Lotus

It was a belief I shared with some others that all you had to do if you ever felt lost and unfocused, was to close your eyes, capture in your heart that one moment that you think you created supreme happiness for yourself, identify what is was within you that fashioned it, and then work towards realizing that as a goal.
A good thought but naive.......

In our naivety, we failed to grasp one important fact: Man is powerful and his consistent, sustained action and intent can wreak changes in the universe.
Time and time again we focus on that one snapshot like image, turning it into the polestar that keeps us on our path. But suddenly, without our realizing it something strange has happened: because of our 'doing', the hard work we put in and the changes we set into motion, the elements of our life have been transformed. And so one day, when we look up as usual, it may happen that we may not recognize our world- because insidiously, its very fabric has altered.


And sometimes, what may have altered is our own perspective.

If we are fortunate, we can bring our perspective to shape our world so that we find ourselves in the center of the tapestry of our life once again, till the dynamics of our fluid enclosure and context shift ever so subtly, setting up the cycle again. Yet again.

As hard as we try we cannot escape this inevitable spiral of life.

This, I now understand, and more importantly accept, is the way of life.
The never-ending spiral, the birth and death and rebirth of relationships, action and mistakes.

To Avalokiteshvara, who looks down in compassion on all creatures suffering the evils of existence, goes the million fold repeated prayer of the prayer wheels and temple gongs of Tibet. “Om Mani Padme Hun”. The jewel is in the lotus. The jewel of eternity is in the lotus of birth and death.

May pain and pleasure not enclose me, may I enclose them- and with profound repose.