“Please give me the light of your wisdom
To dispel the darkness of my mind
And to heal my mental continuum.”
– from a prayer to Buddha
Kabir – The couplet
पांच पहर धंधा किया, तीन पहर गया सोय ।
एक पहर भी नाम बिन, मुक्ति कैसे होय ||
Transliterated:
Paanch Pahar Dhandha Kiya, Teen Pahar Gaya Soy |
Ek Pahar Bhi Naam Bin, Mukti Kaise Hoy||
Translation:
I worked for twelve hours in the day, slept for eight |
Without even an hour spent in understanding the Self, how will I find liberation? ||
My understanding:
When born, our world revolves around eating, playing, sleeping and enjoying the company of ourselves and our parents. As we grow, friends begin to claim more of our time. Then it is classes and teachers, then games and more friends, then career, family and the woes of the external world.
We continually slip deeper into the grips of external situations in the hope of finding firmer footing for ourselves, but only succeed in stepping into the midst of hurricanes we cannot control. Pretty soon, the best we can hope for is to be able to stick our head up once in a while to take a long breath, only to be sucked back into a breathless vacuum that we cannot steer, control or stop from sucking us in. When others warn us o the danger we are stepping into, we ignore them, giving into the fancy that “they are enjoying, but do not want to share the fun”.
We love to play with the toy where, at the press of a button, the cover opens, music starts and a dancing couple pirouette in graceful movements, but have we ever thought about how we would feel if the roles were reversed? Would we enjoy having to do the same routine at a moment’s notice on someone else’s whim? And yet we willingly accept that as the norm for our professional lives, and wonder why we never find satisfaction. Even when we are doing exactly what we want, we find that we are doing it to pay the bills, not for the sheer joy of being able to do it. And therein lies another crux – does the end justify the means?
When we find the right answer to this question, and the follow up train of thought, we will find the way to find time for ourselves, and learn to stop and smell the roses and listen to the birds. For that is our true bounty and our rightful inheritance – the ability to play in the sun with the sand under our feet, to swim in clear rivers and sing ourselves to sleep at night under the stars.