Balancing the feminine and the masculine within

What takes place in my outside world is not too different from what it is that I am feeling within. I have enjoyed sharing and understanding my life from inside out so why don't we continue on that journey as this next chapter in my life unfolds....

It has not been easy (on an emotional, mental or financial level) to come back from India. There are days that I look at myself and wonder, "Holy Fucking Shit....What the FUCK was I thinking? How on Earth am I going to start from scratch again?" I catch myself crying randomly. On some days, the sun in shining not just in the sky but also in my heart and on other days I can barely make it out of the dark head space my feelings like to go hide in. One day I am all chirpy and happy and the next moment, I could be a puddle of water.  I think the only thing that is keeping me sane and moving forward is Yoga or walking in the nature.

I know my friends are witnessing a huge shift in me. I know they somewhat recognize the old Falguni but also realize that this new one has returned jaded. I don't expect them to stand by me during this phase of life but DAMN IT, they have a heart of gold. They chose to stand by me during these dark times and I am ONLY Grateful to them to help me see that light that I can't seem to see on certain days...I could be in the dumps (emotionally) or I could say something mean, but they know how to be patient with me and pull me out of it. I am truly blessed to be loved the way I am and taken care by my friends. Thanks guys. :)

Another realization that has been creeping in is that I have always depended on men to be there for me for when I fall. I want to lean on another guy when my heart is broken. I want to contact my ex and hold on to him so that this pain within is not so painful; in the midst ignoring my own masculine energy that is patiently waiting for its feminine energy to turn towards it. We all have feminine and masculine energy within us. Left side is feminine. Right side is masculine.  Left is connected to the moon, right to the sun. I have noticed that my whole life my female energy has its head turned towards the left looking for love outside of myself. Instead of looking at the male energy and finding the balance within I have looked outside to find it outside of me. How can I feel whole, if I don't allow my energies to collide, confide, meet within each other? Today I ask my feminine to meet the masculine within. Today I ask myself to Love myself just the way I am. Today I ask to recognize that I cannot be balanced until the two unite...and today I have done just that

I love the person within ... I love the person that I am becoming....and today I experience and recognize the Union of my Masculine and Feminine ...

With Love
Aum 

lessons I learned along the way......

These past few months in India have been a journey of their own... What haven't I learned? It feels like I just went through a crash course in "reality" and I did not even have a chance to take time to digest it all...Had to gulp it down the throat, but its all for good, right? like they say, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. It for sure does not feel like that in the beginning but it does when we look at that ray of hope.

First and foremost, Thank You all for reading my posts and staying with me on my journey. I know I have been in some really dark places and you have been there for me, by my side. Knowing that my friends are with me on this journey, helps :) I don't think these last few months would have been possible without my friend's strength and support....Maitreyi, Neha, Radhika you have been my pillar and I am sincerely grateful to Creator to have given me all of u....Adeline, Harold, Jerms, Julie, Sarah, Sheelagh...and the list has only begun...Maybe Universe took my parents but in return gave me amazing friends that have become family with time. I heart you all...<3 and how could I forget my sister? She has her own unique way of expressing her love for me. :)

Toughest lesson has been "boundaries". What is allowed and what is not allowed when you are in a relationship with someone, that is something I learned from my previous relationship. Now in the U.S our boundaries are different. We can still go up to our ex's (if your relationship has ended peacefully) and hug them and actually have a genuine conversation with them, but in India even talking to a married or taken man is not something that is taken well by anyone in the society. Forget hugging, even saying "hello" might be taken in a wrong way. Now coming from such a vast culture (specially living in San Francisco; where everything is allowed) India has been a tough, tight place to BE in.

So, I stayed pretty protected from politics and lies in States. I purposely chose to stay in jobs and situations where I knew I did not need to sell my soul for money. Cause if I did, I knew myself well enough, I would not be able to sleep at night knowing I had to climb the corporate ladder stepping on someone else and that was not fathomable for me. So instead I decided to stay in low paying jobs knowing I could at least get a good nights sleep and that my conscious was clear, keeping myself away from politics and lies. But all the protection went right out of the window as soon as i stepped back in India. In States, corruption/ politics take place at a much senior level but in India it starts the moment you are born. You have to be smart enough to be able to tackle the way of life here. It is the survival of the fittest the moment you are born......after all, you are living in a population of 1billion; everyone fighting for recognition and money. Its not an easy race and the worst part is you are in it even if you don't want to be.

