One of the nicer things about doing this column is that every now and then all sorts of interesting people invite me to have a look at me. Seeing my column here, month after month, they probably ask themselves why this should be so, and what exactly it is that I'm doing to occupy this high-value slot. In short: What business do I have to be in The Kathmandu Post? So, they call me over so as to scrutinize me at close quarters. For I come from a Kalwar family which for generations had engaged in business. I was the first Kalwar to go into naukri, or service. Curious family members would ask me: So what is it exactly that you do when you go to your place of work? And I'd reply that I wrote things. What things? they'd ask. So I'd show them the things I wrote and they'd shake their heads in mystification and go away to do some more lucrative business and leave me to the inexplicable enigma of my naukri. I just did not fit into the fundamentals of a successful business model, which is based on the premise of identifying a specific demand and supplying goods or services to meet that demand in return for a profit. Business, all business, So what demand did I--or rather those who employed me or still unemployed--seek to supply, and with what? And no one could figure that out. Not my employers (bless 'em), nor my readers (bless 'em even more), and least of all me. So when week before last I got an invitation from the Khowpa Engineering College, Kathmandu, to visit them and interact with some of their faculty members and students I accepted with alacrity. If anyone could set me right, business-wise, it was the KHEC. Founded five or six years ago, the KHEC is associated with the Purwanchal University.
As I don't own a tie (or Microsoft, for that matter) I had no such qualms. Toothbrush tucked behind my ear, I headed KHEC-wards. The cab rolled into a luxury resort on the outskirts of Kathmandu. A long driveway (Careful, Peacock Crossing) wound through immense grounds under a star-spangled sky. A state-of-the-art institute, catering to the career advancement of 400-plus students, ranging in age between 22 and 40-some, set in 20-odd acres of campus. In an intense one-year course, with a price tag of Rs 1-2 lakh approximate, live-in students, some with families, have their professional skills honed the better to do cutting-edge business in the world's slowest growing economy.
The next day I toured the campus, met students and teachers, and found out more about doing business than Harvard ever taught me, what with my never having been there. I came away feeling confident. And who knows? Perhaps the bright folk at KHEC will be able to fathom what's perplexed me all my life: namely, what is my business. In other words, I hope the KHEC will mind my business. Because, it is only too evident, I'm congenitally incapable of minding my own.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
In the Middle of Nowhere
My parents yoked me to the idea of a secular Nepal before I was even born. My mother, in a stinging refutation of Samuel Huntington's theory, named me Santosh. "Santosh Kalwar," she said. "Rolls off the tongue, doesn't it." And so it was. Without having done anything I had been born special. As my father said, "There may be many Santoshs, but hardly anyone will have the Kalwar attached to it." As far as I knew, my father was right. Puffed up like a peacock, I straddled my dual 'religiosity' with pride, along with a few fibs.
I soon realized my 'difference' came with its baggage. Did we drink at home? What 'gods' did we worship? But it didn't matter then. I flattered myself by thinking how important I was. These modern-day crusades, I sighed mockingly. But since such queries were so immature, I could never really take offence. Increasingly, I found myself having to become a spokesperson "What is your caste?" I don't know. "Are you Brahmin, or ksherti or Newar?" I don't know, and I don't see the connection. "Has your mother converted? Most people do in these mixed marriages, you know," said an elderly man learnedly. "No, I don't know! Why don't you phone and ask her?" was what I wanted to say.
But I said nothing. At first, I treated these questions as ignorant and impertinent but something I had to get used to. I followed the example of my hero Superman. He had his kryptonite and I had mine. Of course, then it didn't hurt so much. I didn't connect what was happening in the outside world with my life. Nothing anyone said or did could alter our freedom to do that, and be, just be! But things did change. Perhaps I was at fault. In my naiveté, I thought being "confused", as one Indian acquaintance put it, would carry me through. It had for 25 years of my life. I had eaten and drunk, loved and lived with people without bothering who they were. But the world, it seemed, had suddenly become very bothered with who I was.
Why wouldn't the Nepal I had held up to people abroad let me be me? I'm still angry. Some people may ask why. After all, I'm not Indian, at least not in the traditional sense. But this fact has been lost on people who by fixatedly dwelling on the Kalwar, refuse to recognize the Santosh in me.
This ensures that at times, I go along with the Indian caricature they expect me to play. One particular exchange with a colleague comes to mind. "Are you really an Indian? You don't look like one." "I'm sorry," I replied. "I forgot the dhoti to wear at home."
I soon realized my 'difference' came with its baggage. Did we drink at home? What 'gods' did we worship? But it didn't matter then. I flattered myself by thinking how important I was. These modern-day crusades, I sighed mockingly. But since such queries were so immature, I could never really take offence. Increasingly, I found myself having to become a spokesperson "What is your caste?" I don't know. "Are you Brahmin, or ksherti or Newar?" I don't know, and I don't see the connection. "Has your mother converted? Most people do in these mixed marriages, you know," said an elderly man learnedly. "No, I don't know! Why don't you phone and ask her?" was what I wanted to say.
