Spiritual sojourns take Farzana Contractor into realms of simplicity and peace
My everyday connect with spirituality comes at night. When I am done for the day and get into bed, the last thing I do is stare long and hard at the ceiling and have that brutally-honest, heart-to-heart with my conscience.
The next day, I do what it takes to correct my balance—whether it’s rendering an apology, making a call, or just promising myself to change accordingly. I feel a large part of maintaining a spiritual balance lies in nurturing honest and respectful relationships.
I get my spiritual inspiration from Nature. It fills me with awe, it stills me, it guides me. Being in a forest is akin to being in the presence of divinity, trees for me are symbols of God, I become emotional when I chance upon a magnificent one.
I have to have my bi-annual Himalayan fix, else I start to question my bizarre work and city life too closely. I sit by the Mandakini or the Alaknanda, or trek in Valley of Flowers, I connect with my core, regain my sanity, my peace.
I have always been a simple person and increasingly I become simpler. I practice yoga, and am learning since five years to play the flute. And making slow progress. But it soothes my spirit, the flute has to be God’s favourite musical instrument.
I want to achieve stillness through meditation, it’s tough but I persevere. Thanks to a newfound understanding of Osho, I am into the art of healing with silence.
I am a Muslim and proud of Islam, but I don’t discuss religion, which I think is deeply personal. I was brought up in an intensely Catholic environment—my refuge for teenage hurts was Mother Mary’s Grotto at St Agnes’ and the chapel at St Xavier’s, when older.
When I was 15, my mother was afraid I would become a Buddhist. I have spent a lifetime trying to understand its basic tenets—what is right knowledge, what is right absorption?
When I was 17, I went to Ladakh. This is when I started to collect prayer wheels and Buddhists bells. Today I find a karmic connection with my two-year-old
Lhasa Apso, Inshy. Lhasas once guarded Tibetan monasteries.
Spirituality is fundamentally being clean of heart. It’s Shakespearean… “Above all, to thine own self be true.” I imbibed that from Behram, my husband, a Parsi, who in his thoughts, words, and kindnesses was living an unique spirituality.
On my travels, I connect easily with people—the little boy shivering in the cold at 14,000 feet, selling tea out of hut, a temple attendant.
It’s when off the beaten path that we take ourselves from our immediate context and ask, “Who are we?” Nobody. We are specks in the macrocosm. We are shorn of our trappings, no longer living up to what others expect or perceive us to be.
I am a farmer at heart, and have become a photographer. I still climb trees. The child in me is alive and I still ask, “Who am I?”
I keep away from negativity to keep my harmony intact. I believe in karma, in the generosity of spirit, in the power of forgiveness. I wear an Ayatal Qursi taveez and a rudraksh.
I live in the moment. The future does not bother me, it’s letting go of the beautiful past that does.
Farzana Contractor is editor of Uppercrust and publisher of the Afternoon Group
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