The Deep.
THE DEEP.
In the language of occult, there are seven regions of mind. Our is the physical region.
They tell us that we normally live on a physical plane but in our sleep we may go to the next region, an emotional mental region that is often called the astral plane.
But is it always true that our sojourn in astral plane can only occur during deep sleep, after the death or before our birth? I conjecture that it can happen during our daytime activities and also during our daytime dreaming.
In the moonlight I could see a pool reflecting the silvery tonalities of the night. There was a half moon hung in a silent sky like a crescent lantern. It has been a scorching day, an oppressive heat that was causing a burning sensation in my eyes and brain as I lay there. I crawled towards the pool to escape from those suffocating airs. My head was spinning and there was a constant thud of rushing blood into my temples. My tongue was parched and stuck to roof of the mouth. The burning sensation in my stomach grew as if someone has splashed a bucket-full of boiling water onto my entrails.
I looked into the pool and it seemed a shallow structure. I crawled towards it and dipped my face into the water and it felt pleasant. I put my entire head and shoulders and under its impact whole body of water broke into myriads of pieces of shinning glasses. Each piece reflecting its own universe of trembling rays. I dragged my body further and slid into the water completely. I felt like a lonely animal quenching its thirst in some remote desert waterhole.
I could see the bottom of the pool with long slender grasses growing out of it, onto the surface. The plants were waving and beckoning me to come closer. I swam towards them. There were hundreds of tiny flowers sprouting from these in an exquisite arrangement. I touched one flower with my fingertip and it began to open and grow in size and I could not comprehend the reason for this phenomena.
On the other side of pool there was another big clump of plants growing and made into a sort of gentle green carpet. I wanted to step on it as to feel some sensation of solidness but found them almost soft and springy. A big red flower opened its cup and a pleasant perfume issued forth. It exuded an intoxicating scented air overpowering the senses, transporting me into an unknown lands.
Suddenly I was being pulled down by a strong force. I resisted the force but became exhausted after some struggle and decided to let go. The force accelerated and I was going down rapidly expecting to hit the bottom anytime thus smashing my body against the solid floor. Even under these feelings of panic, I managed to keep my calm just enough to savour the last moments of my being. I waited for my consciousness to be snuffed out soon. Time past and I did not hit the bottom as expected but was thrown upwards again as if by some giant hands.
This time I hit a seashore, which was under a stormy condition. Like a lost bird I began to flutter, driven by all the forces of the stormy thrust. A torrent of rains came and hit me right in the face like some icy sprinkles and the effects were like being pierced by some sharp objects. I was wondering that how was it that a few moments ago I was being suffocated by scorching winds and now the arctic breezes were making my blood cold? I tried to think but it was no use and I just abandoned myself to inevitable.
I found a rock and tried to cling to it as a measure against being swept to the sea. It was of little use trying to decipher whether it was bottom of the pool or an accursed stormy raging sea. Was it possible that a split had been opened in the fabric of space, leading to a new dimension of time. I involuntary altered the body position and lay on my stomach in order to protect myself from all the forces around me. Then again the downward motions set again repeating the downward pull again.
I never hit the bottom though and it was like being driven down into a liquid abyss. Sea creatures of various sizes and colours were passing me by. Big fishes of enormous sizes were inking the waters blue with their liquid trails. Giant tortoise floated by with their small flippers of turquoise shades, surrounded by other small creatures of multi tonalities. It was such an enchanting display that I soon forgot about my strange situation with all its pain and agonies, of all the time past and time present.
It was like looking into the kaleidoscope of my childhood memories. All those broken pieces of coloured glass and beads, came together to form exquisite patterns, forever changing and at every slight touch a new pattern. No arrangement was alike but each was different even dazzling and terrifying. Such was my pitiable state at that moment to observe such wonders.
Soon I entered a place of total silence. It was a big hall with faded emerald green columns in some coral reef structure. Large shoots of seaweed and algae were shooting from these. These were tall structures of about 50 feet high and though fast crumbling, still had a certain grandeur about them. Turbulent waters were gushing through but surprisingly without any sounds. It reminded me of the metaphysical emptiness speculations of the philosophers or related to the structures of our dreams or linked to some seeds of loneliness.
