Sunday 21 July 2013

Of Home and Blooms

About eleven years ago when I was in the thick of my non-resident-Indian experience I had written something about what home means when one is living between two cultural spaces. The essay was based on an analysis of voices of a few Indians living outside India with whom I had some interactions in an online discussion forum, combined with my own experience of about 10 years at that time of living in the United States. And in that essay I had come to a tentative conclusion that perhaps home means "a place where we can be really free, free at heart."

It has been about six years now since I moved back to India. No more of that NRI experience. However, at different points of time in these last six years, this question of what is home has often surfaced in different ways - personally as well as socially, but with a big difference that now the question takes on a more emotional and psychological shade than a mental or intellectual one. The experience of this question is also more inwardly grounded than something that is outer and identity-based.

This has been one of those times again - especially the last several months. In my egoistic moments I like to believe that I have matured and grown wise enough to know that in the truest sense home is something we carry within, or that home is where we are present - I mean present fully, in the moment, or that home is not an abstract idea but a real, psycho-spiritual state of being truly oneself and at peace with all that one is in parts. But despite this belief of mine, I know for sure that I struggle with living all these truths and oscillate between inner and outer meanings of home. At the same time I think that it is important to be aware of this struggle - what type of circumstances trigger it, how I deal with it, what I experience on different levels and in different parts within -  because perhaps through this struggle I may be blessed with an opportunity to experience more concretely the deeper and inner meaning of home.

But then I think this is how the Great Universe works! In the middle of a struggle, sometimes clarity comes. And that's what happened to me a couple of days ago. And the realization was simply this - Sometimes Home is Simply where the Flowers are! 

Presented below are some pictures of flowers from my garden, along with the spiritual significance of these flowers given by The Mother.

No more words necessary, let the pictures say the rest....

BLOOMING GRACE


Rose - Psychic Love

Jasmine - Purity

Paradise Flower - Fire

Crape Myrtle - Intimacy with the Divine

Coconuts - Multitude

Parijat - Aspiration

Bougainvillea - Protection

Frangipani - Psychological Perfection

Passion flower - Silence

All photos courtesy of Suhas Mehra

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