Everywhere...and Forever

As the air is everywhere,
Flowing around a pot
And filling it,
So God is everywhere,
Filling all things
And flowing through them forever.

- Ashtavakra Gita

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Sometime back I witnessed a strange thing. Somebody making tea. What is strange in it? It was done in our traditional way – keeping a utensil with milk and water in the stove, adding tea leaves, filtering it with a tea strainer, adding sugar… that person wasn’t using a utensil which will allow us to easily pour tea into a glass without spilling and naturally I saw tea getting spilled. Spilling...wiping... Once, twice, thrice…I saw it happening every time that person made tea. It looked like a daily ritual. The strange thing is that I saw a perfect utensil for making tea that can be then poured without spilling even a drop. But why that person did not use it?

According to that person, that utensil is for making a particular curry. I came to know that this is because that person’s mother told so.

Do we need to label things around us that way? Do we need to follow our parents blindly in this labeling process?

Everything might have a specific use but it also has a general use too. A safety pin, a swab, a kitchen fork, sewing needle, a rubber band, a dining table, a dining chair, a business card, a screwdriver, pliers, a piece of wood, a tea spoon, a roll of toilet paper, a coin...Prejudice about people, ceremonies, rituals, beliefs, culture, religion, faith etc too gets labeled.

When I saw that labeling, an incident came into my mind. Roughly 20 years ago, I was working in a factory as an accountant. They had lots of machines and tools, including some lathe. That factory used to open by 8 in the morning and the owner used to come around 10. One day, I saw my boss’s car coming early, I stood up in my seat to greet him and here he comes in a hurry and from his face I read that something is odd.

“Call Madhavan” he said

Madhavan was a strange worker there. He was not in our rolls. He was working with that factory as a supervisor but later on resigned and started his own workshop. But still, he comes here and works on an hourly basis. He was the best there..was proficient with every department there. Not just that, he was capable of fixing many things like motor bike, car, clock, electrical equipments, plumbing…he was very very talented.

Why did the boss come this early and call Madhavan?

As usual, he took his morning shower, cleaned his ear with a cotton swab and there it is…the cotton stuck inside his ear. But he did not go to an ENT specialist. This is not because he was a miser. But his trust with Madhavan. He did not label Madhavan as a Lathe operator.

(Madhavan or none of us did not dare to laugh when we came to know why boss called him coz our boss was very very short tempered)

As expected, Madhavan did not fail….

We need to grow beyond labels…Needn't we?

Bimbo n Me..

Who was the first country singer to whom I listened to? I might have heard some songs without knowing that it was country or who sung it. But the first singer I remember is Jim Reeves. His ‘Bimbo’ is still popular, though he died and early death even before I was born.

Why do I remember this particular singer? When we connect certain things to certain other things, sometimes we remember odd things. It was my then best friend who gave me a ‘Best of Jim Reeves’ cassette. She said she like the song ‘Bimbo’. Did she say she liked the song ‘Just Walking in the Rain?’, can’t remember it ...the incident happened about 20 years ago. Why did she like Reeves? She did not tell me …may be because I did not ask her. But I know its coz his Gospel work and Christian songs. My friend too was a good singer, was highly involved in Gospel work and even sang in couple of music albums.

Why did I remember my then best friend now?




Is it coz I happened to listen to Reeves or is it coz I missed her and hence I listened to Reeves?

Preacher pays

Sometime ago, I had mentioned about people who are into God business (Benny Hinn for example and more can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_televangelist_scandals). Evangelism is a business for them and they live in super luxuries. We cannot blame them for their followers’ ignorance. If we closely listen to them, we can find out that many a times they say scripture or somebody from the scripture said this and that and they never tell that they believe in what they preach . They escape from places where there is a possibility of them getting exposed and next day they might say ‘God asked me to not to attend that meeting’…

Pastor Tony Alamo is one such cheater. He grew from a news paper delivery boy to a multi millionaire. He married 4 times, sexually abused minor girls and two months ago ended up in a jail with 175 years term. That means he will never come back (good God!). Today’s news said one of the US courts ordered him to pay $500,000 each to 5 women who became victims of his lust when they were minors. 2,5 million US dollars is a big money but he and his missionary has more to spare.

Why all such evangelists and their missionaries are filthy rich though they are not coming from rich families? Too much for a coincidence?

