A Touch of Zen
The sound of one hand clapping
Keeps rap-tap-tapping
Inside the walls of my head
Illuminating the path I tread

I do not seek to walk the paths of seekers of old
For those are stories that have already been told
I seek after that which they themselves did seek
Treading a path of its own; altogether fresh and unique

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Symbol of hope—Newness
Symbol of Light—Newness
Some scorn upon the festivity of New Year because they think, you don’t require a certain moment or a day to resolve the pastness or the newness; it should be an ongoing process. Also old or new, all days pass on to be old.

Newness is a state of mind. For those who have dreams, a new day or date, that specific demarcation gives a sense of rush of energy—from where they will color the canvas of their dreams. For those who do not dare to dream, the same moment does not give the adrenalin rush. In this setting,
Symbol of dreams—Newness.

Time will pass anyway. Those who dream will pass through it—once again.

It is a pleasure and honor for us to introduce a column by David Suzuki, a great Canadian environmentalist of our times. What an apt gift for the New Year.

For all the dreamers who believe in new beginnings,
Happy New Year
Manjit

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The Peepal is the first depicted tree in India which was on a seal discovered at Mohenjodaro, one of the cities of the Indus Valley Civilization (c. 3000 BC - 1700 BC), showing the peepal being worshipped. During the Vedic period, its wood was used to make fire by friction. In the Vedic times, boats were also made of peepal wood.

Used extensively in Ayurveda, this tree has both sweet and bitter taste and has a cooling property. Licking honey placed on peepal leaves is believed to cure speech irregularities. Its bark yields the tannin used in treating leather. Its leaves, when heated in ghee, are applied to cure wounds. Ingesting the bark, fruit and buds with different combination of things cures diseases related with phlegm, bile, inflammation swelling and indisposition etc. The soft bark and the bud of this tree cure 'Prameha' (a disease in which sperms emanate through urine). The powdered form of the fruit of this tree increases appetite and cures numerous diseases.

A peepal tree is generally planted to the east of the house or even in a temple. Eight, eleven or twelve years after the tree has been planted, the upanayan ceremony is performed for the tree in which a round platform is constructed around the tree. Different Hindu gods and goddesses like Ashwattha, Narayan, Vasudev, Rukmini, Satyabhama are invoked and worshipped and then the tree is married to the basil plant.

In Tamil Nadu, peepal and neem trees are planted close to each so that they mix up as they grow and a naga (serpent) idol is placed under them and worshipped. On Amavasya, villagers perform a symbolic marriage between the neem and the peepal. Although this practice is not prescribed by any religious text, there are various beliefs on the significance of 'marrying' these trees. In one such belief, the fruit of the neem represents the Shivalinga (a phallic symbol) and so, the male. The leaf of the peepal represents the yoni (symbolic of the vagina), the power of the female. The fruit of the neem is placed on a peepal leaf to depict the Shivalinga which symbolizes creation through sexual union, and so the two trees are 'married'. After the ceremony, villagers circle the trees to rid themselves of their sins. Women of the house generally take an early morning bath and circumambulate these trees. They do this to be blessed with children or to gain a desired thing or person. According to the Skanda Purana, if one does not have a son, the peepal should be regarded as one. As long as the tree lives, the family name will continue. Any person who waters the tree is believed to earn merit for his progeny, his sorrows are redeemed and diseases cured. The peepal tree is also worshipped to escape from contagious diseases and enemies.

If a girl's horoscope predicts widowhood, she is first married to a peepal tree because in the olden days, when remarriage was forbidden for girls in India, young widows were married to the peepal tree and then allowed to remarry. Hindu girls perform many fasts connected with this tree right from their childhood. A girl who has a probability of becoming a widow must worship the holy fig tree. After taking bath she should purify the soil around the holy fig tree by cow dung, decorate the tree with threads and Ochre and worship it with the help of a Brahmin.

