got back this morning and it felt like i had never left at all. india was already beginning to fade away as the cab pulled up infront of my house. i came in, patted reno and cooed at his cuteness, said hi to aunty as though i had just come back from school or the shop and went to the fridge to get some cookies to eat. for the past 16 days, it's like i went on without life and life went on without me but i didn't really mind.

well, well...what to say? you know how it is...for the things that really hit home in your heart, words are always insufficient and only scratch the surface if they scratch anything at all. i could write for a hundred years, a thousand words each day...but words are just shells. and that's one of the most important lessons i've learnt during this time. words are like containers and containers, well, contain. water takes the form of the container when it is contained and it flows freely, only as far as the walls of the container allow it too. water could take many other shapes but it only takes one when you put it in that one container. that's the consequence of judgement, when we put love in a box or in the shape of a heart or a diamond. it's all related in case you're wondering how "judgement" came into the picture. just as an example. you eat an ice-cream and in eating that ice-cream, experience a whole phletora of experiences which are infinite and ultimately, all one experience. but you say, "oh, the ice-cream was refreshing!" but the fact is that, that one word, 'refreshing", doesn't sum it all up. neither would using more words say it all. in fact, if anything, all you did was "contain" the experience. and the danger in that is that you distort the actual experience and grow to believe in the distorted one instead (if you are not conscious of this). then, instead of believing in the actual experience, you start believing in merely the word. it's like playing with the box and falling in love with it when you get a present. how's that for missing the point?

ok, so what's my point? nothing much. i'm just trying to say that the more i experienced, the harder it was for me to put them all into words. each moment was so profound and intense that i didn't ever want to forget so i kept a journal throughout. and i took lots of photos. alot!! meanwhile, i knew that the photos, the words, were all just...photos and words. and the only way i could really fully own those moments was by totally BEing in them. not to create stories about them, not to put a judgement or caption on them, but to just totally love and accept everything the universe was giving to me as a gift and to appreciate and be grateful for that gift. the moment i stopped doing that and started comparing one town to another and deciding where i was happier (be it between singapore and india or delhii and dharamshala), i had constricted the flow of love and the breath of god in me and it made me feel bitter and frustrated, choked up.

but those times when i was simply in awe and in love, with no or little room for fear, i felt truly alive and present, even in the midst of poverty, traffic jams, piss and pollution. and really horny cars which never fail to piss the shit out of me! hahaha.

just before i left for india, i was at the national library in singapore browsing for books to borrow. i happened to chance across a book about the philosopher, hegel, and thought of a friend. so i picked it up and randomly turned to a page and it talked about how in order to know something, you have to experience it. and yes, spouting profounds thoughts will never let me know god. only when i experience god can i truly know god. and the only way i can experience god is by living. even "god" is just a word. but if you strip away all the words, you'll find that everything is really all one and that there is only one word.

i know there are many religious people in the world. and there are also people who religiously make it a point to condemn religion. but i perceive that whether you profess to have a religion or not, you really do have one. ultimately, isn't that alot like us humans? our souls are infinite, and ultimately, all part of the same one god and yet, we were put into different bodies. our bodies are just shells to house our divine nature in the material realm. the thoughts and beliefs we hold on to and the structures we create which govern our lives are simply just the boxes we have created to contain that one big thing.

so ultimately, there is only that one thing which is the ultimate truth. and everything else, is well, an illusion or a manisfestation (or maybe, both) of it. religion is an inevitable part of life. it is our "zahir". each and every one of us lives according to some kind of "zahir", something your whole existence propels around. some of us try to fight it, to not have a religion, to break out of structures, but that fight then becomes our zahir. i was at the osho ashram bookshop in pune, india, reading an article about freedom. it spoke of 3 types of freedom namely, "freedom from", "freedom for" and "freedom". the first is negative freedom, the second is positive and the last, the highest form, just IS.

ok what are you saying, shireen???

well, i'm not really sure. i just know that all these rivers (whatever shape, length or size) lead to this one ocean and my purpose is to flow as one with them and empty out myself into this ocean.

i actually have so much to say about india. and i have so much more to say about everything i have just said. but i am hungry and am going to eat.