H is for How are you? #atozchallenge

How are you?

Hold on. Wait. Pause.

Before you get into autopilot and choose any of the following: good, fine, alright or throw a 'how are you' back at me, think...how are you?

It's a simple how to question. Right?
How do you cook pasta? How is work? How many grams in a kilo?

Or is it?

When was the last time you were honest about answering this simple question?

You'll say, "But who's got the time to listen to me if I do tell them how I really feel?"

I'd say, "You do. You have the time to listen to you, don't you? Before asking anyone else, ask yourself: How are you?"

And labels like happy, sad, worried, anxious, bindaas (carefree), agitated, intoxicated state the state you're in. These don't disclose the real you.

The real you, says Anusha, is formless and at peace. It's full of love.

To find the real me, I feel, my state of being has to be still and calm.

Mix a glass of clear water with some sand and pebbles. Give it a good stir. Is it murky? All churned up? Unclear? Lost?

Stop stirring.

Sit and watch the sediments settle to the bottom of the glass. It takes time. Be patient. Look through the top of the glass? Can you see clearly?

How you feel affects how close you are to that clarity, that truth, that path to the real you, that discovery.

The sun, the moon, this air, these oceans and rivers and seeds and flowers are all the same, but some of us see their beauty and some don't. How does that happen?

So, my dear reader, how are you at this moment? Go on, your self is waiting to hear from you.

I'm happy today, happy and still and in the mood to dance, too. Weird, I know! Perhaps I was a swinging Darwish in a previous birth, but I do love to swing. So, without further ado, let me take you to a sun drenched Sunday (just last week) in the center of Dubrovnik where happy feet and swishing skirts made a lot of people happy.

Leaving you with words I often read from 

The Sage's Tao Te Ching

by

William Martin

How Happy We all Become 

What freedom there is 

in needing no achievement.

.......

We are at last able

to move amidst our loved ones

with the grace of a dancer.

And they are at last free

of our clumsy attempts to control.

How happy we all become.

*****

Take care of yourselves, till we meet again: U and I:)