Mindfulness is a constant state of being. Some of my friends – notably two among them – are quick with their repartees and make priceless puns, and sometimes elegantly witty comments, both barbed and unbarbed, depending upon the requirements of a given context. Of course being witty is one among the many consequences of mindfulness.
Mindfulness means “being present in the moment”. Much has been said about this and much more has been written about it. The first time I ever came across this term was within a Class 5 History textbook, which talked about Buddhism. I had no idea what it meant; indeed I didn’t know how one could not be in the moment. Yet through all these years – I don’t think I’ve gotten any closer to really practicing what this means. I am hardly ever mindful to and of the moment.
Yet, what indeed, does it mean to be in the moment?
Or better still: what does it mean to "not be in the moment"?
My mind wanders. Even when I’m talking to people I love my own mind splutters, jumps the gun, and is leaping over bushes and shrubs, mountains or oceans or skulking in a dark cave with a shroud pulled over its head.
Very rarely am I in the moment. Present with all my senses intact, listening and hearing carefully and mindfully, and looking and being with what is happening and unfurling around me. And the times that I am in the moment – they are – needless to say, the best.
Very natural, easy, gliding, cruising moments.
And as the saying goes, time flies by without me knowing.
Being mindful, being in the moment: the best quote for me comes from a nice movie that I watched recently: “Who are you?” “I am the moment.”
Lately, I’ve noticed I get into this mindful moment when I’m almost finishing a book. Even if the book is halfway decent; I am in that moment racing along with the story as it comes to an artificial end. This used to happen extremely frequently some two decades ago when I’d race back home from school with a good book, and nothing would be better than snuggling into a comfy armchair or getting into bed and reading through the sunny afternoons.
These days this happens less often; even when I’m reading a good book, my mind wanders, and not with the tale – but on its own on exceptionally mundane routes, following trails...of work that needs to be done later, official stuff that needs to be attended to, papers that need to be read, papers which should be written, the tummy that needs to be exercised, the worries that do not have any outlet….and on and on – until my chattering mind makes it impossible for me to read. I realise sometimes to my utter disgust that I have gone through ten pages without anything registering in my head. Sometimes these days, when I drive I get into that “in the moment” state. But since I don’t know all the roads around the city – I can’t really let my mind just be – I’ll most likely be on my way to Milwaukee if I don’t squint and glare at all the roads and routes I’m taking.
Being with some people – sometimes I’m in the moment. When I’m not just-listening without really listening just so that I can speak later. I really listen and really talk, and sometimes the interaction proceeds without any hiccoughs or bumps. It becomes one emerging lovely dance where both become one with the moment. Sometimes I talk, sometimes I listen – and I really am in the moment. Paying attention to what is being said instead of trying to make my own point or leap around with my own silly mind or run away in fear because of what is being said, because my silly inattentive mind just wants to hide away from "what is being said" or because it doesn’t know how to deal with "what is being said" or because it starts spinning scary stories from or is deeply uncomfortable about "what is being said".
The same thing of my “mind running away” happens when there is a situation that my mind doesn’t know how to deal with. It will start spinning tales and stories and make a gigantic universe out of a grain of sand. I start hyperventilating within and the whole “real” world crashes even before seven seconds have come and gone. And of course my mind has paid no attention to what has really been said or to what has really unfurled. Some day I’ll make a list (as honest a list as I possibly can of the moments when I am mindful of the moment, but that’s for later).
The Dalai Lama says that the key to seeing what really “is” – is to cultivate a peaceful mind. Yet my mind no matter how “smart” and “clever” and “knowledgeable” it thinks it is – never really is in the moment as things happen. Nor does it see and hear what really is. It makes a story of things as it wants to, and sometimes it takes me days and years to figure out why I react the way I do; why I am the way I am. So far I realise that I may have grown exceptionally knowledgeable but I’m no more wise than I was when I was 17 (at 5, I was wise), although I have definitely had more experiences.
And how does one become wise? By acting out one’s knowledge.
What is wisdom? Knowledge, which is acted out.
I realise with a sense of bemusement that when I was physically attacked once, I did act with complete mindfulness. I didn’t know that I was acting in and with the moment – but I was. I kept my wits about me, and I was out of a sticky situation, which might have gotten pretty unpleasant if my mind had decided to cower or flee (or if God and my stars hadn’t been with me). But the truth is apart from that one time, and a couple of other times – I can’t really point out to important times in my life where I have "been (or am) in the moment". And it seems to me that the more momentous the occasion, the more crucial the timing, the less likely am I to be in the moment.
I slap my head later.
I kick myself later.
I grin and shake my head sadly later.
I used to get angry earlier – now I am just amazed and even more bemused at how my mind just splutters and stutters and whimps like a pipsqeak, and how sometimes I chatter without really thinking. In some rare important moments I can be myself; I can flow with the moment, be engaged in that moment and all the pretty, beautiful, lovely, and promised elements do come together in one delightful rush. Many times it happens when I’m by myself (or with my fimh - only that I guess, doesn't really count), when it’s vis-à-vis other human beings, it happens only when the other has no inhibitions at all about being with me, and is able to draw me away from my chattering mind (and this I have realised happens between some unusual children and me) or when I have had enough time with another to have no fear about anything that comes or may come between the other and me.
“Being in the moment” (ironically enough) happens, both with people I love and with people I don’t give a rat’s ass about.
But what is particularly distressing is that even with people I love dearly, I can very rarely be in the moment. I am always worried about giving offence or hurting the other or else I'm mortally scared about what the other is going to say (no matter how much I say I can be on my own, and I know I can be; I fear the fear of abandonment and sometimes what feels like very real abandonment in a couple of relationships) or else I genuinely fear making the other incurably angry and disgusted with my presumptuousness. Or I imagine that the other is going to think I’m silly or stupid or God-forbid “slow”. I don’t much care what the world or anybody else thinks of me any longer – but the thing is I still do care enormously and terribly about what a couple and more of people “think” of me. I know it doesn’t make sense to play out Cooley’s Looking-glass Self (which says we act the way we do depending upon how we believe other people see us)in my head – but barmily enough it’s almost as if some of the times in life I really am stuck in a moment in time, and I can’t be who-I-want-to-be because my silly mind is defensive, is offensive and is looking for flight, and all at the same time.
It’s very similar to what Eddie Izzard in his once-again priceless act spins on (aggressive) children who tend to lie (because they are "always" on the look-out for something which might leap out and bite them, maybe?)
“Did you…?” comes the shooting question from an adult, and the child goes, “Yes I did. No I didn’t. It wasn’t me. I didn’t know. …err…did I 'what'?"
“Did you brush your teeth?”
"Yes I did. No I didn’t. I was dead at the time. Errr…what’s the right answer?”
So in a way, it all comes back to my previous post: it’s all about fear. Even when I imagine I have nothing to fear about – I fear. I fear because my mind convinces me that if I don’t fear what I don’t fear, what-I-don't-fear will happen! Now as I’ve said before, it doesn’t matter at all when I am completely indifferent to people or situations; but when I have any feelings – when I want to whack people hard (because they irritate me or offend my sensibilities every day because I see them everyday) or when I want to hug them – I am not so mindful anymore. I am caught up in the trap of my mind where mindlessness persists and my own silly chattering.
What upsets me is that with all my knowledge gathered quite painstakingly – I must mention, through all these 32 years – I have nothing to show for it! I know I have the necessary knowledge – but for the life of me I cannot imagine what stops this knowledge from being translated into wisdom. I have become no better at my work ethics. I have become no more disciplined in my work habits (or otherwise). I do not seem to have a phenomenal memory all of a sudden (yes, my worries about my memory, although not as acute as before still worry me at a level). I do not seem to have any extraordinary skills that anyone else or I happen to notice or gloat over. I am just as lazy as I ever have been. I lack the patience and concentration and attention span that I had as a 7 year old. After a month and a half of frenetic activity and unfurling, my favourite pastime is once-again, sleeping. And what I know and sense seems almost like a wistful dream at times and sometimes like the starkest piece of truth that has ever hit me. Yet in terms of action – there is nothing that is remotely noteworthy. I can’t even talk for heaven’s sake (with people I genuinely love and care about) without my mind taking a hike or just completely blanking on me, so I realise. I can’t talk but even more than that – I can’t really think straight. So where is all my mindfulness disappearing when I “need” it the most, I wonder.
I could and can talk till Kingdom come about God, and how and what I feel about God. I also know that it doesn’t matter what I say or think or speak about God. For it doesn’t matter in the end, beginning or the middle. It is what-it-is. I feel-what-I-feel. And, my Self smiles as I write this (much to my embarrassment) – it can’t really be “talked about” or written about….
Yet what of life as it is.
If I go through life; and still go through life with knowledge and no wisdom in the way I act, speak and am – then of what use is my prattle-babble and wugga-wugga. I could give lectures and “say” a lot. But to my growing consternation and annoyance, I see that when I have to act and speak and listen carefully to what-is-being said and pay attention to what-is, my mind goes on a chattering rampage or an autistic trail, just the way it always has!
My mind has started sniggering unkindly of late (all over again? – But not as loudly and vociferously as in the past – because it no longer can be that pompous). It tells me if my fears are imaginary – why should I imagine that my love and my God is real. It tells me that I have learnt nothing from life that is “useful” to/for me or to anyone else. It doesn’t make me publish papers by the dozen, and become a bigwig within the field of academics (or a rising star). It doesn’t suddenly make me famous and rich. It doesn’t even – and here it sniggers even more loudly – make me act in more fearless and more honest and more careful and more mindful ways. It doesn’t help me make human beings happier or less confused or relieve another, if even a bit, of his/her misery. It doesn’t help me make the sufferings of anyone in this world a little lighter. It doesn’t help me be both compassionate and wise in my “real” dealings with human beings who cheese me off. It doesn’t help me do good to those more unfortunate. It doesn’t make me always and forever “be in the moment” vis-à-vis those whom I loudly claim to love…. And this is where I sigh. I do. For here, if not in any other matter, my mind is “right”.
I have indeed been blessed to have the life I do. Yet vis-à-vis people, I’m still as much as the strange un that I always was and have been. Vis-à-vis fears and obsessions my mind goes running on the same mad rushing freight train as it always did even when I was a kid, although the fears were different at that point.
I’m reminded again of the love and fear dichotomy. I’m reminded again of the light and darkness dichotomy. I’m reminded again of wisdom and ignorance. I know that all can be without the other. And of course they do not exist as this or that. Creation, destruction, life, death, fear, wisdom, ignorance, love, madness, sanity, Yin and Yang, God and the Devil (?)…all of it is one whole. There is an absolute indestructible unity. And I seem to know this as well. Yet, yet, yet and yet – where is the wisdom in this confounding puzzle? If the illusion breaks and if mindfulness “Is” – shouldn’t mindfulness/clarity of mind be some absolute state of knowing and being, without ever forgetting who-one-is? Letting go of fear is probably the key.
I’m reminded of that one line which is repeated over and over again in Dune, “Fear is the mindkiller…” and it truly is. It makes me mindless.
And it’s fear in one form or the other, which leads to most of what is going on in the world today, and has been for ages. The horrors of our world.
I can’t help but think that Fear should have found its place of glory as one of the seven deadly sins….
23 June 2008
11 June 2008
The Fear of Fear: Potter and Ged; Me and some Thoughts
Love and fear are the opposites. It’s not love and hate. I realise this, and it’s been talked about by many, many grand human beings – who were/are far, far wiser than I am. Most of the time I’m too indifferent about things to really “hate” anything or anyone. Things disgust me, irritate me, annoy me; some people disgust me – but there it ends. Nothing – or so I keep telling myself, and have been telling myself for the longest time - deserves or is worth hating.
Not to say that I don't feel violence within. Not to say that I am not a violent person. I am. And I know I can be. Yet even now I believe that there is a time for violence, and that time is when one is faced with violence from elsewhere. If I am threatened - physically threatened; if the ones I love are threatened - physically threatened - I do hope and believe that I can make violence work to prevent the instigator.
Yet this post is not about love nor is it about hate nor about disgust nor about violence. It’s the aspect of fear. I know about fear.
Even more than love – or at least just as much as I have felt love, have I felt the crippling and devastating demons of fear, which have driven me out of myself.
Very few of the fears are really real. Is fear ever real? Maybe, sometimes. I doubt it though. In some sense, and I don’t know how to explain it – fear seems “imaginary” while love feels very, very real.
I am reminded of Harry Potter’s experience with the boggarts in The Prisoner of Azkaban. He conjures up the dementors. And what indeed were boggarts and dementors? Boggarts were virtual representations of our deepest fears. All the other kids saw that which they feared the most, walking out of the closet. Lupin told them exactly how to ward them off: “think of “funny” things. Think of humour. Conjure up something hilarious that makes you laugh. Watch your fear dissipate”.
And it worked. It worked for everyone, but Harry.
Because Harry conjured up the dementors.
And the conjured dementors were real, or contrarily – never seemed really real or imagined. Or more appropriately, the conjured dementors were in fact, as really real as their “real” counterpart.
Dementors, sucking out one’s soul with their death kiss.
As I wonder, and wonder some more – my mind wanders, and gets fuzzy.
I can’t really pinpoint what the dementors really are/were nor can I remember (memory loss plagues me again!), although I’ve written plenty on them and thought about them elsewhere and at other times.
But how indeed are dementors gotten rid of?
(This I do remember, and have had to remember. Rowling has no idea how much I thank her, and how grateful I am for her books).
By thinking of the happiest thoughts that one is able to imagine. That works.
And what about occlumency? Harry in The Order of The Phoenix has images hurtling through his insides.
Ron’s dad being attacked. And it was true.
Dumbledore wanted Potter to be able to distinguish between the “real” and the “imagined”. Snape was given the task.
Potter rebels, Snape reacts.
Harry is in the same boat – reading Voldemort’s thoughts. Reading what Voldemort wants him to read. Sirius dies. Not the way that Harry had seen it – but Sirius dies trying to save Harry.
Ironical indeed. Harry had rushed in to save Sirius because he saw the “image” of Sirius being tortured.
Occlumency and the power to distinguish between the “real” and the “imagined”. A power indeed for those who do see within – to distinguish between one’s fantasies and reality; to distinguish between mind and soul and body crippling fears, and reality as it is – out there in the real world, in the “real” time-space continuum.
Occlumency – the tool that separates madness and clarity. That’s how I see it.
Fear and the chasing shadow that hunts Ged in LeGuin’s The Wizard of Earthsea.
And what does Ged do? He turns around to face it. He hunts the fear. He chases the fear. He chases down that hulking shadow, for Ogion tells him, “Name it. Name the shadow.”
Ged says, “But it doesn’t have a name.”
Ogion replies with his infinite wisdom, “Everything has a name.”
And Ged indeed does name the shadow.
The fear.
The fear of fear is what Ged had been running away from.
“What exactly do you fear but fear itself?” This is what one of my dearest people asked me once. And this has seeped through me through the years.
Yet fear I still do feel. Wild banshees that shriek within. This fear is not something that I can ever hope to express in words or in any human language. And the world as I know it crashes and breaks down all around me.
Images of brutality, rage, anger, torture, savage cruelty, viciousness, and sickening sliminess run around within. The images come unheeded, unasked for, uncalled for, uninvited. But visit they do, and it takes everything I’ve got to deflect them; to show them the door, and many times over they have indeed gotten the better of me; where all I can do myself is shriek and shriek – sometimes silently and wildly within, until I implode.
Two months ago, I watched, and watched, and watched them come in like laughing hobgoblins.
Monstrosities.
And there was nothing else in me as I watched, and I nearly lost all I’ve got in terms of intangibles and incommensurables – but somehow I didn’t……I would have mentioned names - but I know that it would be deeply distressing and embarrassing for those concerned.
The only “thing” that explodes the fear is love.
I know. I know that. I feel that with every bit of me.
For the fear is a feeling that rises from within, and love too is an emotion that rises from within.
Both may, and sometimes indeed do rise from without.
And if the fear is an emotion, which is life crippling, the only element that can save the mind from disintegrating completely is a power that is strong enough to shatter the fear, and that really is love.
The horrors that exist within our world – they do indeed live within the mind. That which-is on the outside lives in no less mighty a form within.
So does the love. That also exists.
Yet love is hard to practice.
Extremely hard to practice, even within.
Some days my energy is spent on chasing out my own fears.
It's all I can do. To "get" enough love inside to chase out the blinding fears and phobias.
"Being and acting with love, compassion, and kindness" is left for later.
I do "try" not to get angry and not to feel violently angry or not to let disgust paralyse my senses and sensibilities.
Sometimes there is no trying. Things simply are what they are.
There is an easy Is-ness.
No disgust. No anger. No violence. No pain. No guilt. No fear. No happiness. No euphoria. No nothingness. A coldly rational, completely non-emotional, completely dull metal like Is-ness. A blue-glacier light that simply Is. That's how I would describe "it".
Clarity is priceless. Clarity of mind. Clarity within. The Dalai Lama stresses the importance of a peaceful mind. "When the mind is peaceful", he says, "it does not distort 'reality'." Yet sometimes when all else fails, and even clarity seems to be a fairy tale, what gets me through is love.
Yet, I also know that when one can see with clarity, all is what-it-is. And fear, I've noticed is the one thing that eclipses clarity.
Sometimes anger does it for me or an intense disgust. Yet most often than not it is a strange unreal fear....even now.
I'm reminded of what Lennon said, "I talk about love because I know I am a violent man."
I’ll conclude this (seemingly random) post with a story about the Dalai Lama, which I found in a book on Environmental Ethics: He was once asked, “You talk about compassion. How would you show compassion to Hitler?” The Dalai Lama responded with a lightning sharp “Show compassion to Hitler? That’s easy. Kill him.”
Not to say that I don't feel violence within. Not to say that I am not a violent person. I am. And I know I can be. Yet even now I believe that there is a time for violence, and that time is when one is faced with violence from elsewhere. If I am threatened - physically threatened; if the ones I love are threatened - physically threatened - I do hope and believe that I can make violence work to prevent the instigator.
Yet this post is not about love nor is it about hate nor about disgust nor about violence. It’s the aspect of fear. I know about fear.
Even more than love – or at least just as much as I have felt love, have I felt the crippling and devastating demons of fear, which have driven me out of myself.
Very few of the fears are really real. Is fear ever real? Maybe, sometimes. I doubt it though. In some sense, and I don’t know how to explain it – fear seems “imaginary” while love feels very, very real.
I am reminded of Harry Potter’s experience with the boggarts in The Prisoner of Azkaban. He conjures up the dementors. And what indeed were boggarts and dementors? Boggarts were virtual representations of our deepest fears. All the other kids saw that which they feared the most, walking out of the closet. Lupin told them exactly how to ward them off: “think of “funny” things. Think of humour. Conjure up something hilarious that makes you laugh. Watch your fear dissipate”.
And it worked. It worked for everyone, but Harry.
Because Harry conjured up the dementors.
And the conjured dementors were real, or contrarily – never seemed really real or imagined. Or more appropriately, the conjured dementors were in fact, as really real as their “real” counterpart.
Dementors, sucking out one’s soul with their death kiss.
As I wonder, and wonder some more – my mind wanders, and gets fuzzy.
I can’t really pinpoint what the dementors really are/were nor can I remember (memory loss plagues me again!), although I’ve written plenty on them and thought about them elsewhere and at other times.
But how indeed are dementors gotten rid of?
(This I do remember, and have had to remember. Rowling has no idea how much I thank her, and how grateful I am for her books).
By thinking of the happiest thoughts that one is able to imagine. That works.
And what about occlumency? Harry in The Order of The Phoenix has images hurtling through his insides.
Ron’s dad being attacked. And it was true.
Dumbledore wanted Potter to be able to distinguish between the “real” and the “imagined”. Snape was given the task.
Potter rebels, Snape reacts.
Harry is in the same boat – reading Voldemort’s thoughts. Reading what Voldemort wants him to read. Sirius dies. Not the way that Harry had seen it – but Sirius dies trying to save Harry.