When will people learn?

Jealousy..

Jealousy is a negative emotion, a negative force or energy. It can work the way the prayer we do (for others), but in a somewhat opposite manner. A prayer we do for somebody else purifies our mind where as feeling jealousy rotten the mind and attracts more negativity. If our prayer for somebody else can do well for them, jealousy can do something bad to them.

To what extend our prayer can do good or our curse can do bad AND to what extend the other person can receive the good or bad from our prayer or curse depends on various factors including the magnitude of our thoughts, the aura around us and them and many other things.

Getting a well paid job, buying new car, an ipod, a laptop, a camera….getting a chance to visit places which many others wish to visit, moving to a better living condition…many such things can make others jealous of you; even if those ‘others’ are friends or family members.

It is in the nature of humans to share our happy moments with our loved ones. I said loved ones.. where divine love is the purest form of positive energy. I am not referring to that love in the ‘ I love you’ originating from lust.

So, when we share good things with others, it is better we think twice to whom and what we share coz it can attract negative energy or even bad luck.

What if we think we made somebody feel jealous of us?

Forgive them and bless them…

Seattle Days

Friday, December 25, 2009

The flight was at 3 pm. Since it was the first domestic travel here, we (me my wife and son) started bit early. We commuted to airport by train ( BART - Bay Area Rapid Transit). Since it was Christmas day, there wasn’t much rush in the train. But the plane was full (except for first class and they offered an upgrade for just $50). Travelling on Christmas day has this advantage of getting a low fare. I got a window seat but since it is winter season it was foggy.

But still I could see many snow filled mountains…
It was beautiful

Reached at Seattle-Tacoma airport around 5.10 pm. Weather was different…it was colder than Fremont. Sister-in-law came to pick and we went to a Punjabi restaurant and bought some Indian food for dinner. At night went out to see the Seattle skyline. It was a great view but I had bad headache coz of lack of sleep on couple of previous nights. So went straight away to bed as soon as we reached home, I did not even change my dress…

Saturday, December 26, 2009

I wasn’t traveling to Seattle for tourism or sightseeing but my sister-in-law was kind enough to add some tourism element into it. Thus we decided to go to Snoqualmie falls and Pass, which was about 55 miles away from home. I was thrilled to see the snow but sis-in-law said if the weather is not good, she will cancel the trip (it was she who was driving the car). We went to the falls first. It wasn’t a great fall but it really was cold…I went out without wearing any jacket and when the wind blew, wow wow wow…but my jaws did not chatter.

Snoqualmie Falls

Next was Snoqualmie Pass, the mountain with snow. There are big billboard kind of things on the sides of roads which provide live update on traffic, weather etc and unfortunately, there came this warning ‘Gusty wind ahead’ and my sister in law said we better cancel the trip and come another day. But I did not agree to that. This resulted in her handing over the steering to me. I was driving that car for the first time, the steering has play, the wind was gusty, as they said, but luckily for me, there weren’t any snow or ice on the road which could have been a spoilsport. Finally we reached there and it was a fantastic view.

Lots of people were doing skiing and snowboarding.

At Snoqualmie Pass

Since we did not bring any of those equipments (sister in law knows how to ski and snowboard) I did not try anything funny (‘thank God!’ Said my poor old knees).

Way back home, I saw a young homeless man begging, hanging a placard in his neck which read: ’ Anything will help’…and came to know that it’s not a rare scene in the US.

Sunday, December 27, 2009.

Which is the easiest way to have a look around the Seattle city? Ride the Ducks !.

Space Needle

This city tour is operated by ‘Ride the Ducks’ (they have service in many other cities including San Francisco, which is about an hour’s drive from my apartment in Fremont). Duck is an amphibian. It can travel both in land and water. The design is taken from the DUKW (pronounced as ‘duck’), an amphibian truck designed by the General Motors during the World War II to transport goods and troops over land and water. Now Ride the Ducks manufactures its own vehicle.

The Captains of these ducks are all funny. They sing, crack jokes and entertain us throughout the journey, apart from providing other information about Seattle. I liked my captain very much. He was a real entertainer. The ride starts from (near) the famous Space Needle and takes us through the major streets. Seattle has lots of Starbucks, including the very first Starbucks in the world. The duck takes us to the Lake Union, which is a fresh water lake. We can see lots of private yachts and boats parked there
. It takes about one and a half hours to finish the ride. I really enjoyed the ride. Unfortunately, this time too I wasn’t wearing any coat and at some point of time, I even shivered…yes, it was a real cold day.

