asia (39)
[caption id="attachment_13562" align="aligncenter" width="400"]
Angkor Wat at Moonset[/caption] When I first contacted my guide from www.angkorphotographytours.com, I told him that I’d watched videos posted online about the sunrise at Angkor Wat. In some, there were close to 2,000 people competing to get one beautiful photograph. I was horrified and desperate to avoid this. My guide agreed to my request and chose an entrance that was devoid of visitors for our sunrise visit to Angkor Wat. Later in the morning, as we left this UNESCO World Heritage site, I was puzzled and this feeling remained throughout my trip. Only much later I understood that it all had to do with the ‘where’ and ‘what’ of this place together with a dose of semantics. My point of embarkation was that Angkor Wat is described as a ‘temple complex’. I referred to an article I wrote based on an interview with Mr. Rajaji (‘Worship and a way of life’ https://www.nst.com.my/news/2015/09/worship-and-way-life). What Mr. Rajaji said was that in Hindu mythology, Lord Brahma created the cosmic man, Purush, when he was creating the Universe. In the process, things got a little out of hand and Purush became too large to manage. At the behest of the other Gods, Lord Brahma contained Purush by pinning him down with his head towards north-east and legs to the south-west. Unable to bring Himself to destroy Purush, Lord Brahma decided to make him immortal. Henceforth, he was known as Vashtu-Purush and all mortals needed to first worship him before any construction work began. [caption id="attachment_13593" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
A Vashtu-Purush-Mandala (http://architectureideas.info/2008/10/vastu-purusha-mandala/)[/caption] Ancient architects called the metaphysical chart used to create a building a Vashtu-Purush-Mandala similar to the one above. They chose the square as the fundamental form to symbolise unity, inertia and permanence. All other shapes such as the triangle, hexagon, octagon and circle were derived from this square. At its most basic, the chart is divided into 81 parts (9x9). The number 9 is very important and is derived from the human body. We have nine ‘holes’ - two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, one mouth, two orifices for waste. [caption id="attachment_13594" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
Layout of Gangaiconda Cholapuram temple (https://sreenivasaraos.com/tag/temple-layout/)[/caption] As for the worship proper, after all the preliminary rituals are completed, one steps into the Mahamandap (main hall) and moves forward to face the presiding deity. As the sun rises, the worshipper will witness the sun’s rays shining on the presiding deity. The layout would be similar to the Gangaikonda Cholapuram temple as above. Keeping all this in mind, it made sense that whenever I visited a temple in the morning, I went at what I call the ‘right’ time. This was usually after the temple opened and before the sun became too hot and burnt the skin on my back. It also meant that I always entered the temple from the east and faced the west. [caption id="attachment_13596" align="aligncenter" width="200"]
Layout of Angkor Wat (http://www.myangkorguide.com/citadels-and-temples/angkor-wat/)[/caption] With Angkor Wat though, it was different (as can be seen from above). Yes, because we chose to avoid the crowds, we entered the temple through the east. But this was on the other side of the main entrance. It effectively meant that if we were worshiping at this temple and stood before its presiding deity, the sun would be in our eyes and not on our backs. It was as though the architects of this temple had taken a standard Vashtu-Purusha-Mandala and rotated it 180 degrees. Indeed, on page 64 of Andrew Booth’s book ‘The Angkor Guidebook: Your Essential Companion Guide to the Temples’, he writes as follows:
‘Why Angkor Wat was oriented to the west continues to be debated but could be determined by the temple’s dedication to Vishnu, preserver of the universe, who is sometimes associated with the west in Brahmanic tradition.’
All this made me wonder if this structure was a temple at all especially when I read Booth’s further comment that, ‘[t]he unusual orientation may also be linked to the motivation for building the temple. It was possibly designed as a tomb for King Suryavarman II, the sponsor whose death would be symbolised by the daily setting of the sun.’ A tomb? This word presupposes that a burial has taken place. But Hindus and Buddhists don’t often bury the dead. We cremate them. One possibility is that the king’s ashes are interred at Angkor Wat. [caption id="attachment_13597" align="aligncenter" width="200"]
(Layout of Kailash (as shown on http://www.kamit.jp/02_unesco/03_kailasa/kai_eng.htm)[/caption] There is only one other structure I know where this West-East orientation exists. It’s one the first sites in India to be given UNESCO Heritage status – cave 16 of Ellora, known as Kailash. In the same way as Angkor Wat, we enter the main hall from the west. The thing is, there is no suggestion that Kailash has any Buddhist influence. It is a Hindu temple with a Shiva linga in its inner sanctum. After all this reading and thinking, instead of being less puzzled, I was also confused and frustrated. No doubt, as is usually the case with anything related to Hinduism, mythology, philosophy and religion, there are many permutations and combinations to decipher. My questions remain unanswered. Was Angkor Wat a temple? If so, who was the presiding deity? Was there a deity at all? Or a stupa? If it wasn’t a temple, was it a tomb? Or a funerary? If you have answers to any of these questions or wish to share some of your stories, please tell us in the box below. What remains unquestionable, though, is that Angkor Wat inspires awe. It is an architectural masterpiece and I am deeply grateful I got to visit it. If only I could go back in time and ask the architects of this place to explain their rationale when designing this building. (29 July 2017)
Aneeta Sundararaj has travelled all her life. It's only now she's started to write stories about her unique adventures. Read mores stories like this on her website, ‘How to Tell a Great Story’. (http://www.howtotellagreatstory.com). Click here to return to the index of Articles
The World Heritage Centre at the UNESCO website describes Angkor in the following way:
'Angkor is one of the most important archaeological sites in South-East Asia. Stretching over some 400 km2, including forested area, Angkor Archaeological Park contains the magnificent remains of the different capitals of the Khmer Empire, from the 9th to the 15th century. They include the famous Temple of Angkor Wat and, at Angkor Thom, the Bayon Temple with its countless sculptural decorations. UNESCO has set up a wide-ranging program to safeguard this symbolic site and its surroundings.' http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/668
I have always been interested in photography as an art form for I admire the skills needed to take a great photo. So, with the guidance of an able photographer and guide from Angkor Photography Tours (http://www.angkorphotographytours.com), I learned how to properly use my camera. In less than three days, I took close to 1,300 images and I wish I could show them all to you. With great difficulty, I chose the following to share here. Gallery 1 is what I call the 'quality' photos. Gallery 2 is what I call 'story' photos. These are the ones that all have a story behind them. In my next post, I'll share these stories. For now, enjoy the photos. (Note: click on the image to view its actual size) Gallery 1: Quality [gallery columns="5" ids="13524,13526,13527,13528,13525"] Gallery 2: Story [gallery columns="5" ids="13530,13531,13532,13534,13533"] (19 July 2017)
Aneeta Sundararaj has travelled all her life. It's only now she's started to write stories about her unique adventures. Read mores stories like this on her website, ‘How to Tell a Great Story’. (http://www.howtotellagreatstory.com). Click here to return to the index of Articles
This is a surprise. Climbing the Sydney Harbour bridge. You’re living the high life, I see. This was the whatsapp message I received from a relative. What was she surprised about? That I was in Sydney? That I didn’t tell her I was on holiday? Or that I was on holiday at all. It had to be the last one. That tinge of envy in the message aside, I admit that I told very few people about this desire to climb the bridge. The only ones who knew were my friends in Sydney, my mother and some very close friends. Also, I got the feeling that some didn't think I was serious about it. In fact, my editor wasn’t interested in a story because she felt that there was nothing unique about climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The first time I thought about climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge, it wasn’t even possible to do so. This must have been in the early 1990s. I stood on the balcony of one of our friend’s homes looking at the view of a city drenched in sunlight. While everyone else commented on the warm weather and fussed over the barbecue, I looked at the magnificent steel contraption in the distance and wondered what it would be like to climb. In the many years since that day, I’ve often thought about that view. On miserably grey days in the UK, I tried to explain to friends that in Sydney, it could be freezing cold, but with that cloudless sky, your spirits were bound to be lifted. I wondered if I would ever fulfil this desire to climb the bridge and mulled over all the expenses involved. In short, I made no concerted effort and it remained something I talked about, but never did. All this changed in January this year when a friend from Sydney visited Kuala Lumpur. On the off chance, I asked if she was interested in something like this fully expecting her to say no. She surprised me when she was keen to join me in this adventure. We agreed to meet up in about two months and take it from there. It’s only when I started looking for hotels to stay in that I realised just how much of this city I’d forgotten. I couldn't recognise many of the names of the suburbs I used to visit. Wondering why this was so, I searched my memory and it then occurred to me that it was some 19 years since I was last in Sydney. Yes, I have visited Australia a few times in the last two decades, but always skipped Sydney. Anyway, the hotel, bridge climb and flights were booked and paid for. My hotel was located in Potts Point which is described as a ‘small, densely populated suburb of inner-city Sydney.’ The only firm plan I made for this five-day stay was to climb the bridge on Wednesday. Other than that, I was prepared to take what came my way. The next day, I joined a free walking tour of the city. I expected there to be about 10 people at most. There were close to 100 and we were split into two groups. At the end of the tour, I took a photo of the bridge from the Sydney Opera House. I wanted a record of the kind of weather I was probably going to have to deal with during the bridge climb the next day. [gallery columns="2" size="medium" ids="13440,13439"] Throughout that walking tour, I enjoyed the rain and was deeply amused by my fellow tourists. Two girls, one from Germany and the other from the UK, were disappointed by all this rain and insisted that they should have spent more time in Melbourne. Here I was, the Malaysian, desperately trying to convince them with, “No! Don’t think that. Sydney is really very beautiful. You must come again and see it when it’s bathed in sunlight.” And my friends in Sydney made me laugh. Wearing Wellington boots and armed with umbrellas, I’d never had city dwellers apologise so much for awful weather. I assured them that the weather wasn’t going to make or break my trip. Sydney was damp, but it was still beautiful. Anyway, the evening before the climb, I refreshed some of my knowledge about this bridge and trawled through the many websites and learned this: the Sydney Harbour Bridge is affectionately called the ‘Coathanger’. It was opened in 1932 after six years of construction. The 800 families that lived in the path of the Bridge were relocated and their homes demolished without compensation. 