The eternal Spiral

We start our journeys the day we are born (some might say restart.)
The early days are of magic and splendor
and endless hours of learning and exploring -- freely.

Then somewhere we start getting schooled!
The curiosity gets curbed and sadly over a period of time it goes to sleep -- almost into a deep coma!
So from being alive, we become the living dead!

And yet we long for eternal happiness!
We are caught in our journeys of becoming and forget our beings.
Alternatively some of us take the "drop out" route
and just meditate on our being!

Well this world is what it is
because we are who we are
and vice versa!

So is it not time to change all that?

Welcome to the world of Wonder, Wisdom, and Wealth.
When we have the sense to wonder,
We, over a period of time become wiser,
with this wisdom comes wealth –
not just monetary but of connections and of insights!
When we have the wealth we have the time
and space to wonder
and round we go
on the spiral of Anand!

The Me

All attempts to "indicate" in words the indefinable infinite source of us all create more markers in a journey that isn't.

Why sustain the illusion that there is actually a fixed place and a multitude of pathways to get that illusive place called nirvana, moksha, graceland?

When, before the beginning and after the end of time, there is nowhere to go, nowhere to hide!!

When there is nothing "real" about "maya"?

When there is nothing but a

"Seeing of our blindness"?,

"listening to our deafness",

"tasting our own blandness",

"speaking our own dumbness",

"touching our senselessness" and

"minding our mindlessness"?

And in this embracing of current reality, it simply dissolves away!

A choiceless Awareness arises or rather shines through

And then we realize the timeless truths

The wisdom of the sages through the ages

Ihaiwa, Ihaiwa -- here only, now only

Tat Twam Asi -- Thou art that

Aham Brahmasmi - I am Brahma is me

Khalawida Brahma -- The whole is Brahma

The journey that begins with Kohum? - Who am I

Ends when one realizes the destination is Sohum -- That I am!

And then Srushti shines -- the Divine Nature within and without!

Powered by the smiling Savita -- the Sun that gives and gives and burns till it dies out

Blessed by the eternal Shankar and the serene Shailaja -- the Shiva and Parvati

Ably challenged into Being Love by the Chandrasekhar and Shailaja -- the moon bearer and his consort

And the Ganesha - lord of wisdom, the jidnyasu, Dances on

Weaving the fabric of magical insights in multiple languages

Always inviting "eternal light" into the "ephemeral darkness"

What a truly amazing trip this round around the "Ananda" spiral is turning out to be..

Anil Shankar Paranjpe --> Actualising Sacred Potential --> Ananda Silence Peace

From Having to Doing through Being to Source

-- All the time becoming the BEING!

The Smile that never ends is Breaking out

Being Disciplined --> Being Love --> Being Whole

my life's work

Life is a path we create as we tread it – this is I hold to be a fundamental truth.

The individual and the collective are on a march towards greatness – always in a spiral, never in a straight line nor in loops. The spiral of Ananda – wonder leading to dawning of wisdom which ushers in true wealth. This leads to fleeting experiences of the Reality of Wholes – a network of wholes ultimately leading to the source of it all – the deep void, the silence that is before the beginning and after the end – the Wishwa Yoni.

As I am becoming increasingly clear, I have been, am and will continue to be a student of “Life”!

It started with the foray into the field of Process Improvement for software, graduated into an inquiry into the science of organisational learning which led into the world of “Architecting Value generating systems”. Currently I am seeing the transformation space as leading directly to this Discovery of Divine Designs.

We all are essentially on a journey of discovering divine design and then living the disciplined life of a sadhak-senani to eventually become a Raj-Rishi. In the institutional space this “ultimate destination” appears to be “Co-creation of Conscious Communities”

Books like Goal, The Fifth discipline, The Living company, Birth of the Chaordic age, Zen and the art of Motorcycle maintenance, etc are vehicles of the Western thought to bring about excellence in our working lives.

