One Minute Meditative Walk: Depiction of a Walk, Walked Unwalked, on Pathless Path

By Ashok Sharda

Despite having the luxury of an all-time company of a Metaphysician who dwells in the right hemisphere of his skull he keeps on failing to attain twenty-four-seven meditative state. One fine morning this metaphysical entity appears in his study in an assumed physical form to personally train him in an experiential one minute meditative walk. But alas! He fails despite seven attempts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing India
• Release date: Sep 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9781543708776

Book preview

Copyright © 2022 by Ashok Sharda.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

www.partridgepublishing.com/india

CONTENTS

Introduction

Acknowledgement

Dedication

Preface

My Metaphysician Appears in My Space in an Assumed Physical Form

My First Failed Attempt

My Second Attempt

My Third Attempt

My Fourth Attempt

My Fifth Attempt

‘Enough Of Words’

My Sixth Attempt

My Seventh Attempt which did not Happen

Being-Duty

Metaphysician Decides to Depart from My Scene

Departure of Metaphysician from My Scene

Flirting with the Unknown

INTRODUCTION

A s such, I have no introduction. Not unlike others, I have a name which speaks nothing of me. Names help identify a body, but I am not my body, though body may be my carrier in the physical space time continuum.

How can this name with a family tag identify me when it took me years to identify with a miniscule part of me? Yes, after providing some energy sources to this ‘self’, I can claim that I am my ‘Intending Self’- a self who ‘intends’- a self who isn’t any Tom, Dick, or Mary. He is an inquisitor, a rebel, a keen observer, when Present. He has, to greater extent, command over his intellectual apparatus only when he is actively present. And I do have the intention of commanding other centers of the mind, be it mechanical, emotional or any other.

Those who know me by my name or face, claim they know me. But when I look through them using my ‘Third Eye’, I find an image of a person who isn’t Me. Once I witnessed a verbal duel between two of my close friends. One of them said I was B, the other disputed his claim saying I am C. I tried to interfere, insisting – I am A. Incidentally, the fight wasn’t actually about establishing my identity but who was right. I was of no use in this battle as I refused to ratify either friend.

Who am I?

It’s an age old question.

A friend once asked me the very same question – ‘who am I?’ She seemed genuinely inquisitive in her search. In response I asked her – ‘who is the questioner?’ She understood.

But my question did not answer in full, though It helped her identify with the questioner, one among the whole lot she identified as her. These selves spoke in first person disguised as her (we are no different). Her battle commenced from this point. Now She must fight many battles to win this war and become one with the questioner as who she is or can become, the very questioner. Actually, in the end, the questioner herself will have to merge with ‘Awareness’ to become None. The absence will then become omnipresence. Nothingness alone can be termed as omnipresent. The rest has a beginning. Every story has a beginning. Omnipresence is unbegun.

Disclaimer: One Minute Meditative Walk

I confess that this story is true in the sense that all the characters of this story resides inside my skull. My head is the only stage where the play could have found its action.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

T his long story couldn’t have seen the light of the day if I didn’t have the luxury of a metaphysician occupying right hemisphere of my head as his abode. I thank him for choosing me for choosing him.

My Storyteller is not only an able architect but also a skilled builder having derived this competence from his potential to visualize verbal thoughts and produce ‘scenes’. I need to thank him too for helping me in building this long story.

My Logician too played his due role in the buildup of logical side of this story.

My Mind, despite his destructive essence, too was helpful in letting his various apparatus work in tandem which made it possible for me to produce this novel.

Nevertheless, my soul companion, my Loneliness too played her role in her perennial taciturnity ever eager to embrace me when I needed to take a break cluttered by my own thoughts in the course of drafting this long story. I thank her too.

DEDICATION

I dedicate this novel to all those truth seekers who despite their umpteen failures are still struggling to walk their unwalked walks on this pathless path.

