A little girl and her father were crossing a bridge.
The father was kind of scared so he asked his little daughter:
“Sweetheart, please hold my hand so that you don’t fall into the river.”
The little girl said:
“No, Dad. You hold my hand.”
“What’s the difference?” Asked the puzzled father.

“There’s a big difference,” replied the little girl.
“If I hold your hand and something happens to me, chances are that I may let your hand go. But if you hold my hand, I know for sure that no matter what happens, you will never let my hand go.”

In any relationship, the essence of trust is not in its bind, but in its bond. So hold the hand of the person whom you love rather than expecting them to hold yours.

~Anonymous

Recently, I came across an excellent story on the true purpose of relationships. Of course we always want to notoriously draw a definition on anything that’s human and inexplicable by logic… However, this one definitely caught my eye. Have a read and reflect back :)

In a land far away a beautiful princess was about to get married to her dream man. She had been told he was the perfect man. Full of love, compassion, strength and intelligence – and of course handsome as hell. She was so happy. The wedding day came and went, the whole kingdom celebrated and all was well. The morning after an equally wonderful wedding night, the princess brought her new husband tea and biscuits in bed. He smiled, ate, drank, told her how deeply he loved her and then slapped her flush across the cheek. They had not lied, he was strong and the princess was knocked to the floor by the force of the blow. She was dazed, in pain but mostly just in shock. What was more surprising was the shock on the husband’s face. He was even more bewildered.

The husband convinced the princess that he was just as taken aback by what happened and was genuinely sorry. His kind eyes and sincere tone clearly indicated to her that he was telling the truth so she forgave him and they moved on. Some years passed and soon both forgot the ugly event, until one day just as suddenly it happened again…. Whack! Then, soon after it reared its ugly head again…. Whack! Now it was too much for both to take and so they decided to seek counsel. Being royalty, all the best medics were summoned and consulted. Various theories were postulated and several cures were tried. Calming oils, exotic herbs, exorcisms, but every so often… Whack! It would happen again.

Desperate, they finally went to see a mysterious sage who lived high up in the mountains and was reputed as the wisest medic in the land, but one who would rarely accept an audience. After a long, hard journey they finally arrived at the sage’s cave. He was sitting on a rock outside in deep meditation so they waited patiently. Several hours later the sage opened his eyes and noticed the couple and much to their relief agreed to speak to them. He led them inside and then heard about the problem. At the end of the narration he asked to see the husband’s hands and closely inspected his palms. Once done with the husband he surprisingly asked to see the princess’s hand and carefully began to check her pulse. Finally he looked up smiling and said, “I will tell you what is happening here, but in exchange you must not refuse me what I ask.” Anxious to have this mystery finally solved they both agreed.

“Well, my dearies”, said the sage still smiling and looking at the husband said, “You sir are a great, healer. Your hands contain great power and you my dear princess have a terrible disease that keeps re-occurring every so often. By slapping you he has been curing you of this affliction time and again. If it had not been for those slaps, you would have long perished by now.” What relief they both felt. Overwhelmed by what they heard they fell to the feet of the sage and tearfully thanked him. As for the payment, well the husband wound up and laid one directly on the sage…. Whack!

What is the point of this story? Relationship produces pain for you so that you may awaken to what needs to be worked on within yourself. In the case of the princess she was lucky as the pain was benefiting her without her knowledge, but in most of our cases we need to utilize the suffering caused by the relationship to inspect closely the disease of our attachments. The pain, upset, discomfort caused in the relationship helps to reveal the attachments we have and the inner working of our minds. It could be as simple as feeling bad for not being complimented on a new dress or as complex as getting upset with your partner for giving away too much to charity. All the upsets, big and small, simple and complex have their roots in our attachments. The attachments could be to security, money, sex, power, prestige, name, fame, religion, children, family, country, comfort, food, etc. It does not matter, our relationships, specially the intimate ones, will poignantly reveal them to us.

As long as we have these attachments, and they are strong within us, we live in fear and misery. Afraid of not getting that which we want, afraid of loosing it if we have it and fearful of those on whom we depend on for their fulfillment. Any relationship upon which you depend for your personal gratification and security will eventually lead you to the mess of anger, control, possessiveness, jealousy, fear and hatred. This is relatively easy to see if we watch relationships in action. So measuring the strength of one’s relationship by the level of attachment is quite silly. In fact, life will not allow such relationships to endure and by producing a few storms she will eventually tear it down and force a new one to be built. On the other hand, when two self-sufficient people meet, adore each other and enjoy each other’s company we have the makings of something special.

