Patience

~ By Paramahansa Yogananda

Let us forget the sorrows of the past and make up our minds not to dwell on them in the New
Year. With determination and unflinching will, let us renew our lives, our good habits, and our
successes. If the last year has been hopelessly bad, the New Year must be hopefully good.

The Power of Non-Violence

~ By Dr. Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi (founder of
the M.K.Gandhi Institute for Non-Violence), in his June 9 lecture at
the University of Puerto Rico.


I was 16 years old and living with my parents at the
institute my grandfather had founded 18 miles outside of
Durban, South Africa, in the middle of the sugar plantations.
We were deep in the country and had no neighbors, so my
two sisters and I would always look forward to going to town
to visit friends or go to the movies.

One day, my father asked me to drive him to town for an
all-day conference, and I jumped at the chance. Since I was
going to town, my mother gave me a list of groceries she
needed and, since I had all day in town, my father asked me
to take care of several pending chores, such as getting the car
serviced.

When I dropped my father off that morning, he said, "I will
meet you here at 5:00 p.m., and we will go home together."
After hurriedly completing my chores, I went straight to
the nearest movie theatre. I got so engrossed in a John
Wayne double-feature that I forgot the time. It was 5:30
before I remembered. By the time I ran to the garage and
got the car and hurried to where my father was waiting for
me, it was almost 6:00.

He anxiously asked me, "Why were you late?"

I was so ashamed of telling him I was watching a John Wayne
western movie that I said, "The car wasn't ready, so I had
to wait," not realizing that he had already called the
garage.

When he caught me in the lie, he said: "There's something
wrong in the way I brought you up that didn't give you
the confidence to tell me the truth. In order to figure out
where I went wrong with you, I'm going to walk home 18 miles
and think about it."

So, dressed in his suit and dress shoes, he began to walk
home in the dark on mostly unpaved, unlit roads.

I couldn't leave him, so for five-and-a-half hours I drove
behind him, watching my father go through this agony for a
stupid lie that I uttered. I decided then and there that I
was never going to lie again. I often think about that
episode and wonder, if he had punished me the way we punish
our children, whether I would have learned a lesson at all.
I don't think so. I would have suffered the punishment and
gone on doing the same thing. But this single non-violent
action was so powerful that it is still as if it happened
yesterday. That is the power of non-violence.

The Day Flies Off Without Me

~ By John Stammers

The planes bound for all points everywhere
etch lines on my office window.
From the top floor London recedes in all directions, and beyond:
the world with its teeming hearts.

I am still, you move, I am a point of reference on a map;
I am at zero meridian as you consume the longitudes.
The pact we made to read our farewells exactly
at two in the afternoon with you in the air
holds me like a heavy winter coat.

Your unopened letter is in my pocket, beating.

I Need Air

~ By Alan Lerner
(from the musical 'The Little Prince', based on the book by Antoine St. Exupery)

I could see it wasn't worth
Spending time with them on earth.
There were fewer in the sky.
I decided I would fly.
I need air...

Where only stars get in my hair:
And only eagles stop and stare.
I need air.

Oh, the work is mad
And I've had my share.
I need air.
I need air.
I need air...

There's not a sign of life down there.
Just hats and grown-ups everywhere.
I need air.

Lots of cosy sky
That God and I can share.
I need air.
I need air.

Reality

~ By Albert Einstein

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."

The Way of Truth and Love

~ By Mahatma Gandhi

"Whenever I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it: always."

The Power of Invisible People

~ By Steve Roberts*

This Easter Sunday, April 16, 2006, is the 40th birthday of my younger son, whom I've never met. And it's more than possible that I never will. Yet, he is one of many people whose invisible presence continually encourages me to pay attention to who I am.

There are a number of old cellar holes on our farm. They date back well over a century and represent lives I can only imagine. I daydream of walking across America without a nickel. It's an expression of my heart's calling to give myself completely to the moment, moving through every fear of lack and need. Obviously I
needn't wear out a dozen pair of boots to achieve that goal. Still, I'm aware that if I actually did embark on such a pilgrimage, demanding as it might be, it wouldn't compare to the challenges faced by those who, 200 years ago, attempted to survive on a Vermont mountainside.

