They come to me in different ‘avatars’ … but in all, a devotion that is childlike. The inquisitive apprehensions of a child, their fears, their innocence, wonder, gullibility and above all their purity !
They are unknown to me, much like the child that is completely oblivious of why their keeper has subjected them to this. Why do they ? What does go through their minds. And whatever it is that does, does it register anywhere in their somewhat garbled life for the moment ?
Then one day they rise and mature and grow, and before long become impressionable in age. They gather, get affected, influenced, accustomed to surroundings and bearings. They realize one sudden morning that they are different from the other, in many ways.
They realize that their oneness, togetherness, camaraderie is in fact dissected by caste and creed, color, religion and material status. They notice the difference of naming, of belief, of why one has it and they do not. How do they come to terms ? How do they feel, understand and accept that one of their own in equality a short while ago, is in fact better blessed, better abled. How do they comprehend that their are unequal physical attributes. One taller or shorter, one stronger and one weak, one bigger and richer, one not, and most importantly, one, another gender and the other not !!
The childish inquisitiveness in discovering, or at most in their shyness not wanting to face the difference, must be a moment of great reckoning. How do they, at such tender age and mind, contend with this. Does it affect them then or does it not ? Do they live affected individuals hiding or perhaps running away from the reality of their being, or in their hidden feelings subject themselves of some inner presence, and perhaps in the long, harm - psychologically, morally, socially !!
Do the attributes that they discover at an age when they do, make impressions that shall remain with them a lifetime, or do they, indoctrinated by the elder, succumb to the guidance and belief in fate. Why, and if they do, ever give credence to the elders explanation ? Do they question ? And if they do, what answers do their deliverers give them to silence as it were, their perturbed mind.
One fine day you get up and say to yourself that you would ‘conquer the world’ and therein begins your one lone struggle for its achievement. Not all will it so. They could be content with what they were or are and have an existence which would be perfect. In their eyes. It may not be so in the eyes of the others.
And so starts the struggle. The destination where each one of us wishes to be at. Some make it, most of us do not. Those that do, are generally wishing for more. Those that do not, rest in the joy of having got at least somewhere better than when they started out. Or, lamenting the unfairness of life and fate to them, exist in frustrated belligerent and destructive modes.
These are difficult considerations. Those that make it, face other obstacles unknown to the other. Greed creeps in. The thinking that since I have ‘x’, I must have ‘10x’ overpowers them. For some it becomes a catalyst for achieving, and they succeed after considered conduct and operation. The ones that do not, despite their many honest and committed effort, live in the morass of self inflicted wounds. They put blame, on some other or the most accepted form - fate !! Some of better understanding and compliance, accept and live happily ever after. Satisfaction for them, much against what satisfaction means to a human being, is their ‘nirvana’.
I am of recent bent towards that which inches closer each day towards a kind of satisfaction. I shall be truthful in accepting that temptation does creep in at times. That ‘apple’ does dangle often. But knowing that beyond a point it should not be to either possess the apple or bite it, I shall readily withdraw. The fear of security, of responsibility towards the state of the family and dependents, I admit, does keep you going. That is if you value them. Many these days do not. They feel it is a lesson, an exercise in self preservation, that must be learnt by progeny. I am far too soft and considerate on that. For me the insecurity of my loved ones, would be a most disturbing condition. I would imagine it would be disturbing for most. And that is the impetus that drives us, to push ourselves continuously.
Having been through certain conditions personally, perhaps the implications are dearer for me. There is the need for all to acquire. There is the need to understand, that there shall be limits to it. Who then better to guide me of those limits than me myself !!
Is that then, the reason for some of the excesses that we encounter ? Excesses not in mere possessions material, but in time, possessions which begin to destroy the body. In the heat of hard earned success, there comes a moment when it is wrongly believed that with it comes indestructibility. Indestructibility, not just in our vocation but in our bodies too. The body, the most perfect invention of nature, one that still has not even been discovered more than .000001 % by science and invention, has remarkable qualities of resistance. It resists to an extent which gives impression that it can tolerate sufficiently enough. That is a fallacy. It does tolerate immensely, but when it decides not to, the slide is so rapid, that no force on earth has capacity to stop it. The beginnings of belief and religion and prayer, come about then. Nature and the universe were just beyond understanding, and the human, arguably the most intelligent living being, unable to find explanation, gave in to the theory of some powerful unknown force, that was manufacturing all about us ….
That force is prime and has neither been seen or known where it resides. This is the belief of us, because really we do not have any other alternative to explain the many facets of our existence ..
Some wish to learn and know more about it - that sublime halo of heaven. Others feel it better to not know it at all ! What would happen to their centuries of belief and worship. It would be hard to digest that their belief went wrong. In the absence of finite answers, belief is the most potent force at our command.
Humanity, when it perseveres with some belief, attains, I would imagine, much more than without. Faith and belief ‘move mountains’, are not mere random remarks to be used metaphorically. Much thinking and thought has gone into it.
I succumb often to the metaphoric. Yet I do defy it at times. It prevents me from being complacent in whatever I do ….
My love as ever .. without any complacency .. mere belief and faith
DiL
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