The Marine Drive was its usual pompous, glittery self. Couples lost in themselves, teenagers looking on with envy, kids having their share of fun and few who were free from their troubles for a moment. But Rahul was seeing none of this as he sped on in his cab. Only one thought filled his head, “Have I really matured ?”. He was not looking for the answer. The answer was the cause of his concern.
He got a call from Joe after ages. And as always, he was too busy to attend. But he could not ignore the number. He was thrilled and, for some reason even he couldn’t comprehend, he was also a bit scared. He called him back. The friend who had been closest to him. The guy who had played with him every evening. The guy who always grinned ear-to-ear, even when they knelt together for the teacher’s punishment. The guy who had liked the same girl he did. And had stopped speaking to her when she dumped his friend. The guy who had meant more than life itself. The guy who had moved out of Rahul’s life, just as Rahul started moving out of his home.
Joe was in town and wanted to meet. Rahul was delighted and agreed to meet him in the evening. He didn’t mention that he was tired. That he needed a hot shower. Or that he had a deadline to meet the next day. He knew this was special. This coulnd’t wait. He couldn’t wait. Memories flooded back to him. He remembered the pranks, the girl, the physics teacher, the school terrace… So many things that he couldn’t wait for the evening. And evening came in its glorious beauty. The type of beauty which you see only when you look for it. That day, Rahul saw the setting sun spread its orange wings across the horizon. He wanted the evening to be perfect. This was not a girlfriend he was meeting. This was not his soulmate. This was the boy who had made his childhood special.
As with all friends who meet after a long time, he was really surprised to see him. Joe was no more the scrawny kid. He had an athletic build now. The usual grin was no more. It was replaced by a gentle smile which bloomed as their eyes locked. Their eyes never broke contact as Rahul approached Joe. They hugged for a moment and oddly, it seemed that for the first time ever, they shook hands. Rahul was afraid that Joe might be in trouble. But he seemed quite fine. It actually looked like both friends had found their pots of gold at the ends of the rainbow. They reminisced about the past. They asked about friends and found that neither knew much about anyone else. As they talked, they started feeling at ease. For a brief moment, Joe laughed out loud at a joke. At that moment, Rahul felt like he had stepped back in time. He desperately wanted to hold on to it. But that moment vanished as quickly as it appeared. As time ran out on them, Joe lit his cigarette. It was now time to go. They shook hands. Joe said, “I really had a good time. It’s been great to see you”. And it seemed that his smile had become softer as he said, “You have become mature, man. I’m glad to see that you’re doing good”. Rahul smiled a bit shyly. They shook hands and left after promising that they’ll meet whenever Joe was in Mumbai.
As he sped in the cab along the Marine Drive, Rahul kept asking himself, “I’ve become mature, have I ?” He smiled at himself. The smile was the same as Joe’s. A smile of helplessness. He remembered everything again…the pranks, the girl, the physics teacher, the terrace and also Joe’s grin. He knew that the times he had as a kid could never come back. He knew that both of them had changed somewhere along the way.
As they grew from boys to men and as grins became smiles.
Maturity is something that we bring to our life ~ it comes out of awareness. When we age with full awareness we becomes mature. Major part of one’s maturity is the awareness that we can never relive the past. Maturity is accepting our past as it is.
Maturity means the same as innocence, only with one difference: it is innocence reclaimed, it is innocence recaptured. Every child is born innocent, but every society corrupts him. Every society, up to now, has been a corruptive influence on every child. All cultures have depended on exploiting the innocence of the child, on exploiting the child, on making him a slave, on conditioning him for their own purposes, for their own ends — political, social, ideological. Their whole effort has been how to recruit the child as a slave for some purpose. Those purposes are decided by the vested interests. The priests and the politicians have been in a deep conspiracy, they both have been together.
“The moment the child starts becoming part of our society he starts losing something immensely valuable; he starts losing contact with God. He becomes more and more hung up in the head. He forgets all about the heart. And the heart is the bridge which leads to being; without the heart you cannot reach your own being, it is impossible. From the head there is no way directly to being; you have to go via the heart. And all societies are destructive to the heart; they are against love, they are against feelings. They condemn feelings as sentimentality. They condemned all lovers down the ages for the simple reason that love is not of the head, it is of the heart. And a man who is capable of love is sooner or later going to discover his being. And once a person discovers his being he is free from all structures, from all patterns. He is free from all bondage. He is pure freedom.
“Every child is born innocent, but every child is made knowledgeable by the society. Hence schools, colleges, universities exist; their function is to destroy us, to corrupt us.
“Maturity means gaining our lost innocence again, reclaiming our paradise, becoming a child again. Of course it has a difference, because the ordinary child is bound to be corrupted, but when we reclaim our childhood we become incorruptible. Nobody can corrupt us, we become intelligent enough. Now we know what the society has done to us and we are alert and aware, and we will not allow it to happen again.
Maturity is a rebirth, a spiritual birth. We are born anew, We are a child again. With fresh eyes we start looking at existence. With love in the heart we approach life. With silence and innocence we penetrate our own innermost core. We are no more just the head. Now we use the head, but it is our servant. First we become the heart, and then we transcend even the heart….