The most conspicuous of these early settler foundations—the remnants of a home and barn—is part of a several acre sweep of pasture and orchard in which, over the past few years, I have built an ever- growing family of sculptures out of stone. Among my motivations, I've discovered as I go, is honoring all who were stewards of this
land before I and my family took on the job. I know the names of virtually none of those who precede me, just as I don't know the name of my younger son, since at birth he was given up for adoption. However, what I feel in relationship to both them and him is gratitude for their part in deepening my connection to the entire
human family.

Please don't confuse my stone whatchamacallits with the creative expressions of artists like Vermont's Dan Snow, a master at building in stone without mortar. The Greek philosopher Pythagoras called a stone frozen music. That makes Dan Snow a composer of symphonies so jaw droppingly beautiful, if I were 30 not 60 I'd pester him like a drunken mosquito to let me be his apprentice. Fortunately, like just
about everything else in life, I don't have to know a whole lot about stones to experience the joy of playing with them.

As it is, Dan and I have never met, though that doesn't prevent me from feeling his influence. Patience, attunement, playfulness—these are but a few of the qualities his creations evoke in me as I dabble in my own frozen music.

Being an author draws to me the responses of untold numbers of people I'll never meet in person, every one of them a gift, believe it or not—even those who think I'm nuts.

Through these many so-called strangers, the universe showers me with kindness, one form of which is an occasional fat wink that sends a chill up my spine.

My younger biological son was born in a New York State village located about half way between Rochester and Syracuse. Some 20 years later in a Rochester restaurant, a waiter of college age approached me and said, "Boy, I've got a friend in Syracuse who looks just like you."

Then, about five years ago two friends of mine were having lunch in Amherst, Massachusetts (the home of my beloved alma mater, it so happens), when they became transfixed by another patron who was a youthful clone of me down to the way he walked, sat, gestured and ran his fingers through his hair.

I wish many things for this man whose invisible presence graces my life, including that he too hears the universe whispering: "Hello, playmate."


* Steve Roberts is the author of Cool Mind Warm Heart, a collection of essays, stories, and photographs of stone sculptures he builds on his Vermont farm. He can be found on the web at CoolMindWarmHeart.com and at TheHeartOfTheEarth.com.

Consolation for Tamar

~ By A. E. Stallings*

(on the occasion of her breaking an ancient pot)

You know I am no archeologist, Tamar,
And that to me it is all one dust or another.
Still, it must mean something to survive the weather
Of the Ages-earthquake, flood, and war-

Only to shatter in your very hands.
Perhaps it was gravity, or maybe fated-
Although I wonder if it had not waited
Those years in drawers, aeons in distant lands,

And in your fingers' music, just a little
Was emboldened by your blood, and so forgot
That it was not a rosebud, but a pot,
And, trying to unfold for you, was brittle.


* More on this accomplished young poet at:
http://www.geocities.com/aestallings/

When I have Fears that I may Cease to Be

~ By John Keats

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

Happiness

~ By Epictetus (55-135)*

"There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will."

* Even though he was born a slave in Hierapolis and endured a permanent physical disability, Epictetus held that all human beings are perfectly free to control their lives and to live in harmony with nature. After intense study of the traditional Stoic curriculum (established by Zeno of Citium and Chrysippus) of logic, physics, and ethics, Epictetus spent his entire career teaching philosophy and promoting a daily regime of rigorous self-examination. He eventually gained his freedom, but was exiled from Rome by Domitian in 89.(http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/epit.htm)

Planting a Sequoia

~ By Dana Gioia

All afternoon my brothers and I have worked in the orchard,
Digging this hole, laying you into it, carefully packing the soil.
Rain blackened the horizon, but cold winds kept it over the Pacific,
And the sky above us stayed the dull gray
Of an old year coming to an end.

