Thursday, June 09, 2005

Who said only cockroaches are nocturnal?

It is official now: I have become completely nocturnal these days and no joking. There were forebodings of my predilection for the darker half of the diurnal span even in my high-school days; but never has it been so regular nor persistent. It is a rare sun these days that finds me asleep when it rises, or awake when it is at its zenith. And, very often, when I have some work to do in the day, my body-clock adjusts itself so that I revert back to my nightly life as efficiently as possible. A party animal's body I possess maybe, or maybe an ascetic's, but neither shoe fits me anyways. And the best I can hope for is that I possess a certain(unrealized) greatness of character(though most people who know me would discount the possibility), for Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita,

yaa nishaa sarvabhootanaam tasyaam jaagarti samyamee|
yasyaam jaagrati bhootaani saa nishaa pashyatho muneh||


which, in the vulgar tongue, translates to "The sage(who controls his whole being) is awake when it is night to all creatures; and when all creatures are awake, then is it night to the sage who sees(understands all)."

Pretty neat huh! Only I hope I can withstand the pressure that my father says I am burdening my body with, not letting it lead a normal life :-).

3 comments:

arethusa said...

Just thinking that there should be a deeper meaning to that verse....

madatadam said...

The standard version is that the sage understands the truth while others sleep the sleep of ignorance. And what others perceive as wakefulness, he ignores. He is always absorbing things that others miss and sicarding stuff they covet. Check http://www.bhagavad-gita.us/bhagavad-gita-2-68.htm and http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/ANCINDIA/GITA.HTM out.
Excuse incompetence wrt html...

arethusa said...

Had a look at the page...cool!