Love is related to what and who one
values. If one asks oneself whether knowledge or creative work or spouse or family
or friend or child or others or lover or Self or God is what is most valuable –
then one also knows who and/or what one loves. It normally could be and is a
combination. And along with love and the being-ness that comes with every human
being (the being-ness being what a human being contains and is like and as s/he
appears to us: what we normally like or dislike or love or are repulsed by, and
sometimes on first sight) – there is the matter of doing. This, I believe, is
set early on in life. Of what and who matter and of who and what make life
meaningful and what sort of work can make life a joy. Or conversely, of what
does not matter and what cannot make life meaningful in and of themselves. If
one also feels strongly, early on in life that life must have a meaning and a
purpose for being; that one’s life must make an absolute difference somehow to
the world (by leaving a creation or an invention or a discovery in the widest sense)
or to someone – otherwise one wouldn’t be here – then one keeps working and searching
until one finds one’s reason.
For some, it might be one or the
other - here relations can come and go and even one’s husband can die – but
one’s work remains: Marie Curie was of this sort. For Joan, it was her work as
a warrior and her inner voice. For some it is one’s God, no holds barred – as it
was for Meera. For William, it was working and living and fighting and
competing and laughing and jousting and loving and being with Phillipa; when
Phillipa was gone – there was no life; ‘love was done’. For some it is a
combination thereof. Other examples come to mind – but these will do for now.
Maybe some people are blessed to
find their reason very early on and maybe many people are not. Sometimes, one
is rather old before one gets to know (and especially if one has an awkwardness
and contradictoriness about one’s character) what one can do in concrete terms.
But if one persists in and with love, one can act on that knowing if one hasn’t
become too senile or too deranged to act or think or be a human being and one
then finds and is ‘given’ different ways (through what feel like miracles - and for those who might find that peculiar - well, there is something called serendipity no matter if some numbskulls find that stuff airy-fairy) such that a few of one’s deeply felt ‘desires
[can be] coordinated in the light of knowledge’ (that’s another quote that’s
been wandering around with me for awhile). One can’t go back in time to fix
anything and one doesn’t become utterly fault free or even all-knowing and knows
not much more than what one felt in the soul at 11, but as in terms of acting
upon what one knows - one can indeed try with everything one has got.
If one lives life by one principle
of what one can let go of and what doesn’t matter and what is inconsequential –
and if death isn’t too keen on paying one a call and through time as one sees
death in different ways - one is left with who and what one values and loves.
This may not entail cutting off everything and everyone else certainly – it
simply makes one very clearly and consciously and rather dispassionately make
certain choices - and it doesn’t force anyone to live like a hermit, but it does
entail a clear hierarchy in one’s mind and within. At some point in time, one finds
oneself echoing Khshana, “naalpey sukhamasti, bhumaiva sukham.” And sometimes adds,
to the universe, when one is being cross-questioned by one’s deepest friend - “but,
but, and but - how can it now be otherwise?!”
**About the header quote and of what
it means - and for those who don't know what it is about - this is what Suvro da had told me quite some time ago: the sage
Khshana had been asked by the king, who was impressed by her wisdom, of what
she would like as a gift. She answered with those lines: ‘naalpey sukhamasti,
bhumaiva sukham.’ ‘Trifles don’t interest me – so let me be. Nothing barring
the universe in entirety will make me happy.’ I don’t know whether Khshana
indeed did get what she desired but I have the feeling that she must have. And
different people would have different ideas as to what comprises of one’s
universe and the matter of happiness, cheer, joy and suchlike. This post is connected to Einstein's words as well as Vivekananda's and more - but so much for this very long post which I split up in two.
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