In the Upanishads, the fruit of the peepal is used as an example to explain the difference between the body and the soul: the body is like the fruit which, being outside, feels and enjoys things, while the soul is like the seed, which is inside and therefore witnesses things.

To cut down a peepal is considered a sin equivalent to killing a Brahmin, one of the five deadly sins and according to the Skanda Purana, a person goes to hell for doing so. The cutting of the tree without a proper reason is also considered similar to cutting one's own ancestors. By doing this, one destroys his descent. But cutting of this tree for sacred activities like Yagya (sacrificial fire) is not sinful; on the contrary it helps the attainment of Heaven.

Lord Sri Krishna has said in the Bhagawad Gita that the holy fig tree personifies his own glory. Five-trees (Pancha-vat) are considered sacred in India. They are:

1. Fig tree,
2. A wild fig (Sycamore) tree (Gular),
3. Banyan tree,
4. Pakar (citron-leaved), Indian fig tree,
5. Mango tree.

Among these the holy fig tree is considered the most sacred. A man who plants this tree goes to the abode of almighty God after his death. He can never be tormented by the miseries of Yama-loka or Hell.

Some believe that the tree houses the Trimurti (The Trinity), the roots being Brahma, the trunk Vishnu and the leaves Shiva. The gods are said to hold their councils under this tree and so it is associated with spiritual understanding.

The Brahma Purana and the Padma Purana relate how once, when the demons defeated the Gods, Vishnu hid in the peepal. Therefore spontaneous worship to Vishnu can be offered to a peepal without needing his image or temple. The peepal is also closely linked to Krishna. In the Bhagavad Gita, he says: "Among trees, I am the ashvattha." Krishna is believed to have died under this tree, after which the present Kali Yuga is said to have begun.

The peepal is also sacred to Buddhists, because the Buddha is believed to have attained enlightenment under it. Hence it is also called the Bodhi tree or 'tree of enlightenment'.

Needless to say, the holy fig tree holds a very important place in the Indian civilization—from religious, medicinal and social point of view— invariably holding an anthropologist’s interest.

References:
http://www.gurjari.net/ico/Mystica/html/peepal_tree.htm
http://www.urday.com/peepal.htm
http://spirituality.indiatimes.com/articleshow/-1799077021.cms

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Trotting along on his donkey, Mulla Nasrudin was trying to eat some mulberry-flour. But each time he tried to empty some out of the bag into his mouth, the wind blew it away.
A passing farmer called out:
‘What are you doing, Mulla?’
‘At this rate,’ said Nasrudin, ‘I am not doing any thing at all.’
—Idries Shah, The subtleties of the inimitable Mulla Nasrudin

Concentration is a dual consciousness; that’s why concentration creates tiredness…Meditation does not tire, meditation does not exhaust…Meditation is in the present, pure present. Meditation is immediacy. You can not meditate, you can be in meditation. You cannot be in concentration, but you can concentrate. Concentration is human, meditation is divine.
—Osho, The Orange Book

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture.
—Rumi

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She is a successful businesswoman, always on the go. She takes care of all the bills at home and at the office. Her husband, an artist, sits at home, waiting for the right break and the right platform when he is going to make it big. In the meantime he dabbles with his art work at few places and helps with errands in the house. With the piling bills and he not working, Holly, just as any young wife (she is twenty seven), gets anxious and worked up. Infatuated with the personality of an artist, she hardly understands their likes; she is actually baffled with him: “He always said he’d do it in his own time. Sometimes this meant he wouldn’t do it at all. Deadlines passed. . . I hated it so much that I felt itchy and crackly with rage when it happened.” With her reservoir of patience drying up, she even suggests to him that he could try being a successful plumber.

But there is something else she does. Mostly shouldering responsibility for the economic/financial quarters in the house, she also takes liberties with enjoying her life the way she wants. Young and attractive, she makes friends effortlessly, sometimes good ones, other times ending up at places she should not be. What with the fact that she is married. She hangs out late in pubs and has a one night stand with Rees. He stalks her ever since, perhaps because of the kick he derived out of the act or there is something more he wants from her?? But he keeps saying she was a tiger in bed.

