They know and do not know.....

" They know and do not know......that the pattern may subsist, for the pattern is the action and the suffering, that the wheel may turn and still...Be forever still."  
      - T.S.Eliot . (Murder in the Cathedral .)

To fathom the deapths of these lines is not very easy for me , but since I feel like trying , so I'll try to put forth all that I've grasped from them .

       Let's begin with life in general. As Hardy puts it in his ' Jude the Obscure '-

" All laughing comes from misapprehension. Rightly looked at there is no laughable thing under the sun ." It may sound pessimistic but probably it is only realistic . Or as Shelley says -

               " We look before and after

                 and pine for what is not 

                 Our sincerest laughter

                 with some pain is fraught ... "

All in all , it makes me think pain is the only truth . " We are born in other's pain and perish in our own ."

             Now comes the question - What sort of pain ? Why this pain or suffering ? In Buddhism too , suffering in life has been highlighted. To be born is to suffer, to separate or part is to suffer ...
             So , is suffering the essence of life ? Or should I say it runs simultaneously with happiness . Absolute crystal clear joy I have never come across.To think of life is to think of ' sadness in the sweet and sweetness in the sad .' They are so inseparable that you could never find out where happiness ends and where pain starts .And how long could this happiness last? From where stems this unhappiness ? Of course from my expectations from life , from persons around me , from myself . How beautifully the ' Four Tempters ' summarise life - 
              " Man's life is a cheat and a disappointment ,
                All things are unreal ...
                All things become less real, man passes 
                from unreality to unreality ...
                From grandeur to grandeur to final illusion ..."
         Now , I believe my sufferings arise from my expectations . Somewhere I came across a small thought - Expect nothing , you will never be disappointed .But as humans , how far could you curb your expectations ? How often do we say ' I want this from my life .' or ' I am working towards this goal .' But how often have we come to face this bitter truth that , 'our thoughts are ours , their ends none of our own.' As Hamlet puts it 
          " there is a divinity that shapes our ends.
            rough hew them how we will ..."
Nothing would or could happen because I wish it. That is the truth and tragedy of life .There is always a will beyond ours . To realise this is a step towards self realization and towards freedom from suffering. Suffering is because of the bondage - 'I am living ' , ' I am doing '. This ego only adds to the suffering...when Truth is , that I am , though an individual - a whole in myself, yet a mere cog in the wheel, the centre of which is beyond my comprehension. He makes me act .We are a mere instrument to the divine will. 
        Centre is still, the wheel is moving but the centre is what moves the wheel. It is a huge mistake to think that we play a vital role in the movement of the wheel. 

- Meeta .