from the grind. Her fight for freedom is ongoing! Today, Mende Nazer is an author and human rights activist. Her early life’s tribulations have been featured in a 90 minute movie-‘I am Slave’. Mende’s current aspirations involve charitable work to empower and uplift the children and young people of her native Sudan.  

In 2009, her story was published in Nicholas Kristoff’s acclaimed book ‘half the sky’. Her life was tragic. She was poor, vulnerable and was scorned in her village. She suffered repeated beatings from her unemployed husband for not bearing him a son. After days of emotional exile and physical toil, Saima Muhammad signed up with Kashf foundation, a microfinance organization that lends money to poor women to start business. Saima took a loan of mere 65$ to buy beads and cloth to start her own embroidery business. Today her business is flourishing. Saima even employed her husband and many families in her village into it. Her determination is exemplary of the inspiration to be self-reliant she provides to others like her in her native of Lahore, Pakistan.

Everyday we meet many nujoods, mendes and saimas in the subway or on the metro, at work, in our families or among friends. They may even be the common faces that we simply pass by while in our rush to exist. Each of those faces and each of us have a story to tell, have an idea to share, each of us have the propensity to effectuate our dreams. So let’s rise to the prowess inside to live a life that inspires before it expires.

Copyright (c) 2011 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot

Video Courtesy: http://www.youtube.com/user/BarkhaDhar

Be A Lotus In Life - Barkha Dhar - Hindustan Times

My latest article Be a Lotus in Life has been published in the Inner Voice section of The Hindustan Times, India's leading Newspaper.

Dear God

Dear God, 

You may still remember the pristine prayer that I sang to you everyday in the school assembly. I innocuously thanked you ‘for the food I ate, for the clothes I wore, for the birds that sang and thanked you for everything’. As child, I wondered what contained in thanking you for ‘everything’. To date, I devoutly tumble on this thought that vaguely describes your art. I certainly imagine thanking you for my material existence that spurs my life in day and night. But that would be morsel of my gratitude. So I am writing to you about what subsumes of thanking you for that ‘everything’ unknown to me as child. At the outset, I would like to accede with my habitat’s preeminent contributions that have been substantial in valuing what I have than what I don’t. This feeling perhaps enunciates that life is beyond our control and sometimes its course gets haywire. In moments when logic appears irrational, your stupendous milieu guides and sustains me and my fellow inhabitants. Your signs reinstate that when things go wrong, there is a purpose and that you have something daring and exciting planned for us. 

God, alongside your immaculate lessons, yet another earmark distinguishes us in this habitat. It’s the disposition of your children. Besides physical self, our mind is most visceral. It reins our thoughts and feelings and often hobnobs with our relationships. So sometimes we fight, brush along with ego, meddle in other’s family matters and disturb someone unrelentingly instead of sharing love. In such instances, your blessings are colossal in reminding us of the one’s who express their cheer and ardor for us. You remind us of looking up to those who inspire us and accept us for who we are instead of picking on us. Besides, your sanctity and faith generates might and keeps us away from those who spite us or are vindictive. 

Dear God, your omnipotence is your third eye watching us all from a celestial cinemascope. Its mammoth screen is like a mirror that captures good, sad and changing moments of our lives. Besides, it reflects on the magnitude of our musings that quite often absorbs us in self-praise without any heed to self-blame. In such occasions, we get preoccupied with selfdom, criticize and conceal against the one’s we dislike. Sometimes, we may even go overboard to denigrate others with our one-sided judgments. God, this is when your prayers invoke hope and conveys that no matter what, truth shall always prevail. 

God, although your supreme craft sometimes appears absolute. It however leaves us with invincible quest to look inside before we look outside at others. Such self-exploration helps in coexistence. Unmasking ourselves even for once makes us realize that even if we are different, yet we synchronize as pieces of an unending puzzle. Now that awareness certainly seems magnificent! It indeed is a chunk of ‘thank you for everything’ that you gifted me and my fellow inhabitants in this abode that we call life. 

Signing off with reverence,

Barkha Dhar  

Copyright (c) 2011 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot

Video Courtesy: http://www.youtube.com/user/BarkhaDhar

Voice-over: Ash D.