Then Holly fires Deborah from her company for a trifle, not even giving her a chance to recover; she meets with her company’s middle aged client called Stuart. He introduces her to more troubles that include her mindless shopping at an art gallery and a date with Stuart and his buddies/poker players. They are six men and she the presiding woman. She ends up losing at the game and now she owes a huge amount of nine thousand pounds to Vick Norris which she could possibly never pay. The amount keeps increasing with each passing day and suddenly a smooth going life is in a rut.

Dean, the messenger of sorts from the poker group terrorizes and threatens her and once even pees at her house. What a plight for Holly! She would never in her dreams have thought of such consequences. And most of all her husband, the dear Charlie, who cared for her so much that he finally loses patience. In league with Meg (Holly’s dearest and loyal of friends), he takes her to the doctor and Holly is declared suffering from bipolar affective disorder. A perfect trap to kill her and get away with the case of suicide! Meg, the loyal Meg, rescues Holly from a deplete house in Suffolk where Charlie had planned to leave her (or declare her) dead. Order is restored as Charlie is sent to jail and we are happy with the poetic justice.

For a seasoned reader it is easy to perceive who could possibly be responsible for Holly’s misery. More important, are the questions that will preoccupy him/her.

What are the lines of demarcation when you are married? Is it ok to have a one night stand once in while? Will it ever be forgiven? Then knowing it all, why do people still get into the trouble? Is it the escape Holly so badly craves from this life that drives her to a gang of gamblers or merely her nature, just a flaw? There will be various answers and counter questions. We could keep going.

Quite beautifully, the author changes the voice of the narrator. First it is the mind of Holly that speaks, then Meg. In this opportunist set-up, each one gets a chance. But it is more about reallocating, I think. If Holly was actually persecuting happiness, then soon she becomes the persecuted. If she is the light and life of every party and everyone looks up to her positive energy even in her office, Naomi rightly puts it in the end, “Everyone was doing fine until Holly came along.”

It is all about the perspective. And Nicci French proves it structurally by looking through each one’s. And because Meg is Holly’s dear friend, she would never look at her that way.
The author presents us with every perspective and each equally convincing.

More convincingly Nicci tells us that when we err, it is solely our responsibility; there might be times when someone could rescue you, but that will not always be the case. Holly recounts her experience: “When I was a little girl I used to go on long walks with my father. Whenever we got to a fence or a wall, I would clamber up to the top, and he would tell me to jump down into his outstretched arms. I never hesitated. Even when it was high up I would throw myself forward and know he would catch me. . . Then he left and I was flying through the air but there was nobody who could save me anymore, nobody to catch me when I fell.”

Well, even the places from where she fell had changed. Wall is one thing and virtue another. Good book with great psychological insights, worth a read.

================
Catch Me When I Fall
Nicci French
A Penguin Book
ISBN 0-14-301418-8 | Pgs. 300

⁽⁰⁾

Despite the material prosperity in the West, there is a simmering discontent and unhappiness among people. Dr. David G. Myers of Hope College calls this a, ‘spiritual hunger in the age of plenty’. Evidently, material acquisition and success have not been able to create happy people in an equal measure.

Balancing material and spiritual prosperity

If you look around, the people in the western hemisphere are comparatively more prosperous than the ones living on the fringes of countries like India or Bangladesh. They drive better cars, have better housing facilities, better resources, access to a better medical system, and have all the comforts that one can aspire in ordinary circumstances. But still their happiness and life satisfaction index is commensurately lower than many poor countries.

There is a profound reason for such discrepancy. People in the West have adopted a flawed assumption that they can solve all the problems through analysis, pure scientific and logical explanations. E.g. pure and logical explanations can help to propel a rocket into space and map out its astronomical dimensions, but it will not be able to provide an answer when your life seems dull or meaningless for no apparent reason or when you lose a job or every material possession in a single stroke of natural calamity or even when your boyfriend/girlfriend dumps you for another person. Then you need another kind of science to help you come out of that emotional devastation.

