Around the World with Love 💕

It all started on that beautiful Sunday morning, the 14th of January 2018. Looking back, our meeting was divinely ordained.
I shouldn’t have been in Mumbai that day. And if yes, certainly not in Gordon House Hotel in South Mumbai.
And Clau and Blanca told me, when I met them in Guatemala a year later, that they too had made the change of the hotel at the last moment.
And again it was a coincidence, that we were at the same long table at the same time for our breakfast.

Clau is a shy young lady, not like the extrovert Blanca! And when we met, a year after our first contact in that boutique hotel in Mumbai, Clau told me that she had heard a voice in her head telling her to talk to me!! She had said hello and told me that I had very peaceful aura about me! And then she asked me what do I do? And I told her about our YSS (Yogoda Satsanga Society of India) cruise the previous evening, my Guru – Paramahansa Yogananda, and the Autobiography of a Yogi. And that was the beginning of a beautiful and loving friendship, which eventually led to my visiting Guatemala a year later.

First and last I had heard of Guatemala, before this, was in my childhood when I used to collect stamps, about 55 years ago!! I love traveling but visiting this country wasn’t even at the bottom of my wish list. It just wasn’t there! But it happened. And I am so glad that it did.

It was such a beautiful and enriching trip around the world. Pune->Mumbai->Los Angeles->Guatemala->Los Angeles-Brisbane->Mumbai->Pune. Three very long flights and a very long stop over in Auckland. Every place I visited and every person I met was so different from the other. Australia and Guatemala are poles apart! 180 degrees!! And Los Angeles another story of divine love and friendship altogether!! But this trip strengthened the world view I have had for many years now. And that is:

People, at the core of their hearts, are same all over the world. Everyone wants some love, some respect, some appreciation…..every one wants to be happy …..they have similar fears, worries and insecurities…… However different people may look and whatever language they may speak; and whatever may be their food habits and lifestyles; essentially they are all same.

 

WP Glitch

Yesterday all of a sudden my mobile WP app stopped working. Reinstalled today with the help of support but when went to the reader most of the blogs I have following are missing, only about 1/5 are there 🤔

Afraid to die…

They are afraid to die

Because they never

Really lived.

And one day

They will be buried

Under the debris

Of their very own selves.

They would be gone

Unsung

Unfulfilled

As if

They never came.

Who are these people

But the ignorant ones,

Of their own beauty

And their light.

Oh unhappy fate

That makes them love

Their ways dark.

Guide me my Lord

How to help them,

I know not what to do

In this — Your play divine!

Pic credit Stefen Stassov

It is Beauty I Love 💕 💖 💗

I See Thee Painting

“O Cosmic Light, every day I see Thee painting the sky in bright colors. I watch Thee clothe the bare soil with green grass. Thou art in the warmth of the sunshine. Oh, Thou art so plainly present everywhere!”

Paramahansa Yogananda

“Whenever you see a beautiful sunset, think to yourself: “It is God’s painting on the sky.” As you look into the face of each person you meet, think within: “It is God who has become that form.” Apply this trend of thought to all experiences: “The blood in my body is God; the reason in my mind is God; the love in my heart is God; everything that exists is God.”

Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda.

Whatever I am today is a gift of my Guru, Paramahansa Yogananda. One of these gifts is my love for nature and travel. Nature is God 💕🙏

Some of my earlier posts which might interest you are:

Monsoon Love 💕

The Red Rose 🌹

Mornings are mine 😊❤️

Paramahansa Yogananda had composed so many divine chants, like:

Oh Thou Blue Sky

Frozen Sky

I will be a gypsy

It is beauty I love. In love and with love I seek the Maker of the beautiful”

Swami Paramananda

This quote of Swamiji has been a favourite of mine for years. Read it first in 1998 💕🙏

How can one see a flower, a sunrise, a sunset, a sky filled with different coloured clouds, the smile of a child, a beautiful face and not think of God 💕🙏

Beauty in motion 💕

Saw her today morning

In her beauty pristine

Changing every second

Teasing me

Enticing me

Alluring me

With Her beauty divine

At times She was so close

Caressing me

Covering Her beauty

With veils of clouds

Grey and dark

And then

Opening up a little

With a mischievous bright smile

To give me another glimpse

Of Her beauty divine

I know You live

In my heart

But how shall I appease

This longing

For your touch?

