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I’ve virtually an avocation relating to the numerous quirks that human reminiscence is able to. It might not be a matter of religious significance, so it doesn’t qualify as something however a minor passion. However I stay fascinated and really feel that every little instance I expertise and even hear of, relating to reminiscence, offers me a tiny enhance in some sort of database that performs some position in my (and our) being right here.
This specific anecdote will acquire a bit extra religious gravitas by advantage of the way it happened and the actual phrase that I’ve discovered so tough to retain in my reminiscence. The phrase seems in a beautiful line of poetry by a pal that I needed to decide to reminiscence so I may/can meditate on it, repeat it after I lie right down to sleep at evening and so forth. (It’s that highly effective a line, or maybe couplet.)
The section of verse from a poem by my pal Brian Darnell goes like this:
“He absorbs our tormenting since to the precise extent
we open our wounds to His mercy.”
That’s a tremendous little “formulation” that I wish to take into the depths of my being. It’s turn out to be sort of paired for me with one other sentence, a part of a short tract by Meher Baba known as HOW TO LOVE GOD, I’ve additionally been repeating that tract upon going to mattress, in addition to at different instances of the day and evening, as a result of I wish to make it part of my intuitive understanding, too.
That aphorism goes like this:
“If we endure our lot with persistence and contentment, accepting it as His Will, we’re loving God.”
I don’t have an actual downside remembering the quote from Baba word-for-word. I did have a small glitch at first, as a result of I discovered the phrase “endure” a bit exhausting in that exact sentence, and I might substitute “settle for” for it, solely to search out myself coming upon the identical phrase once more, a couple of phrases additional into the sentence.
There was additionally a small downside for me with the that means of “endure,” contemplating the place it stands within the sentence. I can simply grasp the thought of “enduring” one thing with persistence. Endurance all the time requires persistence, it appears to me. However “enduring our lot with contentment“?
It appeared to me that endure and contentment have been oxymorons, or practically so. “Endure” appears to me to connote problem. Certainly, the literal denotation of the phrase (which I simply regarded up within the dictionary) is: to stay agency below struggling or misfortune with out yielding. although it’s tough, we should endure. transitive verb. 1. : to bear particularly with out giving in : endure.
And, whereas I’m at it, I’ll lookup “contentment.” It says, merely, “A state of happiness and satisfaction.”
So this fashion of loving God, then, is like one other instance of the proverbial command of a religious Grasp to a disciple: “Rise up and sit down on the similar time!” or “Bounce within the Ocean however don’t get moist!” The sort of factor Meher Baba requested His shut ones to do on a regular basis!
I’ve realized, by correcting myself within the actual wording of the sentence a number of instances, to get the phrase “endure” in its correct place as an alternative of getting to return after I get to “settle for” later. (And since I regard Meher Baba as a Realized being, I take Him at His phrase. That it someway is potential to “endure” one’s lot with contentment, in addition to with persistence!)
Laid low with “tormenting”
The that means isn’t what was hanging me up in Brian’s line of poetry that I started this little piece with. No. My downside regurgitating this line from my reminiscence was that regardless of what number of instances I went again to the textual content of your entire poem, which seems on a Fb web page that I handle, and so is comparatively simple to entry and refresh my reminiscence from—I might nonetheless, typically only a minute or two later, utterly overlook the phrase “tormenting”, the adjective that modifies “sin.”
I do know why. It’s as a result of I’m simply not used to utilizing the phrase “tormenting” and my reminiscence doesn’t settle for it as pure, with out being skilled! I knew from my first lapse, in my preliminary effort to name up the road with out the textual content earlier than me, that the phrase was an adjective and began with the letter “t.”
But, after I tried to carry it to consciousness, I merely drew a clean! I considered phrases like “horrible,” “torturing” and others that aren’t coming to thoughts proper now, however the phrase “tormenting” all the time slipped away right into a black gap of reminiscence.
At one level, bored with opening Fb on my telephone and pulling up the poem but once more to get the phrase, I made the reference to the shorter phrase “torment,” which is extra part of my typical vocabulary. After which, after calling “torment” to thoughts, which I skilled myself to do in a brand new behavior that appeared to keep up itself, I’d go from there to the participle of the phrase that provides “ing.” After that, I may do a number of repetitions of Brian’s line with out forgetting.
Till … a few days handed after I should have been too busy to recite the road. And, wanting as soon as once more to do it, I discovered myself again at sq. one! It was totally unusual to search out my reminiscence so hole-ridden in a means that got here once more to appear inconceivable to restore or appropriate!
A mnemonic answer
As a result of my spouse, Barbara, additionally enjoys all method of linguistic lore and anecdotes, I lastly advised her what I’d been going by way of. She didn’t have any further solutions, however after speaking about my conundrum aloud, it occurred to me to make use of sound as a mnemonic. I considered the phrase “Thor,” the Norse god of thunder, and when making ready to tug up Brian’s line, started to have the one-syllable title prepared and ready for my stumble. I’d then be capable to switch my thoughts to pondering of the three-syllable adjective whose first syllable is the phrase that resembles the sound I’m in search of.
Up to now, this has labored. I’ve been in a position to rapidly switch “Thor” with its “th” sound to “tor,” and from there, get simply to “tormenting.” Possibly earlier than lengthy, I’ll be capable to dispense with the mnemonic circumlocution fully!
Aren’t language and its relation to the thoughts attention-grabbing?! For spiritually-minded readers, right here is your entire masterful poem by Brian Darnell, reprinted along with his permission.
God-given
The thoughts fades—I’m studying to place forth
the guts, a small heat, a candle
flickering at midnight of my cell,
not flame sufficient but to burn away the dross
however a aid to my continual solitude—
a glow sufficiently humble to attract my Beloved.
He absorbs our tormenting sins to the precise extent
we open our wounds to His mercy,
His benevolence annulling
our each clinging indulgence,
permitting expansiveness to bloom—
an assured and expressive love establishing a home
of which we appear inherently unfamiliar,
a peace from which we’ve been too lengthy estranged
however which is seemingly our Self, our essence—
the seeds, pith and parts of our true being.
O youngster of God, the flame inside is the dhuni
burning away all of your imagined deficiencies.
«RELATED READ» ON WORDS AND IMAGES: Evaluating the expertise of writing a poem and making a portray (in a time of battle)»
picture 1: Nick Youngson; picture 2: Erik Solibakke, webmaster, avatarmeherbaba.org; picture 3: Bernhard Wenzl
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