Beyond the valley of the vanishing flowers and the green lake where nymphs are still said to be seen, lies the grand mountain range known everywhere as the Mystical Mountains. The journey for anyone to reach these mountains starts from within.
The traveller has to meditate for a long period of time, centering his attention on the Mystical Mountains. Then when it is destined, the traveller has a vision and what one sees becomes the first clue. Usually it is an animal that one sees; a dragon, a wolf, a snake or an eagle, it can be anything. The traveller then has to face the animal; if victorious, the animal becomes the traveller’s ally and shows the path ahead. Sometimes it takes a few days, a few months, a few years to cross the valley of the vanishing flowers and the green lake and sometimes one isn’t able to cross it at all. But the one who does reach the Mystical Mountains meets ecstasy.
Every individual is meant to be there and for each one the mountains hold a miracle, a mystery to be solved and a reward worth spending a lifetime for. Those who return from the Mystical Mountains come back with a task in hand to finish it in a definite period of time. Such a person is like a Samurai, a Monk, a Yodha, untroubled by the material bonding and full of the life force. The magnanimity of such a few selected ones attracts the like-minded and gives them the idea about the spectacles that awaits them in the Mystical Mountains. Thus, a new mind, a new traveller set for a new journey to reach the Mystical Mountains, taking the first step to look within.
How brilliant it is that we can time travel? The art of storytelling can take us anywhere we want.
Recently, I met Scout and Jem in America; it was the unforgettable 1940s then. While I got to know their daily routine and the way they spent their summer holidays, I realised that it wasn’t much different from the way I and my brother spent ours.
Of course, the fact that we were brought up here in India, our games, and our ways were a bit different but the spirit was the same.
And who cares about the dry, old facts when feelings rule high?
‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is wonderfully written and is a complete circle. The events start and hold your attention throughout.
You reach the end and find that you, along with Scout, have drawn a circle, a perfect one.
Though you wish to read more and know more, after keeping the book down you are left to ponder upon a great number of things just like one feels after a revelation.
Time flies so fast and gives us an impression of change but what changes and what doesn’t remain uncertain.
To me, this novel shares a feeling that things might appear to but they don’t actually change.
In fact, things just shift from one level to the other.
But wait, all of this is more powerful than one can think. We still want to hear what Scout has to say.
Her story remains as engaging as it was for the people back then.
This is what a soulful story does, it continues and flies and sometimes even time travels.
So that the brush strokes are fine, so that the rhythm is right, so that the planet follows its trajectory, so that the Universe meets the end, everything has to be done perfectly.
Not the type of perfection that binds you, but the one which leads you to Nirvana. For perfection, concentration is a must.
One requires such a level of concentration that unites with the soul of the Universe. It then works wonders.
What is otherwise the glory of nature, the majesty of the mountains, the thunder in the sky? And evolution?
Perfection is nature, nature is perfection. Image – Pixabay.
Meditation is the key, the answer to everything.
In a quiet mind, the peaceful colours of the Universe shine and bring along the eternal power.
Just a touch of this energy makes the mind sublime and supreme, no matter if only for seconds, the experience is life-changing.
If this is not Love, then what is? Loving oneself purely and believing that we all are one. The golden thread is common, it is absolute, it is present.
I remember a folk tale about a fool who once stated that he could see a bright light in everything, in everyone around him. The fool found the brightness overwhelming, he danced until he died.
People did not bother much, after all, who believes a fool, though they later started worshipping the fool.
Death of the fool became the foundation of a belief. The fool was a juggler, a perfectionist in his art.
Centuries have passed and I have witnessed it elegantly, quietly.
Countless diyas have washed my feet and brightened my space. The lanterns took my shadow along and I crossed the steps to reach the temple.
I have enjoyed my permanence. I have blessed them all.
The sound stays forever and if you try to hear honestly, I have so many stories to tell. The echoes are playful and I vouch for this fact.
But there is nothing like the music of the bells. The small bells try, always, to tune with the bigger ones. Every time the result is harmonious.
I like flowers, both fresh and old. The fresh ones are fragrant and the old ones make a wonderful husky sound. And I collect sound.
All kinds of prayers, musical, non-musical, the chants, the whispered wishes and loud blessings are there in my collection.
I am different from the ones who come to see me here. They are opposite to what I am. I stay still and collect sound. I was made to meditate. While they can move all around and express. It must be their way of meditating.
She comes here a lot. Somehow, I can see a resemblance between this lady and me. She is mostly as quiet as I am, she reads a lot, maybe she collects through her eyes.
