The arrogance called Me: Part I

When anxiety of the future steals my peaceful sleep, my thoughts do a dance and invite me to their feverish death dance. I don’t want to participate, but they coax me, egg me on, and pull me into the jarring music of madness. Intellectually, I understand my powerless humble limitations, but when has the wayward mind listened to the intellect?
The future seems to threaten, darker than the darkness outside my window. Who carries the responsibility of the entire universe? The precise motions of the sun, moon, planets and galaxies, even the earth revolving, the very birth and death of beings, and the various changing phenomenon, does it happen because I think it should?
It is the height of stupidity to think that the things will happen as they should because I willed it or worked for it. Gurudev used to give the example of a foolish man riding a donkey with his luggage on his own head, saying that the weight is too much for the donkey to carry.
To worry and use thought when it is not constructively required is a massive wasteful expenditure of mental energy. One has to understand that anything that happens has its roots much much before we even begin to think about it. When I feel the hunger for a mango, I just open the fridge and hey presto, there it is. Do I ever wonder that way before I felt hungry who made the mud, sunlight, water, and air which made this seed to burst open and grow?
Who planted the seed and who nurtured it to a tree, a flower and a fruit? In fact, who created the seed that I may eat a mango?
Who created the miraculous nutrition, the taste and the artistic shape and colour? Who thought of all this long before its need arose as a thought in my mind?
Prarthana Saran, President, Chinmaya Mission Delhi