The Whole in a Drop - My Friend Suresh

Tall with Trees

His mother calling him to serve bed coffee at 5 a.m. saw a lot in him. His father saw in him his finest investment for their old age pension. But to the first customer who saw him at 5.30 in the morning he meant nothing much. The newspaper he threw in carefully meant much more to them than him.

When he went back home and woke up his little brother to prepare for his study, he saw an annoying bully or a loving mentor depending upon his own mood. When he rushed to office in his bicycle old men saw yet another of irritating fast young men that traffic the road these days. As he reached the office his immediate superior who was his trainer saw a Man Friday in him. His office-in-charge congratulated himself on having found him, when he had time to reflect in the morning. The ancient cashier in the office indulgently smiled upon a foster grand-son in him when he was in his good mood as he generally was so early in the morning. The free-lance author saw a 273 word story in him and took him in a trip down the Time Machine.

He was holding a shovel in his hand. He looked seventy five but was ten years older. His vast woods around him gazed upon him contentedly. He tended their roots and after some more years his ashes would fertilize them further. As the trees looked up, he too walked towards the sun. But how many hurricanes and pests to steadily overcome before walking into the sun!

But this child is the father of that man!

Swami Sampurnananda, 22 October 2003.

http://littlelittlestories.blogspot.in/2011/08/tall-with-trees.html

The Whole in a Drop – Sweet, Sour and Beyond - Introduction

Sampurnananda smiled to himself.

It was most insulting. But it amused him too.  To be insulted by a dog,  a stray at that. The metaphor of lowliness. A stray that stayed.

He had gone to his, not so old, place (The hostel he was looking after, till a few days back) when he found a reason or rather an excuse, to go there. There were some welcoming motions by the boys, some waves here, some words there, but not as boisterous or as passionate as would have made him happier. And the dog which used to lay at his door-step like a faithful Hindu wife (which he literally suspected it to have been in some previous life), now very reluctantly, very lazily got up from it’s sleep, after being continuously prodded into doing so, and promptly went back to doze!  It must have understood who the new boss is. Dogs are said to really consider their master as the top dog. Ronaldo, the shrewd dog, clearly understood that it needs not to care for the deposed top dog .

Sampurnananda walked back sans the bicycle, which went away with his post, alongside Sunil who was on the top of it, having inherited it.

Sunil went a few paces with Sampu and then sped away. He would not be caught walking with Sampu.

Sampu felt like a perfect pariah. He smiled as he remembered what had come out of his mouth a few days back, when he had retorted (or rather,as he would like to say, replied), to his boss :

‘You may treat me like a pariah, but I won’t behave like one’.

That was really a gem. He had not thought it out. And it later laid on him the heavy burden of having to live up to it.

His mind continued to roam in the past. It darted between its various points. The points of time consisted of people. People, people, … A living past that has evolved into the present.

It was the story of a love affair. A love affair with God and people. It was ‘love God’ first. Then it became ‘love people’. Then for some years it became ‘love people the God’. Now it seems to have come back to ‘love God’. But he is not sure. Is it love of self ? Neither people nor God seem to his passion now.

It had lasted years and years, so it seemed. To stick to precise, cold facts, it had lasted, upto now, forty-four years. That is just a drop in the ocean of eternity. But that drop contained the whole universe within it. It had all the range of passions in it. It had sweet moments, sour moments, indifferent moments. The whole gamut of emotions was contained within it.

But whatever be the questionable effect of all these days on others, especially the boys and girls he came into contact with, these days sure had an effect on him.

This Whole within a Drop, had surely borne him away on its crest to a place beyond sweet and sour, an equilibrium of all passions, a real tranquil, still sea, or so it seems.

This is the story of a voyage, both turbulent and tranquil, passionate and peaceful, of prudence and reckless brinksmanship.

Has he entered a harbour now ? Or has the ship just sunk its anchor mid-sea ?

Can he hope some days of peace, licking his wounds, mending and enhancing his assets ?

