Dust And Light.

The house is quiet and I am done cleaning for the week. That’s my routine. In the locality where we live there’s not much dust anyway. And, I am not of the dusting cleaning genre honestly! Dust reminds me of a poem… Dust if you must… by Mrs. Rose Milligan. Have you read that one? Well, it goes like this…

Dust if you must.

But wouldn’t it be better,

To paint a picture, or write a letter,

Bake a cake, or plant a seed?

Ponder the difference between want and need.

Dust if you must.

But there is not much time

With rivers to swim and mountains to climb!

Music to hear, and books to read,

Friends to cherish and life to lead.

Dust if you must.

But the world’s out there

With the sun in your eyes,

the wind in your hair,

A flutter of snow, a shower of rain.

This day will not come around again.

Dust if you must.

But bear in mind,

Old age will come and it’s not kind.

And when you go and go you must,

You, yourself, will make more dust.

It is beautiful, Isn’t it? I like it so much that it is saved on my cell-phone and I read it whenever I have some free time.

These days, afternoon time is T.V. time, but today, I somehow realize that I am bored flipping through the channels. Just switched it off… The sudden silence makes me realize that it is so quiet outside. I happen to notice the sun-rays entering my house through the window.

It is past 4.00 pm and I am contemplating if I should make a cup of tea for myself or wait for some time. Maybe an hour more. These thoughts occupy an infinitesimally small part of my grey matter while my eyes happen to focus on the rays of the sun coming through the window. Not many, not few, just enough, that would please my senses. And, I start reminiscing my childhood times when I used to notice them with the same curiosity as I see them today. Then, there was so much innocence amidst the curiosity, so much relief in ignorance.

Quietly, the rays of light enter my room and make their way to the bed-sheet. White, cotton, floral print, spread taut on the double bed. I was sitting there, crossed legs, upright, trying to get my back straight after almost two hours of watching T.V. And, as I focused on the rays, I saw twinkling stars. Many, random, almost of the same size. Well, not really stars. I smiled to myself, a big one indeed, when I realized that it was the collision of the dust particles with the sun-rays that, scientifically, gave a scattering effect, only to create an illusion of twinkling stars! And in the quick moment that had all the potential to flee in the succeeding second or millisecond or even nanosecond, I had a thought ---- If I were to get down to the precision of a neurologist to opine on the speed at with which neurons generate thoughts, I would not have been able to have this blissful experience!

Sometimes, you need to be present at the moment to be able to perceive. And then, I wondered, perception is such a gift. What I thought initially to be twinkling stars eventually turned out to be a fleck of dust. And we say we see reality. Reality! Is it not only momentary? What may seem beautiful in one moment may turn out to be ugly in the next. Even if we were to not define the right and the wrong, because, we are only a tiny speck in the universe and realities are unbelievably deceptive, whether they are yours or mine! Unless we witness and observe the same thing repeatedly and understand the changes that happen along the time scale. And, the difficulty in being able to do that consistently makes reality, and the whole concept of it so ambiguous.

We are all bound by our realities or our perceptions and versions of them! The two ever-elusive questions: ‘What should be?’ and ‘What is?’ also bind our realities and, the struggle in choosing between them defines our ability to accept reality. Honestly, I feel there is only a fine line of difference between the two but, by the time we realize it, most of the precious moments of our life fade away, just like the summer fades into fall, only to reappear in the next season.

Like all other questions that I have always encountered before, I knew, that the way to decide which of the two is a better question to be answered, would be mediated through clarity and objectivity. Unfortunately, amidst the need of deciding the reality for others and trying to define things for them, we often lose objectivity which is required for us to look at them and accept them for what they are without delving much into their origin.

I realized that realities are blurred by man-made compartments of likes and dislikes. They are always present, frozen in time and space, just that we are not able to see them! Within no time, social functions, or grand parties witness group-ism based on professions, tastes of food/ hobbies/interests and very conveniently we drift apart from one person, only to become close to someone else, to later realize that we were only asserting our comfort zones or probably only furthering our interests.

Sometimes, groups comprise of ‘friends without interests’ too and there is nothing wrong in group-ism as such. However, can we really justify the meaningless criticisms which are directed towards the individuals in lieu of criticizing the groups to which they belong rather than focusing on their independent ideologies?

Coming back to reality, I feel, realities also lose themselves in the layers of seconds and minutes and hours during which clarity is sought but denied or alternatively one does not seek it at all. Somewhere I have realized that it is this very clear that connects me to people around.

As I sat on the bed, I also realized that it was difficult to get my focus back. To get back to my reality! And, I wasn’t surprised at all. I had been looking into the oblivion for a very long time. Oblivion that taught me so many things today. Suddenly, I saw a pattern emerging in those scattered dust particles. But, before I could figure it out, I realized that the dust particles had vanished. And, I wondered with the anticipation of a child as to why? Only to realize in the immediate moment that followed, that, the dust particles were still there. The light had vanished. It was 6.00 pm. Time just flew. And I reached yet another point of self – discovery. That, sometimes we only see what is shown to us.

I got up and made my way to the kitchen. I kept the teapot on the gas burner and started brewing my cup of tea. I like it mild and milky you know. Let the water come to a boil with the sugar and ginger and then add the tea powder. Let it brew for a few seconds and then add milk to it and let it come to a nice boil. That is my way of making tea.

As I was getting done, I realized I was a bit hungry too. So, I helped myself with a quick serving of white pasta that I had prepared the previous night to go with the tea. I came back to my room where the big thinking was happening, and it was dark by then. I switched on the light. And then, as I sipped the tea, I remembered the light that came through the window and fell on the dust particles. And, I tried to understand what it meant to me...

It was then that it dawned upon me that the rays of the light are the different perspectives in our lives for one single reality. The reality, like the dust particles, is constant and the perspectives; are the variables. We often define our own beauty, ability to love, our friendships, our career goals, and success depends on the perspectives around us.

But, we are the same. Always. Irrespective of the perspective. Just like the dust particles, which, whether it is the light of the noontime, harsh and scorching or, the blissful morning sun-rays, make their presence felt. But the patterns are dependent on the external light, sometimes forming beautiful patterns on the canvas of our minds and others, just vanishing into the darkness.

But then, what if the dust had a light of its own. Then, it would be seen by us even when the light was dim or absent. Isn’t it? What if we could really find this light of perspective within ourselves? I feel then, our patterns would not be as much affected by the external light around us. 

I realized that it is this higher, inner light of perspective that gives a purpose to all of us.

And quite unknowingly, I started humming,

“This little guiding light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine …

Let it shine, all the time, let it shine!

Hide it under a Bushnell oh no, I’m gonna let it shine.

Let it shine, all the time, let it shine!