A Small Step Towards Moksha
29 May 2015.
That was the day I wrote my first blogpost.
I was 64 years old.
I had no grand plan. No thought that I would someday write a thousand posts. I certainly did not imagine that, eleven years later, I would sit down to write the thousandth.
My original target was just 100 blogposts.
When I reached 100, I thought perhaps I could make it to 200.
Then came 300.
Then 500.
Then 800.
And now, somewhat incredulously, I find myself standing before the number 1000.
I have been wondering for some time:
What should I write in my thousandth blogpost?
After all, I have written about almost everything under the sun.
And then I realised that perhaps I should write about the one subject I have never quite been able to understand:
Why did I keep writing?
I Never Had a Plan
When I began, I did not know where this journey would take me.
Sometimes I wrote four or five posts in a month.
Sometimes life became busy and I went into hibernation. There were months when I barely managed one post.
And then, unexpectedly, I would wake up early one morning with a thought in my head.
A question.
An observation.
A memory.
A strange dream.
Something I had heard.
Something I had seen.
And I would feel compelled to write.
I never really followed a plan.
My subjects wandered wherever my curiosity took me.
Motivation.
Leadership.
Management.
Military life.
Indian civilisation.
History.
Culture.
Spirituality.
Sikh scriptures.
Sufi thought.
Indian saints.
Travel.
Photography.
Humour in uniform.
Stories of ordinary people.
Interesting real-life incidents.
Human behaviour.
Sometimes the subjects were serious.
Sometimes philosophical.
Sometimes humorous.
Sometimes they were nothing more than a thought that refused to leave me alone until I had written it down.
Perhaps that is why I never found a niche.
My niche was life itself.
The Teachers I Never Expected
Some of my most meaningful lessons did not come from books.
They came from people whom society might otherwise overlook.
A driver.
A labourer.
A safaiwala.
A security guard.
A domestic worker.
A stranger sitting next to me during a journey.
I have spoken to immigrants in different countries and listened to stories of separation, struggle, loneliness and hope.
Some had left their families behind.
Some had started life again from nothing.
Some had succeeded.
Some were still struggling.
I have watched people behave selfishly.
I have seen greed.
Deceit.
Jealousy.
Injustice.
But I have also witnessed extraordinary kindness.
Courage.
Generosity.
Service.
Sacrifice.
Nobility.
The more I observed people, the more I realised that human beings everywhere are remarkably alike.
We may speak different languages.
Wear different clothes.
Live in different countries.
Pray in different ways.
But underneath all that, we carry remarkably similar dreams and fears.
We struggle.
We love.
We lose.
We hope.
We suffer.
We search for security.
We search for recognition.
And ultimately,
we search for peace.
Perhaps my writing has simply been my attempt to understand this strange human journey.
A Thousand Baitals
There is an old Indian story about Vikram and Baital.
King Vikram of Ujjain is given the difficult task of carrying Baital—the mysterious spirit—on his back.
He carries him through the night.
But every time he succeeds, Baital escapes and flies back.
And the next day, Vikram begins all over again.
I sometimes think that I have been doing something very similar.
Every time an idea comes into my head, I pick up another Baital.
I carry it.
I struggle with it.
I think about it.
I argue with it.
I write about it.
Finally, I put it down.
And just when I think I am finished—
another Baital appears.
And I begin again.
There is no treasure waiting at the end.
No throne.
No prize.
No applause.
Just another Baital to carry.
Yet I continue.
Perhaps that is the strange beauty of writing.
And perhaps that is also the strange beauty of life.
We keep walking without knowing exactly where the road ends.
Why Did I Write?
I have asked myself this question many times.
Perhaps initially I wanted to leave something for my children.
A few thoughts.
A few experiences.
A few lessons that life had taught me.
Perhaps I wanted to motivate them.
Perhaps I wanted to pass on something that could not be bought with money.
Or perhaps I simply wanted to share a little positivity with the world.
I have never been particularly concerned about how many people read my writing.
Of course, like every writer, I sometimes wonder.
Are people reading?
Does anyone care?
Does any of this matter?
But then I remind myself:
If even one person reads something I have written and becomes a little more positive, a little kinder, a little more courageous, or simply thinks differently for a moment, the writing has served its purpose.
That is enough for me.
And yet, there is one statistic that quietly makes me happy.
Over these eleven-plus years, my blogposts have been read in more than 100 countries.
I find that humbling.
I don’t know who those readers are.
I don’t know what brought them to my writing.
I may never meet them.
But somewhere, in more than a hundred countries, somebody has stopped for a few moments and read something that came from my mind and heart.
