Mohan Kabir's musings: Are my values all mixed upCourtesy: A friendLast ...

Mohan Kabir's musings:  Are my values all mixed upCourtesy: A friendLast ...:   Are my values all mixed up Courtesy: A friend Last night I dreamt I was in Macys looking to buy a pair of socks. As I walked in I noticed ...

 Are my values all mixed up

Courtesy: A friend

Last night I dreamt I was in Macys looking to buy a pair of socks.

As I walked in I noticed a sweater with a price tag of $3000. Next to the sweater were a pair of Jeans for $4000 .The socks were $8000 !!

I went looking for a salesperson and found one in the jewellery Dept.

She was showing a man a $11 Rolex watch. I looked in the glass case and there was a 4 carat diamond ring for $7 .

Shocked I asked the salesperson "How could a Rolex watch sell for $7? ,and a cheap pair of socks sell for $8000"?

She said "Someone snuck into the store last night and changed the price tag on everything."

"Everyone is confused, people are acting like they have lost their sense of value."

"They are willing to pay lots for things of little value and very little for things of great value "

"Its like they don't know what is really valuable and what's not."

I hope we get the price tags back on right soon, I hate seeing people pay way too much for things of little value."

I woke up startled..!!

Maybe life is like my dream.

Maybe someone snuck into our lives and changed the price on everything..!!

Maybe they marked UP the value of fame and money and power.

And put a huge discount on the value of Love , Kindness , Family , Friends.

Maybe We are all living this dream.

I hope we wake up..

A story on the Value Systems in life. 😊

Mohan Kabir's musings: Rediscover the real youIn a large temple north of ...

Mohan Kabir's musings: Rediscover the real youIn a large temple north of ...: Rediscover the real you In a large temple north of Thailand's ancient capital, Sukotai, there once stood an enormous and ancient clay Bu...

Rediscover the real you

In a large temple north of Thailand's ancient capital, Sukotai, there once stood an enormous and ancient clay Buddha. Though not the most handsome or refined work of Thai Buddhist art, it had been cared for over a period of five hundred years and had become revered for its sheer longevity. Violent storms, changes of government, and invading armies had come and gone, but the Buddha endured.

At one point, however, the monks who tended the temple noticed that the statue had begun to crack and would soon be in need of repair and repainting. After a stretch of particularly hot, dry weather, one of the cracks became so wide that a curious monk took his flashlight and peered inside. What shone back at him was a flash of brilliant gold! Inside this plain old statue, the temple residents discovered one of the largest and most luminous gold images of Buddha ever created in Southeast Asia. Now uncovered, the golden Buddha draws throngs of devoted pilgrims from all over Thailand.

The monks believe that this shining work of art had been covered in plaster and clay to protect it during times of conflict and unrest. In much the same way, each of us has encountered threatening situations that lead us to cover our innate nobility. Just as the people of Sukotai had forgotten about the golden Buddha, we too have forgotten our essential nature. Much of the time we operate from the protective layer. The primary aim of Buddhist psychology is to help us see beneath this armoring and bring out our original goodness, called our buddhanature.

*This is a first principle of Buddhist psychology: see the inner nobility and beauty of all human beings.*

Mohan Kabir's musings: Make peace with your painAs I felt the dull ache ...

Mohan Kabir's musings:  Make peace with your painAs I felt the dull ache ...:   Make peace with your pain As I felt the dull ache at the pit of my stomach I realised: "this pain is also just an aspect of life&quot...

 Make peace with your pain

As I felt the dull ache at the pit of my stomach I realised: "this pain is also just an aspect of life".

Instead of moving away from the pain and tightening up so I didn’t have to feel it as much, I decided to move towards it. Instead of saying NO, like I usually would, I said YES. That’s when it all made sense. I’d been habitually denying that this pain was an aspect of my reality. I thought that everything else was reality, but this pain wasn’t included in that. Just as when we’re deeply in love or heartbroken we start to understand the meaning of song lyrics that we’ve heard 1,000 times before, I started to understand statements of wisdom I’d heard.

If we resist something, we are: 1. empowering it 2. Telling ourselves that it isn’t aspect of our reality If you want to love yourself, it can’t just be the ecstasy and joy… it has to be the pain too. If you want to say YES to life, it can’t just be to happiness and good times - it needs to be to everything. When we say NO to one piece of ourselves, we’re saying NO to the whole. When I started confronting my pain, I realised that focussed meditation is applied shadow-work. It is a direct means to access your unconscious, and get in touch with those pieces of yourself that usually remain hidden… and it gives you a way to handle them. What happened when I started loving the pain in my heart?

