"A good monk loves all of Creation. A good woman loves just one man. Both erase and remould the self for their love. Neither makes a distinction between high and low, good and bad. And who is to say which love is the nobler emotion?"
-- The Diary, a Tuesday in January, 507 BC
They fell in love, the poet and the woman. It was a glorious spring. The gulmohar and the laburnum decked up in fire and gold just for them. Every morning, the sun rose only to add another day to their joy. The ducks swam out to greet the returning sun, one eye on their newborns bobbing clumsily up and down behind them, and another on the poet rushing to meet her after a night's unbearable separation. The lakeside dew glistened, and in its golden glimmer, it seemed to be laughing gently at the impatiently approaching poet.
Spring turned to summer. The laburnum and gulmohar shed their passionate colors and settled to a subtler green. The mangoes ripened, and so too did their love. It was sure-footed now, and free from passion, jealousy and fluctuation. They did not need physical closeness any more, but seemed to see each other reflected in all that was beautiful and noble in the world. When he saw a crying child or a playing dog, he thought of her and felt a sudden burst of joy he could hardly bear. When he hotly debated politics with friends or frowned fiercely while playing chess, she smiled and longed for them to be alone so she could smooth his unruly hair. When they went out to a play, she fretted about the door (had she locked it), the fire (had she put it out) and the mice (would they get the food again), till he asked her to shut up, the pressure of his hands on hers belying the harshness of his words. When he recited his poetry, she stood still, lost in the music and beauty of the words and scarcely even looking at him. He liked her best in these moments, for she seemed to love not just him, but the essence of him which was much larger than him.
And then it all ended. War was afoot, men were needed, and poets in love weren't exempt. Bravely the poet went forth to fight, foolishly he charged, and easily he was captured. Months passed, the war ended. Some more months passed, and cold officialdom indifferently released him. Eagerly, the poet made his way back to his hometown and went straight to her house.
She wasn't there. They told him she had married another man. Everyone had thought him dead. The poet was struck dumb. His shock slowly became anger. He rushed to her husband's house, barely knowing what he wanted or hoped to achieve.
She opened the door and let out a cry of surprise, joy and some dismay. Her husband came out, and immediately understood. She had told him about the poet. He welcomed the poet and offered to leave them alone. They both refused. The husband asked the poet to stay for dinner. The poet refused, but she insisted and he relented.
The poet soon saw her husband was a good man, but a prosaic trader, a stranger to poetry and beauty. His grief soon turned to pity for her. What was she without her love of beauty, and what joy would this man give her when he couldn't fathom the core of her being? He was ashamed of his earlier self-pity. He had only lost his love, but hadn't she lost her soul's craving? He watched her keenly, a mellow sorrow in his heart. He expected to see a defeated pain in her eyes.
But what he saw made him recoil in disgust. She looked at the poet with warmth, but when she turned to her husband, the old tender glow lit up her eyes. She listened to the poet talk about his imprisonment, tears welled up in her eyes, and her voice broke as she replied. But when her husband spoke of the most trivial business matters, she seemed to come to life. She asked questions and probed. She chided her husband for his ignorance of basic economics and mocked his clumsy account-keeping, but her tone was playful and her voice quivered with a passion that once could be ignited by poetry alone. It was as though her soul were a harp, and someone had changed its strings so it now resonated to a lower, earthier note.
The poet left her house late that evening and the town early the next morning. He couldn't bear to stay on and see the lake and the birds and the trees and the plays, recalling what they had had felt earlier, and knowing that she probably didn't even remember anymore, and was indifferent to whatever she did remember.
He wandered aimlessly for a few days. His initial bewilderment turned first to bitterness and then contempt. He saw that what she had felt for him and for his poetry, like what she felt now for her husband and his business, was not love. It was shallow sentimentality, mere animal delight in the self. Like an amateur's copy of a Master's painting, it was pleasing to the senses but devoid of spirit and soul. His contempt slowly turned outward. He saw that most human relations were but base self-gratification. Art and poetry were an elaborate ritual of delusion, designed to keep man from seeing the pettiness of it all.
The poet withdrew from the world. He stopped writing. He wandered far and wide. He learnt to medidate. Slowly, his contempt for the world withered away. He almost forgot her. He passed into ever deeper states of meditation, and often lost consciousness of the self for days together. But the self eventually did return, and with it came emptiness. He had gone deeper and deeper into himself and while he had escaped the coldness of cynicism, he hadn't found the warm fire of life.
