Call Of the Desert

AUM SAINATH Cyrus Jehangir SataravallaCALL OF THE DESERTToday, im glad that no crystal-ball came during a personal storm that tore through the fabric of my life. The joy experienced, now, is a reward sufficient. Anticipation and surprise appear as winged Arch-angels. Their sweeping powers and grace-filled gift-rays can be appreciated after it quells. Each of us must withstand the mandatory test of "Baptism by Fire" (Agni Parriksha). Endless storms and what, at first, appears a God-forsaken death-defying desert. Why a severest life-changing "Test-by-Fire?" you might rightly ask?Our awareness to deeply, appreciate smaller blessings is acutely sharpened in the wilderness of desolate, or desperate moments. In Chinese, the meaning of "crisis" or "Wei Che," is life's heaven-sent moment to grow.In a spiritual sense blessing-bringing moments cannot be seregated into categories. From the cosmic dimension blessings remain just "God's Blessings." Barkat and a cornucopia of bounty. Deserts re-awaken one to rely on the self. The further into the quiet you venture the deeper, into, your own vastness you plunge. Trying times give you a once-in-a-lietime chance to find a part of you that otherwise would remain out of reach. Here you are guided to plumb a sacred-most well of other-world sweeetness. A deeply-glowing pertinent Pashtu proverb instructs: "Keep your palm-trees in the shade and you will not get honey-sweet date-fruit." Yes, those things that hurt, also, instruct quite like nothing else can.Deserts, at first can be fearsome. Yet, they are also the vital link-strand with all that is utterly divine. So whilst traversing a life-storm it is of inestimable, incalculable, and unfathomable value to hold this truth, as a guiding light-house in your bosom. The law of duality and inherent paradoxes is revealed nowhere better than at a desert. What strikes you at first, holds only a part of the truth. Deeper, down stillness makes its presence known.Deserts, outwardly glower: "Close your eyes, there is nothing to lose, for all is lost already." Yet, the oasis whispers is timeless encouragement: "God is my garden; He, is all I need," says a Sufi poet-seer.A heaviness as of pre-historic forces wells out of the sands. Dust devils whip up sand as in a blast-furnace. Blotting out even the sun from the sky. A hellish and barren landscape. Utter desolation and a quiet you can sense, your only companion. Danger like a vulture's shadow follows with every treacherous step. Over all the sky above, over all the earth beneath there appears no visible source of succour, to baulk the fierce will of the maddening sun. Foot-scalding sands, where lips and visage are withered, cracked beyond recognition. Yet, the sand-sea stretches endless. Where piled mirages thicken. With a merciless wind screaming: "Go run and hide."Your temple throbs, and dried eye-balls seem screwed against a fever-throbbing brain. Throat parched as a dried-out river bed. Your soul cries out in anguish. A Khamsin can tear and strip an already barren desert in a manner, unimaginable.With sands attaining the projectil-like velocity. Yet, you trudge on. Half-swallowed by the brooding emptyness. Storms are followed by a 'haboob,' which in Bedouin means, "the worst possible combination of things."There is no hill, nor valley, or hollow, no mound, not even the fragment of even a fractured shadow by which to take a moments respite.Yet, just ONE step beyond and the savage ordeal softens and the havoc stops, in conjunction to that Higher Will. A crimson sun emerges from towering sky-high dune beds. That crimson-ringed sun fires the spirit with a new-found flame. A re-birth.Not a leaf-tip stirs. A serene palm-lined oasis greets you. Emerald wavelets lap and caress its silver shore. Palm-tops laden with succulent golden date-berry fruit.Nightime brings the counsel of shimmering stars. He, who steers them, will surely steer our little way. Planets, glisten as they only can in a desert. Heartbeats merge with the stilness. It seems to beckon: "Come and sink into me. I will enfold you into my arms. I am always there." You awaken to soft rain. A line of date palms deepens into a delicate fringe that sparkled here and there as though it were sewn with diamonds. A quaint garden with cypresses and water-courses and wild-growing rose bushes. Care-free gazelles gambol in the distance. In a blinding flash of realization im reminded how propitious deserts can be. Untamed expanses and solitude help, incalculably, in re-centering with the oasis-self, within. Reaching the quiescence in ones own heart. Lifes storms like a desert are extremely forbidding. Where a single mistake holds unspeakable, penalty.Yet, a desert is also the One place to find you. Stoic, stern, unforgiving deserts may be. Nevertheless, gentle, merciful, spiritual and all-nurturing as well.The easily-missed pathg in a desert is a parable in itself. Sometimes the path is only a kind of imperceptible shimmer, a waving line of near-blinding light, a flickering mirage. The eye plays tricks. Enticingone to stray endlessly of-cource. More than anything else, such trying moments awaken self-reliance; a never-before-seen closeness with the Way-Pointing Spirit-self. The desert doesn't deceive. It awakens and instills, in you the Path to Miracles.Your spirit is nomad. A wanderer. In the desert immensity it roams free, returning, as it must like an eagle back its cliff-edge eyerie.You, find your interior guide during crisis moments. You follow the track diligently. Most faint, yet you hold a steady on-coarse path. intuitions, needle-compass never falters. Perception comes into its own especially when you seem at the end of your tether; and when even a step seems well-nigh impossible. People close to you during moments like this wonder how you can know the path; how you can be sure of the road.

Deserts, breathe, myriad subtle messages. One coaxes, build castles in the air but first lay a strongest foundation under them.An abiding faith in your on powers and prowess; and an added strength from an all-close Heaven within is your protecting talisman to emerge stronger than burnished steel after any life ordeal. The greatest lesson deserts breathe is just this: "Be comfortable with the twin law of paradox that operates in every area of our life-cycle.Once you can happily, 'digest,' inwardly ingest a crisis you will simultaneously be led to witness the unspeakable transcendence of a never-too-far oasis of tranquility.Deserts, are never as wicked as some of our darkest thoughts.

The worst 'ghibli' desert storm is never as tormenting as the thought of fear that blows inside ones own head. Quell fear. Switch it with Faith. Make it your ally. A greater comrade will be hard to come byduring any sojourn past a desert.

Cyrus Jehangir Sataravalla