I am sitting in a high school class. It’s the end of grade eleven and I can barely take it anymore. I feel I am suffocating. I want my freedom.
Outside the walls of this school is where I thought my freedom would be.
On this particular day, in a stuffy, windowless classroom, our religion teacher is discussing about Truth. The students around me seem to be listening partially, as if waiting for it all to come to an end. I am tired too, but something in the teacher’s sentences catches my attention, the word “Truth”. I ask him, “all religions can’t be true, yet each is true to the people who are following it”. He looks at me with the look he gives when he doesn’t know the answer to the question. “Truth is partial”, he says, “a part of it is in this and a part of it is in that”. How unsatisfying of an answer…
I was finally freed from those walls, which I thought were holding me back from all that life had to give. Yet, the outside world didn’t hold the answer to my questions… at least in high school I had those walls to hide behind. Now, I can only hold myself responsible for not knowing.
Does anybody know the way? Day after day passes and I have yet to find someone who knows the way. Some days I forget even what I am looking for. I walk for hours no knowing where I am going, but somehow hoping that on my path will be someone who can help me, point me in the right direction.
Many years have passed since I sat in that classroom and I discussed of Truth with my teacher. That conversation amid those students, who probably weren’t even listening, still comes to my mind. I have read in many books that Truth is like a pathless path. It hasn’t got any directions. No one can show me how to get there. Each of us is to find it on our own, in our own unique way. Even if I found someone who knew the way, they couldn’t help me. How unsatisfying of an answer…
In the meanwhile, everyone is enjoying life it seems or maybe not. I see them always occupied, busy, wrapped up in one story or another. Everyone is falling in and out of love and moving on. They are all smiling and appear so happy. From one party to another, from one person to another, they are telling me that they are living. Maybe that is where Truth is and so I joined them. From clubs to parties, I see them posing, I see them smiling. Their smiles are empty. Their pictures are empty; there are no stories behind those pictures. The friendships aren’t as real as they appear. Yet, everyone seems contented, even happy at times.
All attempts left me unsatisfied. No matter where I went, no matter who I saw, I found no glimpse of Truth. I have also read in books that Truth must be found within you. It doesn’t exist on the outside; it is a journey that one is suppose to go on interiorly. The “how” of the journey seems to vary from person to person, which leads back to the pathless path. How unsatisfying of an ending…
