Reflections | On Life as Pilgrimage | 17th July '11

I wonder...

I sometimes feel I am weird. Actually, it is just this sense of strangeness with my own self that comes across at times. The times when one feels so familiar with oneself, or an aspect of self; and yet, that aspect or the self at that moment seems so distant and so different. Maybe not 'normal' as far as the events of the world go by.

Have you ever had that sense of waking up one day and realising that there is something at work. Some hand that you cannot name or hold or see; yet, that hand is behind you - guiding, beckoning and taking you forward. No matter what happens in your daily life, you go to bed with the sense of something or someone just there. The presence is so palpable, yet, it is elusive. And the frustrating question: What is the meaning of it all?

If you have had that sense, then perhaps, you can understand what I mean. Why do I write this? I write to commune with you. So that the same spirit / principle / Being / Entity / call it whatever is honoured and reflected upon. You need not be alone, nor do I need to be alone - in this experience of mine. There is a great temptation to put a name, a label, an image to this experience and to this Being. We can call it God, or Divinity or The Holy Spirit or whatever. But that I feel would be missing the point.

It will be missing the point, because then it is so easy to get away. So easy to walk away from what is calling me. So easy to duck what comes along with it. So easy to rest in the warmth and comfort of humanity and be with it and yet duck what is at hand. Modern depth psychology has a principle of 'projection'. Simply put, something that you have deep within but cannot admit it as yours - so you go ahead and dump on the other. Now this could be good or bad (when viewed as a moral judgment). I may feel you are the biggest liar on earth (and deep down not acknowledge that the liar lies within me too). I could equally see the Divine in something 'out there'; and not within - for acknowledging that is so so so difficult.

I guess part of the reason (at least for me) is that there is a confusion between that spirit and 'goodness' of daily life. There is a moral judgment I have about what I do, how I behave and how I am in my daily life towards people and things. And inexorably, to live this life, I have to be all - good, bad and ugly. For e.g., I may think of myself as the gentle helpful nice person; but one day when I caught myself boarding the local train pushing and jostling away with people equally ready to throw you off and get inside, I saw that I was not all that nice and gentle. It was painful to see that. For I have a moral judgment about it. But then I learnt to forgive myself. To own up and realise that I owe myself a duty of survival, of care. And then it helped me a lot - it helped me as I learnt to be less angry at others - for the pushing and jostling they did. I could understand them. I could understand their fears, and concerns, and anxieties. I had them all within me. Jungians would call it an encounter with the Shadow.

So I was at the point of acknowledging the spirit. I carry this judgment within me, having seen the bad and ugly of me. And with this judgment or view of my own self, I make it an either - or situation. That if, I am not wholly pure, then I cannot really have the spirit within me. I find this logic cracking now within me. And that is what causes me bother. I am reminded of Lord Krishna - for all what his life was, he is still a manifestation of the Divine, of the eternal spirit. So what is it really to be in touch with the spirit. Yes, at one level, there is a certain degree of detachment, but at another level, it does not mean being completely above and over the emotions and thoughts of human life - of la vie quotidienne.

And this is what bothers me. We all have those experiences. And I wonder how do we make sense of it? What is the meaning of it all?

Sometimes, I feel that life is like one endless pilgrimage. The only thing that happens at times is the inversion of what constitutes a pilgrimage. It is something like what pilgrims encounter in their quest for a glimpse of divinity: Whether they are doing the pilgrimage or the pilgrimage has happened to them? The other day, I was reading the book, "Tibet's Sacred Mountain: The Extraordinary Pilgrimage to Mount Kailash" by Russel Johnson and Kerry Morgan. At one place, they write: "A true pilgrimage lifts the traveller out of his everyday self into a realm beyond ego. When it returns his self back to him, all of life has become a single, endless pilgrimage."

So it is with life: Do I live life? Or does life live me? No, this is not rhetoric; but a real struggle within me. And I share with you - maybe, you may have something to offer to me. What I mean is this: If the circumambulation around Mount Kailash (or any other holy place - call it Kaaba, or Jerusalem or anything), is a physical manifestation of the urge within to glimpse divinity, is not this daily life a circumambulation around the divinity one can call as the Self. The walk around the temple, the altar or the mosque - are they not symbolic of the walk I do every day around my own inner being? Is not the life that I lead every day, nothing but a small inwardly going circle to the centre - the centre of being that we can call Self and that which is perhaps the spirit?

But why all this circling? Why not go straight - as the Americans say, 'straight to the point...'? I guess maybe there is some meaning in the circling - in the meandering.

I've started liking the word 'meander'. It is the fate of every major river in its middle stages. What is the purpose of it all? - I can ask from a general standpoint. What purpose does it serve? If ultimately, the river is to meet the sea or the ocean, then in its course of its evolutionary journey, the river is wasting time. It will be better off if it moved straight on. But would we value such a river? Would such a river ever make the land fertile? Would such a river ever be respected? You see, it is paradoxical that the same river whose purpose is to meet the sea or the ocean has to meander. It has to go through apparent purposelessness. I use the word 'apparent'. For, to the river, the purpose is not clear during the meandering phase (I write it if I was the river).

But then, it is the very meandering of the river, that gives meaning to so many; that gives purpose to so many; that gives life to so many. And perhaps that is what happens to us all. We meander during our life - and we may feel that we are lost, actually, that may really be the process of generating and creating meaning. Is meaning and purpose found or is it created and generated? Does it exist outside of itself or does it exist within? For the river, is meaning present in its destination or in its journey? Paradoxical.

I don't know I like what I just wrote because it holds true or because (as I suspect) it provides me with an answer with which I can assuage the questions that emanate from somewhere within - at least for the time being. When the mystery is too great, one has to unravel it bit by bit. So maybe, this set of reasoning helps me find meaning in where I am. Maybe as I meander more in life, I may find other sets of questions and other sets of answers. Till I reach my ocean / sea.

And that's when confusion happens. Where am I? What is my sea? Do I have a sea? I don't know. I just have some questions. I still search for answers.

I do not have the answers. I wish I had them.

And then, I wonder...