The Great Question

Paradoxes. Contradictions. Binary opposites. Many faces of reality. Universe: An Enigma.

An Infinite and Sublime, but unseen reality- accepted and denied. Multiple ephemeral beings- bound to change… die. Interplay of eternity and transience. Purpose of life?

Pause. Repeat.

She woke up in the middle of night drenched in sweat. It was the third consecutive night that she had this dream where she was sitting in a blank white boxed space examination hall. It was an online exam. The question appeared on the computer screen in the form of a video. The whole text played out in video format repeatedly. She was clueless about the answer and began to panic. A severe anxiety attack gripped her chest. Unknown fears clogged her breathing and she fell to the ground gasping for breath. That is when she woke up the first night. The second night she woke up after dreaming that her breathing had stopped entirely and her soul had left her body. On the third night, she felt herself being lowered into her grave and that is when she woke up. All through the last moments of life, dying and being buried, her mind was fixated on the confusing question asked in the exam. She kept tossing and turning, but could not regain sleep and after a few hours of this restless attempt at resting, she began her day in a lusterless way.

The day rolled by, like many days before, in miscellaneous activities, random thoughts and erratic emotions. When night descended, she began to dread the living coffin of sleep. But the stealthy claws of intoxicating drowsiness crawled up on her and soon she was dreaming again. The video played out. She fell to the ground struggling to breathe. Her body became lifeless. She was buried. Tonight, she dreamt that her whole life, all her actions and thoughts were being presented before her in the form of one gigantic and monolithic 3-D image. She was sifting through various scenes of her life. She was hearing the echo of her own words and feeling the pulse of her own unspoken thoughts. She saw many, many scenes like an unending train going by before her - events long past and erased from memory.

She had been an active politician. She saw how she’d used different tactics to get done whatever was necessary without thinking of long-term consequences. She could hear her rhetoric appealing to the emotions of nationalism, xenophobia, religiosity, gender identity and racism in her voter bank.

She glimpsed at her two sons and remembered the feeling of horror at discovering her due date was in the midst of an election campaign. She remembered being divided as a wife, mother and a public servant.

She also saw her early suitors and lovers, her ex-husband and the current husband. She felt again the fleeting passions of teenage, the romantic fervours of youth, the hasty decision of oncoming middle life resulting in divorce, the pragmatic decision of having a tag-along husband necessary for outward appearances.

She also beheld her ritualistic devotion of arranging grand Milad ceremonies, her ostentatious charity spending, her secret prayers in the middle of night for becoming a part of the highest state offices. She also witnessed herself at various festivals, gatherings and parties throughout her life.

Then, all at once, the reel stopped. The images stopped sifting by and she was enveloped by pitch darkness and an eerie silence. In the darkness of her grave, somebody spoke and she heard the words, not through her ears, but within her heart and mind: So, do you have the answer to the Great Question?

“Which question?” she asked back.

This: Paradoxes. Contradictions. Binary opposites. Many faces of reality. Universe: An Enigma. An Infinite and Sublime, but unseen reality - accepted and denied. Multiple ephemeral beings- bound to change… die. Interplay of eternity and transience. Purpose of life?

That is when the dream ended that night and her eyes opened up in a modicum of peace, unlike the last three nights of extreme anxiety.

The first three nights had riveted her attention to the dream. After the fourth time, her mind was engaged in a thought process. All day long through her office hours and during committee meetings and at home she kept thinking about the way she had consumed the elixir of time. For once, she was unsure of her convictions and the purpose of her life. She was known to be a commanding and determined woman of single-minded focus who could achieve anything. Yet, today she thought if any of it had been worth achieving. She had spent her whole life jumping from one goal to the next, blindly busy competing with others and her own self in acquiring more and accumulating better. She had entangled herself in whirlwinds of short-lived emotions without pausing to think and enjoy and be grateful and generous and content. She realized that she had been investing solely in worldly pursuits without serious regard to having a permanent legacy etched forever in the records of time immemorial.

On the fifth night, she went to sleep with a heavy heart. Video. Dying. Grave. Scenes from her life. Unknown voice asking the question. Tonight, she replied sadly and honestly, “No, I do not have the answer to the Great Question.”

So, she was shown another movie “a pastiche of snippets” from her life. She saw herself as a child bandaging an injured cat. Giving away her Eidi to the maid’s daughter quietly and secretly as a girl. Helping weaker class fellows with difficult subjects as a college student. Seeing her first love, remembering how she’d been more honest and truthful and unconditionally caring than ever in later life. Tending to her grandfather and praying for his recovery. Reading storybooks to her young sons and cooking for them and playing with them long, long before they had even forgotten to miss their mother for being absent from their lives. Sharing blissful moments of complete mental and physical proximity with her husband. Sending for a two month leave and full salary to a servant who fell sick. Spending generously on the education and marriage of her distant but related orphaned nephew and niece. Giving food baskets to the needy in her constituency during Ramadan.

The dream came to an end. She woke up with tears in her eyes. She laid silently until morning. Thinking. Feeling.

Then, she planned to cancel her appointments for a week to visit her grandson in another city who’d been eager to see her. She looked on the other side of the bed where her husband was sound asleep. She decided to accompany him on his next visit to the hospital for his regular check- up. She knew he’d be glad. He was not a demanding husband and she had ruthlessly used this to her advantage by neglecting small acts of love and kindness within her power. She felt sorry now.

On the sixth night, she answered the unseen examiner in a matter-of-fact tone, “I know the answer to the Great Question. The only purpose of life is to find the Truth and serve it with sincerity.”

Voice: What is your Truth?

She hesitated at first, then answered in a low tone, “My Truth had always been love for everyone and selfless service of mankind. It got distorted by narcissism, desires and falsehoods along the way.’

Voice: What is your Truth NOW?

She kept quiet. Her heart began to beat quicker. Would she pass? Or had she already failed? The dream ended and she woke up with her heart beating faster.

On the seventh night she went to sleep expecting the sequence of images to run till the events of the last night. The video began to play. Her emotional quality while watching the video was no longer perplexed and panicked. She felt prepared and pragmatic. She waited for her breath to become difficult and stop, but she kept breathing normally. Instead of falling to the ground, she kept sitting in her chair. So, she looked around, waiting for the dream to move on to the next scene. Nothing. She looked at the computer screen again. Underneath the first question, a new question had popped up: What is your Truth NOW?

She was confident this time and began to type her answer in earnest.