Acknowledgement!

Some things cannot be outsourced!.....

I am reminded of a humor-filled and a very popular 'saying' in Malayalam language....

"എല്ലാവരും കൂടി മുക്കി എന്റെ മോൾ പ്രസവിക്കട്ടെ !”

The 'rough' translation runs as, “May the forceful gesture of 'umph' by everybody around, help my dear daughter to deliver the child' (she was too weak to exert the muscular pressure to get the baby pushed out, and the 'rustic-nurses' were helplessly staring at her!... The 'concerned' parent, ... yes! Only a 'father' can try out such illogical solutions, when the apprehension overpowers the very faculty of reasoning, and urgency of the situation snatches the time needed for 'application-of-mind'!... the concerned parent blurted out this 'request' !)....

I am trying to look at that aspect of 'acknowledgement' which seeks exclusivity from all the 'known' niceties that we find in the popular sense of the term! Its relevance to 'spiritual growth'! (Quite an abstract concept, I agree!).

The concept attached to the 'English' version of the word 'acknowledgment' perhaps came to us, when registered letters mandated an 'acknowledgement-due' and the insistence(compulsion), gained more emphasis, in an inversely proportional manner when this acknowledgement was sought of, from unlettered lot! The 'impression' had to be so forceful... that the nominally educated fellow the humble postman presented it as “Thump-impression” ... instead of the 'thumb-impression' , yet again demonstrating 'what a “thumping majority”, that we are!'... Ironically, soon after placing the impression, and wiping off the residual dark stain(an 'acknowledgment' of the thumb having visited the ink pad), to merge into the strands of hair, supposedly protecting the grey matter beneath—the back of the head—the blank eyes now try to seek the 'mysterious message' lying enclosed in that hard-sealed envelope, having desptached its blind 'nod' towards the source, which can now boast of having 'conveyed' the jargon! That jargon will now surface only as a giant demon in that court of law perhaps!

Our roots from our humble villages are too strong! Even at work place, the acknowledgement is sought only when letters contemplating punishments are 'served' on the 'delinquent-employee' (routine circulars which actually go into strengthening the organisation, by highlighting its goals lucidly, are left to a 'matter of chance' whether it gets to be read at all, by all!)

“Jee Huzoor” is a way of aknowledgement, that we 'present' before those government officials, not to recognise any 'meritorious' thing they performed as 'public-servants' ... but just as an 'insurance-policy' to avoid a confrontation with their whimsical victimisation, apart from the 'bribe-acknowledgment' paid as advance tax!

'Wah Wah...' is only as safe as while in a crowd (the source is not traceable, to offer any vulnerability to 'really' explain what that wah-wah was all about!)... we acknowledge thus too...

(The 'acknowledgement' to our blogs and comments here, are 'exclusively unique', in as much as .. often they are 'mutually-exclusive'(!).... when it is about 'spiritual' blogs!.. 'Star' acknowledgements only seem to compound the 'problem' of having out-sourced it !)

I am no exception... Only after my spouse has left for shopping, and I discover that I am all alone at home, that the realisation dawns on me... somewhere I nodded my head, in 'token of having acknowledged' some message that failed to reach its proper destination into my head(I was engrossed into some spiritual activity... or still worse, an 'inactivity', blank to material world, eyes open..!)... and the faint memory of it sends me rushing.... first to the kitchen, to see if milk is trying to spill out on the burning stove, unable to tolerate its flame, when no human interference comes to its help, to doff the flame! No? Then what? The clothesline ... I try to sight, looking for the shirt and the banian playing twist-dance to the tune of the gentle breeze outside, enjoying the dry state, having borne the dripping burden of its wetness long enough! Not even that... What else could it be?... Mother-in-law likely to drop in? No chance! She would not leave-it-to-chance (I am that uncertainty called a 'chance' when it is about her mom!)... Aur kya ho sakta hai?... By the time I finish the list of what it was... she is back, and flashes that cheerful smile, looking at my puzzled face, a smile, which beats the joy of a recipient, of even the 'just-received-cable' from Stockholm, announcing the coveted distinction of henceforth being called a Nobel-laureate! She announces, to break the mystery... “I knew it.. that yours was a blank acknowledgement... so I hurried back home, to be able to meet the calling-bell of our milkman!

With such a poor sense-of-acknowledgement, it is a comedy that I am trying to spell it out with my quixotic clarity... Ac(cept the)Knowledge...!

In a very deep spiritual sense, the “very experience” (of deeper levels of perception in all its nuances of dimensions that unravels on the way), itself... constitutes the acknowledgement... perhaps, the mystic factor is because, it also forms an 'alloy' with 'deep levels of acceptance' (we know, acceptance is a 'form' of acknowledgement!)... It is a very deep and 'silent' acknowledgement!

At an intermediate level,.... yes, on the spiritual path itself, acknowledgement is a deep recognition of that very same experience, when it leaves traces of manifest forms due to the inner transformation that happens deep within... here it is a sort of recognising-the-milestones on our journey... it has to be 'rigidly-adhering-to-the facts'... taking care to avoid mirages which seem like a water body ahead... wait patiently till we get near to it, to verify with experiential-feel! (If fortunate, a Master will help ....us to acknowledge it.. he doesn't need any such acknowledgement!)

At communicable levels, it goes to serve only as a source of inspiration to yet others, that 'yes... it is possible for any human being'... So, this form of acknowledgement is usually adopted only by Masters whose compassion precedes their own journey, and whose communication abilities afford them to take all the needed precautions, to avoid the very process of acknowledgement becoming an impediment to the spiritual progress of others! (Such Masters look for the 'deep silence' in those who choose to stay at the 'deep' levels of acknowledgement... The quality of silence is ample communication of such spiritual-acknowledgement for the 'Masters'... It is of no use for all others, who are yet to set upon their journey!)

Obviously yours,

psn(23rd August, 2013)