Among friends and lovers

14th October 2019

‘Nawiyan patran de
Aao rung manaiey’
-Najam Hussain Syed

Its still summer in Lahore.

I sat for a super class test I did not prepare for and it went as expected, horribly. I don’t know why I still have not started preparing for the exam, so much is tied its outcome and yet I am not working hard enough. Why is that every time it comes to solidifying my reality or giving it any shape or form, I tend to subconsciously recede and stop putting in effort. Am I afraid of giving form to the wrong reality and then being trapped in it? Why does fluidity feel more truthful. Why do I have to solidify to insure myself against the fear of uncertainties, even if it is at the cost of my truth.

A few weeks ago I stopped sleeping, havent slept in almost a month. I lie in the bed begging sleep to come and every time I feel it is close I get excited, then it finds out and withdraws, I have spent so many hours in its wake, as if waiting for a friend or a burglar, cautiously, expectantly, and yet it stands me up every time, maybe it kept changing its mind because even sleep cant decide and commit to me or maybe it was is exhausted and burnt out as I am and falls asleep halfway down the long dark trail which led up to me.

I am sitting right opposite the evening sun in the park outside ShahGs house, waiting for the clock to strike 5:30 so I can go for sangat. I am resting my back on a beautiful mango tree, who seems to have taken quite well to me. I dont know when was the last time someone let me rest my back on them or when was the last time I was comfortable enough to do so without feeling like a burden. Some of the trees have started shedding, one of them is completely bare, the one next to it seems conflicted, its right half has shed almost entirely but the left half is still green, it cant seem to make up its mind about whether to hold on or let go. . Which face does it show the wind and which face to the sun? How brave of it to show me both of them, how brave of him to ‘be’ both. Why, if he were human we would force him to rule out the multitudes of possibility for one solid easily comprehensible reality. We would shun it for being two, call it a hypocrite and impose upon him a reality which does not unnerve us, which does not make us think. How free is he and how accepted being a tree among trees, being all he can be and so understood in his fluidity. He is whispering to the tree next to it and the friend tree seems to be waving slightly as if in agreement.

The sun, the trees, the sky all seem to be constantly renewing themselves, over and over again, unafraid of growth, unafraid of living every possibility. Is that what makes them so alive? Constant renewal, shedding of old selves making space for new possibilities. Brave enough to let go of realities when they no longer represent their truth. It reminds me of Shahgs verse;

‘Hand gai jerhay naway na hoi
O te rehsan jewnday moi’

I can see a squirrel searching for something she lost but it seems unsure whether she wants to find it again.

All of nature seems indecisive today, yet not really worried because either way it knows what will be, has to be, one must live out as many possibilities of one’s essence as possible. And if not now then maybe later, this one today the other one another day but it must all be lived and experienced both internally and externally. If you are wind today, tomorrow you will be fire, if you are water, one day you must be earth, you can not suppress life, harness winds or break tides and must live it all.

There are two lovers hiding behind the bushes, the only ones feeling guilty for living and being their truth, or maybe they are hiding here among friends in harmony, safe from the outside gaze and the death of truth. When did man criminalize his own pure state of being? Those in harmony became a threat to us, our created falsehoods and idols. I read somewhere that an idol is what man flees to before he finds God. Will this society ever be strong enough to break its own idols which calm its fears yet limit its potential and surrender to love which makes us uncomfortable and unsafe but takes us closer to God than god?

Goodbye trees, sun, grass, squirrels, lovers. Its 5:30.