I am weak!

Ever since I heard the song some 27 years ago, I have been moved by the depth of the lyrics. Even today when I try to join my voice with the singer, I could feel my voice tremble. This song has become partly the theme song of my life. I am presenting the song which has become the favorite of several persons, and has moved them to tears. “I'm only human, I'm just a woman / Help me believe in what I could be / And all that I am / Show me the stairway, I have to climb / Lord for my sake, teach me to take / One day at a time.// cho: One day at a time sweet Jesus / That's all I'm asking from you / Just give me the strength / To do every day what I have to do / Yesterdays gone sweet Jesus / And tomorrow may never be mine / Lord help me today, show me the way / One day at a time. // Do you remember, when you walked among men / Well Jesus you know if you're looking below / It's worse now, than then / Cheating and stealing, violence and crime / So for my sake, teach me to take / One day at a time.”

Sometimes I wonder if something had gone wrong when God was creating me; if he had forgotten to add the proper proportion of head and heart. The weaknesses that I carry with me become the thorn in the flesh that St Paul talks about in his Second Letter to Corinthians 12:7-10. Why should my weaknesses control and direct my steps and why don’t I have the strength to withstand these temptations? I do not think that God takes pleasure in my weaknesses and falls; he cannot be such a cruel God. The more I become conscious of the ingrained weaknesses in my flesh, I could only utter the glorious words of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane: the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak! There is no dearth of goodness and willingness, but the flesh falters me each time.

Ignorance is bliss; it is all the more true in the case of my weaknesses. So long I was not aware of my weaknesses and limitations, I was in bliss, and there was nothing which disturbed my peace. Though a lot of people made so much of hue and cry, I was not moved; but things have changed drastically now. I am painfully aware of my dark spots and they make me sleepless. The fear of yielding to my weaknesses is yet another demon which is chasing me night and day. Even when I am so conscious of my weaknesses, I can’t even make out when I am yielding to it. It happens so suddenly that I may not be present to those moments. I feel sad that I had not been able to resist the temptation of yielding to the temptations. I have become a loser, again, and do not see much of hope in restoring back my life.

Even in my weak moments, there is one consolation: I am not the only weak person in the world; there are millions who are just as weak as I am, and some of them are even weaker than me, and still they go through life joyfully without complaining or arguing with the creator. It is possible that I am not satisfied with what I am, and always wish to be better than what God had made me to be. I comparison to my weaknesses, the strengths that God had showered on me are too numerous, and yet I only magnify my weaknesses and fail to thank God for the many strengths. It is because of my strengths that I am able to continue with life, without taking recourse to any short cuts. There are brighter spots which are my guiding light, and how easily I ignore them!

St Paul had experienced the strength that came from God during his weak moments, and it would have been a wonderful experience for him. To surrender my weaknesses to him, and seeking him to strengthen me – this is my moment of grace. This implies that I need to take recourse to him, seek his ever abiding help, so that I am not stranded on the life’s path. For God, my weaknesses may not appear as weaknesses, and he could turn them into my strengths; nothing is impossible for him, and that is where I place so much of confidence in him, and live with hope. Even if everything were to fail and part from me, I know God will not leave me, for he would be there every time I fall and seek his help.

Life in Abundance of Losers

Life is quite charming and enticing for the people who like to see the brighter side of things; these are the people who would look at the darkest clouds with a magnifying glass to trace thin silver lining, and that is all that is required for them to get back the zest and zeal that they require to fight back in life. There is no failure or challenge which is insurmountable to these people, because they have the inner strength to withstand all adversaries. These are not the brightest, cleverest and the smartest of people, but they know the art of living, and have learned it through the hard way, by submitting themselves to innumerable trials and errors. They have no pride to claim that they are beyond all vices; they know how vulnerable and fragile they are and yet they depend on a power which can put them at a level too difficult for the brightest, cleverest and the smartest to scale.

