Simplicity

Life is so simple. Maybe when I have resolved this fact I would realize how elegantly everything fits into oneness.

I am often reminded of David Hilbert, one of the greatest mathematical logicians who headed the belief that the fundamental axioms on which the whole edifice of math had emerged were to be proved. This is just what I do everyday of my life- try to unearth axioms that already are truths of life and start a quest for some other miracle answer while there is none. We never want simple answers. It has to be disguised in the most complex way to prove it's profundness.

(Gather)^Infinity

Everyday of my life there is one thing I hear and also do - Gather. We gather everything that makes it to the earth. As a kid I never really had any thoughts about owning things. Well maybe stationaries- I loved to have these amazing sharpeners, erasers, pencils and pens. Then it grew into books. I rarely bought anything but when I did, I wanted the branded stuff. I thought well if it's the best it ought to last long. Anywhere I went I took a book. I thought I could read up on something. If at my doctor's office waiting for my turn, I had to pick a book to read. If at a bus stop waiting for a friend, I had to read. Gather Gather..always lost in a world where I thought I have to keep gathering something new that would 'enhance' my mind and life.

One day I did realize that I was heading nowhere reading or gathering stuff. I just do it because I have never really given a minute to just be. Then it dawned how beautiful it was to do nothing and just be. Silence was simply beautiful. I enjoyed being alone and just living my day and not planning it. Talking to everyone I met in the colony I stayed, walking to a store and randomly talking to people, going to Crossword and having a chat with the guys working there, sitting there and just watching people come and go. I watched them discuss books, beliefs; argue why they were correct. Life suddenly seemed all so very unique. I slowly started giving up all the petty wishes of owning things. The hardest was parting with books. I always bought books. I tried to give up on that too. I felt different and the ego also told me that I was unique since I was doing something towards the world. Humph! Still half the time it was the ego being fed. I tried to find answers for selfless service. I tried asking - 'If we are doing some service to satisfy oursleves isn't that selfishness?' Someone tried giving me a genuine answer based on faith. Though I believe in God it sounded so lame. I wanted something stated very profoundly ..something that I had not heard of before. Something that 'I' could not think up. I searched more - But I heard the same thing.

Finally, my love for academics saw me finding my way into US. A student life was good for two reasons. One you have no time to think. Two you have all the world's time to think. I saw myself reading a lot more books. I wanted to learn Physics, Math, History, Neuroscience, Music. All that would tell me about the working of the world around me. I discussed it with my friends. I thought I ought to let them know all that I had learnt. My conversations with people was always about something new I had read up. It actually felt good to be the first to introduce them to all these new concepts I was learning. Then suddenly it all seemed strange to be doing it. It was taking me nowhere. It was plain satisfaction of ___? I don't yet have an answer. But it was a stage where I learnt a lot about myself.

Life is so very simple that we can't bear the fact of it's simplicity. So we try to conjure some difficult feats for us to achieve. Just being honest with oneself makes everything a path to bliss. I read/met people who were super intelligent and yet the humblest...people who might not spill a brilliant pun but yet the wisest of minds. All of them humbled me. But there is always the desire that I ought to be different and unique. I've gathered yet not free.

The day I stop gathering I would set myself free.

Missing Thought

I stood on the mountain top feeling rather top! From that height everything below looked bewilderingly empty. It was all so small that the only reality was the vast nothingness. The sky looked brightly lit with stars. It wore a wise look. The only sound was silence itself. I wondered what all this meant.

Suddenly I heard a whisper - 'F l y'. It dawned on me that I had trekked up the Himalayas to try flying. The moment was here and I was ecstatic. So in the stillness of the night I felt welcome to plunge into darkness and then into nothingness. I was eager to experience the thrill of free-fall. I stretched out my hands, felt the breeze brush my hair, the smell of new life and I let go the ground below my feet. It was a moment of exhilaration. There was nothing but empty space all around me.

I tried to think of all objects’ behavior when they are flying. Of course not stones, they never learnt the art of flying, just embraced gravity. But I thought of a leaf in Fall. How it gracefully flew down. It swayed from here to there and sometimes the wind helped it soar a little higher. I’m not sure if the leaf quite liked it but gravity sure did cuss the wind.

I thought of leaves and tried to sway like them. Hmm...it felt good though I was not doing it well. At least it delayed my fast paced drop. I felt the wind trying to hold me affectionately and lift me and take me along. The space looked so good with just me experiencing the vastness of the universe. I thought emptiness, after all, looked very beautiful. No accessories from the earth and the sky, and it still looked good. It seemed to tell me secrets that I had never heard or thought existed. My body felt like a feather and the mind...oh well, it had ceased to exist I think.

Maybe not. A thought seemed to attract my attention and so I glanced at it. It said, 'You are reaching the ground and you have to miss it.' The thought looked very forcefully at me. I realized I had to miss the thought first to miss the ground. But how could I, if I keep thinking that I will not miss the thought. So I decided to see; to delegate the task to my eyes to save me from the thought. I gave myself to the mercy of the eyes, the wind, and the space, hoping not to be pitied by gravity to claim me to itself.

Indeed the eyes found hope. It found a book flying past me. The book was having a rather wonderful flight or so it seemed. It had the look of a wizened book. So the wind pushed me towards the book. I decided to hold on to it and hoped that I could bind myself to its course of flight. I reached for it but it seemed to grin and escape from me. But fly over me, around me, and through me and still escape from me. Finally I managed to catch it and I breathed a gulp of relief. The book was titled, 'Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy' and it read, 'Flying is an art. It is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss it.'

Funny eh? It never ceases to make grand come back.

There was a lot of light. My eyes could not bear to stay closed and were being strongly urged to open and stare at the light. They did, and I saw the poster of 'Stairway to Heaven' on my wall and realized that the cause of dream was the effect of reading 'Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy.'