The murderer and the robber are just an arm-length away

Feeling lucky not to have come across a real-life murderer with blood-ridden hands and a dagger in hand? Feeling at ease not to have faced a robber, with muscular barrel chest, eye-patch and devilish beard running away with yours and others’ money? Well think again for you might be grossly mistaken. There are murderers and robbers on the prowl around. And in far more numbers than you can ever think even in your wildest of horrifying imagination.

It can be your sheepish looking, harmless milkman, holding the potent weapon of slow death over the years. Yes the milkman with his passable crime, with little doses over months and years. In India the fight for self-survival is so rampant that poor milkman won’t flinch an eye before mixing urea and adhesives like Fevicol to make adulterated milk. It breeds death, slowly over months and years, with no sign of a murder committed. For the milkman all that matters is a successful day with all the pots empty sold out. What happens later is none of his concerns.

It can be the sweet-tongued sweet-maker pampering your sweet-tooth with an affable smile and still honeyed words. Yes the sweet-maker with his shortcuts to profits with fake milk derivatives and cancerous chemicals and colors. And there are many, as many as you count the sweet shops, except for the few moralistic ones. India is crammed to the guts, and the mere struggle to survive, at any cost and through whatever means, justifies the end and more bucks in the wallet.

It can be the poor-looking harmless fruit vendor. You even end up having sympathy for him. Little do you realize that the fruits you presume to add to your life are in fact cutting into your days. Artificial, cancerous-chemical-catalyzed ripening, waxing on the surface to make stale fruits look fresh and scores of other devil-devised machinations to get some more bucks at the cost of disease and destruction in others’ livers.

These are the murders on the safer side of law. Nobody dies instantly. Death comes slowly. It’s a causeless disease. Nobody can be blamed. They vend out poison slowly, in mild doses. They add a day to their survival at the cost of minutes from the lives of those whom they serve.

There are robbers around as well, in clean shirts and socially respected avatars. Law cannot touch them because they don’t rob out rightly like the condemnable criminals barging into a bank and running away with the whole vault of money and gold. They do it in slow sips over years, as invisible cogs in the corrupt machinery. In both governmental and private institutions and departments these legalized robbers sit on their desks with an affable smile and clean slate. It’s facilitation money. The extra money has to land invisibly into their pockets to move the process stuck at their check-post.  

Then there are countless petty criminals and transgressors, stomping their way to their destination at any cost. It’s an ant-swarm. Law never looks more impotent than in the face of such brazen frequency, everywhere, every moment. Spitting, urinating, defecating, shouting, molesting, eve-teasing, raping and countless other forms of violence from the mildest to the heinous most. It makes it seem as if the rulebook is just a draw of lots for all the criminals around. Only a few are unlucky to get their name taken out as legal offenders. The rest clap for their luck for being left out.  

So there are mass murderers and robbers all around. And law cannot sneak into each and every soul to arise either fear or conscience to think of injustice done to others’ in the struggle to survive. Poverty and greed make a person too thick-skinned to be sensitive to the world beyond the self. The only option is to hope for a generational shift when more people will be aware of the issues beyond the limited self.

Unfortunately with the Indian population ever-exploding, and more people fighting for diminishing resources, it seems a dream to visualize a society where the milkman, the fruit-vendor, the sweet-maker, the government officials will become humane enough to be self-responsible and follow the laws even if there is no apparent risk of getting caught.

Law-abiding instincts get honed over a period of time.  It’s like stopping at a red light on a totally empty road, in the depths of night, with absolutely nobody around, and no fear of punishment, but you still put up breaks, and smile. It gives a strange peace to be self-responsible for such tiny transgressions. Just looking forward to a day when majority of the Indians will come out of the pit of self-obsessed survival and be self-responsible not just for their own survival but for others’ convenience as well. 

No flesh, blood and bones after 200 years

Nature is not with anybody. Neither is it against anyone. It is for us to decide whether we are with it or against it. The onus is on us! Since we are a part of it, it suits our purpose if we go with it. Going against nature means going against ourselves. But that is what we are doing presently.

