PROSPER AND BLOOM - 2

This post is a supplement to the previous post, ‘Prosper and Bloom – 1’. It comprises thoughts triggered by Anand Dua’s comment at the end of the previous post. Zeina Glo invites all readers to participate and share their thoughts through comments and emails.

ANAND DUA wrote:

“Dear blogger,
what if unfortunate conditions and situations have affected the person's perspective towards money being the basic necessity of life. Then wouldn't the person teach his offspring what he learnt from life? Would you still say it is the generation gap?”

I have nothing against the basic necessities of life. And every generation passes through similar motions of living, learning and teaching.

We are all children, sheep, cows, disciples, parts of a Benevolence called God. This ‘God’ is the Is in every grain of sand, every drop of water, every breath of air, every ray of light, every leaf and bud and insect and thought; Existence itself.

For one, a few morsels of simply cooked food may satisfy ‘basic need’. For another, the most exotic and expensive may not suffice. One may be thrilled to be able to afford a bus or train ride, another may be unhappy in a private luxury flight.

One may be a veritable Adonis, another a deformed decrepit cripple. Remember the line that is quoted in every school, ‘I cried when I had no shoes till I saw a man who had no feet’?

Money, wealth, influence, power are all means. Sometimes we get so involved with acquiring the means, that we forget the end.

The end, in its basest sense, is comfort. Comfort in the thought that we have enough provision for food, shelter, security and health, first for ourselves, then for those we ‘care’ for.

The marketeers play on our need to feel secure to gather money, power, territory, armies and followings. They are in turn cursed with the craving for more and more themselves, again a need to feel secure and fulfilled.

The obsession with comfort or security becomes so intense that gathering wealth and its attendant ‘power’ becomes an end in itself.

All religions and spiritual teachings guide us towards satisfaction. None denies our right to basic needs. But all advocate sharing, caring and feeling for others. My great big Ego convinces me of the need to overdo it, to grab, to cheat, to be blind to another’s need or discomfort. My mind with its logical thinking is convinced that if I have enough ‘means’, the end shall be mine.

But God has other plans. Nature is His tool. Time is His arena. The minuscule speck that the Great Big I actually is, lives and breathes to His command. We go through the motions till the day of realization that He is the provider, that The Plan is bigger than this fleeting lifetime, that this time round we are here just to let a few lessons sink in, and move to the next level of learning.

We are taught, with infinite patience, the value, the power, the wonder, the joy, the thrill of satisfaction. When we step out of the blinding glare of craving for more, our eyes gradually get used to the world outside that little spot of dazzling light that illuminates Me. The pupils dilate, the heart blossoms, the taut nerves of the mind relax, and we start appreciating the beauty of this panorama called Creation. We learn that even if one has lesser than us, we have more than we need, and sharing fulfils more than grabbing.

The course runs till we realize Truth, Beauty, Love. Absolutes. Till the day we stop holding on, and give away everything. The I.

Where the I is, He is not. Where the I is not, He is.

Till I am, He is not. When I am not, He is.