Here are the few songs of Jagjit Singh, my all time favorite.

To audience outside India: These songs are in hindi, but still you should listen to them to understand how a soulful voice can communicate the meaning even if you don’t understand the language.

Tum Itna Jo Muskura Rahe Ho – Arth

HOTON SE CHULO TUM

Tum Ko Dekha To Ye Khayal Aaya

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In case of loving unreturned
Unrequited fingers burn
Don’t you blame yourself at all
There is no blame,there is no crime
This madness happens all the time
No one there to break your fall

I understand how hard it’s been
I’ve been there too and I have seen
What running after love can do
That feeling deep down in your soul
That searing,empty,gaping hole
Has dug a hole in my life too

My darling,my darling
So crazy,so charming
It’s just that it happened too soon
But I send you my wishes
My hugs and my kisses
And whisper a prayer to the moon

In case you’ve lost your faith in life
In case you cannot sleep at night
Be certain this will take it’s toll
I recognise those waves of pain
I’ve known them time and time again
And would not wish them on a soul

Repeat chorus

In cases lying by your door
A life is packed to go once more
There was no intent to deceive
Please bear no grudge,just bear your soul
It’s hardly bearable to go
And barely possible to leave

My sweet tempered angel
I wish I were able
To heal all the hurt with a tune
And if I had the powers
I would give you the stars
The sun and the light of the moon

Repeat chorus

Repaet chorus

I whisper a prayer
I whisper a prayer
I whisper a prayer to the moon
I whisper a prayer
I whisper a prayer
I whisper a prayer to the moon

Lyrics courtesy: Lyrics Depot

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It’s been 18 years since I joined Volvo, a Swedish company. Working for them has proven to be an interesting experience. Any project here takes 2 years to be finalized, even if the idea is simple and brilliant. It’s a rule.

Globalized processes have caused in us (all over the world) a general sense of searching for immediate results. Therefore, we have come to posses a need to see immediate results. This contrasts greatly with the slow movements of the Swedish.

They, on the other hand, debate, debate, debate, hold x quantity of meetings and work with a slowdown scheme. At the end, this always yields better results.

1. Sweden has 2 million inhabitants

2. Stockholm has 500,000 people

3. Volvo, Escania, Ericsson, Electrolux, are some of its renowned
companies. Volvo even supplies NASA.

The first time I was in Sweden , one of my colleagues picked me up at the hotel every morning. It was September, bit cold and snowy. We would arrive early at the company and he would park far away from the entrance (2000 employees arrive in their car to work).

The first day, I didn’t say anything, neither the second or third days. One morning I asked him, “Do you have a fixed parking space? I’ve noticed we park far from the entrance even when there are no other cars in the lot.” To which he replied, “Since we’re here early we’ll have time to walk, don’t you think that whoever gets in late will need a place closer to the door?” Imagine my face.

Nowadays, there’s a movement in Europe named Slow Food. This movement establishes that people should eat and drink slowly, with enough time to taste their food, spend time with the family, friends, without rushing. Slow Food is against its counterpart, Fast Food and what it stands for as a lifestyle. Slow Food is the basis for a bigger movement called Slow Europe, as mentioned by Business Week.

Basically, the movement questions the sense of “hurry” and “craziness” generated by globalization, fuelled by the desire of “having in quantity” (life status) versus “having with quality”, “life quality” or the “quality of being”.

French people, even though they work 35 hours per week, are more productive than Americans or British. Germans have established 28.8 hour workweeks and have seen their productivity driven up by 20%. This slow attitude has come to the notice of USA , the pupils of the fast and “do it now” brigade.

This no-rush attitude doesn’t represent doing less or having a lower productivity. It means working and doing things with greater quality, productivity, perfection, with attention to detail and less stress. It means re-establishing family values, friends, free and leisure time. Taking the “now”, present and concrete, versus the “global”, undefined and anonymous. It means taking humans’ essential values, the simplicity of living. It stands for a less coercive work environment, more happy, lighter and more productive work place where humans enjoy doing what they know best how to do. It’s time to stop and think on how companies need to develop serious quality with no-rush that will increase productivity and the quality of products and services, without losing the essence.

In the movie, ‘Scent of a Woman’, there’s a scene where Al Pacino asks a girl to dance and she replies, “I can’t, my boyfriend will be here any minute now”. To which Al Pacino responds, “A life is lived in an instant”. Then they dance the tango!