She is the one here who can listen to my collection, my stories. But maybe not now, she is busy collecting.
I’ll wait, nevertheless, and collect the sound of ruffles when she turns the paper.
The rock-cut cave temple, Pataleshwar, in Pune. Image by Jagriti Rumi.
“I have the grand key, yay, hmm, now I just need to collect the other 99.” [Source – Pixabay]
There is a key ring because there is a key, there is a key because there is a cupboard, there is a cupboard because I have things to keep, and I have things to keep because I think I need them…I think I need them because I think so…I have a mountain of material things just because of the way I think.
I keep adding my possessions to this mountain, mostly trying to show off its grandeur, forgetting that I am the one who is carrying it.
These possessions are shiny and majestic in a strange way, but every time I try to talk to them, they just stare at me ambiguously, neither do they move nor do they accept that they are dead…my not-so-dead possessions don’t talk to me.
Am I complaining? I thought I’ll take umbrage at the point that my possessions are not enough and stop. I took a step further and bought another cupboard and worshiped the zillion gods online; it took days multiplied by nights subtracted by three quality thoughts and finally, I got success…a new key ring, for my new cupboard’s new key…all the shiny things beaming shamelessly at me.
Gradually, the three quality thoughts multiplied and I started feeling the weight of the mountain.
The quality thoughts then converged and I was left with only myself; it was calm and quiet then. I felt light just like a feather and I was happy. I woke up and faced the reality.
I don’t have the keys to most of my cupboards, I lost them, dropped them…it would be nice to think that I did that intentionally.
Your eyes are sweetly closed, you are smiling peacefully, and you are meditating…but how? How do you do it?
I am listening to my breath and the music my heart plays. My eyes are closed yet I see all the colours ever so vividly. I feel so light as if I am flying and thus I smile. I am meditating, I am living in the moment, in the second. I can feel the spirit inside me. You are asking me how to do it…but the answer lies within you.
Search for it, not once or twice or thrice, do it all the time, ceaselessly, until you find no further need to explore. When time and space vanish and you are present everywhere.
Is this the ultimate search? Will this solve everything?
When you start looking for something, it becomes the first step. And if you look clearly, the first step turns into the last step. This is only possible if you ask the correct question.
I am painting you in different colours…you somehow are choosing the colours for yourself. I don’t know how you are doing it but then it is only making the painting more alive. I don’t want to part yet I’ll have to; you’ll look good in the big palace, not in this old hut. You are almost complete now….
If you believe, truly, that I should stay here with you, you will see me here even if I leave.
*
*
The painter after finishing the painting of the Buddha, sent it to its owner for which he was awarded a good sum of money. He stayed gloomy as he wanted to have the talking Buddha to himself.
He thought about the last words of the Buddha for a long time…days passed and then months.
Sitting quietly and pondering upon those words he felt calm and just then he realised that the mud wall of his hut had an impression on it that looked exactly like the painting of the Buddha… he was entranced!
All the walls of his hut had turned into the painting of the Buddha and slowly the roof and the floor as well.
The painter smiled and closed his eyes, feeling serene and unaware of the fact that his own body was turning into the painting ofthe Buddha.
Sitting in a theatre hall, watching a film, in light and darkness, in the noisy quietness, I realised how fast everything is moving and how static I am, busy running in my mind, alone.
The image of the yellow flower, growing peacefully in the sunlight is still fresh and I too can feel the warmth. I am running madly and my friends are running behind me, we are happy, and finishing the game means everything to us. There is a rush to catch and not to get caught.
After school hours, it wasn’t a routine to play on the way home, it was us, we were simply playing. I was fast but so were the others, with school bags on our back, we didn’t care of the world around us, we bumped into it passionately and made it alive. The lost adults often said, ‘You kids!’ and we replied with a ‘Sorry Uncle’ and a pure laugh.
The image fades away and suddenly I am walking all alone in the park. It is a rose garden but everywhere I see, the roses are pruned, they look like humans who know how to grow better, but not how to live. Wild roses are happier.
The protagonist is running wildly, furiously, shouting to express his anger…. When did I last run like him, wildly, shouting to express my anger, my happiness? Just before I was pruned, I guess.
Soon I’ll be forced out of this strange meditation class, soon the film will get over. The lights in the theatre hall will make me blind. But before that happens, let me take one last plunge, in that same memory that doesn’t leave me, of that yellow flower.
I walk passed it and then came back, I sat next to it and observed it. My friends were not around and the nature was talking and I was listening.
