Sushmita explores the many layers and meanings of serve. A Different Truths exclusive.

Raised eyebrows and twinkling eyes are the consequences of the servings of life, along with the contrasting ones as well. Either we are bemused delightfully or are perplexed woefully. There is never a moment that is not filled with the potential to spot the ‘out of the ordinary’, the hitherto unseen and unknown and unheard, beckoning to be seen, known and heard. And more often than not, the unseen that is seen, the unheard that is heard, the unknown that is known, is found to have been ever there, waiting for the light of our attention, deserving mention in and hence acceptance by our consciousness. Yet, tend we to them only when our receptivity is resonant with them.

Life thus ever deserves mention for its bemusing and amusing, mysterious and mystical ways, provoking, invoking and awakening the Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie in all of us, ensuring that we are relieved by the revealed, we are swathed in the joy of unmasking the hidden, which lie unbidden! So, we are led to the paths untrodden, as there resides the hidden treasures.

We are led to the paths untrodden, as there resides the hidden treasures.

Acknowledges Robert Frost, in the poem, “The Road Not Taken”:

“Two roads diverged in the woods, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.” [1]

These, the treasures, we are led to unveil — we bump on them — after much toil and turmoil… and when we are in conference within, there being ultimately none else, outside, to confer and refer, the inferences restricted not to and by the apparent.

Life deserves accolades for ensuring such situations

That makes all the difference and hence, life deserves accolades for ensuring such situations, the presentations of ‘woods’, where at times we feel lost, and yet, we come out refreshed and enriched as never before, confounded no more, having found our own selves.

Likewise, life has repeatedly served me with the wonders of the word and word fragment, ‘de’, causing much delight, awe-inspiring its diverse portfolios. To it, to de, we return, some other time, that is perfect for it, as it too deserves the full attention. This outpouring is in honour of what the word ‘serve’ serves us, as a word, as well as a word fragment, its service humbling, extending as it is the description and explanation of the ways of life…

Life reserves nothing, withholds nothing. Infinite its reservoir, infinite its means to serve.

Life continuously serves, and yet, con-serves — not even a wee bit conservative. It preserves everything, even if mankind is found to be just the opposite, not kind, when runs the show ignorance, plundering Nature, and then wondering what has happened to Nature, why has it gone berserk, shaken by its rebounding jerks. And yet, every jerk is utilised by life, as it is self-perpetuating and self-fulfilling, and hence, self-conserving and self-preserving. As it preserves, hence it conserves, and these appear as its balancing acts, which though are deemed by the yet-to-be-awakened mind perverse to life, unaware that it is all our doing. What we serve, that is served back to us. Life reserves nothing, withholds nothing. Infinite its reservoir, infinite its means to serve.

Through and by the flow of life, we are guided — be it through the woods under a starry night, or by the streams under a cloudy sky… Led we are to see and recognise, acknowledge and embrace, commit and submit to what we all are pre-served with. Our unique potential, our unique expressions, our unique creativity calls out to us, yearns to serve us and be of service to all, ardently desiring to pour out of the crevices hidden and unattended to, yearning that it be allowed to serve innumerable servings. Creativity is a not an exclusive attribute of one, but of all, its form varying for all, as each of us is a Designer Creation, the Ultimate Designer’s created, served with Its unique creativity for one and all, each Its unique creative vent.

Life calls out to us to be of service

Ever in service, life calls out to us to be of service, allowing all that we have been pre-served with to flow. As only then we can be and are serviceable to all, only then as the served is realised, so is it preserved and conserved, so it is conserved through its transformation, as its utilisation evolves it and leads to its realisation.

We are served with everything, infinite life’s servings, Grace leading to their receipt and realisation. Likewise serve serves immensely, expressing the servings of life. Serve de-serves not, deserves kudos, as does life. It beckons us to help us to as many helpings, we wish, of all that we are pre-served with, ever preserved for our use.

Infinite are the reserves (irrespective of what we are given to understand), and so are we re-served the reminders about what we all have been served with to serve all with! The woods virgin, of our creativity, our originality, are enigmatically preserved and conserved through the light of acknowledgment and expression, the virginity intact, as no two expressions of even the same entity, even on the same topic, come out as same. This too is the outcome of all that we are served with, pre-served infinitely with virgin creativity, which, when served, and served well and fully, facilitates the healing of the server as well as of all who are served with it, as through it too, those who are treated to it, are led to see all that they too have been and are pre-served with!

Thus, serve too, though forms a part of many words and through each serves its purpose, its service immense, it maintains its virginity, it retains its standalone stature, continuing to serve more and more, reserving not itself, re-serving ever, swerving not ever!

Note: The theme of this article is inspired by one of the chapters of a forthcoming book.

©Sushmita Mukherjee

Photos from the Internet

[1] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken