My head was inside the tunnel. The deafening noises emitted by the MRI Machine werekilling me . The Vertigo attack had commenced and I had nowhere to run. I had started sweating profusely despite all the air conditioning. The Panic Bell was far away. At least my fingers were too numb to reach for it. I wanted to run away, detach my spinning head, swing it away, scream , but could not. I was stuck. I had been told that in most cases, the turmoil routinely lasts for 15-20 minutes. In my case, it seemed like eternity. When my head became a spinning top, I could not struggle any further. I was forced to endure.I gave up. The panic bell seemed close. Was about to press it. But the pain seemed manageable now. There was some sort of peace hidden beneath the deafening machine noises. It revealed itself suddenly. The noises receded and died. The test was over. Medically and mentally. My spinning head got reunited with the torso. As I rejoiced at this reunion and the new lease of life, what struck me was the similarity in the predicament faced by me at the MRI bed, to that encountered by the humans in day to day lives. We keep striving for happiness and sensory pleasures, create a web of longings and go all out in pursuit of material goals. All our endeavors are meant to uplift us economically and increase our comforts. In the process, we get entangled in our own web. A vicious cycle of desire->gratification->desire binds us. The life becomes a game of desire gratification and simultaneous fears associated with loss (es). We struggle, try to disentangle things, but cannot. Not before the consequences of our pursuits come to life. When I was trying to avoid the pain and bondage at the MRI guillotine, the trauma increased in proportion to my desperation. For a few moments, unconsciousness or a “temporary” death seemed a better option. So similar to everyday life where people get suicidal and just want to get rid of the pain when it reaches a threshold. But as soon as I surrendered to the situation, accepted my helplessness and acknowledged the fear, suddenly the entire trauma evaporated, as if it did not exist. Why do problems reduce in magnitude when they are accepted as integral parts of life? Why does surrender and acceptance reduce insurmountable peaks to rubble? Is everything an illusion of the mind, as if nothing real exists? Who is this “watcher” of the movie then? Why do we miraculously recover after most tragic scenarios of life, quite similar to the recovery made after the worst of nightmares, when we realize that all the pain was an illusion?
Coming to illusion and my head-torso reunion , it flashed on me what our mythological Svarbhanu must have gone through during Samudra Manthan when his head was severed by Lord Vishnu’s Chakra as he was about to gulp the holy nectar . This event had led to the birth of Rahu ( the head ) and Ketu ( torso ) . While symbolically Rahu is all about pursuit of material goals and pleasures, attachments and illusions, it needs a body to act. The body (Ketu) on its own is complete, enlightened and may lead to the highest form of spiritual attainment, but only after it has run needlessly, led by the mind in the quest of material goals. Without mind-body coordination, illusions and delusions run havoc, making us run after one desire on another.I felt so incomplete when my head was spinning in the MRI Tunnel with no scope of assistance by the lower half of the body . As soon as the reunion happened, the realization came that all my fears were transient and unreal.The body is not that bad an instrument after all. Out of body experiences are over hyped!