Analogies . . .

Since Childhood, all of us have at some point of time (or many points) been asked to write an essay on "importance of sports". At times we have wondered why is it that we like to hear/read.see stories..Why is it that performing arts are so appreciated?

To me, these past few months of semi-solitary exisatance have been a tme of a revelation, a coming of age of sorts.I find myself revisiting a lot of things taught at school, at home, which as children, we couldn't quite appreciate for what hey meant. Here, now, I see them through a completely different looking-glass and they suddenly seem to have a 3rd dimension to them, a depth, menaing, cimplexity I hadnt been able to see before.And I find myself drawing parallels between each one of these things and the concept of one;s Lifespan itself.

You pick up a book, a story. it starts with an introduction of its characters & their circumstances. It goes on explring their interactions, creating new situations, but all with an eye on the climax. The writer's attempt is to set things up during the ciurse of the story such that everything is falling into its rightful place by th etime te plot reaches a logical conclusion. You retrace this effort of his, expriencing the emotions in the manner the writer wants him to, as the story unfolds from its introduction through to the end. You put the book down, satisfied, if the pieces are all in their places by the end.

Pick a sport, any sport, or rather, any sporting contest. The whole event has a well defined objective. The players and spectatores are all a bit aware of the skills involved, but none knows exactly ow much each player has brought to the table on that day. And so the contest begins, invariably, with the players testing this out in their own ways. Then, a time comes when they are sure of their situations, and the next phase - the struggle for ascendancy beigns. Each player tries to leverage his skill and the situation to get to a position from wher he can exercise the full p[otential of his game to gain a decisive advantage. This leads to the end-game, often a frenzied battle, where in the winner is he who has utilised his skill and available situations better.

Now you look at a man's life. We start unaware of ourselves, our surroundings, the characters of our story and the charateristics tat will shape us. Our childhood, our eduxation is "the introduction". Its our chance to explore our potential & limits. We then enter the second phase, we try to set ourselves up for a good life when we have grown old, and spend the middle phase of our lives setting pieces up so that the puzzle solves itself by the time its time to lie down. At the end of all the frenzy of planing, saving, spending, all the rat races, he who has used his skills and circumstances better, finds himself at an advantage. He calls himself a "winner" in the game of life. His life is termed a "success story" ...

But all said and done, there's the question : who wrote the story? who judged the contest?

It is HIm. It is his stories we are living out as our lives. Each one of us has a different version of the story, was He trying to create on prefect story, and decided to experiment with all different versions He could come up with, or is all this just a RPG for Him.. I dont know. He has laid out hte path for us, and given us the means to walk it through. He has given us all a chance to play this game of life, and played another trick.. the illusion of control .... it is He who controls us all, yet makes us beleive we are the actors. He plays on our behalf, even though the instruments are in our hands.

His is the will that shall be done.

So, the next time you find someone talking about "the game of life" or somebody's " life-story",  you know better ... ;)

Thoughts...

Once during my frequent train sojourns, there was a little thought in my mind ... about, well, "thoughts"...what are they? How do they form? how do you know that one is forming in your mind, because, by the time you are aware of it, its already there! You sensing it is merely your brain transforming it into a verbal form. Do we think in sentences? or words acting as "keys"? or just are they visions? shapes? forms? or a shapeless, formless flash.. an enigma...

Pay a little attention and you'll realise that a thought originate as a formless entity (acknowledging thoughts as entities). You'll find that those you sense, but can not visualise , can not render into solid images that can be related to, are actually the ones you feel very intensely... we call these - "Emotions". The closer something is to your heart, more intense is the emotional response invoked, purer is the experience. More intense the emotions, more formless the imprint on the mind... tougher to bind it in words, and deeper its influence on you.

Could that be why when we are taught to concentrate, we are asked to start by picturing a still object? like a blank, unwrinkled piece of paper ... as that needs your mind to let the calmer emotions, the peaceful thoughts to come to the fore. The "omkar" chant takes this one step further. What is the Omkar? a word? a syllable? a sound? An entity..an enigma..a connecting piece... Its synonymous with you, the world pulled over your eyes, the life force that flows through this world, the comic fore that binds the universe in this form, and yet, sets it free in many more ways... IT i beyond the realm of physics, metaphysics, theology, religion, itself. A parallel may be drawn with the Hebrew symbol "Yahweh", supposed to be the name of The One True God. They say, it cannot be pronounced by us mortals. Warning bells aside, one can think of it as a manifestation of he divine, or a human attempt to bind divinity in something comprehensible. Both, this and the Omkar are attempts to capture the true meaning of everything that is, was and ever will be, That which has neither beginning nor end. Which is omnipotent, omnipresent, That which just IS.

When you focus your thought on it, you open your self to the cosmic divine. You, in your own capacity, knowingly or unknowingly are calling out to the absolute glorious truth ...It's your own purity that determines the how aware you'll become of it.

Try, for once, to follow the process of how a thought emerges in your mind...and, each time you will see that you are always just a little too slow to acknowledge when it began, but in reality, the instantaneous knowledge is there, its the translation to acknowledgement that takes time. If you pay close attention, you can feel an impulse blossoming into colors, shapes, words, and what you'd recognise as a full-fledged thought. But try to express the means of this transformation, and our means of expression sow us their extreme inadequacy, for this process is is singular, absolute, and that which is absolute cannot be bound into words. Our ability for expression is thus curbed by the limitations of what we have shackled ourselves in ... Language.

Tell me, would a child, even if it grasps all language on the first day f its birth, be able to express its very first thought? Or for that matter, can you express whats in your mind the very first waking moment of any day?

you cant. because the level of consciousness that is active at those times is beyond the consciousness we limit ourselves to when we use language. The purpose of creating language was to mould abstract thoughts into concrete words, so that one mind may relay them to another. But as any communication system has a loss factor, this one does, too, and quite a heavy one. A direct linkage of minds would be the ideal way to exchange thoughts, but indirection induces discrepancies, confusion and in due course, corruption.

But there is one medium which transcends the realms of language, that of emotion.... and the purest of which is love. Hearts given to love do not need words to understand their counterparts. They are liberated from the bounds of the lower level of consciousness the mind inhibits itself to. That is why all saints preach love, love towards the Almighty, towards all His creations. It is the only bond that does not bind the participants, but liberates them, because the bond itself is absolute, true, and omnipotent. It is God's highest creation.