Dharma enwrapped with adharma

 

There is a beautiful episode in Ramayana. Sri Ram looking for Sita Mata finally reached the southern coast of India. There was a vast chasm of the sea separating his monkey army from the mighty Ravan’s bastion, Lanka. There were two choices for him to get back his wife: First, through persuasion if possible; second, to wage a war if that was the last resort left. As a righteous man, Sri Ram sent his ambassadors to persuade the Lanka king and return Sita Mata without unnecessary bloodshed. All options were nullified by Ravan’s ego and pride. So war was the only option left.

Sri Ram faced a daunting task of erecting a bridge and fighting Ravan’s mighty army. Before starting on such a huge test, it was thought befitting to seek divine intervention in his favor by performing an elaborate puja and other rituals. It involved performing a yajna to propitiate Lord Shiva and seek his blessings. Only Ravan, the best Vedic scholar and a Brahman, was suitable to conduct the rituals and the grand ceremony. To Sri Ram’s council of war advisors and other allies it was totally outlandish to seek the priestly duties from one’s enemy. They were shocked and surprised to hear the Ayodhya prince’s intention to have his enemy as the officiating priest for the ceremony. They were but mere mortals having a typically defined sense of one’s enemy, of seeing one’s opponent in binary colors only. But Sri Ram, an evolved soul with enlightened self, saw a persona in totality. He could see one’s utility above the boundaries set up by the ego and pride. He could see the littlest star of light shining in a dark personality. 

Hanuman flew with the message. The proposal was met with much consternation, guffaws of laughter and thunders of anger in Ravan’s council. Everyone expected their powerful king to spit on the proposal and insult the carrier of such a preposterous scheme. They were shocked when the Lanka king looked serious and gently agreed to the invitation. Ravan, the proficient Vedic scholar Brahman, was no ordinary being. He well understood that as a Brahman he was duty-bound to accept the proposal to officiate a yajna ceremony. He himself was great in his own ways beyond the strict confines of arrogance and pride through which we know him usually. Even at his worst with his pride, arrogance and haughty demeanor he remembered his duties as a Brahman.

So here was Ravan surprisingly at the puja venue to officiate and conduct a ceremony meant to seek blessings for the victory of his enemy. His role as the conductor of those rituals and ceremonies demanded a flawless approach, an approach that should not be allowed to be tainted by his other self as the head of the army that would be fighting against Sri Ram’s soldiers. So he gave his best as the officiating priest of the ceremony conducted to get Lord Shiva’s blessings for victory in the impending war.

Ravan expertly inspected all the arrangement and found something missing. ‘You have made the arrangement quite nicely O Ram. But there is something very important missing. As the host of this ceremony, you cannot install Lord Shiva’s idol without the company of your wife. As per shastra edicts, however high and mighty a person is, he cannot perform this ceremony without his consort,’ Ravan explained the missing link required for the successful performance of the rituals.

Sri Ram, the ever-poised and mentally balanced sage warrior, kept his composure and thanked the great scholar for his pious sense of duty in his role as a conductor of ceremonies. ‘O Lanka king, you have righteously followed your duty to make it a flawless arrangement and pointed out the thing that needs to be attended to. Now kindly suggest a solution to the problem because it also is part of your duty,’ the graceful Ayodhya prince gently said with a smile.

Even in the face of war with his rival Ravan knew his dharmic duties and suggested a solution. ‘I shall arrange to get your wife here for the successful performance of the ceremonies. But you have to give a word that she will be allowed to be taken back to Lanka after the puja is over,’ Ravan said. Sri Ram agreed to it.

So all the arrangements were made and the great scholar Brahman expertly conducted the ceremony. The flawless performance meant that Lord Shiva would be blessing Sri Ram’s army with victory. Moreover, as the chief officiating priest of the grand ceremony of exquisite rituals it was Ravan’s duty to bless the puja host with victory. To Ravan it was a challenge to fulfill his dharmic duties as a priest even if it meant blessing his rival with victory. ‘Vijayi Bhava!’ Ravan fulfilled the last of his priestly duties. To him it was nothing short of victory in the game of ceremony proposed by Sri Ram. The great Brahman in him knew that he was cursing himself with a defeat by blessing the enemy with a victory.

