I find a six month old baby deserted at the end of carnival in an island. It’s already nearing night and the bridge to the main land will be closed soon. Somebody tells me that the baby is an orphan, his adopted mother has left him unintentionally, that someone should take care of him and that she can be contacted only after 3 days. After cleaning the messed up place, I am the last to leave the island. I pick him up with great hesitation as I am afraid of the consequences of an unmarried girl (I am so in this dream) taking a baby home and my parents’ subsequent reaction. An unknown fear churns my inside. Still, tugging the baby on my hips, I move around with my bare feet begging for a glass of milk as I intuitively feel that the baby is extremely hungry and it would take a long journey to reach home.
Finally I come across a missionary lady who tells me that there is no milk but they have something spicy to eat. With much hesitation, I watch the quiet baby putting the offered food in his mouth. I am in near tears as the milk baby cannot eat that food. But he turns towards me to give a very, very beautiful innocent smile. I am no more confused now and board an auto to reach home because the baby has remained quiet so far. In fact, there are no tears, cries, tight hugs, demands, expectations... Together our journey begins….
This is just a dream sequence that I had experienced two days back. At first, I could not control my smile for sometime at its absurdity but as hours went by, deeper meanings unfolded i.e. tolerance was the baby’s way and acceptance was his living.
Smile awhile smile awhile
Whether you smell heavenly fragrance
Or roll over the purities of debris
Stay alive with a candid smile
Today’s newspaper carried news about an innocent tribal wrongly accused of murder charges and got acquitted on this June 29 after 22 years. He was hardly 18 years at the time of conviction. Who should be blamed for this injustice? Who could bring the lost youth and those precious 22 years for him? I just wonder if it is possible for any to smile under such painful situations.
I could not stop quoting Harper Lee’s ‘To kill a mockingbird’ that I read recently. We always find reasons to be biased against colour, creed, caste, language, religion, money power or muscle power.
This affirms the belief again that we have made the world into a den of injustice, prejudice, untruth, violence, malevolence, selfishness, corruption etc. We lose sight of our path, let loose our reins of senses, pollute our intellect with biased dark colouring of thoughts leading to wrong choices and end up as an opportunist who cannot think beyond our pleasures and as a sadist who enjoys giving deep wounds to others, indirectly to Mother Earth who has given shelter to us all. Thankfully, our planet is still not shattered into pieces (in spite of the wrongs that we do to her at all levels of existence) and is determined to move on in her orbit as always.
That’s why the great Avadhuta must have referred to King Yadu that he has learnt the greatest lesson of tolerance and acceptance from Mother Earth. He says, “A man of self control should not move away from his chosen path even when attacked by beings under the sway of their primordial tendencies, knowing it to be due to their own destiny (Prarabdha).”
The path that is referred to here is nonetheless the path of divinity. Mind you, it is not a joke to assume the result of all actions (whether good or bad) as direct ordinances of God or individual expressions of gunas. Self control alone can bring such a lofty understanding. But then what is the way to bring self control?
As far as my understanding goes, scripting the rhetoric can bring initial control to our minds.
Considering that I am in the beginning stage of evolution, I can practice self control in two phases:
1) To choose only positive words to speak.
2) To start believing that my words bring peace within and around.
Over a period of time, this would create its own beautiful grooves of purity and truth, which gets expressed in the form of actions and reactions.
By the way, why am I unable to forget the dream baby’s beautiful smile even after two days? Is the smiling baby trying to tell me that I can learn self control faster by maintaining silence during my journey?
At present, it is not my cup of tea.
P.S. The extracts are taken from the translation works of Srimad Bhagavata of Swami Tapasyananda, Ramakrisha Math.
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Dearest Padmaja,
ReplyDeleteYou must have thought of my situation and then drafted the post, I beleive. :-)
Well, very valuable piece of advice for me. Thank you my dear.
Love,
Preethi Anand
Dear Preethi,
ReplyDeleteIt is the situation of all, isn't it?
I am glad that you managed to find time to read the post and comment.
Love,
Padmaja
Dear Padmaja
ReplyDeleteInspiring write!
I can’t agree more on what you have said. When you wrote about selfishness, I remembered Gandhi’s words which said that every moment that we spend in our life should be spent for the benefit of others. If such a thought fills our mind all the time, where is the scope towards the road of selfishness?
As you say, we should learn that big lesson of ‘Tolerance’ that Mother Earth had taught us by standing all the atrocities revolving her.
Self control is the most difficult thing to practice but what is impossible if we put our heart and soul into it. All the best for your practice. May God bless you.
Mother earth, no doubt, is the teacher of patience and tolerance. We dig, we implant bombs on its skin, we pour all the pollutions on it, still it smiles back at us. Whenever I saw someone trimming a tree, I used to wonder, how come these trees are smiling even after someone has cut their arms and legs. They don't curse, they don't spit on our face. The next morning they sprout from the limping branches with lots of hope and faith. That is why we call earth as mother. Because, mother also tolerates with smile against whatever we do. Instead of limiting to their children when such tolerance extends to others in the whole world, then they also become like mother earth. Mother earth knows that these people are digging me, not because they want to harm me, but because they are driven by their own internal tendencies. What a great lesson from the Teacher, mother Earth.
ReplyDelete@Latha - Thank you very much for your wishes. 2009 has been very kind to me so far. I wish the same to all as well.
ReplyDeleteAvadhuta also says so in the next blog like Gandhiji. We shall see that soon.
@Solai - Thanks a lot for posting such a wonderful comment. I too feel very bad whenever a shrub or tree is trimmed for the sake of beauty. Still they always smile back in return knowing well the internal tendencies of us.
Dear Padmaja,
ReplyDeleteI think this post answers the question I left as a comment in your later post - Lessons from Mountains and Trees ... Whatever the rest of the world may do, it is up to us to speak the right and good things, isn't it? :)