Embrace Sorrow with Joy
Duality is the basis of this life and sorrow is just one part of the duality that keeps the rhythm between itself and happiness alive. Anything in life has a contrast to it. Night is a contrast to the day, light a contrast to darkness, happiness a contrast to sorrow, pleasure a contrast to pain and death a contrast to life. One gives the striking typicality to the other and in that defining lies the reality. The reality of the rhythm of life, its extremes, the ups and lows, the good and the bad, like waves in the sea. Except that here the sea is of samsara and the task is to row across amidst the waves. If one navigates through them with joy and awareness, life becomes a celebration, else a misery.
God’s way is the ultimate truth and truth can be experienced varied, in many colours. One colour is the colour of happiness; another is of sorrow, the third of anger and so on. Each colour is a part of the rainbow that is beautiful in itself. Only if we could live with both in complete awareness that sorrow would become the linking thread to another morning, sunny or windy, both acceptable.
Life’s harmony is in rising higher with its every wave and yet remaining grounded and centered in that Universal energy. But this Universal energy encompasses both the good and the bad, joy and sorrow and what we get is a result of the choice we make and every choice is further related to how balanced or imbalanced we are. There are certain tenets, which if followed, result in balance and in that balance; the extremes are also less typical. And even if they are and if we deny the grief completely, then we should be prepared to be either still or a part of some fairy tale where its only happiness, joy, calmness and deceiving tales of all sorts; the cause of greater illusion that keeps us running after and striving for what is not a permanent state. But mostly one forgets that in impermanence lies permanence.
Yogis have always spoken of meditation and depth within for only in that stillness of being does one first realise his self and then finds the way to raise that Self by annihilating it in the sensual, physical, mental and psychological manner. And then comes the turning point, the point of acceptance when all is a part of His truth, His justice and the complainer and the situation are one. What greater place than the sama state to enjoy, which greater phase than the blank phase to enjoy; the blank between happiness and sorrow. It’s the same blank that comes between every breath we take in and every breath we release, it’s the gap between Om and Namah, the gap between earth and sky, the gap between marriage and having children, the gap between childhood and adulthood.
Life is about encompassing all, an inclusive perspective where Jesus and Allah are both acceptable along with Krishna. Polarity and duality will always exist alongside the still nature; nature that is ever loving, ever giving, forever young, closer to God. Dwelling in that beauty of nature, the search, the hope, the ego all dissolve. Life is just a bridge between birth and death and it is upon us how we choose to walk upon it but only if we knew how to fill the path with love, mercy, compassion, honesty, discipline, focus, power and humility, then even sorrow will be a reason to dive within. And when one doesn’t escape this extreme, one comes to understand that this was just meant to push him to the other end of the oscillating pendulum where the mind keeps contemplating which way to go or if there would be a tomorrow. But there is always the sun rising to a beautiful today, the day of celebration wherein joy or not, one is a witness to everything around, outside and in Him and in that witnessing, the transformation gradually happens.
AUM
Gurushree Vidushii
