We would always like to see a clear road ahead to walk without fear, doubt and insecurity, make the right / correct/ best/ decisions, but things are not written in black and white to make our task easy. We are conditioned to see everything in contradictory terms. Our mind labels events in terms of good/bad, right /wrong, perfect/imperfect, success/failure. We see our life in fragments, divided by Time. Our myopic vision hides the complete picture as:
“Our eyes are fixed on an external scene:
We hear the crash of the wheel of Circumstances
And wonder at the hidden cause of things.”
We cannot understand the entire context and its significance from a deeper standpoint. As if we are watching the shore and not the entire sea, a ray and not the Sun, from a small window of the mind.
This attitude is perhaps the root cause of all pain, suffering, dissatisfaction, and frustration. Success brings elation, happiness, and thrill while failure makes us sad, dejected and depressed. It is our ignorance that judges events in this manner. Besides social norms and customs condition our thinking to such an extent that we are led to believe and feel the way people, in general, want us to. Our own individual, unique viewpoint is overshadowed by the pressure of collective thinking, and feeling. The evolving spirit within is stifled as:
“… Few can look beyond the present state
Or overleap the matted hedge of sense.
All that transpires on earth and all beyond
Are parts of an illimitable Plan.”
The natural growth of living organisms does not follow a linear pattern; a hidden intelligence governs all the aspects of their growth and development. Human beings have lost this instinctive knowledge in the process of civilization. We cannot understand that imperfection; ignorance, pain, failure, illness, etc are the necessary steps towards perfection, light, delight, success and strength. They prepare a training ground for our budding soul to mature into a fragrant blossom. Let us remember that:
“The One keeps in his heart and knows alone.
Our outward happenings have their seed within,
And even this random fate that imitates Chance,
This mass of unintelligible results,
Are the dumb graph of truths that work unseen:
The laws of the Unknown create the Known.”
Hence let us be assured that the natural growth in us uses every failure for the integral growth and development of our personality. Pain is necessary for us to experience the ecstasy of joy. It creates wedges in our deeper self for the streams of ananda to flow. Just as the mystery of the tree lies in the seed, in us, too, is hidden the secret pattern of our growth. The wise gardener never doubts, or questions the initial sprouting of leaves and branches. His faith in the authenticity of the seed keeps him dedicated to the task of a vigilant caretaker allowing the natural flowering of the plant.
Some achieve their goals by taking the highway and sticking to it while others take a winding way. If one develops the habit of looking at the deeper significances behind failures and delays in life, a new perspective emerges. We come out of the narrow shell of fixed beliefs and rigid attitudes to fulfill our true aspirations and talents. A new plasticity and openness develops a strong faith in one’s true place and purpose in life. We are guided by some inner rhythm, which spontaneously chooses, rejects, and propels all our movements. Something within smiles and understands in a great reconciling moment the chequered pattern of life depicting the apparent opposites. A conscious link between the Maker and the His creation is established.
Life becomes a joyous playground for His play, Lila, and we sing with the poet…
“Mystic Miracle, daughter of Delight,
Life, thou ecstasy,
Let the radius of thy flight
Be eternity.”[1]
Falguni Jani
(Dr. Falguni Jani, P.HD [ Social psychology, Psychiatric social worker, [ Practicing Integral Psychotherapy, Lecturer, dept. of HRD, South Guj UNIV, Surat, Gujarat, And also associated with “NAMAH”)
(All quotes unless mentioned otherwise are from Savitri, “The Secret knowledge”.)
