Reflection: Fifty-seven.
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A strange desire sometimes plays in my mind these days. I want to know what people think about when they’re dying, I want to hear their ‘last words.’ I want it very badly. A person dies suddenly, unable to say anything, yet perhaps they had so much to tell someone, or some people. It’s even possible that before death, others might have had something to say to them too. Nothing gets said when someone dies so suddenly like that. Those unspoken words remain forever hidden in the bosom of the earth. No one can hear anything from their lips in that final moment.
I often feel like calling the few people I love and saying, “Tell me your last words. If you have any final wish, tell me that too. I’ll try my best to fulfill it.” But can such a thing be said? The moment I try to say it, there’d be utter chaos! Everyone would think, what’s wrong with me? Have I gone mad or something? For instance, if I called my sister and said, “Sister, tell me your final wish,” before I could finish speaking, she’d hang up on me and book the next flight ticket straight to Bangladesh. If I told my brother, he’d start such a crying fit that even people who know how to swim would drown in that ocean of tears! I don’t know what Mother would do if I told her, but if I told Father, he’d immediately arrange my marriage, because once someone goes completely mad, no one else would want to marry them. If I told my friends, they’d come running to my house right away, and might even bring along some exorcist for spiritual cleansing! The few cousins I’ve already told that I suspect I have some serious illness and will therefore run away from home very soon so I won’t have to trouble anyone—they’ll secretly start investigating what disease I’ve contracted. A bunch of relatives, understanding nothing, will start giving random advice: “Suicide is a great sin. Beware!” Then there are some perversely minded relatives who can’t stand me simply because others praise me, love me, and many people don’t like to hear bad things about me—just for these reasons they can’t tolerate me, and they’ll say, “How much everyone says, Mukti is intelligent, Mukti is intelligent, love her so much—look now, her head is full of cow dung!” And would the critics be happy? Oh my goodness! Is that even possible? They’d be jumping up and down saying, “Alas alas, I die I die! Day and night, night and day, for whom do we rejoice? This one turns out to be a complete fool, absolutely authentic!”
What does this mean then? Can I no longer ask anyone casually, “That final word—how much have you kept hidden? Speak it now!” Where will I find the one who will speak that final word to me? Tell me, do people speak the truth in their final words? Even someone who has never said anything but lies their entire life? But then again, it’s also possible that someone spoke only truth their whole life, never tasted the flavor of a lie, and at the very end thought: let me try telling one lie, just to see how it feels! No sooner thought than done! They blurt out a terrible lie. And having said it, they die instantly! Everyone takes it as truth, because that person never lied! Last words carry great weight. A word after which no other word can be spoken, no capacity for speech remains, when all of life’s words conclude with that single utterance—such words must have significance! I have already decided in my mind what I will say in the moment before death. I believe I will leave this world quite early. That’s my wish too. The longer the life, the greater the suffering! What’s the point? If I die, I’m saved. After my death, whether anyone in the world can bear me or not—what’s it to me? The words I’ve decided to leave behind—I won’t say them now. Why? It’s not that these words are so precious they cannot be spoken now. In truth, none of our words are that precious. Those to whom our words matter are people to whom we ourselves matter. Suppose I say something you dislike, or because you dislike me, you dismiss my words with contempt—then your behavior could silence my voice forever. Better to speak my final words at that moment when I can no longer speak anyway. This has two advantages. First, I won’t have to endure how cruelly you attack me. Second, however much you may grimace, out of courtesy toward the dead, you won’t be able to speak harshly of my final words. The truth is, our words are as precious to us as they are worthless to others. Not understanding this, we go about collecting people’s irritation and dance with it on our heads!
Thought: Fifty-eight.
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An evening four years ago. A shadow—not a person, merely the shadow of a person—saved me from great danger. That day it occurred to me that shadows are only shadows. The shadow of a beast is a shadow, the shadow of a human is a shadow. Even the shadows of those beasts who prowl wearing human masks are as safe as all other shadows. To express sorrow, why do people say a dark shadow descended upon life? Yet that day a shadow warned me like a devoted friend. I still love that beast’s shadow from that day. As loathsome as the creature was, its shadow was equally dear. That shadow came and struck my legs with tremendous force. I ran and escaped from that beast’s clutches. Life sometimes drowns all our hopes while clinging to despair. Strangely, those very despairs somehow find shelter for us! I assume I am well. The dense, burning breath of sorrow comes to awaken life.