Based on direct personal experience, and engaging with Illumine Knowledge Resources Private Limited, as well as the subsequent forays at two start-ups and into facilitation with Athanor, I am convinced that the lack of a deeper basis for living, is the source of great trouble in the individual and social life.

I believe that Oriental culture at its roots contains the principles relevant to the current times. These have to be integrated into a whole with the “developmental scientific and engineering” work of the Occident! I see that the need is to take these principles and architect the new age practices, which are by design, value creating and at the same time liberating for the individual.

Performance at all levels comes from available Capacity and paradoxically all capacity comes from prior performance! Often a lack in performance is caused by “invisible” gaps between our beliefs and our actions (espoused theory vs. theory-in-action).

I am interested in the ongoing work of aligning the actual daily practices with the various guiding frameworks (informal or formal). This is the “discovery” of the latent capacities which leads to sustained performance.

Thus my life’s work with individuals, teams and organisations is to be a Capacity Discovery Coach.

Cycles of waking and dozing off

What a funny cycle this is. One day you feel you have all the answers. Then as the cliche goes "the questions shift".

Then "I" slide back into sleep. Fear grips. Teachings are tossed. Meaning is lost. Darkness is near complete.

The heart screams. Sometimes threatens to stop. Yet, He does not let go of me. Instead I let go of me?!

And It Awakens, again!

This time it feels so different. And yet I have to remain watchful -- not to intervene, not to wake up again?! So that It remains awake!!

Here I be

I am noticing a deepening, a mellowing -- almost like a rebirth that is happening. There is a "slowing down", actually a dropping out of the frenzy.

Is it just age catching up or is it another layer of ignorance dropping away?

Is there a growing clarity between being committed and being driven? Between "letting happen" and "making happen"?

The slow, inexorable death of the me, mine and all the familiar but deadly (!) mis-identification?

I could just sit and watch the sunlight on the grass, come through the foggy / hazy air. Watch people go about their lives. Feel the "restlessness" inside my body and my thinking! Watch the smile catch the lips, spread across my face, into my eyes and my entire being.

Grateful to be here, now! Nowhere to go, nothing really to do, to prove, to accomplish!!

Just a deep and complete acceptance of here-now!

Next Step? (December 25, 2007)

Paper – blank, smooth, inviting

Is so after a long arduous journey

much like the land below

fields, homes, rivers, mountains, roads

all signatures of the Maker

Fueled by sunlight, air and water

Rooted by and in Mother Earth

All held in the Infinite Space

The mystery of time

the illusory foe-ally!

The magic our human ability

to think, to feel

to read, write,

speak and reflect

Delusions of the pattern making mind?

Fed incessantly by the sensory apparatus

An old habit

perpetuated by civilizations since time immemorial?

There is a lot of shaking and moving

Thanks to the turbulence of “updraft” of rising air

The pen is not flowing (at this height?)

Literally and Metaphorically

The Unshakable sense of fatigue

The hesitant but growing expectation

of the deeper unfolding that lies ahead

The looking back brings awe and gratitude

Mixed with regret at “silly mistakes”

and “giving into fears”

The insights gained must be lived and shared

For the journey thus far to be worthwhile

and more significantly to enable rapid unfolding

This is the time

To let GO and let God

Drop all expectations

All thinking, planning

Just Be Love!!

BE LOVE (On August 18, 2007)

Long time no see
Actually right now hardly “see”
More than a month of action flurry
tilting at windmills – inside and outside
in a great deal of hurry

Becoming flush with the pulsating must do energy
Eagerly moving out to make happiness happen
Little realizing that rather than enlightening
the other were left screaming
scalded by the brutal directness
the total absence of niceness
the burning insistence
on facing
on shedding masks
on owning
on claiming
on becoming alive
right here, right now!!

Am I here
to heal (my self)
to make whole
to reveal the abundance
to unveil a life of love and surrender
which is both the source and the path?
Then can anger and force be a weapon?
When I fight with what is,i.e. Reality
Blindingly obvious who loses and how?!

