We remember moments not days.
This was a statement, that a girl sitting next to me in class 7 wrote for me after we completed our semi final exams. I have no memory of her face or name but this phrase sat deep in my heart and head.
One moment I remember, is a teenager me, standing by the window in my parents home. Holding a black cordless phone in my hand and talking with utmost conviction to the person at the other end of the line. Don't remember who the person on the other side was - what I do remember is saying
There has to be more to life than eating, sleeping, shitting and finding newer and novel ways of killing time..
How wise I was. There is often not a lot more to life than an endless routine of the above, where we killing time - is disguised as work, entertainment, hobbies, travelling, parenting, loving - acts that form a part and parcel of living. Acts that have consumed every once of me for the past few years. Acts that consume me everyday to date
And then sometimes, the inner me wakes up and drags me to places where there is a pause.
Isha Ashram. Coimbatore.
Sadhguru
A man - I can unhesitatingly call my guru
(For information on Isha this, all I can say it does not do it justice)
In September, after almost a break of five years I stepped back into the folds of Isha ashram and did the Bhava Spandana course. Tearing myself away from baby T and family was tough. Sitting alone surrounded by 80 ladies and finding the non cynical part of me even tougher.
The course of 4 days, left an impact that is impossible to shake off. It feels like - a part of me now knows that there is something more to who I am, what I am here for. There are moments of meditation that have stayed with me. In the ashram, in the deepest zone of meditation - something happened. Something that I have not been able to absorb till now.
I saw myself leave my body. As I write this line, I can feel my own eyes rolling in mock cynicism. Yet, I can't deny the truth of that experience.
I felt ethereal. I felt cold - dead. I felt alive - happy
I knew at that time, that barring the close family there is very little that I truly care about
Travelling the world. the corner office, the bikini body were all things that were bullshit...and yet came back to fretting about these very same things
As the course came to an end, the teacher asked us not to cut ties. To remain connected to the space as a volunteer, as a teacher as anyone someone. She wept as she said that here is this man who is clearly a messenger, he has the gift to give to show the way and yet those who do experience his power - are happier flirting with him than being his ambassadors
That struck a cord. It made me think. What did someone have to do, to be trusted or believed in. Experience had happened. Me the person who has never been able to silence the mind even for a nano second was in 30 minutes glimpsing realities otherwise hidden. I got answers to deep buried questions. I smelt things that were not in the room.
Miracles - tiny ones, gimmicky ones happened.
And yet, I flirt. With him, the course and the discipline of meditation
Sitting in the Himalayas, curled into myself gazing at the star spangled sky - I knew that there was so much more that remained to be discovered. I knew that a large part of me was evading asking the tougher questions. I knew that I knew and left it at that
Maybe one day the pause button will be a large massive round one, that shall have sticky glue on it.
