A friend sent me this poem recently.
"Fear
By Kahlil
Gibran
It is
said that before entering the sea
a river
trembles with fear.
She looks
back at the path she has traveled,
from the
peaks of the mountains,
the long
winding road crossing forests and villages.
But there
is no other way.
The river
can not go back.
Nobody
can go back.
To go
back is impossible in existence.
The river
needs to take the risk
of
entering the ocean
because
only then will fear disappear,
because
that’s where the river will know
it’s not
about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean."
---
It got me
thinking and, in due course of time, I came up with this.
The poet’s
river has travelled a fantastic journey of fun and frolic and thrill and
adventure and enthusiasm and exhilaration and danger and burden and toxin and
weariness. The river has built in its consciousness a great identity of its own
being – fabricated on its perceived achievements, strengths, weaknesses,
wisdom, piousness, humility. With pictures drawn using these pastels, the river
has an image of itself and, over time, the image has grown larger than the
self. The imminent loss of this image in the vastness of the ocean is something
that the poet’s river is not yet ready to understand and accept. It is so used
to existing as the river, that it cannot fathom being the ocean.
The poet understands the anxiety, and assures every river who reads the poem that the end of fear is becoming one with the ocean.
The beauty of great teaching, writing, speaking and other forms of expression is that it leaves the reader or audience filled with awe and awakens in them unbidden thoughts of more possibilities and explanations. That is what Kahlil Gibran (I say his name in hushed tone) has done for me. I am grateful to the master for this opportunity.
"FEARLESS
By me
All her
blessed life, the river has been yearning for the ocean, for this meeting, this
dissolution.
Without consciously knowing what or who The Ocean is, she has rushed towards it from birth; falling, rising, dashing into rocks and trees, not caring to stop for anything in its path. In her passage, she has carried the weight of the world on her shoulders; of life and sustenance, of disease and death.
It is not coincidence, this yearning to join The Ocean and dissolve forever.
The river may not know it in her ‘I-dentity’ as The River, but every speck of its being, every drop of its water, knows where it once rose from - the broad chest of The Father, the lingering caress of The Mother - and every molecule yearns to be one with The Ocean again. This knowledge of the parts, without the conscious understanding of the whole, is what we term ‘instinct’.
The conquest of fear lies in the knowledge of being one with The Ocean - always having been, always to be – and that The Ocean draws every river unto itself, over the entire winding and tortuous or bubbly and merry path of its existence.
Maybe The Father, The Mother, The Ocean – whatever – has just sent The Children out to play, to yell and scream and jump and dive and fly and swim and fall and run and get scratched and bruised and break a bone or two - and to experience and understand. And The Ocean waits, with infinite patience, knowing that The Children will be back, and the broth will be warm."
---
Some more
time went by, and this happened.
THE STORY
OF THE OCEAN AND THE RIVER REVISITED
THE OCEAN
An endless
body of water, infinite warmth of sun, timeless shoulders of wind to carry
great loads, a vast earth to provide every sort of exposure and experience.
THE RIVER
Vapour from
the unending surfaces, rising away from the source molecule by molecule,
carried up by combinations of warmth and breeze, particles attracting each
other again to form clouds, carried any which way by winds and pressures,
precipitating and falling as dew or rain or snow, starting a journey from land
to reach once again the sea.
THE JOURNEY
The source
and the destination of the river are the same. The journey is the destination.
My dear Rivulets, we left The Ocean to run a gauntlet of actions, emotions, experiences and inferences. We take these from everyone and everything around us.
Children of The Ocean, we do not need to wait with trepidation for the day when we will be called back to perforce become one with The Ocean! If only we plunge inwards, we are The Ocean! Constantly merging and emerging from sea to air to sky to ground and back to sea again!
Let us identify ourselves with the whole! Who ever said that I am not my father’s child, or my mother’s! They live in me!
Let us feel the surge of currents, our currents! Let us feel the orderly flow of waves on a calm sea, and the turmoil of the storm! Let the rains and storms lash us as they will. Remember, we are The Ocean – deep, tranquil, undisturbed! Sun, rain, lightning and storm come to play upon our broad chest; do they know how deep we are, how tranquil and vast we are, below the visible surface?
Let us identify further with The Whole - Children of The Earth, of The Sky, of The Wind, of The Ocean – we are the rain, the lightning, the wind, the storm, the volcano! Fear of dissolution is for those who refuse to wet their toes! We play in the water, we swim and dive, WE ARE THE OCEAN!
We are The, we are It, we are Is, we are Him! We are One!
We are here to go through a passage of play, experience, work, participation, doing, being! Let us touch, feel, lift, drop, pull, push, dig, break, build. Let us smell, hear, hum, sing, shout, dance. Let us taste, experiment, see, admire, wonder, think. Let us laugh and cry. If we have been sent out to play, let us play! Let us experience, let us absorb, assimilate, infer, revise, change, learn, unlearn. Let us go through the gamut, knowing that we have been sent here for this, and that when we have run our course, we shall return home happily.
The merger does not await a day, date, time and place; the merger is present in every moment! The merger is not death; the merger is Life!
Death? Oh,
that’s just the end of this stroll in the wilderness - a homecoming - and the beginning of a
new trip. Don’t worry about that, enjoy the trip!
(Credits:
Thank you Mery dear, for sending me Kahlil Gibran’s poem. I know he’s long
gone, but I wish you could send him a glimpse of what he inspired, too.)
