I was wading through a chocolate river, creating big waves. Above me, the crimson sky shone with bright pearls. The strawberry fields in front of me parted and I saw a little pup playing with a tiger. Then, I heard the sound of bells…pleasant…but soon, they grew louder and louder, till they became unbearable!
What? arrgghh..the phone!!! My dream was rudely interrupted.
I reached out for it …missed it and it fell down with a loud clatter.
Muttering under my breath, I stretched my hand out and picked it off the floor. Who on earth? Where am I?
“Hey! Did I wake you?”
Mmm….When is this? (I asked Sara)
“Its 4:30 am.”
Oh!….You are getting back at me for what I did to you the other day? (I mumbled)
“No. listen. I THINK I FOUND THE TREASURE!”
Which one? (I asked, waiting to get back to the chocolate river soon)
“I think I cracked the treasure hunt!”
Wow! Good. Have a nice weekend. I’ll see you after I wake up!
“You insensitive brute! Here I am, so excited on finding the treasure after all these months of hunting, and all you want to do is sleep?”
Firstly, you drag me from the chocolate river. Then you call me an insensitive brute. Can I please go back, before the sky changes color again? The strawberry fields were the perfect color too.
“What on earth are you blabbering about? Chocolate river? Strawberry fields? Are you on drugs?”
Heck. No. Was just a nice dream! You won’t understand.
“Ditch the dream. It’s nearly morning and it’s the weekend anyway. I am coming over right now. I want to tell you in person what I found.”
(Before I could say “Wait!”, she disconnected the phone.)
Half an hour later, the doorbell rang. I opened the door, still wrapped in blankets.
“Haa haa! You look like a stuffed pumpkin on Halloween!” she said as she rushed in, face flushed with excitement.
Thanks….and good morning to you too (I said wryly, and settled down on the sofa).
“Ok. Stop sulking. I need you to hear this story.”
I am all ears.
“It all started with Reflections#11 – the one you wrote Friday evening.”
Oh. That?
“I sat and thought about it all day! That’s why I am here now”, she declared with glee.
(No more postings henceforth on Friday evenings, I said to myself)
“At first glance, I thought it was just a funny note:”
How to have a great weekend:
If you can enjoy being alone,
if you can enjoy being with people,
if you can enjoy being alone amidst people,
You got it all covered then!
Have a lovely weekend :-)
“Then, I sat in my room and started to think and think and think…till I suddenly noticed these!”
(She pulled out 3 different bottles of shampoo from her handbag and put it on the table)
“This is the answer”, she said with a flourish.
(Half-asleep, wrapped in blankets and looking at shampoo bottles at 5:00 am, I began to wonder if global warming was starting to take its toll on people’s minds!)
“Don’t just sit there and gape. Didn’t you understand?”
No (I admitted)
“WE ARE FREE TO CHOOSE”, she yelled.
“That is what the treasure hunt is about, isn’t it? Finding out that we are free to choose“.
May I ask how my Friday post helped you arrive at that conclusion?
“Easy. There are many things you can possibly do over the weekend”
Yeah.
” So..It all comes down to choice. You are free to choose how to spend the weekend. You are free to choose which bottle of shampoo to use. You are free to choose which career you want to pursue. You are free to choose your friends or partners. You are free to choose your destiny….You are free to choose…That is the taste of freedom...That is the treasure…” (She paused to recover her breath.)
(I stood up slowly and walked over to the kitchen, stifling a sleepy yawn with difficulty! I am not being rude..just that I am not a morning person.)
Tea or coffee? (I asked her from the kitchen)
“Huh..I guess coffee…no..no…make it tea, I hear its good for health…but what the heck! Its weekend..I might as well have coffee..will help me get through the day..which brand of tea do you have by the way?”
(I turned towards her with a raised eyebrow.)
“What?” she asked.
Of what use is your freedom if you struggle to make a simple choice between coffee and tea?
(She sat there in a state of confusion, while I put the pot on boil!)
“But where did I go wrong? I thought I had the final answer”
(I settled down with a cup of tea and offered her one as well. She took it without protest.)
Think carefully about the time you bought those bottles of shampoo. What did you really, really choose?
Did you choose where they should be manufactured? Did you choose who their company’s CEO should be? Did you choose who will package the bottle for you? Did you choose the season in which the chemicals would be mixed?
“None of them”
Then, what exactly did you choose?
“I chose which brands to buy from among the ones stacked on the shelf.”
What great freedom is there in choosing from what is available?
“But…I chose the ones I liked”
How are you so sure? Did you personally try all the 100 brands and varieties of shampoo first before deciding?