Perhaps that is all a writer can ask for.
A Life Without a Silver Spoon
Perhaps I should also explain where all this came from.
I was born into a struggling family.
I was the eldest child.
There was no silver spoon in my mouth.
Whatever I achieved had to be earned.
Hard work was not a philosophy for me.
It was simply a way of life.
I joined the Indian Army and, by the grace of God and through years of effort, eventually retired as a two-star General.
I am grateful for that journey.
But when I look back today, I realise that the rank was only one chapter.
The more important lesson was the journey itself.
The struggles.
The failures.
The disappointments.
The opportunities.
The people who helped me.
The people who challenged me.
The times I fell.
And the times I got up again.
Even while serving in the Army, I pursued further academic qualifications through distance learning.
Perhaps I have always believed that one should never stop learning.
My children have also had to work hard for whatever they have achieved.
Two are now settled in the United States and one is pursuing an academic career in India.
I am proud of them.
Not merely because of where they have reached, but because they have understood the value of slogging when nobody is watching.
Perhaps that is why I can still feel the pulse of ordinary people.
Because, despite whatever positions life has given me, somewhere inside I have never forgotten where I came from.
The Woman Who Let Me Write
There is one person whose contribution to this journey I cannot possibly overlook.
My wife.
We have been married for 50 years.
Half a century is a long time to walk beside another human being.
There are the joys, the responsibilities, the disagreements, the compromises, the laughter, the difficult days and the countless ordinary days that quietly make up a marriage.
And then, for the last eleven years, she has also had to put up with something else—
my writing.
Writing takes time.
A surprising amount of it.
There are mornings when I get up early because an idea has suddenly appeared in my head.
There are hours spent thinking, reading, writing, rewriting and sometimes staring at a blank screen wondering where the next sentence has gone.
Then came videos, editing, experimenting with new technology and all the other things that have grown around the writing.
In other words, I have been eating away a significant amount of our shared time.
And yet, through all these years, she has given me her complete support.
She has never made me feel that this was a foolish way to spend my time.
She has allowed me the freedom to pursue this strange little obsession of mine.
Perhaps she understood something that I did not:
Sometimes a person needs to follow a calling even when he cannot explain where it is leading.
She has been there quietly in the background.
No applause.
No recognition.
No mention in the statistics of how many people read my posts.
Yet without her patience, understanding and support, these thousand posts would probably not exist.
So, when I say that I have written a thousand blogposts, I know that the number is not entirely mine.
There is a little bit of her in every one of them.
Perhaps much more than a little.
The truth is that no journey of any length is ever travelled alone.
We imagine that we are the ones walking.
But there are always people who make the walking possible.
My wife has been one of those people for fifty years.
And for the last eleven of those years, she has watched me pick up one Baital after another and carry it away to my computer.
She has patiently allowed me to do it.
For that, my dear wife, I owe you a debt that no thousand blogposts can repay.
Thank you for letting me write.
Thank you for letting me remain curious.
And above all, thank you for walking beside me for fifty years.
I Still Slog
This perhaps sounds strange.
At my age, I don’t have to.
There is no superior officer waiting for my report.
No promotion at stake.
No examination to pass.
No career to build.
And yet, I still slog.
Perhaps hard work has entered my bloodstream.
Perhaps the Army trained me too well.
Or perhaps I simply don’t know how to sit still.
There is always something to learn.
Something to explore.
Something to write.
Something to understand.
In recent years, I have even begun converting some of my blogposts into videos.
A new medium.
New technology.
A new learning curve.
At 75-plus, I could have said:
“Enough. I have done my bit.”
But something inside me refuses to say that.
And I am grateful for it.
Because perhaps growing old is not about stopping.
Perhaps it is about continuing to remain curious.
The World Is One Village
The older I grow, the more convinced I become that humanity is one enormous family.
We have divided ourselves into nations, religions, languages, ideologies and countless identities.
But underneath these labels is the same human being.
The same longing for dignity.
The same fear of losing loved ones.
The same desire to provide for our children.
The same pain of separation.
The same search for happiness.
The same yearning for peace.
We live in a global village now.
The suffering of one part of humanity eventually touches another.
War.
Poverty.
Injustice.
Greed.
Hatred.
Loneliness.
And alongside them:
Kindness.
Service.
Compassion.
Friendship.
Love.
Hope.
My writing has wandered through all these territories.
Perhaps because I have been trying to understand what it means to be human.
And Now, Moksha
And this brings me to the most difficult part of this thousandth post.
Perhaps all these years I have been searching for something without knowing its name.
I have read and reflected upon Sikh scriptures.
I have been influenced by Indian saints.
