Enjoy the Journey

A man visited a Sufi Guru. On entering the Guru’s room the visitor felt uncomfortable as there was no chair for him to sit.

Visitor: You could have a chair at least.

Guru: Where is your chair?

Visitor: My Chair? I am journeying

Guru: So am I.

We are all journeying. “Life is a journey and not a destination” are the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson. The beauty of this journey is that it has no destination. The problem of having a destination while journeying is we get fixated on it and ‘the moments’ loose their significance whereas to journey without destination is to enjoy the vitality of each moment.  Live in the moment is what I would urge my readers to adhere to. You may either look back, brood on your past and loose your spontaneity in life, to put it in biblical rhetoric, become a pillar of salt (Gen 19: 26) or you could be anxious about future and make life chaotic. In both the cases you are compromising on the veracity of this journey. How conveniently we have forgotten the words of William Aloysius Keane, better known as Bil Keane, the American Cartoonist:

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, today is a gift, which is why it is called Present”

Life becomes worth living when we start accepting reality. Do we have another choice? It becomes peaceful when we start celebrating both victory and defeat. It becomes enthralling when we choose to be happy as ‘Happiness is a choice we make’. This journey is a blend of spirituality and secularity. Contemporary times have separated these two. Consequently spirituality lost its depth and secularity its fragrance. This journey is primordially about edification of souls and transition of prayers. Nikos Kazantzakis in his autobiography entitled “Report To Greco” mentions three kinds of souls with three prayers. They are indeed fascinating:

• ·         I am a bow in your hands, Lord. Draw me, lest I rot.
• ·         Do not overdraw me, Lord. I shall break.
• ·         Overdraw me, Lord and who cares if I break.

This journey feels burdensome because of the misconstrued notions of predominantly three parameters namely God, Sin and Prayer.

God

St. Francis of Assissi remarked beautifully ‘God is simply the search for God’ which points to the fact that how important the journey is. The moment we subject God to rational and logical reasoning we end up abandoning it. If God is abandoned then life becomes meaningless. Fritjof Capra in his book ‘The Tao of Physics’ reckons, "throughout history it has been recognized that the human mind is capable of two kinds of knowledge namely Rational Knowledge and Intuitive Knowledge. Former has been favoured by the West and the latter by East. Eastern mystics repeatedly insist on the fact that God can never be an object of reasoning or of demonstrable knowledge." The Upanishads say:

There the eye goes not,

Speech goes not, nor the mind.

We know not, we understand not

How one would teach it.  

Christ, during crucifixion, acts as a pendulum oscillating between the two extremes of God search. Oscillating from ‘My God, My God why have you forsaken me?’ to ‘Abba into your hands I submit my spirit’. He is also erected between the two extremes in the form of two thieves. One denies and the other affirms. In the due course of this journey there lies immense possibility for one to deny God and reiterate along with Frederick Nietzsche “Is God a blunder of Man or Man a blunder of God.” Or to implicitly affirm God like Thomas the Apostle “My Lord My God”. Both these attitudes are exemplified by those two thieves. Interestingly, whether you affirm or deny, Christ will always be by your side but remember the experience of Paradise was offered only to the ‘thief’ who believed implicitly.

Sin

Humans continue to struggle with the dichotomy between sin and sinlessness. Long back a carpenter tried and showed the audacity to resolve this conflict and make us free but then since the nature to be enslaved to someone or something was innate in us we crucified him and started venerating the cross. Jesus’ incarnation was to show that God and humans cannot be separated and estrangement from God by humans was sin. In Hindu mythology God is portrayed as a dancer. It is because it’s an art that can never be separated from its artist. A song and its singer can be separated; a painting and its painter could be separated but one cannot relish a dance without the dancer. This shows the inseparable nature of the Creator and the Creation.  

Sin etymologically and very simply means ‘missing the target’. When life is not lived in a way it ought to be then sin takes birth. Take Jesus Christ as a yardstick and see each situation through his eyes and ask a question “What would have Jesus done had he been in this situation?” This is the way I define sin; “The inability to look at your own reflection without bowing your head before your conscience is Sin.”

Prayer

Prayer is the name of that angel who inspires us to face our destiny with utmost courage. This is the simplest way in which I could define it. Prayer is not for those who want to elope from problems but it is the strength for those who want to face them fearlessly. Jesus prayed “Father if you are willing, remove this cup from me” (St. Luke 22: 42). Was it removed? No. What happened instead? “An angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength” (St. Luke 22:43). Prayer is an assurance given to humans that anything that hinders their journey could be confronted with sheer faith.  

After 40/50 days of Lent when we leave our cocoons of meditation, feel the breeze of a new reality and fly high may the flapping of our wings echo ‘Enjoy this journey’.