Light Please!!
Few days ago was Guru Purnima and it truly warms my heart to see that it was one of the most celebrated festivals bridging all the gaps that are so present otherwise. For who can survive without light?
Guru represents the one who brings in light/clarity or the one who dispels darkness/ignorance. Our general understanding of age and experience qualifies a person who stepped on this planet before us as a potential medium to be a Guru, but that may not be entirely true. Because aging is inevitable but the journey from dark to light isn’t an easy one and it is not even tasted by all in a quality as well as in quantity to be able to enlighten another. Even then, an idea remains valid to continue to live a meaningful life is having the heart and ability to share only that which one has lived themselves or has read (with references). This seems simple and without any complications but is not as smooth given the dictates of the mind and the given its utter ability (though profusely hidden) to get corrupted easily.
The role of our parents and elders in such a situation and even otherwise is crucial. The way they present the world to us becomes the way we present ourselves to the world. It is upto our elders to make it either so narrow, shallow or as expansive as expansive can be.
In a conversation, Dr. Deepak Chopra shares the strategy his mother employed by her sheer skill in storytelling to her very young kids. She used to sing stories to them from the great classics. And everyday, she used to narrate to them a scenario which was pretty tied up and was in a nutshell, a downhill journey. She would stop right there with a task for her kids to wake up with a happy ending to this story which was meant not just to be any story but a love story. Because only that mattered. She additionally would point out by repeating that it had to be a love story with a happy ending and that’s all the counts and not the grades.
What an incredible way to prepare a child for a wholesome way of life. First of all, empower the kids with the power of vision and imagination through the very meaningful stories and then put their grasp to test by giving them a simple exercise. It equips a young child to pursue rather passionately the power that they hold within them, the power of love and the love that makes the impossible possible.
In my personal opinion, I am realizing the importance of having access to the idea of light. The lives of great persons of the past is always a glorious means to begin with. But more glorious is having an access to divinity from as early as possible. It is so because those events carry that inexhaustible light, only that which can quench the thirst of all the many-many in their variable needs and degrees. Having early access in conversations about God is a very good sign. In the vast map filled up with possibilities of light as well as ignorance, it is such a mercy to start at the location of light so that even if ignorance dares to show up, one can turn to light. And if lucky, then without even being attacked by it one can continue on their path to light. The interesting part, however, is to have that access or the inner knowing that light exists. As we grow up, we are surrounded by choices, often loaded with the risk of stepping into ignorance. But wouldn’t it be worthwhile, a relief, to know and to remember that light does not only exist, it is always in our reach.
Growing up life gets introduced to chaos which to the mind of a kid is an entity, play worthy but only until it gets covered in deep darkness. And here, again, comes the role of elders wonderfully described by the Irish poet and philosopher, David Whyte,
He quotes from the poem ‘Lost’ by David Wagoner and illustrates 3 important points.
‘Lost’
Stand still.
The trees ahead and the bushes beside you Are not lost.
Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
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Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still.
The forest knows Where you are.
You must let it find you.”
― David Wagoner
He shares, first of all, the elder says you cannot sleepwalk your way into your destiny. You must wake up and pay attention. Stand Still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you are not lost. You must pay attention.
Second teaching is about the incredible feeling of silence. What it means is that if you do not pay real attention and you have no ability for silence in your body to do that then you will get too frightened because all the voices inside you will drown out any real change. You have 100 reasons not to do, to make any real change you see and you have got all the voices and all the reasons not to do it. And so, the ability for profound silence is being called on here for if you leave it you may come back again, saying Here and then, that attention can flower into something else.
And then, this amazing last line, the forest knows where you are; you must let it find you.
It is the third and the most satisfying point to have this inner knowing that the One who knows is sure to find the one who thinks of themselves to be lost.
All you have to do is to wake up, pay attention, listen to the silence and allow yourself to be found.
