I read the Urdu version of the novel “Siddharta” back when I was 16 years old. It was an amazing story, and I was deeply fascinated by it. The word Siddhartha is made up of two words in the Sanskrit language, siddha (gotten) + artha (meaning or wealth). The two words together mean “one who has found meaning (of existence)” or “he who has attained his goals”.
God made me in a very strange way. I remember analyzing my actions when I was four years old!!! The voice inside me was always so strong and so loud that I forgot about everything else. This world has clouds of doubts and confusions, which make distinction between right and wrong very difficult. But the eye within was so conscious that it looked through everything.
I always regarded my exposure to philosophical, spiritual and literary personalities as the reason behind my apparently abnormal behavior. Now I realize that like Siddharta, nothing in my life was the real cause for anything. It was the madness inside which motivated me. And it gave me strength and courage to do what the rest of the world feard doing.
I have tried to analyze myself several times in order to figure out why times in my life became so extra-ordinary. I always searched for the answers in last 4-5 years. Then I went back yet another step to see what were the factors in my brought-up which contributed to these strange events. But now I realize that there was no reason. God simply made me like this. I was always destined to live a life of insight.
People are born with different potentials. During times of their lives, they realize their potentials and hence learn new things and experience new feelings. I guess I was always too aware of all my potentials. My awakenings came a bit too quick.
And here I am, at the same place where old men eventually stumble upon. I wrote a post called Ancient Mariner a long time ago. I was deeply fascinated by the concept of a mariner spending his life alone, away from the world, looking at the nature, asking questions and yet having a desire for good things of the world. I wrote in that post that I was nostalgic for a past which I never really experienced. That nostalgia was for the meanings behind things. Siddharta too became a mariner at the end of his journey. Apparently, I copied the term “ancient mariner” from an Iron Maiden track.
Here is Siddhartha at the end of his journey:
Slower, he walked along in his thoughts and asked himself: “But what is this, what you have sought to learn from teachings and from teachers, and what they, who have taught you much, were still unable to teach you?” And he found: “It was the self, the purpose and essence of which I sought to learn. It was the self, I wanted to free myself from, which I sought to overcome. But I was not able to overcome it, could only deceive it, could only flee from it, only hide from it. Truly, no thing in this world has kept my thoughts thus busy, as this my very own self, this mystery of me being alive, of me being one and being separated and isolated from all others, of me being Siddhartha! And there is no thing in this world I know less about than about me, about Siddhartha!”
But I looked right in the eye of myself. I didn’t try to deceive it. I let it go through me and above me. It pierced through my soul, but I let it, for the sake of truth, for the sake of honesty and goodness of heart. So here I am, with no more destinations in sight, with no more questions, no more confusions…
My life is a mystery. But its beautiful, and it gives me immense power and courage.
