Sohail:    “Mr. Sohan Qadri! I would like to start our interview from your childhood. Would you like to share with me when and where you were born and what kind of family and social environment you grew up in?”

Sohan:    “I don’t know the exact date when I was born. It was in early 1930’s in a small village of Punjab named Kapoorthala. I was the first boy who passed the matriculation examination in that village. The village is located near a highway called G.T. Road, Great Trunk Road, which connects the village with the neighboring cities. My grandfather was a kind of a poet. He wrote poems but did not share with anyone.

He traveled a lot in his life. He even visited Canada, America and France in those days when he disappeared from home. Two of his brothers also left home and became monks. My grandfather died when I was in grade 5.”

Sohail:    “What kind of memories do you have of your own father?”

Sohan:   “He was a silent wise man but he was addicted to opium. He was quite rich and had a lot of land but he was illiterate. He never went to school. My mother was also illiterate.”

Sohail:    “As a child were you closer to your mother or father?”

Sohan:   “Father. I was in love with my father like my mother. He was motherly. He was a quiet man. He never said yes to things but he never said no also. He was a peaceful man. My mother was a dominating woman and I was afraid of her.”

Sohail:   “Any brothers or sisters?”

Sohan:   “I have a younger sister.”

Sohail:   “What kind of personality did you have as a teenager?”

Sohan:   “I used to resist quietly. I was never demonstrative of my feelings. I resisted passively. I hated scenes. Being the only son I could have rebelled but I did not.

At the age of ten I met a sadhu and I became his student, his disciple. I went to the temple regularly to see him. He was a great musician but people did not know his talent. I went to learn tabla and dance, but it was just an excuse, I liked his company, his wisdom, his serenity. I learnt a lot from him.”

Sohail:   “Were your parents religious?”

Sohan:    “No, not really. My father wasn’t religious at all. My mother was leaning towards Sikhism but she was also close to Hinduism and liked female goddesses.

Sohail:    “When did you start your formal school education?’

Sohan:    “Late. My first education was under a tree. In our village there was a weaver. He taught me how to write Punjabi alphabet with the sand and ashes. The nearest school was more than a kilometer away from the village. I used to walk both ways. After I finished high school my father did not want me to study anymore. He thought there was no need for it.”

Sohail:    “What was the language of education?”

Sohan:    “The school was Urdu medium. I passed my matriculation in 1949.”

Sohail:    “Did you have a dream as a teenager?”

Sohan:    “I wanted to be a monk. So I left home and walked to Tibet. It was quite far so it took me quite a few days to get there. I was in the mountains for three months wandering around. My mother sent people to find me.

They found me and brought me back. I got the beating for running away from home. My guru also wanted me back. He missed me. My mother wanted me to get married and have a family. I did not want to do that. I did not have my own dream but I did not want to follow my mother’s dream also.”

Sohail:    “What did you do after you finished your college education?”

Sohan:    “I did many things. I did photography. I was good at t. I also worked in film industry as a still photographer. And then I had my own studio, a Photoshop.”

Sohail:    “How did you get inspired to be a photographer? How were you introduced to images?”

Sohan:     “I used to visit a sufi shrine of Ahmed Au Shah Qadri - and see calendars there. Those pictures used to fascinate me. My mother also had calendars with pictures of Buddha and Guru Nanak. That was the visual education. Later on I started to draw and paint. I used to paint as a painter for film banners. I was an amateur artist then. Afterwards I saw images in Hindu temples. At that time I did not know anything about art. And then I came to know that there was Art Academy and art could be learnt. I was in my twenties then. So I joined the Art Academy in Shimla."

Sohail:    “What was the essence of your experience in Shimla?”

Sohan:   “First of all the weather was nice. I don’t like hot weather. Shimla was cold and I liked it. I could have gone to Shanti Nakatun or any other university but I chose Shimla. I liked mountains. After finishing my studies in Shimla I came to Mayo School of Art in Lahore. I wanted to gain knowledge but even then I did not know that I will become an artist myself. I was good in drawing and I learnt the basics. I learnt the craft of art. Those days I used to visit temples and was fascinated by devotional art.

During those academy years I got involved with a woman and had a child. I also got sick. I had an operation and lost one kidney. So I got the diploma, had a child and lost my kidney, all within a short time, within one year.”

Sohail:     “How did you become aware that there was an artist within you?”

Sohan:    “That is an interesting question. I used to go to Art Exhibitions in Delhi and then come back to my village where I started teaching in a school, not to make money but to keep busy. I was a rich farmer’s son so I was financially well off. I used to draw in my spare time. I also went to Shimla every year. I also made a few paintings. I taught in the Art College for three years. And once when I was in college Dr. Malak Raj Anand came to give a lecture. Luckily he discovered my paintings and asked the principal about the artist who created them. The principal introduced him to me. He was quite impressed by my work. He encourage me, he pushed me. He even came to my village. You can say he discovered me as an artist, as a painter. He forced me to leave my job and devote all my time to painting. I gave my first show in the University Library in Chandigarh in 1962. It was a big success. And after that I had shows all over India and all over the world. I can say that I never suffered as an artist. I was always admired and appreciated. Even when I came to Europe I never struggled. I never became a big name but I never starved either. I kept on working quietly. 1 gave everything I had to my art. I was a loner. I never got involved in the discussions of art. I painted quietly. I was not even worried to sell my paintings because I did not need money.”