I Am Thankful For Being Alive

My dad always says, “There is nothing permanent in this life except for the rising and the setting of the sun”. To this day, I feel that his words have an astounding aura and an amazing grace. Being alive means more than just breathing and living life. It’s about rising to the shine of soul that makes us aware of being thankful for ‘who we are’ and ‘who we become’ as we move through the tunnels of time in this life. Being thankful for being alive is to accept that life is mortal in many ways. It becomes fatal when we get ruthless with nature, when we are merciless for the vulnerable and when we are injurious to our self through our actions. Life ceases to exist when we freeze our love for others, when we create endless hurdles and envy for others and when we plug out the possibilities to change. In this carnage of emotions through life, we forget to summon our mind with the time when we were born with clean slate and clenched hands and the time when we shall depart with folded eyes and bare hands.

Being alive is to honor the chastity of our soul that helps us to be thankful for the virtues of nature, an immortal gift of the supreme lineage. Being thankful today, tomorrow and forever is to enlighten myself for the blessings that I have realized and the blessings that are unrealized. I am thankful for the milieu that wakes me up to the glare of the sun and to the hope that today is good and tomorrow shall be better. I am thankful for being ‘who I am’ till ‘I am’. As Meister Eckhart once said, “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice”.                                     

                                  Happy thanksgiving everyone.

Copyright (c) 2010-2011 Dharbarkha.blogspot

Photo Courtesy: Sunrise Church

Barkha Dhar’s Blogs On Social Issues Is One

It was last year in August that a feeling spawned a thought that gave a cause to my life. In beats of my heart and the drops of the saline that moistened my eyes lay a compelling emotion, which was like a blaze of light amid darkness. It was at this very moment that the stylus of my creativity burst into sparklers that imbued me with the spirit to do something. That is when Barkha Dhar’s Blogs On Social Issues went worldwide. 

For this past year my blogs have been my efforts that have shaped into deeds. They embody my intent and heed to experience life deeply as also differently. This journey indeed has sufficed the thirst of my soul. It has also led me to the idea that mindful cleansing is as important as the morning shower. This campaign of hope has also helped imbibe that change is not an ingredient of life but the essence of living not just for ourselves but for others as well. Such shift clocks in when inertia dies. 

Looking back at this day past year is like smelling the fragrance of fresh flowers in a pot that leave a scent to fill the space with an aroma, which is much stronger and sweeter than a dash of Channel. In this eloquent attempt of the past year, I thank god for showing me the route to repose, for giving me the opportunity to hear and be heard. My earnest and utmost thanks to my dearest husband who like a sire recognized the hidden me. His contributions are like the chords of an instrument that give melody to my life. I thank him for being who he really is, a wonderful father, a loving husband and a wise and kind person. 

Thank you also to fellow bloggers who have been nothing less than a momentum for raising awareness on important issues to help create change. Many thanks also to my critics who may not agree with my viewpoint. Well that is why they are my critics! In my view, however even if a slight change in self, as also in inspiring others has or can make a fraction of difference, then I at Barkha Dhar’s Blogs On Social Issues has had a conscientious and a purposive life.     

Thank you all for your time, support and encouragement in this eclectic relationship on the blogosphere. 

Copyright (c) 2010 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot

Photo Courtesy: Barkha Dhar

A Gift Called Life

A zest for breathing in and breathing out is what we call life. Its exquisite motley lies in living it with maximum resonance to realize its immaculate glow. As a keepsake of memories and a prose of emotions, life is a journey through time. Its magnificent opus lies in changing from autumn to spring, in rhythm and beats, in dancing to joy, in the aura of abode, in playful and innocent enchantments, in finding your love and espousing it, in being a mother, in working together to work it out, in playing your part as an adventure of cheer and glee, in being confident of your abilities to bend your flaws into potential strengths, in trying to score deftly with each past failed attempts. So let’s raise a toast to life for not living it alone but celebrating it together to move with its flow to live in now. This drive called life however shouldn’t limit here. It may begin its opulent journey now by sharing our blessings with others, unveiling humility to give hope to others on this mystical route to tranquility and Karma. 

