I CAN THINK. I CAN WAIT. I CAN FAST.

 

“Through the dark, through the door,

Through where no one’s been before,

But it feels like home.”

From the song ‘A Million Dreams’

(Movie ‘The Greatest Showman’)

If I told you this: “Stop searching… Stop setting goals… Be like a river… Everything changes… Everything returns…” how would you react?

“Good for you”?

And, how would I react, when 17-year-old Aaditya, my twelfth-standard student, called me in the middle of last night, on getting a jhatka, that he should become a commercial pilot, and asked: “Sir, what do you think?”

“Beta, go to sleep”?

Yes, I precisely told my boy that: “Beta, go to sleep now; will talk about it,  tomorrow morning.”

Aaditya had asked me, if I knew anyone who had done this course. Of course, I knew a couple of them, including, both, commercial and  Airforce pilots. So, I could have pleased my boy saying, “Yes beta, I know some of them; I can connect you to them.” Yes, I could have put my young student to sleep with that assurance…

But, I wanted young man to wait… have patience… Know what it took to be a commercial or Airforce pilot… I wanted him to check if it had come from his clear thinking or just as a jhatka…

I wanted Aaditya to wait and sleep over it, at least, for a night!

Thus, this morning, at 9, the young man was to connect on Zoom for his regular Accountancy session. He had played a great deal of hide-and-seek in the past months. But, of late, I had noticed a significant shift in his attitude… He has been a brilliant kid; but, I was feeling sad when he would act very casually as if he was brainless and zestless… I had seen him changing his plans as he would change his undergarments – so regularly! The last time I saw him changing them was in the middle of last night, when, with a jhatka, he was in the cockpit of a jet!

 

“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”  These words were inscribed on the cover of Napoleon Hill’s classic, ‘Think and Grow Rich.” I was in my early twenties - a few years older than Aaditya - and I had come to Bombay ‘in search’ of my own dreams… I was full of self-doubts and suffered from a killing inferiority complex… I stayed with the family of one of my uncles, who had a hand-to-mouth existence.  So, I did not want to be a burden on them, with no job in hand and a million dreams in my head… I left home every morning and returned home every night… All along the day, I sat in the local trains, public parks and libraries, walked for miles, with no money to eat… tired, anxious… yet, dreaming my simple dreams… to be a fine teacher and a writer… I had found the used copy of ‘Think and Grow Rich’ on the footpaths of South Bombay… “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve!” The message had gone deep into my soul… It had settled there, like a rock!

So, today, I ask the same question: “How would I react, if someone told me, while dreaming like this – ‘Beta, stop dreaming… Life is like a river… etc., etc.”?

“Good for you”?

Practical life, to me, is practical philosophy. If I need to be one with God, I need to be one with myself, first… It took much more than Napoleon Hill’s famous philosophy to teach me why ‘Riches’ extended beyond the material riches of this world…

If you haven’t watched the movie ‘Siddhartha’ (An Indo-American production, 1972, directed by Conrad Rooks and acted by Shashi Kapoor and Simi Garewal), I highly recommend, you please do. It’s based on the famous novel by the same title written by Hermann Hesse (1922).

The protagonist, Siddhartha (Shashi Kapoor), who comes from a rich family, has set on his journey to discover who he is, who God is and what life is all about… It’s a powerful subject. One of our Workshop facilitators, Swami Brahmavidanada Saraswati (Shri Ram Mohanji) would, always, mention about this movie to our young Siddharthas, while holding the Workshop on ‘Handling Emotions’. There is a poignant dialogue in the film, and Swamiji would share it with the young ones... Siddhartha, on the recommendation of a courtesan (Simi Garewal), has come to seek an employment with a businessman (one of her clients). Here is the dialogue between the businessman and Siddhartha:

“What’s that you’ve learned; what you’re able to do?”

“I can think. I can wait. I can fast.”

“That’s everything?”

“I believe, that’s everything.”

Life had asked me the same question when I was dreaming to captain my own jet… Life ‘will’  ask the same question to young Aaditya, too…

If he can say what Siddhartha said – “I can think. I can wait. I can fast.”… by all probability,  his jet will take off…

Also, he will understand the true meaning of that paradox - “Stop dreaming… Stop searching!”

 

GERALD D’CUNHA

Pic’s: gettyimages

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