When I close my eyes, I often see myself standing at a difficult crossroads of many unknown paths. I don’t know what lies at the end of any path. I only know that I must walk down one of them—I cannot escape. Even if I choose not to walk down any path, I cannot remain standing at this crossroads; I must move away quickly, for if I don’t move on my own, death is certain—I stand there so helplessly. I must leave this place before evening falls. I can’t understand what to do, why to do it, how to do it, what ought to be done… Meanwhile, Mr. Afternoon is rolling toward evening, because the sun has slipped behind the mountains! At such a moment, alone, helpless, bewildered, I stand at that very crossroads… Hmm…! You’ve guessed correctly. I’m speaking of life itself!
“Make a small mistake, and I’ll make up for it halfway!” Ah, what a self-satisfying consolation! How beautifully we live with this! Can everything truly be compensated for? Is it even possible? Such attempts are futile! Life isn’t like a writing pad where we can write whatever we wish and life will accept it all with a smile! When a writer’s imagination about life touches the sky, perhaps life itself cannot even reach the ceiling. The truest acting happens nowhere more than in life. We think everything we see and hear is real. Yet all of this is worth no more than a play. We spend our entire lives living amid such falsehoods! What we see, what we think, what we feel—it’s not always true. How beautifully a photograph captures a smile. Who could tell from that picture how many tears have gathered in those eyes? How much suffering shapes that face! Even after crying for five straight hours, one can pose with a radiantly beautiful smile!
I have fallen in love with the moon. I cannot desire this moon, cannot possess it, cannot even approach it—fine, I accept all this. The moon may not love me back, may not speak to me, may not even listen—but does this mean I cannot selflessly love, gazing at the sky, expressing my sincere feelings, even breathing a small sigh? How does one live without at least this right? When rendered so helpless, I could never be so strong as to not cry even over this—I haven’t been able to, nor will I ever be. I love because this feeling of love gives me peace. So what if I receive no love in return? What harm is there in that? I am well in loving, and I wish to remain so.
Reflection: Fifty-nine.
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How terribly unwell I am
these past few days…….
My heart keeps saying,
Tell your ‘beloved,’
she will keep you well.
Alas, heart! Let no one else know, but I do—
how much delusion lies in that hope!
Being well—sometimes, truly coming to pass, merely—simply amounts to staying alive. Who does a person stay well for? For others? For their most beloved? For some dream? Or thinking, what good is being unwell? Tell me, how much can one keep another well without being well oneself? For how long? Forever? How far does that eternity stretch? Even when utterly unable to move, only able to stare blankly at everyone, lying there sick—can one still keep everyone well? How long does another person’s compassion for the sick last? The sick person becomes everyone’s burden—how then does he bear the burden of loving others? When love finds no expression, how well does hidden love remain? Or does it allow—oneself, the beloved—to remain well? How many people learn to love by accepting their beloved as they are—in mind, mood, and body? I’m no longer shocked by the word ‘body’—I’ve grown up—the body will surely come into love! Those who say otherwise are mostly hypocrites. Even without going so deep, just thinking from what meets the eye, to keep a simple, ordinary love alive requires both being well and keeping well. Love without wellness doesn’t stay well. And if it does, for how long? Daily life stumbles in so many places. Almost constantly, suddenly one thinks, Damn it! Nothing feels good anymore, I’ll just go wherever my eyes take me! But where can a person go? Can one flee, leaving behind one’s innermost self, the most constant truth—what has happened, what happens, what is—all of this? Such easy escape from living? One must remain in this one life, in life itself—one cannot step outside life—this is the tragedy of being alive. Born, therefore must live—living with this punishment is life. Practicing to think while cursing one’s own birth—I’m alive, I’m fine—this is what life is called! Whatever arrangements it requires, walking this path with them, I’ll stop someday. Until then—whatever anyone says, whatever happens to anyone, all the attempts to destroy me, misunderstandings before understanding and taking that as truth to judge me, breaking not just the mind but truly the body—showing the middle finger to all of this and living is what being well means. This whole life is just a joke! As long as one can live in jest, that’s pure profit—immediate cash! Seeing someone ‘staying alive,’ I hurl and receive the sharpest irony of asking ‘How are you?’ and continue walking………One doesn’t need to ask a living, breathing person ‘Are you well?’ and wait with mouth agape for an answer. That shows doubt in God’s mysterious cruelty. Such audacity! The weapons of hand and heart strike with skilled precision. Forgetting those blows—hiding the faithful melancholy clinging to my chin and living is being well, therefore, life!