As Gautam Buddha said, “So let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful” for this eternal gift called life.

Copyright (c) 2010 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot
Video Courtesy: http://www.youtube.com/user/BarkhaDhar

A Blessed Acknowledgement

My toddler boy’s ethereal psyche as my chariot of change each day pulls me inward to spiritual spunk. Listening to his innocent and enigmatic expressions often seems like divine recital. Such platonic relationship between a mother and her child is a route to bliss and benign emotions. My first born, whose plush gazes and fervent heart that has uniform feelings for birds, animals and all living beings, is my pioneer retreat to a conscious state. His playful and magical enchantments is realization that children as god’s cherubs are the hymns of nature. Their eternal kindle illuminates our life with love, hope, care and courage.

At a nascent age children have the capacity to sense parent’s changing colors. They are the midget stars of a celestial empire. They show us that enthusiasm and excitement are unique ways to subsist. Nurturing a child is like rearing an angel. Their magnificent innocence instills that surrendering to god is a mode of attuning to self. With their wish lists to celebrate life our children signify the ‘power of now’ as a distinctive hallmark of living mindfully. Their glee as the adornment of our joy and a veil for sorrow helps us steer through transitions in life. As our significant couplers they are a mirror to our solemn state. They are the best cohorts one can have. With their mesmerizing ways they help expound on the fact that God resides in all, irrespective of abilities. As parents honoring these angelic protégés is respecting righteousness to commune with god. 

Our children’s serenity has an invisible power to incapacitate any negativity or prejudice that could impair the aura of our home and the peace in familial relationships. As parents fostering devotion and karma through the principles of good and bad actions, early on, in our children can make their lives more meaningful as they grow older and independent. We parents are a child’s harbinger to this world. Through our spiritual chalk talk we can share chaste lessons that God is omnipresent and one. Among the poor, he is a destitute; among the rich he is opulent. Such teachings help imbibe transparency in faith and equal respect for all religion. Giving a boon to children’s apostolic self also advances their spontaneity and theological desires later in life. 

As parents, especially a mother who is a child’s first guide, such discourses with our children not only incite them to a new way of life but also awaken us to a new state of mind. Such precepts for our children become conscious alerts for us in turn. Charting a child’s life with honesty, truth and wisdom hence becomes a mother’s poise. Any deterrence of self from such tranquility and serenity that we want to blossom in our children hinders the opportunity to set ourselves as model of transcendental values and religious beliefs. Recognizing this altruism in a parent-child relationship is an inspiration to learn from a child’s immaculateness and clear conscience. As parents internalizing a child’s superego through these moral principles helps them to be positive change agents in community and society. Such incorporeal narrations between us and our children enable us to control our own ego and maintain a balance between our material and spiritual self. As revered Osho once said, “The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The women existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new.” Thanks indeed to my son who made me one.  

Copyright (c) 2010 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot

Picture Courtesy: Barkha Dhar

Peace of Mind

Our Mind is an enigma of desires. It’s the abode to infinite thoughts and ménage to potent emotions. In its oscillations through day and night it empowers us with behest. Its astounding power is the beehive of sensation. As a rendezvous of events and experiences, it’s also the stimuli to life’s uncountable expressions. Even while asleep, our mind unearths hidden pleasures and deep aspirations in dreams. Like a bubble it blobs ideas and illusions, imagination and entity, Truth and false, actions and repose, silence and sound, joy and sorrow, anger and calm, fear and strength, angst and ease. In all these bearings, mind’s lore remains the enchantment of our existence. To feel and understand this dynamism requires sobriety and self control. 

In it’s longing for more, either bounty of material or lush of spiritual, our mind travels to great extent. Sometimes its quenchless soars are overwhelming for the senses that disturb the bliss in simple pleasures of life. Our mind’s such state consequently navigates us to aggression, ego, hatred and jealousy thus disturbing its serenity. However, realizing our mind’s benevolence makes us aware of our strengths in being empathetic, compassionate and balanced.

