One intoxicating whiff after another

One thing I distinctly realize during the teachers training is that just because you are a volunteer or a teacher in a class that doesn't mean you assume what is being told in the class. You don't even give importance to the fact that at some earlier point what they told you awed you. The most important thing is to be open enough to 'look' at it afresh at that point.
Sometime during the final days of volunteering in Hyderabad, especially when i had to travel very long distances to attend the weekday evening sessions of the Inner Engineering program, I used to taunt myself saying that this time since I am traveling so long, I will try to find some hole in what transpires in the class. This is not a suspicion. Not even an prejudice. Rather an insurance. As I began to walk this path, it dawned upon me that I have to pay a certain price. Not just me. Even people around me had to pay a certain price. And i wanted to be sure of what i am getting into! :D I don't think it is necessary for me to even venture forth whether i was even remotely close to success! ;-)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I know I can be perceived as cloyingly modest and desperately unemotional when I say that the most important reason for the class to happen is myself. But that is the truth.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I experienced a certain powerful situation this weekend. I was manning an Isha booth in a telugu event in seattle. We were advertising the upcoming Inner Engineering program. I KNOW that what I was offering in the form of a IE post card is the most sacred thing in my life. I KNOW the chances of even a single person coming for the program because of this booth is slim. I KNOW that people's indifference/prejudice/apathy to the possibility that we were offering stings at the very core of my being. But still I did it. I don't know what it was or why it was that way but those moments where i was doing the simple act of giving the post cards were very powerful. While i was standing at the doorstep I watched a reflection of myself at the glass door. I was impeccably dressed with a belt et al. I could'nt help laughing at that moment. What have I done to myself? Why am i the way i am? It felt awesome to know that i am not in the driving seat of my life. It really didn't make much sense. Even now it doesn't. But I cannot help notice the uncontainable exuberance that comes with being a passenger. The vulnerability of it all is deviously calming. The best part was to consider that the other person who was manning the booth was a recent meditator who did the program because he himself got handed out a post card for the previous Inner engineering program in a similar event.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh what can i say? Oh what can i say?
Just to be here, i am ready to melt away.
I cannot handle it alone, that divine glance.
Come join this simpleton in this insane dance.

Yes! I cannot but share this sweet burden.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Truth. Truth. Truth. One thing that amazed me when listening to the discourses during the Inner Engineering program is how can Truth be so liberating? Being an engineer, I was so used to this notion that the reality is not okay the way it is. It needs to be fixed, worked upon or engineered to suit man's needs. For most of my waking moments as an engineer, the reality is a Pri 1 bug that needs to be fixed! :D That reality is so obvious that it is not worth considering. What needs to be considered is the end-result of what one wants. The program blew my world inside out. The more I see it the more obvious it is that it is the naked truth that can set me free. The evil part of me is posing this question to myself: Ok. You are a truth seeker because you see that truth liberates you. Would be still be a seeker of truth if truth makes you sad and bitter? I am ROTFL'ing.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Verbal Diarrhea: The most meaningful phrase! (Sorry Gokri!)