hiding in this cage
of visible matter
is the invisible
lifebird
pay attention
to her
she is singing
your song
– Kabir –
I wake up each morning to a new day, except that there is nothing specifically new to each day. The daily chores of waking up, meals, work, relationship, bills, money, health, then back to sleep again – plagues my whole entire life as far as I can remember. Probably I would have less of these chores when I was a kid, but even that, the routine evolves around waking up, eat, play and back to sleep again.
I have never left any of the routine behind. I tried doing something different each day, but that something turns out to be just another perspective of the routine – different wrappers of the same stuff. Meeting new friends, going new places, taking up different hobbies, starting new venture, eating different food, playing different games – all evolves around the same theme – challenges motivated by boredom. I never see it as boredom in the past as I always thought it has something to do with my creativity, of wanting challenges, until I stopped and observed – in a very authentic way why am I continuously chasing – not what I am chasing but rather why the need to chase.
There’s nothing wrong with improving my life. There’s nothing wrong by doing new things. What is not right is when I don’t questioned intelligently my incessant need for change, my inability to be at peace with myself, ignorant to the fact that I am suffering silently.
We all have similar routine – what is different is our storyline, the drama that evolves around the routine. My drama may be different from yours but behind the facade of all these dramas, we are all doing the same old stuff – routines. I am like the bird in the cage or the fish in the bowl – seeing different things each day – oblivious to the fact that I am frustrated in my own trapped in my own prison of conditioning.
I look at the bird in the cage, forgetting that I am in another cage, albeit an unseen one. I am turning round and round the cage, wanting to be free, but I totally ignore my inner crying, my inner song, but instead occupying myself with newer and newer stuff, as a way to numb my pain – each experience a cry for freedom, a cry for love.
What is life if I don’t gain deeper understanding from these silent calling? What is life if I don’t question the repetitive upsets I am experiencing whenever I am being triggered? What is life if I don’t stop to ponder why the need for more which I am never satisfied? What is life if I don’t start seeking the meaning of all these repetitive cycle of conditioning that has and will never end until I start inquiring.
I am not sure about you, but for me, life is as dead when I don’t question the whole purpose of these incessant grasping, of wanting; and also not wanting to look deeper into my own dis-ease at this present moment. Why am I not ever peaceful, why am I restless?
When am I going to start looking inward, O Weary One….
Now.