A Conversation With The Soul I Am A Part Of - II

“I do not care. I am indifferent towards everything. When I say this, the first impression anyone gets about it is negative. I mean to say, I am a witness (‘sakshi’) to everything – even to myself. When Ramana Maharshi was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, he watched his body being wasted by the disease as a spectator – as a witness (‘sakshi bhoothudai choosaru’). If something happens to me, I do not care about it because I see myself as a third person. I do not know the feeling someone else feels. In the perspective of a spectator, I see something happening to someone and incidentally, that someone happens to be me. If I cannot feel the pain experienced by someone else, how will I feel the pain myself? Hence, I do not care about myself. And when I do not care about myself, how can anyone expect me to care about someone else?

I do not share anything. Because I do not have anything to share. I do not find anything important enough to share. I am a very happy man. I don’t have any worries. I don’t have any sadness. I do not think many would want to accept that. I have had people telling me that I have something hidden in my heart and feeling frustrated about it. That is because I do not share anything. But the way I see it, I feel that they do not want me to be happy. Mostly because, they try to convince me that I am not happy by saying that I am lying to myself – and by trying so, they want me to share something with them. First, I do not have anything to share. Second, if at all I wanted to share something and I have not told you about it that means I do not want to tell you about it in the first place. I do not see why people cannot understand that simple point. I do not see why people cannot accept me as a happy man. And these people are most of the times called friends by many.

I do not judge anyone or any action. I will not say this is good and this is bad. I leave it to their choice and will never force my decision. I will not even suggest or advice. I do not want my influence on anyone’s decisions or choices the same way I do not want anyone’s influence on my choices. I do not want to be answerable to anyone nor do I want anyone to be answerable to me. I do not want to be inspired by anyone nor do I want anyone to be inspired by me. I do not follow anyone nor do I want anyone to follow me. I will enter someone’s life only to the extent that they do not credit me for something good or blame me for something bad that happens with them. In the same way, I will not let anyone enter into my life that I will need to credit them or blame them. I do not have any intention of living someone else’s life nor do I have a desire to let someone else live my life. Because I have a life to live as much as anyone else. And I will live it to the fullest – in my way – as much as I want everyone to live their life – in their way.

I look at things objectively. Did I learn it from Ayn Rand’s books? I would say, no. I learnt it from one of the highly regarded scriptures, Ramayana. Did Valmiki ever mention that Rama is good and Raavana is bad in it? He just mentioned the qualities of Rama and Raavana and left the choice to our own wise discretion. I have seen many followers of objectivism being atheists. I am not – not that I am a staunch follower of objectivism or any other school of philosophy, for that matter. I believe in God as much as I believe in my own existence. I believe that He is the force behind and beyond everything. He is the capability behind my thought. He is the strength in my decision. He is the capacity of my choice.

I have many more books to read. Many more things to learn – to understand – to develop. As Robert Frost said, “Miles and miles to go before I sleep”. The next book I started reading is “My Experiments with Truth”. There are two reasons why I took up this book. One reason is the title. A wonderful one. Truth. Second reason is that I just completed a book in which the protagonists do not care and this book is an autobiography of a person who cared and sacrificed everything for his nation. I want to understand both the ends of the spectrum. I want to learn without judgment. In the words of Prahlada to his father Hiranyakasyapa, Dad, I am learning the essence of knowledge (chaduvulalo saaramella chaduvuthunnanu, tandri).”

A Conversation With The Soul I Am A Part Of - I

“I’m 22 years old. I will be turning 23 shortly. It is time I develop a way of life for myself without depending on others. It is time I develop a character for myself. I have been reading a book from almost the past 2 years. It is Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”. I couldn’t complete it for this long because it disturbed me a lot. It shattered all my beliefs, all the basics of so-called morality I learnt from my childhood. Having come from an orthodox and a conservative family, I found it very disturbing until one day, when I realized that every book has its own interpretation by each person. And I was trying to base my understanding on others’ interpretations and the way they changed/developed their ways of life. That was disturbing to me rather than the book itself. I started re-thinking about everything Ayn Rand said in her books and compared it to the scriptures and other books you have made me read from childhood. That is when I realized that we actually don’t follow what is said in the scriptures to the point. When we see someone who can be so ‘moral’ and so ‘correct’, we find fault in them. And the heroes of her books were always such someone. No wonder, Ayn Rand is more ill-read than well read.

I don’t call anyone a friend. Because I value that word so much that I do not want to use the word for anyone and I did not find anyone worth calling so. I should say the value of that word is lost when I see people calling everyone they meet as a friend. And I have seen people being influenced by the so-called friends and many a time, wrongly. There is one more reason for me not calling anyone a friend. The moment I call someone a friend, they take the liberty to think or say that they understood me well or know me very well. I don’t like it. I don’t want anyone to understand me. I only want them to understand what I say. (ardham chesukovataniki ‘manasu matalu kaaduga’). I don’t like anyone to say that they know me because that would be a lie. Give me the same situation twice and there is no guarantee that I would behave in the similar way. How can anyone take the liberty of saying that they know me when they haven’t come across the same situation the second time, yet??

I don’t have something called fear. I don’t fear to say proudly that I made a mistake if I really made one. I am always willing to make another mistake – but never the same one again. I learn from it, as do everyone else. What are the reasons for anyone to fear? Fear of not meeting some expectations – fear of some kind of loss – and the third and the most important one perhaps, fear of death. Firstly, I do not expect anything. Second, I do not care enough to care about any kind of loss. That answers the first two fears. Death is not something which someone can experience. You call something an experience when you come back to share it. But no one came back to share their experience of death. For all those who think death is painful, I disagree. Pain is an experience. You know pain only after you feel it. But, there is nothing after death to feel. So, there is no pain. I don’t fear death.

I stopped lying. I do not lie because I do not fear. People lie only because of fear. They lie mostly for small things. I do not have a reason to lie. I consciously made a decision to speak only the truth and moreover, only to live in reality. Because truth is true, reality is final. I demand what I deserve – not an ounce more and not a penny less.”