The Mountain View

"He who wants to do good knocks at the gate:
he who loves finds the door open."
- Rabindranath Tagore

The view from the mountain top is always the clearest. It's the most beautiful. This is where the air is the purest, where you get a complete 360 degree panoramic view, where you see with the utmost of clarity. The peak of the mountain is where everyone is eventually headed. This is where our freedom lies.

The task of climbing a mountain seems quite daunting and incredibly challenging at first. You think to yourself, how the heck am I ever going to get to the top. How am I going to climb the steepest of slopes, the sharpest of angles, and will I really be able to rest and sleep in the coldest of caves. What if my shoes tear or what if I break a bone. What if a bear comes after me and eats me. What if a big boulder comes sliding down the hill and smushes me to smithereens. What if I can't find anything to eat after I've eaten all the granola bars I packed in my backpack. Most importantly, what if I die?

So first you have to decide whether you want to even climb the mountain. Is it something you really want to do. Is it worth the risk? You have to say either yes or no. So let's actually do this. You have five seconds to choose yes or no. Ready? Go. One...two...three...four...five. Ok. If you chose yes, read on. If you chose no, God help you.

So now that we want to climb the mountain, we have to understand that the journey begins with the first step according to a famous Chinese proverb. So here we go. Start. Right foot, left foot, right, left. There! We already took four steps. See that wasn't so bad. We're at the base of the mountain. We're already making progress. By the way, I hope you brought lots of pairs of dry socks with you. Wet, muddy socks are no good on a mountain climb. I'm also assuming we have somewhat of a basic skill set in mountain climbing (this is all metaphoric of course.)

Next we have to realize that we will have to remain determined and focused. We will have to keep our goal at the forefront of our minds at all times (even in our sleep.) Our goal is to reach the top of the mountain. At no time can you say 'ok, there are worms climbing up my leg and into my buttcrack and I'm not enjoying this anymore and this was a bad idea and it's too hard, so I'm giving up and going back to the bottom of the mountain.' No. You made a commitment to climb the mountain so you have to do it. Whether it takes you five days or five months, you will have to climb the mountain. Nobody said it was going to be fun all the time. This is work, it's a challenge. No pain, no gain.

Then we have to realize that we will need to incorporate some strategy into our mountain climbing. We will need maps with us as well as pens and pencils, compasses, sharp sticks to clear away brush, a feel for the land and inclines, and a sharp eye for animals who may not like us trespassing their territories. Our minds will need to be sharp and our muscles will have to be strong. Oh yea, I just remembered about the insect repellant and bug sprays. Please don't forget those either.

Also, the journey will require patience. There will be work to do but there will also be times of rest and reflection, of literally just waiting around and watching the clouds go by. We may need to cross several mountain passes throughout the journey but there might be a herd of mountain goats who won't let us go through. We can say 'shoo' all we want but the goats may not move. We'll just have to make a request and wait until they finally budge. You might as well enjoy the break and take a nap or sing a mountain song of some kind. But there has to be a balance - a balance between action and resting, between action and surrendering.

Now, I will interject and speak as Anjali, my alter ego. I feel that at this point in my life, I'm pretty near to the top of the mountain. I made the decision to climb it. I packed a heavy backpack with lots of socks and granola bars (as well as bagels and hot chocolate) and I had with me a good skill set as well as a strategy as to how I was going to traverse the rough mountain terrain. It was hard. In fact, hard isn't even the word. It was arduously difficult and terribly painful at times and downright frightening. I missed many boulders by just a couple feet and quite a few bears didn't think I should stay alive. Many ants bit my ass and some mountain crows unfortunately thought I was dead while sleeping. However, I persevered. There were times I thought my legs would break from the hundreds of blisters and scratches and hours and hours of climbing I had to do. The thought of giving up definetely crossed my mind. But once you start, there is no point of return. You can't go back. The call for freedom is too strong.

But like I said I'm near the top, I'm not there yet. Because the thing I realized I've been missing is patience (I can't believe I'm actually admitting this. argh.) I'm not saying I didn't have any of it, but I didn't have enough. In fact, I very much despise this word. I don't understand why we have to have much of it in life. But I realized recently (or more like again someone helped me realize) that just because you have to wait for the mountain goats to pass doesn't mean that nothing is happening. It doesn't necessarily mean that you aren't making progress on the journey. It might actually just be a part of the journey and there is some kind of movement underneath what is appearing on the surface. You don't always have to move. You can't dance all the time, you can't sing 24 hours a day. You have to sleep, you have to eat, you have to reflect, you have to chill sometimes. You have to just be. You have to be patient.

I guess this seems pretty simple to most people however this is my personal challenge. I'm not perfect and I'm just a human being and like anyone else I'm just learning along the way. But it's hard. God gave me a lot of energy. It's hard sometimes to figure out what to do with it.

Ok the voice of Anjali is leaving now and the other voice is back. So another thing you have to keep in mind along the journey up the mountain is that you can't take anything that isn't yours. Like you might see some berries in a small field but you have to make sure that those berries are for the general public. That those berries are in fact for you to have and eat. If you see a bunch of berries say under a tree covered under some leaves, you better believe that some animal probably stored them there. You can't take those berries. You can only pick the berries off the stems of the berry plants.

Back to alter ego Anjali. So when I was a little girl, my mom would often make rasgullas which I really love, for dinner parties my parents would host at our house. She would make them for dessert beforehand to serve the guests and often warned me not to eat them when she stored them in the refrigerator. She made a little separate bowl for me and put it in the fridge and told me that I could have the rasgulles in the little bowl but not the ones in the bigger one for the guests: that it was strictly off limits. Only for the guests. But I love rasgullas. So much. How could I possibly have only a few. So I didn't listen to my mother. What ended up happening is that there was only a handful of rasgullas left in the big bowl in the refrigerator the morning of the party. My mom was never happy about that. The dessert was basically gone.

Anyway I truly felt deep down inside that no one would be able to appreciate the rasgullas as much as me. No one would be able to love them as much or as well as me. So I really didn't think the guests should have them. They were mine. The rasgullas always called to me. I couldn't help but personify the rasgullas and think that they loved me too. They wanted to be eaten by me and me only. What I realize further now is that the refrigerator door was open. It wasn't closed. The door of the refrigerator was open to me even though in practical reality it was closed. Only she who loves finds the door open.

Nature is not so simple to understand. Human nature. Mountain nature. They're just not simple to understand. You may have enough granola bars, bagels and mountain meat to keep your hunger satisfied, but by God if you see a bowl of red berries shining and glistening so bright in the Sunlight, would you pick them and eat them? What do you do. What should you do. Are you seeing them for a reason? Could they possibly be yours to eat?

Ok now Anjali is leaving and the other voice is back again. In any case, you have to continue onwards to the top. That was the goal. That is always the goal. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. If you look at alter ego Anjali over here, you will see that she made a bunch of mistakes along the way. She made assumptions about the degree of angles of certain inclines and ended up spraining her ankles as she tried to climb them. She took it personally that the crows tried to eat her even though they really thought she was genuinely dead. You must watch out for these traps. But don't be too hard on yourself. You're on this mountain to make mistakes.

And finally the last thing you have to remember is the following: you must be willing to defend and walk your journey at all cost. You might lose everything and everyone. You must be brave. You must live your purpose of reaching the top with courage and fierce strength. Don't let disappointment and discouraging situations bring you down. You must realize that this journey is to the top, to where the Truth is. This is where you will see yourself in the brightest of Clarities, in the deepest of Loves.

So it won't be too long before we reach the top. It won't be long before we get to enjoy the Mountain View.

It won't be long before we taste Freedom.