“Are you crazy? No. I just picked the ones that appealed to me”
What if you preferred a shampoo that was not available on any shelf in any supermarket in the world?
“I guess I can’t get it then”
Again, what great freedom is it if you can’t get what you really want?
That is the irony. You say you are free to choose.
But in reality,
You are always bound to what you prefer and what is made available.
“Hmm..Agree. So?”
Anything that is bound is not free.
Choice creates an illusion of freedom. We fall for the trap, not knowing that it in reality, it is creating a life of bondage.
Our heart wants to be free, and yet, we always put ourselves in situations where we want to choose.
And we worry later, if we made the right choice or properly checked out all the options available.
“What then can free our hearts?”
The only thing that can free our heart is choicelessness.
“What??!!!”
It’s a weird word, I know. It’s not yet there in the dictionary.
It is a surrender of choice; thereby becoming free of its bondage.
With great practice, it becomes the complete surrender of self-will
“Good Lord. No way am I going to live like that. It’s not practical at all. It’s so not cool”
Actually, it is quite practical. Especially when you don’t know how the future will unfold or what kind of situations you’ll end up facing.
When there is choicelessness, you feel perfectly at home in all situations. Contented, cheerful and accepting.
That is the state of mind that the Friday post asks you to discover.
Regardless of whether you are alone or with other people or alone in the midst of other people during the weekend, learn to be happy.
“Dude..this is bloody hard. I am so used to making choices. How can I ever live without them? ”
Don’t worry. You’ll always be in the right place at the right time. You’ll always know what to do. You don’t need to make choices.
“So…by dropping my clinging to choices, I am free of them.”
Super. Sounds much better than how I put it. Thanks.
“Now, what I read in New Year resolution # 2 makes a lot more sense.”
“But…what will my life be like without choices?”
Well..free from the bondage of choices, you will cry with all your heart, laugh with all your joy, play with all your energy, work with all your concentration, win with all your effort, explore with all your curiosity, learn with all your innocence, give with all your love and take with all your gratitude.
You will experience life fully, as a free spirit that you really are.
And…if that is not a life of freedom, then what is?
(Soon, she became her usual chirpy self. We stepped out to the garden to catch the Sunrise. It was magnificent. All around us, life started to stir.)
“You knew that I hadn’t got to the treasure yet, didn’t you? Even before I told you what I found?”
Sort of. Based on what you said on the phone.
“Which was…?”
You said “I think I found the treasure”
“So…how did that prove I had hit a dead-end?”
When you find the treasure, you don’t have to think about it or check with me if you got it.
You will know!
“Aha!”, she exclaimed.
A month ago I decided to shift my job (because it does not within my path requirements anymore).
That same day at noon, the time I left (just because it was time and I wanted to), as I was walking on the sea sidewalk taking deep breath and clearing my mind, I saw a kite seller. An eagle shaped kite in hand and trying to make it fly with in the fresh sea wind coming from my right side.
‘Can you please make the eagle kite fly higher having the sea as a background? I need to take a picture please.’
Going my way, happy with the amazing picture which I hope to share in some way, meditating on the feeling of repetitive view of eagles in crucial times in my life, I was able to say to myself: I am an urban monk.
Many years after the beginnings of my discoveries, I google urban monk and here is where i come, and with the eagle picture on top of the article I have no doubts today I am in the right new work place or whatever an urban monk must call his work place.
And by the way i loved the rainforest adventure story.
Sincerly,
Patrick
Thanks very much for sharing your personal story, Patrick..and yes, would love to see that photo. Please feel free to send it through by e-mail and if you are ok, i will post it on the site. This blog is home for all of us :)
aha!!!!!
Lovely post! Keep the great work going and do let me know when you publish your book.I want to be the first one to buy it!
Yo Monk!
Gr8 post as usual…. i have to appreciate whatever you have written COZ… I DON’T HAVE A CHOICE….!!!!
Love
KK
awesome :) everytime im in a fix u come up with a post tat exactly answers it :)
so, how do we achieve choicelessness??
Varkha: hee hee…dont tell them i am really your personal blogger ! happy it helped you. In this entire blog, there is nothing I am asking people to ‘achieve’; yet there is a lot I am asking people to examine and let go. More later..have a nice week.
hahahah, loved it the way it is written….
this one “Of what use is your freedom if you struggle to make a simple choice between coffee and tea” cracked me up…
great one bud
Bud: ha ha..i liked that one too :). thanks bud. took me 10 hours at a stretch to write this. didn’t publish it till i was satisfied with every word. happy that the transmission worked. take care. have a great week.