"From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines, going where I list, my own master total and absolute, Listening to others, considering well what they say, Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me."
Walt Whitman (1819-92)
"When I look back now over my life and call to mind what I might have had simply for taking and did not take, my heart is like to break."
Akhenaton (d. c.1354 BC)
And now, the current weather, from some random person we pulled off the street:
Monday, January 12, 2004
Warm Heartedness in an Indifferent World
di-ver-gence Function: noun
Date: 1656
1 a : a drawing apart (as of lines extending from a common center) b : DIFFERENCE, DISAGREEMENT c : the acquisition of dissimilar characters by related organisms in unlike environments
2 : a deviation from a course or standard
3 : Me, and the rest of the world, since I can remember
Sometimes I feel like everybody else is speaking German and I am the only person who doesn't know the language.
Or perhaps I feel like I am walking through a park blindfolded, trying to make my way based on the overheard and implied sounds of others, which I seldom interpret accurately.
Or maybe it's more like having a phone conversation with earplugs.
Or tying a knot in thread while wearing mittens.
You get the drift, I suspect.
I feel broken.
Why? Deep inside I have such a need to care for other people and by so doing to validate myself. When there is a choice between myself and another, the choice is already decided. Even when I have to almost beg to help, I'll do it.
I want to pour myself out like a fine liquour to spread myself out so widely that I can no longer even find myself, only the results of my warm heart.
Of course, in real life it's not that clear cut or easy.
On one side, you have the way the world works, based on selfishness. People think that they get things because they deserve them, and that you or I owe them something because of so and so. This creates a scenario of taking, not giving.
On the other side, there are people like me, who will give without thinking of the cost. If I have five dollar bills in my pocket, I will give them to another person who needs it without considering that I will not have lunch. Oh, I will know, but it won't matter.
The people that I know who are like me, I could number them on one hand and have fingers left.
Freedom, then, lies only in our innate human capacity to choose between different sorts of bondage, bondage to desire or self esteem, or bondage to the light that lightens all our lives.
Sri Madhava
