Travel Thy Mind

Note: Meditation practitioners use multiple methods to attain peace. There are some who progress to the level where they can move from dimension to dimension. Others meditate to attain peace. Personally, I have experienced the beauty of this travel. While the story is a figment of imagination, the travel isn’t.

                                                                

                                        

Daniel woke up rubbing his eye; the clock showed 5.00 a.m. He heard raindrops pattering the glass window. While his conscience prodded him to wake up and go about his day, his body pulled him towards the warm blanket. But his mind voice kept reminding him of what Swamiji had said – the best time to practice this is at early morning hours.

Six weeks ago, Daniel had travelled to India. Yeap, he looked out of place as he negotiated his way out of the Meenambakkam Airport. He was sure people thought he was a Nepali. Daniel Chang was a Malaysian of Chinese descendance. An avid traveller, he had travelled to many countries across the world including the Pacific island nations. His memorable trip was to the Cooks Islands, at that time known as the last paradise on earth. With the same vigour that took him across the Pacific, he had travelled to India despite having heard of many stories from past travellers.

Swamiji had said that one should take cold shower head to toe before doing anything else. Daniel stood looking at his shower. Cold shower? He shivered even thinking about it. The dip he took in the river near swamiji’s ashram was still fresh in his mind. It was winter in India when he decided to enjoy low fares to Chennai.

Chennai itself was not very cold, only rainfall was high. But as he travelled to Kodaikanal, a hill station, the temperature started falling and boy, it was really cold! Swamiji’s ashram was in Kodaikanal and there was a small stream that ran adjacent to the ashram; that was where Swamiji had asked him to take a dip in the cold water at 5 a.m. on one historic morning. Historic because that was the first time Daniel took cold shower in his life.

Telling himself that the water could not be colder than the water in the stream, Daniel turned on the shower. Icy droplets hit his body like pin pricks. But only for a few seconds, then his body became accustomed to the temperature. Daniel washed himself up as Swamiji had taught. One needs to be pure in body and mind before doing this meditation, Swamiji had said.

Daniel was a banker by profession. He had worked hard to rise to where he had reached – Regional Director of a foreign bank which had global presence. Hard work aside, he had also used lobbying tactics to rise to that level which was not easy for an Asian. Some banks went by merits, others by many other criteria except merits. Daniel’s employers belonged to the latter. So, Daniel, too had played the corporate game, to get where he wanted to reach.

But things didn’t go quite as he had anticipated. Regional Director was a role that needed mobility. He travelled quite a bit that he used to joke that he spent more time in the air than on the ground. Then again, that was a choice that he had made. The frequent travel added with irregular meals and uncertain lifestyle had taken a toll on his body and mind. When one reaches heights by unethical means, the mind voice would rarely remain silent as we humans were designed like that. The mind or rather the conscience would keep prodding till we corrected our wrong doings. For those who succeeded in silencing the mind voice, the body would take the hit – enter illnesses, sometimes unexplained diseases. Daniel experienced exactly that. He developed pain on the right side of his abdomen. Initially doctors thought it was appendicitis, as there was a slight swelling above his pant’s line. A set of medical tests and a couple of nights’ stay at the hospital isolated appendicitis or any digestive system illnesses as the cause.

Daniel was in intense pain while waiting for a flight back to Kuala Lumpur when he met a lady clad in all white. Her head was shaved and she carried a white colour bag. She had been sitting a few rows away, watching him. At one point when Daniel had doubled in pain, she stood up and walked to his place. She sat beside him and placed her left hand on his shoulder. Daniel was startled.

`I know you are in pain,’ she said in a soothing voice. Daniel sat up and looked at her, trying to smile but the pain was intense. He sat as he clutched his right abdomen. Other fellow passengers in the waiting hall started noticing them.

`Not all pains are physical’, she said, `our illnesses are caused by non-physical reasons.’

That was what Swamiji said – non-physical connection. The entire universe is connected non-physically. Anyone who is not on that platform is bound to suffer maladies, he had said.

Daniel dried himself and attired in fully white clothes – kurta top and pyjama pants. He took a thick blanket and set it on the floor. Then he sat on the blanket in lotus position, holding both hands together in a specific mudra and closed his eyes.

Upon flying back with pain in right abdomen, Daniel got himself admitted into a medical centre. Doctors ran all tests possible and returned the same verdict – there was nothing wrong with him physically. They said he was probably too fatigued from his travel that the body was signalling him to rest.

Daniel reached home, lied down on his bed. He dozed off thinking of what the Swamiji and the woman in white had said. The entire universe is connected non-physically; in other words, the entire make up of existence is pure energy. And he wasn’t connected to that energy. Probably, that was the cause of his malady.

The lady in white had given him Swamiji’s contact and that was how he landed in India, in that wet month of December. The four weeks spent at the ashram taught him that the energy is pure and can only be tainted by human actions. Any action against dharma would taint the energy and its purity. Daniel did not reach the height of his career by just working hard. He joined the corporate game of back-stabbing, plotting the fall of others and what not. The energy didn’t like it and told him its displeasure in its own way. It also brought him towards a new path of meditation.

When Daniel started the meditation at Swamiji’s ashram, he had trouble focusing. The last two weeks had seen him progress on focusing that he had begun to look forward to the meditation sessions.

Daniel saw the blue light. It flickered, changed hues but remained blue. The beauty of the light kept his attention transfixed. It felt as if the light was taking him somewhere. It was compelling him to follow. He felt as if he was moving into a different dimension, a totally different realm. His body felt very light. He was floating along in the blue light which was neither bright nor dim. It felt so good. Then the unexpected happened. It came in a flicker – a flicker of purple. He started searching for the flicker, eyes still closed, mind travelled far away, in pursuit of purple.

Swamiji has told him that it begins from red, progresses to blue then purple. Purple means another two more progression to attain the light. But Daniel had been keen to pursue the colour lights which took him to multiple realms.

The flicker of purple came again, this time he saw a splash of multiple beads of purple, dancing before his eyes. Dance of the cosmos, mesmerizing. He followed the purple light. It seems to take him very far away. Daniel no longer felt his body. He was floating with the purple light and it was taking him far away very fast.

The feel was very refreshing. Nothing mattered, only light around him. Daniel was now surrounded by the purple light. But some tinge of orange seemed to surround the purple. His mind felt relaxed like never before. Bliss. Quiet. Peace. He kept following, engulfed in the light, dancing with it. Utter bliss.

`I found him like this,’ she told the police office, sobbing and wiping her tears.

`When did you find him?’ the officer asked.

`About half hour ago. Tried waking him, but he seemed to have frozen.’

`You touched him?’

`Yes, officer, but he felt warm.’

`Please do not touch anything, miss,’ the officer sounded stern. `This could be a crime scene.’

`But who committed any crime?’ she asked.

The officer did not answer but gave her a stern look. Then he radioed to his base `Male, Chinese in mid-thirties, found in seated position. Need doctor to reconfirm death. Seems no foul play.’