Thought: Sixty.
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There are certain relationships where the absence of presence creates no void at all. Whether the two people in the relationship are together or apart makes no difference to either of them. An existence that fails to make its absence felt is perhaps not really an existence at all — the entire being may actually be a kind of emptiness. Such relationships are terribly one-sided! Yet sometimes we witness this mystery: this very emptiness may become perfect completeness. This too happens! From the outside, no one would find any trace of this completeness. Only that couple knows how completely fulfilled a relationship they live within! Then again, we also see false performances of aesthetic wholeness — theatrical displays that would suit any stage quite well — and entire lives pass quite happily in such performances! Why does this happen? To seek the cause requires more than a sound mind can manage. Perhaps, in hope of obtaining something very rare, something very precious — whether material or immaterial, visible or invisible, animate or lifeless — people become desperate, begin to thrash about, or once they obtain it, lose themselves in joy and cause the pitiful death of all consciousness along with conscience and reason. Not even once, not even for a single moment do they consider whether that particularly valuable thing has any value at all in their life. At the very end, sometimes a few may realize that what they thought was immensely valuable is utterly worthless for themselves, for their own lives! Yet, chasing after all these worthless things, how much that was truly valuable passed by their lives unnoticed. No one keeps that account, no one ever makes such reckonings, and if they do, they do so when it’s already too late. Sometimes even the softest touch of cotton draws blood, while an axe strikes with tender compassion. Who can know this mystery before being wounded?
It would be better if each day were different from the next. Some people have it that way, it seems. I don’t have it so much.
All the blue of the sky gathers as one and surrounds me from all sides.
And says, “Well, can you tell me what blue is like? Do tell me a little!”
How can I tell that very sky-notebook where I first recognized blue, where I learned blue, what blue is like? What kind of mockery is this?
The vast ocean, which has held a mass of water in its breast for eternity in silent eloquent voice, if it were to ask,
“What is the story of depth? Would you explain it a little?”
Alas! How can I explain what depth is like to that very depth where I dissolve life’s deepest sorrows, in which I search for life itself? Must there be quite so much farce? Are all the farces of this world reserved only for me? How much longer must I spend my life pushing through such mockery?
The maddeningly sweet-scented flowers come to me in clusters and say, “What is fragrance like?”
What heavy, strange existences travel borne on the wind! I breathe in deeply when such presences come and stir me. Wherever I am, however my surroundings may be, that fragrance creates some magical enchantment, stirring a little wave of joy in my heart. How can I explain to the mother of that magician what fragrance is like — it simply doesn’t come to my humble understanding!
Like a herd of white cattle, clouds drift across as rafts. My mind takes wing with those clouds, soaring to the melody of birdsong. If such a fountain of melody were to ask me, “Tell me, what is music like?” I truly don’t know what I would say in answer to such a question. How can one recognize the melodies of those whose songs awaken the world with boundless life?
So many sweet creations come to me like this, asking and asking their questions, then render me speechless and flee with laughter, vanishing in a flash!
When my beloved comes and asks, “What is love like?” I feel such shame that I want to knock myself down!
I walk life’s path, stumble, and think—everything in this mistaken life is chaotic, everything is wrong. Only the punishment is well-organized, quite right!
Reflection: Sixty-one.
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Dark clouds were drifting across a deeply blackened sky when evening suddenly dropped down with the rain. That evening was thoroughly intoxicated with rain. My desires broke free and ran wild in the streets. In such torrential rain, when despite all efforts nothing gets finished on time, one doesn’t feel much anger about it—because it’s a day for getting drenched. I needed to reach home quickly, but when there’s such urgency to return home, delays are inevitable, and today was no different. I couldn’t find a rickshaw, no one would take me, because the fare I was offering wasn’t rainy-day fare—which meant I wasn’t taking anyone either. The relationship between me and the rickshaw-puller was complicated! I had a packet of kheer in my hand. My younger brother’s request was getting soaked by the spray of water; in such driving rain, an umbrella does little good. There weren’t many people on the street, so I sheltered the plastic packet with my scarf. I walked looking up at the sky—I don’t remember if I was humming. The roaring sound of rain was making everything chaotic. I walked swinging my arms and legs, occasionally moving my umbrella aside to get even more drenched. My wet clothes clung to my body, clearly outlining my curves—I could feel it distinctly. But I didn’t feel much urgency to cover up. There was no one on the street—who would see my form? I returned home carrying the infinite joy of freedom. As always, I instantly constructed a justification: if I had left home a bit earlier, the rain wouldn’t have caught me. Or what harm would there have been in paying 10 taka more for the rickshaw fare? I could have spent a little less time chatting with Aruna today! I thought of several such things. While thinking all this, the next moment I remembered again—no, no, I had wanted to get drenched in exactly such rain. My heart’s desire had been to walk a long stretch of road getting soaked. I hadn’t avoided walking in wet clothes because people would stare, had I? I have desires, but also inhibitions. That’s why so many things remain undone. But what fun it was today! The street was empty, the rain was wonderful, not finding a rickshaw meant I could justify walking and getting drenched in the rain—what more could I want? Yes, yes, this is how I had wanted to get soaked alone—without any hesitation or inhibition. In my realm of wish-fulfillment, this is how I had wanted to live.