With its impartiality, nature ensured a competition among species for survival. Look at the fantastic evolution of organism and species. But then with the food-chains reaching a dead end with mankind being the master, the nature itself—the cause—will become the casualty.

Humans evolved as inseparable part of nature, just like any other animal species, using their best skills to survive. Humans used brain to master nature. Still mankind (biologically) and its institutions stand on nature’s back. Now we are crossing all limits. Possibly the inevitable juggernaut of progresss. The more forests we cut, the more species we force into extinction, the more pollutants we release into the air and the seas, the more we are eating into nature’s guts. It’s like killing the hen that lays golden eggs.

Our present biological standing is a sum total of the nature around us. We are a reflection and sum total of the state of the overall natural health. With more natural ecosystems being decimated to get into a more mechanized world, it will be a folly to think that we will be able to survive at the present biological level of human physiology.

In a world with ghastly depleting natural resources, and cement, steel and machines ruling the roost, how will the present human biology—the outcome of the natural phenomena and food-chains—survive? It just will not. So the cut into nature’s guts will require adaptations in human biology and physiology as well. Simple fact is, the present human physiology will be totally redundant in a world where there will be hardly any forests, most of the species extinct, air polluted and weather totally changed. To survive under the new challenge, the mankind will bring out mechanization in the physiology itself. Genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, artificial organs will see a world in which mankind will be a semi-machine managing full machines.

And with the final traces of nature gone, with the environment modified mechanically to survive, mankind will finally become a full machine. It might be just 200 years away when the last sinews of human blood, ligaments, flesh and skin will be replaced by artificial devices. The cycle of evolution! The super species! The machines all around. And then the inevitable destruction. 

All that woman is

It’s 819 AD. Indian mystics have laid the foundation of systematization of thought about the unknown. With open arms Vedas welcome the infinite manifestations of universal goodwill. These are the outpours of awe, wonder, obedience, surrender and love for the unknown.

Human mind is fertile with imagination. One more step has been taken. Vedanta literature has shown man the next step in Indian philosophical thought. It’s no longer about feelings of awe. Now it’s not just plain surrender to the gaping unknowns. There is an effort to interpret the forces of nature. There is cultivation of thought and logic. There is an effort to understand the process of humans grasping the reality.

Brahma Sutras of Sage Badarayana Vyasa have set up a platform for human thought and logic to take the next stride. Human mind looks within to understand the ways and means of interpreting the messages sent by our sense organs.     

Philosopher and theologian Adi Shankara is taking human mind further by integrating main thoughts in Hinduism. He has a huge collection of commentaries on Vedic texts. He has thrown more light on Upanishads. He is slaying the rituals and founding the concepts of Advaita Vedanta, unity of the soul and attributelesss supreme identity. Ritualism has eaten the vitality of Indian thought and philosophy. He is travelling across India to revive the spirit of Hinduism. For self realization. To be a master of one's own destiny, not be a helpless beggar before deities. Wherever he goes he challenges those who oppose his thinking. Clubs down their logic to overpower them with his logical interpretations of our thought processes and natural phenomena around. It's a blizzard of logic sweeping the length and breadth of India. And here he comes to Mithila state in northern Gangetic plains near the frontier between modern day India and Nepal.     

The great scholar has reached Tharhi village. It’s autumn. There is mystique restfulness spread around. A perfectly pensive evening is building up. The great thatched hall in the hermitage premises is softly abuzz with scholarly excitement. Shankaracharya has arrived only a couple of hours ago and is ready to take logical potshots at rival theologians.

His shaven head and calm eyes don’t give any sign of the long, arduous travel. But he has much ground to cover. They start immediately. Adi is on a spiritual rollercoaster and easily prevails upon daunting bearded rishis. A young student, having holy thread criss-crossing his torso and wearing white cotton dhoti is lost in the great philosopher’s persuasive logic. He has a question.

“The words of your logic fail to take me to the exact picture of reality. Does it mean there is no specific plane of reality? And we just reach a level, given our understanding of the words involved in the sentences, that we infer. Is it like a person with good eyesight can watch distant objects in comparison to somebody with a bad one?”

