I wrote some time back about time...how it is the link between oneself and everything else. I want to share 2 interesting aspects of time, one which happened day before yesterday and another today.
When I read the article on wisegeek.com on how to develop Patience so as to cope up with pain, I read a very common sense thing which turned out to be a a minor enlightenment for me. It didn't strike me then but the next day, it fit in well with some idea of mine. The article gave some ways of coping with patience like doing something creative in the mean time, understanding that someone else need is getting taken care of. etc. For example, when someone stands in a queue to buy a ticket, he or she understands that the one before him or her has stood a little longer and hence deserves to get the ticket first. The same concept can be applied in life too. Everyone of us is standing in the queue of life to get liberated or obtain salvation or live eternally in heaven etc. There are those who are having so much chronic pain that they plead with God to relieve them of their pain, even if it means killing them. But still God keeps them waiting and then one starts to panic again after all those spiritual practices wondering if all this is fake. I have felt like that some times and even as late as a few days back. Maybe that's what got me to read about the Patience article...believe me, there is no such thing as luck...what we wish for goes to the sub-conscious which then brings the results. Anyway, so I got to understand that life is also a queue whee God is like the official at the ticket counter giving each the ticket when it is their time. The thing to realize when one has a chronic pain is that when one patiently bears it instead of escaping it, not only one help oneself but also another. Escaping doesn't take anyone forward but will simply postpone facing the pain to a later date. If one bears even a little bit of at any one moment, that small bit will vanish or dissolve for ever (this ofcourse doesn't mean that one goes searching for pain or an unbearable pain). And all the pain that one has a finite number of these small pains. When all of them is gone, one can step into something really worthwhile. Now...I knew this long time back but what I realized a couple of days back is that patiently bearing the pain not only helps the person who is having it, but also helps the one who has stood a little longer in the queue in life, someone who had had a greater pain. And...God, like the official at the ticket counter to paradise is only giving the ticket to another more deserving candidate at that moment. So if one bears the pain instead of causing a big hue and cry thereby trying to get ahead of the one in front of the line, one is actually doing a very noble thing or service to another. It looks to me as if that a sick person is called a Patient because he or she is expected to be Patient enough to let the Doctor take care of another more sick trusting that his or her time will soon come. For me, this has given me a new strength to face life and in what can be called the 8 planes of existence, I think I have graduated from the 6th stage of Dharana to the 7th stage of Dhyana. It means that I have stabilized and there will be still pain that keeps reducing to zero. My dear Arvind Guruji...all this is nice but how can I be benefited? (Are you asking this?). I'm like you only and just like how I will look upto someone on the 8th plane of existence to reach there, you can look at this testimonial to boost up your confidence, if you are lower than the 7th plane.
As to the 2nd aspect of time, this was more down to earth. I had been to my counselor's translated book release at a shopping complex. The book was 'Ka' written by an Italian author. The Italian consulate official from Pondicherry was there and just as she started speaking the lights went out. Her voice was shaky and maybe it was because she was scared. Just as she finished, the lights came on...it seemed to have been nicely stage managed. Many of them spoke nicely and there was even an option to question the author after his speech. He obviously had a very good knowledge of Hindu spirituality and I screwed up my mind to ask some question. Then I wondered if I was trying to to ask just to look sophisticated. I was also a little scared of all the people sitting there and it would be like me standing and giving a speech. I didn't want to fumble with my words. Also, I was not really sure if I would get an answer that I already didn't know or will anyway know as I go through my everyday life these days. As I was thinking all of this, 2 questions got asked and the session was over. Then again, I ventured bravely to ask him later after congratulating my counselor. I wanted to ask this...he had said that Prajapathi alone was there initially and had multiplied because he didn't know if He existed or got bored. I wanted to ask him...we are taught to go back to the Self, which is unity. Does it mean that we will get bored again if we go inside and merge as or with our core? This was a complex question and certainly not something that can be answered there in such a short time. Again, I know the answer to these questions just like a layman would know. I once told my counselor that all these spiritual seekers are really vain when a layman can as well answer the questions easily from intuition. He told me that there does exist some difference. He didn't mean it in the sense of a difference in class but as an explanation that a layman understands something more from intuition while seeker will get many rational external explanations that support the intuition. Coming back...as I got to out o the shopping complex and went to the parking lot to get my scooter, I saw a girl in Burqa with a school bag on her back and on a bicycle scurrying like a rabbit past me. The path leading to the parking lot was itself a dark alley and I thought if someone was there waiting for me...a form of psychosis that I have got used to. So, as I start my scooter to reach the gate, she goes around the stopping gate pole and nervously rechecks her bicycle...something seems to be wrong in the bicycle. I stop my scooter because I do not want to die being blown to pieces, atleast not yet. I guess when she didn't find me coming forward, she didn't want to wait anymore. So it became Ladies first, Gents second. The pathetic thing is that she is not even old enough to be a lady. She must be 16 - 18, though I couldn't see well in the dark. I was feeling disgusted at those who send girls like these, who wouldn't have even had an idea of what it means to be romantic or fall in and love. And those guys are shit scared to come out and fight like men. I hope this girl grows up to be a happy old woman and not some wreck in a prison. Those men will do better to borrow the veil from these women and move around the town instead of using their women like this.