Ironical indeed. Harry had rushed in to save Sirius because he saw the “image” of Sirius being tortured.
Occlumency and the power to distinguish between the “real” and the “imagined”. A power indeed for those who do see within – to distinguish between one’s fantasies and reality; to distinguish between mind and soul and body crippling fears, and reality as it is – out there in the real world, in the “real” time-space continuum.
Occlumency – the tool that separates madness and clarity. That’s how I see it.
Fear and the chasing shadow that hunts Ged in LeGuin’s The Wizard of Earthsea.
And what does Ged do? He turns around to face it. He hunts the fear. He chases the fear. He chases down that hulking shadow, for Ogion tells him, “Name it. Name the shadow.”
Ged says, “But it doesn’t have a name.”
Ogion replies with his infinite wisdom, “Everything has a name.”
And Ged indeed does name the shadow.
The fear.
The fear of fear is what Ged had been running away from.
“What exactly do you fear but fear itself?” This is what one of my dearest people asked me once. And this has seeped through me through the years.
Yet fear I still do feel. Wild banshees that shriek within. This fear is not something that I can ever hope to express in words or in any human language. And the world as I know it crashes and breaks down all around me.
Images of brutality, rage, anger, torture, savage cruelty, viciousness, and sickening sliminess run around within. The images come unheeded, unasked for, uncalled for, uninvited. But visit they do, and it takes everything I’ve got to deflect them; to show them the door, and many times over they have indeed gotten the better of me; where all I can do myself is shriek and shriek – sometimes silently and wildly within, until I implode.
Two months ago, I watched, and watched, and watched them come in like laughing hobgoblins.
Monstrosities.
And there was nothing else in me as I watched, and I nearly lost all I’ve got in terms of intangibles and incommensurables – but somehow I didn’t……I would have mentioned names - but I know that it would be deeply distressing and embarrassing for those concerned.
The only “thing” that explodes the fear is love.
I know. I know that. I feel that with every bit of me.
For the fear is a feeling that rises from within, and love too is an emotion that rises from within.
Both may, and sometimes indeed do rise from without.
And if the fear is an emotion, which is life crippling, the only element that can save the mind from disintegrating completely is a power that is strong enough to shatter the fear, and that really is love.
The horrors that exist within our world – they do indeed live within the mind. That which-is on the outside lives in no less mighty a form within.
So does the love. That also exists.
Yet love is hard to practice.
Extremely hard to practice, even within.
Some days my energy is spent on chasing out my own fears.
It's all I can do. To "get" enough love inside to chase out the blinding fears and phobias.
"Being and acting with love, compassion, and kindness" is left for later.
I do "try" not to get angry and not to feel violently angry or not to let disgust paralyse my senses and sensibilities.
Sometimes there is no trying. Things simply are what they are.
There is an easy Is-ness.
No disgust. No anger. No violence. No pain. No guilt. No fear. No happiness. No euphoria. No nothingness. A coldly rational, completely non-emotional, completely dull metal like Is-ness. A blue-glacier light that simply Is. That's how I would describe "it".
Clarity is priceless. Clarity of mind. Clarity within. The Dalai Lama stresses the importance of a peaceful mind. "When the mind is peaceful", he says, "it does not distort 'reality'." Yet sometimes when all else fails, and even clarity seems to be a fairy tale, what gets me through is love.
Yet, I also know that when one can see with clarity, all is what-it-is. And fear, I've noticed is the one thing that eclipses clarity.
Sometimes anger does it for me or an intense disgust. Yet most often than not it is a strange unreal fear....even now.
I'm reminded of what Lennon said, "I talk about love because I know I am a violent man."
I’ll conclude this (seemingly random) post with a story about the Dalai Lama, which I found in a book on Environmental Ethics: He was once asked, “You talk about compassion. How would you show compassion to Hitler?” The Dalai Lama responded with a lightning sharp “Show compassion to Hitler? That’s easy. Kill him.”
16 May 2008
God and Love and Spirituality:Through Time and Space
‘At the beginning of my journey, I was naïve. I didn’t yet know that answers vanish as one continues to travel, that there is only further complexity, that there are still more interrelationships and more questions.’ - Kaplan
The above quote came from a qualitative methods book that I don’t own, and something that I’d gone through some five years ago. I don’t think I’d be able to find the quote again. I don’t know whether the above is a good place to start from for what I have in mind. But it’s been put up there, and I’ll take it from there/here/wherever. I’ve been re-reading a chapter titled “Come to God” from an MSS. I’ll sit on the name of the author (for reasons of my own). I’m re-reading it very slowly this time around (having read it once a week for the last three weeks I think it has been) – but there is one bit from the first bit of the chapter, which is eventually going to point out the direction in which this current post is going to travel. In and out the post shall go afterwards, up and down, spirals and chutes – but for now let me root myself and ground myself.
“…it is the most shocking of lies or the very height of ignorance to claim that the concept of God was born only out of fear. Love, overflowing, all-embracing, pure, blissful love that cleanses and exalts the human soul and destroys fear has always been one of the great motivators too, along with man’s vaulting romantic imagination: witness the religious poetry and music and art of any old civilization, ours included.”
So this post is indeed about God, and about spirituality, and about the “is-ness” of “romantic imagination”. I’ve been getting muddled in my head again lately, I’ve been noticing. Muddled not in a bad way or a perverse way or a destructive way, as has happened so often in the past – but in just a vague and distracted way, and have been getting somewhat lost in the mazes of my mind. Getting odd bits of work done. Just the bits that must be done, and letting the rest be swept around by the rains (of which we’ve been having plenty), sun, and wind (both of which have been here in sudden unexpected bursts). But let me get back to what I want to write about today.
I’m feeling quite quiet in my head, even though there’s The Rolling Stones and Led Zepplin and The Who playing on the internet radio. But inside there’s a blue washed tranquility. And I’m wondering where to start from.
“…Down the ages, down the dawn of centuries and the burst of bursting and stillborn stars, I sensed love. Through the stillness, through the cracks of darkness, through infinite zones of light and space, I saw love. A love that shook through wind and water, earth and fire; a love that scared me, thrilled me, drove me down to the pits of earth shattering insanity — shrieking and cruel, and then threw me with wild abandon into worlds, which beat my richest fantasies into pulp, I felt love. And it’s that love, which made me come back to life — the iridescent shade of an eternal romance that never gave up — that gave me life over and over and yet over again…. So is there an end to life or is it all a series of beginnings? Is it the eternal circle, or a series of spirals? Is it the ‘om’, the crescent, the cross, the star, or the sphinx’s riddle? Is it a laugh or is it a game — endless and infinite? Or is it truly love? A love that is fiercely consuming, and even frightening in its obsession; a love so expansive that it stretches the ripples of angst, out and away like a smoothened fresh sheet washed by the first spring sun..”
The above is what God means to me. It's something I wrote, a little over 5 years ago, not really realising what I was writing. Maybe I should end my post here for the funny thing is that I’ve had the sense of God and spirituality, and thought about the two, and argued about the two (with other “real” human beings, with my selves, with my fimhs), been irritated by the two, been befuddled, been indifferent, and just “let them be” – that now after being strangely excited at the prospect of writing about these two elements – I find myself experiencing an absurd peace, and do not really experience any strong urges to even say anything or write anything more. But the “writer” in me is no less stubborn, and insists on clicking away. So I’ll let my “writer self” take the floor…
I was enthralled by the idea of the “Other” as a child. One of my earliest memories of my self is at 3 or thereabouts, and a "longing for the beyond”. I didn’t think in those terms – but what I experienced was a 'certain something" that wasn’t a part of the everyday world as I knew it; an everyday world, which for the most part was comprised of being cuddled and told stories (and very rarely being scolded) by my parents, playing and being taken care of by my brother, and sometimes eating singaras and pantuyas with great relish. I still remember lying in bed on a summer afternoon having the thought that “life” and "some part of me" lay somewhere else – although I greatly enjoyed my everyday life…
I remember at 5 or thereabouts when I first started playing the “Who am I” game. Bits and pieces of my given identity would fall off me. At this point in time, my family and I were living in England, in a sleepy and lovely town called Scunthorpe. I would sit in the garden, and I still remember the intense yet easy concentration with which I would start pondering on who I was. And I would be drawn into this delicious web – a black liquid pool where given bits of my identity would break off me – I wasn’t just my parents’ “daughter”, I wasn’t just my brother’s “sister”, I wasn’t just a “friend" to Manjuri, Guddi, Ratul, and Kingshuk….but who was I? And then just as I would get closer and closer to cracking this amazing puzzle, which kept me entertained for hours – wham – the “real” world would come crashing back in. The wind would be blowing through the sun, the hospital across the road would rise into my vision, a sleepy bus would go hooting by, the flowers would be nodding, and the clouds would go racing overhead. And I would blink, and go inside to bother mum about something or nothing.
At home there was a picture of Goddess Kali on the wall of my dad’s study. The picture was high up on the wall. And I was a midget at four/five (and never really did grow much taller). The picture didn’t seem to be very clear to me. Mum used to pray with an incense stick, every morning in front of that picture on the wall, which had an innocuous brown frame and was probably not more than 10 inches in length and 7inches across. Dad used to pray as well – but I don’t remember him having a specific time for praying. I don’t remember how old I was exactly – but one day I remember standing on top of the bed scrutinizing the painting. Goddess Kali didn’t disturb me much – even though she had her garland of human heads around her neck, even though she had numerous hands with one holding a recently clopped-off head, even though she had her red tongue exposed, even though she was pretty much nude, even though she seemed to be standing with one foot on top of a man who was lying in her path, even though she had what seemed to be a humongous sword in one of her many hands (with what no doubt she had chopped off the human heads left, right, and centre). I don’t remember whether I had asked my parents anything. All I remember is that I was quite comfortable with My own “God” in my head, and of course Jesus I adored – but Goddess Kali and I; while I shook hands with her in my head – I had no intentions of praying to her or talking with her or having running conversations with her in the mirror or otherwise, as I did with all my other "Gods"…all I remember thinking is that “Jesus…she sure does need to calm down a bit…”
At school in England, we had of course regular prayer and “mass” in the morning. I don’t remember any longer whether at St. Augustine we had a short prayer service every day and a longer one every friday or whether it was indeed an elaborate affair every day of the week. But I do remember that some days prayer was a long affair, and I thoroughly loved it – every moment of it. Even at 5, I was a joker. All the Catholic students would drop one round wafer (the “holy bread” substitute) into a big bowl. Later on after service, each student would walk up to the dais to the priest, and the student would either open his mouth to receive the wafer or she would hold out her hand and receive the wafer in her hand. I was fascinated with and by the wafer. Everyday before morning assembly, I would half-joke about dropping one extra wafer into the bowl. I really wanted to try out a wafer, but apparently one didn’t “do” that unless one was a Catholic. Oh well. I never did throw in that extra wafer in all the four and a half years that I went to St. Augustine. But still I loved assembly no less. The best part was singing the choir songs. I knew all the songs, and didn’t really need the book that all students had. Although I had my favourites, I loved each song – now, sadly enough I don’t remember any of the songs. Not even the tune, leave alone the lyrics remain in my head…and then of course there were the Nativity plays that we acted out during Christmas. As I’ve “reported” on another post – I ended up being one of the Wise Men in the last year that I was in St. Augustine, and I had a grand robe of royal Blue, a crown on my pretty head of hair, carried a box (of what I do not remember…)…and followed the Star to Bethlehem. The costumes and the props apparently had been used year after year in the school. The box, as far as I remember was an old, heavy, engraved wooden box…but it jolly well may not have been as grand as I see it being in my head after all these years......
Hmm…but where is this all going? Well, nowhere really. I remember bonding with Jesus very early on. I used to have merry and sometimes solemn conversations with him. God though was more of a distant figure at that point. Someone whom I used to go running to if I were mortally scared of “something” or “really” didn’t understand something or just wanted to be cuddled, and Jesus was just fooling around…or indeed didn’t seem to know much more than I did (or just wasn't telling me what he knew)!Then I would climb into God’s lap (He did indeed sit on a throne, and He did indeed have a purple robe that He’d bring out every now and again – simply because He knew that it amused me and made me happy).
That apart I had merry conversations with Lucifer as well. Lucifer was my “naughty” God. He was a prankster with whom I had fun, and would goof around…and every now and then we would do something wrong and terrible, and both of us would end up feeling horribly guilty, and then promise ourselves that “picking” up something that did not belong to us – “Gulp” – was simply not worth it ever; “snatching” something out of some else’s pocket simply wasn’t “done” (quite apart from the sudden shout that the otherwise calm Someone emitted on finding a nosey little hand making a “grab” at her pocket), that while letting go on a high spinning merry-go-round was great fun, that the fun didn’t last for long. And that “the head” actually hurt once one was thrown onto the concrete after flying through the air, and that knees, elbows, and the face tended to get fairly bloody, while the head didn’t – although the latter seemed to “hurt” more…
So there I was by 8 very happy with Jesus, God, and Lucifer. (It was round about the same time that my family and I returned home to India). I knew JGL were in me, outside me, everywhere I was, and always with me. Yes, sure – my faith, belief, and call-it-whatever-you-will was very much culturally rooted and very much related to what I had experienced while growing up. Although I don’t know why I used to play the “Who Am I” game nor why I had felt an immediate bond with Lucifer (maybe it has something to do with the red birthmark in the shape of a '6' on my right foot!)– a bond that was and is as strong as the one that I have with My God, my current FIMH, and The Absolute, and of course with Jesus, The Buddha, and Krishna, and my old fimhs. And yes indeed. This bond, this connection, this belief, this experience with JGL and The Others – which is deeply personal (as anyone who “believes” will know) – was and is born out of love. An overflowing, overwhelming, and sometimes even a coldly rational and analytical love….it indeed was and is an all-embracing love. Complete and absolute.
I have wondered and wondered why sociologists have forever talked about “fear” as being the prime motivator (and in fact the “only” motivator) of religion, and the belief in God. Emile Durkheim, one of the classical theorists in Sociology said the same in the 1900s – and it seems that the sociologists of the 2000s have not been able to move away from the emotion of “fear”. To me it seems that the Western world is forecefully still much attached to the enticing web of the Enlightenment - the period when religion and science and "other forms of knowing" were split up for pressing reasons. There is a gradual and slow change that I can spot some glimpses of - but only time I guess will tell which way the pendulum will swing. As for the East, as for India - who knows. I have no idea what people believe as a country, as a Land, and as a collective which gave rise to some of the most enlightened philosophies and spiritual teachings since the Birth of Human Civilization. Indeed I don't even think that we "do" believe in anything as a collective.
And then of course, these days we have utterly moronic individuals like Richard Dawkins – who have not the sense nor the imagination nor the sensibility, and therefore go around blaring out the same idea of "Religion stinks", and such people make me cringe with embarrassment. That a human being, any human being (with such a wonderful accent), and a ‘scientist’ at that can be such an absolute fool, so full of prejudice, and be such a disgrace to the human race.
The other associated “progression” that I’ve noticed within sociological circles is that there is much talk today about the “Culture of Fear”, about the aspect of “fear” in our everyday lives. There are tonnes of literature for those interested (within the frameworks of Critical theory in the main). In popular circles there are “Fahrenheit 9/11” and “Bowling for Columbine” – a couple of the most famous "Moore movies", where Michael Moore pokes and prods at the “culture of fear” that’s been promoted over and across the United States through the centuries. While the studies and the articles and the books that I’ve browsed through on “Fear” are no doubt interesting at a level, what I find thoroughly amusing is that social scientists cannot bring themselves to explore the element of “Love”. They have no idea where or how to begin. Why, I wonder is it easier to talk about “fear” or write papers on “fear”, and why I wonder is there the strange reluctance to explore what “Love” means to different people, or what effect “Love” has on "different" worlds or on a Self in interaction with the world? Some odd years ago, the best psychologists and neuro-scientists could do was to carry out some experiments regarding the "biology" of love. As terribly interesting and almost capricious as the series was - and I remember seeing the two part series, which was telecast on National Geographic - it didn't even come close to 'really" exploring the emotion.
And then of course there are the ones who take up some other “religion” like Marxism or Leninism, or Leftism in one form or the other, and who will snootily and gratuitously disparage those who do have a deep spiritual sensitivity in them. And then there are some who are so enchanted and stuck to their own sense of “born-again” Christianity/Hinduism/Any-ism that they foolishly sneer at Others and call these “Others” “inferior” because apparently since these “Others” are in the process of stitching and creating (in some sense) their own quilt of spirituality with carefully gathered "teachings" over ages, and across spaces and more, these “Others” are "too weak” to follow religion as it has been laid down by the word of GOD in The Bible or in some religious text or the other. According to these Born-Agains – religious texts are to be taken whole and un-mutilated and never questioned nor interpreted even (!) by anyone. If I do – then “I just don’t get it”, according to these Sneer-ers. But the Sneer-ers themselves of course do interpret – but they interpret exactly as God wanted of them!
This is all for now. My post is by no means complete or anywhere near completion…but I will write by and by…More shall follow soon – for my stubborn Writer-Self if for No One else!
The above quote came from a qualitative methods book that I don’t own, and something that I’d gone through some five years ago. I don’t think I’d be able to find the quote again. I don’t know whether the above is a good place to start from for what I have in mind. But it’s been put up there, and I’ll take it from there/here/wherever. I’ve been re-reading a chapter titled “Come to God” from an MSS. I’ll sit on the name of the author (for reasons of my own). I’m re-reading it very slowly this time around (having read it once a week for the last three weeks I think it has been) – but there is one bit from the first bit of the chapter, which is eventually going to point out the direction in which this current post is going to travel. In and out the post shall go afterwards, up and down, spirals and chutes – but for now let me root myself and ground myself.
“…it is the most shocking of lies or the very height of ignorance to claim that the concept of God was born only out of fear. Love, overflowing, all-embracing, pure, blissful love that cleanses and exalts the human soul and destroys fear has always been one of the great motivators too, along with man’s vaulting romantic imagination: witness the religious poetry and music and art of any old civilization, ours included.”
So this post is indeed about God, and about spirituality, and about the “is-ness” of “romantic imagination”. I’ve been getting muddled in my head again lately, I’ve been noticing. Muddled not in a bad way or a perverse way or a destructive way, as has happened so often in the past – but in just a vague and distracted way, and have been getting somewhat lost in the mazes of my mind. Getting odd bits of work done. Just the bits that must be done, and letting the rest be swept around by the rains (of which we’ve been having plenty), sun, and wind (both of which have been here in sudden unexpected bursts). But let me get back to what I want to write about today.
I’m feeling quite quiet in my head, even though there’s The Rolling Stones and Led Zepplin and The Who playing on the internet radio. But inside there’s a blue washed tranquility. And I’m wondering where to start from.
“…Down the ages, down the dawn of centuries and the burst of bursting and stillborn stars, I sensed love. Through the stillness, through the cracks of darkness, through infinite zones of light and space, I saw love. A love that shook through wind and water, earth and fire; a love that scared me, thrilled me, drove me down to the pits of earth shattering insanity — shrieking and cruel, and then threw me with wild abandon into worlds, which beat my richest fantasies into pulp, I felt love. And it’s that love, which made me come back to life — the iridescent shade of an eternal romance that never gave up — that gave me life over and over and yet over again…. So is there an end to life or is it all a series of beginnings? Is it the eternal circle, or a series of spirals? Is it the ‘om’, the crescent, the cross, the star, or the sphinx’s riddle? Is it a laugh or is it a game — endless and infinite? Or is it truly love? A love that is fiercely consuming, and even frightening in its obsession; a love so expansive that it stretches the ripples of angst, out and away like a smoothened fresh sheet washed by the first spring sun..”
