A Wedding

Courtesy: http://sarvashiva.wordpress.com/

Congratulations and blessings to the two beautiful ladies who got married on the 10th.

SarvaShiva celebrates marriage as a holy covenant between two consenting adults, irrespective of their gender.

Love is one of the steps of the ladder to God, and since marriage is a sacred expression of love, we believe in and applaud marriage as it washes the sin aspect of sex without love and commitment.

If you are still being forced into the closet because of fears of what “they” will say or do we will pray with you that you build the strength and courage to be you.

So live, love, be you.
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October 10, 2009. Cambridge, MA

SarvaShiva, became the first Hindu temple in the USA to perform the marriage of two women in a Hindu marriage ceremony attended by family and friends. The couple dressed in their respective regional finery took vows of marriage around the Sacred Vedic Fire.

The couple requesting anonymity were married in Massachusetts since Gay Marriage is not allowed in Washington. SarvaShiva Representatives flew to Boston to perform the marriage.

Vikasjeet Puri, co-founder, said, "Religion is a stepping stone to happiness not a roadblock to it. We consider marriage between two consenting adults a celebration, irrespective of their gender. Countless lives are destroyed hiding natural inclination, so we would like to help lift that burden of living in the closet. We believe that all have equal access to God and His Blessings"

SarvaShiva,  a Seattle based progressive Hindu temple, offers "Havan Yajna" and "Satsang" weekly, and believes in equality of gender, race and age.

For counsel or confession please write to: sarvashiva@live.com

यह प्यार है?

रात सिर्फ रात को नहीं होती
सूरज भी अँधेरा होता है तेरे बिना
और जब तू हंसके बोलती है
तो रात भी उजागर हो जाती है

मेरे दिन मेरी रातें मेरे ख्वाब मेरी साँसे
सब तेरी खुशी और तेरे गम के साथ
साँस लेते हैं कभी सिसकीयों में कभी कहकहों में
तेरे को हर वक्त दिल के साथ लगा के

इस जलनें इस जीनें इस रहने
इस प्यार, इस ललक, इस पागलपन
को तुम या ज़माना कुछ भी कहे
में तो इसे तुम्हारा जीत कहता हूँ

सिर्फ़ तुम

सितारों से सुन्दर, चाँद सी हसीं
हवा सी साफ़, आसमान से ऊंची
मंदिर की आरती जैसी मीठी, दिए की रौशनी सी चमकती
फूलों जैसी प्यारी, भवरों सी चंचल

क्या कहूं, क्या न कहूं
क्यूं की तू तो हर कही ओर अनकही है
पाप या पुण्य, तेरा पापी, तेरा पुजारी
न इंसान, न राक्षस में तो बस तेरा तेरा

आस्था और ज़मीर से सजी मेरी मोहब्बत है
उसे प्यार का तोहफा समझ कर स्वीकार कर
देवी, रानी, अप्सरा, दासी, औरत का हर रूप तो तू है
ज़हर दे या अमृत लेकिन अब मुझे आबाद कर

मोक्ष और भटकने
के बीच वाली जो जगह है
उस दुनिया में मेरे साथ सेज सजा
ताकि भटकने में मोक्ष हो और मोक्ष में तू हो

में तो एक चिंगारी हूँ
चिता पर तो राख़ बनूँगा ही
हो सके तो मेरी ज़िन्दगी को प्यार का शोला बनादे
और इस अंगार से, अपना श्रृंगार कर

Its not about marriage

What do I know except being married and being in love with my wife?

Not much - not saying that I know a lot about them - so don't much about them and not much about else. So starting from a point of ignorance I will dwell on something else that I don't know much about blithely, except I'm not too blithe, and am feeling a need for protein.

Have you ever felt the need for protein? You body saying, "Gimme some meat, lots of it". My body does say that, especially after a carb heavy meal - like which I had not too long ago - bagel, slice of banana bread and Soy White Chocolate Mocha. Body wants things like protein, sex, sleep. Let's forgo sex since those of you who know know that I am in a brahmacharya state, celibate as a num, so lets proceed to protein. Seekh Kabab (not shish since I am Punjabi and we call it seekh - for the metal skewer it's made on), Biryani and maybe Chicken Korma. Except there's nowhere to find all that - ugly looking, bad tasting mutations are sold in Indian restaurants, but I will refrain from talking about them today as today is not my day to fire tirades, all I can say is "they are bad - not like in badd like good or anything, genuine bad like in poor in all categories).

So I guess it shan't be protein - unless I do a KFC run and go for a 12 piece original with a side of coleslaw? But want something teaming with cardamom, ginger and other flavors and tastes. So maybe it's not protein, and it's definitely no sex, so I guess the body will have to settle for sleep.

ZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Marriage is a sacred bond

Adultery is a sin.

It destroys family, because family is rooted to and grows from trust.

If the marriage stops delivering emotionally or physically then its time to end the marriage, but to fuck someone else with excuses is pure simple CHEATING.

Fidelity or divorce are the only two honest options. Anything else is covering for one’s deceiving nature.