Seeing the trouble that attachment brings and realizing that love and fear cannot coexist, what can be done? Change your attitude towards relationship pain. See it for what it really is, an opportunity for insight. Insight into the working of pleasure and its child – desire, or pain and its child – fear. The way of insight is through delicate observation. When any upset occurs watch closely how you react to it. Watch closely how the storm of thoughts start to take control. “I can’t believe he did this again, he does it every time, I have told him so many times before, he knows how important this is for me, he is so selfish and inconsiderate, I bet he would not treat his mother like this, why doesn’t he change, I am never going to speak to him again, … I am so right!” On and on thought takes over and one is caught in the chaos. This is childish and won’t help at all, and the worst part is that a golden opportunity is being wasted. An opportunity to observe the self in action and perceive the root cause of the attachment. Have you ever tried to observe the actual feeling, the physical reality of what is taking place without interfering and without getting carried away into all the mental threads? By doing so, you will allow the fact of what is happening, anger, jealousy, fear, etc. to reveal itself to you in its complete detail. This is to understand by direct perception and allow insight to blossom. This is the only approach that will root out and weaken attachment. Any other reaction on your part to suppress the feeling, or run away from it, or replace it with good feelings, or psychoanalyse it, etc, will simply leave the underlying causes intact only to have the outburst happen again when the time is ripe.

The princess had cancer, which was cured by life through her husband; life tries in the same way to cure the disease of attachment that we are afflicted with using our relationships. Observing carefully our internal reality, that is reflected in our relationships, is the beginning of meditation. And meditation alone brings freedom and self-sufficiency. Relationship provides the most useful opportunities for applying ourselves in this way, so be ready, prepared and poised the next time you get Whacked.

Source: http://anmolmehta.com/blog/2007/01/08/the-true-purpose-of-relationships

I think I should rename my blog from “Subtle Aspirations” to “Innocuous Hiatus” considering I haven’t posted, like forever!

Anyways, when I used to go to Church back home in Sydney, they had recently started to perform this worship song every week and immediately at the first instance, it became my favourite!

A few days ago, Michelle send this to me on Facebook and I relived my memories of Church in Sydney. The video that Michelle sent me had the chords of the song along, so I thought I’d try my hand at it…

It’s rusty as always (I hardly play any more)

Anyways, here it is :)

(if you can’t see the “PLAY” button below you are probably reading this via a feed (Facebook etc.) – Please visit the original blog post on my site to listen it: http://devesh.net/blog/2009/10/20/you-are-stronger/

There is Love
That came for us
Humbled to a sinner’s cross
You broke my shame and sinfulness
You rose again victorious

Faithfulness none can deny
Through the storm
And through the fire
There is truth that sets me free
Jesus Christ who lives in me

CHORUS:
You are stronger
You are stronger
Sin is broken
You have saved me
It is written
Christ is risen
Jesus You are Lord of all

No beginning and no end
You’re my hope and my defence
You came to seek and save the lost
You paid it all upon the cross

So let Your Name be lifted higher
Be lifted higher
Be lifted higher

The strangest bit… I did a search on google for agony metallica lyrics and all that came up was the lyrics to one of my most cherished songs in this lifetime… “Fade to black”!

Now this is a song I never thought I’d really post here, but then again, this has to be special… so here it is…

So here I go, to prepare to post this song on my blog and the moment I log in, considering that I hadn’t posted anything in quite a bit, I spotted this “draft” post that I had written on the 27th of Feb… called “Take a Chance”!

Strangely enough… I could’ve let this be and revised it eventuate it into what I wanted it to be…

But I didn’t… and here it is… what the post “Take a chance” was meant to be…

If you’re looking for the lyrics for “Fade to Black”, you can find it below this…

Oh… where did that “agony, metallica, lyrics” search come from?

Now now… getting too way ahead of yourself are you? ;-)

Here’s Take a Chance (or whatever that was left of its beginning!)

At the edge of insanity the road turns, or so I’ve heard.

At the end the tunnel, there’s a bleak streak, or so I’ve read.

