My funky umbrella that I forgot in a bus and so I had to buy a silly raincoat. [Source – Pixabay]
*
It’s a foggy day and I am walking to somewhere all alone, carrying a green umbrella pendulum-like. Rain shower won’t stop me. The blinding whiteness won’t scare me. I check my watch, it assures me time is good.
Hearing footsteps following me, I try to hasten, only then I realise it is no one, but me. These gumboots I tell you. It is all very funny, but still I cannot take a chance to laugh aloud.
Never knew the fog could trick. The fresh green plants and giant trees that till now looked painting-like, now seem spooky.
Suddenly I hear fresh footsteps running from a direction towards me. Numbly I tell myself don’t move, still I turn and find someone in a funny raincoat running towards me.
Then a voice, “Smarty pants, give me back my umbrella, don’t want this silly raincoat of yours’. It is my friend Marcia. I smile and say, “But you look good in it.”
We fight and then laughing aloud walk ahead together.
That the dark clouds will pour heavily and ceaselessly, that the rainbow will nurture joyous moments, that a true feeling is there to stay forever, but only to forsake rudely with lessons to accept and time as a remedy, making a revelation that such is life, does this change what is transient into eternal?
Incessant thoughts enjoying the make-believe forget what is real and adhere to what is smooth and comforting and familiar and dear and satisfying.
Transience is a reality, but is this the reason for its permanence?
The world says a yes, the individual says a no.
This fleeting life knows the truth. It lives and dies to prove it.
A static symbol of the dynamic universe, an illusion, Maya, moving rhythmically, revealing in an instant the unfathomable divine, the perfect balance that creates, preserves, destroys, incarnates and liberates, the Nataraja, performing the ultimate dance, is a magnificent work of art that reflects the cosmos – the beginning and the end of the cosmos, the music of the cosmos and the soul of the cosmos.
The Nataraja sculpture represents all – the destined journey, the tragic fall, the glorious victory, the dance in time and timelessness, the poise and elegance, overwhelming stillness, reverberating brightness, brilliance, power and enlightenment. In a single spectacle, it shows what was, what is and what will be.
Shiva Nataraja, the King of Dance, dances on Apasmara, a dwarf, crushing not him, but his ignorance, forgetfulness and limited vision of self, hence freeing his soul from bondage. Four armed – with Agni (flame) to demolish in one, with Damru (drum) playing the tune of time in second, making the Abhaya Mudra (the sign of fearlessness) in the third, thus bestowing power to be without fear, and the fourth in the Gahahasta (elephant trunk) Mudra signifying supremacy over ignorance – Nataraja is the embodiment of all the vigorous flux in the outer world and the serenity in the inner world as he dances the dance of bliss, Ananda Tandava, continuing the harmony of life and death in the cosmos.
Prahabhamandala, the arch of flames within which Nataraja dances, is the manifest universe, making the cycle of birth and death, burning with sufferings and illusions, apparent.
Also, a ring of consciousness that is in agony as it’s blinded by temporary ideas, unaware about the permanent dance of bliss. Oblivious of the Kundalini Shakti (the cosmic power) – that the cobra around Nataraja’s waist represents and is believed to reside in all – the unconscious mind walks cyclically.
Lotus flower, representing the creative power of the universe, forms the pedestal on which the Nataraja dances, celebrating in full zest the dance of true freedom.
Omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, the Nataraja does a dance that occurs ceaselessly in every atom, sending waves in the cosmos, waking everyone from the dream world to witness reality and truth, destroying the phantom world full of phantom pains.
Neutrality and peace on Nataraja’s face – the One dancing in frenzy – mirrors the magic of the master who dances within the universe of illusion, but stays beyond that universe. In a palpable language, the Nataraja declares the way the soul can rise from its bonded life and with equality seeping within, can see and participate in the cosmic dance.
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Wall relief of dancing Shiva at cave temple no.1 in Badami, Karnataka, India. [Source – Wikimedia Commons]
This marvellous sculpture amalgamates supreme power and action with absolute bliss and beauty, radiates the delicate balance of the cosmos and magnifies the close connection between the One and the many. Nataraja, Mahakala (the Lord of Time), with continuity and change flowing throughout becomes an opportunity to understand the sublimity of Maya and work a way out to reach the immutable Presence.
