How
much of joy depends upon our ability to let our thoughts and intentions go when
they are no longer working! How much of it on spontaneity, knowing when to do something and when not. Only an example can clarify this.
Even
though I was tired yesterday and I didn’t think I could work on the essay on
the relationship between Guru Nanak and Mardana that Geetanjali Chadha suggested I
write for Sikh Formations (Routledge) I sat down and wrote the introduction and two whole single-spaced pages. I was pleased and thought and
intended that I would do the same today. I was all geared up for it and when I
sat down to do it, it simply wasn’t happening. By ‘happening’ I mean being in
that wonderful, that rare space where the writing happens not just as ideas and
notes but the word by word weaving of sentences and ideas into that one braid
that will make the stay of the sail. It is continuous, unfolding like the
unfolding of flowers, spontaneously, organically, almost mindlessly. Today that
space was not present. Fortunately, I realized it, shut down the computer, and
made us a nice salmon scramble for breakfast, cleaned up the few dishes that
Payson hadn’t done (he does them most of the time), cleaned the counters,
mopped the floor because it was sticky, all in the greatest happiness.
It
wasn’t always like this. I have suffered my whole life from the disease of
self-will. I have wanted control of my day, and imposed my own agendas on it.
In my prioritizing my time thus – writing, writing, writing first – I have
missed out on the joy of my life. When my agenda was not successful, I spent my
entire day grumbling, unhappy with myself, the day, the sunshine, the flowers,
and God herself for not fulfilling my desires and wants. For over fifty years I
have lived like this, believe it or not, because human nature can be so
persistently blind and get into vortexes from which they cannot extricate
themselves. They keep going round and round and round in it endlessly without
even realizing that something is wrong, or something is being done wrong which
is the cause of your suffering. We can get used to anything, even hell.
The
sages would call this attachment. That is the thing about attachment – that it
doesn’t only refer to people, to possession to ideas and dreams – but also, or
perhaps specially, to those states that keep us fettered and suffering. If we
don’t even realize we are suffering, that things can be some other way, then
there is no hope of getting out of that state. The first stage is to see it.
But then, I who consider myself more aware than most people, took over 50 years
to realize it. How can I blame or accuse anyone of blindness and stupidity when
I have been the blindest of all?
I
have to admit that left to myself I would have gone on suffering. Today could
have also been a hell instead of a heaven, if the rain of grace hadn’t fallen
on me like manna. Did I deserve it? Probably not, but then Guru Nanak says, it
is not because we deserve it but because suddenly the willful Giver has been
kind and merciful.
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