Hike to Murietta falls

When we started from San Jose on late Saturday morning(March 12 2016), I really didn’t feel like stepping out of home. I felt like sit down on couch and watch some good movies. But Gopi was ready to go with all his gears and his eyes were glittering with full enthusiasm. I’ve to step up and override my lazy feelings. We had wonderful breakfast at home and then we started to Del Vale. After getting park permit at Del Vale park entrance, we reached Del Vale Lake parking by 1pm. The weather was bit windy and chill. I’ve to wear 2 jackets and a cap to feel warm. We started hiking on Ohlone Wilderness Trail by 1.05pm. After 30min of hike, I felt really warm. I removed the big jacket and cap. We were talking and walking. There were lots of clouds in the sky and so were my mind with thoughts.

As we walked for about an hour, the cloud of thoughts just cleared within my mind. I became centered on deep silence within myself. At that time, I saw that there is very thin layer between me and this whole existence. I felt my body, mind and intellect are infinitely small in compared to this existence. It’s a beautiful experience to exist as a piece of life in tune with nature. People were rushing back from Murietta falls as the rain was going to come and they called it as bad weather. But I didn’t have any fear and we were marching steadily towards the falls enjoying the trees, small green plants, dark clouds, chill breeze and wet trail. Gopi said that it is like Western Ghats in India.  I felt very homely.

In between, we reached a creek with water flow. It was so beautiful and I instantly became very fresh by looking at the water.  I just wanted to stay there for long time. It’s a perfect place to meditate after a good hike. I closed my eyes and took few deep breaths. From there we hiked for another hour and reached Schlieper rock by 4pm. We sat there on the cliff and watched the vast valley for few minutes. It was so peaceful. Sunlight was coming down, drizzling started and wind became bit high. So we decided to go back. It was so much fun to walk in the light rain, muddy trail amidst of greenish trees. While walking back, we spotted couple of eagles sitting on branch for a long time. Just like a kid, I thought how lucky the eagles were. As I walked more, I was thinking how simple the life is and how complicated we made out of it with all these technologies and innovations. By 6.30pm, we reached down to the parking. I drove the car slowly without any music enjoying the silence. And it was raining all our way back to home. Overall, it became one of the most unforgettable day in my life.  

பட்டாம்பூச்சிப் பட்டாம்பூச்சி வட்டம் போடும் பட்டாம்பூச்சி
ஓடி வந்து முத்தம் வாங்கிச் செல்
ஓடியோடி ஆலம் விழுதில் ஊஞ்சலாடும் ஒற்றைக் கிளியே
காட்டு வாழ்க்கை நாட்டில் உண்டா சொல்

அந்த வானம் பக்கம் இந்த பூமி சொர்க்கம்
காட்டில் உலவும் ஒரு காற்றாகிறோம்
நெஞ்சில் ஏக்கம் வந்தால் கண்ணில் தூக்கம் வந்தால்
பூவில் உறங்கும் சிறு பனியாகிறோம்

திறக்காத காட்டுக்குள்ளே பிறக்காத பிள்ளைகள் போலே ஆனோம்
பறந்தோடும் மானைப் போலத் தோலைந்தோடிப் போனது எங்கள் நாணம்

கை தொட்டுத் தட்டித் தட்டி பூவை எழுப்பு
காற்றோடு ரகசிய மொழிகள் சொல்லியனுப்பு
அட என்ன நினைப்பு அதைச் சொல்லியனுப்பு

என் காலடியில் சில வீடுகள் நகருது இதோ இதோ இதோ இதோ இங்கே
ஆஹாஹா வீடுகள் இளை நத்தைக் கூடுகளோ அவை நத்தைக் கூடுகளோ
வீடுகள் இடம் மாறுமோ

காற்றோடு மூங்கில் காடு என்ன பேசுதோ
மண்ணோடு விழிகிற அருவி என்ன சொல்லுதோ
அது தன்னைச் சொல்லுதோ இளை உன்னைச் சொல்லுதோ
அட புல்வெளியில் ஒரு வானவில் விழுந்தது அதோ அதோ அதோ அங்கே
ஐயையோ வானவில் இல்லை வண்ணச் சிறகுகளோ அவை வண்ணச் சிறகுகளோ
வானவில் பறக்கின்றதோ

