It’s Diwali - the festival of lights - this weekend.

We’re celebrating with lots of fun, food, fireworks, family and laughter.

Think of light transcending darkness. Or the word “guru” which literally means from dark to light.

What could you shed light on in your life this weekend?

Happy Diwali

Sparking a traditional fire in which you have to put the chippings and logs in with a match is quite extraordinary. The power of one small match can start fires right from your living room fireplace to massive forest fires. In all cases it’s usually the same process but just on a bigger scale.

When you spark a fire in your fireplace, you’ve got to keep it going. If you don’t keep an eye on it every so often, fuel it a bit with more chippings or logs and ensure it’s blazing away, then it will go out. If you don’t babysit it, so to speak, it will go out.

When you think about it, it’s the same as anything else in life really, isn’t it?

For example, if you start a peace march in your town, you’ve got to ensure you keep it going and follow through right through the end. You’ve got to put a bit more wood in it and get more people to join as you go along. If you don’t, the march will probably die down and lose its potential impact.

The same for starting a website like this blog, for example. If I don’t fuel it regularly with my thoughts, ideas and stories, then it’ll burn out. It’ll be gone. Nobody will ever read it. But if I keep at it, enjoy and improve my writing each day, more and more people will come across it and I’ll get to form more links.

Every fire you spark must have enough wood or passion to keep it going. If it doesn’t, the ultimate will happen sooner than you expect.

And guess what… it takes much more energy to start a cold fire than it does to sustain a current one. Many people make that mistake. They start something and have to re-start it because they forget about the sustaining bit.

Think about the top five things you’re really juiced about right now. Are you fueling it regularly or are you going to let it die down? What about things you’re doing but not passionate about - what are you going to do with them? I say you either you rekindle the passion or you let it go.

The bottom line: whenever you spark a fire, it’s easier to sustain it than to restart it so choose the right option for where you are.

Buddhist tradition teaches mindfulness as a way of progressing along the path of enlightenment or nirvana, the place of complete purity and total happiness.

Mindfulness is the practice of doing physical things perfectly - in a state of emptiness - in which we become consciously ‘one’ with whatever physical or mental activity we are currently engaged in. It is a way of doing something without thinking and becoming one with your activity.

Let’s take myself as an example. Playing the Tabla could be a conscious thinking process - or it could be one of practicing mindfulness in which I clear my mind before I play, allowing my focus on the Tabla only and then letting myself play whatever comes to me allowing the drum to take my fingers in whatever it wants. Usually it’s the latter for me, and I’m still working on trusting and practicing mindfulness.

Take the example of a skier in the Alps. He could direct his energy high atop the snow mountains consciously moving his skiies, but that would only create separation between his skies and himself. The other thing he could do, which is in line with practicing mindfulness, would be to think of himself as the skies and the skies as himself. By clearing out all other thoughts, fears, questions, etc from his mind, he can be open to letting the skies take him in the direction required. The skier, who is the skies, will know best what it can and cannot do on the snow mountains.

Most people think to much in life. They don’t practice living as much as they ought to. They think too much about what they do, who they are, and how they do what they do. What they should realise is that we are actually the thing that we do.

The idea is to make your mind still so that you are empty and can be connected with the physical activity you are about to perform, and as you recognize you are both one, let that emptiness you have created guide you in perfection.

This topic is deep and could be difficult to understand. Ask me a question or two in the comments box and I’ll share my thoughts in answers. I am no perfect person to speak on this as I’m not enlightened in the Buddhist terms, but I feel I have a good enough grasp on this topic to share my thoughts.

In the book Surfing the Himalayas, author and snowboarder Frederick Lenz takes a trip to Nepal to snowboard the Himalayas. In his pursuit of snowboarding, he meets a Tibetan Buddhist monk who he becomes fond of and learns about enlightenment and nirvana.

When he asks Master Fwap (the monk who he met with) the meaning of karma, the monk explained that Frederick had known all about karma, and many other mystical things in his past lives.

“He said that all the knowledge from my previous incanations was contained in what he referred to as my ‘other memory’.”

This “other memory” is really all about the philosophy that within us, we have all the information we need and we know everything. Our job is to really use what we have in our environment, in our books and through living to unlock and open our “other memory.”

How do we do that?

“Master Fwap told me that if I would simply stop all my thoughts for just a few minutes and clear my mind of distracting influences, my other memory would start functioning, and I would be able to answer my own question about karma.”

