Passing thoughts

I'd browsed through a few pages of this book a few years ago but never got to finish it or grasp its essence. Yesterday afternoon, when i opened this book and glanced at the introduction, this passage caught my eye--

"For nearly two years, i lived a very difficult life with no job, no relations, no home and no proper social identity. I'd sit on park benches but living in a state of indescribable ecstacy"

He is speaking of his state of being when, after an intense turmoil and suffering, he accidentally experiences the ultimate, what the mystics call as Samadhi. And the rest of his experiences and the essence of his philosophy and teaching-- he has put together in this book-- 'The Power of Now'.

Started reading this and will write more about it subsequently.

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I need the comfort of a group, however much i may deny it or assert the powerfulness of my personality and individualness. I need friends and people who value me and have faith in my abilities. Though i've been a kind of loner all along, i feel restless without this recognition and acceptance of peers. Is this a negative trait or an acceptable positive quality found in most of us?
Sometimes mom talks of death, her death, in a matter of fact manner. Last week i told her that i'm going to buy a new tv set for myself and archana, because we don't get to see our favourite programmes( Mom and dad are glued in front of the tv in the living room on all days on prime time, watching their favourite serials). Mom said:-'Wait for some years, and then you can have this tv for yourself.'

It's funny--once you grow old, you think of death, your death but when you're young, it's never in your mind. Maybe it's a universal thing, i don't know. But does death happen that way--old people first and then younger ones as they grow old? Do we know when and where exactly death awaits us? Can i tell with absolute certainty if i'll be alive to see the sunset, today evening?

Death is the most fascinating thing that we never give a second thought to. Maybe our life and values acquire a whole new meaning if we consider the inevitability of death--ours and those of others we know-- and keep the awareness of death at the back of our minds always.

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And yeah, Dilip has so much good writing on his blog and such an array of fantastic links that i wish i had all the time in the world to read all of it. Ditto with Jay.

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It's Valentine's today. Nick wrote something interesting about it a few days ago and some of us responded. Hope he has a great time.
Can't think of anyone in India writing a post like nick did. We are still shackled in traditional shit.
Amidst Sena and bhajrang dal goons who've sworn to restore our sacred (?) tradition and punish all those who celebrate Valentines day, the need of the hour is to keep our heads cool and hearts warm. Let all these thugs hang themselves with their rubbish. Let there be love flowing between all of us, all the time.
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Two things struck me yesterday, the impact of which is yet to sink in deeply. One is this:

"There's an immense world out there--the astral world-- unknown to most of humanity. We are only beginning to open our eyes to this new phenomenon. Many people who've touched this dimension or experienced it are writing about it--we need to read that literature. What we know as reality is only the tip of an iceberg---the real is huge and immense, beyond our wildest imagination. We need to get in touch with this Reality."

The other one, most of us know :

"A kind of blind faith--- we need to have this in our Spiritual master. The faith a child has in its mother--it will eat anything given by the mother even if it's poison.

"There's a very painful incident. We had two dogs and once they were struck with some rare disease, which would kill them bit by bit. The doctor suggested that we put the dogs to sleep, permanently. So there we were, standing with the leathal injection in hand. I called the dog, and it walked up to me with so much love, as if i was calling it to caress its back, not knowing that we were going to kill it."