PREFACE

I was supposed to assemble enough of my metaphysical stories for an anthology I had planned to publish. After visiting several documents, I selected fourteen incomplete stories, ten supposedly averaging ten thousand words each and four ‘tiny stories’. I picked up title of a story- ‘Stranded in the middle of a street’ as the title of this anthology as it reflected my state of being and how I arrived and got stuck in the middle of a street. This was half written story, I thought I will complete as I work on the other drafts of the stories stuck at various stages.

It so happened that I had to drop this story from this anthology as I got stuck at some place and found hard to de-stuck. I picked up another story, titled- ‘Parallel train’ to replace ‘stranded in the middle of street’ and completed it to my satisfaction. Needless to say, the title of my story-collection too changed to ‘Parallel train’. I wrote a draft of my preface and made a cover drawing too. But while I was assembling all the stories for my final reading a new story cropped up inside my head. For reasons unknown, as and when a story knocks my head, my Storyteller, habitually, determines its probable length. Incidentally, my Storyteller has proved wrong, nine out of ten times, in his assessment of the potential of story and the required canvas. My last published novel- ‘Waiting for the next’ too was a four thousand word story which, while writing its final draft, started expanding and turned into hundred and twenty thousand word story. This happens with most of my stories. The extreme case is a story, titled ‘MG Road’. When it knocked my doors and as usual, I offered it a seat and as my Storyteller started assessing ‘how much’, I realized that the story has element of poetry and let it to my Poet to write a poem. But this was not to be. In the middle of my expanding the scene into a poem my Storyteller picked it up from me and wrote a six thousand word story.

I have had several arguments with my Storyteller about his miscalculation. My Metaphysician too has cautioned and warned him to not to pre-assess the number. ‘You are a Storyteller’ once he said sarcastically ‘and not an account clerk who needs to produce a budget for every capital expenditure before the work is put into execution. Story writes on its own using your hand supported by various apparatuses of your mind. You are good at your visual thinking, good at picking up story, so stick to that and let the story write itself in the process of writing.’

This was my Storytellers experience too. Time and again he had said- ‘I am a visual thinker and while I visualize words, some quality ‘visuals’ knock my doors. I welcome them with a smile. Offer them a seat. And let them use my hand.’

In any case, while working on a story for this anthology ‘Parallel Train’ a new story cropped up inside my Storytellers head inside my skull, which he immediately gave a title- ‘One Minute Meditative Walk’ and as prone to his habit, he determined thousand words for this story. His thought process was like this: ‘The story lacks event as it confines to a single scene curtailing the possibility of any expansion. It also doesn’t have any character other than a Metaphysician- who had never literally seen the light of the day as he dwells inside the right hemisphere of my head- and the first person. Hence one thousand word would suffice.’

Then and there, my Storyteller decided to write this story and on my part, I decided to include the same in my upcoming anthology I was assembling for publication. I shall have fifteen stories, I thought, instead of fourteen. An addition of thousand words wont lengthen the book.

My Storyteller proved to be wrong once again in his assessment of the length of the story because in the process of writing this story, it started elongating. As the story developed trespassing the threshold of several thousand words, few more characters namely, My Logician, My Mind, and my Loneliness walked themselves into this story to my Storytellers pleasant surprise. He too decided, then and there, to appear on the scene as one of the characters.

Habits die hard. My Storyteller commenced re-estimating the numbers, revising it once it crossed his last assessment. So, from ten it arrived at fifteen, from fifteen to twenty and so on and on. When it was around thirty two, my Storyteller said with finality- ‘It’s going to be forty and I want it included in this anthology despite the vast number.’

Putting our heads together- I, physically and my Storyteller, metaphysically- we started curtailing the numbers of stories for the anthology. This not so short story written under the title- One Minute Meditative Walk- had made our job easier. We could now afford to drop some stories we still needed to do some work. ‘Let us just complete this story in all respect and sit and write our preface.’ I felt good and relieved.

Incidentally, this story didn’t stop at forty.

