We are already living in world where reason is becoming dangerous, where humanism and basic fairness is becoming a niche commodity, the last straw of courage we are clinging onto in hope that the tide will change.

The mob is in our homes, people we know, whose life journeys we know about. It is like suddenly they ate a pill which made them overnight into some other creatures we never knew existed. The thing is, it is happening across the world. Just slightly different in flavour based on the religion, politics or region. The stupidity, negativity, bigotry is unbelievable.

More and more I am finding that those who talk about culture, those who talk about religions are the least cultural and capable of the sacred. I am also steadily finding the sneering of those promoting the right wing, the falling standards of many so called left wingers, the not so neutral after all centrists, the unable to explain everything through science and hence defensive, the pseudo-explainers of everything science using religions, the fake peddlers, the over-explainers, the disbelievers, the cynics, the gullible, the do-gooders,the alarmists, the worriers, the pessimists, the optimists, the supposedly clever ones who get carried away with their social media power and personas... everything seems like just different brands of traps.

Right now none resonate. Not a single camp that I would like to belong to.  I don't care how you perceive me. Ultimately, I am what I feel deep within. What I resonate with or struggle with as inner truths.The more noise there is around, the more i am longing for the peace. For that inner anchor within. Not by escaping the noise or pretending it does not exist. But, find my inner calm right in the middle of the storm. I find it. I fear I may lose it. I find it again...Every single day, keeping things simple, holding the memory of the divine within alive and sacred and not getting swayed by all the chaos around, feels like the biggest meditation there can be. The only real work or effort I am capable of at the moment. It is taking all of me to just do that.

I realise that the many hurdles that has come my way till now has only led me to this one point - if everything I have known till now is taken away, what will I to be left with? How can I still recognize the sacred, the beautiful, the meaningful and know personally what that is? Before I dare to comment on the world, do I know who I am anymore? Can I comprehend in sensitivity and awareness what it is to be human anymore?

I feel raw. Unfinished. Ill-equipped. I need to look into the mirror, i need to look deep within. If i do not learn myself afresh , if i am defining myself with old definitions in a changing world, then how does it equip me?

I need to find my inner cave. Start my meditation. To connect to my source. And, know what aspects of the old me I need to keep, what to unlearn and what to learn anew. How can i assume that nothing has affected me? That I am not immune?

I used to see myself as a change maker before and I do not see myself as part of a mob ever so where is my place in the madness?

Irrespective of the chaos of the world, the challenges, the churn, ultimately I have to deal with me. The vulnerability of self-doubt fused with self-confidence is making me feel tremendously human again. It strangely has gifted me again great dignity and a sense of beauty in that state of fragility. I don't know anything anymore all the way.  About anything. Yes. The skills, The brains.The energy. The physical strength is still there. And, I don't need to know the end of the tunnel just as long as there is light along the way.

I can play the game of survival or continue to play the games I know very well. But that would be falling into old or new traps. This state of acknowledged vulnerability is gifting me a sense of realness which my confidence of knowing how to play the games the world demands do not.

This state is neither blankness nor despair nor cynicism. Just a complete surrender to the divine to speak to me.

What about you?

What is your inner struggle or state of mind at the moment?

Are you finding your inner cave?  

I realise the more I let go, the freer I become. Then, the cave becomes a refuge in a confused world.

I can just retreat to my inner cave.

- SS