A symbolic journey from-to.

Our life is a personal narrative. In this connection I would like to narrate an experience of a bus journey which I will use to show the reality of our day to day existence with the world, God and others.

Any journey has a beginning, a middle and an end. On the journey we meet with so many things. But always keep in mind the principle – “the first in intention is the last in execution.” I began my journey keeping in mind the stop in which I will have to get down and further go wherever I want to go. To reach the intended final stop, I will have to pass by many other stops.

Now you are not alone in the bus. You are along with the fellow passengers. Now let me put down the several elements of the journey:

The driver: you are just in the bus and you are taken to your destination by the bus driver (who knows the route, the art of driving, he is observant and careful not to meet any hurdles on the way that might risk the safety of the passengers. In a way you are driven – you might not know how to drive even, yet you are depended on the expertise of the driver to help you reach your intended destination). As you are on your journey to meaning, freedom and joy, who or what drives you? What it means to be on a driver’s seat?

The fellow passengers: the circumstances and experiences of the fellow passengers are varied. I noticed the faces of all the fellow passengers. I found that every face was utterly unique and different. They spoke in different languages. I could not understand. They share in different world (here what I mean by the world is the personally constructed world of acquired perceptions and meanings). Some I saw very busy over the mobile phones trying to connect with someone distantly other. There was a drunkard who got in the bus only to find himself again in the place he got in when the conductor told him to be out of the bus. The passengers are mostly the average poor, who do not own the means of travel.

The world seen from inside the bus: the world outside seemed to pass by reminding me of the lines of the poem, “the world is not my home; I am just a passing through”. The world was just a passing reality which you just glance through while you have no real contact except through the powerful way in through your eyes. St. Thomas Aquinas would say that “our senses are windows to our souls.”