"How come you remembered this story through a dream?" Ravi said and rested his elbow on the other hand and tapped his index finger on his chin.

Yes, how? This question bugged Sid as well. When he was a kid, his grandfather used to tell him enlightening stories, hundreds of them. It could be the answer that those stories always remained in his subconscious mind and now popped out through the medium of dreams. Yeah, maybe.

He heaved a sigh and shot a glance out of the window. He wanted to pull the car window down and feel the wind tear through his hair, but the AC was on. He and Ravi were heading at Greenland Hills, the meditation center they talked about last night. "I don't have any idea," he said, still looking out of the window.

"So, what's the allegory?" Ravi asked, eager to hear what it might be.

"There are allegories. Elephant, branch, king cobra, white and black mouse, and two drops of honey." Sid turned to fix his eyes at Ravi. "Now, listen up to my explanation."

He hawked before expounding the allegories. "Elephant represented desires that keep us running from here and there. The branch symbolized our lifespan. King cobra represented death. White and black mice portrayed day and night. Two drops of honey described the insignificant pleasure that we derive from this world, yet so attracted to it."

Ravi felt his heart skipped a beat as if he just saw Miller's planet scene from the Interstellar movie. "Awesome," was the only word that got past his throat. Then a business idea popped up in his mind. "These stories are incredible. Why don't you upload your videos on YouTube explaining such stories? You'll be famous."

Sid experienced a flush of excitement tickled his ribs, but he was seeking for answers, not popularity. He was aware of those celebrities who enjoyed the zenith of success, yet, they decided to end their lives. So fame is not the solution he's looking for, he told Ravi.

He brought the original topic back into the discussion. "Doesn't that story describes us so well?" he asked. "Desires keep us running here and there. We keep on running without stopping to think. Why are we running and where are we heading?" A cough interrupted Sid's speech. "In this rat race, even if we become winners, we remain rats."

"Hmm," came from Ravi as he grew pensive. "We live in a world where hypocrisy is a virtue, where lust is often confused with love. The truth is treated as false and false is celebrated as truth."

As if a cold wind came in the scorching desert, Ravi's heart thumped with encouragement that they are heading to Greenland Mountain to meet a famous monk named Sayujya. Yeah, it's almost unpronounceable, that's why his close associates call him Sayu. Ravi was confident this time because Sayu was free from controversies and maintained a clean organization. He never spoke intolerantly toward other religions or had a superiority complex.

Sid's skepticism burned away when Ravi explained these beautiful things about the monk. All these days, he only came across bigots like Kumar, a fanatic like Nikhil, intolerant like Prakash and charlatan like Swami Mukteshwar. One truth became apparent to him that if he wants to know the absolute truth, he needs proper guidance. Sayu was perfectly falling in the category.

*****

Greenland Mountain got its name because of the greenery; this became evident for Sid and Ravi while walking through a small village. A lush bouquet of organic vegetables and fruit was all-pervading in the town until they reached the foot of the Greenland Mountain. More natural were vendors' smile, Sid would say, every time he exchanged a look with them.

Ravi felt like he's in a Chinatown as he was ascending the mountain with Sid. He has dreamt of learning martial arts from a Shaolin temple. His faith grew rock solid when he caught a glimpse of some people looking at him with narrowed eyes. Oh, then it dawned on him they were Chinese.

Excitement and enthusiasm never left Sid's heart, the more he walked on, the more hopeful he became.

Without going out of my door
I can know all things on earth
Without looking out of my window
I could know the ways of heaven
The farther one travels
The less one knows
The less one really knows
Without going out of your door
You can know all things on earth
Without looking out of your window
You could know the ways of heaven
The farther one travels
The less one knows
The less one really knows
Arrive without traveling
See all without looking
Do all without doing

Climbing the mountain, however, was not easy as it seemed in the beginning. Steps appeared endless, every time they reach an end-although it looked like the mountain top-another round ridiculed them.

"Oh, c'mon! Are we not there yet?" Ravi collapsed on the ground like a sack of potatoes when it happened for the third time. His legs trembled with pain.

"Have you gave up already, Kung Fu master?" Sid placed his hands on his knees, gasping. "It's a part of your training."

Ravi got the answer when the fourth round completed. Dismay plastered across his face when he saw no bunch of martial artists shouting, "Yī Èr Sān Sì."

Not Shaolin monks, but they met spiritual practitioners.