In Sicily a father plants a tree to celebrate his first son's birth-
An olive or a fig tree-a sign that the earth has one more life to bear.
I would have done the same, proudly laying new stock into my father'sorchard,
A green sapling rising among the twisted apple boughs,A promise of new fruit in other autumns.

But today we kneel in the cold planting you, our native giant,
Defying the practical custom of our fathers,Wrapping in your roots a lock of hair, a piece of an infant's birth cord,
All that remains above earth of a first-born son,
A few stray atoms brought back to the elements.

We will give you what we can-our labor and our soil,
Water drawn from the earth when the skies fail,
Nights scented with the ocean fog, days softened by the circuit of bees.
We plant you in the corner of the grove, bathed in western light,
A slender shoot against the sunset.

And when our family is no more, all of his unborn brothers dead,
Every niece and nephew scattered, the house torn down,
His mother's beauty ashes in the air,
I want you to stand among strangers, all young and ephemeral to you,
Silently keeping the secret of your birth.

Boy looking at the horizon (the world?) - 2

This is just a short explanation of the picture bellow. It is of my son, Matthew. As it is with any kid, he is a great subject. I've found him in many -- more than -- ideal situations for a perfect photo.

The location: Pismo Beach, California (just north of Santa Barbara).
The situation: A storm was approaching from the north (it poured over L.A. the next day). We've just finished visiting a "Monarch Butterfly Habitat." The air was balmy and sticky. The waves were small and the wide sandy beach was empty. Only a few folks walking up and down.

Boy looking at the horizon (the world?)

Mussoorie's Landour Bazar

~ By RUSKIN BOND
Published in India Perspectives (Dec. 2003)

As in most north Indian bazaars, there is a clock tower. And like most clocks in clock towers, this one works in fits and starts. Almost every year the tall brick structure gets a coat of paint. It was pink last year. Now it is a livid purple. From the clock tower, at one end, to the mule sheds at the other, this old Mussoorie bazaar is a mile long. The bazaar sprang up about a hundred and fifty years ago, to serve the needs of British soldiers who were sent to the Landour convalescent depot to recover from sickness or wounds. The old military hospital built in 1827 now houses Institute of Technology Management.

One old resident of the bazaar, a ninety-year old tailor, can remember the time, in the early years of the century, when the Redcoats marched through the small bazaar on their way to the cantonment church. And they always carried their rifles into church, remembering how many had been surprised in churches during the 1857 uprising. Today, the Landour bazaar serves the local population, Mussoorie itself being more geared to the need and interest of tourists. There are a number of silversmiths in Landour. They fashion silver nose rings, earrings, bracelets and anklets, which are bought by the women from the surrounding Jaunpuri villages. One silversmith had a chest full of old silver rupees. These rupees are sometimes hung on thin silver chains and worn as pendants or necklaces of rupees embossed with the profiles of Queen Victoria or King Edward VII.

At the other extreme there are the Kabarl shops, where you can pick up almost everything - a tape recorder discarded by a Woodstock student or a piece of furniture from Grandmother's time in the hill station. Old clothes, Victorian brica-brac, and bits of modem gadgetry vie for your attention. The old clothes are often more reliable than the new. Last winter I bought a new pullover marked `Made in Nepal' from a Tibetan pavement vendor. I was wearing it on the way home when it began to rain. By the time I reached my cottage, the pullover had shrunk inches and I had some difficulty getting out of it! It was now just the right size for Bijju, the milkman's twelve-year-old son, and I gave it to the boy. But it continued to shrink at every wash, and Teju, Bijju's younger brother, who is eight, is now wearing it.

