Hey, you know what you are made of. A powerful soul. A warrior. A man of endless possibilities. You are more than you think. But what did you do of your immense potential? You wasted it on petty issues. You prioritized all the external matters and never worried the least bit about yourself. You never thought how you would feel when you would find that you had only been wasting your power all this while. You simply kept on giving away your strengths to everyone but yourself. You dealt with problems that were not even yours. Your energy was scattered, everywhere. Nothing did you do about yourself. Just remember what an incredible kid you were back then, when you were free from the clutches of mediocrity, spending time in the solitude of your study, never caring a hang about the world. You had gone way ahead of things. You had reached where people your age could only dream of getting. Your potential went in the right directions, awarding you the right things. You were content, and happy, and inspired. And, you wanted more, always. More out of yourself. More out of your power. More and more, each day, until you got yourself entangled to the world. Alas!

The tragedy had begun far back in time, when you allowed distractions to seize you in their grip. And slowly but surely, you began to lose hold over your own self. You did not know how and when it happened. It is understandable. You were only a little kid. The lures and seductions of distractions—worldly pursuits—won the better of you and you headed the path of destruction. A child walking the path of the world, at the end of which, nothing extraordinary remains. Only ruins. Nothing but this.

You allowed people to occupy your mind. You were always in the midst of a crowd.

In the midst of nowhere.

You were loved by many. You were loved so much by others and a bit less by yourself, each day. You were not aware of it. I understand. You were just a little kid back then. You did not know you were losing yourself—the only guy who is going to be with you clear to the end. So you let them have you. You were losing yourself. You were losing your good interests. You were losing the joy of your life. And you were not aware of it. Your mind turned into a reckless thought-machine, playing scenes of the world, over and over again—that beautiful girl who was so fond of you, that friend of yours who liked hanging out with you and the many people who adored your personality. You kept thinking. You kept appreciating their affinity. But you did not know that only because you enjoyed your company did they do, too. They were with you because you were the master of everything. They wanted to learn numbers and you were an Aryabhatta. They were religious and you were their Krishna, their Mohammad, their Christ. They were learning ABCs while you read Shakespeare. You were ahead of things and they followed you. Don’t you see? You did not know that the day you lost yourself, they would turn their back on you. That is the way the world works. Nothing is wrong here. Impropriety is the only rule they know.

You were intertwined with the wrong things. Slowly, just like they were fond of you, you began to like them too. You liked hanging out with them too. You were a unique individual. But you unknowingly started following their norms. You began walking their footsteps. You began forgetting what an incredible human being you were and what a great standpoint you had and how you were in the lead of everything. You did not know you were not made to walk their path. And in the end, it plagued you like nothing else. You began to feel weak. Your chest began to shrink inside. Your shoulders began sagging day by day. Your chin started getting closer to your neck. And your eyes always watched the ground. From an ace, you turned into a layman. And you realized you had ended up joining the crowd.

And you know what, there is another rule of the world. A weak man is used by all and loved by none. Nothing cruel. Just the way of the world. Since he has lost the most important person in his life—himself—he begins to feel the urge to be identified. And so, he ties himself to anyone who promises to love him. Never once does he think that the only person he needs to love at the moment is himself. He does not realize what an immense loss he has incurred in being of the world. And he sacrifices whatever little is left of him.

And then, he is exploited and left in the gutter. His fake lovers have ruined them by now, and they have gone their way, picking whatever they needed off him. People think that’s who he is—a weak, powerless man. Nobody knows the reality. Not even the man himself.

He realizes he had been cheating himself all along. He was not true to himself and to his own potential. He had dispersed his energy everywhere. Never did he use it to remain who he had always been. If today he has turned this puny, it is his own doing. He should have made the right choices. He should have maintained his power. He should have been selective of the people he allowed in his life. But he chose to waste his energy on the world. He chose to heal people instead of himself. He took himself for granted. And so did the world.

The body is ruined. The mind has been well distorted. But the energy within still remains. The immense power over things. The control. The excellence. However, they demand intense struggle in order to manifest themselves back again.

His soul calls out to him. He is a wise man now, having had a thorough experience of the world. At a very young age, he has been through the truths of the mirror, the depths of souls and the loneliness of the nights. He has gone crazy a thousand and one times, crying over somebody else’s pain and getting his pillow wet with tears. He has awakened in the middle of the night and drunk two whole bottles of water. He has seen his perfection and he has watched his own destruction, too. He has gotten his head muddled with thoughts that had no beginnings and no ends. He has stooped so low for people, begging mercy for nothing. He has cried in the middle of the street. A man, once a master, crying. In the middle of the street. Begging mercy. For nothing. Fighting people who excel at mediocrity. Forgetting his own worth. Never daring to look back and see where he was and where he has come, how he has betrayed himself and how battered he has become.

It is like climbing the mountain top and then, jumping straight down again, just to be with people who he thought needed his love—unconditional love—something very rare in today’s world.

And now, he has fractured himself everywhere.

What of the world is left for him to behold?

He is back home now, cursing himself for the wrong choices he made. The greatest frustration lies in being unable to attain your full potential, in knowing you can do it but couldn’t since you had been distracted and frittering away your energy.

What an uneasy time it is. A fractured man has to climb the mountain once again—the mountain he himself jumped off. Disappointment captures his mind. He feels the incompleteness, the cluttered, painful feelings of having cheated himself. He isn’t happy at all. He knows there is much more he can do. He is not made for the world. He finds others having fun in their lives. They are happy since they haven’t lost themselves for others. They haven’t betrayed themselves. They are content. They have been doing what they deserve to do. They have had all of themselves. They need nothing more for they are at their best.

Only a mediocre person is always at its best.

“You will find me
Sitting
Quietly, forcing myself still
Practicing
Patience as my bones begin to ache
Breathing
Slowing my manic heart,
Calm,
Letting go of the ropes that pulled me
Standing
Feeling my feet, firm on the ground
Crying,
Grateful to have found some peace,
Whispering—
I am here now
Bowing,
Say ‘Namaste’ to
The Yogi!”