Some of us may remember the primary grade story of ‘Thirsty Crow’ that one by one dropped pebbles into an earthen pot to raise the level of water inside to quench his thirst. Practically, we are like the crow, the earthen pot is our mind; the level of water is our conscience and the pebbles are our thoughts, emotions and actions. With each good deed we incrementally help raise the level of our consciousness to embrace positivity and change. Eventually we attain peace and inner freedom to release ourselves from any resistance. Such state is also known as ‘bodhi’, the supreme enlightenment in Buddhism. However it could be practiced or initiated even through humanitarian state of mind to promote altruism and social conscience.  

As the mind starts such passage, our life gains unique and ubiquitous momentum. 

We ask ourselves who am I? What purpose does my life serve?

Is my net worth more important than counting on my self worth?

Do I need to slow down in my rush to exist?

Does my conscience hurt when I speak lie, defame others or purposely hurt someone?

Am I equal in sharing love with people irrespective of their abilities?

Do I believe that my mind has the power to dwell in peace?

On answering such questions life becomes meaningful to live and peace of mind becomes integral to achieve world peace. 

Copyright (c) 2009 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot

Video Courtesy: http://www.youtube.com/user/BarkhaDhar

Think Feel Act Now

If I had to ask about one critical function that activates our capacity to reason or imagine things, reflect on people or situations, I would vouch for the mind and its mentation in conscious, sub-conscious and unconscious states. As chief of the human body, it’s also the nucleus to our abundant emotions that aptly distinguishes between feeling and willing states and causes us to exert our energies to behave in a certain way through our actions. This synchronization of our mind (thoughts and emotions) with the matter (substantiality) has the power to transform us from potential to actual to motivate and introduce us to realms of change. Writing this post is one such attempt to attune to my sensibilities in order to connect to that of my readers. It’s an effort to unite, to think, feel and act as different identities that are living to form similarity to contribute to the completeness of our existence.

Thinking and feeling as the requisites of life, are also the cornerstones of our natural or superficial identity with its voltage to influence people around us. It’s the psychological facet of existence that differentiates us from one another. However it’s also a unique aspect of our personality dynamics that can incite appropriate actions to feat. Capitalizing on these faculties as our competencies for ‘collaborative change’ can indeed be a successful humanistic impression for wholesome life. Using at least one idiosyncrasy of our positive thought and affirmative feeling can ratify inspiring actions to sway back and forth in our courage to care and share, in our manifestation to lead and lend, in our adulation and respect for each other and in a presage to preserve and protect. By knowing thyself in such manner in spirit and touch, believe and esteem, idea and instinct, demeanor and devotion, experience and expression, a peerless mission of living life is accomplished. The video shared in this post, in its simple, plain message conveys that gift of integrity and the ‘power of being’ in each of us now, the power that has the strength and greatness to create and achieve now, and the bend to share our virtuous talents now.

Copyright (c) 2009 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot
Video Courtesy: Youtube/Sonia Ricotti

Honor Your Children

For parents who feel that children need control forever, can be manipulated to suit personal purpose or advantage and should be treated with less stature in the relationship, indeed need to revisit their style. Today parenting is more than rearing children or providing to their desires. It’s not about commanding as in a military unit but about understanding and relating to children at a transparent level. Such unequivocal dialogue between parent and child is a model of communication, relationship and behavior that represents parenting. Over the years this facet of human development has transformed from directive to participative style, wherein a child has a privilege to fair expression and concurrence and the parent has an unbiased approach and acceptance of a child’s such right. To me personally, parenting appears to be a role reverse that helps me relate to my child and lets me honor his thoughts and emotions, as I would want him to respect mine. 

A parent-child relationship sometimes also appears to be like a two way traffic sign on a street that has two arrows of equal sizes, side by side to each other, one pointing up, and the other pointing down indicating incoming and outgoing traffic in order to minimize or prevent chaos. But If the same street has these two traffic arrows unequal in size with one arrow pointing upwards larger than the other pointing downwards, it means outgoing traffic has priority over incoming traffic, something usually found when the road narrows at a particular end. This civic sense could serve as an augury in parenting. As an interchange of ideas and opinions and a junction of emotions, parenting is like the traffic arrows that signals directions in the relationship. Any wide or narrow frame of mind can either augment or taper this relationship leading to a never ending gap between a parent and his child.   

