“Stream of Life” is a Bengali poem written by Rabindranath Tagore (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941)
The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.
It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.
It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and death, in the ebb and in flow
I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood at this moment.
How much of a lie is my life when my thoughts are upon anything other than this glorious stream of life dancing in my veins in this moment, no matter what my current action or involvement?
How easy it is to slip into the mind and it’s well entrenched thinking tracks. Those tracks are automatic, so automatic that we’re unaware of how much of the time that we are living in the past or the future, especially when we have 1,000 things to do and not enough time and impossible deadlines to meet and a fight just blown up with a loved one.
There is a definite discipline to living in the Present Moment. That discipline is actually very simple, albeit very challenging. The discipline is awareness – stopping in the moment and becoming aware of our thoughts. It doesn’t matter what those thoughts are. It is important to allow them to be there even if they are angry or frustrated or sad etc. Just the awareness of thinking that is rooted in some kind of brain track, in the past or the future (guilt or worry are good examples), is enough. That awareness separates out the automated thinking and the Present Moment, and in that moment of awareness, the most powerful stream of life can surge through our cells, breaking into wondrous acknowledgement of who we really are.
You may only have a few moments of time in which to stop and breathe and become aware, but many small moments add up. We are so much more than all those every day stresses we think are so important. We are that stream of life. And with awareness, we learn to allow that stream of life to flow through our life experiences expressing in ways hitherto undreamed.
Named “Praan” and sung by Palbasha Siddique, The Stream of Life has been used as the background score in Bengali for Matt Harding‘s “Dancing 2008” video which you may remember was Matt’s exuberant dance around the world. It’s worth watching again as inspiration for the “same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures …”
Here’s the video link – Dancing 2008 video featuring Praan