Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Beginnings

It was some time in the summer of 2015 that I started turning to spirituality. Looking back, it was entirely spontaneous and not in the least bit planned, or even something I aspired to at any point in my life before.

True, a couple of months prior to this, my mom had come visiting me for the summer and I accompanied her to temples quite often, and it was one such visit that prompted a great urge, but it's unlikely that the temple visits were what set off this quest. (But quest is what I can call it now; at the time it was more of a refuge for my curiosity.)

A more potent catalyst had already set it in motion, unbeknownst to me, two and a half years prior, when my relationship of more than three years with my then girlfriend had come crashing down. In the year that had followed that, there was a texture of defeated daze to the very air that I breathed. Every waking moment was filled with a kind of uncontrollable self-doubt that surrounds one the foundations of whose well-established world-view are newly shattered, as if a single overarching event swept meaningless all your life experiences, all with a calm, terrifying apathy.

Initially I tried venting out with some friends, but soon realized the futility of that exercise. It became clear to me that the depths of what I felt were unsharable; in speech or text I could at best have created a poor, elementary imitation of the reality within. When I stopped talking about it, my sorrow was complete and pure, uncluttered with imagination of what it made me look like or what its verbal expression to someone might elicit. For the first time, then, I faced my sorrow squarely, with close attention rather than haywire self-pity, and then again, and then again. Every day and every night, for years to follow. That kind of inquiry into the deepest recesses of your mental and emotional landscape does something to you, it transforms you into something new. The word that comes closest to describing it, somehow, is spiritual.

But then again, the very first steps on this path were more likely, instead, those first few steps of my life, when as a toddler I must have found myself focused with all my being on the idea that I was all by myself and it was extremely, terribly important not to fall.

7 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. For now, my convictions regarding spirituality point me toward striving in solitude, but if I happen to change my mind, will take note to heed your suggestion. Maybe, sometimes, they do get it, but their getting it wasn’t quite the objective, really.

    As for practices, without getting into details I’ll just state the underlying crux of them: I observe my actions and thoughts, with a modestly critical vigilance, and I yearn.

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  3. Yes to striving in solitude and observing one's thoughts. But allowing someone to share the space is not for the benefit of them understanding you, but for connecting with someone deeply. I believe, spirituality is deeply personal, and this works for me, understandably everyone's path and journey is different. I wish you Godspeed on yours. :)

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  4. How times have changed. :) Sometimes your blog feels like a chronicle of my experiences too. My spiritual practises remain th same though, I have incorporated observing my thoughts too, without any judgement though, for a while now. Still, such long way to go. The quest is to feel whole within oneself.

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  5. Congratulations on your start, actually subconsciously you must have started long back.This is beginning of your realisation period, my friend.

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    1. Thank you for your kind comment, Unknown. The process may have begun long back indeed, or it may in fact be beginningless.

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