(c) John, Rekesh 2004-2008. No part of this work may be copied or reproduced without the author's permission
6. Sky (Part 2)
“You are… what do you call… a preceptor?” Lisa looked her in the eye.
“Sort of,” Aliyah smiled. “The Master will be here in an hour or so. I am holding the fort till then.”
Lisa turned towards Theo, “I’m so sorry, honey! I was sure that you could meet the Master himself. We’ll come some other time…”
“I don’t have much time for this sort of stuff. I’m here only because you insisted,” Theo smiled. “But I’m sure Aliyah would do just as well.”
“You know her?” Lisa sounded surprised.
“Well, sort of.” Theo sounded defensive. “I did tell you, if you remember.”
Lisa raised her eyebrows and turned to look at Aliyah.
“Oh, so you are the one!” she whistled. “Wrecked his jeep and ruined my date! And preaching about some high principle too, of all the nonsense!”
“Actually, it was an accident. I believe we were all at fault,” Aliyah smiled gently.
“That’s what they all say,” Lisa countered. “The worst part was that his head seemed to be stuck in the clouds for a while after that.”
Theo looked embarrassed. “Well, I did describe your notions to Lisa. It was kind of interesting...”
Aliyah felt a thrill of joy, but kept her reserve. She was excited to meet Theo again, though embarrassed as well because of the previous incident. She had heard a lot about him recently, from her own discreet enquiries and from his reputation as an adventurer.
“Yeah! Some God principle!” Lisa had coined a word, “There’s too much pseudo-science and bogus spirituality floating around.”
“Well, it’s something I am still researching,” Aliyah replied, leading them into the inner garden of the building where they could sit down.
“It doesn’t need much research to figure out, does it?” Lisa asked meaningly.
Aliyah did not answer.
“See, you teach people how to transcend the mind. Now if mind is like air, I suppose the analogy is, what shall I say, you choke them to death?” Lisa laughed heartily.
“That is funny,” Aliyah agreed, “though not quite what I had in mind.”
“Ah, so you do have something in mind,” Theo smiled. “I’d like to hear it.”
“Well, if you really want to…” Aliyah smiled back at him.
Lisa did not look pleased. “How about coming back later when the Master is here? It’s almost time for lunch.”
“We’ll wait for him,” said Theo. “Meanwhile I’m sure Aliyah can tell us something about the mind… or what she has in mind.”
Aliyah suddenly felt cornered. She really wanted to discuss her thoughts with Theo, but felt that Lisa would turn into a vehement opponent. A confrontation was not to her liking.
“Perhaps we could discuss this another time?” she looked at Theo. His eyes were fixed intently on hers, and she felt that he liked the suggestion very much.
“I think now is as good a time as any,” Lisa, who did not like the idea at all, intervened quickly. “I believe you were going to tell us about the mind?”
“Okay,” Aliyah nodded as she motioned them to sit down. “Would you like some tea first?”
Sunlight poured from the top of the open courtyard and painted the garden in a curious mix of light and shade. The interior of the wooden building held what was known as a garden of meditation. Rocks and pebbles arranged in peculiar ways on uneven terrain helped many who contemplated them to attain deeper states of consciousness.
Aliyah looked on silently at the rocks while Lisa and Theo sipped green tea. Lisa did not seem to like her drink, for she made a face. Theo appeared silent in his thoughts.
“The mind, as the Master says,” Aliyah began, “is layered much like an onion. And it is possible to navigate those layers in meditation…”
“What do you mean, layers’?” asked Theo.
“Well, the layering is a perception. As you go deeper into meditation, there are various shifts in consciousness. The quality of these states varies, and one state is different from another. You go past these layers, entering deeper and deeper into meditation.”
“I see. What happens then?”
“Well, that’s what is most interesting. After peeling layer after layer, nothing remains."
“What?” Theo sounded incredulous.
“Nothing that one would call as mind. It is absolute stillness and void. Even your ‘I’ does not exist in that state.”
Lisa cut in impatiently. “I know all these from the Master’s teachings. But how does it have anything to do with your suppositions?”
“Well, the analogy is not very difficult to find,” Aliyah responded.
“The only one that comes to my mind is hot air!” Lisa was distinctively aggressive.
“The atmosphere perhaps?” Theo intervened with a curious smile.
“Yes!” Aliyah smiled back, glad that Theo was following her line of thought. “The earth’s atmosphere is also layered and seems to have some curious correspondence with the mind.”
Indeed, the earth’s atmosphere was layered like an onion. Most of the activity of wind and weather were at the bottom-most layer called the troposphere. Here existed most of the weather phenomena, and its currents breathed life into the earth and carried around the creative potential of life in pollen and seeds. The currents whipped ocean waves into a frenzy, moved water as vapor through the air, brought cold or warm spells, created tornadoes and storms, and determined seasons. Here was to be found reflections of the typical human mind with its creativity, and its uncontrolled and often forceful thought patterns, driving emotions into passions and resulting in physical activity.
Theo found the description interesting, but voiced a concern. “The mind is the most creative faculty that we have. All of civilization is built and driven by the mind. It cannot be trivialized by a simple analogy.”
“True, the mind is the builder. The Master says that mind influences and even creates matter. In some philosophies, existence is an appearance in consciousness, did you know?”
“I know that,” replied Lisa laughing. “So you are now going to describe how hot air creates everything?”
Aliyah wondered why Lisa was so aggressive with her, almost jealous. But the question deserved an answer.