Cobwebs. That always comes to Santim’s mind whenever he falls into a state of helplessness. There are moments in his life which seem to overwhelm him and weaken his spirit. Very small, delicate but powerful moments.
There was a time when his business was bad. No customers walked into his shop for 5 months. He panicked. He suffered anxiety which in turn gave him back aches and stiff necks. As a result of this, he was almost immobilized and could not concentrate on his shop. He has his mother, his wife, his children and his 5 staff to feed! Without customers walking in, there is no money. His business was undergoing a challenging moment. Like most human beings, he has allowed the challenging moment to grow into a bigger problem by his mind – worrying.
“There is no problem that you cannot walk away from.
You remain because you choose to.
Most of the time, opportunities appear in the disguised garb of problems”.
He recalls these words he has heard somewhere. He recalls how he cried when he was a 3 year old boy struggling to put on his shoes until his mother had to help him out. And for weeks thereafter he was upset that he couldn’t do it by himself. He had even felt that his mother had taken away his glory by helping him out. There were many moments in his childhood where he had experienced what he thought were insurmountable problems…only to grow up and realize that they were opportunities for growing up.
Many years of blissful existence, we bat not an eyelid, but come one stormy night and we………question the Supreme One?.
Without money, he could only see unhappiness around him. It is moments like these which make him suddenly aware that his business all the while was sent to him by some Supreme Force. He just opened his shop and waited. And for some reason, the Supreme Force has now decided that he should go through this period - a break. He could either worry or know that there is a reason for this break and it certainly cannot be a “punishment period” in the normal sense of the word.
One way of taking out a seed stuck in a choking 6 year old boy is to invert him upside down and pressing his chest hard. Painful experience for the boy. Are we punishing him? If it was so, then almost all medical procedures are punishment”.
People are different. Nature behaves in one way. Humans think in a totally different way. You are born an Indian because you are born in the manner you are born and people call you Indian. The same with the English, Chinese, Austrian, and so on. People give labels to make sense of the world. That’s fine. What cannot be fine is when they take the labels to be Truths of their illusions. The Truth is that all are humans – creation of the Supreme. It is the height of human arrogance to insist on the illusion as the Truth. And there are just too many illusions which we have created. So used to them, we cannot tell the difference.
Labels begin with the noble aim of assisting communication
But end up enslaving humans
And become the cause of mischief and misery
And the immortality of illusions.
White or black. Brown or yellow. A yellow child has all the disadvantages which a brown child does not in a brown community. A Brown child is placed third class in a yellow community. This is determined by the adult of the yellow and brown community. Adults are very often not wise.
The Truth is:
All grow old, and few grow up.
Often, the lines of aging are mistaken for signs of wisdom.
Drunk with illusion they act against Nature’s determination. Solidarity, brotherhood, community – clever ways of the devil to ostracise humans from humanity! Santim wonders, can we not let what is just be?
In a human community, it does not matter if you are yellow, brown, white or black
For that is nature’s determination.
All of you are subject to the same natural laws.
An All Forgiving Merciful Supreme One cannot be “punitive” on his weak servants. Many a time, what we consider as “punishments” are nothing more than guidance and re-alignment of our selves because He loves us. Often, we need to be realigned because we seem to have drifted away from the Path. If we are not realigned, we remain on the off-road and forever we are lost. He realigns those He pleases and leaves those astray whom He pleases on the off-road.
Santim walks around his shop, looking up at his favorite corner. He saw an insect stuck to the cobweb and the spider casually moving towards it. The flimsiest of home, and yet a death trap for the insect. Flimsy as it is, the cobweb traps food for the spider and is a home for the spider to feel safe. In nature, strength is not measured in terms of steels and bars as we often do. Steels and bars can never “break” water. Throw steel into water and it drowns. These are nature’s ways which we never took the time to understand. Such is the way of the Supreme One, if only we understand.
But what need is for the mortal who has been given temporary pleasure on earth to understand the Supreme when he thinks he is a “supremo” on earth?
Santim realizes that thoughts of flimsiness and weakness, solidness and strength are human illusions only. Generalizations become truths in this lazy world. The easy way out is by categorization, for the sake of uniformity and control. In the name of uniformity, we sacrifice Truths at our own peril. Unable to manage diversity, we attempt to impose uniformity in futility. After a while, we tend to become what others say we are and we live a life which our soul is not meant to be. The community garlands us for our evil transformation – the perpetuation of the Illusion.
When the body walks this life in the opposite direction to the journey of the soul,
the soul screams and there is no peace!
Look at the world
Is there real peace????
The cobweb is a constant reminder to Santim that the Supreme One’s language is not merely written in some published book but in the Book of Nature. The Book of Nature is the most glaring but the least read. Nature does not have to operate in the way we understand it. It is our ignorance and arrogance that demands nature to abide to our wishes. We cannot rewrite nature. It is written. Be and it is..
Fools think that by removing the mountain and placing it elsewhere, they have rewritten Nature. The mountain is but a minute part of Nature. The whole Balance is the Nature. Human can never rewrite the whole Balance. Hence, when you tamper with part of nature, you unleash the wrath of Nature in your way. Soon, you shall know if you do not know already!
Each tampering with nature is the expedition of our own destruction.
We, therefore, destroy ourselves with our own hands.
Santim recalls, somewhere it is written that the devil was cast out of the Garden due to his arrogance. Instead of submitting to the Supreme One’s grand Plan, he wanted to improvise and judge. He had his own ideas contrary to what was in Nature. He could not let what is, be. He cannot accept. In futility, he is doomed to proof the validity of his invalid ideas. Likewise today, acceptance of what is, is condemned as passive. One cannot see the dynamism of acceptance. Refusal to accept is rebellion. Rebellion is the cause of internal chaos, the birthplace of the Ego. I am the “I”. It is the “I” that must be seen and heard.
Desires and Egos
The inspiration to move in the direction of the illogical, the impossible,
the fire of hell.
Hell and heaven is more than a word. It is more than a concept. Many go through it in this lifetime and many others keep thinking that it is only a place somewhere in the Otherland. It is an experience. You write it in your script of life as you live every second. You ignite the fire and you plant the flowers. You. Both can be addictive and habitual. Intense anger and hatred burns up the chest like a fire raging within. Giving and loving brings forth the smell of the flowers in the Garden of heaven.
A heart full of unconditional love,
Unjudging,
Accepting,
Is a garden of peace – heaven.
Many utter the belief of the Supreme One on their tongues and yet do not understand unconditional love. They actively deprive others what they want plentiful for themselves.
And what love have you when you deprive the child who is not of your tribe?
And being so, you call yourself a servant of the Supreme One?
Rejecting heaven here, have you in the Otherland?
Being a fool trapped in your illusory body,
you have yet to understand the language of the Supreme One.
The End.
