“Then & Now”

Life at a quick glance while on a hospital bed – Late summer 2015…

A chilly November morning happened to be my first day at work last year. I was visibly nervous. After a struggle of nine consecutive months I ended up securing a job as a gas station attendant. A strange yet strong smell of coffee and chocolate filled my nostrils up as I set my foot inside the convenience store part of the pump’s premises. Without wasting much time and with not so professional haste I was introduced to the staff.

“You have to be quick here, it is not a hospital where you put the patients to sleep and chit chat your shift away with nurses and doctors”, my Punjabi boss’s much Punjabi wife made a rather insensitive and loud remark in her absolutely natural Punjabi accent keeping my professional back ground of a unit coordinator in mind as she started to show me how to stock up kettle chips, candy bars and other unhealthy snacks on the already over stocked shelves in the convenience store. I was not expecting any such welcome on my first day at work but it won’t be incorrect to confess that I was prepared for the worst…after all I was a brown employee of brown bosses, therefore self respect and power trips were bound to have clashes. I smiled sheepishly and felt sorry for her shallow state of mind and kept calm and well poised for the sake of my hourly rate of wages… twelve dollars and thirty-two cents!!! Things that one obtains too cheap are often esteemed too lightly, just like a bag of kettle chips…such is a labourer or the price tag on human dignity.

migratory bird

celestial item so cheap

an endless paradox

to look forward to return

Ah! Laden frozen wings!!!

a severed mother tongue

and lack of belonging

perishable existence

in a predictable west

I behold debris of my soul!!!

each sun is a hope

shaded sunset, a rusted spell

solemnly bent and bruised

this carcass still strives for

the exodus of dreams to end!!

Have a capitulated? Is this who I am? The tone of my poem may be sober but the very last few words make me rethink and rejuvenate myself. Over the course of life I have been learning to let go, especially of the things I have no control over. Bliss is not a feeling after all, I am learning! It is the ecstasy of letting everything be exactly the way it is, and loving every last bit of it. I have been practising to believe I am blissful.

One subtle yet significant shift which has been changing the whole attitude and atmosphere of my life is to diligently dedicate all merits and benefits from it to all beings, holding nothing back for myself. It is very hard though for I am just a human, I feel short changed all the time.

However, this is certainly one of the most wonderful, mysterious and beautiful things that I ever discovered. It has been the essential meaning of why I wake up for Abhyaasa at 4:45 a.m. and why I keep cool with my boss’s wife lightly speaking. Life must not be just about getting something or reaching somewhere. It has to be about giving everything, and arriving nowhere (now-here, that’s another way to look at my kind of life). I am arriving no where, just no where at all and yet I am convinced that I am on the right track…such is His grace!

I can’t allow my financial or professional scene to equate with that of my spiritual growth, for there is no such correlation. All I am required to do is keep trying, leave the rest up to Him. I am progressing to feel grateful for all the wonderful things I have had an opportunity to learn and also unlearn in this lifetime. Such precious, profound and practical things that I feel that my life has been beautifully guided. Even though, my late father had a rather promising vision of my life. After all it’s not a curriculum I could have planned for myself. There is a greater intelligence at play, a broader intention fulfilling itself. The more grateful I am for the intimate guidance of this intelligence in my life, the more supported I feel. It’s a virtuous spiral of love, gratitude, inspiration and His support, which is already perfect and keeps getting better. How wonderful! A spiral of love where I am one with my half educated and not-so-polite Punjabi bosses, a spiral of peace and forgiveness where a sudden lucid comment from a long haul truck driver buying a quick cup of coffee or pack of smokes as he fills the gas tank up does not bother me or make me lash out anymore. I am learning to let go for He is my source of will to remain calm.

Where earlier there was often self-judgement and doubt, now gratitude and peace has started to flow in. This sense of contentment leads me to a whole new enthusiasm to be thankful which wasn’t there when I was not able to accept her remarks more gracefully.

Here is one way I understand my principle…

“help me my Waheguru ji

to give everything away

allow me the strength
to keep nothing back
please help me remain empty
for they say only emptiness
can embrace everything

grant me the will oh Waheguru ji

to fill up the hollows of my soul

dust to dust

I am ashes to ashes

I am assured of the fact

That You are watching over me”!!!

“Then and Now, thank you for being there for me”.