   

With times changing fast, children today are far smarter and perceptive of their parent’s style. On the other hand parents too seem to be more aware of their tact of dealing with their children indicating a paradigm shift from conventional authority structure to new age holistic balancing of roles with concepts of accommodating and comforting the child. The idea of parenting in the 21st century is not about creating a family but comprehending the changes that a child goes through in his lifespan from infancy to adolescence and later as an adult. Most importantly, parenting is an aim to let this change penetrate through the child in a way that doesn’t define parenting as stressful or even a tradeoff wherein the parent barters a child’s love and preferences for personal temperament.  

Mother Nature being the universal parent has an exquisite lesson to offer. Her tiny creatures like the sparrow bird incubates eggs patiently, feeds her young ones initially and grooms her children ultimately to see them fly independently in search of food and nest. This instance shows the thrust of autonomy on the offspring that boosts his self-sufficiency, something which we humans may or may not realize as elemental in the journey of parenting. Today successful parenting is as important as advancing in professional goals or accomplishing life’s mission. It’s about mentoring a child with expertise and wisdom rather than managing his life. It’s not just about setting disciplinary standards alone but ensuring self-appraisal before we assume a critique’s role in the child’s life. On realizing and implementing such change in us, as parents, the process or functionality of parenting becomes transformational and does not remain just transactional. It becomes far more yielding, leading to renewal of relationships rather than stagnation of thoughts in kinship. 

In order for parenting to be more rewarding, aligning ourselves to the following mode of care giving can be helpful. The choice to pursue such means though can be personal.

• If the child is an infant give him all the love you can while observing physical changes, eye movements, sensory agility to gauze his interests to capitalize on these as he or she grows older. 
• When the child is a preschooler encourage him to ask questions, reach out to people, and try new things even if it requires bearing his tantrums. If he cries, hear him out, it’s all the more reason to give him an advertent opportunity to hear himself. 
• In his teens nothing could be more beneficial than befriending him to open candid channels of communication, emotional support, advice and introduction to the gruesome facts of life. Here is the point where you are half way through favorable and happy parenting. 
• As an adult, he is no more a child. He would always be your little darling; it’s just that he won’t be that little sparrow anymore. It may sound as a bitter truth but the sooner we accept this fact, the better results we have. Also, this stage is paramount in the child’s life as this is when he outgrows from his parental cocoon to experience new relationships. The best thing to do as a parent would be not to judge but to gladly accept. 
• Having almost same rules for all your children (two, three or however many) ensures good sibling relations and mutual respect. Giving more freedom to one over the other in the long run can be hurtful or harmful for the siblings as it could be for the family as a unit. 
• When the child enters marital state and the family prepares to stretch out their nest, giving equal love and respect to your daughter-in-law and son-in-law, treating them as you would treat your children, is the first successful attempt at nesting into an extended family. On such welcoming effort, don’t be surprised if ‘love begets love’ and your daughter-in-law or son- in -law regard and respect you as their own parents. 
• Last but not the least, setting dual standards can bring in disharmony, which none of us want. So try to avoid that. Also appreciating the fact that every relationship is a pattern of human behavior may be helpful, what befits one situation or style may not befit other. Remember that parenting is also a state of mind so try and change if you want to make the most out of it. 

On following such precepts parenting wouldn’t have to be a stage of depression or a situation of resistance to change but a gift from one generation to another to nurture life’s invaluable traditions. As Sloan Wilson once said, “The hardest part of raising a child is teaching them to ride bicycles.  A shaky child on a bicycle for the first time needs both support and freedom. The realization that this is what the child will always need can hit hard. As parents of a preschooler, honoring this lesson is the first task that my husband and I have decided to solemnize. 