If you meet a Yogi, you will know it. 

A Yogi is unidentified, always, living a thousand lives in one. He is not what you see. He is not what he has been. He is not what he has done. He is not what he seems. He himself is ignorant of his vastness, his timeless relation to the universe that resembles his interior self. It is not late until he will come face to face with the godliness that dwells within him.

A Yogi is never the same. Before he knows his true self and the purpose of his life, he exposes himself audaciously to almost everything that is unfolded before him, regardless of the consequences. This is the first identification of a true Yogi. As a child, he exhibits bits of a yogic attitude—sheer devotion to his duty, hunger for expansion, persistent attention to the world around him, cheerfulness, an empathetic heart and rootedness to the earth that shows in the environmental pursuits he enjoys, like gardening and trying to communicate with trees and animals. People adore him and look for reasons to be around him. There is not a human who meets him and shows dislike. Not one. It happens because knowingly or unknowingly, the Yogi develops qualities of a refined human being, obliterating the tamasic (pleasure-seeking) attitudes that every human is born with and carries all through his life. So being pure at heart, he vibrates with the positivity that draws all towards him. 

However, this is not all. A Yogi, being prone to alteration at the outset, might get caught in tamas once in a while. But that is possible only until he is unknown to his true nature. As mentioned earlier, he exposes himself unthinkably to every experience that unfolds regardless of the consequences. So for him, there is nothing as a good deed or a bad one. He simply plunges into it and sees what happens. Fear does not dare to wander around his life. He might get triggered by worldly pursuits of fame, love and carnal pleasures, nothing of which is ever a tough deal for him. With the ease that he obtains it all, the likelihood of being stuck with it increases manifold. To him, it is all a child’s play. And until the Yogi realizes who he is, he is considered a child himself. He remains so till the awareness happens. 

In the material world, the Yogi gets all that he wants. But that does not satisfy him the least bit. At a certain point in time, his worldly accomplishments even take the better of him and he starts living in a constant state of despair. Unlike others, he is unable to live with all of these. They begin to consume him from within, and he keeps wondering what the reason could be. The decline is unfathomable. The godliness within him ceases to grow. And he almost accepts his stagnation with resignation. 

In order to fill the void, he foolishly finds his savior in the reason behind his slow downfall—the worldly pursuits. Unable to find it aligned with his true nature, he welcomes more pain, frustration and agony in his life. His grip loosens and his own self starts slipping away. This is an unbearable pain. Acceptance is what he needs. 

A drug.

Acceptance is what becomes his craving. And he goes on begging people for it. As the time rolls by and his true identity fades away, bringing more distress, he does not even shy away from coming down to the streets. When people look at him, all they can think of is, a beggar is begging on the streets. They may show a moment of pity but soon, forget it, believing that is what he is destined for. Nobody knows who is behind the disguise. It takes a Yogi to identify one. 

The beggar is kicked and crushed by the people who find the good opportunity to express their superiority. And the beggar accepts it—no anger, no resentment, no hurt. 

My destiny, my Karma, he thinks. 

And they exploit him for their good and turn their back.

This is what happens when a Yogi decides to become a bhogi (pleasure-seeker). To his utter ignorance, his life slips downhill and only when he falls into the mud does he realize what he had been up to.

The realization hits him, hard. And regret, shame and self-hatred seize him for what seems forever. But the Yogi does not give up. He is not made to. He cannot live being what he is not. So he gets back up, dusts off and vows to shed all the negative, self-destructive beliefs that have formed a thick layer over his true identity.   

And the journey back home begins. 



When the Yogi takes the road home, the world gets in awe of him. There is something that forces them to. This is his charm, his charisma and the never-ceasing energy flowing through his veins. Ask those who have witnessed his yogic stature. They will tell you what he is capable of. 

The Yogi has no choice in reality. He is born to live for one idea and no matter his liking, he cannot take another road. He is not built for anything else. In the beginning, he opens himself to new experiences since that is his very nature. It makes him aware of the consequences of taking up a bhogi’s path—the path that is totally opposite to his true nature. The world walks that way but he cannot. He must go the other way. The world may be engrossed in worldly pleasures—women, money, fame, company, friendship, love and sex—but to him, it all reduces to nothingness in the end. Unlike others, he cannot engage with the world and be all okay. He has already been face to face with the consequences of choosing that road. He knows if he does, he will become a child again. He knows he will act stupidly. He knows he will hate himself and in turn, be hated by the people. He knows he will forget to laugh and in turn, to make people laugh. He knows he will never be able to find the joy in his duties. He knows he will become the object of ridicule. He knows he will have to expend his precious energy battling his own body and mind. And he knows he will lose himself in the end. 

This is what the Yogi sows when he decides to walk the world’s path.

As he realizes this and starts distinguishing between what he is built for and what not, he determines on always choosing the former. With this begins his sadhana. And then, there is no looking back. 

Say ‘Namaste’ to the Yogi!
[Carlos, a shepherd from the city of Colatina, eastern Brazil, once wrote a letter to his cousin, talking about Brida, the love of his life. I found it in a locker that contained a bunch of letters written by him. And I am excited to put it out here for you.

The love story of Carlos and Brida is known to very few. People have always been curious, and this letter provides at least something to feed the curiosity.]

A picture found in Carlos's locker


Dear Cousin, 

I am good. I hope you are the same.

I find myself constantly thinking about Brida. We came a long way, and today I am happy I have already been kicked out of there. My mind cannot help but brood deeply about how beautiful it was and how painful it is now. Part of me still knows how it all could have been had she not come in my life, an unwelcome girl ever since the beginning. Part of me still regrets making all those selfless decisions just to know it all backfired heavily. I am stunned how a small decision that seemed worthless in those days of teenage ecstasies—days full of childish love in the morning and captivating dreams at night, and everything in-between—would cause so much harm that I would find myself cursing myself even after ages.

