I was dropping off my sister at the Miami
International Airport. The lovely Cuban woman behind the counter at the
Versailles Coffee shop at the Departure area made me a cup of coffee, Cortadito
estilo de la Habana, was so sweet that I could forget my longings for Havana
for a minute. Thus fortified, I was returning home, suddenly I thought of Le
Petit Prince The Little Prince.
I was thinking of the Birthday of someone
special in our lives and I thought about the Fox and the Little Prince.
Often many sentences from the book that I
read for the first time as I was entering adolescence bubble up the
consciousness. The favourite being, it is with the eye that one sees, what is
beautiful Is invisible to the eye.
American Indians refer to the Great Spirit
at times as Great Mystery, something we cannot understand. Life is a great
mystery as well, it would cease to be so, and if we cease to be self-obsessed
and give of ourselves to others, to whom we are responsible.
As the Little Prince Said
It is the time you have wasted for your
rose that makes your rose so important
We are related, human relations, that is,
where the joy of life is. As the Jewish mother said to her daughter, marry a
rich man, you may not be happy but at least you can suffer in comfort.
Life has become a Suffering in Comfort
rather than a Joy of Living.
The Fox requests the Little Prince to tame
him, because one becomes responsible for that which he tames.
The three philosophies that evoke thoughts
in me, seem to be very pure, aimed at the person/persons/groups achieve, or
help them achieve a better standard of behaviour for themselves.
Under a starlit sky in the eastern suburbs
of Melbourne, a city that I loved so much and where I can honestly say that
foundations of my self were laid, my dear friend LS said:
You bring your friends closer to their
dreams.
LS thus laid down the path I was to follow,
to bring others closer to their dreams.
American Indian Philosophy, Yogic
Philosophy of Patanjali and the Buddhist philosophy, helped me think in terms
of the other first.
But tonight as I am thinking of the
Birthday Girl, I wondered whether I had failed in achieving that?
If so, why? Thus able to correct myself, to
bring back to that starry night in Melbourne, Australia.
If you look at the structural defects that
confront us, the strongest one is EGO. Each and every time when there is a
conflict in my life, personal or professional, I can take it back to the EGO
failing me.
On my last visit to Kuala Lumpur in July
2014, my EGO gave me such a destructive blow that I had decided never again to
visit that city, that country or be in touch with any one connected to that
country. Lately mulling over the experience, in more humble moments, the
frailty of the mind, the power of the EGO. It was not the Hotel or the City or
the Country or the wonderful vista while sipping a Chilean White wine. But the
problem was I. I ask forgiveness of all those I have offended directly or
indirectly.
My sister, who is very open and blunt with
me, tells me when my ego escapes from the place where my humility keeps it. So
it was only natural that I was thinking of all these things, after dropping off
my sister at the Miami International Airport.
I am grateful to her, so I am to MM for
taming me in 1995. In Kuala Lumpur, I am grateful to YMC and NM.
In Cuba, I think of AA, LL, CP, YC, and MJ
As Pablo Neruda would say:
“I have been a
lucky man. To feel the intimacy of brothers is a marvelous thing in life. To
feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life. But to feel
the affection that comes from those whom we do not know, from those unknown to
us, who are watching over our sleep and solitude, over our dangers and our
weaknesses – that is something still greater and more beautiful because it
widens out the boundaries of our being, and unites all living things.”
As MEN, we tend to forget such beautiful
thoughts, especially when our EGO knits that ravelled sleeve of ignorance.
In the great Universal Philosopher, Krishnamurthy,
one finds the rare combination of fusing philosophies away from any centrality
of dogma but concentrating on the frailty of human beings, thus offering a way
to improve oneself.
It cannot be a mere coincidence these words
of Krishnamurthy arrived in my mailbox today.
The Major Cause of Violence
The major cause of
violence, I think, is that each one of us is inwardly, psychologically, seeking
security. In each one of us the urge for psychological security that inward
sense of being safe -projects the demand, the outward demand, for security.
Inwardly each one of us wants to be secure, sure, certain. That is why we have
all these marriage laws; in order that we may possess a woman, or a man, and so
be secure in our relationship. If that relationship is attacked we become
violent, which is the psychological demand, the inward demand, to be certain of
our relationship to everything. But there is no such thing as certainty,
security, in any relationship. Inwardly, psychologically, we should like to be
secure, but there is no such thing as permanent security.
So all these are the contributory causes of the violence that is
prevalent, rampaging, throughout the world. I think anybody who has observed,
even if only a little, what is going on in the world, and especially in this
unfortunate country, can also, without a great deal of intellectual study,
observe and find out in himself those things which, projected outwardly, are
the causes of this extraordinary brutality, callousness, indifference,
violence.
So I want to say to the person of this auspicious day, 31 October, that
Ego causes the violence among those who we love
I ask forgiveness.
We should celebrate the love between people, as Pablo Neruda would say,
that great bakery in the sky!
Pure love is sublime. It is
divine. It fears nothing. It knows no limit. It is everywhere.
-- Sri Swami Sivananda
it is 3 am in Miami, on 31 october 2014 and I dedicate this blog to the Birthday Girl..
