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Saturday, December 07, 2013

Lacking of Liking!

We look out for a chance to do something that we like to do the most!
It is not exactly about a 'priority'... (if it were so, we all would practice 'running' to a break-neck-speed, even at a very young age.... so that during emergency, we can run away from risk, threat, danger, task, responsibility, accountability... why,... even to catch that running-train or a bus!... It is not 'exactly' about running alone... we would 'equip' ourselves too well,... and running after something is what we dislike most... 'door-delivery' is the in-thing now!... or, there is an 'on-line' getting of things/done...).

We thought, we like 'movies' a lot... but most of us got out of that movie-going-habit, when life itself unfolded like a suspense movie! (Will I get up on time, will the breakfast be ready on time, will the bus arrive on time, will the boss not fall sick at least today.... Cashiers are privileged to enjoy that 'sinking feeling at the pit of the stomach' .... described by GB Shaw, in his essay, 'How I became a public speaker'... when the final physical cash amount and the book totals are being matched to see if 'all is well'! GB Shaw said, he always had that 'feeling' when he tried to face an audience to speak...)

Now, the TV movies are working like sleeping pills for quite a few of us (anyway there will be a repeat telecast very soon!)...

So, it is not 'that-kind-of-interest'...

I used to ask, (some neighbour aunt...)..'why doesn't your son like brinjals?'... She says, 'He does not like it 'that-much''.. I am now tempted to ask, 'Then how much... which-much... if not much-much, .... kuch-kuch?' (the answer feels so evasive... with that 'that-much'!)... There was a time, when most kids never dislike any vegetable... maybe they eat a little extra when that 'roast-able' dish like aloo, sweet-potato, etc are well-roasted... having the crisp-crunchy outer surface, and the gulpable-sweet core soaked with spices!


My 'liking' for a jaggery-porridge(payasam), amused the elders, when I was just going to be two ... It used to arrive at 10 pm... the village used to sleep at 8.30pm (or soon after)... No electricity there.. After dark, only the dim light of a hand held oil lamp can be seen from a distance... the person carrying it was 'identified' from the sound he makes with his foot-steps... 'Ah, it is the priest!'... A temple priest, whom I used to observe very keenly all through my childhood, used to fetch the left-over of prasadam... just two handfuls, enough for a kid that I was (others have only a teaspoonful... abstaining to taste it was un-religious-act, likely to invoke the 'deity's anger even!).... it was rice, jaggery, enriched with Ghee, and other aromatic ingredients.. it used to get cooked in a small firewood stove right inside the temple complex, taking its own time to boil and cook, when the priest used to attend to 'deity' worship intermittently.. ... this item was the last offering of the day, before the temple closes... so, the cohesiveness of jaggery permeating into the core of the rice grain, taking along with it, a little fragrance of other ingredients, over a couple of hours, made that dish 'heavenly' to taste! (My grandmother later narrated, she was amused to come to that tiny mat where I was to sleep till the bed was unfolded, at 10 pm, and announce 'Kaavu prasadam-P-a-y-a-s-a-m'... and I would stir, they help me sit, and feed small morsels of that 'superb-sweet-dish', while I maintain 'eyes closed' but enjoy chewing the dish... and reward them with a mini-smile, when the taste permeates into the mouth... ! Little did I knew, that it constituted--very incidentally—into a training to eat with focused awareness! Eyes closed, mind almost disengaged... awareness, invoked by that familiar taste!... Almost like a blessing for 'sweet-filled-dreams'! The next sleep-session was a bit more with hazy-awareness... truly a blessing!)

That priest was perhaps, the earliest of my spiritual 'benefactors'.... I still wonder, why and how he took a 'special liking' for me! What did he like in himself, that attracted me into that liking?... Logic failed to surmise the reasons! He hardly talked to me, even when I grew towards the age of 5 and thereafter! But his glances towards me were quite mystic, for sure! And my reply glances, blank stare into the unseen emptiness of his eyes! There was nothing to be found in his eyes!.. (that was yet another strange query within! Why do I keep looking at a pair of eyes, that do not 'speak' but seem to say a lot?'... That mystic-liking taking shape within me! (Not that I really could recognise all that was happening with me!... It was just kuch-kuch of much-much! (little, little of a lot more!)...

.....

We miss... to look at what is lacking, when our 'liking' (to 'be-at-something' that we desire to have, become, etc) does not do its job!... And when it is about spirituality, we don't even know that we are missing-to-know... that a 'unique kind of liking' is needed to pursue it intensely enough!... I even used to wonder, 'how do people miss to know that they ought to have liked-to-know about themselves very well?... Is it not the very fundamentals of life?... Does it not help to be-led by 'life-itself' ..... entrusting ourselves to that 'life-within' to take us along the 'life' happening all around us?... (Oh! ... The ability even, to frame this questions into words, could creep in only when the urge to ask was no more!... Now it is only of 'nuisance-value' when I am tempted to really ask this to somebody face-to-face!... No time, quality-time, to allocate for such non-urgent matters!)...

Do we like .. .... adequately enough... to maintain our health (not just remaining out of 'dis-ease', ill-health... or just 'managing somehow' those chronic ailments?.... I wonder, if at those MBBS classes, they demonstrate with a live-healthy-person, about what 'health' means, or looks like... the little that I could see was in the movie, “Munna Bhai, MBBS... where the frantic search was only for a 'body'... and we enjoyed the comedy when it was a live and reasonably disease-free body!)...

Do we like... adequately enough .... to look at how we emote?... there is no structure in place (by whatever name..), to really train us into maintaining a 'well-balanced-emotional-state'... what ever the provocation from the outside situation!... Even when the body is dis-eased... we call it, 'I am unwell'.. time to get out of that 'well'!... (it is okay to continue to say so 'I am unwell'... but, we need to be aware, it is 'just-the-body' that is well, unwell, at-ease, dis-eased, comfortable, in-dis-comfort, under -a spell-of-some-craving, etc..... 'I am hungry' is okay, but let us know, that 'we feel hungry, ... really'... and it was not just that the stomach became empty, when the digestion process was over, and the poor stomach is busy with its own best-of-likings now... cleaning the 'system'!!!

Now, before a dislike to read creeps into a reader, and further takes over, let me click my 'liking-finished'... right here!

Likely-to-be... yours,

psn (7th December, 2013)

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