Reflections

These are testing times indeed! This is a time for reflection; a time for understanding; a time for empathy; a time for a reassessment – about life and how it’s lived. More than anything I believe this is a time to put aside any differences, opinions and strongly held beliefs. 

We are all human beings trying to survive.

To put this into perspective, we are, all of us, members of the species Homo Sapiens crowded together on a small planet in a very average solar system circling around a very average star, amongst billions of stars, at the edge of an arm of a very average spiral galaxy among an unimaginable number of many billions of galaxies in an unimaginably large universe. 

I fully realize that what I’m about to write may be controversial, possibly inflammatory and most definitely blasphemous! But I still need to ask the question - why do we, puny beings that we are, think we are so special? That God (however He, She, It is determined) is “our” special God? 

Now, don’t get me wrong, I believe in a “higher force” – something that imbues objects (us, amongst others) with “life”. But what that “life” is has yet to be determined. Something that is alive is not “dead”. But what is absent or withdrawn to render what was alive, dead – has, as I say, yet to be determined. Personally I doubt that we will ever truly know. 

As always in moments of high drama or deep reflection, as now, at this time, I turn to poets and poetry. Poets seem to have a greater insight into the human condition than more down to earth mortals such as I.

I have always loved The Rubaiyat, the famous poem by Omar Khayyam (18 May 1048 – 4 December 1131) a Persian who followed the Sufi version of Islam. Khayyam was an astronomer, astrologer, physician, philosopher, and mathematician: he made outstanding contributions in algebra. In the year 1072 CE Omar Khayyam documented the most accurate year length ever calculated up to that date – a figure still accurate enough for most purposes in the modern world. But it is his poetry for which he is better known in the West than any other non-Western poet – in particular his Rubaiyat, translated (possibly somewhat loosely) by Edward Fitzgerald.

To follow on what I said about a “higher force”, I offer the following Quatrains (verses) from the Rubaiyat starting with:

 7

Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring

The Winter Garments of Repentance fling:

The Bird of Time has but a little way

To fly – and Lo! The Bird is on the Wing.

11

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,

A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse – and Thou

Beside me singing in the Wilderness –

  And Wilderness is Paradise enow.

23

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,

                                               Before we too into Dust descend;

Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie,

        Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and – sans End!

49

‘Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days

Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:

Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,

And one by one back in the Closet lays.

50

The Ball no Question makes of Ayes and Noes,

But Right or Left, as strikes the Player goes;

And He that toss’d Thee down into the Field,

He knows about it all – He knows – HE knows!

51

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a word of it.

52

And that inverted Bowl we call the Sky,

Whereunder crawling coop’t we live and die,

Lift not thy hands to It for help – for It

Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.

53

With Earth’s first Clay They did the Last Man’s Knead.

And then of the Last Harvest sow’d the Seed:

Yea, the first Morning of Creation wrote

What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.

And so it goes on.

Khayyam must have been a cynic who liked his wine, and I certainly think he had, shall I say, a rather  “irreverent” relationship with God! 

I will also say that what I determine to be Khayyam’s beliefs are in line with mine. That we determine our own fate by what we do - good, bad or indifferent. We reap what we sow!

The Wheel always turns.

The Wheel of Life that is. It turns on its axis regardless of what we, mere humans, do. Of course the largest of all “wheels” are the galaxies – unbelievably large “wheels” with billions of stars rotating majestically in, shall I say, their preordained manner. 

Always there are patterns, events, all manner of things seem to return to what was there before (or almost). Even the entire universe, it seems, will one day cease expanding and start contracting – presumably back to what it was before – nothing!

Where tides always ebb as they must flow; where the seasons change as they have always done; where day always succeeds night; when a salmon must always return to the same river in which it was born, to spawn - these are in their own way rotating wheels of similar events. 

Of course to us humans Life and Death is the most important “wheel” of all. Where a child is born or a man lies dead, Life continues. This is portrayed so well by Shakespeare in “As you like it” (Act II Scene VII):-

Lord Jaques:-

“All the world’s a stage,

And all men and women merely players:

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts, 

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,

Mewling and puking in his nurse’s arms.

And then the whining school boy, with his satchel,

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths, and bearded like a pard,

Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,

With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloons,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,

His youthful hose well sav’d, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

A second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”

So there it is. Wheels within wheels – not like clockwork – far above anything so mechanical. People and things must always obey the rules and regulations by which they were created. 

It cannot be otherwise.

The tale of the Cracked Pot

From an E-mail – author unknown.

I found this little story – well known I’m sure - but I think it is worth repeating.

A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on an end of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, and while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master’s house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water in his master’s house. Of course the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect to the end for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.