He is surely at a peaceful sojourn. The small green hillock to the left and the green waves of coconut tops that completely cover the city to the right, are surely soothing to the eyes as well as to the mind. And the prospects of a few months savouring of Chandi (Devi Mahatmyam) and Brahman of the Upanishads with occasional singing/composing/ learning new songs is simply delicious.

Will he be granted it ? Or something else is in store for him ?

Well, stubbornly or even stupidly proud of himself, he will, sure, make stepping stones out of his obstacles and raise and walk higher and farther.

You can count on that.

http://www.geocities.ws/sampurnananda2003/thewholeinadropsweetsourandbeyond.html

On Genius

All great humans, however great, are mortals.

Tolstoy’s masterpieces were produced at a very fertile period sometime in his thirties and forties. Thereafter, it was minor pieces.

Lewis Carroll could never repeat Alice in Wonderland, though he did many other things.

Thomas Alva Edison was reduced to reenacting his discovery of the light bulb.

Was Napoleon at St. Helena as great as Napoleon at a victorious battle field in France ?

The author of frenzied Gorby-mania and the Time’s man of the decade, needs reminding now.

These are geniuses of a kind. It gradually rises to peak and then subsides.

There is another kind of genius.

Buddha lived a Buddha and died a Buddha.

Ramakrishna continued to give joy throughout his painful cancer.

The experiments with Truth of even an older Gandhi remained powerful.

One genius reaches greatness and then basks on it.

The other continues to create ripples of greatness as long as they live and the highest among them even after their physical death.

The one has grabbed creativity in a hurry and run away and exhausted themselves in a single birth pang.

The other is ever in touch with creativity and springs out inexhaustibly.

One is a flash flood.

The other is a perennial Brahmaputra.

One is the moon.

The other is the sun.

If the moon keeps its sights on sun it shines. If the stream takes its share from the river, it flows. If the mortal greats keep their steps with the immortal, they too remain at the sides of immortality.

Now, there seems to be still another kind of creative geniuses. They live unknown. Their ideas find expression in Christs and Buddhas. They are too good and too shy to be famous. They don’t go about doing good but their very thoughts, even if thought within a cave, breaks out and does immense good to the world in other names or namelessly.

They live and die unknown.

On their shoulders ride Buddhas and Christs.

These immortals smile at the tin-pot glory the great mortals put upon themselves.

They know that all great names, even that of a Christ or Buddha, pass away in time.

Beyond Time, beyond forms, they joy-ride Time winds and Form clouds.

Oh, for a glimpse of them ! To glimpse them is to become them !

Christs and Buddhas glimpsed them and tarried a bit to tell us of them !

Christs and Buddhas are suns. But the sun is just  an ordinary star who chose to come near.

Star gazing or sun gazing or even moon-lighting is the birth right of the humans for we belong to the Order of the Stars.

Swami Sampurnananda

6 August 2003, Wednesday.

The Whole in a Drop – Sweet, Sour and Beyond - My Friend Rajendran

Rajendran was very much drenched. It had been raining heavily. He came in an auto rickshaw. He couldn’t see much of the fabulous scenery as the auto traversed the ups and downs of the two kilometers of the Kerala road and made its final thrust up the wooded hillock.

The auto stopped near a wide flight of rocky steps leading to a grand stone hall nearby.

At the head of the steps he found the monk he had come to visit.

The monk was standing, clad in a vest and a dhoti, looking much simpler and a bit less stout than he had looked when Rajendran had worked with him before.

He smiled and asked, ‘Rajendra, how do you find Kerala and its rains ?’

Rajendran sighed and said, ‘If only some of this rain would come to Coimbatore!’

He entered the fine single-stone pillared hall and looked around in wonder.

After he was dry, the monk showed him around and then they sat down to talk. He had already told the other monks about Rajendran.

Obedience. Loyalty. Tact. Perfection in what ever he is doing. Quiet acceptance of instructions or orders. Confidently leading the younger people who were junior to him. Keeping his reserve almost always and letting it go partially when he knew it to be safe to do so. A little sensitive. Normally nobody would say a harsh word to him. He was like that. But he had come across chronic or periodic roughnesses. He did not talk back at those. He could not. He was not made that way. But he had thought of running away. That was when he was younger. But those chronic or periodic roughnesses had hearts of gold or tongues of sugar and knew his value. And so he stayed.

