Gerald D'Cunha

M usic and mediation! I, often, wonder if both are same… Early this morning, I was listening to Yani’s popular piece – ‘Nostalgia’. Frankly, when we soak in this kind of music, there is no need to meditate separately… For, music is mediation! Let me share with you some of my favourite quotes on meditation alongside some my favourite pieces of music from Yani… Hope, you, too, will say ‘Music is meditation’… “I said to my soul, ‘Be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love for the wrong thing; there is yet love, but faith and love are all in the waiting; wait without thought, for you are not ready for the thought. So, the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.”   - T.S. Eliot “Mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace. With ea...

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”  ―  J.K. Rowling,  Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets “We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are.”  ―  J.K. Rowling,  Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix I haven’t read a single Harry Potter book… I have only watched one – the very first – Harry Potter movie. Now, even if you think, I am dumb, it’s alright; but, here is my truth: I couldn’t understand, at all, what was going on there, when I tried to read the very first book! Little kids have read all the books, I know… and, kids, young ones and adults have raved about the movies. Good for them, really. But, I have been clueless about a lot of Harry Potter stuff… Anyway, whether J.K. Rowling’s famous tales are really so great is not the issue here. The books and movies, sure...

F or most of us, one of the hardest things to do is to accept the idea that we are dispensable... That, without us, the world can function perfectly well…  Life can go on perfectly well, as well. On this July 24, my wife and I decided to quietly celebrate my 58 th birthday in Pune, with Kenrick, our only son and Dr. Deepak, our close friend. What surprised me, that day, was a very simple fact I had not noted all these years, but Dr. Deepak pointed out. He said, “You are born on ‘twenty four/seven’!” “Gosh! I did not know that!” I exclaimed… “It’s okay,” Dr. Deepak calmed me down in his inimitable way, “You know it now.” W hen do we use the phrase – ‘Twenty four/seven’? A lot of truth is packed in it… The mind is so addicted to thoughts and habits… that to live without those thoughts and habits seems impossible. The thoughts, mostly of negative nature … worry and anxiety, fear and clinging… fear of losing… insecurity, doubt, jealou...

Pic.: Malabika Ganguly “All the advice you ever gave your partner (or anyone) is for you to hear.”   ―   Byron Katie O ne of the thoughts I have, always, believed in is this: The basics of every chapter I teach are very important; therefore, my students should not miss the initial lectures of every chapter… particularly the first lecture. So, I keep reminding them about it, much in advance. “Look guys, I will be starting this chapter on such and such date. If you miss the basics, you will find it very difficult to cope up later. So, come what may, please don’t remain absent.” Now, most of them don’t miss. Mercifully, because, they have realized the meaning and value of my advice. But, some of them do miss and walk into the class, the following lecture, as if my advice - or warning, whatever it is - meant nothing to them! And, look at my behavior. If I operate from my rigid belief that they’ had to’ attend the class com...

Our thoughts rule our minds as long as we allow them to… as long as we want them to. Yes, as long as we hold them in our minds! If we believe a thought to be true, it lives there in our minds. Else, it has no business to be there! The thoughts have never tortured any of us… It is our interpretation of thoughts - the story we tell in our minds – that brings about the torture, the constant suffering inside. So, someone says something to us… Our mind immediately starts processing those words… interpret them, attach meaning to them, read motives behind them… and, thereby, weave a dramatic story out of them – Yes, just out of someone’s words! Now, this story – this belief – gives life and power to the words, which have, by now, become robust thoughts… In the same way, someone behaves before us, even without words… and, our minds are already on job – analyzing, interpreting and concluding! Byron Katie fondly calls this fa...