Ravan was now convinced that he would be killed in the war. Such mystical levels of puja to earn the blessings of Lord Shiva would surely bless the puja host with victory in the war. On top of that he himself had to bless the host with victory. One more puzzle faced him. As the officiating priest he was duty-bound to accept some dakshina from the host. He was in a dilemma. As a rich, proud king he had been a giver of charity all his life. But now he had to adopt the role of a humble Brahman receiving the charity from the puja host with full humility. Taking any material wealth would have wounded his pride because he had even imprisoned Kuber, the lord of wealth. But he had to perform this duty as well. As the officiating fees for the puja performance he asked Sri Ram to respectfully stand near him while he took his last breaths in the battle. Later, when Ravan was dying on the battlefield Sri Ram kept his word and respectfully stood by the mighty Lanka king. The victorious Ayodhya prince stood there in utmost humility and paid respects to the departing soul. His supremely balanced self didn’t show any trace of pride and haughtiness that we usually see in victorious kings and princes. No wonder, we worship him as Bhagwan.

From this episode we can say that there is no absolute evil, there is no perfect darkness in a persona. Ravan, whom we portray as the symbol of all-pervading darkness, had his own light of truth and duties deep inside his soul.

We are part good, part bad. We have to keep lighting the lamp for the good in us, to help it maintain its righteous glow. And we have to keep fighting against the darkness of the bad in us. This is the war of the soul to attain a righteous self. After defeating the enemy within, we have to emerge victorious and reach home, triumphant, like the great prince Ram coming back to Ayodhya after winning all the wars. Then we are entitled to light lamps in celebration of conquering the darkness. Then it’s the festival time for the soul liberated from the darkness of fears, hate, anger, jealousy, judgments. Then we become the rulers of the kingdom within the sanctified precincts of the soul, our very own Ayodhya.

The unknowable void

 Anything can be written, thought, felt, analyzed, interpreted about an empty page. Its emptiness is the limitless, infinite womb of creation. Its nonbeing is the soul of the entire substance of being. The word is an echo of the wordless. The noise is a mere chiming announcement on the timeless clock of silence, intimating the eternal presence of silence. The manifestation is a mere indicator of the presence of the eternal, unknowable void.

Givers and takers

 

I have seen a few wonderful old women beggars—even though calling them ‘beggars’ would be almost a sin but given my inability to find a suitable title for them I use the word beggar—who would put out their hand with such grace, dignity, motherliness, humility, kindness, gratitude and smile that it appears like a mystical treasure, almost a blessing by a saint. Remembering them I feel that it would be incorrect to call them ‘takers’ because even though a coin passed onto their palms they gave back something far more substantial and deep, something that touches your soul, enriching you in a profound way. And after getting softly, gently touched by their presence, as you walk away, the material burden on you minus by a metallic coin, you feel enriched in a mystical, soulful way.

In contrast, I remember many materially rich people travelling in costly cars, clad in brand clothes, adorned with gold and platinum, the ones whom we mistakenly term as ‘givers’. When they give something to a poor person, something very small that wouldn’t even match the cost of biscuits for their pampered dog, there is almost a malicious frown on their face. The frown, the outer lines of the poverty of the soul inside, conveying deep sense of fear, insecurities, dis-ease and absence of joy in life despite all the material wealth around. They appear to ‘give’ something but do they actually ‘give’? In fact they seem to ‘take’ something from the poor palm spread in front of them. I think with that look of hatred and repulsiveness they take away the last semblance of dignity and self-respect still surviving in a corner of the destitute person’s heart. They take away the smile and belief in humanity somehow still lying in tiny bits in the soul of that poor person.

So we have to think and observe it carefully. Not all beggars are just ‘takers’; many of them are ‘givers’ of some invisible substance comprising genuine smile, blessing, gratitude and kindness. They appear to take a little coin or morsels of food but in reality they are returning something very-very big in its subtle proportions. Also, not all rich charity givers are just ‘givers’, they are takers, almost robbers, of the last traces of humanity lying in a poor person. They appear to give something but in reality they are taking back something far more precious.

A drizzle of flowers

This is just one-fourth of the flowers that drizzle in a flowery, scented rain from the two Parijat trees in the yard. Scented, dewy, flowery nights; and the rain of flowers on cool mornings. With so many flowers around no wonder I find my spirit dancing, intoxicated with the beauty of the countless blooms and scented breeze.

The smile of a stone

 

Life invincible 💪 A crack in the concrete wall. Some chance seed of a flower. Rains. Dew. And you have a little flower on the top of a tiny plant. The triumph of life, the urge to manifest from unknown to the known. Is the flower separate from the stone? No. It’s mere extension of the stone from its cracked lip, its mouth open to the possibilities. I would say it’s a smile on the stone’s lips.

