Multidimensional Relationships!

It was amusing to look at the thought process which highlighted this aspect of the mind!

Instead of the usual ‘long winding sentences’ (that my close childhood-friend once remarked), let me attempt simple approach.

For instance, a youth gets ‘relocated’ due to a job opportunity, and after initial ‘settling down’ , finds a calm day which invokes the warmth and fond memories of the childhood, that happened in the safe and secure insulation, which the parents had provided during the early age. It instantly evokes a sense of comparison with, the present ‘all by yourself’, insecure scenario. The deep buried emotional bonds resurface, and this youth attempts to relive them afresh, by planning a brief visit to ‘home’. But alas, soon after landing, even the not so important, ritualistic child-welfare-enquiries by the parents sparks off a logical stand-off and the emotional thirst simply vanishes like a person sinking fast into quicksand quite inadvertently! And the youth now wonders, ‘Did I come here for all this? Was I stupid to give-in for this poor bargain? I used up the precious two-day leave that I managed to wriggle out of that ‘demanding’ boss after lot of haggling! And with this frustration, I will be doubly burdened with the backlog of work after return!..... etc’

From the parent’s angle, they keep wondering, ‘what happened to the childhood closeness they felt about their child, which has got transformed into a ‘fuzzy’ mistrust!’

I am tempted to make a humble guess. The child, (in its ‘hood’ …. That is why perhaps the child-hood) was mostly emotion oriented (logic is yet to evolve). When logic improves, the relationships get slightly re-aligned. And logic shows no mercy towards emotional bonds! Even spouses wonder ‘what happened to that deeeep love that I felt (during early years of marriage) for my other half?

The source of this thought process was thus:

I happened to muster will to fight back the tendency to stay rooted and grounded at one place (5 years of retired life), and ventured a visit to my colleague(Mr.K) to repay the kindness of his unique close ‘bonds’ which had sprung some 30 years ago, having met and worked together for a few years, at the same office. He insisted that we halt for a unreasonably brief while, enroute our journey to another place of pilgrimage, at the very same city where we worked together 30 years ago. We had common colleagues, a few of them already retired. Within a matter of 15 minutes, a few of them converged at our halting place, and exchanged pleasantries. After returning home, I felt a bit guilty having missed to inform another close colleague (Mr.S), who was also retired and resided quite nearby to that ‘halting place’. So before I called him up now, to inform of our brief unexpected visit, and apologized for my lapse, I tried to think of what to ‘cook up and tell him’. Nothing but truth appealed to my mind. I blurted it out ‘blunt, raw and crude’ as I experienced it within. And it ‘sailed through’ smoothly, when I spoke to him briefly! Omitting the persons and personalities, I felt it worth while to share my experience here.

What I told him was, I had ‘happened’ to maintain multi-dimensional relationships with people around, and the bonds with Mr.K was a bit unique. It needed no less than an exclusive and personal proximity, by a visit, however brief, to ‘payback’ my dues. Where as this ‘S’ was in more frequent contact, (voice-mode), and it seemed adequate enough to hold on to the relationship. ‘S’ was more of a logical oriented disposition. He viewed emotions as temporal and as mere ‘outbursts’, of no logical consequence, other than of some nuisance value, of derailing us from deft handling of routine life! And I looked at my relationship with these two with an equanimous mind, and strove to do justice to both, exclusively, at its deserved appropriateness. The redundant bit of conversation was my own ‘surmise’ about possible consequences of such ‘orientation’ of mind. I made a reference to two main paths towards spirituality. Knowledge-path and emotional-path. Logic steers the knowledge path. Experience steers our way through the emotional path. (I was fortunate to be able to align myself to these two and also many other paths, by consciously shifting myself to suit the situation and the opportunities that demanded a particular path! Thus it came about that my relationships with people, often appeared to look a bit ‘mystic’, to the onlookers!)