16 people died during its construction. The official Bridge Climb started in 1998. Before bed, some apprehension set in and I remembered the ‘advice’ and ‘objections’ I’d received so far. The first was that I’ll have to train hard for this bridge climb. Not really. It’s just over 500 steps to the summit of the bridge. If you sit all day in front of a computer, then this may be a problem. But if you’re active, it's a breeze. Here’s a comparison: if you’re Malaysian and can climb the steps up Batu Caves twice, you can certainly climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Except for one part where there are four sets of stairs that are almost vertical, the tread depth is wide and the riser is no more than 6 inches high. ‘Careful. You’ll fall off the bridge.’ This is the second comment someone close made and it still makes me laugh. One of the first things you’ll know when booking this bridge climb is the obsession, almost, to maintain safety during the climb. You have to have a breathalyser test. If you’re above the alcohol limit, you’re not allowed to proceed for the climb. It makes perfect sense. Can you imagine wobbling on the route? Other than being tethered to the railings at all times, we’re also not allowed to carry a single thing with us – not even a bobby pin to keep our hair in place. It’s logical because if something falls from that height, it’s bound to cause an injury to those below. And here’s the last comment made: Why spend so much money to do this? True. The cost of this bridge climb together with photos costs more than AUD$400.00. But it’s like saying, “I’m going to Agra, but I won’t see the Taj Mahal because there’s so much else to see.” I mean, it’s been my dream to climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge and if I listened to everyone who told me not to follow my dreams, I wouldn’t have this website and platform to tell you this story. The next day, we chose to climb the bridge at twilight. It rained in the morning and it rained in the afternoon. By 5 pm, though, it stopped raining, just as we took our first steps onto the bridge. The twilight walk proved to be the right choice because as we ascended, we got to see Sydney in daylight (albeit a cloudy one) and as we descended, we saw Sydney at night. It was the best of both times. What was the whole experience like? I have struggled since 15 March 2017 (the day we climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge) day to put to words it feels like. Exhilarating seems too mild. Courageous is being facetious. Lucky doesn’t fit the bill as I wanted to do this for a long while. I suppose the best description for this unique trip comes from a friend who saw the photo taken by our guide during the climb. She says, “Your smile says it all. It’s been a long time since anyone has seen you this happy.” [caption id="attachment_13442" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
Aneeta on the Sydney Harbour Bridge[/caption] The next day, my friends asked, “Now that that’s off your bucket list, what’s next?” I smiled and replied, “Ah… that would be telling.” If you have climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge and can share your story, I’d love to hear from you. Please enter your comments in the box below. Useful links: http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/sydney-harbour-bridge http://www.bridgeclimb.com (21 June 2017)
Aneeta Sundararaj has travelled all her life. It's only now she's started to write stories about her unique adventures. Read mores stories like this on her website, ‘How to Tell a Great Story’. (http://www.howtotellagreatstory.com). Click here to return to the index of Articles
Sometimes, a conversation with a friend is comforting, enlightening and entertaining in equal measure. [caption id="attachment_13323" align="alignleft" width="200"]
Dr. Rohi Shetty[/caption] The decision is made. Instead of taking a rickshaw or the car, we’ll walk. Rohi will lead the way to Shreyas restaurant (http://www.hotelshreyas.in/restaurant.php) that serves a Maharashtrian Thali. Although it is January, the mid-morning sun warms my back as we walk along Prabhat Road in Pune, India. As we amble along, cars, scooters, cycles and pedestrians race past. Perhaps, ‘race’ isn’t the right word. At most, they’re all going at 15 km per hour because the road is congested and choking with people, noise and smells. There are squeals of laughter from children nearby. One man is selling vegetables by the roadside. A young girl on a scooter wraps one end of her dupatta around her head then expertly covers her nose and mouth. Once she puts on her sunglasses, there’s nothing of her face that’s visible and she’s completely protected from the pollution. Since I’m meeting Rohi for the first time since my father’s death, it is natural this topic comes up during our conversation. He asks what my views are about death. I struggle to answer him because I’ve been so busy living that I haven’t thought much about dying. At least not about my own mortality. I tell him that what I have done for a long while now is to put systems in place to ensure that living is more manageable. I refer to a book I worked on, Yap Ming Hui’s ‘Set Yourself Free’ (http://howtotellagreatstory.com/2012/10/set-yourself-free-by-yap-ming-hui/) and we discuss this in some detail. We arrive at the cross-roads and Rohi suggests we take the left lane. A while later, he takes a deep breath and responds to what I said. “[M]ost people don't want to face death,” he says. “They don't want to talk about it or deal with its reality even though it's inevitable. They even consider talking about death to be bad luck or inauspicious. For example, in my family, my father who is 80, not only does not talk about his death (or will) but changes the subject, when we talk about it. My mother, on the other hand, is much more open and wants to make a will. She also doesn't want any rituals after her death.” This is a side of Rohi that I don’t know even though we’ve known each other for a long time. He’s been a columnist for my newsletter for many years. I take my time to gather my thoughts. I look up at some of the buildings we’re walking past. I’ve been told that this is ‘the place to be’ in Pune. It’s the older part of the city and property prices have skyrocketed in the past few years. Some of the older houses have a grand and opulent architecture. They’re the kind of houses that make you sigh for the secrets and stories they hold within their walls. Then there are those few painful houses – the newer, somewhat garish structures where the land was sold to developers who did what developers the world over often to do – destroy the old and build new to make money. Ready to speak, I tell Rohi that on the whole, I’m feeling ‘lost’, as though I am just ‘there’. I’m doing so many wrong things when all I want is to ‘be’. I’ve given up on achieving anything as nothing seems to be going my way. In fact, the more I try, the more of a mess things become. For example, in December, I was invited out for an evening with the promise of much fun and music. Through no fault of mine, the evening disintegrated into one of unnecessary drama. This made me wonder if it is enough to ‘be’ or is it necessary to take metaphorical steps backwards. Is there, in fact, a difference? Rohi is quick to answer. “According to Eckhart Tolle and others,” he says, “the biggest reason for our suffering is unconscious thinking. We consider our thoughts to be "I" and "mine" and to be true. For example, if you have the thought, "I'm depressed." you assume it's true because it has arisen in your mind.” Presenting it as an equation, he explains it in the following manner: [Negative thoughts] lead to a downward spiral = like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Negative thoughts lead to negative emotions. Emotion is thought + its impact on your body. To illustrate this, he says that when you become a witness, you observe the thoughts arising in your mind without getting affected by it. You detach yourself from the unconscious thoughts that arise from the constant judgment and blind reaction not only to external events and internal thoughts. “That's what the Buddha said,” he adds. “[T]hat the well-trained mind is your biggest asset and an ill-trained mind is your biggest foe.” So I ask him, does being a witness mean being aware and mindful without judgment or blind reaction? His answer is yes. While I digest this message, Rohi, asks someone for directions to our restaurant. We seem to have taken a wrong turn. In that moment, I don’t mind being lost. We’ve been walking under a canopy of tall trees and it’s been pleasant throughout. Had this been Kuala Lumpur, where more and more trees are being felled for various reasons – some logical and some not – unless I use an umbrella, walking from my flat to the train station can be torture with the unrelenting tropical sun. In Pune, I’m told, one often needs permission from the local council to fell these trees. Architects have to plan their designs around these lovely, tall trees. When Rohi returns and says we need to backtrack as we’ve missed the entrance to the restaurant, another thought occurs to me. How does he reconcile all this, which I would imagine is regarded as being most unscientific, with all that he’s learnt in medical school? There is a sparkle in his eyes when he says, “What I said above has been validated by science and modern technology such as functional MRI and brain mapping. None of it is unscientific. As Mr S.N. Goenka said at the UN, the Buddha was a super-scientist.” Much later, I look this up and find an article that has published the transcript of this speech: (http://www.vipassana.co/discourses/Buddha-The-Super-Scientist-of-Peace). Excerpts of what Mr. Goenka said is as follows:
‘He [the Buddha] said, "I have experienced this law of nature, the Law of Dependent Origination, within myself; and having experienced and understood it I declare it, teach it, clarify it, establish it and show it to others. Only after having seen it for myself, I declare it." This is the bold declaration of a supreme scientist. Just as whether there is a Newton or no Newton, the law of gravity remains true. Newton discovered it and explained it to the world. Similarly, Galileo or no Galileo, the fact that the earth revolves around the sun remains true. The feeling of sensation is the crucial junction from where one can take two paths going in opposite directions. If one keeps on reacting blindly to pleasant and unpleasant sensations, one multiplies one's misery. If one learns to maintain equanimity in the face of pleasant and unpleasant sensations, one starts changing the habit pattern at the deepest level and starts coming out of misery… Thus, this super-scientist discovered that to become fully liberated from mental defilements, one has to work at the root of the mind.’