After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. “I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you.” 

“Why?” asked the bearer. “What are you ashamed of?”

“I have been able, for these past two years, to deliver only half my load because of this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your master’s house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all this work, and you don’t get full value from your efforts,” the pot said.

The water bearer felt sorry for the old cracked pot, and in his compassion he said, “As we return to the master’s house, I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path.” Indeed, as they went up the hill, the old cracked pot took notice of the sun warming the beautiful wild flowers on the side of the path, and this cheered it some. But at the end of the trail, it still felt bad because it had leaked out half its load, and so again the pot apologized to the bearer for its failure. 

The bearer said to the pot, “Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it. I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back from the stream, you’ve watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my master’s table. Without you being just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house.”

Each of us has our own unique flaws. We’re all cracked pots. But if we will allow it, the Great Spirit uses our flaws to grace the Universe. In the Cosmos nothing goes to waste. Don’t be afraid of your flaws. Acknowledge them, and you too can be the cause of beauty. Know that in our weaknesses we find our strengths.

Where is God?

I have no argument with people who believe in Evolution or alternatively in Creation – I am firmly of the opinion that both can exist alongside each other. Why not? There is only one God, as far I know, and if He made everything (everything from amoeba to plants to animals and us humans) who are we to argue over how He arranged for this wondrous feat to occur?

What I have difficulty in understanding is why whole-hearted believers in “the Book” – be it the Koran, Bible, the Torah or Vedic scriptures - opt so vigorously for one OR the other belief. We just do not know (and are unlikely ever to find out) what He was thinking about at the time.

And does it really matter? We are all here, on this small planet circling an averaged sized sun which is part of a very ordinary galaxy in an unimaginably large universe.

So I ask the question posed by the title of this post – “Where is God?”

If as I believe nothing (repeat nothing) can exist without His knowledge – because He is omnipotent – then everything (repeat everything) has his imprint and is therefore a part of God’s plan. You, me, the trees, the flowers, fish, birds, insects, galaxies – everything is here because He wished it to be so. 

So God is everything.

To fight over who believes what; to kill someone who does not hold to your particular belief system; to start a war to impose your particular form of religious belief on others is insane! To me it gives the lie to their belief in God. To them God is their special God – not your God, not my God and certainly not one over-arching Supreme Being.

And, of course, only they know what their particular, special God wants, therefore they have to enforce this on others. Is this because He tells them to?

All this leads to other important questions that each of us need to answer – “Who am I? Who or What made the universe? What is my relationship to the Who or What?”

So, where is God?

We need some harmony and order in the world.

Nothing is permanent in Life. Nature is dynamic. Life is dynamic. It must be so, because everything that is alive, either moves, grows or in some way changes with time. Nothing stays as it was and trying to keep something as it was is similar to chasing rainbows. This is the order of Nature. The order that dictates that a salmon shall return to the river of its birth; the order inherent in the cycle of the seasons, in the ebb and flow of the tides; in the spiral galaxies, in the stars and their courses, the order can be sensed in the regularity of all turning things.

We may not appreciate it but the universe is unfolding as it should – there is order and harmony in the way things happen. Nature is harmonious in its entirety. When order is absent and chaos reigns then there are problems. And have you noticed something – we humans are the only creatures on the face of the earth that can actually create disharmony? An ant cannot create disharmony, because an ant will always behave as an ant should; it is in its nature to do so; likewise with parrots or any other creature that you care to name. They cannot be anything other than the way nature (evolution, creation?) has dictated they shall be. Human beings on the other hand can and often do behave in strange and violent ways that cause havoc with the natural order of things.

The natural world is in our genes, we are all from the earth; when we die we return to the earth. We need order, we need harmony – chaos disturbs us, we become afraid and then panic sets. We cannot, as a species abide disorder and lack of harmony in our lives. Disharmony creates fear of the unknown and unhappiness is the result. Just look around at the world.

But we cannot expect harmony and order in the world outside, if there is no order or harmony within each of us, within ourselves. I cannot be happy and have harmony and order in my life if I know that my wife, or my children are unhappy, because of some emotional ‘disorder’ or ‘dis-ease’. It disturbs me greatly that there are others who are unhappy; who lack harmony within themselves and therefore are instrumental in creating disharmony amongst others.

Harmony between people can only come about when we treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves. Harmony and internal peace and order will only be evident when we remember the Law of Cause and Effect. That what we do will affect not only our families but also many others. Remember the ‘six degrees of separation’? Knowing six people is alleged to give us a link to everyone in the world. So we must treat all sentient beings in an ethical way because we are all interconnected – it is in our genes. To do anything else is to invite chaos and unhappiness.