I am near you and yet so, so, very far. I may be closed to you, feel your hugs, talk to you, hold your hands or even look straight into your eyes – but I have never met you at all. I thought I know you inside out but I have never known you, not even once.
Quantum mechanics proved to me that whenever there is a physical contact with anything, the space between that contact is liken to the distance between two planets. In each touch there is no touching at all. It is an illusion to think I am touching.
In the same way when I see you, I don’t see you at all, except my perception about you. In that perception are all the ideas that I think about you. Not once can I quiet myself from ideas and look straight at you without prejudices or interpretations. I am looking at you with the color glass of my perception. I see you as a woman, or a man, whatever. But that is my mind interpreting you. Beyond perception, there are no words, no forms, no designations of any sort, to identify you. I can’t identify you without perception. Thus whatever I perceive is simply perception working. Perception is simply contorting – fabricating from memories of the past. I can’t get over myself. Neither can I get over you. I am of the experience.
Irrelevant whether I am a doctor, a scientist, a writer, a poet, an accountant, a beggar, a prime minister, a rebel, a clown, whatever it is, the inner stuff that is going through all of us have never changed over the years, though our designations may have changed. From a child to a teenager, to an adult, to finally old age, we are still practically locked within our own same experiences of emotions, feelings and perceptions.
Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you. For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed.
– Gospel of Thomas
The anger I experience is still the same kind of nature, never makes me lighter or joyful. My worries, restlessness, happiness, joy, upsets – everything that is already existing in my mental vocabulary is nothing new to me – they are all recycled stuff that I am entertaining and facing each day, each seconds, each moment. Everything seems new to me each day, but the stuff that is going on in me are all ancient and primitive. When all the roles, titles and designations are dropped, you and me, or for that matter, anyone else, are faced with the stark reality, naked, of ourselves. The same old self. Different packaging, same old stuff.
We are all walking around like a zombie, alone, in the midst of the crowd, talking to ourselves all the time, in our head. Like the dream, where I am the only witness to it, I am also the sole witness to life. I have never shared my life, neither have you – not that I do not want to, I can’t, even if I try.
I laugh alone, talk alone, see alone, hear alone, smell alone, think alone, all by myself – though I am with you. I am sad and I want you to know my sadness – I wish to share my sadness with you. Can I? If I think I can, I am stupidly lying to myself. If my sadness diminished simply because I shared with you, it is not because of you that my sadness diminished – it is because I let go a part of my holding on to that sadness, through sharing. As such we can only be a listener to others’ problem. I can’t do more, except just that. If I start try telling you what to do, I am in fact trying my best to ignore the pain that is in me. If there is wisdom in me, my telling is simply my sharing – not about you, but about me, and me, all the time. As I share my experience, you wake up from your experience. That is all I can do. I am always within myself, sustain by my own ideas.
My journey is to wake up from my dream, provided I know I am dreaming. Or else I am perfectly blind, oblivious to my blindness. This is the one and only intimate relationship I ever will have – with myself, all the time.