One day, he chanced to see a monk seated atop a rock on a hillock. It was early May. A bird was flying in and out of dense tree-cover, probably fetching food for its babies. The monk was watching it intently, as though it were a play whose end he couldn't wait to find out. There was something about his pose that broke the poet's resolve. He approached the monk, sat at his feet, and without any preface, calmly narrated his story. When he finished, he looked up at the monk, childishly hoping that he would show him the way with just a word or gesture. The monk's eye shone with empathy, but he said nothing.
The poet stayed with the monk. They both roamed the country, never staying anywhere for long. They seldom talked. They medidated alone, hardly seeing each other for days together. But like soldiers, there was a brotherhood that tied them. Often, they stopped at villages, and while the monk preached, the poet watched. The monk liked to play with children. The poet watched with an amused smile. The poet sometimes wrote again. He sang about the monk's love of all Creation. He sang of the empathy that made his heart tremble with every passing whiff of breeze, as though he were spring's tenderest new leaf. The monk listened and said, "I don't understand poetry. It must be good, since you say so." But his eyes twinkled as though he were playing with children again.
The poet observed the monk carefully. It seemed to the poet that liberation, the spark of life, which he so desparately craved, came easily to the monk. Perhaps, thought the poet, he couldn't conquer the self because he tried too hard. Or perhaps, he hadn't found peace because he did not really want it, deep down. He was still seeking self-fulfillment in some subtle way. He mentioned this to the monk, but the monk merely smiled and waved it away.
Suddenly, a storm approached. The poet and the monk took refuge in a village. They barely survived. When the storm cleared, the two saw that the village had been devastated. Hardly a house remained standing. Children had died, cattle swept away. People were too shaken by death to rebuild life. The monk gathered the villagers around. He wanted to talk about the Illusion of earthly existence and salvation through the end of attachment. Instead, he ended up talking about rebuilding, preserving those who had survived. The crowd was mobilized. The monk led the reconstruction, guiding the villagers, tending their children. He even lent a hand at manual labour, though he wasn't any real use. If the monk was the spirit of the reconstruction, the poet was its heart, muscles and legs. His poet's heart had been touched by the suffering around him. He was everywhere at the same time, exhorting, singing, cheering and even putting to use things he had learned in the army. In a few weeks, all the houses had been rebuilt.
The poet and the monk left. They had been walking a few hours, when the monk pointed to a tree that had half fallen, but now seemed to be growing almost horizontally, its roots hungrily gripping the earth like the greedy sinewy arms of a mountain climber. The monk said, "Strange, isn't it, how life changes shape and breaks its own rules to cling on somehow? Maybe that's what they call love, the complete forgetting of the self in the business of life itself. Why, we haven't medidated in nearly two months, and yet I hardly noticed." He smiled, and went his way to medidate.
Startled, the poet looked after the monk. Maybe he had wanted to solve the mystery, or maybe he had just made a casual remark. The poet looked at himself. Maybe he had finally found the spark in the village, or maybe he had just lost himself in the moment. He thought of her. Maybe she had been a sentimental man-hunter, or maybe she had known the Truth all along. Who was to know what really happened? And at any rate, what did the facts matter?
With an unspeakable joy welling up in him, the poet started his search. He wasn't looking for Liberation or Love. He just wanted a quiet place to medidate in.
---
Note to Comrade WS^5: This stinks. You told me so. I know. But temptation, it's a bummer. You know?
Note to any other reader: Strange but true, this meandering piece actually had a point. I lost it somewhere along the way, but I had more or less pilfered it straight off The Darling by Anton Chekhov. Read the original. It'll be worth your time.
-- The Diary, a Tuesday in January, 507 BC
They fell in love, the poet and the woman. It was a glorious spring. The gulmohar and the laburnum decked up in fire and gold just for them. Every morning, the sun rose only to add another day to their joy. The ducks swam out to greet the returning sun, one eye on their newborns bobbing clumsily up and down behind them, and another on the poet rushing to meet her after a night's unbearable separation. The lakeside dew glistened, and in its golden glimmer, it seemed to be laughing gently at the impatiently approaching poet.