The Nataraja is excellence. Meditating on it is achieving its essence. Its essence is pure excellence.
*
Shiva Nataraja, the Lord of Dance at CERN, the European Center for Research in Particle Physics in Geneva. [Source – Wikimedia Commons]
Hundreds of years ago, Indian artists created visual images of dancing Shivas in a beautiful series of bronzes. In our time, physicists have used the most advanced technology to portray the patterns of the cosmic dance. The metaphor of the cosmic dance thus unifies ancient mythology, religious art and modern physics.
You refuse to follow the crowd and you avowedly disregard the art of punditry, the rancour and anger veiled, disappears when you see it with your inner eye, the contradictions choose not an easy hyperbolic, but a converging simple route and the paradoxes recognise their nature whenever you sit in absolute bliss, and renunciation takes you from the known to unknown, inexplicable, irrefragable, immutable.
Kevin, I think you can, but you will not act directly. Otherwise, what is the point of my journey?
Farewell Kevin. I’ll memorise what you said to me that day, ‘it is a world of mutual help and struggle’. And in my world, I am to engage myself totally.
Mo: It is Pip’s. (BEAT) Have you been drinking a lot of coffee?
Lucille: I have been advised to.
Mo: That doctor friend of yours is a nut case.
A pause.
Lucille: I can’t believe it? Are we living in… this is ridiculous?
Mo: What is?
Lucille: Haven’t you read today’s newspaper?
Mo: Ah! I don’t read newspapers anymore.
Lucille: Why?
Mo: For peace, darling.
Lucille: Peace… yeah, right.
Mo: Wanna piece of it?
Lucille: Piece of peace? What are you…
Mo: The carrot cake… what’s wrong with ya Lucille?
Lucille: O! Yeah, sure. (EATING THE CAKE) Whatever is happening, it hits everyone… directly or indirectly I mean… it hits everyone.
Mo: Hmm! This place has the best cakes in the world.
Lucille: I love it here! (BEAT) Is there any hope?
Mo: Hope? Hmm… there is always some hope… that’s what is dragging us, you know, ya.
Lucille: Dragging us you say…
Mo: Of course! I mean come on, where is “hope” leaving for? It’s not in any rush like us, I… I hope. Gosh! (BEAT) I feel a bit eerie today, I don’t know why.
Lucille: No really? No, it’s lovely today.
The grey weather outside changes into black and the wild dancing winds start to pour heavy rain, the clouds roar loudly declaring that they too have read the sad newspaper. Lightning hits a tree and its huge branch breaks and falls.
Mo: Storm’s here. Is it still lovely for you? Lucille!
Lucille: What? Hm? Yeah! But listen, where did you park the car?
Mo: Why? Under the tree. But why?
Lucille: Now it is literally under the tree, crushed I suppose.
Mo: What! (GETS UP) O, no!
Lucille: Wait, try some strong coffee, you’ll feel better and hopeful.
Mo: Wa… Lucille, you’re crazy!
Mo leaves hurriedly.
Lucille: Mo! Pip’s umbrella!! (PAUSE) I think I hit a nerve there… but black coffee works wonders… I can’t do without it… especially after reading the newspaper.
That I am and that I am not is a seeming. Life is a seeming just like its partner, death.
*
A beautiful sunrise/ sunset… a beautiful seeming. [Source – Pixabay]
Rosaline, sitting on the branch of a huge tree, was collecting the passing clouds. Though friends with the clouds, she didn’t like to see them at night, maybe because she also collected stars.
The day-night cycle confused her. Grandma’s solution “you’ll understand it once you become a big girl” didn’t help Rosaline at all.
And so she started living in different worlds – the-bright-blue-sky-world, the-mischievous-cloudy-world, the-paper-boat-rainy-world, the-sparkling-starry-world, the-moon-pie-world, the-ghostly-pitch-black-world…
Two worlds sometimes merged into one and formed something unique.