However, what I am more amazed at is how I never left even after a series of unpredictable blasts that ended only after Brida kicked me out — I strongly reckon I would still have been engrossed in dealing with all that mess had I been with her, and in turn, ruined myself to death. The thought makes my stomach churn. It was a long journey, a really long one. A whole movie about my life—a life that saw nothing but beautiful sunrises and sunsets until love came in, and brought with it, horrid eclipses and storms and tsunamis and everything that ended it all. It was not love. It was a trick, a trick played on a happy-go-lucky child that got trapped in it and got so far that he forgot his way back home; and now, his life that was initially filled with nothing but happiness, success, real love, charm and joy shattered to pieces. And now he can do nothing but collect them all, with a hope to have it all placed just like it was before. However, he is hardly certain it is realistic.

I have seen how love, that is actually a trick in disguise, can destroy a man. I was captured and dragged to every corner of hell it had to show me. I have seen the highs it got me into only to throw me into deep lows, from where nobody could ever come back. I had been innocent all along, believing that was how it should be. Maybe, it was how love tested man’s limits, I thought. Today when I look back, I am shocked how in the world I got myself into that state of mind.

I would certainly be one of the first men to curse themselves of being loyal. I still think had I been a bit more concerned about my priorities, I would have saved myself from falling into that abyss. What demon had possessed me that I behaved so well! 

I saw how we and the person we are closest with share emotions. An exchange of energies and virtues takes place when we decide to give our all to someone, and that is the most real phenomenon I have witnessed. I used to be vibrating with a lot of positive energy, and vigor, and vitality. It was a few years back, when I was free and out of the clutches of faux love. Over the many years I spent with Brida, I found myself losing it all and her, gaining it all. I was drawn to something. I still don’t know what that was, but that consumed me like nothing else. I had gone totally unconscious of my own life. I did not care whether I would fail the life’s race. I did not care whether I would have all my talents wasted. I did not care a hang whether I would be beaten to death. All my thoughts, all my energies, all my actions were centered on one person. Every single cell in my body started vibrating with life, this time, of somebody else’s. I had forgotten I had been given my own beautiful life to create and live. My entire energy was exploited in building that one person, in creating love within and without and in forgetting the world outside. I was not aware I was exploiting myself for the wrong cause. The center of my focus had shifted one hundred and eighty degrees, to something that held no value. I woke up and thought of love (by love, I mean my upcoming death). I went to bed and thought of love. I acted in the name of love. I was full of it. I had forgotten why I was living. I had forgotten my true purpose. My entire life was centered on that one person. This is it, I thought, this is love and I have found it; I have created it with my sweat and blood and, it is beautiful. I cut myself away from the world. I do not remember having met and talked to a good friend after getting trapped in it. For me, the world consisted of nothing but Brida, the love of my life. Little did I know I was being used.

That is a law of power: If you want to extract something extraordinary from a person, it is not wise to go and ask straightaway. You would only get disappointed. The trick is to act in such a way that they start believing you are selflessly dedicated to them. And once they have put their unwavering trust on you, get the thing you want. And I was experimented brutally for the same. What Brida wanted, she would never have gotten out of any other man. She wanted a great deal of something, a humungous volume. So she pretended to shower just the same amount of love. The world began to curse me for getting improper with her. Be good to her, she is rare, they would tell me. They thought no girl would love a man as deeply as Brida did me. They were unaware that she had an interest. She wanted something in return. Her love was not selfless or unconditional. She had an utterly selfish interest in mind. She was greedy of my energy and once she found me selflessly exploiting myself for her, she used it to overcome all her troubles (mind you, those were pretty disastrous). And once I was empty, she kicked me like a stone in her away and got along some other guy she had gotten attracted to.

But the world knows only half the story. The world only knows that she showered love upon me, selflessly. Nobody knows it was not in the least unconditional. Nobody knows she had a selfish motive. Nobody knows I loved her just as much, and unlike hers, my love was unconditional and as true as it could be. Nobody knows how she exploited me to deal with her pain. Nobody knows I never said no to her, never left no matter what intolerable truths she unfolded with time, no matter how many blasts she caused in my life, therefore. I just remained there, helping her cope with it and keep faith. Despite anything, I wanted her to believe that I was by her side. I did all I could to make her stand on her feet. And that worked wonders. She did gain herself back. The world started to acknowledge her again. She began to get praises for her so-called bravery. But nobody knew who was behind it. She never let anyone know of it. Nobody could ever know how she recollected herself. I was there and only I knew it. She did not want the world to know that she was dependent. When she betrayed me for another guy, in turn, showing her real colors, she managed never to let anyone know of it, the reason behind our separation. The world could only think I was the reason, because I was cheap, I was worthless. Nobody knew the reality. Nobody asked where all my energy had gone and how I became so messed-up. They just guessed it was not her and me, and told her I wasn’t the right guy. That witch kept it a secret. The world still blames me, and I don’t care. Because I expect nothing good on her part.

When you put a frog into boiling water, it will jump out. But when you put it in lukewarm water and then, slowly turn up the heat, it will stay there and end up getting boiled to death. There is so much truth in this when I look at my own life with regard to the faux love I was trapped into. A series of blasts culminated, but I never left it. It was like, I witnessed an explosion, felt the shivers, shocks and cools run up and down my body, and then, waited until it had all gone away and I was back to normal. So the things that attacked my heart a year ago did not hurt me anymore, because I would force myself to be okay with it. That is how love is, I would think. Then followed a couple of huge eruptions that left deep cuts here and there, bruising my entire body, and nonetheless, I had made peace with each, believing that is how love is. I never denied assistance, never was reluctant about a wrongdoing. Even if I would be initially, the circumstances would persuade me to make peace. That is how love is, that is how love is, that is how love is, I would repeat to myself. And then, the D-day came—the lukewarm water I was put into got hotter and hotter and hotter, with me adjusting to the increasing heat every time , until it came to the boiling point—and I was gone. The frog finally succumbed to the unbearable heat. What a beautiful death it was, unknowing, unpredictable and mysterious! Only a witch could know how to kill a man this way.

