Stress and Joy of the Decisions Not Taken (Lesson III) (Universe and Life)

 

Stress and Joy of the Decisions Not Taken

(Lesson III)

(Universe and Life)

 

You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.

                                                                           Maya Angelou

 

Many a times life is not guided by the decisions taken by an individual but by the events already decided somewhere else. In fact, life is such a wonderful complex journey nobody knows what is going to be the next step.

 

Once I was just relaxing in sunshine after doing my holiday chores and the breakfast, way back fifty five years ago, when my friend roommate at Shimla entered our premises with a middle aged unknown person who appeared to be composed. He stayed with us for a night or two and the next morning I found, he was surrounded by so many persons particularly our co-dwellers of the building. He was an astrologer and a palmist too. Everybody was asking him so many question whereas he was attending one by one. Somebody suggested to me that I should also find out my future, from him. At that point of time I was more concerned about a better job. The astrologer friend himself replied that he would be meet me at his own will subsequently.

 

Next morning while sipping morning tea, he called me and said that he would make only two predictions about my future life. He made these predictions and these were one about my marriage and other one veiled one, perhaps he never wanted to tell me clearly about it.

 

In context of the later one, he said that when my age would be about 37 years, I will have to perform a very difficult and strenuous journey when one of my brothers would also be with me and the other one would not be there despite he would like to be there by all means. I asked for some more details but he did not oblige, except saying that he would pray that his prediction should never come true. At the time this prediction was made in 1967 my age was about 23 years, thus he made this prediction 14 years before the likely event.

 

Time passed, I qualified Assistant Grade Examination joined Central Secretariat Service at Delhi, Ministry of Communications, Directorate General of Posts and Telegraphs, got married in 1973, had my first boy child in 1974, passed Section Officers Limited Departmental Examination in 1976 and became Section Officer, had second child a doll in 1979. In the meantime one of my brothers who got married and was staying with me had started living separately but nearby and another still younger one was with me.

 

In the meantime God showered his Grace and I was allotted a plot of 150 square yard in Shalimar Bagh Delhi in 1977. I tried my level best to get a loan for house building but I could not, that is separate issue, so with whatever savings and friendly loans were available to me, I started construction of my house in 1980 sometimes May-June 1980.

 

My father came to help me in construction of the house, he being the person who had worked with a building contractor for some time after his superannuation so he had the experience of construction work. He came to us in September 1980. He used to be at the construction site whenever the work was in progress.

 

One day in the month of November 1980 he complained of short breath in the early morning, I took him to our physician after some medicine his breath was restored. After three four days he had the same problem at about 0900 PM at night, we called the physician at home he gave some medicine and my father went for taking sleep. But at about 10.00 P.M. he started snoring very heavily not seen by us like that earlier in his life. Youngest of three brothers present at Delhi was with him. He came running to me in the adjacent room. When I reached, this had already subside but I was not sure what was happening. So I went running to one of my friends nearby and brought him, on checking my father, he simply said that, “He has gone”.  I said “what”, we called the Doctor once again and he also confirmed his passing away. This is how now we were fatherless within minutes.

 

Now what to do. I had not seen death earlier in my family. We three brothers were together and decided to take his body to our native place and very reluctantly informed our family at Bathinda, it was initially telling that he was not maintaining good health so he is being brought to Bathinda but fact is, souls talk to souls without a medium, our mother understood, she simply said, “I know my son he has gone.” I had no other reply except to confirm and also told that he is being brought to Bathinda.

 

We started searching for the vehicle, I was attending to phone and also searching for vehicle when nothing happened, I sent my younger brother to AIIMS taxi stand and before he could manage we were able to arrange one. Now we were waiting for my brother him to return home. Before he could reach all the well-wishers present at our home forced us to leave so that we reach home before sunset. Under the extreme pressure, we left for Bathinda with the body of our father but without the brother who had gone to AIIMS Taxi Stand. We were seven, four adults and three children my son aged five, daughter one year plus and the first baby of my brother perhaps one year plus, almost without making any arrangement for these kids for journey. On the way vehicle got punctured, there was no puncture fixing shop nearby nor did the vehicle had spare tyre so the driver went somewhere and returned after more than an hour getting the tyre repaired, we were near country made liquor vend, internally I was slightly afraid being not the right place for a stopover in unknown surroundings that too with a family. However, some body arranged drinking water for us and on the way we could get some milk also for the little kids. All kids were feeling exhausted, I do not know what made them to remain calm.  It was a mini truck. For obvious reasons we did not take anything neither at home nor on the way. The vehicle was slow, the journey which takes normally about six hours even on State Transport Bus took more than twelve hours, and we could reach only after the sunset perhaps by 08.00PM, fully exhausted, it was not the time for further rites. When we were taking the body upstairs I saw my brother who was left behind also coming; he could get a train and reached almost the same time.