Back in Pune, though, I have to smile thinking of all the medically-trained people I know who will be offended by these suggestions. When I share my thoughts with Rohi, he says “You can check it out for yourself - no need to believe me or anyone else.” With that, Rohi brings our discussion to a close and, with a wave of his hand, invites me to walk ahead of him. We’ve arrived at the restaurant and I’m hungry. (11 May 2017)
Click here to return to the index of Articles
[Author’s note: This piece was written for 7C Life Realization Centre after I attended a 2-day Retreat there. The ‘Swamiji’ here is His Holiness Swami Guru Sri Kriyathasa Sekar, founder of 7C Life Realization Centre.] On 17 October last year, my father passed away. Prior to this, Swamiji and his team were kindness personified and His words gave me courage to make some of the hardest decisions ever. Because these were the right decisions, I couldn’t cry after Daddy’s death. Instead, I wrote a story which was published in the New Straits Times. Here’s the link to that story: http://www.nst.com.my/news/2016/11/190075/perfection-my-fathers-passing The pertinent paragraph is this:
At one stage, I whispered into his ears: “Daddy, if you can see, look around you. I’m here. Mummy is here,” ... I imagined that, like in the movies, Daddy’s astral being would rise up and see us all. “Daddy, pray to Amma,” I urged him. This word “Amma” had a double meaning. For one, Amma was his ishtadevam…. It was also what we called my grandmother. He opened his eyes and glanced at all of us. It was the validation I needed that he had heard me and knew that he wasn’t alone. When my father then closed his eyes for eternity, I surrendered his body, heart and soul into Amma’s hands.
During my consultation with Swamiji in November, He assured me that Amma had received Daddy. He also said that I’d inherited Daddy’s strong belief in Amma. I heard the words, but they didn’t register in my psyche. Instead, I felt I was alone in a semi-dark cave. My arms were outstretched as I surrendered my father’s body, heart and soul to Amma. Now that She’d accepted Daddy, there was an opaque veil between us. She was there, I knew, but I no longer had access to Her. My arms were empty and I was left to wander around lost. Meanwhile, life carried on and I felt increasingly disconnected to the world. The more people (Swamiji included) said, “You’re not alone,” the lonelier I felt. The more they said, “Pray,” the more I raged. By 7 January 2017, I stopped praying altogether. Five weeks into the New Year, when a dear friend emphatically beseeched me to forgive the Divine and pray, I thought to relent. Yet, when I drove to the temple, I couldn’t park the car, let alone go inside. I drove away; the burden of being forsaken by the Divine was too much to bear. I hated the feeling of being inadvertently placed in difficult situations to assess my response. A tedious one was to visit relatives. I had to find space among members of a family in despair, but determined to be at war with each other over their God (money). Would I be able to remain still in a place devoid of gratitude and where ritual or religion, especially Hinduism, was sure to be mocked? It was ironic, seeing my present spiritual crisis. Initially, I threatened not to go, but Swamiji insisted I had a role to play. So I went. Honestly, I was happiest when the aeroplane landed back at KLIA and the air hostess announced, “To Malaysians, welcome home.” I then begged Swamiji to intercede with the Divine and allow me to live rather than exist. He told me point blank to give God the space to manifest the right life without interference. He also said that every prayer and thought is attended to. I wasn’t comforted, but frustrated. This was my frame of mind by the time I arrived at the retreat. My plan was to relax, immerse myself in the activities and laugh. In the short time I’d known them, the people of 7C Life Realization Centre had embraced me warmly (literally) and shown such kindness that the memory of the flowers they sent after we cremated Daddy’s body brings tears to my eyes every time. The food during the retreat was way too good and didn’t help my waistline one bit. The centre does live up to its name of Peace Sanctuary for I found that once there, my worries and thoughts of the outside world disappeared. I wanted to use the four chakra meditation sessions on Day1 (Manipura, Visudhi, Swadisthana and Anja) to prepare for the Inner Journey session the next day. Expecting nothing, I was surprised by a small transformation on Day 1. During one guided meditation, in that deep recess of my mind, I was back in that cave-like place. This time, the veil I spoke of earlier was no more. I could see Amma, but nothing else – an idol with no emotion whatsoever. When I had a quiet word with Swamiji about this, he replied, “She never left.” That night, I wondered if I would sleep. Actually, I overslept! By the time I arrived at the centre the next morning, it was a quarter past six. In the faint light of dawn, everyone was seated in a circle with a beautiful formation of candles and flowers in the centre. The meditation was to the tune of the ‘Devi Prayer’ by Craig Pruess and Ananda Devi. Towards the end of this prayer, when Swamiji said “Surrender to the Divine,” I just about burst into tears. I still can’t explain or understand why I cried. Anyway, for the rest of the morning, I participated in the activities and waited for that Inner Journey session. While I’m not prepared to share this personal journey here, what I can say is that what happened sounds fantastical, at best. That image of Amma in the cave wasn’t only visible, but luminous. She also wore a smile, the same benign one Daddy was known for. It’s as though I’d found Her all over again and, this time, Daddy was with her, too. They were neither angry with me, disappointed by my behaviour nor sad. They appeared to want the best for me and they’d given me their permission to live. It was faint, but it was certainly there. During the ensuing discussion with Swamiji, when he explained that we’d just participated in astral travelling, I was delighted. This is something I’ve known about for many years, but never found someone who could safely accompany me on the journey and back. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and would cherish the chance to travel as often as I can. Since the retreat, nothing monumental has happened. There are daily blessings and I’ve learnt to be thankful for each one. Maybe, the one change is that I’m not as anxious as I was before the retreat. I am letting go of my grip on things and learning not to react negatively. Instead, I hope to become more of a witness to life. Perhaps, one day soon, I may even begin to pray again. If you’ve been on a retreat, please feel free to share your stories in the comments box below. If you'd like to know more about the retreats at 7C Life Realization Centre, do visit their website: http://7clife.org/
Click here to return to the index of Articles
[caption id="attachment_13044" align="aligncenter" width="200"]
Dr. Rajah Sundararaj[/caption] [An edited version of this story was first published in PULSE, New Straits Times on 19 November 2016. I asked for and received permission from the New Straits Times to republish it here.] Not again! I was tired and wanted sleep. Instead, I was staring out the window into the darkness. Then again, I’d become used to waking up in the middle of the night worrying about my father’s ailing health and our future. I mentally ran through my checklist for when the inevitable happened: ask my cousin to drive me home; call my editor to reassign my interviews; make sure the car’s petrol tank was topped up. What if I were overseas, though, when Daddy died? I must have enough money to buy a ticket home. I must arrange for someone to help Mummy call the doctor, report the matter to the police and do all the paperwork. Daddy had to be taken to the mortuary until I was home. Such morbid thoughts, I know. However, I’ve learned that, in the dead of night, when worry and fear threatens to consume you, it’s best to be practical and think of all that needs to be done. This mental activity is exhausting and shuts out emotion; the body and mind eventually succumbs to sleep. Today, I tell people that I lost my father two years before he actually died. He suffered a severe bout of pneumonia and was hospitalised for two weeks in November 2014. During those dark days, and in the following months, I bargained with God many times: Let Daddy come home and I will write ‘Bairava’ (one of Lord Shiva’s names) 22,000 times. Let him recover and I will turn vegetarian for 108 days. Let him live longer and I will recite the Mahamrityunjaya mantra 108 times for 48 days. Although Daddy pulled through and was discharged on his birthday, November 23, he was never the same. VISIONS OF ANGELS Two things happened in the last six months which made me anxious. The first was when our maid telephoned one morning and said: “You call your father. He is crying all morning.” Apparently, Daddy realised that for the two weeks I’d been home, he couldn’t remember who I was because of his dementia. He tortured himself assuming I was upset. I wasn’t. But that’s the moment I began to hurt because he was enduring such intense emotional pain. The second was based on what Carla Wills-Brandon once wrote: ‘The dying will report visions of angels, deceased loved ones, or religious figures, moments, hours, days or even weeks, before actual death takes place.’ (http://www.care-givers.com/DBArticles/pages/viewarticle.php?id=138) In April, when Daddy woke up one morning to tell us about the ‘people’ seated at the end of his bed, I didn’t argue. Instead, I went into his bedroom and said to ‘them’: “It’s OK. You all sit there and keep Daddy safe. No need for you all to hurry.” One evening early last month, when I was helping him get ready for bed, Daddy asked me, point blank: “Who are you?” He no longer knew me, but he could name his childhood playmate and my grandfather, whom he saw standing in front of him the next morning. SUPPORT DURING LIFE When my father was placed on life support on 12 October, I didn’t dare bargain with God anymore. A miracle had already taken place: I’d fulfilled Daddy’s wish and brought him back from Kuala Lumpur to Alor Setar. He was so frail that I feared he would die in the airport. But, like magic, everything fell into place. I knew that any medical intervention at this stage might keep him alive, but could have rendered him bedridden. Many times, Daddy had said that he preferred to die before this happened. So, I steeled my nerves, let go of my selfish desire to keep my father alive at any cost and silenced the voice of my sorrow. My task was not merely to let my 86-year-old father go, but to help him let us go as well. [caption id="attachment_13042" align="alignleft" width="215"]
All-time-favourite photo of Aneeta and Dr. Rajah Sundararaj[/caption] I turned to friends and explained that for the last two years, my father had become a ‘child’. I became his ‘parent’ and cared for and loved him. Now, as the finality of what was going to happen fast approached, I was worried. Would he be safe? Would he be cared for? I asked that they pray for me to have the strength to go through one of the hardest things ever. How kind they all were, regardless of colour, creed and faith: Catholics said the Rosary, Christians prayed and Hindus recited the mantras with me. I can count on one hand the number of people I informed about Daddy’s condition. Yet word spread fast. Uncles, aunts and many friends dropped everything and rushed to be with us. The makcik who sat next to me on the plane during a quick dash to Kuala Lumpur to shut down my flat comforted me as I wept. People I’d interviewed sent flowers, cards and messages. INTO HER HANDS Finally, on the morning of October 17, when there was no longer any cognitive function and Daddy was slipping away, we gathered by his side. At one stage, I whispered into my father’s ears. “Daddy, if you can see, look around you. I’m here. Mummy is here…” and I continued to name all the people standing around his bed. I imagined that, like in the movies, Daddy’s astral being would rise up and see us all. “Daddy, pray to Amma,” I urged him. This word ‘Amma’ had a double meaning. For one, Amma was his ishtadevam (a worshipper's favourite deity in Hinduism). It was also what we called my grandmother. Daddy opened his eyes and glanced at all of us. It was the validation I needed that Daddy had heard me and knew that he wasn’t alone. When my father then closed his eyes for eternity, I surrendered his body, heart and soul into Amma’s hands. I choose to believe that in those last five days of his life, Daddy came back to us. Although physically helpless, he recognised us and communicated in other ways. He smiled when I promised to look after Mummy. He squeezed my hand when I asked for his forgiveness for all the wrong I’d done. Tears fell from his eyes when I thanked him for giving me the pleasure of being his daughter. When I told him it was time to rest, he gave me a firm nod. As Mummy and I get used to a new reality and I tell people about the perfection of my father’s death, I shed no tears. What right have I to cry when the entire sequence of events was a testament that my every wish was granted? Daddy died peacefully surrounded by the people who loved him, and in a town where he’d earned enormous respect. I end this story with the same request every time: Please say a prayer for the repose of the soul belonging to Dr. Rajah Sundararaj, a man whose name I am deeply honoured to carry. *** By Aneeta Sundararaj (November 2016)
Click here to return to the index of Articles
[This article was first published on 'LET' which is the online app for New Straits Times in August 2016. I am so proud of this story that I asked for and received permission from the New Straits Times to publish it here.] It’s the 1980s and in Stadium Dato’ Syed Omar, Alor Setar, a man performs an Indian classical dance at the invitation of the Sultan of Kedah (our present Agong). In the audience is a little girl who eagerly explains to her astounded father every single one of the 10 incarnations of Lord Vishnu that the dancer is depicting. At the end of the performance, the little girl lets out a contented sigh. She prays that one day, she will be given the chance to see him dance again. Today, the stadium no longer exists, the little girl’s all grown up and the dancer is now a celebrated icon known to all as Datuk Ramli Ibrahim. When I tell him that the little girl in the story above was me, Ramli responds with, “But darling, that was more than thirty years ago!” With a broad smile, the multiple award-winning artiste insists that my story is another example of how well he connects with children. As the Chairman of Sutra Foundation, he’s keen to create a strong bank of new talent and is involved in an outreach programme which offers dance training to children outside Kuala Lumpur. An initiative of Sutra Foundation, this programme is supported with funding from Yayasan myNADI and ECM Libra. Straightening the kurta he’s changed into to perform a short piece for us, Ramli steps onto the ‘stage’ in the garden of his home in Petaling Jaya. He winces when his feet touch the sun-soaked platform in the middle of a large fish pond and says: “Right in the middle here is a piece of granite I brought back from the Himalayas. I went to the base camp on 9 September 1999.” As he begins to dance to the tune of ‘Lalitha Lavanga’ by Skikil Gurucharan and Anil Srinivasan, there is a sudden breeze. The palm fronds, leaves of the bougainvillea and surrounding bushes all rustle, as though Mother Nature appreciates this impromptu performance. TAPESTRY OF DANCE When it’s over, with a refreshing drink in hand, 63-year-old Ramli sits down to discuss his interest in developing talent amongst the younger generation. He complains that many urban children today are weaker and poorly coordianted. They are clumsy and when he asks the parents why, most confess that their children hardly go out to play. Shaking his head, he laments: “It’s a pity since Nature is the greatest teacher.” Describing performances as a ‘tapestry of things that happen’, Ramli believes that Indian classical dances have the power to transform and are capable of empowering youths physically, emotionally and spiritually. Echoing the thoughts of Dr. Dinanath Pathy, Ramli also believes that dance doesn’t just happen on stage, but emerges from a cultural tradition. Dr. Pathy is a literary and visual consultant to Sutra Foundation and is credited with conceiving the theme and visual images for the recently completed performance of ‘Ganjam’ by the Sutra Foundation. The branch of Indian classical dance that Ramli chooses to teach his students in the outreach programme is mainly Odissi. A classical dance form from Eastern India, he feels that it exposes students to life-long virtues such as discipline, commitment to self and also as participating members of a group or community. Lessons are held during the weekends: On Saturdays, Ramli goes to Kuala Selangor and Ladang Sg. Choch to teach there. On Sundays, he goes back to his hometown, Kajang, to teach at a school. “This is the only time when they [his students] are allowed to make mistakes,” he says, his tone instantly hard, indicating the level of discipline he demands from his students. In fact, he expects the established dances of his Sutra Dance Theatre to be part of this endeavour. When he detects a reluctance on their part to give of themselves to these under-privileged children, he admits to feeling nauseated. He is quick to add: “I tell my dancers that since dance has given them so much, they must give back. These are their own people. Other Indians.” OPPOSING PRINCIPLES