Let me again fall back on the wonderful miracle stories found in the New Testament. Every miracle that Jesus performs presents to us people who are weak, vulnerable, incapacitated, voiceless, unable to fight the odds by their own strength. The first step towards recovery for them comes from the fact that they do not shy away from acknowledging the situation they are in. Jesus helps them to acknowledge their vulnerability; it could be deemed as a testing on the part of the master healer, who plunges to purge their inner self, before healing them physically. What do you want? or what can I do for you? Or look at the mighty Centurion, I am not worthy to receive you, but you say only a word and my servant will be healed!

Why should the Centurion acknowledge what he is incapable of, and what was the need for him to strip himself naked in front of the wonder worker? But it is only when he stands naked could he expect the Master cover his nakedness with his own cloak. It is only the empty pitcher, which can be filled. If I do not acknowledge that I am empty, no one can fill it. I shall present one lovely poem by Rabindranath Tagore from his Song Offerings (Gitanjali, 77) : “The day is no more, the shadow is upon the earth. It is time that I go to the stream to fill my pitcher. The evening air is eager with the sad music of the water. Ah, it calls me out into the dusk. In the lonely lane there is no passer-by, the wind is up, the ripples are rampant in the river. I know not if I shall come back home. I know not whom I shall chance to meet. There at the fording in the little boat the unknown man plays upon his lute.”

Those who cannot accept what comes in life knocking at their doors, do not want to accept their vulnerabilities, their weaknesses. It requires far more guts and courage to acknowledge one’s weaknesses than to accept the strengths. That is why Jesus strengthens every person why present their vulnerability in front of him. The first lesson towards freedom, and its subsequent peace and happiness comes from accepting my own frailties. No one on earth is perfect; even the most perfect person would be quite impure in the sight of God. Thus to acknowledge one’s weaknesses is not a heroic act, but one which requires quite a deal of humility and submission. True healing can come only when I have the disposition to surrender myself fully before the all-powerful God, and prepare to follow his counsel.

Any loser who accepts and acknowledges his or her own defeat or loss immediately springs to hero or heroine. The healing that Jesus bestows is as an acknowledgement for the heroic act that they have displayed by accepting their weaker selves. Consider the story of Barthemeus, who is fully aware that he lacked sight and longed to see. ‘That I may see’, he cries out to the Lord, and he restores sight to him. The woman who had been suffering from haemorrhage for twelve years knows that only Jesus could restore her health, because she is aware that that was her real self, which had been haunting her for all these years. If I want to taste life and be enveloped by the aroma it emanates, all that I need to do is place myself before the Lord and accept my vulnerabilities, so that he could touch and heal me; why a word from his mouth may be enough to bring wholeness to me!

Art of Surrendering

Someone may raise the eye brows on reading the title of this blog: art of surrendering! Is it an art, like those conventional art forms? I call surrendering an art, basically on two grounds : like all art forms, surrendering needs to be cultivated, and one may partake of the aesthetic joy, even after surrendering oneself to the Supreme. This may already imply that surrendering demands something very precious from me, and until I am ready to place myself before the situation and prepare myself to accept whatever may be for the greater good of society, I may not be partaking of the solution, but continue to be only part of the problem.

The very word carries with it a lot of negative connotations, and as soon as one hears the word surrendering, one is sure to think that it is going to cost a lot, and sure it is! But what it costs is not as much as the joy and peace of actually surrendering. Listening to the wisdom of Echart Tolle, the master who popularised the concept of the power of now, lays great emphasis on surrendering, and I realize that surrendering places before me immense possibilities, and provides me in a much more secure zone than all that the world can offer me when I keep holding to the treasures of the world around me.

You may wonder, how can surrendering give me real security, and placate the annoying fear, anxiety, and worry, the three enemies who are responsible for messing up my peace and joy. Every time when I trust the world around me, my own talents and capabilities, my store house of treasures (in the form of acquired knowledge base, accumulated wealth and projected support systems at my disposal), I am creating an imaginary wall around me, and keep telling myself that no rain and shine can ever touch me. But the moment when I hear the thunder and my eyes are blinded by lightning, then I know that the wall around me is only fictitious.