Meanwhile, my Storyteller, who was nearing forty thousand words and thought that he was nearing completion of his first draft, I narrated in nutshell the story of this story to a dear friend of mine. In response, she laughed and commented- ‘Oh! So, your guideline to one minute meditative walk takes so long to walk… forty thousand words. I wonder what you must have written.’

Using my friends words, I made fun of my Storyteller. I said with my tongue in cheek- ‘Isn’t it strange that you are picturing a walk of one minute meditative walk, whereas it will take two hours for our readers to read depiction of one minute meditative walk.’

Adopting the role of my Metaphysician he said- ‘Meditative walks are initiated in time, but one eventually walks into notime. One minute will expand into ‘notime’ if one succeeded because while walking meditatively there is no time.’

I felt good. I heard my Metaphysician giggling, occupying his seat in the right hemisphere of my head.

The story presented here in the shape of a novel continued on its elongating path and finally stopped nearing sixty. ‘Now it can’t be termed as short story. It’s a novelette. I should change the title of the book. Titles are supposed to be suggestive of the content. A sixty thought words novelette must find its mention in the very title of the book.’ Declared my Storyteller. I had no reason to disagree.

We started to put our heads together to find a suitable title which shall include the pre-decided title of ‘Parallel Train’ too. And we also had to write a subtitle too which will summarize my metaphysical stories as well as this novelette.

Before we could decide as regards the title and subtitle, my Storyteller came up with a suggestion- ‘Why not I expand this novelette into a full fledge novel.’ Instantly, I knew he must have several associated thoughts churning inside him which must have made him think in terms of expanding the story. I moved my attention inwards and found that I was correct. I saw various associated ‘scenes’ my Storyteller was visualizing for this story.

A ‘scene’ seen by my Storyteller doesn’t determine the number of words he will need to depict the scene. This is because these scenes are moving scenes. This is because when one starts depicting a scene several unseen scenes starts coming to the fore. At times, it so happens- and I have seen my Storyteller struggling- that my Storyteller comes across forked trails and he stands still, wondering which trail to take. Watching him, stories after stories, I know, he shall have to, eventually, take a trail but, normally, he tends to return to the other, taking a circular path, leaving no trails unwalked. Once he told me- ‘Story writing is like walking inside a wild jungle, forked trail appear before you at every few steps and you aren’t sure which will lead you to wherever you want to arrive at, in the absence of any definite destination. Stories write themselves passing through these forked trails. They determine their arrival point in the course of these rough walks in the wilderness of a creative process.’

Having gestated my long story thus, I am presenting a full-fledged novel for my readers, a fiction, yet not, titled- One Minute Meditative Walk.

My Storyteller, as said, had just two characters in his mind when he initiated writing this, assuming, a thousand word tiny story- the first person and a Metaphysician, presented in this novel as ‘my Metaphysician’. For a thousand word story he needed no more characters nor more than one event. ‘My Metaphysician’, as such, has appeared as a character in my other novel- ‘Waiting for the next’ but confined to his dwelling place, right hemisphere of my head. He has also appeared as my Metaphysician friend in yet another novel- ‘An Ant Measured an Ant- five Feet Six Inches’. He had also found his relevance and suitable place in my other stories too, but his role is confined to the theme and development of the story. But in this long story- One Minute Meditative Walk- He plays the role he actually plays in my life. And as he had appeared in an assumed physical form to play his role in this long story, my Storyteller just couldn’t take any liberty to present him as he thought necessary for the smooth development of the story.

As such, no one has any right to question any Storyteller as how he presents a character and what he makes of him. That’s solely Storytellers prerogative and I respect this privilege. Characters are attributed character traits by Storytellers but considering my Metaphysician dwells in the same skull my Storytellers resides though they live confined to different hemisphere, my Storyteller could not take any liberty in presenting the character of my Metaphysicians nor his character traits of which he was unaware. I am too, to this day, despite the fact that I have been his dwelling place for decades. This happened with the other characters too, who, it seems wrote and played their roles as they desired. Besides, my Storytellers is scared of my Metaphysician as my Logician is, though they both respect him. His arch enemy is just my Mind or let’s say all those ‘selves’ represented by a single entity ‘mind’.

