One in a Billion

I recently went on a trip to India on a holiday. There was much to see upon my immediate arrival, even leaving the airport terminal. There was the bustling of people everywhere. Men, women, old and young. Everybody was darting around, seemingly aimlessly, but in fact all with a purpose. Everybody had somewhere to go and something to do. I got into the car, and we left the airport heading home after a very long 20 hour journey. Looking through the window, I saw an amazing diversity of humanity. Not from the standpoint of peoples of different countries, but truly different individuals within the same country. People of all kinds roaming rapidly. Darker skinned, lighter skinned, poverty stricken, well to-do, fat and thin,  all on some seemingly erratic path. Some employed, some unemployed, some rich, some poor, some going home, some going to work. The place is packed. People driving or being driven, people on the road walking, people  shuttling on bicycles or tricycles. The sounds of people constantly talking to each other and to others on cell phones, dogs barking, and cars honking their horns. Its pandemonium. But if you pause, tune out the noise, the sights, the judgment. Tune out the chaos, and you will see the order. The order of constant motion. A billion people in this country, all in perpetual motion. This is not unlike the rest of the world imagine 7.03 billion all in constant motion.

I started seeing past the masses of population and saw a fusion of entities moving, and soon the image turned to that similar to the image of the sea. Flowing seamlessly, but always flowing. The waves like the people amalgamating into a large pool. I started to think about these individual waves or people. What were their purposes? What were there hopes and goals and dreams? What led them to this world and their circumstances? Who makes it big and who doesnot? One in a billion people in this country will become the President or Prime Minister. One in a billion will become the richest man or woman in the country. One in a billion will invent a better way to travel. One in a billion will find the cure for cancer. One in a billion will rethink the way we are the way we are for what they do. One in a billion will bring freedom to the oppressed through non violence. One in a billion will teach us unconditional love. One in a billion will create art that will bring a smile to everyone. And the list goes on and on. 

Now imagine this concept for any trait of human existence. Love, acceptance, gratitude, strength, patience, forgiveness, intelligence to name but a few. Now apply this to various areas in life, such as art, medicine, engineering, farming, service to others, writing, music and building. If each member of the human race, let go of their ego and their willingness to be right and instead replace it with innate traits as described above, and apply it then imagine what heights our species can reach. We may sit on our existing laurels and believe that we have achieved so much, through mining for the elements, putting a man on the moon or at the deepest depths of the sea and cure certain infections, but if you look at all that is left to achieve, we have barely scratched the surface of our true potential. Our true nature has not been allowed to come out fully due to limits that we place upon ourselves through anger, resentment, jealousy, envy, greed, lust and our egos are at the heart of this loss of balance, preventing progress.

Letting go of the ego, allows our mind, spirit and consciousness to  work in harmony to find a better way and allow us as a whole to grow. I once heard that if you want to change the world, you must first start by changing yourself. I think this also applies by changing the way you look at the world. Not with apathy, distain and mistrust, but with loving kindness and acceptance. This is easier said than done as we are all hard wired into our egos and in the need of self preservation we forget about preservation of our civilization, our planet, our true spirit. If we believe in change then we can change what we believe for the better. You fill find yourself less in a struggle on a daily basis with loss of dreams but working more towards a peaceful end. 

One in a billion, are you feeling lucky today?