Raindrop parable

Raindrop runs down a hillside, matures into a river and merges with the sea. Not that it rests there; it merely changes its plane of operation.

Raindrop runs down a hillside, matures into a river and merges with the sea. Not that it rests there; it merely changes its plane of operation. Given an opportunity, it turns into vapour and is back as a raindrop to join the river and then again the sea. What a life! Not an opportunity wasted, not a movement lost; tireless effort for a larger cause of cosmic proportions 8212; all by a little drop of water. Millions of raindrops keep doing this to sustain life for us.

Suppose if one of them were to ask a human being what8217;s his aim in life, the reply from the younger lot could be a shrug. It8217;s an unusual inconvenient? question. The older ones venture tentatively: my children are settled, I have a car, a bungalow, a respectable bank balance 8212; the voice trails off, leaving it unsaid that even to the speaker the reply is inadequate. Recognition, wealth, pleasure? Would these qualify as the aims of life?

Perhaps there are no aims any more, just short-statured jobs and makeshift wish-lists that must accompany life, wheezing as they draw their last breath successively, leaving the hapless individual at a loose end. The prospect is decidedly asthmatic. Alternatively, we have the declaration of Shri Krishna in the Gita that the human being is of a piece with divinity Mamaivanshu jeevaloke jeevabhuto sanaatana8230;. From that standard the aim of life is thus deduced: Each soul is potentially divine; the goal is to manifest this divinity within, as Swami Vivekananda noted.

It would seem that we had more clarity of purpose till just about a century and a half ago. But now divinity is only the goose that lays golden eggs when offered prasaad. Blaseacute; selfishness is a quality all of us find irksome in 8216;others8217;. The enthusiast8217;s ascent up the highroad to divinity means, in practice, working in the interest of all 8212; just what the raindrop does. If it does not, we turn churlish, dub it as climatic coquetry and hold seminars to pontificate on its change of fancy. Likewise maybe raindrops too are holding seminars on Human Change, the homo sapien turning his back on his cosmic antecedents in hot pursuit of gaari-bangla-kutta as deliverables of life.