Many of us live our lives running behind time, but we only reach it when we die of a heart attack or in a car accident rushing to be on time. Others are so anxious to live for the future that they forget to live the present, which is the only time that truly exists. We all have equal time throughout the world. No one has more or less. The difference lies in how each one of us does with our time. We need to live each moment. As John Lennon said, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”.

Congratulations for reading this email till the end of this message. There are many who will have stopped in the middle so as not to waste time in this “Globalized” world..

Life Is ,yes, Short,
Break The Rules, Forgive Quickly,
Kiss Slowly, Love Truly,
Laugh Uncontrollably,
And Never Regret Anything

That Made You Smile.
Life May Not Be The Party
We Hoped For,
But While We’re Here, We Should Dance…

Have a Wonderful Day!

Article Source: Bangalore Dhamma Group

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___________________________________

Following my post on storytelling, I got this story from a close friend of mine. He in turn must have got it from someone else. Let me just thank all those great farmers out there, starting with the farmer in the story who made it possible for the story to reach me. Here goes:

There was a farmer who grew superior quality and award-winning corn. Each year he entered his corn in the state fair where it won honor and prizes.  One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learnt something interesting about how he grew it.

The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors’.

“How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbor’s when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?” the reporter asked.

“Why sir, “said the farmer, “didn’t you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field.

If my neighbor’s grow inferior, sub-standard and poor quality corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn.

If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbor’s grow good corn.”

The farmer gave a superb insight into the connectedness of life. His product cannot improve unless his neighbor’s product also improves. So it is in the other dimensions.

Time and time again this has been illustrated in human history. The Medici Effect which characterized the Renaissance creating an explosion of breakthrough ideas and innovation through cross-pollination between different disciplines fields and cultures. The most amazing and innovative things on the internet are shared freely, the world leading browser Firefox or Sun’s Java programming language, MySQLdatabase and the OpenOffice.org office productivity suite.

It is an imperative to develop a company culture that shares stories, ideas and insights. This enables best practices to be shared and used on a global scale to help an organization to become efficient and productive and innovative.

Nations, industries and institutions become leaders when they practice the culture of seeding and sharing versus harvesting and hoarding. In its absence they will never be able to realize their true potential.  It is no surprise that companies like IBM, Eli Lilly, Raytheon, 3M are who they are – they share their ideas and best practices internally and with the world. Success does not happen in isolation. It is inherently a participative and collaborative process

________________________________

My two cents. How interconnected we are? Just think for a minute how can we live in a peace if the neighborhood is on fire, how can we stay honest if the officials are corrupt, how we work peacefully if the boss is so demanding, how can we live our life good without others contribution. If things are not in your control, at least spread goodness to your neighbors, that is in your control. Remember – Love thy neighbor

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———->
I attend a community function. Among a group of women. One woman says “hey I am so proud of my children. Each one is topping the class.” “Hey, you are lucky”, one woman says. “Hey, even my child topped the class but this time he was not well, hence he got second.” Most other women squirmed in their seats. One among them rakes up another topic. “Hey, your necklace is so beautiful and exquisite. Where did you buy that?” “Oh, that necklace, its very common in our location, not really as exquisite”, says another woman.

Suddenly, I start to get a feeling of uncontrollable anger and disgust at this conversation. Gosh, people are just vying for one-up-manship in one form or the other. I neither have children, nor have I shown interest in jewels. I am different from these silly women. I don’t like these women.

Now, I am in a spiritual center, again among a group of people. One person says, “you know Mr.So and So donated X lakh money and he also does so much of voluntary service in the center.” Another person says, “hey, thats not so great. Just look at Ms.so and so, she is so poor, yet she comes and does so much service, she is the most greatest server in this center. Its not great to do courses, you should just do service like her”

And the same uncontrollable disgust and anger arises, this is nothing but the same pride under the disguise of spirituality, its the same one-up-manship. I neither could spend so much lakhs of money for service, nor did I have time or energy to do voluntary service in the center. When I did donate some money , I just donated because I felt I benefited from
dharma, and this should be the best way my money would benefit others. It is so disgusting to see people using the very aspect of service as just another channel to boast about it and establish their exclusivity and pride.

I am at home, trying to make sense of the disgust, anger and disillusionment about spirituality. Then I decide to sit and watch and stay with the rising intensity of emotions for quite a long time. I watch my breath, sensations as well as my emotions. They do subside. While I continue with my activities I suddenly realise, it was ME who was judging, who was being intolerant.