I must confess that the Metaphysician is real…more real than all the unreal we treat as ‘real. His ‘abode’ in the right hemisphere of my head is my logical assumption. The basis of this ‘logical assumption’ is that my left hemisphere is occupied by my Mind- me, my Logician, and my Storyteller is born out of. Hence there’s no other serene space in my head for my Metaphysician to reside other than the right Hemisphere. At times, I do question my self- why will a metaphysical entity need a space to house in? The only palatable answer to this question is that I chose him to choose me to speaks with me, which he could have only done from inside my head. He couldn’t have occupied left hemisphere so full of clutter.

I also must confess that this story is true in the sense that all the characters of this story resides inside my skull. My head is the only stage where the play could have found its action.

Besides, I, the first person, is subject to all the metaphysical laws hence the law of association played its role in determining what were we talking at given point of time intervened by my disruptive Mind, of course.

As such, my Metaphysician resides right inside the right hemisphere of my head and keeps on alerting me, passively or actively, depending on my level of energies, my own watchful state of Being. He is a metaphysical entity I thickly identify with, hence ‘my’ Metaphysician. I believe that a series of quality impressions that found its rooting in my psyche at the age of twelve was one of the factors which sowed the seed which germinated and eventually procreated an entity in the form of a metaphysician. The other two factors were intellectual side of my inquisitive mind ever seeking answers to questions related to ‘what is’ and not unlike Socrates ever ready to bring all the answers back into the periphery of questions and, needless to say, one of the character traits of essence of my very existence which played the role of a womb by letting the two factors meet and merge. My Metaphysician didn’t appear in one go. He took years to gestate.

By the way, ‘One Minute Meditative Walk’ doesn’t confine to a guideline to one minute of meditation while walking or performing any act but a guideline ‘my Metaphysician’ directs me to in the course of my endeavor for attainment. It highlights all the pits and bumps that obstructs any truth seekers path. My Metaphysician insists more on pits and bumps rather than producing a picture of the hundredth milestone. Hundredth milestone in his words is my goalless goal, noplace I desire to arrive in notime. Once I asked him to produce the picture of the hundredth milestone. He said- ‘How would you know if the picture I am producing is the picture of hundredth milestone.’

I said but that will tell me if I am anywhere nearby.

He laughed at me and said- ‘You are yet to negotiate pits and bumps in your traverse in the first milestone on this pathless path and you desire picture of hundredth milestone to know beforehand if you are anywhere nearby?’

I realized my idiocity in asking this question, yet I continued with my argument. ‘But, sir, all other Metaphysician and spiritual being produces the picture; a picture for their disciples, which keeps up their drive for attainment alive.’

‘Dreams generate a drive but dream also makes one to be in the next, wait for the next. Your goal is right here. You are not. I am guiding you to arrive ‘here’.’

I further argued- ‘But sir, I have seen glimpses, more or less the same as other metaphysician produces for their disciples.’

‘Hahaha’- he laughed and said- How do you know this is what you shall experience at the hundredth milestone?’

‘If it’s not so, then why do they acquaint their followers with this picture?’

‘Well, people will not come to them if they shall not produce picture of some dream land. People need hopes and these metaphysician will keep their hopes alive by producing rosy picture of hundredth milestone. This keeps their disciples stuck to them dreaming of hundredth milestone.’

He made me think.

Years together- in the days I was struggling to find a ‘way’, spending hours in libraries for some clue, some road map- I used to visualize a picture of a ‘state of attainment’. It kept on modifying as I went on moving from reading words of one ‘dream-seller’ to another, religious and non-religious, depicting the ‘scene’ of how it would be when one attains, the ultimate experience.