Even in its barren womb the stone has the probability and potential for life. All it needs is a little crack, some drops of rain and a chance seed to transform that potential into reality. The stone smiles. The flower isn't something separate from it. It's merely an extension of it.

Manifestation is just a set of probabilities coming together from the infinite, ever evolving fabric of potential and probabilities. And of course it needs a set of appreciating eyes to witness this Leela...to complete one little circle within the greatest circle ever ... things going round and round...little cycles within the bigger cycles and still bigger ones to follow... going so big to again fall back into a point... nothingness and everythingness just the same same..  

Happiness

Happiness is primarily an acceptance of one's situation in life. It might not come to you even in a palace if you don't really settle inside the walls and within your skin.  You are a cranky host, so it will avoid you. And it will definitely come to visit your slum hut if it finds you an unashamed, guilt free, kind host. As an old, poor charwoman, whom Somerset Maugham meets after many years in 1949, when there had been lots of developmental works in the meanwhile, says to him: "They have cleaned up the slums and the dirt, and all the happiness and joy has gone with it."

A balanced life

 

Uncontrolled emotions will turn us suicidal, depressed and at the most a brooding misfitted poet. Uncontrolled mind will leave us open to the chance workshop of the devil. Anything negative may come out as a dark product. Uncontrolled energies will see us lunatics. Uncontrolled biology will find us turning into sex maniacs and rapists. Having control over life is only meant to avoid a ‘part’ of our nature or existence from becoming ‘everything’, thus shadowing all other dimensions of life. We get hijacked by one impulse. Then it’s a stunted growth.

Holistic growth, call it evolution, needs balance among the various aspects of our existence. As Buddha said balance is the key to a really joyful life. Keep the parts in place. Maintain all the impulses firmly in place. Don’t deny any part of your existence but please don’t allow just ‘parts’ to become ‘whole’. It’s a multicolored bouquet with fresh flowers of body, mind, emotions and energies. Maintaining balance among them gets us a fulfilling life full of nice relationships, jobs, growth, faith, love, kindness.

If we are driven by just one impulse then it acquires too big a force, driving us in one direction, imbalanced, and we turn mere products of our impulse and randomly developing circumstances. Use all the ‘parts’ of your existence and we become creators of our own self because then there is no excess of one particular driving force.

As humans we can grow and evolve only as creators, not as circumstantial products. To be a mere product would be a degradation and utter disregard for the tremendous potential of awareness that mother nature has given us. So again remember: Balance, Balance and Balance. At least listen to Buddha if not me.

Everyone talks of balance but how to do it, one may wonder. There is a very simple technique for it. Allow yourself to be softly braced by various aspects of life that touch and test the different parts of your existence. Live an experiential life in totality and allow mother existence to caress your multilayered and multidimensional self in various forms at the level of body, mind, emotions and energies. Don’t run away or shun any particular aspect of life. Embrace the experiences that come your way. And where all are sovereigns, nobody would emerge as a tyrant to manipulate your life in an imbalanced way.

Love

Sometimes you dump a person even though she/he still has a bright smile, twinkle in eyes and lovely fragrant words on lips. Well, that's simply the sunset of love.

Sometimes you lovingly embrace a person despite the frown, caustic remarks and tightly pursed lips shut over bad odor even. Well, that's simply the sunrise of love.

Love is simply a day -- or usually days at random -- in people's lives.

And that makes it so ordinary, so normal, so natural.

Let it remain such.

Why turn it otherworldly?

The teachers

Sometimes the things that would have come naturally to you as a human being acquire a difficult shape because they try to make you learn these by force, fearing you won't be of any use without them. In your natural state you could have been useful, at least like a plant that just grows, giving its little share of oxygen, shade and a little starter to some hungry goat. But the attempt surely leaves you useless -- to them at least. 🤓

The creator

At a given moment, there is no absolute reality or truth or existence beyond one's set of beliefs, knowledge, information, set of conventions and collective mindset, and the respective set of contradictions of all the previous categories. In our endeavours to find the absolute, we simply shift to a different set of all these categories. We simply create a new plain of reality. We keep pushing our truth to cover more space and adjust our ever expanding desires and fears. There is nothing to discover. There is everything to create--first in ideas, imagination, emotions, insecurity, expectations and fears; secondly, its manifestation in physical reality in the domains of art, science, social conventions, economic models, everything.