One monk guided Sid and Ravi on the topic of religions. He told them a quote spoken by Sayu. "Today, the world doesn't need the messenger of God; we have them abundantly. What we need is one who follows the message of God."

The quote gave Sid an "aha" feeling; it's hard to find a genuine spiritualist in this media manipulated country.

Then a guide took them on a tour of the temple, which used up almost two hours of their time. Along the way, he narrated the life story of Sayu.

A man who sold many Ferraris to become a monk, Sayu was born in a super-wealthy family; affluence never deprived him of anything. People, in general, go through three phases in their life: hard work, determination, and then success.

For Sayu, however, life has skipped the beginning two phases.

One day everything changed when his father met with a private airplane crash. Sayu's family net worth trickled down from billionaire to millionaire. The pain of his father's death was there, but he wanted to make the family business stable again. For that, he sacrificed half a decade of his life, and he did succeed.

Soon prosperity visited Sayu's home once more only to ebb away due to a recession. The millionaire status came under serious threat, but Sayu didn't give up, he devoted a decade of his life to building a stronghold of his company in the market. Another shock of life, however, was waiting for Sayu like a lost lover. His mother died. At that point, everything appeared meaningless to him-ups and downs, success, and failure. Jack of all trades master of none, this figure of speech ate up his mind.

Life landed him in an ocean of despair; he handed power of attorney to his younger brother and set off on the journey of self-discovery. He lived in the Himalayas for years and became a monk. While meditating in a cave, he concluded that pain and pleasure, success and failure, love and hate, these dualities are nothing but an illusion.

According to his realizations, the perfection of human life is to get rid of illusion. Setting the bird free from the cage, he would say.

"Do you want to meet, Gurudev?" the guide said when he finished talking about life histories of Sayu.

Sid nodded. Ravi showed some of his teeth; it was halfway between a smile and a grin.

"We would love to meet him," both of them in unison.

*****

The guide pushed open the door and sent a smile at Sid and Ravi, gesturing them with his hand to enter. Inside the room, they saw Sayu meditating on a single mattress in a lotus position. He was shaved-headed and wore a maroon shirt, covered with an orange blanket. It was hard to figure out from his attire which religion he followed.

Bliss on Sayu's face was contagious. He felt the presence of someone without opening his eyes. "Welcome spiritual seekers," he said.

Ravi and Sid exchanged a look of awe. Sayu slowly opened his eyes. "How can I serve you?"

"How do you know we're spiritual seekers?" Sid asked with a furrowed brow, but then the fact he questioned the man who lived in the Himalayas hit him.

Sayu smiled. "When you understand all living beings are connected, it's not a big deal."

"How do we understand that?" Sid pressed his lips together in a thin line. He didn't wait patiently to get an answer instead went to ask more questions: "What is the illusion you talk about in your teachings?" "How to get rid of that illusion?" "How to become peaceful?"

Sayu heaved a sigh and got up, folding the mat. His body language didn't seem interested in answering Sid's questions. He went to the adjacent table and grabbed a jug, full of tomato juice. While filling a glass for himself, he looked at Ravi and Sid. "Uh, do you guys want it?"

He received nods from the boys. Sid observed every movement of Sayu. Maybe he's trying to demonstrate something indirectly. A thought touched Sid's mind.

Sayu gave a full glass to Ravi and half to Sid. "Please, enjoy."

Sid looked into his half glass, and regret washed over him. Maybe if I hadn't asked too many questions, I might have got a full glass.

"Do you know why I gave you half-full glass?" Sayu said, looking at the red foam on the surface of the glass.

While Ravi paused with his glass halfway to his lips, Sid shook his head in denial. "I don't know. Maybe 'cause I asked too many questions?"

Sayu stifled a laugh. "No, no. It's because you will be satisfied with half glass and your friend with full." The answer wrote confusion on Sid's face. "Similarly," Sayu went on, "every individual's spiritual hunger varies. Sometimes we have to seek for the answers."

That's what I'm doing all this time; Sid wanted to say. While rubbing his chin, he eyed Sayu and parted his lips to speak but closed it immediately. He sucked in a long breath and piled up his thoughts for a moment and then let it all out.

"I'm trying to seek the truth," he said, "but I often get silly and irrelevant answers. You know I want to make sense of the things happening around me. For example, I see people are expert in expressing their love through words, but they fall flat when it comes to proving love through action. I call it lust because superficial attraction is the basis of their love.

