Vedic wisdom has always emphasised that the human body is a microcosm of the universe — ‘Yat pinde tat brahmande (you are the universe within the universe)’. No wonder then that just as about 70% of the human body is composed of water so is 70% of earth’s surface. Accordingly, the deity of water, Varuna, is respected and honored with great humility, and it to her we can look for how to learn from this element that resides within everything.
Like Varuna water is an incredible teacher, showing us how to move with grace, ease and determination. Water can inspire us to not become rigid with fear or cling to what’s familiar. It does not waste energy resisting, but flows onward with resolve. It gracefully and humbly tumbles into the vastness by contributing its energy and merging without resistance.
FIVE LIFE LESSONS AS TAUGHT BY WATER
1. Fluidity: Life, just like water, is fluid. We are in constant flow on a continuum of time, experience to experience. Stagnant water becomes murky over a period of time. So too life must flow to keep the essence of it alive.
2. It finds a way, always: It doesn’t matter if the solution is immediately visible to you or not, life will find a way just like water does — it may cut through, circumvent, overflow, percolate, but it does find a way. It is one of the softest elements but the most persistent. You only have to look around or stay at it long enough before the way presents itself.
3. Form and adaptability: Water takes the shape of the vessel it’s poured into and gets coloured by hues mixed but essentially remains the same; It does not get enmeshed with the temporary form. Similarly, the Vedas teach us that we are not our container — our physical body – but the spirit or energy that resides within. And just as water flow by remaining true to its essence, life thrives when we are true to our divine inner nature.
4. There is nothing that it can’t wash away: The magnificent sight of an ocean, a cool shower after a scorching summer day, the wave breaking against a rocky shore, a warm cup of tea after long day… There’s nothing that water can’t wash away — infusing freshness and reviving life.
5. Silent waters run deep: The teachings call for us to sit in silence, for the depths of active mind can only be explored in stillness. This mind is a vast ocean of emotion and our own truth, and the golden pearl lies awaiting in its oyster for us to find.
