Remember
Beauty
Remember beauty, it shall last
Through all the withering of time.
Outward beauty is a mask
To please the senses and the eye,
Yet those with an awakened heart
See beauty in a mote of dust
And nowhere turn but she is there,
Of such a radiance the eye
Bereft of inner sight is blind.
Only the vision in the heart
Can truly see behind the veil
The youth that leaps in aged limbs,
The perfect form of the infirm,
The peace that lives in troubled souls,
The joy that made this stumbling world,
The inhabitant for whom we seek
Who lives in us unseen, unfelt
And carries us to heaven’s heights.
Narad
In those early days of Auroville,
1969-1973 before Mother left Her physical body to universalize Herself and
accelerate the vast transformation of the earth, life was at once
extremely difficult and supremely beautiful, touched by Her Grace.
Still, the work was exhausting in the extreme heat, the constant presence
of poisonous snakes and scorpions, and the onslaught of insects that could
destroy a months work in a day. Or the boys who would send their goats
through the fence to feast on the plants we had grown so that nothing
would remain after an hour or so. These events could happen at any time,
when we were asleep or away for an hour or so. Yet, we had access to
Mother and more than that, felt Her Presence protecting and guiding us
through all.
The insects were a real problem, descending en masse to
destroy our labour of love to introduce new plants of exquisite beauty for
the Gardens of the Matrimandir.
I wrote the following to Mother along with Her reply.
Are there forces directly hostile to vegetal nature?
Are insects a manifestation of these forces?
Mother: "There do not seem to exist
forces consciously and voluntarily hostile to the vegetal kingdom. Insects
do harm because they feed on plants, but in this way they serve them also;
both things are there, good and bad, without any conscious will. They do
good, they do harm, without knowing it."
This was a life lesson to me for balance, not eradication,
is the answer.
One day in Mother’s Garden a Praying
Mantis alighted on my hand. She did not want to leave so I took a
photograph with a small 'point and shoot' camera. Still she would not
leave so I gently placed her on top of an azalea shrub, 'Abundance of
Beauty', and nestled among the leaves she finally left my hand. This
wonderful creature consumes flies, grasshoppers and many other destructive
insects. There are so many other insects that are beneficial that we must
'tread carefully' this sacred earth and be aware of the consequences of
our acts.
Narad
November 2014
