The River Cannot Go Back

This is a metaphor between rivers and oceans, which represents the journey of life and personal growth. Rivers represent the individual paths we take in life. They start as small streams, similar to how we begin our journey as children, with limited knowledge and experience. As rivers flow and progress, they encounter obstacles like rocks, bends, and sometimes even waterfalls, just as we face challenges and obstacles in our lives. Throughout their course, rivers can change their direction, merge with other rivers, and grow in size, reflecting how our experiences, interactions, and decisions shape our lives. Rivers are also influenced by the environment they pass through, much like we are influenced by the people and circumstances around us. Ultimately, rivers flow towards the ocean, which represents the vastness of knowledge, wisdom, and the broader perspective of life. The ocean symbolizes the culmination of experiences, understanding, and enlightenment. Just as rivers find their way to the ocean, we seek to broaden our horizons, gain deeper insights, and find meaning and purpose in life. This metaphor reminds us that life is a continuous journey of learning, evolving, and seeking to connect with something greater. It encourages us to navigate through challenges, embrace change, and grow in wisdom as we flow towards the vast and profound ocean of knowledge and understanding. Hide full comment

River doesn’t tremble with fear, it is ecstatic, it is excited. It’s goal about to be accomplished. It sees the ocean with wide spread arms, waiting, inviting, raging Whether she is a bride going to be one with the beloved Or a daughter returning to her parental home The question is immaterial It is about to surrender the identity bestowed upon it by the ocean and the sky, it is about to experience the eventual dissolution, It is aroused, it is awakened, it is rapturous, it is joyous, it is fervent but it is not afraid It is about to achieve what it had been seeking through the forests the gorges the plains and the mountains It doesn’t experience fear, it is just thrilled, just awakened slowly and slowly it discards its banks, sands become one with sand and water with water. There was no river, there is no river. Probably Gibran didn’t have an exposure to the concept of individual consciousness piercing the envelopment which seemingly separated it from the universal consciousness. Obviously he doesn’t subscribe to its rising through the various barriers, knots and the chakras. The moment of river’s tremulousness to which he ascribes fear as the cause is actually the status of ecstasy just before the merger with the lotus of thousand petals. River is the process of metamorphosis of life. From snowflakes to icicles to glaciers and through the streams, rivulets till the delta and beyond it is a continuous saga of transformation and evolution. Alll that it acquires it keeps on renouncing and eventually it moves ahead of the the last of its material belongings, the sands of its banks and the riverbed, renouncing them as well. It is the story of life, of creation and creativity. This is what happens to all forms of living beings. From chromosomes to embryo to full fledged individual body having amazingly complex, inexplicably organised organ systems. Some of the life forms evolve to attain the human status and still fewer of them are able to renounce and attain merger just like the river with the ocean. Hide full comment

The proximity of the surrounding land guiding the river in which I am being held unwillingly, drowning, struggling to breathe or maintain any foothold, at least offers a glimmer of hope.

The prospect of entering into a vastness of an ocean is not one I relish or eagerly and calmly look forward to, despite my grudging acceptance ofits inevitability.

I thought I was walking on one of those 'rocky paths leading to the best views', hand in hand with another soul who had found me as a mate; together in a one-ness.

Then all of a sudden, the plans, and hopes of space to allow my long suppressed and un-dared-todreams dissolve without Explanation, Hesitation or Negotiation.I end up being chucked in ariver with no way out but being spewed into some ocean at the beginning of January, with maintaining 'good will' as the way of providing some buoyancy to keep a bit of my head above water.

There must be a more positive way of looking at this but I can't see it at the moment. Maybe I just don't like growing up. Hide full comment

Are there two separate identities-the river identity and the ocean identity? Or is there One identity? Outwardly, there appearstwo identities like the river and the ocean. But when they embrace each other and merge into each other, they become one. When I love someone deeply, I become one with her. There are no twos. In pure love there is only one. They may appear two. Pure love creates a union of two and they become one. When I consider myself as body-mind complex, I have a separate identity. Two different names and forms. My true
identity is nameless and formless. According to the ancient Vedanta philosophy, My True identity is Divine identity. It is not bound by my individual identity. When I merge into the ocean of Divinity, I become one with it. We may call it soul identity.
When I got deeply connected with my beloved I felt I was in a different , unfamiliar and unchartered territory. Since I had not traveled on this love path before, at times I felt the fear of the new territory. It did not stay longer. The light of true love dispelled that fear. It brought deep unending joy and fulfillment in me as well as in my beloved. We became one.
When I let go of my ego and open my heart to the other person, I shed my individual body-mind identity, the river identity, I became one with the ocean-like identity. I call it Spiritual Identity. I become mindful when I sense my ego identity arising in my consciousness. I sense the shadow of darkness coming and I mindfully make a shift from darkness to light. I meditate on the Vedic mantra in Sanskrit "Asato ma sad gamaya, tamsormajyotir gamaya, mrityor ma amritamgamaya. Om shantihi, shantihi, shantihi" Lead me from untruth to truth, from darkness to light, from mortality to immortality. Om Peace, Peace, Peace!

Namaste!
JagdishP Dave'



unseen teritorry



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