The new sun rises every day. Every moment a new sunray travels from a far to land on earth’s womb. A photon full of elixir enters new life. A bud flowers. A Flower attains to heavenly beauty when a draft of energy passes through it. New fragrance is strewn in the air. A new bee flirts with the florets. A new baby metamorphoses out of the scaffolding of life. An egg shell wrecks baby out of the womb. Every moment a new being is introduced to the hypnotic sky, to the lull of exotic light, to melodious and lyrical sounds, to radiance of magnetic colours. Heavenly elixir saps him awestruck.
A child’s eyes are filled with wonder. They are penetrative. They look without inhibition. Cheering to every leaf of joy, playing with every grain of sand. Touching every blade of grass. Hiphopping in wind breezes. Overwhelmed by the chill of water. Startled to find a world full of joy. Everything is exhilarating. Every moment is a wow moment for him. So much of joy and ecstasy. Throwing water to the winds. Jumping to catch the sunlight. Everything pulsating in joy, and he explodes into enchantment by every bit of it.
Everyone has experienced childhood. Everyone has danced in the ecstasy of being. Everyone has known living in the moment. But now, everyone feels tired. We are disenchanted. We don’t even care for flowers or gardens. Wind excites no more. We don’t hear an orchestra played by birds, leaves and rain. We are tired. Tired of meeting the same people every day. Tired of the same events every day. Tired of travelling the same distances every day. We are totally bored. We want something new. What has happened to us? What has gone wrong with us? Why aren’t our eyes full of wonders? What is that that children know we don’t? Children are in fact more intelligent than you.
Each cell of your body is full of wonder. Each cell is born new. Each cell is dying and is being born anew. Everything is loaded with excitement but your mind wants something new. You daily ask your friends, what’s new today? They reply, nothing. It seems life is new but you have become old.
Life is a flow. Life is flowing. Every moment you meet a new moment. Every moment you meet a new person. You don’t meet the same person again. Water is flowing. Air is blowing. You are breathing in one moment and you are breathing out the next moment. Life is moving in a cycle. You do a lot but nothing gets done. Every evening you come back to the same point from where you start every morning. You hit the same walls that you have broken thousand times.
Has man forgotten how to live? You enter this world as an accident and go out of it as an accident. Everything in the world that is happening to you is accidental. You enter the womb of your mother by accident. You met the girl that you married accidentally. Your children are born to you accidentally. Isn’t so full of wonder?
What has happened? All wonders are around you. You are incapable of seeing it. Is there dirt in your eyes, or are your eyes tainted? You have to get to an Ophthalmologist or get your cataract operated. But you need an Ophthalmologist like Buddha, the awakened.
Your mind thinks that you age. Mind laments old age and remembers childhood songs. Mind shakes in fear that you have become old. But in fact you don’t age. You remain the same being the same boy who had just entered the womb and heard the heartbeat of mother. You remain the same who has just broken out of her shell and has just cried for the first time after coming out of the womb. You remain the same all your life you don’t age. Who ages? Mind ages. You don’t age.
Someone asked Bhikku, why do we become old from child to young to old? Bhikku replied, “We are always still and not moving at all. Time passes through us. We don’t pass time. Whatever that belongs to this world changes and moves. In childhood, youth, old age, the ageless in you remains ageless he does not age. But the body ages because it follows the rule of nature. We are beyond the rule of nature.”
Your mind keeps looking for something new in life. It changes wives, husbands, jobs, wants more money or prestige but gets nothing. Remember, if you want to be rich there is poverty hidden in you, if you want to be powerful there is cowardice hidden in you. If you want to be known there is inferiority hidden in you. The joy was in the being. The joy of wonder is always new. The joy was in the looking so penetrative so that the looker and the object become one. That is the joy.
But you are living in your ego. Even if God comes to you, you would ignore him. He comes daily, you ignore him daily. Has someone stolen something from your life? You are tired of it. You are tired of the same routine. But you neither live nor die. Life is about living and dying every moment. To die in every moment to be born new to the next one.
Your mind has brainwashed you completely with its madness. You forget that the boy who had been born is you. You are still the same in the sameness of sensitivity, amazements and wonder. You have to turn inwards. Yours eyes are still able to see deep within. Your eyes can touch your being.
Today look at your wife as if you have met her for the first time. Meet everyone as if you are meeting for the first time. Look at a flower full of wonder and ecstasy in your eyes. Fill yourself with the joy of existence. The nature, the people, the whole motor of universe are blowing at full speed. Mock motorcycle ride. Don’t think you have aged. You did not age even a bit. You neither age nor die. Your mind dies, your body dies. The one who is full of wonder, full of joy, full of consciousness is never born; he never dies.
Understand that the truth is unknowable. Your knowledge clouds your vision. When poison was being prepared for Socrates, he was ecstatic and so full of wonder. His disciples were crying and they asked Socrates: “You are full of joy on your death.” Socrates said, “I lived every moment of life. Now I am excited to live every moment of death too.” Only a person who lives life can live the death. All Your life you don’t live in fear of death and then you die of fear. It is not important that you will be reborn after death or not. Important is whether you lived before death or not. If truth is unknowable, it would be full of wonder. Isn’t it? Children know that trick. To live life, begin to be child-like.
The author is a spiritual coach and an independent advisor on policy, governance and leadership. He can be reached at arunavlokitta@gmail.com.