Though the duck went through the Pike Place market, we paid a visit there ourselves.

This market is near the Elliott Bay waterfront. This is one of the oldest farmer’s markets in the US. This place attracts around 10 million visitors in a year. There are lots of shops selling many different items. One fish shop

seemed to be an attraction for many visitors.
The first ever Starbucks is here. There was a crowd inside and outside hence I shyed away from taking a picture standing just in front of it (or have a coffee from there). This market place has some long history too.

We went to one Turkish restaurant. May be we visited at an odd hour coz there was only one lady to attend all the customers and hence we had to wait for some time. I ate Baklava and Spinach Borek. Baklava, the sweet, had some similarity to one of the Indian sweets.

We paid a visit to the Pacific Place mall too. This is one of the premium malls in Seattle. We went to the Bose store and experienced a demo of their home theatre system which was awesome. Since it was holiday season, there was live music. The lady who sang the songs ended it with ‘Jingle bells’.

We had dinner from an Ethiopian restaurant. This was a different experience. I never thought of having Ethiopian food in my life. I ate something called ‘Injera’ which is one of the most popular foods in Ethiopian cuisine. This was similar to our ‘dosa’ and ‘aappam’. I really liked the tea served by them.

Monday, 28 December 2009.

Spent the whole day at home….finally, to the purpose of the visit..sort, pack, work..

Tuesday, 29 December 2009.

This is the day of one of my dreams coming true. Visiting the final resting place of the legend Bruce Lee. When I had this dream of visiting his grave, I had no idea how it is going to happen; after all, from where the funds will come? I was in India and we had no US plans that time. But I had this strong wish to visit the grave, which was in Lake View cemetery (I passed Volunteer Park too, but did not go inside the Park), Seattle. I really really wanted to visit it someday.

When I really stood in front of his grave, my head/mind became blank.

It was hard to believe that finally I am standing there for real. I don’t know how to describe this moment….I thanked my Guru because it was one of his teachings that inspired me to keep such a big dream in my mind.

Space needle is one of the major tourist attractions in Seattle but we did not visit it or took the elevator in the needle. Instead, sister –in-law took us to her office building, the Columbia Center, which is the tallest building (937 feet) in Seattle downtown, taller than the Space Needle (605 feet). Thus we got a wonderful view of the Seattle.

Space Needle and Seattle seen from Columbia Center

It was really beautiful. On my way back, I bought roasted chestnut from a street vendor. He was a nice guy and the street was beautiful coz of the decorations. I wished there were snow too. Then it would have been a magnificent view.

We travelled in a bus. The most interesting thing about Seattle is that the bus is free in the downtown area. It was hard to believe. May be Bill Gates is supporting them a lot. Since we caught the bus not from the downtown, we paid ($2 per tkt). It included a return trip too but we had to hire a taxi since we were in a hurry and we already wasted enough time walking here and there and eating chestnut..

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Woke up (as if I slept nicely, huh!) at 4 am with headache. Here in these weather conditions, if we do not drink enough water, it can result in headache. We are going back to Fremont by car. We had some work in city of Vancouver (Washington, not Canada) Motor Vehicles Department. That building and surrounding area was marvelous... everything covered in snow. It was just like the white Christmas I have seen in pictures and movies. Unfortunately, I did not take not even a single picture; one reason for my bad mood was my headache. But from Vancouver till my house, it was me who drove the car (over 1000 km). The drive was really good. It was scenic too. But we did not stop for any sightseeing since we had planned to reach home before midnight. This again is coz we had some other work next day morning.

This was the longest drive I ever did, so far, in single stretch. We saw lots of snow and ice on our way. Many mountains were covered in snow.
Luckily for us, there wasn’t any fresh snow fall on our way. I stopped the car at one restroom, stepped out of the car without wearing gloves and there it is….it was some minus temperature and my hands got almost frozen. But I enjoyed it. Though I was wearing a coat, it was really cold. And the view from that place was superb. Moon and snow covered mountains..Mother Nature is really beautiful.

Reached home around 9.30 pm. We prepared some express dinner and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz