2.26.2007

Who am I?

A child I was, sitting alone
"Who am I", did I ask
A little girl so young so true
I am my parent's child

A girl I was, walking around
Experiments with life
"Who am I", did i ask
A blank look, silence passed me by

A lady soon, married and well
"Who am I" did I ask
His wife I am, his family mine
A future new and vibrant

A family now, two children grown
"Who am I" did I ask
A mother of two, a parent now
The future in my hands I hold

A career so great, money flows
"Who am I" did I ask
A lady strong, ambitious for sure
A career woman unfolds

The world claps, applause in my ears
"Who am I" did I ask
The greatest for now, a celebrity
The world praises my achievements.

The bones ache, life passes me by
"Who am I" did I ask
My daughter's success, a proud parent she made
My children's mother am I

Lying on my bed, the last breaths of life
"Who am I" do I ask
Oh lord, a blind woman was I
Now with a wasted life.

P.S. Inspired by a question we all ask when young but fail to answer with every passing moment of life.

25 comments:

Dr.Anil Joshi said...

Kavitha, I don't agree that the lady has "wasted" her life!

Kavitha Kalyan said...

Hi Anilji,

I have often wondered whether there is more to life than us going through various role play. Its important i agree, but not important enough to blind our lives to our own personal growth in spiritualism. I feel as a person i am alone in this world, and the same world and all its people are an illusion i live with.

I need to look beyond it, while i am still in it because the order gives us the stability to move on and evolve. The problem(i feel) is we get too lost in this illusion and all the situations it presents us with that we remember ourselves as the role we play and not who we are.

Thats why the word "wasted".

Regds
Kavitha

Anonymous said...

Hi Anilji, Kavitha,

The well known answer is: I am Shiva the Bhootnath that is the Lord of the Past (if I have realized the self – irrespective of my age in this life) or His inferior companion ‘bhoot’ that is ghost (if I am yet to realize the self – even if ‘I already have one leg inside the grave’)!

Ramakrishna, a well known historical figure from a village in Bengal, an ardent believer of Ma Kali, wasn’t a literate and yet he came to be associated with the supreme form of Swan, the believable vahan or vehicle of Saraswati the Goddess of knowledge (perhaps because it believably has the inherent characteristic of separating water fom milk)! That is, he became popular as Ramakrishna ‘Paramhansa’!

There can be so many such characters found in the Hindu mythological stories, viz. Prahalad and Dhruva, who believably achieved supreme knowledge even when they were 'mere children', and so on.

Thus it is primarily a question of faith or belief in the ‘wise’ ancients, and of course, together with one’s own ‘natural’ inclination!

It is because of the variety in ‘Nature’ and the realized mischievous nature of the Creator, or His interest in presenting various view points of the same phenomenon leading to the age old saying, “Think twice before you leap,” that is consideration of the pros and cons to reach at the right conclusion or the ‘Truth’ separated from lies, just as the Swan believably separates water from milk. St. Matthew also said, “Judge not that ye be not judged…” etc.

Anonymous said...

Kavitha, For those who may not know, Ramakrishna, the youngest of the four children of an orthodox Brahmin couple, Khudiram Chattopadhyaya and Chandra Devi, was born as Gadadhar, meaning ‘the mace bearer’, named after Lord Vishnu, on the 18th February, 1836 in Kamarpukur village after about 37 years of their mariage. He was thus named after his father had in 1835 visited the sacred foot-prints of Vishnu at Gaya in connection with the religious rites related with the believable duty of a Hindu towards one’s departed ancestors.

His elder brother, born before him, was named Rameswar after his father had visited Rameshwaram Temple!

His father died when he was just 7 years old that left deep impression on his young mind about the impermanence of life.

Regarding his association with ‘Paramhansa’, it is said that when he was around 6 or 7, Gadadhar had his first spiritual experience as he was passing through paddy fields, eating puffed rice from a basket. At that time he saw black thunderclouds develop in the sky. And in the foreground he saw a flight of snow-white cranes pass. The contrast filled him with a feeling of awe and bliss such that he fainted and fell on the ground with the puffed rice flying in all directions! He was brought home in the arms of some villagers who found him lying unconscious.

Anonymous said...

An average Westerner today perhaps isn’t able to think of the past beyond Christ the believable son of God, whereas an average Indian - if one could get rid of the ‘slavish mentality’ or illusion that is ‘Maya’ because of slavery of time - could go back a few hundred thousands years easily to the time of Krishna the ‘natkhat’ or mischievous Nandlal, in reality the son of Devaki-Vasudeva, but popularized as the adopted son of King Nand and his wife Yashoda in His ‘leela’ that is drama!

