Dream on 2012

I dreamt last night that in 2012, when the planets align, Earthlings are called upon by people from another planet (by people I mean, "people" not "aliens").


It's going to happen in a day's time when humans will have to just "leave" or abandon the Earth to go inhabit another planet. 
Reason: we have polluted the Earth to a level that there wouldn't be any other way to make it better other than for the Earth to re-form/ renew itself. With the humans gone it will be able to do so at peace, send all the garbage, that we've created, under the sea (like the previous civilizations) and become better.


Believing that this Universe is our home, people (with developed powers and awareness, who respect life, their planet, are friendly to one another) will pick a few thousand chosen humans at their discretion and will, to share their planet and take up the task to make us like them.


You might ask "Why are humans saved if we're unwanted by our own planet?"
There is goodness in every heart. Every person knows what favors their own and their loved ones' growth. It is only the desire for small pleasures in short run, that we miss the boat that's beneficial in the long run.
Seeing this aspect of humans that is hid beneath all the dust particles of 'me, I, mine', some are chosen.

アースデイ２０１０

"Wisdom is considering the Earth as your Valentine."

- Sri Sri 

“智恵ある人は、地球を恋人のように思っています。” 

- シュリシュリ

Sakura 2010

These three are my favs of them all ...

Lotus look-a-likes loaded on a tree ~

This tree is exclusive~ I haven't seen another... 

Bella Gaia

Bella Gaia (Beautiful Earth) is the BEST production I've seen in my life. 

Visuals of the earth from space, taken by NASA astronauts, fused with the hypnotizing violin of Kenji Williams.

He tours all around the world so if he's in your town, make sure you GO FOR IT.. It's a experience you'll treasure forever..

Here's a small trailer. 

we are No.1

Souma and Shreya

February 2010

Back to Rokkakudo

After staying in the Rokkakudo temple (Kyoto) for a month during my internship at Ikenobo Ikebana, I never got a chance to revisit until recently. 

.. it felt like home. 

other end of the spectrum

School without the kids is no school at all... 

My fellow Japanese teachers are all taking a long weekend off because of the national holiday on Thursday. Even if I had one teacher here with me it wouldn't have been this bad. I feel as though the kids are all hiding somewhere and might jump out and scare me.

There have been a lot of firsts over the past few days, and one on the emotional level has been the realization of comprehending my parents saying, "Home isn't home when you kids leave for school after summer/winter break." On the other hand I can also understand the excitement teachers, who lived on the school campus, felt when they saw students back on the Welham Girls' campus.

Channelizing this feeling of longing for all the noise and play with kids into something creative - like decorating the classrooms or making props for the upcoming Hansel and Gretel story in the books - is going to be the task of the day.

Anywho, I better come back from dreamy clouds, live in the present moment, be grateful for all the love that poures in various forms and most of all, take a bike ride in the warm sun.

Do you have it in you?

"Are you in control when youre sleeping or when youre dreaming? No Are you in control of any other function in your body? Your heart is pumping all by itself. The food you stuff in the stomach gets digested all by itself. Do you have any control over them? Are you in control of the Sun and Moon moving around the globe or even the globe rotating on itself? Are you in control of the thoughts that come into your head?

So, when you realize you really do not have any control over all major things that are happening in you life, youll stand up and laugh. Oh, what am I thinking, am I in control of something? Then you will realize that the idea that you are in control is an illusion. And then you relax. And that relaxed state is called surrender.

When you cannot surrender, then you make effort, and effort makes you surrender. So when you say, I cannot relax, I will say, Ok, hold your fists tight and tight and tight. Then, when I ask you to make it tighter and you cannot do that, what do you do? Being tired, you just drop. This is coming to the other end with effort.

Judgment is very similar to self- blame and blaming others. We have to get out of this vicious circle of self-judgment. That is also the state of surrender. When you have surrendered to the Divine that means that you no longer judge yourself. Self-judgment is not necessary.

A child is so innocent, why? Because the child doesnt judge itself."

- Posted using BlogPress App for iPhone

Dreams

At night my mind does not much care

If what it thinks is here or there.

It tells me stories it invents

And makes up things that don't make sense.

I don't know why it does this stuff.

The real world seems quite weird enough.

- Bill WattersoN

The Indispensable Calvin & Hobbes

Yummy Shark Tummy

Saturday marked the end of a crazy week with Yuna (a very shy 3yr-old) walking into class jumping and giving me high-five’s. She was thrilled not to find Yuichi (an extremely hyper 4yr-old) in the class, who always comes into class with a long face but by the end of it has drained all energies out of Yuna and me with his notorious games and doings of throwing everything around the room.

