So much time has slipped away...

...and I kept no notes! None at all. Mind's a blank now. So I'll just do what I usually do, which is pick up a book from the shelf randomly, then open a random page and put down the randomly read words...

A word that is read but not thoroughly understood is a word that is dead. Unless completely intelligible meaning flies from the spoken or written work to the mind we are left unprpfited. How much more then should we learn to give careful attention to the words we use in important study and serious discussion.

Ouch! That was too random. It's from Paul Brunton's Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga (page number... damn! I slipped it shut.). I stumbled into Brunton about 8/10 years back with his A Search in Secret India, which was fantastic (a lot of it seemingly unbelievable).

But it was one of those phases (they come every now and then) when I wanted to tap into some secret source of energy/intelligence/powers of the mind. All a fantasy world really, sort of escapism, where I wanted to do much without any hard work involved. Like going back to school (early years at that!), with the current (as in current when I used to imagine so and not necessarily now) levels of awareness/intelligence and then show off to the rest of what I knew. How amazing to write a strongly worded letter on the demerits of corporal punishment, the criminality involved, a psychological analysis of the teacher and predictions on what the victim may become. Reading newspapers, the politics and business section at that, and asking elders what they thought of the government's policies (actually, I can't do that even now!) and doing so many other things that would be so surprising coming from a 9/10 year old. Such was the sickness that led me to read tons on how the yogis could do this and that. Comes from a secret (not anymore!) desire to be a performer. Of entertaining. Of being applauded!

But I know the foolishness of such daydreams and I'm happy to report they don't occur with alarming frequency anymore. Perhaps I'm getting cured. Perhaps I'm getting sick. Oh! It's a fun life any which way!

So back to Brunton Sahib. I've never been able to find his A Search in Secret Egypt, which is a decent read too I've heard. He was a British journalist who (I think after quitting journalism) roamed in India (among many other places) in search of mystics. I would certainly read him very differently now than I did about a decade back!