Here is the end; here is the beginning

Mix the contradictions. Make a paste. Mix the duality. Grind it well. And you get nothing in the so called ‘everything’. Is there any hard and fast line between the so called two ends of our perception? Is ‘black’ only ‘black’? Is ‘white’ only ‘white’? No. They seep into each other and define each other, apparently, relatively. Dark is not just ‘dark’. And light is not just ‘light’. Dark is only ‘less light’. And light is just ‘less dark’. Duality sustains on our sense of ‘ego’. It turns our consciousness into self-consciousness. Is there any pure, unadulterated ‘pleasure’? No. Pleasure is a state of having lesser pain. Pleasure has a mild dose of pain in it. Always. Find out a person who has no trace of pain in him. Is there any condition of just having ‘pain’? No. Pain is just having lesser degree of ‘pleasure’. Pleasure carries pain in it, and pain carries pleasure in it. Our ego stretches the point of reality in two directions for suitable duality, of contradictions. Imagine ‘twilight’ when day’s rising light mixes with the night’s vanishing darkness. The balance. The melting of duality. Is there any state of something being perfectly ‘cold’ or perfectly ‘hot’? No. Cold is just lesser hot. And hot is just lesser cold. The reality just gives the illusion of apparently getting stretched in opposite directions. It’s the see-saw battle. We look this way, then we turn to the other side. By subduing the element of ‘self’ from ‘consciousness’ one can get a balanced vision. Then the funny mirage of seeing two avatars of the same thing becomes visible. The two things are inseparable, and are just our conveniently defined two points on the plain of reality. Death is not just death in itself. It is the beginning of life, of birth. Birth is not just birth. It is the beginning of death. Same is the apparent duality of creation and destruction. They don’t exist separately. For an event and happening to occur, there has to be a balance between the two. Like human body survives on the principle of the balance between creation and destruction. New cells are continuously being created and old ones are dying. The circle. It holds the key to the mystery. The reality has loops of the so called dualities going side by side, at all points, at all points. The counterweights. The balance. Going on and on in loops. The ever-expanding universe and the ever-dying universe. In loops. In circles. At countless points. Forever. Explosions and implosions. Blasts and suction. Circular loops. Creation and destruction. Creation and destruction. On and on. In circles. Expansion and suction. Going from nowhere to nowhere. And passing through the point where you happen to read it presently. 

Use the leftover spirits from Valentine Day and use it to cerebrate Earth Day

It’s Earth day today, passing off like any other inconsequential day. Valentine day makes a far bigger noise and catches attention. Media is full of it. People themselves are so eager to celebrate it. Nothing wrong with that. Symbolism of love and affection in relationships has its utility and importance. But it also shows how confined and limited, almost self-seeking, is our interpretation of love and care. Mind you it might even be merely skin deep, shallow and funny.

The best part of being human--our beautiful emotions and awareness of good and bad--has been imprisoned so tightly that we just trample ahead with our tiny boxed up, suffocating emotions, totally unconcerned about what is getting squeezed under our feet. We carry tremendous insecurity. Every fellow human is a competitor and rival to beat. No wonder the things that really matter, the matters that are make or break for all of us, the great common ground, hardly get attention. So the plight of mother earth is not that big an issue. It’s the nightmare that we simply delegate to the future generations to face and suffer about. If as parents we sacrifice our present to make our children’s future, cannot we just take a few more steps to be bothered about the future a few generations down the line?

There is a rat race of domination among all the countries. There are elaborate geo-strategic plans to capture the future for themselves. Plunder of natural resources and development of weapons of mass destruction, genocides, communal killings, where does it take us all. Mankind is certainly the most aware species on earth, but the most foolish as well. Of course foolish because what else it is to keep moving in a direction where, in complete knowledge of it happening, there will be fire and destruction. It’s as foolish as setting the house on fire, and getting full throttle creative about setting a luxurious bed for a night-long rest.

So the biggest stage—mother earth—is shaking and creaking under the hooves of prudent-most animal on earth. What value the victory carries if the place you have fought over is bound to be crumbled to pieces in future? What does a luxurious bed stand for if the house itself will burn? Hope the earthlings realize that the biggest reason for them to feel insecure is for mother earth itself. Other levels of insecurities, and the consequent strife, confrontations and wars, come later. Even the fights of ego need a solid stage. What does victory mean on a crumbling planet?

Suppose the aliens approach us. And they will definitely. It’s just a matter of time. Won’t we be simply earthlings in the face of a common threat? Then these caste, class, communal and national divides will melt. It’s high time that we realize that the great commonality which supports and sustains us, mother nature, is under threat.

There is a common enemy, environmental degradation, the result of our rampant plunder and greed. Let it be recognized as such and a fight launched against it. Let it be done before it is too late. Because the cycle of destruction, once it crosses the critical limit, becomes irreversible.

Save earth! Celebrate Earth Day with as much fervor as you celebrate Valentine day!

Highway Murder

Do you think only you have the right to tell you story? No man, no! Even we trees have the right to tell the tale of our life, especially when the main protagonist is man, the master of nature presently. So listen you all, humans as well as nature. The two are different now by the way. Listen!

Well, I am a great eucalypts tree standing by a road. They are killing me. The iron is hissing and kissing the rings of age in my stout trunk. I stand benumbed and in daze. But I have to speak out before I fall. Possibly you listeners will spot the crime and just—at least—have some of the pain I feel while I am being slaughtered.

Well, I feel really bad about it. I never thought the end will arrive so soon, without any notice. There is no storm threatening to uproot me. It’s a very fine day, and all the more suitable to the humans to carry out their act of greed. My killing but is unjustified because I have been fulfilling all my duties assigned by mother nature to me.

The way I have gone overboard in carrying out my task, I think I should have been lucky enough to see the majesty of upcoming wintery full moon. The moon-rays are very naughty I tell you. You may be lost in brighter self-created neon lights, but nothing can beat the beauty of full moon rays on a winter night. I pine for one more such night! Alas it seems impossible! I have to take solace by remembering the past only. 

See, you may not realise it but your tools of cutting, your axes, saws, scythes and blades are very painful. I have to impose anaesthesia on myself for I cannot even cry like you guys. Still I can feel the saw’s butchering the bloodless flesh in my guts. But poor me, I don’t even have the blood to put forth the evidence of a murder. Even though my flesh is as good as yours, but mine doesn’t bleed so even the sanguine interior as they saw through it, appears simple painless stone to them. But I feel the pain, I swear. Just want to tell. Please don’t take my cutting as simple as breaking a stone.