I have to start over. All my walls are broken now. I am starting it all over again. When I think how she used me, took what she wanted and went her way, I am inclined to curse myself for being so selfless. I should have known what a brutal witch she was. When I see people appreciating her, I want them to know who was behind it all. I even imagine myself talking to all her well-wishers, people who think she is all good. I imagine myself narrating the whole story so they could know what a man I was to her. I want them to know how she played a game in the pretext of love. I want them to know she had a dirty mind filled with nothing but trash and selfish intentions. I want people to know she sucked my blood like a vampire, sucking all of me and leaving me with nothing but her mess. I want them to know she loves only who she needs. If she needs you, she will love you, and if the need is fulfilled, she will kick you away just the way she did me. 

But my narrative is not going to make a change. I should learn to be okay with it. What had to happen has happened. I cannot do anything about it. She sucked me off and walked away and that is the end of it. So now I have made a fresh start. I am forgetting the past and heading towards a better life, when she was not around. I am getting back to my old self. It is difficult but I have to do it. I feel used up. I feel molested. But that’s all okay. Those who have done me wrong will pay the price for it. I loved no matter what. And I remained the only lover till the end. That is all okay, is that not?

A good friend once told me, ‘The real character of a person is determined not by how they begin a relationship but how they end one.’

Thank you for being such an amazing supporter throughout all this. I promise to always share all my secrets with you.

I hope rest is alright. Send my love to Paulo.

With love,
Carlos


Look, young fellow, it is not going to be easy. How do you expect it to come straightaway when you have let petty distractions consume your time all those years? You could never, in the first place, realize the essence of your time. That is so unfortunate. You took it for granted, wasting it like it was all going to be given back to you. But today, as you stand here, in the middle of nowhere, you repent your actions, your choices and your own decisions. You chose the wrong people to give your time. You avoided your duty to fill the void of others. You took for granted, the invaluable gifts that God had given you. And today, you repent all of that. If you find your mind cluttered with all the garbage, do not wonder where it has come from. It has come from the very expected places. When you stayed with those people, when you chose to take those actions, when you gave deep thoughts to all those things that never deserved your energy--things that had little or no value at allit was all getting accumulated into your head, slowly but strongly. So you are full of it now. It should not come to you by surprise. It had been methodical and well-planned, just that you were kept unaware. So don’t be impatient, young fellow—it was supposed to happen.

But now, you must not stick to that. The insults, the wrong choices, the abuses, the failures, the cries, the lies, the pain, the losses, the undeserving people—let it all be lost in the past. And when I say past, it’s all got to be so. Bid it all a kind goodbye. It wasn’t you. It is still not you. Leave it or it will eat you up. Forget it all. Stop thinking about how it could have been. Forget taking revenge. You can’t stoop so low. You have only so much energy and you must conserve it. Past has rendered you with enough examples to prioritize this lesson. It has done its job. If you don’t mend ways anyway, well, your bad, then!

After all the bad times you have faced, one thing must have become crystal clear to you—that nothing lies in people’s approval. You go there and indirectly ask for it, and you get it and you look inside, and alas, you find nothing. There is this huge void, a gigantic space of nothingness. And in no time, it consumes you. And it all passes too soon, like wind, like a storm, like a huge tide in the ocean—it rises high and oh, it falls, and there you are, down to the earth. And you end up achieving nothing. 

There is a spark inside of you, I know. But don’t let anyone know of it. Keep it to yourself. Let it be there, hidden, away from the world. Let it grow. Let it grow. Let it grow. When the time comes, it will burn the entire forest, I know that too. But this time, don’t let anybody put it off. That’s a little spark, but has a huge potential. Save that. Save that, young fellow. 

I can hear somebody call out to you. I can hear the sound rise from a very distant country. The man is too far away from you but he knows you and he wants you to come join him. He is a great man, just like you. He too has a tragic story, just like you have. But he didn’t let it ruin him. He used it as a fuel for his spark. And you see, he made it in the end. And not a day goes by that he takes it for granted. He knows you have that spark too. And he wants you to save it. I am ready to tell you the same thing a thousand and one times. Because that’s far more important than you think. The Providence has offered you another golden opportunity. Don’t miss it. Your dream is not a next-to-impossible shot. For giant souls like you, nothing is impossible. Just a little determination is needed—that too in order to save your spark. I want you to feel it growing day by day. I want you to feel the same way you felt when you were a 10-year-old kid. I want you to plunge into your duty now, and give it your all. I want you to take up one idea and make it your life. Let your mind think of that one idea all the time. Let your veins be full of it. Let it vibrate with you. That alone is the way you will get back to yourself. Do it or else, life is going to be full of regrets.

My feller, the grass is greener on your side. Do you see? And it is midnight. And the full moon smiles down at you. And you are on the terrace, looking at the stars and there is a man next to you. He wants you to know that you are one of the stars you are looking at. You are one on earth, my man. He wants you to believe that. I want you to believe that. There is not a person in the world who does not believe it, except you. They all do but are afraid to accept. The day you agree with the man next to you, and all those who know what you really are capable of—that day, there will be an eruption. Seeing you there fills my eyes with tears. You deserve it, young man. You do deserve it. Look within, it is already there. 

You. Just. Have. To. Look. Within.

Your childhood self is calling out to you. That little prodigy of a child. He is calling you back home. You have gone too far, and hence, lost your way. And those at your home are calling out. Listen to them, please. Follow their voices. They are earnestly seeking you. They are crying and crying and crying, and they want you back at any cost. Go back. Go back home. You will be safe there—safe, secure and away from the clutches of mediocrity. 