The above is what God means to me. It's something I wrote, a little over 5 years ago, not really realising what I was writing. Maybe I should end my post here for the funny thing is that I’ve had the sense of God and spirituality, and thought about the two, and argued about the two (with other “real” human beings, with my selves, with my fimhs), been irritated by the two, been befuddled, been indifferent, and just “let them be” – that now after being strangely excited at the prospect of writing about these two elements – I find myself experiencing an absurd peace, and do not really experience any strong urges to even say anything or write anything more. But the “writer” in me is no less stubborn, and insists on clicking away. So I’ll let my “writer self” take the floor…
I was enthralled by the idea of the “Other” as a child. One of my earliest memories of my self is at 3 or thereabouts, and a "longing for the beyond”. I didn’t think in those terms – but what I experienced was a 'certain something" that wasn’t a part of the everyday world as I knew it; an everyday world, which for the most part was comprised of being cuddled and told stories (and very rarely being scolded) by my parents, playing and being taken care of by my brother, and sometimes eating singaras and pantuyas with great relish. I still remember lying in bed on a summer afternoon having the thought that “life” and "some part of me" lay somewhere else – although I greatly enjoyed my everyday life…
I remember at 5 or thereabouts when I first started playing the “Who am I” game. Bits and pieces of my given identity would fall off me. At this point in time, my family and I were living in England, in a sleepy and lovely town called Scunthorpe. I would sit in the garden, and I still remember the intense yet easy concentration with which I would start pondering on who I was. And I would be drawn into this delicious web – a black liquid pool where given bits of my identity would break off me – I wasn’t just my parents’ “daughter”, I wasn’t just my brother’s “sister”, I wasn’t just a “friend" to Manjuri, Guddi, Ratul, and Kingshuk….but who was I? And then just as I would get closer and closer to cracking this amazing puzzle, which kept me entertained for hours – wham – the “real” world would come crashing back in. The wind would be blowing through the sun, the hospital across the road would rise into my vision, a sleepy bus would go hooting by, the flowers would be nodding, and the clouds would go racing overhead. And I would blink, and go inside to bother mum about something or nothing.
At home there was a picture of Goddess Kali on the wall of my dad’s study. The picture was high up on the wall. And I was a midget at four/five (and never really did grow much taller). The picture didn’t seem to be very clear to me. Mum used to pray with an incense stick, every morning in front of that picture on the wall, which had an innocuous brown frame and was probably not more than 10 inches in length and 7inches across. Dad used to pray as well – but I don’t remember him having a specific time for praying. I don’t remember how old I was exactly – but one day I remember standing on top of the bed scrutinizing the painting. Goddess Kali didn’t disturb me much – even though she had her garland of human heads around her neck, even though she had numerous hands with one holding a recently clopped-off head, even though she had her red tongue exposed, even though she was pretty much nude, even though she seemed to be standing with one foot on top of a man who was lying in her path, even though she had what seemed to be a humongous sword in one of her many hands (with what no doubt she had chopped off the human heads left, right, and centre). I don’t remember whether I had asked my parents anything. All I remember is that I was quite comfortable with My own “God” in my head, and of course Jesus I adored – but Goddess Kali and I; while I shook hands with her in my head – I had no intentions of praying to her or talking with her or having running conversations with her in the mirror or otherwise, as I did with all my other "Gods"…all I remember thinking is that “Jesus…she sure does need to calm down a bit…”
At school in England, we had of course regular prayer and “mass” in the morning. I don’t remember any longer whether at St. Augustine we had a short prayer service every day and a longer one every friday or whether it was indeed an elaborate affair every day of the week. But I do remember that some days prayer was a long affair, and I thoroughly loved it – every moment of it. Even at 5, I was a joker. All the Catholic students would drop one round wafer (the “holy bread” substitute) into a big bowl. Later on after service, each student would walk up to the dais to the priest, and the student would either open his mouth to receive the wafer or she would hold out her hand and receive the wafer in her hand. I was fascinated with and by the wafer. Everyday before morning assembly, I would half-joke about dropping one extra wafer into the bowl. I really wanted to try out a wafer, but apparently one didn’t “do” that unless one was a Catholic. Oh well. I never did throw in that extra wafer in all the four and a half years that I went to St. Augustine. But still I loved assembly no less. The best part was singing the choir songs. I knew all the songs, and didn’t really need the book that all students had. Although I had my favourites, I loved each song – now, sadly enough I don’t remember any of the songs. Not even the tune, leave alone the lyrics remain in my head…and then of course there were the Nativity plays that we acted out during Christmas. As I’ve “reported” on another post – I ended up being one of the Wise Men in the last year that I was in St. Augustine, and I had a grand robe of royal Blue, a crown on my pretty head of hair, carried a box (of what I do not remember…)…and followed the Star to Bethlehem. The costumes and the props apparently had been used year after year in the school. The box, as far as I remember was an old, heavy, engraved wooden box…but it jolly well may not have been as grand as I see it being in my head after all these years......
Hmm…but where is this all going? Well, nowhere really. I remember bonding with Jesus very early on. I used to have merry and sometimes solemn conversations with him. God though was more of a distant figure at that point. Someone whom I used to go running to if I were mortally scared of “something” or “really” didn’t understand something or just wanted to be cuddled, and Jesus was just fooling around…or indeed didn’t seem to know much more than I did (or just wasn't telling me what he knew)!Then I would climb into God’s lap (He did indeed sit on a throne, and He did indeed have a purple robe that He’d bring out every now and again – simply because He knew that it amused me and made me happy).
That apart I had merry conversations with Lucifer as well. Lucifer was my “naughty” God. He was a prankster with whom I had fun, and would goof around…and every now and then we would do something wrong and terrible, and both of us would end up feeling horribly guilty, and then promise ourselves that “picking” up something that did not belong to us – “Gulp” – was simply not worth it ever; “snatching” something out of some else’s pocket simply wasn’t “done” (quite apart from the sudden shout that the otherwise calm Someone emitted on finding a nosey little hand making a “grab” at her pocket), that while letting go on a high spinning merry-go-round was great fun, that the fun didn’t last for long. And that “the head” actually hurt once one was thrown onto the concrete after flying through the air, and that knees, elbows, and the face tended to get fairly bloody, while the head didn’t – although the latter seemed to “hurt” more…
So there I was by 8 very happy with Jesus, God, and Lucifer. (It was round about the same time that my family and I returned home to India). I knew JGL were in me, outside me, everywhere I was, and always with me. Yes, sure – my faith, belief, and call-it-whatever-you-will was very much culturally rooted and very much related to what I had experienced while growing up. Although I don’t know why I used to play the “Who Am I” game nor why I had felt an immediate bond with Lucifer (maybe it has something to do with the red birthmark in the shape of a '6' on my right foot!)– a bond that was and is as strong as the one that I have with My God, my current FIMH, and The Absolute, and of course with Jesus, The Buddha, and Krishna, and my old fimhs. And yes indeed. This bond, this connection, this belief, this experience with JGL and The Others – which is deeply personal (as anyone who “believes” will know) – was and is born out of love. An overflowing, overwhelming, and sometimes even a coldly rational and analytical love….it indeed was and is an all-embracing love. Complete and absolute.
I have wondered and wondered why sociologists have forever talked about “fear” as being the prime motivator (and in fact the “only” motivator) of religion, and the belief in God. Emile Durkheim, one of the classical theorists in Sociology said the same in the 1900s – and it seems that the sociologists of the 2000s have not been able to move away from the emotion of “fear”. To me it seems that the Western world is forecefully still much attached to the enticing web of the Enlightenment - the period when religion and science and "other forms of knowing" were split up for pressing reasons. There is a gradual and slow change that I can spot some glimpses of - but only time I guess will tell which way the pendulum will swing. As for the East, as for India - who knows. I have no idea what people believe as a country, as a Land, and as a collective which gave rise to some of the most enlightened philosophies and spiritual teachings since the Birth of Human Civilization. Indeed I don't even think that we "do" believe in anything as a collective.
And then of course, these days we have utterly moronic individuals like Richard Dawkins – who have not the sense nor the imagination nor the sensibility, and therefore go around blaring out the same idea of "Religion stinks", and such people make me cringe with embarrassment. That a human being, any human being (with such a wonderful accent), and a ‘scientist’ at that can be such an absolute fool, so full of prejudice, and be such a disgrace to the human race.
The other associated “progression” that I’ve noticed within sociological circles is that there is much talk today about the “Culture of Fear”, about the aspect of “fear” in our everyday lives. There are tonnes of literature for those interested (within the frameworks of Critical theory in the main). In popular circles there are “Fahrenheit 9/11” and “Bowling for Columbine” – a couple of the most famous "Moore movies", where Michael Moore pokes and prods at the “culture of fear” that’s been promoted over and across the United States through the centuries. While the studies and the articles and the books that I’ve browsed through on “Fear” are no doubt interesting at a level, what I find thoroughly amusing is that social scientists cannot bring themselves to explore the element of “Love”. They have no idea where or how to begin. Why, I wonder is it easier to talk about “fear” or write papers on “fear”, and why I wonder is there the strange reluctance to explore what “Love” means to different people, or what effect “Love” has on "different" worlds or on a Self in interaction with the world? Some odd years ago, the best psychologists and neuro-scientists could do was to carry out some experiments regarding the "biology" of love. As terribly interesting and almost capricious as the series was - and I remember seeing the two part series, which was telecast on National Geographic - it didn't even come close to 'really" exploring the emotion.
And then of course there are the ones who take up some other “religion” like Marxism or Leninism, or Leftism in one form or the other, and who will snootily and gratuitously disparage those who do have a deep spiritual sensitivity in them. And then there are some who are so enchanted and stuck to their own sense of “born-again” Christianity/Hinduism/Any-ism that they foolishly sneer at Others and call these “Others” “inferior” because apparently since these “Others” are in the process of stitching and creating (in some sense) their own quilt of spirituality with carefully gathered "teachings" over ages, and across spaces and more, these “Others” are "too weak” to follow religion as it has been laid down by the word of GOD in The Bible or in some religious text or the other. According to these Born-Agains – religious texts are to be taken whole and un-mutilated and never questioned nor interpreted even (!) by anyone. If I do – then “I just don’t get it”, according to these Sneer-ers. But the Sneer-ers themselves of course do interpret – but they interpret exactly as God wanted of them!
This is all for now. My post is by no means complete or anywhere near completion…but I will write by and by…More shall follow soon – for my stubborn Writer-Self if for No One else!
29 April 2008
DISGRUNTLED. And a bit of whimsy.
Okay, okay - I admit it. I am finally disgruntled. How come people visit my blog but leave no comments? The posts aren't that abstruse or nonsensical, even if I say so myself.
Why won't anyone post some comments? Is there nothing to be said? The last post that received a decent number of comments (of course half of the comments were my own!) was the one on exams!
I knew this was going to happen sooner or later. First just "write for fun and because it's almost like meditation, and so enjoyable anyway." And five days down the line, "Why won't anyone say anything?"
Oh, the irony of it!
Anyway, I'm going back to writing my wugga-wugga Statistics paper. Maybe it might "talk back to me."
-----29th April 2008
Wrote that above bit about a week ago. Today's the 3rd Of May. And I'm still feeling disgruntled. Not as much as before but I was quite smugly convinced that I would reach absolute "equanimity" regarding "non-responses" by this week. What a hope! There'll be more posts in the coming week. Well, at least one fresh one, which is jostling with another one to get "published" first.
Well, cheerio folks. Have a happy weekend….
Here it looks like a travelling tornado might go by any moment now. And yes, we apparently had an earthquake last week, on Friday. Somebody at the bus-stop said it was 6.2 on the Richter scale, and I had looked away embarrassed (in my head I'd said, "We wouldn't be standing here buddy, if that were a 6.2) but held my tongue. I slept through the earthquake though. Didn't feel a thing. Having gone to sleep really, really late - maybe half an hour before the earthquake hit (the ground rumbled and trembled at 5.37 a.m or so I heard, and read) - but I slept like a baby. Heard from Joe that he'd been having frightful dreams, and had been dreaming about a huge rumbling, hooting train, and he shot up awake, and felt the rumbling, and the trembling, and he was struck with horror thinking that a train was coming hurtling through his window (I think that's what he said). Namrata, when she felt the earthquake had greatly desired to go running outside, and feel the earth trembling beneath her feet. Ehren sounded just as excited about the earthquake. In fact he hollered across the road asking me whether I'd felt it, and I'd asked him, "Felt what?" Of course everyone was glad that it hadn’t been a “real” earthquake.
Apparently when I was 11 or 12 there had been an earthquake in Durgapur. But I had slept through that one as well.
As for the tornado warnings. We get them like clockwork every summer and spring. At least once. One thing I've never figured out is why they tell us to run down into the basement and stay there. Well - I get the "practical" side of it. But who's to say that anyone will be found after and if the rubble is ever cleared once a tornado does indeed fly by this sleepy town? Maybe one will be buried under the rubble and have to stay there with no smokes or drinks and no (terror of terrors) loo. Of course I don't know what I'd really do if a tornado did hit - but in the house that I now live (It is the best-est house on the best-est street - and this is the Absolute Truth) - the basement is certainly not a place to stay. The whole house (which is pretty old) will definitely collapse if a serious tornado does a pretty whirldance through our street. My whole street has pretty old houses...and most of them will probably disappear alongwith most of their inmates - because somehow I think almost all the eccentric inmates on our street will probably come charging down into the streets instead of staying down in the basement if indeed a tornado does come flying through. Or we might all get orange cones, and place caution signs all over - so that the tornado decides to leave us alone. I do think some of the inmates on the street might just do that…
I remember some 5 years ago – ‘round about the same time (almost exactly) a tornado warning had come through. I was staying in a delightful studio apartment at that point in time – having moved out of a Black Hole of a Dorm room where I’d spent the second year. My studio apartment was a little “sunken” into the ground, had huge French windows – which I never locked, and a porch. And since it was sunken – I could see the grass, the pretty flowers that erupted from the grass, the trees which had sprung lovely green shoots through the late Spring, and the early summer that had set in. And as I said, the door was always kept ajar when I was in the apartment, and was never locked even when I was out. In fact I had made it into a habit to make my exit and entrance by climbing out of the porch or leaping in. The studio had a bathroom the size of a royal Basket-ball field (well, almost). And a bath-tub (but obviously). And it had a walk-in closet where I did spend a considerable amount of time every now and again. It had a mini kitchen, and all the kitchen paraphernalia. It was a very well-kept apartment, and rent was cheap, and I’d done it up well, and after the previous Fall, and Spring which were rather ghastly – the apartment itself was enough to keep my head out of water, and the greyness which had been sweeping around.
Anyway, to get back to the tornado. So a tornado warning had come through. Outside the weather had really cracked up. Huge gales were blowing and howling. It was hardly past noon, but the sky, if it didn’t look black certainly looked ominous. Rain jets spurted through – but quite obstinately I refused to shut the Glass door. I sat there with my coffee and music and cigarettes, and my notebook – when the thought hit me that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to go walking near the river. And without wasting another second, I slipped my sneakers on, a long black raincoat (which belonged to my mum, and was some 20 years old – but as good as new. It makes me look like a detective or straight out of The Matrix when I wear it – even now. I always find myself wishing I were a few inches taller when I put that raincoat on), grabbed my packet of cigarettes, and a lighter, and made my way out of the porch.
Off to the river it was!
And the wind blew. And the rains blew into and across my face. Some folks whizzing by in their cars gave me “looks” and I grinned my toothy grin at them or gave them my blank impassive stare or glare as the fancy and mood caught me. I don’t know what scared them more – the grin or the glare. And I walked on. By the time I got to the Walkbridge over the river, I wasn’t really wet but fairly damp and soaking. Every now and again – I had felt that I would be blown away – but that didn’t happen. I, of course poo-poohed the idea of a real tornado ever coming through.
So there I was walking along the overbridge. The river looked nicely swollen. Not too much. And not too little. There were pretty currents whirling around in it, and the banks were covered in fresh, sprightly lime and laughing green grass stalks and shrubs, and the huge trees rose just a couple of feet further along, and completely overtook the landscape. That bridge and the river and the trees and the little train station across – makes this part of my town look almost European. Especially if you look across and catch sight of all the church steeples, and the famously Ugly but Grand County Court House. I surveyed my surroundings – only the rain sprays shooting into my face made it sort of difficult to keep my eyes open. At one point I remember thinking that I’d lost one of my contacts – but it had merely been dislodged with the rain jets. By this time of course my hair was completely plastered all over my head – so at least my hairmop wasn’t obstructing my view.
I lit a cigarette after some moments, and it got rather drenched in barely 17 seconds – but I didn’t care. I still puffed at it valiantly, and it didn’t go out on me. Finally after maybe a little over 33 minutes or so – I got up. The wind was still lashing around. But there really wasn’t much rain, or so I kept telling myself. It was just that the rain sprays were getting swept around in the gales. I walked around on the bridge for another some seconds, and finally walked back home. Not so much walked to be honest as much as forcibly pushed, and prodded, and hastily bumped along by the wind.
So I made it home pretty quick – even though it was uphill from the river.
As soon as I got near my porch to make my entrance – I spotted a head bobbing up and down near the stairway. And it looked like a familiar head. I was just about to go in from the proper entrance – when the head along with the body came out. And there was Beth.
“Where in heaven’s name were you?”
“Taking a walk by the river. Why?”
“Don’t you know a tornado warning has come through!”
“Ah…you don’t say.”
(And of course these were the wonderful days when I didn’t have a phone. I was quite relieved not having one, until my bro’ sent me his old phone through the mail!)
Beth and I walked back into my studio. I dropped in through the porch. I guess she did the same or walked through the proper door, down the stairs, and left turn. I don’t remember. I made some more coffee, and we had some cookies (biscuits. Biscuits – for crying out loud!). I put on some music. The rains were coming down without too much wind whipping around. At least that’s what I remember. I sat right near the Glass Door (French Windows/Glass doors – they’re the same thing) of course , looking outside, and steadily smoking and sipping my coffee. Beth was seated across near the foot of my bed or on a chair. And she gurgled with, “Shilps. It may not be the best thing to be sitting right in front of the window you know…”
“Ha-ha…maybe we should go and hide in the dryers or the washing machines.”
At that we laughed some more. There was some quiet conversation that bounced off the silence, some faint glass-bubble music playing in the background (I have the feeling it was Beth’s Jack Johnson cd), and then some time later Beth made her exit through the proper doorway. I went back to pottering around.
And the tornado went off to sleep.
Why won't anyone post some comments? Is there nothing to be said? The last post that received a decent number of comments (of course half of the comments were my own!) was the one on exams!
I knew this was going to happen sooner or later. First just "write for fun and because it's almost like meditation, and so enjoyable anyway." And five days down the line, "Why won't anyone say anything?"
Oh, the irony of it!
Anyway, I'm going back to writing my wugga-wugga Statistics paper. Maybe it might "talk back to me."
-----29th April 2008
Wrote that above bit about a week ago. Today's the 3rd Of May. And I'm still feeling disgruntled. Not as much as before but I was quite smugly convinced that I would reach absolute "equanimity" regarding "non-responses" by this week. What a hope! There'll be more posts in the coming week. Well, at least one fresh one, which is jostling with another one to get "published" first.
Well, cheerio folks. Have a happy weekend….
Here it looks like a travelling tornado might go by any moment now. And yes, we apparently had an earthquake last week, on Friday. Somebody at the bus-stop said it was 6.2 on the Richter scale, and I had looked away embarrassed (in my head I'd said, "We wouldn't be standing here buddy, if that were a 6.2) but held my tongue. I slept through the earthquake though. Didn't feel a thing. Having gone to sleep really, really late - maybe half an hour before the earthquake hit (the ground rumbled and trembled at 5.37 a.m or so I heard, and read) - but I slept like a baby. Heard from Joe that he'd been having frightful dreams, and had been dreaming about a huge rumbling, hooting train, and he shot up awake, and felt the rumbling, and the trembling, and he was struck with horror thinking that a train was coming hurtling through his window (I think that's what he said). Namrata, when she felt the earthquake had greatly desired to go running outside, and feel the earth trembling beneath her feet. Ehren sounded just as excited about the earthquake. In fact he hollered across the road asking me whether I'd felt it, and I'd asked him, "Felt what?" Of course everyone was glad that it hadn’t been a “real” earthquake.