Adi smiles at the question. His calm eyes bore straight into the young student’s handsome face. The penetrating focus in those eyes is very attractive.

“Study hard for each word in books of theology. Work for the meaning of each and every word. Focus your senses to grasp the maximum a word has to offer. You will see the farthest one can see!” it appears like a blessing.

There is something extraordinary about this boy. Next morning, before setting out again on his mission, Shankaracharya calls the boy. He again looks into the deep, reflective pools of his eyes. The philosopher smiles. There is the stability of an undisturbed ocean in the young student’s eyes.

“He can take very deep dives to take out the gems of reality from the mysterious depths,” the sage softly told himself.

Adi hands him a palm leaf compilation of Brahma Sutra of Badarayana. The text is a famous systematization of the philosophical ideas of Upanishads. Brahma Sutras explore the nature of human existence and absolute reality and the importance and need of attaining spiritually liberating knowledge. 

It is a blessing. Just the ownership of the text containing the apex of Indian philosophical though is a matter of pride. He walks back to his house holding the cloth bag containing the precious text. He has been exceptionally hungry for the knowledge and words of holy Sanskrit texts. He has mastered Vedas, Upvedas and Upanishads. Now he possesses the cream of all that knowledge, the gist. He wants to go further, to see further, break the frontier of all human thought reached thus far. He is holding the text even more dearly than his life.           

“Vachaspati Vachaspati come out. O God what has possessed this boy. That book has a magic spell. I have to call babaji to break it!” Vatsala is anxious.

Her neighbors are standing near her. They face the hut he has locked himself in. She is a widow and he the only son. They have sympathy for her.

“He hasn’t come out for the last two days. These books can turn a young man mad,” she is sobbing.

More sympathy for the widow struggling to raise her son, who is all concerned about Vedic knowledge and now this book.

They raise a chorus. There is a pandemonium. He is drawn out of his eerie. He hasn’t opened the book even once. It is precious. It has priceless meaning to each and every word written in it. He has been looking at it and taken away into a trance. He can hear his mother’s lamentation outside and words of sympathy floating around. He opens the grass and reed thatch door of the hut and steps out. The sun is too bright. He squints and looks deep into the blue sky. They hold him with empathy taking him to be sick.

The proximity of the precious manuscript carries the effect of thunderbolt. He is in a delirium. The young man has fever. He mumbles strange meaningless words about the ultimate reality. His mother gets scared and even thinks of throwing the book away. But then stops from doing this, herself being scared of the powers in the book.

Vachaspati regains his footing from the jolt after a week. He carefully starts touching the book, afraid like touching fire, familiarizes himself with the smell and feel of the palm leaves and the Sanskrit words. He is as cautious as if he is walking on a rope and fire is burning below. And he has miles to go along the rope to reach the destination. And Brahma Sutras are the bamboo, supporting him, balancing him, preventing his fall into the fire.

The world than ceases to exist for him. It is just the Brahma Sutras, the beginning. And the end? He wants his awakened self to be that end. Aham Brahmasmi. I am the all potent supreme entity. But he has to prove it to himself. He has to break that delusional veil that filters the supreme knowledge from barging fully into the compartment of our being leaving us angry, ignorant and frustrated. He has to understand why and how we see the perceived reality. Can the reality be changed for the better? Is it fixed? Is it pliable, to be molded into better shape by our heightened awareness? Endless questions.

He has now cut himself off from the society. A secluded grove is the safe house with the precious book. It has been eight years since the book landed in his hands. And there has been just one routine, reaching the grove in the morning with a time’s meal and water. He goes back to his hut late at night. Slowly opens his hut’s door, finds the rice and cooked lentils on his bed. Eats and goes to sleep. His mother’s tears have dried up. She has accepted her fate.

He has forgotten the number of times he has read the book. Each time he reads, it has a new meaning. He rises higher with each jump into the air to see beyond the fence. He just cannot overcome this feeling that there is limitless joy to be harnessed through learning.