But I said nothing. At first, I treated these questions as ignorant and impertinent but something I had to get used to. I followed the example of my hero Superman. He had his kryptonite and I had mine. Of course, then it didn't hurt so much. I didn't connect what was happening in the outside world with my life. Nothing anyone said or did could alter our freedom to do that, and be, just be! But things did change. Perhaps I was at fault. In my naiveté, I thought being "confused", as one Indian acquaintance put it, would carry me through. It had for 25 years of my life. I had eaten and drunk, loved and lived with people without bothering who they were. But the world, it seemed, had suddenly become very bothered with who I was.
Why wouldn't the Nepal I had held up to people abroad let me be me? I'm still angry. Some people may ask why. After all, I'm not Indian, at least not in the traditional sense. But this fact has been lost on people who by fixatedly dwelling on the Kalwar, refuse to recognize the Santosh in me.
This ensures that at times, I go along with the Indian caricature they expect me to play. One particular exchange with a colleague comes to mind. "Are you really an Indian? You don't look like one." "I'm sorry," I replied. "I forgot the dhoti to wear at home."
Enlightenment
Anyone can be a Gautam Buddha. Spiritual realization is everybody's birthright. It is not a talent like painting, music, poetry, or dancing; it is not genius either. A genius has tremendous intelligence, but it is still of the mind. Enlightenment is not of the mind, it is not intellect; it is intelligence of a totally different order.
People like Friedrich Nietzsche who have missed the journey towards their own selves were great intellectuals, geniuses unparalleled - but all that belongs to the mind.
And to be a Gautam Buddha, Lao Tzu, or Zarathustra is to get out of the mind. It does not matter whether you had a big, small or a mediocre mind, or if you are a genius; the point is that you should be out of the mind. The moment you are out of the mind, you are in yourself. So the strange thing is that the more a person is intellectual, the farther he goes away from himself. His intellect takes him to faraway stars.
He is a genius, he may create great poetry, great sculpture. But as far as you are concerned, you are not to be created, you are already there. The genius creates, the meditator discovers. Consciousness has nothing to do with creativity, inventiveness, science or art. It has something to do with tremendous silence, peace, a centering. When an ordinary man meditates, he comes to the same space of blissfulness as Nietzsche, Einstein or Russell. That space of blissfulness will not be different; it will not be richer for Bertrand Russell because he is a great intellectual. Those values don't matter outside of the mind.
It is as if you all fall asleep here; you will be dreaming. Somebody may have a very beautiful dream, and somebody may have a nightmare. But both are dreams.
And when they wake up, they will know that the beautiful dream and the nightmare are not different - they are both dreams. They are non-existential, mind projections.
This is great and good news because it means a woodcutter or a fisherman can become Gautam Buddha. An uneducated Jesus, an uneducated Kabir, who doesn't show any indication of genius, can still become enlightened, because enlightenment is not a talent, it is discovering your being. And the being of everyone is absolutely equal. Suddenly all distinctions, talents of the mind, disappear. There is only pure sky where you cannot make any distinctions of higher and lower. Enlightenment is the very nature of things.
Mind wants for its nourishment something very difficult, something almost impossible. Only if you can achieve the impossible can you feel you are somebody special. Enlightenment is not a talent. It is not like somebody being born a painter or a poet or a scientist - those are talents. Enlightenment is simply everybody's source of life; it is realizing the fact that "I am that which I have always wanted to be, and I have never been anything else and I cannot be anything else, ever".
People like Friedrich Nietzsche who have missed the journey towards their own selves were great intellectuals, geniuses unparalleled - but all that belongs to the mind.
And to be a Gautam Buddha, Lao Tzu, or Zarathustra is to get out of the mind. It does not matter whether you had a big, small or a mediocre mind, or if you are a genius; the point is that you should be out of the mind. The moment you are out of the mind, you are in yourself. So the strange thing is that the more a person is intellectual, the farther he goes away from himself. His intellect takes him to faraway stars.
He is a genius, he may create great poetry, great sculpture. But as far as you are concerned, you are not to be created, you are already there. The genius creates, the meditator discovers. Consciousness has nothing to do with creativity, inventiveness, science or art. It has something to do with tremendous silence, peace, a centering. When an ordinary man meditates, he comes to the same space of blissfulness as Nietzsche, Einstein or Russell. That space of blissfulness will not be different; it will not be richer for Bertrand Russell because he is a great intellectual. Those values don't matter outside of the mind.
It is as if you all fall asleep here; you will be dreaming. Somebody may have a very beautiful dream, and somebody may have a nightmare. But both are dreams.
And when they wake up, they will know that the beautiful dream and the nightmare are not different - they are both dreams. They are non-existential, mind projections.
This is great and good news because it means a woodcutter or a fisherman can become Gautam Buddha. An uneducated Jesus, an uneducated Kabir, who doesn't show any indication of genius, can still become enlightened, because enlightenment is not a talent, it is discovering your being. And the being of everyone is absolutely equal. Suddenly all distinctions, talents of the mind, disappear. There is only pure sky where you cannot make any distinctions of higher and lower. Enlightenment is the very nature of things.
Mind wants for its nourishment something very difficult, something almost impossible. Only if you can achieve the impossible can you feel you are somebody special. Enlightenment is not a talent. It is not like somebody being born a painter or a poet or a scientist - those are talents. Enlightenment is simply everybody's source of life; it is realizing the fact that "I am that which I have always wanted to be, and I have never been anything else and I cannot be anything else, ever".
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