I am travelling. I have travelled thousands of miles and I am not yet at the destination. When I reach Melbourne tomorrow morning; I would start planning for another journey back home on the 2nd of June. Does Melbourne qualify to be a destination at all?
Are there any destinations at all? This is the story of my life, and I have always been looking for a destination. When I asked a friend about destinations and destiny the response was unexpected “these are ports of call, where you stop and move on”. I struggled to relate myself to this unusual thought and finally agreed. But I have travelled enough now, both physically and symbolically. My life has been a constant voyage. I have been to places across the globe, I have met people; made friends and so on but where do I stand today?
I stand at crossroads of life; at one end I am tired of this journey and on the other end I want to live. I want an anchor in life that will hold me to whatever I am. All these years it never crossed my mind that there could be an anchor that will hold a free soul like I. I was so wrong; there are no free souls; only souls wandering to find a home. Free souls are just free till they find their ordained home - divine abode. I am just another ordinary person who wants to hold onto life and needs to reach my abode before the time is over for me. Where and how do I find my address and the anchor that will hold me to it?
I looked for you far and wide. I searched you in the hustle of Time Square in New York, I looked for you on the busy Oxford Street in London, I tried to find you on the Swanston Street in Melbourne, I sought you in the serene mountains of Kandy and Nuwara Eliya in Sri Lanka, I tried to find you in the depths of Indian Ocean while scuba diving; I did everything to find you but made a fundamental mistake. I didn’t look for you inside me.
When tired and restless I decided to talk to myself. I never did it before – a fatal mistake though. I asked myself who am I, where am I going, what am I looking for and why can’t I find what I am looking for? Amazingly there were answers to all these questions. Everything was laid out within me. I did not need to travel wide and broad to find them, all my endeavours were such a waste; my anchor, my destination and destiny were all there – right next to me since ages and I was looking at the wrong places.
It is you my friend – nay it is not you it is me – you are just a physical extension of me. I still cannot make out where one ends and the other starts. I know whenever you are sad, angry, hungry or frustrated. I know what are you about to say, I know what do you need and when; and then you know that all too! Do we have a spiritual connection? Are we two or one soul? I am struggling for answers once again and I know your answers!
This has never happened to me. Never in my life have I been through this. I know nobody will believe me but then who knows me more than I? You – maybe! I am losing it but my loss is my victory, pain is my pleasure, and annihilating myself is making me eternal. Do you know this feeling? No, yes, maybe – look inside you; be honest to yourself and you will figure out what I am saying. Maintain whatever external face you need to keep the world guessing but know thyself.
I discovered the reality in me, made corrections and changed course. I am a different person but you still judge me on the older criterion when you give me deadlines! Don’t you realise these are two different people you are talking about? Haven’t you witnessed the death of a vagrant and birth of a settled, rooted and grounded being? You are right in evaluating me to the standards that I have followed all my life but if I am the person that I think I am, then the deadline is worthless.
I urge you to take it back. Even if you won’t I will pass the test! This is destiny my dearest. We can’t change it. See what my favourite Khayyam has to say here:
The moving finger writes;
and having writ Moves on:
not all your piety nor wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all your tears wash out a word of it
