June 23, 2007

A river receives everything…

Thanks to the anonymous comment on “one step?”, I was thinking a lot about it, once upon a time in Bangalore, my circle of friends at work was with ‘very different type’ people, but why now the differences are scaring me? I feel, I created myself a “image of self” with all my insecurities and negativities and building walls to protect this ‘self’, after scaring some of my friends with my negativity and annoying questions, I returned back to my favorite philosopher,JK of an answer, I am started reading him after a looong time, This is the part I liked the most in my recent reading…



A river receives everything…yet it cleanses itself
To sit on the bank of a river and let the waters flow by, to watch the gentle ripples and hear the lapping of the ripples on the bank; to see the wind on the water making patterns; to see the swallows touching the water, the water catching insects; and in the distance, across the water, on the other bank, human voices or a boy playing the flute, of a still evening, quietens all the noise about one. Somehow, the waters seem to purify one, cleanse the dust of yesterday’s memories and give that quality to the mind of its own pureness, as the water in itself is pure. A river receives everything—the sewer, the corpses, the filth of the cities it passes, and yet it cleanses itself within a few miles. It receives everything and remains itself, neither caring nor knowing the pure from impure. It’s only the ponds, the little puddles that are soon contaminated, for they are not living, flowing, as the wide, sweet-smelling flowing rivers. Our minds are small puddles, soon made impure. It’s the little pond, called mind, that judges, weighs, analyzes, and yet remains the little pool of responsibility.

-JK

I feel like this dirty little pond, which needs lots of cleaning, but before that I need some energy, may be an hug from “unconditional love” Dad! I miss you!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

May be the differences you were handling in the national level is very different and bigger in the international level. so far you have handled the cultural differences so well, I am sure you will be soon back to your sweet self, to the same old sweet umms.. I am sending you lot of “metta”

-san

Anonymous said...

first time in your blog, thanks to jk! its great that you are aware of these things happening in you, but do not let these things affect you, just be aware of it! jk can put it in right way, i guess the following quote of jk will be useful for you!

Very few are aware of their inward changes, setbacks, conflicts and distortions. Even if they are aware they try to push them aside or run away from them. Don’t you do it. I don’t think you will, but there is a danger of living with your thoughts and feelings too closely. One has to be aware of one’s thoughts and feelings, without anxiety, without pressure. The real revolution has taken place in your life, you should be very much aware of your thoughts and feelings—let them come out, don’t check them, don’t hold them back. Let them pour out, the gentle as well as the violent ones, but be aware of them.



Be alert to all your thoughts and feelings, don’t let one feeling or thought slip by without being aware of it and absorbing all its content. Absorbing is not the word, but seeing the whole content of the thought-feeling. It is like entering a room and seeing the whole content of the room at once, its atmosphere and its spaces. To see and be aware of one’s thoughts makes one intensively sensitive, pliable, and alert. Don’t condemn or judge, but be very alert. Out of separation, out of the dross comes pure gold.



If you sit on the bank of a river after a storm, you see the stream going by, carrying a great deal of debris. Similarly, you have to watch the movement of yourself—following every thought, every feeling, every intention, every motive—just watch it. That watching is also listening; it is being aware with your eyes, with your ears, with your insight, of all the values that human beings have created, and by which you are conditioned, and it is only this state of total awareness that will end all seeking.

-jk

Anonymous said...

Just a thought
Do you know the state of Ganges river in India which is supposed to cleanse every on of their sins ?

Uma Maheswari said...

What should I say, that’s a million dollar question, poets and philosophers assume and naively believe in nature and its laws, even in their wildest dream might not have seen that nature can be destructed (beyond recovery) by religions and scientific invention .