Forward Ho!

When my heart is overwhelmed

Lead me to the rock

That is higher than I

That is higher than I

Somebody asked me the other day “Does Time really heal?”

One does not need to be a very perceptive person to detect the skepticism inherent in that query.

“Most certainly it does”, I told him. “Civilization would not go forward if not for that property that Time has – as a healing agent”

After this short exchange, I spent some time ruminating on this question and arrived at the following conclusions.

Time heals. Time can heal, but it needs our cooperation. We have to feel the need to be healed. We should allow Time to perform its natural function.

If we nurse a grudge, we nurse the wound. We allow it to fester; then time is helpless – as we see in the case of those who are consumed by resentment and anger with the past. They try to correct the mistakes of the past in the foolish hope they can undo them. Past is a reality which cannot be altered. It is best left to historical memory. That’s where it belongs. The implication is, learn lessons from the past but relegate it to the inert memory zone which we can view with a philosophical and stoic detachment, and from where its only function is to help us make informed decisions for the moment.

Ayodhya issue is a classic example. As a people, we don’t want to forget an invasion which was an inevitable part of making of human history. We want to keep the wound open. It is politically expedient to do it. When Time, despite our efforts, inevitably begins to form scabs over the wound as the first stage of the healing process, an election comes around, and we realize it is time to reopen the wound. And we scrape off the scab and allow water and blood to flow.

True, there are certain wounds that should never have been made. But then, that’s what life is all about. Things happen which are seen in proper perspective only in hindsight. We MUST learn to forget and forgive what cannot be changed – that past which cannot be altered. It has already happened. It is not within our power to put the clock back. If we ‘nurse the wound’, keep it alive, it will fester and ultimately poison the system. That applies to a nation or an ethnic group or an individual.

We must move on. Getting trapped in the past will affect the quality of our future. The future is all-dependent on the present – on the moment. We must learn to live in the moment. Celebrate the moment. We must sing and dance because we can, this moment, breathe and walk, eat and sleep. That’s enough. This attitude will take care of our future.

Civilizations evolve through frictions. So too the individual. Life without friction is static – not an ideal ground for evolution. Evolution is the law of nature. Remember the story of the talents. The rich man gave talents (Money) to three people. Two invested it and it multiplied. The third buried it so it wont be lost, and returned it – the same amount- to the master when he came a few years later and asked for accounts. He remained the same. He hadn't evolved. And the punishment for his stagnation was serious. It was eternal fire!

We humans are created to evolve. In our own little individual life or as a community (nation, ethnic group or whatever), we must evolve. There is no evolution without friction and what it entails – wounds, pain. Allow ourselves to wallow in pain, we stagnate. WE must train our minds to view life from a higher plane. Then things fall in place. We see our role in the greater scheme of things. The individual, the nation, human kind – we are caught up in this great drama of evolution.

Only the fittest survive.

And we can be the fittest if we can rise above ourselves. After all, that's what evolution is all about.