Letters to Myself by Dr. Vanitha Vaidialingam
A friend sent me a link to an article. The article was about a father’s letters to his son. The emotion that prompted the father was his need to share the passion he felt when he read William Wordsworth’s “The Prelude”. These letters were later published in form of a book.
The article got me thinking! Writing a letter is a sure-shot way of distancing oneself from one’s passion and holding the lens of criticality over it. If I was passionate about my search for God, it would serve me well to evaluate the nature of that passion and plumb the depths of my understanding dispassionately. It would be a fantastic style to adopt for my next book!
So, whom should I write letters to? To an imaginary person or to a real person? Suddenly, I felt a strong urge to write to myself! Why not? My mind is often engaged in justifying my actions. Why should I not engage this mind in focusing attention on my thoughts, feeling and reactions to specific spiritual inputs? Maybe, it will help me distance myself from the situation and understand the nuances that would otherwise escape focus in the storm of passion!
Having resolved thus, I turned the spotlight towards the mechanics of the writing.
I have often come across people who are ardent journal writers. They love their journals and are very secretive about what they write in it. I am not one of those. Maybe, writing letters to myself may be my first step in that direction. If I write letters to myself, revealing my innermost dilemmas and stupidities, will I be ready to share it with my readers? That is in the womb of future. I think I shall hold that thought in abeyance for the duration of the exercise and revert to it when I have successfully unburdened my mind and poured my soul into the letters. My intellect may then step in to prevent me from revealing all to my readers!
Turning back to the genre and its attributes, I wonder how I should begin. Should I address my heart, mind or intellect or just call it all “me”? I need the body of my letter to describe the latest storm in the teacup that I have encountered in my spiritual life and allow my mind and heart to engage freely in a vociferous argument! I will need my intellect to step in and moderate the situation. The latter must point out the fallacies that arise from attachments of the heart or sensory information gathered by the mind, till both the heart and mind are silenced by the sheer logic of the intellect.
But wait, who will be the witness to the outcome of these arguments? Is there a “me” that is not my mind, heart or intellect?
That question, brought me to a pause. My mind automatically asserted “You will be the witness of the argument!” If I am the witness, who is that “I”. A critical look at the concept revealed that it was my ego. My ego will be in play when I decide what I truly want to say and what I actually say. Shame at my thoughts and actions may hold my hand and prevent the scribbling. My ego may be the editor who presents only the “right thoughts and words” for the consumption of the reader!
Suddenly, I am conscious of an entity that will sit silently watching the ramblings of my mind, heart, intellect and ego. My conscience will tell me that my ego is editing things and censoring bits that detracts from the honesty of the telling!
It is clear, writing letters to myself, is not going to be easy. I will have a Mahabharat (battle between the Kauravas and Pandavas sung in the epic of the same name by Maharishi Vyasa) raging within me! It will be an exciting and stimulating journey that will unfold in my next book. I cannot wait to start! Since I plan to share the journey with readers who are of my ilk, my conscience will not be in outs with me. Like Sanjaya (who describes the battle of Kurukshetra to Dritrashtra, the blind King in Mahabharat) my conscience will share every detail of the battle with my readers. So, let me end this write up and welcome you all to the ‘roller-coaster-ride-of-a-quest’ that is as ancient as the universe and as modern as you want it to be! Wait with bated breath for the book, that is today, in its formative stage.
