WANDERERS - XXII

They got further involved in their own world of thoughts and said nothing to each other for long time, yet sat at the same place facing one another. It was a special day on the local calendar, an auspicious occasion to the people of the town. One by one, people were coming into the cave-house temple with flowers and other stuffs to offer their prayers to the god that was placed at the temple before the entrance to the cave which the wanderer had completely ignored and was least interested even on his first visit.

He was watching them come over to the idol, decorate it with colorful stuffs and pray out loud. He looked seriously before falling into a big laughter. The sanyasin looked on and without being upset at his behavior,

‘You think these people are foolish to perform their offerings and prayers to the god?’ she asked calmly, hiding her annoyance.

‘And you tell me they had to come all the way from wherever they were, whatever they were doing to decorate a stone which is an idol which is a god and say loud prayers? How is it that the idol or god would listen and how does he send his answers back? You seem intelligent, highly intellectual. Why don’t you tell them their gods lie within and they need to clean and decorate their souls, their own selves, not something external?’

‘Let me ask you this. I know you don’t believe in god, nor prayers or worships. Why did you choose to come here and stay in this temple of all the places in this town?’ she asked and without waiting for his reply which she also knew she went on, ‘You knew you’ll find your answers here. Where did that belief come from? Who told you so? You call that your intuition or your self-guided power. You don’t want to call it ‘a call from the god’ because you’re intelligent. They call it a god because they are foolish and I don’t see any difference between the two. Both are here at the same place for same purpose.’

‘Well, that’s not true. I am here because this place looks beautiful from all sides and I love natural habitats around this place. It instills some energy in me. I liked it instantly. There were other places I had tried after starting my journey and before eventually coming down to this place. What got me hooked on was more to do with you than the idol’ he said without inhibitions,

‘Don’t take me wrong, but the conversations I had with you made me stay on, not the place itself. And I know some magic lies in the cave, inside there. Not in this idol or the perceived god.’

‘Yes, you’re right. You’ve answered your own question. They don’t find the presence of that magic in the cave and you don’t find it in the idol. I see it in both places. Like the air is everywhere but not the breeze, the aroma is around but each enjoys different fragrance. You know that too. Then why mock their belief in the magic?’

He had such arguments earlier with friends and colleagues, even with his own folks and had more or less left winning in the end. He simply didn’t find it useful to win over the sanyasin on this. ‘We could continue on this, but some other time’ he changed the topic as more people got into the temple and more prayers were being offered loud enough for them to hardly listen to each other.

By winning an argument you might feel better or proud of proving your point but at the same time you might end up hurting your opponent who loses it and it’s not a good feeling if he or she is too sensitive, which most people are. You’ll win an argument and lose a friend or spoil a relationship. He knew that very well out of his own and others’ experiences and when any debate got to a level where it got personal, he had the knack of averting the subject towards a lighter one and thereby no one would lose or win an argument at the cost of a more important ‘relationship’. The sanyasin wasn’t really that sensitive to feel hurt by a mere argument while he took note of her point which was more sensible than those he had heard before.

Yes, the air is there and the magic is found around us but we see and perceive differently because each of us find it at different places, in different ways. If the rich man had seen through the gadget and doubted the wanderer, he wouldn’t have succeeded in solving the man’s problems. The master of the universe who the wanderer believed existed but refrained from calling him a god has different plans laid out for different people. He’ll make his presence felt in various forms that can be felt by some but not by others. He had to accept different religions, different customs and enormously different creatures he himself created and it was a loop. He created them and they created him in their own ways. But were they right? It couldn’t be proved.

He looked at the sanyasin who was sitting there getting involved in the prayers and offerings that the people were making to their god. She was deeply connected as he noticed and couldn’t be disturbed easily, while he felt no connection, no existence of any god anywhere around the idol, not in the prayers, not in the songs nor in their offerings.

He went inside the cave and felt the strong chilling wind generating like always. He closed his eyes gently and felt relaxed, relieved and connected to the master of universe who he refrained from calling god!

Continues…