vendredi 31 octobre 2014

YOU BECOME RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT YOU HAVE TAMED.. THE WORDS OF ANTOINE ST EXUPERY

I was dropping off my sister at the Miami International Airport. The lovely Cuban woman behind the counter at the Versailles Coffee shop at the Departure area made me a cup of coffee, Cortadito estilo de la Habana, was so sweet that I could forget my longings for Havana for a minute. Thus fortified, I was returning home, suddenly I thought of Le Petit Prince The Little Prince.
I was thinking of the Birthday of someone special in our lives and I thought about the Fox and the Little Prince.

Often many sentences from the book that I read for the first time as I was entering adolescence bubble up the consciousness. The favourite being, it is with the eye that one sees, what is beautiful Is invisible to the eye.

American Indians refer to the Great Spirit at times as Great Mystery, something we cannot understand. Life is a great mystery as well, it would cease to be so, and if we cease to be self-obsessed and give of ourselves to others, to whom we are responsible.
As the Little Prince Said
It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important
We are related, human relations, that is, where the joy of life is. As the Jewish mother said to her daughter, marry a rich man, you may not be happy but at least you can suffer in comfort.
Life has become a Suffering in Comfort rather than a Joy of Living.
The Fox requests the Little Prince to tame him, because one becomes responsible for that which he tames.

The three philosophies that evoke thoughts in me, seem to be very pure, aimed at the person/persons/groups achieve, or help them achieve a better standard of behaviour for themselves.
Under a starlit sky in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, a city that I loved so much and where I can honestly say that foundations of my self were laid, my dear friend LS said:
You bring your friends closer to their dreams.
LS thus laid down the path I was to follow, to bring others closer to their dreams.
American Indian Philosophy, Yogic Philosophy of Patanjali and the Buddhist philosophy, helped me think in terms of the other first.
But tonight as I am thinking of the Birthday Girl, I wondered whether I had failed in achieving that?
If so, why? Thus able to correct myself, to bring back to that starry night in Melbourne, Australia.
If you look at the structural defects that confront us, the strongest one is EGO. Each and every time when there is a conflict in my life, personal or professional, I can take it back to the EGO failing me.
On my last visit to Kuala Lumpur in July 2014, my EGO gave me such a destructive blow that I had decided never again to visit that city, that country or be in touch with any one connected to that country. Lately mulling over the experience, in more humble moments, the frailty of the mind, the power of the EGO. It was not the Hotel or the City or the Country or the wonderful vista while sipping a Chilean White wine. But the problem was I. I ask forgiveness of all those I have offended directly or indirectly.
My sister, who is very open and blunt with me, tells me when my ego escapes from the place where my humility keeps it. So it was only natural that I was thinking of all these things, after dropping off my sister at the Miami International Airport.
I am grateful to her, so I am to MM for taming me in 1995. In Kuala Lumpur, I am grateful to YMC and NM.
In Cuba, I think of AA, LL, CP, YC, and MJ
As Pablo Neruda would say:

“I have been a lucky man. To feel the intimacy of brothers is a marvelous thing in life. To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life. But to feel the affection that comes from those whom we do not know, from those unknown to us, who are watching over our sleep and solitude, over our dangers and our weaknesses – that is something still greater and more beautiful because it widens out the boundaries of our being, and unites all living things.”
As MEN, we tend to forget such beautiful thoughts, especially when our EGO knits that ravelled sleeve of ignorance.
In the great Universal Philosopher, Krishnamurthy, one finds the rare combination of fusing philosophies away from any centrality of dogma but concentrating on the frailty of human beings, thus offering a way to improve oneself.
It cannot be a mere coincidence these words of Krishnamurthy arrived in my mailbox today.

The Major Cause of Violence
The major cause of violence, I think, is that each one of us is inwardly, psychologically, seeking security. In each one of us the urge for psychological security that inward sense of being safe -projects the demand, the outward demand, for security. Inwardly each one of us wants to be secure, sure, certain. That is why we have all these marriage laws; in order that we may possess a woman, or a man, and so be secure in our relationship. If that relationship is attacked we become violent, which is the psychological demand, the inward demand, to be certain of our relationship to everything. But there is no such thing as certainty, security, in any relationship. Inwardly, psychologically, we should like to be secure, but there is no such thing as permanent security.
So all these are the contributory causes of the violence that is prevalent, rampaging, throughout the world. I think anybody who has observed, even if only a little, what is going on in the world, and especially in this unfortunate country, can also, without a great deal of intellectual study, observe and find out in himself those things which, projected outwardly, are the causes of this extraordinary brutality, callousness, indifference, violence.
So I want to say to the person of this auspicious day, 31 October, that Ego causes the violence among those who we love
I ask forgiveness.


We should celebrate the love between people, as Pablo Neruda would say, that great bakery in the sky!



Pure love is sublime.  It is divine.  It fears nothing.  It knows no limit. It is everywhere.


-- Sri Swami Sivananda


it is 3 am in Miami, on 31 october 2014 and I dedicate this blog to the Birthday Girl..

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