And even farther through ‘Puranas’ to Krishna’s prototype – Vishnu/ Shiva the Amarnath or the unborn and unending (immortal) Formless Creator, Nadbindu the believable source of the primordial sound OM, at the root of the physical universe whom the ‘scientist’ also apparently seeks today - but with his mind locked up. The Yogis called this lock as ‘Sahasrara Bandha’ that is a lock located in the head as the essence of Moon!

Anonymous said...

As far as I can perceive it through the eyes of Yogis the ancient 'scientists', ‘Apparent Time’, generated with the creation of the Solar system and confining all ‘life forms’ like prisoners (that is souls as parts of the Formless Nadbindu in turn being confined in an unending cycle within different physical forms that have solar system’s essence gone into their formation) ever within our Galaxy of innumerable Heavenly Bodies, has been understood as the root cause of our problems in accepting the ‘Absolute Truth’ (who is related with zero time and space or a dot), whose representative in physical form - that is the prototype of Krishna in human form in Dwaperyuga - believably is located at the centre of our galaxy, apparently physically separated from us by a great distance. However, because of the inherent design of human form, it is possible for anyone to realize Krishna the centre of our galaxy (the believable ‘Black Hole’) mentally. It is said, “Jahan na pahunche Ravi/ Wahan pahunche Kavi,” that is, ‘Where (even) Sun can’t reach/ A poet can.”

Aswin Kini said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Aswin Kini said...

Hi Uncle Joshi, "And even farther through ‘Puranas’ to Krishna’s prototype – Vishnu/ Shiva " Just a small correction. Vishnu/ Shiva were not prototypes of lord Krishna. Infact Krishna was just an avatar of the lord Vishnu.Please rephrase your comment.
As for lord Vishnu and lord Shiva, everybody knows that they are different forms of the same entity.

Aswin Kini said...

Hi Kavitha, i read the whole post, each set of lines denotes the various stages of the girl passing through various stages, A child, a married woman, a mother, and an ambitious lady.

Well, i don't agree that lady has WASTED her life. She has just gone through the phases of a normal life. Not every woman or man can be spiritual and gain moksha after one single birth.
You have to understand that there are some Exceptions like Mother Sharada Devi, Meera Bai, and others.

But as they say, " Exceptions are not examples".
Spirituality is not an easy goal, to some, it comes naturally, and to some, it is thrust upon them.

Kavitha Kalyan said...

Hi Aswin,

I have already answered the point in my note to Anilji. Maybe i brought in controversy with the word "wasted" but i honestly felt that way.

Leading a life as per the rule is relatively simple. One should not get overwhelmed by it that they are doing a great job because everyone is doing the same job.

I have always wondered whether there is more to life than what we are taught as being part of society. I believe there is an unknown world within us, one that we do not know about and needs to be explored.

Hence role play in life should not stop us from discovering the other side. What we lack is time, time with the self and more than that its acceptance, acceptance of our loneliness.

To realize that you are all alone in this world, and accept it as a part of yourself consciously, you will find yourself to be a much better human being. Thats when attention ceases to come your way and then you need to deal with yourself.

Regds
Kavitha

Anonymous said...

Hi Aswinji,

My whole sentence was, "And even farther through ‘Puranas’ to Krishna’s prototype – Vishnu/ Shiva the Amarnath or the unborn and unending (immortal) Formless Creator, Nadbindu the believable source of the primordial sound OM, at the root of the physical universe whom the ‘scientist’ also apparently seeks today..."

Vishnu and Shiva in physical forms as models of the Centre of our Galaxy and Earth respectively are different entities indicated in the stories. However, it was also communicated through Adi Shankara like characters in the present and from time to time through different other characters too, that the whole physical universe is illusory - like dreams within the head of the Creator...

Anonymous said...

Kavitha, In continuation, in the Gita 'Krishna' in human form as Parthasarathi (that is the charioteer of Arjuna) is understood to have explained the essence of 'Creation' to Partha (Ruler of earth, Arjuna as the model of Sun in Dwaperyuga) in an interesting manner for the benefit of a layman at any time…

A ‘Graphic Designer’ like you, say, might even easily find in the point of exclamation (!) the above two characters, body and soul, graphically represented, as below (keeping in mind that Yogiraj Krishna believably was mischievous too as he broke water pots carried by young girls with stone, stole butter, and so on)!

The enlarged dot or zero represents the supreme being, Krishna (Black Hole of much higher gravity than a star), and the vertical line - a symbol of numeral 1 (one) - the Sunlight [white light - emanated from a star because of fusion or Yoga of two electrons of Hydrogen Gas (Atomic number 1) - which contains hidden within it nine representatives of different intensities of energy, ie, seven visible colours of the spectrum (seen also in the rainbow), and parts of ultra-violet and infra-red energies also, thus making the total to ten (10).

