For a long time, I waited on the outside of a land called “Outside.”

I wondered if the invitation would ever touch my skin, whisper in my ears and kiss my lips.I shuffled my feet and wrung my hands. I tried to muster the courage to break open the door that led to a passageway of a million interior caverns. My conditioning, I found, was too strong and I was not enough, yet.

I reasoned with myself ad nauseam. How could I leave this limited, concrete, emaciated two-dimensional world behind?! I was raised to wake up every morning and desperately seek meaning in emptiness, on blank sheets of paper, thirsty canvases, half-empty glassesand coffee stained mugs.

I was cautiously advised to reconstruct my world from nothingness every morning, and to surrender it to the same vacuousness every night, and somehow accept that this was the travail of the living. I was trained to exist, but not live. Draw in oxygen, but not breathe. Move, but not pulsate like the ocean does with every rising wave.

Until one day, forever seemed too long to be waiting on the outside of Outside. For how many more lifetimes, must I shuffle my feet? How much longer must I bleed all my strength to contain the spigots within? Must I stay here and replay the mental uncertainty—projected from the core of my soul’s existence—ad infinitum? For how much longer must the animal within remain chained and collared, disciplined and domesticated so that it fits in?! How do you fit the length of an 11-foot beast inside a two-foot box? Why must you even attempt such an implausibility?! Why must you always sell yourself short at the souk of second-hand, moth-eaten items, riddled with an ancient dust under a tired sun?

And then one day, you cannot convince yourself anymore that the panacea you’ve been fatly fed on did not create distances within your organs and your thoughts, your will and your actions. The sonorous cadences on the idiot box have become the tautological announcements of your impending inner funeral.

The time to close all gaps arrives as a bitter medicine, but holding the promise of freedom your soul has long searched for, as you ask yourself if you can you settle for a world in which there are no answers, no invites, no festivals and no mindless distractions to participate in.

Are you ready, then, to step into the fruition of one grand fete—where the marriage of your soul, with the purpose it came to fulfill, is the only celebration to solemnize?

A grand fete, on a dark starry night where the continuous dance under white paper lanterns by a restless shore is the undulation of your body against that of God’s? And the host of this prodigious event is none other than your humble self.

So, now you have to decide to wrap your hands around the cold brass knob of this wonderland and step into that other world—where concrete is neither a word, nor a material to be found anywhere. A world where boundaries and walls have no place—where mental constructs, much like physical ones, have been abandoned, and everyone in this realm who dared to drop the cloak, walks at the pace of the Buddha and sometimes sprints into a mad jump, skipping across the endless openness. A world where rocks abound, so you can stop, reflect, smile and shake your head in wonderment and awe, as you rest upon one and muse at how life is created through you and in you.

A world where love is your raison d’etre and your primary language; devotion is your dance and freedom your creed. Where the night sky is a deep purple, and the diamonds it carries can be strung into a necklace around your throat, if you can only remember to acknowledge the One as you rub each of the brilliant, luminescent balls of fire between your tapered finger tips. A world where the morning sun is pure gold, and the echo of it settles like a garden of russets into the unseen distance. Streaks of joy in red and orange travel through the horizon and find a way into your capillaries, connecting at the most delicate points of existence.

Once you’ve melted with this gold, how can you ever go back to the blanched plainness of morbid mind and dark suits? You know you’re cursed if you don’t, and you’re cursed if you do.

Some burn with the joy of a phoenix, willingly abandoning itself to the fire, while others screech in horror and disdain because of the loss—their constant annihilation and into sadness.

There are many doors that open to enchanting places and deadly pyres.

Choose yours wisely.

 

 Tania Kazi is a yoga aficionado, a blossoming vegetarian, a wellness enthusiast and a lover of books. She has studied International Relations, worked at a think-tank, and served the corporate monster only to find that healing the human soul is where her passion lies. When she is not reading or writing feverishly, she is getting soaked in central park with her daughter under the sprinklers, taking or teaching a yoga class, immersing in meditation and making green juices!

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Editor: Jennifer Spesia

 

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