It’s a hazily sun-lit winter noon. It appeared such a balmy day. Looking at the people moving onto their destination. But then they suddenly arrived like hounds. I was even surprised why so many of them arrived and started prodding me, slapping me out of my languorous spell. I don’t even know whether to throw my almost harmless, inaudible curse at these fellows or the state itself that has authorised my murder to broaden this already fat road.

Let me be clear on this. It’s a murder. You may prefer to call it just cutting wood. But there is a life inside. Never forget this. Don’t I grow like you guys do? Don’t I do my duty of purifying air and providing shade and provide dead and even live wood, like you people claim your utility?

For many decades I have been standing as a serving helper to both man and nature. During older times, this metalled road, this carrier of huge traffic and so called your ‘progress’, was simply a dirt road. It was my friend taking your forefathers to their common destinations. Nobody was in damn hurry like you people these days. I stood here as a milestone reached by a tired pair of legs, by a rickety bull-cart, who halted under me, savouring the shade I provided. I felt so proud of myself.

This very path has turned a foe now. It’s a highway after all. The merciless, fast-paced carrier of growth. It has turned a parasite now. It needs more space. Damn it, they don’t need shade and pure air now. These can be easily managed in the metal boxes that hurtle day and night on it. So I’m redundant and old. I have turned a blocker of progress with my few square-feet of foot-hold.

Man, again I try to shout and remind you that if a healthy mass like me is no life, then yours is also not so important. By cutting us you are cutting yourselves, for you are nothing but merely an extension of our world. A mere reflection of the nature around you. We gone, even you will be gone. Haa fools, now I can afford to call you as such during these final moments, for you cannot even see the precipice you are heading into.

Man, now it is hurting quite a lot. But I have resolved to keep telling my murder story till the axes, scythes and saws send my tiniest of branches to be turned to ashes in some poor household’s fire-place.

We trees never wince with pain as your axes spray chips of our flesh. Just because our flesh is different coloured doesn’t mean we don’t feel the pain. We do, man!

We had equal rights till mankind was just a part of nature, not the master of it. Now this saw going deeper and deeper into my bloodless guts reminds me of our inevitable fate. Every tree on earth now has a deadly date with the greedy most, treacherous and unforgiving mate.

Haa the cowards! Forever playing so safe! They know that I’m huge. Poor things are afraid of my fall. Little do they realise that a tree’s pride is in standing tall and upright. And we do it till the last ounce of our strength. I am not going to give in that easily. They have to earn my dead body. It cannot be a cakewalk. Let them have blisters on their hands. It will serve as a proof to my murder.

Little do they realise my commitment to my duty, my oath to mother nature. Even in the face of death, I cannot stop playing my part in nature. As they are robbing me of my few square feet of space on earth, my saplings are still giving them life, still doling out oxygen under this winter sun. I am helpless and bound to my sworn duty. I cannot be vindictive and stop fuelling life into the lungs even if they happen to be my murderers. Even my murder cannot change me, helpless as I am due to my nature.

Now the saw has gone pretty deep. I am getting the signs of that eternal sleep. There is also an unbearable pain in the so called painless mass. Death is death after all. Hope you understand.

Like hangman’s noose, thick hemp ropes are tied to direct my fall. From a safe distance tractors are pulling to bring down this wooden bull. They are worried, but are assured of victory. There are too many of them, with steely human determination to win, to stifle any chance of failure. No, I don’t see any chance of a miracle. It’s as hopeless as it can be.

Now I feel it. The death blow. The pinnacle of their jeering selves. A  cleavage breaks through the portion still holding me to my mother earth. From softest saplings to rock hard tissues my whole self is panicked. But still I have to tell the tale of my murder before I finally fall. My saplings are crying like innocent children. The hardest of trunk tissues are shamelessly crying like the battle hard, handsome soldiers on their knees after losing the war. Death is after all death. Who wants to cease to exist?

Who cares? Nobody. This big snapping sound is my death cry. And here I fall with a thud. Yes man, you win. I am dead before I thought I will. 

The murderer and the robber are just an arm-length away

Feeling lucky not to have come across a real-life murderer with blood-ridden hands and a dagger in hand? Feeling at ease not to have faced a robber, with muscular barrel chest, eye-patch and devilish beard running away with yours and others’ money? Well think again for you might be grossly mistaken. There are murderers and robbers on the prowl around. And in far more numbers than you can ever think even in your wildest of horrifying imagination.

It can be your sheepish looking, harmless milkman, holding the potent weapon of slow death over the years. Yes the milkman with his passable crime, with little doses over months and years. In India the fight for self-survival is so rampant that poor milkman won’t flinch an eye before mixing urea and adhesives like Fevicol to make adulterated milk. It breeds death, slowly over months and years, with no sign of a murder committed. For the milkman all that matters is a successful day with all the pots empty sold out. What happens later is none of his concerns.

It can be the sweet-tongued sweet-maker pampering your sweet-tooth with an affable smile and still honeyed words. Yes the sweet-maker with his shortcuts to profits with fake milk derivatives and cancerous chemicals and colors. And there are many, as many as you count the sweet shops, except for the few moralistic ones. India is crammed to the guts, and the mere struggle to survive, at any cost and through whatever means, justifies the end and more bucks in the wallet.

It can be the poor-looking harmless fruit vendor. You even end up having sympathy for him. Little do you realize that the fruits you presume to add to your life are in fact cutting into your days. Artificial, cancerous-chemical-catalyzed ripening, waxing on the surface to make stale fruits look fresh and scores of other devil-devised machinations to get some more bucks at the cost of disease and destruction in others’ livers.

These are the murders on the safer side of law. Nobody dies instantly. Death comes slowly. It’s a causeless disease. Nobody can be blamed. They vend out poison slowly, in mild doses. They add a day to their survival at the cost of minutes from the lives of those whom they serve.

There are robbers around as well, in clean shirts and socially respected avatars. Law cannot touch them because they don’t rob out rightly like the condemnable criminals barging into a bank and running away with the whole vault of money and gold. They do it in slow sips over years, as invisible cogs in the corrupt machinery. In both governmental and private institutions and departments these legalized robbers sit on their desks with an affable smile and clean slate. It’s facilitation money. The extra money has to land invisibly into their pockets to move the process stuck at their check-post.  

Then there are countless petty criminals and transgressors, stomping their way to their destination at any cost. It’s an ant-swarm. Law never looks more impotent than in the face of such brazen frequency, everywhere, every moment. Spitting, urinating, defecating, shouting, molesting, eve-teasing, raping and countless other forms of violence from the mildest to the heinous most. It makes it seem as if the rulebook is just a draw of lots for all the criminals around. Only a few are unlucky to get their name taken out as legal offenders. The rest clap for their luck for being left out.  