Can one predict his future ? Will he remain as humble, deferential to all monks and other dignitaries, and quietly and contently go about his business all through his life at the same place for the next thirty years or so? It seems he will.

He is already something of a landmark and may grow to be a steady, fixed, landmark where he works. He has much in common with Palanisamy, who is very much his senior but in another field.

A human needs security. He or she also needs to enjoy variety.

Security sometime leads to fixedness and that to staleness and decay from within.

Variety is joy in experimentation and search and that may lead to frittering away of energies and consequent exhaustion.

Security is a secure, still, Santa Bhava.

Variety is all bhavas, Madhura, Vatsalya, all.

Better they are married in a person. That will be for his or her good.

Rajendra has been provoked by this monk to think a bit about other things than the regular routine. That has irritated him sometimes, but has also intrigued him at times.

Now he sat down at the conversation table looking across to the monk with a bit of apprehension and also a lot of eagerness.

31/7/2003

The Whole in a Drop – Sweet, Sour and Beyond - My Friend Kannan

Electrician Kannan is a crescent moon waxing his way to fullness.

What sets him apart at the first glance, is the sparkling smile that flashes white in the handsome dark setting of his face.

The boy had smiled his way through a lot of hurdles.

His sorrows didn’t seem to have laid their hands over him. He was born poor in a small island. He saw, when very young, his father’s dead body dangling from the ceiling. After some years he saw his mother following suit by poisoning herself.

His relatives did a little bit of help but it was the Ashrama which took him in. It had already taken him in while his mother was alive.

You can’t say he is very emotional about the Ashrama too. Of course he has affection and gratefulness but he doesn’t carry it over his sleeves.

His cheerfulness is inborn. His pleasant face wins him friends. He doesn’t brood. He lives in the present. His day to day affairs takes his time. It was studies and electrical duty before. Now it is his job training.

He shows great promises.

He is sure destined to turn into a honest worker, it is writ large on his face and talks.

Some fairy spirit within him has held him aloft over rocky cliffs and stormy waves. One wishes that the same spirit will always keep the smile in his face.

The Earth revolves on its hinges greased by basic goodness of a thousand good folks like him.

Perhaps the family which he will raise, will provide the loving atmosphere which he might have missed.

He has the maturity to judge what is good for his life.

Well, what more to say of the young crescent moon ?

One can only wish it will wax its way to its full potential.

One can wish it won’t see too many clouds.

But cloudy or clear, it will grow its way smiling, either to the black clouds or to the earth below.

The moon looks up to the Sun and smiles brightly. If it misses the sun it scowls darkly. Knowingly or unknowingly this moon has kept its affair with the sun.

The moon keeps its sad dark face away from people below. So does this moon perhaps. Or is it that there is no dark face ?

May the full moon be soon and may it light many jasmines below and fill the worlds with fragrance, love and lustre !

27/7/2003

The Evening College Hostel (The boys’ statement)

 Could it ever go away from him ?

Our hostel mirrored him.

And that was its doing and undoing.

The hostel as we saw it !

That should make a good story

The hostel as we boys experienced

Was very much himself

How we relish to remember his boring talks !

How sweet his rare short talks !

How dear his hellos and scowls !

How with tact, we could play with his moods

We recall fondly how we fooled him

But he perhaps let us think we fooled him

It was fun doing things for him.

It was fun watching a line of ants carrying their eggs or grub

It was fun wearily waiting for reluctant Narikoravas to turn up.

It was fun translating something into Badaga.

It was fun because it was all for him.

And the most fun was dragging others into his deadly boringness.

It was all fun how he bored into us

Something of God,  Truth and Goodness.

He bored himself into us.

We sure miss him

And hope he misses us too.

But of that we are not sure

For he will find somebody else to bore

Somewhere.

But we dare not hope to find such a bore again.

