As I walk the wet by-lanes of Mumbai sheltered by my umbrella the rains stab the streets with a million transparent swords that melt and disappear into an infinitely absorbent earth.
“But ma’am, why should I go through pain at all?” asks Sandeep, his youthful forehead wrinkling into frowns.
“If God exists why does He always make things so difficult?” He persists. “Isn’t it natural to want revenge if someone has hurt and harmed me so much?” His questions continued to pelt, much like the unrelenting rains in the background.
I return home after a long chat with Sandeep over his existential dilemmas. His questions bring a sense of déjà vu to me; they are questions which had stormed through my adolescent mind a couple of decades ago. I recall those days when I had raised angry fists at the unyielding skies and then dropped them helplessly. Sighing I had resigned myself to surviving an existence that had little concern for my wellbeing.
I gaze out of my window. I see that it has almost stopped raining. The incessant hissing of the rains has muted down to a subdued sibilance. I look at the earth, so hot, steamy and demanding just a couple of days ago but so quenched and satiated after the rains. I reminisce the other rain that had poured on me when my Guru Sri Aurobindo had entered my life. How thirstily I had drunk the mysterious nectar pouring from his words. His epic poem Savitri I later discovered is also referred to as his ‘shabda deha‘ or word body. I taste again that nectar by looking up the following passages from Savitri.
“Pain is the hand of Nature sculpturing men
To greatness: an inspired labour chisels
With heavenly cruelty an unwilling mould.
Implacable in the passion of their will,
Lifting the hammers of titanic toil
The demiurges of the universe work;
They shape with giant strokes their own; their sons
Are marked with their enormous stamp of fire”. (Page 444 )
“Pain is the hammer of the Gods to break
A dead resistance in the mortal`s heart,
His slow inertia as of living stone.
If the heart were not forced to want and weep,
His soul would have lain down content, at ease,
And never thought to exceed the human start
And never learned to climb towards the Sun”. (Page 443)
“A dark concealed hostility is lodged
In the human depths, in the hidden heart of Time
That claims the right to change and mar God`s work.
A secret enmity ambushes the world`s march;
It leaves a mark on thought and speech and act:
It stamps stain and defect on all things done;
Till it is slain peace is forbidden on earth”. (Page 447)
“A power is in thee that thou knowest not;
Thou art a vessel of the imprisoned spark.
It seeks relief from Time`s envelopment,
And while thou shutst it in, the seal is pain:
Pain is the signature of the Ignorance
Attesting the secret god denied by life:
Until life finds him pain can never end”. (Page 453)
My Guru’s words assuaged in me, the most seering questions that the pains of life had ignited.
Over the years, the hardened teguments of self defence in me have been eroded away by the constant rain of my Guru`s words. My stance has changed, my self-imposed prison has dissolved. I no longer see life as something threatening, something to be survived with gritted teeth. I get to live now with the joyful abandon of a child whose all-powerful Mother is constantly watching over her.
“Whether it seem good or evil to men`s eyes,
Only for good the secret Will can work”. (Page 424)
“This world was not built with random bricks of Chance,
A blind god is not destiny`s architect;
A conscious power has drawn the plan of life,
There is a meaning in each curve and line”.(Page 459-460)
“Arisen from the tragic crash of life,
Arisen from the body`s torture and death,
The spirit rises mightier by defeat;
Its godlike wings grow wider with each fall.
Its splendid failures sum to victory”. (Page 458)
As these words sparkle in my heart, like sacred jewels, redeeming a perplexed darkness, I long to share their sheen with Sandeep; with all those Sandeeps I see on the road, wearing a quizzical expression, stupefied by the enormity of life and buckling under its burden of pain. I long to whisper in each of their cringing fearful ears “You are safe, you have always been safe”.
I long to breathe into all their hearts what She had breathed into mine years ago…
…Magic drapes itself all over existence
As life acquires the face of a loving Mother,
And gets rounded off in the soft undulating curve of Her smile
All of earth reveals itself to be Her body,
And from behind the flux and flow of matter
The many splendoured light shines forth,
Radiating the tenderness of a Divine Mother.
Who need we fear brother,
Or what need we dread?
When as children of this Light
Sunbeams of the approaching day
We are held by the Mighty Mother
In Her glorious sway.
