[Draft] Hofstadter Manifesting Raag Jogiya
Hofstadter's I Am A Strange Loop was the only book in the whole spiritual retreat spead over 25 acres, leaving Ank to wonder about the potential reasons.
At a very young age, Ank gave up on music and singing after reading that his very own Bihari Buddha didn’t prescribe it. Ank, in fact, didn’t think that ‘prescribe’ would be the right word for someone like Buddha, who dealt only with tathyas (facts)—and thus, a Tathagata. Buddha thought that music attached the practitioners to their bodies, turning bodies into a source of distraction for those striving to live in truth. Ank would have none of such attachments with nothing in and around him.
One day, while on his way to the Chamba Valley near Haridwar (the Gate to Heaven), he heard some pieces of music wafting in the air, and the music didn’t leave him; the music started to shake each atom of his body, and before he knew he had started to rhythmically billow with intensity like the boughs of an Ashoka tree dipped in water in a storm . When Ank opened his eyes, he found himself all folded up in the lotus posture, Padmasan, in the moving bus with his eyes closed. When he opened his eyes, he was startled by the gaze of the passenger sitting next to him. Ank looked at him and didn’t know how to share the descent of the ocean inside.
The music was playing in the background of his conscious mind all the time, leaving him totally intrigued and at a loss. By the next evening, when the music didn’t stop, he decided to go for a walk and soon he was sprinting.
As Ank traversed the narrow trail etched along the rugged slope, the ground beneath him gave way suddenly. With a startled cry, he lost his footing, tumbling downward amidst a cascade of loose soil and rocks.
His descent was abrupt and chaotic, his limbs flailing as he struggled to regain control. Branches and undergrowth whipped past him, scratching at his skin, as he careened further down the slope. Gravity seemed to conspire against him, dragging him relentlessly downwards.
Finally, his downward momentum was halted as he collided with a cluster of trees. But there was no relief in this abrupt stop; instead, he found himself ensnared by the gnarled branches, trapped amidst their tangle like a spider caught in its own web.
Panic surged through him as he struggled to free himself, the branches seemingly tightening their grip with every movement. Twigs snapped, leaves rustled, and the air was filled with the sounds of his desperate efforts.
Time seemed to stretch infinitely as he fought against the entanglement, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Gradually, he managed to extricate himself from the clutches of the trees, his body bruised and battered, but his spirit unbroken.
Exhausted and shaken, he lay still for a moment, allowing the adrenaline to ebb away before he slowly picked himself up, determined to continue his journey despite the harrowing ordeal he had just endured. However, he found himself the next morning in a house in the valley down below, all bundled up in a layer of kambals (quilts).
Surprised to find himself there, he inquired about his whereabouts. What he heard shocked him; he felt blessed that he was alive.
Tangled Up in the Forest
While listening to the troubles some took to pull him down from the trees on the hill, Ank’s mind wandered to the state that he was in while running with the music-worm planted in my mind. Something strange had taken over him; after running for a few minutes, he had started to feel amorphous—felt at one with everything around him, and then everything went blank.
When he again became aware of the villagers standing around him enveloped in silence, he broke out in a song.
“Piya milan ki aas,” and then shouted, “Yes, the music in my mind sits well with this song.”
He then inquired with those standing around him, “Do you know what kind of song is this?”
Some responded together, “What do you mean by what kind?”
Ank recounted his experience with the song. An older man around him whispered something to him after inching closer to where he was reclining. After some time, all in the room left, and later, Ank too left the house, but he didn’t go to his hotel. He got into a taxi and asked the driver to take him to the address shared by the old man.
The address was of a spiritual retreat. He asked for Maitri. Maitri turned out to be an ageless woman; he would later discover it was Maitri who was playing the music that had him possessed.
Raag Jogiya
Maitri requested him to clean himself, put on the retreat dress, and meet her in an hour after spending some time in the meditation hall.
There were around a dozen individuals in silence in the meditation hall when Ank reached there after taking a shower. The name of the meditation hall caught his attention: Raag Jogiya.
Maitri later explained to him that all those in the hall were there to come out of Raag Jogiya, which was swirling in their minds, taking complete possession of them. Some, in fact, had started to see a jogiya—dishevelled, intensely wild, and outlandishly attrative medicant oblivious of of the world and its norms and morality—roaming in and around them.
Ank immediately thought of a lecture that had heard by a stanford primatologist, Prof. Robert Spolsky. It felt like an occassional lapse into a higher category of schizotype; that streak of thoughts got him worried that he, too, might, lapse into it. However, watching those in the meditation hall soothed him a bit because all of them looked healthy and content. He later shared his thoughts with Maitri and he was left a little confused by what he heard.
“Ank, but you can’t see and don’t know of the gale that they are all dealing with inside. No one can, can we?”
The only way to come out of the spell that Raaga Jogiya had pulled them in was to learn about the bhava behind the raaga, Maitri shared with Ank as a matter of fact. While Maitri was explaining how foundational music was to an Indian mind or rather the whole existence, others under the spell of the Raaga Jogiya stood listening to her in their state of singularity.