Apparently when I was 11 or 12 there had been an earthquake in Durgapur. But I had slept through that one as well.
As for the tornado warnings. We get them like clockwork every summer and spring. At least once. One thing I've never figured out is why they tell us to run down into the basement and stay there. Well - I get the "practical" side of it. But who's to say that anyone will be found after and if the rubble is ever cleared once a tornado does indeed fly by this sleepy town? Maybe one will be buried under the rubble and have to stay there with no smokes or drinks and no (terror of terrors) loo. Of course I don't know what I'd really do if a tornado did hit - but in the house that I now live (It is the best-est house on the best-est street - and this is the Absolute Truth) - the basement is certainly not a place to stay. The whole house (which is pretty old) will definitely collapse if a serious tornado does a pretty whirldance through our street. My whole street has pretty old houses...and most of them will probably disappear alongwith most of their inmates - because somehow I think almost all the eccentric inmates on our street will probably come charging down into the streets instead of staying down in the basement if indeed a tornado does come flying through. Or we might all get orange cones, and place caution signs all over - so that the tornado decides to leave us alone. I do think some of the inmates on the street might just do that…
I remember some 5 years ago – ‘round about the same time (almost exactly) a tornado warning had come through. I was staying in a delightful studio apartment at that point in time – having moved out of a Black Hole of a Dorm room where I’d spent the second year. My studio apartment was a little “sunken” into the ground, had huge French windows – which I never locked, and a porch. And since it was sunken – I could see the grass, the pretty flowers that erupted from the grass, the trees which had sprung lovely green shoots through the late Spring, and the early summer that had set in. And as I said, the door was always kept ajar when I was in the apartment, and was never locked even when I was out. In fact I had made it into a habit to make my exit and entrance by climbing out of the porch or leaping in. The studio had a bathroom the size of a royal Basket-ball field (well, almost). And a bath-tub (but obviously). And it had a walk-in closet where I did spend a considerable amount of time every now and again. It had a mini kitchen, and all the kitchen paraphernalia. It was a very well-kept apartment, and rent was cheap, and I’d done it up well, and after the previous Fall, and Spring which were rather ghastly – the apartment itself was enough to keep my head out of water, and the greyness which had been sweeping around.
Anyway, to get back to the tornado. So a tornado warning had come through. Outside the weather had really cracked up. Huge gales were blowing and howling. It was hardly past noon, but the sky, if it didn’t look black certainly looked ominous. Rain jets spurted through – but quite obstinately I refused to shut the Glass door. I sat there with my coffee and music and cigarettes, and my notebook – when the thought hit me that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to go walking near the river. And without wasting another second, I slipped my sneakers on, a long black raincoat (which belonged to my mum, and was some 20 years old – but as good as new. It makes me look like a detective or straight out of The Matrix when I wear it – even now. I always find myself wishing I were a few inches taller when I put that raincoat on), grabbed my packet of cigarettes, and a lighter, and made my way out of the porch.
Off to the river it was!
And the wind blew. And the rains blew into and across my face. Some folks whizzing by in their cars gave me “looks” and I grinned my toothy grin at them or gave them my blank impassive stare or glare as the fancy and mood caught me. I don’t know what scared them more – the grin or the glare. And I walked on. By the time I got to the Walkbridge over the river, I wasn’t really wet but fairly damp and soaking. Every now and again – I had felt that I would be blown away – but that didn’t happen. I, of course poo-poohed the idea of a real tornado ever coming through.
So there I was walking along the overbridge. The river looked nicely swollen. Not too much. And not too little. There were pretty currents whirling around in it, and the banks were covered in fresh, sprightly lime and laughing green grass stalks and shrubs, and the huge trees rose just a couple of feet further along, and completely overtook the landscape. That bridge and the river and the trees and the little train station across – makes this part of my town look almost European. Especially if you look across and catch sight of all the church steeples, and the famously Ugly but Grand County Court House. I surveyed my surroundings – only the rain sprays shooting into my face made it sort of difficult to keep my eyes open. At one point I remember thinking that I’d lost one of my contacts – but it had merely been dislodged with the rain jets. By this time of course my hair was completely plastered all over my head – so at least my hairmop wasn’t obstructing my view.
I lit a cigarette after some moments, and it got rather drenched in barely 17 seconds – but I didn’t care. I still puffed at it valiantly, and it didn’t go out on me. Finally after maybe a little over 33 minutes or so – I got up. The wind was still lashing around. But there really wasn’t much rain, or so I kept telling myself. It was just that the rain sprays were getting swept around in the gales. I walked around on the bridge for another some seconds, and finally walked back home. Not so much walked to be honest as much as forcibly pushed, and prodded, and hastily bumped along by the wind.
So I made it home pretty quick – even though it was uphill from the river.
As soon as I got near my porch to make my entrance – I spotted a head bobbing up and down near the stairway. And it looked like a familiar head. I was just about to go in from the proper entrance – when the head along with the body came out. And there was Beth.
“Where in heaven’s name were you?”
“Taking a walk by the river. Why?”
“Don’t you know a tornado warning has come through!”
“Ah…you don’t say.”
(And of course these were the wonderful days when I didn’t have a phone. I was quite relieved not having one, until my bro’ sent me his old phone through the mail!)
Beth and I walked back into my studio. I dropped in through the porch. I guess she did the same or walked through the proper door, down the stairs, and left turn. I don’t remember. I made some more coffee, and we had some cookies (biscuits. Biscuits – for crying out loud!). I put on some music. The rains were coming down without too much wind whipping around. At least that’s what I remember. I sat right near the Glass Door (French Windows/Glass doors – they’re the same thing) of course , looking outside, and steadily smoking and sipping my coffee. Beth was seated across near the foot of my bed or on a chair. And she gurgled with, “Shilps. It may not be the best thing to be sitting right in front of the window you know…”
“Ha-ha…maybe we should go and hide in the dryers or the washing machines.”
At that we laughed some more. There was some quiet conversation that bounced off the silence, some faint glass-bubble music playing in the background (I have the feeling it was Beth’s Jack Johnson cd), and then some time later Beth made her exit through the proper doorway. I went back to pottering around.
And the tornado went off to sleep.
27 April 2008
In connection to Magical Teachers
I received some interesting questions from Sayan who took the time to write in his comments for the post "Magical Teachers Through the Centuries". There seems to be some general confusion regarding my post on 'Magical teachers...' While answering Sayan's questions, I went into long explanations - and I think the questions and the comments may as well be another blog-post.
Dear Sayan,
First off, I’ll thank you for taking the time to post such a carefully thought out comment.
I’ll answer your questions as best as I can. And I will say at the onset that this is how I ‘see’ it; this is what I have learned through time and space: given that I’m looking at the world with the lenses that I wear – and my lenses make me see the world in a particular way (the notion of the ‘lenses shape the world that we see’ is from Steven Covey).
In addtion: One point I should clear out is that my focus ultimately was not so much on Teachers and Students as isolated islands but on the interactive and circular nature of certain Teacher-Student relationships. By "Interactive" and "circular" I essentially mean that love, trust, respect, admiration, and much more and beyond are mutual sentiments, experienced by both the Teacher and The Student for each other in these relationships, and these sentiments cannot be categorized by the label of "how much" and "who respects/loves the other more". Thus my focus was on these relationships that are created, these bonds that are co-established, these connections/this communion that is shared - sometimes inarticulate, sometimes inexpressible, and sometimes voiced, but always unique, and inordinately precious between certain "Magical" Teachers and some "Mystical" Students through the centuries.
Having said that, I’ll take up your comments point by point.
1. “This absolute trust for a teacher that you are talking about - does it imply blind trust?”
I am very wary of using the term ‘blind’ trust; although I will call it an ‘intuitive trust’. I do not believe in completely discounting my own experiences and my own lessons – no matter what. I take what comes from a teacher (any teacher) –and I take in the teachings from teachers I respect, love, and trust – with both more and less resistance. I know that sounds contradictory – but that’s the way I work. I swallow a lot of my pride and let my ego rest a bit but at the same time there is an increase in my stubbornness. While I don’t completely discount and throw away ‘my’ own experiences – I still pay and keep on paying close attention to what is coming from My Teacher, and keep weighing out the scales.
In this context I will say that personally, I have in rare encounters experienced Absolute Trust. The funny thing is that I have noticed that Absolute Trust too has qualitatively different textures to it. But about this - some other day. But yes, I have experienced absolute trust, which comes from somewhere very deep inside.
2. “…it seems to me that it ultimately boils down to the honesty of the teacher and the student towards themselves first and then towards each other. But are there not instances when two highly knowledgeable and honest people look at the same thing and see it differently?”
a. It’s not about ‘knowledge’ and honesty alone – although these are definitely important. Knowledge could refer to book-knowledge; it could refer to ‘how much’ an individual knows, it could refer to how much ‘information’ an individual can remember over the years, it can also refer to the interconnections made through one’s readings and experiences.
b. But there are other extremely essential components, which to me are those of wisdom, consciousness, sensitivity, spirituality, and awareness. All these are not identical although interrelated terms, and these terms mean something specific to me. The way for me to sense these in a teacher (or in anyone for that matter) is not through my analytical and logical skills (although these help in certain specific situations) – but come to me in an intuitive flash. I know; I sense, and I feel these although I may not have any ‘rational proof’ of the same in the first instant.
Once again a) and b) are most definitely inter-related – at least for me. Both a) and b) in a teacher brings about balance in my mind.
3. “For instance many great people have been known to be unbalanced and whimsical, sometimes to the point of being destructive and yet, it must be agreed that there is a very close connection between their unbalanced ways and their creative genius.”
I happen to have read (and still read) a fair bit on the interconnections between creativity and genius, and had been extremely intrigued about these interconnections for the longest time. (The substantive area of “Creativity/Genius and what is currently known as ‘Bi-polar’ disorder” made up for awhile my main readings for my Masters). While it is a humongous area to wade through in some ways, and there are seeming contradictions and paradoxes in the understanding of the issue, I can (in brief) for the time being present my understanding of it.
My understanding is that while the ‘whimsical and unbalanced’ geniuses did indeed create fine works of art, and MAY indeed not have produced these had they not been thus; I would say that there is still the higher probability not to mention possibility that had they been able to ‘stabilise’ themselves and ‘balance’ themselves, and ‘integrate’ themselves – they would have lived longer for one thing, (instead of killing themselves or simply dying young through repeated fits of frenzy), and they would’ve kept producing fine pieces.
Also, if you dig a little deeper you will find that the most ‘productive’ geniuses were the ones that were ‘stable’ and ‘balanced’ and ‘integrated’. I can cite the standing example of Tagore. This does not mean that he did not experience enormous highs and lows, nor does it mean that he lacked sensitivity or fineness – it simply means that he did not destruct other lives around him nor did he self-explode in a massive fit of destruction.
Yet another fine example is that of St. Francis of Assisi, who as the ‘story’ goes, had fantastic visions and was hearing the Voice of God. Finally came a day when he was running down the roads stark naked, yelling and bellowing “we must build a church on the end of this road. God told me to…!” He was pelted with stones and driven away.
He left for the forest. Meditated. “Calmed himself down”. Regained/reconnected to his Sense of Balance. Reached “Enlightenment” (or call it what-you-will). He left the forest after re-integrating with His Self, His Spirit, His God, and the rest of course is History.
So personally I have come to the firm conclusion that there is nothing good in being ‘wayward and unbalanced’ (being whimsical in moderate doses is actually fine, at least in my book). Yes, possibly the merit of ‘creative genius’ might do a bit to dampen the pain and the agony that these individuals go through. Yet channelized creative passion is the only form that really ‘works in the long run’.
Also, it needs to be understood that even Van Gogh - emotionally and mentally unbalanced as he was, was certainly not "unbalanced" when he was painting. So one thing is clear: Unbalanced as one may be - in order to DO anything 'well' or in order to be "outstanding" one must be FIRMLY balanced while engaged in that creative act (be that painting, composing, sculpting, what-have-you).
Also, my additional tuppence thoughts on this is that most scholars and practioners (with very few exceptions) who have brought our attention to the interconnections among The (Un)Holy Trinity of "Creativity, Genius and Madness" have not made a clear and important distinction between balance and repression. And THIS according to me has been the problem in our comprehension of the "Mad Artist". The "Mad Artist" too can lead a perfectly balanced, creative, passionate, and fulfilling life. The key is to not "repress" the "Mad Artist" but to lead him/her to a state where s/he can engage in a balanced but no less creative state of being and doing. This is of course a topic, about which much much more can be said, but my ‘relatively' short answer would be the above.
4. “Hence in situations where the student realizes that the teacher, with all his knowledge, honesty and wisdom is strait jacketing him on a front, which he (the student) associates with his very survival; what path must he follow then?”
Ha!Ha!Ha! The student must follow The Path of HIS/HER CHOICE. Where is the dilemma here? But remember there are other aspects apart from knowledge, honesty, and wisdom. Also there is the art and science of balance. But certainly – all said and done it is the student who makes certain choices (if not all of them!). As has been said – even the greatest teachers can only point to The Path(s). The rest is upto the student/disciple.
5. “Lastly, they say that the task of a teacher is to help his student look at things with clarity, cognition and equanimity and learn to trust himself- rather that inner voice within.”
First off ‘cognition’ itself means either ‘the process of knowing’ or the ‘end product of knowing’. So I’d say that a teacher helps his/her students cognize with clarity and equanimity, among other things, and I will say a resounding ‘yes’ in relation to ‘trusting and listening to the Inner Voice.’
6. “But when a student reaches that state he doesn’t need the teacher anymore. Now, when both the teacher and the student have elevated themselves to both moral and intellectual profoundness; is it possible that their ideals won’t match, even be sometimes exactly opposite?”
Insofar as ‘need’ is concerned: possibly, possibly not. This really and fully depends upon how one understands and what one means by the word ‘need’.
I, for one will. As I understand ‘need’. Yet I cannot make generalizations from my own perspective. But true enough – the form and the content of that need changes through any meaningful ‘teacher-student’ interaction.
As for your last question: I can’t give you a pat answer. That is, once again – I can forward my own views and in connection to what I’ve seen around me – but I cannot say ‘yes, of course’, or ‘no, of course not.’
But I will once again stress that ‘intellect’ or even ‘basic goodness’ alone are not what are of absolute importance to me. Intellect at least as I see it – is much too bound and constricted. Even basic ‘good’ morality is not what makes for ‘profound’ spiritual experiences, unique lessons and crucial teachings. Therefore I would have to go back to my tenets of spirituality, awareness, consciousness, sensitivity, and wisdom – which lead to the fine and final balance.
Would Ramkrishna be seen as a man of ‘intellect’, for instance? You see, there is more to being a Teacher (at least the kinds that I am concerned about in my essay) than being ‘honest’ and intellectually gifted.
Thus, I would say that in ‘intellectual’ matters, students and teachers may certainly experience a complete rift. No doubt about that. Jung and Freud, for example had parted ways.
However, in the most profound sense – true teachers and disciples most likely will not be at complete loggerheads regarding the truly cardinal ‘ideals’ (whatever that be: whether it is the belief in Work, Life, and Love as being sacred or whether it be the belief in the Unity of Self or what-have-you).
7. “I couldn’t figure out who was right and who was wrong – it seemed to me that both were right in themselves. So in cases where right and wrong overlap and merge to become obscure (or seem to be so) what is the way out?”
This is a very interesting question (as were all your questions) because there are a couple of ways to answer it. I will answer it in immediate terms. In some ways I’ve already hinted to it. The personal lenses through which I view my world indeed do make a difference.
Not knowing though exactly what the ‘dispute’ between the fictional characters was – I can’t give you a very definite answer.
But no matter. I will still articulate a method that I have found useful in different ways and at different times.
In cases where ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ do seemingly merge – one has to ‘see’ the problem. And I can’t stress this enough. One must see it as hard and as long and as intensely as one is able to within one’s mind – if one is serious about getting to the bottom and the top of the answer that satisfies one’s Spirit/Soul/Self. Sometimes the answers may jolly well come across as contradictions or paradoxes. But once one gets beyond that – one is able to ‘see’ a little more clearly than before. The other point to remember is that not each and every ‘problem’ or dichotomy needs to be understood, and ‘seen’. The key is to look for abstractions alongwith specifics. The key is to be able to cluster and divide and then cluster up all the apparently related issues, which one is trying to understand or resolve.
There, I’ve reached the end of your question list. And no, I didn’t for one moment think that you were nit-picking or trying to pose as a ‘know-it-all’. I hope some of my points may be of some help.
Once again: Thank you for raising the questions that you have!
Take care.
Shilpidi
Dear Sayan,
First off, I’ll thank you for taking the time to post such a carefully thought out comment.
I’ll answer your questions as best as I can. And I will say at the onset that this is how I ‘see’ it; this is what I have learned through time and space: given that I’m looking at the world with the lenses that I wear – and my lenses make me see the world in a particular way (the notion of the ‘lenses shape the world that we see’ is from Steven Covey).
In addtion: One point I should clear out is that my focus ultimately was not so much on Teachers and Students as isolated islands but on the interactive and circular nature of certain Teacher-Student relationships. By "Interactive" and "circular" I essentially mean that love, trust, respect, admiration, and much more and beyond are mutual sentiments, experienced by both the Teacher and The Student for each other in these relationships, and these sentiments cannot be categorized by the label of "how much" and "who respects/loves the other more". Thus my focus was on these relationships that are created, these bonds that are co-established, these connections/this communion that is shared - sometimes inarticulate, sometimes inexpressible, and sometimes voiced, but always unique, and inordinately precious between certain "Magical" Teachers and some "Mystical" Students through the centuries.
Having said that, I’ll take up your comments point by point.
1. “This absolute trust for a teacher that you are talking about - does it imply blind trust?”
I am very wary of using the term ‘blind’ trust; although I will call it an ‘intuitive trust’. I do not believe in completely discounting my own experiences and my own lessons – no matter what. I take what comes from a teacher (any teacher) –and I take in the teachings from teachers I respect, love, and trust – with both more and less resistance. I know that sounds contradictory – but that’s the way I work. I swallow a lot of my pride and let my ego rest a bit but at the same time there is an increase in my stubbornness. While I don’t completely discount and throw away ‘my’ own experiences – I still pay and keep on paying close attention to what is coming from My Teacher, and keep weighing out the scales.
In this context I will say that personally, I have in rare encounters experienced Absolute Trust. The funny thing is that I have noticed that Absolute Trust too has qualitatively different textures to it. But about this - some other day. But yes, I have experienced absolute trust, which comes from somewhere very deep inside.
2. “…it seems to me that it ultimately boils down to the honesty of the teacher and the student towards themselves first and then towards each other. But are there not instances when two highly knowledgeable and honest people look at the same thing and see it differently?”
a. It’s not about ‘knowledge’ and honesty alone – although these are definitely important. Knowledge could refer to book-knowledge; it could refer to ‘how much’ an individual knows, it could refer to how much ‘information’ an individual can remember over the years, it can also refer to the interconnections made through one’s readings and experiences.
b. But there are other extremely essential components, which to me are those of wisdom, consciousness, sensitivity, spirituality, and awareness. All these are not identical although interrelated terms, and these terms mean something specific to me. The way for me to sense these in a teacher (or in anyone for that matter) is not through my analytical and logical skills (although these help in certain specific situations) – but come to me in an intuitive flash. I know; I sense, and I feel these although I may not have any ‘rational proof’ of the same in the first instant.
Once again a) and b) are most definitely inter-related – at least for me. Both a) and b) in a teacher brings about balance in my mind.
3. “For instance many great people have been known to be unbalanced and whimsical, sometimes to the point of being destructive and yet, it must be agreed that there is a very close connection between their unbalanced ways and their creative genius.”
