Spiritual Growth: This Question Was Also the Answer  

By HIMANI DALMIA  

Spiritual Growth: This Question Was Also the Answer  

Do you know who I am? I am a questioner. I am the possessor of an invaluable gift to wonder. Most people forget to wonder along the way or channel it into logical, empirical, scientific questioning. I did not. I turned to others for answers, I looked within myself. I looked in the abstraction of pure wondering for answers. I found some, but not most.

My mother died in childbirth, and my father..well, what can I say? Making money was more important for him than making his little girl. I never made any friends and my teenage loves went unreciprocated. Perhaps this was because I was too rich or too shy or too ugly, smart, arrogant, rude, bitter, quiet, philosophical, boring how does it matter? And perhaps it was all this pain, this deep pain, the finite question of why me that led me to think about why in the first place.

I read Sophies World. I studied philosophy. And I questioned. What was life? Did we live just to die? What was death? Was there life after death? Was there a God? No. There was no God. If there was a God, and if he was so noble and so good and so worthy of my love, why had he done this to me? I had no family, no friends. Life seemed purposeless.

The only things which kept me going were the question marks. God had not given me anything besides this material. I don't know if it was the last breakdown I had over the futility of my own life, or the disease my doctor told me about that caused the end of my life, but I do know that I realised at the end what I should have known from the beginning.

Once upon a time there were three painters. Arguing about which was the best, the three reached the Kings court, and asked him to be the judge. The King, thrilled at the thought of having three magnificent new paintings, assigned them each a wall, extended the hospitality of the palace to them for six months and told them to paint God.

At the end of six months, the King visited them. The first painter removed his screen. The painting was that of a tree with blossoming flowers. It appeared so real that a butterfly fluttered to one of the flowers and sat on it. The King was impressed.

He then walked to the second painting, and the painter removed the screen with a flourish. The painting was that of a tree with many ripe fruits. A parrot flew to it and pecked at a fruit.

The King walked to the third painting, and waited for the painter to remove the screen. The painter did not budge. The King concluded that the painter was an eccentric genius and tried to remove the screen himself. But he could not. For the screen itself was the painting.

I was told this story on my deathbed. God is not behind the screen, God is the screen itself. God is not the answer to the questions about him, he is the question itself.

In my whole life, I had died a thousand deaths. I had died every time I did not find an answer. One more death meant nothing to me. But the uncertainty of the infinite scared me. Perhaps it was only because I was so scared that at the time of my death, I knew there was a God.

I also knew that my life had not been futile. Though devoid of friendship and love, it had been full of wonder. I had throughout my life done what was the answer to humankind I had questioned. I died.my mind full of questions again.

I was floating in nothingness. And then a thought not a voice - a thought asked me Do you know who I am?. I felt as though I was crying..I felt no tears, but then I had no cheeks..yet, I cried...I cried so long and so hard that the questions remained unanswered..and it remained that way forever.

Do you know who I am? a questions that did not wait for an answer, a question that was the answer itself.

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More from same author see: HIMANI DALMIA  

See also: Spiritual Growth, Faith and Belief, Spiritual Guidance, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)