Of the drop and me

 

 

 

Listening to the rain
Dripping from the eaves,
The drops become
One with me. 
- Dogen 

VERY spiritual, this experience -- and also very universal ! The rain comes. In trillions of drops that come in torrents. But then, stopped in their flow by the roof-overhang, they fall to the soaked, water-poodled ground drip-drip-drip-drip ... ! That music, soft and as if pin-pricking, forms a rhythm in the mind that fills one’s inner being -- every nook and corner, every grain. The rain stops after whatever time, but the drip-drip-drip-drip goes on for a long while -- taking over the space within. That’s divine, so to say -- that music, that melody, that song of Nature. In a while -- in really a very little while -- the drops become one with me.

 

 

Those pearls of water occupy my whole being -- inner and outer. The skin feels their wetness even in distance, and the mind senses the emotion each pearl brings with itself. Each pearl is brilliant with whatever light glistening through its soft-contoured being. That drop -- my little pearl -- has only a momentary life, I know. Yet, even in those flitting moments, that little pearl lives its life in complete fullness. It comes from somewhere up in the heavens, descends on the earth with force, in the process gets shattered and formed again and again -- before finally reaching the roof-overhang and then starts dripping down. In a moment, it will vanish, completely undistinguishable -- and lose its identity. Yet, even in those terribly brief moments of its life, the drop -- my little pearl -- lives its life in complete fullness. Rapid. Resplendent. Brilliant -- as if the light is of its own, as if never borrowed from the dimmed surroundings.

 

That drop --my little pearl -- often becomes my companion even beyond the time when the rain has stopped. In memory, that little pearl -- and many, many pearls that I cannot count -- becomes my companion. It reminds me of myself -- as if I, too, am a little drop, of small and brief and bright consequence. That little pearl -- my pearl -- reminds me that I, too, can live my little, uncertain, ephemeral life in fullness as if basking in eternity. That drop -- my pearl -- does tell me, ‘Look friend, you and I are one and the same -- very temporary. But, come on, do not forget, we have a life that we must live in full. Do that. For, we -- you and I -- are one’ ! Every rain-spell, thus, brings to me my friend, my little pearl, many-many-many of them ....and all of us become ONE.