My journal of small revelations

[Guest guest]

11 Jan 08

How can January be so beautiful? It’s been raining all night and all morning, the trees are bare as bare can be, looking like skeletons standing upright, the sky as grey as doom itself, the fog nothing but a nuisance causing accidents, but all I see is beauty. My heart is soaring, the rain looks delicious like drops of nectar on my windshield, the dry drab grass like velvet moss, the grey of the clouds like the furry softness of a kitten, the fog like I’m floating on a cloud, and the two wet raggedy crows on the top branch like a couple in love. Tears well up in my eyes, just taking it all in. Wait a minute – taking what in? The gloom and the grey? Why does it look so beautiful? Really strange! The tears give me a clue though – I must be in one of my ecstatic moments, without even realizing it.

 

I just recently rediscovered (or rather newly experienced) a word – ecstasy. I don’t know how long I’ve known it, may be since grade school, but now, even just the word makes me feel rapturous – hey, I just rediscovered another word!

 

I never knew what ecstasy was until I watched a video on you-tube, of Swami walking around giving Darshan – the fall of his robe, the swish of the gold border, his sweet feet, the lift of his foot, his pearly toes, the outline of his delicate knees – they all sent me into raptures, and even now, make me tear up as I write this, remembering.

 

I didn’t experience ecstasy until I looked out the window on a late evening, and saw the blueness of the sky, the blue so deep that it literally pricked my eyelids, brought on tears, pulled at my heartstrings.

 

I never felt ecstasy until I looked at one of Swami’s pictures just now – not even the whole picture, just the hair – his beautiful crinkly hair, shining in the light, the ends of each one seemed like love was pouring out of them, and tears poured out of me.

 

I didn’t know what ecstasy meant until I broke down into tears seeing, feeling, and taking in the greenness of spring - the intensity of the color, everything around me dipped and drenched in green, it felt like green was God.

 

I didn’t know it was ecstasy when I listened to Lata M’s Mira Bhajans, and I was so lost in the songs, the words, the music, that I confused myself as Mira, pouring out tears like an abandoned bride, pining for Krishna, I couldn’t tell if it was ecstasy or sweet agony.

 

What is it about ecstasy that brings on tears every time? The intensity? Getting so lost in it? A sweet release? Renunciation, Advaita, and Vedanta are all fine, but who can deny the love that’s underneath it all, and is what makes us go into raptures of ecstasy? Who can blame the mystic devotees like Mira or Kabir, Ramakrishna or Rumi, who got so lost in the Lord’s love that they never wanted to come out? It is an intoxicating experience when I’m in it – I lose track of time, and when I come back out, the world seems so flat and mundane again. Oh, to be in it, and not to come out of it ever – now, that would be divine ecstasy!