Go all the way. Go all the way. Go all the way. There is no other way out of this. Give it a hard try. Yes, it is tough but you will make it through. You will find your true self back. But that is not going to be glamorous. That is going to be super-challenging. It will demand all of you and everything that you have. It could mean losing the many identities you have clouded your mind with. It could mean saying no to your habits. It could mean losing your mind. But you must go all the way. It could mean not sleeping for several days. It could mean staying away from women. It could mean tears in your eyes. It could mean feeling lost at times. But you must go all the way. Once you head there, there is going to be no other feeling like that. Yes, there is nothing more pleasant than getting back what you really are. You will be alone in the midnight, talking to gods and they will burn lamps for you. But you must go all the way. Let it devour your all. Let it molest you like nothing else. And in the end, there you will find it, right there. Oh, what a feeling it will be!   

[Carlos, a shepherd from the city of Colatina, eastern Brazil, once wrote a letter to Brida, the love of his life. It was not meant to be sent to her, let alone go public. However, I have somehow found it out and am more than willing to put it out there for you.

The love story of Carlos and Brida is known to very few. People have always been curious, and this letter provides at least something to feed the curiosity.]


Dear Brida,  

I am good, and I hope you are the same. 

I had been desperate to hear from you. Having gone through your letter, I came to know that you wanted me to believe that you acknowledged your wrongs and thereby, wished to redeem. I also made out that you wanted me to believe you think it is the biggest mistake you have ever committed. And well, after all the years I have spent (or wasted) with you, I am sorry to say I am not in a position to trust even a word of yours. 

As a trait I have adopted from your company, I do not find myself strong enough to face the reality. I like to think I am not the only pilgrim who lost his way and got driven towards love, and that I am not the only one who did not realize that it could not ever be love if it “drove” souls towards itself. It hurts more than anything to know I am still too far away from the destination I had set out for and that I could have accomplished a good many things if I had avoided those times of pain that love brought me. Love brought me hurt—yes, that is its truth!

I cannot bear it all. Please take me back to the day I had met you. I would want to re-live those times when I knew very little of you, when we talked only as friends (though today, even that is unwanted) and not as two morbid lovers in the middle of nowhere, and when it meant nothing after we parted. If it happens again—the days of excitement and the nights of thirst—I am going to make a different move this time. I am going to give it all a deep thought, asking myself if it should be worth the while. And then, I would wait for my heart to say, ‘Do not get closer. It is not pretty. Don’t you dare go along!’

From having all of me to all of you, this is what every cell in my body regrets it did not say to me then. So if it happens all over again, nothing is going to miss a chance to warn me against you. 

Please carry me back to those days. I would really appreciate it. I don’t tell anyone I am still haunted by the ghost of you, and it wakes me up in the middle of the night. And I manage to sleep only when the world starts to awake. I have no idea where to start… or where to end?

It still flashes clearly before my mind’s eye— those days when I craved your skin against mine, not knowing it could burn me to ashes, those evenings when I waited to hear from you, so desperately that I forgot to eat, sleep and even think, and those nights when my heart was filled with nothing but terror, and your eyes with nothing but tears. 

Oh, take me back to those times… those times when I had all of me and you had none of you, when we were who we were supposed to be and when you were still devising your tactics and I was looking at your face that looked so pretty when lost in brooding. Little did I know what you were up to.

But now that I am well aware what you were thinking about, I wish nothing but go back to those times, so I can fix my own self instead of you and walk away realizing people like you would never know how to love.

Oh, and I wonder why you are still quiet when people want to know the last story. Just like you ever broadcast my wrongdoings to the whole damned world, why did you not do the same with the last scene you created in our story? So, the day you confess what a witch you are, I will believe you are really strong. Otherwise it is not far from truth that you only leech on innocent people to escape your pain. That, I am sorry, is nothing but sheer cowardliness. 

I know, for you, promises are meant only to be broken; they are nothing more than words on paper or in the air. So I can never believe a word you said. But I promise to, only if you take me back to those days when I was a happy-go-lucky kid and you, a shrewd woman; so, being well aware of your plans now, I could just go fail them and thus, save myself.

I hope rest is alright, between you and whoever new you have caught to fill your void. 

My best wishes are always with you.

With blurred, tainted love, and a blend of deepest hatred, criticism, regret and avoidance,
Carlos
I have always been interested in knowing the unexplainable, in finding the truths of the paranormal and afterlife and in pondering over them. I have liked mostly those books, movies and stories that somehow enable me to think more and more about them, to go deeper in order to quench the curiosity and thereby, hopefully, come closer to the unknown. 

However, the task seemed next to impossible, until a few weeks back. It of course is not that easy to defy years of practice of the exorcists, demonologists and yogis and come face to face with the other world just without a qualification. But something happened to me recently that blew me enough to believe that we, the humans, are nothing but a huge pack of mystery-solvers—I mean, in some way or other, all our hunt comes down to this, our only purpose—and that there can be just about anything around the corner. ANYTHING!

Once I confronted the event, it was, first of all, more than difficult to absorb it and let my brain draw some meaning out of it. And it had been an almost impossible task to decide to share it with you all; since I was, and still am, pretty sure you would all sneer at it all in the end, thinking I am some sort of a god damn retard, some madman who is trying to fool you with his utterly dull-witted ghost stories. But finally, I made up my mind. I cannot keep it any longer, and I really need to put it out there, for it is no joke. It is not something one can just face and forget. I’ve got to be courageous enough to confess, no matter how many people laugh at it and think I am a fool. 

I know things like this are indigestible. They simply do not get down the gut. A so-called rational man will never ever believe it to be true at any cost, because, well, he cannot. But since I have finally been face to face with this and so, know it is not in the least fictitious, I request you to take everything written here absolutely at face value and, if you are open-minded enough to absorb even a bit of it, just give it a deep thought. If not, at least read, do your research, go deeper and try to find the truth for yourselves. 

