Inspiring..

- It takes a village to raise a child - African saying
- Nature is our best teacher
- we are the world, we are the ones to make a brighter day!..

- Natural farming, food forest

- We dig our grave with our teeth

- Freedom of expression is my birth right

- Freedom of speech comes with great responsibility

- I become what I see in myself. All that thought suggests to me, I can do; All that thought reveals to me, I can become. This should be man’s unshakeable faith in himself, because God dwells in him.

- The Mother said - it is not this OR that, it is this AND that
- Life is for living not to understand
-
‎"Sometimes you can't see the forest through the trees."

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Chaaru..uuuh

  So much to say and so little to say.
  Charu, we have worked together in theatre (oh those were fun moments) and can't stop admiring your work as a caricaturist!!
  and now of course , that you contribute to our blog :)
  Charu, Aurovilian by nature, his entry process was a joke..lives with Mirm his son and wife Paula.
  He is an artist, foolish, smart, conncected and cocky!
  Unbeatable you are, my friend, keep up your great job and training your son to become a fine.. :)

Monday, March 15, 2010

Evolution

Darwin or not, evolution is the reason why the earth has survived catastrophes. There may have been more to it, it may have started even before the gasses began...
In certain spiritual traditions they speak about the self existent, unmanifest zero who decided to create himself, manifest himself, so he created Maya-illusion.      
Evolution seems to have stuck at stage man. 
But what seems is not what is. look at the picture below, It is an ape evolving into human.

There must be some human already existing in some forest. 
Who knows, may be he is transforming into superman.

Friday, March 12, 2010

In Auroville's Vikas

The tiny well (about 2 ft deep and 2 ft dia.) in front of our home invites a wonderful mix of birds. Neighbor's cats and nobody dogs too come there to drink, and I am sure that there are nocturnal life forms who bathe there and drink from that well, but that must be in the quiet of night. Mongoose is not a night creature; it is shy.  I have seen bands of them around the pool at any time of the day.
I saw a pair of bulbuls bathing in there. They nervously hopped on the edge before mustering courage to dash on the water, barely dipping their wings and that fraction of a second contact with water seeming more a rustle of wings than anything else remotely connected with diving. Unlike us they do not soap up nor shampoo.
Vikas has hollow roofs. Ceilings are vaulted, so there are gaps between a ceiling and the top floors. Here parrots live. None of my neighbor has complained of noise during quiet hours. Parrots, when they enter their nesting fall quiet. It is only in the morning before collectively flying for their 'jobs' , they create a rumpus. It happens again in the evenings when they return to rest for the night. But only when they are about to leave or enter their holes in the pipe homes do they shriek.
Bandicoots and civet cats are there and I have spotted banded tailed raccoon-like animals. Rabbits and hares, chameleons, birds of captivating hues and plumage have caught my eye. 
I had found a tortoise crossing the street which I have released in the bigger pond nearby. He surfaces in the rains when flooding of pond heightens his chances of escape. 
Going by the various calls I get to hear from dawn to dawn, I can say that Vikas is home to a million species. They seem happy, and that makes me happy.  

snake hunter

Saedi's become a stalker. She prowls the Land like a cat in search of mice. Except instead of delicately hunting rodents, she's after much larger prey... She's after snakes.

She hasn't attacked any yet--thank God--but she's found almost every possible place they can hide. She wakes us up at night barking at the rat snake in the garden. It was she who found the snakes making love. And today she found the big one.

I followed her cries to see her inching towards a coiled up beast. Who knows how long he was, but his body was a good two inches diameter. And he had spots. I watched in awe as both Saedi and I could inch closer and closer without it moving... Was he dead? Sleeping?

Then it hit me: Does it matter?

This isn't a harmless rat snake. I don't know much about snakes, but this I knew. Cobra? He wasn't hissing and there was no obvious hood. So as I ushered the dogs away, I described the snake to Martanda--and later looked online--only to discover it was a "mature" Russell Viper, a poisonous and seductive snake. Eek.


Nice reminder that we are not the kings of this castle...

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Biased Divine

Beats me how some things get fussed over and others snubbed. Perhaps it is a tendency in human nature to associate only with the ones in limelight and ignore everything else. Being proxy to the famous you get  sprinkled upon with some star dust. 
Yet,happiness is elsewhere somehow.
Aren't all sentient beings  equal in God's eyes? If one banyan tree by an accident of chance happens to grow roots in a patch of land which, according to some,  is 'holy land' ( God, one more!), that banyan tree is disproportionately hallowed.  What about others, says I? What about other banyans, for instance, which have grown within the same 'holy' compound of the great 'holy' land? Can they be cut and hacked randomly,  cement benches be built upon their roots. Why?
One obvious answer is this:- the Mother has not mentioned them anywhere in any of her many writings, nor any reference to them is sited  in her recorded conversations.
So what?
It is common sense that all trees are trees and they are significant, perhaps the most significant element that makes earth the living planet.
Tukarama, the 16 th c. saint from Maharashtra wrote such passionate poetry. One of them is," Vikshavalli amha soyari vanachari..." ( Forests (all vegetation) are our relatives...)
But then it is not uncommon among men that some relatives are dearer than others. One aunt gets more of our love and attention than others, because that aunt was mother's favorite? Does that mean that the Divine is not all that impartial after all? S/He has preferences?

Monday, March 8, 2010

Natural farmer - Krishna Mckenzie

  Back in 1997, i believe Muniandi, Kartik and i started this place called today Solitude.
  We did not last very long, we were young but lacked funds to follow up the work on the land which is very suitable for framing.
  Krishna came in the picture very gracefully! seriously.  He inspired and passionate of natural farming has created an amazing place in Auroville, South India.
  They eat of the land (99% grown on the land).  He plays the guitar and sings.
  Check him and his band at :)

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.emergence.in%2Fnewsletter.html&h=efd95e6c251f0d08a45ffbcffeb66a39

  He is an inspiration to me.  Hard working, passionate for the land and is proving to us all the abundance, beauty Earth provides us!

Host and guest

Words are so much a part of convention. In life's great flux nomenclature falls like dying leaves from a tree. The tree itself remains standing with all those leaves scattered about its great girth. Season shifts, a tree grows one more ring-node on its trunk. Its age is thus marked. And so it goes on.
We who understand all the pluses of possession, of acquisition and proprietorship and ownership, should know at some deeper level that really there is no owning without threat. Ownership works so like a beast 'marking' a tree with secretion from its gland. We use lofty phrases to communicate; we spray our area with a different odour. It reeks of law.
Forest breaks no law. Summer follows winter and then rains and summer again. There is renewal - of zest, of the lust for life, even renewal of the necessary poise to take on the most devastating foe, the time. Man would say that time wins. The forest would smile and fall quiet.
These are words. They are a part of human convention. Nature is unconventional, and therefore fresh and full of surprises. Forest hosts everything and everybody without claiming to be the host. It is wide and deep and benevolent, so benevolent that it forgives you even after you have damaged it. It invites you deep into itself: you are its guest as long as you need to be so. The moment your need to be the guest is absolved you become the forest!
Yes, you become the forest.

- Charudatta