Texture of our joy and pain
A wave of goosebumps spread across my body as I fidgeted in my chair anticipating the music. As soon as the first note sprang off the flute, my goosebumps began to soften. The melody started warming up my skin, melted into my flesh, and descended into my bones. Each pluck of the string untangled a knot in my heart, each beat of the tabla loosened up my sinews; each breath of the harmonium kindled the embers in my soul till I began to melt through my chair down to the floor. Flowing down the steps of the concert hall, I found myself seized by the music, and pulled towards the origin of these melodies, when all of a sudden, like a phantom, a being emerged out of the dark from the front-left corner of the stage.
The being greeted the flutist with a smile that began at the corners of his mouth and extended to the ends of the cosmos, radiating gratitude and joy. The air squirmed with melodies, and through it, the flutist beamed a smile back, his gaze squared with that of the being, whispered silently: I feel complete, for my flute has liberated you. A layer of self-doubt peeled off the being’s consciousness. Each gaze that he thus met, scorched yet another layer of doubt, till the last singer’s radiant smile annihilated him altogether, and he was nowhere to be found, for all that was left, was an awareness, handing its reins gently over to the music, swimming in the harmonies as soon as they dove off the flute, no destination in mind, for neither the melodies nor the being had a destiny: losing themselves to the moment had become their destiny. All that existed now was movement, of strings, of drums, of bodies. As this movement propelled into the next moment, the moment lost itself to the movement, and all that remained was absolute spontaneity: the clapping, the singing, the dancing were all at once united. The spontaneity that thus unraveled set each and every soul on fire, such that there was not one but hundreds of souls squirming in divine love, as if the universe had come into being some fourteen billion years ago, created planets, stars, and galaxies, just so it could set these beings aflame with the fuel that powers its own core: spontaneity.
At home later that evening, still overflowing with joy, I sat on my chair to observe the joy as it sloshed around in my body: still consumed in the music, all I wanted was to dance, so I danced some more. As the sloshing settled into a gentle wave, the music into a hum, I settled back on my chair, and admired the sense of joy we are capable of feeling. This joy, so radiant, so warm, could I invoke it when a bout of angst starts sweeping over my soul, I wondered. Would it not be wonderful to sweep the pain in a single swoop and dance to this magical tune again. Oh yes, it would be wonderful. I can do anything to feel this way again, and again. But wait a second, this pain, this angst I wish to battle, is it not a feeling too? Different, perhaps in how it makes me feel, but quite the same in how it surges in my being. Is it not worthy of as much attention — if not more — as the feeling of joy? Maybe yes, when I am all filled with joy, but when I am in pain, all I want to do is run away from it, as fast as I can, as far as can, because it hurts: I don’t feel good, my body squirms, and I grab onto to whatever will provide me relief, albeit for a moment.
And the questions started rolling forth: Where do I escape to? Whatever is in sight: food, phone, friends, family. Where does it hurt? I don’t know, my soul, my chest. How does it arise? Oh, so many different ways, often I am seized by it before I see it coming. How do I feel when the feeling is upon me? I feel tight, I want to escape. What is the texture of the feeling? So rough. Say more. I don’t know, I have not paid much attention to the texture. Who wants to think about the texture of the pain when its stinging deep? What are other feelings that arise? Dread. But I feel I trample over all there is too feel as I scour around in an effort to escape. Can I recount how it may feel as I am escaping? Well, that is what I am doing, I am recounting. But I am fully aware of how awful I am at recounting things, especially when I am so single mindedly focused on escaping: it is like being asked to recount the people I may have seen on my way home: I can’t recount everyone I saw because I was not paying attention to them. Most often a simple feeling may arouse anxiety, but in the effort to escape it, I do things my being would find repulsive in a normal state of mind: the mounds of food and media I can gorge on is preposterous. What I can recount really well, though, is that my effort to escape the pain is as painful as the pain itself: a brief period of respite is followed with a sniveling sense of anxiety about my habits, my choices, and my ways of being. The pain may be as fleeting as the joy, but the anxiety, I carry it around in my body all the time. It feels heavy.
Little did I know that an adventure off joy could bring me to the edge of a gaping hole in my being. Looking down into it from this vantage point, I am absolutely sure that there is no way to jump out of such a deep hole when I find myself down there. Yet, all I do is jump till my feet start bruising and my soul starts withering away. Joy, you are so sweet, yet you too can only lift me so high. I need to learn how to climb. I need to learn how to scale the walls of this hole, so I can ascend with my soul intact. When I am hurled down there by fortune, when my ribs have cracked, my spine twisted, neither will I be able to jump or climb those walls, the walls I have not yet seen, whose texture my fingers have not perceived yet, will remain hostile to me. So here, let me lower myself down into this hole with a rope of curiosity, and explore: let me begin to feel what my pain feels like.
