Surdas's Sight

Surdas was born blind. His mother used to say that when he was a baby, his eyes were like two small dark stones, beautiful but closed. His village pitied him. He would never see his mother's face. He would never see the colour of the wheat in the fields. He would never see what the world wished to show him.

But Surdas, from very small, did not seem to need showing. He could tell which neighbour was at the door by the rhythm of their walk. He could tell the time of day by the temperature of the air on his face. He could sing back any song he had heard once. By the time he was a boy, the villagers had stopped pitying him. They had begun, very quietly, to envy him.

When he was older, he made his way to Vrindavan. There, sitting on the riverbank, he began to sing. He sang of Krishna as if he had grown up in Yashoda's courtyard. He sang of the butter Krishna stole, of the calves Krishna led, of the small thefts and small kindnesses that filled the days of that boy who was also God. People who heard him sing wept. They said, Surdas, you describe Krishna's face so clearly. The curve of His cheek. The colour of His shawl. How? You have never seen.

Surdas smiled the smile of a man who has been asked the wrong question. He said, You have eyes, and you walk through Vrindavan every day, and you tell me you do not see Him? I have no eyes, and I cannot stop seeing Him. Perhaps the eyes are in the way.

One day a young pandit came and said, Surdas, would you like me to take you to the temple? You can touch the idol. You can know what He looks like.

Surdas shook his head, very gently. He said, Brother, I cannot. I cannot see the world. I have no time. I am too busy seeing Him.

And then he sang a song that the pandit forgot the words of as soon as it was over, but whose feeling he carried with him for the rest of his life. It was a song about a boy in a yellow shawl, and a flute that did not need lips to play it, and a dark face that the heart could memorise without ever having met it.

You cannot see your baby yet. The scans show shapes, the touch shows movements, but the face — the small particular face that will be in your life forever — is still hidden. Do not be in a hurry. Surdas would tell you that some seeing is better than other seeing. That what the heart is doing right now, this quiet imagining, this listening that has no picture, is its own kind of vision. The face will come. Until then, you are seeing in the deeper way. You are seeing without the eyes being in the way.