Enjoy what is still left there

 

We have to deal with mother nature’s slingshots. Just a week back it was extremely cold, and through the gloomy, cold, wet last week of January one could all but pray for the savior sun. Now in the first week of February, the sky is bright and clean and the sun so hot that you feel its heat too much to sit under it even in the morning. So I would say that we have the spring already. But it would be better to call it the spring of the nights, mornings and evenings when there is cool breeze, dew and light mist. The days have all that that makes them entitled for early summer. Beyond all these travails, the beauty would have its moments of sojourns.

As I walk on the thin ribbon of wilderness between the canals cutting across the well-manicured agricultural fields of wheat and mustard, the bright red disk of the sun hovers over the silvery sea of the mist over the horizon. It’s assuring that we still have beautiful moments of sundown. Also, even the crazily intensified farmsteads are better than bladeless concrete jungles. These scatterings of the trees over the channel bunds, embankments and dust paths are better than complete deserts. These sparse clumps of grasses and bushes are still better than lifeless, floored and tiled boulevards.

As the little groups of birds return to their host trees, it again strikes me that we ought to feel gratitude for what is still there. As the sun is downing, the moon is already visible high on the horizon—an almost perfect moon, just a day short of fullness, having a little blur at its lower rim. The two celestial beauties ogle at each other.

A dog barks and I recall three little puppies that have grown very possessive about the tiny village square. It’s their territory and they mean to defend it. I have seen big outsider dogs walking off the scene under their shrill assault.

It was a sad balloon seller who came with a few balloons on his rickety cycle. He walked dejectedly and the canine lads howled to give a suitable gloomy music. The bigger ones howled too. Then a young one almost hitched a ride on their mother. But it had to retreat under their shrill protest. ‘Don’t do it dog! We aren’t yet ready to share our milk with new puppies!’ they seemed to say, bark rather.  

The war within

 

Remember the wonderful time you spent on a beach facing a calm, bluish lagoon? Its soft bluish ripples gently tugging at your soul. Silence and peace seeping into your ruffled, wavy self. Remember walking on the soft sand of a desert on a wintery, windless day? The sand cotton soft and the sun kindly warming the rigid clods of pain. Away from the hot sandy blizzards, the mirage buried under the sand and you joyfully watching the footstep trail, optimism gently tugging at your soul. Remember rolling on undisturbed pastures on a balmy noon away from the icy shrieks of windstorms? Do you recall the grassy softness assuaging all the hard knots of suffering inside? Remember a calm lake? Its soft ripples gentling tugging at the aggrieved self, asking why are you so sad. Remember the spotless blue sky of the spring season, looking amusedly over the colors that have sprouted below? Of course a sadly pining, sweet nostalgia tugs at our sleeves.

Stormy seas, heaving lakes, disturbed desert or wind-lashed pastures hardly beckon us. We move away from them. They remind us of the storm within our own self. Most of us carry tiny invisible storms within, invisible storms let loose by the onslaught of nervous energy. There are waves of random thoughts, overbearing emotions, fears, insecurities, complexes. That’s why the symbols of peace represented by the kind, peaceful face of nature appeal to us so much. They are like a healing pill, a medicine of peace that we soak, inhale and gulp down todo away with the stormy sea inside.

Most of us carry a choppy sea inside, tossing the boat of our existence. The wind howls and the waves shriek as the nervous energy moves randomly like in a puzzle game, seeking a way out of the troubling alleys and corridors within. Shaken by this stormy onslaught from within, it’s quite natural for us to run around in order to seek solace. It primarily is the base of our eternal urge to connect, interact, build relationships, friendships, setting up families, careers and all that we engage in order to make it somehow meaningful.

There are people within whom the storms have died; so much so that they are a human representation of all the peaceful scenarios given in the first paragraph. They possess the peace of silent, bluish lagoons in them. They have the serenity of a wintertime desert on a windless day. They have the gentility of smoothly rolling pastures. They have the flowering of joy like the spring season. They have the summer warmth of kindness and empathy to melt others’ icicles of pain. They have the autumnal surrender and detachment to carry an unconditional smile. They have the coolness of winters to undo the burning hot turmoil in others. The best of natural peace out there gets sublimated inside their persona. They come to represent the calm, peaceful, assuring, healing aspect of mother nature.

