Day 18 – Abracadabra

I woke up to a message from my friend, Rajesh – “You are Blessed”. I felt blessed by those words. They lingered much like the aroma of my morning coffee and my mind went to Magic.

I wondered what that feeling meant.

Abracadabra !!!

Does not matter which culture, language we know this term. “Abracadabra” spells Magic. The code word for magic to happen. It’s a word that fascinates many. We love Magic, even when we pretend we don’t. Harry potter is a proof.

As children and adults, Magic has such a pull. As kids we were in awe and pretended to be magicians. I was. I am. David Blaine is still my favourite. I was introduced to ‘Magic’ at age 7, when my aunt took us to watch P.C. Sorcar. I was mesmerised by the wand, the cape and the fact that something could be brought forth from nothing.

I wanted to be a magician I decided, when I grew up. I read hobby store books, and then Houdini, got magic kits. Would put up small stage acts for my friends and family. Who were kind enough to indulge.

When I did these “tricks” I would have spent lots of hours trying to understand the science, the mechanics, the timing, the ’real trick” – the performance was just a place where ALL this came together and met the others.

But I never really succeeded at being a Magician, as is evident.

Why – well, I would get very impatient while doing the tricks, I would be so excited by what I knew. My hurry always was to get to the end. When the “show was over”, and there would be this stunned look, eyes wide open, mouth agape in a silent WOW. Breathing “how did you do it” – but not really wanting to know.

This was my undoing. I wanted to tell, share, insist on telling even. I would jump all around  and say, “Can I tell you how I did it?” what I discovered?. For me that was the most exciting part. But they were not so keen, there would be a very feeble yes. They wanted to remain in that state. I remember my aunt or some friend admonishing me, saying – You DON’T have to tell the secret or else it does not remain Magic. I remember feeling quite disappointed.

People want to experience magic – they don’t want to know how.

Strange. Why!! – Why this insistence on letting the unknown be unknown

I guess we love to remain in Awe. The breath held – suspended moment.

I outgrew Magic and moved to Miracles. Because they did not need a kit, no preparation, no learning, no audience and more importantly no compulsion to explain.  Because they happened to everyone.

Infact, the opposite. Miracles happen. They were spontaneous acts of magic by the invisible universe. And they are abundant. They are so abundant, we take them for granted, and so miss seeing them.

Some instances of miracles are quite obvious, like me finding my wallet, because of it’s rare occurrence it will stay in my mind. But the everyday miracles become everyday things. And lost in label of mundane.

Yesterday, while coming home in a rickshaw, at a particularly crowded traffic road in Bandra, where there was a mad rush of vehicles, honking, people buying stuff on the street, people having a blast or argument while driving, a zillion things happening at one time. My eyes fell on a Woman carrying a small child, holding the hand of another younger kid and to her right another maybe the oldest child, judging by his height, about 6 yrs holding her scarf, all in a ready position to cross the road, as soon as they got an opening. As I watched, the cars bikes were zooming literally inches away from this family. One step and it would be a disaster. I found myself holding my breath. But, ofcourse they all crossed the street safety.

I wondered – How is this Not a miracle. So many things could go wrong and yet they don’t.

We walk in faith every day, literally. And never notice it. The bread we buy, the milk we drink, vegetables we eat, the car we drive, the phone we use, how much of it we really know about? Is it good, clean safe, reliable? We don’t. Yet we do it. We surrender to faith everyday. And not notice it. And so don’t give ourselves the credit for it either. We have more faith in our skepticism and More skepticism in our Faith. We are funny people.

We fall asleep so often.

Perhaps we need to take a moment to not just look but see. In the everyday fabric, the potential for Miracle is everywhere. Perhaps we are looking for Miracles because they celebrate this meeting of visible and invisible. Perhaps that is why in the stories of gods the miracle they perform helps people believe. It’s like a passport stamp to travel to the other side and believe more in the invisible world. But we want to believe that only some people have it or can do it. We are still perhaps stuck in the paradigm of Magic.

A Miracle is an event that instills faith

And yet – Some part of us, the invisible part, is pulled towards its likeness. But we get fearful, because the rest of us needs reason, and logic and proof and explanation. The silly logic of it is, the Unknown cannot be known through the known, or else it would not qualify as unknown. Duh!!

Perhaps the success of harry potter, is really the success of that part of us which knows Miracles are real, the innocent, the trusting part. That eats, drinks, uses phone, crosses the road and dances with the invisible everyday. Pigeons fly everywhere, they don’t just have to come out of a hat. Perhaps a little Abracadabra may not be a bad idea, as a hack to let our “rational mind” know, or let it believe it’s the word that is causing the miracle. Feeling like the creator can get daunting. Perhaps that is why we use cape to escape this knowing.

Miracles must inspire Gratitude not awe. Not a held breath but a released one.

Love is the Magician that pulls a man out of his own hat – Ben Becht