by Sudipta Das
They thanked me. Ket welcomed me saying, “It’s a privilege to have you as our honoured guest, Doctor.”
Thereafter, I took their leave for the day, leaving them in their mutual loving company.
5
Love Divine
Thus Kit and Ket blissfully settled down in each other’s companionship and happiness descended upon the humble hamlet. The fragrance of their love energised every element around them. Their incredibly subtle rapport was particularly evident when they sang. I often heard them spontaneously singing these amazingly melodious duets even as they did their respective chores. Even though I had just started to learn their Hoo language a bit, I could not comprehend the exact meaning of the lyrics. Nevertheless, I could make out from their expressions and their application of the notes that these were love songs. One particular of these duets sounded incredibly beautiful to me. So, Kit translated the original lyric for me, from the Hoo language to English. It goes as follows:
Because of Thee-
I be.
At every single moment,
Thou makest me.
Thou art Divine
And so is me
And so is all
That me-shares with Thee.
With Thy
Selfless love,
Transform me
Into a peaceful dove.
Let Thy spark
Fire my resolve-
To embrace all-
Below, at and above.
Play me
As Thou playest Thy flute-
And let Thy work
Be done through me.
Blissful presence eternal
And for ever free;
Thou art in me
And me is in Thee.
Because of Thee,
I be.
The original lyric in the Hoo language rhymes, rhythms and recites even better. Is this expression of love? Or is this worship? Or is this both, each merged into the other? I wondered.
One of these days, Kit told me, “You know, Doctor, all love, affection, pleasures and even transient, apparently silly, infatuations disseminate from the Divine. The differences are only in the level, degree and form. The Divine,
out of His love, manifested as the material and the subtle forms of this universe. From that instant ‘time’ came into existence. Therefore, it is only natural that the various components of the universe would exhibit that affinity among themselves, everything and everyone being of the same Divine essence. Mother, father, sister, brother, daughter, son, friend, lover, the Divine appears in all the forms to give and receive His love. The Lover is Divine, the Beloved is Divine and, in a subtle form, Their Love is also Divine.”
“Of these, one form of love has stood out as the most chronicled in the folklore, mythology, memoir, art, literature and legend of every culture; that between the lover and the beloved,” I commented.
Kit nodded, smiled and said, “That is because the spontaneous love of the lover for the beloved has a striking feature. It is neither created nor caused by any deliberation by the lover or evoked by any particular quality in the beloved. Though rare, it just strikes you and when it strikes you, you know that it is there, as if, it has always been there hidden somewhere and under the right conditions, at the right time it manifests itself in its most delightful manner. Just as this love cannot be created, neither can it be destroyed. The Hoo history stands as evidence that, sword cannot cut this love, fire cannot burn it and water cannot dissolve it. As you know now, it remains undiminished from a thousand kilometres away, even from light years away, from another corner of the universe through eternity.
“I am lucky that I got struck by this pure love, a great gift directly from the Divine. When it happened to me, as I swayed and swung in its enormous descending and ascending waves of struggle, dismay and sheer ecstasy,
I knew for sure that the Supreme Lord had just opened up an avenue to lead me directly unto Himself; an opportunity for instant divinisation, spiritual ascent and ecstasy.
My love leads me to the being of my beloved and, through the beloved, to the Divine Unity that lies behind.”
They had tremendous respect for each other’s colour. Sometimes Kit made a blue choker with the dried skin of a kind of blue creeper and wore it around his neck. Ket would extract the pigments of a wild fragrant scarlet flower and put on a red colour spot between her eyebrows. The red spot contrasted beautifully with her deep blue eyes. Sometimes, she wore a stitch-less red bordered white cloth that was found in the old chest.
Usually, they bathed in the morning. Then they engaged in alignment to their respective Deities and recited these wonderful sounding verses in their Hoo language. Thereafter, they had their breakfast. Kit devoted the next few hours to his work in the field. In the evening, he worked for the harmony of the race. The work that Kit aspired to accomplish was formidable; to create a book that would dispel the apparent contradictions in the externalities of the different colours and reveal the subtle unity of their underlying principles. But, Ket remained by him like an unshakable and unflinching pillar of support, a fountain of pure inspiration. Sometimes she ran her delicate fingers through Kit’s luxuriant hair, caressed his face and reassured him saying, “Lord Intha is always with us and He will surely allow you to do His work. I am so fortunate that I am witnessing His work being done through you, my love!”
Then Kit would say, “Like a piece of straw following every movement of the waves in a stream and like the pebbles that roll beneath it, I have been following the proprieties that this external world threw up at me at every moment. Giving little heed to the world that is within, I took this externality for granted and have ever been serving it thus. Little did I realise that the One, who is within, is the Soul Divine, the very projection of the Supreme Being. Hidden behind the veils of illusion, the call of the Divinity from within the heart has mostly remained unheard. At your very advent, my love, the illusory curtains were dispelled at once and the pristine light of truth came through. In your association, the inner call has become so loud that it can no longer be ignored. It has become so obvious and it is amazing how it remained hidden for so long.
