To Have or Not To Have...that is the question...

I was just back from a weekend trip. It was fun...two days of rides, hikes, mountains, waters...laughing friends, painful butts...

One of us lost his mobile phone. Exactly when and how it was lost...was unknown. What was known to us that he was sad and it affected our moods as well...though only for a while before we were back into the cheers...

But this made me rethink about some of the life's great questions:

What is the point of "owning" if somehow we end up "losing"...
Do we ever actually own anything?...

Even this life we are living...does it really belong to us? For one day it would be gone...

In my previous entry - even the hopes that I had, were taken away...

Oh I love this term - the defense mechanism of the soul

And once again the "mechanism" kicks in to postulate a theory - will it not be better to have nothing and hence lose nothing, rather than to have something and worry over losing that thing?

Once upon a time there was a beggar who lived in peace...
He had "nothing", his roof was the sky above, his bed was the pasture below. His lights were the sun and stars, his furnitures were the tree trunks and river banks rocks. His beverage was the mountain spring, his bathroom was the great lakes and waterfalls (though he did not need them that often).
One day he found a stash of gold coins and immediately his life was changed...
For better? You judge it yourselves...

Instead of enjoying the breathtaking beauty of nature, he was captivated by the glitter...
Instead of listening to the singing birds, the clanging metals...
Instead of smelling and feeling the sweet soft lilies, the cold hard coins...
Instead of drifting in deep sleep and refreshed, the strenuous wake...
For he was worried that thieves would come and steal his newly found "treasure"...
Or...was it really a "treasure"?...

Was it really a treasure if he could not see the real beauty?
Was it really a treasure if he could not hear the real symphony?
Was it really a treasure if he could not smell and feel the real warmth?
Was it really a treasure if he could not sleep the real rest?

After a while, word got to a band of mountain thieves who then succeeded in wrenching the gold from him...
He was most definitely sad...shed a lot of tears...got tired and...fell asleep...
A sleep that he had not had for a long time...
He woke up the next day, finding himself on the river banks, listening to the symphony of chirping birds and flowing water, feeling the warmth of sun, smelling the scent of the morning dew...refreshed...as if he was given a new lease of life...

Oh then he realized...those thieves had done him a great favor that he could never think of...

Sigh...

Are we like that beggar? Do we need someone to do us a favor by "wrenching what we supposedly have", in order to experience the real life? Do we need something to be taken out of our lives, in order to understand that there is no such thing as "having"?

A wise man once said, "We are possessors of nothing but stewards of everything"

When one thing is bestowed, it means stewardship period starts...
When one thing is taken away, it means stewardship period ends...
We shall complicate matters when our hearts are attached to the things we are supposed to manage...
Unless we manage to attach our hearts to the Ultimate Giver and Taker...
Who takes away good things from us, in order to bestow great things to us...

Dedicated to all of us who have felt the pain of losing...

In the midst of nothingness...let me be something for You...