I was no longer afraid. I was no longer anxious. It turned into a ball of light and ecstasy that exploded through my body and took me on a journey into the psychedelic.

Mohan Kabir's musings: Finally FreeLife is strange. You want to be with s...

Mohan Kabir's musings: Finally FreeLife is strange. You want to be with s...: Finally Free Life is strange. You want to be with somebody, yearn to be with them, wait for them with bated breath....to call...to write...t...

Finally Free

Life is strange. You want to be with somebody, yearn to be with them, wait for them with bated breath....to call...to write...to meet. Every bit of what they say and do or don't do affects you profoundly. But they are impervious to your thoughts and feelings. Your little wishes however easy to fulfil are thrown aside with disregard.

You wait. You hurt. You cry within you, as you do not want to impinge on them or voice your concerns lest they think and feel stifled. You are in anguish....miserable...you shrivel up into a tight ball. A tight knot of pain balls up in your throat threatening to choke you. You paste a smile on your quivering lips again because you do not want to crowd them. Days pass, weeks pass, months go by....you live in this living hell, all knotted up in misery. The person is nonchalant, unaffected and unmoved by the plea in your eyes. You still wait thinking that they will realise the depth of your feelings, will turn and come to you and engulf you with their love. But no....it does not happen. As months lapse into years, the deep anguish turns into a dull ache which settles in your heart. You are sad and unhappy. The tight ball of pain in your throat which threatened to choke you, slowly dissolves and spreads into your system ...flows....easing the pain in your throat. The pain is still there but has turned into a dull ache, not the searing, tearing fierce wrench of before.

Time moves on. You have shifted gears. Come to terms with what life has doled out. Made peace finally with reality. Then as you stand there you see someone walking towards you from the horizon..you strain your eyes to see who it is ....yes it is the same person who you yearned to be with . As she walks towards you with his arms as though outstretched, smiling with the love light in her eyes, you stand transfixed. You heart should soar and leap, you should feel elated, on top of the world....your dreams are coming true....finally. But you feel nothing....you shake yourself ....it is she you tell yourself, she who you longed and pined for....at last she is here. But it's not the same anymore. You take a step forward, then two, then more....but ever so lightly you step away from her path and brush past her perhaps nod pleasantly as you go past. You move forward...there is a spring in your step, now your heart soars as you move lithely with abandon....you are finally free.

Mohan Kabir's musings: Service is in our protoplasmIn the year 2001, in H...

Mohan Kabir's musings: Service is in our protoplasmIn the year 2001, in H...: Service is in our protoplasm In the year 2001, in Herndon - U.S., my friend was making some purchases in Walmart. With him was his daughter....

Service is in our protoplasm

In the year 2001, in Herndon - U.S., my friend was making some purchases in Walmart. With him was his daughter. It was raining heavily. They both had umbrellas.

After the purchase his daughter asked him to wait in the aisle. She went to bring the car very near to enable him to avoid drenching.

Then he saw a White woman already waiting for her car. Her husband should have gone to bring the car - He assumed. She was in the very advanced stage of pregnancy. Her face reflected the strain and stress.

Her husband stopped their car a bit far away and waved to her to come and get in. She was not having any umbrella. He lost no time in telling the lady that He is prepared to extend his umbrella and shield her from the rain and take her and the baggage to her car.

She looked at himin the eyes and asked him, “ Are you from India"? He felt uncomfortable. He shot back his question, "Why do you ask that question?" Pat came her reply - "Only Indians have this sympathy and voluntary offer of help." Pride surged and permeated in all of my veins and body.

He did what an Indian should do and was praised to do.

After she got into the car without a drop of drenching, her husband came out of the car and gave me a huge hug. He asked me, “How could I thank you?’

I replied him, “Let us thank the rain. It only made me know how my motherland is assessed.

Despite the deliberate poisoning by the avaricious politicians, our culture is intact and acknowledged by sisters and brothers living abroad. Service is in our protoplasm.

Mohan Kabir's musings: Tumne Mujhe Dekha Kya Dekha (Yousaw only an image...

Mohan Kabir's musings:  Tumne Mujhe Dekha Kya Dekha (Yousaw only an image...:   Tumne Mujhe Dekha Kya Dekha (You saw only an image…) Those were the days in early 80’s in Kolkata when I used to travel by Lake Road to ...

Mohan Kabir's musings: Do we really trust A person started to walk on a ...

