A Superb Thought for our day to day life in 2012

The following is a mail that I recently received... 

 

There once was a farmer who discovered that he had lost his watch in the barn. It was no ordinary watch because it had sentimental value for him. After searching high and low among the hay for a long while; he gave up and enlisted the help of a group of children playing outside the barn.

 

He promised them that the person who found it would be rewarded.

 

Hearing this, the children hurried inside the barn, went through and around the entire stack of hay but still could not find the watch. Just when the farmer was about to give up looking for his watch, a little boy went up to him and asked to be given another chance.

 

The farmer looked at him and thought, "Why not? After all, this kid looks sincere enough."

 

So the farmer sent the little boy back in the barn. After a while the little boy came out with the watch in his hand! The farmer was both happy and surprised and so he asked the boy how he succeeded where the rest had failed.

 

The boy replied, "I did nothing but sit on the ground and listen. In the silence, I heard the ticking of the watch and just looked for it in that direction."

 

Moral:

 

A peaceful mind can think better than a worked up mind. Allow a few minutes of silence to your mind every day, and see, how sharply it helps you to set your life the way you expect it to be...!

Dream

Someone rightly said, “Man cannot live without a vision.” Others say dreams are not reality; dreams are expressions of the suppressed feelings calling out for a proper expression. Believers say that God speaks through dreams. 

Joseph, the dreamer of the Old Testament dreamt, interpreted dreams and he was convinced that God leads his people through the events of history and brings good out of evil.

Only a dreamer can understand the dreaming. 

Dreams are often expressions of the very ‘you’. Of course, various understandings do exist. Indian philosophical terms would distinguish two states of mind: waking state and dream state – former is real and the latter is illusory. 

People also say to ‘pay attention to your dreams.’ Why so? Because they find them to be true. 

Dreams have their metaphorical value and the realities they point to is true. Dreams can’t be taken on their face value. Think of Don Bosco’s dream at the age of nine. He saw ferocious wolves turning to mild lambs (indicating the effect of his approach to the young through love that would eventually transform the young). He hears voices, amidst the clang of voices, he distinctly hears: “Not with blows but with gentleness and love must you make them good.”

If you do not discover yourself, dreams might perhaps discover you, only if you heed to them. Dreams call you to deep intimacy with the Lord, precisely because we live unconsummated. Do married people truly live consummated? Ronald Rolheiser in his book Seeking Spirituality says that only God can sleep with everyone and only in God can we sleep with everyone.

Different sayings on dreams

“You have to dream before your dreams can come true.” Abdul Kalaam

“Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men." Goethe

"In Dreams Begin Responsibilities." Delmore Schwartz

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." Eleanor Roosevelt

"They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. In their grey visions they obtain glimpses of eternity." Edgar Allan Poe

OPPOSITES DO EXIST

The evil lurks in every moment. A human soul is vacillating between good and evil and under great pangs to realize that it is made for good and goodness alone. There are many vacillating points:

            Hope – discouragement

            Faith – faithlessness

            Love – hate

            Obedience – disobedience

Why should we be under the mysterious clutch of realities that we hardly understand? A man who is wane on faith must ponder – there are two kinds of people. Both the kinds are driven and taken over by the driving dimension. The first one is driven by an overarching meaning (e.g. Mother Teresa – she promised not to refuse God for anything, not even refusing to give water to quench the thirst for souls). The second one is driven by the passion of one’s body (e.g. the habit of drinking, or any other irregular behaviors arising out of a lack of self-control).

Both types are characterized by “irrationality.” Both are in search of the “irrational.” The one who is led by an overarching meaning understand the seriousness of following that meaning. On the other hand, one who is driven by one’s body is moving towards disintegration, disunity and dissatisfaction. 

Why should opposites exist? Why should good people exist along with the people of evil inclinations? Why should God bring good out of evil?

SILENCE AND WORD

Do the words spoken eclipse the silence of the reality the word represents? If then no words are necessary. Just consider the paradox of the “sound of silence.”

The revelation of Being takes place in silence. The truth emerges from the interior depth of silence. And we have to face the “awe of that great mystery” in silence.

Pope Benedict XVI states the truth – “Christ is fullness, in him we find everything.” Hence it is our duty to appropriate one of the dimensions of his fullness. Can one appropriate ‘the silence of Jesus?’

Now, inclining towards silence would mean basically two things among the many other aspects it would lean on to:

 To hear in what is not spoken

Silence in the moment of non-understanding

Silence and understanding are very much connected. Did Pilate understand why Jesus kept silent when he was questioned? Jesus’ silence for Pilate was an external existential reality. He covered his non-understanding with “are you?”- Still groping to find and hear an answer to make a final judgment. Our silence should be such that we are aware of the weight of the body that we carry within us.

