MOTHER NATURE

Days turn into nights and nights into days, with regular rotation and precision,

Bringing in fresh desires and dreams, ever recharging you with renewed vigour.

Pain and gain, sunshine and rain, shades of all kinds of passion and emotion,

Bringing in serenity and tranquility in our lives, mother nature is a true giver.

All the quivers and shivers experienced during the freezing winter days,

 Are soon forgotten with the fragrance and freshness of the Spring Season.

All the nicks and pricks that pained you during the scorching summer days.

Are easily forgiven with the relief and respite brought  by the Rainy Season.

Sunrises and sunsets fill up the sky and earth with brilliant and radiant hues,

Calming your senses and slowing down your life full of hurries and scurries.

Blossoms and blooms  all around us, viridescence and fluorescence infuse ,

Pleasing your aesthetic senses and pushing aside all your worries and querries.

Simply sitting and staring at the sparkling waves  on the riverside and sea side,

Makes you connect and communicate with the universe and your inner being.

Driving down a twisting and turning road with rows of tall trees on either side,

Makes you just love  mother nature with it’s pure and  pristine beauty and being.

DIVINE SCHOOL AND DIVINE LESSONS

     I had quoted earlier, “The greatest lessons in life are learnt, not in any classrooms or through books but through life itself”…in continuation to that I wish to add…”no matter what your education and qualification might be, it cannot equip you with lessons needed to lead your life well or for that matter, move on in life steadily in the face of challenges”…some of the lessons that we learn in the divine school called life  or the ‘ divine lessons’ as I would like to call them, are:

 

Discipline:     If you think you have learnt all the lessons in discipline during your school days, you may well be mistaken, wait till you come across a situation when you have no choice but to follow a regime that you thought you were not capable of following  or sticking to…one that would put a soldier to shame and you end up asking yourself, ‘Is that me, I never thought I was capable of such tight and strict routines?’Yes, you end up surprising your own self…the plus point is that it instills in you  a feeling of fulfillment and gratification…in addition to that it enhances your self confidence and self esteem…the task of getting used to discipline is scary in the beginning but once you adapt and get used to the idea, you end up realizing it was easier  than you had envisaged.

A strong will: One does not have to be an Einsten to know that one needs a strong will to face life’s simplest to the most difficult testing times. Time  and more importantly “tough times’ help you to develop a strong will which only grows stronger as you grow older. In moments when you are longing to take a break, you need an iron will to plunge headlong into completion of tasks and taking up additional responsibilities, needless to say that it does not come easily! Nobody is born with a strong will, one acquires it along the way while dealing with life situations, tougher the situation, more the strengthening of the will. This definitely helps you to surge ahead and find a way, no wonder , they say,  “where there is a will there is a way”.

Patience: It is so often said “Patience is the art of concealing your impatience”, nothing can be more closer  to truth than this  but concealing impatience does not come easy, especially in difficult and tricky situations. Here again the lessons we learn from life situations, about ‘ being patient’, are greater than those learnt from parents at home and teachers in school. Time, age and experience build up your patience and life situations teach you the art of concealing your impatience. It requires immense effort to be patient but it really pays and helps you restore peace with others and within yourself.

Empathy: Another virtue so vital for your existence, which also happens to be the greatest leveller of all times or situations, is ‘empathy’…empathy for fellow beings…empathy for your kith and kin…empathy for other living beings…empathy for the environment…empathy for the ‘not so fortunate ones’ and so on and so forth. We are very often asked to have sympathy rather than empathy for others around us but life teaches us that if we wish to progress spiritually and make peace with others and our selves, empathy is the need of the times. As an educator, that too from the science field I have experienced that all the lessons in moral and environmental sciences do not make you have enough empathy for fellow beings or mother nature but your close encounters with life definitely help you gain this virtue in good measure. The proof of this can be seen in great number of youngsters  getting associated with NGO’S and environmental causes inspite of not having the relevant educational backgrounds.

