NO SIGHT MORE CHARMING ON GOD'S PLANET THAN A WOMAN IN LOVE

"Better irrational love than rational hate, to say nothing about irrational hate. Better the soft glow of sweet love than the harsh tones of bitterness."
TO A DEAR SOUL
FOR PUTTING DESTINY ABOVE FATE ,
(and refusing to take the hint from God’s stubborn-ness)

"A woman’s surrender to love proclaims her triumph and the triumph of the one she loves. There is no sight better than a woman in love. She is ecstasy incarnate, a poem lifted to the level of a scripture. Hers is the supremest show and it needs no audience. And it does not require an audience because it is divine. Divine is nothing but love rising to perfection and finding expression in surrender, in service. But there is no loss of pride in such surrender, no loss of dignity in service like this. Watch the silent, subterranean ecstasy in the total surrender of a woman in love, surrender not to the man she loves -- make no mistake -- nor to any outside authority ( love knows no authority any way) nor to any moralistic commitment to loyalty or some such inane stuff. But surrender to the flood of her own feelings of love, to the sublimity and intensity of her passion. No woman ever surrenders to the man she loves, for that would not be a surrender to love but a pathetic serfdom to an object of desire. She and all of us always surrender to the glory of the love that exults within us. And when we don’t do that, when we indeed surrender to the person we love, we only belittle love. But when we surrender to love, love itself renders the very need for surrender anywhere else unnecessary, irrelevant."

4.00 AM , Dec 31, 2009

Dearest,
You should be the first one to admit that the sole force driving me to do what I am trying to do is the belief you have chosen to place in me. Its a gamble you have taken and I want to do as well as I can to see you winning -- almost single-handed in this as you are against the collective judgment of the world on me. What a world of difference in what you insist on -- have always insisted on -- and what others have chosen to see in me. Frankly, I am beginning to be won over by your faith in me, and -- my lack of modesty be pardoned ! -- I am also coming round to agree with you that I have been wasting my time trying to win the approval of many of those I loved and respected all my life. Not that I shouldn’t have loved and respected them, for that would have been putting a lie in nature's mouth. I couldn't have done without loving and respecting them, because my soul needed and still needs to be always in love as desperately as my lungs need to breathe oxygen. My soul, my life would have been suffocated to death without being in love. So, I couldn't have done without loving and respecting them, and this did not depend on how they behaved towards me. But I could have done without trying to win their approval for my love. Their approval I should never have needed, never did need. Naturally, all that effort didn't prove worth its while except that it has kept me from dying of bitterness. Better irrational love than rational hate, to say nothing about irrational hate. Better the soft glow of sweet love than the harsh tones of bitterness. And, there must been a reason why I didn’t succumb to the other extreme. A reason also to all those provocations towards that. I have never been the one to regret my mistakes and experiences even when I know them to be mistakes, though I am deeply pained by the savagery of the damage which the whole thing appeared to have inflicted on me. Pained I was but regret I didn’t, and still don't. Nothing was ever achieved through regrets and in any case; life can not be lived backwards. All that our mistakes and experiences have to contribute to our progress is contributed without any effort on our part. That is the way nature works. However, only this evening, I was feeling that perhaps I have frittered away a major portion of my talent on concerns that should never have been mine to begin with, engaging my high intellect (!!!) on lowly issues. A great generalissimo using his talents in winning street-brawls, and not winning there too because his skills were meant for other battles. ( How humble even the humblest can be, eh? ) A lot of energy was dissipated using this mind for tasks that it was never meant to perform. That it did not succeed is a huge shame but no surprise. That was how I felt for a few minutes this evening-- or a few seconds perhaps. But up came a voice declaring ::: everything chooses its time to happen. That time was for that kind of life and experiences and this time is for this. Said a relatively younger John Milton on his 42nd birthday: " Things will happen in the strictest measure even, late though it may be."(He said something like that. I am sure the words were different. But Does that matter? This is what he meant. Or if he didn't, he should have ! Or if he shouldn't have, I should, and I do.) Keep the audience alive so that the show may go on. There is no show -- except the playful merriment in God's works -- which can survive without an audience. May be, in due course, I will attain to God's unmindful ways and enjoy the play for its own sake. As a sportsperson in my early days, I have seen that it is not only possible but even most uniquely enjoyable to play the sport – any sport - for the sheer fun of it, regardless of the audience or its absence. After a certain level of involvement and skill, everything we do rises to the level of divine ecstasy. Like the inexpressible bliss in a mother unmindfully doing little odd things for her child, like the ecstasy of a mystic who doesn't require even a God as an audience ( in his sublime hour, a mystic is always greater and larger than any God he is devoted to, and he knows it. In his humility, though, he stops at calling himself the Son of God, or equal to Him created in His own image with His own hands! Saints and mystics are mischievous with words in thei love for God, as all of us are in any form of love.) But watch the silent, subterranean ecstasy in the total surrender of a woman in love, surrender not to the man she loves, not to any outside authority ( love knows no authority any way) nor to any moralistic commitment to loyalty or some such inane stuff. But surrender to the flood of her own feelings of love, to the sublimity and intensity of her passion, surrender, in short, to the truth of her situation and to the reality of her own being and her feelings. No woman ever surrenders to the man she loves, for that would not be a surrender to love but a pathetic serfdom to an object of desire. No one would and should know it better than you do. A woman in love and all of us always surrender to the force of love within us. And when we don’t do that, when we indeed surrender to the person we love, we belittle love. But when we surrender to love, love itself renders the very need for surrender anywhere else unnecessary irrelevant. A woman’s surrender to love proclaims her triumph and the triumph of the one she loves. There is no sight better than a woman in love. She is ecstasy incarnate, a poem lifted to the level of a scripture. Hers is the supremest show and it needs no audience. And it does not require an audience because it is divine. Divine is nothing but love rising to perfection and finding expression in surrender, in service. But there is no loss of pride in such surrender, no loss of dignity in service like this. But I am still some distance away from that, and it is good for me that I have audience when the child in me needs one. Please be around to watch how the show ends or till the play and the artist reach a level of perfection which requires no audience. Requires no audience yet will be glad to entertain and be entertained. Quite simply, stay on till I attain sainthood – or adulthood, which is the same. Till then, look after this child who must have someone admire his rolling in dust as much as his dressing in white uniform for going to school of sacred heart. Love.