At the dark windy corner in the bazaar, one always found an old man hunched up over his charcoal fire, roasting peanuts. He had been there for as long as I could remember, and he could be seen at almost any hour of the day or night in all weathers. He was probably quite tall, but I never saw him standing up. One judged his height from his long, loose limbs. He was very thin, probably tubercular and the high cheekbones added to the tautness of his tightly stretched skin. His peanuts were always fresh, crisp and hot. They were popular with small boys who had a few coins to spend on their way to and from school. On cold winter evenings, there was always a demand for peanuts from people of all ages. No one seemed to know the old man's name. No one had ever thought of asking. One just took his presence for granted. He was as fixed a landmark as the clock tower or the old cherry tree that grew crookedly from the hillside. He seemed less perishable than the tree, more dependable than the clock. He had no family, but in a way the entire world was his family because he was in continuous contact with people. And yet he was a remote sort of being; always polite, even to children but never familiar. He was seldom alone, but he must have been lonely. Summer nights he rolled himself up in a thin blanket and slept on the ground beside the dying embers of his fire.

During winter he waited until the last cinema show was over, before retiring to the rickshaw coolies' shelter where there was protection from the freezing wind.Did he enjoy being alive? I often wondered. He was not a joyful person; but then neither was he miserable. Perhaps he was one of those who do not attach overmuch importance to themselves, who are emotionally uninvolved in the life around them, content with their limitations, their dark corners: people on whom cares rest lightly simply because they do not care at all.I wanted to get to know the old man better, to sound him out on the immense questions involved in roasting peanuts all one's life; but it's too late now. He died last summer.

That corner remained very empty, very dark, and every time I passed it, I was haunted by visions of the old peanut vendor, troubled by the questions I did not ask; and I wondered if he was really as indifferent to life as he appeared to be. Then, a few weeks ago, there was a new occupant of the corner, a new seller of peanuts. No relative of the old man; but a boy of thirteen or fourteen. The human personality can impose its own nature on its surroundings. In the old man's time it seemed a dark, gloomy corner. Now it's lit up by sunshine – a sunny personality, smiling, chattering. Old age gives way to youth; and I'm glad I won't be alive when the new peanut vendor grows old. One shouldn't see too many people grow old. Leaving the main bazaar behind, I walk some way down the Mussoorie-Tehri road, a fine road to walk on in spite of the dust from an occasional bus or jeep. From Mussoorie to Chamba, a distance of some thirty-five miles, the road seldom descends below 7,000 ft. and there is a continual vista of the snow ranges to the north and valleys and rivers to the south. Dhanaulti is one of the lovelier spots, and the Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam has a rest house here, where one can spend an idyllic weekend. Some years ago I walked all the way to Chamba, spending the night at Kaddukhal from where a short climb takes one to the Surkhanda Devi temple. Leaving the Tehri Road, one can also trek down to the little Aglar river and then up to Nag Tibba, 9,000 ft., which has good oak forest and animals ranging from barkingdeer to Himalayan bear, but this is an arduous trek and you must be prepared to spend the night in the open or seek the hospitality of a villager.

On this particular day I reach Suakholi, and rest in a teashop, a loose stone structure with a tin roof held down by stones. It serves the bus passengers, mule drivers, milkmen and others who use this road. I find a couple of mules tethered to a pine tree. The mule drivers, handsome men in tattered clothes, sit on a bench in the shade of the tree, drinking tea from brass tumblers. The shopkeeper, man of indeterminate age, the cold dry winds from the mountain passes having crinkled his face like a walnut, greets me enthusiastically,as he always does. He even produces a chair, which looks a survivor from one of Wilson's rest houses and may even be a Sheraton. Fortunately the Mussoorie Kabaris do not know about it or they'd have snapped it up long ago. In any case, the stuffing has come out of the seat. The shopkeeper apologizes for its condition:

"The rats were nesting in it." And then to reassure me: "But they have gone now."

I would just as soon be on the bench with the Jaunpuri mule drivers, but I do not wish to offend Mela Ram, the teashop owner, so I take his chair into the shade and lower myself into it.

"How long have you kept this shop?" `Oh, ten, fifteen years, I do not remember."

He hasn't bothered to count the years. Why should he, outside the towns in the isolation of the hills, life is simply a matter of yesterday, today and tomorrow. And not always tomorrow.Unlike Mela Ram the mule drivers have somewhere to go and something to deliver – sacks of potatoes! From Jaunpur to Jaunsar, the potato is probably the crop best suited to these stony, terraced fields. They have to deliver their potatoes in Landour Bazaar and return to their village before nightfall; and soon they lead their pack animals away, along the dusty road to Mussoorie.

