Time!!! This concept of time that we are all trapped in? Is it real? Or just a dream? Or is it a dream that is true?:)

I am on a one more intercontinental flight, as I am writing this. Tears are flowing through the outer corners of my eyes down my cheeks… No, not because the airline has upgraded me to a business class, for whatever reason. I can’t care less about that, so long as this body ‘instrument’ is in one sound piece. Just tears of Gratitude for the Life lived thus far. Thinking of Swamiji and His infinite Grace.🙏🏻 

Soothing music through my headphones puts me in a state of reflection again. Time to pause. Long flight. Plenty of time for this. A gentleman sitting next to me, dressed in a business casual attire is glued to some movie. I don’t feel like watching anything. In fact, I don’t even remember last time I saw a movie (apart from a few YouTube documentaries). I don’t even have a TV:).

I would rather remain a director of my own movie, called ‘Life’. Having said this, sometimes I am not sure, if I am a boss or an actor on stage, when it comes to this La Vie film. I don’t know, if it’s me writing the Script or I am just playing out the story that has already been written. And then, there are times, when I feel like I am none of the two, but a sheer spectator watching the movie scenes unfold. Fascinating, to say the least. Life in all its colours. With lots of suspense, guaranteed!

But why is this movie on a fast forward mode? I feel like I’ve been driving a Ferrari for many years now. Maybe too much identification with the ‘doing’, with the personhood here?… Or maybe it is time to press a ‘pause’ button?…

I’ve got a headache and a slight fever since last night. Rarely do I get these. My body is definitely telling me to put the breaks on. ‘Take a pill, don’t suffer’, my mom would normally say under these circumstances. I refuse. My body is my temple. I am careful (though not anal) in what I let this instrument process. I’ve never taken any substance, nor ever even smoked anything, for that matter. No pull to even try. No need. I just need to catch up with my sleep right now.

But why is my life advancing at such an intense speed? It’s all self-imposed. I am aware of this. Monday -Friday, January-June-December, one year, two years, five years, a decade… Yes, people get fascinated about my life story, my vagabond adventures. I try to keep them low key though, skipping many stints in between. I don’t want anyone to get a ‘head attack’:), were they to learn about all my crazy moves. Impressing someone is not in my agenda. Plus, I am a pretty private person by nature.

‘But how old are you, if you don’t mind?’ This is a reaction I get (with almost no exceptions) when I allow someone to scratch a bit of a surface of my life. And I don’t necessarily like this (the fascination part). I’ve never been an attention seeker. Quite the opposite, I don’t feel comfortable with too much attention. Always a backbencher. I’ve been blessed to bathe in ample of love growing up, hence this department is quite solid & full within me. Hunting for constant validation & approval is not part of my makeup.

People find it difficult to fit me into some draw. Our human brain likes patterns, labels. But this 6ft body just does not fit anywhere. My life has not been very linear, hence this problem. Fortunately, or unfortunately:). Even to me, at times, it seems like I’ve lived quite a few lives in this body by now. All my conscious making & shaping.

And here I am, traversing the oceans once again. Upon landing, my daily mountain hikes will get replaced by walks in shadows of concrete building towers. My meditation sessions amidst serenity of Tianshan valleys will be substituted with and challenged by a cacophony of a big cosmopolitan city again. The change in weather, soil, frequencies… time zones… It will be quite a bit for this body to handle.

And not only! I have to look fresh and sound coherent, leading an online guided meditation session in my native language upon landing. A huge challenge for me! Not so much physical, as mental. First, I don’t really do guided meditations per se myself. But more importantly, I lack vocabulary in my mother tongue. I know, it’s a bit of a shame. But having lived outside my home country for almost 2/3rds of my life, I tend to think in a language other than my own (yet I don’t sound like a native speaker in any of these:)). I usually find myself ruminating in English… or recently, even in Russian, as this is the only language I could survive with in Central Asia, where I spent most of my summer.

It’s funny how our brains operate. I used to be fluent and even teach yoga in Mandarin, when I lived in China a decade back. But over the years I started losing its fluency. Even German was under my belt once upon a time, when I used to reside in Germany. And French… Gee, I lost it completely.

‘Oh, you have a talent for languages’, a customer in line behind me told me at the airport cafe this morning, as I was ordering iced coffee to cool my pitta down. I’ve been severely sleep deprived over the last few days. ‘No, I don’t believe in talents’, I smiled. ‘I believe in hard work’. He nodded his head, though his eyes were a give away, that he was not fully convinced.

Gosh, probably many more coffees or black teas are awaiting for me, upon landing. I will have to catch up with my online diploma course, too, qualifying me to lead yoga classes in my native land. I have plenty of yoga certificates from India, but no sports background as per local legal requirements. I signed up for it, though I am still not convinced, if I should be going ahead with it. I am not even sure if I am ever going teach it there full time.

Lina in me is resisting this. I am pretty law abiding (well, I better be with two law degrees in my pocket). But I am a system rebel. I feel strangled when somebody tries to squeeze me into some frame. I can’t breathe. I am too used to my freedom. Freedom for which I take full responsibility, of course. Moral principles, the vertical link with my Higher Self, with the Divinity, is above everything else. Once this one is in order, all horizontal (human-to-human, etc.) connections fall into place automatically.

Will I ever make a full use of this course? Or is it just a waste of my time & money? If I say ‘yes’ to this course, I have to say ‘no’ to my other aspirations. One of them being, to give a big kick to my Hindi, so that I could understand Swamiji’s satsangs and would not have to shop for translations post each of His sessions. I feel like biting my fingers, when my ears catch a theme of Swamiji’s discourse, but I fail to understand the details. A lot gets ‘lost’ in translation, when listening to other people’s ‘added’ wisdom:). 

Above all, what are my priorities in life, as this dance seems to pick up speed with each passing year? Where is the time for this ‘nonsense’ formal education (excuse my language), if I want to merge with God more than anything else in life? No diploma can provide me with any shortcuts or privileges towards the Divine. Is it some fear driving me to do the course in order to protect, to safeguard my future? What future? Life is happening right now.

My head mind is already the biggest obstacle in my sadhana, and here I would be trying to crystallize and memorize more concepts. What nonsense! It’s good to have my intellect in place to start with. It gives me viveka, helping my vairagya. However, this limited mind, constantly labelling things and surviving on memory, eventually, will have to take a leap of faith and dissolve completely into the heart centre. No ego residue leftovers! Oh, Swamiji!!! When?!?!…. I feel like I am running out of time. Even my dreams often echo this theme… running late for flights, not being able to finish packing suitcases in time for my next adventure…

Maybe it is time to simplify my life, time to truly pause. Before I know it, another decade will have gone by, and I will still be on this merry-go-round. Time to breathe, to reflect carefully upon the choices I make moving forward. Life will just go by like a blink of an eye. ‘I’ don’t want to ‘leave’ like this, not as a pundit, for sure. I want to discover my Home, before it is time to drop this set of clothes. Oh, Mother Divine! Swamiji!!!

Sorry for boring you with my long ramblings; you must be exhausted 😥 just by reading this alone. Most likely, you have not even reached till here. Imagine, someone actually living all this! 🙂 No, no, no, absolutely no complaints. I am truly in love with life, in love with the world. Just a deep underlying longing to pierce the veil and unearth my True essence. Eternal Gratitude to the Divine & Swamiji for everything 🙏

P.S. Dear Medha Sri, what button did you push in me during our writing workshop, that I could not stop writing on my flight today?!?:)…. Thank you so very much for all the early morning sessions. Invaluable! 🙏😊

Posting this during my layover in Istanbul.