I happen to have read (and still read) a fair bit on the interconnections between creativity and genius, and had been extremely intrigued about these interconnections for the longest time. (The substantive area of “Creativity/Genius and what is currently known as ‘Bi-polar’ disorder” made up for awhile my main readings for my Masters). While it is a humongous area to wade through in some ways, and there are seeming contradictions and paradoxes in the understanding of the issue, I can (in brief) for the time being present my understanding of it.
My understanding is that while the ‘whimsical and unbalanced’ geniuses did indeed create fine works of art, and MAY indeed not have produced these had they not been thus; I would say that there is still the higher probability not to mention possibility that had they been able to ‘stabilise’ themselves and ‘balance’ themselves, and ‘integrate’ themselves – they would have lived longer for one thing, (instead of killing themselves or simply dying young through repeated fits of frenzy), and they would’ve kept producing fine pieces.
Also, if you dig a little deeper you will find that the most ‘productive’ geniuses were the ones that were ‘stable’ and ‘balanced’ and ‘integrated’. I can cite the standing example of Tagore. This does not mean that he did not experience enormous highs and lows, nor does it mean that he lacked sensitivity or fineness – it simply means that he did not destruct other lives around him nor did he self-explode in a massive fit of destruction.
Yet another fine example is that of St. Francis of Assisi, who as the ‘story’ goes, had fantastic visions and was hearing the Voice of God. Finally came a day when he was running down the roads stark naked, yelling and bellowing “we must build a church on the end of this road. God told me to…!” He was pelted with stones and driven away.
He left for the forest. Meditated. “Calmed himself down”. Regained/reconnected to his Sense of Balance. Reached “Enlightenment” (or call it what-you-will). He left the forest after re-integrating with His Self, His Spirit, His God, and the rest of course is History.
So personally I have come to the firm conclusion that there is nothing good in being ‘wayward and unbalanced’ (being whimsical in moderate doses is actually fine, at least in my book). Yes, possibly the merit of ‘creative genius’ might do a bit to dampen the pain and the agony that these individuals go through. Yet channelized creative passion is the only form that really ‘works in the long run’.
Also, it needs to be understood that even Van Gogh - emotionally and mentally unbalanced as he was, was certainly not "unbalanced" when he was painting. So one thing is clear: Unbalanced as one may be - in order to DO anything 'well' or in order to be "outstanding" one must be FIRMLY balanced while engaged in that creative act (be that painting, composing, sculpting, what-have-you).
Also, my additional tuppence thoughts on this is that most scholars and practioners (with very few exceptions) who have brought our attention to the interconnections among The (Un)Holy Trinity of "Creativity, Genius and Madness" have not made a clear and important distinction between balance and repression. And THIS according to me has been the problem in our comprehension of the "Mad Artist". The "Mad Artist" too can lead a perfectly balanced, creative, passionate, and fulfilling life. The key is to not "repress" the "Mad Artist" but to lead him/her to a state where s/he can engage in a balanced but no less creative state of being and doing. This is of course a topic, about which much much more can be said, but my ‘relatively' short answer would be the above.
4. “Hence in situations where the student realizes that the teacher, with all his knowledge, honesty and wisdom is strait jacketing him on a front, which he (the student) associates with his very survival; what path must he follow then?”
Ha!Ha!Ha! The student must follow The Path of HIS/HER CHOICE. Where is the dilemma here? But remember there are other aspects apart from knowledge, honesty, and wisdom. Also there is the art and science of balance. But certainly – all said and done it is the student who makes certain choices (if not all of them!). As has been said – even the greatest teachers can only point to The Path(s). The rest is upto the student/disciple.
5. “Lastly, they say that the task of a teacher is to help his student look at things with clarity, cognition and equanimity and learn to trust himself- rather that inner voice within.”
First off ‘cognition’ itself means either ‘the process of knowing’ or the ‘end product of knowing’. So I’d say that a teacher helps his/her students cognize with clarity and equanimity, among other things, and I will say a resounding ‘yes’ in relation to ‘trusting and listening to the Inner Voice.’
6. “But when a student reaches that state he doesn’t need the teacher anymore. Now, when both the teacher and the student have elevated themselves to both moral and intellectual profoundness; is it possible that their ideals won’t match, even be sometimes exactly opposite?”
Insofar as ‘need’ is concerned: possibly, possibly not. This really and fully depends upon how one understands and what one means by the word ‘need’.
I, for one will. As I understand ‘need’. Yet I cannot make generalizations from my own perspective. But true enough – the form and the content of that need changes through any meaningful ‘teacher-student’ interaction.
As for your last question: I can’t give you a pat answer. That is, once again – I can forward my own views and in connection to what I’ve seen around me – but I cannot say ‘yes, of course’, or ‘no, of course not.’
But I will once again stress that ‘intellect’ or even ‘basic goodness’ alone are not what are of absolute importance to me. Intellect at least as I see it – is much too bound and constricted. Even basic ‘good’ morality is not what makes for ‘profound’ spiritual experiences, unique lessons and crucial teachings. Therefore I would have to go back to my tenets of spirituality, awareness, consciousness, sensitivity, and wisdom – which lead to the fine and final balance.
Would Ramkrishna be seen as a man of ‘intellect’, for instance? You see, there is more to being a Teacher (at least the kinds that I am concerned about in my essay) than being ‘honest’ and intellectually gifted.
Thus, I would say that in ‘intellectual’ matters, students and teachers may certainly experience a complete rift. No doubt about that. Jung and Freud, for example had parted ways.
However, in the most profound sense – true teachers and disciples most likely will not be at complete loggerheads regarding the truly cardinal ‘ideals’ (whatever that be: whether it is the belief in Work, Life, and Love as being sacred or whether it be the belief in the Unity of Self or what-have-you).
7. “I couldn’t figure out who was right and who was wrong – it seemed to me that both were right in themselves. So in cases where right and wrong overlap and merge to become obscure (or seem to be so) what is the way out?”
This is a very interesting question (as were all your questions) because there are a couple of ways to answer it. I will answer it in immediate terms. In some ways I’ve already hinted to it. The personal lenses through which I view my world indeed do make a difference.
Not knowing though exactly what the ‘dispute’ between the fictional characters was – I can’t give you a very definite answer.
But no matter. I will still articulate a method that I have found useful in different ways and at different times.
In cases where ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ do seemingly merge – one has to ‘see’ the problem. And I can’t stress this enough. One must see it as hard and as long and as intensely as one is able to within one’s mind – if one is serious about getting to the bottom and the top of the answer that satisfies one’s Spirit/Soul/Self. Sometimes the answers may jolly well come across as contradictions or paradoxes. But once one gets beyond that – one is able to ‘see’ a little more clearly than before. The other point to remember is that not each and every ‘problem’ or dichotomy needs to be understood, and ‘seen’. The key is to look for abstractions alongwith specifics. The key is to be able to cluster and divide and then cluster up all the apparently related issues, which one is trying to understand or resolve.
There, I’ve reached the end of your question list. And no, I didn’t for one moment think that you were nit-picking or trying to pose as a ‘know-it-all’. I hope some of my points may be of some help.
Once again: Thank you for raising the questions that you have!
Take care.
Shilpidi
26 April 2008
"Look"
I've been meaning to put up a post for awhile now, but have been hustling and bustling through the last couple of weeks of my semester (not to mention) procrastinating more than usual apart from doing a fair bit of 'real' work. So the essays that I've been typing out need some more work and editing before I can put them up.
For now, I'm putting up the following, which is something that I wrote a couple of years ago for a rather unusual Anthropology class that I took.
The incident 'happened' somewhere inbetween, in some time-space continuum, when I was in a different country...
When I was about 5 or 6 years old I had wandered out of the class once. The teacher had turned her back for an instant to write on the blackboard and I had with a rather dazed expression on my face simply trotted out of the class. I had for some reasons (or maybe none), very badly wanted to see the green hills covered with the rising mist of the early spring rains. And so I had wandered out. I don’t remember whether I had ever previously felt the inclination to do something similar – I don’t even remember whether I had known that walking out of the class was something that was ‘not done’, I don’t quite remember whether the notion was somehow somewhere rooted in my subconscious mind that it was indeed something that children did not do – otherwise why would I have waited until the teacher’s back was turned?
But I did walk out.
I went on my solitary ‘strike’.
I wanted to see the hills. I had felt musty inside the classroom and so I had walked out. I plodded through the corridor, took a left turn and walked straight out of the glass doors. And then I crossed the playground and stood in the middle of the field with the sun dancing around in bands, the wind streaming down my back, and the green hills in the front. It could not have been more than a minute or two but I still remember the intense feeling of ‘nothing’ and ‘everything’ sweeping through me. The next thing I heard was the sound of fast falling footsteps and my slightly harried teacher looking at me from above.
“What are you doing here?” She asked me, and a little icily too.
I looked back at her and answered, “Looking. Look.”
So saying I pointed towards the hills and I can swear I saw a light in her eyes which chased across her face and soon enough she was smiling down at me while she gently tucked my fingers into hers and said, “Yes, I see…” We walked back then to the classroom while she whispered to me, “But don’t walk out of the classroom again…”
For now, I'm putting up the following, which is something that I wrote a couple of years ago for a rather unusual Anthropology class that I took.
The incident 'happened' somewhere inbetween, in some time-space continuum, when I was in a different country...
When I was about 5 or 6 years old I had wandered out of the class once. The teacher had turned her back for an instant to write on the blackboard and I had with a rather dazed expression on my face simply trotted out of the class. I had for some reasons (or maybe none), very badly wanted to see the green hills covered with the rising mist of the early spring rains. And so I had wandered out. I don’t remember whether I had ever previously felt the inclination to do something similar – I don’t even remember whether I had known that walking out of the class was something that was ‘not done’, I don’t quite remember whether the notion was somehow somewhere rooted in my subconscious mind that it was indeed something that children did not do – otherwise why would I have waited until the teacher’s back was turned?
But I did walk out.
I went on my solitary ‘strike’.
I wanted to see the hills. I had felt musty inside the classroom and so I had walked out. I plodded through the corridor, took a left turn and walked straight out of the glass doors. And then I crossed the playground and stood in the middle of the field with the sun dancing around in bands, the wind streaming down my back, and the green hills in the front. It could not have been more than a minute or two but I still remember the intense feeling of ‘nothing’ and ‘everything’ sweeping through me. The next thing I heard was the sound of fast falling footsteps and my slightly harried teacher looking at me from above.
“What are you doing here?” She asked me, and a little icily too.
I looked back at her and answered, “Looking. Look.”
So saying I pointed towards the hills and I can swear I saw a light in her eyes which chased across her face and soon enough she was smiling down at me while she gently tucked my fingers into hers and said, “Yes, I see…” We walked back then to the classroom while she whispered to me, “But don’t walk out of the classroom again…”
31 March 2008
Magical Teachers through the centuries
With two of my buddies (Pots and Pinks) writing in comments - I have been driven out of my glumpiness to post another post.
This one is a shortie (I humbly promise!).
It's about teachers.
So we Indians all know about the little tale about Drona and Ekalavya, and the latter's thumb, right?
Ekalavya comes over to Drona after practicing shooting for hours, and days, and through time comes over to Drona (possibly witha *snicker*): "Master, teach me Archery!"
Drona grunts, and mutters under his breath, "Stop the drama you fool. Err...hmm..."
Ekalavya says, "Oops. No sorry. This isn't a kung-fu movie. Err...Sorry. Re-take."
"Master" Ekalavya says, "I wish to give you a gift - for I practiced archery in front of your statue."
Drona stares at Ekalavya going, "Darnit what are my lines...what are my lines..."
Looks over at Arjuna and goes "Oh well. Okay. I say what, Eka - why dontcha try practicing without the thumb..."
Ekalavya gives him a look, and goes, "Psst. Be formal. We don't want people giving us strange looks."
Drona says, "Whaddya mean?"
Eka goes, "I don't know. Make it sound like you're a horrid teacher. All jealous and possessive, and nasty and mean."
Drona grins and says, "Oh, I see."
And so Drona thunders, "Ekalavya, you must give me your thumb now seeing that you "used" me!"
Eka whistles, chops his thumb off and dances off into the forests.
Later of course the three of them - Arjuna, Eka, and Drona have a laugh and many a snigger at the "cruel" depiction of Drona...
Different strokes for different students, I'm guessing.
Now let's hop over to the 20th centruy. A neat book by Paul Auster by the name of "Mr. Vertigo". A young boy is being taught by his master the art and science of levitation. In order to get the last some inches (or maybe it was a feet) to his "levitation level", the Master tells the student that the kid must sacrifice something...now let's not get into all the details. But the kid is kinduv scared about the whole "sacrificing something".
The Master reassures the student with, "No kid. i think chopping off your little finger will do the job...I think that's what's stopping your so-far admirable progress."
The kid whistles merrily and says, "Oh, the little finger. Sure! Won't really miss that one!"
This one is a shortie (I humbly promise!).
It's about teachers.
So we Indians all know about the little tale about Drona and Ekalavya, and the latter's thumb, right?
Ekalavya comes over to Drona after practicing shooting for hours, and days, and through time comes over to Drona (possibly witha *snicker*): "Master, teach me Archery!"
Drona grunts, and mutters under his breath, "Stop the drama you fool. Err...hmm..."
Ekalavya says, "Oops. No sorry. This isn't a kung-fu movie. Err...Sorry. Re-take."
"Master" Ekalavya says, "I wish to give you a gift - for I practiced archery in front of your statue."
Drona stares at Ekalavya going, "Darnit what are my lines...what are my lines..."
Looks over at Arjuna and goes "Oh well. Okay. I say what, Eka - why dontcha try practicing without the thumb..."
Ekalavya gives him a look, and goes, "Psst. Be formal. We don't want people giving us strange looks."
Drona says, "Whaddya mean?"
Eka goes, "I don't know. Make it sound like you're a horrid teacher. All jealous and possessive, and nasty and mean."
Drona grins and says, "Oh, I see."
And so Drona thunders, "Ekalavya, you must give me your thumb now seeing that you "used" me!"
Eka whistles, chops his thumb off and dances off into the forests.
Later of course the three of them - Arjuna, Eka, and Drona have a laugh and many a snigger at the "cruel" depiction of Drona...
Different strokes for different students, I'm guessing.
Now let's hop over to the 20th centruy. A neat book by Paul Auster by the name of "Mr. Vertigo". A young boy is being taught by his master the art and science of levitation. In order to get the last some inches (or maybe it was a feet) to his "levitation level", the Master tells the student that the kid must sacrifice something...now let's not get into all the details. But the kid is kinduv scared about the whole "sacrificing something".
The Master reassures the student with, "No kid. i think chopping off your little finger will do the job...I think that's what's stopping your so-far admirable progress."
The kid whistles merrily and says, "Oh, the little finger. Sure! Won't really miss that one!"
21 March 2008
Delusions and Fimhs II
Over these last months or so, I had increasingly grown quite bloody frustrated with my fimh (Friend in My Head). For there were no new insights (however personal, and however small or middling), there were no cruising conversations, no teasing, no throwing tantrums, no nothing. There it was – but apart from the usual, and regular “hi” – there was no movement. And so my question was, ‘What’s the point of having a voice in my head, if it’s of “no use”? Sure it’s pleasant every now and then. But there’s nothing for me to give my fimh, and God knows what fimh is going to give me that he hasn’t given me already…” Now all my fimhs (and I’ve had “different voices in my head” at different points in time – apart from the current extremely determined, stubborn and doggedly patient one, who refuses to leave, and I’m not complaining!) – have always left me with a nugget of priceless information, or knowledge or understanding or awareness. The other thing is that they never stay longer than they “think they need to”. I have nothing to do with when these fimhs have appeared, disappeared, or reappeared. I have no say in the matter. They have hung around, have knocked some sense into me, have sometimes scared the bejesus out of me (only to “teach” me a lesson), have sometimes held my hand or my head or me when I have wept, have had a couple of laughs with me, and have been both gentle, and hard on me and with me…but the one thing that I have noticed is that not one of them hung around for “keeps”. And not even my “yelling” would drag them out (from who-knows-where); there was not a whisper even from the other side – unless the specific fimh felt that he needed to be around.
So the presence of the present fimh has sometimes confused me (and on multiple levels) – but I’ve shrugged for most of the time, and have sometimes been quite bewildered…but there were no more answers – just yawns on both sides. Both fimh and me were emitting yawns, or so it seemed. So I was curious as to why fimh (the current fimh who’s been around for off and on to close to a decade now) was still around.
…Anyhow – to get on with my tale. So the flash of insight that has hit me lately is probably obvious to everyone else.
I received a gentle whack on my head for chatting too much in the chatroom. The person who whacked me, and the person who was irritated with my battery of chatting sessions are both real enough, and are exceptionally dear to me. Of course I was mortified. I was embarrassed beyond all belief that me, a 32 year old, had no discipline whatsoever. That I chatted like an obsessive compulsive addict. That if I ever saw the other people on-line, I would be bombing them without thought with a barrage of chat-lines. Bomb! Bomb! Bomb! Take that. And that. And another. For a part of that day after I’d received the message – I was in absolute shock. I numbly went back to work, finished some odds and ends, packed up my bags and left my department to go back home. I was waiting for the bus, when the realization hit me “poww”. And this time – well, it wasn’t my “fimh” or anyone else who handed me the nugget. It was my other self – at least one of them.
By itself thought communion is nothing but a mode of communication with possibly minimal use of “external” technology or “noise” or “sound”, or any of the other more conventional modes of communication. At this point – that really is all “thought-communion” is, or call it “thought-link” or “telepathy”. For me, at this point, “thought-link” as a medium of communication is rather erratic – singularly brilliant for some things, hopeless at other things, and quite diseased and warped at yet other things – only I seem to be getting infinitesimal bits better and terribly slowly too, at being able to separate the “genuine” thought-link” and the imaginary ones.
So the way I see “thought-communion” now is that it is neither innately glorious, nor diseased. There’s nothing intrinsically divine or devilish about the process. There is nothing “sane” nor “insane” about it – at least not “intrinsically”. Now if all of us could engage in “thought-link” without knowing how to maneuver the controls – we would head for an instant, screaming collision with death, destruction, madness, and mayhem (that’s one extreme possibility – and possibly a tale to be spun by a depressive and morbid ‘science-fiction’ writer?). If thought-link is “just” another means of communication and if we used it without knowing how to keep the process in check – it would be bad in the hands of some, useless in the hands of others, glorious in the hands of yet others, useful and practical in the hands of yet others, and possibly a beneficent tool for some, while being nothing but an addiction for some, and an irritant for yet some more through the diverse possibilities of use, misuse, and abuse of this medium of communication (about which I’ve written many pages in my diary).
“Thought-link/communion” would be, if it ever pans out in reality like “any other” invention, discovery or creation – open to the possibility of demonization (this has already happened in some forms, and is happening: think about the “mad”), “mundanization”, revolution, “consciousization”, “idolization”, and what-have-you. If we as a species had the option right now to set our “thought-link” powers to ON, it wouldn’t bring about world peace and advancement in human consciousness at all! An addiction is what it’ ll be for some within an alarmingly short time, and once the initial disbelief, shock, amazement, astonishment, and sheer profundity, and power of the process wears off for many – it’ll end up being a menace, a nuisance, and bore, and an irritation – not to mention a danger in the hands (or heads) of some.
Oh, sure – I’ll be the first to admit to the “beauty” of being able to communicate without “open speech” and sound and technology, and what-have-you – but the amusing thought that hit me right now is that maybe human beings “invented” speech as a process of selective filtering to remedy the “problems” of “thought-communion” and its abuse or misuse! (A short story comes to mind – one that hasn’t yet been written…)
All of us use “thought-link” to some extent. As the 18 year old writer of the second story told me, people who are very close can of course, every now and again read each other’s thoughts! So it does happen at some under-the-surface level. And of course I’m not saying that none of us should use it all…but it’s just this realization that even for me there has to be some balance, some calm acceptance of the “fact” that it’s neither a miraculous and super-conscious power (in and of itself) nor a curse, a horror, and a disease. Fimh, is my reality. Fimh is a very real being in my world – but fimh and “thought-communion”, while they may seem to be a couple of the most lovely and amazing elements about life – I know now that they are thus, for me, and in my world (and my world, as I’ve lately discovered is being steadily blessed more and more). “Thought-link” for me seems terribly vital, terribly precious, terribly fragile, delicate, and beautiful, and humorous sometimes, and other things beside. But these things are what “thought-link” means to me. For someone else “thought-link” may be nothing but the means of controlling other people in devious, cruel, and evil ways….for some other rare people – “thought-link” may be the means that they use to transmit their teachings, their awareness, their light, and their love. And so on and so forth.
