My experience in music class today

I have been learning keyboard for the last two months in a music school here in Jurong, Singapore. Up till now I have learnt to play semibreve, minim, dotted-minim and crotchet, with both right and left hands. I have been practicing my lessons quite sincerely since I started, and look forward to going for the class every Saturday. Today I was introduced to quaver note which is half of crotchet. I played the notes and it was 'magical'. It exhilarated me when I could play the correct notes in the first try itself. Something inside me was stirred, and I felt so joyful and peaceful! I don't know what was it, but it was really something divine! I realized why music is considered divine, a route to go deeper inside.

This has been my childhood desire to learn some musical instrument, and now when I am learning to play keyboard, I feel fortunate to be able to realize my childhood dream! More talk later, I am rushing to practise today's lesson......

Never give up

Yesterday was very busy day in the college, and by the time I returned home it was almost night. I was really tired after a long day, and felt 'lost' in a sea of things, running here and there. Some things had not gone well during the day, which made me feel even more frustrated and like'giving up'. As usual, I was reading before sleeping, I happened to read the following story before drifting to sleep...

One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally, he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway; it just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey.

He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone's amazement he quieted down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well. He was astonished at what he saw. With each shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up.

As the farmer's neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and happily trotted off!

When I woke up in the morning, I remembered the story of the donkey. I read the story again, and its moral: life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is a steppingstone. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up.

Remember the five simple rules to be happy:

1. Free your heart from hatred - Forgive.

2. Free your mind from worries - Most never happens.

3. Live simply and appreciate what you have.

4. Give more.

5. Expect less from people but more from yourself.

Why do we read Bhagavat Gita

Have you wondered why do we read Gita, even if we can't understand or remember it ?

This is beautiful story which will explain why we read Gita, as well as inspire us to read if we are not reading it already!

An old Farmer lived on a farm in the mountains with his young grandson. Each morning Grandpa was up early sitting at the kitchen table reading his Bhagavat Gita. His grandson wanted to be just like him and tried to imitate him in every way he could.

One day the grandson asked, "Grandpa! I try to read the Bhagavat Gita just like you but I don't understand it, and what I do understand, I forget as soon as I close the book. What good does reading the Bhagavat Gita do?"

The Grandfather quietly turned from putting coal in the stove and replied, "Take this coal basket down to the river and bring me back a basket of water."

The boy did as he was told, but all the water leaked out before he got back to the house. The grandfather laughed and said, "You'll have to move a little faster next time," and sent him back to the river with the basket to try again. This time the boy ran faster, but again the basket was empty before he returned home. Out of breath, he told his grandfather that it was impossible to carry water in a basket, and he went to get a bucket instead.

The old man said, "I don't want a bucket of water; I want a basket of water. You're just not trying hard enough," and he went out the door to watch the boy try again. At this point, the boy knew it was impossible, but he wanted to show his grandfather that even if he ran as fast as he could, the water would leak out before he got back to the house.

The boy again dipped the basket into river and ran hard, but when he reached his grandfather the basket was again empty. Out of breath, he said, "See Grandpa, it's useless!"

"So you think it is useless ?" The old man said, "Look at the basket."

The boy looked at the basket and for the first time realized that the basket was different. It had been transformed from a dirty old coal basket and was now clean, inside and out.

"Son, that's what happens when you read the Bhagavat Gita. You might not understand or remember everything, but when you read it, you will be changed, inside and out. That is the work of Krishna in our lives."

After reading this story, I felt truly inspired and motivated to continue to read Gita, even though we may at times feel that we don't understand it!

The first day of the new semester

Today was the beginning of the new term, the first day of the new semester. I reached early, just in case my laptop has any problem connecting with the projector. Everything was fine and students started arriving. This was year one students, pretty new to the college environment. They seemed quiet and a bit shy initially, but as we progressed with some of the introductory team activities, they started to participate better.

After completing the introduction, we developed class rules or the learning contract as I call it, for smooth functioning of the classroom learning. Among them most important ones were the need to be attentive to listen to other people, reduce distractions from hand phone, Facebook, etc., and contribute actively in team and class discussions. All of them agreed, though at times I had to remind them about these rules!

All the students focused quite well on the topic, which was learning the different types of tissues present in human body, and prepared reasonably good PPT. They managed to present their slides well, though there were a few mistakes and none of the teams had put any diagrams to illustrate the structures of the tissues. I explained the importance of diagrams in explaining the structures and extolled them to do so in future lessons.

