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                                                       Divine Company

                          I apprehend; within me a trace of atheism is ingrained, I never feel at home in elaborate rituals and crowd. I visit a church to feel peace around, a mosque is dear to me for its simplicity and a temple fascinates me for its structure and artful  images and crafty idols. As regards god- men I never feel fascinated in their company. May be I have not acquired enough knowledge, nor have the requisites to realize the truth.  Rudiments of life, I wish to sublimate, from the journey that I have been taking. It may not make me wise and famous, but I hope when I would be old enough and incapacitated to move I would have no regrets for living the life that I have.

               Some years back during my visit to Pondicherry the divinity of the place did not touch me but the simplicity and down-to-earth living and astuteness of the place had a deep impact. I regard Sri Aurobindo more as a knowledge- seeker, than as an ascetic. His vision elicits a far-reaching response and transcendental meditation is more an invocation to life and insight. Well, you may dismiss me having poor and insufficient intellect to read the divinity but I would not be deterred, simply because you name it as a kind of blasphemy. 

           No Godman and his place have any divine impact on me because I always find elaborative regulations and rigid beliefs around such places. I have been emulating a free life and I protest in my feeble terms when it is impounded.   I may be wrong, but that does not mean that I am dishonest in my beliefs.

                          I feel like venting my feelings, no; it is anger, after witnessing  a TV show  last night, where an old man having short unkempt beard and a dirty mole was sitting cross-legged and he had put on nothing , his back looked  like a piece of dung cake,his exposed groin was appaling. He was sitting upon a lotus seat and only thing that was not visible was his genitals, as it was cleverly hidden for the Padmasan and also for  the camera -angle. Men and women in decorative attires were singing in praise of the God and the man. They were swinging in trance; the atmosphere was deceivingly loud and ornamental. The man was smiling and men and women touched his feet in obeisance.  The man was spilling benevolent bliss, they thought.

         This is not an isolated incident, and our faith in human ability has been so shaken that we are madly attracted to such men and women that they have become our easy way and means to salvation. No doubt they are men and women of some sort of wisdom.  But was it not a perverted manifestation, display of malevolent submission, a ritualistic decaying of human faith?

              Being enamoured of divinity is a human aspiration. But simple men and women who have a desire to take an easy course to salvaging souls seek this through mediums. Cunning and crafty men who are failed spiritualists have their designs served by such poor souls. This is the feeling when I find mushrooming of cults, ideologies and men and women of Gods. Some of the God's messengers, as they profess to be recognized, are intelligent, a few of them are teachers.

         We live in an indifferent world that everyone is aware of. An illiterate soul and a sophisticated intellect think alike as far as futility of the soul's growth is concerned. Most of us have a craving, to attain enlightenment and be 'spiritual.'  When you teach me simple truths of life to become piteous and empathetic, I seek you. And when they have a design to malign me in the name of Nirvan, you corrupt my inner self.

           All of us, on many moments of seeking, aspire to be selfless, discard greed, and shun avarice, self gratuitousness.

            In our quest of a teacher to facilitate our growth and realization we falter, when half wits put on the grab of godlike postures. This is not only in any particular religion, race, community or country. It is a phenomenon and the world is plagued by Gurus of all hue and varying design with allegiance to different religious faiths.

                       Well, I had a feeling and thought, which percolated down spontaneously. I was hurt and cursed myself to be a part of such a scenario. I never say there are not real teachers, who desire to make our life a better one by puffing out the weeds of animus and corrupt nature. They strive to nurture a better place for us. To find them is our job and be illuminated depends on our 'nature and nurture.'

                    It is all a matter of individual choice and we all have the freedom to accept the truth and our conviction is infallible, I should not try to malign your will, nor you try to subvert my belief. I am not judgemental nor espousing a remedy, what appeals me I have the freewill to admire and what appals me I would say despite the odds. 

The story of the selfish giant who never allowed anyone to    tresspass is in our collective memory. He was the protagonist with whom our association is from time unknown. As kids we read about his over possessiveness and never escaped our attention his penchant for beauty. He did not have patience to allow defiling of things of joy. Yet a day came when he gave in to a superior beauty, beauty of simplicity, without the child the garden was incomplete, flowers were pale, green was grey.  And lo, the beauty was again in bloom at the touch of innocence and simplicity.

 A discussion on the little boy and the selfish giant was warranted not because of any avowed purpose, but as an aside to establish a point of belief. I have never been nor I am a great believer. Yet somewhere at sometime an idea haunts, the idea to believe in a greatness, the word 'greatness' is small enough to establish the meaning, a kind of ‘unity’, a uniqueness, a transcendence; unfathomable,unreachable . Rather it is a kind of incomprehensible, unknown , unreconciled  beyondness of human soul in coming to terms with existence and superself. In the sands of time life and living have their effortless trip and somewhere in between comes a feeling to save the feeling for all and posterity.
    Then where lies the Great Spirit, whom some call divinity! Is it in the sky, in the womb, in the black hole, in the books, in nonentity, no body knows, not even the greatest saints could  satisfy our quest.At times we behave arrogantly,without demure we run our lives as if we design it. It runs, yet at a jerk we feel we could never have any say, even our eyes blink, we extend a reciprocative hand when it is propelled. Such consciousness is grown from the id to super-ego, if it has a definite foundation.     

   For the ordinary, common man, it is in small gestures, small meaningful actions, and a kind of transmission of keenness to remain aloof and exterminate the self and find joy that has no decipherable connotation. We  have seen a dog sharing an insufficient dinner with another hungry dog, birds feeding squabs demitting their freedom to the hunter, a cow licking her calf and the tenderness of such trivialities rarely escape our commitment to generous linking of  small and beautiful.

  A very small amount of faith in human oneness has a great levelling effect in our exploration of abounding joy. In our day to day life God is little and beautiful. Most of us know, we do not have resources to probe deep, so we have a replica of God in our daily routine. We love some-one, we share with another, our efforts of life aim at a small and beautiful relationship. We try to remain calm despite our surrounding being in the fulcrum of a storm. If we remain still, unfazed in our stature till the end without any arrogance of purpose, then our God is with us.

OUR GOD IS LITTLE AND BEAUTIFUL.

We find Him in us, in our life, in our universe, in the small ,tiny fraction of things that we have ,yet never try to possess, a little sacrifice of ego, suspension of self is our route to freedom, a freedom from possession, a self realization without bothering about actualization, an attainment of beauty, a salvation  and  yes , then is our own little God. it is not blasphemy, rather a faith in ourselves,, in our ability to overcome and realize truth fom within.