Maya

" “I thank thee, gracious Lord, I thank thee,” he gushed. “Because what I formerly believed by thy bounty, I now so understand by thine illumination.” "

- "The Self-Thinking Thought", Nathan Schneider.

I have a story in my head- and it is not working in the telling of it- which should not be the case. We make up stories all the time, don't we, and how casually!

There is such a thing as false memory, for instance. I remember that soon after our marriage, I went with my wife to Kancheepuram. She accuses me to this day that I did not buy her any lunch, she was starving all day. I remember nothing of that sort. In fact, I have a mental picture of us eating, even the tastelessness of the food hastily cooked up at that family-run small-town hotel. Obviously, one of us is wrong. We both believe our version of the incident wholeheartedly and without the least doubt.

Now, let's question this a bit.

What is belief? Is it something you make up, or something you are sure of? Take people like you and me who go to temples and worship many Gods- we believe that there is a God. But because we are not sure about the existence of that God, it goes without saying, our belief is something imaginary, made-up reality. And the faith of Dawkins and his band of merry atheists, they are sure there is no God- they have the science as back up- the fossils, DNA, Darwin and more.

But then, let's think of our brother, the fundamentalist. He is sure there is God, and an afterlife. Where do we place his belief?

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And what about my friend who saw angels- shimmering bodies of less than a foot in length, flying about without wings as on a wireless trapeze-, he saw them radiant in a railway carriage. He is sure what he saw was real. In fact, this vision was so impressive, its imprint so convincing,- he doubts the existence of this world without its angels.

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I think I should get on with the story: start at a particular point, go on about something interesting, and find some fulfilling conclusion. That is the theory.

But where should I pick up the thread and weave a tale? Life, as you an I know it, has a way of defeating our purpose, flowing out of the confines of our laboriously constructed mental dam, and irrigating its own fields and harvesting the self-grown crops. Like a tale that runs away from its author, darkening his intentions in the unspelt words, throwing light upon inanticipated passages.

Either our stories have a life of its own, or I am lousy at story-telling- you are the one to tell.

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I'll have another go at this.

Think of this boy: young and precocious, serious beyond his age, studious with strict morals- when he is free, he relaxes by rolling out his prayer mat and sits down to meditate upon the Universal spirit that animates his Soul and this universe. And he is so irritated by the grasping love of his mother who ceaselessly worries that he will take to sannyas: she weeps with remorse, is insecure about her future, and mindless of the present.

And one day he marries, and one day a son is born to him. Sometime later, one night, he wakes up from a nightmare, his heart palpitating in terror- he has dreamt his son had taken the chalk of rat-poison and gnawed at it with his toothless mouth. He cries aloud, and wakes up to find his son in deep slumber, and dumb to his wife's alarmed exclamations.

And he finds something laugh from within him- not mocking, but indulgent.