The lesson for me in both the above incidents, was that I felt angry and disgusted not so much because of the perception that something was wrong with the others, but more because MY ego hurt that I could not take part in the one-up-manship. It was more of this than the apparent self-righteous indignation. My own pride got mirrored in my perception of the incidents. I cannot be too sure about how true it was that there was in reality some one-upmanship or not in others, but certainly it was my ego which perceived it and got disgusted, it was my own ego which got angry. Next time in a similar situation, I should definitely be able to see what it means not to judge others in spite of my apparent perception of their faults, I made up my mind.

Now, I am in another marriage function. My aunt says with pride, “See my children. They have grown up to be such fine ladies. They are the most well-settled, wealthy ladies in this group” I start to squirm again – “I don’t want to be here, I am ‘different’ and ‘spiritual’ and dont hunger for wealth…”, but this time I start to be aware of it, aware of my breath, aware of the anger that arose and once I start to do that, it subsides to a good extent.

After sometime I look at my cousins with more love and detachment. ” May they truly enjoy the comforts of wealth and continue to experience more prosperity, joy and happiness. May they not suffer from attachment to them!”, my mind resonates.

I warm up to an interesting conversation with my dear cousins of remembering how we played together during our childhood and there is much joy and laughter in the group…

————>

A wonderfully insightful article in the below link, especially after reading
the previous story. Enjoy more.
http://www.tricycle.com/my-view/do-i-mind

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1. Investigating the Mind

If you listen to yourself very much you can sometimes hear such statements as, I should do this but I shouldn’t do that, I should be this way, I shouldn’t be that way,’ or that the, world should be other than it is, our parents should be this way or that way, and shouldn’t be the way they are. So we have this particular verb tense ringing through our minds because we have an idea of what shouldn’t be or should be. In meditation listen to that opinion within yourself of what should be and what shouldn’t be, just listen to it.

Our tendency is to try to become something, and so we set a goal, create an ideal of what we would like to become. Maybe we think society should be other than it is. People should be kind, generous, understanding, loving, there should be brotherhood and people shouldn’t be selfish. The government should have wise leaders, the world should be at peace and so forth. But the world is as it is at this moment in time and things are as they are. When we don’t understand this then we are struggling. So listen inwardly to yourselves, to the constant crying, ‘I am this way, I am not this way,’ and penetrate this ‘I am, I am not’ with awareness.

We tend to just react and take it for granted that all the ‘I am’ and ‘I am not’ is the truth. We create ourselves as a personality and attach to our memories. We remember the things we learned, we remember what we’ve done — generally the more extreme things; we tend to forget more ordinary things. So if we do unkind, cruel, foolish things then we have unpleasant memories in our lives, we feel ashamed or guilty. If we do good things, charitable things, kind things, then we have good memories in our lives. When you start reflecting on this, then you are going to be more careful about what you do and what you say, because if you have lived your life foolishly, acting on impulse out of desire for immediate gratification, or out of an intention to hurt or cause disharmony or exploit others, you are going to be faced with a mind filled with very unpleasant memories.

People who have led very selfish lives have to drink a lot, or take drugs, to keep themselves constantly occupied so that they don’t have to look at the memories that come up in the mind.

In the awakening process of meditation we are bringing awareness to the conditions of the mind here and now, just by being aware of this sense of ‘I am, I am not’. Contemplate the feelings of pain or pleasure the memories, thoughts and opinions as impermanent, anicca. The characteristic of transiency is common to all conditions. How many of you spent the day really investigating this in every possible way while sitting, standing or lying down? Investigate what you see with your eye, hear with your ear, taste with your tongue, smell with your nose, feel and experience with your body, think with your mind.

The thought ‘I am’ is an impermanent condition. The thought ‘I am not’ is an impermanent condition. Thoughts, memories, consciousness of thinking, the body itself, our emotions — all conditions change. In the practice of meditation you’ve got to be quite serious, brave and courageous. You’ve got to really investigate, dare to look at even the most unpleasant conditions in life, rather than try to escape to seek tranquillity, or to forget about everything. In vipassana the practice is one of looking into suffering; it’s a confrontation with ourselves, with what we think of ourselves, with our memories, and our emotions, pleasant, unpleasant or indifferent. In other words when these things arise and we are aware of suffering, rather than rejecting, repressing or ignoring this, we take the opportunity to examine it.