When shall this

Hide and seek end?

It was a glorious morning with clouds playing hide and seek with the rising sun and the blue sky. Neither do I have the words to describe the feelings which were evoked, nor can my mobile ever capture this beauty in motion 💕💕

Alien in the Web

I had visited Brisbane earlier this year. Everyday Uma, my niece, and I used to walk to the nearby Metro Station. One day we saw a passion fruit tree in the kitchen garden of a house on our way. It was such fun to be able to see the bud, the flower and the fruit on the same tree!! There is no end to the beauty and the wonders of nature! Another day we saw a small mango tree with rather big mangoes for its size!!

But the best experience was watching a spider web just outside our house. Both of us were admiring the spider and realized we were not looking at the same spider!! There was one at the top of the web and it was beautiful! Nothing like the spiders I have seen in India! But most amazing was the one, almost at the bottom of the web. It was a small thing (I still refuse to call it a spider!); not more than 1 cm tall! It had 4 limbs and a face and eyes!! I asked Uma couldn’t it be an alien? Some life form from some other dimension, from the outer space? She laughed it out 😂 Naturally 😇 But I still wonder?? I tried my best to take pictures of the web with the alien and the beautiful spider but couldn’t succeed. Was it due to insufficient light and limitation of my mobile camera or the alien web of secrecy?

Passion fruit pics on my iPhone

Friends or Soul Connects 💕

Life is an adventure in friendship. Every person we meet, let us make him a friend. There are no strangers; there are only friends-in- the making

Dada Vaswani

You may enjoy this post more if you first read my earlier post: Time heals nothing …. and HOPE and WAIT

Anita and I used to talk often about souls and life after death, incarnation etc. Both of us had read and loved Dr. Bryan Weiss’s – Many Lives Many Masters. One day, in 2010, a friend of mine presented me with Laws of The Spirit World by Khorshed Bhavnagri. It sounded so true and was very helpful. Both of us read it, though she used to get tired very quickly. By this time her health had become worse 😌 In fact she was never a great reader of books 😊 As far as our love for books was concerned we were poles apart! If a started an interesting book I found it difficult to sleep at night! I will keep telling myself just one more chapter or just one more page!! Anita was just the opposite! By the time she would read a page at night she would fall asleep!! Many a night I had watched her sleeping peacefully by my side, when I was reading. She used to sleep like a child😍

Both of us were very friendly and made friends easily! But before our marriage I made friends only with boys😂 I was very shy talking to girls! But that changed after our marriage😊

With God’s grace we have had many good friends and some as close as family or more! Anita’s date of birth and the day she died made me think so much about one such family.

When we got married in 1975 we were living in Ranchi, in the eastern part of India. In 1981 I changed my job and we moved to Delhi. We became very friendly with a family next door. They were Narangs and had a joint family. Three brothers, with their children, were living on one floor each, in a three story house! We were living in a rented house next door. We knew all of them well but became very close to one brother and his family. This brother (I used to call him uncle or daddy!) had two sons. Older one was studying to be a doctor and was living in a hostel. The younger one, Sanjeev, was studying in a college nearby. He became very close to both of us but he literally worshipped Anita! Most of the people in the locality, where we lived, were business people and not vey educated. And they had special love and respect for us. But as I have said Sanjeev had much more than respect for Anita. For him she was perfect – beautiful, talented, loving!

After his college Sanjeev joined his father’s wholesale business and we moved to Southern part of New Delhi. That part of the city was more upscale and happening! Though that was quite far off our relationship and love didn’t diminish with the distance. When his parents found a bride for him (it is still not uncommon in India for parents to choose a life partner for their children, at that time in 80s it was more so) he told them that Anita Bhabhi (sister in law; he treated me like his elder brother and Anita became sister in law) must see and approve the girl before he would say yes! And that was arranged and both of us loved Sakshi and they got married in 1986! Anita did all the shopping for Sakshi!