26/7/2003

The Whole in a Drop – Sweet, Sour and Beyond - My Friend Palanisamy

Palanisamy was a born second fiddler. The world is prejudiced against seconders.. They always cheer the flashy leaders. A leader is born no doubt. But a perfect leader will foul it all up if he or she does not happily chance to attract his or her perfectly matching follower. And a perfect second-in-command, if he or she does meet his or her leader, comes to grief. Rare is a leader and rarer, a real follower.

Palaniswami was fortunate to have come across Avinashilingam.

Avinashi had the knack of attracting Palanisamy types in many fields he worked.

Shudra means a man or woman who excels in service sector. A perfect air hostess is a real Shudra. Event managers, hotel managers, and such are perfect shudras. They know how to service and please. If you please with an eye on money you are a mix of Shudra and Vaishya.

To Palanisamy money was secondary. He got pleasure out of the trust he enjoyed from his leader, all successive leaders. He exulted in his loyalty. His loyalty was his wine.

He knew in his heart that service is for realizing the peace within. His intellect wouldn’t have the ability to express it. But his heart could say it with it’s own words.

Did thoughts of money enter his mind ? He entertained them lightly at times. But his heart said this is his place and this is his vocation. Then his intellect got its act together and supplied the reasons.

It listed the reasons of staying put. Progress may be slow here but sure. Things may not be flashy here but they are steady. People may not promise the moon here but they are solid and deliver whatever earthy thing they promise.

Perhaps he had had too many roller-coaster rides in his previous lives. A bit of steady quiet would do for this life.

After all  this life style of his had made life modestly comfortable for his aged parents as long as they lasted, had kept his wife and son out of poverty and had put the whole gear of his surroundings in a steady santa bhava, a peaceful mode.

Peace was around him. No hot temper could ruffle him. So many different individuals, all with their own individualities, had interacted with him. He gave perfect service to all.

Whatever he was allowed to serve and give, he gave with that cooling ambience that he wore.

Greatness is seen in every little act of the great, says Swami Vivekananda. His great qualities hovered around him. But all greatnesses do now awe and overwhelm.

For, his was the greatness of a perfect servant. A service professional who served for the sake of service and love to his or her leader.

Can a follower or servant be consistently loyal if he serves a mere man or woman ?

He or she must see beyond human frailties to carry on with his or her loyalty.

Palanisamy’s surroundings helped him to have that sight. His heart saw the divine in his leader, in his surroundings and in all he served. His intellect couldn’t say it in so many fine words but his heart knew this.

This is as it ought to be. A perfect servant or follower is to serve and follow, not to give learned expositions on his or her service.

But beware of the perfect servant. A rub in the wrong way, a really too wrong a way, will bring his energies to an explosive head.

For his heart knows that he is after all a prince playing the part of a servant to get an award for a side role. He had won many awards playing the lead roles. So now, he, for the sake of it, wants to try his hand at a servant role.

His heart knows all this. But he won’t say it or doesn’t know that his heart knows it.

Loud talking compromises his role. Sweet, silent service is the act he has opted for, for now. He will review his performance at the end of it and decide about the next role or whether to quit acting. That time is not yet.

25/7/2003

The Whole in a Drop – Sweet, Sour and Beyond - Janani

Janaki Mani plodded her way through the day. That is what she did with her life. Same she did with her talents, her youth, her marriage, her middle age, her children, her relationships and with every thing about her. Plod. That term hits her like muddy, sodden sock. I mean, it fits her well. Did she have emotions ? She had done her share of crying. She has had her excitements. But her stoicism got the better of her soon and she continued to plod her way. She used to be under the tongue lashings of her dynamic mother-in-law, when that grand old lady was moving about like a tigress on the prowl.(It is another story about her, a separate chapter or even a book, cannot do justice to her) But since she became a disabled tigress, Janaki had to move on her own accord and that new freedom seemed too late. A sighted person whose eyes have almost atrophied by blindfolds suddenly open to lights. She plodded her way in this comparative freedom. Her body had aged during the course of these plodding and her mind too tired.