Life is often like this. So many things happen in our lives that we perhaps don’t pay much attention to because they seem so ordinary. When certain events cross our minds, we wish they wouldn’t happen. We know such events will bring additional suffering in their wake. But such events do occur. We sit and wonder: what happened? Why did it happen? How did it happen? The truth is, for things to happen just that way—we actually wanted this—long ago, we’ve forgotten; or in our subconscious mind, we’ve forgotten to notice.
Reflection: Sixty-two.
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Love is not something that can be measured out in large quantities all at once.
It’s not that it’s impossible—sometimes it can be done.
But that kind of love—doesn’t serve much purpose.
Then again, it’s not entirely useless either.
It works for some people… but the number of such people is very few.
These few people know how to hold onto multiple loves received at once—how to calculate, spend little by little, and survive… They are great masters, the great artists of love!
But for most people, the equation is different… Like vitamin C—their daily love—they need it every day, no delays allowed, no keeping them waiting… In the absence of love for a few days, even sometimes just one day, new love appears in that empty space.
Nature abhors a vacuum… Some hearts are more impatient than nature itself.
No relationship sustains itself—it must be kept alive daily with the moist fragrance of love.
… Otherwise, the relationship doesn’t walk hand in hand with love; love begins to walk hand in hand with the relationship.
Reflection: Sixty-three.
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I was in Seoul then. The lazy afternoon of autumn was gradually slipping toward evening. Sitting in a coffee shop, I was sipping from a cup and a quarter of steam. My body had been awake for quite some time from the warmth of the coffee. “Kiss the Rain” was playing across the entire ceiling, in my head. A cute little child kept running over, hitting my knee with a stick, then running away again. This was her game. Suddenly I saw an extraordinarily beautiful Korean young woman appear from somewhere, and within seconds she took her bag from the table right in front of me and left. And she left me completely undone. Her hair, eyes, the gentle movement of her hands, the smile at the corner of her lips—I was ‘gone’ in an instant! I found myself counting breaths again and again. Without any reason, I wanted to believe that she had looked at me, if only for a moment. My head went blank, and despite trying hard, I couldn’t bring her back to my vision. I can’t remember what she looked like; my mind only says she came, she left. The happiness I felt from seeing that stranger for barely a few seconds—I haven’t experienced that happiness even in perfect intimacy—this is my simple confession. And this is the truth.
The girl had left her bag behind. I kept thinking, if I could only discover where else throughout the city of Seoul the girl had forgotten other things, and would forget them that day!! Nothing more than that—just to catch a glimpse of her from afar! Or to go to places where she had been, existed for a few moments, then departed—such places! Perhaps when I arrived there, she wouldn’t be there anymore, but she had been there—and wasn’t that something? Did the girl want to say something to me? Surely that must be it. Otherwise, why would I feel that she had looked at me? How profoundly meaningful that seemingly meaningless feeling had become that very afternoon—witnessed by the satisfied smile that played between my eyes and lips. The afterglow of that day’s enchantment will never fade.
Some books—we dare not read a second time for fear they might become unloved.
Some movies—we dare not watch a second time for fear they might become unloved.
Some places—we dare not revisit for fear they might become unloved.
Some songs—we dare not hear a second time for fear they might become unloved.
Some moments—we dare not seek a second time for fear they might become unloved.
We live not only on enchantment, but on the dream of certain enchantments. Perhaps that’s what makes life so beautiful!