Best Friend

R was just parking his cycle when he saw something written on the big cycle next to his......it said "Your best friend for life"!

Immediately he looked back at me and said :"Amma, how can they say that?! How can a cycle be your best friend for life??!"

I smiled at him :"Yeah I know you are wondering how that can be, but don't you also like your cycle a lot?"

R: "I do amma, but it is not my best friend and can never be......you and appa are my best friends"!

My son is my teacher

Of late, Srinath has been away from home - out of town, almost 3-4 days a week and I have been missing him more than Raghav.....just feel very alone sometimes and not having anyone else to share both the day-to-day stuff and thoughts, learnings and other things seem to make it worse. I was voicing my thoughts to Raghav about missing him, when he smiled very nonchalantly at me and said this:
"Amma, do you know what I do when I miss Appa? I just close my eyes and think of him and then I don't miss him anymore......I feel that he is near me.....with me......why don't you try and do the same thing? You will feel better."
I was busy in the kitchen, cooking a meal and lost in my thoughts. After a few minutes, he came back to me from his room and asked me if I had tried to do what he had told me to do. I told him how I was unable to do it. He immediately came up to me and smiled again and said: "Amma...you must not think of him with sadness. You must think of him with happiness as if he is smiling.....then you will feel as if he is here. Try it again!"
I smiled and tried my best again. And I must admit that it did work! How lovely is this feeling.....when you can be the learner and be guided step by step by a small and gentle touch - out of darkness and into light ......happiness unbound!
And today, some days after the above incident, while we were chatting before he went to sleep, I told him again how I missed Srinath as he had been away all week and he said : "Amma, just don't think about it.....when that feeling comes, just think about something else. That is what I do. When I think about Appa, I think about my LEGO or something else. And I don't miss him."
My son had just given me the most important lesson in life of being "detached" and "letting go"! And I had heard a very similar technique shared by a great master just last week, in one of his talks that I had listened to! Wow! I have no words to describe the feelings that churned inside me.....

Children I believe are embodiments of the all-encompassing spiritual energy......for they live in the moment.....completely detached.....aware.....enjoying whatever they are doing to the fullest......
So then, where and when along the way do they lose all this? I wonder......

On Peace

We were just getting ready to sleep last night when Raghav suddenly turned to me and asked me -

"Amma, why has God made the earth like this - full of violence, killing, fighting and all that? Why couldn't he have made it peaceful?"
"And amma, why is it that when it is very peaceful and quiet sometimes, a sudden sound or noise comes and disturbs that? Why has He made it that way?"

So I told him this - "Do you really think that the earth is only full of all that Raghav? What about the beautiful sunset that we see everyday when we go down to play, the different clouds that you spot in the sky, the trees, the animals, the sea and so many other things.........aren't they all so beautiful? don't they give you peace? I think we see what we think - so maybe if you start thinking of all the beautiful things that God has created, you will start seeing that more around you....and also, maybe we need to understand and experience all this violence, killing, noise and all that in order to understand what is peace and the other way around."

Now was I talking to myself or him??!Seemed like this was a learning for both of us!

There are no ready made answers to these sort of questions, neither are there any right or wrong ones I think. I realised that every little thing we experience or think about stems from a process that happens within, and that is after all the very purpose of our existence in this world.