Amputation

Bahiste was just like us once upon a time. With two hands, two feet, five fingers, proper senses. You know the things we take for granted? Rather, well he had what we all assume everybody has.

But then, one day, he met an unfortunate accident, losing his right hand. Strangely enough though, even after his hand was amputated, he could feel it. He could sense something that did not exist anymore for him. He could feel the tingling sensation in a hand that was no more a part of him.

Medicine recognizes the condition. It is said, our body image exists in our mind. Our senses form and make us feel our body parts, unified together as our image. Hence, even if a part of the body is amputated, we can continue feeling that part, even if it does not exist in physical sense. Because well, it exists in the mind still.

You know the feeling that surrounds us often? The feeling that some entity, something exists around us? Within us? A sense that engulfs us? Protects us? In the deepest pain, in the happiest moment, in the frozen moment of numbness, in the seconds of rationality, in the minutes of craziness? In all those moments. In all those times. Anywhere and everywhere. There seems to be a sense of existence. Something that is with us, within us.

That something is perhaps what we are physically amputated from. We feel it. We sense it. Because it exists. The only difference is, the part of the body once amputated does not exist in reality. Part of us that feel amputated, missing is what yet still very much Exists. Some of us believe we came from there. Some of us think we will go back there. Eventually meeting some part of us that feels incomplete. The only completeness you thus feel with it is when you sense it strongly. Its no illusion. You feel it because you believe He Exists. Around you. Within you. 

I have a problem with a word.

You know I have a problem. I have a problem with a word called Dark. Darkness. It is sad how this word is abused. Exploited. It is used to describe the time of ignorance. It is used to describe lack of knowledge. And before we know it, we are injected with a fear. A dogma. Of living in darkness. It is shaped as a monster in front of us. Something we should never step into. Just by defining it that way, we are inherently mistaking ourselves and stepping right into Ignorance. 

Darkness is different. It is not Ignorance. Ignorance is when Light exists in the other room. Ignorance is sitting here, complaining about things when Light does exist. 

Darkness is absence of Light. With a potential of being there. Darkness is the tunnel that leads to Light. Ignorance is not walking the tunnel. 

Darkness is potential of Light. Ignorance is denial of Light. 

And dark times don't importantly stem from breakups or separation from materialistic possessions. 

Just like how we choose some battles as consequences of our decisions, similarly, there are some battles that choose us. Battles that take Light away. 

On the canvas of battles that choose us, each moment, we get Light and then we get a tunnel. In each moment, there is a tunnel filled with Darkness. These battles inculcate the feeling of that tunnel. They push us into this tunnel. We know it is dark. Ignorance plagues our journey in this tunnel. Whispering to stand frozen. Whispering to not to walk. Each moment, we choose how to combat the battle. The battle we perhaps did not choose. 

These battles inculcate first a feeling of emptiness, followed by a solution you know is an illusion, and what follows is a journey of realization. The process never ends. 

What is fascinating about this Darkness is - what seems magic today, becomes reality tomorrow. What seems magic tomorrow, becomes reality the day after. 

The only distance between Magic and Reality is the tunnel. The tunnel we choose to walk or stand in.

It doesn't just end. It is like tunnels and battles choose us. Consistently. Constantly. Until it makes us reach where it wants us to take. 

Each tunnel helps us appreciate Darkness. Helps us understand the difference between Darkness and Ignorance. Helps us become more conscious of ourselves. 

You and I. We have a lot inside. According to the Romeo of Psychology - Freud, it is our unconscious. These tunnels, this darkness, it brings a part of our unconscious unto the table of conscious. We consciously choose to battle with our unconscious. 

Until no nightmare remains. Or well, until no nightmare scares us or leaves us feeling Why. 

You know this word, Darkness. I have a problem with the way world describes it. It is not denial of Light, it is the ground in which the battle is played for Light. 

I wish.

I wish.

I wish there was an injection. An injection that could induce His medicine. A physical reassurance of His existence running through my veins. 

I wish that He appeared. Like that invisible little friend of mine. Right with me, sitting next to me. Moment by moment. Physically reinforcing His presence beside me. 

I wish that He would appear, hug me, take my hand and walk me that path. 

I wish that He would put my hands on my eyes and make them literally open to what He is giving me. 

I wish that He would gather all his men around to witness what He is remains the Sole Witness to. 

I wish that He would make my hands type out what remains in there. 

I wish that He would make me repeat myself till my voice goes from an uncertain whisper to Utmost Assurance of His Presence. 

