Cling not, and it shalt be...

...bestowed unto thee

A flash of brilliance strikes the brain cells and lo, an idea manifests out of nowhere, lighting up that otherwise dull space. Somewhere in a moment of elation my being wows. And the hippocampus goes on a wild spree finding ways to label and store it in the right compartment in order to revoke it later.  And just when the task has been carried out satisfactorily, poof! the idea vanishes. Like a candle flame extinguishing without even the slightest brush of the passing zephyr. Returning to the obscure dungeon of my diurnal thoughts, fruitlessly I scramble for the least spark of that genius which was mine for one triumphant moment. What happened to it, which cerebral or psychogenic blackhole sucked it in, leaving no trace behind of its existence? Into which realm of non-being did it evanesce? Was it the overwhelming stimulus generated by the ingenuity of the thought and the subsequent effort of the mind to label and organize it within the shallow racks of the brain that impelled it to escape? Eschew mortality? 

Even though it wasn't the first time this unusual phenomenon had taken place, it was the first time I felt intrigued by this illusionist-like disappearing act. It felt akin to some dreams that I had fiercely wanted to remember for their ethereal and illusive  quality, and kept playing, replaying them in my semi-conscious mind. And yet, on waking up, they simply slipped as through a wormhole, into a totally another dimension, leaving me feeling unsettled and incomplete. However, it did make me wonder- into whose memory pad did they land on?- or, better still, did they land at all?

Somehow my mind wants to connect these two oft-experienced occurrences of one's daily life to the obstacle most novice meditators face. As one by one, judiciously they try to strike out the thoughts, their mind latches on to one minuscule vanquishing statement: "I am thought-free now". And it is precisely in this self-absorbed acknowledgement that all the effort and energy channelized towards emptying one's mind is annulled...

In all these three incidents it is in  the overt cognizance of their existence, either of ideas, dreams or emptiness, that our failure lies. If only we could let them be instead of clinging on to them, allowing them to linger within the panoramic scapes of our inner being... Waiting in blissful concentration of no-thought for the right precise moment to apprehend (though never conquer) It.