So there are mass murderers and robbers all around. And law cannot sneak into each and every soul to arise either fear or conscience to think of injustice done to others’ in the struggle to survive. Poverty and greed make a person too thick-skinned to be sensitive to the world beyond the self. The only option is to hope for a generational shift when more people will be aware of the issues beyond the limited self.

Unfortunately with the Indian population ever-exploding, and more people fighting for diminishing resources, it seems a dream to visualize a society where the milkman, the fruit-vendor, the sweet-maker, the government officials will become humane enough to be self-responsible and follow the laws even if there is no apparent risk of getting caught.

Law-abiding instincts get honed over a period of time.  It’s like stopping at a red light on a totally empty road, in the depths of night, with absolutely nobody around, and no fear of punishment, but you still put up breaks, and smile. It gives a strange peace to be self-responsible for such tiny transgressions. Just looking forward to a day when majority of the Indians will come out of the pit of self-obsessed survival and be self-responsible not just for their own survival but for others’ convenience as well. 

No flesh, blood and bones after 200 years

Nature is not with anybody. Neither is it against anyone. It is for us to decide whether we are with it or against it. The onus is on us! Since we are a part of it, it suits our purpose if we go with it. Going against nature means going against ourselves. But that is what we are doing presently.

With its impartiality, nature ensured a competition among species for survival. Look at the fantastic evolution of organism and species. But then with the food-chains reaching a dead end with mankind being the master, the nature itself—the cause—will become the casualty.

Humans evolved as inseparable part of nature, just like any other animal species, using their best skills to survive. Humans used brain to master nature. Still mankind (biologically) and its institutions stand on nature’s back. Now we are crossing all limits. Possibly the inevitable juggernaut of progresss. The more forests we cut, the more species we force into extinction, the more pollutants we release into the air and the seas, the more we are eating into nature’s guts. It’s like killing the hen that lays golden eggs.

Our present biological standing is a sum total of the nature around us. We are a reflection and sum total of the state of the overall natural health. With more natural ecosystems being decimated to get into a more mechanized world, it will be a folly to think that we will be able to survive at the present biological level of human physiology.

In a world with ghastly depleting natural resources, and cement, steel and machines ruling the roost, how will the present human biology—the outcome of the natural phenomena and food-chains—survive? It just will not. So the cut into nature’s guts will require adaptations in human biology and physiology as well. Simple fact is, the present human physiology will be totally redundant in a world where there will be hardly any forests, most of the species extinct, air polluted and weather totally changed. To survive under the new challenge, the mankind will bring out mechanization in the physiology itself. Genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, artificial organs will see a world in which mankind will be a semi-machine managing full machines.

And with the final traces of nature gone, with the environment modified mechanically to survive, mankind will finally become a full machine. It might be just 200 years away when the last sinews of human blood, ligaments, flesh and skin will be replaced by artificial devices. The cycle of evolution! The super species! The machines all around. And then the inevitable destruction. 

All that woman is

It’s 819 AD. Indian mystics have laid the foundation of systematization of thought about the unknown. With open arms Vedas welcome the infinite manifestations of universal goodwill. These are the outpours of awe, wonder, obedience, surrender and love for the unknown.

Human mind is fertile with imagination. One more step has been taken. Vedanta literature has shown man the next step in Indian philosophical thought. It’s no longer about feelings of awe. Now it’s not just plain surrender to the gaping unknowns. There is an effort to interpret the forces of nature. There is cultivation of thought and logic. There is an effort to understand the process of humans grasping the reality.

Brahma Sutras of Sage Badarayana Vyasa have set up a platform for human thought and logic to take the next stride. Human mind looks within to understand the ways and means of interpreting the messages sent by our sense organs.     

Philosopher and theologian Adi Shankara is taking human mind further by integrating main thoughts in Hinduism. He has a huge collection of commentaries on Vedic texts. He has thrown more light on Upanishads. He is slaying the rituals and founding the concepts of Advaita Vedanta, unity of the soul and attributelesss supreme identity. Ritualism has eaten the vitality of Indian thought and philosophy. He is travelling across India to revive the spirit of Hinduism. For self realization. To be a master of one's own destiny, not be a helpless beggar before deities. Wherever he goes he challenges those who oppose his thinking. Clubs down their logic to overpower them with his logical interpretations of our thought processes and natural phenomena around. It's a blizzard of logic sweeping the length and breadth of India. And here he comes to Mithila state in northern Gangetic plains near the frontier between modern day India and Nepal.     

The great scholar has reached Tharhi village. It’s autumn. There is mystique restfulness spread around. A perfectly pensive evening is building up. The great thatched hall in the hermitage premises is softly abuzz with scholarly excitement. Shankaracharya has arrived only a couple of hours ago and is ready to take logical potshots at rival theologians.

His shaven head and calm eyes don’t give any sign of the long, arduous travel. But he has much ground to cover. They start immediately. Adi is on a spiritual rollercoaster and easily prevails upon daunting bearded rishis. A young student, having holy thread criss-crossing his torso and wearing white cotton dhoti is lost in the great philosopher’s persuasive logic. He has a question.

“The words of your logic fail to take me to the exact picture of reality. Does it mean there is no specific plane of reality? And we just reach a level, given our understanding of the words involved in the sentences, that we infer. Is it like a person with good eyesight can watch distant objects in comparison to somebody with a bad one?”

Adi smiles at the question. His calm eyes bore straight into the young student’s handsome face. The penetrating focus in those eyes is very attractive.

“Study hard for each word in books of theology. Work for the meaning of each and every word. Focus your senses to grasp the maximum a word has to offer. You will see the farthest one can see!” it appears like a blessing.

There is something extraordinary about this boy. Next morning, before setting out again on his mission, Shankaracharya calls the boy. He again looks into the deep, reflective pools of his eyes. The philosopher smiles. There is the stability of an undisturbed ocean in the young student’s eyes.

“He can take very deep dives to take out the gems of reality from the mysterious depths,” the sage softly told himself.

Adi hands him a palm leaf compilation of Brahma Sutra of Badarayana. The text is a famous systematization of the philosophical ideas of Upanishads. Brahma Sutras explore the nature of human existence and absolute reality and the importance and need of attaining spiritually liberating knowledge. 

It is a blessing. Just the ownership of the text containing the apex of Indian philosophical though is a matter of pride. He walks back to his house holding the cloth bag containing the precious text. He has been exceptionally hungry for the knowledge and words of holy Sanskrit texts. He has mastered Vedas, Upvedas and Upanishads. Now he possesses the cream of all that knowledge, the gist. He wants to go further, to see further, break the frontier of all human thought reached thus far. He is holding the text even more dearly than his life.           

“Vachaspati Vachaspati come out. O God what has possessed this boy. That book has a magic spell. I have to call babaji to break it!” Vatsala is anxious.