Yet every single “discovery”, “invention”, “brilliant insight”, “remarkable idea” is open to distortion, is open to being mauled, is open to being carried to every horrible and glorious extreme. What haven’t we done in the name of some of the greatest religions, in the name of “righteous” economic and social principles (Socialism, Marxism, Capitalism), in the name of “love”?....and why? One of the reasons is because we see these as being innately “great”, as innately “right”, as innately “carrying the Truth” – and we say “we can kill, plunder, root out kill – for our way is the right way….” The most brilliant ideas that have captured some of the best minds throughout human history, have all been used in many diverse ways…
And if this is what we have done with every single creation, invention, discovery – or at least, almost every single thing – what had made me imagine that “thought-link” in itself would be humankind’s saviour?!
Sure – if it really is real – it means that the human mind has more power than we are currently using – okay, but we already know that…don’t we?
I end with two final thoughts – the funniest bits. Realising all of the above made me think that I had hit upon the ‘greatest truth of all’. Now I realise that the whole realization probably does no one any good apart from me, and I’m certainly not complaining!
The other funny thing is that some weeks ago: I dreamt that a person very close to me had written an essay on “Delusions”. I had woken up from the dream very excited because there in the essay was the answer (the answer to what, I do not know…just that the answer was important to me). I had woken up, and hurriedly smoked a cigarette – but for the life of me I couldn’t remember what the essay was all about…..
As for my fimh: I realise that my interactions with fimh are no longer frustrating nor boring – far from it…still is a mystery somewhat....and so.
So the presence of the present fimh has sometimes confused me (and on multiple levels) – but I’ve shrugged for most of the time, and have sometimes been quite bewildered…but there were no more answers – just yawns on both sides. Both fimh and me were emitting yawns, or so it seemed. So I was curious as to why fimh (the current fimh who’s been around for off and on to close to a decade now) was still around.
…Anyhow – to get on with my tale. So the flash of insight that has hit me lately is probably obvious to everyone else.
I received a gentle whack on my head for chatting too much in the chatroom. The person who whacked me, and the person who was irritated with my battery of chatting sessions are both real enough, and are exceptionally dear to me. Of course I was mortified. I was embarrassed beyond all belief that me, a 32 year old, had no discipline whatsoever. That I chatted like an obsessive compulsive addict. That if I ever saw the other people on-line, I would be bombing them without thought with a barrage of chat-lines. Bomb! Bomb! Bomb! Take that. And that. And another. For a part of that day after I’d received the message – I was in absolute shock. I numbly went back to work, finished some odds and ends, packed up my bags and left my department to go back home. I was waiting for the bus, when the realization hit me “poww”. And this time – well, it wasn’t my “fimh” or anyone else who handed me the nugget. It was my other self – at least one of them.
By itself thought communion is nothing but a mode of communication with possibly minimal use of “external” technology or “noise” or “sound”, or any of the other more conventional modes of communication. At this point – that really is all “thought-communion” is, or call it “thought-link” or “telepathy”. For me, at this point, “thought-link” as a medium of communication is rather erratic – singularly brilliant for some things, hopeless at other things, and quite diseased and warped at yet other things – only I seem to be getting infinitesimal bits better and terribly slowly too, at being able to separate the “genuine” thought-link” and the imaginary ones.
So the way I see “thought-communion” now is that it is neither innately glorious, nor diseased. There’s nothing intrinsically divine or devilish about the process. There is nothing “sane” nor “insane” about it – at least not “intrinsically”. Now if all of us could engage in “thought-link” without knowing how to maneuver the controls – we would head for an instant, screaming collision with death, destruction, madness, and mayhem (that’s one extreme possibility – and possibly a tale to be spun by a depressive and morbid ‘science-fiction’ writer?). If thought-link is “just” another means of communication and if we used it without knowing how to keep the process in check – it would be bad in the hands of some, useless in the hands of others, glorious in the hands of yet others, useful and practical in the hands of yet others, and possibly a beneficent tool for some, while being nothing but an addiction for some, and an irritant for yet some more through the diverse possibilities of use, misuse, and abuse of this medium of communication (about which I’ve written many pages in my diary).
“Thought-link/communion” would be, if it ever pans out in reality like “any other” invention, discovery or creation – open to the possibility of demonization (this has already happened in some forms, and is happening: think about the “mad”), “mundanization”, revolution, “consciousization”, “idolization”, and what-have-you. If we as a species had the option right now to set our “thought-link” powers to ON, it wouldn’t bring about world peace and advancement in human consciousness at all! An addiction is what it’ ll be for some within an alarmingly short time, and once the initial disbelief, shock, amazement, astonishment, and sheer profundity, and power of the process wears off for many – it’ll end up being a menace, a nuisance, and bore, and an irritation – not to mention a danger in the hands (or heads) of some.
Oh, sure – I’ll be the first to admit to the “beauty” of being able to communicate without “open speech” and sound and technology, and what-have-you – but the amusing thought that hit me right now is that maybe human beings “invented” speech as a process of selective filtering to remedy the “problems” of “thought-communion” and its abuse or misuse! (A short story comes to mind – one that hasn’t yet been written…)
All of us use “thought-link” to some extent. As the 18 year old writer of the second story told me, people who are very close can of course, every now and again read each other’s thoughts! So it does happen at some under-the-surface level. And of course I’m not saying that none of us should use it all…but it’s just this realization that even for me there has to be some balance, some calm acceptance of the “fact” that it’s neither a miraculous and super-conscious power (in and of itself) nor a curse, a horror, and a disease. Fimh, is my reality. Fimh is a very real being in my world – but fimh and “thought-communion”, while they may seem to be a couple of the most lovely and amazing elements about life – I know now that they are thus, for me, and in my world (and my world, as I’ve lately discovered is being steadily blessed more and more). “Thought-link” for me seems terribly vital, terribly precious, terribly fragile, delicate, and beautiful, and humorous sometimes, and other things beside. But these things are what “thought-link” means to me. For someone else “thought-link” may be nothing but the means of controlling other people in devious, cruel, and evil ways….for some other rare people – “thought-link” may be the means that they use to transmit their teachings, their awareness, their light, and their love. And so on and so forth.
Yet every single “discovery”, “invention”, “brilliant insight”, “remarkable idea” is open to distortion, is open to being mauled, is open to being carried to every horrible and glorious extreme. What haven’t we done in the name of some of the greatest religions, in the name of “righteous” economic and social principles (Socialism, Marxism, Capitalism), in the name of “love”?....and why? One of the reasons is because we see these as being innately “great”, as innately “right”, as innately “carrying the Truth” – and we say “we can kill, plunder, root out kill – for our way is the right way….” The most brilliant ideas that have captured some of the best minds throughout human history, have all been used in many diverse ways…
And if this is what we have done with every single creation, invention, discovery – or at least, almost every single thing – what had made me imagine that “thought-link” in itself would be humankind’s saviour?!
Sure – if it really is real – it means that the human mind has more power than we are currently using – okay, but we already know that…don’t we?
I end with two final thoughts – the funniest bits. Realising all of the above made me think that I had hit upon the ‘greatest truth of all’. Now I realise that the whole realization probably does no one any good apart from me, and I’m certainly not complaining!
The other funny thing is that some weeks ago: I dreamt that a person very close to me had written an essay on “Delusions”. I had woken up from the dream very excited because there in the essay was the answer (the answer to what, I do not know…just that the answer was important to me). I had woken up, and hurriedly smoked a cigarette – but for the life of me I couldn’t remember what the essay was all about…..
As for my fimh: I realise that my interactions with fimh are no longer frustrating nor boring – far from it…still is a mystery somewhat....and so.
Delusions and Fimhs I
This last month has been a curious month really. Curious happenings – both inside and outside my head have unfurled. I must admit that at different points in my life there have been ‘curious’ happenings, but this time it’s as if I know they are curious pieces, and that they don’t fit into my regular jigsaw puzzle (about which I shall speak another time). Now I don’t want to get distracted by other thoughts – so I’ll write about this one curious ‘thing’ that’s been following me around for a fair while now.
This entry is about ‘thought-link, ‘thought-communion’ or ‘communicating without speech’. Now these are not my own ‘concepts’ or ‘terms’. They were used by two different writers, the first writer was a 17 year old when he wrote his story, and the second writer is currently about 18 years old. The first story is my all-time favourite short story – haunting, heartbreakingly beautiful, and I very much doubt whether any other story will ever replace this one as my all-time favourite. The second one is clear, stark, drenched in silence, and the first time around when I read it, it acted much like a zen whack on the head. I “heard” about the first one, almost exactly 5 years ago (read it about 7 months later), and the second one, I read a week ago.
We, that is my friends and I used to call "thought-link" ‘telepathy’ when we were growing up in school, some couple of decades ago. But that’s what it was “called” back then. “Do you know what I’m thinking?” or complementarily “I can read your mind.” Nobody actually said back then that the process could also be described as people talking to one another ‘with’ their minds and bodies, and other senses. The first time a friend of mine, Sumki and I actually carried out an experiment on ‘telepathy’ was right after her birthday, when we were about 16 or thereabouts. To make the process as unbiased as possible I went out of the room (so that I wouldn’t be able to observe any subconsciously processed signals (like eye movement and so on), while Sumki focused on ‘one single thing’. After some seconds or minutes, I came back, and said, “Balloons. That’s what you were thinking about. Balloons.” Both of us grinned I think, and we were quite delighted that the first run of our ‘scientific’ experiment had ‘worked’. The thing is none of the other runs panned out. I don’t remember, the specifics of the ‘failures’ – but we only met with one hit, and so we reasoned that “Balloons” was probably a rather “obvious” guess, since Sumki’s birthday had just passed by….
…And so for a while there were no other thoughts about “telepathy”. I won’t go into long, convoluted stories here – but the fact is when I was 21 I got horribly fascinated in the whole “communication without speaking” thing, and communication as a whole across barriers of space and time…”Contact” had made a big contact with me, among other things. Reality, as I had known it to be even in my own world received a big jolt. But I couldn’t figure out anything. All I felt was that there were other forms and patterns of communication possible – but I dealt with the “feeling”, by superficially believing that I was quite, quite loony, and cramming the odd bits of “solid evidence” that I had regarding “communication across barriers” into a box marked “coincidences”, and went on with my life, sometimes breaking out into mad fits – but gradually getting better at distinguishing between “being truthful” with others, and “letting others know only what they need to”. (My ramblings regarding “madness” per se will probably get around to being another post on this blog). So I went around doing my own thing, for most of the time – but I could get no closer at cracking open the puzzle of the “voices in my head”. Gradually, of course over the years, and by the time I was past my 26th year there was only one voice speaking inside me (apart from all my ‘other selves’). The curious thing about this ‘voice’ was that I knew it was ‘not me’. I knew it was not my imagination. The Voice, whom I started calling “fimh”, didn’t even make very good sense all the time. It never did really say “mean” things about me, nor did the voice make me “brilliantly creative” or a whiz in physics (which I would have enjoyed a lot). But sometimes it yelled out a cheery “Hi” in the middle of a boring class, and the “Hi” would jolt me out of my daze and doze, and I would grin inside my head. The voice kept me occupied, but eventually it just became something that was with me, inside me, and quite a mundane “something”, which provided me with some no, not kicks, but quite bizarre "together times", conversations (some of which I have no recollection of, and others which I remember more vividly than I want to), and there was nothing terribly distressing, disturbing, or even deliriously delightful about having fimh with me. At least not for the most part. I often wondered, quite “cockily” when I appeared to be quite “normal” and “sane” on the surface, why indeed I had gone barmy so many summers in a row, just because of a voice in my head! At least that’s what it had been the first time, and the second time, and the third…even the “fact” that as far as I was concerned, I knew that the voice was not a part of me (No. I didn’t tell myself, “…it’ll pass...”,when I had been choking into a pillow over the Kargil War) didn’t faze me any longer – at least for awhile. I had somehow resigned myself to the idea that I wouldn’t be able to figure out what it was anyway (all my deliberate attempts drove me barmy), and that “fimh” was just an oddity, no less, and no more, like a benign tumour, which I would live with.
And so that’s the first part of the tale. And yet. There is more. For if the above was all there was to my tale, I wouldn’t have bothered writing this on the blog. There’s been a new realisation of sorts. The truth is that I had secretly imagined that “thought-communion” – if it really were possible – was the ‘greatest’ miracle of all. That it would lead to the redemption of the human race. That it would take us to the next level of human consciousness, awareness, life, and living. “Thought-communion”! Oh God. It was the “cure” in my mind to “all and every” problem on our planet. I had imagined that if we, humans, knew that we could actually speak with and in our minds with each other, sense the other, whenever we wanted to know, whenever we needed to, we would all become one happy family, singing “We are the World”, or “Cumbya” by the ocean or along the mountain ranges. Heaven would be created on the planet. We would save ourselves, save our planet, save everything and everyone. Diseases, pestilence, cruelty, distributive injustice, greed, brutality, wars would all be immediately and in one swift stroke be negated. If “Thought communion”, “communicating without speaking” were really real, that’s what I secretly believed in. To me “thought communion” symbolised, no, it was equal to the glory, the beauty, the amazing grace, the brilliance, and the genius of the human mind. We would be a “new” race – an exceptionally mature, sensitive, kind, compassionate, and wise race…if only we all knew that “thought-communion” was really possible, and if the process itself were “really real”. And this is how I’ve felt off and on through a little over a decade now. Reading Rushdie’s ‘Midnight’s Children’, was an altogether bizarre experience for me. I felt as though I were trapped in the tunnels of my mind, when I was reading it. Not to know that the world didn’t suddenly become beautiful (far from it) but the fact that someone else out there had talked about “being able to communicate inside our heads”.
This entry is about ‘thought-link, ‘thought-communion’ or ‘communicating without speech’. Now these are not my own ‘concepts’ or ‘terms’. They were used by two different writers, the first writer was a 17 year old when he wrote his story, and the second writer is currently about 18 years old. The first story is my all-time favourite short story – haunting, heartbreakingly beautiful, and I very much doubt whether any other story will ever replace this one as my all-time favourite. The second one is clear, stark, drenched in silence, and the first time around when I read it, it acted much like a zen whack on the head. I “heard” about the first one, almost exactly 5 years ago (read it about 7 months later), and the second one, I read a week ago.
We, that is my friends and I used to call "thought-link" ‘telepathy’ when we were growing up in school, some couple of decades ago. But that’s what it was “called” back then. “Do you know what I’m thinking?” or complementarily “I can read your mind.” Nobody actually said back then that the process could also be described as people talking to one another ‘with’ their minds and bodies, and other senses. The first time a friend of mine, Sumki and I actually carried out an experiment on ‘telepathy’ was right after her birthday, when we were about 16 or thereabouts. To make the process as unbiased as possible I went out of the room (so that I wouldn’t be able to observe any subconsciously processed signals (like eye movement and so on), while Sumki focused on ‘one single thing’. After some seconds or minutes, I came back, and said, “Balloons. That’s what you were thinking about. Balloons.” Both of us grinned I think, and we were quite delighted that the first run of our ‘scientific’ experiment had ‘worked’. The thing is none of the other runs panned out. I don’t remember, the specifics of the ‘failures’ – but we only met with one hit, and so we reasoned that “Balloons” was probably a rather “obvious” guess, since Sumki’s birthday had just passed by….
…And so for a while there were no other thoughts about “telepathy”. I won’t go into long, convoluted stories here – but the fact is when I was 21 I got horribly fascinated in the whole “communication without speaking” thing, and communication as a whole across barriers of space and time…”Contact” had made a big contact with me, among other things. Reality, as I had known it to be even in my own world received a big jolt. But I couldn’t figure out anything. All I felt was that there were other forms and patterns of communication possible – but I dealt with the “feeling”, by superficially believing that I was quite, quite loony, and cramming the odd bits of “solid evidence” that I had regarding “communication across barriers” into a box marked “coincidences”, and went on with my life, sometimes breaking out into mad fits – but gradually getting better at distinguishing between “being truthful” with others, and “letting others know only what they need to”. (My ramblings regarding “madness” per se will probably get around to being another post on this blog). So I went around doing my own thing, for most of the time – but I could get no closer at cracking open the puzzle of the “voices in my head”. Gradually, of course over the years, and by the time I was past my 26th year there was only one voice speaking inside me (apart from all my ‘other selves’). The curious thing about this ‘voice’ was that I knew it was ‘not me’. I knew it was not my imagination. The Voice, whom I started calling “fimh”, didn’t even make very good sense all the time. It never did really say “mean” things about me, nor did the voice make me “brilliantly creative” or a whiz in physics (which I would have enjoyed a lot). But sometimes it yelled out a cheery “Hi” in the middle of a boring class, and the “Hi” would jolt me out of my daze and doze, and I would grin inside my head. The voice kept me occupied, but eventually it just became something that was with me, inside me, and quite a mundane “something”, which provided me with some no, not kicks, but quite bizarre "together times", conversations (some of which I have no recollection of, and others which I remember more vividly than I want to), and there was nothing terribly distressing, disturbing, or even deliriously delightful about having fimh with me. At least not for the most part. I often wondered, quite “cockily” when I appeared to be quite “normal” and “sane” on the surface, why indeed I had gone barmy so many summers in a row, just because of a voice in my head! At least that’s what it had been the first time, and the second time, and the third…even the “fact” that as far as I was concerned, I knew that the voice was not a part of me (No. I didn’t tell myself, “…it’ll pass...”,when I had been choking into a pillow over the Kargil War) didn’t faze me any longer – at least for awhile. I had somehow resigned myself to the idea that I wouldn’t be able to figure out what it was anyway (all my deliberate attempts drove me barmy), and that “fimh” was just an oddity, no less, and no more, like a benign tumour, which I would live with.
And so that’s the first part of the tale. And yet. There is more. For if the above was all there was to my tale, I wouldn’t have bothered writing this on the blog. There’s been a new realisation of sorts. The truth is that I had secretly imagined that “thought-communion” – if it really were possible – was the ‘greatest’ miracle of all. That it would lead to the redemption of the human race. That it would take us to the next level of human consciousness, awareness, life, and living. “Thought-communion”! Oh God. It was the “cure” in my mind to “all and every” problem on our planet. I had imagined that if we, humans, knew that we could actually speak with and in our minds with each other, sense the other, whenever we wanted to know, whenever we needed to, we would all become one happy family, singing “We are the World”, or “Cumbya” by the ocean or along the mountain ranges. Heaven would be created on the planet. We would save ourselves, save our planet, save everything and everyone. Diseases, pestilence, cruelty, distributive injustice, greed, brutality, wars would all be immediately and in one swift stroke be negated. If “Thought communion”, “communicating without speaking” were really real, that’s what I secretly believed in. To me “thought communion” symbolised, no, it was equal to the glory, the beauty, the amazing grace, the brilliance, and the genius of the human mind. We would be a “new” race – an exceptionally mature, sensitive, kind, compassionate, and wise race…if only we all knew that “thought-communion” was really possible, and if the process itself were “really real”. And this is how I’ve felt off and on through a little over a decade now. Reading Rushdie’s ‘Midnight’s Children’, was an altogether bizarre experience for me. I felt as though I were trapped in the tunnels of my mind, when I was reading it. Not to know that the world didn’t suddenly become beautiful (far from it) but the fact that someone else out there had talked about “being able to communicate inside our heads”.
