Wednesday, 21 August 2013

In Search Of Light

Have you ever seen a sea in the sky? Have you ever seen a void in that sea? Have you seen a world in that void? Have you seen a light above it all? That shimmering ray which sparkles a glimmer of hope...It is alright if you haven't. There are days when even I can't seem to find it...I keep walking in the dark hoping to bump into someone holding a flaming torch to guide the way ahead. I find myself getting lost in the dark. I never seem to reach the end of the tunnel and find the light. Thankfully, this does not last. I usually manage to shake myself awake from these nightmares.

However, on some days this is not possible. How do you wake yourself up when you realize you were not sleeping in the first place? What do you do in those moments when you feel that the entire purpose of your existence is like the tip of an unsharpened pencil - completely pointless! What do you do when you find the very ground on which you stood, resting your faith, is crumbling to pieces and you have no place to ground yourself. In those moments, can you patiently wait for the universe to shower your life with happiness and meaning?

Like many, I too had dreams and the will to chase them with the hope that one, fine day, they would become a reality. Leaving behind the luxury of familiarity, I entered a strange land with dreamy eyes and elaborate plans. I wanted the tree of life but only grass and weeds lay on my way. I searched for people who would dare to be different but no matter where I looked, everyone was just like the others.

I sought solace indoors and hid myself from the world. I no longer wished to participate in their worldly affairs. I wanted to get lost so that I could be found. I waited and waited for someone to miss me and come looking for me but no one knocked on the door. I stared out of my window and looked at everything happening around me. Nothing stopped because I wasn't a part of it. What was I to do next?

I stared at myself in the mirror. I could not recognize my own reflection. I still stepped out of the house hoping that the world would accept and accommodate the new "me" even though I wasn't at peace with myself. I really had nothing to worry about. The world did not notice any difference - it treated me in the same manner as it always had. I did not know whether to be hurt or whether to breathe a sigh of relief.

Yet not everything remained the same. I started noticing things I had never laid eyes on before. I could see the sadness in her eyes no matter how hard she tried covering it up with a big smile on her face. I could see the way he crossed his fingers nervously even as he portrayed himself as the perfect picture of confidence. And then it dawned on me! People are forever tenderly wrestling and negotiating with their own shadows, making preemptive strikes on their personal share of the world's evil, fighting the good fight to keep from spewing their darkness on those around them.

In moments of darkness, we have to look for the light within us for there is nobody else to illuminate the path for us. The realization that there is no "you" was quite a liberating experience for me. It means that succumbing to institutionalized relations of 'family', 'love', etc. is merely a struggle to keep the illusion of an "I" and a "you". In reality, there is only the "other" and nothing else. Therefore, by refusing to associate with another, I am really just liberating the "other" as a consequence of destroying myself.

Sometimes I feel that I am the moon that removes darkness from people's lives while never revealing my dark side; and just like the moon gleams because of the light from the sun, I too shine because of the light from another source - I just don't know who my source of light is. Hopefully, someday in the future, we will meet. After all, what is life without hope?

15 comments:

  1. A truly moving, sensitive thought-provoking testimony, one which has reverberations in my own soul's experiences. It has been a pleasure to see you grow...SHANTI.

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    1. Glad to see our soul journeys have traversed similar paths :) Thank you for being a part of my journey!

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  2. "In moments of darkness, we have to look for the light within us for there is nobody else to illuminate the path for us."
    Profound and inspirational.

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  3. That last stanza made me smile :-)

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    1. Ha!Ha! Reading this brought a smile on my face :)

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  4. Loved your last lines!!! :)

    Seriously too good!!

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  5. Who are we and what is our purpose? Seemingly direct questions to answer which we have to search on our own...Very introspective post Divya, loved the analogy of unsharpened pencil for our existence, very well put I must say.A lot of these questions and thought keep popping in every now and then, each time a new quest unfolds or sometimes we end up in circles...Will we ever find the complete answer and will we even realise when we do? Well we can always hope to, can't we?

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    1. Thank you Reshma :) I think we need to give up our affinity towards linearity and be alright with running around in circles. I had written an earlier post where I mentioned that if our life is like a jigsaw puzzle, a part of our journey is in being at peace with the missing pieces instead of being in a hurry to complete the puzzle :D

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    2. Very true, the joy lies in unraveling the puzzle as best as we can and in our own way, not as per a set of rules and with a clock ticking...

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  6. First of all, apologies for commenting here so late ;) Actually, 've subscribed to your blog by email and it always gives me your feed after 2 days of posting, you see...

    Now the post- so wonderfully written divya.. It was after so many days that I was I didn't take a break while reading someone's post, I simply couldn't! :)

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    1. Thank you for dropping by :) I don't think you are late :P And thank you so much for what you said :) It really means a lot!

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