Peace at last!
You know, I've been somewhat depressed and restless and lost mentally this month. And on Sunday Brad randomly and unintentionally sent me the profile of a graphic designer from Chennai. Skimming through her chatty blog, I came across this entry, and it just made me realise that everything i was doing was so pointless!
I've been hankering after someone for a while now, and it's really been coming to naught. I genuinely believe in wanting something a lot, simply because then you're motivated enough to go and get it, like I said in this entry. And indeed, I do believe the universe will conspire to give it to you, ceteris paribus and if your karma permits, and you wish for good things and all that, as the Soka Gakkais believe. Yet I also believe in the adage, "Don't wish for something; you might just get it!" So all my wishes and prayers have been filled with uncertainty and fear, not less so because my prayers and wishes are dependent on another individual's will and destiny, which no one can change but that individual himself.
After reading that entry, the past few years flashed before my eyes. Back to when my religion professor, Prof. Jarow had told me that I had a mission, and that it would find me. It's another matter altogether that I still don't know what it is, and it surely has to be more meaningful and difference-making to myself than what I'm doing, but I've been destroying my peace of mind over something and someone that is essentially out of my locus of control!!!!
So I've changed my prayers. I've just asked God to just make me happy, whatever else is going on... and it's working! Maybe it's all these other events conflating serendipitously, my year beginning, my period arriving and thus stabilising the typhoon my hormones have been wrecking in my body, my prayers, but I feel so much at peace now. I've handed myself to God, or the Spirit in the Sky, or whoever, and am just concentrating on being... and already my mother's noticed a change! She thinks I'm in love, or that a special someone called, but it's just God looking after me, because I've FINALLY asked him to and have decided to tread the path he's set out for me, without questions, or objections or my own plaintive wishes.
Nowadays, I wake up with a smile, and sleep with a smile. When I dance i feel as though my body is suffused with a sublime spirit and I can only see the world around me through the haze of ether, and I dance for God. It's really making a difference - a new consciousness somehow automatically rises from this lack of consciousness - i know it sounds all arty farty new-agey, but I'm really trying to describe what happens to me here - and I pay more attention to my dance, and it has gradually eradicated my awe and fear of my guru. He himself sees how mortified I am by my mistakes and inabilities, and smiles and encourages me. I told my mother this and she was surprised that he doesn't scare or berate me.
I feel carefree and as through I have wings on my feet like Quicksilver. Yes, the banalities of the day tie me down, but my new mood helps me rise above it at the end of the day. I really hope this feeling lasts.
Thanks for unwittingly (and also wittingly - yes yes I know it's wrong but I FEEL like!) helping me Brad!
You should try it sometime. Just stop asking for things or people. Rid yourself of any desire and allow yourself to be happy just the way you are!
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Ever since I read about them in A Suitable Boy, and noticed them in Mahim, I haven't been able to help but get excited whenever I see the clay waterpots the Muslims place at points along the street for the devotees who will be participating in the Muharram Procession... next Friday I believe. Everyday I've been driving past the bylanes of Mahim and seeing the progression of the preparation for the day... initially the pots were just sitting around - a couple of days later they were on stands, now most of the stands have been decorated with tinselled streamers, and some even have glasses placed on top already. The same shall be the case soon along the lane running alongside the Western Express Highway. I hope I'll be able to glimpse a procession!
posted by Princess Joya | 10:49 pm
8 Comments:
you suggest ridding oneself of desire? but dont you dance because of the feeling that it evokes in you. isnt it because you desire that trance, even if it is an offering to god? arent you just substituting one desire for another?
Dear Madhavan,
No, not completely. because we're only ordinary people, and fulfilment of desires also makes us very happy! I just meant that if we stop concentrating on WANTING things and just on ourselves and count our blessings. We'd see that we already have so much to make us happy - we don't really NEED outside reassurance through acquisition. I suppose this could get really deep... but I just meant exactly what I said. Just ask for happiness and another door in your heart opens... that's what I felt anyway!
Ridding oneself of desire is what Buddhism and Jainism says... Hinduism says to pursue detachment in worldly actions. I guess that could be ridding oneself of desire, though that's not QUITE what i meant in this particular post.
I dance because it's meditation for me. Meditation, recreation, rejuvenation, peace. Like zoning out at the end of the day in front of the TV might be for someone else. And yes, i do 'desire' dance for that!
True, one would have to be in complete control of their passions to be bereft of any desires. Even on a spiritual level, personally, I would hate to come to a state where I would not have 'any' desires.
Life has it's ups and downs, due to a particular human perspective. And as Hugh Prather says, if life were a continuous string of sucesses, it would get very monotonous, and less colorful.
Bottomline, a person should know what to desire or hope for. Hope keeps the spirit alive. A bolstered hope, and not just a wiff in the air.
Yeah Brad,
But i think most hopes start of being unbolstered. It all only progresses on the basis of that vital ingredient, faith. After all, usually a whiff of air signals the coming of a cyclone!
A hope is bolstered, when it is backed up by optimism; and one has to be perseverant in achieving one's goal. Faith on the other hand is 'blind belief', and possibly without any foundation.
Think about it. When one says, s/he has faith in God, what does she really mean? S/he hopes that God would...however s/he wants to end that line.
But if someone doesn't know the path to something and is simply struggling along in the dark (as so many of us are with our spiritual and romantic confusion), THEN doesn't one need that 'blind' faith to eventually see the light? Stagnation/inertia is bad in any event, but surely you can't fault someone for stumbling about? This is beginning to converge with your definition...
HOPE: To wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment.
Archaic. To have confidence; trust. The theological virtue defined as the desire and search for a future good, difficult but not impossible to attain with God's help.
FAITH: Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will.
Truce? *wags tail and licks*
Fourth Attempt to Post a Comment:
Actually, now the comment is not important as much as my curiousity as to why is this happening!
This brings to light another important realization; If you think about something now, 5 hours from now, you can actually write the same thing in lesser words, and so on.
Since it has been about 48 hrs since I have been tryin' to post a comment, it has been reduced to:
"Ok Truce! *wags tail vigorously and licks back*"
FINALLY!!!! this fourth one showed up! Now let me post mine and see if it works!!! I'm so mad I lost my entry!!!
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