Her neighbors are standing near her. They face the hut he has locked himself in. She is a widow and he the only son. They have sympathy for her.

“He hasn’t come out for the last two days. These books can turn a young man mad,” she is sobbing.

More sympathy for the widow struggling to raise her son, who is all concerned about Vedic knowledge and now this book.

They raise a chorus. There is a pandemonium. He is drawn out of his eerie. He hasn’t opened the book even once. It is precious. It has priceless meaning to each and every word written in it. He has been looking at it and taken away into a trance. He can hear his mother’s lamentation outside and words of sympathy floating around. He opens the grass and reed thatch door of the hut and steps out. The sun is too bright. He squints and looks deep into the blue sky. They hold him with empathy taking him to be sick.

The proximity of the precious manuscript carries the effect of thunderbolt. He is in a delirium. The young man has fever. He mumbles strange meaningless words about the ultimate reality. His mother gets scared and even thinks of throwing the book away. But then stops from doing this, herself being scared of the powers in the book.

Vachaspati regains his footing from the jolt after a week. He carefully starts touching the book, afraid like touching fire, familiarizes himself with the smell and feel of the palm leaves and the Sanskrit words. He is as cautious as if he is walking on a rope and fire is burning below. And he has miles to go along the rope to reach the destination. And Brahma Sutras are the bamboo, supporting him, balancing him, preventing his fall into the fire.

The world than ceases to exist for him. It is just the Brahma Sutras, the beginning. And the end? He wants his awakened self to be that end. Aham Brahmasmi. I am the all potent supreme entity. But he has to prove it to himself. He has to break that delusional veil that filters the supreme knowledge from barging fully into the compartment of our being leaving us angry, ignorant and frustrated. He has to understand why and how we see the perceived reality. Can the reality be changed for the better? Is it fixed? Is it pliable, to be molded into better shape by our heightened awareness? Endless questions.

He has now cut himself off from the society. A secluded grove is the safe house with the precious book. It has been eight years since the book landed in his hands. And there has been just one routine, reaching the grove in the morning with a time’s meal and water. He goes back to his hut late at night. Slowly opens his hut’s door, finds the rice and cooked lentils on his bed. Eats and goes to sleep. His mother’s tears have dried up. She has accepted her fate.

He has forgotten the number of times he has read the book. Each time he reads, it has a new meaning. He rises higher with each jump into the air to see beyond the fence. He just cannot overcome this feeling that there is limitless joy to be harnessed through learning.

His mother is not keeping well these days. She struggles to catch her breath while she struggles hard to earn two meals a day for herself and her son. She is worried what would happen to him after she is gone. Marriage as an institution is supposed to guarantee hope and care in future. She has been thinking of getting him married. But who would give his daughter to somebody who doesn’t seem to act and behave like a common householder? The world is but full of people bound by conditions that would force them to settle for the minimum. Like while most of the parents try to ensure a life-long security for their daughter, looking at the groom’s prospects from multiple angles, there are still some who are placed so tightly that just getting their daughter married somehow to anybody gives them the satisfaction of fulfilling a duty. There is one such family in a neighboring village. The father consents to Vachaspati’s mother’s proposal.

“It is our good luck to get our daughter married to such an avid scholar!” he even smiles.

Vachaspati is so lost in the questions raised by reads and rereading of the Brahma Sutra that he hardly knows what goes on in the world around him. He is so full of ever-persistent questions about the finality, the ultimate reality that there is hardly any scope for the sense organs to do their work and break his spell.

He is in a reverie, like he is most of the time, when his mother informs him about his marriage. He doesn’t seem to react in any way. His nonchalance is taken as his consent and the marriage is fixed. He is married to Bhamati on Guru Prnima (Vyasa Purnima) in the month of Asadha. It is an auspicious conjugal day when many others start their marital innings. For him but it is the night to start on his real quest.         

His hut is decorated for the bridal night. A full moon has lit up the stage outside. Shyly his bride is ushered in with a big tumbler of hot milk in her hand. She raises her eyes to sneak a look at him. In the light of the oil lamp a new world opens.

Vachaspati is sitting erect on a reed mattress on the floor. A sheaf of clean palm leaves by his side. On the small wooden writing desk a palm leaf waiting for the first word. His hand is on the feather quill still in the brass ink pot. Time seems to have been suspended. The lamp is burning almost steadily. It’s a frozen moment, like it will remain for the next 12 years.

She moves slowly and sits on the edge of the bridal bed. There are flowers on the clean white sheet. The sheet will remain as such. Time has stopped. It’s not before the dawn that he opens his eyes slowly. His hand frozen on the writing quill moves and the first Sanskrit word of his historical commentary on Brahma Sutra is written. There is a force. She can feel it. She knows she has no choice apart from being a part in this creative stillness.

And the days pass, as easily as the weeks, which pass like months, who in turn pass with the ease of years.

He is in a cocoon. He is breaking the walls of disillusions to see the light of logic to take Indian metaphysical thought to a new level after the Brahma Sutras. Brahma Sutras have given him the tools to dig the mammoth mountain of mysteries. He is busy with his spadework.

Bhamati knows the duties of a wife to her husband. She lives her duties. She has to keep his cocoon safe for him to continue working. She is the silent nurturer of his cocoon. She is invisible. But manages everything. It’s her duty.

She moves so slowly as if afraid to shift even the air particles as she cleans the floor, puts food plate in front of him, takes it away, fills the ink pot, gets fresh pair of writing quills, safely stashes the worked upon sheaves of palm leaves, arranges new palm leaves, lights the lamp as it starts getting dark, pours oil in the lamp through the night, takes his dhoti to wash and puts afresh one nearby. In between she lovingly looks at his picture, for he is just a picture, unchanging except the quill moving on the paper.

The picture is broken only twice or thrice a day when he gets up for bathing and toilet. But this also is merely an extension of the picture.

Initially during the long drawn out spells of night she would feel cravings for his touch as she watched him from the corner of the hut where she sleeps on the ground on a simple grass mattress. Then she felt guilty even in that lest she should be polluting the air with desire. Now just looking at his pensive, absorbed face gives her all the gratification she needs as a woman from her man.

She is a mother now. There is a child in her womb. She has to nurture it at the cost of the major portion of her own life, her own share in this world. Her pregnancy has lasted years and she is the same smiling, uncomplaining mother, keeping her hands safely around her bulging tummy as the world moves on.  

Well that’s basically a woman is, a mother. A man is just the instrument of her reaching her status of being a mother. To be a mother she has to cut a major portion of her own self to help life thrive in a new unit, in a new human being.

