Transcending meditation

One of the practices unique to India is the presence of what we now call the "moral police". A lot has been said in the Indian press about the "immature" policing of various issues. While the phrase itself may carry a negative connotation, an infant of the same when taught as "moral science" in our schooling systems somehow exudes positive energy. It probably has to do with the fact that children need to be supervised until they are a major(or later,in most of the cases), anyway. I vividly remember the days we used to have a session of Transcendental Meditation in our school assembly every morning, and had to pass "Moral Science" as a subject to move onto the next grade. A lot of us struggled to keep our eyes closed for those five minutes in assembly everyday. Most ended up shooting funny glances, or playing pen-games on the ground with their Hero's and Parkers- ultimately getting pulled up for disturbing the forced peace.

It is getting to be almost the end of summer in deep interior Texas, and the cool breeze now sets in well before the sun begins its journey back for the day. That means evening runs in the park do not anymore come with a free bout of dehydration, and the lake stops serving as a humidifier. The benches by the shore are hot no more- and with a couple of hours of rain behind us, we are actually having quite a bit of water in the lake to enjoy the waves. Fall is fast approaching- as is evident from the leaves beginning to have a characteristic rustle. The sun no more sets at a quarter to nine, it is more of a quarter to eight. The soccer and basketball fields fill up with people late afternoon only to empty out at eight after a couple of games and a lot of banter. Same goes for the nearby high school's football practice, as the coach loses his voice every evening to get his boys up to scratch.

A couple of minutes of attention. An empty mind with nothing to give and everything to take. A moment of transcendence. Meditation? Not sure.

The cellphone rang.