Clouds of Maya

Maya, by Anisha Bordoloi

Last night, when I sat outside to read, my eye kept being drawn to the sky - billowy clouds were languidly stretched across the sky, shaping and reshaping themselves, seemingly for no other reason except to entertain themselves. And me. So I gave up the pretense of reading and watched the clouds in earnest.

To me the few openings there were in the thick stretches of clouds seemed like tiny portals into Heaven. The openings were softly lit up in pink, in contrast to the thick white and grey clouds everywhere else. But where there were these gateways, the heavens looked divinely blue, giving me tiny glimpses of beyond. Beyond those pink gates, I imagined there were kingdoms of devas and angels, going about their business of making the world a little better, working out their karmas, without themselves being seen to us solid humans. I could make out the shape of a deva just beyond one of the gates holding out a tiny baby, maybe whispering into its ear secrets of his soul, and cautioning him against the wiles of his new world, before letting him go to make his entrance on the earth. It seemed like I was witnessing a precious passage happening right at that moment, over the threshold between heaven and earth, gods and humans, birth and growth, innocence and ignorance.

And then the clouds closed, the gates shut, the show's over. I fell back down to earth. But those few moments that I imagined, got carried away on, didn't feel unreal. They just felt like I got to be part of something ultra-real. The window into the other world was inviting, teasing with a taste of something else. Something less solid, less tangible, but still real.

When I realized the curtains closed on me, not because I was nosy, but because I had let my left brain take over, I was relieved to think that there might be a chance again to get a similar invitation again, into those elusive, illusive worlds, if only I'm willing to open myself up, still my mind, let the moment draw me in, and become a child again in that moment.

P.S. Anisha is a friend from my school days, and we just reconnected a few days ago - it's a divine connection this time around. She's a painter and a poet, and her husband, a photographer and a writer. Between them, they seem to have got all the arts covered! Please visit her website to see her wonderful work -Anisha's Paintings