Distances forgotten, eloquently

Subtly forsaken, the miles

Relinquished from the vices, the memories.

“Beware”, a whisper whistles.

“Be watchful, as it’s a double edge sword”

For all you read, you missed the torn page

For all you heard, their words silenced the warnings

For at the the edge of hope, covertly, lies your fall!

And here’s Fade to Black… as promised (for all those ardent sadists!) – This song has always meant a lot to me… there’s a connection way too deep that I’ve drawn from this song which rings back to 1996 – and of course, it never fails me every year :P

Life it seems, will fade away
Drifting further every day
Getting lost within myself
Nothing matters no one else
I have lost the will to live
Simply nothing more to give
There is nothing more for me
Need the end to set me free

Yesterday seems as though it never existed
Death greets me warm, now I will just say good-bye

There are so many books, citations, mere mentions on how a thought is all what it takes to change your life.

Having read so many of these books in recent past, I’ve always found myself stuck in the simplest question – believing in what you intend to have in your life.

To begin with, there’s are many reasons why you see this around – about thinking ‘happy’ and ‘positive’ thoughts. But how do you achieve that and remain in that frame I mind constantly?

Life will always push and nudge to bring in realities that don’t match up to your intention of success, your sanity.

I’ll share with you a very simple experience.

My current state of life, as I’ve known it, has been quite amazing over the last couple of months. I’ve been quite content ‘overall’.

Now the one thing that I’ve known to flip out and stress massively on is anything got to do with finances.

Having had made some pretty serious financial mistakes a few, infant years ago, I’m still in the middle of correcting my mistakes. 2 days ago I realised of some major payments that were to be made, ones which I had conveniently forgotten recently. In a bit of a crunch recently with the interstate move and the decision to ‘start from scratch’, I woke up this morning with only the thought of ‘how the hell am I gonna pull this off?’

I could not quiet my mind no matter what I tried. I worried endlessly and was constantly pensive in thought.

I consciously tried to remove myself and to visualise better things, to meditate… Everything just felt ‘lame’ at that moment.

Now yesterday, I had messaged a friend of mine, Carolyn , just generally expressing my state of mind. This morning she had replied to the message saying ‘Dev, I want you to actively try to guide your thoughts away from what you don’t have in your life right now, to what you DO have currently on your life.’

I was standing in the balcony, stressing unconsciously when her message arrived.

At first, I scoffed at it. My thoughts – ‘what does she know?’ and ‘how the hell is that going to make any difference to my worry right now?’

But then I noticed another thought. A little voice speaking within saying to me, “Dev, it all begins in the mind. Granted you don’t have a solution right now. But how will stressing on the situation help? Let’s try and make a mental list of all that you DO have in your life right now.”

With that thought I made an attempt to make a mental list of everything I am thankful for. Honestly speaking I could not think of anything at all. I could not break away from the worry I had at hand. Then I heard my own voice trying I command my thoughts… ‘Dev! Think! What are you thankful for in your life right now!’

With that, I felt like I had to just pretend to convince that voice, and maybe make something up so I could shut it up. So I thought, real hard… and as silly as it sounded, I came up with the first thing that I felt I was thankful for in my life right now. It was a stupid reason, and I laughed at myself when I thought of it, but I was thrilled that I did it. So I tried to come up with another one. Every single moment I kept questioning how the hell is this gonna help, but I kept going.

The worry didn’t fade away. But it definitely felt ‘tamed’ after a while.

I started feeling comforted within, an unrealistic comforting surge of faith that I can pull this off. I don’t know how, yet… But just the trust in that faith helped me feel way better than I was feeling!

What happened here?

Let me be very clear. By no means this ‘solved’ the problem at hand.

What this did, is that it put my mind at ease. Filled it with hope… And eventually gave me a perception of strength to be able to perceive solutions which otherwise I would’ve spent in nothing but fruitless worry and pile ups eventually.

Simply put, here are the INSTANT steps you can take to put a stop to gnawing worry and just feel centered:

1. Shut your eyes real tight. Tell yourself, ‘I am only gonna take 2 minutes from this worry to think of something else’
2. Now tell yourself ‘I’m going to count the number I times I breathe out 10 times’ – with that, do that!
3. Now think of the one thing you’d like to do if everything in your life was perfect. It may take a while, but that’s all you have to do, just pick any 1 thing that you would love doing, knowing when everything is perfect as you’d like to have it in your life.
4. Finally, blank out everything in your head and say thanks for that 2 minute experience to your mind. Be grateful to your mind that it listened to you and gave you those 2 mins you asked for peaceful day dreaming :)

That’s it! There’s nothing more to it.

