On Being an Ex-Expatriate Bina,

I am sitting at work, not able to get my work done, thinking about home and then coming across this articale. I feel connected and desire going back with all my soul and heart. But the question I have to answer is whether the path less travelled or the path more familiar.

Many years ago, I had done exactly what you have done. Went home, took two years to adjust, but I did adjust, I did contribute and I was happy. I was connected to the soil, to the people, the stories of my ancestors and something more. I knew that our nation, our culture, our spirit was moving towards a destructive and downward phase, but I still wanted to be a part of that journey, share my brethren`s pain, learn from it, and hope to be the seed for change. Be a part of the re-birth, because after every night there is the day. Don`t know what happened but somehow I had to leave again, nine years later, back to the US.

Life is a journey and there are many paths. But being concious of our choices, being in touch with our spirit, we make choices which are not apparent or obvious. But over years and over the stretch of time, their significance and their consequences in the chain of human experience seem obvious.

Just rambling. Good luck.

``The Road not Taken``

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveller, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

Degrees of Horror The writing brings out a point which is relevant and rememberable. Sensitivity is a constant state, empathy a way of life, understanding a way of being. The sufic way requires us to experience, share and participate in the moment without judgement, expectation but only with love in our hearts. That is the essence of our being.

Therefore, we should always be connected to the world with a sense of giving, giving one`s love and energy, and allowing ourself to experience the energy of others - and through this sharing bring each other to the state of our ultimate purpose. Ultimate purpose. It is creating a unity of experience.

So, this suffering, joy, pain, happiness, all these emotions have only one purpose. Oneness. That is what we must remember.