Mohan Kabir's musings:  Do we really trust A person started to walk on a ...:   Do we really trust A person started to walk on a rope tied between two tall towers. He was walking slowly balancing a long stick in his ha...

Mohan Kabir's musings: Emotional immaturity and the problems arising fro...

Mohan Kabir's musings:  Emotional immaturity and the problems arising fro...:   Emotional immaturity and the problems arising from it are due to non-acceptance of facts of life. We should be alive to realities of life ...

 Emotional immaturity and the problems arising from it are due to non-acceptance of facts of life. We should be alive to realities of life and understand our role and relationship with the given and the giver.

You alone can take the initiative to grow out of the problem of emotional immaturity. This is possible when one is free of conflicts. Emotional maturity is required not only for the knowledge of the self, but also to abide in graceful acceptance to what is and therein lies growth.

 Do we really trust

A person started to walk on a rope tied between two tall towers. He was walking slowly balancing a long stick in his hands. He has his son sitting on his shoulders.

Everyone on the ground were watching him with bated breath and were very tense. When he slowly reached the second tower, everyone clapped, whistled and they welcomed him. They shook hands with him and took selfies.

He asked the assembled crowd, “Do you think I can walk back on the same rope from this side to that side?”

The delirious crowd said, “Yes, you certainly can!”

He said, “If that is so, can anyone of you give your child to sit on my shoulder? I will take the child safely to the other side!”

There was stunned silence all around.

Belief is different. Trust is different. For trust you need to surrender totally

We believe in the Almighty, but do we trust HIM enough!

 IS IT SO?

A young monk lived in a village in Japan. He was very famous, and had great reputation. The whole village worshiped and respected him.  But one day everything changed. A young girl in the village became pregnant and gave birth to a child. When her family asked her whose child it was she said it was the child of the young monk!

How long does it take for admirers to become enemies? How long? It does not take even a short while because inside the mind of an admirer condemnation is always hidden. The mind just waits for a chance, and the day admiration ends, condemnation begins. Those people who show respect can change in one minute to being disrespectful. The people who are touching a person's feet can within a moment start cutting the same person's head. The people of the whole village attacked the monk's hut. For a long time they had been showing respect to the monk but now all the anger that they had suppressed came out. Now they had the chance to be disrespectful, so they all ran to the monk's hut and set it on fire and threw the tiny baby at him.  The monk asked, "What is the matter?"  The people shouted, "You are asking us what the matter is? This child is yours! Do we have to tell you what the matter is? Look at your burning house, look within your heart, look at this child and look at this girl. There is no need for us to tell you that this child is yours."  The monk said, "Is it so? Is this child mine?" The child started crying so he started singing a song to make the child silent, and the people left him sitting by his burnt-out hut.

Then he went to beg at his usual time, in the afternoon - but who would give him food today?  People started walking behind him, teasing him, throwing stones. He reached the house of the girl whose child it was. He said, "I may not get food for myself, but at least give some milk for this child ! I may be at fault, but what is the fault of this poor baby?"

The child was crying, the crowd was standing there - and it became unbearable for the girl. She fell at the feet of her father and said, "Forgive me, I lied when I gave the name of the monk. I wanted to save the real father of the child, so I thought of using the name of this monk. I don't even have any acquaintance with him."

The father became nervous. This was a great mistake. He ran out of his house, fell at the feet of the monk and tried to take the baby from him. The monk asked, "What is the matter?"  The girl's father said," Forgive me, there has been a mistake. The child is not yours."  The monk replied, "Is this so? Is the child really not mine?"  Then the people of the village said to him, "You are mad! Why didn't you deny it this morning?"

The monk said, "What difference would it have made? The child must belong to somebody. And you had already burnt one hut - you would have just burnt one more. You had enjoyed defaming one person, you would have enjoyed defaming one more. What difference would it make? The child must belong to someone - it could also be mine. So what is the problem?" The people said, "Don't you understand that everybody condemned you, insulted you, humiliated you very much?"  The monk answered, "If I had been concerned with your condemnation, I would have been concerned about your respect also. I do as I feel right; you do whatever you feel to be right. Until yesterday you felt it right to respect me so you did. Today you felt it right not to respect me so you didn't. But I am not concerned with either your respect or your disrespect.

