When one meets a close and dear friend after a gap of over 40 years, the fleeting emotion that transpires, is as difficult to describe as what a fruit salad tastes like to someone who has never eaten one before. It was 1982 when we said goodbye. The 2-hour talk-a-thon session that followed turned out to be perhaps the luckiest stroke of good fortune, for me, and maybe for those who may happen to read this story. This conversation, which actually turned out to become a sort of “interview”, was with my friend Art. I call him that because he has a book out called “The Art of how to Become a Human Being”. I chose not to disclose his name simply because he hails from a very famous and wealthy family, whose fortunes have been derived from his father’s long career as a prominent and power-mad politician. Art always felt a little bit uneasy about the fact that every one of his friends always hid this fact behind a mental screen: the suspicion that all this money was not hereditary, or not altogether derived from commercial sources. Me: Tell me, briefly, what your soon-to-be-published book is all about. What is the first criteria that you would consider as the most important factor of becoming human?
Art: Compassion. Complete concern and awareness about everything we experience with our five senses and perceptive faculties. Our Earth is created to an infinite degree of perfection, completely self-sustaining, yet completely supportive of every living creature, from the tiniest, most miniscule microbe, to the tallest of trees and animals. This includes the oceans and skies and global weather patterns. Our entire planet is indeed one immensely great organism. For that matter the entire Cosmos is just one great infinite form of boundless energy.
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Me: And what about Governance and the welfare of Human Societies?
Art: This is the one single and most crucial aspect, or quality, of human existence, and not for just humans but for every single molecule and every single sub-atomic particle in all of creation. We, as humankind, have been selected, singled out, and we have been given the supreme gift of infinite knowledge, intuition and divine perception that exists within each and every one of us. This faculty that exists as our brain has been developed through millions of years of evolution.
Me: How do we go about best using this remarkable tool we all possess?
Art: Being non-critical of anyone and everyone and everything. Every person only believes that what every action they perform, is alright by them. We need to see perfection in all that we experience, emotionally, mentally and physically. In a perfect Universe, what is there to accept, and what is there to reject?
Me: But there are numerous unwanted and undesirable problems like destitution and disease that so hopelessly inflict nations and societies and the environment all across the world. Where lies the problem?
Art: Ignorance. We are truly unaware of who we really are. This is our first and only duty: to find out who we are. Who created us, from where have we come and to where are we going? Asking these questions, we soon begin our transformation into humans. And soon we begin to find the answers to everything.
And then there is corruption, the direct offshoot and first cousin of ignorance, which is the most destructive disease afflicting all humans and all creatures alike. We need to understand that removing corruption and all the corrupt elements and the greed that they are cursed with, will soon bring about a way of life on our entire planet that is the birthright of every human, animal, insect and plant gifted to us with love by our mother, our Earth.
Me: Mankind has been under a yoke of pain and misery wherever and whenever we look, from the very fringes of the history of Creation. Is there an end to all this in sight?
Art: Of course, we are on a learning curve, an inevitable evolutionary process. It may seem slow, and of course we have every right and hope to speed up this promising process, but it can be done. We keep eluding the fact that we possess every ounce of energy and knowledge needed to solve and correct all the undesirable obstacles that continuously obstruct our progress towards that golden horizon. But it does take courage, confidence, character, concentration and a focused, unwavering will to accomplish everything, and anything, we so desire.
Me: Towards what platform should we elevate our plans, so that we can collectively and successfully launch our future endeavors dedicated to bringing about a life that we all desire?
Art: We all need to live our lives with the attitude to attain the life we are all destined to live, for everyone and everything, willingly, tirelessly, with total awareness. If you have chosen to follow the path, and if you sincerely believe that you have the ability and desire to govern the citizens of your country, or of the immediate community, plunge into the opportunity and achieve a way of life that offers nothing but unlimited fulfillment and joy of living. This is perhaps also the answer to why we are actually here, on this Earth, this most amazing planet at this particular moment in time.
At this point I felt it was time to wrap up this truly wonderful conversation. Art, showing signs of jetlag from his long 18-hour flight from New York, ended by telling me the reason why his attitude to life took this turn towards concern for other people’s suffering. He said: “After living most of my former days in the lap and embrace of prosperity and an abundance of anything and everything I wished for, within my own home, which became a center of conspiracy and deceit, I witnessed firsthand the cause and effects of the evils of corruption. Wrong, wrong, I thought”.
(The author is now a permanent resident of Goa after living for many years in Mumbai, New York and London)
