Happy Birthday to you

Dedicated to those wonderful persons who have been there on my way on life to influence me in one or the other positive way. People who have been in a role of teacher-in-disguise in bringing me up and taught finer skills of being a human, a learner, a professional, a student, a friend...the list goes on.

What coerced me into this post is that while leisurely browsing my calender, I observed that few of those gem of a persons share their month of birth with this month. A very close friend, students, professional mentors, my spiritual guide, friends with whom I share many high-five moments, and a someone who is simply a delight to be around; all share this month of birth!

This also brought into perspective the fact the persons who play a nourishing role in bringing us up at every stage of life. That there are many virtuous human beings who, even while not being a part of our family, delight us no less than someone very close to oneself just by 'being there once upon a while'. Subtract the influence these people had in our lives, and we would be much less of professionals and much much lesser of persons.

People we come across impact us in one way or the other both positively and negatively. And once in a while, we all would come across a person who will influence us with one of their qualities so much so that we try to imbibe those qualities in our persona, want to be perceived like we perceive them. Or simply enjoy their company that it is never enough of being with their presence. To be in presence of someone so virtuous is a blessing in itself because such an happening needs a magical stroke of The Cosmic Artist.

Holy spirits keep on conspiring and creating opportunities to bring the learner and these teachers-in-disguise together so that the ordained treasure of wisdom may be passed on to the humble seeker.

And it is not only this wisdom that is gifted away by a teacher-in-disguise but also the shimmer to an ailing spirit by the one who emerged out of nowhere, the that last breath of courage enthused  into a tired mind by someone is no less than a Midas touch. Someone who told you that your nose is perfectly placed. ;-)  That you look fine in that color. That you are not fat. That you are doing just fine. And these words from them, you believed them with absolute trust and emerged more lively! I doubt there exists a person who does not have fond recollections of such beautiful persons that will always resound in their minds as from the ones who made a difference.

And what moment could be of more significance than the one when this journey of their lives began which was destined to cross roads with ours to drop in our laps, a Black Pearl of pure joy, enthuse new zeal, take away a self-doubt or just make our day with a heart warming smile. :-)

That is the day when they were born in this world. That is the day we should celebrate because that is when these beautiful human beings were set on to a road to these however small but pre-ordained associations with us that were going to make life of a truth seeker so very liveable.

Today may be that day in their life or maybe not but I wish to announce that I am glad that these beautiful people were born to make a difference in my life. Happy Birthday to all wonderful persons.

I hope that some day, I might be worthy of the same honor to someone else.

The learning eye

Here, I mentioned an unconscious phase of life when we are unaware of ourselves being destined to be certain sorts of individuals.

But what happened when we were loud conscious about our being? What created us from then on? Were the decisions we took still ours? Or were they again orchestrated by a supernatural conspiracy that defined us in the first place? Do we still rely on the Strokes of the cosmic artist to keep on painting our selves with those finer strokes?

Let us put it this way that the cosmic artist was still at work, providing us with small glimpses of opportunities to learn. We were already receiving everything from the surrounding world. But during the unconscious state of our creation, we were gifted by yet another tool.

The learning eye. Eye being a metaphor for our all senses including gut feelings.

An individual is now not at the disposal of the surroundings to influence her. She is now able to filter out, from what she receives from the world, what she wishes to allow to influence her. She is no longer helpless in hands of the cosmic artist, the strokes of whom created her while she was in that unconscious state of creation.

The individual can now ask questions about, inquire about, ignore, get impressed by, be lured into, abstain from, get addicted to, and explore the experiences that she is receiving from the world around her.

When an individual observes the world around her, she is now, based on the foundation of her self created by the expert strokes of our cosmic artist, able to decipher these observations into different interpretations. Certain aspects of the world make a greater impact on her mind. Certain traits get fortified and certain are lost forever. An individual is able to observe certain stimuli with a greater extent of absorption and these stimuli result into a greater impact in herself than in someone else audience to the same situation.

That possibly is the reason why all the kids of a mother are never alike in all behavioral and aspects related to intellect and reasoning. Why all students in a class are not equally competent in all subjects. Why all are not equally sensitive to values and feelings of others.

Why Mother Teresa was hurt from the plight of the poor far more profoundly than anyone else? Weren't many people watching them earlier?
Why Mahatma was hurt by the discrimination of Indians abroad? Weren't many others facing the same for a century till then?
Why, while we were schooling, a difficult topic for others might, almost certainly, have been a piece of cake for us? I know it is true for many of us.

That is by the virtue of bent of mind that we acquired without even knowing of it. And as the time came by, we were able to utilize it to best of our wisdom gained till then.

I remember asking questions to my father about numerous things. Almost infinite. And being an experienced engineer, he knew the answers to all of them!
And I also remember listening to answers for hours.
I remember him asking me to hold the spanner in a certain way to avoid bruising the fingers if it slips.
I remember watching every smallest movement of his expert hands when he used to fix some nitty-gritty around the house.
And I remember imitating those small moves, slowly learning to use those small tips to perform exactly the way those trained hands would. Would hold a hand-held grinder so that the debris would fly away from my eyes. Would slow down a hack-saw so that the blade wont break at the end of the cut. Would hold a chisel so that it wont shatter when hit, and so on...

I remember observing drops of water falling through the leaves of a tree in the rain. And then, I remember asking myself how the tree keeps mostly dry around the base? The answer came from the eye only. Most of the leaves drop the water falling on them on a slightly outer leaf. Nature has arranged them so. Till the last drop falls from the lowest leaf on the tree, the drops have reached the periphery of a well grown tree. With some exceptions though!

Wondering the purpose of mentioning the above observations here?
It is to appreciate the learning eye that we are gifted with after we come out of the cocoonic phase of unconsciousness and start observing the world guided by our premature sense of observations crafted into us by the cosmic artist.

