The Big Picture

After a long period of time, today I had the opportunity to sit by the window seat. I usually go into meditation as soon as the plane pushes back. But today I decided to watch out through the window. As the plane took off, it was fascinating to me to watch the ground. All the big planes will start looking like tiny toy planes, the houses will become like match box houses. What was more fascinating is that the landscape became bigger. One can see the big picture. The whole landscape is gorgeous to see with its ups and downs. The mountains and peaks have their beauty and so did the valley; the blue color of the water as well as the brown color of sand. There is fullness. Our eyes were capturing the opposites at the same time and becoming equanimous. When we are standing on the sand, though just a mile away, water may not be visible to us. Not seeing the water immediately can create some frustration in us. The frustration drops the moment we rise just a few feet higher from the ground and see the water.

When I attended my first Art of Living course twenty years ago, my Master Sri Sri Ravishankar said, “Opposite values complement each other”. It felt good to hear this but took me years to realize this truth. We have our up moments and we have our down moments. Our mind (consciousness) has the unique ability to comprehend both the micro and the macro at the same time. Our micro vision clearly shows every pleasant and every unpleasant situation we encounter. But, if we have only our micro vision ON all the time, we get completely stuck in our cravings and aversions. On the other hand, when we turn the macro vision ON from time to time we see a different dimension to our life. It becomes obvious how tiny we are in this universe and how little time we have on this planet. All misery drops and only gratitude remains. Life becomes an expression of happiness.

Breathing and meditation gives the ability to turn our micro/macro vision on and off at will.