Life Experiences by Tilak

There is a part in all of us. I don't know where we keep it. Hide it from the world. But it is there. Always coming to our rescue when we are sad, depressed, hopeless, it comes to give us hope, love, care. It is the sacred island within us.  We are born on it, the sacred island. Well most of us. We have happy childhoods where we are the centre of attraction we are the nucleus and the whole world revolving around us. Then the island opens to the world. For the first time we realise that there is water all around it. Water that can drown it, soil it, dampen it. Slowly, as we grow, we tend to store all our loving memories, feelings, emotions and treasures on this island and guard it fiercely. We are lost in the ocean around the island fighting the pirates and the sharks. We get busy forging alliances of like minded warriors who can help us stay alive and protect that island of ours. All our life we want to live on that sacred island, waiting for the right time. When we are ready and t...

Why do we exist?  There was a time when we existed to live to achieve something. Kings lived for bigger kingdoms where people lived happily and found a way of life better than ever. Scholars lived for discovering something that never existed before...something that made lives beautiful and made life more inclusive and worth living. Warriors fought for defending an ideal or a way of life that they thought true and sacrificed their lives for it. We read about it in the epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata where the great kings and learner men live for an ideal. A way of life that was called sacred. They practiced and prepared for it through personal sacrifices.  Somewhere, something changed. We started living a life of immense power. Power that we only imagined a few centuries back was real and in our hands. We lost the big picture. Everything became about instant gratification atvany cost. Greed became good. We were self obsessed with ourselves. We lost the vision of our forefat...

In my view, the gift of hope is the greatest gift mankind has with it. Every achievement no matter how small starts with this ability of ours - hope. And from hope arises the second gift we have - trust It's a combination of hope and trust that actually runs this world. When we get into a plane and are flying in the air with no safety net whatsoever, hope that we will be safe and the trust that a few of our species namely the engineers and pilots and even the person filling the fuel in the aircraft have done their best. We trust their ability to take care of us. The pilots do the same with pharmacists who design pills that we eat without thinking if we will be alive. Because we hope that we will get well and we trust our fellow humans. Name a profession, and we are bound by an unseen contract of hope and trust with humanity. The army, the farmers, the barbers, the bakers, the teachers, the nurses....the list is endless but yet the hope and trust is what we really buy in return for ...

As a child, I have always been fascinated by the birds. Well, I don't actually love love birds, but I found it very intriguing that these tiny little creatures had the power to migrate thousands of miles to save themselves, year after year. The remember the direction like it's in their DNA, passed on from generation to generation, along with this unbeatable survival instinct. They also are born leaders. They instinctively know how to choose to lead and give up that position when they feel they are no more in that position and someone else is better suited for it at that time.  I feel that we humans, though we claim to be the most superior of species, seem to lack this instinct, the instinct to be selfless when it comes to saving the community. We claim to ourselves that we are a social bunch. We even created a branch of study dedicated to the society - sociology. But are we really social? Are we really like the birds and animals who lead and follow seamlessly according to the s...

Machines are coming. Machines are taking over. But I'm still optimistic. I'm still confident of the immense potential that each one of us have. We the humans have created everything that we are going through at this point in time. Nature is just the backdrop, like a side role in a Bollywood flick.  True, every raw material comes from nature. But transforming the raw materials into something so different and powerful that one wonders if there is any resemblance between the raw material and the finished product, is the skill of human kind. It's the ultimate culmination of art, science, imagination, observation, perseverance, grit, vision and desire that has transformed our world into what it is today. We have come a long way, from the dark caves to the limelight of the socialite parties, from the era of helplessness to the era of attempting to be God.  Wait a minute! Are we trying to be God? Are we trying to create us? Yes but then again may be that is what God wants us to do...

I truly believe that our spirits are thousands of years old. And the learnings of each birth is retained by the soul and is never forgotten. The knowledge about our past lives are dormant within us but is very much there. I am sure we have a Buddha within all of us that is waiting to be awakened by the right stimuli.  I think the time is here. The time is now. As a civilization, in the last five hundred years or so we have lived like the Gautama the prince. Someone who has been born into riches and is distant from any kind of pain. We have science as the courtesans offering us all the amusements our mortal bodies seek. But the soul is left malnourished with our over indulgence in materialism.  But now as we look around, our extravagance has cost us dearly. We have ruined our environment. We have poisoned the air, water and Earth. We have stopped thinking about our very existence.  It's time the Gautama enters the cave within and prays long and hard. And emerges as the Bud...

It only seems like yesterday That a small town guy moved to a new town with parents In search of a life He learnt new languages, aspired for new dreams and dreamt a new life The dream has come true Today he has all that he desired for then and a bit more. The more is somewhat pleasant and a lot unpleasant The more has brought him problems he never dreamt of while dreaming his dreams Today the small boy is a success story in his own right He has gazes sizing him when he passes the road on two legs or car But he isn't happy The insecurities of yesterday have bloomed to be the Judas tree Tempting to expose and ruin everything in moments Today life is so loveless Love is a mirage, a shadow that mocks him through day and night Provoking him to venture forbidden alleys Only to be left more hungry, more thirsty and more desperate Sometimes he wonders if there is anything called love or is it just lust dripping from everywhere? He loves hard and yet hardly is rewarded wit...