Starry, starry night

On a clear night when we look at our sky we see far-off stars shimmering like gold dust. Some of them are only barely visible. Amongst the stars we can also see the moon. If we are pleased with such a sight, our enjoyment of the shimmering stars and the moonshine is not that of an astrophysicist. It is more natural for a poet to feel inspired when they see the night skies bedecked with jewel-like stars.

There is nothing we can actually do with the stars and moon and yet they fill our heart with great cheer. In the morning when we come out of our sleeping apartment and see fresh blossoms in our garden, we are overwhelmed. We feel like going near to have a good look at each flower. We may even touch their dainty petals affectionately. When the toddlers of the house come crawling to us with their toothless smiles, our bosom is filled with delight and we instinctively pick them up to cuddle and kiss.

It is heart-touching that the ancient rishis of the Upanishads wanted to tell us that we should not miss these little details that make our life on earth truly meaningful, so that the passing moments can be eternalised in our memory as moments that we have really lived. Of course, most people have no time to see how carefully our world is decorated with innumerable items of beauty and gaiety that can be heard, touched, seen, tasted and smelled. In our terrible haste in a world that we have made competitive, we miss the elegance of each leaf and the creepers that go twining in the nearby tree and decorate it with pretty flowers.

The ugliness of a drab, monotonous, and competitive world, where people are bound by obligations and necessity, is more than balanced and complemented with beauty, daintiness, suppleness and the promise of the future. Even in very old trees we see new sprouts coming from the tip of their branches to assure us that the trees are not too old to enrich another spring. Sunlight is given to us without our reaching for it; the summer cloud showers in our garden for no return; day after day, week after week, we are surprised by new clusters of buds coming on plants in our garden.

It is this joyous experience of living with the bounty of life on earth that we should look into to understand what the moon and stars mean to this world. What the great God is doing for us, we can also do in our own life. Instead of a dingy mind filled with misery, we can make it as vast and brilliant as the starry sky. A bunch of coloured balloons given to a child can be more useful than sending a battalion of killers with monstrous weapons to some border area.

Nitya Chaitanya Yati