Marriage is a sacred bond based on fidelity. Human values like fidelity and honesty do not get outdated. It’s a choice to remain married or not, but bringing another person into a marriage is cheating. Fling isn’t anything more than fucking is maybe an American point of view where flings aren’t acceptable behavior and not really considered sexy or brilliant.

If the marriage is unfullfilling one can exit it, but to keep the marriage for material gains while having a lover is using the spouse. Most people marry and remain married - at least in the US - to remain faithful, and cheating creates the same social revulsion whether its Bill Clinton or a common man.

Life is about hard choices, not sneaking around choices

I’m not basing my ethics on soap opera, but real life people - educated, well to do - in the US who marry only when they decide it’s time to settle into a monogamous, committed relationship. And once that choice is made then there is no room for flings because marrying implies end to flings, beginning of permanence.

Since 1986 I’ve been part of the very affluent, very progressive social set in California and Washington and in all those years I’ve not met any who condone cheating or known anyone personally who has cheated on their spouse. Similarly my wife is from an elite part of South Bombay society yet she holds marriage as being sacred in which there’s no room for a 3rd party - and when that happens marriage should end because without honesty, trust there’s no marriage.

I come from a family that has for long worked for women’s emancipation and equality, so this is not about suppressing women. It’s about keeping marriage unsullied by adultery - like it should be unsullied by violence or abuse. Its a beautiful thing needing to be kept beautiful, so an amicable split or an honest walk out are the strong, honest choices. A cheating husband is a bad husband and a dishonest man, and in 21 years in the US I’ve never personally known a man or a woman who has a lover while being married, so I am using that as a socio-moral standard. (Can’t say the same about India where most uncles and aunties at the Gymkhana were doing one another)

Swingers exist - but aren’t the norm. Flings happen, but they break homes, because they violate trust.

Its hard being honest, but its important being honest. Because in the end the most a man can give his wife is total, absolute trust that she knows will be steadfast even when during their lows. And that is what makes marriage sacred - total faith and trust, always.

God, Love, Truth, all require courage and strength, and all are essential (steps) to becoming a human being living up to best human potential. I wish to become a man that my parents, my wife and my staff can be proud of, so fluid morality is not my option.

And being as imperfect I am I’ve set certain thresholds I will not cross - stealing, cheating, violence are a few of them.

I don’t want to be preachy, I don’t want to be puritanical I just want at my age to be a man my wife trusts implicitly, therefore the stand. I’ve been through the party circle in US and Europe and throughout a long history of trysts craved for someone I would belong to totally. I don’t need freedom to wander, I need the freedom that comes with bondage of love. Marriage is the hardest work - but nothing spectacular is easy.

Maybe because the US has seen the break of family for so long that now we cherish family, though I can’t understand the Indian Page 3 glamor associated with married people having affairs - there’s nothing cool about having a fling outside marriage. Julia Roberts doesn’t, nor does Angelina Jolie and neither does the pre-school teacher cheat on her husband, and Nicholas Cage, Mitt Romney and the software consultant are all faithful to the woman whose ring they wear.

Because I love passionately I can’t imagine a loveless marriage? Because marriage isn’t and shouldn’t be a convenience - this is where love makes us transcend the ordinary - where judgments collapse, acceptance rules and family begins.

I can’t describe how I cherish home and family - a 100 women can’t, couldn’t give me what my wife does - dignity, solidity, and the road map to being a better man.

A solid marriage is the basis of a solid society - ask children from broken homes.

My Love .......

The drive up North was pretty, with the hills covered with a neat blanket of snow. But I wasn't moved. I noticed, can't help noticing, but that was it. Nothing like a song welling up inside me.

Then, reaching home found the bay the color of molten sunlight with ducks peacefully bobbing about on the rippled mirror waters and Mt. Baker presiding over this very beautiful evening. I saw that, and unlike other days did not write a mental ode to the magnificence of Nature and God - because I could not - write odes or sing songs - because I can't seem to care.

I don't - care that is, right now, at least.

Because I miss my darlin'. Without her its just scenery without soul. Maybe because she is my soul.

I've done my work, concentrated where I had to but the part that attaches me to myself seems to be missing, so - in mechanized, functional, logical ways - I've been functioning, but the essence of being alive, being me is missing, because I'm madly missing my baby.

Not that its not crazy mad with her here, but that's clawing, tearing, happy, teary, exciting crazy, this going crazy is slowly withering in being isolated from myself. And it's only 30 hours since she left - 30 hours of time tearing gashes into me.

My voodoo, my talisman, my quest and my answers, my heaven and my devil, my woman and my friend, I love her

My Wife My Valentine

"I kissed her and saw that her eyes were shut. I kissed both her shut eyes. I thought she was probably a little crazy. It was all right if she was. I did not care what I was getting into......"

All I know is I don't want to get out of what I've gotten into. The sacred, sanctified ritual of being married, with the blessings of God and family, is the most beautiful place I've ever been in.

After countless years of being lost in a forest of faces each sapping me of myself I find myself tied to the freedom of permanence, solidity as permanent as Earth's revolutions of the Sun.

I now understand why societies and cultures treat marriage as a special sacrament. It brings the best out of two people and it cements traditions while creating new traditions. It is the bedrock of continuity.

