Thoughts on a partly sunny day

This morning I sit in the lounge with a hot cup of tea and gaze at the scene outside the French windows. It's been raining for the last two days, so the trees are looking invigoratingly greener and the birds are all chirping among the leaves. It is a mixed sort of day, as though the day cannot decide which way to go. The sky is full of clouds so the sunlight is hazy, but once in a while the clouds part and the light creeps up the balcony floor and in towards the carpet. The intensity of the sunlit pattern changes as the light goes from hazy to strong and back to vague again as the clouds move back and forth in the sky.

I cannot help thinking how similar our lives are. I think our soul is like the sun, bright and luminous, always there, always shining. And the clouds, they are our thoughts and resulting emotions, our experiences. White fluffy clouds for positive, happy thoughts. Grey, menacing clouds for dark, tumultuous emotions. And at any given moment of time, these clouds whether white or dark are always clouding the wisdom of our soul, blocking out its light. And we mistakenly think that life consists of clouds, as our gaze moves from white clouds to gray and back and forth, most of the time unaware of our sun-soul.

But if we were to be in a state of mindful awareness we could reach the state of 'sthithaprajna'. The Stithaprajna dwells always in the Spirit without giving way to grief, lust, fear and delusion. His vision beholds the Spirit everywhere. For that we have to rise above the clouds, high up there we can see the clouds for what they are, where they arise from and how transient they are. In that state we can see the luminance of the sun at all times.

Then there will be no cloudy days, only sunlit ones :) Then we can behold the Divine always.

~~~