His mother is not keeping well these days. She struggles to catch her breath while she struggles hard to earn two meals a day for herself and her son. She is worried what would happen to him after she is gone. Marriage as an institution is supposed to guarantee hope and care in future. She has been thinking of getting him married. But who would give his daughter to somebody who doesn’t seem to act and behave like a common householder? The world is but full of people bound by conditions that would force them to settle for the minimum. Like while most of the parents try to ensure a life-long security for their daughter, looking at the groom’s prospects from multiple angles, there are still some who are placed so tightly that just getting their daughter married somehow to anybody gives them the satisfaction of fulfilling a duty. There is one such family in a neighboring village. The father consents to Vachaspati’s mother’s proposal.

“It is our good luck to get our daughter married to such an avid scholar!” he even smiles.

Vachaspati is so lost in the questions raised by reads and rereading of the Brahma Sutra that he hardly knows what goes on in the world around him. He is so full of ever-persistent questions about the finality, the ultimate reality that there is hardly any scope for the sense organs to do their work and break his spell.

He is in a reverie, like he is most of the time, when his mother informs him about his marriage. He doesn’t seem to react in any way. His nonchalance is taken as his consent and the marriage is fixed. He is married to Bhamati on Guru Prnima (Vyasa Purnima) in the month of Asadha. It is an auspicious conjugal day when many others start their marital innings. For him but it is the night to start on his real quest.         

His hut is decorated for the bridal night. A full moon has lit up the stage outside. Shyly his bride is ushered in with a big tumbler of hot milk in her hand. She raises her eyes to sneak a look at him. In the light of the oil lamp a new world opens.

Vachaspati is sitting erect on a reed mattress on the floor. A sheaf of clean palm leaves by his side. On the small wooden writing desk a palm leaf waiting for the first word. His hand is on the feather quill still in the brass ink pot. Time seems to have been suspended. The lamp is burning almost steadily. It’s a frozen moment, like it will remain for the next 12 years.

She moves slowly and sits on the edge of the bridal bed. There are flowers on the clean white sheet. The sheet will remain as such. Time has stopped. It’s not before the dawn that he opens his eyes slowly. His hand frozen on the writing quill moves and the first Sanskrit word of his historical commentary on Brahma Sutra is written. There is a force. She can feel it. She knows she has no choice apart from being a part in this creative stillness.

And the days pass, as easily as the weeks, which pass like months, who in turn pass with the ease of years.

He is in a cocoon. He is breaking the walls of disillusions to see the light of logic to take Indian metaphysical thought to a new level after the Brahma Sutras. Brahma Sutras have given him the tools to dig the mammoth mountain of mysteries. He is busy with his spadework.

Bhamati knows the duties of a wife to her husband. She lives her duties. She has to keep his cocoon safe for him to continue working. She is the silent nurturer of his cocoon. She is invisible. But manages everything. It’s her duty.

She moves so slowly as if afraid to shift even the air particles as she cleans the floor, puts food plate in front of him, takes it away, fills the ink pot, gets fresh pair of writing quills, safely stashes the worked upon sheaves of palm leaves, arranges new palm leaves, lights the lamp as it starts getting dark, pours oil in the lamp through the night, takes his dhoti to wash and puts afresh one nearby. In between she lovingly looks at his picture, for he is just a picture, unchanging except the quill moving on the paper.

The picture is broken only twice or thrice a day when he gets up for bathing and toilet. But this also is merely an extension of the picture.

Initially during the long drawn out spells of night she would feel cravings for his touch as she watched him from the corner of the hut where she sleeps on the ground on a simple grass mattress. Then she felt guilty even in that lest she should be polluting the air with desire. Now just looking at his pensive, absorbed face gives her all the gratification she needs as a woman from her man.

She is a mother now. There is a child in her womb. She has to nurture it at the cost of the major portion of her own life, her own share in this world. Her pregnancy has lasted years and she is the same smiling, uncomplaining mother, keeping her hands safely around her bulging tummy as the world moves on.  