I believe that. There is true power in learning how to retrieve things from my “other memory” on my own. What do you believe?

In the last few days, Sol has done a great job getting the marketing going for our new Tabla terms beginning in the next two weeks. The Tabla is a North Indian percussion instrument of which there are two drums, one smaller than the other. Both are hand percussions, played together using the fingers.

I’m giving away free tabla lessons starting next week for kids and we’re kicking off for the first time, classes for adults. If you’re interested, visit www.YoungDrummers.com and fill out your details and we’ll get in touch.

If you’ve wanted to learn an instrument but never got round to it, now’s your chance to start. And if you want to take up something social, fun and challenging, start here.

Also, I’d be really grateful if you could help spread the word on these limited number free tabla lessons. Email your friends and family, send a Facebook message and post a blog.

It’s the Jain festival of Paryushana this week. It started on Saturday and lasts for eight days. The overall purpose of the festival is to ask for forgiveness of your past deeds. I attended an evening event in North London on Sunday night and there were two devoted young female ascetics from the Jain Vishva Bharati organisation giving a short talk.

The talk was given using simple metaphors through which they shared some profound wisdom. Here are some key points I picked up:-

• We are stuck in a cycle of birth and rebirth. She used the week to explain this. On Sunday you are born. Monday you grow up and complete your education. Tuesday you get married. Wednesday you have children. Thursday you fall ill. On Friday, you are hospitalised and on Saturday, you depart the body you’re residing in.

• Then she turned the word WEEK into WEAK and proceeded to explain the acronym W.E.A.K. which deludes us and keeps us trapped in this cycle of birth and re-birth. (The goal of Jainism is to get out of this cycle and achieve liberation).

• ‘W’ stands for worry - what we are all filled with. ‘E’ stands for ego. She points out a statistic that 98% of all our problems are down to our inability to keep our ego in check. ‘A’ stands for anger and the final letter, ‘K’ stands knot. We are tied up to materialistic desires and continuously forget our spiritual nature and that of the soul. The idea is to untie the knot and be free of such things that hinders the souls quest for Moksha (liberation).

from Journal Chretien

The Thoughts of the ‘Saint of the Gutters’ Who Dedicated Her Life To The Poor

CALCUTTA, INDIA (ANS) — The year was 1975 and I had received a phone call at my London, England, newspaper office, asking if I would be free to fly to India to interview a lady called Mother Teresa at her headquarters in the Missionaries of Charity home in central Calcutta. Mother Teresa had just become famous after, in 1970, British journalist, Malcolm Muggeridge, went to Calcutta to do a special documentary on her work for BBC-TV.

Her words still live with me today and so, as we approach the anniversary of her death, I thought I would share with you my meeting with this extraordinary woman who was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Macedonia, on August 27, 1910. Her family was of Albanian descent.

At the age of twelve, she felt strongly the call of God. She knew she had to be a missionary to spread the love of Christ. At the age of eighteen she left her parental home in Skopje and joined the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns with missions in India. After a few months’ training in Dublin she was sent to India, where on May 24, 1931, she took her initial vows as a nun.

From 1931 to 1948 Mother Teresa taught at St. Mary’s High School in Calcutta, but the suffering and poverty she glimpsed outside the convent walls made such a deep impression on her that in 1948 she received permission from her superiors to leave the convent school and devote herself to working among the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta.

Although she had no funds, she depended on Divine Providence, and started an open-air school for slum children. Soon she was joined by voluntary helpers, and financial support was also forthcoming. This made it possible for her to extend the scope of her work.

On October 7, 1950, Mother Teresa received permission from the Holy See to start her own order, “The Missionaries of Charity”, whose primary task was to love and care for those persons nobody was prepared to look after. In 1965 the Society became an International Religious Family by a decree of Pope Paul VI.

A giant to the have-nots of life

When Mother Teresa first came into the room where we were to conduct the interview, I soon realized that that although she was small in stature — she stood only 4-foot-11-inches tall — she was a giant to the have-nots of life that she ministered to during her six decades on the subcontinent of India, as well as others around the world. Her friends were the starving, the dying, the poor.

As a young reporter, I immediately warmed to this gentle woman who went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize, for she had seen more poverty than anyone I had ever met. Speaking in the founding, festering slum where she made her simple home, I was surprised to hear her express pity for the “poverty-stricken West.”

