Kiran Subbaiah / Texts by KS / Meta-Dilemma

Without your dilemma what would you be left to deal with? Surely the washing machine would break down now and then, your paycheck may get lost in the mail, or your mother-in-law may not have been keeping too well lately. You can have all these accidentals to deal with, apart from the regulars – like doing the laundry or making ends meet or staying fit. You can bring them up as the excuses, chores that have taken up your time leaving you with your dilemma unresolved. That could very well be the earnest reason.

It could also be because your dilemma (only the most important one of course) is irresolvable, but that is something you are not so sure about. If you had been sure that your dilemma was irresolvable, you would have happily renounced dealing with it. Until that is ascertained you have no choice - your dilemma haunts you. The choice you do have is as to which of the two you confer greater priority, your life – or your dilemma.

You could concentrate on improving the life you live, try and procure for yourself the best the world has to offer; French cuisine, horse riding, happy ended movies - innocent indulgences to distract you from, if not make you oblivious of your dilemma – at least from time to time.

Or you could make your dilemma the center of focus and invest all the time you can salvage to meditate on it. All the other things in life should be kept well away from encroaching upon your meditation. Then indeed you must live by the most modest of means, like a monk - a voluntary prisoner of your conviction.

Judging by the experience of dealing with your dilemma so far, you realize that you have indeed made progress. Although nowhere near resolved, you have come to understand it better. You’ve checked its grounds out in significant detail, caught a few hints that have inspired hope and the motivation to work towards possible solutions.

Some revelations were slow in coming, through a mixed process of toil and pleasure - like giving birth. Others occurred by accident, at poetic moments illuminated by an unusual collision of mind and world, when you weren’t necessarily dealing with your dilemma and just carrying on with usual life. These micro enlightenments suggest the possibility of a greater enlightenment - the ultimate emancipation from your dilemma.

The latter of the revelations suggests that it may be best to bestow equal importance to both: dealing with your dilemma, and aspiring for better means to live. A monk in the midst of acquisitions: like a lotus leaf in water (or a droplet of water on a lotus leaf). Then, if at the end, your dilemma remained unresolved you would feel comforted by the coziness you create for yourself in life… your home, friends, grandchildren. Complementarily, with the fragments of knowledge and momentary illuminations you gather in the course of pursuing your dilemma now and then, you will not have to regret finding yourself at the end of your life, in a spiritual vacuum. Your dilemma will keep you company in your deathbed. That’s indeed the best bet. The one most people take.

I’m not sure whether this fourth option I propose here is actually possible, but if you managed to renounce both worldly possessions and the spiritual quest, live like a monk and ignore your dilemma, you probably won't fare badly either. Wandering through the world with no motives whatsoever, or just sitting back and watching the world pass by on its course, you might chance upon something most obscure and yet incredibly fascinating that no one can fathom.

Kiran Subbaiah / Texts by KS / Meta-Dilemma