"Why do I introspect a lot?" he said with emotions that were closing up his throat; Sayu observed part awe and part confusion in Sid's eyes. "My mind is always restless. It feels like I'm on the journey to an unknown destination. It's like I feel thirsty, but not water I want. I ... I just-"

Sid ran out of words all of a sudden. His head dangled in disappointment because Sayu was not even trying to answer any of his questions.

"Come with me, you two," with this Sayu walked off. Sid kept his juice on the table, which was not even touched by his lips, whereas Ravi's glass was empty.

They came in an enormous room, which would give you a feeling of being in a cave for meditation. Black rocks were the ceiling, ground, and four walls. Sid mistook it to be artificial, but his doubt diminished when his fingers came in contact with the rock.

He and Ravi closed their eyes as per Sayu's direction and sat in a lotus position. Then they got the instruction to concentrate only on Sayu's voice.

"Imagine there's no problem in this world. Imagine people are living in harmony with each other: no conflicts, no exploitation, and abuse of Mother Earth. People are free from hatred, and their heart only has a place for love."-Sid and Ravi absorbed in meditation as Sayu's voice, which kept coming-"Imagine you've got answers for all of your questions..."

Whip-Whop! First, Ravi cried out in pain. "Hey, what the f... was that, huh?"

"Ow," came from Sid. Their hands reached to hold their collarbone as a red scar emerged there.

Sayu was holding a stick in his hand and a grave expression on his face. Boys presented him with a questioning look laced with rage. "Did your visualization feel to be real?" Sid and Ravi nodded. "Did you feel the pain to be real?"

"Yeah, of course!" said Ravi.

Sayu leaned forward and fixed his stare at Sid. "Both are an illusion. When you're here, you're not there. When you're there, you're not here. You are nowhere."

The answer plastered a big question mark on Sid and Ravi's face. Pain or visualization, both illusion? Here there nowhere?

Ravi opened his mouth to speak, but Sayu interrupted, "Understand that desires are the cause of suffering. You see, people are suffering, and you question why do they suffer? It's because of their desires. As long as they don't curb the urge for sense gratification, they will be attached; it will bring them inequities nothing else. The world is an illusion. When you die, you become void. It took me two decades to understand this."

Sid felt his breathing became hard and heart constricted with desolation as Vayu's words sunk in his brain. It took a while to process those words, and when he understood it fully, he burst out, "So we become nothing when we die?"

He saw Sayu gave a curt nod and said, "If you want to attain peace of mind, you must cut off all your attachments and become desireless. Explore the world, and you shall find."

That answered why Sid has a restless mind. He stared at the ground; the black color of the floor described his search for spirituality. Null and void.

His mindset didn't change a bit even while returning home. So this is how it ends? He thought. My search for truth? Becoming desireless and ending up in a cave of the Himalayas?

Visit at Greenland Mountain was like an anti-climax of his spiritual journey because he knew it's impossible to cut off all his attachments. Hey, Mom! I'm going to the Himalayas, don't know when I will return. No, no, wait, this one's hilarious. Mom, I want to have peace of mind, so I'm off to the Himalayas. There I can desire to become desireless.

"Let's explore the world, man. Road trip! Hell yeah, I'm so up for it," Ravi said as he was searching the best holy places of India on his cell phone.

"We're not going anywhere," Sid said sharply, his eyes narrowed in disbelief.

"Isn't that what you want?" Ravi snapped, for him, Sid was such a killjoy. "The search for truth? That's how all yogis in the past began their journey. Off to the Himalayas for years-and boom!-return as if you're the boss. Do you want peace or not?"

No! I want happiness! Sid screamed mentally. Do you think all the people in this dog eat dog world working hard to become peaceful?

The question landed him on the horns of a dilemma. He did want to search the truth (the inner calling which he yearns to follow), but at the same time, the boy knew he couldn't leave everyone and become a monk.

A moment later, however, the reality hit him like a ball. Most of the spiritualists indeed ended up in the Himalayas. "I'm not a yogi; I'm just me. I don't know what I want. I'm confused now," he told Ravi, shrugging. Slough of despond crept on every side of his face.

******

A/N: I loved writing this. I feel this is one of the relevant chapters of my book. And next will be more, the message I'm yearning to give. Please vote and comment.