It has been twelve years since their marriage and twelve years of his working on his commentary on Brahma Sutras. It is a stormy night. Squalls of rain beat on the thatched hut. Wind beats down hard. There is no risk to this hut at least. She has been working on making it sturdier and stronger over the years during her spare time. This is exactly this type of weather she has had in mind while working on it.

His face bears a strange expression. Like you have been running for a long time, and then you see the destination, you want to run harder but the body is keeping you within limits. During the latter half of the night the storm started to abate. His face also eased up. Even a smile at the corner of his lips. It makes her world, that smile. He seems to be walking slowly now, with destination just nearby. And then he stops.

It’s a bright dawn. The storm has spent its fury. Calmness, as it’s supposed to, has spread its aura. He has written the concluding word. A journey has been accomplished. He stands up and stretches his arms. It’s like a stone statue coming to life. He looks around and sees the world as it is after so many years. There is a woman in the hut. Her uncared and untended beauty shines like moon’s corner over the edge of a dark speck of cloud. 

The mother, the donator, the giver. Her pregnancy has lasted all storms. The delivery has been painful. She is shy again. She melts under his gaze. He is curious.

“Who are you and what are you doing in my hut?” he asks politely, words coming with huge effort after so long a spell of silence.

“I’m your wife. We were married 12 years back,” she tries to remind him very softly.

He was on another plane of reality so doesn’t remember anything. He looks at her hands and realization strikes him. He remembers these. Even in that astral plane these hands have been the root of his support. These hands that bathed him, fed him, kept everything away that would break his mystical spell. He has been feeling that the task at hand has been as much of these hands as he himself. This pair of hands had melted into his veritable being. His quest had been with four hands. He always had this feeling, but had taken it as some divine support.

But can there be a bigger divinity than a mother’s efforts?

“You have been serving me for 12 years and never told me!” he has tears in his eyes.

She just smiles and has tears. Unable to speak she just looks at him.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier? I had taken a vow that I will renounce this world after completing this work!” tears are streaming down his bearded face.

“I always knew the importance of your cause. So just served you. It is my wifely duty,” she speaks very sweetly, as if it was never about her, like her life did not and doesn’t matter.

“But this is injustice to you. All this service and pain. With my vow I have to leave for the Himalayas for penance. What becomes of your efforts? Where is the fruit of all that you did,” he is agonized.

There is a flood of tears. A sage who has busted the secrets of reality to make human thought further capable of deciphering more about the ultimate is crying.

She comes closer and again assuages his pain, frees him from guilt.

Wiping his tears she says with a calm smile, “Your tears, your acceptance, your realization, this work, all these are my rewards. Like I didn’t stop you earlier, even in your vow of penance I will not be a hindrance. It will give me happiness if I still help you in seeking further truth as a recluse by allowing you to go. By freeing you of any duty that you might think as a husband may prevent you. Please go guilt-free.”  

He hasn’t yet given a title to his commentary. Wiping his tears he moves towards the collection, picks out a fresh palm leaf and writes Bhamati on it. The title. And puts it on top of the work.

“You are the love and guiding spirit behind all this. This world may forget me but not you,” he prepares to leave.

Bhamati.

She watches him go to the hills. Bhamati, the masterwork, is there for the world to dive into to fetch out more gems of metaphysical thoughts.

A man might take rounds of earth to search his destiny, a woman realizes hers just by being there with her love and care.

A man might break mountains with the raw power of hammer, a woman is the air that fills his lungs to fuel his determination.

A man might aim to crack the ultimate secret, a woman normally does it just by being a mother, by allowing a life to thrive parasitically inside her, at her cost, gobbling her share of food, blood and flesh.

And no thought can be beyond love. And nobody more suitable than manifesting love than a woman.

Be the frog king in a shit hole; it's better than being a slave in heaven

Apart from all the shit happening around, life is supposed to be a big, fat, interesting book. Let it be an exciting story, not because others applaud it, but basically because you own it, write it and enjoy it. Don't die every moment to see appreciation in the eyes of those around. If that is the expectation, then forget it. It won't happen. People around you will give you more reasons to be sad rather be happy. Others will prefer to see your sad face instead of ever-grinning, full of joy joker. Not because they are sadistic. But because it helps them in somehow digesting their own miseries. So at least don't hold any expectation on that front. The appreciation has to come basically from within you. So let it be a very fat book of your follies and little, little triumphs. Let there be unending trails of anecdotes that make you the champion of your small world. Forget about being a world champion. This world is as small as you in comparison to the cosmos. Both are puny. Laugh at it, if it laughs at you. This world has limitations, but not you. There are no limitations on you to extend the world within, inside your smallness of routine life, tiny errands, short walks, little losses, tiny gains and stable-unstable relations. Live more. Like a frog that just jumped into the murky, muddy, green-mossed puddle of water. This little puddle itself won't be there after a week. Summers are unsparing. It's boiling. But does it stop the frog king from walloping and taking fantastic breaststrokes in the filthy water? Does it stop the love-lorn fella from croaking dandily and woo the lady of its dream? It doesn't because it's just living in a lifeful 'consciousness', not 'self-consciousness' like we humans who impose 'self' on natural 'consciousness' so heavily to make life a burden. 'Ego' is the feeling of 'I am'. 'I' overshadows 'am' the state of 'just being', of 'consciousness', of living fully, of gliding in the present without the burden of past and worries of future. Nurture 'am'. Water it. It will prosper. Consciousness will spread healthily, and you nurture consciousness, dis-burden enjoyment of life from the heavyweight of 'I' and woo your mistress, the life, even in the dirtiest waters like the king of the puddle, the frog. Just 'be'. Write more chapters in the book of your life. Not as 'I' but by 'being' there. More the chapters, the better it is! Don't bother if these are just scribbled with amateur verve. It's your creation, and as parent of this one you will hardly be judgmental about it. If a particular chapter goes stale, wind it up and save your book from getting boring. Start a new chapter. We are the writers of the book of life. Keep it interesting! 

