The Eve Story

One day I happened to see a huge mobile poster. It contained a mobile and it vaguely resembled the Wrist Watch Ads. You know how watches are advertised showing 10:10 to show off its features; this mobile ad also showed everything. I mean everything. It started out with time, date, Dow Jones index, Gold rate, Facebook update, Twitter update, message from someone, missed call from another, post update from a blog, reminder for a meeting ………. Oh oh information overload ! All this on a single screen! Imagine the state of your brain if you had this screen sitting on your palm. 

After slowly reading through the content all I could think was – “Lord, Do you really want us to think so many thoughts?” What is the point of having everything in the same one minute?? And the people holding the phones were striking a partial runner’s pose and with cool heavy duty running shoes on. Meaning – You got to be doing everything and going somewhere. THAT is life.

When I was a little girl I read an excerpt of Gandhiji’s interview. He’d said “I hate this mad rush for constricting space and time”. I dint quite grasp then what he’d meant but now I do! The world always gives an impression that we have to be something else other than what we are now and doing something other than what we are doing now.

I relate this aspect of the world to the snake that spoke to Eve in the Garden of Eden. The essence of the speech the snake makes to Eve is this – “You deserve better. Look at you.. you got a dull life when you got to be doing something exciting. You are being cheated by not having all that you can have. What you have is not enough. You got to make something happen for yourself.” Every human being still hears these horrible words whispered in his/her ears again and again.

IF we yield to this we’ll end up like a circus clown juggling bricks and plates and balls and dolls while feeding a toddler on a high chair and laying out a dinner table for a distinguished company of visitors. We will be doing a lot of things but to anyone who looks at us – we’ll still be a clown; Doing MANY “important” things but basically a clown. :)

Among the mistakes Eve did, in the most important real life story ever published, two can be highlighted in context.

1) She was not enjoying or rather intently savoring what she already had. She failed to recognize the value of what she had and also failed to see that she already had everything. I mean look at all the people going on top of mountains, standing upside down and starving and going through tremendous pain to try and achieve what Eve already HAD to begin with. She was communicating with God Almighty and then tosses it off in a whimsical act of disobedience. It is scary to see people lose out on something precious just for the heck of it.

Sometimes we need real wisdom to understand that we already have what we need. And the right response to it is – Be thankful always. I developed this seemingly crazy habit of saying “Thank you God” for everything. Even if my car conks out on the middle of the road I say “Thank you God that my car stopped”. I trust God that something bad would have happened if I had driven on without any problem and that I had been saved from it. A totally new perspective opens up if we simply determine to be thankful.

2) Eve wanted something more with a blind assumption that that something will give her more happiness and add meaning to her life. 

Many times we want some things so badly that the lack of it hurts us in our mind, soul and body. But through the years if I have been learning one thing over and over again; it is this – God does not allow you to have some of the things you want because He knows if you get it, it will destroy you. And He takes some things out from your hands because if they remained with you they will harm you.

So….. to sum up :) Eve was tempted by the snake; now for us temptations come in through TV, Ads, Friends, even Facebook. But despite what the world tells you, be determined to LOVE your LIFE and savor every single moment of it. The joy may be simple but it is permanent and the rewards are peace of mind and prosperity of the soul that is very different and way too richer than the prosperity of the World.

God Bless.