Strangers who change our lives

The year 2020 for me was all about Gratitude.?

Outside our own little home tucked in a gated condominium, the world wrecked with fear.

Virus, yes. But more.?

Jobs, school fees, even food.?

People walked?home bare feet?across the borders of cities.

There was a deep sense of rescue in each of us, the luckier ones.

A sense of lottery, in knowing there was money in the bank, food on the table, and hope beyond the few next months.

Things calmed down and flared?up, and calmed down, like pendulum swings.

And then, when things looked calmer and the first wave was reasonaly quieter in early 2021, we decided to spend a few weeks working from home from the safe space of a quiet vacation in Auroville.

This is a story from that time, that I am telling you today.?

On the very second day on our way to hunt lunch we met a man cycling down the street. We asked for directions. He stopped his bicycle to continue the conversation, ask where we came from, what?our plans looked like, how we liked it there. And soon he and us engaged over how Aurobindo Ghosh was also from West Bengal.?

He is the first Aurovillian from Hong Kong (still a newcomer in status, which you get after spending about 3-4 years in volunteering jobs).?

I kept asking him: how can someone be the first one in the country, how much extra conviction does it take when there's not disapproval but plain blankness to fight to make a decision like that.?

A calling, he said.?

Now, here's the funny bit.?

We kept bumping into each other all day that day!

Really. We kept meeting him more than thrice or four times within the next 48 hours.?

At crossroads, at the library, at the visitor center, at the Ganesh Bakery, and then finally as the SUn set and the full moon came up, at the Savitri Bhavan where we went for a reading.

There are no accidents, I always believe.?

Our stopping each other on our ways and running late for wherever we were headed culminated finally into a long-winded conversation standing next to a water pond along the corridor of his meditation cell at the Savitri Bhavan.?

We discussed, dissected, argued a lot, on various things eitherof us studied and experienced around his path along the Auroville path, and mine around the years of practice of Vipassana meditation.

He pointed out some fallacies, I doubted some claims he made, and so we went.?

And when I told him I am so full with the emotion of Gratitude considering how I felt watched over for the last year, he smiled and shook his head. "Not gratitude, but surrender," he told me.

Don't go in with gratitude. Go all out with Surrender.

That way, everything is good! Not just what YOU think is good.

I stopped and took a deep breath. I closed my eyes, to take that in.?

Indeed, indeed!

If I were to summarise the complex conversation, it would be that. Surrender.

Seeing us off at the gate he passingly commented, "you are ready, but don't let that get into your head."

Of course, it did get a little into my head, and translated into a spring in my feet.

Not Gratitude but Surrender.

That made up for the next year of my life.

To choose my guiding light.

To decide.

To compass my ideas.

To anchor my thoughts.

Not Gratitude but Surrender.

The previous year,?I was happy I had certain things.

The next year, I focussed on?accepting what I have, and what I don't.

PS: It was strange how after the first 48 hours of colliding 4 times, we never met again. He arrived, told me what I needed to know, warned me of what was a clear possibility, and moved on. Just that.

There is no accident. And darn, I felt so ready!

PPS: Have you ever had chance encounters that helped you shift your mind? Tell me about it in the comments.