Be there in the orbit, greatness awaits you

The best chance to survive, move and be happy. Choose your orbit and glide with perfect harmony. The objects which fall out of the orbit, presuming it to be a leap for freedom, go burning and crash-landing into smithereens. The destination is not into the depths of cosmos for you to get into hot pursuit like a burning meteorite. It’s always nearby, at some place in the same gentle periphery of your common journey. No journey is common by the way. Extraordinary is just maintaining your hold on the ordinary. Love the gentle loops of your circular journey around the axis of your being: the axis of your small, small commitments and responsibilities. That is the mother planet for your individual self to revolve around in circles. It defines you. It keeps you in the orbit. It helps you in your happy journey. It stops you from escaping into the black guts of the cosmos like a rootless rock going burning and turning to ashes. So choose your little orbit. Staying in the orbit does not mean being tied to a chain. It’s a grasp for lasting freedom. It is the life-force, this gravity that keeps you bound to your orbit. Your destination lies in the orbit itself. The day you get it, it becomes the loftiest orbit and the journey worth it. Things as small as bunking office to be with the kids, surrendering your right to the TV to allow kids to enjoy their cartoon show, letting the little one to play on your abdomen and suppress the discomfort to give a winsome smile and even laughter, laughing when the little one pees on you, going to office daily over years to see that small world back home in the evening, saving money over years to give the surprise gift of a car to your children, and many more. These are the forces that keep you in your orbit. Love your orbit. Glide effortlessly. You will cover astronomical distances on the same familiar path. Love these common repetitions that go unnoticed and unrewarded. Loving these is the reward in itself. Like your path. It’s strictly yours. Stamped with the unique greatness of your unseen efforts to stay in the orbit. Just to stay in the orbit means to be great. There are countless milestones that you reach. These are as shiny as the biggest stars. This universe started with a bang from a point. That was the explosion of potential for countless souls to carve out their orbits, to glide peacefully in their trajectory. Be there, smile, give a victorious cry for you are already a winner. 

Don't be a pollutant

All of us carry an aura around us. It comprises an electro-magnetic field born of the flow of life energy through and around our bodies. It exists at the interface of physio-psychological and superior selves. The quality of this aura is a function of our mental, physical and emotional states. Anger, regret, fear, jealousy, desperation, sorrow, rejection and hopelessness create a sort of negative energy and consequently a negative aura. It means we carry bad aura. It pollutes the surrounding environment like a heap of garbage. Now isn’t it our bounden duty to keep the environment clean by remaining positive, happy, smiling, poised, relaxed, sympathetic and compassionate? It's our duty brothers and sisters! It's as good for others health as it is for our own. All the steps to the cleaning of all types of pollutants start from the self. Stay happy. Stay clean. Just by doing this we do a social service.

Lip-kissed lies and soul-kissed love

It is springtime in ancient India. Snow is melting in the mountains. Flowers smile and let out perfume that is picked up by the cool air to be scattered in love loops. This town in the Gangetic plains is awash with fresh hopes. Butterflies dart around in the air full of love and procreation.

The air is blowing with a seductive message. A young, handsome monk is moving through the streets. His steps are slow and face has a faint smile. He has a begging bowl in his right hand. A cloth bag hangs from his left shoulder. The spring air is redolent with both giving and receiving. This saffron clad man but has just the goal of having one time meal.

He is passing in front of a luxurious small palace. It’s decorated for love and enjoyment. It seems like a place where one can just surrender the self to quench all thirst. He is but moving all unconcerned and detached from all worldly splendor. A pair of beautiful eyes looks at him from the ornate balcony. Her heart stops for a moment. If she is the ever restless river, he appears like the calmest sea having the immensity to swallow her thirst, her restlessness, her quest for destination, her final fulfillment. She realizes her hunger. It is plain desire. He is so handsome and so aloof from all worldly charms.

She has the world at her feet. The most beautiful woman of the state, she has the title of nagar vadhu. Her life stands for love, opulence and luxury. Wealthiest traders, strongest noblemen, most creative artists all kiss her feet to appease her and take a sip from the fountain of her beauty. Any man feels lucky if she holds her look on his face for more than a second.

The young monk with the begging bowl moves with ease. At ease with his being. All restfulness. It’s a calm, unperturbed lake. It doesn’t happen that she is still holding her look on a man’s face and the man’s eyes move on. Her charms are so spell-binding. She has been proud of this power. The feminine avatar of power. With a faint smile he just moves on. There is not the slightest change in his demeanor.

The hard shell of her ego cracks. It disturbs her. She even gets angry. She can see his back. He is now moving slowly in the street. The anger in her again turns to desire. Till now men desired her. This loveful spring morning has changed the tables. She desires this calm sea. She needs some rest. The spiteful torrents of her youth want to submerge into his silent depths. It just attracts her senses like anything. She feels helpless.

She sends her maid to call the monk. Her heart is pounding against her breast. She is gasping for breath and at loss of words. Her hold over masculinity is giving in. She feels like a helpless, fragile woman. And finds it such a moving feeling.

Her reverie is broken. The monk is standing in front of her door again.

“What do you want?” she asks, shyly, dropping her gaze around his feet.

Where is that domination of men, her servant thinks.

“Beautiful lady, I just want one time’s meal,” the monk tells her.

She laughs in a mocking way. “You should ask as per the status of the person. Even a farmer can give you that much,” she is feeling offended that he isn’t taking notice of her charms as if she is just like any other woman around.

The monk smiles. “Well young lady, this is all I need. It doesn’t change with people.”

“You can have me, my palace and my luxury if you stay with me,” she sounds desperate.

He is as cool as before, as if nothing has happened. “This world is my house. I take the minimum as charity to survive, just one time’s meal. I am looking out for the path to give more. I am searching for the path to a destination when each particle of my being will be ready to give selflessly.”

“I am also ready to give all I have including myself and my palace and wealth. Isn’t it the same?” she asks.

“But you want to give only with the ambition of getting something back for your ego. You want to receive a monk abandoning his path for your beauty. There cannot be a bigger ambition, a bigger tool to pacify the ego.”

The monk is unperturbed. She is shaking with rage over the denial.

“At least stay with me for a night!” she is helpless and appears almost pleading.

“Do you really need my help? I can see wealthiest to strongest are ready to help your needs,” he gives her a kind look.

“Please please…” she is imploring. “I really really need you. If you spend the night with me, I will forsake all men. Believe me!”

The young man gives a pitying smile. “I will come and stay when you really need me.”

She is tearful over the denial. The monk takes onto his path. She watches him till the far end of the street.

Life then moves on. Like it was before. She gets more wealth, more men falling at her feet. And the young monk moving slowly on his path of selfless realization.

It has been two decades since that spring morning in front of her palace. The same monk is walking towards the city, the same city. Years of penance has taken him miles down his path of selfless seeking. He is graying but looks wiser, calmer and even stronger. He can see the lights of the city. It’s just nearby.

He hears pitiable moans by the road. He stops and moves to the ditch by the path. A woman is crying in pain and agony. He sits by the bundle of misery. She is in terrible agony. Eaten by leprosy her open sores are oozing with stanching fluid. It’s as bad as it can be. So much of pain. He isn’t repulsed by the stench. He gets tears of sympathy. The calm surface of his being is jolted by emotions.

He lifts her in his hands and carries her to a nearby inn. They refuse to let him in with the foul-smelling patient. He decides to set up a hut outside the city to keep her. The rest of the night he spends under a tree. She lying by his side, moaning less now. Human touch is a remedy in itself.

