Don't seek Her, just see Her.

[Guest guest]

Dear Holy Family,

 

The story of evolution on Earth has been a marvelous thing; downright

miraculous. We all started out as tiny little beings in the primal

soup, pushing ourselves through the murk with little hairs we grew out

the sides of our bodies. Later on, we learned to squirt water out like

a jet engine and proceed that way. Later yet, we grew suction cups on

our arms and pulled ourselves about the muddy bottom--we had become

starfish.

 

We were seeking then-as now, always seeking, ever seeking: seeking

food, seeking safety, seeking warmth, seeking light, seeking

evolution, seeking more--and yet more.

 

And we certainly did evolve. It took a long time to be sure, but we

developed, we evolved-sometimes nearly uncanny abilities.

 

I can remember standing still in the Arkansas countryside watching

nothing in particular-as I so often did as a young person growing up

in the South-and noticing a ripple coming toward me at great speed

through the high grass. It was moving very fast, and I had to wonder

whether I wanted to encounter this thing, whatever it was, when

suddenly it burst out of the grass next to me. I saw briefly then that

it was a snake, a harmless variety we called blue racers. It hit the

bare rocky knoll beside me and crossed it with two jumps-like a rock

skipping across a pond-and was instantly back into the grass again,

and gone. Those tubes can really move!

 

They say there are gazelles in Africa that, even on a lazy Sunday

afternoon, can leap twenty, thirty feet at a bound. Their four little

hooves touch the ground every so often-almost as an afterthought. The

rest of the time they are flying.

 

I remember watching a large-what we called chicken hawk-skimming low

over the treetops, when I guess it had seen all it wanted to down low,

so it glided over to an updraft and, circling tightly to stay in the

warm rising current, let the elevator carry it up, and up, and up.

Soon it was just a speck against the blue. And then it was gone--

higher than I could even see.

 

And then we humans came along. Now we are walking on the Moon; at

least some of us have. And we have also evolved the brain to think up

memorable sayings that will go down in history, "--a great step for

humanity".

 

Yes, evolution is marvelous to be sure; sometimes it reads better than

it lives, of course, and it takes a long, long time, but there is

simply nothing that we can't realize, given the will to do so. And the

adventure is before us!

 

===

 

Once, at Dakshineshwar, Sri Ramakrishna was strolling through the

dark, mystical night of the temple garden: the blackness laced with

stars above and the air fragrant with the heavy perfume of the flowers

to be offered in the morning to the Blissful Mother by the temple priests.

 

While walking on the soft pathway, with the musical murmuring of the

Ganges just beyond the flower garden to his left, He came upon a young

disciple in meditation posture, earnestly calling on the Mother,

repeating Her holy Name and meditating.

 

The Master said to the boy, "I'm very happy to see that you are so

devoted to your spiritual pracice. But you know, even as you are

sitting here in this darkness, the Mother of the universe is

struggling over a hot fire in her little room just over there; She is

working hard to cook the evening meal.

 

(He was refering to Sri Sarada Devi, the Divine Incarnation of the

Mother Who had descended in that generation to serve Sri Ramakrishna

and to carry His work forward after His Mahasamadhi).

 

"It seems to me that it would be good for you-since the living Mother

is working so hard there in the Nahabat (the very small room in which

She lived) to leave off calling on Her as if She were far away, and

instead run to help Her with the heavy kettles and pots and pans."

 

--And so he did.

 

"Swimming by day and by night in the bliss of Mother's Love..."

 

 

 

Respectfully,

 

Tanmaya