Jottings. - slice of life 11

The seed of experiential spiritual search is sown only when there is grace -  call it grace of God, life, nature, luck or any other name you may wish. And what I mean by "Spirtual search" is genuine discontent with how we have been leading our lives so far, and allowing that ever present little inner voice which incessantly keeps humming in the background, pointing us to a more richer, deeper and more peaceful place within to be our infallible guide.. None can deny this inaudible voice!!. Even a full blown atheist feels it in the marrow of his bones.

In the Gita, The master says " Rare is a human birth, rarer still are circumstances that pushes one to search for real peace , and  rarest are those who diligently pursue that faint thread of everlasting peace and attain it.." Like the Greek myth where Prince Theseus  holds onto the thread given by his lover Ariadne to find his way through the complex labyrinth to kill the Minotaur and redeem his love; Grace, often takes the form of that dangling thread that appears when everything seems lost. It is unconditionally given to all who are willing to see and latch on to it, but only few are blessed with the courage to hold on. A religious life is not a different life altogether, it is still our daily life; but the anchor, the source of our actions is a still point within. Again, there is a wrong misconception that this still voice is our moral conscience.. No, Not at all.. Morality is still within the range of cerebration and it is relative and contextual. What we talking about goes deeper than that. The paradox or the irony of it all is that to understand and grope for that center we need a fine tuned intellect; but to taste that bliss, we have to let go of this instrument, or rather it miraculously drops away by itself.  And that is grace.

Sometimes, as we listen to piece of music, or read a book, or even look at a tree or a flower or a flowing brook , or watch a child's smiling face - we have this extraordinary sense of peace, a sudden breakthrough in consciousness. It is only for a infinitesimal moment, and then our thoughts cloud our awareness quickly enough. But that little taste of bliss is Grace. It is life seeping though our hard inner shells to give us a glimpse of who we really are, and how we could "BE". It is a knock on the door that often goes unanswered.  Whether we attend a Hindu Satsang, or a Muslim Namaz, or a Christian Mass -  the idea is one. To drop into that state of "beingness" and stop being a husband or a wife or a engineer of an employer or somebody, if only for a short while.. When one's throat is parched , even a drop of water can be blissful. Even so, with a little taste of our real nature, there is an extraordinary transformation that begins within.

God bless..

Yours in mortality,

Bala