Lessons from Snow

It has been snowing in Shimla for past two days. The whole landscape has changed. The white metamorphosis is complete. Everything looks pristine and pure in its whiteness. There is innocence, sweetness, and beauty in it all. As I look out of my window and see the white flakes drifting in the space before falling on the ground, I am reminded of a Zen saying, ‘The snow falls, each flake in its appropriate place.’ How true it rings! The whole philosophy of life is contained in these few words.

It sets me thinking. If each snowflake finds its right place, what about us humans? We are the pinnacle of evolution, made in God’s own image. Surely we too are in our right places. Suddenly the whole human dilemma of ‘getting there’ gets cleared. We are already ‘there’. There is nowhere to go to. We must accept ‘What Is’. That includes our bodies, our jobs, our current way of living, and of course The Weather.

I hear people asking for snow when it is not snowing, and then complaining about it when it does. Same goes for rain, sunshine etc. We are never really satisfied. But once we realize that everything is as it should be, we become contemplative and eventually peaceful.

The other thing that snow teaches us is the ‘perfection’ of the Universe. Each snow flake is perfect in itself. If you observe a snow crystal through a powerful microscope, you can see its perfect formation. If God has given so much attention to a snow flake, how much more attention He would have given to us. Yes, I agree that no one is really perfect, especially when we use our worldly parameters, but the nature says otherwise. Since every thing in nature is perfect, by the same analogy we are perfect the way we are. We are beautiful in our perfection. We need to just believe in this truth.

Snow flakes are not only just perfect; each one is an individual as well. Yes, we can’t distinguish one snow flake from another but the fact remains that each insignificant looking flake has a different structure. Can you even imagine the care God took in making each one of them different from each other? He could have easily used a factory mould. How much simpler that would have been! But no sir, He did not take any short-cuts. He chose to design each one meticulously, perfect in its individuality.

Look at us. We too are different from each other. There are about six billion people on Planet Earth and each one looks different from the other. Not only our looks, but also our fingerprints, our tongue print and any other dimension we care to compare. We are supposed to be different, just as the snowflakes are. We think differently. We behave differently. And we have a different destiny to fulfill, using our unique but different talents.

How many of us revel in our uniqueness? Why do we want to be clones of others? Why do we compare ourselves with others? Why? When we know very well that we are made individually with love and care, with our unique features and unique talents. What makes us want the same things that the others have?
A baby is born perfect. We all agree with that. We do not want our baby to look like our neighbour’s baby. But as she grows up, we want her to be better, brighter, and smarter than all other girls in the neighbourhood. If she can’t be better, at least she should be equal to them. The comparison game begins from then on.

No one is left out of this comparison loop. We are all competing with each other. The irony of this game is that all of us are somewhere in the middle of this race. There are people behind us, and people ahead of us. However fast we run, there is still someone ahead of us. That is what brews competition. We do not realize that there are no winners in this game. It is futile even to play this game. What stops us from getting out of this unending race? It is the kick that our ego derives from people behind us, that keeps us going. From time to time we re-assure ourselves that we are better than some.

The truth is that we are just fooling ourselves. There is no one who is better than us, and there is no one who is worse than us. In fact there can never be any comparison between two ‘individuals’. You can compare things made from the same mould, but you can’t compare an individual piece of art with any thing. Each one of us is that piece of art. And the beauty of it all is that we are still in the process of being made. The maker is not through with us as yet. Unlike a snowflake that is complete before it falls, we are being re-shaped and re-defined everyday.

What is the software that God uses to refine us? Well, our thoughts are that software. Our thoughts determine our growth, our beauty, and our perfection. As you think, so you are. Give a thought to this statement, and you will surely discover the real you!

The snow has given way to sunshine again. It has taught the lessons it had come to teach. Let us shine bright in the Sun now. After all everything is transient in this World. Oh, that is another lesson for another day!!!

The Times of India, Shimla Plus, 02/02/08, Chitra Jha