The Student Companion

More than a Friend

I'm entering a new phase of my experiences … that involves … a relation to physical individuals … in a real contact with … living states of mind. Its hardly surprising therefore … that my first contact is with an old school friend … I haven't seen in almost 40 years. Its the one … we all share our philosophical thoughts with … but more than that … we integrate them in our dreams … of the young eros growing up into the world's experience … with his companions.

It introduces the individual to an experience … drawn from our enthusiasm … that many may not have yet examined. Its the sublime experience of naivety … in our childish and infantile view of life. It has no guide … no restrictions … or limitations … in the way it conducts its affairs. It runs on the basis of interest and joy … that is the companion of the adventurer … in search of something new. It is neither servant nor master to none.

It feels strange at first contact … and the individual is bound to wonder about its … purely self-gratifying manner of interest in itself. But free of its sexual bias … or any other related biases for ambition and self pride … the experience feels like the first day of creation … when we wondered … about the nature of who we are. In our present experience of the individual self … it shares with us the impulse of knowing … but does not declare that it is absolutely true. Hence the initiator … who embarks on his adventure … is left to his own devices to decide what is the correct action.

Its like the view of a mass of dark matter lying in space … from which there suddenly shines a light. Such is the manner in which I came to meet this school friend of mine … when we were both about 14 years of age. Over the next 5 years … until we left school for college … our lives were entwined in a relationship we never fully understood … until we made contact again … after 40 years recently. It appears to me that during these past 40 years … I have been living and engaging my life … with him as the companion.

The discovery continues to astound me … and I wonder if everybody else … goes through life with simply one friend as companion … in whose relation … we work … marry … have children … and generally go through all experiences in life. Or perhaps … I thought … its the way the mind is organized to help … process the large numbers of data … that's engaged as part of the process of self understanding. In addition it also provides a personal and relational account of the experience of creation … with the individual experience of the self.

In Indic texts … the Vasudeva … makes the comment that … its only him and his brother … Balram … who engage each other … and deal with the issues … as it relates to creation and the self. He plays the role of the man … while his brother … undertakes the … ' expansionary role ' … that may be translated as domain or loka. In the ensuing relationship … they both break and build … in each other's company … their individual conditions … according to the creative drive.

It is a most incredible experience for anyone to come into contact with the phenomenon. The questions are endless. What does this mean to me as an individual? Am I God? In viewing my experiences … this way … how do I continue my relations with others? How do I respond to any given situation … say in the supermarket? How may I best manage the experience … and retain the sense of my normal life as a human individual?

The experience with the friend is also the trail of the sensual and sexual development of the individual. It begins with the individual and an invisible friend … thereafter it goes to substitute for the invisible friend with someone at school. Thereafter the phenomenon continues … in the experience of the individual … and whether or not that is corroborated by the friend and his actions is hard to say. But the individual forms … a certain premise about the invisible friend … and continues unabated … even after commencing the association of the friend in school.

I'm of the view that the invisible friend is female in gender … and may be loosely associated with mother … sister … aunt … and so forth. However … the individual denies this in his experience … for its a factor in the development of the sexual impulses of the male. Instead … he views it as … father or brother … and then friend … to retain the sense that he is in control of the impulses … and it identifies him as man.

Its this vague sense of identifying the friend … that may account for the basis … that is used … to refer to all experiences in life … and forms identification with the physical objects of his experiences. Then one fine day … at 60 years of age … we open up and realize that … this package of impulses associated with the invisible friend … has been the source of everything we encountered in life. And it makes for an astounding discovery.

It hasn't been possible for me to claim … intuition … on all aspects of the experience of this … magic ball of impulses. However it is clear as to how it applied itself to my lifetime … just this one … as the basis of my relation to it. It infers a sense of things past … both events and lives … and what may be yet to come. I'm left to understand better my relations with it … and how I can contribute to its continuity of experience. But it does imply by its intimations … that my handling of it … is the first stable experience … it has had … for a long time.

My old school friend and I a re meeting up for lunch this sunday … but already … the experience has grown beyond anything we saw in our mere friendship with each other. We had a bit of misunderstanding … after the days in school. Our interests had apparently strayed into different areas … and I had substituted his friendship with others … but on the phone recently … it appeared that none of the subsitututes had come close … to taking the place of this one … that was born at first light … and had grown in the innocence of an open declaration … of the childhood passions. It promises to be an interesting meeting.