So is it time to embrace power
to let go once and for all this shore
Is it time to face the mother of all fears?
This lunatic core belief of that there is a real me,
who has a purpose, a mission to make a better you?
That there is a finite window of opportunity for change, for evolution?
The illusive reality of time and space, and of course you and me?!

An effective coach indeed,
the raw energy certainly feels good
fulfills the bottomless void of the monkey mind
gives a sense of purpose and of direction
but ultimately, after all is said and done,
leaves me a prisoner of me!

So is it not time for next wave of Grace?
For the ultimate (?) Divine Embrace
the letting go of “me” and “mine”
The letting come of real gyaan
The essential vi-gyaan
The reality of WonderWW

You are being freed
because you are ready
to shoulder the awesome responsibility
what else is there to do
who else can I be

Be Love
Be Divine Love
Acceptance, naah!
Letting go, Naah!!
Celebration and just be!
Let happen
Light rather than heat
inspire, invoke and let it be
only work is you
loosing you, finding Him
24 by 7, everywhere

Silence
Gratitude
Action as Divine Expression
A 24 by 7 Celebration

Reflections of “awakening”? (On September 17, 2007)

It is 4:30 AM

Nearly a month of hurricanes and typhoons

in the emotional space

A month of movement

of accomplishment

of progress and inevitable regress!!

On the expression of anger

the near and dear have been always in danger

the realization is that outbursts

have neither been effective or efficient

if change was the objective!!

It is a game of expectations

which you can't ever win!!

If you win, you want more

If you loose, you still want more!

The original motivation was / is to create, to participate

It gets warped via schooling

Society gives rise to the me

and inevitably the divide of other and me

the wedge that divides

the mother of all conflicts

there are twin forces of conditioning

fitting in – be like the norms

and standing out – become someone different

fulfill your potential they urge

together they ensure

the routine chaos

of socially acceptable and respected living

when you wake up

to being had, to being used

Your conditioned natural response

is to blast at the immediate prison walls

that changes nothing

the wall generator remains intact

making other walls grow

and consumes 5 life-minutes per flare up

a total loose-loose preposition, if there ever was one!!

So, if one is stays the course (permitted to stay?)

One reaches the end of terra-cognita

there there is the actual awakening

the seeing

That Love

Unconditional acceptance

is the only valid stance

in all situations

with everyone

the ultimate 2 inch leap of faith

Divine love, here I be

Genuinely life is a self-fulfilling prophecy

Why not change the script?

By unplugging from the ruling socio-political-economic matrix?

And tuning into the celestial jazz ensemble

A moment-to-moment celebration

of Live

Of Living

Of Loving

of ONE LIFE!!

Accept / transcend (On October 1, 2007)

Accepting what is
that is the sagely universal advise
they say
the surest road to peace

then the mind rebels
it sees many improvement possibilities
it wants to do something
to address the blatant injustice!

The common refrain
if all of us did nothing, we could still be in caves
can't just accept
sit and do nothing and let things be

sensible, intelligent, activist
brilliant terms to make a willing change artist
blinded and deafened to true acceptance

how does real change happen?
in temporal, spatial dimension
because the changeless source is beyond forever!!

change is a perception
change is a manifestation
Change is a comparison
[perceived only on the background of the eternal changeless one]

comparison needs an ideal and a standard
we measure the actual against the ideal
and then we feel great or lousy

In the act of measurement
what happens is a judgment
judging “what is” to be either Good or Bad

And the “world” begins
We wants comfort, freedom from pain, only light
we want “infinity” here and now!!

But how do we
become wise if do not accept our dumbness
become wise if do not accept our sadness
become wise if do not accept love our boundaries

The opposites make a whole
what is and what can be
maketh a perceptual whole

the source beckons
through the dance of opposites
whole choices that is Life

nothing happens
without loving what is
bringing forth
by letting go and letting GOD

Love (November 1, 2007)

How far afield of the design am I?
Is the lack of excitement leading to “depression”
Which, then is triggering aggression and frustration ?
All the intellectual gymnastics not withstanding
the perpetual gnawing of inadequacy??

