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An Odyssey of Love
This is a psycho-spiritual journey of a man who experienced the ecstasy of love and the frustrations of love but could not sustain the love relationship. In the process he discovered that loving is to detach one self from one's Haumain* experience and listen to the other person with compassion and detachment from one's own history to understand the impact of their personal histories in the context of the history of our civilization that caused them pain and suffering. It is the nature of the resolution of this pain that reflects in our manifest behavior. Recognizing the mystery of life makes us humble and our feeling of knowing may be misguiding us. Throughout the human history we have suffered in our interpersonal relationships and have caused immense suffering to each other's communities and nations. A deeper understanding beyond the manifest behavior heals our pain and brings us closer to each other and liberates us from our painful past. To accomplish this requires being non-judgmental and non reactive with unconditional commitment to
the loving relationship. Such liberation brings peace within and harmony with the world around us. We need to learn to listen compassionately with detachment to our Haumain experience at interpersonal, organizational, national and international levels to understand our individual, religious and socio-political differences.
In his journey Rishi experiences conflict at inter-personal, organizational and international political levels and comes up with different solutions then he had been accustomed to in the beginning of his journey. There is a subliminal text of Homeless people who are left outside of our consciousness and they remind us of the vagaries of our civilization and shed a different light on our "civilized" pursuits.
*Haumain is a Punjabi word. It literally means "I am". It is "I am" consciousness that experiences life. Attachment to this experience is the cause of all suffering. The other consciousness is the Divine Cosmic Naam consciousness that makes us experience ourselves as a part of the whole universe which is run in a Divine Order realizing this the sense of duality is alleviated. The conflict between Naam consciousness and Haumain consciousness and its consequences become clear in this play.
Meji,
I just completed reading An Odyssey of Love and I am almost feeling guilty for wiping away my tears. I wept as your Odyssey touched my soul. Rishi's pain, my pain seemed linked along with what I know is the pain felt by so many around the world.I also felt the anger/rage in me as I suspect it may raged in Rishi, when at the end he notes the history of evil doers and the pain they caused. And as my rage mounted my desire for "revenge", I realized I was responding in the very same paradigm that must be changed if we are indeed to become a loving, accepting, respecting people. How hard it is to change the paradigm in which we have been socialized/civilized?
I wept for Rishi who lost the love he had and which was reciprocated. How ironic, the belief that he was wanting/willing to sacrifice for Nicole, may have been the very reason their love was not fully realized. My heart went out to both. I felt their pain and realized the same that I too have felt when in my effort to sacrifice I deceived myself and "lost". What a tragedy for Rishi and Nicole!
I had not appreciated the lyrics of Paul Robeson singing Old Man River but now, at the end of Rishi's Odyssey, I wept over the lyrics. On page 104 you write "Thank you for the opportunity to share my passion with you". It is hard for me to capture the love and respect I have once again been reminded that I long had for you and which was further deepened by appreciating the goodness of your very being, your honesty and decency; or should I say the qualities I so admired in Rishi. As Rishi said and which I now take to heart "May we all forgive ourselves, may love be revived, may peace be within us and may we live in harmony with others".
Thank you and thank Rishi for making me more aware of how I wish my odyssey to modify its course.
- (Alvin Green, M.S.W., Fresno, California)
About five years ago I wrote a play An Odyssey of Love. The main character is awe inspired with the mysteries of life. As a psychologist he is exploring the Reality beyond the manifest and as a Sikh trying to understand the Sikh spiritual practice. This is a psycho-spiritual journey and explores the relevance of Sikh spiritual practice and psychological findings beyond the manifest to understand the current problems faced by our civilization. I have gone through many revisions to bring the theme in focus. I reduced this play from over 200 pages to less than 100 pages.
Now I am collaborating with an award winning Director to make it into a movie. I seek your help. First to read the play and send me your critique so that we can work on the flaws before we shoot the film. Second we would like to invite you and your friends to invest financially in the production of the film. It is going to be produced for commercial market and such a movie could cost any where from twenty million to two hundred million dollars. Since it does not have high tech special effects etc. and is going to be an independent film using our contacts in the film industry our budget is about two and a half million dollars. Your investment will be legally protected and the returns will be more than your principal investment. We will also appreciate in any other way you could help us in completing this project.