Crossroads: Part 1

 Crossroads: Part 1

It is difficult to say where exactly I have arrived in time. It feels relevant however to take a look into the past and acknowledge where I stand at the moment even though I do not understand fully where the road turns from here. A turning point of some sort seems to have arrived though. 

I was reading a post on the life of Dr Anthony Fauci. Growing up in the family of a pharmacist in Brooklyn how he played basketball at school, made it through medical school and carved a distinguished career as an infectious disease specialist leading the nation through multiple pandemics and facing unfair political pressures despite a career marked by competence, dedication and integrity. 

It made me compare notes with my own journey. There is no comparison whatsoever. 

Yet his journey served to shine light on how, in general, lives differ. His was a life that had focus from an early age. Mine was just the opposite. Focus came much later. His career remained his focus. The work that came out of that career left a lasting impact on a larger audience. For me the inner journey became the focus. Career was one of the outer, secondary tools to guide me in the inner journey. So were the other outwardly identifiable things in my life, just tools towards a different end. My search went deeper and deeper inwards, purging several unwanted things from within as the enquiry made progress. It was and is difficult, perhaps even impossible, to be recognized by anyone even watching me closely. 

This journey was never focused on being recognized. Recognition, or lack thereof, did play a role in affecting the psychology through the journey at some stage, but there wasn’t disappointment or a sense of failure stemming from such lack of recognition, precisely because recognition was never a goal to begin with. It was sometimes perceived as a human need but it wasn’t difficult to be shrugged off because there were always more important things that took the attention. The goal remained singularly about reaching the spiritual core, whatever it was understood to be at every stage. 

So here I am today with a very ordinary repertoire and curriculum vitae that has nothing to tout in the midst of remarkable people. It makes me shrink when someone invites me to speak to young audiences and “inspire” them. This happened a lot when I carried the message of Preventive Medicine during my work in India. I fail miserably to inspire because there is an emptiness in me in terms of the currency recognized by the world around me. I can’t give them anything valuable in their currency.

I watch people. People from all walks of life. All ages. Educated and illiterate. Employed and unemployed. Powerful and helpless. Physically strong and disabled. I see creatures like ants, flies, spiders, snakes, dogs, cows, bison, deer, tigers, lions, ravens, eagles and others. In each I find so much more than I have in myself. No I don’t feel worthless. I don’t feel inferior either. I just don’t feel like I have anything special that I can offer to these remarkable beings. Except a heap of insights. 

And yet, those insights appear to be worth not even a penny. And this feeling is increasing by the day. It is a strange feeling of discomfort gripping the mind when sharing the insights. On one hand, they are the only thing I have to really share with the world, or should I say, the only truly thing of value to share with the world. 

And writing is the means I had chosen until now to share those insights. But not sure anymore if even that is the best way for sharing insights or there is any better way. Silence is a better way. Yet silence cannot be interpreted by many. And at some point, silence runs into the same problem as words. It gets totally misunderstood.

Therefore, one is compelled to employ a rather curious synthesis of silence and words to convey insights for the best chance to be understood. Not just silence, because that often gives an impression of being obstinate and disapproving. Not too many words, because ultimately they begin to sound condescending and insincere. 

There is perhaps no better way to allow being understood when talking to a person in their physical presence. The tone, the body language and the ability then and there to clarify what is being said until it is understood, simply is not possible when writing/reading.

My day spent with patients for the few days I work these days seems to validate this point more effectively than it is doing as I am trying to say it through words at this moment. 

Just in the four hours I worked today, I saw 10 or 11 people. Each had come for an entirely different problem. Each had his/her own way of looking at things and own set of expectations regarding how the problem would be addressed and resolved. I certainly did not have an answer to solve every problem. Yet, just by listening to them, and through the minute by minute direct interaction, I was able to make an entry into their mind and gain acceptance and reasonable agreement regarding what direction to proceed to solve the problem. The earnesty, willingness to bend in order to understand the other person’s point of view and palpate the sentiment and fears behind the spelled out problem, the response from my side as the perceived “problem solver” that is supported by this “earned” understanding through the dialogue so far, through confident professional experience spoken in measured and articulate words, and the humility which sends an unmistakable message that I am not God, I am also someone with my feet on the ground like you, and we are going to work together as a team to solve this problem so you have a good outcome. A confession that I can, in no way, promise the ultimate outcome, nor guarantee the exact timeline for that favorable outcome to happen. All this to be achieved in that short time is not coming from calculated moves but from instincts and learning that accrued by doing the same thing over and over for three or more decades. 

Amongst the people I saw today there were young people, men and women between the ages of 18 to 25, middle group between 30s to 50s, and older people between 70-90s. 

One of them was a 20 something year old transgender female ( biologically male) who was accompanied by her boyfriend and had come with bleeding from the rectum. A medical problem located in an anatomical area that, as it is, becomes a sensitive issue for a professional to examine and discuss, now made additionally complex because of the patient’s demographics/gender orientation issues. I had to ask several sensitive questions to understand the possible cause of her bleeding, I had to ask permission to physically examine. The patient did not want to be examined, but was appreciative that I had allowed her to make the choice without putting pressure or objecting to her decision. Then within the limitations of the information gathered without an actual physical evaluation, I had to put forward my recommendations to stop her bleeding based on a presumptive diagnosis. At every step my eyes were mindful of the body language of the patient and her partner, making note of their comfort level and increasing trust in my words conveyed entirely via their body language. For a woman of my ethnicity,age and a more conventional sexual and gender orientation and identity, to allow a sense of trust and acceptance to emerge between herself and two white American youngsters with such unconventional sexual orientation and gender expressions, is a rather Herculean task at first glance. But despite my underlying nervous caution, it proved to be a successful effort. The duo was happy with the appointment and the suggestions that were given. And all this despite the fact that the actual patient not even once made direct eye contact with me! Her eyes remained lowered looking into her lap as she sat there. But the satisfaction with the appointment still came through her body language as we wrapped up the visit. Through nods and words and tone. This was just one patient appointment.

