How could this ruinous storm wreck my home and take away my sweetheart from me?
Let it go.

How I wish I could hold him in my arms one more time!
Let it go.

I hope he is happy wherever he is.
Let it go.

How am I going to keep his memory alive?
Let it go.

He didn’t deserve to suffer the way he did.
Let it go.

Where do I go from here?
Let it go.

What is the meaning of all of this?
Let it go.

I wish I understood his illness better.
Let it go.

When will this pain subside?
Let it go.

Does anyone really understand how it feels?
Let it go.

Forgive yourself. Forgive the situation and let it go.

When I moved from India to the UK, one of the things that stood out for me was the high number of people that lived alone. One of the criteria for discharge after a Day Surgery procedure under sedation or anaesthesia is that the patient should be accompanied by another adult for a duration of 24 hours afterwards. It was very surprising for me to find that sometimes we had to cancel cases because this criterion could not be fulfilled – not one family member or friend could be with the patient for a whole day. In other cases patients were terribly stressed because their friend or relative could only come to the hospital at a particular time to pick them up, hence if the patient was not ready for home by then, they would not be happy.

The second thing that struck me was the number of people on antidepressant medications. In 2013, in some areas up to 1 in 6 people were on them. So many and rising every year!!! Figures from 2011 say that NHS England spent 270 million pounds on antidepressants – a massive 23% increase on 2010. In 1991, English pharmacies handed over 9 million prescriptions. In 2001, it was 24.3 million. In 2012 the number had grown to 46.7 million prescriptions – a 9.1% rise on the previous year. More details are available in this article: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-23553897

Could the two things be related? No man is an island. We are designed to live in communities. We are interdependent in countless different ways yet in the modern world there is a high degree of isolation. How did it come to be like this? Is this the price we pay for modernisation or individualisation? Why do kids have to leave home at age 18? They might still be just kids. They don’t all mature at the same age. I don’t know. But this is our problem and pills alone won’t fix all of it. We need to think about the connectedness between us. They say a heart to heart with a friend is as much if not more useful than a session with a shrink.

After 10 days of being in Pondicherry, we finally visited one of the most popular spiritual destinations nearby, Auroville. It has been described as the Divine’s answer to man’s aspiration for perfection. It symbolises Union with the Divine manifesting in a progressive human unity.

The Matrimandir, the main hall of concentration within Auroville is a golden sphere next to a huge and ancient Banyan tree. It is the symbol of the Universal Mother; kind and generous, according to Sri Aurobindo’s teaching. We were invited to enter the hall with the innocence of a child willing to surrender all our woes at Her feet and to receive Her unconditional love. Sounded perfect!

When viewing the Matrimandir’s structure and its immediate surroundings, the first impression it evoked was the image of a New Consciousness breaking forth from Matter. Inside I experienced deep silence. The light partially bouncing off the huge crystal in the centre of the hall was intriguing, captivating and inspiring. I left there feeling very much at peace with the world and myself. My faith in the potential for humans to be immensely creative was reaffirmed.

This quote by Sri Aurobindo caught my eye:

“None can reach Heaven who has not passed through Hell.”

A hundred days have gone by. It feels like it happened just a few weeks ago. It is so fresh in my memory: the phone conversation with him that morning that left me feeling very unsettled as he did not speak much, the deep discomfort I felt as I was heading home from work, his note, the panic with which I yelled out his name and ran up the stairs, the phone call with emergency services where the lady at the other end of the line kept speaking with me till someone arrived, the Transport Police at my door, his wallet and keys, the description of a grey hoody with a penguin on it and lime green shoes …….

Most of today was spent in bed, feeling awfully sad, physically weak and defeated, trying to get my head around the fact that 100 days had passed and I was still stuck. I watched one TED talk after another concerning mental health issues and suicide, looked up the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention website and details of the PHQ-9. I watched myself get angry about the fact that 2 days before he ended his ordeal we had visited the GP who did not get him to fill out a PHQ-9, which is an essential monitoring tool for someone being treated for depression. That made me feel just plain exhausted!

Looking for some comfort I went back to reading the ‘Bhagwat Geeta’ which says, “The whole universe is filled with just one thing, one spirit and everyone is made up of that One Spirit”.  This oneness is a fundamental quality of everything. Everything is a part of and made of one non-dual consciousness. That made me realise that my son is me and I am him. You and I are one. I have known this for a long time. This reality lies way beyond the physical world, time and space.

During the silence of the evening, it was clear to me that I need to start making myself useful. To be able to spread peace and joy, I need to be peaceful and joyful. This hymn that I used to sing in school came to mind:

Make me a channel of your peace
Where there’s despair in life, let me bring hope
Where there is darkness, only light
And where there’s sadness, ever joy.

 Oh, Master grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console
To be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love with all my soul. 

Pondicherry, a wind-swept seaside town on the east coast of southern India, an ex-french colony, a spiritual hub thanks to exceptional visionaries having set up base here and a centre for promoting yoga and other practices around ‘well-being’.  The perfect place for me at present, especially because there is nothing to do here. No sightseeing. A lot of colonial architecture, lovely cafés with little boutiques attached selling pretty clothes, handicrafts, incense sticks, handmade paper and jewellery give it an endearing and relaxing quality. The street dogs love to sleep all day and chat all night. Numerous crows add to the ambience.

I take long walks along the sea front, sit, people watch, drink as much coconut water as I like and meditate. It’s the meditation that is helping me with my sanity. I feel lucky for having had some practice in the past. It means I don’t have to start from scratch. I can just plunge in and be. Be the witness, watch my thoughts come and go, observe the feelings inside me without getting caught up in them (mostly), as though I was watching a film. I look within and the deeper I look the closer I get to me. Is it me or the nothingness in me? Sometimes I can’t tell the difference. It is like ceasing to be. I get glimpses of true freedom every now and then. They are enough to make me want to go back again and again.

It surely looks like I am doing nothing and that is true. But stuff is happening, the atmosphere is changing, stress is getting released, the body is relaxing, negative feelings and vibrations are disappearing and the mind is expanding. I come out of meditation feeling immensely loved and supported by the Universe. Thank you!!!