Doubts here and there, flying everywhere

Ever wondered what an aura of a person looks like? We have a perceived idea that it is a golden round hallow glowing at a flame gentler and engulfing the saintly figures stretched across the pages of history. I often picture Gautam Buddha when I think of an aura. I have always wondered what it means? Is it a mere sense of divinity bestowed on a person by Upasakas (lay followers), Is it the story of the person and his travails with life that makes us see him as one with a golden halo, Is it our idea of the light of God, Is it our delusion or illumination to prostrate ourselves on feet of the hallowed? The questions are many, the answer is singular yet it is evasive and like millions of flickering dots of white light which we all have seen at some point or the other.

We all believe that there is a way in which the world is conducted and managed. Even the atheist and agnostic emotions know that there is some force which guides what we do, what we perceive and how we go about it. The mere difference is that it is God or faith or religion or multiple such other notions for the believers and it is self-confidence, self-determination, belief in one's qualities and inner voice and strength for the atheists and agnostics.

If we carefully observe there is not much difference though. Whether the tale is of confirming or denying the existence of God, it always boils down to what we believe and how far we believe in our belief. This is the only operative word. This is the only word that determines the chart and course we tread in our life and this only is the determinant of where we land.

This belief can be characterised in its innumerbale forms. We chose to believe at times only when we could see or hear the definite. We often forget that the definite is not only sensory but it could be tangible in ways our senses could perceive only when we stay still and listen. Isn't that how we can smell the fragrance of wind even when it is not raining, isn't it how we can feel the warmth of the Sun even when it is still up or below the horizon, Isn't it how we know that a stream in a forest will eventually lead us to some settlement. The last observation i made here is deliberate and emphasizes the quantum of faith we carry in our daily lives, no matter whether it comes from experience, trust, a hunch or a known fact. The chances are always dual and we choose to believe what we have to.

Our mind if often crept up with doubts swelling and swimming like phytoplanktons in the Antarctic sea (they are lesser now as applies to doubts too) and like an algae enveloping the entire river body (the doubts are multifarious). No matter what we do this cycle of doubts goes on and the vicious circle sucks us inside with its centripetal force so that all our mind possibly dwells on is doubts, explanation of doubts, answers for doubts and the way to break out of the cycle.

We all have faced this task at some point in our lives and we all have mantras to de-stress and to let go. At times the solution is elusive, at times it lasts for a while (till we shop and party) and at times it is a self-deceptive exercise (where we shun the existence of doubts). But it is only seldom that we accept them as they are and face them in their behemoth form.

We have also realized that the tyranny of doubts is overwhelming and the moment we are about to cross its borders, it spins harder and like a giant black hole it pulls us back destroying the thin strands of faith we rode on to escape its singularity.

But at all points of time we are also aware that there is a world, a creation beyond these strangling doubts and we all envision how happy and peaceful we are out there. When this awareness is visualized the doubt monster is in a frenzy as his reign of darkness is pulsated by a light which is the result of our belief and firm knowledge of the turn of tides and advent of better days. All that is dark perished when the light shone. In this light, in this aura, in this hallow we find our doubts melting and scattering far far away into some dungeon. It becomes anti-matter (something which is nugatory to our recent flush of belief and hope in good). And when this tide of light shines and verbates, all we need to do is not to chase it and hang on it tightly but let it suck us in in its still aura of illumination and peace. That is a place where the behemoth would fear to tread. And that is where lies our hope.