Copyright (c) 2009 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot
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Becoming Socially Sentient Now

For centuries mankind has been culpable to a way of life through enormous contributions in augmenting the society’s potential to his best interest. From as is to as it should be, humanity’s disposition has characterized a constitution that we call society. On route to action, learning & development, ideation, communication and implementation in a sundry of subjects, man has revealed social behavior. In his lifespan of understanding the essentials for existence, man has consciously and willingly fevered social settings with an acceding eye or by fulfillment through belligerence. In his longing for satisfaction through a coconut of desires, peace has hardly been man’s drive to improve and sustain social camaraderie. Abuse and antagonism on the other hand have been his motivators to an uncanny change. Be it fallacy and extremism, transgression and despotism, befouling the nature for mercenary or modern day warfare and nuclear proliferation, all have been illustrations of an injurious mind.

Over the passage of time, in the darkness of night and through the shining sunlight, man has each day grown cruel to himself, only to get farther away from his inmost self, which is his sole identity. Someone has rightly said that time never stops for anyone. It only adjudicates man’s actions as vigilant pastor of the supernatural power. In hue and cry or happiness and joy, time conveys myriad meanings in its musical tick-tock. It is for man to gather time’s lessons and learn to decipher his actions and reactions to make reparations in himself and his surroundings. Evolving such astuteness now is being sensitive to social needs and trying to become sentient to blazing social issues. Today our society is not just an identity of a particular community but a global abode that is sending SOS each day to man to stop, save, sustain as a chamberlain of humanity. It is for man to use his mind’s wisdom and his heart’s benevolence and compassion to contribute incrementally to set forth an example for the entire fraternity to follow. 

The recent BP oil massacre in the Gulf of Mexico is a fresh example of how man is daunting his own soil. Not surprisingly enough this incident took place just few months later when United Nations declared the year 2010 as the year of Biodiversity. Affecting a large number of plant and animal species deep in the ocean, this episode is a reminder to man to be alert to the sensitivities of his habitat. This incident and many others over the years are stimulus for man to transform his behavior before it becomes overbearing for creation to nurture life. It is like the saying, if you give some, you get some. For some people such outlook becomes precept of life. The significance of contribution however differs from man to man. Ed Stafford, the British explorer who is currently walking the Amazon and is scheduled to finish his expedition this August is a unique example of human endeavor for conserving nature. Today he is a role model and an inspiration for thousands, many among them are young school children whom Stafford helps aware of the life in rainforests. His Amazon’s adventure blog for kids is part of the Prince of Wales Rainforests project for schools that is leading a social cause against tropical deforestation and climate change. With two most recent instances of how man can lead change through his actions and intentions shows his exceptional strength to cue social change. 

Also, in this process of being (what we really are) and becoming (our potential to be) socially conscious, man has the power to self-motivate or get inspired by good virtues to end this war against survival. He has the key to all those locks that fasten free passage for positive human relations, which are the building blocks of the society. Most importantly man has the gift to perceive through his senses that if he has to begin such transition, it has to be now. Leaving things for the future may only account to more problems; it wouldn’t fix the ones that we are facing today. Learning to act now and voluntarily contributing in crisis intervention at individual or group level, in family, community or national level can save mankind from further regression. It shall serve as a turning point in man’s nature for nature. As Eckhart Tolle says, “Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be.” 

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The Great Socrates

A savant of western philosophy in ancient Greece, Socrates’ quest for life is beautifully versed as, “True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves and the world around us”. Today such enlightenment is a treasure for those who believe perspicacity of the surroundings to be paragon of the self. Applying Socratic art of discernment is like an internal compass that can draw our true north, while awakening us to quandaries and solutions through reasoning and rendition. What Socrates always believed in, was questioning about things, what, how and why the way they happen. With an unfastened vision on life, Socratic teachings are like a phenomenon, that if observed can leverage life’s blueprint. As a philosopher he wandered for the unknown, which according to him could be derived from the known. He wasn’t a Management guru, relationship expert or diplomat but his back in the day social prognosis can be an invaluable diagnose to our apprehensions, perceptions and actions in the present day. Socrates’ idea of truth and knowledge was not hearsay but testimony of the actual. Realizing and implementing such insight into practice is one way we can ease our adaptation to change in our own life, lives of other people and the macrocosm. 

