All Comments By Bhavana Pankaj

There is an elderly man I see every day on my morning walks who makes a living - I got to know the day I stopped to greet and speak to him - by making flattened balls of cow-dung for religious and domestic purposes. Our eyes would meet every day but something withheld us from venturing further. That day, I folded my hands and said namaskar to him. He responded in a way that took me by utter surprise. He told me he lived alone - he did not marry - and how his entire family had passed on; how with much difficulty he made two ends meet etc. And then he smiled a warm smile and blessed me with such heart that his earlier acerbic disposition (or so it appeared to me) just vanished. As I walked away, there was this one overriding feeling: people, mostly and essentially, need affection, attention, a kind word, a little time... just a little love. My heart only cracked a little more that day. And I wouldn't want to exchange this for any security. I don't know if this is courage. But I do know that it is His love that I and each one of us has been trusted with - not to hold on to it, but give of it with a fullness - every time, as much as conditions allow.

I do not know what holding lightly is. But I experience the “holding tightly”. That tightness I experience in my own heart, in the pit of my stomach, in the unshed tears that burn in my eyes. I know I can clench my fists to hold water but it will slip away from my hands, and I will be left with marks of hurt on my palms. Does that help me to hold water less tightly? I don't know. Not yet. And as I write this, I feel how much I want to know, truly know. The fear of losing a loved one, the thought of what's going to happen to me when he passes on, the pain of the future that scars my present... are perhaps all coming from holding tightly. I see my own inability to accept the most evident of truths and I want to learn as quickly as I am allowed to, to be able to shed this fear as the snake sheds its old skin. I also feel some times that this process of acceptance can take a long, long time - and for that time, the pain cannot be wished away either. I understand so well Conrad Pritscher when he says he is holding tightly to wanting to hold lightly. And with Jagdish Dave who speaks of being mindful of this self-inflicted pain. A couple of years ago, I have seen myself so angry with my loved one for not getting well and returning back to ‘normal’ – the way I had known him. I did everything in my power to do what I could and some sort of faith kept me going. But I see that I did it out of a deep sense of fear, of losing him... And I see my own lack of gratitude and trust in the multifarious love that surrounds me because I cling to just one source of love. That’s where, I suppose, to hold on to something inside of you, to know yourself becomes really important... for the external is forever in the process of going...