Yuna was so excited that instead of our customary 3 nursery rhymes we did 5 with her jumping at the end of every song. I wouldn’t lie that was slightly relieved when 10 mins had gone and Yuichi hadn’t turned up, but even when he did that day, he was too sober and very sweet to both of us.

You see, most kids who come to study English (over the weekend of any weekday after school) dont really want to be there. They would rather be glued to their dear Nintendo or PS for an hour. Thus, there is a cold war between humans (i.e. me as a teacher) and these awesome mind-boggling gadgets to compete for the love and attention of a child. This is why we are told to have tons of games during lessons so that the kids feel like they’re playing instead of learning a foreign language.

Slam, Memory and Dice games are everyone’s favorites. Recently I introduced a game “Yummy Yummy in Shark Tummy”. Each student had a fish stickers with their name put on the board which was filled with 10 bubbles put in descending order. 1 being was lowest was in the shark’s mouth! Every wrong answer got the players closer to the shark and in the end, so they had to try and speak correctly. The game was a bit gruesome for some kids but most of them crazily enjoyable and laughed off their seats.

Without fail, no matter the age, students were thrilled seeing me be the first Yummy Yummy in Shark Tummy... kids today are wicked!!!

(Need to get back to work to take shots of the shark n fish cards. Will upload pictures in a day or two.)

New Horizons

Start to a new year with another birthday. Im 25yrs old today and it's my second birthday without twin being here with me (no worries, she's healthy and wealthy in India.. jeez!) Strangely enough I feel closer to her than ever before (distance makes the heart go fonder.. closer??)

She called exactly as 00hrs struck in Japan. I had a few yummies here and the candles were lit, ready to be blown away. So we counted 1, 2, 3 and blew~ Silly and childlike as it sounds, it was the best blowing candles I've done in years :) Working in a kids school is definitely catching on. I laugh almost at any situation and my giggling has increased manifolds!

Newho~ I'm older by an additional 3.5hrs now (cuz India is 3.5hrs behind Japan time)!!!

A strip from today's Calvin & Hobbes in 1995. Found it quite appropriate~

Lots of Love to everyone all over the world reading (or not) this post.

Celebrate each day and smile more often

Best Santa of them all

Christmas List

Great, greater, greatest

Be not afraid of greatness.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, some have greatness thrust upon them.

Take the first chance to be great today.

You are the Source

"If you are given 10 compliments and 1 insult, you will hold on to that 1 insult. You will forget all the 10 compliments.

Similarly, in life there is 80% joy: 80% happiness and 20% problems but your mind makes that 20% into 200%. Life isnt only disappointments. There can be only one disappointment - that is about your mind. Expecting wrong things at the wrong places, making wrong choices.

You dont have to be disappointed in life about many things. You be disappointed about only one thing that is your own mind. When this mind is causing so much problem, why dont you drop it? Why you hang on to that mind?

Have you done something about your mind? Have you learnt to drop it or tune it? It is just out of tune I tell you, it needs a bit servicing (Laughter). If you service your mind you will see everything is proper. It runs properly on wheels."

- Excerpt from a discourse "You are the Source" by Sri Sri Ravishankar,

The Art of Living Foundation

... ... ... ... ...

This path is not a place where you have to keep a long face all the time, to be so serious that you are digging the mountain. Here you sing, dance, listen to knowledge, sit still and meditate.. all the aspects have come together here.. isn't it !!

Meditate, celebrate, serve and smile.

You are Love, You are Joy!

Life is a single skip for joy...

first day with kids

What do you do when the kids you are teaching English to are having a conversation, in their mother tongue (in my case Japanese), unaware that you understand every word they are saying??

Today was my first day of work at Codomo GEOS. I had expected it to be a nightmare which, to my relief, it wasn't. I taught a range of kids from 2yrs to 12yrs. All the lesson's target phrases were learnt through silly games I prepared. For the first time in my life I felt exposed cuz the kids rip you apart by scrutinizing and commenting on every part of your physical and mental state. For instance, a group of 6yr olds concluded that I was from the moon cuz I wore circular earrings, pendant and bangle all of which were silver in color. After this they started talking about all the countries I could possibly be from Arabia because I wore heavy eyeliner.

Throughout the lesson I was emotionally charged up hearing so many comments in Japanese. They had no idea I understood the language and went on about things casually. But Im barred from speaking in Japanese to them because if they find out they will always talk to me in Japanese - which is not the reason of coming to an English conversations school.

