Sunday, June 26, 2005

The Microscope is Not a Telescope.

Ok, I knew that. Then why was I trying to figure out the big picture, by fitting in microscopic details? There's no end to it!!

There comes a time, when you do something in excess, and feel that you've reached your limit on that front. Then you recede slowly, cross the border, and tilt on the other side, where that very thing you did, is now missing from your life. Then you see the truth and learn the correct proportion, strike a balance henceforth. Kinda like a wave, that gathers strength as it reaches the shore and gleefully throws itself out of the sea, onto the sand, but realizes it doesn't quite belong there, and gracefully recedes back and merges with the ocean, perhaps only to throw itself on another shore, somewhere else in this world. Somewhere between the two shores, inside the vast ocean, some reshuffling happens, but there's still countless waves exploring the limits of their existence at any time. There are others that are in transition, undergoing changes, before they surface elsewhere. The wave must not forget the silent ocean current that drives it.


I can see my whole life as a series of such excesses and abstinence. It wasn't a conscious effort to study the importance of each such element in my life. It just turned out that way. The conscious effort was to understand at each instant, what is the best thing that could be done. But somewhere between all this finding out, building beliefs, drawing inferences, understanding facts and emotions and other forces playing, and finding out where my free will comes in........... I think I forgot to live the moment. I became the puppet show I'm in. Started trying to pull my own strings, instead of absorbing each moment and living it. Started trying to decide how the story should go, started trying to write my own script.

Slowly tend to lose sight of the bigger picture, once you become engrossed in trying to write scripts that cannot be enacted, plays you cannot direct. Doing things that are not a part of the grand script that actually runs the whole play. I guess my intellect became too big for its shoes. The sense of existence, that I call my Ego ( not the typical meaning of ego that one generally gets to hear about...I'm only speaking of an awareness of my unique existence)... kinda bloated a bit. I started thinking I ALONE decide what happens in my life.

When that happens, you lose yourself thinking of the many paths you can take. You fail to notice the direction of the wind, and which way the birds fly home. You pride yourself on having ruled out 10 out of a million roads that await you. And burn the midnight oil doing research to rule out other paths that are gaping. Shoot out emails, collect facts, get feedback from people who've trodden that path before. Contact people, to contact people, to contact people who've been on those paths. Keep checking balance and see which way the scales tip. All this hardwork makes you feel proud and happy that you're doing so much of groundwork.

And then you realize, it's easier to hear voices that guide you. It's easier to feel, at this point, than to think. And that thinking can sometimes be an addiction. One that clouds you from reality. That even gives you withdrawal symptoms as you try to gain your footing on other grounds that you stopped walking on sometime back. Thinking too much prevented me from experiencing the moment. All those moments I lost in the last coupla months, are just a haze in my head, and my mind's full of facts it gathered, and no closer to making a decision that vibes well with other forgotten parts of me.

Funny, it is only in times when the mind is overflowing with facts, that it feels extremely powerless. And then it turns to other planes of existence, to see if there're any flowers blooming there on lands that it had forgotten to water; to see if those flowers can point to the direction of spring. At times when the intellect has exhausted itself, does the attention of the Self return to itself, when I seek other forms of help. When my identity melts before my very eyes, looking at the sheer helplessness of all my carefully formed beliefs and judgements to make a decision that resounds well on all levels. That's when the fact sinks in that my identity is NOT just my beliefs and understandings and judgements and experience.

Even that, I knew theoretically all along. This is one of those moments when I am actually experiencing that fact, instead of just being intellectually aware of it. Surprisingly, my life's been a series of moments of great connectivity and moments of craving for that feeling of belonging. I never consciously chose to push my limits on THAT front. It's just that some small thing like intellect ( or whatever else) starts becoming larger and larger and soon clouds my "vision".

Then I realise that the dust is actually on the microscope. And that without the filters my intellect puts up, real-life colours are much brighter.

Sure thing, you gotta dig in your heels, find solid ground and start galloping, but let not the blinders blind you to signposts on the way that you probably need to feel the presence of , before you can look out for them. Before you know it, you'll be gone in a cloud of dust, towards whatever you think/feel your destination is. Just make sure the dust doesn't settle on the microscope.

It's just another lens that distorts all light that passes outside of its optical center.