20 March 2008
Holmes and Memory Loss
I had a funny thought yesterday. I do know that this is my imagination speaking - but still the thought itself is quite funny. To give a brief prelude (which I have already talked about in the almost never-ending post below): I have been in absolute fits of anger over the terrible state of my memory loss. I seem to be forgetting everything I read, and remember precious little in terms of dates, historical events, political incidents, non-fiction writers, and writings, and these days I even forget the novels that I read. Last year I read the fascinating 'Red Earth and Pouring Rain'. I remember not(a)thing about the book (it almost feels like I read it or lived through the book in a dream). The only thing I do remember is that when I was reading the book, I felt as though I was 'the talking monkey'. I really identified with the monkey. And that's all I remember about the book: that there was a talking monkey, who had been narrating a fantastic, colourful, vibrant, and violent tale of his past life...well, no - now I remember he wasn't a 'talking monkey' - he was actually a 'typing monkey'...
I know for sure that I would fail in a GK quiz. This is because combined with memory loss I also don't read much of what I should. And the reason I don't, is because my weak mind never remembers. It spits out the information within three days. So what's the point? And even if I do know a bit about what's going on around and in the world - I don't remember or really know the history of what preceded the current situation...Now mind you, I'm not proud of this. I have been in despair over this situation...and yet, my mind seems to be extremely sprightly about other matters (which seem not-very-important, not to mention terribly self-centred)...incidents which happened decades ago, people I interacted with, funny memories, and quirky ones of faces, meetings, stories...I even remember one conversation that I had with my mum regarding the "evil wolf" when I was 4 and had finished reading a ladybird version of "Little Red Riding Hood". I remember about my first infatuation at the age of 6, I remember how when we were 7, a childhood friend had upchucked in class, and ‘it’ was a bright yellow - and I had imagined that she had swallowed a great quantity of whole lemons, which had been pureed. I remember friends from school, the fun we used to have, the long conversations, birthday parties, having silent conversations with myself, being Obsessive Compulsive about washing my hands (!) five times in between eating a single meal, when I was 9; I remember the stories that my friends told me about their families, and siblings...so there are things I remember as well...like trying to physically peel off the masks off people's faces as a 7 year old, playing the game of 'rushen' at 'round about the same age - without really knowing what or why I was doing it. But there are things I can't remember. Things that I need to, things that I must, things that I want to...hence my steady rising despair yesterday broke through and made me stomp out of my computer lab and go out for a smoke and coffee.
As my anger and despair and grief about my own handicapped memory assaulted me, I was also suddenly struck by the fact that it was a problem for the whole human race. Human beings have short term memory. We don't remember the horror, brutality, and violence that we have brought upon our world across hundreds of centuries. We either don't remember or we forget. So we cringe at the horror of human sacrifice, and then we send our young, who are often our poorest off to a meaningless war with a cheery, "cheerio". We ban a horrific social practice in one part of the world, and then in the name of 'cultural relativism', (happens a lot in the social sciences) we uphold the same violation when it transpires elsewhere . Or conversely - we say something is all right if "I" do it but wrong if my "neighbour" half-way across the world engages in the same. And then we get into hundreds of dithering debates, acrimonious arguments, and verbal gymnastics - not to mention finger pointing, bloody war, political battles, and academic yabble-babble. But we don't "see" somehow that what's happening today is almost identical in content if not in form to the things that have happened hundreds and thousands of years ago - only now, we have some technological ‘finesse’ added to the menagerie. Killing, sodomizing, fighting, raping, plundering...horrific brutality. And of course the media does like the gristly stuff a lot. And it's not the media per se – we gulp it down, while sadly shaking our heads. There's a perverse fascination for blood, gore, and indignity exposed. And while it’s true that I wouldn’t want such violent stories, and the dreary stories, or the stories of injustice to be hidden away, it’s almost as if instead of becoming more sensitive and wise after reading or hearing about such episodes, we are becoming more used to it. What can I call it but an alarming and quite tragic case of ‘memory loss’? And stories about brilliance, goodness, dots of heaven appear ever so rarely...and I don't know whether those tiny dots are really tiny - or whether indeed they are just as widespread and profound as the ugliness.
Anyhow - the point that hit me was that the human race as a whole seemed to have an extremely short memory - just like me. And both are in an unhappy state, rather. And then as if all this were not enough - I realised that through my endless lifetimes, there's probably nothing I remember - at least not consciously (and I happen to believe in the notion of rebirth. can't go into this tangent now - but it is a belief and a 'knowing' that simply 'is' what it is). So every lifetime I come back - I'm most likely learning the same old lessons all over again. Heck! I can't even remember this lifetime and the stuff learnt - leave alone lessons from other lifetimes. And this thought dropped me into an even deeper pit of utter gloom. It was as if I were a student, forever stuck in Class 5, and forever failing every year!As this thought hit home, I was yelling inside. 'What a waste! What a terrible waste!'And then as I inhaled on my cigarette, I wondered, how incredible it would be if I could just remember - just remember all the things I needed to..so that the next time I come around to our planet - I'll be just a tad more 'wise' and aware.
And that's when the funny thought hit. I could hear Holmes saying out aloud (of course I always see Jeremy Brett in my head) - almost 'gonging' in my head, "Don't you remember what I said about the mind being an attic?" I said, "Of course I do! That's probably one of the seven things I remember from all your stories combined!" And then my mind started grinning inspite of myself. Half-chuckling, I said, "Ha! And you didn't want to remember the planets, or the fact that all the planets are spinning around the sun. Hyuck!Hyuck! You even said it was 'useless' information!" The chuckle disappeared from my head, as I retorted grumpily, "But so what? My own mind is stuffed with things that I don't need to remember. Useless bits and strings, and yards of information, memories, which have no purpose, use or...Gah-bah, anything! And I forget." Holmes smiled in my head. You know that half-smile, eyes almost shut but not quite, and he half-reclined in his chair, and deeply inhaled from his pipe, emitting some purple smoke. I looked back at him glumly, and said, "What?! I don't remember anything! I forget everything I need to remember and know - and remember everything I need to forget. My mind is an overstuffed attic, which remembers nothing. I remember nothing of what I read about the distinction between fusion and fission energy, the nuclear power issue, the ---"
"Fool!" Holmes replied sharply. His seemingly sleepy Self had disappeared, and he was staring at me in the face now - with that inimitable sharp, bright, and brilliant, and still half-amused expression glinting through him and his eyes. "Fool twice over!" So saying he wagged his pipe in front of my glum and glaring face. My eyes this time glinted back at him though. A sharp glint, and a twinkle flashed through. He smiled again, and with a laconic, "Excellent!" -“poofh”, he disappeared.
And this was the funny incident. The nugget Holmes threw in my way was that "maybe, just maybe, after all is said and done I do remember." Albeit, unlike Holmes I don't consciously remember to forget the things that I don't care to or need to remember.
Of course, it's only now that I say 'maybe'. What flooded into me in those seconds is that through my lifetimes I've probably decided that there are certain things that I won't and can't forget. That I won't forget how brutal I've been somewhere, sometime; that I won't forget about the blood, gore, and violence that I've engaged in sometime somewhere; that I won't forget the essence of the human spirit...even if I'm yet to understand it; that I won't forget that no idea, no invention, no discovery is inherently good or evil or bad; that I won't forget that given a choice between remembering bits of 'real' information and the ability to understand connections - I will pray that I have the latter, no matter how rudimentary or how basic my skills are at the second enterprise (Both would have been great...but what can I do); that I won't forget that any 'glorious' ideal can lead to bloodshed when it's seen as 'set in stone'; that I won't forget that real freedom is sacred, and that all life is sacred.... and much more. But the 'more' I'll leave for another day.
And that's what it was....the incident - the funny thing. I know it's my imagination. I know there's a part of me, which says that I'm just 'using' the 'incident' to justify the sickly health of my memory.
Nonetheless...there's a part of me which says," Ah, but I do remember what I need to and forget the things that I can afford to forget, at least for the nonce."
I know for sure that I would fail in a GK quiz. This is because combined with memory loss I also don't read much of what I should. And the reason I don't, is because my weak mind never remembers. It spits out the information within three days. So what's the point? And even if I do know a bit about what's going on around and in the world - I don't remember or really know the history of what preceded the current situation...Now mind you, I'm not proud of this. I have been in despair over this situation...and yet, my mind seems to be extremely sprightly about other matters (which seem not-very-important, not to mention terribly self-centred)...incidents which happened decades ago, people I interacted with, funny memories, and quirky ones of faces, meetings, stories...I even remember one conversation that I had with my mum regarding the "evil wolf" when I was 4 and had finished reading a ladybird version of "Little Red Riding Hood". I remember about my first infatuation at the age of 6, I remember how when we were 7, a childhood friend had upchucked in class, and ‘it’ was a bright yellow - and I had imagined that she had swallowed a great quantity of whole lemons, which had been pureed. I remember friends from school, the fun we used to have, the long conversations, birthday parties, having silent conversations with myself, being Obsessive Compulsive about washing my hands (!) five times in between eating a single meal, when I was 9; I remember the stories that my friends told me about their families, and siblings...so there are things I remember as well...like trying to physically peel off the masks off people's faces as a 7 year old, playing the game of 'rushen' at 'round about the same age - without really knowing what or why I was doing it. But there are things I can't remember. Things that I need to, things that I must, things that I want to...hence my steady rising despair yesterday broke through and made me stomp out of my computer lab and go out for a smoke and coffee.
As my anger and despair and grief about my own handicapped memory assaulted me, I was also suddenly struck by the fact that it was a problem for the whole human race. Human beings have short term memory. We don't remember the horror, brutality, and violence that we have brought upon our world across hundreds of centuries. We either don't remember or we forget. So we cringe at the horror of human sacrifice, and then we send our young, who are often our poorest off to a meaningless war with a cheery, "cheerio". We ban a horrific social practice in one part of the world, and then in the name of 'cultural relativism', (happens a lot in the social sciences) we uphold the same violation when it transpires elsewhere . Or conversely - we say something is all right if "I" do it but wrong if my "neighbour" half-way across the world engages in the same. And then we get into hundreds of dithering debates, acrimonious arguments, and verbal gymnastics - not to mention finger pointing, bloody war, political battles, and academic yabble-babble. But we don't "see" somehow that what's happening today is almost identical in content if not in form to the things that have happened hundreds and thousands of years ago - only now, we have some technological ‘finesse’ added to the menagerie. Killing, sodomizing, fighting, raping, plundering...horrific brutality. And of course the media does like the gristly stuff a lot. And it's not the media per se – we gulp it down, while sadly shaking our heads. There's a perverse fascination for blood, gore, and indignity exposed. And while it’s true that I wouldn’t want such violent stories, and the dreary stories, or the stories of injustice to be hidden away, it’s almost as if instead of becoming more sensitive and wise after reading or hearing about such episodes, we are becoming more used to it. What can I call it but an alarming and quite tragic case of ‘memory loss’? And stories about brilliance, goodness, dots of heaven appear ever so rarely...and I don't know whether those tiny dots are really tiny - or whether indeed they are just as widespread and profound as the ugliness.
Anyhow - the point that hit me was that the human race as a whole seemed to have an extremely short memory - just like me. And both are in an unhappy state, rather. And then as if all this were not enough - I realised that through my endless lifetimes, there's probably nothing I remember - at least not consciously (and I happen to believe in the notion of rebirth. can't go into this tangent now - but it is a belief and a 'knowing' that simply 'is' what it is). So every lifetime I come back - I'm most likely learning the same old lessons all over again. Heck! I can't even remember this lifetime and the stuff learnt - leave alone lessons from other lifetimes. And this thought dropped me into an even deeper pit of utter gloom. It was as if I were a student, forever stuck in Class 5, and forever failing every year!As this thought hit home, I was yelling inside. 'What a waste! What a terrible waste!'And then as I inhaled on my cigarette, I wondered, how incredible it would be if I could just remember - just remember all the things I needed to..so that the next time I come around to our planet - I'll be just a tad more 'wise' and aware.
And that's when the funny thought hit. I could hear Holmes saying out aloud (of course I always see Jeremy Brett in my head) - almost 'gonging' in my head, "Don't you remember what I said about the mind being an attic?" I said, "Of course I do! That's probably one of the seven things I remember from all your stories combined!" And then my mind started grinning inspite of myself. Half-chuckling, I said, "Ha! And you didn't want to remember the planets, or the fact that all the planets are spinning around the sun. Hyuck!Hyuck! You even said it was 'useless' information!" The chuckle disappeared from my head, as I retorted grumpily, "But so what? My own mind is stuffed with things that I don't need to remember. Useless bits and strings, and yards of information, memories, which have no purpose, use or...Gah-bah, anything! And I forget." Holmes smiled in my head. You know that half-smile, eyes almost shut but not quite, and he half-reclined in his chair, and deeply inhaled from his pipe, emitting some purple smoke. I looked back at him glumly, and said, "What?! I don't remember anything! I forget everything I need to remember and know - and remember everything I need to forget. My mind is an overstuffed attic, which remembers nothing. I remember nothing of what I read about the distinction between fusion and fission energy, the nuclear power issue, the ---"
"Fool!" Holmes replied sharply. His seemingly sleepy Self had disappeared, and he was staring at me in the face now - with that inimitable sharp, bright, and brilliant, and still half-amused expression glinting through him and his eyes. "Fool twice over!" So saying he wagged his pipe in front of my glum and glaring face. My eyes this time glinted back at him though. A sharp glint, and a twinkle flashed through. He smiled again, and with a laconic, "Excellent!" -“poofh”, he disappeared.
And this was the funny incident. The nugget Holmes threw in my way was that "maybe, just maybe, after all is said and done I do remember." Albeit, unlike Holmes I don't consciously remember to forget the things that I don't care to or need to remember.
Of course, it's only now that I say 'maybe'. What flooded into me in those seconds is that through my lifetimes I've probably decided that there are certain things that I won't and can't forget. That I won't forget how brutal I've been somewhere, sometime; that I won't forget about the blood, gore, and violence that I've engaged in sometime somewhere; that I won't forget the essence of the human spirit...even if I'm yet to understand it; that I won't forget that no idea, no invention, no discovery is inherently good or evil or bad; that I won't forget that given a choice between remembering bits of 'real' information and the ability to understand connections - I will pray that I have the latter, no matter how rudimentary or how basic my skills are at the second enterprise (Both would have been great...but what can I do); that I won't forget that any 'glorious' ideal can lead to bloodshed when it's seen as 'set in stone'; that I won't forget that real freedom is sacred, and that all life is sacred.... and much more. But the 'more' I'll leave for another day.
And that's what it was....the incident - the funny thing. I know it's my imagination. I know there's a part of me, which says that I'm just 'using' the 'incident' to justify the sickly health of my memory.
Nonetheless...there's a part of me which says," Ah, but I do remember what I need to and forget the things that I can afford to forget, at least for the nonce."
16 March 2008
Early days in January....
Early January 2008
There isn’t much to write about. The wind is howling outside and I’m sitting in the warmth. My imagination lies to waste and the heavy dregs of a depressive stupor are wafting through my mind. There is nowhere to go. Nowhere to run away. There is nowhere I want to go anymore. Even the mindless or the mindful thought or desire of death has long abandoned me. My mind has run dry. The thoughts about life and living occupy me no longer. The thoughts about the thrills of reaching a super-conscious level of awareness don’t excite me much. Death troubles me – acts of wanton killing, brutality, violence, bloodshed horrify me and hold me in their vicious grip. Yet I was no different as a child and I have done not much to make the world any better than it was before I arrived. The fact that we humans might either execute ourselves within seconds with a mindless nuclear war or through painful decades (or maybe a couple of centuries) by killing what’s left of our environment bothers me somewhat yet not enough evidently. I don’t take to the roads in protest nor do I strategize meaningful plans so that we may save ourselves and our planet. Poverty, hunger, violations of what should be inalienable rights make me feel desperate at times and uselessly helpless at other moments.
And so I wake up another day and yet another. Brushing my teeth and going through the motions. What difference does it make, I wonder? And I’ve been asking the same question ever since I can remember. But still the answers elude me. I’ve been a natural theist, an ardent atheist, an agnostic and then once again a believer. Yet even God is silent. And I haven’t found anyone else who can give me an answer. And I want an answer ‘pat’. Articulate, intelligible and easily applicable. No finger pointing to the moon, no one hand clapping, please. No zen tricks. What difference does it make, pray I ask, if the world does go up in smoke, if humans do wipe each other out, if people die miserable deaths, (leave alone innocent animals since we still haven’t been able to take care of our own species), if one race wipes out the other, if we kill our planet while we remain embroiled in meaningless pontification about climate change or natural resource depletion? The planet has gone through periods of extinction. And then through some scientific, metaphysical, mysterious quirk and quark of fate – life came back again. Yes, sure if at the end of the day we do wipe ourselves out we can have the satisfaction of nodding our heads sagely and saying that we were no better than the rather dimwitted dinosaurs.
…I agree that we seem to be a rather grotesque race of beings. Fighting, killing, plundering - yet capable of producing works of such rare beauty and grace that one feels blessed. Most of us seem to lead life along the peak of the normal curve. Humdrum, dreary lives broken up by no great joys or sorrows nor euphoria or grace. Yet others lead the lives of your veritable obese fish in a very small pond and imagine or maybe really believe that they are God’s gift to human beings. That’s all very fine, I say. Let them lead their lives and I’ll lead mine. But wait. The thoughts criss-cross. I know I must make a difference. I know there is something that we’re missing. I don’t know what I will do or bring but there is something I have to do in this lifetime. (Of course I don't know whether these are the empty thoughts of a madman..er...madgoat in my case). But then there is another problem...for the life of me I can’t get any reasonable or rational answer of why I should care or even, since I still “claim” to care and desperately want to make some difference what I should do about it. What is my role on the planet? Or is that nothing but mindless arrogance once again? A day ago, was it or a week – I asked and the old answer boomed back for the nth time “What do you want?” – Well that’s not an answer now, is it. That’s a question. The thing is I know what I want to do although I don’t even know whether that would make an ounce of difference. Yet lately I find excuses never to do it.
Yesterday, I met a student of mine after a long time. He’s one of my favourite students. We had a long conversation and at one point in the midst of our twisting rambles he said, “…and one needs to remind one’s self every morning about what’s important. It’s so easy to forget…” and I knew and know exactly what he meant. Following one’s dreams. It’s so cliched. Knowing what one has to do. Knowing what one must do. Knowing what one wants to do and then doing it no matter what the odds are of ever “making” it. These take an immense amount of courage. And probably even more than courage at times it takes focused discipline, concentration, boundless energy and a patient mind. I’m wondering now whether we all innately know what we must do with our lives. I know, of course that there are no guarantees. There are three Van Gogh prints in our house. One is where I can see it, two of them I can see in my mind. He’s made a difference in my life. He didn’t know that when he was painting that a century or so later an Indian sitting in the mid-west of the U.S would feel strangely buoyant and more hopeful about life after seeing one of his prints. He lived and died miserably with no fame, no money and probably no happy sex, leave alone love.
Yet what is this circle then that I keep travelling around? My bouts with insanity have been reduced to morbid bouts of paranoia, and nothing else. No further illumination after the first three or four rather bizarre, frightful, yet interesting stints. I have no interesting dreams when I’m sleeping, I don’t have many curious or interesting thoughts or new thoughts when I’m awake, I’ve lived so long in my head and taken an aloof pride in projecting myself as an introvert for so long that now my tongue gets tied in knots with my throat and teeth and brain when I do try to speak, and if that were not enough – I’ve just lately started noticing that I’ve started getting these frightfully angry or nagging or frivolous thoughts for at least 5 of the 8 hours that I’m awake and my brain in functioning. I’m angry, depressed, or strangely melancholic most of the time, and seem to be retrograding at some alarming rate into levels of such airyheadedness that it disgusts me when I notice.
