The Interlude

The Interlude

You have been on a long vacation I suppose, someone kept repeating and I was woken up from my long period of silence. Is the speaker addressing me? I wondered and looked around to find him. As I kept looking around, intensity of the voice increased and said you are still looking around. Look within you from where I am speaking. I was taken by surprise and turned my eyes inward. The voice seemed to emanate from unfathomable depths and slowed down as if guiding me gently. That’s good, step in slowly, it said as a parent encourages its child and I stepped in. The path was known, traversed earlier, the only difference being that it was less traveled in the recent past. What seemed to be narrow and dimly lit in the beginning became wide and clear as I went on and the voice said again See! This is where you belong to. Where have you been all this while?

I have been exploring I said and continued without waiting for a response from the voice. I have been exploring I repeated, the external world and its influence on me; its relevance to the path chosen by me and testing my strength to disengage self from it and get deeply entrenched  in the world I belong to. The pressures are enormous; the forces strong and it took a while to build my inner energy so that I remain in the external world but, do not belong to it. It took me sometime for every grain of my body and mind to be immersed in the thought and deed that my world is somewhere else, I belong to someone else and the purpose of my life is something else. Now that you called me, I suppose that I am ready to begin The Journey again. 

Where have you been all this while? I asked the voice. It smiled benevolently and said with divine grace echoing in every word why? I have been with you. Am not I the one who held your hand and took you around the external world, lest you get lost in it? Didn’t you experience me whenever you closed your eyes and focused on building your inner energy? Was I not with you when you traveled to divine abodes and helped you connect with your inner self? I was never away from you and will never be.

Why did it ask me as to where I was , it it was with me? I thought but didn't express.

Your Journey never stopped, it continued. It was only an Interlude; the much wanted break to break free; to look at the world with a different perspective; to build an ability to come out of it at will; and to connect to your source and be immersed in its bliss.  

It seems to be a tall order, I said and asked did I achieve all that? It smiled and replied you are on The Journey and will do so. Now that you came back renewed and re-energized continue without any more Interludes. I am with you.

The voice slowed down as if to tell me to slow down in my worldly pursuits and turn inwards to take up The Journey.