People use various words to identify ‘attainment’ with. Buddhist use ‘nibbana’ or ‘nirvana’; Hindu’s use ‘Moksha’ or ‘Vimukthi’ (there are more but not so commonly used). ‘Emancipation’ or ‘Liberation’ is commonly used in English. The words are synonymous, but concepts built in individuals head differ. In fact, it’s an abstract concept in peoples head. It’s like imagining a new color which one cannot unless one sees it. That’s human cognitive boundary.

This is what I was trying to do, doing my best to visualize a picture of a state I had no experience other than borrowed words floating in my head. I failed.

My Metaphysician calls it hundredth milestone, but he uses it to emphasize of the difficulty on the way, the pits, and bumps one will come across. He, at times, uses it in sarcastic manner. He also insists that hundred will lose all meaning once you arrive ‘here’. The ‘value’ of any number is perennially in relation to other numbers. Attainment of ‘oneness’, in relation to none, is a big zero. It will be a big zero when you arrive ‘here’ realizing a peaceful joy as its byproduct, ‘knowledge’ of IS being its genuine product.

‘Attainment’ is an ‘experience of knowing’. ‘Nibbana’ is not an object but ‘knowing’ of one’s experiences without an experiencer. Such ‘experience’ is known as ‘awareness’. This awareness is not an ordinary awareness like becoming aware of a thing when it enters the periphery of our eyes. It’s an ‘awareness’ which turns life ‘real’ in its living and not spending. Life can’t be lived in the head, not in any likable space. It becomes real in its experience continuum.

Form can be imagined or assumed. They can also be modified but not ‘experience’. ‘Experience’ can only be sensed, known or one is just ‘aware’.

Long time ago, a literary friend of mine, after reading first anthology of my Hindi stories commented- ‘Your stories are ‘thinking stories’. He was right in the sense that when I start a story I start with a single idea. Incidentally, being a visual thinker- this is what makes me a Storyteller- I see rather than think, and from this first ‘scene’ my Storyteller takes over if he finds a potential, enough for a story. The thinking process- mostly visual- continues using the law of associations, moving from one associated thought to other and as the thought process moves, my Storyteller keeps pace with this movement, visualizing every thought, creating scenes for my writing.

This long story, titled- One Minute Meditative Walk - too is outcome of such a thought process. I wouldn’t say all these thoughts are new. Most of them aren’t but in the process of drafting this novel I revisited them, and my Storyteller played the role of almighty, willing, and creating visuals making my writing relatively easy.

The idea that caused this long story was to let my Metaphysician walk into my space and time and guide me to a one minute meditative walk, assuming, his presence will make me watchful in my very act of one minute meditative walk. But I failed measurably. And it’s here my Metaphysician took the charge of the scene. This is the reason the canvas commenced elongating as I, in collaboration with my Storyteller, continued to depict my story. In the process of drafting this story, my Mind, my Logician, and my Storyteller and none the less, my Loneliness, took the liberty to appear as one of the characters and played their respective roles- roles that suited their traits.

There’s an underlying concept beneath every word. In fact, words are concepts. The word ‘chair’ isn’t a chair without the underlying concept. It’s not a chair to a dog or an ant. There are certain words and phrases used commonly and by metaphysicians such as ‘now’, ‘presence’, ‘time’, ‘god’, ‘here and now’ ‘awareness’, ‘mind’, ‘attention’ ‘void’ and so on. But as words represents a concept the meaning may differ. I have read metaphysicians using ‘conscious’ and or ‘consciousness’, more or less in the meaning of ‘aware’ and or ‘awareness’. Whereas I use ‘conscious’ like in ‘Plants are conscious of their surrounding’; ‘Animals are conscious beings but not self-conscious’. The purpose of brining this issue in my preface is to insist upon my readers that all such words and phrases I have used is to be understood and sensed in the meaning I use them. One can derive this meaning from the context in which I have used these words or phrases.