Yes I know you’ll be like, ‘How the hell is this gonna solve my issue?’ or maybe you read this and scoff at it, saying under your breath, ‘Dev, my problems are far greater than this insignificant thing!’

I urge you to try this for just 3 days. Can you do that? As I said before, you only have to do it for 2 mins. You can do it as many times you can remember to do it in a day if you want.

I’d like to know if you did try it, what were your experiences?

As a closing line, I’d like to dedicate this post to someone I recently “met” in the online world – Carla White, the creator of The Gratitude Journal iPhone App which you can check out at http://www.happytapper.com. Thank you Carla for such a simple, yet an effective application for the world.

For a few years now I’ve subscribed to “Inspiration Peak” messages.

It’s great to receive them smack right in the middle of your day. Makes you stop for a few minutes and simply reflect on a few things.

We all get tied up time and again in our daily rut of life as we call it. It is important, no doubt, to follow our passion and/or struggle to achieve and survive. Yet, every now and then we need to simply take at least 5 minutes off at any given time and focus on the existence that is you!

For me, I’ve made a habit of doing that everytime I read one of these messages that pop up in my inbox.

I urge you to create a trigger and follow a pattern in simply trying to achieve those silent, inwardly focussed 5 minutes each day of your life.

If you do end up doing so, do write back and let me know what’s your trigger and how do you find it :)

Here’s today’s message:

My heart is so small
it’s almost invisible.
How can You place such big sorrows in it?

“Look,” He answered,
“your eyes are even smaller,
yet they behold the world.”

http://www.inspirationpeak.com

No one likes changes – changes which fall upon you, may it be by fate or a decision you’ve made.

Good changes are welcomed – but there’s always an unnerving feeling of the transition between your current state and adapting the change.

The reason for this post is two fold:

Firstly – an update to all who drop by here.

I’ve embraced a big change in my life :) I’m moving cities and intending to actually settle down in Melbourne. 

Honestly, Melbourne has been on my mind for a few months now but nothing tipped the scales for me like a few weeks ago.

In short – I applied for a dream job – something that I’ve always wanted to do and couldn’t quite find the fit anywhere before. I applied online and shortly after the application I got an email from them saying that they’re interested to have a chat. 

The phone interview went great and a week later I was in Melbourne for a face to face interview. 

Cutting it short – they made a good offer, coupled with my subliminal intention of “starting fresh”, I accepted the role and confirmed that I’ll move within a fortnight.

I made a snap decision right then that I’m going to get rid of most of the stuff that I’ve owned over the years here (more specifically the things I purchased over the last 3 years).

I don’t know if what they say is true – out of sight is out of mind – but I’m not risking carrying anything with the memories of the past with me over.

As the days draw closer to the big move, my knees go weaker. I know the emotional attachment with the city I’ve lived in for the last 8 years is going to be a tough nerve to severe.

My flatmate, Karan, said something very profound to me the day I came back from Melbourne (at that time I hadn’t yet made my decision of moving – only contemplating it). He said and I quote:

“There is no growth in the comfort zone, and no comfort in the growth zone”

That statement kinda hit home for me. Yes I’ve become too comfortable in the small life that I had. I had mulled too long in the aftermath of the destitution that I had brought upon myself. And worse yet, I had grown too comfortable living with all that filth in my head. 

Most naturally there was no room left whatsoever to grow and seek a better life.

That night as I put my head on my pillow, Karan’s words echoed back in my head – and I knew that I’m going to take this risk. I’m going to give this a shot. I’m going to MOVE :)

So with the support from my family and all my friends who I’ve known – I endeavor to take what they say – another baby step – reminds me of what Ruch had told me long ago – “it’s all about taking baby steps my dear, and before you know it, you’ve walked a mile!” :)

—–

So, as I said earlier, this post is two fold… 

A few years ago I had subscribed to Brian Kim’s Motivational & Inspirational Messages (MIT) via email. So every evening when I get home, I’ve got one waiting for me. 