There are two major philosophical and literary principles from Greek mythology that underlie Ramli’s approach to dance – the Apollonian and Dionysian principles. In Greek mythology, Apollo and Dionysius were the sons of Zeus. Apollo represents order, predictability and stability. “Look at university. It’s symmetrical and has to give an idea of stability. But with Dionysian, nothing is symmetrical,” explains Ramli. Dionysius is all about chaos, instability and surprise. Throughout his work a creative director and dancer, Ramli tries to strike the balance between these two principles. Sighing, he leans back and says: “I’ve been reading Jung lately and I’m starting to think about my childhood again.” Admitting that he’s a born performer, Ramli’s parents left him alone for most of the time, which allowed him to explore his surroundings and be creative. At that moment, a Labrador Retriever and a cat, two of the many pets that roam freely in Ramli’s house, make an entrance and seek his attention. Duly petted, they move away and Ramli tells of his compassion for animals and an innate desire to observe nature: “I would wake up early in the morning just to see how a flower develops.” As the youngest in the family, Ramli was a precocious child. Cheeky grin in place, he says: “If my mother told me not to do something, that was exactly what I’d do.” And since Ramli’s mother (Kamariah) told him not to swim, he did precisely that. But he excelled at it during his time at the Royal Military College and when he went to Australia in the 1970s, he took it one step further and learned to surf. CHOOSING DANCE The sense of freedom he experienced in Australia meant that less than two months after his arrival in Perth to complete a degree in Engineering from the University of Western Australia, Ramli bought a VW and drove all over. After his studies were over, he followed his heart and pursued dance. Ramli explained the conviction to turn his back on a supposedly ‘steady career’ and follow his passion when he wrote the following passage in a coffee-table book called ‘Quintessential Sutra’:
Dance is not just a craft. It is a passion – and more than that, it is a calling. I realised long ago that the gift of talent is a golden opportunity to fulfil one’s reason for being. I love to quote Martha Graham who said – ‘I did not choose to dance. Dance chose me.’
Having been based in Malaysia since the 1980s, this life-long performer still ‘speaks the language of dance’ which he calls ‘rasa’ and gives a somewhat profound explanation of what he means: in simple terms, the lyrics for Indian classical music can be called a ‘shloka’ (a couplet of Sanskrit verse). “In dance, learning what the shloka means is not as wonderful as learning what the shokla is imagined. [When I dance], I identify with my own spirit first, then the audience.” In so doing, the audience, be they a little girl or even the Sultan himself, becomes secondary to Ramli’s dance. Not willing to be specific about his future plans, Ramli’s concluding comment is perceptive indeed: “I try not to be too specific about the future. I can set a goal and destiny will look after itself. If the endurability of the human spirit deserves it, it’ll happen.” *** By Aneeta Sundararaj (September 2016)
Click here to return to the index of Articles
[caption id="attachment_12697" align="alignleft" width="200"]
Ramadan Flyer for Chakri Palace, KLCC[/caption] Wouldn’t it be nice if I could join Martin on this assignment? A food tasting for the Ramadhan Buffett at a swanky restaurant in town. That was the thought sent to the universe and, thereafter, forgotten. Lo and behold, a few days later, Martin sent an invitation. I jumped at the chance and said yes. The day is now here. I make my way to KLCC and meet up with Martin. He introduces me to two lovely ladies. Let’s just call them D and P for now for I don’t know if they’d like to be identified. Anyway, once pleasantries are exchanged, we make our way to Chakri Palace for what promises to be an evening of deliciousness. [caption id="attachment_12700" align="alignright" width="200"]
Sawadeeka[/caption] The Marketing Manager greets us at the entrance of the restaurant. I must admit that I dare not look into the eyes of the other seated patrons. I can feel their hunger as they wait for the appropriate time to break their Ramadhan fast. One look at the opulent setting and food laid out for us in the private room and I’m worried. Have I starved myself long enough in the past week? How am I going to burn all this off since I’m still on this diet? On the good side, though, I will probably sleep very well tonight as the food looks divine. So as not to look like an absolute glutton, I busy myself with the menu card and learn a little more about the restaurant. This is some of what I read:
Chakri Palace was founded in 1999 in our quest to bring the finest Thai cuisine to Malaysia. ‘Chakri’ represents the current ruling house of Thailand; ‘Palace’ allows guests to experience the exquisite taste of Thai cuisine like royalty.
'Chakri' is also a word that has Sanskrit origin; it means wheel. I glance around the place and true enough, there’s a gigantic portrait of King Chulalongkorn. Seeing this, I am reminded of a story about this king and his connection with my home town of Alor Setar. It’s well known that the musical instruments used by royalty in Kedah (more commonly known as ‘Nobat’) is special. They are used during very specific occasions such as the Sultan’s birthday or coronation. If I remember my history correctly, there was only one other time the Nobat was used during an official welcome for a head of state other than the Sultan of Kedah: When King Chulalongkorn visited Kedah state in 1896. My reverie is interrupted when a waiter walks in to add even more food to the table. There’s lots. So, I’m going to concentrate on those that I eat. The first is called ‘Tom Yum Prawn Soup’. The word I would use for this dish is ‘deceptive’. When I’ve order this dish at other restaurants, the soup has a reddish tinge to it. This one is clear and I assume it won’t be spicy. A minute later, mouth on fire, all I can think of is how foolish I am. Just because it doesn’t look like hot doesn’t mean it’s not hot. [gallery ids="12699,12701,12698"] This ‘heat-wave’ continues with all the other dishes, from the ‘Thai Papaya Salad with Tuna’, ‘Stir Fried Beancurd with Hot Basil Leaves’ and ‘Green Curry Crab Meat with Rice Noodles’. None of this means that I can’t taste the food. In fact, once I am past the heat, I savour the delicate taste of each dish. As I call for the waiter and request more water, the Marketing Manager tells us all: “We don’t use any preservatives. No MSG.” D and P are quick to respond: “Ah! Good. If not, we’d be drinking lots of water.” [caption id="attachment_12696" align="aligncenter" width="200"]
Premium Crab Ball in Yellow Curry[/caption] My favourite dish, by far, is one of the last ones – ‘Premium Crab Ball in Yellow Curry’. It’s beautifully delicate and melts in the mouth. As I sit back to take a breather, so do the others. The conversation veers to things a little more personal than work. And soon, the night comes to an end. So as not to make this piece very long, I shall list the one conversation that will make laugh for a long time to come. (I have the order of things, but you’ll get the drift). For ease of reference, everyone will be referred to by their initials. D and P, you already know. M will be Martin. A is me (Aneeta). MM will be the Marketing Manager. D: Oh, I’m so full. There are things I can’t take. M: Yah. D follows the blood type diet. A: Blood type diet? Oh God. I can’t even remember what my blood type is. M: You can’t? A: It must be the most normal one. D: That would be ‘O’. A: So, what am I not supposed to eat? [D fiddles with her phone then reads some stuff off the screen.] D: No dairy. [I say nothing for I have dairy every day. In fact, one of the few things that helps me sleep at night is a glass of milk.] P: I think I’m A. I know I can’t take pasta sauce. [D fiddles again with her phone.] P: Yeah. But I like seafood. The food here’s great. A: I really liked the sotong. P: That was great. Actually, all the seafood is great. Lucky there was no octopus. [We all nod.] P: I don’t eat octopus because they’re insightful. [I lean forward. Did I hear right?] A: Did you just say you don’t eat octopus because they’re insightful? [She nods, nonchalant.] A: I can understand if you’re allergic to octopus. Some people don’t like those suction things on their tentacles. They think they’ll stick to the tongue. But... [I frown and look at her closely.] A: Insightful? P: Yeah! They’re insightful. I look at the others around the table. We burst out laughing, but there is an underlying sense that she’s quite serious. Maybe, I should reconsider eating octopus in the future as well. After all, it doesn’t seem right to an insightful octopus. Would you?