Why was that little yellow flower getting the entire attention there; the sun rays were perfectly falling on it and the trees were providing it enough shade, the earth was softly wet and the pebbles were guarding it in a funny way. I looked at it for some time and then one of my friends called out for me. I wasn’t startled; the spell broke but I was charmed and the feeling survived. It’s still living.
The film is going to end; there is a wave of calmness and acceptance in the air. People will clap and the ‘hypnotised all’ will come back in the normal world.
And I…I am not sure about myself, I like being in light and darkness.
“Civilization begins with distillation said William Faulkner….”
The way he wrote it on the blackboard, I first felt as if I am in a management class and I should note it down, word to word… later, I did note it down but the feeling wasn’t the same. The white chalk on the blackboard and the handwriting suddenly changed and I felt I had heard a secret that William Faulkner said long back. It happens a lot and though it’s strange, I enjoy these secrets… no I don’t understand the secrets, all of them, immediately, no, I just absorb them quietly.
I generally don’t remember all of them, especially on the occasions when there is a need to quote them but nonetheless a beautiful, warm and sweet feeling stays, the secret stays, forever.
The ink on my paper also talks to me but I rarely pay attention. And when I do, the ink has nothing to say. When it has something to say and when I also listen to it, a tear falls and erases it. Yes, tears can erase and paint beautifully.
I don’t know why, but I use the word beautiful a lot. There are so many other words like charming, pretty, gorgeous, lovely, graceful, even heavenly… how does it matter anyway, every word is beautiful. I scribbled some lines on the last page, it goes – ‘how beautiful the scene was but when I tried to capture it…it died.’ On that page then, I couldn’t write anything, not a word, I just doodled.
The flowers, the creepers, the sky, the moon and the sun close to each other along with the stars circling them, a small boat and a butterfly all danced their way towards what I wrote and then stopped. I darkened the moon, till it looked very deep and I have plans to colour the butterfly.
‘What page is it?’, ‘I don’t know!’, ‘Forget the topic, tell the page number.’ [Source – Pixabay]
*
What is he saying? What are we talking about? Have I missed something important? I flip the pages and peep at someone else’s book. To confirm! Ha! It is the same page, nothing has changed, he has been talking and talking; I felt for a moment that ages have passed, time rushed some centuries back and forth for me, swinging in different worlds I almost always forget to live in the present.
Everything is so cold for some never ending seconds, then why will I not want the warmth of the other worlds? The last page…and I float again.
Oops! The duster fell from his hand and we all smiled. I shared my smile with a guy sitting next to me. How stupid is that? Laughing without any reason…though I generally do that a lot.
I have a story in mind… it’s an image that has stayed with me for a time I can’t recall.
An old man, he is tall but thin, his wrinkled hands and tattered clothes tell me something different from what his wrinkled face expresses – a smile.
He is always smiling or is it because the wrinkles have taken such a shape… or is it just my imagination. We are on the same bus and I never think about the bus fare because I just don’t, but the old man with a wrinkled smile fixed on his face seems to be thinking about it a lot. For two-three minutes, he requests the conductor to allow him to travel without the bus fare and then from his invisible pocket of his torn coat, he takes out some coins and gives it to the conductor.
I can’t hear the exclamations of the conductor, I am too engrossed to see the old man with a wrinkled smile fixed on his face.
‘What are you reading?’, ‘Page 144’, ‘Oh, you’re still the same.’ [Source – Pixabay]
*
The pages are turning, millions have written in it, the ink is dry and still alive… a lot has been said and there is still a lot to say… the blank page looks exciting and it says the most and aloud. I am listening. Are you listening?
‘Are you listening?’ Yes, I nod! He has written something else on the board, but I didn’t see him writing again.
“All truths wait in all things – Walt Whitman.”
Wait… for there is some truth waiting to get revealed in everything.
I wrote this on the blank page, there I also drew a time machine, then the whole universe danced its way towards what I wrote and then stopped. I plan to colour it with light.
Endless footprints following footprints/
When suddenly a few of them rise/
To bloom like a flower.
Greetings!
A storyteller, following the ancient tradition of cave chroniclers, standing in vrikshasana (the tree pose) on a hill top (it is sunny, but windy), breathing in and out stories (relishing it all, but at times overwhelmed), declares animatedly that she will continue to – tell stories, share rare story gems, and connect with the pacy universe while also keeping the website ad-free.
Big thanks to my readers. Stay tuned!
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Ya-hoy!
Chiming Stories (formerly Home Chimes)
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