In order to live a harmonious life, you have to balance the material pursuit with emotional/spiritual training. Mental and physical are two parts of the same reality and if we ignore one part, we do so by imperiling the balance in our life.

Both material and spiritual pursuits are akin to two embankments of a river. If one embankment is broken down, then the flow of the river is seriously disturbed. Same thing happens in real life. When you become too much involved in material pursuits and don’t pay attention to your spiritual needs, the balance in your life is disturbed. You may succumb to various addictions or become sleepless for no apparent reason.

Go slow and reach faster

Aggressiveness is part of western culture and most of the times it is used to achieve goals and material things within a specified timeframe. According to a North American banter if you have not had a heart attack by the age of forty than you are not a successful person. This undoubtedly symbolizes the philosophy of aggressiveness and possessiveness towards living.

There is nothing wrong with achieving material or professional success. Indeed, it is very essential for a healthy self-esteem of any individual and can make you happy and content to some extent. But if you are always worried about achieving external success in the form of getting an early pay-raise, a promotion or stress yourself to buy an expensive car to impress your neighbor, then there is something seriously amiss in your approach.

What would you do with an expensive car, if restlessness simmers in your heart? What would you do with an early success if you become a victim of heart diseases at the age of forty? On the contrary to your expectations, these material things may bring you more restlessness than the restfulness for which you invested so many efforts and spent so many sleepless nights.

Balance your efforts of achieving external success with deepening the internal satisfaction. Then you will enjoy the fruits of labor with more relish. With this approach, you can have the best of both worlds. Try not to become a person who spoils his health to earn money in the first half of his life and then spend the same hard-earned money to get back the health in the later half of life.

To do so, engage in emotional/spiritual training so that you are able to coach the neglected portion of your soul. It should be kept in mind that spirituality does not necessarily mean adopting a religion; it is a simple device to care for your spirit and can be non-religious. Scientific research has shown that mental/spiritual balance is very important for living a productive life. Controlling your emotions and having mastery over your moods can add valuable experience to your daily living.

These practices, which help control and train the mind and deepen connection with spirit, could be in any form, ranging from Meditation to Gregorian chants. All these practices done with complete commitment and dedication can enrich the core and meaning of life.

Therefore, let us make a novel resolution for 2006: Let us follow ‘The Middle way’; rather than simply deciding that ‘I will eat healthy’ or ‘I will work hard’ or ‘I will lose some weight’, let us work toward balancing aggressive and active modern lifestyle with emotional and spiritual training. The by-product might be that you will end up achieving all that you set out, without having to kill yourself. Not only will this approach help in achieving more success in your external goals but will also deepen the joy and satisfaction in life.

⁽⁰⁾

After a particularly long and grueling negotiating session, delegates last weekend at the international climate convention in that city managed to hammer out an agreement that will see the parties create a long-term plan to reduce heat-trapping emissions after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

That's right. They didn't create an actual plan to reduce emissions over the long term, complete with targets and timelines; they just drafted an agreement to build a plan together.

No targets? No timelines? Can we really call this good news? Yes, we can.

The agreement sets the stage for negotiating bigger emissions cuts needed to prevent dangerous climate change. That we urgently need to make those cuts was more and more evident with every scientific paper presented in Montreal. Climate change is a huge, huge problem, one that threatens world economies and our quality of life in the not-so-distant future. The Montreal agreement keeps the Kyoto process, and the best shot we have at reducing emissions, alive.

Just as important, the agreement for longer-term talks provides some certainty for business. It shows that climate change is not the international community's flavour of the month and it will not go away anytime soon. With the adoption of the Marrakesh accords, there is now clarity around an international carbon market that will lead to clean-energy and energy-efficient technologies being exported to developing nations.