The people said to him, "Gentleman, you should have realized that you would lose your good reputation."  He replied, "I am neither bad nor good. I am simply myself. I have dropped this idea of good and bad. I have dropped all concern in becoming good because the more I tried to become good, the more I found that I became bad. The more I tried to escape from badness, the more I found that goodness was disappearing. I dropped the very idea. I became absolutely indifferent. And the day I became indifferent, I found that neither goodness nor badness remained inside. Rather, something new was born which is better than goodness, and which does not even have a shadow of badness about it."

 

Tumne Mujhe Dekha Kya Dekha (You saw only an image…)

Those were the days in early 80’s in Kolkata when I used to travel by Lake Road to Howrah Station minibus. A few of us guys used to occupy the last rows and have our adda all the way from Lake Road to Dalhousie.

There used to be a pretty young lady who used to board the bus at Lake Market and occupy one of the front rows. After the first few days we exchanged glances; she used to smile shyly and nod appreciatively at some of my jokes.  She used to get off the bus at Council House Street.

She was fair, tall and slim and carried herself so well. From her looks I thought she was from Kashmir.

I looked forward to the meeting her each day. As days went by I waited for her to board the bus with bated breath and when she boarded she glanced to her right and always caught my eye; was there a smile! Was it for me! I wondered!

She boarded the bus after I did and got off before I did, so never I got a chance to speak to her.

One day, I boarded the bus after she did. As I clambered up she looked at me, looked away and then looked at me again with disbelief. Her eyes froze in shock and she looked down at my elbow crutch and gait. Rest of the journey she never looked towards me. As usual she got off at Council House Street. She walked away briskly, not looking even once in my direction. She wiped her eyes I thought, but am not sure!

I never saw her again, never got to know her name and never got to know what went through her mind.

I still wonder ‘Tume mujhe dekha…kya dekha’

 

Story Telling- A therapy

 

Most of the diseases worldwide are curable. Modern medicines are building in such a way day by day that we can rebuild limbs and regrow skin, rewire our brain circuitry, replace organs, restore hearing and sight, and cure once-fatal diseases with a few doses of medicine. But what about the ones which cannot be cured, rebuild, or healed with expensive medical treatments?  

Our body consists of a lot of parts and there is a different kind of a pain in every part. Every pain needs different treatment. Emotional and mental health issues can be cured by storytelling. As it allows you to express your emotions through art without directly talking about them. 

Narrative therapy is a form of therapy that aims to separate the individual from the problem, allowing the individual to externalize their issues rather than internalize them.

Folklore scholar SunWolf explains that therapists have claimed the phrase “Once upon a time” can have a hypnotic effect on people. Listening to oral stories can bring a significant change in your life.

Storytelling may not be biologically effective the way any surgery is but it helps patients to heal in a better way than medicines. Storytelling has been proven one of the best ways to cope up with depression, anxiety, and other anger issues. Therapists often ask a question that when was the last time you shared a story? The reason behind this is that they test when was the last time you shared your feelings and thoughts with the world as stories are directly connected to your emotions and feelings.  

You may be living a dark low life but with this historic art of storytelling, you can surely find a way for your life. 

 Investment with negative return

There comes a point in your life when you realise that you have invested lots of time and heart in nursing hopes, expectations and beliefs that are false. 

- This is how people should treat me

- This is how people should be

- My children should live by the example I set

- My attitude towards people, things and life are valid for all times to come

- Many such beliefs

I am not able to drop them though the return on these investments have become negative, because of the time and heart invested 

I resolve to have the courage and honesty to drop all such false beliefs, hopes and expectations.

I discover that so much of space is cleared. I am free and I have set those I have kept caged in my mind, free.

I am comfortable being myself.

 A close friend taught me invaluable lessons on how to interact with people who have borderline mental instability:

Keep your communication objective and polite. Don't provoke them into any kind of reaction

They behave they do because of the surge and swing of emotions. Don't be judgemental. 

Listen to them with empathy.  You don't have to agree with everything they say.

Most importantly, don't pester them with questions because it pushes them off whatever stability they have been able to make for themselves.

Finally, don't get emotionally close to them 

 Once in a forest a tiger and a donker got into a debate. The donkey insisted that the grass was blue in colour and the tiger said it was green. Finally they took the debate to the King of the Jungle. 

The King heard both the sides and ruled in favour of the donkey and sent the tiger to an year in prison.

The tiger sought a private audience with the King of the Jungel and said, "you know the grass is green, why did you agree with the donkey and on top of send me to prison for an year?"

The King sighed and replied, 'The punishment is not claiming that the grass is green which I know is correct, it was fordebating with a donkey!"

How often in life do we debate with donkeys!