"Tea or lhassi?", Mela Ram offers me a choice, and I choose the curd preparation, which is, sharp and sour and very refreshing.

The wind soughs gently in the upper branches of the pine trees, and I relax in my Sheraton chair like some 18th century nawab who has brought his own furniture into the wilderness. I can see why Wilson did not want to return to the plains when he came this way in the 1850s. Instead he went further and higher into the mountains and made his home among the people of the Bhagirathi valley.

Having wandered some way down the Tehri road, it is quite late by the time I return to the Landour Bazaar. Lights still twinkle on the hills, but shop fronts arc shuttered and the little bazaar is silent.The people living on either side of the narrow street can hear my footsteps, and I hear their casual remarks, music, and a burst of laughter. Through a gap in the rows of buildings I can see Pari Tibbaoutlined in the moonlight. A greenish phosphorescent glow appears to move here and there about the hillside. This is the "fairy light" that gives the hill its name Pari Tibba, Fairy Hill. I have no explanation for it, and I don't know anyone else who has been able to explain it satisfactorily-, but often from my window I see this greenish light zigzagging about the hill.

A three-quarter moon is up, and the tin roofs of the bazaar, drenched with dew, glisten in the moonlight. Although the street is unlit, I need no torch. I can see every step of the way. I can even read the headlines on the discarded newspaper lying in the gutter. Although I am alone on the road, I am aware of the life pulsating around me. It is a cold night, doors and windows are shut, but through the many clinks, narrow fingers of light reach out into the night. Who could still be up? A shopkeeper going through his accounts, a college student preparing for his exams, someone coughing and groaning in the dark.

Three stray dogs are romping in the middle of the road. It is their road now, and they abandon themselves to a wild chase, almost knocking me down. A jackal slinks across the road, looking to right and left, he knows his road-drill to make sure the dogs have gone. Yes, this is an old bazaar. The bakers, tailors, silversmiths and wholesale merchants are the grandsons of those who followed the mad sahibs to this hilltop in the thirties and forties of the last century. Most of them are plainsmen, quite prosperous even though many of their houses are crooked and shaky.

Although the shopkeepers and tradesmen are fairly prosperous, the hill people, those who come from the surrounding Tehri and Jaunpur villages are usually poor. Their smallholdings are rocky fields, and they do not provide them with much of a living, and men and boys have often to come into the hill station or go down to the cities in search of a livelihood.

But as I pass along the deserted street, under the shadow of the clock tower, I find a boy huddled in a recess, a thin shawl wrapped around his shoulders. He is wide-awake and shivering. I pass by, my head down, my thoughts already on the warmth of my small cottage only a mile away. And then I stop. It is almost as though the bright moonlight has stopped me, holding my shadow in thrall.

`If I am not for myself,Who will be for me?And if I am not for others,What am I?And if not now, when?'

The words of an ancient sage bear upon my mind. I walk back to the shadows where the boy crouches. He does not say anything, but he looks up at me, puzzled and apprehensive. All the warnings of well-wishers crowd in upon me – stories of crime by night, of assault and robbery. But this is not Northern Ireland or the Lebanon or the streets of New York. This is Landour in the Garhwal Himalayas. And the boy is no criminal. I can tell from his features that he comes from the hills beyond Tehri. He has come here looking for work and he has yet to find any.

"Have you somewhere to stay?" I asked.

He shakes his head; but something about my tone of voice has given him confidence, because now there is a glimmer of hope, a friendly appeal in his eyes. I have committed myself. I cannot pass on. A shelter for the night – that's the very least one human should be able to expect from another.

"If you can walk some way," I offer, "I can give you a bed and blanket."

He gets up immediately, a thin boy, wearing only a shirt and part of an old tracksuit. He follows me without any hesitation. I cannot now betray his trust. Nor can I fail to trust him...