At the outset I would like to say that I’m writing about the
work of a writer who beautifully weaves every word in silvery thread
which gives his writings a moonlight shine. ‘The alchemist’ & “Like
the flowing river” have been great learning for me, and I’d been hopeful
of quenching my thirst from his fountain of knowledge. However, as much
I do not want to say it or as much I want to believe his notions, the
truth is, both “Eleven Minutes” & “Brida” has disappointed me. I
must again make it clear that his writings are natural blend of
spiritual teaching, love, life and emotions. But the voices in my head
say, this is not what you are searching for, this knowledge is not for
you and this is not your way. Nevertheless, keeping in mind “yours is
not a better way, yours is just another way” I will not say that I’m
censuring the writing or concepts. I would like to tell why it
disappoints me.
I’ll spare ‘Eleven Minutes’ for another time and will continue my journey with Brida. A young girl who knows she’s missing something in her life. She’s just like any other girl with doubts so many and fear of making mistakes so deep that no matter which path she chooses, she ends up traveling none of them. However, she decides to just ‘plunge in’ the cold water and learns about magic, her path, her ‘gift’, the ultimate power women have and her ‘Soul mate’. From the very first chapter I began to relate to her in the simplest way. I’m that very common girl. Her doubts are my doubts, her fears are mine. For me, like her, the opportunity cost of following one path is very high. My lack of commitment due to disbelief is same as her. Enough similarities for me to want to go on. Perhaps this time I’ll find answers to the questions lying in my heart, longing to get answered. Brida does and she’s just so like me.
So here I go reading… the girl finds a teacher (who incidentally is her soul mate) and doesn’t like his way of teaching. She finds another teacher and learns from her that she’s been a witch in her previous life. A pause, in which I ponder about the meaning of witch. I would like to refer them as ‘enlightened souls’. Thus Brida learns that in her previous lives she was an enlightened soul and has much knowledge and wisdom for everything, which she has forgotten and is going to re-learn through her teacher. She’s been taught several rituals of the tradition of moon. The voices in my head started talking to me. I knew the things are meaningless for me now but I decided to read nonetheless, hoping to find some answers. However, all I got to know through her teacher that the most powerful thing a woman has is the power of ‘sex’ and the only way to connect to god is to have a powerful orgasm.
There were great lessons of life in the book which were now becoming greatly confusing. I give sex its due importance, but I could not believe that it is the greatest power that I’ve. And I certainly do not believe that communion with god depends upon the intensity of my orgasm. If it is so, I still have a very long way to go. But patience is one of my greatest virtues and hence I go on. Brida connected to god twice with two of her soul mates. Now, the whole idea of soul mate is confusing and somewhat annoying to me. Here it goes;
We all are manifestation of god and eternal. We go through many lives and deaths. God decides to do certain things of which only he knows the reasons and we will never know why we are here. “And when people think of reincarnation, they always come up against a very difficult question: if, in the beginning, there were so few people on the face of Earth, and now there are so many, where did all those new souls come from?”“In certain reincarnations, we divide into two. Our souls divide as do crystals and stars, cells and plants.
Our soul divides in two, and those new souls are in turn transformed into two and so, within a few generations, we are scattered over a large part of Earth.”
I do not want to vehemently oppose the idea because even I don’t know what the truth is. But I feel like being Lord Voldemort in one of my previous incarnation. The very idea of splitting a soul was so off-putting to me that I immediately thought that I’ll never want do it in any of my incarnation even if I am capable of it. This concept has not answered any of my questions, on the contrary new questions sprang to life in my mind. Even if I do divide my soul, what is the whole point of dividing and finding again? Am I not gyrating in a vicious circle drawn by my own hands? Is this really what god wants of me? It’s out of my scope to explain what kind of confusion it will create if I’ve to meet two, three or all of my soul mates. The more I ponder about it the more confusing it becomes. If the soul keeps on dividing what should be the ultimate purpose? Should it not be to reunite it as a whole? If it is true then what are the means to do that? And if it is not true then what is the limit of splitting? If my life circles around birth, separation, search and death what is the concept of salvation? Undoubtedly the book gives no explanation. Moreover the idea was not placed in a way intriguing enough to stir my belief that God has created us in two. Just like twins. Someone who has traveled with me in realms of time and universe, someone who has different tasks to do in this lifetime and others, but who will travel again with me on my road to salvation. I believe God has plans for us and he will reveal them.
“And that process of finding ourselves is called Love. Because when a soul divides, it always divides into a male part and a female part.”