“Now, I realise that you are no weakness of mine, but strength. There is no falling but only awakening and arising in this love. My dear Ket, you embolden me to take on the external anomalies from inside out.”
Ket’s catalytic effect on Kit’s psyche expanded his consciousness manifolds and in all dimensions; in height, in width as well as in depth. Rapidly, he grew a new colour changing Hoo tail. His unique eight feet long tail turned to the colour of the Colour Deity to which he aligned and submitted himself. At times, his tail became invisible altogether when he aligned himself to his own internal Self. Kit would fervently maintain that every Hoo was potent to develop such a tail if it could understand the unique essence of each colour and realise the relativity that exists among the colours. According to him, a Hoo only needed to remain pure and unattached in its mind in order to be able to achieve these. What he did not say, however, was that a Hoo is required to be perseverant like him as these things do not happen overnight.
I became so motivated by Kit’s awe inspiring achievements that, for months at a stretch, I committed myself to alignments and submissions to their Colour Deities. Kit readily helped me with these. These alignments brought me internal peace. But, in spite of my sincere efforts I did not develop a tail. After all, they are an alien race and I am a human being. Humans do not develop tails.
I had read in Kit’s diary that, Kit and Ket had first met as children in their classroom. A few years after that, they had to part when they were boy and girl. They had remained separated for many years. The experiences that they had gone through during their years of separation were vastly diverse. Now, they had a chance to exchange those experiences and thus enrich themselves. These two love-birds often engaged in confabulations on various topics, from the most trivial to the most intense and illuminating. Of course, they also talked about the
ir mutual personal affairs and freely expressed their feelings for each other.
Even after hours of such verbal engagement, they remained so fresh, jolly and animated that it seemed as if they had just started talking. However, these seemingly effortless discourses were much more than mere sweet pastime. Their mutual affection caused each to eagerly listen to and instantaneously internalise what the other had to say. Even the points of differences were sweetly harmonised by their spirit of mutual acceptance. At times their discussions brought forth such wonderful wisdoms as well as their own realisations.
Listening to them, I sometimes thought that, they were tailor-made for each other by the Supreme and united by His master design. Each was perfectly aware of the other’s mind. At times they seemed like one mind in two bodies.
Neither of them imposed any condition on the other. This freedom was a key to their relationship. Kit had once sagely said, “In freedom, flourishes love.”
Being a psychologist, sometimes I wondered, if their love overtly appears so intense and beautiful, how do they conceive, perceive and feel this love in their own minds and in their hearts?
I did not have to wait for long to get the answer. One day, during a leisurely stroll through the field, Kit dispelled my curiosity. What he said that day, in a nutshell, is as follows:
Their unconditional and unselfish love for each other exalted their consciousnesses and filled them with the love and the bliss of the Supreme Being. Their love bears the same qualities and is of the same spiritual matter as the love of the Supreme; unilateral, unconditional and unselfish.
The Supreme is not only the Parent as well as the Creator of this universe but It is the universe itself. Its love for Its children, for Its creation and for Itself, is unilateral. No matter what we, Its wards, commit or omit, Its unconditional love for us never ceases. The Supreme has nothing to gain from us but It never fails to shower Its unselfish love upon us.
Their consciousnesses were always filled with the delightful existence of each other’s being. Even their physicality culminated into super sensuous bliss. When they united in love embracing each other, their tails tangled. Their deepest secrets were revealed to each other. There was no sense of having and taking in either one of them; only an acute desire for giving. Each was pleased at the other’s pleasure. Then their consciousnesses played, mingled and merged into a tango of super sensuous bliss and their souls became one inseparable whole full of such ecstasy that easily subordinated all other pleasures. Such is the prize of unconditional and unselfish love.
Lover, Beloved and Love itself, all became One, each of the three being of the same kind and of the same spiritual matter. They were thus divinised.
The Supreme is love.
Love is the Supreme.
The Supreme loves love.
Kit also told me that their love was a precious gift directly from the Supreme and that it had a special purpose for its existence. With the fruits of this love they would have to serve the entire Hoo race.
Their love has fascinatingly combined the two and elevated their finite consciousnesses so high that they have become infinitely more powerful, I realised.
6
The Twins
The outcome of their divine love could only be divine. About a year after their marriage, they were blessed with two angelic twins, a female and a male. The arrival of the twins immediately added new dimensions to their bliss and brought in lifestyle changes. Now Ket devoted all her energies in attending to her babies. Kit helped her and did most of the outdoor chores.
Like all newly born Hoo babies, the twins were tail-less. They grew up pretty fast. In a year and a half, they were walking, talking and, perhaps taking a cue from their parents, even singing. Ket taught them to address me as uncle. They became friendly with me. Sook, their son, and Soor, their daughter, were born with the perfection, which Kit and Ket had aspired for and had realised through their life long endeavours, alignments and prayers. In the Hoo language, Sook means tranquil, serene, equanimous, stoic, and those were exactly the qualities that Sook exhibited. The unshakable calmness of his mind enabled him to have tremendous power of concentration. Nothing in and around him could distract his composure unless he allowed his mind to veer from the point of his focus. He could effortlessly remain focused on an object for days at a stretch.