What, if the messes are perfectly designed labs?
What if the alarm bells inside need such obvious triggers?
GOD with four hands, remember?
Notice,What you notice?
No Objective Reality out there?
It is all a “projection”!

So if I am the reliever of Stress,
then I will need a lot of “distress”!
So “Crisis” situations is what will abound
with fear, anger, naked raw emotion
jungle instincts, fight for survival

What if magic and abundance are my gifts?
24by7 happiness is my Shadow?
I am the Party?
Every breath a Celebration?

So if there is no-one else out there
There is no Process, other than Mine
What am I saying when I speak of flow and Learning?
“Loving what is” is the only work!
Nothing “specific” to-do, to change-to!
Letting Happen!!

When I look for purpose, I become robotic!
To discover the “Divine” is the sole human purpose
We may get there in our own unique ways
It is “meaning” that we live for!!

But, is “meaning” out there?
Is “meaning” a discovering of resonance?
An awakening to my Dharma
“fitting in” to my designated Calling?

As if there is one grand design?
Infinite possibilities – an illusion or a reality?
Choices – whole and lifetime ==> confusion?

Flow == uninterrupted success and interruption == learning space?!
OR
Loving what is== Seeing the Grand Design
and
Being Love== Living the design??

Illumination of Ignorance (On November 1, 2007)

Bottlenecks, breakdowns and oh yes breakthroughs!

A life of struggle, of heroic persistence

Another strategy, another mechanism

of the Matrix?

Suffering, patience, struggle

Working hard and smart

The “surrender” to the dream

The “living out” of the passion

The reference to the Divine Design

The invocation of the Divine

The conquest of the Evil

A dance of and in Duality!

The “fundamental” ignorance

of me and the other

Who notices “What is”?

Who loves “What is”?

Is there a time and space?

Do “I” have a body, a mind, the senses?

What is this intellect?

Who is Aware?

Who is writing this?

Senses and brain ==> pattern recognition

Discovering Design when there is none?

Leverage, framework, possibilities

Axioms and Theories

all a figment of imagination?

Co-Arising, is this what it is?

With the birth of “me”, the world begins?

Big Mystery – Just who is at home?

What's the name of this game?

What's the game?

What's my next move?

The only ignorance “I”

must find “me”

Beyond the having and the doing

Discovering the Being!!

Masks and faces (On October 14, 2007)

We have to “un”mask
many times over
till we see the face
only to realize, alas
it is yet another, multi-faceted mask!!

What a shock to know
that you forever project
a believable face
what a hilarious farce!!

A game of the five senses
in synch with the multiple intelligences
“Buddhi”is what keeps “maya” going
till the “sources transmission” starts receiving

Who transmits?
Who receives?
What a trap this is!
me and the other
be it bovine or Divine!!

A higher - a lower
A good - An evil
forever the dance of the dual
particles with opposite spin
together forever
but, yet, not the “Source”!

Love and hate
Gain and loss
Pain and Joy
Real and illusion
Always the dual expressed points to the One source!

Silence – not the opposite of noise
Peace – not the opposite of battle/ conflict
Love – not the opposite of hate
Awareness-- not the opposite of ignorance

No words, no description
No re-cognition of the Source
Breaking down
of all deep walls
of expectations and of regrets

Ah! freedom – the full and final!

AL(L)ONE (On October 14, 2007)

Death of a dream
Birth of a “deep” scream
tears rush down in a stream
washing away the hard pain

waking up to the “loving real”
releasing the load of expectations
the source of anger and depression
settling in to the eternal loneliness and Oneness!

Physical, is not real, just surreal!
Emotional is hell when attached to the physical.
Heaven when yoked to the Spiritual
The upheaval is complete!

