Today I had a schoolmate who opted for early retirement (ASP) from the Royal Malaysian Police force to join the United Nations visit me. My wife, daughter, and I sat in awe listening to his stories while abroad trying to enable the delivery of the UN’s mandate and the delivery of development & humanitarian aid serving in high-risk environments such as Cambodia, Kosovo, Sudan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Somalia.
Besides the numerous misses to his life and sicknesses, he made it through, to tell his tale. And I thought I had stories to tell. My stories pale before his and I told him that the only reason he was alive to tell his story is because of the numerous guardian angels safeguarding him from dangers way. How else could he have survived I asked myself. He too was grateful to the divine for standing by him. He opted to leave the local police force to join the United Nations because he wanted to educate his three children with the best education. If I knew of a father who was my colleague in the office back then take the bus to and fro traveling some 214kms daily so that he could send his son to tuition each night, this police officer dad placed his life in God’s hand and faced numerous risks to achieve his intended objective. I feel small before them.
There are many similar parents who make sacrifices for their children. It is my hope that these children do not desert them in their old age. The coming of old age is something that saddens us as our mobility becomes limited, and our senses lose their abilities too. Memory fails us too. Many sit and while their time waiting for death. But the Siddhas say that death can be avoided by transforming the physical body and its gross nature back into the subtle form from whence it arose once upon a time. But we have yet to see this happen or take place before our eyes. Even the masters tend to leave behind their mortal frame in samadhis created for them. Rare is it to find someone like Ramalinga Adigal who never left any trace of his physical body telling us that he had recycled it back into nature. When my mother passed away recently at the ripe age of 95, the priests who conducted the rituals right from the beginning, mentioned during the last ceremony we conducted at the riverside that my mother was not dead but was in the water that gushed passed us, in the soil of the riverbank where we stood on, in the morning breeze that brushed our faces and the air that we inhaled, in the heat of the morning sun that peeked over the skies, and in the very space that we stood in. My mother was one with nature. She had returned home to reassemble another form and take rebirth again. We too shall come back to take another shot at attempting to break the chain or cycle of death and rebirth. As Supramania Swami and Tavayogi told me we shall keep trying till we succeed. One day the divine shall mellow down and lift us up seeing the numerous attempts we placed.
Divine grace is essentially in sailing this river of life, across the rapids and currents. Divine grace is essential in sheltering us from the storm that threatens to wreck our lives. Divine grace is essential to protect us from the scorching heat of the fire that could burn the house down. Divine grace is essential to protect us from the avalanche or landslides that could sweep us of the very terrain that we claim as home. Divine grace is essential to protect us from suffocating inhaling the very air that keeps us alive.
The Siddhas drop us a line that if we hold on tight enough and begin to climb shall bring us ashore to the promised land. In taking a human birth half the battle is won. Next, we have to train our guns on the goal. With their grace, we shall see results.