அழகு அங்கே இங்கே சிரிக்கின்றது - புதிய
கண்கள் நெஞ்சில் திறக்கின்றது
மேகம்போல் காட்டை நேசி மீண்டும் நாம் ஆதிவாசி
உன் கண்கள் மூடும் காதல் காதல் காதல் காதல் காதல் யோசி

புதிய வாழ்க்கை நம்மை அழைக்கின்றது
மனித வாழ்க்கை அங்கே வெறுக்கின்றது
நாட்டுக்குப் பூட்டு போடு காட்டுக்குள் ஓடியாடு

Stress sucks

One of my friends from EEE batch in my college passed away last week. We used to roam together in college hostel days. He was in coma for 2 months and had cardiac arrest. Reason is that he was working in high pressure project in TCS and he was so stressed. I felt very sad to hear that today. This is another sad example of stress taking life away. He was married and have 5 yrs old daughter.  Never take stress lightly and nothing is more important than us. Job, appraisal, promotion etc are nothing when compared to life itself. Worst thing that Indian parents do to their kids is pushing them into competition right from school and always education (marks) are more important than anything else. Then once the kid grow up and comes to job, same thing continue. Just human life wasted.  I'm extremely pizzed off with the parents, education institutions to create sick human beings.  Corporate dictates IT people lives and we give that control to them. We got accustomed to comforts that we got out of these jobs. But It takes a heavy toll on our personal lives. It's time to think and decide how much we want to give ourselves to these corporates.

Samurai Journey

Samurai journey is the biography of Osamu Osawa. Samurai is the sector of people with disciplined culture. They all had very strong character. I was fascinated about Samurai when I watched the movie “Last Samurai”. Being trained in disciplined martial arts, I was able to relate to that culture. Strong character involves collection of beautiful traits. One of those traits is indomitable spirit or undying will. Being born into the samurai family, Osamu had this trait deep in his character. Throughout his life, there were lots of ups and downs. He was very famous once in Japan and then in another couple of years, he came down to the streets in US. Around World War II, he was part of the Japan’s air force and went near to the death and came back. He had multiple relationships breakup due to his life circumstances. Whenever he failed in his choices, he learnt his lessons and came back very strongly. Life throwed him a lot of unexpected failures but they couldn’t conquer him. One thing I really wondered is his courage to try new things and make it success. Generally as human beings, we tend to live in our comfort or safe zone. There is not much freedom there. We are afraid of failures to venture into new things. Sometimes failures are as essential as success itself. It creates certain level of balance within ourselves. Sometimes continuous success make people go out of balance and crazy. In Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says there is no success or failures and we always gain as long as we are open to learn the life lessons. Learning is the key and we should never lose sight of ourselves. All our frustrations or disappointments is due to our emotional attachment with success or failures. If we have learning attitude towards life, we can always grow irrespective of life situations.

Osamu was one of the very senior instructors in Karate (Shotokan). He got trained directly under Master Funakoshi. Osamu is yet another example of beautiful human being cultivated by disciplined martial arts.

Beautiful morning in Los Gatos

On the Saturday morning (Feb 13 2016), when we (myself and Gopi) started from home around 7.30am, it was drizzling beautifully in San Jose. We reached Los Gatos around 8am.  Sathya and Manju were waiting for us. We initially walked a bit and after that we started jogging. Weather was perfect. Mist, clouds, green grasses, lake, flowing water are awesome experiential treat.  As I was jogging, I witnessed my body, mind and spirit. In our convenient lifestyle, we have lot of mental activity but body and spirit are neglected most of the time. So jogging in fresh air helped to regain the balance and rejuvenate the energy. Whenever I go into open space, it is like reestablishing the connection with nature.

