Watchless....nearly timeless!

The past few weeks have been an experience in trying to be 'independent'. A common occurrence like my watch strap nearly getting cut led me to abandon the habit of wearing a watch. It is only when something you're always used to goes amiss that the extent of dependence is realized! The watch had become a part of me, my hand, so much so that even when I was not wearing it I would glance at my wrist just to see the miraculous digital numbers! Gradually, in spite of the 'naayi baala donku' wisdom, this habit got broken.

The significance of this cannot be understated. When trying to break free from time & space, to live in unbounded freedom, to live moment by moment, the watch is the greatest enemy. Each time the spirit soars to the realm beyond all this, the watch rudely brings one back to the mundane. Like for instance, reminding that 30 more minutes need to be spent in a sardine can, breathing carbon monoxide & enjoying the scenic traffic formations outside. Of course, all is not hunky dory without the instrument. When a lot of events in the organized world hang by the minute, one cannot afford to be lax. Fortunately or unfortunately, there's always some or the other reminder at hand that saves the day!

In the jungle, all order is in chaos alone! On one of those treks, the leader ordered us all...mostly well fed city dwellers, with lots of noisy & gaudy gadgets, to conceal them all for the reminder of the trek (2-3 days!). Here there were no buses to catch (or miss), no meetings to attend, nothing at all that needed following the GMT order. Purely by instinct, like animals we lived. Eating when hungry, sleeping when sleepy & walking when you felt like it. The sun provided some clues, but we were mostly in the shadow of clouds. Those 2 days were out of this civilized world, more so because we'd really broken free of self imposed shackles!!! Other than day, night & a vague sense of approaching day or approaching night, nothing else mattered.

Taking this one step forward, can you imagine if we lived without ANY reminder of time, not even the Sun. On Earth, this would be feasible in the polar regions, where for 6 months the sun shines not. If I can travel there, I would be a willing guinea pig in this thought experiment. Lack of all sense of space is easier that way...once, in total darkness in a room, nothing was visible, not even my own body! It was then very much unclear where I began & where I ended!!! It was extremely easy to visualize a bodyless me. In fact it appears that light or lack of it is being responsible for both time & space constraints. In a way, 'freedom' is about really unlearning everything that we know about the empirical Universe...