You call it a delusion or a hallucination! A phenomenon issuing from beholder’s own mind and nothing out there. You can call it a thing churned out from one’s own knowledge accumulated in memory over time or far beyond time with the person being aware or non-aware of it. No way can you be wrong. I myself do not have an iota of doubt about it that everything I see, sense, or feel, proceeds from my own mind and that the store of knowledge in my memory come into play in shaping and manifesting things to my sensory reception and cognitive consumption.

But the thing that got me in a fix about this was this strange visitor, the silver man wearing robe of gold, which now holds me back from denying the existence of things/phenomenon outside the non-noisy, peaceful, empty head devoid of thoughts and ideas. To me, the question now is, achieving the state of thoughtlessness is perfectly possible, it is equally possible that a thoughtless head is immune to the phenomenon happening around it, hence not affected by it. Is that just enough to rule out the possibility of the existence of things and the secret games they are in just because I don’t understand it? They may have their own dwelling place and my own and there is no way we can connect. And above all, when I am doing all this talking, isn’t it a thought at play or else what makes me talking all this bullshit?

Before I get into talking about this queer/obscure event or phenomenon (I admit I am thinking) and my recurrent encounter with this strange visitor, the silver man in robe of gold, let me say a word or two about myself.

I don’t do drugs, honestly never done it. I’ve always played straight. The only drink seldom if ever I take is beer, a glass or two at the most. I have been a non-religious, non-spiritual, non-traditional, non-philosophical, and agnostic if not out and out atheist, non-conformist, born to Hindu parents. I have never been to a temple, monastery, and shrine, for praying or seeking blessings of God. I’ve never believed in the existence of anything outside my own mind that too, is my own creation. No events, accidents, have knocked me off the pedestal, I mean, the way I have ever been even now pushing 60s. There has been no undone thing for me. I have eaten anything to kill hunger, crashed out anywhere when sleep came over me, got my leg over any willing woman when I had urge for it.

I went to a school running under a banyan tree, did Grade 3 there, and then, was put into a school with roof over head and desk and bench in a room to sit on. With visceral dislike to the whole business of teaching and learning, I dragged myself through the school level and called it quit. I ran away from home at the age 14 and said goodbye to this tedious and futile business of teaching and learning. I say this much for myself. Whatever I know now, if I know anything at all, I have no way to know how I came to know about them. That’s because I am afraid to say I’ve a blunt and not a logical mind.

Now, on the issue that I pick to wrestle with before my Linked-In friends, brothers and sisters, my position is pathetically untenable. I am totally rudderless. I take anything anyone has to say humbly in a bowed head. I don’t defend it nor do I claim it that my encounter with this strange visitor in robe of gold is anything mystical or paranormal or transcendental or anything like that, nor do I disclaim it not being one of these. And yet, I can’t help calling it something funny, strange, or rather mysterious (an image, a visitation, or you name this phenomenon anything) something I have wrestled with for 3 ½ years and yet failed to figure out.

I’ve always let go of it after the encounter that lasted for a second or two and the whole episode just went off my head before myself retiring to my comfort zone of mind, never deemed it necessary to come out of the quietude of mind and make a noise about it with anyone. I have completely no idea why or what held me back from doing so. It never came to me that I should talk about it with anyone. This time, however, I felt impelled to share it with Linked-In friends for reason I honestly don’t know, for this strange visitor (phenomenon) hovered right outside the glass window just as I was commenting on a Linked-In post, the other day. I remember the comment I wrote “Mind breeds life and life gives hell to mind” to a post from a doctor, sitting on the couch.

This strange visitor (visitation) has often manifested itself before me at a time when I am in a state of complete solitude, quiet, all by myself and all with myself, stretching out on a chair, rocking in a swing in the terrace, or lying on my back on a couch in living room. The visit has been recurrent, not frequent though. Quite a few times, it came over me in dream or in a vision or some state or plane of existence, I can’t name it. I don’t want to call this encounter an experience, because I doubt if I am capable of experiencing anything independent of and immune from my own ideas and thoughts. However, in the interest of the ensuing discussion, I have no choice but to call it an ‘encounter’ with a strange visitor, the word doesn’t exactly represent the phenomenon, though.

My first encounter with this silver face man with snowy white hair in golden robe (My memory or whatever instrument I have in head captures the image something like this) took place 3 ½ years ago when I was sitting all quiet by myself in the terrace basking in the pale, wintry sunlight. I can say it with certain degree of certainty that my head was totally empty at that point of time, dreadfully still, awfully tranquil. I sense that my whole being was in such a state of existence where one is barely connected with his consciousness, no way to orient himself, and is not holding on to anything, void of thoughts and ideas. It doesn’t occur to me that I had fallen into trance or deep in meditation of sort. I call this state my comfort zone of ‘mind’ a place I often retire to when I am not doing anything.

I could hear the chirping of sparrows, cooing of doves, and children crying, and shrilling of a woman, a plane droning in the distance. Suddenly I felt like my body quaked, something like a boat smashing into a rock and you are jolted out of it, and then, this phenomenon, the strange visitor, appeared hovering over me at an arm’s length in the crispy air under the blue sky, shiny silver face wrapped in golden robe, smiling serenely. After a while, in the lapse of few seconds (earthly time), the visitor vanished without a trace. No communication in whatever form or mode between him and me took place. The encounter had no effect on me whatsoever, except that I discovered my comfort zone of mind becoming increasingly comfortable and pleasant to me.

Over the span of these 3 ½ years this being called ‘Me’ and this strange visitor, silver face thing in robe of gold, came in contact with each other for about over a dozen times, I have lost count of it. Often when I am retired to the comfort zone of my mind, the strange visitor manifests itself before me holding serene smile on lips.

I honestly don’t understand this phenomenon. Previously, I took it as though I was hallucinating or undergoing some state of delusion. Now, I don’t waste a second on it. No matter what it is or no matter what the secret of the existence of such phenomenon is, it has been incredibly helpful to my entire state of being. It comes and goes, leaves solace behind. I don’t call it happiness, for happiness is contingent on a thing or a condition, I enter a state that I am reluctant to part company with.

The encounter has added a new dimension to my ‘mind’. I have a comfort zone where I retire to, and yet, I accept that there may be phenomenon manifesting itself, not necessarily issuing from one’s own mind. Or, may be, the reincarnation theory comes into play here. In this life time, I have been non-religious, non-spiritual, and antagonistic and atheist, never believed in anything God or non-God, so what, may be the content of the thing that I am is a continuance transcending earthly concept of time. It may be the residual remains of things I acquired over several lifetimes that issued from my mind resulting in the manifestation – the silver face man in robe of gold.

I have heard of spiritual men, religious men, great devotees of Gods and Goddess, or holy men deep in transcendental meditation in the wilderness of caves and Himalayas, withstanding harsh rigors of elements, who conjure up an image of God or Goddess in mind , attached to it so much so that they go totally detached to the world, and, they see the images materializing into real thing before them. With me, I have been none of them nor have been a believer of anything, Then, how can it possibly issue from my own mind?

Well, there is no explanation. I welcome in humility with grace any explanation readers of this post offer me. Until then, I continue to hold on to it that everything manifesting before me is nothing but projection of my own mind.