- all the images used in this post are courtesy of Chakri Palace, KLCC
- to make a reservation, please visit http://www.chakri.com.my
*** By Aneeta Sundararaj (16 June 2016)
Click here to return to the index of Articles
It is common in December to both give and receive gifts. After all, it’s Christmas and there is lots of merry-making. I experienced something this December that made me realise that there’s another aspect to all this ‘gifting’ – returning a gift. It made me wonder if there is a correct way to receive, give and return gifts. Let’s start with receiving gifts. I confess that I’ve made so many mistakes when I’ve received gifts. I’ve opened packages in front of the person who gave me the gift when I wasn’t supposed to; I’ve not opened gifts immediately when I should have. I’ve even lost a gift and accidentally thrown one away! The incident I remember the most was when I was about 18. My cousin returned from the US and brought with him a few t-shirts. He asked me to pick one. I looked at them and commented that they were so large that I could use them as a nightie. Everyone in the family told me off for making this comment. Apparently, a t-shirt from the US was so valuable that I had offended him by suggesting I would only use it to sleep in. I suppose, I was expected to wear this over-sized t-shirt and parade it around town. Anyway, I learnt my lesson; henceforth, I’ve never said anything more than, “Thank you,” when I receive gifts from the family. Then there was the utterly embarrassing incident when I was spring-cleaning a few years ago. I found a whole box of tea bags and I knew I wasn’t going to use them. I didn’t have the heart to throw them out and decided to give them to a friend I knew would love some tea. A week after I gave her the box of tea bags, she texted me to say that the expiry date (which was printed on the side of the box and I hadn’t bothered to check) had passed. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she added, “You know, these were the same tea bags I bought for you as a gift from one of my trips overseas.” I was mortified and apologised profusely. Mercifully, we’re still friends. As for giving gifts, I’ve also learned that when I give a one, I don’t bother to know what the recipient does with it. For example, I’m certain that many people I give a copy of Ladoo Dog to probably throw it away or give it to someone else. Perhaps, the saris we give relatives are made into other clothes or recycled. Frankly, I don’t worry about what happens to the gifts; my duty and desire was to give a gift and I fulfilled that duty. Now, what happens when you return a gift? This is what happened to me: in September I met an author from England who is about to have a book published. I gave her a copy of my latest books – Ladoo Dog and Mad Heaven – simply because I’ve been giving them out like sweets to everyone I meet. More than anything else, I wanted to share stories of my ‘baby’. In October, I helped this author get some publicity for her book by putting her in contact with people I who could help her. In the process, I also thought it would be good to discuss with her another book project I was working on. I was careful to keep all the emails separate so that there was no overlap between the two projects. About ten days ago, I received an email asking for my postal address. I was a little perplexed and will admit that I skimmed through the rest of the email. Although I didn’t understand why she was asking for my postal address, I gave it anyway. I was naïve enough to think that, perhaps, because of the publicity I’d arranged for her book, she wanted to send me a copy of her book as a gesture of thanks. This has happened before and, many times, members of the media receive gifts for attending an event. In PR-lingo, these gifts are called ‘goody bags’. In the next email, I realised that she was returning my books and it occurred to me that she hadn’t read them, nor did she even know the title of my books. She was doing this because she understood ‘how expensive it was for me to publish my books’ and they were already in the post. I didn’t even have time to say, “Save your money in postage; just throw the books away or give it to someone else.” Then again, maybe my books were so horrible that she would never give it to someone she knew. Yesterday, I received the package – it was not even sent my normal post; it was sent by courier service. In all honesty, I’m hurt as I feel that my books were so offensive that she couldn’t bear to look at them. She wanted them out of her sight as fast as possible. What am I supposed to do with these returned books? Should I give it to someone else? Should I throw them away? Should I keep them as a reminder of this whole incident? In spite of being hurt, I tried very hard to do the mature thing and see it from her point of view. Perhaps, she thought that I gave her my books as a way to ‘bribe’ her to come on board with the other book project that I’m working on. If this is so, then I do apologise and I’m left thinking that I didn’t make it clear enough that the books were a gift. Maybe, this is a very English way of doing business; however, since we’re not venturing into business together, this was a way of making sure there was no trace of a connection between us. In moments of melancholy, I think that perhaps this is all karma for the one time I returned a gift. In my defence though, this person had hurt me very badly and I wanted nothing more to do with him. I don’t think I’ll ever understand what happened here. In my mind, I made a gift in good faith and it was returned with such precision and speed that I’ve barely had time to breathe. There’s nothing now to do, but write this experience off as yet another strange thing that the English do and let it go. What about you? Have you returned a gift? If so, how did you do it and how did you feel about it? Has someone returned a gift to you? How did you feel and what did you with the returned gift? *** By Aneeta Sundararaj (12 December 2014)
Click here to return to the index of Articles
In the papers recently, there was a story about a couple who married in 2003. They lived in Mysore. When she was pregnant in 2006, she went back to the parents’ home in Bangalore, but refused to return to her husband’s home after the baby was born. She even offered to set up a clinic for him in Bangalore. Finally, she lodged a ‘dowry complaint’ against her husband. So, there was money involved. This story reminded me of a couple I knew who went through almost exactly the same thing. The only difference is that I don’t know if there was any dowry paid by the girl. I’m no expert on sustaining a relationship, but I know that when this couple was first courting, I sensed that something was horribly wrong with their relationship and I guessed it wouldn’t last. In hindsight, I should have kept this opinion to myself. I made a horrendous mistake and shared my views with an aunt. What I presumed was a gossiping session turned into a one-way-hurt-Aneeta session. The most scathing and hurtful comment she made was that I was happy when other people’s relationships fail. To keep the peace in the family, I say nothing of my hurt, but it was festering for years. I was both surprised and grateful that this was one of the painful thoughts that came to mind during what I call the ‘Letting Go’ session at the Art of Joyfulness-Mindful Living Excellence Retreat from 3rd to 5th January 2014. In the manual, it’s called ‘‘Leaves on a Stream’ Exercise’. What it stated is as follows:
The Leaves on a Stream metaphor is often used as an exercise to help us distance ourselves from almost constant stream of thoughts. To stand back and observe our thoughts rather than get caught up in them.
The steps in the methodology to let go of such painful thoughts involved visualising that we were sitting by a stream. Each time a painful thought arose, we were to imagine putting that thought on a leaf and watching it float along the stream. Now, since we were on a mountain and there were clouds floating around us, our leader very cleverly changed the metaphor to clouds in the sky. We were told, “When you notice a thought coming into your mind, just put the thought on a cloud and watch it drift away.” As it happens, it was a rainy/cloudy day and I placed many thoughts on many clouds and watched them all float away. Still, before I went to sleep that night, I had yet another funny thought: if I had shifted my ‘burdens’ onto those clouds, they must be feeling quite heavy now. In that moment, I actually felt sorry for all those clouds. I mean, poor things, they must have been so heavy carrying all our burdens. Think about it. 50 people in a retreat and if each one had just 10 thoughts that they needed to let go of, that was 500 painful thoughts these clouds had to carry. Here’s a video I took of the clouds floating away.
Other than leaves on a stream or clouds floating away, do you have any other metaphors that can be used to watch these clouds float away? By Aneeta Sundararaj
Click here to return to the index of Articles
More...