Whichever world Rosaline was in, she was always excited to live it fully. Happily, she always announced early in the morning “today I’ll be in the-mischievous-cloudy-world’ or ‘give way to Rosaline, the-moon-pie-world awaits her.”
Lost in her myriad worlds, she lived madly. She even recorded her visits to these wonderful worlds.
She was proud to be the youngest and the oldest member of her family, youngest by age and oldest by the many visits she made to these worlds.
On her 92nd visit to the crunchy-autumn-leaves-world, she died. She fell from a huge tree.
Her last words were, “Grandma, you need to plus 22 more worlds to break my record”.
I closed my eyes and saw the stone cut stairs, broad and homely, stretching from the bottom of the hill to the top, where the age old, beautifully carved and gloriously coloured temple lives. Yes, the temple lives, breathing in prayers and breathing out peace. A magical quietness stops the spinning mind and grants the warmth of love.
Little feet try to reach the bell, failing, but trying, finally adding to the music flowing in the air a happy ‘tan-tan-tan’. Not understanding the images, the big bold eyes, the lion’s roar, its the splash of colours –golden, red, yellow, green- all sparkling gallantly, that enters within to stay. Round and round the temple, the giant smiling peepal tree, flowers in the wind, red threads tied in every direction, the burnt silenced diya, the rich kohl, and faith in miracles, all together makes the earth reverberate.
I am walking in the temple, eating the prasad and savouring the air, the green leaves and the time. Yes, the time, unknowingly I am moving ahead. What seemed eternal has now elapsed in what I thought were years, were just a few funny seconds. Funny because when I opened my eyes, I didn’t see the stone cut stairs or the old temple…
Following the melodies, the colours, the laughs, baffled at every point, blessed now and then, a bit complacent and a bit more naive, I have reached so far. I cannot foresee, but I know now that sometimes, forever and one second is just the same.
She is just ten years old. Talkative and curious by nature, she wishes to know, but only about the magical, the dreamlike and the pleasing.
Her world is of all the shades of pink. With the warmth of an honest, caring canopy overhead, she looks at the stars and floats in the Milky Way.
There is ample clarity in everything she sees and time’s her friend – blistering fast or dragging slow. There is only one melody she is tuned to and it is called life.
*
She is living in her own world, within and without. Image from Pixabay.
She is young and brave. Quietly, she observes the world and the world within her, laughs at her.
Battling the questions and transforming the answers, she moves ahead with every failure and tries to fathom the success.
A mirror walks with her; she has broken it umpteen times but they are still in a relationship. Her cries, her sighs, her laughs, her smiles, her ways and one life… all packed in a rucksack is her pride and joy.
The doubtful star burns with her glare and the rhythm of change trespasses the old.
She is living for others now and has placed herself on the top shelf, in a green trunk, under an old book. Close to many and far from herself, she is standing on the border – this way or that way… her life is slipping away…
She just woke up and whatever was under the old book, in a green trunk, on the top shelf she burned that rusted world to dust.
Walking on ashes, she turns black and grey until the mirror returns. It is not going to be joyous all through, but she doesn’t mind the sound of a burned guitar.
They say she is weak and crouched, that she hears less and that her wrinkles make her a puzzle. A puzzle indeed and a child from within, no one knows what a good time she is having.
Her old eyes shine like a starry night and things magically appear and disappear with her touch. The words cannot express bliss; she is singing, hear this – ‘La-la, li-li, o, la-la, li-li’.
She is extraordinary. She is over there, can you see her? I know you can.
Endless footprints following footprints/
When suddenly a few of them rise/
To bloom like a flower.
Greetings!
A storyteller, following the ancient tradition of cave chroniclers, standing in vrikshasana (the tree pose) on a hill top (it is sunny, but windy), breathing in and out stories (relishing it all, but at times overwhelmed), declares animatedly that she will continue to – tell stories, share rare story gems, and connect with the pacy universe while also keeping the website ad-free.
Big thanks to my readers. Stay tuned!
Also, a humble request to the new subscribers to check the spam folder after subscribing. Silly (but necessary) confirmation emails often land there instead of the bright inboxes. Merci!
Ya-hoy!
Chiming Stories (formerly Home Chimes)
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