And then there is the matter of memory loss. A serious problem when you can’t sensibly narrate the story of a book you read barely a month ago.I have realised with an increasing sense of dismay and quiet and sometimes not-so-quiet horror that my memory has gone completely haywire. I simply cannot remember facts, figures, quotes or lyrics anymore. The only way I remember the names of the people I read about is if I come across their names more than twenty times. I do remember incidents and people and contexts pretty well – some of which happened more than a couple of decades ago – but other than that (and some books that I read most likely at the same time), I’m losing my memory or whatever’s left of it. Yet that is a losing battle. I don’t know whether it is because I don’t concentrate or whether I’m bored but even that cannot be the whole story. For I don’t even remember things that I want to remember or things that I read because I want to read them. No, even my losing memory – although it horrifies me is not what is sending me into an increasing state of numbness, deeper dejection, not to mention horror.
Yet let’s leave all that for a moment. I’ve been realising with a rising panic that there is a deadly listlessness that’s slowly choking me. It’s the listlessness and mental laziness that drives otherwise pretty bright folks into the realms of passive non-existence. Now sure, if one is happy being there – there’s nothing wrong with that. I believe it’s better to be a passive survivor than to be an idiotic rabid mealy mouthed ‘doer’ who spouts the politically correct rhetoric but has not one ounce of human sensitivity or grace. Yet what has started haunting me lately is that the one ability that I imagined I had is turning out to be nothing but a figment of my imagination!
I cannot play any musical instrument, I cannot sing, my dancing scares my friends, I cannot paint or sketch, I cannot play any sport at a competitive level (although I strongly believe that I could have won many a Gold Medal for the 100 metre sprint, if I’d started training early enough), and I can’t seriously believe that being an academician in some little castle up the hill is going to make an ounce of difference to me or anyone else. In any case, the very thought of it makes me want to stuff a sock down my throat and gag myself (why? Maybe I’ll write about this some other day).
It’s my inability to string together sentences and make an interesting tale out of them that’s sucking the living daylights out of me. It’s my inability to write funny lines, poignant lines, evocative descriptions and thematically centred arguments. One of the things that make me happy, that make a difference to me – and really this is quite personal – is writing. The other things that make me happy will be something that I’ll write about some other time. But for now this is it. I love writing. I’d take it up as a profession if I could. At least that’s what I’ve always most vociferously and most brashly claimed in private and in my conversations with the walls and an imaginary friend. In some moments with some rare (real) individuals I’ve even confessed that this is what I want to do. That being a writer is who and what I want to be, above all else (what good does that do?...Who knows!).
But then here’s the twist. I always say that – but then what do I have to show for it? Nothing. I have no short stories that I can whip out. I have no essays. I have no reviews. I have no poems. And then here’s the further twist. When I’ve tried sitting down on some odd days to write something, anything – maybe a short story that’ll go to places that I don’t go, maybe about a character whom I’d like to meet, maybe about an incident which becomes something other than what it was becoming....Can’t think of a story line. Can’t think of a description. Can’t see anything about the character. Oh. Okay. That’s fine. Let’s write something about “real” things and real people. Let’s write about the hiking trip in –23C. Hmmm. Too long. Too short. Too strained. Too constipated. Too incomplete. Okay then. Let’s try writing on “desire leads to suffering”. My mind drew a complete blank there. No stars. No catherine wheels. No sparks. Nothing. A deathly silence.
…Okay. Okay. I admit it. I’ve been running away. There’s been a 'readymade story'. There’ve been images. There has been a 'dammed' stream of consciousness. A story that has been chasing me for close to a decade now. I just have to spin and weave and wait and watch and wait some more. And sweat. Bleed some. Maybe, maybe not. But then I’m being chased, and I don’t know where I’m going to be if I start running! I wonder whether “m going to squeak like some pipsqueak of a firecracker and then whimper and pop out of existence even before arrival. I wonder what’s likely to happen if ‘it’ doesn’t read the way it’s supposed to; if it doesn’t flow the way it’s supposed to, if it doesn’t blend and melt and dance the way it’s meant to. The way I can feel it – it lives, breathes, walks, wakes up and moves inside me (and I can happily ‘imagine’ that the story is ‘all there’). It has a vibrancy which is so brilliant yet fragile that I worry myself to death that it might disappear if I touch it. I sense it. I did…and now it’s gone. I don’t know anymore. I’ve been too scared out of my wits to touch it again.
…For one day when I tried writing there was such a load of tripe that dripped out of my hobgoblin of a dotpen that I stopped in disgust, horror and fear (note: it was the pen’s ‘fault’…). I wasn’t trying to write 'it' all this while because that is precisely what I was scared off. Here I hear about writers who later go on to say that stories and lines and sentences and characters come to them fully formed and they write it out with a flourish. There’s nothing of that that’s happening with me. I see images. I sense what I do. Lines nor sentences come to me. Nothing that I dream of when I’m asleep tells me what I’m supposed to write. So finally after being arrogantly convinced that I could write the whole thing any time I wanted to because it just needed to be written, I spewed such rare garbage on paper that I haven’t gotten back to what I wrote. I don’t remember exactly when I made my first attempt.
…Whenever it was – what has alarmed me over the course of the weeks is that I’m slowly but surely degenerating into some turnipy vegetable with not much going on in the bonehead but with not even enough to express on paper. And trust me when I say this I have never had a problem writing pages and pages for no one but myself with pretty much nothing going on in my immediate world. Yet these are truly dark times for me. Lately, I’ve been nagging the one person who has put up with my mad bouts, my desperate bouts, my cheerful bouts, my flaky bouts. The one person who puts up with me every single day and night. The one person who really does not expect much from me apart from my being there or here. I don’t even know why he wants me around as a physical presence but I guess I’ll never stop wondering about that – no matter how long or short a time I’m with him hereafter. But the worst thing is that I’m nagging him inside my head. I’m becoming one of those lazy, despicable and bored ‘silliwomen’ who do nothing but crib all the time for no reason and therefore when they do have a point nobody wants to know about it because it’s covered up in too much stink. The silly, frivolous, whining women whom I could beat with a stick! Who are passive-aggressive and cannot think because they have nothing to think about…
These are indeed frightening developments and the scary thing is that these thoughts – the nagging and the whining thoughts have been coming not from me. Not from the 'me-I-know'. Not the me-that-I-know-I-am. I’m quite sure about this because they are exceptionally random just now. They come from the outside much like little seemingly innocuous viruses and they keep up their prattle until I swat them away. If you’ve ever tried meditating, you’ll know what I mean. All the same the boredom that has come in with those nonsensical naggings and the irritation eventually gave way to an absolute horror that I could think such things (note the ‘I’), and slowly into evil almost passive acceptance. The horror has returned now. So hopefully the cycle will be reverted and I shan’t have those nasty thoughts anymore. ‘The poor me’ thoughts or the ‘hrrmphh’ thoughts. The rest of them are way too evil for me to even pen down. At least for the nonce.
And all this because I’ve been running away. I know I have work to attend to. The everyday work that brings me my bread, eggs, coffee and cigarettes ) reverse order of importance). And not being one of those ardent, madly prolific writers I must earn my daily bread. I need certain material comforts of life, and in order to write I must have certain basics. At least I need them. Yet I realise something for the umpteenth time and very consciously that when I do not write for long bouts of time I become quite nasty. Inside outside – I become mangy and rotten and quite despicable. It doesn’t matter what I write. Sometimes it does. But that’s for later. I must bring my ramblings to a close for today. Tomorrow, I shall continue. Be more focussed and aware and more alive. Thank you God.
......I’m pleased to report that things have turned for the better…and there will be more comprehensible posts in the future….
16th March 2008
There isn’t much to write about. The wind is howling outside and I’m sitting in the warmth. My imagination lies to waste and the heavy dregs of a depressive stupor are wafting through my mind. There is nowhere to go. Nowhere to run away. There is nowhere I want to go anymore. Even the mindless or the mindful thought or desire of death has long abandoned me. My mind has run dry. The thoughts about life and living occupy me no longer. The thoughts about the thrills of reaching a super-conscious level of awareness don’t excite me much. Death troubles me – acts of wanton killing, brutality, violence, bloodshed horrify me and hold me in their vicious grip. Yet I was no different as a child and I have done not much to make the world any better than it was before I arrived. The fact that we humans might either execute ourselves within seconds with a mindless nuclear war or through painful decades (or maybe a couple of centuries) by killing what’s left of our environment bothers me somewhat yet not enough evidently. I don’t take to the roads in protest nor do I strategize meaningful plans so that we may save ourselves and our planet. Poverty, hunger, violations of what should be inalienable rights make me feel desperate at times and uselessly helpless at other moments.
And so I wake up another day and yet another. Brushing my teeth and going through the motions. What difference does it make, I wonder? And I’ve been asking the same question ever since I can remember. But still the answers elude me. I’ve been a natural theist, an ardent atheist, an agnostic and then once again a believer. Yet even God is silent. And I haven’t found anyone else who can give me an answer. And I want an answer ‘pat’. Articulate, intelligible and easily applicable. No finger pointing to the moon, no one hand clapping, please. No zen tricks. What difference does it make, pray I ask, if the world does go up in smoke, if humans do wipe each other out, if people die miserable deaths, (leave alone innocent animals since we still haven’t been able to take care of our own species), if one race wipes out the other, if we kill our planet while we remain embroiled in meaningless pontification about climate change or natural resource depletion? The planet has gone through periods of extinction. And then through some scientific, metaphysical, mysterious quirk and quark of fate – life came back again. Yes, sure if at the end of the day we do wipe ourselves out we can have the satisfaction of nodding our heads sagely and saying that we were no better than the rather dimwitted dinosaurs.
…I agree that we seem to be a rather grotesque race of beings. Fighting, killing, plundering - yet capable of producing works of such rare beauty and grace that one feels blessed. Most of us seem to lead life along the peak of the normal curve. Humdrum, dreary lives broken up by no great joys or sorrows nor euphoria or grace. Yet others lead the lives of your veritable obese fish in a very small pond and imagine or maybe really believe that they are God’s gift to human beings. That’s all very fine, I say. Let them lead their lives and I’ll lead mine. But wait. The thoughts criss-cross. I know I must make a difference. I know there is something that we’re missing. I don’t know what I will do or bring but there is something I have to do in this lifetime. (Of course I don't know whether these are the empty thoughts of a madman..er...madgoat in my case). But then there is another problem...for the life of me I can’t get any reasonable or rational answer of why I should care or even, since I still “claim” to care and desperately want to make some difference what I should do about it. What is my role on the planet? Or is that nothing but mindless arrogance once again? A day ago, was it or a week – I asked and the old answer boomed back for the nth time “What do you want?” – Well that’s not an answer now, is it. That’s a question. The thing is I know what I want to do although I don’t even know whether that would make an ounce of difference. Yet lately I find excuses never to do it.
Yesterday, I met a student of mine after a long time. He’s one of my favourite students. We had a long conversation and at one point in the midst of our twisting rambles he said, “…and one needs to remind one’s self every morning about what’s important. It’s so easy to forget…” and I knew and know exactly what he meant. Following one’s dreams. It’s so cliched. Knowing what one has to do. Knowing what one must do. Knowing what one wants to do and then doing it no matter what the odds are of ever “making” it. These take an immense amount of courage. And probably even more than courage at times it takes focused discipline, concentration, boundless energy and a patient mind. I’m wondering now whether we all innately know what we must do with our lives. I know, of course that there are no guarantees. There are three Van Gogh prints in our house. One is where I can see it, two of them I can see in my mind. He’s made a difference in my life. He didn’t know that when he was painting that a century or so later an Indian sitting in the mid-west of the U.S would feel strangely buoyant and more hopeful about life after seeing one of his prints. He lived and died miserably with no fame, no money and probably no happy sex, leave alone love.
Yet what is this circle then that I keep travelling around? My bouts with insanity have been reduced to morbid bouts of paranoia, and nothing else. No further illumination after the first three or four rather bizarre, frightful, yet interesting stints. I have no interesting dreams when I’m sleeping, I don’t have many curious or interesting thoughts or new thoughts when I’m awake, I’ve lived so long in my head and taken an aloof pride in projecting myself as an introvert for so long that now my tongue gets tied in knots with my throat and teeth and brain when I do try to speak, and if that were not enough – I’ve just lately started noticing that I’ve started getting these frightfully angry or nagging or frivolous thoughts for at least 5 of the 8 hours that I’m awake and my brain in functioning. I’m angry, depressed, or strangely melancholic most of the time, and seem to be retrograding at some alarming rate into levels of such airyheadedness that it disgusts me when I notice.
And then there is the matter of memory loss. A serious problem when you can’t sensibly narrate the story of a book you read barely a month ago.I have realised with an increasing sense of dismay and quiet and sometimes not-so-quiet horror that my memory has gone completely haywire. I simply cannot remember facts, figures, quotes or lyrics anymore. The only way I remember the names of the people I read about is if I come across their names more than twenty times. I do remember incidents and people and contexts pretty well – some of which happened more than a couple of decades ago – but other than that (and some books that I read most likely at the same time), I’m losing my memory or whatever’s left of it. Yet that is a losing battle. I don’t know whether it is because I don’t concentrate or whether I’m bored but even that cannot be the whole story. For I don’t even remember things that I want to remember or things that I read because I want to read them. No, even my losing memory – although it horrifies me is not what is sending me into an increasing state of numbness, deeper dejection, not to mention horror.
Yet let’s leave all that for a moment. I’ve been realising with a rising panic that there is a deadly listlessness that’s slowly choking me. It’s the listlessness and mental laziness that drives otherwise pretty bright folks into the realms of passive non-existence. Now sure, if one is happy being there – there’s nothing wrong with that. I believe it’s better to be a passive survivor than to be an idiotic rabid mealy mouthed ‘doer’ who spouts the politically correct rhetoric but has not one ounce of human sensitivity or grace. Yet what has started haunting me lately is that the one ability that I imagined I had is turning out to be nothing but a figment of my imagination!
I cannot play any musical instrument, I cannot sing, my dancing scares my friends, I cannot paint or sketch, I cannot play any sport at a competitive level (although I strongly believe that I could have won many a Gold Medal for the 100 metre sprint, if I’d started training early enough), and I can’t seriously believe that being an academician in some little castle up the hill is going to make an ounce of difference to me or anyone else. In any case, the very thought of it makes me want to stuff a sock down my throat and gag myself (why? Maybe I’ll write about this some other day).
It’s my inability to string together sentences and make an interesting tale out of them that’s sucking the living daylights out of me. It’s my inability to write funny lines, poignant lines, evocative descriptions and thematically centred arguments. One of the things that make me happy, that make a difference to me – and really this is quite personal – is writing. The other things that make me happy will be something that I’ll write about some other time. But for now this is it. I love writing. I’d take it up as a profession if I could. At least that’s what I’ve always most vociferously and most brashly claimed in private and in my conversations with the walls and an imaginary friend. In some moments with some rare (real) individuals I’ve even confessed that this is what I want to do. That being a writer is who and what I want to be, above all else (what good does that do?...Who knows!).
But then here’s the twist. I always say that – but then what do I have to show for it? Nothing. I have no short stories that I can whip out. I have no essays. I have no reviews. I have no poems. And then here’s the further twist. When I’ve tried sitting down on some odd days to write something, anything – maybe a short story that’ll go to places that I don’t go, maybe about a character whom I’d like to meet, maybe about an incident which becomes something other than what it was becoming....Can’t think of a story line. Can’t think of a description. Can’t see anything about the character. Oh. Okay. That’s fine. Let’s write something about “real” things and real people. Let’s write about the hiking trip in –23C. Hmmm. Too long. Too short. Too strained. Too constipated. Too incomplete. Okay then. Let’s try writing on “desire leads to suffering”. My mind drew a complete blank there. No stars. No catherine wheels. No sparks. Nothing. A deathly silence.
…Okay. Okay. I admit it. I’ve been running away. There’s been a 'readymade story'. There’ve been images. There has been a 'dammed' stream of consciousness. A story that has been chasing me for close to a decade now. I just have to spin and weave and wait and watch and wait some more. And sweat. Bleed some. Maybe, maybe not. But then I’m being chased, and I don’t know where I’m going to be if I start running! I wonder whether “m going to squeak like some pipsqueak of a firecracker and then whimper and pop out of existence even before arrival. I wonder what’s likely to happen if ‘it’ doesn’t read the way it’s supposed to; if it doesn’t flow the way it’s supposed to, if it doesn’t blend and melt and dance the way it’s meant to. The way I can feel it – it lives, breathes, walks, wakes up and moves inside me (and I can happily ‘imagine’ that the story is ‘all there’). It has a vibrancy which is so brilliant yet fragile that I worry myself to death that it might disappear if I touch it. I sense it. I did…and now it’s gone. I don’t know anymore. I’ve been too scared out of my wits to touch it again.
…For one day when I tried writing there was such a load of tripe that dripped out of my hobgoblin of a dotpen that I stopped in disgust, horror and fear (note: it was the pen’s ‘fault’…). I wasn’t trying to write 'it' all this while because that is precisely what I was scared off. Here I hear about writers who later go on to say that stories and lines and sentences and characters come to them fully formed and they write it out with a flourish. There’s nothing of that that’s happening with me. I see images. I sense what I do. Lines nor sentences come to me. Nothing that I dream of when I’m asleep tells me what I’m supposed to write. So finally after being arrogantly convinced that I could write the whole thing any time I wanted to because it just needed to be written, I spewed such rare garbage on paper that I haven’t gotten back to what I wrote. I don’t remember exactly when I made my first attempt.
…Whenever it was – what has alarmed me over the course of the weeks is that I’m slowly but surely degenerating into some turnipy vegetable with not much going on in the bonehead but with not even enough to express on paper. And trust me when I say this I have never had a problem writing pages and pages for no one but myself with pretty much nothing going on in my immediate world. Yet these are truly dark times for me. Lately, I’ve been nagging the one person who has put up with my mad bouts, my desperate bouts, my cheerful bouts, my flaky bouts. The one person who puts up with me every single day and night. The one person who really does not expect much from me apart from my being there or here. I don’t even know why he wants me around as a physical presence but I guess I’ll never stop wondering about that – no matter how long or short a time I’m with him hereafter. But the worst thing is that I’m nagging him inside my head. I’m becoming one of those lazy, despicable and bored ‘silliwomen’ who do nothing but crib all the time for no reason and therefore when they do have a point nobody wants to know about it because it’s covered up in too much stink. The silly, frivolous, whining women whom I could beat with a stick! Who are passive-aggressive and cannot think because they have nothing to think about…
These are indeed frightening developments and the scary thing is that these thoughts – the nagging and the whining thoughts have been coming not from me. Not from the 'me-I-know'. Not the me-that-I-know-I-am. I’m quite sure about this because they are exceptionally random just now. They come from the outside much like little seemingly innocuous viruses and they keep up their prattle until I swat them away. If you’ve ever tried meditating, you’ll know what I mean. All the same the boredom that has come in with those nonsensical naggings and the irritation eventually gave way to an absolute horror that I could think such things (note the ‘I’), and slowly into evil almost passive acceptance. The horror has returned now. So hopefully the cycle will be reverted and I shan’t have those nasty thoughts anymore. ‘The poor me’ thoughts or the ‘hrrmphh’ thoughts. The rest of them are way too evil for me to even pen down. At least for the nonce.
And all this because I’ve been running away. I know I have work to attend to. The everyday work that brings me my bread, eggs, coffee and cigarettes ) reverse order of importance). And not being one of those ardent, madly prolific writers I must earn my daily bread. I need certain material comforts of life, and in order to write I must have certain basics. At least I need them. Yet I realise something for the umpteenth time and very consciously that when I do not write for long bouts of time I become quite nasty. Inside outside – I become mangy and rotten and quite despicable. It doesn’t matter what I write. Sometimes it does. But that’s for later. I must bring my ramblings to a close for today. Tomorrow, I shall continue. Be more focussed and aware and more alive. Thank you God.
......I’m pleased to report that things have turned for the better…and there will be more comprehensible posts in the future….
16th March 2008
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