Just Imagine..

You can be sitting home, and traveling abroad at the same time. You could be achieving all you thought about while you're still in preparation for your goal. You wish you could be 'that' character in 'that' novel, or if you were, what would the difference be. Or you could be spending vacation with 'someone' you love, when wooing 'someone' is something that's a 'still in progress' work, and many more. But you can't do it in reality because reality limits you. Unlike reality, imagination is limitless.

Yajur Veda says, "May this mind of mine, which travels too far, which is the light of lights, the only source of all wisdom, which wanders far off places, whether I'm asleep or awake, resolve on what is noble". Where the world of reality has limits, the world of imagination is boundless.

I saw the above quotation in TOI some days back, and it forced me to think that way. Life is full of secrets, and you can’t learn them at once. Some of these secrets are lessons you learn every other day. This post is something I learnt while returning from Indore some two days back. Returning from Indore? By bus no doubt, I wonder why the return trip makes me think that much. Probably, like I mentioned before in some post, because the lights are off around this time, so you can't read anything and I don't have my walkman or diskman ready these days, and hence no music. All you can do is think or doze off. I prefer the first one. That's what I've been doing since 3 years I'm doing a regular up-down. But I never thought 'bus-trips' could turn out to be a great teacher, at least in this Imagination case.

We have numerous problems to deal with everyday. We always solve them imagining the consequences; analyze the pros and cons of the situations we deal with. I'm no special case. The time I return from Indore, thinking about these problems and trying to find a solution for the same is something I've been doing for last 3 years. But I didn't expect it to teach me a lesson this time when I was overwhelmed by this concept of imagination. I don't remember what thoughts were in my mind when that happened, perhaps I was analyzing the time I had before CAT, or the day when college reopens and everyone meets after a vacation of about two months, or about this overwhelming concept of imagination.

Imagination? It really works by the way, in many cases. I'd like to state the one that's in my mind, above all others. In the orientation lecture at PT some days back, this lady who teaches us the English Usage and Vocabulary part for CAT gave a nice example which I was thinking about. She was talking about the ways CAT aspirants used to keep themselves cool, and directed to their aim. One of the ways that someone practiced was this 'glass filled with water' meditation thing, something I was hearing for the very first time. She told, "Every early morning when that guy got up, he used to sit in front of a glass that had water in it. He used to imagine the whole process of preparation for the exams watching the glass which had water in it, the phase of giving exam and then getting selected for the prelims, and the next phases, then the final selection, and then a life at some top B-school. And then he used to drink the water from this glass. Some of you might not believe if that works, but it did for that guy. At least it helped him not to deviate from what he aimed for”. “He remembered that thing in his mind for every damn day that he had before the exam”, she told. That's where it counts. But like Joseph Joubert quoted, "He who has imagination without learning has wings but no feet". And another, "I believe in the imagination. What I cannot see is infinitely more important than what I can see".

But when you think more, or when life thinks you've imagined too much, Bang!! comes the vigorous blow. In my case, I realized it when the bus went about 300-350 meters ahead of where it usually drops me. That blow took me off the imagination, and back to reality. I saw bus had passed the stop where I should have stepped down from the bus. I rushed in, and asked the conductor to stop the bus. He did. And I was dropped about 350 meters away from where I usually step down. And I felt a voice that said, "Kid! Perhaps, you've imagined too much, its time to come back to what's real". I smiled, and then was walking my way back to home. The time was around 11:30 PM. It was lesson, which I won't ever forget in my life.

Yes! Imagination is something that's much faster than the speed of light, but the bottom line is, you have to get back to what's real before it’s too late.

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Word of the day:

pusillanimous

Pronunciation: (pyOO"su-lan'u-mus)

—adj.

1. lacking courage or resolution; cowardly; faint-hearted; timid.
2. proceeding from or indicating a cowardly spirit.

Synonyms: pusillanimous, poor-spirited, unmanly, cowardly (vs. brave), fearful, diffident.

Usage: lacking in courage and manly strength and resolution; contemptibly fearful.