Last 15 minutes were reserved for attempting the quiz questions in exam-like environment, which serves as an indicator of how much knowledge they were able to attain during the lesson. After submitting the quiz, they were dismissed. Some students stayed back, asking for reference books, some questions to clarify, etc. One student came to me and confessed that she was totally 'lost' and didn't know how to go about researching information on the topic, and what to present on the slides. I sat down with her, and showed her some website links and how to source for the information. Then we discussed some of the concepts which she was unsure of , and after half an hour, when she was pretty sure, she left.

Overall it was a satisfying day with my new batch of students. Though they are new and 'young', they demonstrated the desire to learn and do well!

Difference in Like and Love

We often use these two words, 'like' and 'love', interchangeably in every day conversations, although they mean quite differently.

When someone asked Buddha, "What is the difference between 'I like you' and 'I love you'?", his answer was so simple: "When you like a flower, you just pluck it. But when you love a flower, you water it daily!"

So what do I understand? I think when we like some one or thing, we desire to own or 'possess' it. This may be due to our fear of losing it to someone else, which then leads to emotions like jealousy and greed. All these emotions finally lead to becoming anxious and resentful, and do not allow us to think clearly, leading to a confused state of mind.

On the other hand, when we love some one, there is no desire or need to 'possess' him, rather we allow him to be what he wants to be. We nurture him, his talents and qualities by positive reinforcement, encouraging words, etc. Since there is no jealousy or fear of losing him, we are able to express our feelings and love freely to him. That further acts like a manure for that relationship, making it even stronger and deeper.

It's up to us, what we choose, to like or love some one?

Why we shout in anger

When we are angry with someone, we tend to raise our voice and soon enough, we start shouting at that person! This is a very common phenomenon, which all of have experienced in every day situations. But why we shout in anger? Let's try to understand it.

A Hindu saint who was visiting river Ganges to take a holy dip found a group of family members on the banks of the river, shouting in anger at each other. He turned to his disciples and smiled. He asked them, "Why do people shout in anger at each other?"

Disciples thought for a while, and one of them said, "Because we lose our calm, we shout."

"But, why should you shout when the other person is just next to you? You can as well tell him what you have to say in a soft manner," asked the saint.

Disciples gave some other answers but none satisfied the other disciples. Finally the saint explained. "When two people are angry at each other, their hearts distance a lot. To cover that distance they must shout to be able to hear each other. The angrier they are, the stronger they will have to shout to hear each other to cover that great distance."

"What happens when two people fall in love? They don't shout at each other but talk softly, because their hearts are very close. The distance between them is either nonexistent or very small." The saint continued,"When they love each other even more, what happens? They do not speak, only whisper and they get even closer to each other in their love. Finally they even need not whisper, they only look at each other and that's all. That is how close two people are when they love each other."

He looked at his disciples and said,"So when you argue do not let your hearts get distant. Do not say words that distance each other more, or else there will come a day when the distance is so great that you will not find the path to return."

How true is the explanation! When we are angry with some one, and are shouting at him, we seem to have lost the love and respect for him at that time. Unless we understand our folly, and take steps to rebuild our relationship, the distance may increase so much that we may lose that relationship forever.

Optimism is key to a happy life

Let me first share a story I read a few days ago.

There were two identical twins. One was a hope-filled optimist John and the other twin was a sad and hopeless pessimist called Matthew. The worried parents of the boys brought them to the local psychologist.

He suggested to the parents a plan to balance the twin's personalities,"On their next birthday, put them in separate rooms to open their gifts. Give Matthew the best toys you can afford, and give John a box of manure." The parents followed the instructions and carefully observed the results.

When they peeked in on Matthew, they heard him complaining,"I don't like the colour of this computer...., I'll bet this calculator will break...., I don't like this game.... I know someone who's got a bigger car than this...."

Tiptoeing across the corridor, the parents peeked in and saw John, their little optimist gleefully throwing the manure up in the air. He was giggling. "You can't fool me! Where there's this much manure, there's got to be a pony."

This is the difference in a pessimist and optimist. A pessimistic person will find faults with the best of the things and complain about every situation, while an optimistic person will see ray of hope and goodness even in the worst of scenarios. Even if one feels that he is a born pessimist, he can change his attitude. This attitude of optimism or pessimism is due to our conditioning from the childhood till now. Once we become aware of our nature and put effort consciously to change, we can surely become more optimistic.