If this session had failed to produce at least a process for long-term discussions, it would have been a disaster. Throughout the negotiations, the United States steadfastly blocked progress and refused to agree to anything post 2012 that would possibly lead to mandatory pollution cuts. The U.S. made it clear that it was "not open to any discussion leading to new commitments."

In the end, delegates had to opt for a two-track process, with the United States agreeing to merely "open and nonbinding" talks, while the rest of the world would pursue a process that could lead to real and substantial climate pollution reductions.

Some have argued that the U.S. track is meaningless, and they are right. However, given the American government's intransigence on the issue of climate change, the fact that they've agreed to continue talking at all shows that the Bush administration may finally be succumbing to international pressure, as well as pressure from within the U.S. itself. Many American states, including California and New York, and 192 U.S. cities, are already engaged in their own emission-reduction processes, many of which mirror Kyoto.

In fact, due in part to these internal efforts, the U.S. is actually well ahead of Canada in reducing greenhouse gases. This puts Canada in an awkward position. The federal government played an important role in Montreal, ensuring climate discussions moved forward. But our own record on reducing emissions is pitiful. Instead, our emissions have gone steadily upwards. And most provincial plans to reduce them are either weak or non-existent. We don't have a California or a New York pushing for innovative change.

Now that we have some hope for long-term reductions at an international level, it's time for Canada to look inwards and start making the changes we need to clean up our own backyard. We need to look at what the current leaders are doing and build on their successes. We need to stop our own internal bickering and finally put some weight behind our words.

First Published on December 16, 2005

Dr. David Takayoshi Suzuki is distinguished Canadian geneticist who has attained prominence as a science broadcaster and an environmental activist. He is also a co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation.

⁽⁰⁾

2. Bludgeon
a) A heavy object
b) Coerce or bully
c) Both a & b
d) None of the above

3. Clumsy
a) Awkward in action or movement
b) Dumb
c) Unartistic
d) None of the above

4. Delict (law)
a) Broken
b) Treason
c) Misdemeanor
d) Both b & c

5. Elegy
a) Temporary
b) Mournful
c) Sorrowful
d) Both b & c

6. Gassy
a) Full of gasses
b) Empty threat
c) Flatulent
d) Both a & c

7. Indue
a) Not likely
b) To endow as a gift
c) Induce
d) None of the above

8. Mirky
a) Shiny
b) Murky
c) Tasteless
d) None of the above

9. Paradisaical
a) Scornful
b) Related to paradise
c) Heavenly
d) Both b & c

10. Scotch
a) To put an end to
b) Crush
c) A type of bottle
d) Both a & b

............................................
Answers:

1. (b) 2. (c) 3. (a) 4. (c) 5 (d) 6 (d) 7 (b) 8 (b) 9. (d) 10 (d)

Your Score:

8-10 Excellent
5-7 Good
1-4 Need improvement

⁽⁰⁾

Eleventh of the twelve children, Loreen had an amazing mother and a great father. Her father’s father had died when he was only five years old, hence he was not very “demonstrative” with affections towards his children, but her mother was an expert at everything. At the age of forty, Loreen realized that she could never “measure up” to her mother because she raised twelve children at a time when there were not too many conveniences. She did almost everything a woman did those days with expertise—be it cooking, baking, sewing, decorating or cleaning—and here she was, with two kids and all the conveniences and yet so unable to deal with life in general.

Born in Ancaster, in a large farm Loreen’s dad worked at the airport all his life. And they were only three kids at home as the older siblings were so far apart in age. There was a difference of twenty years between the youngest and the oldest child. Her younger sister was seven years younger to her and the older sister was by five years. The older ones were closer together and they were like “aunts and uncles” to her because she did not grow up with them.