So then how do you cope with all of that? We learn the art of detachment; keeping people at arm's length and seeing life for what it is instead of sugar coating it. aaaahhhhhh... so much easier said then done :) I have been lucky to have some really good friends but according to what I hear, they are rare to come by. Trust is a big issue; pouring your heart out just may not be your best bet, here

In short all I am here to say is, I am GRATEFUL... .for Life, for Experiences... for Moments that I may not be able to capture in words but I am only grateful for it ALL. Cause they have made me strong....hopefully a step away from seeing the world just the way it is instead of sugar coating it...Hopefully having the stomach to digest it all.

I am Blessed and Thank You all for Being here...
Love

Maturing or desensitizing, I can't tell...

Life is tough. Its a struggle. You have to fight for your truth and what it is that your truly believe in. Maturing and growing up sometimes can be very painful. You have to keep people at arms length to be able to see what it is that you are even looking at, whether that be the truth or a lie. Now I know why Bapu says, "Samyak distance jaroori che," meaning balanced distance is necessary in any relationship to be able to see the entire truth. And we all know, keeping people at arms length is NOT my expertise.

Our fight begins from within, may that be on a cellular level, ex: good cells trying to out beat a virus when exposed to it, may that be positive thoughts outweighing the negative ones. Now when I am keeping people at arms length what I am seeing in not such a pretty picture. You really get to see the ugly along with the good. You really get to see people what they are for. Not just a pretty picture but all of it. Maybe this is called maturing? I have always had a bubble around my head, my eyes. I always choose to believe good in everyone and mind you, there is but it also comes with a balance of equal amount of bad. I was being blinded by the only good and wanted to bring and see only good in everyone and when the bad did appear i usually wanted to run away from it.

I happen to have a weak stomach for when humans are being mean to another human may that be in an argument or even a fight. Last night my sister and her husband were watching this documentary on Burma and I just happened to walk in from my trip that i had taken for last 1 week. I shared bits and pieces of my trip and they paused the movie while i was sharing my story. After i was done sharing they hit "play" button and the next scene they showed on their DVD were gunshots. Policemen shooting at innocent people that were standing up for their rights and their truth in a riot. I was about to take a bite of my pizza and instead I almost went straight to the bathroom to throw up after watching that scene. I could not stomach how one human being in power could do that to another human being for standing up for their truth and YES I am aware that it happens on every level, including cellular/ molecular but still it jolts me to see it happen specially to innocent people without any guns to defend themselves with. Even more interesting was to see that neither my sister nor my brother in law even flinched at what was being shown on their Samsung big screen plasma. WOW!!! have we become so numb to violence? we must have stomach of irons to digest what we are seeing in this real world. Where has the humanity disappeared? Was I living in a cave until now to not have seen or exposed to all this? Why as humans have we allowed this kind of violence to continue? Do we not see that the person in front of us is none other than our brother or our sister? That we are all connected and killing the person in front of us is killing an aspect of us? Have we become so dead that we allow ALL this to take place on a regular base?

Telling lies have become a way of our lives. Blaming someone else is easier than to take a moment to see that maybe I too might be at fault. Pointing fingers is much easier than taking responsibility for our own actions. And we all want to cop out and do just that. Growing up means taking responsibility. Growing up means recognizing that I too have faults. Growing up means fighting for what your truly believe in and it does not have to be with guns, its usually standing up for what you believe in.

I feel like I lived a sheltered life for a long time and now that I am in the outside world called India, I am seeing things I do not have the strength to digest. Lies, Ego, deceit, corruption, anger, blaming...name it. its a harsh lesson to learn specially when you have to stand in ALL of it and still find strength to speak your truth or even believe in humanity. Standing at that junction of strengthening my stomach to digest the life the way it is being thrown at me, maturing to see it for what it is and still finding some ray of hope that there is still "good in human beings". And for once I cannot and do NOT choose to run from it anymore. I need to go through this phase of life as well. i guess its ALL a part of that learning. I guess its ALL a part of maturing/ growing  up and finding strength to survive this battlefield.

May the Force BE with me

Dream....

I enjoy dreaming, specially when my parents are present. I woke up this morning dreaming about them. Dad, mom, myself and Reema, we all were chilling on this huge bed, just talking about life, Karma and Isaac Newton. Love when we get philosophical. Its rare I dream about all four of us together but this morning's dream had all of us.... Huge smile on my face.

