When, you sleep, you lose half of your life, but when you shut your eyes, you have lost the rest of your life…
Since childhood, I am a strange creature, who looks at things beyond or above the horizon. People think that, I argue unnecessarily and try to swim against the stream. However, I am not sure that they are right or I have a different perspective for life.
I used to and still think how tough it could be for a bird, fish or even a small creature that would live under the ground to go against their basic instincts.
“Whether a Fish wants to fly in the open sky “ -
Or
“Whether a Bird wants to explore the beauty of the ocean“
Or
“A rodent, who wants to lay down near the sea beach to enjoy a full sun bath”.
These ideas eventually lead me in the direction of digging, exploring and searching of events in a peculiar way.
That time was in my sweet sixteen of age, doing discussions about studies and gossips. I used to go my friends home. Even though, I visited my friend’s home often, it was a very nice weather of February. As we were sitting on the roof top .My eyes like “Columbus” were exploring the neighborhoods to find new Indies (A beautiful face).
When I looked couple of beautiful girls in front of my friend house? - Wow! I won the jackpot! I screamed.
Hey! Why did you not mention this in the past? Man, you have a beautiful Garden with full of lovely flowers and I have been searching for one “Rose”!
Don’t even look over there, He shouted at me.
Are you kidding, Why not? I said,
These girls are spirituals’ and holy; generally we don’t look in that direction, He said. I am not going to make any comments or a remark about their belief .How does this even matter, whether I am looking to them or not? I argued.
When he saw that, I was not going to listen to him; He gave up and hid himself behind me.
When, I was observing (looking) these beautiful girls, one of the girls caught me red- handed and asked huskily.
Hey kid, what are you looking at?
When she said this to me, I was kind of surprised, though she was hardly much older than me, yet was calling me a “Kid”. Due to her surprise attack, I was kind of nervous and said to her, I was just looking. Besides, who has been living here what do you guys do?
Now, I felt that, she was a more polite, may be no one in the past dared to ask these girls, what they did over here. Did people have some prejudice opinions about them?
She discussed among other elder women and called us.
Why don’t you come over here?
Now, this unexpected invitation had made me thrilled, but my friend was still feeling like some scapegoat, who had been invited for sacred purpose. He murmured, man, today my mother will kill me, she strictly instructed me not to talk to them or even look over there. I pulled him with me and we went towards their home.
They took us inside their house, there was a big hall that was full of various types of candles, and walls were occupied with different types of religious paintings. There were other girls/women ages of 20 to 35.
One of them asked me, why are you guys staring at us and what do you want?
I looked at her like a hobo, who was in front of a hotel and owners of the hotel had been asking him what he wanted?
I said very politely, I was just wondering about things you guys do here?
We have been acquainted with a holy purpose, we do prays and meditations, outside world has forbidden us, even we don’t talk without any reason and have devoted our complete life for holy reasons, The woman said.
This was something new to me, how you do meditation, Can you teach me? I asked very bravely.
When, my friend heard this, he was about to faint. My mom is calling me, I have to go now, He said arbitrarily and in a fraction of second, he left the building. Now, I was all alone in front of these women, like a freshman student, who was coming to college and had to face the ragging on the very first day of college.
Anyway, Let us face the “Genie of the Aladdin “, what worst could happened, by thinking this thought, I stayed over there? A senior lady who seemed to be these girls master called someone’s name and instructed that person, to take this kid in to a room and teach him how to control his mind, thoughts and desires. Maybe, he will learn how to be a true devotee.
When, I turned my neck and saw this girl, I was astonished; I had lost my presence, and felt that times had been stopped. I didn’t remember , when she called me and how I followed her, My “walking in the sleep” came back to life and I woke up, when I heard a very innocent , soft and melodically voice. She took me in one room and said to me, we will do our meditation here, this room had very tiny lights for it, it was pretty dark in other sense, and a candle in the middle of the room was fighting for the existence of light. She instructed me to sit down on the piece of carpet near the candle and she also sat down in right front of me.