Ever since my siblings have left home for higher studies, the room is all for myself. I live and work there all alone, without my parents sneaking in. Two or three weeks back, I was in my room, reading a book. It was around 1 o’ clock midnight. I should add that I have a bad habit of staying awake late in the night, till around 3-4 AM. I pass that time reading and thinking and writing, and I go to bed only when I feel like it. If not, I stay awake until the crack of dawn.

My personal diary was lying on the other bed in the room. The windows were open—it was a windy night. At around 2.30 AM, I turned out the lights and went to sleep. 

I woke up the next day at 11 AM (yes, I am a late riser), made the bed, kept my diary in my shelf and set out for the day. I did not open the diary then, because, of course, I did not have to. 

I should share that in the morning, my room was reeking badly of some foul smell. And I was told that the maid had found cat shit beneath the other bed (by ‘other bed’, I mean the bed that I do not generally use, where my diary was kept last night), and so the smell. She had cleaned it well enough, though. 

After lunch, when my parents went for an afternoon nap, I decided to write a bit. As I opened my diary and flipped the pages, I was taken aback to see a page scribbled badly with a pencil. I of course had not done it. And I do not let anybody else even touch my diary, let alone write something in it. Looking at it, I made out that it was the word ‘talk’ written in there. It was written as if somebody did not know how to write a legible hand or had recently learnt the ABCs of it, like a kid, and thus, tried to write ‘talk’, as if she wanted to talk, to make a conversation. It was the most illegible handwriting I had ever witnessed. The rest of the page was scratched just as badly with a pencil.

When my parents woke up, I asked them if it was one of them who had touched my diary. They told me they did not even know I had one, giving me a confused look. I did not ask any further questions. They were not lying. My mind was absorbed in deep brooding and, seeing the lost look on my face, they asked what the matter was. I said, ‘Nothing.’

I brushed it aside, believing some friend of mine might have done it when I had taken it to school or coaching.

I wrote incessantly that night, and went to sleep at 6 AM, this time, putting my diary beneath the bed mattress so no one could find it.

I had barely managed to sleep for 2 hours when the maid’s loud scream woke me up. She had found a big mouse lying dead beneath the other bed in my room. Its body was stained with blood and nipped hither and thither. Apparently, it had become a cat’s prey last night. It was undoubtedly a fresh kill. Oh, and there was cat shit again, which confirmed our guess. 

As soon as I was ready for the day, I opened my diary, a little portion of my mind still moping over those scribbles. I checked it thoroughly, as always, before beginning to write, trying to conjure up thoughts before making the start. My heart skipped a beat when I found another page fraught with scribble-scrabbles—the same scratches, the same dark pencil marks, the same patches, the same indecipherable handwriting but a different word written in between them: ‘छत’ (a Hindi word for ‘terrace’). Shiver ran down my spine, my face drenched in sweat and my heart racing. My mind lost its thoughts for a while. It was not a joke, nor a prank. It was not a happenstance. It was not teasing, either. Surely, it was a visitor but not an acquainted one. My hands trembled as I turned the pages. There were several ‘छत's’ written in a few more pages.

We may find it difficult to even get out of bed at night after watching horror movies but when we sense glimpses of it in reality, trust me, the curiosity triggers and we agree to go beyond measures. Not sure of others but such was the case with me. 

At around 12 PM, I rushed to the terrace. It was a hot summer afternoon so nobody was up there. I scanned the entire place. As I looked left, I saw a black cat standing on the ledge. It was looking intently at me with its deep yellow eyes. I got fixed at my place lest it should run away. I was almost lost in its oceanic eyes. They were so deep, so penetrating, as if the cat wanted to talk through its eyes. All of a sudden, it jumped down.

I ran up there and looked down to see where it had gone. It was walking far down the roof of the adjacent building. It stopped for a while, looked above, as if to pay me a final glance and vanished into the buildings.

I stood there, lifeless. I felt a strange surge of emotions flowing through my nerves. My legs went cold and I was unable to walk back. I don't know why I felt that way merely after seeing a cat. My mind was lost devising a way to chase that little black cat that stood right here as though waiting for me. I felt like a fool. Somebody scribbles shit on the pages of my diary and I run to the terrace to see a cat feeling like it had called me down here. How god damn stupid! Wait, but who was that someone? Who wrote those things into my diary? And why did she write ‘Chhat’ this many times? ‘Who should I talk to about this matter?’ I thought. It sounded too stupid to be shared.

I came down home, tore those pages and threw them into the dustbin. I lay in my bed, facing nothing but the ceiling, trying to make sense of what was happening to me. My whole body was cold as an ice cube, and I was perspiring nonetheless. It was only a cat, wasn’t it? I was unable to close my eyes and whenever I did, the image of that black cat flashed before my mind’s eye. My eyes burnt so much they filled with tears. I was feeling a strange sensation in my body, a different vibration, the kind I had never felt before. It was not positive to be very certain. What I was feeling was beyond me. It was so indescribable that it hurt. I did not know whom to share it with. What would I say? That presumably, a black cat with deep yellow eyes called me down to the terrace and ever since I looked into her eyes, I have been into pain, an inexplicable state of turmoil? I preferred not to disclose it to anybody.

That night, I determined on finding the answer. I deliberately left my diary on the other bed, turned the whole room as dark as possible, with not a tinge of light entering the room and lay awake in my bed, awaiting what was to come. At about 3 o’ clock midnight, I heard the cats fight outside, howling clamorously. I looked out the window. Right in front of me, I saw the cat with the same features as the one I had seen on the terrace ledge in the afternoon—black, small, and yellow eyes, as deep as the Pacific, looking at me, and it had grabbed the other cat’s neck, blood draining out of its mouth. It was a horrible sight. I shooed it away but it did not move. Unlike any other animal, it stood still. Its eyes were fixed on me. I closed the window, trying to look away, my hands shivering and my face drenched with perspiration.

However, unable to keep my desperation, I opened the window to see where it had gone. 

