history and future of mankind

an inspiring thought one came across in a JK talk this morning:

each one of you is the history of mankind.
you are also the future of mankind, what it is going to be.
you are the now--that which alone is the real.

***
Sri Aurobindo begins his book 'Life Divine' with these quotes from Rig Veda:

She follows to the goal of those that are passing on beyond, she is the first in the eternal succession of the dawns that are coming, - Usha widens bringing out that which lives, awakening someone who was dead.... What is her scope when she harmonises with the dawns that shone out before and those that now must shine? She desires the ancient mornings and fulfils their light; projecting forwards her illumination she enters into communion with the rest that are to come.
Kutsa Angirasa - Rig Veda, I. 113. 8, 10.

Threefold are those supreme births of this divine force that is in the world, they are true, they are desirable; he moves there wide-overt within the Infinite and shines pure, luminous and fulfilling.... That which is immortal in mortals and possessed of the truth, is a god and established inwardly as an energy working out in our divine powers.... Become high-uplifted, O Strength, pierce all veils, manifest in us the things of the Godhead.
Vamadeva - Rig Veda, IV. 1. 7; IV. 2. 1; IV. 4. 5.

*****

a cat

fluffy white clouds have their searing will
a galloping horse a few moments back
now a winged elephant
on its back
dissolving
a cat

*****

Sarada Bai Teacher

ambi tells me after supper: "your Sarada Bai Teacher is no more." she passed away yesterday, aged 83. ambi got the news only today from a relative in our home town.

a wave of pleasant memories overwhelmed me. she was my teacher in upper primary school...more than 45 years back. she was such a great teacher that one never forgot anything she taught in the class--just being in the class was enough; there was no need to open the textbook afterwards. she was always smiling. she had a way of shaking her head from side to side very slowly when she spoke. the 'jimikki' on her ears would be shivering excitedly all the time...

she was always pleasant. we had in our class some of the naughtiest boys in town--my friend Heeran Sudheendran for one... yet, Sarada Bai Teacher had never been heard raising her voice in the class--we had such love and affection for her that we will not do anything to cause her a worry.

i saw her five years ago, after having had no opportunity to see her since leaving school--she having shifted home to another town. she recognised me instantaneously through my thick-bearded camouflage. ambi, who was with me, was pleasantly surprised by teacher's joy at seeing a favourite old student...and her memory--she was speaking of pleasant incidents of those days in school...even many little things i had forgotten...i am sure she lived life the way it should be lived--spreading light and being there in very many beating hearts.

*****

the frogs and the cricket

it is the dead of the night in a less crowded valley in the city here.
only the streetlight
to my right
in the lane winding past my home is alight.
i sit on the wooden bench in the porch,
hot and fuming the air.

a cricket keeps ticking in half-hearted chirp from the darkness to my left, like a top ticking tired, whirring and stopping, whirring and stopping, and then into that ticking a family of frogs from the darkness ahead goes croaking with sudden gusto and then the croaking--
it stops...
to listen...
to the tired ticking of the lonely cricket...
and then the frogs they burst into another bout of vehement croaking swamping the hesitant chirping of the cricket and they are saying,
sure as the secret of this night,
the rains are coming!!!

it's going to rain!!!
cool showers over the sweltering city from tomorrow!
for three-four days probably, but we shall talk about all that later.

ambi bakes dosa for me in the kitchen.
i can hear it sizzling on the hot flat stone over the stove
and also smell its aroma,
here in the porch.

*****