I wonder who provides us those small opportunities to learn and observe. May be its our cosmic artist still at work. But I do know that it is up to that learning eye that can now grasp and absorb what is being thrown at it from the outer world, but, now with an additional ability of discretion.

But the rules that govern this discretion have already been programmed into every individual when they didn't even knew it was happening, so that they are again, in a way, destined to be certain sorts of individuals.

Ironic?
Is it?

That's how Black Pearls are sometimes!

Strokes of the cosmic artist

We all remember those early years of our lives that are cherished as the most valuable assets of the time when we are learning the skills to take the first steps into real world.

As I have already mentioned, we are born with minds as blank as a canvas. Like an expert artist, something sketches our emotions, reactions, perceptions, thoughts and point of views on this blank sheet and create, in essence, us; our selves.

For most of us, this process of carving our selves begins pretty early. Even before we realize it. When we grow able enough to recognize and pick up things and toddle around the place, when we start exploring the stuff around us, when we start recognizing the sounds and voices, when we start learning the ways of the world around us, when we start experiencing the feelings arising within us as well as the feelings we receive from our surroundings.

The first time we roll off the bed :-),
first time we relish a chocolate,
first time we come to know that an iron is hot,
first time we realize it hurts when something pricks,
first time we understand that speaking is better than crying,
first time we experience what an injection is,

many first times...

Even a young infant, unable to speak yet, is able to understand the feeling of humiliation from a group of people laughing at her funny or stupid act. Understands the warmth of a mother's lap, and knows the difference from others'. Derives pleasure from a particular song playing on the TV. Knows her favorites and so on.

The little one may not remember these virtues of herself after the transition into the conscious life few years later, but each of these incidences that have forged these virtues into her self, happen to add a small stroke on that blank canvas of an evolving self.

Strokes of some cosmic artist on the blank canvas alias human mind, drawing the outlines that will become difficult to alter later. Like the first few strokes of an artist that determine the proportions of the final sketch. No matter how hard the artist tries later, those first ones will always influence the artwork in making. Quite an analogy apart from the fact that an artist can start over!

The world around us, composed of love, affection, care, happiness, elation, fondness, motherhood, luxury, satisfaction, warmth, comfort, and so many soothing feelings also harbors the opposites to these feelings! However, nature works, not by some equations, but by the principles of randomness and permutations and combination. Each one of us experiences the same emotions and feelings but in different proportions, at different times and to different extents.

Let us talk about our little infant that knows her mother's lap from others'. One day she, curious about a colorful toy on the shelf across the bedroom, rolled off the bed to land on the floor! She got immediate attention and caressing today and her belief system was strengthened that help will be on the way when trouble strikes. The situation could have been different, she might had to endure that helplessness a wee bit longer in order to be attended, given if someone was occupied in another room, tuning her belief system into a different accent. Yet another day, she could have been laughed at on the same act!

Again, who is carving this belief system?

Our (cosmic) artist I presume. His random and fine strokes that we receive while we are in that unconscious state of making.

Like our little infant, every one experiencing their first times is subject to receive each of these experiences in varied proportions. The lucky ones receiving more of the the softer touch of the world probably turning them into optimists. And the converse truly follows.

As a result of which, and by the time we grow wise enough to be able to make distinctions between the choices that the world has to offer, many of us already have, and of course unconsciously, developed our own perception about what the world outside is like and what is worth learning and what is not.

Our inclination towards a certain set of traits begin to reflect in our personality. The first strokes of the cosmic artist are at work. The path for the rest of the portrait have been decided and some expert eye can tell what the portrait will look like when completed.

"He will be humble and caring."

"She is always silently observing people."

"He is just like his grandfather. A perfectionist."

"Had we moved to the city earlier, he would have been smoking like his peers."

"She acts more like a boy."

"I cannot relate her to anyone of his family."

"What a kid, got the best of his parents and worst of none."

Some cosmic artist, without our knowledge, permission, or affirmation, has already sketched the outlines of the portrait that we are going to represent few years down the line.

We had no control on this. We were not able to control what is allowed to come into us. We were blank as a sheet... Absolutely vulnerable to the artistic strokes. Having absolutely no control of what we are going to be, what we are being turned into, what we are being subject to and how all this is shaping our final destiny.

AND if we are happy with the person we see in the mirror every morning, then we should be grateful that we had received just the right strokes of the cosmic artist. We have been shaped to head into just the right direction. Just the right doses of all the experiences to our vulnerable self have mutated our thought process to suit something that we enjoy doing today. That we are rewarded for. To react in a certain way to certain situations that we are regarded (or hated) for. To be someone that we ARE today.

Considering my own self, I feel lucky to have been in the right place when my own Self was subject to the strokes of the cosmic artist. I Feel lucky to have received the right amount of exposure to certain aspects of life followed by just the right amount of certain other experiences, continuously for years, until I grew wise enough to direct myself in my own ways; until I was able to gain enough vision of the world outside to find my own path in this Labyrinthian world.

So, whats important here? We all grow up like this and find our ways!

Important is our selves, that we live inside today, the self we do not know what went into its creation before we were not even aware of our very existence. Something conspired every second to form the substrate, building on which, we all find our destinations, realize our ambitions, fulfill our dreams, and provide a meaning to our existence. Important is the conspiracy that went into our creation! The process that we never happen to appreciate. That we never thank God for.

Even in the presence of a mess of randomness, the process of making of our selves was being directed by that something with such a precision that has no real analogy to present.

Like a silky smooth, fair colored feather of a bird being directed to you from a thousand miles away through the winds, storms and breezes only to give you a brief special appearance on a sunny day so that you may gain appreciation of beauty of yet another kind.

Yet another stroke of the cosmic artist. :-)