Today’s message pretty much felt as if it was directed towards me :) So here it is for anyone who may benefit from it:

Every day is a new opportunity to start with a clean slate.

 

To put the past behind you and to look forward to a promising future.    

 

And to mark this special occasion, try making some radical changes to ”shock” you out of your routine to tell yourself that you really mean business.

 

That THIS is the day things start to change.  

 

• Wake up at an earlier time and lift weights and jog around the block.
• Throw out EVERYTHING you don’t need in your house.
• Tie up all the loose ends you’ve been putting off.

 

Whatever you do, make sure it’s a positive, radical, substantial change to get you off on the right foot and running toward the direction you want.    

 

The hardest part in getting a rocket into space is escaping earth’s gravity.

 

Once it does that, the rest is easy.  

I came across this article a few months ago – I vividly remember how it made me feel at that time.

Then, as time has it’s way, I conveniently forgot about it.

Recently I re-discovered my Tumblr (I had completely forgotten I had an account there) – and saw the link to the article which I had posted there then.

It’s an excellent read on the process of “detachment” – titled aptly: “The Art of Giving Up” written by Dyske Suematsu.

Here’s an excerpt from the article which I particularly liked. The link can be found below for those who are interested to read the whole article :)

We develop attachments and we don’t even know it. Only when we are threatened by the lack or the loss of them, do we realise how much we are attached to them. If we lose our sight, for instance, some of us would probably consider suicide, but if we think objectively about many blind people enjoying their lives, it seems silly to even be depressed about being blind.

- by Dyske Suematsu

Click here to read the whole article – “The Art of Giving Up“

Every once in a while you come across a song that as when you’re listening to it the first time, you kind know that you won’t be listening to it for a long time to come. And then by the time it ends, you find yourself putting it on repeat just to hear the words once again.

And thus, it grows on you.

I came across this really nice song which I’d like to share here. I’ve pasted the lyrics after the video below – pay attention to the words. They’re simple, yet profound and will leave you with a good “feeling” :)

I tried to fight the feeling, the feeling took me down
I struggle and I lost the day you knocked me out
Now everything’s got meaning, the meanings bring me down
I’m watching as a screening of my life plays out

Every day I fight these feelings
For your sake I will hide the real thing
You can run all your life, all mine I will chase

You should never fight your feelings
When your very bones believe them
You should never fight your feelings
You have to follow natures law

I’ll live with never knowing, if knowings gonna change
I’ll stop a feeling growing, I will stay away
Like a broken record, stuck before a song
A million beginnings, none of them the one

Every day I fight these feelings
For your sake I will hide the real thing
You can run all your life, all mine I will chase

You should never fight your feelings
When your very bones believe them
You should never fight your feelings
You have to follow natures law

I wrote her letters and tried to send them
In a bottle I place my hope
An S.O.S full of good intentions sinking
Will you give it to me, don’t make me wait
You built me up, knocked me down
But I will stand my ground
And guard this light that I’ve found

You should never fight your feelings
When your very bones believe them
If you let them show, you’ll keep them
I know your hurt but soon you’ll rise again, again, again

Yup that’s right!

No more 2 different blogs!

After much contempation and indecisiveness, going back an forth with the idea of doing this, one fine evening, I had a chat with Rits and just took a stance!

The process was relatively easy, used the wordpress export functionality (available for WP installations above 2.3 I think) – exported both my blogs, create a new one (wanted a “clean” feel lol), and simply imported both the exported XML files :)

Once that was done, the hunt began in finding the right theme that struck a chord.

I pretty much decided on “the morning after” theme – installed it, spent a few hours customising it and then all of a sudden, just changed my mind to go with this one :)

Anyways, this one’s here to stay – I made a few minor css tweaks, and was thinking of eventually changing the colours and backgrounds etc. But for now, this will stay as I actually like this look and the colour scheme.

So there you go – this is pretty much all that I am (if you read all the way from 2004).

A few people also asked me about deleting some particular posts – as they are no longer relevant. But I decided that I’ll let them be for now – after all they were relevant at some point of time in my life and this pretty much has become a chronological journal for me.

Anyways, I’m off to bed now – had a real long day today and gonna have an even longer one tomorrow – I’m staying steady in faith… A dear friend of mine called up to wish me luck this evening for tomorrow – in her words I quote: “Fear not, whatever will be, will be.”