She has lost four brothers already, three of cancer and one of heart disease. Three of them died before the age of sixty five and her dad died when she was only twenty five, before she had her own children. Loreen got married at the age of twenty three on a blind date. Her youngest sister and her boyfriend played in a band with her now husband’s brother. They introduced them and they dated for a year and remained engaged for a year and then got married in the year 1964 on Valentine’s Day. Shawn, her daughter was born in 1967 and she had a boy four years later. Before the kids she was working in an Insurance Company where she stopped going when she had the first child. Instead, she took a part time job to work with a publisher after the birth of her kids. The publisher was a woman of immense inspiration to her who used to publish a woman’s magazine. A trail blazer and a feminist, she taught about menopause. Loreen also feels proud about having edited one of the books she wrote. Interested deeply in women and their problems, this publisher taught her a lot. Those were the times she was raising two teenagers and she got sick. Not able to know the reason for getting sick, her employer’s knowledge about menopause was timely because she was also simultaneously undergoing quite a bad menopause at that time. But soon her publisher’s husband retired from his job, and she moved up North.

Now Loreen turned to study Psychology and Sociology and started working on a Liberal Studies certificate at McMaster University and Mohawk College. Ironically, after the course, she realized she was best suited for the field of Pharmacy. While she was sick and busy, she did not have the time to visit the doctor, so she went to the pharmacist for what looked like a sore on her lip. Unfortunately she got sicker and sicker and she suspects that there was another woman at work who had this same thing from whom she probably got this virus. In the Fall of ’90, when she was turning 50, she visited her doctor but nothing came out. That was also the time when the chronic fatigue syndrome was talked about, so she talked about it with her doctor, but he dismissed it and said it was merely a psychological thing and sent her to a specialist. The specialist then diagnosed her with a post-viral fatigue syndrome.

That was the time she was already enrolled for the course of “Portfolio Development”. She ended up doing the course with great difficulty after which she was in bed for almost two years. On medical leave now, she always had flu, sore throat and pain in her body. Unable to comb her hair, she cut it short; no one understood what she had. They thought she was just being lazy. Then she gradually started doing yoga, swimming and dance. She did have the illness but she was still able to function as a result. Unfortunately, soon she was diagnosed with osteoporosis. This illness taught her to “enjoy life and use energy wisely”

About five years later, she was doing fine but still would be fatigued. She cooked dinner but did not have the energy to eat it. In hindsight she feels there were a lot of factors that might have triggered her disease. First her mother died of Parkinson’s, then, her sister in law died of breast cancer, her brother died, then her son ended up in Intensive Care, hovering between life and death. About a year and half later she had this disease.

After regaining health to some measure, she started volunteering especially at the Parkinson’s Association, took the Counseling course at the Women’s Centre, started studying Body Mind Spirit and took various Arts courses at the Dundas Valley School of Art. As luck would have it, in 2003, her nephew died on her birthday, she got some polyps removed and her mother in law died. No later, she had a car accident and had brutal head and neck injury. She was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder following that which took almost a year for her to recover. Then she took more Body Mind Medicine courses for getting back to health. In the summer of 2005, she took a Kundalini (yoga) course. Two weeks into that course and she was experiencing a lot of energy, the kind she had never experienced in many past years. It was a “major breakthrough.” She could now walk, do yoga and meditate. Unfortunately, when she started feeling better, her husband was diagnosed with the heart disease. He has had a surgery recently and she hopes things should move towards the better from here on.

Her Inspiration: In the seventies she was much inspired by Wayne Dyer so much so that she also went to listen to him and read a lot of his works. Later she felt off the track, what with the family and responsibilities but his vision always was a source of inspiration which to this day she uses in combination with the Kundalini. In spite of all the odds she believes that one needs “to stop and be grateful”. Her wonderful children and grandchildren are the light of her life. She tries to live “one day at a time and when it is hard, one hour at a time.”

About Regrets: On her part, she thinks, “everything is for a reason, if you don’t go through, you don’t learn and make you reach where you are”.

Her message to the readers: “Believe in now, what we have is today. Life is precious and don’t throw it away. Don’t take everything seriously because if you are not enjoying it, what is the point.”

We would specifically take that seriously!

⁽⁰⁾