Trying to find my consciousness.

by rahul krishna vellore (India)

I didn't expect to find India

I feel confined inside myself, paralyzed. Random pictures flash in front of my eyes for a brief moment and then move away for another one to come in. It feels like a film reel inside my head is unwinding but I cannot hear anything. Depictions of life I have never seen or known before. It is starting to gain momentum. I try to make sense of the people and places in it. I recognize nobody. The images move faster and faster, it ends up as a strip of white light. The light blinds me and then everything is pitch black. I gasp. I wake up from a dream to find myself in another one. The darkness never felt this deep before. I sense my breathing getting heavier. I cannot see anything now. But I can hear something. Distant screeching noises and loud baselines. They have a strange melody to it. The music comes in waves. I trace it back to a rave I was at a couple of years back. But why is it coming back to me now? The sounds get louder and they are coming closer, it breaks my thoughts. Am I at the bridge between sanity and insanity? After all there is only a thin line between them. I wonder what lies beyond the reality of staying sane. What if there is no coming back. The sounds get louder and they are coming closer. I don't think I can bear this anymore. I don't want to. I have never ventured this deep before. The fear of getting lost in your own mind is terrifying. I need to make up my mind now or it may be too late. How do I get out? I see water. It's rushing in and filling the space around me as if I’m in a box. It fills the whole box. It is suffocating. Trying to live a bit longer on what could be my last breath of air. Someone taps on my shoulder. I look up. It's one of the volunteers. The meditation session is over. You get 20 minutes. They call it concentration. There exists a dream of a place. A land without laws that belongs to no one. A divine anarchy. Where men and women from all parts of the world come together to get in touch with their psychic being and be a part of the collective consciousness. They take up work and do it as yoga. They call this place Auroville - the future of the world in India. The morning sun came at me seeping in through the trees in the garden. There are 64 of us. All seated on stone benches. Complete strangers. The Geodesic dome called Matrimandir stands a brief walk ahead of us. They call it a place for trying to find one’s consciousness. The whispers settle in when a frail white woman in her 70’s walks in. She’s our guide for the concentration process. With a calm smile she starts talking. I take a deep breath and smile. I have been trying to find myself for quite a while now. Maybe, this place has the answer.