Too esoteric a subject, hah? It should not be. For your convenience, I have added the word ‘visible’ in the subject above. To ensure it makes sense. The world we live in and the society in which we function already has doctrines placed in every possible language, country, region, and religion, what and who God is. And I have no intention of contributing to the chaos. But please accept my apologies if I sound blasphemous because I am going to put on the table the views which can make you uncomfortable about the God you know. But before I do that, let us envision a toddler here. This toddler is going to be our subject of observation for the next couple of minutes.
Envisioning a toddler is not a challenge for me as I live with one, day and night. She is 23 months old. A typical infant with excessive energy, loads of mischiefs, constant blabbering’s and curious as heaven. We call her Siya. Siya gets tough when she is adamant on denying life-supporting functions like eating her meals, getting out of bathroom even after she has been bathed for 2 hours, sleeping when the day ends, etc, etc. And this has created a lot of disagreements between us. Since she still doesn’t speak, our fights basically consist of me having a monologue and she confronting my arguments with her! Which basically consists of AAAA—NAANAA-JUU-EIISH-WWIISS and so on. I respect her opinions, yes, I do. But only till a certain level when I give in. It so happened one fine morning that Siya decided not to chew her cornflakes and insisted in keeping them clenched under her gums till eternity. After lots of cajoling, pleading, pushing and poking when she did not oblige, I pinched her pink cheeks hard. I mean really hard. I was angry!
The moment passed, I was still simmering on her obstinacy when her little arms circled my neck, her cheeks puffed (flakes where still not chewed and gulped) and she planted her nose on my cheeks. I looked at her. Her cheeks were still red because of my squeeze. Her eyes had a glimmer of shine with the tear which did not show itself completely. But there she was, persuading me to make peace. Nudging me, sweet-talking for she knew she disappointed me. I felt a sudden gush of guilt, love & total surrender mounting in my heart. And that was the moment when I saw God!
“Children are God-Like“. We have heard this. We certainly have experienced this. And we totally completely believe this too. Well, so here we have an established fact that God would be something similar to children. So, is God a Pre-Schooler? Does he goes to Kinder garden, messes with your kitchen garden and denies taking her meals? Probably. Probably Not. But what God certainly is, is forgiving, ego-less, non-judgemental and a free soul. (Duh-huh, we know this!) Yap, alright. Let me elaborate on this a little.
A baby is always loving. That is her nature. To be happy, to be joyful, to be all-accepting, to be magnanimous, to be unjudging and un-touched by ego. Siya does not differentiates between me and our dear house help when she feels like embracing either of us when she is ecstatic. I do! Unless I am in dire need like a lizard appears and the situation gets life-threatening, I would think once before embracing Sangeeta Didi! Siya never gets crossed with mommy or daddy even after a good rebuke as to why her milk isn’t finished (But I am eternally guilty of doing this to her) or why did she choose to uproot the budding plants from the pots. No, not even after getting a good pinch from me. She does not waits, for who will converse first now, that the heated situation has passed. She is always happy, always joyful and always bubbling with bliss. Bless her!
Why is she always happy? What keeps her in bliss? What keeps her buoyant and full of energy all the time? I will tell you. She does not carry the baggage. The baggage of Ego, the baggage of Expectations, the baggage of Fear, the baggage of Rejection, the baggage of Distaste for unpleasant experiences with me or for that matter the other child who pushed her while playing. She is light as a light! And she does not forgives me for my sake, or keeps our differences aside to please me, she does that because it sets her FREE! Of course, she does not do this consciously.
Now, replace the word Baby/Siya/She with God above and re-read the whole thing. There! Did you see him?
We have grown up reading beautiful adages. Sadly, we never dissected them further to understand what that held inside. What was the message that Masters who left these saying behind, wanted us to Master? I just dichotomized one for you above. & I am going to further it by adding a dimension we never really gave a thought. Why can’t we be in bliss all the time like toddlers? If you read the above paragraphs again, you will find the answer hidden there. (You can also give yourself marks for reading comprehension if you find the correct answer!) Well, Baggage! Baggage is the answer. We are spending too much faith, too much energy and a lot more attention in massaging our egos. And I truly believe if we let this Ego, Go – Life is wonderful as it is!
We have a hard time forgiving and forgetting. What we don’t realize is that we are inviting suffering this way to come and dine with us on our energy, our life resources. And why just dine? Eat Sleep and dangerously enough ‘Be’ inside us. The entire idea of suffering is to keep you in shackles. Shackles of the past, of the trauma, of the wrongs you faced but for God’s sake think my dear person – this is what is the opposite of freedom! How can you be free with shackles? How can you travel light with baggage? How can you experience God if you cannot Be but Him? We all have been knowing this all our lives. But we were not aware that we know this. Make a conscious choice today, that you would give yourself a breather. That you would try to release yourself from expectations from anyone or anything that you do not have control over (And you do not have control over anything!), that you would forgive the one who wronged you not for them, no! For yourself, for your peace and for your freedom.
While I am drafting this piece, my throat has a lump and my eyes have the speck of glisten because I am overwhelmed. But pushing aside this enamoring feeling, tell me – How does your God look like? When was the last time your God cajoled you to woo you back for mistakes of his? Look around, you never know, he might just be smiling at you from the corner of the room right now!
