Everybody is missing something.

This evening I finished reading ‘Norwegian Wood’ by Murakami Haruki. It left me strangely nostalgic, comforted, entertained and stunned. No big words or complex sentences but so very impactful. This simple but profound story of an ordinary young man is written in the first person. It starts with a young death and ends on a painful but soft note. I didn’t know anything about it before I started reading it except that this is one of his bestsellers.

An intriguing figure, Murakami is a runner and a lover of cats, books and jazz music. His love of music led him to run a jazz bar in his 20s. While watching a baseball match at the age of 29, he was struck by the thought that he could try writing a novel and since then, he has written more than thirty-five. His reclusive and humble nature means he doesn’t do many interviews.

His genre is ‘magical realism’ but he claims that his skill lies in creating dreams. He does not see magic and reality as two opposing sides of life. He believes they flow together as he follows the characters in his stories.

I paraphrase a part of the book that spoke deeply to me. While the narrator grieves the recent death of his friend, images came back to him: her touching the hair slide she always wore; her peering at him with those incredibly clear eyes of hers; her sitting on the sofa, legs drawn up beneath her blue nightdress, chin resting on her knees.

While he sleeps on a beach, the tide sweeps him along to a strange new place, a place where he lived with the dead. Here, he could speak with her and hold her in his arms.

And to him she said, “Don’t worry, it’s only death. Don’t let it bother you.”

What’s the problem? She asked him with a bashful smile, “I’m here. Aren’t I?”

If this is death, he thought to himself, it’s not so bad.

It’s true, she said. Death is nothing much. It’s just death. Things are so easy for me here.

From death he learnt that death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life. That no truth can cure the sadness we feel from losing a loved one. No sincerity, no kindness, can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see that sadness through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be of no help in facing the next sadness that comes to us without warning.

“If you remember me, I don’t care if everyone else forgets.”

A quote from Kafka on the Shore.

Resource: Online peer-support for bereaved parents:

Circle of Remembrance (CORe): http://www.core-community.com

This is.

Posted by kidsaregifts20

9 am. The mist has cleared and the Red-whiskered Bulbuls are out with their sweet song, proudly wearing shiny black mohawks. Post-monsoon, the grass has shot up to nearly four feet high, its slender golden heads gently swaying in the cool light breeze. Pearlescent dew is clinging to the edges of the blades of grass. A frisky young jack-fruit tree is now competing with the elderly rosewood that’s been there for a decade. Coffee is brewing. An occasional motor-bike rumbles past. The chikoo (Sapodilla) tree is heavy with fruit. The palm frond is browning and half of it has peeled off the smooth striped trunk. A hint of jasmine in the air every now and then.

I sit here, breathing, looking at the hilly horizon and everything else, just as it is. Not one thing is wrong. Nothing out of place. The blinking of the eyes. Laughter, when it comes. Tears, when they come. Thoughts as they come and go. The Ficus extending skyward, regardless. The copper-leaf shrub being copper. The grass being its verdant green self. The breeze being its gentle self. This moment being open and present to me exactly as it is.

Not a thing missing. Nothing extra. Not a thing needing fixed or changed or made better.

All perfectly natural. Simple. This is. I am. We are.

Behind our closed eyes.

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“I am no longer being woken up by zombies coming to get me, in an apocalyptic world. My sleep is better.”

‘What do you see now?’

“Some unsettling incongruous domestic situations but nothing terrible. Nothing that kicks me out of my sleep.”

This indicated to me that my client’s level of threat-perception was lessening. I don’t know much about dream interpretation, so I do not attempt to go deep into that, but I know that they can release energy and reveal messages from the subconscious, inside the safety of sleep. They can erase unnecessary emotional files stored in the primitive brain and prioritize what is relevant and important.

A friend dreamt of working with elephants in a forest repeatedly. This seemed completely random to her. She sold solar panels for a living and had been planning on taking a sabbatical, which commenced 3 months into these recurrent dreams. She booked a one-way ticket to Thailand and the day after she arrived, she found out that a new orphanage for elephants had opened that very day in her neighbourhood. What are the chances? Of course, she volunteered there for months and loved it.

As per Ayurveda, there are seven types of dreams:

those based on what was seen
heard
reflected upon
desired
imagined
those foretelling something and
those caused by illnesses or possibly predict specific illnesses

They intrigue me as they are communications from a deeper self that has access to everything that we cannot consciously know. Psychologists have dwelt upon them for centuries. The basic idea behind Jungian dream theory is that dreams reveal more than they conceal. Jung did not believe that dreams need to be interpreted for them to perform their function. They operate as safety valves for the psyche. They are worthy of attention as they are an important source of information about vanished people, places and experiences in our lives.

Freud called them, via regia, the royal road to the unconscious, but a strong force within us strains to conceal our dream messages from us in ingenious ways such as obscure symbols and the ethereal nature of dreams by which most of them, we forget. It’s a good idea to write them down while we still remember them. Another good reason to get a new notebook 😉

As I venture into the world of Hypnotherapy, I find a deeper learning, connection and understanding of the inner worlds of others and myself.

Resource: Benefits of keeping a dream journal

No two. Only one.

