Sri's Musings from Bangalore

…what’s the connection? Read on if the subject interests you….

Dear friends,

Happiness….it’s a state of mind – one might say. “The “Art” of Happiness” - it’s not a science. There must be various creative ways to be happy then?

Well, I’ve had this book for the longest time. I got it from another dear friend in Portland (like the “Soul of the Citizen” that I wrote to you about sometime back). This book “The Art of Happiness”, A Handbook for Living by his Holiness The Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler, M.D, beckoned to me as if it were…from the shelf on which I’ve placed a series of books that are on my reading list (which I shared with you a while back too – the reading list I mean; And thanks to many who sent me more selections which I’ve added to the list to buy/borrow and make sure I read).
Link to book on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1573221112/qid=1136809947/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-0150933-9280051?s=books&v=glance&n=283155


I picked “The Art of Happiness” up, just a couple of weeks ago, and started to read. I’m yet to complete it but I’m so happy reading it – that I just could not wait to share my thoughts with you, while I’m only half way thru the book.

If you have read it too, would you share your thoughts, perspectives, joys?
Howard Cutler has written this book by including interviews with the Nobel peace price winner.

This book is written as a dialog, an interview at times.

In a section on “Meditation on the Purpose of Life” which I started to read with sceptism since I thought it would be something profound and difficult for me to grasp, I found something very very simple and a sound advice to overcome frustration and become happy, while in a confused state of mind leading to uncertainly and therefor unhappiness. The Dalai Lama said …

“When life becomes too complicated and we feel overwhelmed, it’s often useful just to stand back and remind ourselves of our overall purpose, our overall goal. When faced with a feeling of stagnation and confusion, it might be helpful to take an hour, an afternoon or even several days to simply reflect on what it is that will truly bring us happiness, and then reset our priorities on the basis of that. This can put our life back in proper context, allow a fresh perspective, and enable us to see which direction to take”

Very commonsensicle, simple and yet profound I thought. The important thing is to internalize this and implement it, to bring back happiness if one finds it slipping away.

In a section on “Lonliness and Connection”, Howard asks his holiness “Do you ever get lonely”. The anwer was, again, a very simple and straight “No”. Howard says that he was unprepared to hear this answer as his expectation was that The Dalai Lama would say … “Of course…every once in a while everyone feels some loneliness…” and he was planning on asking him how he deals with loneliness! After confirming that the answer was indeed a “NO”, that his Holiness never experienced loneliness, Howard asked what he attributed to that (lack of loneliness), to which the reponse was…

“I think one factor is that I look at any human being from a more positive angle. I try to look for their positive aspects. The attitude immediately creates a feeling of affinity, a kind of connectedness” (with anyone and everyone, hence no question of being alone?)

“And it may be partly because on my part, there is less apprehension, less fear, that if I act in a certain way, maybe the person will lose respect or think that I am strange. So, because that kind of fear and apprehension is normally absent, there is a kind of openness, I think it’s the main factor”.

Howard continued struggling to comprehend the scope and difficulty of adopting such an attitude. He questioned as to how could a person achieve the ability to feel that comfortable with people, not have the fear or apprehension of being disliked or judged by other people? Are there any specific methods that an average person could use to develop this attitude?

To which The Dalai Lama responded “My basic belief is that you first need to realize the usefulness of compassion. That’s the key factor. Once you accept the fact that compassion is not something childish or sentimental, once you realize that compassion is something really worthwhile, realize its deeper value, then you immediately develop an attraction towards it, a willingness to cultivate it”

“One could define compassion as the feeling of unbearableness at the sight of other people’s suffering. And in order to generate that feeling one must first have an appreciation of the seriousness or intensity of another’s suffering. So, I think, the more fully one understands suffering, and the various kinds of suffering we are subject to, the deeper will be ones level of compassion”.

There is a whole section on Suffering, feelings of empathy and compassion. In another place in the book, the connectedness of Human beings is dicusses. How cultures tend to claim to be individualist or community oriented and what one really means by having the focus on the individual and questioning whether that really can be….

…It’s all very good reading and will give you immense satisfaction I think.

……………… an now moving on ………

….. as I mentioned in the subject line…to….

…..DAFFODILS……

Daffodils… by William Wordsworth…
[Aside: “Words Worth - The English Training center” the board reads. It’s an English-English named school to train people speaking Indian-English to speak American-English so they can work in call centers? Perhaps that’s what it is. I do not know. But I see the sign board every day on my daily commute to work in the Intel bus. The sign is hung on the small office upstairs, just off of a very busy main street near Koramangala/ Madiwala]

… “Daffodils” - that’s the poem that my 12 year old daughter memorized at school one term, before the Dussera holidays --- the whole of it, for her 6th grade English Literature class!!

I remember the poem most all verses of it, cause I too (like her) had “by-hearted” (memorized) it when I was in class 6 or 8 I do not quite remember which. I remember my English Literature teacher explaining the figure of speech called “hyperbole” when we read the verse …. “Ten thousand saw I at a glance, tossing their heads in a spritely dance”

Actually, now analyzing that verse, the “Ten thousand” may not be a hyperbole after all. That is, IF you consider the tulip garden in Woodburn – small town so close to Portland, that we visited many an Oregon Spring….I think there are a “million tulips” (and daffodils too perhaps), in all the rich colors of the spectrum, luxurious and lovely…and the numbers and varieties may be even outnumbered at the Skagate Valley in WA, that we never finally visited.
Wooden Shoe tulip farm, Woodburn, Oregon: http://www.woodenshoe.com/springshow.html
Skagit Valley: http://www.gonorthwest.com/Washington/northwest/skagit/Skagit_Valley.htm
And the annual Tulip Festival there: http://www.tulipfestival.org/

I did not think that I would be back in India, have a daughter who would read the very same poem and have her own interpretations…

The last stanza in “Daffodils” – express that sheer thoughts of joyful moments of the past can bring happiness in the present!
“For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.”

…………

Continuing on the subject of poems…there is also this poem by Robert Frost, President Kennedy’s favourite I’m told? Esp. the last 4 stanza ----

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.But I have promises to keep,And miles to go before I sleep,And miles to go before I sleep.

My husband had read this poem while he was in school and had even recited it for a competion, he said. It’s the poem titled “Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening”.

……..

So long, wish you much happiness and compassion in your life.

-Sri
PS: The two favourite poems…

Daffodils
by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
By Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,And miles to go before I sleep.

Another nice poem also by Robert Frost:
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.