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By Afreeha Jawad

Lest I be accused of spiritual arrogance from a much evolved man, I hesitantly informed Professor Sunanda Mahendra that I saw humanity as walking corpses. He reacted with delightful acceptance. For reasons perhaps to his knowing he quickly followed it up with the question,

"Do you meditate and when?"

Having asked him what he meant, Professor Mahendra continued, "You know, to keep thoughts coming in one after the other."

I paused a while because I never ever faced such situations where thoughts grip me with exasperating momentum.

When I informed the professor that I never experience such dauntless dilemma, the amazed Professor stood and stretched out his hands and I clasped mine in traditional style - in grateful acceptance for his acknowledgement of my mental disposition.

Moreover, when I informed him of my inability to institutionalize meditation by reducing it to time and day, he perhaps fathomed my readiness to absorb his presentation. Creative awakening was his theme. What Professor encoded was first half a page. What could I write with this I asked myself?

And as I trekked downhill Kelaniya Campus, got into the bus and was on my way to office, I was soon on a mental hitch hike, thinking of the myriads of interpretation I began to derive from those two words "creative awakening."

I began to realize Professor Sunanda Mahendra's gladness in my seeing humanity as walking corpses. The absence of creative awakening has plummeted contemperatory mankind to a dismal state - left him expressionless, frozen, non-innovative, dull and despondent.

The compelling forces that grip his thinking is so vast, so much so that man is engulfed in a cyclone that subjugates his spirit - the throb of life. Swimming with the tide puts a lid on creative awakening. You are simply following a set of fools when playing popular tune. Insulation or isolation brings out the best in man.

The much resented rebels and non-conformists - even the great spiritual personages are best examples of thought at its noblest. Refusal to go the way the world did made them positive deviants which in turn produced new civilizations that nurtured man's insight. Tagore, Tolstoy, Sir Mohammed Iqbal, Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jailani, the world's greatest mystics, social and religious reformers - the Buddha, Jesus Christ, Prophet Mohammed, the Yogis, rishis - oh!

The list is unending - those great personages that stood by their convictions in an outstandingly courageous attempt to deviate from the world's accepted norms had with them an all powerful creative awakening - not to forget - the ordeals, trials and difficulties that befell them from the non-illuminating run-of-the-mill holding fast only to fundamentals. Man's physical anatomy comprises fundamentals. We share common biological attributes-a test on man, but there is an invisible power embedded in man that puts to test as it were, the fundamentals which does and does not make him different from animals - depending on what style his deep rooted philosophy bats on with the fundamentals.

When one says elections must be won uttering falsehood, resorting to thuggery and vote rigging, the philosophy is thrown overboard and fundamentals emerge. If well directed these crude fundamentals elevate man to divinity and otherwise to perdition.

If man develops creative awakening and gives priority to sincerity - the philosophy in him emerges - for he has then cast aside all fundamentalistic appendages.

Lincoln, the great universal personality abolished slavery amidst a swarm of wrath and humiliation. But he stood firm by his convictions. In our own land we had Nihal Perera of the Desha Vimukthi Janatha Peramuna. Where there was oppression, there stood Nihal regardless of worldly positions he held. Even as an executive at Bogala graphites he took part in the miners' strike. He was there with the farmers in their sorrow - with the workers in their struggle - certainly creative awakening at its best. He lives today in the hearts of cultured men and women as an embodiment of truth.

In our daily living, in the course of communicating, on the street, in one's workplace, in the bus or wherever we may be, creative awakening becomes a reality when we stand by our convictions. Non-drinkers feel cast aside in the company of what is called 'social drinkers.' They yield due to their inability to resist - the weakness of will overrides the power of one's convictions. Meat eating is fashionable. One who doesn't is told,

"You do not know how much you are missing in life."

Grinning at such situation is good while clinging to one's convictions is best. When one sees the next woman dolled up wearing the most expensive jewellery, she is taken as a role model by others of her ilk. That one's neighbour has powerful political connections and is well saddled in position lures another into an aspiring state.

A friend's ostentatious living makes another competitive and a fierce struggle for show sets in. The latest in fashion and the newest bathroom suite is uppermost a 'dead mind'.

All these and more sees creative awakening edging out of man. He is no longer a living being but a dead force. But whenever there is creative awakening one is vibrant and elegant, illumined and full of life.

"But who is going to teach and who is going to learn," asked the Professor.

Said, he, "You know I come to work. I meet and chat with people. I read the papers, books, magazines. I listen to the radio and watch TV. From whom do I learn and what do I learn?'

Certainly, Professor Sunanda Mahendra was trying to convey not something but many things.

Numerous were the instances when undergraduates had walked upto him saying, "Sir, what can we do here. It's better to till our land," - and have left the portals of learning, retreating into their villages.

Some have opted for a life of church work.

Professor Sunanda Mahendra sees them as highly awakened people.

"They believe life's futility and this itself is creative awakening," he said.

There was great mental stimulation when he said,

"While understanding tradition - don't be traditional

While understanding modern living - don't be blind."

Sending a fervent appeal to understand things in their correct perspective, he insisted on learning that would carry one to a wider and broader system - obviously hinting at achieving enlightenment beyond sense perceived knowledge.

This writer believes no book could give enlightenment and that knowledge belongs to sense periphery goes without saying. The wisdom and learning this Professor calls for, I believe is of a non - conformist nature - unique par excellence. Creative thinking is a forerunner to such state.

"Be not happy about wealth knowledge position and political power but be happy with an awakened mind," re-iterated Professor Sunanda Mahendra.

The day to day tasks - the monotony - the one way direction of society into wealth and 'self dress' makes man more ignorant - for this writer believes it is akin to retreating to those dark ages. Today's learning conditions man.

When what we see and hear stems out of a conditioned mind, disaster is inevitable and when conditioned minds make up social, religious, cultural political and military groupings, expecting social well-being or even personal well-being is beyond sight.

It brings to this writer's mind the beauty of a bird in solo flight unlike the forlorn expression of the caged one.

Such is man's spirit. It's meant to soar sky high. However, the great thud of mass communication's magic bullet theory via all media halts man's creative awakening. He is being directed only to be found misdirected, guided only to be lost misguided, he is being flown only to be firmly grounded.

As to who can redeem this man - the condemned one, is an unanswered question. Very few have creative awakening to fight forces that ground them. The world, it is often said is shrinking into a global village - technology is making it so and alongside, one finds man's mind shrinking, becoming warped, narrow and fettered - forced into one track thought.

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