Being

(first of the three-part series)

There were early days of white blank pages staring at me, unable to show its worth. These pages were sheets of crisp paper, waiting for my convoluted scribbles and Pollock-like scrawls. They waited for my strained fingers holding a cheap pen whose ink trickled like tar. They gathered dust in days, left unheeded together with a pile of books in the same fate of waiting. Days passed, I hadn't heard even a single cry from them; but my heart wailed, with words waiting to be written on the surface of these pages.

But these pages were pensive witnesses to the thoughts that kept exploding in my mind. They remained blank until the time I chose to write. They didn't do anything. They just stayed as they are, something pale and empty, unperturbed of the long wait. These pages are just being pages. They are nothing because they are blank; yet they are something because they are blank. They could have been useless if I would not choose to write. Though, they could be useful by the time I write on them.

You and I are both blank pages. We are both useless and useful. That depends how we see ourselves. Or how we let ourselves be. This is the first step to understand Love: we must let ourselves be. We are being blank pages, allowing Love to write something on our emptiness. Being is awareness of our true nature. We are Love. Those blank pages allowed their true nature: they are paper. That is their purpose. We are the same. We are empty beings allowing our nature and purpose, which is Love.

Our society has taught us something out of being. We are taught to do something. We are led to believe that doing something makes us worthy. At school, we do something, like finishing our homework, reaching high grades, excelling on subjects--all to make our parents, teachers and classmates happy. At work we make ourselves busy, we finish deadlines, we please our bosses, we team up with our colleagues. In life we are expected to behave well, to earn good money, to meet our goals, to conform for success. These are all required for us to fulfill another thing our society has taught us: to have. To do something leads us to have something. Having something, we believe, can validate our worth. Like having material possessions, or physical appearance, or intellectual dispositions. Both doing and having are all results of being. But they are not the source of being. For being is being no matter what you do or have. Being is being Love. Nothing else. No deed can surpass it, no possession can equal it. Realizing that you are BEING paves the way for you to DO and HAVE. That is the promise of Being.

Shakespeare's Hamlet starts to speak to himself through this line: To be or not to be? That is the question. It's almost the same as asking Being or Non-being. Say, do I want to be a being or not? It's no accident that we are called human beings. Have you heard the term human doing or human having? They sound strange, because they are not what we are called. But we are drawn more to be a human doing and human having. Our lives run in doing things and having things. Eventually, we see each other as being things. We have forgotten that each of us is not a thing. No need for being to pair off with thing. Each of us is a being alone--a being of Love.


The way to being is not easy. But there are no short cuts. Being being must be a moment by moment commitment. Being is about being aware of the Love within. It is seeing our true nature. We must begin to appreciate ourselves as beings of Love. Love, sans deeds and possessions, is perfect. The person you are, without identifying with anything you own or do, is always perfect. Let both your mind and heart settle in quietude. Hushing the voices of judgment in them, you will be able to hear that whisper of Love, always calling you in silence. Heed that call. This is the only way.

My teacher and friend once read from a daily devotional book about the "To be list." Its a fresh approach in completing a "to do list" or "to have list." In her "to be list," she jotted down the following: to be good, to be faithful, to be kind, to be generous, to be patient, to be gentle. This is a great idea on how to make use of white, blank pages: jotting down a growing list of Being. Let Love do the same in our blankness, and let that list of Being become endless.

(to be continued)