Act Great

What is the key to untie the knot of your mind's suffering? What is the escoteric secret to slay the crazed one who each of us did wed and who can ruin our heart's and eyes exquisite tender landscape? Hafiz has found two emerald words that restored me, that I now cling to as I would sacred tresses of my beloved's hair. "Act great," my dear. Always act great.
-Hafiz
Last night I went with a few of my classmates to a dance/music performance at the Music Academy of Madras. The female dancer Priyadarshini Govind has much prestige explained one of my classmates from Quebec before the performance began. The theater, as you may already know has always been my second home all my life, which made the experience of being in an Indian theater so special. The whole theater felt like it was from my grandparents era, not this one. The curtain was ruby red. The color of Sarah Bernhart's boudoir, I'm sure. There were many hanging photographs of all the great musicans who had studied at the academy that were taken from now to before my grandparents were alive, I'm sure. Then, the sound a fire alarm. I look around to my friends, whether to start leaving the theater as there might be a fire. Then, it stops, just a cue that the show is about to start. Alas, it's India! The messages are completely different here for everything, which gives me the feeling of being something like a toddler. The lights go down, the curtain rises, and there's an elderly woman sitting in a chair surrounded by the dancer, the president of the academy, and the lead musican. Tonight's performance is dedicated to the 80 year old woman, who's birthdaty it was, who had been a great dancer and who has been the long time teacher to the dancer who is about to perform for us. The student/dancer presents the biggest garland I've ever seen to her teacher, and bows over, and over, and yes, again over to the feet of her guru. They exit. Curtain down. Lights down. Stage right is an illuminated Shiva Nataraj. Alarm thing again. Curtain up. Lights up. The musican begin playing, a woman singing, tablas, violin, other percussion... The dancer enters and I can't tell you any more. There really aren't words. Everything. I could say, yes I observed the tireless dedication she obviously had given to her craft. I could say that her body was the perfect vessel for the offering. I could say so many things, but words! All I can say is she was living her dharma (truth). There's nothing else. All my tendancies towards confusion and doubt towards my own self fell away in observing her greatness. May we all find that thing that delivers us to our greatness, unabashadly.
Namaste