So suffering is our teacher. It’s teaching us, so we have to learn the lesson by studying suffering itself. It always amazes me how some people think they never suffer. They think, ‘I don’t suffer. I don’t know why Buddhists talk about suffering all the time. I feel wonderful, full of beauty and joy. I’m so happy all the time. I find life one fantastic experience, interesting, fascinating and never-ending delight.’ These people just tend to accept that side of life and reject the other because inevitably what delights us disappears and then we are sorry. Our desire to be in a constant state of delight leads us into all kinds of problems, difficulties and situations. Suffering is not just because of massive things like having terminal cancer, or losing someone you love; suffering can occur around what is very ordinary, like the four postures of sitting, standing, walking, lying down. Nothing extreme in that.

We contemplate the normal breath, and the ordinary consciousness. In order to understand, existence, we contemplate ordinary feelings, memories and thoughts rather than grasp hold of fantastic ideas and thoughts to understand the extremes of existence. So we’re not getting involved with speculation about the ultimate purpose of life, God, the devil, heaven and hell, what happens when we die or reincarnation. In Buddhist meditation you just observe the here and now. The birth and death that’s going on here and now is the beginning and ending of the most ordinary things.

Contemplate beginning. When you think of birth you think of  ’ I was born ‘, but that is the great birth of the body, which we can’t remember. The ordinary birth of ‘me’ which we experience, in daily life is ‘I want, I don’t want, I like, I don’t like.’ That’s a birth, or seeking to be happy. We contemplate the ordinary hell of our own anger, the anger that arises, the heat of the body, the aversion, the hatred we feel in the mind. We contemplate the ordinary heaven we experience, the happy states, the bliss, the lightness, the beauty in the here and now. Or just the dull state of mind, that kind of limbo, neither happy nor unhappy, but dull, bored and indifferent. In Buddhist meditation we watch these within ourselves.

We contemplate our own desire for power and control, to be in control of someone else, to become famous, or to become someone who is on top. How many of you, when you find out someone is more gifted than you are, want to put them down? This is jealousy. What we have to do in our meditation practice is see the ordinary jealousies, or the hatred we might feel for someone who might take advantage of us, or annoys us; the greed or lust we might feel for someone who attracts us. Our own mind is like a mirror which reflects the universe and you watch the reflection. Before, we would take these reflections for reality so that we became entranced, repelled or indifferent to them. But in vipassana we just observe that all these reflections are just changing conditions. We begin to see them as an object rather than as a self, whereas when we’re ignorant we tend to seek identity with them.

So in practice we are looking at the universe as it is being reflected in our minds. It does not matter what happens to experience; one meditator will sit here and experience all sorts of brilliant lights, colours, fascinating images, Buddhas, celestial beings, even smell wonderful odours, and hear divine sounds, and think, ‘What a wonderful meditation, such brilliance came, “the radiance” — a divine being came like a radiant angel, touched me and I felt this ecstasy. The most wonderful ecstatic experience of my whole life…waited my whole life for this experience.’ Meanwhile the next one is thinking, ‘Why doesn’t something like that ever happen to me. I sat for a whole hour in pain with an aching back, depressed, wanting to run away, wondering why on earth I’d come to this retreat anyway.’ Another person might say, ‘I can’t stand all those people who have those silly ideas and fantasies, they disgust me, they just develop this terrible hatred and aversion in me. I hate the Buddha image sitting in the window, want to smash it. I hate Buddhism and meditation!’

Now which of these three people is the good meditator? Compare the one who sees devas dancing in heaven, the one that is bored, indifferent and dull, or the one full of hatred and aversion? Devas and angels dancing in the celestial realms are anicca, are impermanent. Boredom is anicca, impermanent. Hatred and aversion is anicca, impermanent. So the good meditator, the one who is practising in the right way is looking at the impermanent nature of these conditions.

When you talk to someone who sees devas and experiences bright lights, you start doubting your own practice and think, ‘But maybe I am not capable of enlightenment. Maybe I am not meditating right.’ Doubt itself is impermanent. Whatever arises passes away. So the good meditator is the one who sees the impermanent nature of bliss and ecstasy, or experiences dullness, experiences anger, hatred and aversion, and reflects on the impermanent nature of those qualities, when sitting, walking or lying down.