 

“My swan has been brought dead”, these were the words used by my mother to greet the body of my father.   She told some body to bring a bamboo stick longer than the body and place it along the body; she had a belief that bodies increase in size when kept overnight and by doing so it would not increase in length. What happened further I would not like to pen.

 

Till date I have not been able to reconcile myself as to how that astrologer was able to predict so accurately fourteen years before the event: he could read the decision already made by the Supreme perhaps even before sending my father to this world and who had also inscribed the same on my lines of hand like a carbon copy we humans do. Obviously a person does not control what is happening to him nor to his dear ones, everything goes as per the clock already set; we can only control our reaction to the situations as they unfold. This is what the Universe, the nature, the Lord  does to us; it makes its calculations perhaps millions of years before the happening and then sees to it that it happens, it perhaps decides so minutely that date, time, place, participants, their response, circumstances, situations and environment   of a happening all is determined. It, that way appears nothing is determined or decided by the man himself, he is made to live his life as it unfolds with the passage of time.

 

The Universe is most vibrant always expanding, creating, destroying, moving, breaking, exploding; every component complements and supplements the other; one moves the other gets something, still the Universe is the darkest place and also has the brightest stars, it is the coldest and the hottest. It is smoothest and it is most uneven too. It is vacuum and full also. It is open and still covers all the stars, planets, satellites and other celestial bodies. It is the most pure and still absorbs worst of gases and radiation as we know. It is custodian of life and death on the earth as we are seeing. It is also the sustainer of our life. Universe is so big that it can definitely take care of every single person on this earth besides other functions being performed by it. Its mechanism is unknown, so is the operator of the most complex phenomena.

 

I do not know whether it is correct or not but I feel movement of all planets in the Solar system affect immensely  the birth, life and death of all human beings and other kinds of life. Everybody knows how Sun and the Moon affect life on earth.

 

In addition, life is also affected by the movement and position of other stars and planets in the Universe even by those not known to the people on this planet. Fact of the matter is science has not been able to determine so far the shape and size of the Universe except that it is always expending and in motion. Nobody knows how many stars and planets are below or above, parallel or diagonal to this solar system. All of them affect human life. All the aberrations in the life of the individuals are result of the activities going on in the stars and planets not known to us.

 

Life normally understood as “Paranvayo” “air” of five elements is certainly not air or any other known element; it is much more than that; it is different, given and taken also, who give and who takes, why he gives and why he takes, what is the need to do, what is time interval between the two, had it been air only men would have kept many alive for centuries together. It is certainly “On Off” phenomena. A mother knows when it is “on” in her foetus and everybody comes to know when it is “Off”. It is the sixth element not named so far.

 

Science knows about black holes. They are extremely dense, with such strong gravitational attraction that even light cannot escape their grasp if it comes near enough. What is beyond black holes: science on the earth does not know: possibility of something beyond black holes cannot be ruled out. Life of Universe is unknown and so are the activities and its contents.

 

How many stages after black holes can be any body’s guess. What further happens to the mass of the black holes nobody knows.

 

Sanatan Dharma recognizes that GOD, Generator (Brahama) Operator (Vishnu) and Destroyer (Shiva) are beyond time and space, birth and death, they have no shape (Nirankar), they take the shape and birth too whenever they feel like, Sanatan Dharam scriptures are full of the instances the shapes they have taken. If we consider them first level after the Universe, Braham is the second level and Parbrahmparmeshwar has to be the third, the Master, the Supreme. It is difficult to apprehend the shape of Braham and Parbrahmpareshwar.  

 

What is the shape, length, breadth, height, looks of Parbrahmparmeshwar nobody knows. Where he lives what he eats. How he operates and manages are the thousands questions which science has not been able to answer. But Sanatan Dharma scriptures do give description of the place where the God lives and also the place where the soul goes for adjustments after death. Science has still to find answer to these question. Most of the Sanatan Dharma scriptures are intuition based, intuition the medium when Nature, God speaks to humans, so they are authentic and can be believed. However, science can have its own proof.

 

The black hole teaches us that space can be crumpled like a piece of paper into an infinitesimal dot, that time can be extinguished like a blown-out flame, and that the laws of physics that we regard as “sacred,” as immutable, are anything but.

                                                                      John Wheeler

 

It is said that fact is sometimes stranger than fiction, and nowhere is this more true than in the case of black holes. Black holes are stranger than anything dreamt up by science fiction writers.

                                                                Stephen W. Hawking

 

Such a phenomena has to affect the life and death on our planet.

 

My father himself was perhaps aware about the forthcoming events, at least, two months before he left for heavens, he had told one of our workers at the construction site that he would not see the roof of the house being laid. This was revealed to us by the worker concerned after my father had already left for his heavenly abode. In fact, even before this he had an inkling that he is perhaps performing his last train journey to Delhi. Does the nature sends a message before it takes away what it had given - the life.

 

No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow.

                                                                                    Euripides