You know that tiny little voice of our little stupid organ called brain. 

You know the organ that doesn't stop producing the stream of thoughts, even if we try stopping it. 

You know the voice inside us that our brain has. 

I wish that was Him. 

I wish He would just physically take my heart out and put it back again in front of me. 

I wish that He gives me the sight. The color to my colorblind world. Color of meaning to what He is saying. To what He is doing. 

I wish that He shows me the way of expressing gratitude for fulfilling all these wishes and for Being There. 

I wish He gives brain..brain to my little heart. 

Perfect to More Perfect.

Once upon a time there was a little boy who loved painting. One day on his way back from school, he decided to take a short cut through the woods and the lake. After a while, he noticed the sun setting. He turned to get the fuller view and was awe struck by the beauty, the majesty of the scene. So mermarized was the little boy that he decided to capture it in his memory. He got so lost in just staring right into the scenic sunset that he lost track of time. And so lost was he that he did not even notice the dark engulfing the woods. He was jolted and brought back by the wolf far away. He shook his head and ran back home. 

For days, he would go on describing the beauty he had experienced. He seemed obsessed with it. Completely obsessed. He was deliberately take the shorter route just to re-experience the scene. However, to his dismay, it never really happened as beautifully as that one spring evening. 

The monsoon finally set in and it became harder to catch glimpse of the clearer sky. 

Time passed and he started his next year at school. One day, the school made a plan to visit the nearby mountain top. He was excited. He took all his paints, his canvas, his colors along. 

Upon reaching the top, the students were thrilled. Lush green valleys, fresh lake and the sun. It was just such a perfect view. Excitedly, the little boy arranged himself in one corner, took out his canvas and set up his colors to capture the scene. 

Midway through, his old teacher walked by. She noticed something and stopped. 

"What are you painting little one?" She asked smiling at him. 

"Oh, just the beautiful setting sun and the mountains. Look, how beautiful the scene is!"

"Indeed it is, and so is your painting coming out to be. But I don't quite understand. Your painting isn't exactly what the backdrop is. Are you using your artistic imagination to beautify it further? She exclaimed. 

"Nope. Well, sometime back, I had one experienced a beautiful sunset. I had just absolutely fallen in love with the way it was. It was so perfect. I still remember the crisp smell of that day even! The colors. The shades. The reflection. It was so perfect. I am just trying to put it in here."

"Tell me, which one is better, that scene of that day or today?" She seemed disturbed. 

"Hmm, both. In their ways I guess. But that is not the point.." He started defending.

"Wait. Pause. No. If that was perfect, why would you want to capture this as well. That was perfect then. This is perfect now. Perfection of worldly nature is not like Absolute Perfection. Perfection in worldly nature is confined in the moments. Fate defines those moments."

We are all like this little stupid kid. We experience something perfect, something that resonates well, we want it. We capture it. We get busy in devising ways to make the experience last. To not to lose the perfection. And when we feel it slipping away, we justify our failed attempts at its extension. We list out reasons and justifications for the perfection to last. But it does not. Because perfection lasts for a moment. 

We go wrong when we get stuck in that moment and try replicating its perfections to the imperfections of our life. Maybe if I can borrow a bit of color from that past and put it in here. Maybe that'll make this picture perfect. The way I want it. We forget that moments pass, giving us another perfect moment. We forget that time walks by, giving us countless more perfect moments. 

So blinded are we, that we forget to Trust Him and His ways of further Perfecting our Lives. We trust our addiction to suffering, to pain more than we Trust Him to give us Better Experiences. We don't see the fuller colors of Today - not because the Perfection doesn't exist, but because we are too busy finding imperfections and filling it up from past colors.

We feel guilty at accepting and living the Perfection of the moment and then we wonder on how to express Gratitude to Him. The Biggest expression of Gratitude to Him is by Experiencing, admitting and living the Most Perfect Moment of Now. By trusting Him that He will only give you a much more Perfect Experience than ever before. 

He develops you and your life forward. Improves it. Progresses it. He doesn't work backwards. He takes you Forward. 

'..I saw nothing but beauty..'

When the granddaughter of the Last Prophet of Islam was brought into the court of the tyrant of that time(who had ordered the brutal killing of the Prophet's grandson and followers) she was asked what did she see while her family was being mercilessly slaughtered.