I have been drawn towards Sufi thought.
I have wondered about the mysteries of the soul.
I have written about life, death, morality, love, suffering, service and the human condition.
And somewhere along the way, I began to understand that perhaps I was not really searching for answers to individual questions.
I was searching for the Light.
The Divine Light.
That light which appears in different languages, different scriptures and different traditions, but seems to point towards the same ultimate truth.
Perhaps our ancient sages were right.
Perhaps the real journey is not outward.
It is inward.
Perhaps what we spend our entire lives searching for is already somewhere within us, hidden beneath the noise of ego, ambition, fear, greed and attachment.
And perhaps what we call Moksha is not merely the end of life.
Perhaps it is the gradual emancipation of the soul from all that keeps it imprisoned.
I don’t claim to understand Moksha.
I certainly haven’t attained it.
I am still learning.
Still stumbling.
Still carrying my baggage of imperfections.
Still making mistakes.
Still trying to become a better human being.
But perhaps—
just perhaps—
this thousandth blogpost is one small step on that journey.
A tiny movement towards the Light.
A small Moksha of the mind.
A moment of letting go.
A moment of gratitude.
A moment of understanding that whatever I achieved in this life was never entirely mine.
I was helped.
I was guided.
I was given opportunities.
I was given strength.
And ultimately,
I was given time.
What Do I Want to Be?
After 75-plus years, after a career in the Army, after whatever academic and professional achievements came my way, after raising children and travelling and meeting thousands of people, my ambition has become surprisingly simple.
I want to be—
a good father.
A good brother.
A good husband.
A good friend.
And above all,
a good human being.
That is still a work in progress.
Perhaps it will remain so until my last breath.
And I am perfectly comfortable with that.
Because perhaps perfection is not the destination.
The striving is the destination.
The Thousandth Post
So, here I am.
29 May 2015 seems like yesterday.
And yet, somewhere along that road, 1000 blogposts have quietly appeared.
I don’t know how many more there will be.
Perhaps another hundred.
Perhaps another ten.
Perhaps none.
Life is uncertain.
At 75-plus, one learns not to make promises to the future.
But as long as another thought comes to me,
as long as another story touches my heart,
as long as another human being teaches me something,
as long as there is another question I want to explore,
I may pick up my pen—or whatever has replaced the pen—
and write.
I will pick up another Baital.
Carry it for a while.
Listen to what it has to say.
Write it down.
And let it fly away.
Tomorrow, perhaps, another Baital will come.
And I shall carry that one too.
A Small Prayer
I began writing without knowing why.
I continued writing without knowing where I was going.
And today, after a thousand posts, I realise that perhaps the journey itself was the answer.
I was not writing towards fame.
Not towards money.
Not towards recognition.
Perhaps I was simply trying to leave a few thoughts behind.
A little positivity.
A little courage.
A little wisdom.
A little kindness.
A little light.
If something I have written has helped even one human being somewhere in this world, then my journey has not been in vain.
And if these thousand posts have taught me anything, it is this:
We are all travellers.
We carry our burdens.
We carry our memories.
We carry our dreams.
We carry our mistakes.
We carry our hopes.
And every day, somehow, we lift ourselves up and walk again.
I have walked for 75-plus years.
I have stumbled.
I have fallen.
I have risen.
I have learnt.
I have forgotten.
I have learnt again.
And today, at this small milestone called 1000, I pause for a moment.
I look back at the road.
I thank God for the journey.
I thank the people who walked with me.
I thank those who challenged me.
I thank those who inspired me.
I thank my family.
I thank my wife, who has walked beside me for fifty years and quietly given me the freedom to pursue this strange journey of words.
I thank the countless ordinary people whose stories became my teachers.
And then I look ahead.
The road is still there.
The Light is still far away.
Perhaps Moksha is still far away.
But I no longer feel the need to reach it in a hurry.
Perhaps the journey itself is the prayer.
Perhaps every sincere thought is a step.
Perhaps every act of kindness is a step.
Perhaps every attempt to become a better human being is a step.
And perhaps—
this thousandth blogpost is not the end of my writing journey.
Perhaps it is simply one small step towards Moksha.
So, with folded hands, I say:
May I continue to learn.
May I continue to serve.
May I continue to write.
May I continue to become a little better human being each day.
And when the time finally comes to put down the pen,
may I be able to say—
I carried my Baitals as best I could.
I walked the road given to me.
I did not always understand the journey, but I kept walking.
And somewhere along the way, I found a little Light.
Perhaps that is all I was searching for.
Perhaps—
that is my small Moksha.
The journey continues.
Guchi.
Improve Your Life 