My grandmother died in 2006 at the age of 96. For her, changing the TV channels with a remote sitting ten feet away from the TV was a miracle. Centuries ago, the creation of fire with two stones was a miracle. Today, a miracle is a person getting cured by an unconventional treatment. So, what exactly is a miracle?
We term whatever we can’t comprehend as a miracle. Sometimes, we even call it God. In days of yore, fire was treated as God but now we keep it in our pocket. Similarly, whenever we aren’t able to comprehend a person, we either kill them or we make them God. This solves the problem as we can then interpret what he said in our own ways.
We get confused when something doesn’t confirm to or fall into the boundaries of what we already know. We must persevere, make an effort, and go outside our comfort zone to examine why something is happening. Or we can save ourselves the trouble by calling it a miracle or coincidence. There are no coincidences in this universe. Everything happens for a reason; it is up to us to examine it. The beauty is, once we examine and understand the process, the effect mitigates. It applies to discoveries, diseases and even emotional traumas.
Recently, someone discussed the challenge of keeping his mind in the present with me. He finds it impossible to do so. According to him, it would be a miracle if someone achieves mindfulness. Is it really a miracle?
We study engineering for four years, or slightly longer for medical sciences. Mastering that knowledge obviously doesn’t come in a day or month. Keeping the mind in present (or mindfulness) is the fruit of mind management, which wouldn’t come in a day or a month either. Usually, we don’t want to give time to any activity that doesn’t have any direct monetary or social value. This is because we have been trained to perform and prove ourselves only in the outer world whereas the many of life’s experiences emanate from the inner world. The same amount of success, money, and fame have different meanings and experiences for different people. We need to give time and attention to new activities like meditation and other mind management practices to get results. Only then does a seemingly impossible task or miracle become a reality.