She smiled and began with a sermon that later became one of the most quoted political and social sermons. One that is often attributed as stirring the downfall of the oppresor's regime. She said she saw nothing but beauty (in what stood as one of the most brutal acts ever recorded in the history of humanity.)

How could she even see nothing but beauty in such act of suffering.
How was she even standing so calmly in front of the tyrant just after losing her immediate family in the battle? What was this beauty that she saw.

Imagine a cup of pure water lying on the table with people sitting and walking around it. Now imagine somebody throwing a drop of oil in that cup of water. See how that drop floats but never diffuses into pure water. See how at least a few of us might stop to notice the change within water. See how we often notice the striking contrast of pure water and oil once the oil droplet tries invading the water.

That's beauty because it makes you stop and ponder.

Beauty is not when we win the battle outside. Beauty is when Right makes us stop and ponder about Humanity and ugliness of oppression. 

Beauty is not when we win the world outside. Beauty is when we struggle with the oppresor within.

Beauty is not when we claim to stand with the Right for the world to see. Beauty is when we stand with the Right within when the world does not see.

Beauty is the pain, the suffering of Living the Right each moment by rejecting the million wrongs of that second.

Beauty starts with the guilt, the silencing of our self within. It starts with the admission of wrong within. It starts with the surrendering of our selfish within. With not just knowing what is wrong but bravely trying to fight what is wrong is wrong.

For the oppression to be fought outside, it needs to be fought within first. For if our stand with the Right is making us happy by massaging our egos for power, validation and fame on individual, political and communal level then perhaps it is not Love and Beauty.

Perhaps, so when she said she saw nothing but beauty, she was not just addressing the tyrant of the time, she was addressing the tyrant in all of us within. Her words resonating through history to remind us of the battle within first. Of the much needed suffering we all get when we claim to Love. To live the suffering bravely. To fight the tyrant within so bravely that you stand with her. So much so that when the world steps out to sympathise with you, you smile and say, you tried seeing nothing but beauty.

Birth and death

When we are born we are alone. So alone that we dont even remember our first glimpse of the world. Our first cry. First time we were held. We only rely on others' account of it.

When we die we are alone. So alone that we don't even remember our last breath, our last glimpse of the world.  So alone that not even others' can tell us about it.

In between this birth and death, we live an illusion of life. During this illusion of life, we have several moments of births and deaths. We are constantly dying to our old selves, past habits, attitudes and most importantly our egos. We are constantly being reborn with fresher perspectives and newer paradigms. Each moment we die and each moment we are born. In one way or the way. In one form or the other.

This series of constant births and deaths within the illusion of life are connected to events, moments or experiences. Our joys. Our sorrows. Just like how Human Birth and Death are seen events of purest joy and sorrow. Just like so, these births and deaths within life are in the moments of our grestest joys and deepest sorrows.

Just like how we are alone while experiencing the Human Birth and Human Death, we are alone in experiencing our deepest joys and sorrows in the illusionary life. We die to our egoic self in a far far distant world within, away from the world. We feel the deepest sorrow of it in our loneliest moment. We are reborn next moment, we experience it in our loneliest moment. And in between these, we experience Love that we crave and yearn to share.

Despite languages and attempts, we fail at expression. In such series of deaths and births within the illusionary spectrum of life, joys and sorrows blur and become one. And the only thing that stays constant within during these births and deaths is the Cause of Life. The Only Witness. Nobody else. Not even us.

As real as it gets.

What are you doing? I asked.

He didn't respond. He kept weaving. 

Where are we going? I was growing impatient and anxious. 

He didn't respond. He kept walking. 

Like a fool mazmerized, I kept following. Blindly. He took a right. I took a right. He took a left. I took a left. Here, there, everywhere. Through thick & thin, through snow, through rain; through dark under the stars, through bright shining sunlight. Crushing the autumn leaves to hearing the spring birds. Kept walking. All forms of "ing (s)" kept happening. Moving. Not answering. Not responding. Just moving. Just weaving. Not looking up to respond. He was not human. He is Time & Pain. 

When I first saw signs of the pattern, when I first spotted signs of the trend, I stopped pasturing him with questions. I lived. Copying every move. Hand in hand. Synchronized with his walking speed. 

I was copying time. I was living pain. Time is what keeps moving, pain is what keeps happening. Time & Pain. Two things in the world that everyone experiences. Even if we think we can't, we experience. Time & Pain can never be questioned because they never answer. They just keep moving with pride, with absolute confidence that we will follow. And we do. Because we don't have an option. As real as it gets.