Posted by kidsaregifts20

(Photo credit: Sangeeta Mahajan. Sunrise on the Nilgiris. Oct 2026)

Today has been the day of dragonflies, hundreds of them swooping down the hill, past me as I sit on my balcony gazing at the gorgeous blue mountains of South India in the gentle afternoon sun. I am at an Ayurvedic centre (Indian traditional medicine) situated in the most scenic part of Tamil Nadu, known to be inhabited since prehistoric times. I am here, resetting my system, reminding myself what a healthy daily routine looks like and in the process getting looked after with daily massages and freshly cooked meals.

Being here at present is serene, soulful, safe and sacred. Holding myself and my body with love and honour. Returning to myself afresh. Being still and silent. Smiling on the inside, singing on the outside. Who would’ve thought this possible, even for the briefest moment. Yes, tomorrow I might turn into a puddle on the floor but right now, I am okay and that is a blessing.

Every week we chant ancient Sanskrit mantras. This week we chanted a set of verses written by an eighth century sage, philosopher and teacher of Non-duality, Adi Shankara. When asked by a young boy, who are you? He responded:

“Neither am I the Mind, nor the Intelligence or Ego,
Neither am I the Ears, nor the Tongue, eyes or Nose,

Neither am I the Sky, nor the Earth, Neither the Fire nor the Air,
I am Pure Blissful Consciousness.

Neither am I the Breath, nor the Five Vital elements,
Neither am I the Body, nor its Five Sheaths,
Neither am I the organ of Speech, nor the Hands, nor Feet,

I am Pure Blissful Consciousness.

Neither am I Hatred, nor Attachment, Neither Greed nor Infatuation,
Neither am I Pride, nor of Envy and Jealousy,
I am Not within the bounds of Righteousness, Wealth, Desire nor Liberation,
I am the Ever-Pure Blissful Consciousness.

Neither am I bound by Merits nor Sins, neither by Joys nor Sorrows,
Neither am I bound by Sacred Hymns or Places, Scriptures or Sacrifices

I am neither Enjoyment, nor an object to be Enjoyed, nor the Enjoyer,
I am the Ever-Pure Blissful Consciousness.

Neither am I bound by Death and its Fear, nor by the rules of Caste and denominations,
Neither do I have Father and Mother, nor do I have Birth,
Neither do I have Relations nor Friends, neither Spiritual Teacher nor Disciple,
I am the Ever-Pure Blissful Consciousness.

I am without any Form or Variations,
I am Present Everywhere as the underlying Substratum of everything,
Neither do I get attached to anything, nor get freed from anything,
I am the Ever-Pure Blissful Consciousness.”

The meaning of these verses is not yet fully clear to me but it is comforting to know that you and I share our Being as the one and only one blissful consciousness. So, if there is One and only One, then could there be any space for separation. Could this felt sense of separation be a mere illusion? I wonder.

Resource: The essence of Non-duality: https://rupertspira.com/

Times six.

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Two summers ago, on a dry Saturday morning in London, Si and I set out for a walk. We headed to our local park, Streatham Common. As we took a turn into the Rookery, we noticed a young man sitting on the third step of the wide, well-trodden staircase descending towards the South-East. He held his bent head in both his hands.

An invitation.

I took a deep breath, softly stepped up to him with a ‘Hi. Good morning.’ He slowly raised his head and mirrored back my faint smile. None of our smiles reached our eyes. They were not real yet, only polite.

We got talking and forgot about the walking. Miles was in his late thirties, a father of two. He had been unable to work for a few months because of disabling symptoms that suggested something like Chronic Fatigue/ ME/ Long Covid. Of late his stress levels had rocketed as his employer had started suggesting ‘malingering’ in his letters. Even though his GP understood and validated his medical condition, his employer showed no understanding.

We gathered for coffee in the park on two more occasions that year. We enjoyed our chats, kept in touch and met up regularly even though not frequently. This year, he tells us he has been dismissed from his job after a “fair process” for “gross misconduct” for being physically and mentally unable to work. Gross misconduct includes physical violence, theft and fraud, intoxicated while at work and similar serious offences.

A study at King’s College London looked at the causes of death in 2000 patients with CFS/ME conducted over the years, 2007-2013. A total of 17 patients died in that period – eight died from cancer, five from suicide, and four from other causes. When compared to the general population, less than one suicide would be expected in a study population of this size. Yet five deaths by suicide were recorded. This means that, after controlling for age and other factors, the rate of deaths by suicide in this study was approximately six times higher in people with CFS than in the general population.

The reasons for this vulnerability are – poor quality of life with no hope for relief, loss of employment, finances, and/or relationships, chronic pain, secondary depression, and other associated mental and/or physical illnesses.

Miles felt he was losing his sense of self as a capable human being with integrity. People didn’t always believe or understand him. Maybe he is what they called him, a malingerer. This is hard on his family, but they support him all they can. The kids are delightful. He still has good days and bad, still has serious brain fog he cannot work through sometimes, still can’t do much but he tries his best. He carries a lot of shame for this thing that happened to him. He feels trapped.

No tests can prove his diagnosis. No definitive treatment is available yet.

Resource: Action for ME: https://www.actionforme.org.uk/