quOteS...

i realize that travel is the best medicine for a mind pining to be with itself! it gives the mind ample time and space to indulge in itself... and oh, what a creature the mind is! i guarantee that it can beat any glutton in its capacity to gorge and indulge! :)

well, today my mind got its much needed dose. as i blocked the world out... my mind started giving me some interesting company. somehow, today it decided to focus itself on things people have said which have left a deep impact on it. this blog is dedicated to a few of those...

charles chaplin, or charlie chaplin as he's more famously known, was a beautiful, interesting and very intelligent man. a month or so back, i'd bumped into a picto-biography on him. will dedicate another blog to that and his life, coz here i'll just concern myself with something he said that left me speechless. he said - 'a perfect love is the most beautiful of all frustations, because it is more than one can express' . i cannot agree with him more... and, i cannot wish enough to experience this frustration...

another statement that comes to my mind is something SRK once said in an interview. he said 'if i have to choose between a quickie and peace of mind, i'll choose the latter...' or something to this effect. simple words, powerful thought. the reason this has had such a profound effect on my mind is that i believe it has yet another aspect to it, besides the stated - that the implications of any action should be well thought out and considered before indulging in it. i believe every action creates its own effects. every one of these effects constitutes our karmic quotient. as such, on a personal level, i believe that this thought should apply to just about every aspect of my life.

then, there's something i was reading a few days back in a book called 'questions from the city, answers from the forest' by Ajahn Sumano Bhikkhu. ASB is a/an (american) buddhist monk. a question was asked of him, about how this (a) person could not stick to his vows (his new year resolutions!). as i could just so relate to this question, i read on... there are two very beautiful things that came out in his answer. one, that the person who made this vow isn't the same one who breaks it. wisdom, which is a positive energy, generated the vow, and ignorance, which is a negative energy, generated the breach. the second thing he said, which really really surprised me was this - he said that when we decide to change our behaviour, it is useful if we take a little time to perform a ritual to underscore the commitment to change. to a cynic, any ritual looks silly and feels embarrasing, but for someone who knows how to use them, rituals mark a moment in time with a powerful gesture. the moment they mark is now, for change only happens in the present moment. we add weight to our intention when we include spiritual elements in the ritual. there was a lot more to his answer, but i'll keep it to this, as i now come to the reason why this has got mentioned here. the very next day after reading this, there was an interesting discussion happening among us friends on marriage - 'should marry, shouldn't marry. the one thing that kept coming up was, what's the use of marrying, just have a live in...it's the same thing, why marry?' .. why marry indeed, i thought? what after all is the difference between marrying someone and living in? the saat pheras? the vows?..... and that's where the above answer took the most astonishing shape in my mind. suddenly, i understood it all - suddenly i felt the gravity and meaning of these rituals. for the first time in my life, i got a solid answer to this question.....

to many meaningful rituals and successful vows...