Reading people's thoughts!

I switched on the T.V. a while ago and on BBC entertainment channel there was something called 'Touchwood’ being relayed. I caught the programme in the middle, just at the point when a girl was giving another girl a pendent in a restaurant. Suddenly the other girl- with oriental features – gasped, because she could tune into the thoughts of the other people around her. It was a kind of mind reading device. The story moved through with the pendent giver turning out to be a human-heart eating alien disguised as an attractive woman (who has a lesbian relationship with the other girl – Toshi, I think the name was). While the movement of the plot didn’t anchor me, the situation presented did. Tuning into the minds of others – something I’ve been reading in the newspaper for the last couple of days – is probably going to be possible in the near future.

I’m wondering – is it worth it... How much is a passing thought worth? What can it do? With due respect to the explosion of the 'think positive’ and 'create a world with your thoughts’ movement, this seems to me only the tip of the ice-berg. Perhaps because it is easier said than done. For the mind to have power it needs to be able to harness thoughts. Thoughts buzz like flies in the mind. There needs to be focus of all those if the thought is to have any potency. That’s what one of the characters says in the story, "at least my thoughts are consistent”. To gather one’s energies and not dissipate them, now that’s going to make a difference! That’s what many mind exercises and meditation techniques seek to do.

I’ve been lately thinking how we tend to dissipate ourselves. Last night I went to a meet/seminar where Indian and American School Heads met – organised I realised, in the hope that the Americans can learn the secret formula that makes Indians so good at Maths and Science. It was an initial ’test the waters’ kind of meet, with drinks and dinner, and no future course chartered, a lot of visiting cards changing hands. I couldn’t help thinking – what a waste of time for me! This kind of ’just like that’ thing is okay if you don’t know what to do with your time, but the need to insulate yourself from dissipation, seems strong in me at this stage in life. Many of my friends, I know will say, if you are in touch with the universe’s energy you shouldn’t feel like this. But I do feel it, and think, wasting your time or energy on trivialities is ...well, a waste! Have to add here that the drive in the dusk accross Marine Drive and the new Worli sea-link was a treat though... So, while one can make most of a situation, there is yet, a need to think about the situations we invite into our lives.

To come back to the training of the mind. The world of the human mind seems to be open to ...manipulation by those who do have strong and focused minds. And if a person wants to use it in a certain way, he or she can. But it is the world ’beyond thoughts’ that intrigues me. Some call it the realm of the enlightened. Okay, no big deal, you can give it a holier-than-thou label! Yet many, if not, all of us have experienced spaces of thoughtlessness... a space conducive for what is termed as enlightenment... I suppose for those this is a more constant state can say more... I’m listening!

-HK