My friend comes to me in the early hours of the night. It rains outside, softly.
He sits by my side, in silence, acquiescent to my latest sorrow. His faithful return, his silent accompaniment makes me understand that my grieving can be allied with hope, that it is simply the collapse of a section of the great edifice we call “personality”.
I try to look beyond the ruin, only to find an emptiness that intensifies my discomfort. Nothing to grasp.
- Precisely, he says.
Outside, the rain keeps falling. Inside, there is an expectant, swollen concealment. I break the silence.
- Who and what am I beyond personality? - I ask.
A subsequent question rolls through me:
- What do I have in common with every other human being?
The standardised answer, the one I have been taught to reply, would lead me to find the common denominator in that which is average and ordinary. For example, all of us are prone to experience, at some point, sexual arousal, anger or shame. We all become acquainted to ambition as well as to doubts and a myriad of other widespread ‘human’ occurrences. From these, we can then create clusters, typologies and the like and proceed to generalise as to what is human.
- Interestingly - I say to my friend, - even though I recognise these traits are common to me and everyone else, none actually provide me with a sense of fraternity or belonging to humanity.
He doesn’t even have to prompt me to continue; his smile is enough.
- That’s because even though I have all of these attributes, that is not who I believe myself to truly be or indeed wish to identify with. A part of me insists…
- With urgency - he adds.
- Yes, with urgency, a part of me insists on feeling completely and utterly unique, despite all the commonalities.
The rain has stopped. The sound of the church bells punctuates the dark stillness of the night. I realise I am very thirsty for something, but not sure what. That which quenches all desires. That which is non-negotiable.
He gets up and returns with a cup of warm water.
- Can you say more about that uniqueness?
- My own need of uniqueness troubles me. One one hand, upholding it brings me a sense of relief and self-reliance. I feel I am able to separate myself from the human throng, and breathe! On the other hand, it easily disconnects me from others. I recognise this uniqueness carries its own egocentric magnetism. That is, for example, what makes my issues intrinsically more relevant than those of others. So my own sense of singular individuality is the cornerstone of personality, an identity that needs to be continuously fed and reinforced.
I drink the water.
- But I know the time comes when what others say becomes intrinsically more interesting to hear than whatever one has to say.
- Indeed - he concurs
- Like when, in meditation, one finds the whole world is meditating you.
- Yes. These are flags that announce you are entering a whole other territory of being.
- One in which my uniqueness does not need to be fed by my appropriation of the world.
- Precis! (he answers in Swedish; he likes to do that from time to time).
My urgency has now turned into a warmth that has spread more evenly through my soul. It burns nicely.
- I have another idea. - I announce.
He smiles, possibly already picking up the golden hues that my thoughts impart to the darkness we inhabit.
- I am thinking of a human bee-hive. I am imagining the possibility of distilling, from every human being that ever lived, that which in them is the most exalted and noble. The result would be a drop of substance of their own essence-being, minuscule as it may be, but immaculate. I imagine that all those drops are collected into a vessel-body, a being in its own right.
The idea rolls on its own, like a rockfall. I continue.
- What if this creature was our constant companion, permanently being updated by us all? And because it contains, in effect, the essence of all our beings, we could naturally identify with it, since it keeps the most concentrated part of me and you. This being would be our hive Queen, our guide, teacher and inspirer. S-he wouldn’t be one “other” but the many in one-ness.
- The Monad, the singular that cannot be separated from the whole.
- Yes!
I feel I have reached new ground and stop, taking a deep breath. Drowsiness creeps in and I lie down.
- But why doesn’t my heart sing? Why do I feel such solitude?
My friend touches my hand ever so lightly with his fingers. He doesn’t want to pull me away from my rest. Instead, he delivers me a parting message, in the form of an image. It is that of a fresco painted in an old monastery. I smile as I recognise it: the mystery of resurrection. I sip the vision gradually, like a glass of old, well-matured wine. In its Delphic fullness, I fall asleep.