THE AGEING WARRIOR 4

“Imagine the infinite…close your eyes”, said the Warrior
“It’s impossible…I’ll need forever to imagine the infinite”, replied the Little Girl.
“Yes because wherever you stop, it will set a limit.”
“Hmm…”
“Allah-u-Akbar!”
“Hmm…”
“Do you know that it’s the most simple yet most profound statement.”
“No I didn’t. Doesn’t it mean ‘God is Great’?”
“No…exactly it means that ‘God is big’.”
“Ok!”
“So one day, a Ghazi asked the Prophet: how big?”
“What did the Prophet say?”
“The Prophet gestured towards the hills of Meena and said: He’s bigger than that. The Ghazi asked: what about the Sahara?
- He’s bigger than that. Can you imagine Aa-be-azeem, the sea?
- Yes I can.
- He’s bigger than that too.
- Is he bigger than the Noor-e-shab, the night sky that is full of so many stars and the moon?
- Yes, He is bigger than that too.
- This night sky, which is so big…if Allah is bigger than that then how will I who is so insignificant ever be fortunate enough to see Him?
- Allah is not deedaa-e-chashn; He cannot be seen with the mortal eye. He is deedaa-e-dil and deedar-e-jigar; it is an affair of the empty heart.
- How will I see him? Does He know about us?
- Kam-nazr! When your heart’s eye will open you will see him. When your small eyes can see the whole hill of Meena…this whole huge hill…then the sight of the heart can go farther. It can see Allah. And rest assured, he knows about us. This is why I tread softly upon this sand of the desert. When the eye sees something a relationship is established between the person and the object. Each one of us sees differently, each set of eyes makes a different relationship. Your relation with the sea is different from mine. Thus when the heart is empty and receptive it sees Him. We don’t have to worry our heads about Him. He will care for us. That is why I say that He is big. We are the ones who look up to Him.
- Huh?
- Look here. This desert that we ride our camels on; there is a relationship between my feet and this one grain of sand on the ground. Don’t I know that this grain of sand exists?
- Yes…you do.
- In the same way He knows about us.”
“Aha!” The Little Girl exclaimed at the dawning realization of what the Warrior just told her.
“Devi, now can you imagine the infinite?”
“Tell me more”
“Devi, let me tell you a story that is exactly the opposite. The Buddha was once asked by a member of his congregation the Sangh: I have heard that the Vedic scholars say ‘Satvam tat brihat’, that which is true is also big, if one were to make a rough and crude translation.”
“What did the Buddha say to that?”
“The Budha said: Look at the world around you. It’s so vast, but it is possible to close your eyes in just one fraction of a moment and it is no more. Yet the eye can still see the after-images. So imagine a closed mind…imagine how much it can see. Then imagine what a closed heart can see.”
“Wow!”
“I mean if you look at it in terms of today’s new fangled ideas…it is said that sunlight takes eight minutes to reach the earth. That means we see the Sun after eight minutes are past. And the Sun sees us eight minutes earlier. Never are Surya and Manushya interfaced in real time. The good Hindus of the ancient past have a term for it…they call it YugPath. When Treta, Kali, Dwapar and Sat Yug…all four…merge.”
The hairs on the ageing Warrior’s stood on end…his skin was alive. The Little Girl was amazed…every time he spoke of the Truth he came alive. The Warrior continued, “to translate YugPath as simultaneous is also not possible, because simultaneous takes too long to say and mean in real time.”