It is then no time to start building real wall around me; before I raise up a wall barely enough to protect myself, I would realize that the thunder showers have destroyed the wall I had built. Besides I realize that there are hardly any people who would join me in raising up this wall of protection. But if I were wise, I would not try to raise up a wall, but look all around me, surrender myself to all the forces which surround me. I invoke my inner resources to acquire the strength and energy to face all rain and shine, thunder and lightning. I can hear the whisper of my heart: nothing can really shake me and pull me down.

But that is the moment when I look to the world around that I am being so very vulnerable (and in the true sense I am being very vulnerable), that I may not survive even a gusty wind. The external reality does not change; it is just as it used to be, but my approach to this reality has changed considerably. I don't look at the world around me as ravenous wolves, ready to tear me to pieces, but as beings as vulnerable as I am. There is a sense of camaraderie, and of solidarity. But what if the external (and internal) realities were to militate against me? I know that my inner self will provide me with the stamina to protect me from their onslaught. In surrendering, I come in face to face with my true identity as a vulnerable human person!

Power to Be

I am fascinated by the amount of positive energy that flows in the world around me, and it takes some effort for me to realise that the source of such energy is the same : the universe that pours out this unending stream of life-energy into the heart of human beings. The English poet Gerarld Manly Hopkins seems to have wondered looking at the creation around him with such excitment that lyrics flowed from his heart: The world is charged with the grandeur of God, and I may take liberty to re-paraphrase this line as : the universe is charged with the grandeur of positive energy. Note that special adjective I use before energy, positive; because we in this world are flooded with different sorts of energy, and only about one third of the energy could be called positive, and the rest, all negative, destructive.

Sometimes I am not merely fascinated, but obsessed with the concept of this positive energy that is present all around us... it is like air, the crisscrossing of invisible electronic waves, the radio waves, and the satellite television channels will talk in terms of the "spectrum", which refers to the space for them to be present in the cyber world and project their waves... The world is full of the energy, and each one of us contribute towards this energy, either positively or negatively; but one thing we cannot refuse to : stand away from affecting the energy spectrum. If we are not affecting the energy spectrum of the universe positively, we are affecting it negatively. Each one of us affects the universe in one way or another.

But how can I affect the universe when I have very little or no contact with it at all? We are part of the vast universe, and we all of us have our own little roles to play in the pageant of the universe... comical or tragical. We are called in often to swim in the ever-flowing stream of the energy in the world, and as I affect the stream, I am also affected by it. The effect is felt on both the ends. But today I would like to turn my attention not so much to myself, one of the origins of the energy, but to the universe. Each one of us contribute to the energy level of the world, but we do not honestly know in what way I affect the universe, positively or negatively. But it is not all too difficult to make out how I affect the energy spectrum of the universe.

We all of us attract from the universe the very same thing that we have contributed to the world around me; while the universe sucks out of me the kind of energy that I am full of, similarly it fills me with the same kind of energy that I fill her, at times even from the sources other than my own. Doesn't it sound quite strange? In other words I attract to myself all that I require to be myself. It is the universe that makes me what I truly am. The greatest and most difficult task for me in the world is to BE. To be faithful to what I am called to BE in the universe. When I am all too bored with life, then I take recourse to activities that put me in perpetual noise, unwanted, undesirable elements of irritation and distraction. The greatest challenge for me today is to BE.

When I try to be faithful to my true inner self, I attract such positive energy from the universe that I will have all the power and energy to burn the whole world to ashes; I will have the energy to feel all the people of the universe; I will have all the waters to quench the thirst of the entire humanity. Today I pause for a while in the midst of my busy schedule and ask myself, do I recognise the positive energy that is flowing in and through me? I close my eyes for two minutes or three and allow myself to be; to run with the current, allowing myself to be touched, shaped by the powerful current. Let me put aside all the distractions which will keep the thin voice of the energy spectrum silent, and surrender myself to the powerful energy quotient, which is the life-giving force for the universe. Because every person who IS, is the one who can redeem the world through his/her grit. There is no greater achievement in life than being myself.