Won’t the people feel these peaceful vibes coming from such souls? They surely will. When we talk of enlightened sages and benevolent saints, maybe we have the vast picture of calmness, peace, tranquility and stability in a human form: a human representation of all the beautiful things in nature that heal and assure our tossed self. The gentle sea, the calm desert, the peaceful lake, the softly musing sky, the soft carpet of pastures need not say anything to us to undo our pain and suffering. They pass the message just by being there. Similarly, the vastly stabilized self of a spiritual person gently, invisibly strokes our hair, kindly embraces our presence without any judgment. They are not left with any possibility for judgments because these are born in a tossed self only. No wonder, the people will look for such gentle souls. They might be hiding in the forests and caves but we somehow seek them out. Just to watch them, be with them and feel their presence. Because it heals. It pacifies the storms within.

Postscript: Inspired by the interaction with a gentle soul who is on the path of becoming exactly such a person.

The fun of fluidity

 

There is hardly any qualitative difference between what goes in the sky above and what happens on the ground below. The sky shifts. It moves, it sings, it moans, it sighs. Sometimes it's relaxing and pristine blue. The other time it’s gloomy, dark and dreary. Sometimes it cries and sheds tears in a torrential rain. The other time it sheds gentle tears of joy by drizzling over desert sands. Sometimes it floods with a fury. There is light, darkness, shifting shades over clouds, clouds drifting and reshaping, clouds melting, clouds forming, clouds vanishing, winds, breeze. It’s a flow. There is something of everything in it.

The same happens below, as if it’s merely a reflection of the sky in the pools of earth below. There is sadness, joy, victory, failure, meetings, partings, smiles, tears, making, unmaking, falling in love, falling out of it, birth, death—an endless shifting. The sky leaves a deep imprint of its ever-shifting shades on the earth below. See the clouds melting in the sky, watch them daily. It’s such a big message written on the massive billboard for us to read and remember. But usually, we are seeking needles in the hayrack and hardly lift our eyes to read and remember the message.

Don’t the clouds bloom, get colors, travel and melt? They shower earth with their melted self, become flowers, perish and again become vapors. This bubble has to burst anyway to take another form. But before that it has to be in fullness. It has to live. It has to be tossed around by chance winds. It has to seek its way, its course. It has to do justice to its existence. And then it has to happily and lovingly give way to new shapes. But it can always remind itself that it was, is and will forever be in the shifting shades and shapes.

The power of gratitude

 

Passing through a poor locality in Delhi is always revealing. To feel gratitude for whatever God has given us, we ought to visit slums and pavements crowded with the homeless people. Then we realize how lucky we have been in receiving all that God has given us. To feel gratitude for whatever body type God has graced us with, thus blessing us with a vehicle to complete this phase of journey, sometimes visit the hospitals and see the sick and diseased. It helps us in feeling thankful for whatever Almighty has gifted us in the name of physicality.

A little kid, barely seven or eight, comes pulling the rickshaw carrier. Empty plastic cans at the back and the little lad going almost half way down on each side to complete the paddling circle. There are more child bread earners washing dirty plates by a kulche chhole stall. It is early in the morning and instead of getting breakfast before going to school they are earning their bread. The littlest of kids taking a bath at a public tap after a late night stint at an eating point. The childhood has withered in them. They are old before they realize. These are dhaba boys. Getting their skins hardened with heartless, unsympathetic, antisocial strains; fed by the scorns and abuses of their merciless masters. Watching them makes us feel so privileged in having parents who saved us from all this experience, who gave us schooling, shelter and made us free enough to pursue our journey.

Watching the miseries around should open us to kindness. But it should open the floodgates of gratitude also for whatever we have received just by being born in relatively better circumstances. If you have a personal jet, watch people who have just cars. If you have a car, feel the struggle of those having just bikes. If you have a bike, feel the test someone is going through in just having a bicycle. If you have a bicycle, see the homeless walker who hasn’t anything at all. If you ever feel sorry for your poor footwear, feel the pain of someone who hasn’t got even legs to wear even the cheapest footwear. And millions will die today over the globe. So feel privileged to have this sip of life under the fresh sunshine.

Gratitude is very-very important. Without it we cannot groom self-love. And without the foundations of self-love we face a lot of challenge in building the citadel of love for others. All of us know it theoretically but we forget it easily. To make gratitude an essential element of our daily life we ought to look below as well, daily, to make it a habit. Look above daily to remember the impermanence of life by watching the shifting and melting clouds. And daily look below to feel gratitude for the great boons we have received during this interval between birth and death. There are messages written around. Aha, the master book of life! The codes of the ultimate reality are written so clearly for everyone to read. Happy watching above and below—daily!

