Between Mirrors of
Life and living, I reflect
'Now', eternally.
Some times as the life changes gears, the path that you have taken takes a turn that leaves you wondering - where I am going? As I reflect about last few months, these lines from "Songs of the Mist" comes to my mind...
"You sit here wondering where you are going to go today. Life all around you is new, based on the sensation of living but the moment you bring yourself down to thinking you realize that it is not one straight line. You start with one point and just as you are about to reach, you have another crowding your space. You force that out of your path and you get pushed into the other. And you pursue that further, feeling what is it like to be, how that one made you smile, how that one made you cry, and you are overwhelmed in feeling the highs and lows, but then find yourself somewhere down in the dark depths of unknown, as if that a person is taking you home but you never had a home..." - Calliope on the banks of Holy River Ganges (Page - 135)
It takes a life time
For a sigh to die; Living
Still flowers in pain
And in situation like this, you have to have that undying faith, that out there, there is some one with a cosmic design in which you have a particular place and with your own karma you fill that particular colour required in universal fabric of cosmos with the thread of your living in 'now'.
But as is the case usually, we are not enlightened enough to know that design, so we have doubts, waver with uncertainty of going nowhere and these are the times, I have come to realise, when one has to reaffirm his / her faith in divinity, in the universal energy that is within all of us. And time to time, we need to touch base, reach out to hold that cosmic energy within us from external sources. The last few months have been one such period of exercises, in which I went all around Tamil Nadu to reconnect through service, meditation and spiritual travels.
My Journey of Re-affirmation
Faith:
There is a beautiful temple of Sai Baba on East Coast Road of Chennai, where I have been many times before, but I needed something more. So one day me and my friend reached early morning at the famous Sai Baba temple on the banks of Bay of Bengal and I asked for the way. I not only get to know where I have to go but also I found a fellow traveller on my path. I, quite literally, handed over my baggage to him and got ready to walk...
Service:
There was a group of pilgrimages, coming all the way from Bihar (on a round trip of almost 3500 Kms), who reached Kanchipuram, famously known as Kasi of South, and my friend took me along to serve them food.
There are only two types of daan (To Give) that has a direct connection with the cosmic design and your place in it. One is to feed some one (Ann Daan) and the other is to actively / physically do something for the upliftment of down trodden and needy.
The whole day we spent feeding more than 50 pilgrims in one of the ashrams was more than one can get by visiting numerous places of worship.
Meditation:
When I came to Chennai for the first time, I have had a great personal experience with Goddess Parvati of Meenakshi Temple in Madurai. After almost 20 years of that experience, I had the desire to see her again. We started one early morning, reached Tiruchy for over night stay and then next morning reached Madurai.
The thousand pillar temple with its grand gopuram and golden dwaja stambha (Flag Staff) was glittering with golden sparkle, turning the dark long corridors into colourful golden hue, being reflected in rainbow colors of the mural on the roof.
There was the same connect, which had not diminished over two decades of my absence in these premises. The huge wet rose flower garland in my hand looked like the rosary bead and within my heart, there was a peace that comes from knowing that all is well all around.
The walk within and within the walls of the ancient corridors with huge sculptures of dancers, devas and Dancing Shiva filled the space, emptied by darkness of unknown.
And as I sit here, writing about the journey in Bengaluru, I reflect upon the ripples of time that have flowed by, and remember again Calliope's thoughts...
"...in times of desperation you try to seek out who has the reins of your life. You go beyond the cause and effect and seek within that deepest cognition, with all your logic and understanding of how you came to be here." - Calliope (Page - 137)
In eternity
We live. Come from. Life is one
Series of footprints.
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Shashi
ॐ नमः शिवाय
