The liver counts are close enough to normalcy that doc has put me on a 2 week trial without steroids.  Of course, the steroids have been coming down for a few months now.  The side effects of tapering the steroids have been rapid and significant.  It shows the number of levels that steroids impact. The puffiness on the cheeks have reduced.  My lungs seem much stronger – that is reflected in my walks.  I am also experiencing a lot of muscle and joint pain.  Plenty of stiffness.  Appetite is down significantly.   It was also hard to concentrate mentally for the last 2 weeks; seems better now.  It is said that mood swings are a common side-effect during a steroid taper.  There were certainly some of those too.  Sleep that was an anaemic 5-6 hours a day is now a sleeping beauty-like 8-9 hours!  Have been walking 4-5 Kms a day.  Tired legs being why it isn’t more.  Amita keeps saying that steroids probably played a huge role in keeping me up and going in the weakest of times, and we should be patient (that I am!) in easing it out.

All in the family are well.  Please keep us in your prayers.

Musings

Echoes in Silence

Indian religious and a-religious folklore is full of impossible symbolisms.  None greater than the war-between-cousins stage for the most revered epic.  A close second, for me growing up, was the symbolism of Dakshinamurthy – a form of Shiva and a bestower of knowledge and wisdom.  The most baffling part of this lore is that Dakshinamurthy taught the four sons of Brahma in Silence.  I remember being spun around as a kid with this concept.

I am starting to have some observations on this that gives me some insights into this extra-ordinary concept.  It seems hard to see this work for Physics and Math instruction! But it seems to work for self-knowledge – which is all these sages worried about!

Doc Sharat has been an angel of angels for us.  He is incredibly prompt in replying to SMSes and questions and is always there for us.  There was a time a few weeks ago when a number of sms-es were met with silence for a few days.  It caused an eruption of our fears.  Soon we were wondering if he was leaving for greener pastures; we were forming strategies on how to cope, we were rationalizing that he is human after all and is entitled to leave for greener pastures to take care of his family! etc… It turned out that he was in Mumbai for a conference and could not return our SMS.  We could hear the echoes of our thoughts and fears in the silence.

Great counselors do exactly this.  I remember my trips to Leonilla to understand myself.  She always gave me openings that allowed for pathways and ideas. She did this without casting opinions, being non-judgemental, asking the simplest of questions, and not offering solutions. Most importantly, just being there with all her energy, presence and best wishes.   The echoes of my thoughts in that silence offered all the wisdom.  No wonder Amita’s skype sessions are so popular.  Maybe some of us talk too much.  Maybe, the age old adage of Humans being designed having one mouth and two ears is the Dakshinamurthi!

Vipassana’s “Noble silence” is another Dakshinamurthi.  Man! The echoes of your thoughts can get deafening in the 10 days of “Noble Silence” — that is, silence of body, speech and mind. No communicating with other participants, nay not even looking at other participants.  No writing.  No reading.  No Phones.  The energy it takes to be that way is astounding and the self-knowledge gained the observation that happens in this Dakshinamurthi is spectacular.  So profound, that I would credit that experience to pulling me through the last 15 months.

As an aside, there are other interesting symbolisms associated with Dakshiniamurthi.  His left leg is crossed over the right knee in Virasana, his lower right hand poised in Chinmudra, which indicates Perfection, and his lower left clasps a bunch of palm-leaves to indicate that he is the master of the established teachings. On his upper right, he holds the drum which indicates he is in harmony with Time and Creation, because it is vibration which manifests as Form. His upper left hand holds a flame, the fire of Knowledge which destroys ignorance. (Source Wikipedia)

Sharing

Has there been a better poem written?  A better vision for self ever written?  A better vision for country ever written?  I am sharing Rabindranath Tagore’s  Chitto jetha bhayashunyo (Where the mind is without fear), which I am sure most of us would have encountered this poem; but like all great poems, it offers us something new everytime we read it.

Written by Rabindranath Tagore before India’s independence, it represents Tagore’s dream of how the new, awakened India should be. The original Bengali language poem was translated by the poet himself and was included in the Nobel Prize in Literature-winning Gitanjali in 1912.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitto_Jetha_Bhayshunyo

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action;

Into that heaven of freedom,let my country awake.

Update

More ups than downs the last fortnight.   My liver is easing towards normalcy.  Steroids are down to 10Mg a day.  Rest of the meds stay the same.  Will see how my body reacts to the reduced medicines.  My protein levels are stable.  Weight is a much more defined 68Kgs – more muscles and stability.  Diet is great and rich with good stuff.  Limbs are still a shadow of the old; hopefully they will add some muscle. 

I picked up a mild form of Zoster (shingles), a viral skin rash that necessitated a dose of anti-viral medicines.  The infection seems under control and is directly a result of my immuno-suppressed state. Zoster can be very painful, but so far, I seem to have lucked out.  Let us see. 