And interestingly the line followed by a dot also reads as number 10 – related in Indian Penal Code today (IPC 10) with a bad character, (like 'Natkhat Nandlal' in his youth) or with the believable ten avatars of Vishnu - both thus getting represented graphically with number 10 or graphically by (!)!

And, interestingly a married Hindu woman wears generally a red ‘Bindi’ or a dot on her forehead and Hindus in North India mark a red line on their foreheads, generally on an auspicious occasion. And, a married woman is believed as ‘ardhangini’ of her spouse, ie, his better half, although illusory or ‘mayavi’! However, the ‘wise’ ancients in the Gita indicated that anyone, irrespective of one’s sex, caste, creed etc, could reach Krishna!

Aswin Kini said...

Well! I agree that a person cannot consider himself/ herself great just because he/ she is doing a great job. But when a person is born on earth, he or she has to perform their duties and nullify their karmas (papas or punyas) first.
Only when they are resolved of their duties, they will be able to concentrate on the lord and gain Moksha.


Yes i agree that we have a divine entity within us(paramatma) waiting to be realised. But to do that, we must first fulfill our earthly duties and retire immediatly to spirituality.

Anonymous said...

Kavitha, I might add that for persons related with the field of sports, a footballer/ cricketer and so on, one might see in the exclamation point (!) - even in the letter ‘i’ as its inverted image that could also represent a lighted candle in which the flame could be imagined as depicting the basic source of energy within the apparent physical form - the eleven players (ten depicted by the line, plus the goalkeeper/ wicket keeper represented by the formless dot, for they remain virtually immobile, basically being attached to the goal/ stumps)!

JC said...

Aswinji says, “…But to do that, we must first fulfill our earthly duties and retire immediatly to spirituality…”

One would perhaps like to know how anyone could come to realize if he/she has reached the ‘retirement age’. The various administrations apparently have different age limits for retirement from ‘active service’ to allow one to perform one’s believable duties towards the material world. Some of those are: ‘Hire and fire (at any time)’ in ‘Private Sector’, (copied from the West); 60 years presently in Central Govt., which was raised from 55 years during British rule to 58 after India had attained ‘Independence’; no age limit for the politicians and owners of private enterprises (leaving them no time for spirituality!); and so on. And, if prohibition on ‘child labour’ existed during Dhruva’s/ Prahalad’s time, they wouldn’t have had the opportunity to fulfil their earthly duties, leave aside attaining ‘moksha’ at the believable young age…
For, God doesn’t seem to have fixed any such limits - as reflected in the apparent life span of humans, and therefore retirement from responsibilities towards earth, varying from 0 to an age, say, less than 150 years at the present.

There is, however, an age old saying, to the effect, “Whatever you want done today, Do it now! When will you do it if any moment ‘Pralaya’ (doomsday?) could occur?”

Ultimatly, perhaps one just might have faith in the omnipotent Creator and leave it to Him only, that is surrender in Krishna as advised in the Gita, whose superiormost physical form Mother Earth believably is!

Anonymous said...

Kavitha, Talking of ‘great job’, generally speaking, the patent advice of the ‘wise’ ancients was to act meek and humble (simple like Bholanath) and avoid ego as communicated by capital leter I, (which like the letter (l) visually apppears like a dead log of wood). St. Matthew, therefore, said,”Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth,” etc. And, the Hindus, in Sanskrit, communicated through the word “Aham”, both meaning I as well as ‘pride’, so that one became conscious when one used ‘I’ many times.

This was for example conveyed in the story of Ramayana also when Lord Rama apparently praised Hanuman for his great achievement of jumping over the sea to Lanka, which no other vanar could achieve; meeting Sita there, and returning safely after single handedly putting Lanka on fire! Hanuman being a simple vanar, was ever conscious, and therefore apparently told that it was all on account of the strength received thanks to the blessings of the Lord Himself that he could achieve it!

Anonymous said...

Kavitha, Talking of ‘great job’, generally speaking, the patent advice of the ‘wise’ ancients was to act meek and humble (simple like Bholanath) and avoid ego as communicated by capital leter I, (which like the letter (l) visually apppears like a dead log of wood). St. Matthew, therefore, said,”Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth,” etc. And, the Hindus, in Sanskrit, communicated through the word “Aham”, both meaning I as well as ‘pride’, so that one became conscious when one used ‘I’ many times.

