On the border line

Science and spirituality have always been at two ends for people who never understood it properly. I have always felt that people who correctly understood spirituality has always correctly understood science and people who correctly understood science has always correctly understood spirituality. In my perspective, I feel, though to a certain extent one can find a one to one mapping between spirituality and science, it is really difficult to experience that relation at least for a second in real life, though not impossible.

“What are you going to do with all these thoughts?” It was Mike and Vijay who popped this question to me, a year back when we four (Vijay, Rajesh, Mike and myself) were sitting together for lunch beneath the umbrella spread out in midst of the silver colored chairs at Pelitta, the Malaysian restaurant in Pondy Bazar. It was one of our usual Friday lunch out. The question might have been a casual one for them, but it made ripples in my mind. Yes. That is a big question. What am I going to do with these thoughts? My answer is – Nothing. People who think a lot and people who do not do so lead their life almost the same. Except for the thinking part. Thinking is just a back ground process happening. Its outcome may reflect in ones attitude towards life-be it positive or negative. Whatever it is, nobody is exempted from the pain and pleasures that life offers just because one thinks too much and the other does not. Both enjoy life in their own way. Who enjoys better is very much subjective. But doesn’t a bit of turning in help you to know more about the world? Doesn’t that make the moments of enjoyment more intense? I cannot make a comparative study. But I am sure about it. Still I do agree to the fact that at some point of time one must drop all these thoughts and be free. Before the equations and derivations could tantalize me further to a zone of puzzles which arrived at a dead end, I found a way out. In spite of the intellectual satisfaction that Physics gave me, I cannot deny the fact that I was intellectually tormented. No science could answer my queries. I doubted if I was craving for a creative satisfaction. But no. When you get intellectual satisfaction you crave for creative satisfaction and when you get creative satisfaction you crave for intellectual satisfaction. Even if you get both, the problem still continues. Isn’t something still missing? Do we really get answers to the questions that ponder us? Are we really happy eternally? Why is life so enigmatic? The questions are not even worth asking. Or are they? Like the question of hen or egg came first, they are useless. At least, that is what people who have already undergone the torture of quest say. But staying back and sitting with fingers crossed is also impossible. This quest is like the tentacles of an octopus that tightens its grip till you are dead. So I didn’t have a choice of my own to escape from the thoughts either. Experiments took its on course whether I realized it or not. As Jesus said 'Knock and it will open; seek and you will find it". It is true. I found the missing sequence. But sadly, I couldn’t catch it so that I can explain it to others. Moreover my mental frame work couldn’t stand the heaviness of reality. So I couldn’t retain what I thought (fancied?) as a glimpse of truth. But whatever it is, I got a key to happiness. Of course, happiness is a state of being. And now and then it may be lost. This is like walking on a razor's edge. You can prefer to stand on the edge. But it requires a gymnast's attention. You will be on the border line. Sometimes swayed in and sometimes out. Take a look inside – you see the calm serene world, full of bliss, where you love to be alone, where you love the solitude, where you find yourself expanding and loving the whole universe, where you feel the pulse and rhythm of nature. Now take a look on the other side – you see the present world, the noisy bee hive, full of passion, excitement, fun along with pains, always clinging on to something, where you cant ever imagine being alone, where loneliness is suffocating and maddening. Living on the border is always difficult and rather risky. It is easier to fall either to one side or to the other side. Now what is wrong with falling in to the bliss side? Nothing wrong if you realize that you are leaving this noisy world for the better. What about falling on to the other side? Nothing wrong as long as we can accept pain and pleasure equally. But we are not able to take that so easily. Still we love this noisy bee hive. Because it is so glittery that in spite of the pains that are offered free of cost along with the pleasures, (take one, get one free?) we like to stay back here. We are afraid that the world of bliss will not offer the excitement and fun this noisy world so generously offer. So we prefer to stay in this abyss, even if we know there is a way out. My preference to stay at the border is because I have an occasional interest to breathe the fresh air of the world of bliss. Or may be because the noise is not strong enough to force me to cross the border to the castle of bliss. So I am stuck at the border. That’s how I am here. At the border. I do not know what to do next. Neither do I want to think about it. But as long as I know there is a world of bliss out there which is within my hands reach, as long as I know that there is a key to happiness, I am happy. So my job now is to stay at the edge, enjoy the fun of the noisy world, suffer the pains, simultaneously take a deep breath of fresh air from the other side, enjoy the serenity and bliss. In future when the noise become too louder for me to tolerate, when the pains are unbearable I may start my eternal journey to the other side -a journey to the castle of bliss, a journey without come back. But will that happen?