The Fifth Dimension

This is the story of my life. But before I get there I want to tell you another story—the story of a mali who lived all by himself in a far-off land. His only companion was the soil that he tended with devotion. One day, quite by chance, he hit upon a buried treasure. "Lo and behold!" he cried.

He kept digging to unearth the treasure and the deeper he dug the more obsessed he became. But as days turned to weeks, weeks to months, and months eventually to years, his greying age fell upon him. He felt sad as he thought, soon I will be gone and there will be no one to adore the riches I have found. After days of procrastination, he went to the local bazaar and stood at a corner. He wanted to tell people about the treasure, but in the flurry of the business day hardly anyone took notice of him. He returned home disheartened.

Well, he thought, perhaps I am not assertive enough. So, he returned to the bazaar the next day, and the day that followed, and then continued to go there daily. He would stand at the same spot all day while his eyes followed anything that moved.

He became enchanted with the bustle: elderly folk sipping chai in a tea shop and chatting; hawkers with wicker baskets on their heads carrying green veggies, onions, chilies and garlic; and a cart driver moving the heavy load by whipping his poor donkey. Then his eyes caught a lone, malnourished dog looking for food on a garbage pile, and a few rats running around at lightning speed by a clogged, stinking drain. He listened to the variety of sounds: the harsh ranting of the hagglers; the wheedling voice of a cheating vendor; and the bark of an abusive customer. He saw kids running around playing hide-and-seek by the busy, shanty shops; a monk in a saffron robe with his bowl, oblivious to the surroundings, walking peacefully as if floating on thin air; and a cobbler, sitting cross-legged, lost in a world of his own, mending worn-out footwear. He also noticed the occasional guy pushing shoppers, slipping his hand into their pockets; a few white tourists wearing hats, with cameras hanging from their shoulders; and a money-changer busy counting soiled notes. And then there was the whispering of a soft breeze to a lone banyan tree, and a few cows sitting idle in the shade, chewing the cud while swatting flies with the bushy end of their tails. The mali's eyes followed a goaala walking briskly with milk-filled jars hanging on the ends of a bamboo pole balanced on his shoulder, and several men in bare feet, carrying a dead body wrapped in a white drape, heading towards the ghat. In the midst of it all there was a constant buzz—shouts, brays and chatter, honks and bells.

As the mali became engrossed in the scene—the crowded bazaar in a perpetual state of flux—a hypnotic power gripped him. Without him knowing how, the very lively bazaar became a motionless image, as if a reflection on a still lake. Then there was a sudden splash, creating ripples and shattering the image. The mali regained his senses. The jolt came from a child's cry—an angry mother was spanking her boy.

The mali pondered: How do I know that I am not standing by a timeless lake and that whatever I see is nothing but my own reflection in various shapes or forms: the monk and the white tourists, the cart driver and his skinny donkey, the cheating salesman and the abusive customer, the starving dog and the garbage pile, the lively rats and the stinking drain, the pickpocket and his sleight of hand, the angry mother and her crying boy, the breeze and the banyan tree, the money-changer, the corpse and everything else including the hustle and bustle, ranting and shouting, honks, tinkles and the jingle of bells? The mali standing at the corner once again lost himself in deep thought.

I was born in a distant land but am of the same soil the mali nurtured all his life. People often ask me, "Are you Indian? Pakistani?" Once, an elderly American lady thought I was Afghan. I tell them that my parents, my eldest son and I were all born in the same city. Yet my parents were born as Indians, my son as a Bangladeshi and I was born as a Pakistani.

I am now Bangladeshi-Australian, but my immediate ancestors were Indians. If I trace further back in time, my distant ancestors were probably Africans. At the beginning of life, my original ancestor was possibly a single-celled bacterium (for those who believe in evolution) or Adam and Eve (for those who believe in Creation). Regardless of one's belief there is no denying that all humans, living and dead, have descended from a single source.

It is an interesting exercise to trace one's ancestry back to the origin. I have reflected on it over the years. I have also meditated on it from a metaphorical viewpoint.

Imagine a snow-capped mountain. Frozen water molecules begin to drip as the snow melts. As the drips accumulate, water begins to surge—surge down the mountain slopes, creating falling water as waterfalls, rushing water as torrents, flowing water as rivers, and finally the water molecules return to their origin: the ocean.

In the course of their journey some water molecules may become part of the holy water of the Ganges while others may become the filthiest water in a sewage pit. Some water molecules may become accomplices in ravaging lands and lives, while some others may contribute to serenity, fertility and vegetation. In the above scenario the water molecules, while maintaining their basic character and composition, are known differently. Some remain pure, while others become polluted; some are worshipped and others are despised.

On reflection, living bodies appear to be no different from water molecules. Just as mobility, gravity and topography dictate the course of rushing water, life of a living species is dictated by its adaptability, self-preservation and the environment in which it lives. While maintaining their basic make-up at all times, they too are known as clean and unclean, good and evil, holy and unholy.

At thirty, when I was studying engineering in America, I stumbled into the world of religions and philosophies. But my turning point came when I hit upon a verse in the Chandogya Upanishad:

When Svetaketu was twelve years old, his father, Udalaka, said to him, 'Svetaketu, you must now go to school and study. None of our family, my child, is ignorant of Brahman.'

Thereupon Svetaketu went to a teacher and studied for twelve years. After committing to memory all the Vedas, he returned home full of pride in his learning.

His father, noticing the young man's conceit, said to him: 'Svetaketu, have you asked for that knowledge by which we hear the unhearable, by which we perceive the unperceivable, by which we know the unknowable?'

'What is that knowledge, sir?' asked Svetaketu.

'My child, as by knowing one lump of clay, all things made of clay are known, the difference being only in name and arising from speech, and the truth being that all are clay; as by knowing a nugget of gold, all things made of gold are known, the difference being only in name and arising from speech, and the truth being that all are gold—exactly so is that knowledge, knowing which we know all.'

I was not sure whether a mortal species could comprehend such knowledge. Despite my doubt, the possibility that such knowledge might exist and that an earthly man could somehow grasp it, gripped me. I remember walking to the university on weekends—a solid forty-five-minute walk—repeating the verse endlessly from memory. Yet that walk was just the beginning of a journey that would deeply pervade my life.

Did I find that knowledge? This does not matter anymore. For me the quest was more like an expedition high up in the mountains. I was on the lookout for the highest peak and wanted to ascend it at any cost. I journeyed through highs and lows, valleys and clefts, treacherous slopes and slippery ice, surviving many attacks of frostbite.

Now, as I begin to descend into my own grey age, I want to tell my fellow men the story of my journey as recorded in my letters, notes and diaries.

(TO BE CONTINUED…)

Tohon is the author of The Jihadi (Revised Edition 2016) and The Landscape of a Mind (Revised Edition 2015), New Generation Publishing, London.