Let's chew a little lesson!

 

I don't exactly remember the name of that plant. But when we chew its leaves during childhood they tasted very bitter. But the bitter taste was just the half part of the game. The other half presented sweetness when we drank water after chewing the bitter leaves. It was good fun. At the end only sweetness would linger in the mouth. Bitterness transformed into sweetness by water.

Bitter situations are simply the half part of the game. If we keep ourselves limited to the bitter part of the game, we would turn a grumpy, cynical and cranky person. It means we have lived just one half of life; like a passive stone mutely weathering due to environmental elements. But if we take some steps to be a part of the other half and drink the water of patience, gratitude and understanding then sweetness follows. Then bitterness becomes a prelude to sweetness. It then becomes a full life expected of a human being. Then we are a flower blossoming by absorbing the essence of heat, rain, storms and dust and transform these into a sweet smile.

Life will keep throwing its bitter situations. That's its nature. If we just react to these situations we become a sour, unhappy person. But if we respond by taking cool sips of patience and gratitude then sweetness defines our persona despite all the bitter experiences.

An ode to silence

 You don't need to have just ears to listen. You can do it far better with your soul. If not this, why would one listen to the beautiful songs of silence in solitudional woods. The voice, whisper and songs of silence that come embracing you to console, to befriend, to comfort, to reassure, to rejuvenate. You need to 'have' a soul to listen. Of course everyone and everything has a soul. By 'having' a soul I mean one is aware of its presence, its lively throbbing, its guiding light, its essence, its imperishable nature beyond the bodily encasing. Its real feel, its vibrant awareness is what I mean to 'have' a soul. The trees, plants, grass, flowers, birds, snakes, earth, sky, stars and all and sundry have a soul. And they listen. I sometimes say a few gentle, appreciating words to the flowers and they smile better. Yes, they do! But you need to have a soul to soul connection to feel that. I tried it with a snake but it scampered away and so did I after that brief period of calling it a ceasefire along the human-snake line of fear-fire. The very same primal fear blocking soul to soul contact. The next time i intend to use the voice of silence and words of gentility through the eyes instead of oral words. It might work. You never know.

Feel thyself lucky buddy!

 Happiness is when everything is soaked in rain in the morning and the diligent boy hands you a copy of dry newspaper. You feel like proclaiming him a champion and yourself a lottery winner. You just grab your slightly damp, newsprint is so soft that it soaks some moisture from the air itself, like a prized possession. Life is not about mountains of mighty triumphs. It's about tiny molehills of such small pleasures. Learn to be happy with scores of little, little strokes of luck that come your way on a daily basis. Simple maths is: At the end of the day, the sum total of our little fractions of luck is more than the big shitty stroke of bad luck. Appreciate your tiny sinews of luck for they tie the rope of your survival and sustenance. If not for them things can go wrong in as many ways as the vastness of this universe.

Clarity

 Only the terribly guilty conscience will look at things through the moral--immoral dichotomy. Things are neither moral nor immoral. We just jump from this side to that just to help us keep believing in our very own meaning of life shaped by our circumstances. A person caught in the quagmire of moral and immoral is kicking to reach nowhere but self-doom. A clear, transparent conscience will look at things without the tag of either moral or immoral.

Relax...take it easy

 All of us have at least the choice to improve upon the worst in us. The littlest step away from the worst in us may turn out to be the biggest step of our life.

And don't hold any grudges about anyone or anything because in the end all of us are mere travellers on the highway who just accosted a fellow journeyman or woman, said hi, hello, or exchanged words and moved on the path of our destiny. Coming across fellow travelers on the path is merely incidental. It's not the destination. The destination is always for the lone self.

Living with choice

 The things that we usually eat for our tongue ought to tasted, not eaten. The food that we are reminded to take for our stomach, must be eaten, not gobbled. But we do the reverse. We gobble down the things that must be merely tasted. And we flimsily taste the things that must be actually eaten! The forces on the periphery of our existence create desires that always drive us off the path, taking us into the puzzling pathways, where we end up spending our entire life and energy in banging our head against walls and moving just by chance, driven by random forces. On the other hand, there is the option of living by choice. The ability to live by choice increases in proportion to the distance we create from the outermost peripheral forces controlling our life. The more we move away from the fringes, the lesser becomes the chance factor in life driven by circumstantial winds.