The spring sun rises in all freshness. He has been sleeping for the last couple of hours. The woman is also asleep. He opens his eyes and looks at her face. The evil-work of the disease has failed to completely destroy the vestiges of her former self. He recognizes her. From there to here. What a chasm. What a trail of misery. More tears drip down his eyes. He meets the destination of his selfless giving. She was lying there in the dark night to test the validity of his selfless love. And he has passed.

She opens her eyes and is surprised to find somebody crying for her.

“You said you needed me and I said I will come when you will really need me. See I have come. And you are the destination of my penance. Of selfless giving. Of loving from the core of being. I was not sure of myself till I found you. Now I realize it has been worth it. All this search.”

So the monk took care of her. Helped her in easing all her miseries. Stayed with her when no other man didn’t even come near her.

She needed him now. And he was there at a stage in his monkhood when he was all there to give. Just give. Without taking or expecting anything in return. 

Ice cubes on desert sand

Summers. North India has started to burn. Heat has broken the record of past many decades. Temperatures above 40 in the last week of March. In the desert state of Rajasthan things must be even worse. Sand as the birth soil isn’t too attractive. It must be having its nostalgia, but on a day to day basis it appears a curse. Ask the ones who are born there. So many people come out of Rajasthan to avoid the burning cauldron during the summers.

Two lanky boys are moving across the streets of this Haryanvi village. Haryana is a semi-arid state. But for somebody belonging to the desert state, semi means almost full: full with life; full with bread; full with water; full with green trees.

They are tall and thin. They have migrated from the desert state. Necessity has pulled them out of the sand like water flows from higher level to the lower one. They have to beg. But begging has its own share of pitfalls including reprimands and harsh words.

“Why don’t you study? Why don’t you work?”

So they have put the saffron sail cloth on their poor boat. To sail safely. Holding onto the winds of faith. Their clothes are soiled. But the saffron sashes around their necks indeed cover a lot of holes in their personas. They expect to be taken as wandering ascetics. They have even mastered the artful words of bringing blessings to the house they stand in front of.

The woman chides them the moment they knock against the rusty iron gate. They but decide not to be deterred by the initial rebuke. Stealthily they steal glances at the two small cars parked in the front yard. These are old cars. But to them a car is a car. Hummer or Maruti 800 doesn’t make any difference.

So they continue with their blessing words of good fate, long life, endless prosperity, and more. It’s morning and yesterday it hailed and rained a bit to take temperatures a bit down. To them it seems like a land of perpetual rain and prosperity, although it rains marginally more than from their homeland. They have thorny trees there; here there are some semi-arid varieties like neem etc. And that changes the world for the best. It’s a shift from worst to best.  

They see the woman cannot cross certain limits to turn outright abusive and threatening. This is the chink. They have to prod their way in.         

“You have hard words but heart of gold. You can never think ill of others even if you sound rude,” the elder one nails it.

“What do you want? No money I tell you! I can only give you some flour,” her voice mellows down.

They let their foot further in. It’s an opening.

“There is no better doing than feeding the hungry. A direct holy deed. God sees it instantly,” they take their chance.

She seems to be awaiting God’s attention on some front, so agrees. They barge in. It’s a spacious house with peeling plaster and mundane furnishing like you see anywhere in a village in Haryana. To them it’s an abode of prosperity. They sit down on the unplastered brick-laid floor in the courtyard.

It’s too early for the family to have their lunch, brunch or whatever. So she makes chapattis for them. The vegetable curry is already done. They can see the chapattis are coming straight from the tava, not the stale leftovers from the previous night that people usually give them and thrown to the stray dogs. Every times she comes to put another chapatti they are ready with more words of blessings from the God.

The younger one asks for ice. They must be having refrigerator he has guessed right. It is available in every household here. Ice is luxury to him. He comes from burning sands. Pitchers burn like hot oven there. They drape sack clothes around these and pour drops of precious water to prevent it from boiling. He has already many ice cubes in his water utensil. He opens the lid and checks out to see how far these have melted. He is concerned. It’s melting. He wants replenishment.

“Please give me ice,” he is literally pleading.

She laughs at him. “It’s not that hot this morning. There is cool breeze,” she says.

But he looks at her with eyes that are crying for ice. She has to get it.

As she pours the cubes from the tray into his utensil, she can see the twinkle in his eyes.

Ice that is just ice to her, is precious to him. He has seen fire in life. Fire that seeps in everyday life. In desert. Ice has a bigger meaning to him than anyone else place better than him.

She notices it now. His clothes are also wet. Not dripping exactly, but he must have been completely drenched thirty forty minutes back.

“What happened? Did you fall in water?” she asks.

The elder one is laughing. “Water turns him crazy. Hardly any water back home. We take bath almost once a week. When he saw the pond outside the village he straightaway jumped into it,” he is laughing.

Water that is just water to her, is luxury to this boy. She tries to fathom the reason for his ecstasy over ice cubicles and pond waters where buffalos waddle, but fails to understand. Little does she realize that people run out to count drops of rain on the sand at his native place. So water is luxury to him.

Like most of us fail to understand that the things that seem dustbin cheap to us might be luxury to so many others. That a broken doll on the garbage heap, a shiny wrapper, a single wheeled broken toy are still items of luxury to many others. If we do, then we won’t begrudge about the problems in our life.

The art of emptying

Well before you take steps to fulfill your dreams, learn the art of emptying, of letting go, of letting out unwanted mossy dregs in the container of your destiny. Emptying isn’t defeatist. It’s not surrender. It’s a calculated step towards victory, towards fulfillment. It’s the preparation for gain, the beginning of filling up. Instead of running after the mirage of fulfillment, focus on emptying. Fulfillment is just a step away. Fullness starts at the moment of complete emptying. Wash, scrub, rinse and drain out the muck from the pot of your destiny. Wash away hate, anger, jealousy, ignorance, desires, phobias, complexities and overblown ambition. Drain these out. Let it be a perfectly clean and swanky pot of emptiness. The universe is expanding. It wants clean chambers to pour its energy into. It will sneak into the clean house in the form of your dreams and aspirations. The swabs clinging to the bottom are the repellents to fulfillment. Clean these. Work on emptying. Work on emptiness and you are in fact moving towards fullness. In a perfectly clean container there is no limitation on fulfillment, no hurdles to materialization of dreams, no restrictions on infinite cosmic harmony pouring its vastness into the container. A scribbled canvas has limitations of painting, a clean one has infinite possibilities of shapes and pictures. Scrub the slate clean before you start the journey. Even if it means a lifetime of emptying, it still will not be a loss. Even a second of fulfillment will be worth it. It will still be better than pouring the nectar of your efforts in an unclean pot, and just adding onto the stinking broth that never gives happiness and satisfaction. A clean empty house is a magnet. It pulls positive forces by itself. It's natural like gravitational force. It invites fullness. Complete emptiness invites fullness. Put your house in order. Set up your invitation to fullness on the door. Forget about the rest. Very soon you will hear the knock of fortune on your door. Like water flows to pits in earth, good luck naturally flows to clean, emptied, tidied containers. Come on, let your share flow in!  

