Thoreau and Nanak: If you wanna walk …

Commonalities often run through messages of great thinkers. To appeal to our nobler aspirations and point us towards the higher ground, they often use metaphors or an actual site to simulate the higher ground. Continuing the conversation from the previous post, a case in point is Nanak’s and Thoreau’s use of walking and path, metaphorically and literally, and the price of admission for this journey. Nanak says:

jau qau pRym Kylx kw cwau ] isru Dir qlI glI myrI Awau ] iequ mwrig pYru DrIjY ] isru dIjY kwix n kIjY ]20]

If you desire to play the game of love (for all), then come to me with your head on your palm. To step on this path entails a readiness to give your head without any hesitation.

Thoreau’s concept of walking reflects this spirit. In his book, Walking, Thoreau writes:

We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return — prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again–if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man–then you are ready for a walk.

Whereas Nanak used the words street, path, steps metaphorically, Thoreau used walking in the literal sense. However, there is a strong overlap between the two messages. Both address the walker’s conception of walking, of what it means to walk (on a path) and what it takes to walk (on that path). It is about the price one should be willing to pay for the walk. The knowledge of what it takes to walk that walk. And the willingness to pay the price.

The mood is contemplative, one of absorption and meditation, of being completely immersed in the activity. The path is one that leads to higher ground. And the price for admission to this trail is high: readiness to give up life (in Nanak’s case) and family +friends (in Thoreau’s case). A high cost for the higher ground.

Here and Now

7:45am. A knock on the door. I swivel my chair and see Kennie at the door. I have been expecting her. We leave for our morning walk.

Today is the first of – hopefully – many more morning walks. We have decided to have a morning walk built into our routine.

Cutting through the fields, we reach the ‘trail’ – once a rail track now a paved 5-feet wide trail that passes through open farm land, cuts through woods, crawls through a tunnel, and brushes several backyards on its way to the bridge over a river. Cyclists, walkers, runners, skaters frequent this trail.

We walk a walkie-talkie: walking and talking. I recollect a passage from Thoreau’s Walking:

“When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods … Of course it is of no use to direct our steps to the woods, if they do not carry us thither. I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit. In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to Society. But it sometimes happens that I cannot easily shake off the village. The thought of some work will run in my head and I am not where my body is — I am out of my senses. In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods? I suspect myself, and cannot help a shudder when I find myself so implicated even in what are called good works — for this may sometimes happen.”

I mention this to Kennie. With me, it has mostly been walking for the purpose of thinking. Usually when I am writing a paper, or prepping for teaching, and am confused about something, I usually take a break and go walking. Sometimes I am thinking about the paper all the time that I am walking, and sometimes not. But when I get back to my desk, I have attained a clarity that is a result of not only the physical activity of walking but also of thinking.

Thoreau, however, would take a strong objection to what I would call as ‘walking’. “I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks.” For Thoreau, walking is not just a physical activity; it is a state of mind, a state of being that entails being ‘here and now’. It means not carrying the village to the woods. “Our expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old hearth-side from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our steps.”

It reminded of the following story. Guru Nanak, was traveling in Mecca when a Qazi, challenging Nanak’s open mindedness, invited him to join them in the prayers (Namaz) at the local mosque. When the namaz ended, the Qazi was offended that Nanak had not gone through the motions others went through in the prayers. Nanak replied that had others been actually praying, he would have joined them in those motions. But they were not wholly present: During the prayers, the Qazi was worried about the new-born calf at his house falling into the open well and another was thinking about the upcoming business deal of Arabian horses.

I experience this wandering every time I go to Gurudwara. I am not present there. Thoreau would say, what business have I in the Gurudwara, if I am thinking of something out of the Gurudwara?

Whether it is Thoreau’s walk, or Nanak’s prayer, or Buddha’s vipassana, the idea of being present in the present, to be focused, to be in the moment, to be aware and mindful, not so as to avoid being someplace else, but to be here and now.

Artist or a Copy Cat?

This morning I was on Skype with my brother and his family in India. Engaging my 6-year niece in a conversation, I showed her (webcasted) a sketch of a handsoap bottle I had drawn recently. (OK. I confess. Sometimes I carry my sketchbook to the restroom.) Last time I was in India, my niece and I spent quite some time sketching together. It had helped the ‘bonding’; it also helped her on her homework. She continues to display a healthy interest in coloring assignments and drawing, and if that continues, will hopefully continue forging the common ground.

Today, on Skype, holding my sketchbook close to the webcam, I asked her:

Can you see the drawing?”
“Yes”
“What do you see?”
A pause. Then,
“A spray”
(I held back my urge to correct her right now. I am not sure if the 6-yr old has been using bottles like this one in India.)
“But it is a copycat,” she added.
“What!”
“Chachaji” – she was refering to me – “is a copycat. Last time he drew my bicycle. Now he copied the drawing from a bottle. Chachaji is a copycat.“

I have been scratching my head since then. Does sketching an object mean that I am ‘copying’? And as a sketcher, then am I a copy cat?

Was my niece just being a precocious kid or was she calling attention to the Emperor’s clothes?

Mustang Passion in a Junkyard

Chanced upon an interesting talk on NPR on the way home from a 3-hour shopping at BJ’s. (My motivation for putting on the radio was a rather political one: I was seeking an update on the Guam primaries). The program had a 10 minute segment on a person Delonzo Rhynes in Indianapolis, who restores junkyard Mustangs to their original glory.

Delonzo Rhyne collects Mustangs, not as in a collector of Mustangs, but runs a “dumping ground for Mustang”, or “a graveyard where Mustangs come to die”. From this wreck, he creates new Mustangs and has a new name for the restored Mustangs – “Thunderhawk”. Towards the end of his interview, Rhyne laughs. It is a hearty laugh. He laughs as if he can’t help himself. He is having lot of fun, he says, and it sure did come across in that interview.

Delnozo’s passion for his work left quite an impression with me. Reminds me of the line in Illusions by Richard Bach: The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work. It was good to hear a man in love with his work: Enjoying his work, giving his customers a great product, making money, (the first car sold for $125,000 and the next 2 are ready for around $150,000 each), and having a good laugh too.

Crisis Resolved

The crisis has been resolved. MM, my committee member, found out that he can still stay on my committee even after moving to the North Carolina university. Encouraging part – he expressed interest in continuing to serve on my committee, and so it will be. At the dissertation defense, we will have him on voice or video conference.

I am not stressed.

Relax Singh.