To conclude, at my first day of work I -

- was mostly red in the face cuz the kids scrutinized everything I did

- heard tons of weird comments abt every instructions I gave

- said "mo-ikkai", the Japanese for one more time instead of saying it in English (what kind of an English teacher am I? lol)

- learnt that planning your lesson before a class is THE MOST important thing

- realized that the lesson may never go according to plan

But then again everyday is different and new. For now I've 2 days of holiday starting tmr during which I am going to sleep. Yipeeeeee!! :)

More musings later...

The Speaking Tree - The Times of India, 11 Aug 2009

Young people today engaged in self-exploration are looking for inner peace. They question the relevance of rituals and religious practices. Religion needs to be reinterpreted to suit the context of modern times; otherwise today’s youth might lose faith in Sanatana Dharma – the timeless faith.

The hallmark of Hindu tradition has been its great capacity to adapt itself to the lifestyles of people without losing its identity, and helping seekers focus on attaining the transcendent absolute.

The inquiry into the nature of God and self, and the practices thereof could be termed as the Hindu way of life. The ultimate aim of a Hindu is God-realisation through the spiritual practices he adopts. It is a way of life which respects and accepts all paths to self-realisation.

Hinduism is based upon the qualities of acceptance, absorption, continuous change and expansion. It is thus a dynamic, living, ever-growing set of ideas, rituals and spiritual practices. It incorporates constant acceptance and freedom of thought for all other Religions of the World.

One cannot be ‘converted’ to Hinduism. For every other religion, there are ‘rites of baptism’. Hindus consider that everyone is naturally on a journey to reach a higher awareness through the cycle of birth and death; and that the soul continuously reincarnates to experience Karmas – the effects of actions performed in earlier incarnations. This is something automatic.

In a way, everyone who is trying to explore their divinity is practising Hinduism.

Hinduism is a way of life and does not conflict with any religion for it is simply the commitment to search for the truth. One does not have to give up one’s religious identity to follow Hindu practices.

The greatness of Hinduism lies in its infinite capacity of acceptance and allowance. As long as an individual is mindful of ‘raising consciousness’ – of self, community, and humanity as a whole, one is following tenets of Hindu religion.

This has been termed as ‘Shreya’ – the essence of the Hindu way of life, in a single word.

(Finally know the meaning of my name :P tee.hee.hee)

- Relevance Of A Faith That Is Timeless

by Deepam Chatterjee

The Times of India, 11 Aug 2009

Tralaaa~ Tokyo .. "I'll be back!"

The past two weeks have been remarkable.

I visit my Japanese family in Beppu for the birth of my sister's baby. The baby girl, was late by 9days and finally born after I cooked a huge Indo-Mexican meal for my would-be-mommy-sister. I was utterly happy! I also spent sometime with my nephew, Souma, who is the most outspoken 2yr-old-japanese boy I've met.

Beppu is also the city where I lived for 4yrs during my Undergrad at Ritsumeikan APU so it holds a special place in my heart. I met up with a friends over softball game practice and had dinner with two of my English language students, Kimiko and Miki. Miki, who now has 3 grown up kids, is a busy mom and it was amazing to see her manage the crazy lot. She had 3 kids in a span of 4yrs and her eldest, Ryunosuke, is 4 while Kaede and Aoi are 3 and 1.

During the entire trip I realized how much energy goes into raising kids. After the age of 25 life sort of 'seems' stagnant cuz our face doesnt develop that much and all the pictures look the same with a few pounds here and there. But with kids every month is different from the previous cuz you can see how they change and grow-up :P I found a new (probably hidden)sense of respect for my own parents for raising 5 of us siblings, who so different from one another. It still is quite a job handling us all together!

Since my return to Tokyo last Sunday, I have been hopping from one friend's place to another's. I will be relocating to Hikone city, near the largest freshwater lake Biwa-ko, to work for GEOS for Kids. Im super excited about this chance as, at some point of time in my life, I want to write books for kids and getting a chance to be with them this close is electrifying!

Anyways, with tons of new changes saying goodbyes is always the toughest. But if I never go how will I ever return home?

Tralaaa~ Tokyo .. "I'll be back!"

Polar Bears are huggable

Polar bears have to be at the top of my favorite animals' list.

This piece reveals my feelings towards these magnificent and endangered creatures.

* Everything, big or small, effects the universe no matter whether we're aware of it or not. Take responsibility for the environment and know that you make an impact.

better version on Flickr