Celestial Grandeur

“All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.” 

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

A holiday is well appreciated when one keeps himself or herself busy. In life, every gesture, every precious moment is appreciated when it takes suitable time to ensue. Many  people in the offing have a tendency to slip into the age old pessimism and negativity rather than keeping themselves active and occupied. There are yet a few who utilise this time in understanding the divine and bestowing their gratitude for all the excellent things in life, as life could have been worse.

One of the days on my walk, I encountered a dog, it was a diseased one, it was in a bad shape, there was no hair on its body, it was emaciated and ridiculously coloured, it was certainly a shock to encounter a beastly being,  I let out a bawl in disgust….it thrust its tail between its legs, looked down. Its body language spoke volumes… A light of realization dawned upon me that life could have been as bitter as that, yet it lived on.

The road between Ravet and  Walhekarwadi in Pune has a large ground. The ground is used for dumping  garbage in trash bins left by the Municipality. There is a road that runs through the ground connecting both the locales. People cross the area well masked as there is a large open drain running below a tiny bridge in the area. There I saw this JCB excavator in the ground. Excavators are heavy construction equipment consisting of a boom, stick, bucket and cab on a rotating platform known as the "house". The house sits atop an undercarriage with tracks or wheels. (wikipedia)The excavator had a glass covered driver seat. In this excavator I saw a scavenger live for fifteen days at a stretch on the ground. The unclean ground with an unbearable stench was the living place for the man. He cooked in the dumper and slept cramped in the tiny glass cabin. He had the mobile as a companion, he cleaned the large drain everyday in the daytime with the  broom and bucket of the excavator, he left the place when he had cleaned the large drain. In the same ground there is a primitive dwelling resembling a hut where a couple lives, they are blessed with a baby too. They sort the garbage and clean the produce. There are brambles, a rough tangled prickly shrub, a few other trees growing  in the corner on the opposite end where they have made a cradle like a hammock with the help of an old rag. The baby sleeps in the cradle while the parents work. A two minute walk through this stretch is unbearable owing to the stray dogs, the unpleasant smell and the filth around. It does not mean that these people like living in such places, yet it is a testing time given by God, they have the choice of living jobless or earning through these jobs. In India these jobs are lowly paid however we could never do without these people. Nonetheless  these people have never stopped thanking God for his bountiful gesture, they thank him each day greater number of times than a rich person.

It is merely the perception of thoughts that makes everything beautiful or dreadful in this world. The holy scriptures say that all creatures in this world are tiny glowing lights from God sent into this world for a short period of time just as actors sent off to enact their roles on a stage. We get involved in our roles while spending the period of time. At times so great is the involvement that one curses almighty for his own lapses…the roles at times keep one so engrossed that they forget the truth of existence. The desire to possess things makes them sin leading them away from the spirit of existence in a sorrowful world. Many a times God also makes his presence felt in tiny startling gestures. My teacher told me that once when she had to sign a very important document, her spectacles which were loose at the hinges, slipped and fell down from the second floor into the garden. She cursed her fortune and rushed down to manage somehow with the broken pane but to her astonishment she found her spectacles intact with the hinge repaired due to the harsh thud on the ground. Perhaps it was God’s way of helping things happen and support the thought. When things are not meant for us  God forebodes through his gestures which need to be grasped rightly and figure out an alternate way.

When we look around, we find the truth of life in various beautiful forms, the vast blue sky, the canopy of trees, the carpet of flowers, the morning dew, the soothing sound of the nightingale, the green peaks of mountains in the rainy season, the clear stream of water rushing down as  rivulets, the innocence of small children, the rationality in adults and the goodness in human beings.

 “Sometimes beautiful things come into our lives out of nowhere. We can't always understand them, but we have to trust in them. I know you want to question everything, but sometimes it pays to just have a little faith.” ― Lauren Kate