One youngish-looking man inquired how frequently Maitri took the bus out of the Chamba Valley. Not to invite any trouble after sensing the intent behind the question, Maitri lied.
“I rarely leave this retreat. I don’t have any need to.”
Ank noticed that Maitri was not looking at the man who had inquired. For him, that was a sure sign of someone lying. Maitri’s response confused him, and that confusion made him look around distractedly. His mind noticed a book called, “I am a Strange Loop.” He walked back while still facing Maitri and picked up the book.
Maitri noticed Ank picking the book. Ank caught the quick attention Maitri diverted towards him.
“That is the only book in the whole retreat. That’s funny. Is it not?”
Maitri waited for someone to probe further. But no one did. Ank made a mental note and quickly bought the book on Amazon’s Kindle. Maitri intuited that; a smile spread on her, sensing such intense curiosity.
Liar’s Paradox
Maitri asked Ank to come back later.
“Ank, you are an old soul; let’s meet again, preferably on the coming Saturday.”
On Saturday, Ank noticed how old Maitri was. Maitri welcomed Ank and came straight to the point. She inquired whether Ank had read about Liar’s Paradox. Ank had not even heard of such a paradox.
Maitri explained the reason behind her lie. Many can’t take the weight of the truth. She lied to protect some from the cross they would have had to prematurely bear after knowing the truth.
Ank countered her, “But…aren’t truth supposed to set us free.”
“Vivek—the sense of discernment; vivek is the key; the timing, the right time, is the key. And as far as paradoxes are concerned, they are the tiny gateways to escape from the clutches of time-space and look at the world from an undefinable but an experiential vantage point.”
Ank didn’t understand most of what he heard, but he could feel the intent. He chose not to probe why she lied about leaving the retreat.
As if sensing his surrender, Maitri looked at Ank endearingly said, “Raag Jogiya is all about the process of creative destruction, and only a handful can bear the intensity of a continous self-annihilation.”
Manifested Jogiyas
“You are one of the few manifested jogiyas that I have come across,” Maitri told Ank. Ank didn’t understand what he heard.
“But, I am not real, Maitri. Am I?”
“We all are,” Maitri left the meditation hall muttering ‘we all are’. She then turned around, and lovingly told him, “Get ready, Ank. Time is ripe.”
Ank quicked his pace and caught up with her.
“Get ready for what?”
With smile on her face, Maitri asked him to get ready to go to a Hindustani Classical Music practice session, “We will leave in an hour. And the instructor is quite well-versed in the works of Hofstadter, so if you have any question, he should be able to address it.”
Hofstadter, a Jogiya
Ank started to read Douglas Hostadter’s I Am A Strange Loop while waiting for Maitri, and he immediately felt the reason behind Maitri keeping that book in the retreat. Hofstadter was a Jogiya. Ank loved the sound of ‘loopiness’ and the framework of ‘self-referentiality’—it reminded him of the Norsian Ouroboros, and hence was not surprised to find out the title of Hofstadter’s first book: Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (often abbreviated as GEB).
He told Maitri that he had started to read Hofstadter. Maitri asked whether Ank had read ‘The Little Prince.’ When Ank responded affirmatively, “Now, you know that Hofstadter is among those few who can see the boa constrictor depicted in the book.
Or, let me use another analogy, Hofastadter is the kind of guy who would not yell, “Free me from the hold of this tree,” while voluntarily hugging a tree.”
Maitri didn’t utter a word after talking about the little prince during the walk; she just gestered later that she had descended into herself thinking about something.
Unleashing Jogiyas to Find the Worm-hole
At the music seminary, Maitri touched the feet of the teacher and pointing to Ank said, “Here he is. I was talking about him. His experience of the raag jogiya is quite contained; not like the the others, whose experiences are spilling without them, they will pose risk to others.”
Maitri’s teacher looked at Ank while gesticulating him to sit on a machia (footstool) lying diagonal to him.
“Maitri has brought someone to me after a long time. You are a blessed person; let me wash your feet first and then we will work on our plan.”
Ank didn’t know what plan the teacher was talking about, and why some one of his grand dad’s age would like to wash his feet.
“I know what you are thinking. It’s about the plan that I just mentioned.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“I am talking about the plan to escape the earth. Our home is a prison built by some advanced civilization. We are looking for some one identify others thirty with whom who all can find the worm-hole to escape this prison.”
“And, you think I am the one.”
“Not too sure. But, you do have the potential,” the teacher responded.
“What do I have to do exactly?”
“Find 30 honest ones, the number that jumps out from Ramanujan’s God Equation. We will then train them in the Raag Jogiya, and unleash them on the world to find the worm-hole to wherever that we have come from.”
Totally astonished by such belief, Ank asked the teacher if there were anything else that he should be aware of.”
“Yes, you can count yourself as one of the 33, and the team of jogiyas can not have more than 3 women—3 women and 30 men. You place threes of thirtythree facing each other, and you have a loop that is needed to find the worm-hole.”
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[….TO BE CONTINUED]
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Disclaimer: Nothing I have written here is set in stone. I am putting these ideas to start a conversation and bring people to discuss and debate the issues captured here. Give me feedback, and it will help me learn. I will keep updating this article.