Well that’s basically a woman is, a mother. A man is just the instrument of her reaching her status of being a mother. To be a mother she has to cut a major portion of her own self to help life thrive in a new unit, in a new human being.

It has been twelve years since their marriage and twelve years of his working on his commentary on Brahma Sutras. It is a stormy night. Squalls of rain beat on the thatched hut. Wind beats down hard. There is no risk to this hut at least. She has been working on making it sturdier and stronger over the years during her spare time. This is exactly this type of weather she has had in mind while working on it.

His face bears a strange expression. Like you have been running for a long time, and then you see the destination, you want to run harder but the body is keeping you within limits. During the latter half of the night the storm started to abate. His face also eased up. Even a smile at the corner of his lips. It makes her world, that smile. He seems to be walking slowly now, with destination just nearby. And then he stops.

It’s a bright dawn. The storm has spent its fury. Calmness, as it’s supposed to, has spread its aura. He has written the concluding word. A journey has been accomplished. He stands up and stretches his arms. It’s like a stone statue coming to life. He looks around and sees the world as it is after so many years. There is a woman in the hut. Her uncared and untended beauty shines like moon’s corner over the edge of a dark speck of cloud. 

The mother, the donator, the giver. Her pregnancy has lasted all storms. The delivery has been painful. She is shy again. She melts under his gaze. He is curious.

“Who are you and what are you doing in my hut?” he asks politely, words coming with huge effort after so long a spell of silence.

“I’m your wife. We were married 12 years back,” she tries to remind him very softly.

He was on another plane of reality so doesn’t remember anything. He looks at her hands and realization strikes him. He remembers these. Even in that astral plane these hands have been the root of his support. These hands that bathed him, fed him, kept everything away that would break his mystical spell. He has been feeling that the task at hand has been as much of these hands as he himself. This pair of hands had melted into his veritable being. His quest had been with four hands. He always had this feeling, but had taken it as some divine support.

But can there be a bigger divinity than a mother’s efforts?

“You have been serving me for 12 years and never told me!” he has tears in his eyes.

She just smiles and has tears. Unable to speak she just looks at him.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier? I had taken a vow that I will renounce this world after completing this work!” tears are streaming down his bearded face.

“I always knew the importance of your cause. So just served you. It is my wifely duty,” she speaks very sweetly, as if it was never about her, like her life did not and doesn’t matter.

“But this is injustice to you. All this service and pain. With my vow I have to leave for the Himalayas for penance. What becomes of your efforts? Where is the fruit of all that you did,” he is agonized.

There is a flood of tears. A sage who has busted the secrets of reality to make human thought further capable of deciphering more about the ultimate is crying.

She comes closer and again assuages his pain, frees him from guilt.

Wiping his tears she says with a calm smile, “Your tears, your acceptance, your realization, this work, all these are my rewards. Like I didn’t stop you earlier, even in your vow of penance I will not be a hindrance. It will give me happiness if I still help you in seeking further truth as a recluse by allowing you to go. By freeing you of any duty that you might think as a husband may prevent you. Please go guilt-free.”  

He hasn’t yet given a title to his commentary. Wiping his tears he moves towards the collection, picks out a fresh palm leaf and writes Bhamati on it. The title. And puts it on top of the work.

“You are the love and guiding spirit behind all this. This world may forget me but not you,” he prepares to leave.

Bhamati.

She watches him go to the hills. Bhamati, the masterwork, is there for the world to dive into to fetch out more gems of metaphysical thoughts.

A man might take rounds of earth to search his destiny, a woman realizes hers just by being there with her love and care.

A man might break mountains with the raw power of hammer, a woman is the air that fills his lungs to fuel his determination.

A man might aim to crack the ultimate secret, a woman normally does it just by being a mother, by allowing a life to thrive parasitically inside her, at her cost, gobbling her share of food, blood and flesh.

And no thought can be beyond love. And nobody more suitable than manifesting love than a woman.

