Dear friends, if life isn't making much of a sense then give
an ear to the Voice Inside. Forget about the hoot and holler emanating from the
world outside. It simply adds to the confusion. Give an ear to the soft and
murmurous cooings emanating from the soul. It has a soft and sympathetic
message for you only, your most personal message, meant only for you. Listen to
these delicate chimes. It’ll help you in finding peace in chaos. In getting a
foothold in the stampede. In feeling rest, repose and respite in the face of
constant buffeting by the world around. It’ll help you in breaking the hardest
of superficial layers, which suffocate and limit your identity. And put you
face to face with your true self, your real worth.
Listen to it, close your eyes and pay attention with all
your heart. Just for a change, don’t look far, look closest at yourself. It’ll
be as uneventful as looking at a dust particle around your feet. But it changes
the universe for you. You will have the biggest message in the softest of
whispering phrases! It’ll help you in finding yourself. Happy self-seeking! God
bless us all!
**
Reading Ruskin Bond by the Ganges is as good as meditation.
He simplifies the complexities of life with his simple, lucid sentences.
**
I had just walloped in Ma Ganga like a farmer's dirty calf
after reading these lines by Ruskin Bond:
"I feel drawn to little temples on lonely hilltops.
With the mist swirling around them, and the wind humming in the stunted pines,
they absorb some of the magic mystery of their surroundings and transmit it to
the questing pilgrim."
Biniya is a little girl of 7 who sells flowers on the banks
of Ganga Ma. She is into side business also. She charges me ten rupees to click
my photos on my mobile. I had started this. Instead of buying her flowers, I
asked her once to click my pic and gave her a salary of ten rupees for the job.
After that she has taken her job too seriously. Whenever she sees me on the
banks of Ganges she offers her photographic skills instead of flowers.
"Uncle photo khichva lo!" she says pretty adamantly. She calls me
'photo wale uncle' as her mother informed me. Today as I was wallowing in Ma
Ganga's cold waters, she stood on the steps and waited for me to come out.
"Go and sell your flowers. You are losing business," I try to shoo
her away. But she has better ideas. "Uncle today you have to get a photo.
You have got your beard and hair cut so it will be a nice photo," she has
her argument in support of her side business. I am helpless. She clicks another
assignment. Hands me the phone and asks a review of the photo. "See uncle,
I have made you look like a hero." Buttering, eh. And her so called hero
type photo has bigger charges. She is an experienced photographer now and
charges more. "Uncle 100 rupees for this hero type photo," she
demands. I am initially at loss of words. There is an argument and then I save
50 rupees by standing my ground pretty soundly. Now the assignment charge has
gone to 50 rupees, so tomorrow onwards I won't take my phone with me and buy
her flowers instead. Her little leaf bowl of flowers costs just 10 rupees. That
would help both parties. But there was a nice take away from today's shooting.
I am actually looking at a nice little temple on a little hill as Biniya does
her job. I remember Bond sahab's lines. I too have a fondness for small temples
on lonely hills. And there I went to soak a few hours of magic and mystery.
**
Why does truth pinch most of the time? Simple! Because it is
no chocolate, sugar candy or mellowable sweetie-pie lump of ice cream. It is
hard, sour, iron ball guys. It has pinching rough stony edges to its surface.
Come into contact with them and they will take a few flakes from your skin
leaving a red or purple bruise depending on the intensity of truth contained in
it. Now the question arises, 'Why does it almost always leave a grimace on our
face instead of a smile?' The simple fact that all of us almost always rub cold
shoulders against this ironed ball having thorns for our soft skin, proves on
fact: that we are not subjectively inclined to accept the objective reality as
it stands in abstract. But does not that mean that we have moved poles apart
from truth and its manifestations while going on the path of individual and
collective improvisations at the subjective level. May be the reason for our
success in emerging at the top of food chain in the game of 'survival of the
fittest' is that we have institutionalized ourselves to negate and defy, and do
without, certain basic truths that form the core of creation and nature.
Nothing wrong with that! It, however, is paradoxical that most of these scions
of truth--against which we have always been taking cudgels--form the core of
our moral, humanistic, religious, spiritual and aesthetic vision enshrined in
preach books. Strange!
**
Look far away into the mists...but always watch your next
step also... take a step...take a pause then and look into the distances before
the next step...and go slow....it allows a healthy balance of sight,
observation, dreams and imagination. You enjoy the journey and don't bother
about destination. Most importantly, moving on from the past is usually a far
better journey than you ever imagined!
**
Some moments by the Ganges. Light and dark rippling in the
lap of holy fluidity. Soft emotions surface as the soul's tears of joy! O
divine mother, my main identity is that of being your son. I feel disburdened
of some heaviness. I find the unnecessary extras of life just a dark, blank
spot where the face of my ego plays a little, funny, worldly game.
**
The beautiful bunch of roses drizzles its petals on the
ground after the heartiest of blooming. Joyful dissolution of the self! A
flower blooms up fully. Opens its heart to the elements around. Draws every
ounce from its potential to smiles and fragrance. Opens up completely. And then
painless dissolve! This dissolution is further expansion only. Now the petals
fly around in a broader dimension. Beautiful, self-surrendered parts of its
previous existence now lie scattered as pious homage to mother earth. That is
the purpose of life. We have to give back something better than what we took.
That is evolution, expansion. Like this flower offers fragrance and smiles to
mother earth in return for the sunshine, soil and moisture. The sole purpose of
our existence is to be a better version of ourselves.
**
A hybrid rose can have nice colour and exquisite design. But
it lacks the basic essence of a flower, fragrance. The beauty is skin deep, a
mere cosmetic effort at the surface. It's haughty and arrogant, a kind of
constriction within itself, an insecurity, a fear, an aloofness, a seperation.
The soul is missing. They seem too self-absorbed. Like so many apparently
classy, well polished gentry. They stand with touch-me-not attitude. And the
bees and butterflies stay away. They find it totally unapproachable. The
marigolds, on the other hand, are little humble, down to earth flowers. They
aren't showy. They are common looking. But they have a soul, a depth, a
delicate fragrance. Most importantly, they have nectar to offer to the
butterflies and bees. With their openness and genteel receptivity, they are buzzing
with little winged insects. They have broader connection to life and living. I
can feel their soul through their soft fragrance as I sit by them. They exist
in a dimension where they touch many chords in my heart. The smelless roses are
as distant and soulless as a beautiful pic of them or even well designed
plastic flowers.
**
It happened 12 years back in Delhi. The moment still stands
out somehow. Some brief moments carry far more significance than months and
sometimes even years. Hazy darkness outside the railway station. A friar
approached me with mystical pride and spiritual pomp. He asked for alms (which
can be money only given the times we are living in). I found myself offering
him Rs. 10. A Gentleman verbally poked me for my meekness and abetment of
begging. The friar shot back, ‘Do you think it's only about money. If you think
so, take this!’ He proffered a Rs. 100 note. The gentleman had to beat a
retreat. The friar smiled at me and melted into the crowd after blessing me.
**
If you have time and softness to plant flowers, take some
time to appreciate their beauty once they blossom up. Needless to say, always
spare time for your children once you have taken time to produce them.
**
If you are hurrying and a tree's branch braces against your
head or face, don't get irritated. It's merely a soft greeting asking you to be
restful. Accept it. You can run fast and still be at rest within. What else is
meditation? It's the ability to be still within even while you are walking or
dispensing what life needs you to do in order to survive.
**
Most
of the time we are self-charged on the grand mission of aggravating our own
miseries. We are suitably helped all along by our ability to hold onto the
master illusion that others are responsible for all the shit flying around in
our lives.