If we habituate to Socratic state of mind by putting ourselves to test through open-ended questions related to our thoughts, feelings and actions, or even engage in genesis for our problems and situations, we in a way initiate self-management. Being conscious through such SWOT, we liberate ourselves of fears and biases, attempt at unlearning old practices and learn to be part of a distinctive genre. Such avant-garde exploration of the unknown through self questioning and rumination for the way we are, the way we act, the influence of other’s behavior on us and the means by which we construe the creation around us, we can build acumen as a competitive advantage only to contribute mindfully and intently to the society. This Socratic love for wisdom and intellectualism in each of us can further shape our acuity to live life differently by learning to focus on cause rather than just the effect. So if we relied on grapevine communications more often at work or felt productively occupied with gossip in familial relationships, we will realize that such information spreads like fire, it may have good or bad effect because it’s just a rumor but its cause most of the time remains uncertain as such communication carries partial information, which only astounds problems and gaps and does not improve these.   

Elucidating admiration for Socratic logic and synthesis further, if we feel exhilarated and secured with material wealth, cash on over ambitions to prove our net worth, why do most of us feel stressed out and empty inside-out ? Possibly here too we emphasize on effect, forgetting the cause for such consequence. Why it is that ego, false prestige and greed makes one counterfeit themselves at the cost of sensitive relations? Why jealousy or one-upmanship among parent-child relation leads to clashes? Besides why do often people camouflage in public, while uncovering there real self privately? Also, are ethics and moral values precepts that only a few of us need to follow? Or is our society undergoing an intimidating phase of double standards? These are some questions that as direct dialogue can head start self examination and aid analysis of situations in one’s life. Settings, station and level of understanding of life, ourselves and of people around may differ though. However developing such sagacity is what Socrates called wisdom to answer the enigma of life. 

Copyright (c) 2009 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot  

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Love Inspires Us

Nature’s inhabitance of life through nesting and incubation is a unique example of love. Timeless and boundless, love is fulfillment in cheer and joy, charm and embrace. As a sanctum within, love unites us in benevolence, togetherness, yearning and desire. It’s the omnipotence of god and a divine endowment to humanity to value existence and appreciate the abundance of positive emotions inside. A synergy created through affection and compassion, inspiration and imagination, acceptance and forgiveness, love is unconditional and unbiased. Love also is consciousness where humility, sincerity and truth in thoughts, words and actions help sustain character, wisdom and intellect to achieve life’s goals and mission.

Love is an identity not by one’s professional degrees, awards, material gains, creed or caste but by a vent of genuine emotions though heart. Such care of sentiments brings excitement in life, heals past wounds, fosters strength to withstand crisis, empowers mind with determination and confidence and helps cope with vehemence and stress in emotions and relations. All the more, love is an exquisite service to self before service to others. It unfolds us to reverence for god and his creations by releasing us from negativities like anger, pride, jealously, fear and disgust. Such is love’s beatitude that evolves us to a higher state where positive emotions consecrate a humanitarian cause. 

As a transformational tool, love internalizes success through self-talk, focus on personal competencies and maintaining passion for life. A desire to connect with people and their feelings is the invigoration of love, known as empathy. Charting our life through love can even turn mammoth problems into magnificent opportunities for change. By sharing love, we expand the meaning of our life and contract selfishness that distracts us from our internal vigor. Capitalizing on love as core strength builds emotional profundity and aids self-introspection on a scale of social affection. Poetry of Shakespeare, inspirational quotes of Mahatma Gandhi, spiritual discourses of Dalai Lama, are all conquerors of love in common man’s heart. 

Manifestation of love can also lessen bigotry, superstitions, control our material cling and over ambition amid present times of fatal and excessive monetization, power and politics, professional excellence and outplay, personal and faith based rivalries. Epitomizing love both internally and externally can revitalize relationships in families and neighborhood, within communities and nations, among religions and cultures and between all ages. Love can also foment self realization when we draw its explicit energy from the bounties of nature. Spending time in silence, assessing our feelings periodically, playing with pets and children, participating in performing arts, tuning back to old hobbies, taking a day out with loved ones are  some ways we can rejuvenate love. As Morrie Schwartz once said, ‘The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in’.

Copyright (c) 2009 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot
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