Spiritual Orgasm. Try it in the Workplace!
The last few years have served up heaps of humiliation alongside the fruits of self-realisation. It is as though I've been a victim of a carefully crafted conspiracy that took me further away from myself with every breath, since my first.
My only consolation is that I've ripped off the blindfold that I have to hold tightly in my hand lest it struggle free and slap itself back onto my eyes, blinding me again...and again...and again. Yes, it is a naughty blindfold.
I find it insulting to have allowed myself to answer to a name that I had no choice in being labelled with since an infant. It is degrading to know that at birth I inherited the whole universe but it was stolen from me and all I was left with is a small speck, called a country -- separated from everything and everyone by imaginary lines the drawing of which I had nothing to do with.
Had it not been for those lines I would have enjoyed such delights like Sushi, Masala Dosas, Idlis, Asado, Kangaroo Loin, Jiaozi, Gallo Pinto, Chech Goulash, Danish Smørrebrød, Mahaberawi, Escargot, Jägerbraten mit Spätzle, Dim Sum, Soto, Cicchetti, Cendol, Pozole, Tagine, Nacatamales, Ceviche, Lechon, Pwason Sale Rougay, Katong Laksa, Samgyetang, etc,. all before my 10th birthday and been all the richer for it.
School(?)ing progressively ensured the seeds of doubt and confusion. While Chemistry and Biology told me we were all alike and Physics said we are all atoms held together thus confirming we were all the same, every other subject insisted we were dis-similar. Hatred disguised as knowledge, insecurity dressed as competition made their way out of my school books and religion continued to insist 'my' God was better and more true than that of my neighbour. We call all this - "education".
Is it any wonder that I entered the 'workforce of the blind' with a zest to beg, borrow and steal all just to 'succeed'?.
I have poverty to thank for the isolation I found myself in during those friendless days in a land I saw as foreign. It gave me time to rethink and (very) slowly, after a great deal of questioning, the mist began to lift, revealing a new world with only me in it.
Eventually, the concept of 'others' vanished and I was left with myself, albeit in different forms. So, there is now no one to fight, disagree with, fear, criticise or profit from. The new 'collective' me just...watches and understands everyone and everything that is just all 'me'.
In the office, I am the water cooler, the chair, the janitor, camera, carpet, lights and so I treat what appear to be mere objects with the same care that I wish to be treated with.
I am the colleague, janitor, mailman, secretary, chairman, canteen boy and so I treat them exactly the way I would want to be treated and now what used to be purgatory is -- paradise. I am you. I am British, American, Indian, Japanese, Russian and every other nationality and, none too. I am the Hindu, the Catholic, the Protestant, the Muslim and every other religion, and none too. I am ecstatic that I am nothing and everything. I am. 'Look' and you too will see.
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