The Tea-Seller's Tales Immanual Joseph

Sandhanam’s claim to fame in our neighborhood was an old framed photograph he carried with him in his omnipresent cloth shoulder bag. It was a picture of him with one of the biggest movie stars of India taken decades ago. Sandhanam stood there right by the movie star, his face split into an ingratiating grin while the movie star posed for the shot with smug reassurance and seriousness.

In the late evenings, rain or shine, Sandhanam could be found at the local liquor shop. He did odd jobs for a living, so he could not afford much, but somehow he managed to afford a drink or two. And when he did, out would come the picture from his shoulder bag, as well as tales from his childhood. Turns out he was a classmate of the movie star from kindergarten through middle school, and they had acted in school plays together. If Sandhanam were to be believed, he was the one the movie hero had learned his acting skills from.

It gets very quiet here in the mountains.

I sit in my cave watching the puffy white clouds at play. Outside the cave, a stone’s throw away is a deep gorge. The clouds are at my eye level. They form and dissolve and reform again. It is not a particularly cold day. The sun saunters through the branches of the deodar and forms playful patterns on the floor outside my cave. I am dissolved in this moment- nothing else exists beside this moment and all its beauty- not even me.

For a while, the mind ceases to exist. Without my mind in play, there are no back stories or references to previous experiences, no comparisons or criticisms, no desire to improve or change anything, no regrets. Simply acceptance, and connection with my true place in the cycles of life. A teacher called this state , mindfulness. I wonder if the word he was looking for was mindlessness.

Siva, the young man who sells flowers by the temple, came to me in tears. His usual big smile was replaced with deep hurt and sadness.

“Devi has left for her village…. To get married” he muttered

Devi was the girl who sold bangles in the shop across. I knew Siva had been wooing for many months. She too reciprocated his advances. He had stopped by my tea shop frequently to share updates.

“Her parents found her a groom.” he continued “I heard he is well-to-do… lives in the valley and owns a shop. When Devi found she can have a more comfortable life with this man, she was happy to say goodbye to me. And all the things I did for that ungrateful woman…” he began to sob.

I made tea and sat down with him on the bench. It was a quiet afternoon.

“Look” he said tugging at his shirt to expose his chest. “I tattooed her name close to my heart. And I spent everything I had on her. Now I am bankrupt and alone”

I looked at the young man, helplessly lost in his sadness. I felt compassion for him.

“If things are as you say Siva, ” I said at length, “you are a lucky man.”

He glared at me, confused, probably upset at my words. But I know he respected me enough to give me a listen.

“By revealing her priorities now, Devi has spared you a lifetime of suffering. To you, she was your all-encompassing priority. For her, you were only an option. While you would have been willing to live with this one-sided arrangement for a while, you would have likely at a later time asked for fairness. That may have very well happened, but it would have come at the cost of peace. Better now than never. Sometimes, it would do us well to be thankful for not receiving the things that we asked for.”

“Until it is worth do not deny your sadness.” I told him gently. “But in time, you must let go and move on. If you keep your attention on suffering, your suffering only multiplies. Sad energy expands to include more sadness. Learn to love yourself and stop fretting over those to who you are only an option. You will find someone who prioritizes you as much as you prioritize her.And you will find sustainable love”

I knew my words would take a while to root and make sense. But I had planted a seed of thought in him to sprout.

Siva did not heal that day. But he came everyday. He spoke, I listened. And in time, he healed. He fell in love again. This time there was wisdom in his love.

Tea is the perfect antidote for a cold, cold day.

I have the ingredients in front of me. The tea powder, a heap of crystal sugar, a cup of milk, water on the stove, and of course the cardamom seeds in the tiny stone mortar and pestle. It takes time for the water to boil. While I wait, I start wondering, as I do sometimes. That tiny pile of sugar, there are probably thousands upon thousands of crystals in there. If I look closely, I bet each one of them looks like a giant pillow. The heap of sugar, to an ant crawling upon it, probably looks like a mountain of pillows, albeit I bet does not feel like one. I remember that these tiny crystals of sugar were simply the dreaming of a sugarcane only a while back. The sugarcane had to sacrifice herself, so her heart can travel the seas to this old man’s hut to sweeten his tea. The tea leaves were life- a young plant’s discovery of the sun, till some meticulous hand plucked and gathered her, so the experience of this cold day can be made a little warmer. And the milk, the excess of a mother’s love for her child, is now here to nourish me…

If tea is not a reason for gratitude, I don't know what is.

The Universe works so hard to create for me these beautiful experiences. Yet, it takes these moments of forced waiting to pay attention to the magnificence of life at play. In my default state, a cup of tea is simply a cup of tea- it is an afterthought in the hustle of my day- a given that I have convinced myself I deserve, and not notice until I cannot afford that experience.

What is true of tea, seems to be true of life. There are so many hidden stories behind each of my experiences for which I must be grateful. If I pay enough attention, the magical nature of every moment becomes visible. But there are so many things competing for my attention, and more often than not I pay attention to the shallowest ones. I compare my blessings to someone else’s and then all the magid is lost. What remains is dissatisfaction and sorrow. All I need is a cup of tea to experience the incredible machinations of the universe.

Which I why, I remind myself, I need to have less distractions to experience more of life. And I remember that these musings, even though some may call it lazy day dreaming, are what connect me to the joy of life. This too, for me, is an experience in mindfulness.

The water is boiling. The ingredients are awaiting, A good cup of tea is only a few more musings away…

A king is poked by a thorn and orders that all of his land be covered with leather. He justifies it as compassion toward his subjects, not realizing that this is an act of his ego, not compassion.

We are seekers of happiness. Happiness is a state of inner harmony. We seek to modify our environment to find harmony, not realizing that the pursuit of happiness often become a pursuit of ego-satiation. What we need to do instead is to modify ourselves and cultivate acceptance and humility.

In The Road to Kedarnath, Krishna describes the idea of ego this way:

'Ego is the illusion that you are separate from the rest of nature. All living creatures aim to exist as part of nature. Only humans desire to conquer nature. Ego tells people that they are somehow disconnected from the beautiful mesh of interconnection that nature has organized itself into. When ego happens, in that moment we believe that we are separate from nature, we see nature as adversity to be overcome, rather than the shell that encompasses our being. What can be more painful and fearful than to be in constant battle against the ground we stand on and the very air we breathe? The more we know the more we seem to justify our separation from nature. This is the curse of intelligence. Is intelligence bad? Not at all. But the role of intelligence should be to bring us closer to nature not to separate ourselves from it.

As this year comes to an end, may we find our way out of ego and thus our suffering, and never ego for compassion!

What is my true nature? And what happens when I am placed in a reality that does not align with my true nature? 

What happens to the mighty eagle who grows up in a chicken coop?



Reflections from The Road to Kedarnath:

"Trees that we are, we keep our roots shallow, because we think we can outrun storms

But the storms come fast and the storms come hard. And because of our shallow roots, easily we fall.

What instead if we start by seeking to understand our true nature?

What if we can look at ourselves unvarnished by made-up stories and untarnished by ego?

What if we can stop becoming distracted by all the shiny baubles that others carry?

What if we can end the relentless chasing and untangle ourselves from illusions?

What if we learn not to place our self-worth upon the shortcomings of others?

What if we open ourselves to the truth and allow the universe to take us on a ride and learn to sit back and enjoy the blossoming of life minute by minute, without agenda, without fear?

What if we can remember to gaze at life with wonderment in the knowing that we will not pass this way again?"