“But you are a part of this world. Are you not”? Merry’s annoyance has to do with the decision of the great Ents. In their entmoot (meeting), they agreed to sit out the war between righteous and evil. The other day I was watching Lord of the rings (again!). I have watched this particular scene numerous times. Until this point in time, it never occurred to me; it’s significance. Put into perspective, it holds great value on its own and leads to even more remarkable realizations which we miss in our lives.
The world is complicated. There are unseen forces at work. Each century brings with it a promise of prosperity and peril. The winner is determined by our choices which ultimately lead to actions. Can a few handful of men and women be responsible for the path we undertake? Most certainly, they can lead and show the path. But, they alone, by themselves, are not enough. It is ‘we’ the common people whose actions play the lasting role. Where does commonality lie?
More often than not, we choose to sit in our own bubbles and wither the storm. The Ents have decided to do just that. They are unwilling to involve themselves in the great war between the wizards, kings and men. Even in all their wiseness and experience accumulated over centuries, they have failed to realize one simple truth. The truth that the ‘fight’ will find us eventually no matter how hard we try to avoid it.
Many cultures of both the east and the west have put this entire cosmos as one family which is nourished and enriched by the actions of the members. A single entity fails and what we experience is chaos. And here in lies the most important question we must ask ourselves. “Are we doing our part well”? Are we playing the role assigned to us as well as we can? For this, we must know our part. But, knowing is not enough. We must act. At the same time, we cannot act lightly. We must pour our heart to it. This is all that is asked from any of us.
Frodo Baggin’s role was to be a ring bearer. Samwise Gamgee was to stand by his friend all the time. They were not required to fight in the battles of Rohan and Gondor. Were their contributions any less then? Even Aragorn, Isildur’s heir bows down to them in the end. Commonality lies in acting and not hiding; in the actions performed with a firm conviction irrespective of their nature. There are no great or small ‘actions’; there are only ‘actions’. Choose to act and do it well.
यथा ह्येकेन चक्रेण न रथस्य गतिर्भवेत् । एवं पुरुषकारेण विना दैवं न सिध्यति ।। 