Language has been a big problem while presenting non dualistic concepts. I had to use dualistic words to delineate those concepts as well in their dualistic meaning. This may be confusing if they are not meant in their context. At places, I have intentionally put these words and phrases in inverted comas to emphasize stress on the underlying metaphysical concept presented by those words and phrases. These words and phrases has to be seen in the light of those concepts.

This long story isn’t a discourse on meditation, though it is, in a sense. It moves from thought association to thought association. It’s a fiction and fictions develop on events which metaphysically are happenings.

Discourses presented by spiritual beings or metaphysicians, or dream sellers are orderly because they are well thought, practiced, and presented in the wake of the traits of their audience. In my story, it appears in a very haphazard manner because of the characters, particularly my Mind disrupting the proceeding of the discourse. The purpose of my Metaphysician was not to give me a wordy discourse but guide me to an experiential one minute meditative walk. His sole aim was to bring to my attention the obstructions that was needed to undo in order to attain meditative walk. As such, my Metaphysician follows no methodology which can be termed as his teaching on meditative practices. He deals with any issue when it comes up for his scrutiny and reflection. He isn’t like any ‘practiced teacher’.

My Metaphysician had insistently told me that metaphysical lands exists in the absence of all other lands like once he told me- ‘here’ is absence of all ‘there’s’.

In the course of these years of prenatal period, several other authors and thinkers left their thick footprints on my intellectual space by shaping my way of thinking. Some of them, I concede, may have transcended the thick walls of my intellect, and have affected me metaphysically. The list of these authors and thinkers runs into a hundred and remembering and naming all of them would be difficult at this juncture though I feel inclined to name few such as Buddha, Socrates (who incidentally haven’t written a word on his own), Patanjali, GI Gurdjieff, Einstein, Dostoyevsky, RD Laing, Darvin, Freud, Adler, Frankl……. I must not also take away role of those authors- whom incidentally I call footpath writers- who led me to these authors and thinkers. Reading and thinking-not-so-subjectively too is a discovery and it’s a long drawn process. A twelve year boy who happened to lay hand on a time killer suspense thriller never stopped reading. This suspense thriller lead him to literature to parapsychology to psychology to classical and modern physics to genetics to finally arriving at metaphysics where he seem to have found his answers.

This book nutshells some of the answers thus found.

MY METAPHYSICIAN APPEARS

IN MY SPACE IN AN ASSUMED

PHYSICAL FORM

I returned from a long walk.

My walks, in normal course, confines to one minute I take in my endeavor to break the boredom engendered by monotony of any act I am engaged in accomplishing at that point of time. At times, I take two or three minute walks but when it elongates to five, I call it a long walk.

In normal course, I take ‘meditative walks’ of a duration of, more or less, a minute every after uncertain time depending on my situation- internal as well external- and my pendulous mood affected by my ever transient state of being or the other way round. I have intentionally termed such short walks as ‘one minute meditative walk’ with the sole purpose of internalizing a suggestion of doing meditation while I walk.

I am not against what I term as introverted or withdrawn meditation. In my experience it serves a purpose though in a limited way. It helps to find some peace as one occupies a remote quite place inside cavity of one’s own skull when one is full of chaos and the need of the hour is to ‘gather’ oneself. It neutralizes the doings of the law of association to certain extent which works in tandem with the law of remembering and forgetfulness which brings to the fore associated thoughts, scenes and desires which makes you dig graves and bring alive the dead, which makes you project ‘what is not’ and daydream. The change of the setting and intentional slowing down of movement of pendulous mind does the much needed trick.

To me, meditation is an ongoing ‘way of living’ but, as I am not attuned to twenty-four-seven meditation, my Metaphysician has attached meditation with the various acts I perform in the course of my day, naming them after the very act, such as, walk meditation, talk meditation, laugh meditation (I am not joking), read meditation, type write meditation, ascend meditation, descend meditation, bath meditation, eat or drink meditation and so on and on.

It commenced from my Metaphysician’s suggestion that I meditate while driving when I was about to get into my car to drive off to my office. I wondered.

