One Man's Journey

I owe the genesis of my spiritual journey to that imperial sage, Marcus Aurelius, who roused me from my self-induced lethargy with his admonitions thus:

think of your many years of procrastination; how the gods have repeatedly granted you further periods of grace, of which you have taken no advantage. It is now time to realise the nature of the universe to which you belong and of that controlling Power whose offspring you are; and to understand that your time has a limit to it. Use it then, to advance your enlightenment ; or it will be gone, and never in your power again.

Ever since I stumbled on these typographical nuggets, I resolved that before stepping ashore into another life, I would undertake as a wayfarer not to be oblivious of where my road is leading. Presently, I am making my way with unsure and tottering footsteps inside a labyrinth, a veritable laboratory where my karma, oral, physical and mental , will be examined under a microscope by the great Watcher to see if the seeds of man's inhumanity to man have taken roots or have been choked to premature death. Every little step I take brings me closer to the exit which doubles as a portal to the forked boulevard at whose junction I must labour under the indecision of turning right or left.

Something needs to be said about the traffic situation inside the labyrinth, a city full of straying streets where millions of bewildered creatures are striving to fashion a verisimilitude of order out of the babelic crescendo of confusion. Threads, ropes, strings, and all other objects with which one's progress could be delineated as we turn, overturn, and return inside the widening gyre, criss-cross into an inextricable entanglement. Even though it is cosmologically claimed that one must have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing star, a sane traffic policeman is a novelty, an oddity, and something of a rarity in these circumstances.

It was while loitering at the junction of the alley of indecision that I met a rather interesting character, a Hinduist of Indian extraction whose specialty was palmistry. At first I rebuffed him when he approached me with his trademark disarming smile. Still reeling from the euphoria over the successful outcome of my first attempt at tarot reading, I told him I could on my own and by myself look into the seeds of time and say which grain will grow and which will not. After this brief exchange, we both went our separate ways, only for me to realise within few minutes of leaving him that this went against the grain of my spiritual journey in which I was supposed to learn from and share with my fellow travellers. I then retraced my footsteps to go after this Indian palm reader who proceeded to tell me things in my life --past and present-- which were accurate. He also made some predictions, the most important of which was that I would live up to a hundred plus years of age! A hundred years spent traversing the nooks and crannies of this bedlam would turn me into a veritable bedlamite, seen only through the perceptual prism of the old grandfather clock that is kept locked away in the cellars because of the erroneous thinking that it has outlived its usefulness. I hate being kept under locks or in cellars; so I wouldn't want to live up to a hundred years inside the labyrinth where life is a jungle and man is a hapless creature against whom nature is pitched in a war of attrition and extinction. Many a time is he assailed by demons whose only natural delight is to launch an unending barrage of katyushas in the form of thunderbolts, hurricanes, cyclones, volcanoes, tornadoes, tsunamis, etc, at the products of his endeavours. In the midst of this battle, the son of man is often forced to seek refuge under the daughter of hope who assuages his ignorance by explaining to him the nature of the unknowable (or the unknown).

It is the nature of man, not to merely endure, but to prevail as well. Nothing in his life is more strange than the stirrings he finds in himself to look beyond his animal existence and not to be fully satisfied with its immediate substance. This restlessness may be described as a vague uneasiness, or a sense that something is missing. It is as if some higher purpose is being revealed, and for a moment we feel connected to a mystery that nevertheless eludes our grasp. I, personally, have learnt great lessons inside the labyrinth. Lessons that schooled my wildness and tutored me to the point of embracing humility, patience, endurance, and solitude as an art. I am conscious of how much I have been manacled by chains of my own forging, and which myself alone can render asunder. In my own maturity and spirituality, I perceive and affirm my anxieties with courage. Hence I am able to proclaim to the entire world of humanity that my one avocation is to unburden myself of the millstone of suffering which has been hanging round my neck ever since I was born. And the journey upon which I have embarked is not meant to lead me to perfection, but to enlightenment. My blood may become exhausted, my flesh may become decomposed, my bones may fall apart, but I will never surrender until I find the way to enlightenment.

Lest I am mistaken for a guru and believed to be the possessor of mystic powers because of the frequent occurrence of the words "spiritual" and "spirituality" in this essay, let me quickly say that I am only a newly emergent being from the cocoon of illusions in which things appear upside down. And now that I can see things in their right perspective, I see it as my duty to keep alive in my breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience which having taken hold of every nerve and sinew in my mortal body, has in addition consumed me with a desire to understand the meaning and purpose of life, as an antidote to end-of-life despair, depression, and hopelessness. My spirituality lays no special claim to expertise in matters relating to spiritualism, necromancy, psychometry, clairvoyance, telepathy, etc. These advanced studies are the exclusive preserve of those who have succeeded in attaining a certain mastery of the inner self, and who have developed a modicum of psychic force or power which is under their own control. I am just a work in progress whose everyday wish is to be granted the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that I may know my Creator better; and to be granted the strenght with which to remain steadfast, devoted, and dedicated in my relationship with Him.