My favourite Swamiji, Swami Muktananda from Anandashram visited us on the 4^th and I did a full length namaskaram – my first in 15 months.  That was thrilling to me. I kept my Table Tennis date with Nisha, Ashwin and Amita.  Was not able to play my fancy shots but did enough to stay in the game.  My mind alternately mourned at the loss of skills but marvelled at the wonder of playing TT as a family – We never did it when we were all healthy!  That is Lyf.  Forty years ago, I started all my racquet sports with Table Tennis and here I am again starting my second innings with TT.  Have resumed my walking – good 3-3.5 KMs trail at one shot.  I do not seem to be tiring as much after exertions. Have re-started mild lifting.  It is amazing how much resilience is needed for convalescence.   Pneumonia knocked backed my 7-8Kms walk and here I am trying to build it up again.  The ups and downs have to weathered constantly; the same road has to be walked again many times.  Life in a “c program FOR loop construct”.

Ashwin has finished his mid terms.  Nisha left to Chicago and seems to have a busy quarter.   Amita is well and trying to find an optimal level of engagement with her increased counselling workload on Skype. It is fantastic to see her offer so much through the online medium and helping so many around the world.

October 4 was my fiftieth birthday.  Lots of love and good wishes came my way.  We did something fulfilling on that day. Thamar, a good friend, tirelessly worked to bring all that was needed for blood and platelet transfusion at St Johns hospital a year and quarter ago.  He contacted over a 100 people, 50 probably came to the hospital and 20 gave blood and platelets.  We started to call them and thank them.  It was touching to see their humility – a lot of them were thanking me for calling them!  Could not help but think that this could happen only in India.  We see the extreme limits of selfishness and selflessness in Incredible India.

Musings

Meditating on boredom

Ashwin asked me a great question- “what do you do when you walk?”.  I thought for a minute and answered – “Of course there are plenty of moments when my mind wanders, but mostly – I walk”.  Only that morning a dear friend in the complex suggested that I put on some music while walking.  I probably get asked twice or thrice a week “How do you spend time?”.  These are super well-meaning people, politely asking “Don’t you get bored out of your mind not working and sitting at home?”.

CD Fisher a Psychologist defines boredom as “an unpleasant, transient affective state in which the individual feels a pervasive lack of interest and difficulty concentrating on the current activity.” To me, seeds of boredom are sown when the mind is split.  One part of the mind is trying to do what is in front of it – combing, reading, walking, planning, preparing, etc.. The other part of the mind has labelled it as tedious and is looking for something else to do or escape; vacation, changing jobs, playing, being with friends, drugs, hurrying into work etc..

A lot of times we experience “good times” when we indulge in these escapes.  Boredom kicks in when the “escapes” run out of steam.  The vacation contemplated as desirable, is contradicted by the mind with past vacations that did not deliver what it was supposed to, or has lost its freshness because they are too frequent or expensive or …

It seems, so far, by the grace of the universe, to date, that boredom is not part of my life’s vocabulary or experiences.   I seem to have avoided boredom in the first part of my life because my escapes were always fresh and interesting – sports, reading, playing, learning, friends, service always consumed me.  I seem to have avoided boredom in the last decade or so by being in the present moment.  By walking while walking, listening while listening, praying while praying, reading while reading etc..

Of course, sleeping while meditating is also effective in warding off boredom!  The trick to fooling Ashwin and Nisha is to keep the eyes open while meditating!! I am trying to learn the subterfuge.

The Spectacles we wear

I met someone who had left his high paying corporate job to join a non profit organization. He eloquently said how his wife made him put his family first and hence he joined the non profit world.  Then I happened to talk to his wife, a professional, and she was expounding how putting family first was not always the right thing.  To me, it was a wonderful reinforcement of how all of us see through the coloured lenses of our desires and beliefs.  The colors we see are unique to us and painted by our desires and NOT by any absolute event or experience – because there are none!  In this experience, I saw what I wanted to, the gentleman said what he wished for, and his wife said something she believed in – all through the lenses of our own desires and beliefs.

Sharing

The following is a very interesting talk by Malcolm Gladwell – a great story teller.  It elaborates how “relative standing” defines persistence and excellence in math and science.  It provokes an interesting view that joining a category B institution might be better for some us than a category A institution, because being a topper in a category B institution is better than a middle-of-the-road guy in a category A institution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UEwbRWFZVc

The following is an absolute master piece of a song by AR Rehman.  He reminds me so much of our former president APJ Abdul Kalam.  I was struck by Kalam’s baby-like innocence and boyish enthusiasm when I met him at the Rashtrapathi Bhavan.  President Kalam seemed a rare human being – untouched by his extra-ordinary gifts and power.  Rehman seems to be in the same genre – he seems to be getting more innocent as he is getting more accomplished.  His smile in the video is something to freeze for posterity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlaZSx6tqRo