Knowing me...... I started our conversation on Karma, about what "goes around comes around". That we cannot hide or run away from our actions anymore........ that no matter what we may think, in the bigger picture of our life it catches up with us. We may think our actions do not have consequences but think again........ If you think you are separate from the person next to you, then stop and ponder... Cause there is no one else here besides YOU... so, there is no one else to hurt but YOU. We are ALL One on this planet, WE all come from the same higher power... Yes, we may have our bodies that separate us from the person next to us but that does not mean that s/he on the soul level is far from that circle of life or that what we do does not affect the other person. So, next time we take an action, let's think twice of who ALL are going to get affected besides us.... let us live in Awareness of our thoughts, our words and our actions.

Dad then jumped in (my dreams) and shared that Isaac Newton only notarized the theory of Karma by adding "Every action has equal and opposite reaction". Makes sense.... He brought Karma and actualized it by theory of Physics. Karma is spiritual and man has come to an age where s/he needs proof for everything, so he took the formula of Karma and made it science proof by adding, that no matter what, Our actions have consequences........ So lets be aware, and live in awareness of our thoughts, our words and our actions. What goes around comes around.... When we hurt others, we are actually hurting ourselves.....There is no one else here but us....We ALL share the same soul...we are ALL ONE... Only different bodies that disguise themselves as separate....So let us not be fooled by our physical separation cause underneath that layer of illusion, WE ARE ALL ONE.

Love

Day in a life of Pankaj bhai

So, by now everyone knows that I have moved to India. Its common to have helpers (servants) in India who help you maintain your daily chores and lavish lifestyle that most Indians enjoy. I was wondering what it must be to live their life even for a day.... and the more I looked our own "helpers" life closely, whose name is Pankaj bhai more it resembled mine when I was in San Francisco.  I was Pankaj bhai in the U.S but a high end one.

Poor guy.... the moment he walks in that door at 8:30 in the morning, he is already bombarded with requests and favors of what needs to be done. I specifically recall walking into my work, and the moment I usually did, i had people asking me for favors the moment I stepped in..."Falguni, this needs to be done, how do I do this". Luckily, I could stop my coworkers and ask them to back off and come back to me when I had a moment to breathe the reality that I had just arrived at work, but Pankaj bhai does not have that option. The moment he walks in through that door, his work begins right then and there.

I had the opportunity to chillax at work and be on facebook but this guy is pretty much on his feet all day long and working his ass off without a complaint. And he is always smiling, love that about him. I give it to him. You should have seen me at work. Coworkers trembled approaching me cause they all knew they were going to get yelled at, in a loving way :) I respect the fact that Pankaj bhai has to leave his family in the village to come to the city and find work, sort of what mostly all hard working Indians have to do, may that be having to leave India and move to U.S to support your family or may that be leave a small village to move to a bigger city in search for work. In short, no matter how you see life, I think we all, middle class working folks live a life in Pankaj bhai's shoes. Some have it easier, some have it more tedious but regardless we all are trying to live a life, make some money and have a roof over our head and people around who love us. Lets not take our servants/ our helpers for granted; they too happen to be a reflection of our lives, of what we might have gone through in our lives or are going through in that case. We all are working for the "man/ the money" and its never easy when we don't have a choice.

I don't know why I wanted to blog about Pankaj bhai but I guess I just wanted to bring awareness to those people/ helpers/ servants who make our lives much more easier for us by working ten times harder for us and yet only earning less than half the price that they are worth of. Let's appreciate them, let's be nice to them cause somewhere within all of us, lies a Pankaj bhai.

Love

Revolution

Feels like everyone is reaching a threshold of "living a lie". We all reach that saturation point in our lives of what we can take and what we cannot take anymore. Yes, for the longest time society has dictated of how we should live and conduct our lives and we have done just that to either please our parents, our friends or the society but I feel like the more I talk to all my friends, more they reveal that they too have reached a threshold of where "living a lie" is no longer an option. and the awakening is happening at a "mass" awareness. We all are waking up and saying, "we no longer can live this lie anymore". and guess what??? we should NOT have to, in the first place, could that be in your job, in your relationship or in your friendship. Its time for us and our generation to change the world we live in. Let's bring awareness not only in our actions and the way we think but also in the way we live our lives.