The hypocrisy of portraying half-Muslims

Muslim women cannot wear burqa and men cannot support the typical beard that gives an Islamic man pride. Marriages cannot be held as per Islamic rules. Nikah is not allowed. Marriages are to be secular in nature. Polygamy is not allowed. No madrasa education in mosques. It has to be secular education. You are not allowed Ramzan fast. It’s Xinjiang province in China, the home of Uyghur Muslims.  

Well these are the basic roots a common Muslim identifies himself with his religion. Cut these and what is left? Does it mean the Uighur Muslims of Xinjiang in China are half Muslims?

Pakistan, the self-appointed official voice of Islamic conscience, is comfortable with these measures. China is an ally. And Muslims there, despite all repressive regulations, are full Muslims. And China is the best prospect for Pakistan’s growth. One simple message: economic and geostrategic measures are far weightier than talks of religious rights. The latter, even if these are raked up, are just simple tools to score strategic battles having nothing to do with religion. Religion is just a tool of bigger battles and the instrument of spilling innocent blood.

Come to India. Triple talaq, an exploitative practice of female repression and which has been banned in many front-running Islamic states including Pakistan, still pervades in India. Mullas wear this right on their sleeve, brandishing it as an identity. Ramjanambhooomi, a place as holy to Hindus as Kaba and Mecca to Muslims, held in abeyance to pay service to the nation’s principled secular constitutionality. There is not even a single law in India that stops Muslims from following any of the ritual in theological rulebook. But to Pakistan still India is a Satan repressing minorities forcing its biggest minority into half-Muslimhood. And Pakistan gets diarrhea over this. China gives it the pill to cure it.  

Conclusion. Geostrategic animosities have bigger causes than merely religion in fuelling the fire. Religion is just one of the many dry woods that are hurled into the fire of hate-mongering.

Pakistan accuses India of repression in Kashmir. Every single Kasmiri Muslim can go to the end of earth in following his religious rituals. Indian state absolutely doesn’t exist in this domain. They even allow triple talaq, at the cost of thousands of lives destroyed and future of Muslim women put in dark, to keep the principles of secularism afloat. Indian security forces have absolutely no concern about the beard, Ramzan fasts, pilgrimages, polygamy, triple talaq, madras education, mosques and each and everything identified with Islam.

Still China with Xinjiang regulations is a friend, a benefactor of the champion of Islam. And India with its Himalaya high heaps of Islamic rules, customs and regulations with Maulvivs and Mullas sitting over them with their secular shield against any transgression, is a repressor.

It has nothing to do with religion and repression. It’s all about power and land. Religion is always a dry fodder, liable to catch fire. Throw the missiles of hate into it. It will burn. And it burns in Kashmir. At the cost of innocent lives

Is it a holy war there? No, it’s a dirty war of ambition and territorial aggression. It’s a simple power game. To substantiate their lip-service to the cause of Islam in Kashmir, Pakistan must openly criticize Xinjiang regulations against Muslims. Otherwise it exposes its hypocrisy in Kashmir. And with the hypocrisy exposed, it basically becomes a law and order problem in Kashmir. 

Inhale your portion of wellness

It’s a lush green forest around you. Birds are chirping. It’s early morning and a cool breeze is blowing. Nearby, gurgling waters of a brook add music to the stillness around. You feel better. It feels good. The external orderliness, peace and calm raise the bar of your better feeling. With the same set of your own individual, internal, self-specific problems, worries and concerns you feel better if the surrounds are better.

The desert sand is burning. It’s noon and forget about trees you cannot see even a blade of grass for miles. You feel horrible. You feel bad. Worse than your self-specific set of worries make you feel normally. You feel bad if the surroundings are not convenient.

We cannot inhale in isolation. If there is misery in air, it will enter your lungs. Use air-masks and air filters, do whatever. Life still will be stifling and genuine efforts just a struggle because we cannot help inhaling our share of the miseries. The solution lies in cutting down on pollutants. Not in wearing masks. But when it comes to our struggle to increase our happiness, the efforts are almost as useless as wearing masks when the air is polluted.  

Our own set of factors that make life either good or bad are not the sole deciding elements in making us happy or unhappy. If we are happy, then we are just sharing a fraction of the overall happiness surrounding us. Our lungs are safe just in proportion to the purity of air around. If the quality of air is good, only then the individual battles like quitting smoking, eating healthy and doing yoga to keep lungs safe will be meaningful.

If we are unhappy, that also is a fraction of the overall misery spread around. Individual is just a constituent of the whole. Happiness is drawn from the overall pool. How long the frogs will sing songs of self gratification in a vanishing pond? Its waters vaporizing. Its shoreline decreasing. Stanching green mossy puddle. What can be drawn out of it? Only death and misery, not life and happiness.   

A talented software engineer, with his tools of prosperity and happiness, is of no use at a place like Somalia. There is no surrounding prosperity to help him nurture his talent. There is no supportive economy and companies to help him contribute to the overall wellness and get a fraction of the happiness and feel good. A software engineer prospers in America because using his skills he can contribute to and earn back a fraction of the happiness spread around.         

The surroundings set the stage for either make or break.

“Love thy neighbor!” By loving others you are loving yourself. By caring for others, you are caring for yourself. By contributing to happiness, you are adding to your own happiness because your share of happiness and prosperity will be just a fraction of the overall happiness around. With your effort and skills, you draw a big portion if the social forest around you is healthy like the natural forest where each breath installs new vitality in you.

Long before you really start doing something to add to the overall wellness around you, start with a simple practice. You might be busy with scores of neck-breaking responsibilities, leaving you with very little time for real action on the goodness front. Start thinking good of others. Think good for your surroundings. Be happy over others’ victories. Smile over somebody’s stroke of luck. Feel bad for somebody’s loss. Say some sympathetic words as well. Over years, the goodness in womb will get healthy. It will deliver a healthy baby. And sooner or later you will definitely ‘do’ something to add to the overall goodness around you before you finish your journey.

You will then have a larger share from the pool of wellness. When the sun will be setting and you preparing to enter the night for rest, you will walk into the forest with well-meaning steps. It will be a far happier retirement than it would have been otherwise.