MY LIFE, MY HOUSE...
Pic.: Unnati Jiandani
‘THE COBWEBS’ was one of the popular booklets I had written
and published for THE DAWN CLUB in its early years. It was first published in
1991. Once again, what made this book connect with the readers was that it
spoke in first person… The passages – some twelve of them - seemed straight
from one’s own heart, they sounded like one’s own voice…
In my coming Posts, I wish to bring you these passages, one
by one…
Here is the FOREWORD to the book and the first passage - ‘My
Life, my house’. Hope, you will like reading them…
FOREWORD
One reason,
why we all wait for the Messiah to come, is that we haven’t realized that he
has already arrived! The Kingdom
of Heaven is, for most of
us, far away. We haven’t noticed the beauty of the kingdom here on earth. When
the Messiah comes, we stone him, crucify him. When heaven is here, we abuse its
virtue. Yes, we wait – there is a great pleasure in waiting, in postponing.
Life is a moment-to-moment business. If we aren’t awake
when sunrise takes place, who should we blame for missing out its glory? There
is no point in complaining when it drizzles outside – we can, always, come out
and play like children. Yes, we can learn to enjoy every moment, every raindrop.
Attitudes are our own mental creations. We can look outside
our prison windows and either see the wonderful stars or just a dark night… We
can see hope or despair.
Why, then, it isn’t always easy for us to embrace positive
attitude? The fundamental reason for this is: we do not want to face reality… There
is a strange comfort in seeking protection in our complaints, in those
arguments in defence of our failures. We feel safe in our mental cobwebs.
Perhaps, the spider continues to inspire all of us… not King Bruce alone!
This book must be read slowly, in silence. It must be read
over and over again. The author – as we have said in our earlier publications,
too – is YOU. The words are yours… They are your dialogues, your whispers. You
may, somewhere along the reading, suddenly, feel like throwing away this book
and go out in the garden, to stretch…
Please do it!
PUBLISHER.
MY LIFE, MY HOUSE
My life
is my house.
Whenever I ignore it, show negligence,
I see the cobwebs formed all around;
I don’t like to see my life caught-up in these cobwebs,
I don’t want my house to be a ruin.
This earnestness makes me give attention –
Attention to my house, my life.
The more I give attention, the more I see, enquire,
The cobwebs disappear, the house is set in order.
So, here I am, today…
enquiring, giving
attention…
to my life, my house.
GERALD D’CUNHA
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-- Yatin