Be the frog king in a shit hole; it's better than being a slave in heaven

Apart from all the shit happening around, life is supposed to be a big, fat, interesting book. Let it be an exciting story, not because others applaud it, but basically because you own it, write it and enjoy it. Don't die every moment to see appreciation in the eyes of those around. If that is the expectation, then forget it. It won't happen. People around you will give you more reasons to be sad rather be happy. Others will prefer to see your sad face instead of ever-grinning, full of joy joker. Not because they are sadistic. But because it helps them in somehow digesting their own miseries. So at least don't hold any expectation on that front. The appreciation has to come basically from within you. So let it be a very fat book of your follies and little, little triumphs. Let there be unending trails of anecdotes that make you the champion of your small world. Forget about being a world champion. This world is as small as you in comparison to the cosmos. Both are puny. Laugh at it, if it laughs at you. This world has limitations, but not you. There are no limitations on you to extend the world within, inside your smallness of routine life, tiny errands, short walks, little losses, tiny gains and stable-unstable relations. Live more. Like a frog that just jumped into the murky, muddy, green-mossed puddle of water. This little puddle itself won't be there after a week. Summers are unsparing. It's boiling. But does it stop the frog king from walloping and taking fantastic breaststrokes in the filthy water? Does it stop the love-lorn fella from croaking dandily and woo the lady of its dream? It doesn't because it's just living in a lifeful 'consciousness', not 'self-consciousness' like we humans who impose 'self' on natural 'consciousness' so heavily to make life a burden. 'Ego' is the feeling of 'I am'. 'I' overshadows 'am' the state of 'just being', of 'consciousness', of living fully, of gliding in the present without the burden of past and worries of future. Nurture 'am'. Water it. It will prosper. Consciousness will spread healthily, and you nurture consciousness, dis-burden enjoyment of life from the heavyweight of 'I' and woo your mistress, the life, even in the dirtiest waters like the king of the puddle, the frog. Just 'be'. Write more chapters in the book of your life. Not as 'I' but by 'being' there. More the chapters, the better it is! Don't bother if these are just scribbled with amateur verve. It's your creation, and as parent of this one you will hardly be judgmental about it. If a particular chapter goes stale, wind it up and save your book from getting boring. Start a new chapter. We are the writers of the book of life. Keep it interesting! 

Be there in the orbit, greatness awaits you

The best chance to survive, move and be happy. Choose your orbit and glide with perfect harmony. The objects which fall out of the orbit, presuming it to be a leap for freedom, go burning and crash-landing into smithereens. The destination is not into the depths of cosmos for you to get into hot pursuit like a burning meteorite. It’s always nearby, at some place in the same gentle periphery of your common journey. No journey is common by the way. Extraordinary is just maintaining your hold on the ordinary. Love the gentle loops of your circular journey around the axis of your being: the axis of your small, small commitments and responsibilities. That is the mother planet for your individual self to revolve around in circles. It defines you. It keeps you in the orbit. It helps you in your happy journey. It stops you from escaping into the black guts of the cosmos like a rootless rock going burning and turning to ashes. So choose your little orbit. Staying in the orbit does not mean being tied to a chain. It’s a grasp for lasting freedom. It is the life-force, this gravity that keeps you bound to your orbit. Your destination lies in the orbit itself. The day you get it, it becomes the loftiest orbit and the journey worth it. Things as small as bunking office to be with the kids, surrendering your right to the TV to allow kids to enjoy their cartoon show, letting the little one to play on your abdomen and suppress the discomfort to give a winsome smile and even laughter, laughing when the little one pees on you, going to office daily over years to see that small world back home in the evening, saving money over years to give the surprise gift of a car to your children, and many more. These are the forces that keep you in your orbit. Love your orbit. Glide effortlessly. You will cover astronomical distances on the same familiar path. Love these common repetitions that go unnoticed and unrewarded. Loving these is the reward in itself. Like your path. It’s strictly yours. Stamped with the unique greatness of your unseen efforts to stay in the orbit. Just to stay in the orbit means to be great. There are countless milestones that you reach. These are as shiny as the biggest stars. This universe started with a bang from a point. That was the explosion of potential for countless souls to carve out their orbits, to glide peacefully in their trajectory. Be there, smile, give a victorious cry for you are already a winner.