Faith:   Faith in self and also in God or a Super power is another great example of what can be learnt very well through the divine school. There is an increase in assertiveness, aggressiveness  and awareness with every  new generation that comes up and  therefore also an increase in  their need to voice their opinion. There cannot be a more debatable topic than ‘faith’ amongst the youngsters, whether it is ‘ in self or others ‘ or the more controversial one, that is,in the supernatural . As you grow older and get a brush  with some of the realities of life, resulting in a variety of learning experiences, your  understanding and  belief in all kinds of  faith only deepens .Eventually each one of us realizes that it is impossible to go on without having faith in self, others and in the Almighty, in fact it becomes your greatest driving force, helping you overcome hurdles and sprint along.

   There are many more significant and not so significant lessons that we learn in the divine school called life…we do have a choice to procrastinate or for that matter be unwilling to relent, but the truth is that we can skip schooling or go through our school lessons half heartedly but we cannot escape these divine lessons that the divine school called life teach us.

Realization and Recognition of Divinty

“I cried and craved for the want of shoes until I came across someone without feet” so goes the age old saying...it is a well known fact that we all constantly crib about the suffering and shortcomings in our lives and often wallow in self pity till we hear, read or come across worse cases or circumstances. We all face situations when the going is really tough and full of challenges, during these times we can draw immense courage from the lives of others around us and even from our vast literature, both fiction and nonfiction.

     Ever since I grew up to read and understand mythological stories and tales from epics such as Ramayana and Mahabharata, I have often wondered whether they are based on facts or fiction. With the increase in age and the learning experiences thereof,  the lessons and morals that these epics have taught me, both in direct and subtle ways,  acquired more meaning than the actual stories they had to offer. Recently ,as I was learning to cope and come to terms with an unusual situation in my life and trying to figure out why I was denied the right to realize some of my basic dreams and desires that any normal being is entitled to, I gathered immense courage and confidence by recollecting what was conveyed through the epic ’Mahabharata’.I remembered how  the Pandavas,  inspite of being good and virtuous had to suffer at the hands of their evil cousins, the Kauravas,  and were exiled twice for 12 years during their lives. Along with that came the realization from my knowledge of 'Ramayana' that even today if peace and prosperity prevails in a city or country, the Indians compare it to ‘Ramrajya’ and yet even in Rama’s Era ,Lord Rama inspite of being an avatar, king and epitome of virtue, had to go to exile due to his step mother’s aspirations for her son Bharata. I thought to myself, if it could happen in ‘Satyug’ then why not in ‘Kalyug’? If it could happen to such great souls then why not to the ordinary souls like you and me.

    Moreover, for the Pandavas, there were equal number of friends and well wishers as there were foes and wicked doers and there came the rightly deserved justice at the end of all their trials and tribulations. Even so for Lord Rama if there was unfair and unjust Mata Kakayi , there was her son Bharata, the devoted and dutiful brother...if there was the wicked and evildoer Ravana, there was the kind  and god-fearing Vibhishan...if there were endless demons and dangers during the exile there were multiple number of devotees and die-hard loyalists... and there were celebrations and jubilations when Lord Rama returned to his kingdom...celebrations that continue to this day, millions of years later as  deepawali festivities. These tales of “victory of  good over evil” are a  great source of inspiration and motivation to thousands of ordinary mortals like me.

   Interestingly when we are happy, we are so oblivious to the fact that happiness and sorrow are two sides of the rotating picture of life, that we do not pay heed to the sorrows prevailing around us and when we are sad, we feel that we are suffering alone...until we share our sorrow with others around us. Pain is a great leveller and a great tutor... opening us externally and internally to the realities of life... making sure that we learn from all that we hear, read and observe around us. Suddenly we start lending a sympathetic ear to the woes of an ailing elder or a grief stricken neighbour...we start recollecting morals learnt from stories read during school days and those we heard from our grandparents...we start listening, reading or contributing to the spiritual columns and discourses...we start remembering and making more sense of the 'words of wisdom' meted out by parents throughout our upbringing... and above all we start looking beyond our own pain and sorrow and start realizing and recognizing that we are not alone...with this comes the understanding of the divine connection that exists between all human beings... and the significance of uplifting spirits through sharing and caring...and eventually the realization and recognition of divinity around us.