Our distance from candle was very short and we were facing each other. She said in her polite voice, Please close you eyes and concentrate, as she said, her voice in the silent room felt like a gentle stream of water coming from the top of the hill. Closing eyes in front of her was a daunting task for me, for such a gorgeous creature was in right front of you and by closing your eyes and not to look at it, you were disobeying god’s order.
Finally, I asked why we had to close our eyes, when we are already in a dark room.
To take away our thoughts from this world, she replied.
Why away from this world, I asked?
God had made you; I and this beautiful world, there must have been a reason for doing this. By just closing our eyes and siting ideal, are we not an insulting God?
How, she asked?
God worked very hard to made gardens, flowers, birds, ponds, falls, lakes, mountains, you, me and many other things, I said. By closing our eyes we are insulting him. I did not understand, what do you mean? She asked again.
Let- s suppose you have invited someone into your home, you have worked very hard to please this guest and for doing this you had prepared different type of foods, decorated your home and wear new apparel.
But this, guest does not appreciate your food, decorations and even doesn’t look at you, how would you feel?
Very bad & disappointed, she replied?
You are searching for a light while sitting in the dark, how is it possible?
Kapil said further.
Why not the girl argued?
When knowledge is a light & unawareness is dark than how can you expect to learn something when you are hiding yourself in the dark?
Light always searches for the dark. A tiny ray of light kills complete dark than meditation is just like, keeping yourself in to the dark.
Should I say anything further i said very softly, please don’t say anything further and close your eyes! She replied.
Due to infatuations of her voice, I closed my eyes for a while. Finally this magic was over; I opened my eyes and looked at her again. It was very hard for me to resist not looking at her gorgeous face. By the virtue of her third eye or her sixth sense or past experiences, whatever you may call, she opened one eye and said, Please close your eyes, Madam, it is impossible for me to do this in front of you, I am not able to close my eyes, I said, for a while she thought and then
She ordered me to look at the center of the flame of the candle and concentrate.
What is the purpose of doing this, I asked her?
To do meditation, she replied.
I asked, what are the advantages?
You will learn, How to control your desires, she said.
I asked, is not this better to fulfill the desires rather than control and avoid them?
These are bad for humanity, and every human being should abdicate to them, she said. I did not argue after that, I don’t want to upset her even more.
I tried my best to look at the center of the flame of the candle but could not resist seeing her constantly.
After two or three minutes of deep silence, she opened her eyes back. Maybe she was feeling uncomfortable due to the penetration of my staring eyes or something else.
You may go now and do this practice at home, she said.
When she said this to me , It appeared to me , Like “god” was suddenly angry at me and telling me to “Go to Hell”. Water came across my throat, and I felt like a very sick person and we came out from the room. When master of that girl saw, she was surprised,
Hey, how come, you guys are meditating for only a few seconds? ,
He is already an expert; he does not need any guidance at all. I taught him how to practice at home, she replied to her. For me that was not in her soft voice, it was something hurting her inside and even the acrimony of her voice could be heard by a deaf person.
With a heavy heart, I came back to my home and soon forgot about that incidence. Two days later, we had a power outage, and my mom ordered me to light a candle. As I lit the candle in the dark room, I saw towards flame of the candle, I was stunned. It seemed to me, that the girl was across the flame of the candle and was staring at me.
This was the most thrilling, astonishing and scary moment of my life. The Candle was just about to slip away from my hand, but suddenly my mom came in to the room and started lighting other candles. Immediately her glimpse disappeared in the prevalence of the candles light.
A couple of days later, I went to my friend’s house. He told me, a couple of girls had left this place, and they restricted the entry of any young person in their house. This was shocking news. A couple of times when I tried to light the candles alone in a dark room with the hope that someday I will be able see her again. However I could not succeed.
I went so many times to my friend’s house with this tiny hope, May be, One day I would be able to see her again, but I never saw her in my life.
After this incidence, I am not able to close my eyes in any dark, silent room.
I don’t know why?
May be someone can tell me?
By
Kapil Kumar
Note: “Opinions expressed are those of the authors, and are not official statements. Resemblance to any person, incident or place is purely coincidental.' ”
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