Recently Po was admitted to hospital for kidney stone pain. As there was no special room available and admission was required he was given a sharing room with one more patient. This was an old lady suffering from cancer. Around 3 am. She started talking loudly mostly questions like “when will she go home”? “ why is she made a prisoner here”? “ who is behind all this happening in her life”? “why is she suffering, if  she has been good person throughout”? and so on...The nurses and attendants quickly came in tried to pacify her with answers and coaxing her to sleep and bringing her to awareness of there is another patient who may be getting disturbed. For a while she became quiet and again the drama continued. This went on till late morning. Then she fell silent and slept off.

When she was resting we were chatting with her son on her condition. We thought she was schizophrenic but to our surprise she was not. This whole drama happened because  of morphine patch she was administered for pain management. The side effect of morphine patch is one looses consciousness and gets into a drunk like situation with no control over thoughts, action or speech.

Her state lead me into a space of  realization, I felt the presence of  this  morphine patch condition in myself.  When I  loose  connection with universal consciousness and get driven by forces of sense, fears and duality i am under the morphine patch influence.  All  thought, speech and action are guided by it. I also constantly feel the need of “going home”  or “prisoners of life” or even in wondering “who is behind all this happening”...and so on.  When the morphine patch looses its potency I connect,  practice and become one .

 And then again comes one more strong experience and I am overwhelmingly washed away  by its madness and morphine patch is renewed. There is no dearth of such patches it could be as simple as craving for my favourite banana chips, to being compassionate or loved or kind to as complex as the need of knowing “who am I” or “why am I”,  spiritual high! Anything that sticks to the mind or the behaviour or also the feeling of  “it” being “right” is beginning of the patch. The very moment of feeling or confirming to the “right or tilting to one side” creates duality and the sure possibility of there being a “wrong or other side” and oneness breaks. Mind takes over and thought, speech , action follow.
The key question that occurred is finding a way to identify our morphine patches, acknowledging it and holding on to practice.

I am reminded of  Sufi path that  has 7 steps Zikr- Remembrance,  Shukr- Gratitude, Sabr- Patience, Tawakkal- Trust, Raza- Joyous acceptance , Mukhlis- Complete Surrender  and finally Ikhlas- Merging with all and one.  So, holding on to this and flowing through this will lead to Ikhlas.

Felt a deep gratitude for that lady who became a source of  awareness in her moments of delirium. Prayed that she and we all find our way back home!