Fear in a Handful of Dust

TS Eliot is one of my favorite poets, second only to the anonymous people who wrote the Upanishads. In fact, the two have a lot in common. Both have written works of great spiritual value, revealing more depths of meaning with each reading.

I first read TS Eliot’s poem, The Waste Land, at least three decades ago. At that time, I was mesmerized by the beauty of the words, although I understood only about 10% of the poem. That was enough to take me to a trance-like state. Good poetry has this power; it works its magic even if we don’t understand every word.

We don’t have to be literary critics to appreciate good poetry. We don’t even have to study it in chronological order. It makes more sense, to me, to pick out some of the gems of wisdom and examine them closely, like a jeweller examining a piece of the jewellery.

Let us begin at the ending, always a good place to begin. It gets you right away to the gist of what the author is saying. The last section of The Waste Land is called:

What the thunder said

It borrows a little from the Brihadyanka Upanishad, just one of the hundreds of literary sources that Eliot uses to build up his poem.

Let me first set the stage for you. This section deals with a dreary vision of the world, where the rivers are drying up and the land is arid. The only sign of hope is in the mountains where thunderclouds are gathering with the promise of rain. The thunder is also symbolic of the approaching end of our lives when we face accountability. What are the weather gods saying to TS Eliot?

The thunder simply says:

da, da, da

It’s up to humans to interpret these words the way they want. Om Swami ji too has talked about the meaning of these words from the Upanishad, in one of his discourses.

Here is what TS Eliot says in his poem.

‘The Ganga was sunken and the limp leaves

Waited for rain, while the black clouds

Gathered far distant, over Himavanta

The jungle was crouched, humped in silence

Then spoke the thunder

DA

Datta

What have we given?

My friend, blood shaking in the heart”

After this, the poem goes on to talk about “Dayadhwam”, or compassion and then “Damyatam” or discipline. These are the three essential qualities, it seems, on which we will be judged when we approach the end of our lives.

Be prepared!

Datta

When I look at my own life, I realize that I have received a lot but not given enough in return. I could have given more, I could have been more generous, I could have given more to my work, to my relationships and to society in general.

I also look at the precious gift of life I have received, along with some abilities and skills. What have I done with them? It is a question that is relevant to all of us; we all have our own skills and it’s up to us how well we use them.

What have we received?

What have we given?

Dayadhwam, or Daya

When I look at myself, I realize I could have been more compassionate. I do care for others, but sometimes logical thinking takes over and stems the flow of compassion. As a very simple example, my wife cooks great food, a gift she inherited from her mother. Sometimes she asks me, as many homemakers do:

“How is the salt in the food?”

I generally give the logical answer:

“It’s good” or, “It’s Ok’.

Logically, it’s the correct answer, but, as all husbands know, it is absolutely the wrong answer. My wife really wants to hear a few words of appreciation for all the efforts she spent preparing the food with so much love. If I had used compassion instead of logic, I would have scored higher on this daily aptitude test.

In the same way, if somebody we know is going through a rough time, do we feel compassion and try to do something about it? Or do we just blame it on bad karma and walk away?

Damyatam or Discipline

The best intentions in the world fail if we do not have discipline. There is no success in life, in any pursuit, without discipline. Most difficult of all, we have to discipline our senses and stop chasing every desire. Without discipline, the other two qualities, Datta and Daya have no meaning.

Again, in my own life, I have had periods of intense discipline, like the time I prepared for the IIT entrance examination. The discipline paid off in a big way, setting the tone for the rest of my life. There have been times when I have been less disciplined when I have cut corners and have been careless in my work or made the wrong choices. Karma has exacted a heavy price for those acts of indiscipline.

This brings us to the most famous line in The Waste Land.

“I shall show you fear in a handful of dust.”

The imagery is chilling to the core. At the back of our minds, we all know we will be reduced to ashes, or dust, when our time comes. Why do we fear death, even though we know it’s the most certain of all things? Maybe, it’s not death itself that we fear but, rather, the accountability that comes with it. We know all the wrong things we have done in our lives, even though we try to hide them even from ourselves.

How long can we hide from the consequences of our actions?

TS Eliot brilliantly uses a line from common usage to answer this question:

“Hurry up please, it’s time.”

It is a common phrase in bars and restaurants, to announce that the establishment is about to close.

“HURRY UP PLEASE, ITS TIME.”

Yes, indeed, our time is limited. We have to begin practicing the three virtues of generosity, compassion and discipline, starting right now, because:

“HURRY UP, PLEASE ITS TIME.”

In the end, The Waste Land gives us glimpses of hope, even though it talks mostly about death, despair and a dysfunctional world. It was written after the end of World War 1, over a hundred years ago. It was a time of utter despair and chaos. Many feared that civilization was coming to an end and indeed, we had another world war within a few years.

However, the world is still very much around, and we have survived as a species.

Maybe, we do practice some generosity, compassion and discipline, after all. However, with ongoing conflicts all over the world, and seemingly irreversible climate change hovering around the corner, we just need to practice some more.

Datta, Dayadhwam, Damyatam.

This is all we need. The rest is silence or, as TS Eliot says at the end of his poem:

“Om shanti, shanti, shanti”.