Going in Circles...

I just wish I could realize...

Realize - Colbie Caillat


“Are we, perhaps, just going in circles…?” (Hesse 21)
Constantly, I am asking myself this question. Continuously, it runs through my mind—I feel like this question is the reason that many times I do not feel. What is the point of getting angry, being extremely ecstatic, if it does not matter?

But then, this life is all we have...or all we know of under “the veil of Maya” (Hesse 40). This is what I have been taught in the study of the Hindu scriptures. Quite frankly, I’ve become quite confused. I feel like “I have lost myself in the process” (Hesse 39).

After spending every Sunday studying the Baghavad Gita and Self-Unfoldment, and spiritual camps learning the ways of great rishis and saints, I am torn between two ideas of who I am supposed to be and what I am supposed to do. It is true: “The world [is] certainly sick, and life [is] certainly difficult to endure” (Hesse 23) and there are “thorns which grow upon this rose of life” (X241). In order to escape the pain which comes along with this human existence, the Upanishads tell us, “Whoever immerses themselves in Atman through contemplation and a purified spirit will receive ineffable blessing in their heart” (Hesse 22). Like Siddharta was being taught in his life as a Samana, in order to reach moksha or Nirvana—“to escape the circle of existence” (Hesse 21)—we must learn how to control our emotions. Over and over, I have been taught the “Ladder of Fall”: the consequences that follow having desires, being attached, and consequently, deteriorating to the state of an angry animal. So I have been told and taught not to be attached to the world and the objects I am surrounded by. Once we are able to get rid of our ego-centric way of thinking—“no longer be an ‘I’” (Hesse 16)—we will see that we are one with the world and Atman. Thus we will live in absolute happiness.

And once again, I am right where Siddharta was. He looks at the wizened sixty year old Samana and realizes “He will become seventy and eighty and you and I will also become old while practicing, fasting and meditating” (Hesse 20). When I went to stayed at the ashram in India, I saw the same thing. These people had renounced all their worldly possessions, their home, their families, even their names, in order to devote themselves to finding the “Self.” Yet they were just the human as the rest of us, albeit with a more extensive knowledge of the scriptures. They were sad, happy, angry, jealous, had secrets, had desires. I know they were still learning, but it this learning process seems to be an extremely slow one. Is Dana right? Am I being brainwashed into a socialized way of thinking? I guess they’ve got me right where they want me.

Yet, I’ve also seen people who have achieved “Self-realization.” They are most inspirational, spell-binding and awing. They are impossible to describe with words, but these realized souls are truly something else, of a different nature. They have absolute control of their minds, and bend their will to not even the demands of their body. A teacher of mind once had a guru who was a world-renowned swami. He had been traveling across the globe and had not slept in 48 hours. The swami was exhausted, but was to meet with a guest in thirty minutes. And so, the swami slept…for thirty minutes. Only thirty. The mind-blowing part though, is that he had absolutely no alarm or any other means to wake him up. The swami was so in control of his mind that even in times of pure exhaustion, he could tell himself to sleep for only thirty minutes, and do so.
Stories like that and the people like him who I have met, fill me with a conviction that this is the path I want to follow. Not for the glory, not for the bragging rights, but because maybe it really is the way to a higher, happier place.

As I jump back and forth, I see where Russell and Brain are coming from. I want to experience all that this life has to offer. I don’t want to turn away from it all. This world is a beautiful place and I just want to take it all in: the painted sunsets, the dewy pine forest, the majestic mountains, the adorable kittens and puppies. There is so much I love and want to do---I’m so filled with a need for action. I still have “such wide love for living things, such passion to heal pain..” (X241). And I still feel the need to follow that passion to "be at peace!" (X241) Perhaps what I am supposed to learn is to have control over my mind and body in order to pursue my passion with a "fearless love" (X246).