Soul’s Flight – A Flash of Thought

SOUL’S FLIGHT - A FLASH OF THOUGHT tc "SOUL’S FLIGHT- A FLASH OF THOUGHT "
S. K. Chari

Thousands of men and women live and die without knowing the difference between a beech and an elm, between the songs of a thrush and the songs of a black-bird.  Probably in a modern city the man who can distinguish between a thrush and a black-bird is the exception.  It is not that we have not seen the birds.  It is simply that we have not noticed them.  Yet so feeble is our observation that many of us could not tell whether or not chaffinch sings.  They do not know the colour of the Cuckoo. We argue like small boys as to whether the Cuckoo always sings as he flies or sometimes in the branches of a tree – whether Chapman drew on his fancy or his knowledge of nature.

‘When in the Oaks’ green arms the Cuckoo sings, And first delights men in the lovely springs, Out of this ignorance we get the pleasure of DISCOVERY.

If we had lived half a life time without having ever seen a Cuckoo, and know it only as a wandering voice, we are all the more delighted to the spectacle of its run away flights.

Remembering these words of Robert Lynd’s essay on the ‘Pleasures of ignorance’ -  I closed my eyes in a revery – but soon my thoughts took flight like the running Cuckoo-and I was enchanted thought. It was impossible to take a walk in the country with an average tours man.

It was in September while strolling in the lawns of the bunglow, in the early hours of September morning, my imagination was captivated by a bud, a flower tender with petals.  It all happened in a flash, a lightning – like thought illuminated the memories of my practice teaching in the school.

“A bud yet to blossom, yes: I have before me sweet little children, their innocent faces beaming with mysterious thoughts.  What puzzles them, I can’t tell.  It is to me a riddle which all my theoretical learning fails to solve.  But their hesitant faces fill me with a curiosity to know what they want to ask.  Now, I can’t ignore it, I will read to them only the pages which make them feel lord to ask question, the question that will quench my thirst.  I will be there only to answer their question.  There are, after all, tender buds ready to blossom any time, let me experience the job of seeking the buds opening out in full bloom, let me feel the bliss of blossoming forth my own bud of in-experience.  Aren’t the teachers and the taught alike when buds blossom:

Look:  it is already a blossom, with many petals, nodding and smiling in joy.  Each one longs to come to me and feel attracted to go to them.  Now extremely lovely, innocently sweet they look:  Oh, my God:  what an inexpressible beauty; and there is a stir in my thoughts.  Yes I will never fail in their moments of ticklish problems.  I shall never, hesitate to answer them lest the blossom fade and fail.  I shall give them the spontaneous answer, the answer anew in this very class full of kindling thoughts were unfolded to me from the hidden treasures of tender brains. Well, they now come to me with curious queries with all seriousness.  They answer with all the vehemence of thought.  I nod in silence, smile and feel one with them, expressing, discussing, joking, learning and yet going ahead with hundreds of solutions unconsciously springing up.  I never could dream of it – let alone except it, when I first came to teach them.  I have got more than I could ever imagine. My union with those fresh, beautiful blossomed petals expression with little speaking and more of unfolding.  Oh, yes, Rome is a thing of beauty and joy forever; well those, of my children are all sweetness that excels, and they are a sure source of my joy and inspiration. 

Where am I not? waking or sleeping:  what an agonising  experience to see no more flowers in full bloom, what a day to greet me? Is joy to me forever gone: I have not yet drunk from those tender brains, I still feel acutely thirsty.  So soon, I shall be in the old world of books, a lifeless, colourless, lusterless, horrible world, which denies me intense pleasure and obscures my vision. Shall I not learn any more from those sweet young children?

“A dried up tender bud you are I shall never see.” I closed my eyes.

All of a sudden, I was shaken up by a shout from my sister.  It was a jolt as it were, that brought me from that dream-land.  my Heaven: what a flash of thought  - a thought , I felt like pouring out. And so, here it is.

I was transported to another world, - is it an illusion, a day dream?  My introspection took me to the land of daffodils - in the words of wordworth-

‘For oft when on my couch I lie’
In vacant or in pensive mood
They dance upon my inward eye-
Which is the bliss of solitude’-

This soul-searching experiences is an out come of the fervour of the human soul throbbing with deep love and surrender to its master. It has rarely found elsewhere such beautiful and sublime expression....