I had a woman in her late 80s whose chief complaint was “ stress “. Stress over her husband’s declining cognitive abilities. I knew exactly what she is going through and found the exact words that she needed from me. I wasn’t qualified to counsel her for the actual stress. She would need that counseling from a behavioral health professional and I gave her the information to reach them. But despite this limitation, a heart to heart talk and sharing personal insights I was able to give her the comfort she really had come seeking from me. I knew a few things she needed in her situation which is to secure financial paperwork and also build a personal support network. These are things learned from the decades of work that is called a career, and also learned from a personal life that was lived. I saw the same sense of fulfilled expectations on her face when I took leave of her. 

Then there was a fiesty 81 year old  I saw today, who had come with her daughter who probably was in her late 50s or early 60s. The patient had lost her husband last year and within months after that, lost her daughter in law and later her son. The daughter was concerned that her mother was showing signs of mental decline. The mother was defiant about her daughter’s involvement in her matters. I could see that complicated mother daughter dynamics and it was familiar!! I knew exactly how, fiercely independent mothers and daughters navigate their relationships with these personalities, and how the dynamic works, and the unique challenges it poses. I was treading very cautiously every moment as I heard both sides, watched the messages they were each sending my way through non verbal methods and kept interjecting very carefully to bridge the gap between their stands over the subject. In the end both the women gave me signals that I had not disappointed them. 

These three examples are just the most complicated of all patients I saw in my day’s work today. The rest of them were not entirely straightforward, they were just easier than the other three. All of them needed the same “presence” in me to understand the person in front of me and palpate their core in order to make a difference to them. I couldn’t enter any room without this “presence” and a fresh sense of purpose. 

Behind the success of each interaction was, however, something much more than the sense of purpose and attentiveness. It was the certificate of authenticity that came with all the years spent in spiritual enquiry. The certificate is invisible and beyond the scope of being completely described in words. Yet the simplest way to describe it is the underlying realization that the person in front of me is simply another version of me. This realization is silent in the back of the mind. It becomes apparent only from time to time when mind goes quiet and thoughts about events and experiences just subside. That’s when the realization appears and reminds me I was not talking to another person. That other person I paid attention to was me in a different form. Together we found a way. Together we sought meaning. Together we found comfort. Together we existed in that moment.

This real time experience is what is missing when I go just writing my thoughts. I wrote about the tiny lizard I saw yesterday. That lizard was not much different from these people who I met today. As it stood on that road watching my move, I could palpate the existential threat in its mind. I was making a silent conversation with it, while admiring its unique intriguing presence. A sense of protectiveness towards it had naturally come into me in that brief moment. I was a threat to it but even if it did not or could not read my mind, I felt an obligation to protect that tiny life and ensure it disappeared into safety within the short time that we had together by a mere stroke of chance. In that brief moment again, what was playing in the background was the sense that we were one entity in different roles. The conversation was entirely non verbal here between one species and another. But a conversation happened. A purpose was palpable. A purpose that carried justice on its shoulders. Justice that both of us had a right to exist. To help each other in whatever way we could. And not expect anything in return. Just keep moving where life takes us. A sense of equality where I didn’t think I was more entitled or superior to that little guy or gal whose life journey had made it put on the garb of a lizard. Yet I could use my better judgement to guide it to safe ground because I was in a better position to see that and do that . 

How does one offer these insights without actually letting them flow out of you in a present moment context? They lose their value when written as an essay. The value is even further diminished when you post the essay on social media or talk to a bunch of people sitting in a big auditorium. The person giving a “talk” is not the same person in the room with the real patient or that woman on the street with a lizard that no one else could notice. The person giving the talk or writing a memoir is already another person who has lost the steam that was present in the moment the experience was happening.

In other words, I am realizing the ineffectiveness of writing. And beginning to see how the real difference any person can make is by actually living life and experiencing oneness with creation. That oneness can be reached by believing the words of those who ventured to reach that point. But just the words can’t get you there. At one point, faith and belief must be left behind and, like a butterfly emerging from a caterpillar, become direct experience. Writing is my way of paying forward the debt of the sages. Even though I know that my writing cannot lead anyone to the final destination. Even though I know that by the time my experience becomes a thing of the past the words are already hollow. Yet they have to be documented. 

It is the sadness that can’t be expressed fully. The sadness about leaving such hollow words for anyone. As if I ate a fresh meal and saved leftovers for someone else. 

The joy will return when every soul starts savoring a fresh meal by themselves. 

Tukaram Maharaj said:

आम्हा घरी धन शब्दांचीच रत्ने !

The wealth in my home is the gems in the form of words.

Why am I seeing these words differently today? Why do they seem so worthless? Why does it seem like the “real” thing within them is already extracted and now just the juiceless husk is left behind?