Meera

“Meera…”
The earth swelled and rolled off its pedestal, Satyabhama stumbling in a faint, knocked over by a simple, delicate tulasi leaf. A whirlpool of red swelled, rising from a throbbing core that pulsed too hurriedly to do anything but add to the whirlpool. It rose up, searching for an avenue for release, quickly losing its red, turning colorless and springing forth as a stream of tears.
“Meera…”
This instant, a rose was not merely a rose. Her name was insignificant no longer. Uttered by those honey-laden lips; that whispered voice that could command the heaven and earth and the coldest human – some of that magic could not but enhance her lowly name. Hearing her name, she felt so tiny and unworthy. Her eyes, weighed down by her tears, gravitated towards twin-lotuses, followed shortly by the rest of her being.
“Ma hari charananu ke dasi”

In a flash, the lotus feet disappeared. He was hidden once more.
What happened? She was going to scold. She was going to give him heck for being mean and taking her mommy away. What happened? How could she lose herself like this?
Next time… next time.

Stay tuned.

Virakthi & Bhakthi

When one loses a part of one’s being, as our heroine did when her mother left this mortal coil, one faces a choice. The most common way to deal with the death of a loved one is virakthi, disinterest bordering on disgust for life. It is usually more mildly translated as renunciation. This feeling of virakthi is a key element in Buddha’s incarnation. The Virakthi Marga, or the path of renunciation, is the path Buddha chose when he saw the pain and suffering life had to offer, particularly at the juncture of life and death. This is indeed the simplest path to realization, though it seems difficult. To quote a maheeyan -
"You are wrong if you say that detachment is difficult. In fact, it is simpler and easier to be detached than to be attached. Now look here! I hold this handkerchief in my hand. I hold it tight in my grip. It is a strain holding it like that for a long time, i.e. holding the handkerchief in the grip. On the contrary, it is very very easy to simply drop it. Is it not? Now, you will know that attachment is difficult while detachment is easy."
Buddha was not the only one to follow this path. In a subtly different way, King Janaka did as well. Janaka, also known as Videha (“one who has no attachment to this body”), reached the path of virakthi not by encountering death, but through remorse. When he studied with the sage Yagnavalkya, a question about his previous incarnation arose. Though the sage was reluctant to answer, he eventually informed Janaka that his wife in this lifetime was his birth mother in his previous life. Utterly shocked and struck by the absurdity of this possibility, Janaka began to treat his queen as his mother and gave up all attachments to worldy things. Anything is possible. And if anything is indeed possible, then in the event that the possibility is distasteful, attachment to anything must therefore be distasteful. Thus he pursued spiritual wisdom with such a lack of passion that he sat studying with his guru even when his city was thought to be burning.

There is another way. There are many other ways. Virakthi was the first to hit our heroine, but it evolved. Out of virakthi was born bhakthi. Out of disgust was born love. In her pain, she sought out her heart, the same Giridhari she had confiscated from the Goswamis in the dawn of her life. “Maara Saavura Giridhari,” who had stood impudently on the furniture – her jhoola – playing his flute at her and casting his spell on her, making her dance and sing without rest. That same Giridhari they had tried to take away from her only to see that her spirit parted with her body and ran away with the little idol when they did so. She would ask her Krishna where he took her mother. She would scold him for taking her away. She would not talk to him – that would show him!

Stay tuned.

Our heroine rambles...

I am rambling today, forgive this aberration of a post.

Agony.
Unbearable agony.
To compare anguish of the soul to the lost of a body part or a physical impediment… is to compare a light spring shower to a raging electric storm.

I like to liken the universe to a Universal set. In my mind, to calm myself when I feel pain, I draw a Venn diagram with the colors of sharpie highlighters and a deep, dark blue. My universe is a drab, ugly, light green. Don’t worry, it is covered up by oodles and oodles of little orange and blue and purple filled circles representing the number of times our collective soul has split up.
I have a fun image for that too – amoebic fission. A tiny, squishy mass of – lime green, yet again! – goo that writhes and throbs and stretches and skews till it just has to split apart.
This splitting is not without pain, of course. This world itself is so full of pain because each time you say you don’t believe in fairies one dies somewhere creating a black hole that sucks away a little circle or part of one.
I digress. The little circles in my Venn diagram cluster into small sets that intersect with other sets. Each cluster is a family. Related physically or emotionally or not at all, they intersect the most with each other. When one of the little circles gets sucked up into the meanie black hole, the others feel pain. The amount of pain felt is directly related to how great the intersection is.
Once in a while comes an overwhelmingly large circle - it's in the color of deep sexy blue that i was talking about before - that about blots out the entire diagram. It covers all the little circles, thus intersecting with them, and it covers the rest of the space to boot.
It empowers the little circles, allowing them to get back at the ghostly black holes that would, without this power, devour the little pac-man circles. I won’t go into the fruitcake cherries and bananas of life right now.
The big circle doesn’t always visit. Sometimes it has to be enough to just think of the big circle and try and feel that power even when its not there. And sometimes the black hole just gets you.

There is more to say about Venn diagrams and death and love and pain. But I shall end this post with a rather weak explanation for my ramblings. I have procrastinated and put off writing about our heroine’s tragedy. Soon after seeing her true love for the first time, she loses another true love – the great soul who introduced her to the one that would take care of her for the rest of her life.
Her mother.
I cannot face the pain that she felt unless I turn to flippancy and frivolous metaphor. This of course, was not the only pain she felt through her life. It was not the only time in her life that she would have to cling, steadfast to the circle that wasn’t there to shoo away the not-so-innocent bystanders who hindered with vicarious pleasure rather than bowing out when they could not help. She survived, our crazy bard. She survived.

The alternate universe of our heroine...

Just as her sweetest love was gently leading her back to the mundane palacial existence with words of 'reason', a bright dove caught the corner of her eye. Her attention was diverted by a breath-taking view of a new and wondrous land. Like a pioneer standing on a cliff above a vast sea of green, she drank in the beauty. All of it - all of that sweetness - every little thing reminded her of Him. The azure skies peeping through the thick green canopy overhead, the deepening navy of an entire sea of flowers that lorded over the garden, the sprightly blue of the little brook that kissed her toes as she stood, a bit lost, rubbing her eyes awake.

Awake. The realisation came to her with surprising slowness. She was awake now. Not that other world where she was just a girl. Here. Now. And in this now, she felt a presence. Eyes caressing her shoulder blade. She whirled around.
At first she didn't realised just what a little blue was doing in the tall, green grass. The blue moved, a slash of red, a flash of teeth, and blue again. She squinted. Blue and dark, dark and handsome, handsome and loveable, loveable and…

It was not just another blue. It was Him. He has peeped out at her, little more than a child himself.
And after his teasing, alluring smile, had turned and run.
In that minute, in that slow, stop-motion aeon, she had come alive. Finally, after her years on earth, she was awake.
She ran after him.



Editor's note: This world within our heroine's smile is courtesy of my new (i'm hoping) co-writer, pb.