A few years back, I was sitting on the Mediterranean island of Santorini marveling at the black sandy beach juxtaposed against the pristine blue waters. Vacation it was, and my mind wandered away from the temporal to the timeless. Ancient Greece started rising in thoughts and I acknowledged Socrates, Aristotle and Pericles for their gifts of reflection, rationality and democracy. Not only had I traveled miles away from the familiar but also floated away in time. Is this what it is to ‘vacate’, I thought? Hmm, Vacate? - derives from the Sanskrit word, ‘avakash’ - to unhook oneself from the mundane rubric; is this not what artists do on stage – move from the mundane to a special dramatic space? As the sun was setting in its spectacular style, the black sands of Santorini started to turn into the backdrop of a theatre.

My drama teacher was exhorting me to step into the character by completely abandoning the little boy trembling at the threshold of transcendence. The boy broke into tears momentarily and right thereafter turned into a new person singing away the lines with pizazz. The release felt like flying away to a different world. It was overwhelming and always is whenever I step into a stage persona; a true vacation without having to tolerate the cramped leg-spaces and jet lags.

We all play many roles during the course of the day except that we start taking it too seriously and then it becomes burdensome.  Is it possible then to treat it all like a drama? Well Natyashastra, the ancient Indian treatise on dramaturgy does proclaim all our lives to be a ‘cosmic drama’; and by maintaining an awareness of the transience of the roles that we play, one can truly savor each moment as it arrives, without getting caught up in the illusion of its permanence.

The summer is blooming again and as I looked at the shimmering leaves of a tall tree from the window, waves of joy started hitting my heart. I wonder what causes such scenes of nature to bring the shimmering inside us. I am not the tree, I don’t own the tree, and yet it is bringing me endless joy. I don’t own the sunset or the roaring waves of the ocean and yet they touch me deeply. And they are always there, yet sometimes I receive their gifts and sometimes completely closed to their generosity. Increasingly I have been feeling that one cannot own anything, except for one’s loving gaze. And then all of life, everyone starts looking your own. And then, somehow the cosmos starts to sense the unilateral gesture and responds with boundless joy.

‘True vacation’ is closer than one may think and the ancient secrets in Natyashastra are powerful enough to ‘Awaken the Performer Within’ each person.

A 5-session workshop (Awaken the Performer Within: Secrets from Natyashastra) will be held on July 12, 13, 14, 19, 21 (6:00-8:30pm) at Lexington Community Center, 39 Marrett Road, Lexington, MA 02421.
The workshop is FREE but requires RSVP registration: http://imeru.net/

|