What is your tendency? Are you very positive about everything? ‘I like everybody here. I believe in the teachings of the Buddha, I believe in the Dhamma.’ — That’s a faith kind of mind. It believes, and that kind of mind can create and experience blissful things very quickly. You find that some of the farmers in Thailand, people who have hardly any worldly knowledge, who can hardly read and write, can sometimes experience blissful states, experience lights and see devas and all that, and who believe in them. When you believe in devas, you see them. When you believe in lights and celestial realms, you’ll see them. You believe that Buddha is going to save you, Buddha will come and save you. What you believe in happens to you. You believe in ghosts, fairies, elves, you don’t doubt those things, you find those things happening to you. But they are still anicca, impermanent, transient and not self.

Most people don’t believe in fairies and devas and think such things are silly. This is the negative kind of mind, the one that’s suspicious and doubtful, does not believe in anything. ‘I don’t believe in fairies and devas. I don’t believe in any of that kind of thing. Ridiculous! Show me a fairy.’ So the very suspicious and sceptical mind never sees such things.

There is faith, there is doubt. In Buddhist practice, we examine the belief and doubt that we experience in our mind, and we see that these are conditions changing.

I have contemplated doubt itself, as a sign. I’d ask myself a question like, ‘Who am I?’ and then I’d listen for the answer — something like,’Sumedho Bhikkhu’. Then I’d think, ‘That’s not the answer, who are you really?’ I’d see the struggle, the habitual reaction to find an answer to the question. But I would not accept any conceptual answer. ‘Who is it sitting here? What is this? What’s this here? Who is thinking anyway? What is it that thinks?’ When a state of uncertainty or doubt would arise I would just look at that uncertainty of doubt as a sign, because the mind stops there and goes blank, and then emptiness arises.

I found it a useful way of emptying the mind by asking myself unanswerable questions, which would cause doubt to arise. Doubt is an impermanent condition. Form, the known, is impermanent; not knowing is impermanent. Some days I would just go out and look at Nature, observe myself just standing here, looking at the ground. I’d ask myself, ‘Is the ground separate from myself?’ ‘ What is that, who is that who sees the ground?’ Is that ground with those leaves, are those leaves in my mind or outside my mind?’ ‘What is it that sees, is it the eyeball?’ If I took my eyeball out would it be separated from myself, taken out of the socket, would I still see those leaves? Or is that ground there when I’m not looking at it?,’ ‘Who is the one that’s conscious of this anyway?’ And sound. I did some experiments with sound because the objects of sight have a certain solidity like this room — it seems fairly permanent, you know, for today at least. But sound is truly anicca – try to get hold of sound and hold it.

Investigating my senses in this way — can my eyes hear sound? If I cut off my ears and ear drums, will there be any sound? Can I see and hear in exactly the same moment? All sense organs and their objects are impermanent, changing conditions. Think right now, ‘Where is your mother? Where is my mother right now?’ If I think of her in her flat in California it’s a concept in the mind. Even if I think ‘California is over there’, that’s still the mind thinking over there’. Mother is a concept isn’t it? So where is the mother right now? She is in the mind: when the word ‘mother’ comes up, you hear the word as a sound and it brings up a mental image or a memory or a feeling of like or dislike or indifference.

All concepts in the mind which we take for reality are to be investigated: know what concepts do to the mind. Notice the pleasure you get from thinking about certain concepts and the displeasure that other concepts bring. You have prejudices, biases, about race, nationality — these are all concepts, or conceptional proliferations. Men have certain attitudes and biases about women, and women have certain attitudes and biases about men: this is just inherent in those identities. But in meditation, ‘female’ is a concept, and ‘male’ is a concept, a feeling, a perception in the mind. So in this practice of vipassana you are penetrating with insight into the nature of all conditions, coarse or refined. Insight breaks down the illusions that these concepts give us, the illusions that they are real.

Now talking like this, people might question: ‘How do you live in this society then, if it’s all unreal?’ The Buddha made a very clear distinction between conventional reality and ultimate reality. On the conventional level of existence you use conventions that bring harmony to yourself and to the society you live in. What kind of conventions bring harmony? Well, things like being good, being mindful, not doing things that cause disharmony, such as stealing, cheating others, exploiting others. Having respect for other beings, having compassion, being observant, trying to help: all these conventions bring harmony.

So in the Buddhist teaching on the conventional level we live in a way that is to do good and refrain from doing evil with the body and speech. So it’s not as if we are rejecting the conventional world ‘I want nothing to do with it because its an illusion’- that’s another illusion. Thinking that the conventional world is an illusion is another thought.

Author: Ajahn Sumedho

Oban: Nov 1979

Source: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dhamma-blr/message/3035

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