The Journey of a Lifetime
I knew when the night started that I will always remember it through the rest of my life. I had parked my car beside a river somewhere in the mountains of Idaho after I was too tired to drive further (I was headed to Washington from Louisiana). It was around 10 pm that night. The sky was pitch dark but filled with twinkling stars, and I noticed one of them much brighter than the rest, which I, therefore, assumed to be Venus. There was no moon in the sky that night. I had seen a better view of the sky from a Texan desert the past summer, but this one is the purest view of nature that I have seen through by my own eyes: on a random corner of the world, filled with the nature of a forest and a river, all by myself, with nothing planned and nothing to do. Besides the stars, the only other source of light was the safety light blinking in my car’s dash and the lights from the passerby few cars. At this moment in time, who I am did not matter to myself, so all I was at that moment was a pure Experiencer of the cosmos. It was the night for me to look inside myself.
Before I started my process, I decided to get out of my car to light my half-smoked Coloradan pre-rolled blunt, the same one that I’ve been smoking for the past 3 days. As always with marijuana, a pleasurable feeling started to arise; but this time, there was a heightened sense of fear, so much that I began to panic concerning my safety, especially from bears.
I was not hungry because I had recently eaten a Subway sandwich; all that was left to do was to pass that night. I knew from my sane mind that animal threats were unlikely, so what I really wanted to do was sleep in order to stop the panic. But the harder I tried to sleep, the more intensely I began to wake up. The constant sound of flowing water filled the background; otherwise, the night was dead silent. I had unzipped my sleeping bag to get my feet out in case I needed to drive, with my glasses and phone in sight, but I couldn’t find my car keys. That took me through a rough moment of intense searching and panic.
I somehow find the car keys and decided to get out of the car just to look outside. Oh wow! The world is nothing but pitch darkness. Not a single source of light is alive.
As I came back to my car, I noticed the untidiness of my little home. With my mind fully occupied with the travel for the past week, I realized I did not even think about cleaning my car. I then start to move things around and organized a little bit, but while I came back to panic mode once again, I thought that I’d instead collect a few little thoughts for this moment.
I’m in the middle of a forest, which is a forest in a random corner of this world, alone, sleeping inside a car. My body is shivering with the cold and resonating along with my fear. Travel has consumed all of my strength, but then I started looking. While looking at the car dashboard, I realized that the universe was naked right in front of my eyes. Not the brightest sky I have seen, but the most naked one for sure. How will I ever forget Big Dipper which I saw right in front of me that night? It is fascinating how I was, am, and will always be beneath the stars.
I try to grasp the beauty of the heavens with a deep breath. The more breaths like that I took, the more relaxed I got. My body was still shivering but it was releasing tensions all over. Then I found no reason to waste time by sleeping in this quietness.
Everything is so simple: we just need to see it. Could you have heard the sound of the forest or the running in the background? Or the silence of my fear? When I opened my eyes to see this world, I pondered: is my day back in my town any different than today? But not much of pondering that I could do as the stars again distracted me. I want to weep at this softness of light and this beauty of nature, but only my little ego stopped me from doing it. So beautiful. Extremely beautiful.
And with the admiration came the most significant part of that night. I had an out of body experience (more from the situation than from the weed). In the next few passages, I am going to narrate myself speaking.
I have entered a level deeper within myself. What an entertaining level! I am looking head-on at myself. I am looking at myself from 10 feet above. But I am still in this conflict, in this fear, that I have forgotten the world.
Fear drove me to a completely different state of mind, and in a few moments, I was able to go even deeper than the fear itself.
At this moment in time, in this void, the being named Damodar left his body. He has begun talking to you the audience directly. Please keep listening to the show!
So are you all ready? The Self inside Damodar is about to speak. Please listen attentively.
Rethink upon the concept of directions. I used to imagine that I was on earth. That there is something above me, below me, and there’s something in the four horizontal directions. Which is indeed true.
Jumping back to the question of will: are we living in a world of deterministic world? Let us talk about a scenario where one is conscious. I am conscious right now, and I will ask myself this question: is this a deterministic world, or a world of free will?
The answer (after a few moments of thoughts), is, I do not know.
As I woke up the next day, I said to myself, “That was a hell of a night!” Seattle was still far away but within reach of about a day’s travel. Without wasting any time, I started my car to leave the forest and the river. As I started driving, I really started to think. A night like last night was a pure bliss given by the Gods to me, and I am sure that they give each individual something as an aspiration to live a satisfied life. I quietly appreciated nature and drove at full speed ahead.
