The jolts of life are to 'make' you not 'break'

 On April 18, 1906 San Francisco was jolted by a big earthquake. Buildings collapsed and fires spread around. Many bedridden invalids suddenly got up and helped in saving others. It beats many a logical, well-chiseled paradigm. A paradigm-busting kick almost: meek shuffles and soft, helpless floundering in beds getting transformed into savior legs and arms; a burst of life, new shoots and saplings instead of steady degeneration, almost fossilization while still alive, in the practically lifeless museum; a rapturous run of blood cutting the individual super-failure with its saber-sharp counter-offensive to regain the lost ground. A kind of shock therapy, I suppose. It’s better to get jolted from time to time. It keeps you on the toes and engaged in the game of life.

The chip-chip sound of love

Researches have shown the mother turkey’s maternal strings get tugged by the chip-chip sound made by her chicks. It’s not about the smell, look or any other element. Mother turkeys have even agreed to hatch and lovingly adore the rouged and rolled dummies of antagonistic species just because they played the familiar chip-chip sound. The same may be the case about likes and dislikes among we humans. So cool down thou amazing, meticulously passionate enchanter! If you are feeling super-confident of your starry looks and mind-blowing glory because a gorgeous gal has fallen in love with you just for everything perfect in you. Maybe you make a chip-chip sound for her (your resplendent raylet) to accept you and possibly a funny jowled but quietly competent fellow gentlemanly making the same sound and emanating subtle innuendoes stands exactly the same chance as you.

A little prayer

 Lord let me be joyful to see my own death. Let my old self take a peaceful death right here in front of me. Let a new me take birth before I shed this body. Dying of the old self and the birth of the new!

Let the hand that would have hit on impulse die and take birth to go up for a blessing on the same provocation. Let the tongue that would have spewed out poisoned words die and take birth as the one that gently rolls out delicate words of kindness, sympathy and solace in the same situation. Let the face that would have snorted with anger and hate die and take birth as a smiling face of empathy under similar circumstances. Let the eyes that saw fault in others die and get reborn as the one which see the inherent beauty in the same people. Let the heart that carries anger, hate, jealousy take its last breath and rise as a kind and compassionate chamber of my soul in its new birth.

This is a beautiful dying that all of us have to welcome in our lives. The old self dies slowly, gently over a period of time and by the time we reach a stage of physical death we are already reborn as a new person. In that case the physical death loses its meaning. We already know that we have been reborn and there is more that awaits blissfully in changed dimensions and reshaped consciousness. Maybe then there is no fear of the physical death of this body. Maybe this is what they mean by getting liberated.

Wish you all a very happy Gurupurab. Let Baba Nanak’s blessings be showered upon you on this holy kartik purnima!     

The bliss of being 'common'

 I don’t want to be too good or too great to be finally get burdened under the weight of my own goodness. Conceptual sense of goodness and purity turns an obligation in the long run and one has to put up masks to keep it. I don’t want that divinity that would uproot me from the pains and pleasures of earthly humanity. I don’t aspire to attain too lofty a character to finally become someone who has to take up falsehoods as customs and rituals to maintain my persona. I don’t want to be completely detached, perfectly moral, neutral and aloof so as not to even hear the panicked notes of a little bird being pursued by a hunting bird and watch the game of ‘the stronger eating the weaker’ unfold with a saintly muse. I want to retain enough humanity to allow my kindness on impulse and throw a clod at the hunting bird. Even if it hits the bird of prey I would take the chance. I don’t want enlightenment or liberation that takes me away from the sweet, common scent of humanity with its mundane pains and pleasures.

Even Buddha kept quiet when his wife questioned him about the necessity of renouncing everything to get supreme joy for himself. He had abandoned a wife and a little son; severed his ties right in the middle of the night. That to me is causing pain to others for individual salvation. When he returned as a revered spiritual king, his wife requested to be granted a meeting with the great teacher. ‘It’s my right to be allowed a meeting with him in privacy as his wife,’ she said. And the great master agreed. ‘O great spiritual master and dear husband, you abandoned me and your child and the entire family for individual salvation. Tell me whether what you have attained could not have been attained without abandoning us?’ she asked. She spoke as an aggrieved wife with feminine authority and worldly conviction. The great master kept quiet. For the first time he had no answer to this. He knew all this could have been attained even without causing pain to his family. But it would have been a bigger challenge to attain all this, which he had availed as a sanyasi, while staying in worldliness.

So isn’t renunciation the easier way? Isn’t running away—even if it means to attain the salvation of humanity later—an easier path? It’s very easy to shut out disturbing mental situations from going rampant while sitting in a cave. The real challenge is to be a yogi within while moving on the worldly stage with all the earthly bearings of duties, roles, relationships, karma, dharma, everything. Like Krishna did. Like Rama did. They forged their saintliness ‘within’ right there on the stage of this drama.

I would prefer to run into situations instead of running away. To try to be stable on a shaking platform is the real challenge. It’s so easy to get poise and balance on a stable platform. The entire essence of being a spiritual person to me is just to remind myself of my core truths even while I’m walking across the illustrious, blinding bazaars of fakery and falsehood surrounding me; to be stable within even while walking in a noisy bazaar; to do my duties on the worldly stage with a perfect detachment and understanding that I’m playing this role in this drama and I have to perform it really well.

The saints are as much part of this existence as the common people like you and me are. If the God had been too partial towards the saints, they would have outnumbered the commoners by now. The real saints are joyful with the minimum that supports their life. The common people suppose that the drama on the stage will get them happiness. Not much difference, I think. To some super-galactic consciousness, taking itself to be a separate super-entity, all this would be just the same—the saints and the commoners. So don’t harbor vanity for being a saint; and don’t feel the guilt of being common. Mother existence stands equally distant or close to both the categories. Further, God certainly must be in love with his common children because He has so many of them.

If my sympathetic tears alleviate the pain of a fellow human being, I’m ready to cry. If my smile lights up someone’s life, I’m there to offer it. I don’t want to be an idol that turns liberated, impassive, heavenly and mute to all the fluctuations of fate and fortunes around me. I love being just like anyone around. 

And if you ever get judgemental over normal worldliness, either about your own self or others, always remember this: It's lonely enough in an increasingly difficult world. Pardon people for willing to find comfort by indulging in illusionary sweeties of life. Because all this is part of life; all this is meant to help us grow, evolve and continue with our journey. 

The little world of honeybees

 It needs a lot of effort by the honeybees to hold onto the edges of water bucket and take sips of water to save their larvae in the comb. It’s a risky gambit, many tumble down and swim very hard to get back to safety. Many drown in the process. But they don’t mind it. They exist as a species, not as Mr Honey x or Miss Honey y. It’s a humongous survival game on the tiny stage portraying extraordinary interludes of life and hope among the assault by brutal bayonets of annihilation. They are just near the bigger bank of survival, the monsoons; just three or four more weeks of ferrying water in this killing heat. Then the monsoons would be roaring. A few stinging yellow wasps also visit the bucket. They carry an advantage as far as drawing water from the bucket is concerned. They are bigger in body and have larger legs, which allow them to land straightaway on the water surface like a seaplane.

The tree above the bucket is a place of active engagement these days. A babbler and tailorbird nests cause this shrieking squalor. Both of them are very proactive verbal fighters. A tailorbird is far smaller in size but punching far above their weight the little couple even outshouts the babbler pair. The little guys are staunchly stubborn. I have seen even the bullying babblers turn hesitant and patchy in their beaky bombardment, calling for a ceasefire which is very surprising. And when both these noisy nest-makers are silent for some strange reason, it looks as if pure and primitive strains of silence have dawned upon the little garden.