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Monday 22 December 2014

The Path

It had rained hard the previous night. As I walked, the path turned from being stony to muddy. There was slush. I looked at the path ahead and saw some stones in the middle of the slush. Stepping on the stones, to avoid getting my trousers dirty, I walked on. The stones took me from one corner of the path to the other. I moved from the middle to the extreme left to the extreme right. But for most of the time I was in the middle.

Suddenly, this path reminded me of life and Buddha as I tread "the middle path". As in life, most of us believe that we can keep our trousers clean and so veer far left or far to the right at times. So long as we get back to the middle, no harm in experiencing the extremes. That is life.

The path begins somewhere and goes all over the place. Many a time, we are unable to guess the twists and turns. It leads us to a destination that we didn't know existed or least expected. What is most important is for us to understand that there will be twists and turns. We must be ready to change given these twists and turns. We must be willing to accept these changes and still live in peace with ourselves. Apart from all this, we must learn to enjoy the journey. If we knew all this, expected all this and if everything that we wanted happened, then, there is no God and this path will not be enjoyable.

The path becomes difficult at times.  It tests our resolve. We breakdown or buckle under the pressure at times. It is during these times that we must remember that the Invisible Hand is available for help. S/He is testing you because S/He believes in you and knows that you have the courage and resolve to see the difficult parts of the path. Further, when you pray for strength, God does not grant it as a wish. S/He makes the path difficult and when you get past it you realize that you have grown stronger.

I am reminded of the story of a potter who had a perfect pot and another one with a hole. He would go everyday to fetch water and by the time he returned he had one pot that was full and another that was half full. The pot with the hole felt sad that it was not giving the potter the productivity of the other pot. So, after a month of delivering 50% water, the pot with the hole asked the potter as to why he did not replace it with a perfect pot. The potter asked the broken pot to see the path they took daily. The side on which the broken pot was carried had beautiful plants and flowers - the water from it had made this possible. The other side was barren. In life too, we see the same in our paths...when we look back the most trying times have been the best times as they tested our core strengths and brought out the best in us. Our lives became beautiful because of those trying times. God's imperfections help provide Life.

I reached the end of this muddy path and walked in to the temple. After I finished praying, I heard a voice inside me telling me to turn around and look at the path that I had taken. I did that and all those points where i thought i had veered to the extreme left were suddenly extreme right now. And, the extreme right was extreme left. Only the middle path remained the same.