Hooked by love (Mt 4:14)

There comes a call imperative from Love

To love with a firm heart that reverberates the invitation ‘come follow me;’

The called finds it irresistible and wonders

Am I hooked forever?

A grip from which you can never break off

To breathe the air of life in the flowing water

Hooked and wounded exactly at the mouth,

I would no longer say “save me,” or “let me go”

He draws me out of the water

To a new realm of existence.

To a raised movement from a fixed habitat,

From a structured eco-system to a non-fixed eternal habitat.

He calls out once again to a firm belief – ‘I am He, the One sent by the Father’

An invitation that echoes deep with a mission and a daring promise,

“Come, I will make you fishers of men.”

Heed or not to heed is a necessitated prompt response.

On the way!! Long way!!

The eve of the New Year 2012, amidst the noise of a moving train, a train of thoughts ran through my mind as to how to begin the New Year. The first thought that came up was – ‘Forget your former ways and begin a new’. But is it really possible? - A serious point to be ruminated. However, a well-meant person could say this much: ‘on the way’. 

Observing the web and flow of life, people make structures (external and internal). In the process people are structured by the self-made structures. Some silently agree to the self-made structures because they are thrust upon out of necessity. Take for example, the commuters in the train. They are ready to pay any amount on the food items even if they are charged more than the written retail price when the trains halt at different stations. This is an unavoidable necessity with a created situation with a subtle and often visible manipulation on the part of the business people. It is a situation of a ‘have to.’ I ‘have to’ buy a bottle of water because I am thirsty. Most people give away few extra coins for an actual 12 rupees bottle of water, because the train would leave by the time you finish your argument. You can neither bargain nor have you the time to go to a consumer court to lodge your complaint. The question then is unavoidable of a ‘have to’ situation. You ‘have to’ because hunger and thirst do not exempt you from the exigencies of your basic needs.

Looking out of the window, the background images of NDTV news flashed by, the fact of Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption campaign seized my thoughts and I whispered corruption!! Corruption!! Lokpal Bill! A Strong one! Having heard that Sushma Swaraj and other BJP Mps decline on passing the bill in the parliament because “it is Rahul’s constructed version,” I questioned – who is in the “Responsible List?” An angry voice murmured within – ‘it is better not to buy and eat anything than to be cheated’. It is true that no one likes to be cheated; even the deceivers do not like to be deceived.

The train is a reality – besides the physical structure of a running train, the internal structure of it is made up by the railway officials and most importantly by the passengers. A visible reality often is that some TTEs have no mercy on the poor. They are always on PQWL (pooled quota waitlist), RAC (reservation against cancellation), or permanently WL (waiting list). They are confirmed a seat only when some amount is handed to them. Who shall speak for the poor? Or go on their way with adjustment and tolerance to sit up all night and wait patiently to get down at their destination?

One cannot forget ‘yesterdays’ because one is a product of history and its daily flashbacks. But a new beginning is possible with a new awareness and a challenged awakening.

When the centre, influenced by a group of stubborn campaigners to pass the anti-corruption bill, choose to make necessary amendments in the law, some may question – what do we really mean by ‘administrative will,’ ‘self-will,’ ‘public will,’ etc. Finally what difference does the law make? -  A long route direction, an immediate justification and mitigation for an unending dilemma?

At the face of the grass-root corruption, the crows, the mice, the rag picker seem to point a finger at the accuser.

The mice: you chase me for no reason, while you yourself throw the wastes on the rail tracks. I am chased for life for just cleaning up the wastes that you throw and cause me terribly frightened unto death at the mere sound of your footsteps. What a cruel world!!

The crow: I live on your pittance and wastes, but your presence makes me terrified. One kick or a stone’s throw and I am gone to dust.

The Rag picker: I am not treated exceptionally well. Nor am I granted a better situation than this. Is the situation I am in is really made as you seem to make profits.

The only thing I can say is “on the way, a long way.” ‘On the way, on one’s own way?’ is a reverse too difficult? It does seem an unmovable rock - a corruption of nature? It has happened and deadened the minds with evil practices which already silenced the voice and killed the beauty of conscience. Values now have only face value. Another questionable instance popped up for a just answer. A grandma is looked after by her daughter-in-law. The question that popped up was – is growing old losing one’s independence and ruthlessly allowing oneself to be swallowed by another’s dictates? This question has a deep root in the words of a daughter-in-law to a third person: “I have allowed my mother to live on her own, in her old age with all the household freedom. But now it is not possible. She has to bend to what I say.”

The new beginning is not like an adjustment in the train nor is it a decision to move on one’s own way. On the way, if alone, one can get derailed. On the way, if alone, it would still remain a long way but with SOMEONE who knows you and on whom you depend even for the air you breathe, then you can say a long way with a possible REACH necessitating a movement of dependence, independence and interdependence.