One of the things I was afraid of when going for the Art of Joyfulness-Mindful Living Excellence Retreat from 3rd to 5th January 2014 was the requirement that we must be silent and quiet at all times. After all, wasn’t solitary confinement a form of corporeal punishment? When I mentioned it to our retreat leader, he said something along the lines of, “You may be quiet ‘outside’, but I assure you there’s lots of talking going on inside.” I didn’t dare admit that what he said frightened me even more. After all, there were thoughts, feelings and emotions that I’d buried deep in my psyche and the last thing I wanted was to think about/rehash/analyse them again. Frankly, I was bored with them. As expected, during that first night, after participating in the ‘letting go’ session, all those buried emotions did emerge. Mercifully, the next session was sleep or what was referred to as ‘Noble Silence Retreat Till Morning’. We would deal with all this again the next morning. However, morning brought something altogether different. While others were meditating, I read the manual and chanced on something called the ‘Pleasure Walk’:
Take a 15-30 minute pleasure walk outside. … The goal of the walk is to notice as many pleasurable things as possible, slowly, one after another. Use all your senses – sight, smell, sound, touch … maybe even taste. How many happy, beautiful or inspiring things can you notice while you’re walking? Do you enjoy the fresh air, the warm sun, a beautiful leaf, the shape of a stone, a smiling face, the song of a bird, the feeling of the earth under your feet? When you find something delightful or pleasant, let yourself go into it. Really enjoy it. Feel a tender leaf or the texture of a stick, if you like. Give yourself over to the experience as if it were the only think that existed in the world. And when you are ready to discover something new, let it go and wait until you discover something else that is pleasurable and delightful to you.’
At that moment, I felt that this was precisely the kind of experience I was looking for at the time. The moment the first session of the day was over, I walked along the path near the periphery of the resort. While on my little journey of discovery, I came across something so beautiful and here are two photos of: 
It was simply lovely – an orchid flowering inside another orchid. From the depths of beauty came something so precious. By lunch, there was something new bothering me. Was it possible to find absolute silence in the mind? I’ve read of philosophers who say that absolute silence is that pause in time between one thought and another. But what did it sound like? What did absolute silence sound like? In the afternoon, when we were given time for a ‘Private Retreat’ I went in search of answers. I knew that to find them, I would have to let go of all the sounds that were still in my thoughts, which was no easy task. Here’s an example of what my thought process was like: That family shouting must be Chinese. Ah-ha! They are speaking Hokkien. Why can’t they speak softly? Does the whole world need to know what they’re saying? Let me see. Maybe I can hear what they’re saying. Maybe I can understand them. Hold on. They are laughing. They’re happy. Why are you criticising them? Is it because you’re unhappy? Let it go, Aneeta. Let it go. What’s that other woman saying? “If I fall now, I’ll role all the way down the hill.” Stupid. You’re not going to roll all the way down Gunung Jerai. You can’t. There’s a periphery fence. You’ll just get stuck in the fence. For God’s sake. Don’t turn around Aneeta and look at her. Look ahead. Let it go, Aneeta. Let it go. Look for that silence. Finally, I came to a place where I heard no more sounds of humans talking. I didn’t find my silence, though. I still heard things. What did the book say? Give yourself over to the experience as if it were the only thing that existed in the world. I stood still and absorbed every sound that I possibly could. The only words I could use to describe it were these: Nature had overtaken silence. It was unbelievably noisy. Although, I couldn’t see the stream, I heard the water flowing. The birds appeared missing from the trees, but I heard them ‘talking’ to each other. What on earth could they possibly have to say to each other? Were they sharing the day’s gossip? Were they scolding each other? Were they looking for their mate? If we put words into their mouths, what could they be saying? Could it be this: “Did you hear about Mrs. Yellow Bird? She’s going to have new chicks?” or “I can’t stand that Magpie. Idiot!” or “Oooo, did you see that new eagle, Mr. Big Wings? He’s lovely." I was startled each time giant leaves hit against barks of ancient trees. Even the clouds didn’t move silently. I swear, I could hear that infinitesimal sound as they grazed my cheek. While I am no philosopher, this experience taught me that to go in search of silence is a fool’s errand. You can spend your whole life searching for it and still find nothing. Instead, if you stop for a minute, you’ll find that Nature will take over and fill your soul with all Her wonderful gifts. You just need to open your heart to Her. This was precisely what Marc Anderson found when he submitted a recording called ‘Dusk by the Frog Pond’ to a competition and won first prize. Here’s a 2 minute recording of the natural sounds that Anderson recorded from Kubah National Park in Kuching, Sarawak. Have you ever let Nature take over in your life? What happened? By Aneeta Sundararaj
Click here to return to the index of Articles
[caption id="attachment_11659" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
What do you think this is?[/caption] When I told friends that I was going for the Art of Joyfulness-Mindful Living Excellence Retreat from 3rd to 5th January 2014, many asked where this retreat was going to be held. When I told them Gunung Jerai, the collective gasps said it all: you see, Gunung Jerai has a reputation for being haunted. Talismans and prayers were offered for my safety. Frankly, no one has ever told me the real story about Gunung Jerai. Everyone just says, “It’s haunted.” No one knows who’s haunting it, what happened to make the place haunted or when did it all start. The cynic in me wonders if this is yet another haunted-tale-discounted-by-logic, much like the one about my grandparent’s house. According to our guests, they would hear the footsteps of a man (they were certain they were never that of a woman) walking up the stairs. He never came all the way up, neither did he go all the way down. Just five or six steps. None of the family members had ever heard this sound and we’d been staying in the house for ages. In time, my father decided he was fed-up with these stories being bandied about. One night, he stayed awake and followed the sound. He found the ‘ghost’ outside one of the windows. Many years ago, my grandmother had placed a plastic sheet there to prevent rainwater from coming in. This plastic sheet had hardened over the years and when the wind blew, it beat against the support beams and window frames. The reason why we never heard these ghosts was because this was the guest bathroom and the family hardly ever used the guest room. Mystery solved. Back to Gunung Jerai. Before I made the trip, I decided that I wasn’t going to believe in such ridiculous nonsense. But, tell that to an overactive imagination on a night made for such fearsome things. Imagine … It was the second night of the retreat. It had rained during the day. When we entered the dining hall, but for the rattle of spoons and forks, mindful eating during dinner was practically a silent affair. This gave me reason to be mindful of the exquisite scenery outside from the mist in the foreground, luscious trees in the background and my beloved perfect squares of paddy land down below. By 7 p.m., when we were all ‘confined’ to the hall for the evening/night session until nightfall, I was feeling somewhat at peace and looking forward to what I’d later call the ‘healing’ sessions. To me, they were life-affirming and joyous ones and I will write about them in a later post. At 10.30 p.m., it was time for supper and the silent retreat until morning. I wasn’t hungry, so I skipped the supper and was one of the first few to leave the hall. One of the first things that struck me was that there were many more guests staying at the resort that night compared with the night before. It did make sense as it was a Saturday night. Parents were taking photos of their children in the mist and young lovers were looking wistfully at each other. Suddenly, about 20 feet away from the entrance of the hall, there was nothing. Just me, this wall of cloud and nothing more. Much later, someone commented that it was like being in London on a cold winter morning. At the time, though, I didn’t feel safe, comforted or mildly nostalgic. I was petrified. What I thought of was the man who’s said that during the ‘letting go’ exercises, he’d looked up at the clouds, symbolically placed his problems on these clouds and watched them float away. I remember thinking this: Will I too float away with these clouds? With that, all fearful thoughts flowed unabated. What if I was wrong and Gunung Jerai is haunted? What if the spirits were lurking? Are they figments of my imagination? Am I a figment of a ghost's imagination? If the ghosts were here, were they watching me? What if these ghosts were watching me? What would they look like? What would they do? Were they hungry for my blood? Would they like the taste of my blood? Maybe, they might think it too sweet. Could they be conscious about their sugar intake? Would they chop me up? Suck out all my blood? Dumb-dumb me for watching Darcula 3 nights ago. If I die, who will look after my parents? Will anyone miss me? I was all alone. Oh God. Shiva Paramatama. St. Michael and all his angels. Help me. What do I do now? I was tempted to turn around, but that would mean facing another wall of cloud and the subsequent embarrassment in the presence of my ‘fellow-retreatees’. How could I say, “Can you please walk with me to my chalet? I’m afraid of the ghosts.” I could imagine them saying at the next retreat, “Do you know, at the last retreat, there was this woman who was so afraid to walk back to her room. She was such a coward.” Besides, at that moment, I remember our retreat leader saying that the previous retreat was held in a venue situated next to a cemetery. Jerai Resort Regency was a thousand times better than that! So, I took a deep breath, came into the moment and asked myself, “What do you see?” The answer wasn’t what I expected. “It’s not nothing. What you see is the first step ahead. Take that step and you’ll see the next. Keep going and you’ll reach your destination.” I started to count each step. I wanted to pray, but I was too afraid. In 58 steps, I was back on the porch outside my chalet. At the threshold, I turned back. There was still a wall of cloud and I couldn’t see where I’d come from. But I knew I was where I was supposed to be. Who would have thought that such a profound experience and example of how to overcome life’s challenges would be born out of sheer fear, in a place notorious for ghost stories and when I was completely alone and immersed in clouds? The questions I have are these: 1. Do you know how and why Gunung Jerai is supposedly haunted? If so, please share the story. 2. Has there been a time in your life when you’ve been so frightened that you can’t take the next step, be it a physical or emotional? What have you done to overcome such fear? 3. Were you scared by the photo I inserted at the top of this post? What do you think it is? By Aneeta Sundararaj
Click here to return to the index of Articles
[caption id="attachment_11648" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
This was taken during our Art of Joyfulness-Mindful Living Excellence Retreat. It's a view of paddy fields and what I was told is Pulau Dayang Bunting.[/caption] In today’s papers, in an article called Listen. Think. Eat, Addie Broyles writes about mindful eating. Broyles refers to Michelle May (a family-physician-turned-wellness-coach) who says that there are three types of eaters: restrictive eaters, overeaters and instinctive eaters. Most of us oscillate between the first two. What we should aim for is instinctive eating. May is also quoted as saying this: “Mindful eating means you eat with intention and attention.” I had reason to experience this ‘mindful eating’ recently during our Art of Joyfulness-Mindful Living Excellence Retreat Jan 3-5, 2014. Throughout the retreat, we were often reminded to observe ‘Noble Silence’. Indeed, in the manual, it’s clearly stated as follows:
- Refrain from talking, using sign language and making noise. If you really need to communicate, do so quickly and only urgent matters.
