For this Sunday we have the transcript of a talk delivered by a student of Swami’s Institute, Sri Satyabrata Paul, during the Morning Prayer session a few days ago.
The sun humbly and gradually slid down, ready to take the final plunge into the western horizon to give warmth and light to the other half of the world. I had just completed my work and was on my way back home. All of a sudden dark water-laden clouds appeared out of nowhere and they seemed to cover the entire expanse of the sky. I received these early warning signals and hurried up my steps. I couldn’t make it in time. It started as a slight drizzle and in no time it shifted gears, and then it was a downpour. It was as the cliché goes “raining cats and dogs”. Nature was at its furious best and it kept lashing at the face of earth without any mercy whatsoever. I quickly took shelter in the open arms of a huge banyan tree. Lightening struck and it was sincerely followed by the vociferous growl of thunder.
Amidst all this chaos and confusion, a movement in the distance caught my attention. At some distance I could see a child of about 7 years struggling on the road in the rain. A closer look revealed to my horror that he had only one leg and one hand and one of his eye sockets was empty. On one hand the child was trying his best to crawl and drag himself to a safer place that would protect him from the fury of nature. And on the other hand, nature was tossing him from side to side, whipping, lashing and pelting him with water, determined not to let him move! This tussle went on for some time and I could take it no longer. I screamed out, “God, why did you forget this child of yours? Why did you forsake him? Did you not do anything for him?” A deep voice echoed across the sky and in a crystal clear tone replied’ “No. I did not forget him. I did not forsake him. I CREATED YOU.” My good old alarm clock brought me back into this so-called real world!
The dream was over but actually my thought process had just started. It set me thinking of those three words -“I created you.” The dream triggered a number of thoughts in my mind. Was I blissfully walking through life like a dead man? It was then that I came across a beautiful article that answered so many of my queries. We always crib about things. We have complains on almost every possible thing that we can set our eyes upon. In our childhood we all dream of big things in life. We dream of castles, palaces, moon, fame, spaceflights, scientists, artists and so many things. Yet sadly, somewhere down the line all those dreams remain just dreams! They simply disappear into oblivion. And then we weep for the lost childhood, we weep for the lost joy of youth, we weep for our unrealized potential, we weep for our wasted talent, Oh! We weep for our lost individuality trampled by the mob…..
Yet we forget the very first words that God whispered into our ears right after our birth. Into the ears of every new born child God whispers, “YOU ARE MY GREATEST MIRACLE. YOU ARE THE GREATEST MIRACLE IN THE WORLD.” And we all begin our earthly lives in the same fashion, we let out a wail and we cry simply because we don’t believe the words that God whispers in our ears. And we all walk through to our graves still disbelieving those words!
Just think of this - God has created each one of us with so much of thought and just try to imagine how much of hope HE has on each of us. HE has thought so much before bringing each of us into this world…..Yet we live as if the only purpose for which we were born, was to die….We walk through life in a trance. Can you imagine with what face will we meet our maker at the end of our lives? For all that HE has done for us, for all the faith that HE kept in us, inspite of ourselves, what does HE get back? Even animals have some form of gratitude at least….. If we while and fritter away our lives then our maker will not have the face and the desire to meet us….. for who on earth or in the heavens cares for a lost and destroyed masterpiece?
Let us first of all take inventory of all that we have with us. Are we blind? Can the sun rise and fall without our witness? No! We can see. The 100 million receptors that God has placed in our eyes enable us to enjoy the glitter of the morning dew on the blade of grass, the scintillating sunrise and sunset, the beauty of a rose, the innocence in a child’s smile, the colours of a rainbow and so much more. Are we paralyzed? No! We are not a tree condemned to the same plot of land while the wind and the world abuse us. We can stretch, we can run, we can jump, dance, work, play and do so much. We have everything in our hands and we can do as we please because God wanted to grant free will to humans that would help them decide their own future for themselves…
Is our heart stricken? Does it strain and leak to maintain us? No! Our heart is very strong. Touch it and we can feel the rhythm, pulsating, hour after hour, day and night, year after year, asleep or awake…. Pumping lakhs and lakhs of gallons of blood every year that too - without a break or rest! Even man has not been able to make a better machine than that…Are we feeble of mind? No! Our brain is the most complex structure in the universe. Within its few pounds are 13 billion nerve cells to help us file away every perception, every sound, taste, smell, action that we have experienced since birth. No nation’s gold is better protected. We have so much with us. Our blessings overflow our cup. Yet we are unmindful of them, like a child spoilt in luxury, since God has bestowed on us so much with generosity.
Just think of it, from our Father, in a moment of supreme love, flowed countless seeds of love, more than 400 million in number. All of them died except for one, and that one searched for its other half from the mother’s body. Two cells, each containing 23 chromosomes and within each chromosome hundreds of genes. A simple mathematical calculation will tell us how many permutations and combinations would have been possible with those two cells. God could have created over 3,00,000 billion humans, each different from the other. Yet, HE brought you, you, you and me. We all arrived in this world bringing with us the proof that God is not yet disappointed with man. God sent us to this earth as HIS hope. The problem is that we value ourselves in pennies when we are worth a king’s ransom. We have to take pride in the fact that we are not the momentary whim of a careless creator experimenting in the laboratory of life. We have been created with a purpose. We have a world to rebuild and if it requires a miracle...so what? Remember, we are God’s greatest miracle.
We have the power to think, to laugh, to will, to imagine, to dream, to speak, to sing, to dance, to sketch, to paint, to draw, to pray and to LOVE. However, God gave us one more power, a power so great that even angels don’t have it. God gave us the power to choose. With that gift HE placed us even above HIS angels… for angels are not free to choose sin. We have the choice to degenerate into the lowest forms of life, or to ascend the ladder to greater heights. We are capable of great wonders. Our potential is unlimited.
Never settle down for the crumbs of life. Remember the child who says…., “When I am a big boy…” Then the big boy says, “When I grow up…” And then grown up he says, “What’s the hurry? When I wed…” Then it changes to “When I retire…” And then retirement comes, and he looks back over the landscape covered, a cold wind sweeps over it, and somehow he has missed it all.
Half of the people living are dead bodies moving around, waiting to meet their souls whom they have safely and peacefully buried in their graves right after birth. God gave us so many talents and so much of grace. HE did not give everything to each one of us, because then there would be no fun. The best part is that HE gave something to each one of us that is unique to us. We have to find that uniqueness, that speciality. Live this day, the next day and the day after….taking the days one at a time. Use what talent you possess - the forest would be very silent if no birds sang except for those that sang best. Life can be a process of growing or ageing. Growing involves adding life to one’s years and ageing involves adding years to one’s life. A few people grow up in life, the rest just grow old… One of the greatest secrets of life is that we are all born rich but become beggars. We keep searching outside when the real treasure is already within us. Remember, we are GOD’S GREATEST MIRACLE.
Life is God’s gift to us and what we do with our life is our gift back to God. In the words of the great scientist Albert Einstein, “There are two ways to live your life… One is as though nothing is a miracle…. The other is as though everything is a miracle...”
But even after listening to all the wisdom and experience of our ancestors, yet the final choice to live our lives is one that will be ours, ours and our own.
Jai Sai Ram.
