Young minds

My road. And mine alone.

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This is a village being a village. It has done me no wrong.

People are being people of all kinds and shapes and forms.

The mid-afternoon sun is being the sun, not an upstart.

Each one, a character in a story, playing its part.

Seeing them as villains and heros

is the naive mind assigning roles

To what is simply an Is-ness.

They are being them. They can’t be the other lot because they are not.

They have no will, no thought.

The stories that my mind makes up do. Yet, I hold them to be so so true.

I am learning they are not.

Gotta just walk.

I am the cause. I am the cause. I am the cause.

To know that the gaze of the Universe is me.

To be held within the fold of Here and Now of Divinity.

That’s all.

I wonder if that’s the journey.

To find me exactly where I started.

Completely new.

Who’s the boss?

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Did you know there’s an organisation that brings science and spirituality together? Its mission is to create a kinder, heart-centered world where we care for one another and live harmoniously. It’s called the HeartMath Institute and offers many free resources.

They have found that the heart is not just a mechanical pump. It contains thousands of nerve cells. That is probably the reason our memories and trauma are stored in various parts of our body, mainly the brain and heart.

We were taught in school that the brain is a master-organ but it’s the heart that tells it what to do. The intelligence of creativity, innovation and intuition resides in the cells of the heart. Brain neurons are the antennae that follow the heart’s desires. For example, I want to speak and understand Spanish says the heart. The brain follows.

We humans have a stunning ability to self-regulate. Our biology is engineered as a soft technology. Our fundamental physiology is made up of ion-potentials across membranes. We’re the only form of life that can harmonise its two major neural organs through Heart-Brain Coherence. We can alter the chemistry in our bodies. Once this coherence occurs, we can heal and be healthy. The immune system is strengthened, longevity enzymes rise and stress is reduced at a molecular level. Three minutes of this shift can produce beneficial effects for 6 hours.

3 steps:

  1. Shift in focus – into the heart
  2. Shift in breath – slow it so the exhalation is longer than the inhalation
  3. Shift in feeling – a positive feeling – initiate Gratitude on demand.

We are powerful self-regulators. It is a God-like ability that we have, to heal ourselves. We’re conditioned to feel helpless and think we need external help. Sometimes we do need interventions, but we can honour the gift of this body to heal ourselves.

Joyland

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Islam forbids suicide. It calls it a grave sin or ‘haraam’. It is viewed as taking away the gifts of life given by God. The Qu’ran says, trust God, have faith in the mercy of God and do not destroy life.

Joyland is a bold film, the first Pakistani feature to be premiered at Cannes in 2022.

It is about being alone in a crowd of expectations, being punished for having secret desires and accidentally making them seen. It is about someone else having to pay the price for our impulsive indiscretions, about how the bucket of shame topples itself on our heads as soon as we allow our innermost wants to be visible. It talks about how others can forcibly live their dreams through us, how our roles in society hold us firmly in one place and make us invisible as individuals, how we don’t have permission to be confused and are not allowed the time and space to think and talk things through, how life can be cluttered and noisy.  It’s about knowing you want to ‘run away’ but not knowing what that means or looks like. It’s about having to figure all this out, all by yourself.

It’s about treasuring moments of joy when they arise.

They could be hidden in the kitchen, on the Ferris wheel or inside the pages of an old book.

Working and celebrating together

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She could be my younger sister by two weeks. She’s survived and survived again. She’s been through so much mentally and physically but her spirit remains undefeated. Our children brought us together – Saagar and Stephanie. Both these young people were musically gifted, very compassionate and super-good-looking. This earthly realm proved to be too harsh a place for them both. It turned out their mothers were doctors, feeling betrayed by the very system they had been a part of. They were trying to understand the shortcomings in that system, make them visible and bring about change. They both felt guilty. They felt inadequate as mothers and as doctors. Each of them understood the other, without need for words.

Stephanie’s dad kept putting one step in front of the other, walking and running, cycling and swimming in memory of Stephanie. A strong believer in collaboration, he brought people, their efforts and voices together. He raised thousands of pounds and supported the endevours of individuals and charities to create more hope in the world. A dutiful father and husband, he looked after everything the best he could and continues to do so.

He believes that ‘using our Lived-Experience and working together, we will prevent future deaths.” I salute him and Stephanie’s mum for showing us what is possible when we connect and continue to cherish the memories of Stephanie. I thank them for their friendship which continuously enriches my life and warms my heart, even from across the oceans. I am grateful that together we can manufacture any excuse for a party. I feel blessed to know these two exceptional people with whom we can celebrate our children and our lives.

Happy Belated Birthday Doug! The party is due.

170,000

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– the number of suicides in India every year. India holds the top position in the world in very few things. This is one of them. Of these deaths, more than 40% are under the age of thirty. Both these facts possibly underestimate the problem due to poor data collection, criminalisation of suicidal attempts, inefficient registration systems, lack of medical certification of deaths and biggest of all, stigma. Every eight minutes a young Indian person dies by suicide. Year on year, the rates are rising by 4-7%.

The incidence of student suicides surpasses population growth rates. Over the last decade, the number of student suicides increased from 7,696 to 13,089.

Source: A report released on Sept 10th 2024: Student Suicides: an epidemic sweeping India.

Today, to mark World Mental Health Day, a brave young lady, Jayeta Biswas, published an article remembering her brother, Jayanta. Aside from revealing some shocking statistics, it lamented the seriously negative societal attitudes towards poor mental health and suicide in India:

“A home that was always filled with visitors when my brother was alive saw no one from his school, college, professional life or network after his departure. None of his friends, including those he had contacted in his last hours – attended his funeral, nor did they visit our house. I am certain that this is because they heard that he died by suicide.”

We have a long way to go as a society but small school initiatives such as SEHER give me hope.