The month was a fascinating time. A week before Ashwin left, I was a bit of a mess; distraught over Ashwin leaving and physically very weak from the steroid withdrawal. Then something happened.   I did not try to overcome the sadness. I did not try to label it as bad or unwarranted, and completely accepted the sadness and of me being sad. Magic happened. In that being, an almost euphoric state emerged. It was a bit crazy. Suddenly, there was plenty of wisdom to see him off with happiness, grateful to everything that allowed this event to happen and fully trusting in the future. I realized that, 2 years ago, I would have given my right arm to be alive on this day. The little fellow left and I fist pumped towards him at the airport, energized and excited for him. Must have confused him to no end to see his Dad crying at the slightest provocation a week back and now genuinely happy to see him travel to his next phase in life! Not easy being around me.

Amita left and her parents moved in. A testing time for me, (after all, this is the first time I was without Amita in 2 ¼ years) turned out to be without incident. Amita’s parents were incredible and just willed me to good health. It was a joy to hear skype accounts of Amita’s and Ashwin’s trysts in beautiful California and Ashwin’s process of settling into the US – my other home. He was daunted but Nisha’s experience and wisdom, I think, helped him immensely. It is not easy to suddenly see peers who all seem physically so much bigger, who are loud and who do not understand your speak!! But University of Southern California has a family oriented ethos which showed during orientation.

Medically, I am doing very well. The blood counts are as stable as Newtons’ laws!! It is close to 2 months without steroids and hopefully it is in the rear view mirror. It has certainly left its mark; lots of joint and muscle pain when I exercise, some cataract and dry eyes. Liver counts are steady. The tinkering with the BP medications has caused some fluctuation on the creatine levels (kidney function). Some more tinkering is imminent to find a good balance. My energy levels are very good. Have started walking for an hour – while, I find myself dead tired at the end of the hour, it is extremely enjoyable for me and is something I look forward to. My days are filled with lots of meditation, prayer, reading and music. Please keep us in your prayers.

Nisha comes in on Sunday for 3 weeks. She is starting her final – yes, final – year at U Chicago. The past is always a blur – it has whizzed past. We are eagerly looking forward to knowing her all over again. However, as my good friend SRK said, “only by knowing ourselves do we know others”.

Musings

The metamorphis or the creative wisdom, vis a vis Ashwin departure, has happened to me before. Somewhere complete acceptance of “what Is” is quite magical. Complete acceptance is being without the slightest inclination to do anything about it, while remaining fully open to all possibilities include worsening of the sadness. This has provided the keys to the universal wisdom to me before. This time, the acceptance created a space where creativity and wisdom emerged. I think the accepting of sadness and all its outcomes, gave birth to the acceptance of Ashwin leaving. Not labelling nor judging the sadness gave birth to the creative wisdom not labelling or judging the departure of Ashwin. Acceptance of “what is” has never been easy; I have found it hard to fully accept that I am helpless, confused, fragile, selfish, jealous, sad; and fully accept that I cannot do anything about it! And worse accept that all of this might get worse. The non-acceptance is born because of the need to protect the images that I want myself to be and to be seen by others. The non-acceptance gives birth to camouflaging, that takes the form of justification, needing to get better, wanting it go away, brushing it aside, joking about it etc. This camouflaging prevents the “what is” from being a window to the wisdom of the universe.

Greatest Conundrums of Life

The most colossal twin tragedies of all known and unknown human life are probably two. One is a tragic inability to sustain happiness. And the second, a suicidal mix of wanting to assert personal identity and personal ownership.

The tragic inability to sustain happiness was brought in all its starkness when I watched an interview with Dhanush, a south indian actor. He was eloquently explaining about how frightened he is about being “satisfied”. Every desire in life- power, money, stability, control, sex, wisdom, fame, good in the world – is an onion layer, when peeled, leads to the need for “peace of mind” or its synonyms. The onion of life is only 3 or 4 peels away from the core need of satisfaction or peace of mind. The peeling can be done by asking the why question – recursively, “what do you think you will get if you get the money you desire?”. Assuming the answer is security, then recursively asking “what do you think you will get if you get the security you desire?”. “satisfaction” is a peel away! The most tragic amazing thing is, when attained, the mind is incapable to sustain it. Worth peels of laughter and crying.

The second bewitching heart wrenching tragedy is the suicidal conditioned pattern of wanting to assert personal identity and ownership in the face of unending rational evidence of the fingerprint of the cosmos/God/Universe in all of life. The absolute and whole wisdom of this fingerprint recognition ability is one of the most wonderful by-products of an illness like mine. The body mind instrument is run by universe and the universal rules. The biology, Chemistry, psychology, Math, Orthopaedics, Ophthalmology, Immunology, Geriatrics, learning, memory, recall, action, cognition, awareness, genetics, breath, our conditionings and a million other things all point to the Universal fingerprint – the limitations of the mind and lack of personal will. Our personal identity is an extremely amorphous conditioned thought. Less said about personal ownership the better! Our conditionings that runs our life, has the fingerprint of the universe all over it.

