The Woman In The Red Dress

In a remote mountain resort, a woman approached me.

She was wearing a long red dress.

From the look in her eyes, it was clear she was on the verge of tears.

She asked if I was Kapil Gupta.

After a slight hesitation, I said yes.

The woman dropped to her knees and started crying.

She started speaking about the difficulties in her life. Lost in despair. A muffled voice amidst the weeping.

She said that her life had been too much for her. Her pains, her burdens, her grief, her torments all came to the surface in that very moment.

She asked if I could say something to her. Something that might help ease her pain. She mentioned that she was afraid to ask this question because she did not think I would say anything to her, based upon what she had read and heard in discourses and interviews.

This letter is spawned by that moment in time.

 

Life is indeed a heavy burden.

So heavy, in fact, that man was not meant to bare it.

It is a fact.

Man has not the capacity to bear the burdens of life.

 

I have often said that life was not meant for man.

 

The Truth lies not in seeking relief from this burden.

For relief presents a burden of its own.

Once the relief wears out,

One is left to find more.

 

If one examines his life,

He will notice rather starkly,

That few things turned out the way he envisioned.

 

Even the sacred things.

ESPECIALLY the sacred things.

The love of his children turned out to be not quite so guaranteed.

The boons of success, not quite so satisfying.

The trust one placed in others, not so well-placed.

 

That which one thought was a sure thing

Eventually fell to pieces.

That which one thought was permanent

Eventually withered away.

 

Life is not what man thinks it to be.

He believes the silly positive messages that the world showers upon him.

When the floor falls out from under him,

And the roof caves in from above,

The pain is all the more, on account.

 

What a man learns about life in his later years,

He never could have imagined in his earlier years.

Youth is indeed . . . wasted on the young.

 

Society has created generations of unserious humans.

Smitten by the promise of a bright future.

Mesmerized by visions of happiness and glee.

 

The woman who fell to the ground and cried,

Was not a victim of life.

She was a victim of the empty promises of life.

 

After helping her to her feet,

She perhaps walked neither humble nor proud.

Neither relieved nor troubled.

 

Armed with a modicum of Truth,

She perhaps saw life in a new way.

Not as a place in which to seek happiness,

Or a place to chase pleasure and joy.

But as a thing she fundamentally knew not.

 

In her non-knowing,

She perhaps became more capable than she ever had been.

Ever alert to the possibilities

Without hope or lament.

 

Wherever she is today,

Perhaps she has abandoned the notion of finding life.

 

Living with innocence

And free of anticipation,

Perhaps life . . . has found a home within her.

 

Namaste.