If this dividing and finding is love then what do we call what a mother does to her child? Love bounded in this definition looks so feeble. And for some strange reason I couldn’t see soul as being male or female. Just the way I couldn’t see God in a male or female form. I will not write about the rituals described in the book because they are real pagan rituals and the voices in my head say they are out of my scope too. But, though I doubt it, perhaps my environment doesn’t allow me to believe that freeing a soul is same as freeing my body from clothes.
The book has the same moonlight shine to it. But for me this was the moon of a fairytale.
I’ll spare ‘Eleven Minutes’ for another time and will continue my journey with Brida. A young girl who knows she’s missing something in her life. She’s just like any other girl with doubts so many and fear of making mistakes so deep that no matter which path she chooses, she ends up traveling none of them. However, she decides to just ‘plunge in’ the cold water and learns about magic, her path, her ‘gift’, the ultimate power women have and her ‘Soul mate’. From the very first chapter I began to relate to her in the simplest way. I’m that very common girl. Her doubts are my doubts, her fears are mine. For me, like her, the opportunity cost of following one path is very high. My lack of commitment due to disbelief is same as her. Enough similarities for me to want to go on. Perhaps this time I’ll find answers to the questions lying in my heart, longing to get answered. Brida does and she’s just so like me.
So here I go reading… the girl finds a teacher (who incidentally is her soul mate) and doesn’t like his way of teaching. She finds another teacher and learns from her that she’s been a witch in her previous life. A pause, in which I ponder about the meaning of witch. I would like to refer them as ‘enlightened souls’. Thus Brida learns that in her previous lives she was an enlightened soul and has much knowledge and wisdom for everything, which she has forgotten and is going to re-learn through her teacher. She’s been taught several rituals of the tradition of moon. The voices in my head started talking to me. I knew the things are meaningless for me now but I decided to read nonetheless, hoping to find some answers. However, all I got to know through her teacher that the most powerful thing a woman has is the power of ‘sex’ and the only way to connect to god is to have a powerful orgasm.
There were great lessons of life in the book which were now becoming greatly confusing. I give sex its due importance, but I could not believe that it is the greatest power that I’ve. And I certainly do not believe that communion with god depends upon the intensity of my orgasm. If it is so, I still have a very long way to go. But patience is one of my greatest virtues and hence I go on. Brida connected to god twice with two of her soul mates. Now, the whole idea of soul mate is confusing and somewhat annoying to me. Here it goes;
We all are manifestation of god and eternal. We go through many lives and deaths. God decides to do certain things of which only he knows the reasons and we will never know why we are here. “And when people think of reincarnation, they always come up against a very difficult question: if, in the beginning, there were so few people on the face of Earth, and now there are so many, where did all those new souls come from?”“In certain reincarnations, we divide into two. Our souls divide as do crystals and stars, cells and plants.
Our soul divides in two, and those new souls are in turn transformed into two and so, within a few generations, we are scattered over a large part of Earth.”
I do not want to vehemently oppose the idea because even I don’t know what the truth is. But I feel like being Lord Voldemort in one of my previous incarnation. The very idea of splitting a soul was so off-putting to me that I immediately thought that I’ll never want do it in any of my incarnation even if I am capable of it. This concept has not answered any of my questions, on the contrary new questions sprang to life in my mind. Even if I do divide my soul, what is the whole point of dividing and finding again? Am I not gyrating in a vicious circle drawn by my own hands? Is this really what god wants of me? It’s out of my scope to explain what kind of confusion it will create if I’ve to meet two, three or all of my soul mates. The more I ponder about it the more confusing it becomes. If the soul keeps on dividing what should be the ultimate purpose? Should it not be to reunite it as a whole? If it is true then what are the means to do that? And if it is not true then what is the limit of splitting? If my life circles around birth, separation, search and death what is the concept of salvation? Undoubtedly the book gives no explanation. Moreover the idea was not placed in a way intriguing enough to stir my belief that God has created us in two. Just like twins. Someone who has traveled with me in realms of time and universe, someone who has different tasks to do in this lifetime and others, but who will travel again with me on my road to salvation. I believe God has plans for us and he will reveal them.
“And that process of finding ourselves is called Love. Because when a soul divides, it always divides into a male part and a female part.”
If this dividing and finding is love then what do we call what a mother does to her child? Love bounded in this definition looks so feeble. And for some strange reason I couldn’t see soul as being male or female. Just the way I couldn’t see God in a male or female form. I will not write about the rituals described in the book because they are real pagan rituals and the voices in my head say they are out of my scope too. But, though I doubt it, perhaps my environment doesn’t allow me to believe that freeing a soul is same as freeing my body from clothes.
The book has the same moonlight shine to it. But for me this was the moon of a fairytale.
- Shruti Srivastava
No comments:
Post a Comment