Translation
On the blind path of self discovery, every passerby somewhere or the other intersects one fellow traveller - Siddharth. More than Buddha’s achievements, I find his Siddharth-ness more valuable. To be sure, he hadn’t seen or experienced much adversity, but the encounter of mere sorrow brought his princely existence at stake. Devastated at once, he set out carrying all the pain promptly in his arms. He wholeheartedly devoted himself in order to measure suffering into the dimensions of divine compassion. He did not deny his own experience of sorrow in order to quickly discipline adversity within the imposition of humanity. The one who did not subscribe to any established values of society in his life and did not interfere in the make up of existence while in the process of one’s own self evolution - is Siddharth. Nor can this process be staged, and neither should it be attempted. Theories are essentially slaughterhouses of the wings taken during the flights of self discovery, mocking at the sheer will that one puts into it. The French poet Baudelaire has written a poem about a giant bird called albatross. The bird's wings are featherless and graceful. To fly through the sky itself is its boldness and beauty. But the weight of its wings makes this bird appear very clumsy while walking on the ground. A ship's captain accidentally shot one of these seabirds and partially captured it, and then, while having fun dragging its claws across the deck, he watched the whirring of the bird's body. When his urge to play at brute force reached its climax, the captain attached the wing of the giant bird to the tip of a burning torch. Upon drilling a hole in its untwisted braid, the captain felt a sense of accomplishment. Calling four companions, he then kept on trying to find his own self-propulsive power. In overlooking the trapping of Siddhartha’s soul into the cage of life/existence and looking at his findings as the foundation of human philosophy, I am inevitably reminded of the meeting of the wise men who were tinkling with the mermaid's ring on the sea. Theories continue to make a mockery of people in this way. They are the refuge that people take to succumb to an accepted normal rather than acknowledging the difference of experience. Then what about the Prophet's sufferings? The world may be temporarily silenced by the sermons of ministers and the dawn alarms of the mullahs, but it does not shake the world. The experience of the apostles that lie behind the mantra is the real guide. Taking refuge in deceitful gurus, one not only fails to find the path, but instead continues to be misled. Whether to accept or reject such misguidance is a personal choice. But existence cannot be shaken without rejection, and without shaking, no renewal can take place. This is the glory of suffering and grief. To leave the plateau for immersing oneself in this flood-plain of creation is the penance of self discovery.
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