“The spiritual poverty of the Western World is much greater than the physical poverty of our people,” she told me, as the fan whirred above us, trying to alleviate the unbearable heat of that Indian city.

Emptiness

“You, in the West, have millions of people who suffer such terrible loneliness and emptiness. They feel unloved and unwanted. These people are not hungry in the physical sense, but they are in another way. They know they need something more than money, yet they don’t know what it is.

“What they are missing, really, is a living relationship with God.”

Mother Teresa cited the case of a woman who died alone in her home in Australia. Her body lay for weeks before being found. The cats were actually eating her flesh when the body was discovered. “To me, any country which allows a thing like that to happen is the poorest. And people who allow that are committing pure murder. “Our poor people would never allow it.”

And the teeming millions of the poor of the Third World have a lesson to teach us in the affluent West, Mother Teresa declared.

“They can teach us contentment,” she said, her leathery face gently smiling. “That is something you don’t have much of in the West.

“I’ll give you an example of what happened to me recently. I went out with my sisters in Calcutta to seek out the sick and dying.

Gratitude

“We picked up about 40 people that day. One woman, covered in a dirty cloth, was very ill and I could see it. So I just held her thin hand and tried to comfort her. She smiled weakly at me and said, ’Thank you.’ Then she died. “She was more concerned to give to me than to receive from me. I put myself in her place and I thought what I would have done. I am sure I would have said, ’I am dying, I am hungry, call a doctor, call a Father, call somebody.’ “But what she did was so beautiful. I have never seen a smile like that. It was just perfect. It was just a heavenly gift. That woman was more concerned with me than I was with her.”

Starving

Mother Teresa, who had a wonderful way of making you feel you were the most important person in the world when you were talking to her, told me of another incident.

“I gave another poor woman living on the streets a bowl of rice,” she said. “The woman was obviously starving and she looked in wonder as I handed it to her. “She told me, ‘It is so long since I have eaten.’

“About one hour later, she died. But she did not say, ’Why hasn’t God given me food to eat, and why has my life been so bad ?’

“The torture of hunger and pain just finished her, but she didn’t blame anybody for it. This is the greatness of our poor people.”

Mother Teresa added : “We owe a great debt of gratitude to those who are suffering so beautifully. They teach us so much.”

She also told of her battle against abortion in Calcutta. “We have sent word to clinics, hospitals and police stations, not to destroy babies, but to send them to us and we will give them to families who want them.

“At birth, we arrange for adoption also to foreign countries, as well as in India.”

And she had harsh words for abortionists. “Life is a God-given gift and who has the right to destroy life ?” she said. “God’s life is in that human body. “I believe abortion is a reason why there is so much trouble in the world today. People have ceased loving God, and they think they can do without Him.”

When I flushed as I asked Mother Teresa her age at that time, she told me : “There is no need to be embarrassed. I’m 64.”

She added with a twinkle in her eye : “I’m getting old now aren’t I ? But it’s a wonderful thing to be able to spend all those years doing something beautiful for God.”

This incredible Catholic nun, revered for her tireless dedication to the world’s most wretched, died on Friday, September 5, 1997 surrounded by grieving sisters of her order. She was 87.

The one technique that has no side effects, can always stop others from responding and has the power to bring about change is non-violence. It is the act of refraining from violent thoughts, words and actions.

Who better to turn to for guidance on non-violence than Mahatma Gandhi. As Gandhi travelled the country mingling and speaking to the masses, he gave them this technique to which the British had no response. By abstaining from violence Gandhi wrested the moral advantage. He even managed to break the law and demonstrate injustice through living non-violence.

Since Gandhi, other major politicians have tried to use the technique of the non-violence in pursuit of their freedom. Martin Luther King, Jr said, “Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time.”

Most of us need to learn to use this technique in every day life. If you’re driving and some cuts you up, or tailgates, or nearly hits your car, that desire to get back at the person has now been instilled in most of us. How can you bring nonviolence into this situation?

It’s like you grip the wheel tighter about to swerve and take revenge, but all of a sudden something kicks in… call it a higher sense or something and it brings you to act non-violently. But you’ve still spoken and thought violently.

Use non-violence not just in your actions, but your thoughts and words too.

Turning to our own time, it was obvious to me, and to millions of other ordinary people, that the results of invading Iraq would be far more catastrophic than those of continuing to contain Saddam’s Baathist regime with sanctions and the ongoing United Nations inspections. But apparently that was not obvious to those who wielded power.