Her Pooja Room, her things, her kitchen, her tossing around restlessly as I desperately try to sleep, her comments, her way of doing her things make my world uniquely my own - she imprinted over my world like a tattoo covering the whole body. And in a world of 6 or so billion she and I are an island, a continent, a family, a home.

No one cooks like her. No one is as mad as her, my child woman. Her common sense, and her innocence co-exist with a deep spiritual faith which doesn't stand in the way of her choice of ridiculously expensive handbags. She makes me laugh, and sad and lifts me up and takes me to depths of hell.

She makes me a man. Strong, committed, able to handle a woman without running away, because she's not just a woman. She's a woman who has agreed to be my wife. Me - the most imperfect of men, going through times that squeeze life out of living. That she stands with me teaches me commitment. She doesn't take without giving personifying grace.

In her I am free at last. Free to be the man I was born to be. So there's no place I wish to be or need to be, except with her.

100 or more years ago Emily Bronte wrote what I would feel 100 plus years later, and I waited a life time to say and feel this about someone:

"..... but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same .. "

" .... my love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath — a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff — he's always, always in my mind — not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself — but as my own being ... "

It's been worth the wait.

Being Married

"I kissed her and saw that her eyes were shut. I kissed both her shut eyes. I thought she was probably a little crazy. It was all right if she was. I did not care what I was getting into......"

All I know is I don't what to get out of what I've gotten into. The sacred, sanctified ritual of being married, with the blessings of God and family, is the most beautiful place I've ever been in.

After countless years of being lost in a forest of faces each sapping me of myself I find myself tied to the freedom of permanence, solidity as permanent as Earth's revolutions of the Sun.

I now understand why societies and cultures treat marriage as a special sacrament. It brings the best out of two people and it cements traditions while creating new traditions. It is the bedrock of continuity.

Her Pooja Room, her things, her kitchen, her tossing around restlessly as I desperately try to sleep, her comments, her way of doing her things make my world uniquely my own - she imprinted over my world like a tattoo covering the whole body. And in a world of 6 or so billion she and I are an island, a continent, a family, a home.

No one cooks like her. No one is as mad as her, my child woman. Her common sense, and her innocence co-exist with a deep spiritual faith which doesn't stand in the way of her choice of ridiculously expensive handbags. She makes me laugh, and sad and lifts me up and takes me to depths of hell.

She makes me a man. Strong, committed, able to handle a woman without running away, because she's not just a woman. She's a woman who has agreed to be my wife. Me - the most imperfect of men, going through times that squeeze life out of living. That she stands with me teaches me commitment. She doesn't take without giving personifying grace.

In her I am free at last. Free to be the man I was born to be. So there's no place I wish to be or need to be, except with her.

Life is a .....

The year is almost over.

Leaves that change color have turned, brown, gold, orange, rust, red. One's that don't are still clinging wetly in wet rains to their trees and the one's that couldn't hang on lie in heaps on parked cars and streets, creating an organic slush of dead life form, on which cars and people skid and slip.

Today was my last day in our Vancouver flat that looks into neighbors windows and between buildings at docked boats and a bit of the seawall. It was walking distance to Stanley Park and Robson so Nidhi and I used to walk everyday for an hour or more - stopping for Gelato, Boba Tea, Chocolate Fondue or at times a Blizzard at DQ, after dinner.

That is where we first met, and first lived after getting married so the place has symbolic, sentimental value, hence the mention. Even though Vancouver is expensive, offers limited shipping and dining choices, it will always be Nidhi's and my first home, so will always occupy a significant place where happy memories live.

Helena and Jill helped finish off what Tony, Steve and I had started last week. They packed and loaded the car and now it's time to cross the border with Nidhi's knives, and cutlery, and appliances, and pots and pans and clothes and books and DVDs - things that make for life.

When I hear her tossing and turning in the middle of the night, or going to the loo, or when she wakes up before me talking to her Mom, its not an annoying disturbance - like it used to be in single days, wanting my silent, stillness - I feel grateful that I get to hear these sounds that denote family and togetherness and wish that I never have to live with silences again.

Tonight or tomorrow we will find a place to put our DVDs and Books and connect our TV and DVD player and make a home for next few months until life unveils its plans for the next year. Even though the house is right on the water, in which mountain reflections swim along with the ducks, it's not dramatic because the bay is so placid - so no big, loud, crashing waves or thundering winds. Just an isolated calm, in which one can find or lose God.

Were work not such a stress perhaps the house would feel happier. Losing $1,000 out of pocket per day is taking its toll on humor and optimism. We still haven't let go any staff nor cut benefits, but its time now for radical reinventions. With each passing day (at work) something dies without something being born, so I feel there's a sum total of loss here which needs to be reversed lest it becomes irreversible

I need to find a technology partner to create the web interface, now, so that Nidhi and I can live happily till I live and when I am done I wait for her to join me when she is done her part here.

As Arthur says "ask the universe". I am asking, humbly and hopefully for a technology partner who will share the vision and the want to create a $100 million company. The company is important because that realizes my innate potential but more important because it gives me the space and the time and the security to love.