Timepass

July 2008

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The world isn't kept running because it's a paying proposition. (God doesn't make a cent on the deal.) The world goes on because a few men in every generation believe in it utterly, accept it unquestioningly; they underwrite it with their lives – Henry Miller.

Today I kept one day off – off from the world, one day away from any kind of work; I call it “the real upavaas” (wherein when people go on without food for one day) !!!  and I find it too less. The world around is so rich – the people, things, music, literature – rich of treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people; we just need to develop an interest in it and forget about ourselves for some time. It is very interesting to see how we elevate the importance of “I/myself” in our daily life and how big an issue we make out of ourselves each day – wherein the truth is that we are only a spark in the whole scheme of universe which is continuing since milleniums. In the whole perspective, our lives are only a momentary flash which rises of the dust and dies down as soon as it gets there.  But we live a million lives in this moment of spark – life of a son, a sister, a friend, a husband/wife .... and so on.  Still in each life – we make “I/myself” of such a big importance – which runs in absurd proportions to its actual being.  Why so?

Perhaps, words make it seem so simple whereas this never turns out to be so; because it was never planned to be so. The world is full of contradictions; even our scriptures seem full of contradictions, and as soon as we resolve one set of conflict, another starts taking birth. This is how Asuras are depicted in our mythology – kill one and hundreds of asuras take form out of nowhere.  But Asuras are not evil – evil is our lack of wisdom which recreates all these Asuras. A friend of mine said to me once – “No use of studying Gita when it is the same world outside. It adds to your hypocrisy. It is not practical as in the real world you need to make money and so need double standards...I will revert to it when I retire”. Interesting??? J What do you think here? At that point of time – I had no clear answer to him. But today I can tell him that this contradiction exists only in mind. Gita or any other such knowledge is not expected to create any outer difference in you – simply because then it again starts weaving a web of inflated ego. A yogi is the onle who is outwardly the same as any other person, but inwardly, he is full of flames, always reflecting upon himsef and always in yoga. You can carry out the same activities but there will be a difference which will be known only to you. Our main problem here is that this explanation does not give us an opportunity to be praised and so I find that people whom I tell this are no more interested J What is the use if no one comes and tells us that you are great !!! J So this is our actual state of mind wherein all is done with a dominant thought at the back of mind – appreciation, praise, fame, name !!! and thats how we burden ourselves all the times with so many unnecessary things while the real life passes by.

 

I remember one story in Buddha’s life which was just days before his “enlightenment”. He had spent 6 years of hard penance; giving such high torture to his body that it had reduced to the very bones. Then he sits down under a tree in a village and there comes a simple village girl – with a young baby in her arms – to offer food at the feet of the saint.Buddha sees such a happy glint in her eyes; full of love and joy, as if they had never been sad. Buddha asks her “Are you happy?” The girl replies “yes, and more so because you have accepted my offerings”. Buddha further asks here “Don’t you desire anything more in life, than you already have now?”. She smiles and shakes her head “I have a husband who loves me and a son we desired much for. I am therefore content and happy with my fate”. It amazed Buddha that such simple and profound truth should be conveyed to him by this unlettered woman of the village. Such is life – we are tormenting ourselves with such struggle to achieve something, to show something to others and we miss the joy in the simple and small things of life.

But yet again I say – it is not so simple. Because everything has to be experienced once before it has to be transcended. The challenge lies in not getting tied to a particular thought/life. Buddha would not have realized so much from this simple sentence, had he not gone though all the previous hardships. The reason why he progressed while others with him did not, was because he kept rejecting every truth that he formed at every stage. Truth keeps changing at all levels of consciousness and to be able to leap higher, it is important to admit that the previous truth is no  more a truth now. One has to be humble enough to admit it. So to be able to appreciate the truth of Gita, it has to be a journey of self-experience, wherein truth will change numerous times, wherein self will be redefined all the times – but we will have to keep a faith in life and remember that  “the world isn't kept running because it's a paying proposition. (God doesn't make a cent on the deal.) The world goes on because a few men in every generation believe in it utterly, accept it unquestioningly; they underwrite it with their lives”.