The Bhagavad Gita tells us that Krishna is all Time, and Time is the great Destroyer, Death, the consumer of all. And, yet, at the same time, Time is the great Creator, Life, that which pervades the Universe. Of course this is not unique to the Gita as it is in many religions, but it happens to be the one on my mind today.
Time is the great Destroyer, the great Creator and the great Healer. At night, as I am reviewing my day, I have a certain mantra-sutra that I say to myself, sometimes many times, until it really sinks in for the day's events.
Part of it deals with the idea that we, as mere mortals, cannot know the extent of our actions, nor can we be in control of the reactions of others to our actions. There are pebbles thrown out there on the cosmic lake, so to speak, that have profound ripples, ripples that may still wrinkle in Time, long after our time is up. And, we cannot know these.
Moreover, what may have seemed great today, may one day be so insignificant in the Future, or perhaps even turn out for the worse. On the contrary, something that may have seemed so wrong, so bad in the Past, might today become our greatest strength. We cannot predict the sands of Time, for unlike a gentle flow through an hourglass, they are more like the swirling sands of the Sahara, dunes shifting and patterns ever changing. For us to try and control that awesome force, that sublime movement, is nothing short of blasphemy to the Universe.
I have learned acceptance about many things in life over the years, and one of them is this, that we can act, and our actions will have re-actions, but once in motion, we must continue to move forward and to learn from those actions, and to impart that wisdom via experience to others around us if possible. The acceptance and surrender to the great dunes of Time's wake is one of the most difficult things for us, as Be-ings concerned with Freewill, to do. It is not necessarily Faith, but perhaps a close cousin.
For, like Ozymandias, what pride may come of our actions, may end in futility, but humility of the bigger picture will never serve you wrong, so long as it is not false humility.
Today, I am reminded of Shelley, who died so young, but whose legacy outlived his own life ten-fold already.
Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert...Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Time is the great Destroyer, the great Creator and the great Healer. At night, as I am reviewing my day, I have a certain mantra-sutra that I say to myself, sometimes many times, until it really sinks in for the day's events.
Part of it deals with the idea that we, as mere mortals, cannot know the extent of our actions, nor can we be in control of the reactions of others to our actions. There are pebbles thrown out there on the cosmic lake, so to speak, that have profound ripples, ripples that may still wrinkle in Time, long after our time is up. And, we cannot know these.
Moreover, what may have seemed great today, may one day be so insignificant in the Future, or perhaps even turn out for the worse. On the contrary, something that may have seemed so wrong, so bad in the Past, might today become our greatest strength. We cannot predict the sands of Time, for unlike a gentle flow through an hourglass, they are more like the swirling sands of the Sahara, dunes shifting and patterns ever changing. For us to try and control that awesome force, that sublime movement, is nothing short of blasphemy to the Universe.
I have learned acceptance about many things in life over the years, and one of them is this, that we can act, and our actions will have re-actions, but once in motion, we must continue to move forward and to learn from those actions, and to impart that wisdom via experience to others around us if possible. The acceptance and surrender to the great dunes of Time's wake is one of the most difficult things for us, as Be-ings concerned with Freewill, to do. It is not necessarily Faith, but perhaps a close cousin.
For, like Ozymandias, what pride may come of our actions, may end in futility, but humility of the bigger picture will never serve you wrong, so long as it is not false humility.
Today, I am reminded of Shelley, who died so young, but whose legacy outlived his own life ten-fold already.
Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert...Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
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