I FAINTED
From selling Vadapav to embracing nothingness, the exploration of identity, detachment, and the flow of life.
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Every time life felt like The End, it was the end of a tunnel.
An end is the beginning of something new.
I stopped selling Vadapav in the market.
I fainted. The body couldn’t not take the excertion.
Moved on to explore new opportunities. Saved my tired feet from breaking.
But I still feel connected to the marketplace.
I was making a dollar a day and didn’t find time to read and write.
Writing has been the only constant thing in my life, apart from watching one movie every day before bed.
This has been going on for 25 years, and it feels like second nature now.
If I want to understand something, I write.
If I understand something, I write.
But I learned a lot from selling Vadapav in the market.
One, it was not about the Vadapav; it was an urge to be in the marketplace. Vadapav was a medium of conversation.
Two, I don’t need Vadapav to be able to hold a relationship with the people; I am enough.
I still find myself reminiscing about the market place when I go to buy veggies.
The laughs, the lift of the eyebrows, the faces.
The love that they pour into my bag, I return with a smile on my face.
This is what was expected from life.
I want to move ahead with this thought.
There was a time in my life when I never left my room.
I was allergic to people.
Now that I have blended in the crowd, I recall how rigid I was.
I have many presumptions of how people are and how the world operates.
I felt that being born is to be victim to life.
People drain energy and dilute the mind
I was wrong.
It’s not about the people, it’s about you.
If you are still in your mind, your peace will be disturbed by the mind.
If you feel discomfort in your being, it is because you are not at peace with yourself.
If you feel like excusing yourself, you are not in harmony with your being.
I wanted to break these unhealthy patterns of the mind
I was craving a flow.
But I was under the impression that the flow will come if I halt the motion of life.
And in this notion, I sugar-coated the excuses with knowledge and reasons.
It required deliberate effort to simplify what I wanted to communicate with the world.
An attempt that will break the walls of the dam, to flow effortlessly.
I required conscious effort to recognise the person standing in front of me as an extension of my being.
Simplicity is the symptom of intelligence.
Spirituality encourages you to delve into the depth of your being.
But it often disconnects you from the world.
No matter what, you will be in the world until you have this body.
Renouncing the world and materialistic things is a half-baked idea of spirituality.
An idea of living a life instead of living it. It sounds unconventional and out of the books.
For me, going back to the marketplace was going beyond the idea of spirituality.
A place within and without that was new, unknown and unexplored.
Some people threw Vadapav on my face, saying, “This is the worst Vadapav I have ever had in my life.”
Some people received the parcel as if they had received Prasad (offering to the god).
People are found in between these spectrums.
Some praise, some curse, and some are not concerned at all.
This was an occasion of introspection.
In retrospect, these were all my emotions and had very little to do with people I met.
It was me looking at a reflection of my being in the world. And the people were just an instrument.
Their expressions were the reflections I was avoiding seeing for a long period.
I was meditating with the eyes closed on the nature of the mind to liberate it.
Once the mind was liberated, it was time for me to open my eyes and see the world for what it is.
Reflection.
I stayed detached from the reactions of the people and my own experience.
“Is it so?” was a common response I offered. Not further questions, no back answers.
Going to the marketplace is a journey of revelation of deep emotions.
Fragments that are still there even after the mind is liberated.
Like the woman’s body throws out waste after a birth.
The criticism was part of me, the appreciation was part of me.
There is nothing to affirm and nothing to reject.
It is in the moments of discomfort that something significant is revealed to us.
Until and unless the matter is not seen in the light.
The flaws that needed attention. The emotional turmoil needed attention.
When these discomforting emotions reveal themselves, acknowledge them, hold them for a while without any judgements and release without detachment.
This is the healing process that is learned by going to the marketplace.
Nothing was added, only released, to be more clear. Empty.
I have stopped going to the market.
I don’t call it the end, but for a while, my body is too tired to take on a tedious task.
I am listening to my body and the state of mind which needs to recover.
From the identity I have lost in the market. From the scares of removing excess from my being.
I want to rest. In my own being in my own company.
If the Vadapav effect is to happen again, it will.
I don’t have reservations about the future. I don’t have reservations for anything that is not absolute.
I feel ready for the change and change in the change.
I am ready to open up and let my vulnerability be seen.
It is not the identity that makes a genuine connection, as it is a facet.
It is genuine being and vulnerability that make us humans and allow connecting.
Because the open wounds are an opportunity to empathise and heal together.
The suffering I see in the world is seen within. The pain that I feel for someone is felt within.
The experience of the world is present because I am present.
Right here, right now, at this very moment.
I have lost everything. I have become everything.
Love.
No one prevails where love does.
Love is found when you lose yourself.
Lose to the ideas, concepts and rationality. To the shame of being exposed.
Take off the clothes of conditioning and lie on the back.
Relax as you fall into the lap of love.
This is the place where no one can give you anything.
This is the place where no one can take anything away from you.
This is the place of being, and this is the place where being dissolves into nothingness.
You will have many faces and many voices, but at the core, you will be empty.
Silence echoed into the silence, sounding like god.
I speak from the groundless place, I seek from the truth that is nothingness.
I have returned to the familiarity of being.
I don’t want to take life anywhere, I don’t want to drag myself anywhere.
Everything I need is here; everything that is needed comes to me.
I have stopped running.
Writing seems to be effortless. Simple. Love it.
When I reflect on the exercise of selling Vadapav, I no longer find remorse in the life that has been served every moment.
The soul is experiencing this life, and the body is the medium of experience.
The writing is what shines from the cracks of broken walls around the light at core.
I am back in the room. I write.
My consciousness has expanded beyond what I thought I was.
I no longer write, confided to my physical being and logical understanding.
The market is now part of my consciousness.
The people I meet are extensions of me.
I am exploring this newly found affection of the mind-body stream with the collective consciousness.
I am exploring new instruments to make divine music of the divine.
This spirituality is a celebration of life.
Before we learned to speak, we sang.
Before we learned to write, we drew.
Before we learned to walk, we danced.
Before we learn anything, we celebrate.
The point of learning is only to remember and learn where we come from.
Acknowledge the source and share the light with beautiful souls around you.
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Originally published at https://satyajett.blog on March 9, 2025.