This was for example conveyed in the story of Ramayana also when Lord Rama apparently praised Hanuman for his great achievement of jumping over the sea to Lanka, which no other vanar could achieve; meeting Sita there, and returning safely after single handedly putting Lanka on fire! Hanuman being a simple vanar, was ever conscious, and therefore apparently told that it was all on account of the strength received thanks to the blessings of the Lord Himself that he could achieve it!

Anonymous said...

Continuing on graphical representation, for linguists, the ancient Hindus in the East used a line, like numeral one, or small letter (l), at the end of a sentence to indicate a long pause, which in the West came to be represented by a ‘full stop’(.) However, Hindus used this symbol to represent the Formless Creator - or Nirakar Nadbindu that is the point source of infinite energy - of all physical forms who existed in the beginning since time immemorial. Thus the exclamation point (!) could also be visualized to represent the fusion or yoga of the East (related with sunrise or light, or the creator Brahma) and the West (related with sunset or darkness, or Yogiraj Krishna the avatar of Vishnu as the agent of death also). That is, consideration of both hemispheres at the same time and not as different entities - to result in the full Earth that is the inert or Nirgana and Simple Lord Shiva the Bhootnath of Hindu mythology!

To an agriculturist, however, the exclamation point could appear like a seed and the tree growing out of it! It might then also help visualize why Krishna in the Gita indicated man to be an ‘inverted tree’, for the inversion results in the letter (i) in which the dot appears like the head and the line the human body!

A scientist related with space travel might, however with a change in scale, see a rocket represented by the vertical line and the atomic energy needed for its travel represented by the dot! And, a Yogi, represented by (i) might see himself/ herself as a space ship - to fly inwards to reach the dot that believably resides within the self and encompasses innumerable forms some of which have been visualized above!

Anonymous said...

Kavitha, The ‘wise’ ancients appear to have visualized the dot, together with the line, in Ek-mukhi Rudraksha seed, which is dark in colour and is considered to be related with Sun, to act as a natural inspiration to humans to ‘merge the soul with the supreme-soul’!

Similar appearance could also be noticed in the seed of wheat that is more popular in the North/ the date fruit.

Also, my mother used to sometime call the black pulse, called ‘Ma-di-dal’ in the Punjab, literally ‘mother’s pulse’, and as per traditional use of the saying in the hills of Kumaoni dialect, “Nan nan Baman/ Tupuki chandan,” that is “A small Brahmin (Vishnu’s Vaman-avatar-like) with a small line of sandalwood paste on its forehead”, for apparently it has a white line, as if deliberately painted on it!

Anonymous said...

As we have seen earlier also, human form as part of a grand design appears to have been visualized by the ‘wise’ ancients basically as two vessels, called ‘conception’ and ‘governor’ vessels, one kept over the other, say, like a man-made hour-glass as its model to a certain extent, (which marks the passage of time through use of falling dry sand through a small opening connecting the two), depicting natural churning or up-down movement of energy/ fluids/ gases (termed as essences of selected members of our solar system) in the nerves/ blood vessels and so on through the constricted human neck that acts as thelink between human head and the lower body.

It can also be visualized graphically through numeral 8 that depicts infinity when it is placed horizontal. And, similarly, the ancients pictorially depicted Ananta that is unending or infinity through the reclining figure of Lord Vishnu. And some other deities also are shown in the reclining pose at certain places, viz. Hanumam, Buddha, and so on! And, it is a well known fact that no human being can work continuously, as physical and mental actions consume energy and, therefore, one daily needs some sleep in the horizontal position to recover the energy that gets lost in performing actions. However, Yogiraj Krishna in human form, as the eighth and only living child of his parents, in the Gita claims that he works without rest even for a second, which obviously refers to flow of energy within a normal man’s brain, and other related structural parts of the body, over the entire life-span.

Anonymous said...

It’s a well known fact that all forms of life communicate with the life of their own kind in some sort of language in which normally those get trained over some time and also have continuously been polishing it from time to time because of the inherent forgetful human nature - be it a sign language or use of alphanumeric symbols as in human form.

It however, is also evident that all humans aren’t equally versatile in the art of communication, mainly because of varying capacities and particularly because of existence of innumerable human languages today, thus making it virtually impossible to be conversant in more than a few languages even if one desired it. And, on account of existence of inherent inferiority complex in everyone, even if somebody praises me in some other language, I would believe he is abusing me!

It would obviously, normally, therefore be impossible to comprehend the language of the spirit or the soul that believably resides within everyone (although the Tantriks apparently believably get trained in it even today as reflected through their communication with some spirit over which they believably come to acquire control through knowledge imparted by some 'elevated soul' or Guru).