Soor, on the other hand, means sublime delight, affection and beauty in the Hoo language. Those were the perfected nature with which their daughter was born. She spoke sweeter than the sweetest bird that you may have ever heard. She was so endearing that the lotus-like transparent crystal flowers blossomed and turned their faces towards her whenever she passed by them. The six-winged rainbow flies merrily hovered around her. The little pic birds ceased their quarrelsome chirping and sang in unison with her whenever she sang. The very breeze became fragrant in her delightful presence.
It was amazing to see how the two alien beings happily raised their twin offspring; that life could be so simple and yet, bliss could be so blissful and ecstasy so ecstatic! The heavens descended on their hamlet and they lived in it like the heavenly beings, the gods and the goddesses.
One day, the eternal lad, Sook, said to his mother, “O Ma, you have taken so much pain in bearing me and my sister, Soor, and to bring us to this world.”
Ket lovingly replied with a smile, “My dearest, it is true that I went through the pleasure, the toil, the exhaustion, the anticipation and the apprehension while bearing you and the extreme physical pain when you were born. But then, when I saw your faces for the first time, my entire being was filled with this utter, immense and super-sensuous bliss which easily surpassed all the previous experiences. I earnestly thanked Almighty Intha for blessing me with you.” Then the mother kissed the lad on his forehead.
Sometimes I told the twins about Earth and humanity. They heard me with curiosity in their innocent eyes.
Their serious education though, naturally came from their outstanding parents.
One of these days in the morning, Ket called out at them, “Come to me dearest children, today I shall tell you how the blue Inthadians align themselves to their deity, Intha.”
The tiny tots huddled towards their mother. Ket lit a blue torch and fixed it on the ground. Then, pointing her gorgeous long blue tail towards the torch she said, “Follow me as I demonstrate. First face the blue light of Intha. Now, with the tips of your right fingers touch your foreheads. Focus your concentration in your heads, the seat of your intellects. Pray that the infinite knowledge of Intha expands your intellects.
“Then lower your right hands and touch the centres of your chests, wherein is enshrined your hearts, the centres of your affections. Focus in the heart of your hearts. Pray that Intha may fill your hearts with His all-encompassing love.
“After that, move your right fingers to touch your left shoulders and draw the fingers horizontally to your right shoulders. These horizontal lines represent the balance between your heads and your hearts. Pray that Intha may bless you with this most important balance and thus, guide you through your lives from within yourselves.”
Another day, the kids gathered around their father to learn the technique and secret of alignment that is more akin to the Isthadians. First, Kit gave them a brief discourse about a broader perspective of the colours saying, “The knowledge of the blissful truth of the Divine, who reside in every heart, mostly remain unknown to the Hoos. Most of them often quarrel about the external forms of the colours without understanding their underlying essences and principles.
“The mind space is like a lake. To be able to see what is at the bottom of this lake, the water must be calm and bereft of all motion. But the external stimuli enter the mind space through the senses and raise the waves of impressions, which make the water of the lake turbulent. Therefore, our task is to calm and quiet the mind. To do this, the great Hoo Originators have devised the different colours and advised different techniques of alignment. The aim of all these techniques is the same; to r
ealise the Self Divine.
“The Isthadian technique is like this. First, take a comfortable posture and physically align yourself to the red colour deity, Istha. Then close your eyes and detach your mind from the senses by focusing on your breathings and thus, still your nerves. Next, stop all the mental activities and switch off the noise of thoughts in your mind.”
The kids carefully listened and followed their father’s instructions.
Kit continued, “Now, after you have detached yourselves from your physical and mental beings, remain as a mute neutral observer of what is going on in the mind. Do not try to do anything deliberately. If you continue to follow this method regularly and persevere for long enough, one day, you will surely discover the ever effulgent Divinity in the heart of the heart of your own Selves.”
After the alignment session, Kit sagaciously advised his children, “My dear kids, remember that the Hoo Originators revealed the different colours and methods that worked the best for their respective Selves in their respective times and places. All the external forms, suggestions and colours are there only to help you as props. Ultimately, it is entirely up to you to decide which colour or combination of colours you want to pursue to uniquely realise the divinity of your own Self.”
Kit once told Ket, “What is the use of giving only lip service to the cause of the universal whole while overly contaminating our offspring with the limited and partial impressions of existence, which we have unavoidably inherited as a legacy of the past?
“It is perhaps more a matter of inevitability, than anything else, that while a newborn Hoo grows up, it naturally imbibes the colour in which it is born and brought up. By the time the child reaches adulthood, a major portion of its consciousness is already filled with the essence and the culture of the colour. Moreover, through the habits grown over years of conditioning, particularly during the early, tender and impressionable years, the colour, consciously, subconsciously or unconsciously, affects not only the Hoo’s thoughts, words and actions, but also every other aspect of its being. Thus preoccupied with its own colour, the individual Hoo being becomes un-accommodative to the other colours in its mental space. So, often one becomes biased and prejudiced, without even being aware of it, as the colour percolates and sits deep within one’s psychology and controls one from there.