21.02.2012

Dear Children and Parents,

Hi!, How did you like my poem on soup? These days I am forced to reduce pace of my life and to be honest I quite enjoy it. Now I get lot of time for myself and I do spend it lavishly. Most of it I spend with Ananya learning realities of life from her, quite anew. Then I read a lot and the rest of the time I spend happily ruminating my past 15-16 years of Anandmeva Shibir. That gives me immense satisfaction and a sense of fulfilment. You people are wonderful.

This soup thing was a result of all that. Over last 30 years time and again I kept very indifferent health which did pose a big hurdle in my way. But it did so many good things too. I became more aware of life, its realities and purpose. I also developed a special eye to read the altered responses of my body, especially my sensory organs during illness.

Due to illness and medicines I often would lose taste in my mouth and not eat much. Everyone would blame my low intake for my weakness. However I experienced a totally different reality. The breathlessness of asthama did make me feel physically exhausted, but mentally I became rejuvenated during each episode of illness. How did it happen? I gave it a serious thought.

I gradually realised that though I did lose appetite for food, my other sensory organs used to become extra sensitive during illness. They rather used to get extra hungry. My body appreciated a pat on my back or a hug much more eagerly. My ears heard music better. My nose longed for mild floral fragrances. My eyes admired the beauty of life pulsating all around me with extra vigour. The children around me always gave extra zest and zeal to my living and my being.

I got ample time to analyse this. Gradually I learnt that the main seat of fire in our body is supposed to be in our stomach. Our prayer at meal time “ Aham vaishwanaro Bhootwa “ from ‘Gita’ narrates it beautifully. However like there is fire in our stomach, there is fire – a slow combustion – going on in each and every cell of our body. When main fire place in stomach was going slow due to illness, the other small fire places took over and as a result I became extra sensitive to sip the life all around and that rejuvenated me immensely in each episode of my illness.

When this wisdom dawned upon me, I bowed down to my body’s wisdom. This revelation literally changed me overnight. I became more compassionate towards sick and ailing people. I took extra efforts to comfort my patients. I made it a point to visit or atleast enquire about the illness of my near and dear ones more compassionately. Instead of just verbally enquiring about them I tried different ways to convey to them that ‘I CARE’. This also conveyed to them that ‘I LOVE’. This habit helped me more than it helped them. I almost developed an extra eye for pain and sorrow and also developed a healing touch to some extent.
A friend of mine fell sick and lost his appetite. I sent him his favourite soup along with this poem. The poem probably helped him happily ruminate about all the good things he had done to others as a doctor and also as a man in the past.
He thoroughly enjoyed the soup. I knew it was the poem that added an extra rejuvenating flavour to his bowl of soup. That gave him the feeling of satiety.

From Lata aji