Spring turned to summer. The laburnum and gulmohar shed their passionate colors and settled to a subtler green. The mangoes ripened, and so too did their love. It was sure-footed now, and free from passion, jealousy and fluctuation. They did not need physical closeness any more, but seemed to see each other reflected in all that was beautiful and noble in the world. When he saw a crying child or a playing dog, he thought of her and felt a sudden burst of joy he could hardly bear. When he hotly debated politics with friends or frowned fiercely while playing chess, she smiled and longed for them to be alone so she could smooth his unruly hair. When they went out to a play, she fretted about the door (had she locked it), the fire (had she put it out) and the mice (would they get the food again), till he asked her to shut up, the pressure of his hands on hers belying the harshness of his words. When he recited his poetry, she stood still, lost in the music and beauty of the words and scarcely even looking at him. He liked her best in these moments, for she seemed to love not just him, but the essence of him which was much larger than him.
And then it all ended. War was afoot, men were needed, and poets in love weren't exempt. Bravely the poet went forth to fight, foolishly he charged, and easily he was captured. Months passed, the war ended. Some more months passed, and cold officialdom indifferently released him. Eagerly, the poet made his way back to his hometown and went straight to her house.
She wasn't there. They told him she had married another man. Everyone had thought him dead. The poet was struck dumb. His shock slowly became anger. He rushed to her husband's house, barely knowing what he wanted or hoped to achieve.
She opened the door and let out a cry of surprise, joy and some dismay. Her husband came out, and immediately understood. She had told him about the poet. He welcomed the poet and offered to leave them alone. They both refused. The husband asked the poet to stay for dinner. The poet refused, but she insisted and he relented.
The poet soon saw her husband was a good man, but a prosaic trader, a stranger to poetry and beauty. His grief soon turned to pity for her. What was she without her love of beauty, and what joy would this man give her when he couldn't fathom the core of her being? He was ashamed of his earlier self-pity. He had only lost his love, but hadn't she lost her soul's craving? He watched her keenly, a mellow sorrow in his heart. He expected to see a defeated pain in her eyes.
But what he saw made him recoil in disgust. She looked at the poet with warmth, but when she turned to her husband, the old tender glow lit up her eyes. She listened to the poet talk about his imprisonment, tears welled up in her eyes, and her voice broke as she replied. But when her husband spoke of the most trivial business matters, she seemed to come to life. She asked questions and probed. She chided her husband for his ignorance of basic economics and mocked his clumsy account-keeping, but her tone was playful and her voice quivered with a passion that once could be ignited by poetry alone. It was as though her soul were a harp, and someone had changed its strings so it now resonated to a lower, earthier note.
The poet left her house late that evening and the town early the next morning. He couldn't bear to stay on and see the lake and the birds and the trees and the plays, recalling what they had had felt earlier, and knowing that she probably didn't even remember anymore, and was indifferent to whatever she did remember.
He wandered aimlessly for a few days. His initial bewilderment turned first to bitterness and then contempt. He saw that what she had felt for him and for his poetry, like what she felt now for her husband and his business, was not love. It was shallow sentimentality, mere animal delight in the self. Like an amateur's copy of a Master's painting, it was pleasing to the senses but devoid of spirit and soul. His contempt slowly turned outward. He saw that most human relations were but base self-gratification. Art and poetry were an elaborate ritual of delusion, designed to keep man from seeing the pettiness of it all.
The poet withdrew from the world. He stopped writing. He wandered far and wide. He learnt to medidate. Slowly, his contempt for the world withered away. He almost forgot her. He passed into ever deeper states of meditation, and often lost consciousness of the self for days together. But the self eventually did return, and with it came emptiness. He had gone deeper and deeper into himself and while he had escaped the coldness of cynicism, he hadn't found the warm fire of life.
One day, he chanced to see a monk seated atop a rock on a hillock. It was early May. A bird was flying in and out of dense tree-cover, probably fetching food for its babies. The monk was watching it intently, as though it were a play whose end he couldn't wait to find out. There was something about his pose that broke the poet's resolve. He approached the monk, sat at his feet, and without any preface, calmly narrated his story. When he finished, he looked up at the monk, childishly hoping that he would show him the way with just a word or gesture. The monk's eye shone with empathy, but he said nothing.