It seemed that time has stopped and with it structures of my existence. This tragic beauty was overwhelming, best to be accepted without reason, without any human analysis. It just stood there ending all my speculations. There were many chambers and I moved from one to other thus opening up new panoramas of sensations and wonder.
Then came a wailing sound, something poignant out of the depths. I moved towards it. I surmised that the sound was coming from one of the alcove in a chamber where a lady was sitting singing some plaintive song. I moved closer and looked at her face, it was a pallid face with a strange beauty behind it and her slender body and long hair framed those haunting eyes like into an arrangement of some great art.
It seems that the world around us complex and contain numerous strands but we are interested in one strand, which is our human life in accordance with the structure of our brain. It may be what we call reality is only construction of our brain using that basic material of uni strand and to which we cling to as the sole criteria of reality and then we cling to it as our intelligence and logic. Then we become entrenched in that ego clinging which gives us a sort of solidity and an assurance of our existence, otherwise we will be lost. In order to perpetuate that myth we will go to any length to protect our so-called viewpoint. It is pity that we live in primitive tiny fragment and to which we give grandiose definition and build structures of humanity and sacred law. When anyone denies that reality, we tend to violent both in body and mind and try to destroy the source of our annoyance, of different category.
So the empiricist are born who believe in the sole reality of their senses of day to day reality, which is termed as ‘commonsense’. We never question it and accept the reality as status quo. Human being gravitates towards the biological programming which nature use for its own ends to perpetuate the race in a collective sort of way and thus the so-called collective consciousness is born which has nothing to do with an individual. We deny anything other than the conditioning process simulated by cultural norms of the times in which we live.
She looked at me and her hypnotic glance ventured straight into my soul. There was more to her than her body and pallid face. Perhaps human beings are more than their outward looks, some sort of symbols which we have to learn to decipher .It is a stressful task, most people never bother to find out these realities hidden behind the symbols. It is such a drain on their brains; only some sensitive beings have that privilege or an exertion of courage for such a venture. We tend to be pragmatic detached observers of only the mundane realities of our daily chores.
There was something familiar about that face and I tried to open my recollections in hazy archives of my brain but it was all in vain. Honestly I could not put my finger on exact location of that strangeness except in some misty caverns of my memories. Was she a femme fatal or an imagery of my soul long desired or long forgotten? Her eyes reflected perhaps a longing for liberty and for melancholy, at the same time.
I have come across such situations before, perhaps in some cheap l novels or in some sentimental films but this situation was not of the same order. There was no hint of hedonism here but on the other hand there was a suggestion of great sadness, an exploration for depths of our being. Against my wishes I was getting deeply involved. Could I fall in love with that beautiful and fatal creature?
It was not beyond possibility. Perhaps I could love her, or her doom-laden soul and thus walk into that abyss of tenderness from which no escape was possible. I could wander in that labyrinth forever tasting a drought of poetry and tragedy.
Her slender body moved forward like the flow of a river and I could hear some sort of music within ears of my mind. It might have been my imagination only but it was a symphony of many sounds and I could imagine all the subtleties of some complex musical composition.
She moved to the end of a chamber and through to another door leading into a corridor and then to where? I did not know.
She lifted her hand either to beckon me to follow her or a sort of adieu. I was in a dilemma and the spell was broken. My rational being exerted itself. To follow her into that unknown spell, perhaps to loose my liberty forever under goad of that enchanted phantom.
My passions started crumbling as if being dissolved in the waters. Heats of heart and hankerings of my soul were gone. I accepted my situation with some regret as though I did not want to struggle any more. I buoyed my body upwards.
The same force returned and it started pushing me upward, in opposite direction to its previous manoeuvres. Its movement increased and I began to rush upwards with great speed. Presently I was catapulted out of the pool with such a force that I fell outside the pool on the solid ground. I lost my consciousness temporarily.
I was lying on the shore and waves of Mediterranean were glittering in the sunshine. I forced myself to stand up. I was tired and hungry. I decided to walk to my holiday villa where I intended to prepare my meals to quench my growing hunger and then go to sleep, perhaps for days together. I was so exhausted.
Copyright © Durlabh Singh. 2015.