‘How can one meditate while driving at the same time?’ I asked wondering if my Metaphysician was intentionally trying to be enigmatic in his endeavor to project himself as a miraculous Being?

‘Give a try. Meditation is, in fact, moving with the momentum of time in one’s awareness. When you move with the momentum you move in no time. Believe me, you will find it easier to do than your withdrawn meditation and the energy you shall refine will be more in quantum and better in quality. Experience. The pace of movement of time is ever relative to your experience of time. You move with it- it moves while you stand still in space or move- and the experience of it slows down.’

I saw logic in his words. I decided to experience.

I had a beginners luck on day one of my drive meditation. I found it easier to meditate in a moving vehicle by fixing my attention on my attention occupying its seat in the center of my forehead inside my skull. I experienced slowed down time, I experienced peaceful joy. I sensed euphoric energies emanating from inside and enveloping me.

I narrated the experience to my Metaphysician. He said- ‘Now let’s attach all your major acts with meditation. And this is how meditation was divided into several and were nomenclatured. But, even today, of all the meditational practices attached to my various acts, I like the most when I am driving. In this state everything loses its meaning though I miss nothing.

Ever since then, I have internalized and am doing my best to reinforce the very ‘idea’ of meditation- what my Metaphysician terms as meditation which is an ongoing metaphysical ‘way of living’- hence, various names he has attributed to them are just names. The purpose is to remind to me to perform a particular act (any act, for that purpose) while meditating in my endeavor to attain twenty-four seven meditation. By the way, ‘non-act’ is also an act like non-happening is an happening by his definition of these terms ‘because acts or non-acts, happenings or non-happening are subject to the same metaphysical laws which causes them to happen or unhappen’, he had insistently told me once. The best I like- because of my relatively high success rate- is ‘meditation while driving’ and to some extent ‘one-minute meditative walk’ which provides me a metaphysical break from the boredom caused by the monotony of the physical work (clubbed or unattached with mental work) I am engaged in.

Meditation is a misconceived notion in understanding and practice, not unlike yoga. I wonder how spiritualists and metaphysicians have realized meditation, how they use and make understand their followers. But whom so-ever I have met, who claims they do meditation, is invariably ‘withdrawn meditation’. I don’t really know if their minds are quiet. But yes, even in meditation I term as meditation, shutting of internal dialoging is necessary and this is only possible when our attention is at our command.

I remember a story of a person who went into remote place in mountains to shut off his mind. He thought, cutting off his external clamor will aid him in shutting off the clamor inside. But he returned disappointed. When I asked him, he said- ‘I may have evaded my external by sidestepping from my setting and routine, but I failed to un-carry my internal associations which started projecting my external, causing turmoil inside me.

I wondered at those mythological stories where saints have sat for years in isolation in some cave to shut off their minds. I wonder if they returned back to life after attaining their emancipation or else with the same minds clamoring for gratification, for easy pass time.

‘The very word ‘meditation’ is a misnomer if the underlying concept is what the majority of this world takes it to be and understands it as. People, those who sit with eyes closed focusing on a thought, body part or an object in their endeavor to attain an emotional stable state of being, assume they are meditating. In other words, the misnomer-ed meditation is a technique to curtail stress and anxiety. The word experience of meditation can mean differently at various levels like the author of suspense thriller novel you declared as foot path novel after you had grown up a little, the very author you had evaluated as greatest when you were fourteen years old’- Metaphysician told me once giving my own example in his peculiar cryptic way. He had further added- ‘Great, greater, or greatest isn’t great, greater, or greatest in absolute terms, irrelatively, it is also subject to one’s inner growth which again have levels or call it depths. It is layered like unreality is layered and, when the so-called truth seeker sees things from a relative deeper layer, they think they have found reality. It’s like getting out from a dream world into another dream world. Chuang tzu dreamt he was a butterfly. When he woke up, he wondered if he was a butterfly dreaming, he is Chuang tzu or the other way round. Chuang tzu failed to consider he may have walked out of a dream into yet another.’