The poet stayed with the monk. They both roamed the country, never staying anywhere for long. They seldom talked. They medidated alone, hardly seeing each other for days together. But like soldiers, there was a brotherhood that tied them. Often, they stopped at villages, and while the monk preached, the poet watched. The monk liked to play with children. The poet watched with an amused smile. The poet sometimes wrote again. He sang about the monk's love of all Creation. He sang of the empathy that made his heart tremble with every passing whiff of breeze, as though he were spring's tenderest new leaf. The monk listened and said, "I don't understand poetry. It must be good, since you say so." But his eyes twinkled as though he were playing with children again.
The poet observed the monk carefully. It seemed to the poet that liberation, the spark of life, which he so desparately craved, came easily to the monk. Perhaps, thought the poet, he couldn't conquer the self because he tried too hard. Or perhaps, he hadn't found peace because he did not really want it, deep down. He was still seeking self-fulfillment in some subtle way. He mentioned this to the monk, but the monk merely smiled and waved it away.
Suddenly, a storm approached. The poet and the monk took refuge in a village. They barely survived. When the storm cleared, the two saw that the village had been devastated. Hardly a house remained standing. Children had died, cattle swept away. People were too shaken by death to rebuild life. The monk gathered the villagers around. He wanted to talk about the Illusion of earthly existence and salvation through the end of attachment. Instead, he ended up talking about rebuilding, preserving those who had survived. The crowd was mobilized. The monk led the reconstruction, guiding the villagers, tending their children. He even lent a hand at manual labour, though he wasn't any real use. If the monk was the spirit of the reconstruction, the poet was its heart, muscles and legs. His poet's heart had been touched by the suffering around him. He was everywhere at the same time, exhorting, singing, cheering and even putting to use things he had learned in the army. In a few weeks, all the houses had been rebuilt.
The poet and the monk left. They had been walking a few hours, when the monk pointed to a tree that had half fallen, but now seemed to be growing almost horizontally, its roots hungrily gripping the earth like the greedy sinewy arms of a mountain climber. The monk said, "Strange, isn't it, how life changes shape and breaks its own rules to cling on somehow? Maybe that's what they call love, the complete forgetting of the self in the business of life itself. Why, we haven't medidated in nearly two months, and yet I hardly noticed." He smiled, and went his way to medidate.
Startled, the poet looked after the monk. Maybe he had wanted to solve the mystery, or maybe he had just made a casual remark. The poet looked at himself. Maybe he had finally found the spark in the village, or maybe he had just lost himself in the moment. He thought of her. Maybe she had been a sentimental man-hunter, or maybe she had known the Truth all along. Who was to know what really happened? And at any rate, what did the facts matter?
With an unspeakable joy welling up in him, the poet started his search. He wasn't looking for Liberation or Love. He just wanted a quiet place to medidate in.
---
Note to Comrade WS^5: This stinks. You told me so. I know. But temptation, it's a bummer. You know?
Note to any other reader: Strange but true, this meandering piece actually had a point. I lost it somewhere along the way, but I had more or less pilfered it straight off The Darling by Anton Chekhov. Read the original. It'll be worth your time.
4 comments:
Did you write this yourself? I am stupefied youve written this! (I actually looked up the webdictionary for synonems for "astonished". YEEAASSS! Im getting somewhere, unlike the story).
(Kidding).
Very well written I must say Dr.
What was the moral? 'Circumstances can make you take decisions you never thought you could'?
Or 'One can love anyone',
or 'One can marry anyone'
or 'Monks and poet badly want and need (respectively) to meditate'?
Nice story and I agree about losing the point somewhere in between.. I read the Chekov story per your suggestion. It is very thought provoking. Thank you for the reference. It is probably futile to attach oneself to someone or something and treat that as the central focus of one's life. I wouldn't want to end up like Olenka. IMHO all of it is important and yet nothing is.. I guess that's making as much sense as your story :-)
"Like an amateur's copy of a Master's painting, it was pleasing to the senses but devoid of spirit and soul." Really? No.
Signed,
ACB
@ACB,
Huh. Now I'm curious. I thought you were one of my old girl friends. She stoutly denies that she's you. So, well, who are you? If you tell me your name I'll name my fourth daughter after you. After all, noone else has read so many of my posts.
And again, I didn't understand above. Are you saying "Yeah, it is so" or "No, it is not so."
Yennyway, have fun.
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