My bonds with K:
I had to ‘see’ him in person to fulfill the commitment towards that kind of relationship. Gaps of time did not matter at all. This was amply evidenced by the wonderstruck remark of K’s daughter, nudging her mother and whispering quietly (I happened to ‘catch’ the remark! My own personal tools, mystic tools!)… the daughter, a student of advanced study of psychotherapy, told her mother ‘Did you observe… Dad is utterly different these two days! Even his strong addiction to the remote of our TV set has vanished!’. (This girl saw me for the first time, and knew very little about me, except for a casual mention by her ‘papa’ sometimes). The ‘mom’ fully shared her own delightful surprise with an affirmative nod at the daughter’s remarks! ‘K’ had his own style of prioritizing his goals. He did not mind at all, the adversities that he created for himself, due to refusal to adhere to ‘logical’ style of handling material aspects of life. He could not find many patrons around and his intimacy was therefore very limited. Ironically, he compensated adequately by enlarging the circle of close acquaintances who poured into his house in an incessant stream. He dealt with ‘logic’ with absolute simplicity. People loved being helped ‘without expectation’. He loved to look at even his own body (needless to add, his material belongings too!), as a mere vehicle for the spiritual journey of ‘life’ (or life-span), on this planet! Any incidental spill over of emotional bond beyond that materialistic greed and desires by people around was a ‘bonus’ for him! His well knit family is his greatest asset. Petty differences of opinion do not surface beyond a point. His daughter is gifted with unusual ‘sensitivity’ capability, and blends with ‘common’ goals of the family, quite effortlessly. In the process, she has evolved into appreciable levels of adaptability and flexibility, which is rare amidst youth of her age! Deep within her, she has accommodated her own ‘logical reasoning’ without any urgency for a compromise to suit the situation! Her present training sessions as a psychology-consultant/counselor adds to her data base of knowledge bank for a future reference when she would find mind-leisure to resolve deeper questions of life! The wife of K, has clear set compartments, presenting a unique blend of adherence to traditional values, rituals, heritage, and at the same time deftly dealing with multi-tasking skills which are demanded of a modern working woman! I was quite unprepared for an event that ‘exposed’ my attempts to pursue my spiritual commitments, my striving towards humble ‘repayment’ for what ever benedictions were bestowed upon me. This event turned out to be an utter failure. The way various people around looked at this failure was an unexpected windfall of rich experience for me. It is simply beyond my ‘logical’ mind to unravel the mystic source that prompted me to venture into a ‘process’ which got aborted in no time. I tried to attempt a possibility which was medically a non-possibility. The clinical details are unimportant. It concerned a child, carrying a deficiency, for no ‘apparent’ fault of hers, right from baby age! The parents could not find a way, to blend themselves, together, into the kind of a state of ‘deep acceptance’, which I felt, was needed for the ‘process’. I had to spell it out a bit bluntly that the father was perfectly ‘tuned’ while the mother was still in the grip of a residue of some bitter past. My part of the folly was to stretch the effort to bring the mother towards a deeper level of acceptance, beyond a level of tolerance, normal for a working mother faced with multitasking commitments. My dear friend K(who was keenly watching my efforts), could do no more than pitying at me, and mildly suggested that I restrict spelling out the ‘blunt’ aspects of attitude. He did not even need to look at my words to understand my sincerity (He simply ‘feels’ and experiences a person beyond barriers of language! It would not be out of place, to mention right here that when I informed him of my proposed visit, his joy knew no bounds, and all that he managed to say was ‘I await the pleasure of the experience when our ‘aura’s ‘ would merge once again!’. He never bothered to fine-tune his communication skills. Instead he chose for his actions to ‘speak’ and, it also did, only too well, and demonstrably too!) . The father of the child was strongly hoping that I would push forward to do ‘whatever it takes’, for the process which seemed to me as a tremendous possibility! That was the tragic end of this brief episode. Some episodes are wonderful, only with a tragic end, of part-1 at least! My curiosity still hopes for some kind of ‘miracle’ for that child, and in very near future too, and I sincerely wish it too! (Never before did I experience this kind of ‘absence’ of inhibition while confessing an utter failure. For that matter, to my memory, a failure of this magnitude is for the first time! For me, it still seems, only like a ‘seemingly’ and a temporary failure! And, anyway, the successes were never mine entirely).

There were several events of deep experiences during this 4-day visit. I could pay my respect to several spiritual beings, one of whom is alive, and quite young by his bodily age, and meeting this person presented many surprises to all those who witnessed, as co-visitors with me! But any attempt to narrate all of my experiences here, might cause fatigue to the casual reader, and result into needless injustice to the ‘beings’ involved! In my experience, these 4 days, and even the journey of 3 days to and fro, life happened very intensely, as if ‘a few lifetimes got compressed itself into a short span of these few days! I have to therefore, stop this narrative here!

My deepest and heartfelt gratitude and many thanks to several beings who made this visit happen to me thus, and not in the least, but more than all, to my dear friend, Mr.K! :)
Psn(6th December, 2010)