Chapter 9. The Lake of Scars

We experience so many things everyday, different people, different thoughts, different emotions and varied amounts of affects of people on us. Does that change us and our role in the world? Yes it does to an extent. Does that change the real nature of our soul and the role we have for ourselves?Does the external world actually controls us? What is the strength of the soul within? Who are we? Who am I? The soul within, is it right there in our body or is it separated, somewhere far, away from the chaos.

Amrit’s forehead is warm. He doesn’t feel well. Working continuously for almost 8 hours has drained his energy and he decides to go into the restroom adjacent to his cabin and have some sleep. He’s really tired. Lying down he sees himself from his childhood. Well he had a tough childhood, he was bullied in school and never had any friends who understood him. While in college, he was always an introvert silent student engrossed in his own work, there were nights when he needed to talk to but had no one, his classmates considered him more of a competitor than a friend and always looked for opportunities to pull him down. Establishing his clinical practice was also very tedious, slowly and gradually one brick at a time everything fell in place. It wasn’t that there were only hardships and the wrong set of people in his life, but it is just that sometimes you are so tired  and under the influence of the worldly battles that all you see is the tough times and that too not just the present ones but all of them since the beginning of life. It is in those moments when we must guide our energy back again to the goddess, to seek her light. Amrit did the same, his eyes were about to close when he started chanting the name of Ma Durga. Ma answers.

“Amrit, what happened child?”, Amrit opens his eyes, his white lab coat has converted into white robes of a Saint. In contrast he sees a fair lady with open hair, wearing a crown studded with precious stones, dressed in a Vibrant Red saree. The room is gone and the bed he was lying on is no more there, it is a wooden boat now, sufficient to accommodate Ma and him. His head lying on her lap, the part of her cloth on her lap wet by his tears. He rises. The lake is silent, surrounded by dense tree cover around. The weather is cold since he sees a layer of mist in the air. The time is dawn.

“Ma, where am I?”

“ Don’t you recognise this place Amrit?”

“No...Have I come here before?”

“Yes many a times. Every time you looked beyond the worldly things and pains , you came here”

Amrit takes a deep breath. His eyes moist again. It is his soul.

“ You see how calm the surface is Amrit”, Saying this all of a sudden Ma produces a stone in her hand through her powers and throws it in the water. Small ripples generate and then settle, calm again.

“What did you see Amrit?”

“ There were waves produced by the stone”

“Hmm...Do you know what goes inside?”

“I never looked within!”

“ So...to know what’s within, We must go within”

The boat begins to sink gradually. Amrit feels helpless MD anxious. As the water level rises. Then he looks at Ma’s face. She is completely unaffected, he reassures himself that nothing would go wrong. The water reaches his chest, his neck and gradually submerged him fully. Unable to breath, his eyes in terror cry in pain. Then he again focuses on Ma. Little does he know that it is she who has control over his breath too. Ma smiles and as if stopping his breath touches his head. Amrit is struck by tremendous power and stops moving, time has stopped for him. He is within the lake. Those water ripples produced by the stones were just scars, just like the other events in his life, over the surface. What was within was what he saw now. It was something that could not be changed. Pure water of infinite depth. Untouched by any external force. He wasn’t breathing that meant he wasn’t alive, then how was he able to understand things? Also the time had stopped, then how were things happening ?Maybe what he was experiencing was beyond life and death, maybe he was experiencing an eternal truth which was , is and will always be there irrespective of the component of time. Next something more magical follows. His white robes start turning red, as if getting coloured by the colours Of Light of enlightenment of Ma Durga, his hair starts growing in length, he has transcended gender too. The eyes are closing but the soul is awakening, as the water begins to freeze, Ma Durga is the only person seen in the water , still smiling as if enjoying her own stories, her own creations understanding the meaning of creation and the meaning of the creator. The water freezes completely.

Amrit’s eyes open. He hurriedly buttons his white lab coat, picks up his stethoscope and rushes to the wards. Amidst the chaos in his life, the depth of the lake remains silently divine, yes it is his soul, here she resides, mind you, Ma doesn’t reside “there” in his soul, she resides “here” in his soul, in my soul, in your soul, in our souls.

(To be continued.....)