The spirit believably was obliged to pass through more than 8.4 million different animal forms over 4.6 billion years till date and has therefore been switching from one language to another with the apparent passage of such a long time. And, I can’t remember what I did, say, just last week today! And, like Hanuman, even when he was born in Tretayuga - when efficiency was much higher - he believably wasn’t aware of his capabilities, I am perhaps therefore many more times ignorant than him because of passage of such a long time!

In view of the above, even if I am told that I am a part of Shiva Himself, it would perhaps be beyond me to easily believe it! And thus I must surrender in Shiva/ Vishnu, the believable Formless Supreme Being who my ancestors apparently had realized within them - and wait for the right time if I am interested in seeking the 'Truth!

Anonymous said...

Kavitha, The apparent time believably moves down - from the beginning of Satyuga of perfect or the elevated most soul within each human - towards Kaliyuga of lowest human efficiency.

Human beings are although believed to be made up from the essences of the same solar system members, such that no two persons, say even ‘identical twins’, though similar in their appearances, in their behaviours are perhaps never seen to be absolutely identical.

As per the believable logic of the drama, on account of ‘Adanhut Rasa’ or curiosity and wonder, the ‘seekers’ at a certain stage would perhaps have observed and conducted in-depth study of the lines on human palms vis-a-vis variations from one palm to another and might thus have perfected to some extent - at some peak stage - the art, or science of Palmistry, and side by side that of Astrology too, because there is seen attempt at correlating human behaviour with respect to time, as lines on human palm apparently are seen as graphical representation of human life events with reference to Heavenly Bodies, thus indicating advancement in various fields of ‘science’ in the ‘past’ too!

However, in the present, on account of non-availability of time and the believable related fall in human efficiency, it particularly being expected to be at its lowest level in Kaliyuga, particularly with so many unknown factors apparently to reckon with by each, it would be extremely difficult for anyone interested in it today to know the whole truth (unless the Creator wills it so)!

Anonymous said...

With the appraoch of holy 'Holi', Kavitha, let us try to see the order of the ‘grahas’ or members of the solar system as they are known today (once again), starting from ‘Aditya’ the ‘numero uno’ or the SUN, the believable centre of the system, and moving outwards from it till the ninth one that perhaps referred to the believable “Navagraha”, literally nine planets and also nine ‘crocodiles’ that are capable of holding in their powerful jaws the 'Gaja' or the elephant referred in the Hindu Mythology.

Yogiraj Krishna, the Saturn and also Jupiter-like ‘sudershanchakradhari’ and ‘the light of thousand suns’ in the Gita indicates both the afore-cited animals as His Own forms!

The order with the present day knowledge can be written as below.
#1 = Sun, #2 = Mercury, #3 = Venus, # 4 = Earth, # 5 = Moon, # 6 = Mars, #7 Asteroids, #8 = Jupiter, & #9 = Saturn.

However, the Hindu Mythological stories cryptically communicate Saturn the planet that has beautiful rings as the non-playing Captain or the cut-off line, the detached Creator, and thus Krishna the eighth member of the solar system representing Him in the active field through Jupiter, while Earth (Shiva) obviously acts as the believable neutral or ‘nirguna’ that is the Simple God. And, Mars could be seen related with elephant-headed Ganesha at the base or “Mooladhar” while his mother Parvati is given the highest pedestal in the head or “Sahasrara”.

In the human body thus the order could perhaps be seen believably modified as below.

#1 = Mars, #2 = Asteroid, #3 = Jupiter, #4 = Sun, #5 = Mercury, #6 = Venus, #7 = Earth, # 8 = Moon.

[Thus Krishna the eighth and only living child of Ma Devaki finds itself believably reflected by MOON, and associated with Guru or “Peetamber” that is yellow colour that is used on Basant Panchami in honour of Saraswati the Goddess of knowledge whose vahan or vehicle believably is white colured Swan, the light of the sun that the moon reflects.

The Hindus even today use lunar calendar to determine the auspicious days! Colourful Holi that is related since time immemorial with Krishna and the Gopes the cowboys & Gopis the milk-maids of Bridavan is played on the full moon day of (the month of) ‘Fagun’!]

Unknown said...

Dear Kavitha
i dont bother about others. who i am is what i am.

Unknown said...

this girl is in dark
a beautiful face without a name
this girl is in dark
doesn’t know how much longer she can keep trying and dying slowly everyday
this girl is in dark
sits all alone, wanting for an dentity
this girl is in dark
wants nothing more then to be free from normal world..

wish at some point in her life.. she had realized that 'who am I?' is not question to others but for herself... and she..is the only one has power to change the routine

/Yuva