Sagar is Ten

Posted on February 23, 2009 by prashant bhatt

12-palam-vihar

Palam Vihar-May 1999-Sagar and Divya with their grandfather-Brigadier Dr.Prem Narain Bhatt

The Child is Father to the Man

‘THE child is father to the man.’

How can he be? The words are wild.

Suck any sense from that who can:

‘The child is father to the man.’

No; what the poet did write ran,

‘The man is father to the child.’

‘The child is father to the man!’ (1)

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Playing at Lodhi gardens-Delhi- 2000. Sagar and me.(PB)

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L’avenir-The future-The Playschool of Gnostic Centre-Delhi-2003

Gerard Hopkins, in his work The Child Is Father To The Man, reflects on both the relationship of a man to his father and the relationship of a man to God. It provides commentary on the human aging process and also allows Hopkins to think spiritually about the divinity and humanity of Christ.

My son –Sagar is Ten today.-Feb 28

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Sabratha-March 2003-Libya-Sagar, Sahil, Mamta

A time to reflect through photographs, on the years gone by, the shape of life through the vector of the relation between a father and child. On this occasion, I also think of my own relation to my own father, of the walks we took together, the museums visited and the libraries which he introduced me to, thus starting some lovely trysts.

 

 PINNACLE HIGH-MUMBAI-FEB 2006

10-with-his-grandmothers

Of all the relations which define one’s being, the relation between a son and a father is probably the most significant, teaching us the Growth in Giving.

 

 As one of my old good friends once told me sipping beer at Connaught Place, what his father told him once about relations-This is one relationship in which the father feels very proud and happy when he can say-My son has surpassed me.

 

GURGAON- 2008

togetherness 

SABRATHA-LIBYA-2009 -MAY

Notes and Further reading

 

1. http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/hopkins1.html

 

 

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Evening meditations

Posted on February 22, 2009 by prashant bhatt

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Remembering Rumi, sitting by the Ganga, Rishikesh. May 2006

•        I am the dust in the sunlight, I am the ball in the sun

•        I am the mist of morning, the breath of evening

•        I am the spark in the stone, the gleam of gold in the metal

•        The rose and the nightingale drunk in the fragrance

•        I am the chain of being, the circle of the spheres

•        The scale of creation, the rise and the fall

•        I am what is and what is not…I am the soul in all.  

                                                               RUMI

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Remembering Mirra Alfassa

Posted on February 21, 2009 by prashant bhatt

sri-aurobindo-ashram-delhi

 

Sri Aurobindo Ashram-Delhi

 

Like a flower in the air, stemless

And sufficient unto itself…..

                                    Tagore

 

We have left that stage far enough behind us now. We have in fact reached the opposite end perhaps. We have taken a plunge outwards, identified ourselves with the outer being-a tendency against which the Upanishad has used a word of warning-paranci khani vyatrnat, our sense have a natural pull towards the outer things. But this too was necessary and still is. We form part of the world, we are united with it and inseperable.

We are an image of the entire world, its symbol and representative. We have to share in its work and suffer its deeds.

 

                                                                        Nolini Kanta Gupta,

                                                Collected works-Volume 8,page 207

 

 

 

On the occasion of the birth anniversary of Mirra Alfassa, the foremost spiritual collaborator of Sri Aurobindo, reflecting on some writings by Nolini da, the senior most disciple of Sri Aurobindo, who was with him from 1909, Alipur trial days and was secretary of the Ashram at Pondicherry from 1950 to 1983.

 

Mirra Alfassa was born in Paris to Turkish and Egyptian parents and came to Sri Aurobindo’s retreat on March 29,1914 to collaborate on editing the Arya.

 

Finding one’s centre has been a quest over the years. When my children started going to play school at Gnostic Centre-Delhi, I got a bit more orientation into the works of Sri Aurobindo, thanks to the dedicated teachers and spiritual practitioners there.

 

Though I do not agree with many of the things which they say and believe in, their centre is an ethical base with good resources to do research on different themes of education, work related  and day-to-day practical issues.

 

They conduct interesting workshops on themes of parenting, teaching, work, stress.

 

These all fall into the realm of Neurolinguistic Programming.(NLP) which  is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as “a model of interpersonal communication chiefly concerned with the relationship between successful patterns of behaviour and the subjective experiences (esp. patterns of thought) underlying them” and “a system of alternative therapy based on this which seeks to educate people in self-awareness and effective communication, and to change their patterns of mental and emotional behaviour”[

 

Notes and Suggested further reading

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirra_Alfassa

 

www.gnosticcentre.com

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming

 

 

 

 

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