Holy fucking crap! 

A little girl stood right in front of me. I was blown at the sight. She looked about 5-6 years old. Her eyes were deep brown. She was fair and she was clad in a stained blue frock. She had a skinny physique. Her face revealed no expressions—not a single one—making her look helpless. I gasped, panic rising up my chest. A little girl is standing out the window, at fucking 3 o’ clock midnight. What was happening? I probably was not supposed to go mad. Did I need to go out and ask her whence she came? Did I need to call the police for her help? What the fuck was I to do?

I said, my voice quivering, ‘Kya chahiye? (‘What do you want?’)’

She remained silent.

My hands and my legs were shaking. I was choked but I managed somehow to speak. 

I repeated, ‘Kya chahti ho? (‘What do you want?’)’

‘Chhat pe chal ke baat karein? (‘Let us go to the terrace and talk, shall we?’)’

I involuntarily began walking back. My heart was throbbing out of my chest. I had nearly fainted. She began to walk away and vanished in the dark.

I felt like vomiting. I did not know what to do, how to react. I racked my brain to reason it out but of course, it was not reasonable. I tried to pull myself together. My hands are still shivering over the keyboard as the image of that girl flashes before my mind. 

I opened my diary. It was as it had been. No new scribbles. 

The clock struck 4. The birds began to chirp. And I was still standing in my room.

Ever since, I have been researching about the paranormal. I have read several books dealing with otherworldly incidents, read a hundred and one anecdotes relevant to the subject and tried to delve as deep into the matter as possible. What I have made out is, these are not mere fairy tales and fictions. They are real and they make a lot more sense than we can imagine. Just because we have not seen them does not mean they do not exist. We have trapped the mind into limits when the truth is that it is limitless, able to perceive the unseen, to know the unknown and to visit the other world. Only a moron will say it is false. 

It is not the mind’s fault but ours. Instead of kindling it with the true knowledge, we have been filling it with more and more information, as if it were a vessel. And what we do not see or find in science, we criticize. Well, the result of our arrogance is, what the so-called modern human mind does not see or understand, it either discards or criticizes. It does not in the least want to accept it is not aware yet and be honest enough to say, ‘I do not know.’ 


Paul F. Eno

“There are an infinite number of universes existing side by side and through which our consciousness constantly pass. In these universes, all possibilities exist. You are alive in some, long dead in others, and never existed in still others. Many of our ‘ghosts’ could indeed be versions of people going about their business in a parallel universe or another time—or both.” 
–Paulo F. Eno


Meaghan Rath

“I fully believe in ghosts. I have, my entire life. The first house I ever lived in was haunted. There was a grave of a man in the backyard. I was just a baby then, but my parents would tell me that every night, at the same time, they would hear someone walking up the stairs.”
--Meaghan Rath


Brett Dier

“I believe in ghosts now because of New Orleans. I never did before. I was so skeptical, but now I have seen one, which sounds insane, but it is true.”
--Brett Dier


Joseph Addison

“A person terrified with the imagination of specters, is more reasonable than one who thinks the appearance of spirits fabulous and groundless.”
--Joseph Addison

[Note: I am still willing to find the truth about the girl. What did she want to talk about? And why only on the terrace? Through this narrative, my only goal is to ignite your interest in finding out what we, as humans, are capable of besides scoring greats marks in exams or going to a top university or landing a high-paying job or marrying and having kids. It is up to you to criticize or praise, or leave both aside and set out for the discovery of the infinite world within yourself, in order to be able to know if you are only limited to this body or there is some other reality. Remember: it is not just about the ghosts. It is about seeing the world we do not know—a world that the minds cannot reason and the scientists cannot analyze, a world that has a different vibration, a world that consists both of the gods and the demons.]


We have monsters haunting us every night—you and I, we all do. The nights are when we get cloudy-headed, lost and tired of fighting them, and the eccentric behaviors we exhibit in the morning are consequences of the night’s defeat. Nobody is spared of it. We all have to get through the pain. And we all bear it equally. There is nothing like one fighting more battles than the other. We may think we are the saddest on this planet and that others do not understand our pain, but that’s not true. Just like not everyone is aware of our whole story, in the same way we do not know theirs. We do not agree anyway; we have turned this egotistical. We have begun to think we are the center of the universe, and that our story is the deepest, the darkest. But that’s not the case. There is no one who doesn’t think that way. We all are trapped in a singular fate and there is no chance at all.

The monsters devour us all, and we fight them, as hard as we can, and we fail and we win, and we think that’s the only thing the world consists of—our story, our dreams, our aspirations, our battles, our love and our voice. Nothing else matters but us. That’s what we think, don’t we? And we tend to look down upon those who don’t get our story. We think they don’t deserve to know it. We think they are cheap and inferior and messed-up. And we smirk at them, like they are nobody. But that doesn’t make us any better. We are as cheap as we think others are. And we deserve nothing but contempt, just like we think they do. We must know they too have their monsters to fight, that they have their dark sides too and that their nights are no better than ours. We must realize that just as we tend to justify our own shortcomings and eccentricities, they too have reasons behind their flaws, maybe stronger than ours, maybe so strong that we fall short of understanding them.

So when we laugh at someone who doesn’t speak as well as we do, we must stop and take a look at what we are becoming. Before cursing someone who killed themselves, saying they were selfish and scared and weak, we must think what might have been the reason. When there is someone who we don’t like being around since they are too boring to talk to, we must pause and think what might be pissing them from within or what it is that makes them feel so hollow that they desperately look for some person or the other, always, to pour out their thoughts, feelings and unfulfilled desires, however shitty it may be. Well, the thing is, unlike what we think, there is nobody here who doesn’t know what shortcomings they have or what faults they made in the past. There is literally not a goddamned person on this planet that is totally unaware of their dark sides. But they cannot always just go around acknowledging them to every other person they meet. They know what they have done and that’s quite enough for them. We may think they are not changing but honestly, they are. They are battling each day, yes, maybe in their comfort zones but still, at least they are trying. And we have no right to blame them. So before we blame anyone who is always yelling at people, we must pause and think what happens to be the reason when we get to lash out at times.

