The different shades of being blessed
Divine blessings have a way of gracing us inconspicuously. Given their ordinariness and unassuming nature, they are bound to slip our attention.
The phrase ‘beautiful patience’ sounds, on the face of it, like an oxymoron. But that expression is a tribute to the endurance of those who can stay calm in the eye of the storm. What lends beauty to patience is the ability of mind to discipline itself amid trials and tribulations, and hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel. That ability stems from deep and relentless faith in divine providence, even while being plagued by misfortunes and adversities. Only those equipped with a remarkable sense of spiritual resilience can keep counting their blessings while there is apparently nothing to be seen, let alone enjoyed.
Divine blessings have a unique way of creeping into us stealthily, staying with us surreptitiously, deceiving us by impersonating as an adversity, and eventually leaving us with no notice, making us realize its value in its absence. Only those who are beautifully patient can reassure themselves that they are constantly in the lap of divine blessings, even while all material circumstances cry out the other way.
We often forget, ignore, underestimate or even deny some of the most indispensable of the divine blessings, which are the very reasons why we exist; are so deeply embedded in the way our body and mind function; inseparably intertwined with our destiny; and proliferate around us in multiple forms, shades, varieties, and manifestations.
There are those blessings which have already been built into our being, become a part of our life’s rhythm or indelibly stamped on the overall cosmic plan. We take much of them for granted and hardly bother to think of them as long as they are in order and function steadily and smoothly. They appear too natural, normal, and ordinary to pique our curiosity unless something unnatural, abnormal, or extraordinary happens.
For instance, the way our body and consciousness function- how we walk and talk, or eat and digest- and the way our nature operates involves intricate mechanisms and a dizzying array of factors and phenomena, some of which we are not even privy to. Some of the most vital functions of our body, such as breathing, digestion, reflexive reactions, etc. are carried out on autopilot.
We don’t acknowledge and appreciate those blessings on time because we are distracted from them while being graced by them. Only when the order gets disrupted, we grow curious to know what goes wrong. Had it not been for the diseases and various physical infirmities, medical science would not have progressed the way it did today helping us understand the various secrets of human physiology and psychology, and decipher the complex equations of the various particles and elements that make up a living human being.
There are some other blessings which sneak into us, stay with us and gradually become an indivisible part of our life, while remaining aloof, intangible and, at times, incomprehensible to us. We make use of them wittingly or unwittingly, but without thinking about how they originated in the first place.
Or sometimes their presence will be so discrete, their meaning so subtle and their shades so nuanced that we will continue enjoying their benefits while having difficulty understanding them properly. Yet, we can feel their absence so quickly once we will start missing them or when there is a slight variation in either their size or dimension.
Blessings are inconspicuously present with us. They have a unique way of keeping a low profile and remaining unpretentious so that we cannot identify their value and appreciate their worth. They might come uninvited, stay in unlikely places like an unknown medicinal plant that grows in your flowerbed and risk being ignored and pruned along with weeds.
Sometimes they deceive us, disguising themselves as a misfortune or a humiliation so that we tend to detest them and even pray for a way-out from them. But when we get out of them, we might be hurled into another situation much worse than before so that we come to learn that what we deemed a misfortune was actually a blessing in disguise. Therefore, there is no dearth of blessings even in what looks like an adversity or a deadly pandemic.
We might lose sight of the blessings inherent in adversity or a deadly pandemic if we are preoccupied by the pain and suffering in it.
As we keep on waiting for the future blessings, we fail to recognize the ones that have already graced us. While we expect them to happen in a particular way we want them, we fail to know that they are already with us in the way God wanted them to happen.
Likewise, we tend to miss the blessings in an achievement if we are carried away by the pleasure it gives. That is because some blessings have a mysterious way of staying away from us while creating an impression that they are very much with us. Sometimes we take for a blessing what is actually disgrace in disguise.
Some types of blessing can come in small trial doses to test us how we treat them. If we fail to express appreciation and show gratitude, we tend to fail the test and end up losing what we have. We have to wait for the true blessing to arrive with patience and humility instead of rejoicing over what we have got, and feel puffed up with self-importance over what we achieved.
In certain cases, something which starts as a true blessing will end up as a misfortune if we do not strive to sustain it. Sometimes, a blessing will appear in its raw version, requiring us to process it into its mature and full-fledged form. It will come to you as a seed which you need to sow and cultivate into a blooming plant or a tree strewn with fruits. Merely enjoying a blessing without the efforts to grow and sustain it will convert the blessing to a curse.
As long as we are confined to a narrow perception of blessing, we will not be able to explore the much broader and deeper realms of it. We might get stuck in a situation taking it for a blessing, hesitating to go the extra mail required to meet the true blessing awaiting us. However passionately you love someone, your love turns out to be an infatuation if it fails the test and trials of time. Likewise, a short-term blessing will weaken and die down when it fails to pass the tests and challenges in the initial phase.
Like minerals, some blessings will stay deep inside so that we will have to dig deep to reach them. Merely scratching the surface will not be sufficient.
The pursuit of blessing, for all its challenges, is itself a blessing; and each blessing will show us the way to the next one, and so on and so forth. Therefore, the realization that we are being blessed is the most important of all the blessings; and no deprivation is as acute as the failure to realize a blessing while being blessed by it.
Getting distracted from that realization is like getting distracted from doing one of the most meaningful things in our life. But only those who subject themselves to a rigorous process of self-discipline can get away from this distraction and enjoy the satisfaction of constantly being blessed at each and every turn of life.
Failing to recognize and appreciate a blessing will make us a lesser human being, because what it deprives us of is the most essential knowledge of ourselves. The failure to realize who we are and appreciate what we have is symptomatic of several psychological diseases and spiritual imbalances. If not diagnosed and treated, those pathogens will spread and seriously damage our spiritual faculties.