But she is made of iron. She knew that in the back of her mind. That reflected sometimes in her stubbornness. An asinine stubbornness, sometimes. She may look anemic. She may be slightly bent. But she won’t break, that is for sure. She is in fact the silent prop to her stronger looking husband. She is a sure example to the saying : behind whatever success a man has achieved there stands a woman. Shesuccoured him during his emotional weaker moments. Did he drain her? Well, he might have, at times. But the very fact of her having to recharge his energies, and that too, unobtrusively, silently, made her strength stronger.

Is it not a fact that you can climb a mountain better and faster when you have to help somebody dependant on you ?

Her husband had his highs and lows, but everything was even for her. It was not a flat flatness. She didn’t resent it. Her very nature cannot resent anything or anybody.

What excites her most ? Children ? Relatives ? Music ? Books ? All these had excited her to some extent. But nothing had been of titanic proportions. But even those little excitements are no more for her. She has seen them all.

God ? Does God excite her?  Yes, a bit. But not the God of her husband or that of her monastic children. God is for her a quiet surety. A surety within her.

For her husband God has lately become a passionate affair. A passion in which his “I” was very much there. For her monastic children God is a passion that has been sometimes loud and some times flashy and finally taken the colour of monastic ochre.

She had been the quiet deep well from which they had sprung colourfully.

She, now at 73, plodded her way, in a way alone. The pin prick of a still garrulous mother-in-law itched her. Her body, which neither laboured hard as her mother-in-law’s had done nor did systemic exercises, now plodded along with her but not with as much willingness as herself. It refused to get up and cook up something interesting and sustain itself but satisfied itself with simple minimum sustenance.

Her mind plodded along, on a day-to-day basis, not taking recourse to nourishing foods such as music or books but spreading along only as much as the day-to-day affairs of the growing family required.

But it knew of its strength deep down.

Janaki is Sita. Sita is not flashy. Sita is strength. Sita is not fully recognized even by her children and grand children. Sita herself didn’t know or perhaps did not let others know that she knew that Ramayana is really Sitayam Charitam Mahat. That, doings of Sri Rama is really the great history of Sita. Jai Siaram ! Victory unto Sita Ramachandra !

I will say Grace to you Madam - Mary Kom

Once in California, when invited to a dinner Vivekananda was asked to say grace. "I will say grace to you, madam. My grace and thanks are to you.”

http://vimeo.com/3324686

Today I say “Grace to you Mary Kom, My grace and thanks are to you”. I don’t see so vividly the Spirit here, but I strongly believe Vivekananda would have seen it. Or if you prefer this way you may take Krishna’s word in Gita where He says to the effect “wherever you find any extraordinary manifestation of beauty or energy, know it, it is a part me present there”.

Mary seems to have been like this from her very early years. It must have helped her to harden up, her tough Manipuri Neighborhood and physically hard working parents. The matriarchate atmosphere would have brewed the sense of freedom. It looks like she was certain what she had to do. She went through the motions of academic studies but she went heart and soul and put her energy in sports. She did Athletics but when Dingko Singh happened very near her, Mary Kom knew she was a boxer. She went about it but hid from her father who came to know from a newspaper when she secured a major win. There was no stopping after that. After being the world champion four times she took a break. She meticulously planned it with her husband; had twins and when they aged two, back in the ring and World champion again. Change of weight categories did not stop her.

I guess Nicola Adams has just brought a pause.

Grace to the Resurgent Spirit of this Holy Family.

Nor tongue can tell, Arjuna! nor end of telling come
Of these My boundless glories, whereof I teach thee some;
For wheresoe'er is wondrous work, and majesty, and might,
From Me hath all proceeded. Receive thou this aright!

Sri Krishna in the words of Edwin Arnold ( Bhagavad Gita - Chapter 10)

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext00/bgita10.txt

Vivekananda quote : http://www.vivekananda.net/Lectures/IsVedantaFutureReligion.html

http://vsc.iitm.ac.in/Vivekananda/Complete%20works/Complete_Works_of_Swami_Vivekananda_-_Vol_8.pdf