Called to be Fully Human

One of the blessings of modern times is that we have become numb to all existential reality; our hearts have turned solid that it is hard to say it is made up of flesh and blood. Our sensitivity to human feelings and sentiments has gone awry, and what we are today is just a passing phenomena, which does not affect anyone whatsoever. Is it not this reality that we witness each day in our surroundings? It is not rarely that we come come across incidents when crowds had stood around a dying person, not one of them moving his/her finger to help the dying person. We all want to be safe, and do not want to soil our hands. We cannot think of running to the police station, after trying to save a person; we all want to say, it is none of my business.

I find it hard to accept that the modern men and women have forgotten to have a hearty laughter, a hearty meal, a enjoyable evening. The golden rays of the morning sun is too harsh for their sensitive eyes, that they have to protect their eyes with Ray-ban, or dark glasses. The soothing drops of the first rains are too hard for them to bear that they cannot think of getting drenched in the rain on purpose. Sometimes I would like to ask myself, when is the last time that I listened to the song of a bird, or gazed at the sky and counted the stars; or when is it that I chased the flight of a bird in the evening sky. When is it last that I fixed my eyes on the laughter of a new born child!

These are nature's great gifts to humanity, these are magical moments which can touch even the hardest of hearts. If we do not want to be touched by the Midas touch in nature, then what is life on earth worth? Our lives are so full of artificial, look-alike machines, which have replaced nature's role in our lives. Our contact with nature's world (natural world!) has become so minimal that we can be within the four walls of a room for days on end, without ever bothering to venture into the open fields to realize the vastness of the sky, and the music of the waters or birds.

Our lives have become so very artificial and monotonous that we do everything routine like, without even feeling, sensing. Our eyes have lost their vision, and today we don't see reality as it is, but see only what we want to see; our ears today hear only selectively, and our bodies feel the touch of only the persons we want to. The gruesome murder or the bloodshed of a neighbor does not make us to shed a tear or two; we stand like stones, without seeing, without hearing, without feeling, and maybe when we die, we may die like a stone. Humanity has become immune to pain and pleasure, and what sells today is artificiality. There is no scope for survival for real, and that is where human civilization has taken a U-turn.

I realize that I cannot be insensitive or immune to what is happening all around me. I want to be active and alive to the reality, of which I am an integral part of. I want to enter into the world I belong to, and give myself fully. I want to see the beauty around, I want to hear the music of the birds, or the insects, or the whistling of the breeze; i want to soothe my ears with the roaring of the ocean. I wish to feel the gentle breeze passing through by skin, I want to smell the soil after the first rain, smell the rains, smell the skin of my spouse. I pause for a while today, and close my eyes and reactivate all my senses. I would like to take time to be fully alive to the world that beckons me to be part of itself. Let me see myself transformed into the universe!