Going beyond thoughts and feelings and becoming a pure “being” is maturity. Maturity is the ultimate flowering of meditation.
Jesus says: Unless you are born again you will not enter into my kingdom of God.
He is right, we have to be born again.
“Once Jesus was standing in a marketplace and somebody asked, “Who is worthy of entering into your kingdom of God?”
He looked around. There was a rabbi and the rabbi must have moved forward a little, thinking that he would be chosen — but he was not chosen. There was the most virtuous man of the town — the moralist, the puritan. He moved forward a little hoping that he would be chosen, but he was not chosen.
He looked around. Then he saw a small child who was not expecting to be chosen, who had not moved, not even an inch. There was no idea, there was no question that he would be chosen. He was just enjoying the whole scene — the crowd and Jesus and people talking, and he was listening.
He called the child, he took the child up in his arms and he said to the crowd, “Those who are like this small child, they are the only ones worthy of entering into my kingdom of God.”
“But remember, he said, “Those who are LIKE this small child….” He didn’t say, “Those who are small children.” There is a great difference between the two. He did not say, “This child will enter into my kingdom of God,” because every child is bound to be corrupted, he has to go astray. Every Adam and every Eve is bound to be expelled from the garden of Eden, they have to go astray. That is the only way to regain real childhood: first we have to lose it. It is very strange, but that’s how life is. It is very paradoxical, but life is a paradox. To know the real beauty of our childhood, first we have to lose it; otherwise we will never know it.
The fish never knows where the ocean is — unless we pull the fish out of the ocean and throw it on the sand in the burning sun; then she knows where the ocean is. Now she longs for the ocean, she makes every effort to go back to the ocean, she jumps into the ocean. It is the same fish and yet not the same fish. It is the same ocean yet not the same ocean, because the fish has learned a new lesson. Now she is aware, now she knows, “This is the ocean and this is my life. Without it I am no more — I am part of it.”
Every child has to lose his innocence and regain it. Losing is only half of the process. Many have lost it, but very few have regained it. That is unfortunate, very unfortunate. Everybody loses it, but only once in a while does a Buddha, a Zarathustra, a Krishna, a Jesus regain it.
“Jesus is nobody else but Adam coming back home. Magdalene is nobody else but Eve coming back home. They have come out of the sea and they have seen the misery and they have seen the stupidity. They have seen that it is not blissful to be out of the ocean.
The moment we become aware that to be a part of any society, any religion, any culture is to remain miserable, is to remain a prisoner, that very day we start dropping our chains. Maturity is coming. We are gaining our innocence again.
But every child is not a saint. Of course every saint — real saint — is a child. The child has the same quality, but he is unaware of it. And what is the point of having something if you are not aware of it? We may have a great treasure and we are not aware of it; then it is as if we don’t have it. Having it or not having it makes no difference.
“A very rich man was very much puzzled because his whole life he tried to be rich and rich and rich, and finally he succeeded. He became rich, he became the richest man in the world, but there was no bliss. And he was thinking that once you become rich, bliss is attained. He was very frustrated. That is the fate of all successful people. He started going around asking for any wise person who could help him to attain bliss.
Somebody suggested a Sufi master. He went to the Sufi master on his beautiful horse. He was carrying a big bag full of diamonds, maybe the most precious stones in the world, and he told the master, “I have all these diamonds, but not a drop of bliss. How can I gain bliss? Can you help me?”
The master jumped — the rich man could not believe his eyes — the master snatched away the bag and ran away. The rich man followed him crying, shouting, “I have been robbed! I have been cheated! This man is not a master, this man is a thief — catch hold of him!”
But in that village the master was well acquainted with all the roads and all the lanes and all the streets, so he dodged the rich man. And the rich man had never run after anybody; it was difficult. A crowd started following. They knew the Sufi master, that his ways were very strange.
Finally they came back to the same tree where the master had been sitting and the rich man had found him. The master was again sitting under the tree with the bag. The rich man came there, the master gave the bag to him, and the rich man held the bag close to his heart and said, “I am so blissful. I am so happy that I have found my lost treasure!”
And the master said, “Have you tasted a little bit of bliss? Unless you lose it you cannot taste it. I have made you taste it. This is the way to taste bliss — lose something.”
“If we can lose our ego we will gain ourself — what Buddha calls no-self. He calls it no-self for the simple reason that it is not our old ego anymore. It has no shadow of the ego at all; hence he calls it no-self. Lose the ego and gain the self or no-self, and suddenly we are mature. Lose the mind and gain consciousness and we are mature. Die to the past and be born to the present and we are mature.
Maturity is living in the present, fully alert and aware of all the beauty and the splendor of existence.”
By: John Britto on October 9, 2008
at 1:47 am
he he..i understand what you mean..never intended this to be a discourse on maturity. But still a good observation..albeit a tad long
By: bluespike on October 9, 2008
at 8:27 pm
“And evening came in its glorious beauty. The type of beauty which you see only when you look for it. That day, Rahul saw the setting sun spread its orange wings across the horizon”
beautiful lines da!!
By: vijay on October 28, 2008
at 10:29 am