THE VIGIL






Pic.: Pradeep Nanda


A few hours ago, I heard someone banging on the wall outside my office and went out to see what the disturbance was all about. It was a plumber hired by one of my neighbors…. He was drunk and was careless. Hardly a sentence I must have spoken with him, and I found myself speaking to him with irritation and anger. The fact that he was drunk, and the fact that he or my neighbor hadn't discussed the work before starting to hammer, yes, it was playing on my head, and, added to this, I couldn't swallow the rough way in which the plumber was talking to me…

I stopped the work and told him that I would talk to his employer, who I knew well.

Well, the work stopped. But, not the talk inside my mind…

Today is Good Friday. I had chosen to work… I hadn't kept a fast…

Abstinence is a very powerful term… After I had subdued the drunk plumber with my strong words, which came from my stronger position in life compared to his, something was staring at my conscience: “Couldn't you abstain from those strong words, at least today?”

I truly admire every person – whether a Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jain, Buddhist, Jew or atheist – who does his actions ‘consciously’… Yes, with attention, meditatively. It takes a great deal of strength to do that… to bring mediation and prayerfulness in one’s actions.

A while ago, when the plumber re-appeared on the scene accompanied by my neighbor, I was a changed man! The issue got resolved without even a sentence spoken…It was the same drunk plumber and he still was talking the way he was doing a few hours before this… But, his actions were not ruling my inner peace… I was conscious of my own actions, now…

 I could feel inside my soul a striking presence of Jesus… His last words: “Father, forgive them, for, they know not what they are doing!”

The plumber was drunk… He had a genuine reason to justify how he was behaving… But, what about me? I wasn't drunk… still, I wasn't ‘conscious’ when I was yelling at the plumber on a Good Friday!


Fast. Abstinence. Prayer. Meditation… All these make sense – whether on a Good Friday or any day – only if I am ‘awake’ and ‘alert’…

We have been calling it ‘Vigil’… I suddenly realized it, today!


GERALD D’CUNHA



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