Muse | On being lost...

“Where are you?” “Kahan ho tum? Kahan gayab ho gaye, yaar?”

Some of the phrases I’ve heard in the recent past. And reluctantly, I am now coming out – like a crab. Crab – aah, my moon sign is Cancer!

Yes, I have vanished. Vanished from my blogs, vanished from my ‘witty repartees’ and ‘soulful thoughts’ on Facebook. I wonder sometimes that do I really need to do all this? Why do I blog? Why do I make my presence felt on Facebook or LinkedIn? My friends find it silly that one should “think” so much of such trivial matters. A colleague of mine said, “You know what – I don’t know why you think so much. I cook because I like to cook. I go for a movie, because I like to see a movie. My life is simple and not so complex.”

Complex – well, can’t help but think if my life is complex or I have a ‘complex’? Somewhere, something deep down does not allow me to rest in peace. It craves for more and more. It craves to know me more. It craves to go deep down to the deepest.

Ok, I digressed. Back to the point of vanishing. Well, I did partly because I was in touch with myself and trying to get to reality. Well, I made a trip to the Holy Kailash Mansarovar – the desire of lifetimes (yes, I believe in rebirth) and the fulfillment of purpose and meaning. Coming back, I just had nothing to write. What can I write of? What can I write about? There is no place of majesty and serenity as is the divine place of Kailash Mansarovar. Where our mere standing is a fulfillment of universal grace. English does not have an equivalent word for what in Hindi we say, “nistabdh” (loosely translated as ‘the awe of silence’). Yes, I was ‘nistabdh’ after my trip. Thank you Lord. Thank you universe.

How does one describe the sense of oneness? How does one describe the sense of being? How does one describe the sense of ‘feelingless feeling’?

But now that I am back from the trip, back to ‘la vie quotidien’ – familiar problems plague me – of job, finances, education, love and so on. But I was supposed to have transformed? After all, a trip like this acts like the alchemist’s stone. But here I am back to earth and worried over what I used to worry over. So is it that I have failed or what? Was this trip a pass-fail examination? My deep inner sense says it is not. So, perhaps the answer may lie in my understanding of transformation?

Dr. Wayne Dyer in one of his books writes about transformation as a conjunction of ‘trans’ + ‘form’ + ‘ation’. Which means going beyond the current state through action. While I agree to this definition in some ways, I also find it is incomplete. It is incomplete because it talks of reaching an altered state by way of action. Logical, Cartesian-Newtonian physics would make me agree to this statement. After all you need action to alter a state.

But is it so really? Does transformation come from action? What is action? Is it something that you see (as in breaking a wall)? Or is it something whose effect you see (like a seed becoming a sapling)? In case of former, there is an agent who undertakes an action. In the latter, who is the agent? Does the seed which we all agree is inert act? When does a seed sprout? My biology tells me that it sprouts when it gets the right conditions for germination – adequate water, temperature and nutrients from surroundings like soil etc. So lets assume we put all the necessary conditions and the seed in that condition. When the seed sprouts who took that decision to sprout? Did the inert seed take it? Or did the environment take a decision? That cannot be, for then it means admitting that wind, air, water, soil are animate! So the question still remains – who took the decision to sprout? A seed that has germinated is said to have life – it is animate and alive. An ungerminated seed is intert – it is inanimate and does not have life. But what happens in the transition? Or can I use the word ‘transformation’?

If this transition of seed to sapling is a transformation, who took the action? There is no agent (and I don’t mean this as a laboratory usage) – even then a transformation has happened? So do we really need action for transformation? And if transformation can come about without action, then what / who makes it possible? Extend this logic further, and this is what I’ve been grappling with. Do I take action and write a blog OR is a blog written (just like a seed grows when right conditions exist)?

And then I ponder over these questions? Pondering is going within – away from action. But alas, I find no answers.

And then I ask myself this question:

“Where are you?” “Kahan kho gaye ho?”