Where am I going!

, originally uploaded by naturewalker.

Watching the road ahead of my car, I felt as if I was driving into the Unknown... I could not see far ahead, and had to trust the faith that the road leads where I want to go.

More importantly, however, I was watching my mindscape...
"That car is going too fast for this fog", I thought. Suddenly, at the next traffic junction, taking out my mobile phone, my mind said "Pranaam" and hit the send button. the next thought I was aware of -"Wow! The air that is bathing my feet under the dashboard is COLD cold." I turned up the heating and relaxed somewhat. And then I caught the next one! "Am I getting late?" I looked at the clock on the dashboard- relaxed again. So many poeople on the road are going too fast for the weather conditions prevailing that it appears somewhat unsafe.

They are all running... So are my thoughts... Red Light- Stop. Green now- start again.

The more you try to slow down, the more you find yourself hurtling through the space time you inhabit and more you realise the futility for the imperative prevailing and dominating our lives each minute we live. You also, nevertheless observe more. You catch more of the moments that seem to otherwise slip into the infinite eternal. And you realise howmindless the running and speeding is. You start to observe the pauses- teh moments BETWEEN the breath and teh moments BETWEEN the thoughts, the moments of apparent nothingness.

The mind begins to launch its own new thought on a new trajectory! But before this thought starts- you have the moment when you CAN catch yourself and anticipate- sometimes with a child like glee- Aah! here comes the next thought.

It is like observing my children waitiing at teh Metro station- you hear the train coming, then you also begin to see the leading head light, but teh train is still eluding the visual contact... And when it becomes visible, the child's face lights up. The smile is pure awareness- totally focussed on the approaching train. And the awareness of THE moment between thoughts, between breaths, between the two trains- can be caught. it does need attention. But it can be caught.

The more you try to slow down, the more you realise the truth behind the statement of how fast the thoughts do travel. Perhaps it is enough to simply recognise the train of thoughts; perhaps it is enough to slow it down just enought to be able to separate them into distinct thoughts- not haze surrounding several of them running into each other without a beginning and with no end. Perhaps if we do manage to slow it down to THIS awareness, we can catch the pauses and make them longer.

The Markandeya Puran talks of the quality of life being decided by the distance between stimulus and response. The longer this distance the better the quality of life is. Longer we are able to sustain this slowin down, the more contentment we find in our life. And yet, we area ll running to catch our own tails. Little do we realise that it is not possible to run forward at breakneck speed and try to catch what is behind us.

We also forget that life is simply a collection of moments- several of them, in fact. And these moments simply fall away into the sea that we have immersed ourselves in. they merge into the whole that makes it impossible to separate and appreciate any one of them. The more the moments we can hold as distinct instants, the richer our experience in life.

We forget that we are here for an experience- the experience that enriches us- moment by moment. we keep rushing into life losing sight of teh fact that we are actually rushing out of it! We are but insignificant dots in the scheme of things- but whose scheme? And what things??

The dog, too runs after each car that races past it. What is he going to do if he does manage to catch teh car? What does he want? Consciousness is the miracle that, for all practical intents and purposes, is uniquely a human trait. Are we not triviliasiing our existense as humans by letting the consciousness slip into a raciing haze rather than teh calrity of stillness? Stillness may not be possible- because teh whole Universe is speeding and so are we with it... but our experience can be slowed down to levels of gentle appreciation and moments...

In the end- what matters is not how long we lived but how deep; not how many instances made up our life but how many we managed to hold; not how much we took but how much we were able to happly give away.

Walking with faith makes it possible to keep walking- even in dense fog.

Walking with those you love makes it possible to hold more moments we want to cherish.