I am my own puzzle..unsolved

Friends are the touchstone of our life. They reflect the real you and many times the reality that they reflect back puzzles you. This is what I felt when a friend of mine asked me a simple question - what do I think my objectives in life were?

Having scored half past a century, I was smug in my comfort zone that I have reached where I want to and the remaining life is just to be lived off the brownies that I have already earned. That is when this poser from a friend came. Sitting back, I reflected on the so called brownies in my kitty. The more deep down I went, the more I realized the transient nature of our objectives in life. The more you garner, the more appears necessary. The playing field never has a definable boundary. That is when I begin to feel that the actual playing field is not outside in the physical world that surrounds me. It is inside. The more the heart craves, the larger the field becomes.

So do I become a Buddha? Give up 'desires'. Stop moving and the field ends there. It is nice to imagine that the mind (and the heart) could be frozen. Like Osho says "be still". Being still is not a product of the control that we have on our mind. It is rather the awareness that we have no desire to control. To be in control is an acknowledgement of desire. It is also an acknowledgement of fear - the fear of having to face the unknown which by controlling we want to avoid encountering.

All our life we try to control things around us. In reality, it is the desire to feel secure in the environment that we feel we keep under our control. Fallacy though it may be, for the forces of nature and those around us exercise larger influence over our life than what we think we control, we still believe that we are in charge.

If that be so, then what objectives do I have or should I have? To control or consciously let go? MDQ - million dollar question. There is an interesting line in the song by Olivia Newton-John:

If you love me, let me know.

If you don't, let me go.

I can take another meaning

of a day without you in it....

Though the song may be on a romantic note, the deeper meaning is worthy of reflection. Let go of control for in essence we own nothing.

Coming back to my friend's question...well, the debate is open.

   

The Mystery Called Life!

Quite some time ago, a friend of mine called and complained non-stop about his boss. ‘Rakshas hein rakshas, juice nikhal deta hein! (in Hindustani, a fiend who drinks your blood!). Kabhi kabhi man karta hein, bhag jaon yahan se (feel like running away from here!). Like in all such situations at work place, he also had a ‘friend’ to pour his heart out (apart from ‘tele’ friends like me). Since it was some time since we had spoken, I rang him up to say ‘hi!’ He almost broke down on the phone. Here is what he told me.

His sister was due to be married and everything had been arranged. As the marriage was to be solemnized in the groom’s city, a bus was arranged to convey the bride and family to that place. The joyous melee in the bus turned into a nightmare enroute. Driver lost control and banged into a huge tree. Apart from others, the bride got crushed between two seats. The rest was mayhem.

An sos was flashed for the treatment. Some help came from here and there. The ‘trusted’ friend of his office was no where to be seen. Considerable money was locked up as advances to the hotel, marriage hall, caterers, et al. He was in a spin.

And then the ‘rakshas’ appeared in the hospital. After confabulations with the doctors, he handed them a cheque sufficient to see her through o her health. As the dumbfounded friend kept looking on, the ‘rakshas’ wagged a finger at him before leaving and told him to rejoin duty the day she is stable!

‘Yaar, mein jaan bhi dei dun uske liye, tho bhi khum hoga (I can even give my life for him, friend). Bloody hell, to think that I was cursing him all the time those days!’

Human beings are the most complicated things that God ever made. Though HE is supposed to be in every thing, how He will manifest, what He is capable of doing and in whose heart you will find His reflection – well, that perhaps is the mystery called life!