Perhaps the further away we are from the actual decision-making process the easier it is to think rationally without the reptilian brain-stem screaming that we must do something.

Non-violence works. You just need to observe your life from a distance to see it.

This morning, I was reading Jawarhalal Nehru’s speech on the granting of the country’s independence on August 15th, 1947. It seems to be more fitting today than ever before.

For aspiring writers and lifestyle designers, it is a beautifully written speech that teaches each one of the true meaning of vision. Jonathan Swift said, “Vision [is] the art of seeing things invisible.” It is the work of leaders. It is the careful planning of a very cool life.

A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long supressed, finds utterance.

The above sentence taken from the speech is brilliant for our spiritual lives too. When we open our eyes and ears to be more aware, more atoned to our environment and to ourselves, we will notice that we have grown a bit more out of our shell and we are more alive!

The power of commitment, desire and the people’s dedication to their country is portrayed in this sentence here:

Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again.

And to finish that paragraph, like a true leader and writer, Nehru goes on to add the excitement which is the vision:

The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?

As a British Asian, I feel a sense of gratitude to our land of origin for the people who have lived centuries before independence and fought for the country’s freedom. It is something I feel more young people need to take note of. We cannot continue to take such things for granted. We have this freedom because of our ancestors, but now we need to accept that the “freedom and power bring responsibility”.

How did India do in the first two decades of it’s independence?

As I re-read the speech by Jawarhalal Nehru and in particular, the following paragraph, I began to wonder whether any real progress had been made between 1947 and 1967.

That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we may fulfil the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today. The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.

If we look at India today, there is still poverty. In fact, 70% of the population is poor. There is a lot of disease in the country and definitely a lack of equality with regards to the opportunities the country is presenting.

The public didn’t agree that “Mera Bharat Jawan“. In fact, the lack of faith and confidence of the general public and some politicians is what I believe made the first two decades quite lowkey.

But today, there is major progress. India herself is developing into a fine country that is to be one of the world’s largest economies and it is certainly today, living up to Nehru’s line:

We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell.

And to end this post, a worthwhile analysis of the years that lie in front of India is this important message:

To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.

We have hard work ahead. There is no resting for any one of us till we redeem our pledge in full, till we make all the people of India what destiny intended them to be. We are citizens of a great country on the verge of bold advance, and we have to live up to that high standard. All of us, to whatever religion we may belong, are equally the children of India with equal rights, privileges and obligations. We cannot encourage communalism or narrow-mindedness, for no nation can be great whose people are narrow in thought or in action.

Take a few minutes to read the full speech here.

The ideas of peace, unity, love, compassion, non-violence and faith need to be at the forefront of our everyday discussions. There is less and less of it going in my local town and it’s time to step it up. Our community is strong, vibrant and active, but there is more talk of violence, sex, drugs and drink rather than peace, love, compassion, environment, unity and faith. It needs to replace gossip. It needs to stimulate people to think creatively, constructively and openly. We all need dialogue in our life.

We need more people to discuss these things. We need them to share them with their friends. This is not profit-making. This is joy-and-bliss-sharing. We need to bring them together on a regular basis, to share ideas, common themes and ways forward, etc.

With that in mind, I’m proposing a monthly (or regularly scheduled) meetup called Breakfast Conversations in which individuals are invited to join a round-table creative dialogue, discussion and collaboration on a focused theme. If you’re anywhere in London, travelling through our city, then please come. But only come if you’re juiced about love, compassion, faith, peace, unity and togetherness. If you are just interested and want to find out more, you are also welcome.

I prefer conversations like these to take place over breakfast - the start of the day provides each and everyone of us with a fresh outlook on the chosen theme and a great way to start the day.

With that in mind, I’ve gone ahead and selected the first date. I’ve gone for a weekday morning and a 9am meetup. I’m experimenting with the weekdays. If you want to come but can’t because you are working, please let me know. It’s best to run these things when there’s a majority presence.

The first Breakfast Conversations will take place on Tuesday 21st August 2007 at 9.00am at Amano Café, Northwick Park, Watford Road, Harrow, HA1 3TZ.

I’m hoping you’ll be able to make it. Even if there’s just two of us, this will go on. It’s nice if you can let me know if you’ll be coming. To do that, just leave a comment saying you’re coming. If you want to email me, my email is kavit@kavitharia.com.