Want to share something: I dreamt about Krishna few days ago. It was an absolutely beautiful dream. Krishna appeared and said, "Falguni, I could not be Ram (Indian God) in Tretayug (Era/ Time Period), I was Ram in Satyug (Era/ Time Period) and I could be him only in that Yug (Era), during that time zone, but in Tretayug, I had to be someone different, I had to be Krishna (Indian God). What do I mean by that? That In Satyug, I was honest, super dedicated and the King that everyone loved but that era, that period no longer existed, thousands of years later, Tretayug showed up and I had to come back to Earth and when I did I came as Krishna, someone completely different than Ram. If I can move and change and be someone else through time and different eras then why can't you and your generation. If I left behind old ways of being when I left Satyug then why can't you leave old way's of being from Tretayug to Kalyug (Era that we live in now)????. After all, you now reside in Kalyug and it is a whole different time period. Why would you want to drag yourself through another thousand years living old way, that no longer serves purpose to who you are now, in Kalyug. If I changed through time then why can't you and your generation change through time?
I asked Krishna, well we need you to help us make that change. When are you coming back to Earth again? He said, he is not coming as ONE person anymore. His answer was, "I came as Buddha, but you made me a religion, I came as Jesus but then too you made me a religion. I was about Unconditional Love and you misunderstood and made me a religion. No longer will one man serve the purpose anymore. You need to wake up in masses. This awareness needs to be brought within every living human soul. I am no longer coming to Earth as one man, I have distributed myself in millions of people world wide and am showing up everywhere as light workers. It is going to take ALL of you to wake up, to see the God within each one of you. There are light workers everywhere on this planet and when you see the light within you, you pass that torch to another being so that you can light them up as well and so that they too can see the light within them, stand their ground and speak their soul's truth. That is your job. You are a light worker and you are my light. You are no longer alone. So go and light up everyone around you until everyone wakes up and see their true purpose on this planet....."

Truth: no matter how difficult and hard it may be, surfaces and reveals itself through time. Its like trying to drown a wooden block under the water. It does not sink no matter how hard we try. In the same way, truth reveals itself in time....

We all are waking up, we all are reaching our threshold of living a lie, we all are realizing that life does not serve purpose "living according to the society" anymore, but instead living according to the "soul" within. What is right? What is wrong? What works for you does not work for me and just cause it does not work for me that does not mean you are right and I am wrong. Matters of heart verses matters of mind. I am learning and I have had to the learn the most difficult lesson in my life lately, "There is no right and there is no wrong. It just is what it is". I also have had to surrender to, "In the matters of the heart, head does not help. I have to put my Ego on the side and let Love guide the way". Ishwara Pranidhanam (Surrender to the Creator)

Love and Light Allways

A week in...

Sitting here in Ahmedabad (where I grew up), sipping on chai and having a flashback of my one week spent in India. I am not sure whether this is good or bad, but it feels like its already been a month since I landed.

This country has changed or I have adapted to its way of being, is still a mystery for me but I do feel a bit more comfortable than I did when i last visited India, in summer. I think the cool weather helps as well. Not as irritated as I was this summer, burning in 50 degree celcius.... Yikes... With that said, let me share few experiences with you.

My observation so far: If you have never been to India, please be prepared to be stared and gawked at to the point where you feel uncomfortable in your own skin. NO, seriously, this is not a joke. People stare at you constantly and make you wonder whether there is something wrong with you but the honest truth is, thats just how it is here. People stare and judge you and that comes easy for Indians. They may not even know you but they have made up a story about you before you even look them back in the eye. That's just India :) Please do not take this the wrong way, people usually are very nice here as well but most of the times it comes with a judgement.

After going for a long morning walk on Juhu Beach in Mumbai, the best part to look forward to was the fresh squeezed juices that you get at every stall, major intersections on the side streets of India. You also get healthy Indian breakfast; ex: Idli sambhar and few other options. Love that about this place. After a long walk, health is right around the corner for you, just Rs. 10.00 away. haha

Another observation: People believe that there is a certain age limit for everything in this country...ex: finish school by certain age, get married by 25- 26, have children by 30 and so on and so forth. In last one week, I realized I actually don't fit in any of these categories. I feel "out of the box". In San Francisco, it was so much easier being 33 and single but in India you certainly have to find your own box.

Yes, I have been experiencing culture shock. Engagements/ Marriages over here feel like a fashion show competition, of who is wearing the latest style and the newest jewelry. Certain theaters make you stand up for the national anthem before the movie starts...All in all, it has been an interesting experience. Still a lot to sit with, to digest, to figure out...Half my life in India, other half in the U.S.  Will I adjust again here or will it always remain a mystery? I guess, we'll find out...

Missing my friends
Love and Light