In the end, we get to face everything. We all face all. There is no experience that remains unique to an individual. And only when we get there do we realize what they had been up to. An old man looking for someone to talk and even being abandoned by his wife and children just because he did something wrong in the past has a reason why he is the way he is. And there will be a time when we will find ourselves there, too, one day. The case may be different: in place of wife and children, there might be our friends (worse, isn’t it?) who turned out to take no notice of us, which of course is hurting. It is then that we will realize what battles that old man had been fighting.
[A letter found between the pages of an old diary. It is probably written by a crazy drunkard who does not know what things are to be said to the Queen of the Royalty. Thank God it could not reach her. But here, I make it public, since the man who wrote it is no more. I beg pardon if anybody finds it offensive due to any reason whatsoever, even though I am not its writer, of course.]


Your Highness,

You made my day. You were the first person I bumped into the moment I entered the hall. I didn’t know it was you. But as I went close and asked if I could come in, the mere sight of you gave me goose bumps. It was then that I realized it was you. I began to shiver. But, having dealt with such situations several times in history, I finally could control my physical, emotional and psychological reactions. I came and sat with one of my friends who seemed just as startled by your presence as I was—you see, mere presence. Somebody told me that you were checking our conduct—Heaven knows why. How was it supposed to be when angels like you were around? Do you have any idea what it did to all of us, what it always does? Anyway, I forgive you for that. 

I didn’t know you were this beautiful. If I have ever been privileged to go high by the sensation of your presence, it is only twice in my entire life. The very first day I saw you, I unfortunately could not have a clear look of you, since I didn’t have my specs on. But I kind of knew you were on to something. You looked all messy that day, as far as my eyes could see. It was blurred but still good enough. However, the sight was not clear enough to drive me crazy. But still, everything happens for a reason. If I had seen you clearly that day and had already gone mad, I would not have derived as much pleasure from your presence as I did today, without having seen you well last time. The closer you came to me, the more I shivered. But I wasn’t afraid. Yes, I wasn’t afraid for the first time in my life. I was just unable to handle it. I didn’t know how to. So, as you came to me and started asking questions, I was blown. My face itched. My scalp itched. My hands went dry. My legs went cold. My back began to ache. But my crotch was fine, just as it had been since morning—calm, cool and unaffected by any external stimuli. It was then that I knew it was pure; whatever it was, it was pure and pious, and it had brought a deadly storm in the sea of my emotions. And it felt good thereafter. 

Your Highness, your questions penetrated straight through my mind, and I found that I knew all the answers. I was, meanwhile, looking at your lips and your face, and I must say, they are so crimson. It seemed as if you had just finished your thick strawberry juice and now, you had scoffed a half of apple into each side of your mouth. And I liked the piercing on your nose, too. It looks beautiful on you. And your tiny earrings, and your thumb ring, and the tattoo on your back which is sometimes partially visible through the thin, translucent dress that you wear, and your footwear (I don’t know what it is particularly called), and the red lipstick that you adorn your lips with—they all look so beautiful on you. It is difficult for me to describe, in words, how blessed I have been to have a long sight of you today, that too, from very close. You were waiting for my answers and I was waiting for you to come even closer and blow me all at once. And I don’t believe in fate so I made it happen myself. I spoke in such a low tone that you had no option but bring your face closer so as to be able to listen to me. My answers were satisfactory, weren’t they? And finally, you said, ‘You are fine. No more questions.’ And the tiny smile that you gave me subsequently—I tell you, I lost my mind. I express my huge gratitude to you for kindling the little hope in me that now propels me to take risks again. I am thankful, really.

But there is one thing that bothered me today. You and your sister, both were around me and I didn’t know which to choose, first. You know what, she was the girl I first fell in love with. Please don’t be mad at me now. I am sorry. But I had not seen you then. I saw only her and I knew I was gone. But, like every other time, I brought myself back in control. I have a mission to fulfill, you know. And I cannot just go around loving every other girl I see. I have better things to do than women. But, the day I saw her—your sister—it was different. There was a deep sense of belongingness within me and I, for the first time in my life, felt free. That day, the place I used to find suffocating before, seemed to be equipped with almost everything—manners, propriety, friendship, laughter, fun, beauty and excitement, and also, love. It was the first time I didn’t feel lonely. I felt like I belonged somewhere. I had no right to complain. I was no longer isolated and it was all my wish. All through the day, my eyes were fixed on the strange girl I had the privilege to see for the first time around me. Your little sister, Your Majesty! I believed that she had come from a different world—my world, probably. You know, sometimes, a mere sight of someone carries you effortlessly to your remote yet dreamy past, and you find that it is right in front of you—all the fun, mistakes and mess—and you are living them again. She appeared, to me, a lonely girl lost in a dark jungle. I had lost my way, too, once upon a time, in the same jungle, and I needed someone to accompany me through the journey. I wish we’d met earlier; because now that I had seen her, I only could gather the courage to look at her from afar. My past always frightens me. 

She was quiet as a rose and she had a cupcake in her hand. And here, I imagined myself holding her hand. If I had seen anyone else enjoy her sight, I would have burnt to ashes with jealousy. But there was no poet in the room except me. So only I knew how to distinguish art from people. And I knew she was a fine work of art, and I, the drunk, defeated artist.  

Your Majesty, today as I write this letter to you, I want to be as honest as possible. I do not intend either to conceal or understate any ugly things that must be told. And I believe whatever I have confessed so far is not ugly at all. It is just my shameless yet beautiful reality. You are not the only woman I love and adore. There is one more, and a few others, as well. Sorry for breaking your heart. But, I would love to see you again, sometime. I am a chronic drunkard. I am a bad man with good lips. And I am a pro at falling. So I fell… in love.