Something to close 2020 and take with us to 2021...Blessed New Year

G Venkatesh

Think of rivers. Several of them. Rain-fed and/or snow-fed. Originating from different altutudes above the sea. Flowing along different routes and navigating around different numbers of rocks and boulders. Some ending up being dammed. Some ending up in the ocean and some others in lakes. Some long and some short. Some wide and some narrow. Some polluted (needing redressal) and some relatively cleaner. Irrespective of these differences which make each river unique just as our fingerprints make us unique, at the final destination, after varying residence times, the hydrological cycle takes control of the life-cycle of the droplets of water in the river. Every one of them.

And this is precisely what every human life is. Unique and thereby not lending itself to being compared with another. Rather, one would contrast one from the other and appreciate the fact that God created us to be different from each other and complement each other in the process. The river metaphor has been commonly used by poets and songwriters and Bollywood is replete with it. The songs of the 60s and 70s especially. ‘Nadiya chale chale re dhaara’, comes to mind at once!

A river follows its course. Put rocks in its path and it navigates around them. Build a dam, and it may overflow and spill over slowly but surely. When it navigates around a boulder and flows on, with some ‘delay’ vis-à-vis a straighter path, it does not let the thought of having been obstructed in the past, make it stop. It keeps moving onward, now confident of navigating any number of boulders strewn along its path. It goes, on as if it were a joyous exercise, its lot in life. As mentioned earlier, no two rivers are the same, if you wish to categorise them on the basis of a set of descriptive criteria. Just like you and me, you and your friend, brother, sister or any two people for that matter. Each one of us has his own course to chart out, own lot in life, own cross to bear and eventually own crown to wear. It is not right on my part to complain that I have more boulders to navigate around than you do, before reaching my destination. Longer rivers, you will agree, may need to negotiate more tortuous paths and pass around more obstructions than shorter ones. Longer struggles before success. More suffering before salvation of some kind. But the longer they are, the more useful they are to humankind and animal/plant life, slaking more thirst and irrigating more fields en route to their final destinations. More struggles mean more good done for humankind, and more youngsters inspired in the process to carry the baton forward.

Compare a river flowing down from great heights to a successful and affluent man keen on helping the people in the lower socio-economic strata. Even a man with such noble intentions, needs to overcome hurdles and obstacles before he can reach down and do good! There are numerous hindrances even when one wishes to do something good. Your guess is as good as mine. Whether you wish to do good for yourself or do good to others, it is the same story.

Just like stretches of easy-paced comfortable living, frustrations are also godsends. The value of the former is known through the former and the purpose of the latter is realised in the former. So by carrying forth memories of obstructions to tomorrow, do not spoil the pleasant surprises tomorrow may have for you. If you do so, and let these memories blind you to the prospects offered by tomorrow, that is a grave mistake indeed! If anything, a struggle is a lesson from a textbook, which if read and remembered well, will be put to good use when a similar struggle is encountered in the future. No two days are the same, just as no two rivers or human beings are! Likewise, do not also carry forth memories of your joy and success to the next day. Both joy and sorrow of the past are bygones. It is the flow you are in at this very moment that matters. That is what takes the name ‘mindfulness’ these days!

Oftentimes, it clearly is not your fault and you would say that there is nothing to learn apart from the fact that fate is cruel to you. It is just a tribulation, God sends down. I agree. I feel the same way often. The lesson ofcourse is not to take anything in life for granted – joy or sorrow, success or defeat. Accept God’s Will. It is also not wise blaming oneself all the time, when introspection will reveal that you played by the rule-book and yet could not make it. After all, as you by now would have realised, even if you wish to do good at a particular instant of time to a particular person at a particular place, you cannot, without God’s Will! Logic and science fail miserably when you sit down and introspect about why things happen the way they do.