Sanjeev and Sakshi have two beautiful daughters, Hansa and Vrinda. They call me Mamu, maternal uncle, and I love them both loads 💕😍

Coming back to the point I wanted to make: Vrinda, the younger one, was born on Anita’s birthday – 25th of September and Anita died on Hansa’s birthday – 17th of September!! It could, of course, be called a coincidence! And it could also be some past life connection, some soul connect! Who knows! For me there are no coincidences!!

I have been blogging now for some months. There are millions of bloggers! And out of the blue you connect with some of them at a much deeper level than the rest! Yesterday morning only I got in touch with a blogger from Philippines for the first time and there was instant connect from both sides. During the last few months I have made good friends with bloggers young and old; males and females; from all parts of the world – from Pakistan, US, Canada, UK, Turkey, Lebanon, Panama, Africa, Scandinavia and of course India …we have become so close and we have never met! Someone is struggling for a job, another is depressed, someone is recovering from a serious sickness and another is dealing with the health of a significant other or a parent; some are sharing their joy and success. I feel for them all. I understand their pain and I suggest, guide, help wherever I can. If nothing I pray for them. And I join them in their happy times and wish them well. One of them is already like family and I am looking forward to meeting her 💕🤗 And again, yesterday only I called one of them my soul mate💕🤗

And it is not the first time in my life that this has happened! How does this work? What are the mechanics of creation? What is life and what is death? What is family and who and what are our friends?

I have no answers! And You, who is reading this post, and me are connected too and I am grateful for this connection 🙏🤗 And I shall be there for you whenever and wherever you need me.

I shall close with Guruji’s words, which I had shared earlier too:

Friendship is God’s Divine Law Of Attraction...

“”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””‘”””””

Two stranger meet, and by an instantaneous choice of their hearts they wish to help each other. Have you ever analyzed how this happens? The spontaneous mutual desire to be friends comes directly from God’s divine law of attraction; cumulative mutual acts of friendship between two souls in past lives gradually create a karmic bond that irresistibly attracts them to each other in this life.

Friendship is a great universal force. When your desire for friendship is strong enough, though an unknown person who is spritually attuned to you be living at the South Pole, the megnetism of friendship will never the less draw you together. Only selfishness can destroy this magnetism within us. He who thinks of himself all the time wrecks friendship. Such persons cannot attract friends, because they are unable to expand and receive the good in life.

Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda.

HOPE and WAIT

We can’t turn back

The clocks

But we can always

Rewind the same

With enthusiasm

With curiosity

With hope

With love

With joy.

However much

We may rewind

Time is always

Now

The painting was done by wife, Anita, ages back and she had called it : Hope – (Do read the post : Time heals nothing ….)

And I hope that one day we shall be together again :

In some dimension,

At some time

At some place.

And not that

We aren’t together

Even now

In Oneness

Of Love

In Oneness

Of Spirit.

of Hope and Faith

It was a dark night

It was a dark dark night

There wasn’t there even

A flicker of light.

It was such a sad night

Even my soul did cry

There was sadness

There was gloom

I paced around the room

I lied down too

And I tossed

And I turned

Still there was no peace

And there was no light

It was such a dark night.

A night in which even my

Soul started to cry

But it was a cry

Of compassion

A cry sad but kind

Because it could see

The suffering of my mind.

And then the night

Turned cold

And I shivered

And I cried

I was so lost

In that dark

Night so cold.

And when it all looked lost

I heard a voice

It was a voice

So soft

It was filled

With compassion

And love divine …

“I am always there with you

I have never left your side.

I have made you in My image

And it is My light

That is reflected

In your soul my child.

It may be burn dim

Or it may burn bright

It is never extinguished

For It Is Life”

All my struggle ceased

I felt such peace

A peace that

Was divine.

And I opened my eyes

I saw the morning star

A new day had dawned

Bringing with it

Renewed Hope

Courage and Faith

And I was draped

In Love Divine

Pics with with my iPhone 8 Plus

ONENESS

God is all there is

I too am He

But I am only He

When I am not me.

I am the wave

And I am the sea

That yon Lake

And the mountain.

And you

Yes you too

Are Him.

There is only One

And that One

Is He

In you and in me.

There is no

Separation

One Love

One Joy

One Peace

One Bliss

One Spirit

One Consciousness

JUST ONENESS

Aum Amen Ameen 🙏