Death, be it of an illusion
brings forth a certain wistfulness
a wishing for different “outcomes”
But as they say, life comes in “wholes”

There will be hurt and conflict
along with the happiness gift
moving together and then adrift
two ships on the ocean of Life

Loneliness is the partner of mis-identification
Me male, She female,
attraction and repulsion
Pushing buttons, finishing lessons
Life times traversed in one verse!!

Harshness, brashness, aggressiveness, assertiveness
all the male hardness
Sulking, criticizing, complaining, resigning
all the female cunning
The negatives and positives all canceling

Zero and infinity
two ends of the tunnel of Possibility
Just a shift in perspective
from old illusion to new contact with the Real!

Let Go
Let God
Be LOVE
No One
AL(L)One!

Excitment and Resistance (October 2, 2007)

There is often a restlessness
A nameless urgency
a need for speedy shifts
a deep impatience

Is it the seeing of the possibility
that triggers this “make happen now” energy?
As if a baby has discovered a brand new toy
and anybody who holds back is an enemy?

Is there only a Move and Oppose?
whither are the Follow and Bystand
The essential other axis in human dynamics?
To move the conversation from
debate to Dialogue?!

This “here and now” energy
Is anything but compassionate
it seeks to carry everyone
like a sweeping tsunami!

Tectonic shifts within
the bottom of the ocean moves
forcing the water to follow
the innocent shore gets the Tsunami!!

So can anything be done
to “safely” release the energy
the same one that causes the tectonic shifts
without holding back the required shifts?!

restless earth
impatient mind
inherent in the fabric of the manifest
in the eternal cycle of birth and death

Creation for some
Destruction for others
Birth of a flower is death of a bud
Form shifts ,the source is Eternal!

Attachment to form
that makes death so painful
it is the same “ignorance”
that causes “urgency” and the “resolute resistance”

This Day (October 13 2005)

My eyes are feeling tired and heavy
My stomach and guts are in a churn
I can so easily fall into the dark and dreary
But I sense that with commitment things are about to turn

There is a traveling and staying away from home
There is a string of broken promises / failed plans
There is a rising concern about the balance-of-payments at home
There is a large gap between performance / realities and potential / possibilities!

In face of all this
I seem to be waiting for an insight
A sign, a symbol from the Divine light

3.5 years plus since I stopped being an employee
Much explored, much understood, much more to perceive
The critical must-do is to be true

Learning to plan, to execute the plan
to reflect on the Outcomes
to participate in the design
of the life one is here to Live!

Home with Savita where my heaven is
Seeing Srushti blossom into a young lady
Nurturing Sohum into a healthy and fun boyhood
Being Present and Being Loving!

Friendship (Circa Feb 2003)

What a day and it is only half done

So much spoken, so much shared

It is like spring cleaning

Deep Cleansing through simple sharing

Twists and knots they vanish

when someone listens

and there is a deep silence

of a deep connection

A connection which transcends time and space

A connection which always existed – eternal

This is the gift of the day

and what delicious irony

such a flow and a glow

with a person whom I always knew

but she is ever new!

Thank you, is too small a phrase

Too contrived between friends of the real kind

but then how do I express my gratitude?

to this miracle that happened today

It is our attitude!

Dude!

Life of/for grace

An unending stream
of forms
of birth and death
What then is life?
And therefore non-life?

The ability to self regulate
the ability to self replicate
A stable pattern in a sea of chaos?
Order which maintains itself in the face of Entropy?
The evolutionary impulse of the Universe?

How alive are we?
Caught in deadening routines?
Either sticking with them or rebelling against them?
Are we reacting and seldom acting or responding?

What do we regulate for?
Compliance or pride?
What do we replicate for?
Habit, pleasure or just can't help it?
Was entropy any worse?

Forever receiving
Seldom giving
Rarely happening!

The pattern of me
preventing the higher pattern of we?
the pattern of me and mine
preventing access to the source Divine?