Blood was circulating throughout the body as heart was beating well. Lungs was getting good volume of air consistently. Just continuous awareness of mind kept the thoughts settle down. After 60min of jogging, felt totally free and balanced within myself. I became very sensitive to the surroundings. Like a kid, able to notice and enjoy many small things like flowers, green grass, chillness in the air, mist, lake, sound of the birds etc. Life is not that complicated. As we put ourselves in comfort zone, our ability to think or being creative drops drastically. Once we challenge ourselves physically, mentally and spiritually, life just blossoms and creativity oozes out.

This was the first time that I jogged for 6miles straight (thanks to Sathya & Manju). It was a nice challenge but I didn’t feel difficult. Years of my martial arts training with mind-body-spirit together made it more enjoyable. Once we finished the jogging, we did stretching exercises for about 15min. Able to feel the nervous system, muscular system very much alive. It felt so good. So at least once in a week, we should just step out in an open space, give the world a break and touch the fundamentals of life. I see this is more and more essential since our lifestyles are getting more and more convenient.

Bhagwan and Dharma

 I was reading monthly newletter from Ramana ashram this morning..

http://www.sriramanamaharshi.org/php/Saranagathi_eNewsletter_January_2016.php

I'm surprised even Bhagwan (self-realized gyani) was following Dharma(righteousness) very religiously.
Krishna says in Bhagavad gita, one who follows the path of dharma will never be destroyed.
If nothing else we do in our life, atleast we should act as per our dharma irrespective of situations or people around us. Then this very existence will be caretaker for us.

A small recipe for calm mind

Some practice for calm mind. Basically we have to arrange our habits in certain way.

1. Allocate separate time for yourself everyday.

2. Do activities like yoga which involves mind, body and spirit which brings balance. You can do some pranayama and do meditation. One very important technique is watching the gaps in the breath. I.e when your inhale finishes, there is a slight gap before exhale and also when your exhale finishes, there is a slight gap before inhale. To start with, we can watch those gaps for 15min.

3. Any activity that you do, do it with full involvement. Don't leave the unfinished tasks/wishes/desires hang around in your mind. That creates agony.

4. Devotion/Love . Everyday whenever you have time,listen to nice devotional songs or carnatic songs. Visit temple once in a week. Love everybody if we dont like somebody.

5. Sometimes take kids, go out and play with them rather than staying indoors.

6. Read/listen to spiritually inclining scriptures like Geeta, Vedanta or epics like Ramayana n Mahabharata if possible. Values need to be constantly instilled/strengthened within us. Without values, there is no peace.

7. Pay attention to which emotions/thoughts cost your energy. 

8. If possible, watch really good movies or read good stories periodically. In our fast lifestyle, we miss lot of life. This will be a filler and refresher.

Life with different possibilities but there is a way...

There are plenty of possibilities to live life differently in this world. There are all kinds of people out there living differently.  Different cultures, different lifestyles, different way of thinking, different jobs etc. I think it is not fair to compare one way of life against the other.  But one thing that we have to be careful about is how much of the activities that we do is taking away from our self.  Meaning we have to check how much peaceful and satisfied are we in our everyday living?  Because all the endeavors that we pursue is try to find completion within us. Honestly if we ask ourselves why we do about what we do?, we will know the answer. It might be building up a family, aspiring for big career, going for big adventure, doing social service etc. If we forget that purpose, we will get lost in that chase/pursuit and might end up in place where we don’t know where we are and what to do in life. It is very essential to put ourselves forefront. Every day we can live with warm, peaceful, loving, safe and secured feeling within us. I think that’s the beautiful way of living and things will fall in place in its own time. We don’t need millions of money for that. We don’t need to rush to achieve something.  Just appreciate the very life that we have been gifted and be responsible for all the choices that we make. Life will bring challenges every now and then. We have to be open for them and learn lessons and move forward.  We don’t need to beat ourselves if we fail in something but we have to make sure that we learn something from it. We just have to relax into who we are.  We have to pay attention from small things to big things that we do and also people that we associate with. If anything is costing us more, we have to rearrange that. We don’t owe our life to anybody and neither anybody to us. Live good, love good and someday leave good. Life can be a beautiful journey between birth and death at different phases of life amidst of different challenges.