- As much as possible, we try to allow others their space, and let go of the need to smile or communicate. … Remember that this is a rare time for you to let yourself take off your social mask, which takes so much energy to maintain.
This included mealtimes and even when we were in the bedroom. Two incidents, in particular, stayed with me. The first was a lesson called ‘Experiencing Mindfulness with the Raisin-Conscious Observation’. We were all given a banana (there were no raisins that day at the resort) and asked to observe it closely. We had to touch and hold this banana. For the first time in my life, I held a banana and counted the number of black spots on the fruit – there were 6. At one point, we were asked to be aware of what thoughts flowed through out mind and the first one that came to me was that bananas were Ladoo’s favourite fruit. I knew the end was near for her when she stopped eating bananas. I also thought of uperi. I am guessing that the Anglicised version of uperi is banana fries. When I was a child, I could finish a whole tin of uperi. Now, with this mindful eating embedded in my subconscious, I wonder how much uperi I can eat. I then brought the banana close to my ears and squeezed it, hoping to hear something. Nothing. Not even a squish. When I was asked to smell the banana I was aware enough to describe it as the smell of a ripe banana. It was when I peeled the banana that I heard the soft tear of its skin. We were asked to place the banana on the tip of our tongue and note the taste. Finally, after all this hard work, we were allowed to take one bite. At this point, having waited for so long to take a bite, I thought I would eat the whole thing in one go. Strangely, I could manage to bite into half that banana. True enough, as the manual stated, the banana tasted richer, stronger and I felt I’d truly tasted it. I struggled to finish eating the whole banana. Eating this banana was a solitary exercise. What came next was eating in company. Some of the people I attended the retreat with were family friends and I found it a challenge to ignore customary norms like ‘Hello Aunty’ and ‘Would you like some water, Uncle?’ I also observed that many family members made it a point to sit separately and avoid all contact with each other. The other curious thing was that all of us seemed to take much lesser food and there was always food left behind at the buffet table once the meals ended. During dinner the next day, it occurred to me that eating in such silence was much like what it was in boarding school. While our teachers didn’t impose absolute silence during our meals in boarding school, most of the time, we didn’t speak to each other. This was because we were so hungry that if we ‘wasted’ time talking, we wouldn’t be able to finish the food. No extra time was ever given to finish food and everyone wanted to avoid going to bed hungry. In other words, we either ate or starved. Coming to think of it, save for one girl who suffered from endocrine problems, I don’t remember any of us being obese or overweight. And what happened when the period of Noble Silence ended during our retreat? The dining room was ultra-noisy with people sharing all their news (I wonder how much of it was mindful sharing) and all the food at the buffet table finished. The question I have is this: what happens now? I am having a dinner party soon. Do I serve loads of food and allow people to talk non-stop during the meal? This would be in the guise of ‘enjoying themselves’. Or, do I hold court and teach them about mindful eating and how they are to observe every morsel of food they ingest? What would you do? By Aneeta Sundararaj
Click here to return to the index of Articles
The core of the Art of Joyfulness-Mindful Living Excellence Retreat from 3rd to 5th January 2014 was, of course, the art of breathing. The way I see it, what we were taught was the art of meditation by focusing on the breath. I am not new to meditation for I am already aware and have been practising (though not very well or regularly) the other kind of meditation – transcendental meditation. From what I can gather, transcendental meditation teaches you to focus on a mantra. You have to still your mind and recite a mantra over and over again. Your thoughts are bound to interrupt this recitation, but when you’re aware of your thoughts, let them go and return to focusing on the mantra. You can choose whatever mantra you please from Om to the Gayathri mantra. You’re even free to recite the Lord’s Prayer if you wish. There are no strictures and no one’s going to scold you. There is no right or wrong. As I said, during the retreat, what we did was to focus, instead, on the breath. Like most breathing techniques, mindful breathing starts with correct posture. You must be comfortable and, ideally, you should keep your spine erect. Close your eyes and focus on your breath. Here’s where it gets interesting. What you aim for is to make the length of your exhalation twice as long as the length of your inhalation. For example, when you inhale, mentally count to four. As you exhale, mentally count to eight. One thing I did notice was that this was harder to do after a meal. I couldn’t hold for eight counts and managed only six when exhaling. Have you experienced this? Any explanations? [caption id="attachment_11639" align="alignleft" width="215"]
Vaugs Nerve - this image is adapted from 12cranialnerves.wordpress.com[/caption] For years, the people I know who’ve been meditating daily have enjoyed good health. They’re in their eighties and nineties, alert and in good health. So, I’ve always known about the enormous benefits of meditation. The new discovery I made during the retreat was about the existence of the vagus nerve and it's relationship with meditation. Here’s a description of the vagus nerve:
The vagus nerve is a mixed nerve with both sensory and motor functions. It is the longest of the cranial nerves as it extends from the brain stem, through the muscles of the mouth, neck, thorax, lungs, and abdomen. The vagus nerve conveys sensory information about the state of the body’s organs to the nervous system. It also receives a special sense of taste sent from the epiglottis. The posterior muscle of the tongue, the palatoglossus, is controlled by the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve helps to regulate the heartbeat, control muscle movement, keep a person breathing, and to transmit a variety of chemicals through the body. The vagus nerve controls muscles resulting in voice resonance and also the soft palate. It is responsible for homeostasis of the digestive tract, and contracting the muscles of the stomach. The vagus nerve controls the small and large intestines to help process food. The vagus nerve also sends sensory signals to the brain about what is being digested and what the body is getting out of it.
Now, what we learnt was that when you do mindful breathing, you stimulate this vagus nerve. In very simple terms, since it’s the messenger that carries information to all organs and parts of the body, when it’s stimulated, it’s wise to send good thoughts to it. Personally, I’ve found that it takes me 10 to 15 minutes of deep breathing/meditation before I can completely let go of all the thoughts. It’s after this that my thoughts are what I call ‘pure’ thoughts. Many times, when my meditation session ends, I am a little calmer than before I started. Things that seem impossible before don’t immediately become possible, but I can feel more hopeful. That, alone, is good. This is another photo that always reminds me of this. It’s a leaf from a conifer tree (I think that’s what they’re called) and we had one in our garden a long time ago. The branches and leaves grow upward, as though defying gravity. I’ve always associated it with this ‘impossible-becoming-possible’ notion. Do you practice breathing techniques? If so, which one? What benefits have you derived from this practice? By Aneeta Sundararaj *** Get Started With Online Therapy by clicking on this link: https://www.betterhelp.com/online-therapy/
Click here to return to the index of Articles