Thanksgiving.
AHMEDABAD, GUJARAT
Thank you to ALLL my friends, family, and relatives for just being.
~~~~
Living with 4 other guys, sitting around all day listening to MP3's, playing ball at around 5 pm, coming back home and washing up, getting a quick dinner, and then going to a concert.... Sounds like college, huh? Welll, that was my day yesterday in Ahmedabad!
We've been here for 6 days now, and have basically lived the life we did at "college". It's definitely been fun and comfortable. I've been at Seva Cafe for a couple nights... washing dishes each night for about 5 hours. That place is THE happenning spot in Ahmedabad. =)
But, I'm ready to move on... what next?
~~~~
I went to this bookstore in Ahmedabad called "Crossword". Basically, it's like a Barnes N Noble or Borders... it even has a coffee shop attached to it! I went there to look for a book on "Vipassana", because as I attempt to practice this meditation daily, I'd like the book to remind me of the principles and theory behind it. So, after searching for a while, I found the book. As I was walking to the cash register, I saw "Siddhartha" by Herman Hesse on the "International Bestseller" shelf staring right at me. At one point in Vipassana, I had thought to myself, "I want to read 'Siddhartha' again." I haven't read it in a year or two. So, there it was and I had to get it.
It took me a few days to read and here are some quotes that stood-out to me:
"And whenever he awakened from this hateful spell, when he saw his face reflected in the mirror on the wall of his bedroom, grown older and uglier, whenever shame and nausea overtook him, he fled again, fled to a new game of chance, fled in confusion to passion, to wine, and from there back again to the urge for acquiring and hoarding welath. He wore himself out in this senseless cycle, became old and sick."
"And yet this path has been good and the bird in my breast has not died. But what a path it has been! I have had to experience so much stupidity, so many vices, so much error, so much nausea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in order to become a child again and begin anew. But it was right that it should be so; my eyes and heart acclaim it. I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace, to hear Om again, to sleep deeply again and awaken refreshed again. I had to become a fool again in order to find Atman in myself. I had to sin in order to live again. Whither will my path yet lead me? This path is stupid, it goes in spirals, perhaps in circles, but whichever way it goes, I will follow it."
"Perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find. When someone is seeking, it happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything, because he is only thinking of the thing he is seeking, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal. You are perhaps a seeker, for in striving towards your goal, you do not see many things that are under your nose."
"Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it."
"The world is not imperfect or slowly evolving along a long path to perfection. No, it is perfect at every moment; every sin already carries grave within it, all small chldren are potential old men, all sucklings have death within them, all dying people - eternal life. It is not possible for one person to see hor far another is on the way; the Buddha exists in the robber and dice player; the robber exists in the Brahmin. "
"I learned though my body and soul that it was necessary for me to sin, that I needed lust, that I had to strive for propoerty and experience nausea and the depths of despair in order to learn not to resist them, in order to learn to love the world, and no longer compare it with some kind of desired imaginary world, some imaginary vision of perfection, but to leave it as it is, to love it, and be glad to belong it."
"It seems to me that love is the most important thing in the world. It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it..."
Thank you to ALLL my friends, family, and relatives for just being.
~~~~
Living with 4 other guys, sitting around all day listening to MP3's, playing ball at around 5 pm, coming back home and washing up, getting a quick dinner, and then going to a concert.... Sounds like college, huh? Welll, that was my day yesterday in Ahmedabad!
We've been here for 6 days now, and have basically lived the life we did at "college". It's definitely been fun and comfortable. I've been at Seva Cafe for a couple nights... washing dishes each night for about 5 hours. That place is THE happenning spot in Ahmedabad. =)
But, I'm ready to move on... what next?
~~~~
I went to this bookstore in Ahmedabad called "Crossword". Basically, it's like a Barnes N Noble or Borders... it even has a coffee shop attached to it! I went there to look for a book on "Vipassana", because as I attempt to practice this meditation daily, I'd like the book to remind me of the principles and theory behind it. So, after searching for a while, I found the book. As I was walking to the cash register, I saw "Siddhartha" by Herman Hesse on the "International Bestseller" shelf staring right at me. At one point in Vipassana, I had thought to myself, "I want to read 'Siddhartha' again." I haven't read it in a year or two. So, there it was and I had to get it.
It took me a few days to read and here are some quotes that stood-out to me:
"And whenever he awakened from this hateful spell, when he saw his face reflected in the mirror on the wall of his bedroom, grown older and uglier, whenever shame and nausea overtook him, he fled again, fled to a new game of chance, fled in confusion to passion, to wine, and from there back again to the urge for acquiring and hoarding welath. He wore himself out in this senseless cycle, became old and sick."
"And yet this path has been good and the bird in my breast has not died. But what a path it has been! I have had to experience so much stupidity, so many vices, so much error, so much nausea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in order to become a child again and begin anew. But it was right that it should be so; my eyes and heart acclaim it. I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace, to hear Om again, to sleep deeply again and awaken refreshed again. I had to become a fool again in order to find Atman in myself. I had to sin in order to live again. Whither will my path yet lead me? This path is stupid, it goes in spirals, perhaps in circles, but whichever way it goes, I will follow it."
"Perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find. When someone is seeking, it happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything, because he is only thinking of the thing he is seeking, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal. You are perhaps a seeker, for in striving towards your goal, you do not see many things that are under your nose."
"Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it."
"The world is not imperfect or slowly evolving along a long path to perfection. No, it is perfect at every moment; every sin already carries grave within it, all small chldren are potential old men, all sucklings have death within them, all dying people - eternal life. It is not possible for one person to see hor far another is on the way; the Buddha exists in the robber and dice player; the robber exists in the Brahmin. "
"I learned though my body and soul that it was necessary for me to sin, that I needed lust, that I had to strive for propoerty and experience nausea and the depths of despair in order to learn not to resist them, in order to learn to love the world, and no longer compare it with some kind of desired imaginary world, some imaginary vision of perfection, but to leave it as it is, to love it, and be glad to belong it."
"It seems to me that love is the most important thing in the world. It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it..."
posted by Raj Kanani | 2:37 PM
1 Comments:
The best part of this whole search for whatever it is that i am looking for.. is that whenever I am upset, and start to re-question everything that motivates me, re-question whether whatever I am looking for even exists,... the inspiring people that I surround myself with remind me why I choose a less certain path, and that, at the very least, I'm not alone.
Your Siddhartha quote picked me up out of a bad moment. Thanks RajKanani.
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