The “suchness” and the “Isness” when life is viewed with these understandings is beyond the realm of words. Where there is nothing to be done; all happens.

Sharing

I enjoyed a read of the Kaivalya Upanishad. A commentary by Swami Suddhananda (Samvit Foundation in Chennai) is quite special. All of 94 pages, it is quite the essence.

The last month has been full of everything. The withdrawal of steroids, which I presciently mentioned earlier that I was suspiciously and cautiously looking forward to, turned out to be a Harrison Ford blockbuster. It started with all good stuff – the blood counts staying great, liver in good shape, skin stuff receding etc.. Then started having lots of little stuff. A 2 day virus (really thankful that I did not catch some of the tougher strains floating around Bangalore), a stomach upset along with lots of mood swings. Then I found my walks dwindle to a slow, difficult 30 mte walk – down from the hour and a half. Lots of tiredness and breathlessness. It so turns out that tapering of steroid means the body will start absorbing more and this potentially means the heart will have to be more active and need to adjust. Since my BP went up, some medications were changed. One of them caused a splitting headache and had to be stopped. In between I did a 4 day trip to Chennai for my Dads 80^th birthday and my Grandma’s 100^th. Great fun. The 4 day trip was as normal as it could be. Met friends, had work at the US consulate, went shopping, had a terrific function with over 100 of our close relatives. In between all of this, the second anniversary of my Stem Cell Transplant is on Aug 8/9^th. Not sure what to say, but please keep the good wishes flowing.

Ashwin leaves in 4 days, Aug 9^th morning to the US for his under graduate studies. I am choking up more and more. The simpler thing would have been to have the kids near us. Will really miss him. Letting go of Nisha was really tough but we still had one left! This is really really awful. Please send him your bestest of thoughts and wishes. Amita is away from Aug 9^th through Aug 19^th to settle Ashwin. Amita’s parents will be with me and I will be taking care of them (just kidding). Extra-ordinary blessing to have them around.  Dads’ great – with his spirit of service and meaning in his life.

One of the most wonderful things of coming back to India has been the reconnect with the parents. This was reinforced when Gayatri (my sister in law) lost her mom a week back. Gayatri’s mom was a star, always positive, weathering rough seas in her life, pursuing her talents in dancing, loving to her husband and providing great values to her children. I was reminded of my Mom, the day before she died, and the day after we called all our relatives for the last time to see her, turning to me and saying “Narua (that is what she called me), what if, after all this fuss yesterday, I survive this thing!?”. We had a great laugh and she passed away 12 hours later. That’s Lyf.

Musing

Someone asked me to write about my views on dealing/beating cancer. I recoiled from that. After getting it once, you realize it is never beaten. It is one diagnosis away. And the one I recoiled the most was that somehow cancer survivors had a formulae. That would be so disrespectful to so many others who had formula’s (better formulas, same formulas) and did not survive. But it got me thinking and I thought maybe it is worth a write on the subtleties of what happened – without any judgements or labelling that is the right thing to do. These just happened.

There is a tendency to keep things very simple – half a day to half a day. There is seemingly no other way to deal with these extra-ordinary physical typhoons.

Not take my self too seriously has happened. Being completely vulnerable, open to change, being wrong are huge parts of this. This has been an antidote to the slippery slope of feeling irrelevant in a long illness like this. There is still a strong opinion on a lot of things!

There seems to be much less of an inclination to want to change things. The universe is so powerful that it seems worth it to give it the license to create and solve problems. And let it use you the way it unfolds. I lived most of my life wanting to change the world, change education, kids lives etc…. There now seems to be a quiet where all possibilities are welcome but none desired. The desire to pursue things is absent along with the acceptance of all possibilities.

Not feeling unwanted or abandoned has been the key. The rare times this experience has occurred has been debilitating. The concept of collective karma has been helpful in watching and not being able to do much about the infinite responsibility carried by Amita.

Seeking the simple. There seems to be no desire to circumvent the world and see a national park or attend a concert or visit a city. There is contentment in enjoying the flower in the garden, and listening to a song.

Personal authenticity has happened very deeply. Lots of times when there is a judgement, it seems to cease immediately. I seemingly cannot judge anyone as over-weight or bossy or crude without a simultaneous thought coming that I am the one who had leukemia. Since there is a belief that there is a psycho somatic causality to Leukemia, how can I judge someone who has not had Leukemia!

There seems to be full participation without any responsibility. There are enough moments when the mind/body is willing to do whatever, without any expectations.

Biggest regret is not enjoying amita and nisha 15 years ago (I feel somehow the last few years have filled me with Ashwin). They look so stunning in the old photographs. Overcome with work and cognitive pursuits, I do not think I ever realized how incredible precious those times were. I seem to be trying to make it up now.

Sharing

http://jamesclear.com/dr-seuss

brilliant article on constraints versus options