A Visit with Myself

I sat on the familiar rugs, hands gently held together, knees neatly bent. I looked up at the white marble hall, the statue in the middle. The flowers, the fruits, all offerings in waiting. The occasional crack of the microphone changed my focus. Singing, chanting, whatever English translation you choose forl these bhajans. I liked the feeling they gave me, the comfort. Outside was cold, rainy, and dark. Inside here, bright and warm. The audience tonight was smaller than the usual crowd, but spirited nonetheless. Whenever a pause came after the end of the song, you could catch the man singing on the right side of the hall glancing at the woman with the microphone on the left, who would then look at the dholak player, lastly looking back over the entire crowd for the next voice to speak up. A little girl in front of me was given command of the microphone by her mother. She sang softly and in a shy manner at first, but after the first few verses were repeated by those around her, she picked up her force and pace while maintaining a good steady beat. She sang so confidently for such a young child, I was impressed. But then I remembered that this is not about displaying vocal talents, but singing with love and intention and purity. Who would be more capable of that than a child?

As the songs went on, I found myself getting closer to that quiet place I desired to reside within for a few moments at the least. I closed my eyes, still seeing the same images before me. However, my concerns, plans, thoughts, goals, and worries came to the forefront, and I subconsciously asked questions of the marble statue before me, knowing that I was really speaking to what the fixated material stood for, not its actual physical self. I opened this to many possible discussions, debates, and answers on a variety of issues. But when I was to open my eyes, I knew there was only going to be one answer, and more than likely it would be one that I could not actually see in front of me.

Accepting that notion, I brought myself out of my mental recluse and slowly opened my eyes. The reflective light of the hall hurt at first, but the sight of the devoted activity around me eased the transition. I looked into the eyes of that statue, and then I noticed something. A wisp of smoke that I had not seen before. Then another. I followed the trails of the wisp all the way down to one lit diya that sat at the front of the display. One diya, I thought, yet its flame creates enough smoke to distract me from the lifelike garland-laid figure. The smoke from the flame starts off so concentrated, so easy to outline and contain and examine. And in an instant the same smoke displaces in infinite directions, changing color, changing form. Within seconds, the smoke appears to be no more. You can not see it, and the farther it spreads thin, the harder it is to smell it or feel its light heat. Is it an illusion, this disappearance of the smoke, or is the illusion that the smoke was never there to begin with? That all we saw was the same fire of the flame, but transformed and sent out into its surroundings?

This took me a few minutes to watch and play through. I felt like this could be the answer that I came to the temple seeking, it just had to be. All I had to do was figure out what it meant. And then it hit me. I found myself smiling silently in the midst of a growing crowd of singers and visitors. What I knew was that the smoke is in fact there, but not only is the smoke there, there are endless other components to that fire than just what we are seeing. Our human eyes are well-adapted, but they are not limitless. When the smoke "disappears", it is just changing to a form that we can not recognize. And I believe this delineation is what I was meant to walk away with today. Everything - every idea, every love, every feeling, and every situation - has always presented itself in some form to us. At opportune times in our lives, our senses are able to recognize them, and we feel that they are "there". But even when they seem hopeless, frustrating, or totally lost, they are in fact still there, but in a new form. And our tasks becomes tuning our senses to reassess what is in front of us, and seize it and take it in a new direction.

My frustration about the election results. My confusion about the opposite sex. My concerns about how my trading is going. Politics, men, and work have always been around. Politics, men, and work will continue to stay. However their forms can and will change. I just have to be willing to open my eyes to the possibilities. And when that is done, action can be taken. Like Dan Millman says, "I care about what you do, but not how you feel." The ability to change beliefs about a situation and consequently change behavior -- this is the morsel of wisdom I extracted from a visit to the temple, a visit with myself.