Aug 9, 2002, 12.00am IST
Vinay Kamat.
He was a small, thin boy with a mole on his face. But what he told our seventh standard class many years ago still bothers me.
The moral science teacher had given us homework. We had been asked to pen an essay on ‘happiness’. We all thought it was easy. But when we started writing it, we realised our limitations. Some of us wrote about the happy moments surrounding birthdays; some spoke of the emotional highs on getting a first in class; others remembered kites and whoops of joy. But the small, thin boy saw nothing in the events that excited us. Nothing at all. He was uninterested.
Yes, he was an oddity. He was often lost in his own thoughts though he appeared calm. He asked too many questions, and he answered them himself. He seemed to be searching for a friend and had found one in himself. His essay on ‘happiness’ was strange — at least it appeared so at that time. I did not know how to respond to it. Here’s what I can recollect from his singular essay: "I do not know what happiness is. I can’t define it. Is it a mood? Is it a thought? Is it about innocence? It’s difficult. But I did feel happy last Wednesday when I opened my window.
"The atmosphere was right, there was a light breeze. Just across the window was a cashew tree, it was swaying gently. Something was building within me. And, then, a bright yellow leaf started falling. It circled and circled and fell. I don’t know what happened, but I felt nice. It was a positive feeling. I smiled. Yes, you could say, I felt happy. I had never felt like that before."
The class of 1977 was certainly dazed. Happiness? Leaf? Small, thin boy with an attitude? If there were any doubts about the eccentricity of the small, thin boy, the essay had put them to rest.
Years have gone by and I still think about the falling leaf and my classmates. Are we taking our lives for granted? Do we see magic in the ordinary? Or are we wasting our time chasing the extraordinary? Are we searching for something that is right in our midst in our very selves? Have we found it?
Just imagine what the lonely leaf has set off. It is a symbol of life itself, a friend tells me when I recount the incident of the small, tiny boy. Another interprets it as childlike innocence. The falling leaf, like life, is serendipity, says another friend. "It’s everything — and nothing."
Indeed, the small, thin boy was explaining cosmic serendipity in his own way. If life is an accident, then let’s view it as such. Let living itself be a moment of happiness, however small or large that instant is. At the end of the seventh standard term, I had numerous meetings with the small, thin boy. One day he was franker than ever: "I have often wondered what it’s to experience a world without life. I have tried it and found it extremely disturbing. Even as there is a moment of happiness in seeing a leaf, there is sadness in experiencing a world without a leaf. And I am just beginning to understand it. "Reasoning, intelligence, wisdom, experience, imagination are fine. But they will never help you experience a falling leaf. It has to do with awareness," the boy said. I realise now that he was referring in his own way to consciousness.
It’s an inner voyage that he had undertaken at a very young age. He had realised then that a leaf is not a leaf; that we must understand ourselves to understand what’s beyond us; that awareness delimits our mind; and that awareness, unlike memory, is self-effacing. For there can never be individual awareness.
Yet, many years later, I only remember one cosmic individual and a falling leaf.
SACRED SPACE
Aug 9, 2002, 12.00am IST
Power of Prayer
Worship me through meditation in the sanctuary of the heart. Srimad Bhagavatam
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Prayer restrains one from shameful and unjust deeds; and remembrance of God is the greatest thing in life, without doubt. Qur’an
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Lord of creation! No one other than thee pervades all these that have come into being. May that be ours for which our prayers rise, may we be masters of many treasures! Rig Veda 10.121.10
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Set me free, I entreat thee from my heart; If I do not pray to thee with my heart, Thou hearest me nor. If I pray to thee with my heart, Thou knowest it and art gracious unto me. Boran Prayer (Kenya)
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Is any one among you suffering? Let him pray. Is any cheerful? Let him sing praise. Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power. James 5.13-18
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What is the most important and necessary thing for us in our daily life? It is the life of prayer. Through prayer we should know the invisible enemy and distinguish the invisible enemy from ourselves. Don’t pray for yourself. This is my teaching. Sun Myung Moon
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For the great spirit is everywhere; he hears whatever is in our minds and hearts, and it is not necessary to speak to him in a loud voice. Black Elk, Sioux Tradition
Was playing Fallout: New Vegas and read a story called 'The Small thin boy' via a terminal found in the game. It's a strange story, about a boy who is hurt and afraid, and wants to be free of it. He finds his happiness when he dies and goes to heaven, more or less. I decided to google it and stumbled onto this place. Not sure if there's any connection, or any relevance or reference intended, but it is fairly strange. Another funny thing is, i think about life alot too, and when i mean i think, i do it like no one else ;)
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