The magical space of Wholeness
leads to the Wishwa-yoni -- the mother of all possibility
Accessible through the disciplined journey
of staying in the state of Wonder!

Not knowing
Just Being

Musings on change and perception

1. Oscillations around a center pass through the center, albeit momentarily. Chaotic movements are through the entire possibility space and by definition there is no center, no direction, no pattern!
2. How do we perceive movement? There has to be a frame of reference with respect to which things shift.
   
3. Does this frame exist in "reality"? Where does it reside then? Who is the I who is perceiving?
4. Doesn't the knowing-through-reading set up expectations?
5. The entire construct of thought appears to be an activity of symbol manipulation within some arbitrarily larger frame of reference. A hierarchical traversal through some predefined / pre-created symbolic space!
6. Is awareness then an insight into the deep process by which the "world and I" co-arise? Who can be correctly said to be aware and what is it aware of?
7. Or is this very question another thought pattern keeping the reality unaccessible?
8. The perception of as real of "I" which factually is open to serious challenge has to be the mother of all illusions! Who is the me who claims to do, be, have, feel?
9. Thus

• Can I ever know reality?
• Is there ever a Divine that is other than my essence?

It appears that society needs duality to persist, including the futile questing for insight into reality!!

The Real Action

Long time, no see
Actually right now hardly “see”
More than a month of action flurry
Tilting at windmills – inside and outside
in a great deal of hurry

Becoming flush with the pulsating “must do” energy
Eagerly moving out to “make happiness' happen
Little realising that rather than “enlightening”
The “others” were left screaming
scalded by the brutal directness
the burning insistence
on shedding masks
on facing (ones fears)
on owning (ones life)
on claiming (real responsibility)
on becoming alive
HERE AND NOW!!

I wonder out loud and in much personal pain
If, I am here to heal my self,
to make whole
to reveal the abundance
to live a life of love and surrender
to become one with the source and the path
then
Can anger and force be my weapons, ever?
When I fight with reality,
with what is,
Blindingly obvious who looses and how!!

So I ask, is it time to embrace “Power”
to let go once and for all of “this shore”
Is it time to face the mother of all fears?
This lunatic core belief that
there is a real me
who has a purpose, a mission
to make a better you?!
that there is a finite window of opportunity?
The seductive reality of time and space?
the myth of the other and of the me?

An effective and efficient coach indeed,
The raw energy of insight feels good
fulfills the bottomless void
of the monkey mind
Perpetuates the illusion of purpose and direction
But ultimately and actually
When all is said and done
Leaves me still very much a prisoner of ME!!

So is it not time for next wave of Grace?
For the ultimate Divine Embrace?
The letting go of me and mine?
The letting come of the essential Jnyana?
The genuine living in “Whole pieces”?!

Then I hear
with joyful tears
“You are being freed
because you are ready
to shoulder the awesome responsibility”

I realise, I see
What else is there to do?
Who else can I be?
BE LOVE
BE DIVINE LOVE
Mere Acceptance, naah!
Letting Go, Naah!
Celebration and just be
let happen
light rather than heat
inspire, invoke and let it be

Only work is you
Loosing you
Finding Him
Silence
Gratitude
Action as divine expression
a 24 by 7 celebration.

A Home coming - the eternal movement - Unfolding and enfolding

From	Via	To
Alone	Relationships	All-One
Ego-system	Ecosystem	“One” System
Products	Services	Liberating frameworks
Wanting	Giving	Flow-through
Doom and Despair	Hope and Aspire	Devote, design and Do
Hoard and Manipulate	Give and receive	Gift and lift
Cost saving	Profit Generating	Value creating
Consume	Prosume	Partake in the Divine Play
Memory and knowing	Insight and Wisdom	Being and Happening
Ignorance and denial	Acceptance and Knowing	Being and Celebrating
Labour and Capital	Knowledge	Divine inspiration