Om Shanti!

OmShanti!
-abs borja, svd-
march 2006

Are you thirsty? Come! Let us fetch water from the well! When was the last time you’ve been there? Do you visit the well frequently? You know, I spend ample time in and by the well once in a while, not always, because I am caught up with my own agenda and activities, doing necessary things that I want to accomplish.
When I am thirsty, I tend to substitute any kind of soft drink for water especially when the tempting green-bottled sprite is available in the store. At times I go for the sweet black coca-cola; sometimes I prefer royal true-orange or simply C2. These drinks are attractive especially when they are cold, right? They come in varied colors and in elegant containers. They are tasty and delicious. But these are carbonated, substantiated with preservatives and chemicals. They are labeled with expiration dates! How about water, what can you say about it? Hmmm…is it tasteless, colorless, and to some extent unattractive? Somehow you are right. But water is not carbonated nor sustained by any kind of preservative. It has no expiration date! It remains fresh all the time. It is perfectly alive!
Everyday we feel thirsty. Not necessarily for water but something that prevails upon society. Some of us are thirsty for power and material wealth. Some thirst for fame, achievements, etc. Why? Because these satisfy the desires of the flesh and these can raise us above other people. Fame and power last only for some time; material wealth can be stolen, eaten by rust, and consumed by fire; achievements can easily be forgotten by people. These are like soft drinks. They are temporal and spatial, they won’t last long – they are corruptible.
On the other hand, some of us are passionate to search for water, something that is natural and alive, and something that gives life. We may consider these as the virtues of life – humility, patience, trust, kindness, compassion, hope, love, peace, etc. These virtues can never be stolen, nor consumed by fire nor eaten by rust. They are incorruptible! They are always remembered by people who share love, continue to hope, aim for peace, etc. These are God’s blessings that no man can destroy. That is why we are always confronted with an option whether to quench our thirst with soft drinks sold in the stores or the living water we have to fetch from the well. The choice depends on us.

“To fetch water from the well” is to exert conscious effort foregoing the activities that provide pleasure, and making ourselves free despite our busy day to visit the source of the living water, the magnificent well – God. Isn’t it that when we make ourselves present before the Lord that we feel relaxed, we feel good, restful, and most of al, we find peace in our hearts and minds? Isn’t it that the time we remain quite and still and detach ourselves from the things that make our lives complicated, we reach a certain degree of calmness and we feel peaceful? That’s it – we are on our way back to the “forgotten self, the peaceful soul – the Om Shanti” as the Brahma Kumaris would name it.

The “forgotten self” is the original, the good, the authentic “person” in us that was concealed by our personal interests, locked by our mundane attachments and desires. An effective means to uncover the concealed self is to sit, unload the baggages that burden us. As much as we can, we try to listen to the voice within, what it is telling and where it is calling us. And most of all, to spare and o waste time with God – the magnificent well, who is the source of the living water. We do not just fetch water, but we must drink and allow it to flow inside us. Aaahhh…refreshing! Our thirst is quenched. We are revitalized and we feel renewed – a “new person”, with new energy and life! We experience the peace that springs from within us, and now we have to courage to say,
OmShanti! – I am a peaceful soul. This peaceful soul contains all the positive energies that transmit goodness to others, to share peace to every person in the society whatever be his faith, culture, religion, race, and face would be.

The magnificent well is always inviting and waiting for us to fetch the living water. How wonderful would our lives be if we can always say, “As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God (Psalm 42:2).” Can we?