‘Patanjali, the father of Yoga, defined yoga as the practice of ‘negation of (natural) inclination of mind’. In my words, ‘undoing’ the whims and shunts of mind. To me, this is what the practice of meditation is. To me, this is what leads to meditation which leads to attain ‘inner unity’, the synonym of ‘yoga’.’ He had further added.

By virtue of my Metaphysicians discourse on meditation, I have internalized the essential root meaning of meditation which, as said, is not what commoners commonly understand and practice as meditation.

To return to my ongoing story, the very moment I returned from my long walk, I found my Metaphysician occupying my chair to my utter disbelief.

‘Had your walk…long walk’– he remarked. This wasn’t a question because he knew I had returned from my long walk. He resides inside me; hence, nothing is hidden from him concerning me. Right hemisphere of my skull is his abode, he had claimed, and I have no reason to disbelieve him. My experience of his emanating voice, in words or wordlessness, ratifies his claim.

I recognized him by his voice because this was the first time ever, he walked out of me in his assumed physical appearance. I had logical reasons to believe he has ‘assumed’ a physical appearance because, to me, he is downright a metaphysical entity. I had never imagined he would or can ever appear in a physical form. Though, he had threatened to leave me on several occasions when he felt utterly disappointed with my work on myself but in what form, I never gave a thought. I had no reason to. As such, his occasional threats of leaving me, as I had long ago concluded, was all part of his role playing with intent to build pressure on me to put more efforts on certain practices he kept on devising and suggesting to me to follow in a disciplined way. ‘Walk meditation’ is one among them. In fact, all forms of meditation I or he had had nomenclated. His aim is to make me live in meditation, twenty-four seven.

Suddenly I felt the sting of fear watching him watching me, entertaining a quiet smile, revolving in slow motion, occupying my chair.

Once upon a time, an alien had drilled a hole in my skull through which she used to walk inside, take her siesta and, at times, knock about my memory bank. She, a resident of Proxima Centauri, visited our planet exclusively to meet me, interact with me, know me. After having spent several years in the immediate vicinity of my house, she left, afflicted, and infected with earth. She never returned to Proxima Centauri. She is an inhabitant of earth now, like any worldly being. I never ventured to close that hole she had drilled in my skull. It still exists in the same spot, hidden externally.

I brought the story of this alien friend of mine into this story only to say that when I saw my Metaphysician in his assumed physical form, a thought crossed my head- did he use this hole to walk out?

But how could he? Because, if he did so, while I was taking my walk across the lawn spread before my study, I would have sensed him ascending out of the hole or at least, descending down my skull. He might have walked alongside me here after or else, I would have definitely seen or sensed him walking toward my study.

The second deduction that crossed my head countermanded the first with a question- how could you see an invisible entity walking out of your skull? He probably walked out the hole, invisible, walked towards my study, invisible and then, perhaps, took his physical form. I will ask him at some point of our interaction, I decided.

But why am I insisting that he came out of my skull while I had been taking my walk? When did I sense him last? I wasn’t sure. May be an hour before; may be two. One jumps away from one point of time to another so fast in the linear spaces of time that one isn’t sure where one is at any given point of time. How does an absent entity account for his presence? In my off and on absence I couldn’t have.

The third question that followed the two, infused unforeseen fear, rather fear generated pain. Fear as such is projection of fear which my metaphysician has termed as ‘fear of the fear’. He had said by way of explanation that- ‘the fear is never here. It’s a projected threat to wellbeing in an assumed time. The situation never causes fear. It compels you to take a decision, fight, or flight. It’s your projection which causes fear. Fear has no foundation ever in the present. And, my friend, how can a feeling have a structural base in any nonexistent time.’

Yet, a projected thought engendered by my feeling of fear took me in its grip. Has he decided to desert me? Or else why would he walk out of his abode- the right hemisphere of my head- he claimed is peaceful? Has he come to take his final leave from me? He is a master