Showing posts with label Durga. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Durga. Show all posts

8.03.2010

Fear of the unknown world beyond death

 
He lay there on his deathbed, his eyes graying within their dark circles as he furiously fluctuated between this world and the other. He barely recognized me and when he did it was not just an achievement for him, it was a moment of happiness for his family that he could actually connect with this world and its reality. He had grown thin and pale as the cancer had slowly eaten into most of his body. He still gave a beaming smile when he realized that he connected with me and is proper English retorted - I recognized you! That was the last smile I saw on his face.

I ascended the steps to visit him once again. This time he lay there silent, contained and wrapped in linen ready for his last journey. The grim atmosphere of the living waiting  for death to take him now had a strange sense of relief in all the enveloping sadness. He has suffered the last 5 hours and his family had resigned to removing the oxygen mask and leave him to his peril rather than keep him alive and torture him with more pain with the aid of medical science. There was no point, he had crossed the line and there was no coming back.

I sat there watching him and wondered what the purpose of his existence was. What was that moment while he battled the unknown at the time of transition from this world to the next. Isn't the solving of that mystery the soul purpose of our existence? The fact that I exist is the only truth that I am going to die. How then do I approach death?

We are presented with two things when alive, breath and consciousness and we waste it on comfort of various kinds. We essentially require a roof over our heads and 3 meals a day for survival but the line of desires is endless. The Tripura Rahasya echoes one thought through all its passages. This thought is to use the weapons of consciousness and breath to control just one enemy - our mind. Most people come out with cowardly statements of the inability to do so without even trying to achieve it. Our first problem is thought. The scriptures insist on controlling not just the thought but also the quality of it [impure/pure]. Everything else we do is pretty much a waste of time and life energy.

There will come that day, when we are lying there just like the old man, awaiting our moment of death. How many of us are going to be conscious about it and how many of us will have the courage to embrace the unknown when we are left with no choice? There is one more weapon that the Tripura Rahasya talks about that can bail us out of miserable death and that is the power of intelligence.

The human state is a state that enables us to take the right steps to practice and evolve ourselves to go to the next level. But the transition to the next level requires discarding of the body in this level and the only support we have is the power of our own intelligence. It is believed to be capable of doing many things, the starting point of course is the realization of what is reality. There is this old man lying in front of me, motionless - he is just mass, mass that is already on its way to decay. But where is he? Where is that consciousness that beamed a smile at me a day ago? Where did that go? What is the pulse of that reality of which I have no idea right now? And since I am an ignorant fool who doesn't understand that reality, how can I assume that this world is all the reality that exists?

Isn't the idea of reality a relative term in itself? The Tripura Rahasya beautifully illustrates this concept. You exist because my intelligence claims that you are there with a name and a background. If my intelligence ceased to recognize your presence, you simply don't exist in my reality. How then are you real? You then belong to relative reality, a part of a larger illusion that is so dense that we think its "real". And when we are faced with a person who has left his earthly state, what lies in front of us is a mass of human flesh waiting to be discarded. He now permanently ceases to be a part of our reality. Does that mean he doesn't exist at all, or is it that we don't know the other reality where he belongs now.

The Tripura Rahasya enlightens us with a spectacular theory. The only way to fight ignorance in life is to enhance the power of our intelligence. Intelligence is a weapon that can distinguish the real from the unreal and as it gets polished it loses all attachment to desire. It therefore renders a person completely detached from the workings of this world. The evolved soul now disconnects not only from the people around him but also from material comforts and more importantly from the familiarity within which he was cocooned. He now owes nothing to this world and has transcended the dense illusion within which he was imprisoned. Now, when the time comes for him to discard his earthly body, he is far more ready for a better transition where he is aware of the change and is freed from the misery of this dense cloud of imprisonment. He has no fear, he simply embraces the path ahead.

At that point, we still see a dead man, but he is the only one who knows how alive he is at the point of transition. He just leaves, he doesn't die. That is real achievement.
Photo courtesy: Moloy's photo stream

8.25.2007

To Mother Durga and Kali I pray


From the clouds of the heavens descends the all-encompassing strength of the universe, of all the Gods. A fury within the mind, vigor in the heart that crashes through space and descends into the battlefield of desire and illusion now almost clothed in a veil of death and gore of the self. One form of strength is the tiger* that growls, thundering through and is almost deafening to the ears. The other form of strength, is within those eyes* that see just one form to destroy that is the demon of desire. And yet a third form is that of my fortress*, the walls so thick that no evil can penetrate when I surrender to Her.

She is all power, She is potency, and She is energy in a feminine form, for all to see, feel, experience and worship. It is an enchanting moment when the silent energy of Lord Shiva now takes form, bringing down grace, beauty, power, goodness, warmth, faith, trust and surrender to this earth. It’s like the first raindrops on dry parched land that almost dies waiting, for the Lord’s grace to wake its soul and bring life to it.

The earth tremors to escape the gaping moment of doom, when the Mother descends to protect the world. The conqueror of desire, She rages ahead gracefully to protect our souls and destroys evil demons with one slash to tear up their very beings, to see Shumbha, Nishumbha, Mahishasura and Dhumralochana fall dead at Her merciful feet.

This glorious moment She presents when She yields Her trishul to dig it into the heart of Maya and destroy it forever, relieving us from this never ending cycle of misery called life.

To the Mother I play, to the Mother I offer myself, who saves me from the demons of my own mind that claw at me every moment through the waking hours of my day. Oh Mother, who protects the weak, who takes me as a child in her arms and destroys every form of misery that stops me from merging into You.

So small am I, so feeble is my being, so lost is my mind that I do not know what to feel even when You hold me in your arms. To me You show the world of green, of flowers and life, of peace and victory over the desires of my mind, and yet my miserable self fails to see Your ever shining grace on me. I pray to You O Mother, save me and grant me victory over this misery called me.

Ma Jayant Jayanti Jayanti

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*Tiger - Her Vahana, * Eyes - The powerful eyes of the Goddess, *Fortress - The very name Durga stems from the word Durg which means the fortress that protects the Self from the demons of desire.