ENCOUNTERS - contd.

Was life an endless quest, always in search of something that does’nt exist? If it was so then was’nt Andre’ right in having stuck to his particular spot refusing to move further in any direction? He was satisfied in counting the stars. But I, I had broken through that barrier which held me because I had seen in the distance, very far away, a speck of blue and green; I had heard a note of a lilting tune. Now Andre’ had me all confused. Was it just an illusion, I asked myself, all that I had seen, all that I had heard. I gazed at the stars and for a moment I was transported to their heights; there I saw countless patterns until a hand tapped and woke me up from the trance into which I had fallen.

It was my guide. He beckoned me to follow him and when we were some distance away, he spoke to me, “ Andre’ is afflicted. He raves and his ravings have afflicted many. You yourself may have become a victim. Once when he was very close to death, he saw this desert and stepped into it. As he travelled through, he saw too many mirages and he chased after them. At last he grew too tired and hopeless to proceed further. But as he lies there now he reconstructs all that he has seen and all that he has not seen and revels in them. He talks of self denial as the most perfect self realization. But he has not denied himself of that passion for self denial. He came very close to the truth but he never attained it, because he says – I’ll teach you fervour”.

Was’nt it passion that drove me into the desert? Is’nt it passion which makes me speak to you thus? Are all human acts underlined by it? Is life a passion?

My Guide says that all passions come to die in the desert. One should be on guard to see that we are not overcome by it.

Oh! those raptures into which my passion has repeatedly pushed me into. In that state I become blind to everything except the object of my passion. I am transformed into that very object and live through the processes of its creation and growth. I shall talk more of my raptures later.