Sohail:    “When did you leave India"

Sohan:    “In 1966. I went to Nairobi. It became possible to go to Nairobi because someone sent me a phoney invitation letter to attend a wedding ceremony, a ceremony that never took place. I stayed in Nairobi for a year. Going to Nairobi was an interesting journey. Those days Jalandhar, a few miles from my village, was a cultural centre where the poets and writers and artists used to meet in coffee houses. When I was still in India I got a message from Dr. Anand to leave India and go to Europe to explore any art. He told me that if I wanted to learn to fight I should go where the war was going on. He said there was no war in my village. If I had to establish myself as an artist I should leave my village. So he planted a ‘seed in my mind.

Those days it was not easy to go to Europe as an artist. So I went to Nairobi to attend a phoney  marriage. I could not get papers to fly to Nairobi so I went by sea. It took us eight days to get to Nairobi from India. I had no money. Indian Government gave me six dollars, one and a half pound to attend a relative’s wedding, a wedding that did not exist. I had a poor poet friend traveling with me. He liked to drink so he drank my half pound too. When we arrived in Nairobi someone took care of us. He was a friend of my poet friend but the night we arrived in Nairobi our host was in the hospital having an appendicitis operation. So there was nobody to receive us. It was just a coincidence. We ate bananas and spent the night on the ship. I had large boxes full of paintings. I did not have money to give to the cooley to carry the boxes. That was a strange night, a son of a rich man counting pennies waiting for someone to come and take care of him. Finally someone came and rescued us and then within fifteen days I had a car. There were a number of galleries including American Gallery who showed my paintings. I had to work fast because I had visa only for two months. When my paintings were exhibited it was a big success and I never looked back. Living in Nairobi was a rich visual experience with clear blue sky, silvery sand, beautiful dark skins. They were live, loud colors. I enjoyed my stay there."

Sohail:       “How did you evolve from still photography to abstract art?”

Sohan:     “That is a technical question. Every artist has to find his own medium, his own way to express his own vision  and to do that he has to break traditions and take risk. I could have played safe and stayed with still photography because I knew the craft but I moved fast. I followed my own path even when it was not commercially successful. I always believed that it is better to take a few steps in the dark if you want to discover something new rather than always be on sure grounds.

From Nairobi when I moved to Zurich I had developed my own style. But I wanted to keep on growing, changing. I always took risks and I do even now.

You are a psychiatrist you know that growth can be frightening. But I rather be frightened than be stuck and not grow. I sometimes say that the artist who is in love with his work is stuck. He should be able to discard his own work and move forward and grow. He should be able to discard. After discarding anything there is a gap, a dark period, slippery ground to stand for a while. For some it might be forever. I don’t know. Now I work on paper rather than on canvas. Working on canvas is easy and sells more but I opted for paper, the different medium. Galleries ask for canvas, I produce paper. I know the tricks of the trade but I keep on destroying my past again and again. Sometimes I and my galleries get into trouble           because of my attitude but I don’t give up.”

Sohail:       “You had mentioned once that your creative mood can last for and weeks and you get lost in your work. Can you share how you feel during that period”

Sohan:    “I must correct the impression I gave you. I am not lost. I am quite aware. I am aware what I am going to do and what I have done and that awareness pushes me to move forward. I feel that pull. It is difficult to talk about painting. Talking is recreating in words. But we are talking animals so we have to communicate in words. Whatever I tell you in words is a secondhand experience. When you are looking at a painting, you don’t talk. You just look, you are quiet. Looking is a very innocent thing. What you absorb from looking goes to some other part of your awareness than what you receive from talking. Looking happens in the present moment, in the now. You can’t look tomorrow or yesterday but you can think about tomorrow or yesterday. So when I am talking I am thinking about paintings, that is why I call it a secondhand experience.

I usually have a floating kind of image in my mind and I try to capture it on the canvas. There is no logic, no thinking logic involved in that process and when I look at my painting I say “Aha! That is it.”

After that a lot of things and feelings come out of that Aha experience. If you see my images and paintings they seem floating on paper. Although they seem floating but they have a finished quality to it. But after the glow, the ecstasy is over. Then I stop and wait for the next image to capture me and I paint again. Every painting is the mother of the next painting. I follow that path. Sometimes I am not inspired for months and I don’t paint. Now I have not painted for a few months. We are in November now. Last painting I created was in July. I am not addicted to painting. I am addicted to myself.”

Sohail:      “What is the first feeling, the first indication that you are going to deliver a new painting?”

Sohan:    “1 don’t want to philosophize it. I get an urge to go to the studio. I have to be there. I also want to buy a new brush, new color, the brush and the color that I don’t even need. Something new so that I have an excuse to be in my studio. The other thing that I need to paint is unmeasured time. For example today is 2nd of November and I have to go to Paris on 9th of November, so I can’t paint. To paint I should not have time constraints. I should be free from the borderline of time. So that I can paint as long as I can, as long as the urge lasts.”

Sohail:   “You mentioned once that you have a sacred relationship with the canvas as compared to some artists who project all their inner emotional garbage on canvas.”

Sohan:    “For me painting is a birthing process. I am just the midwife, trying to assist the delivery. I gave a lecture in Norway at a conference and talked about the differences in statues in the temples and the statues in the palaces. Statues in the temples have a devotional touch. Some artists want to tell a lot and telling is also in icr act for an Asian mind. Artists pick up things from society, from their environments and unload it on the canvas. It is a form of catharsis. It is good for them. But society also has a catharsis by looking at the paintings. For me art is not psychotherapy, it is worship. Psychotherapy promotes adjustment to society. It does not cure. It does not heal. Anyone who needs cure must be sick first. If I am not sick then why should I need a cure. Anyone who tries to correct environment or society, creates a new problem for ecology. People who try to correct society keep on fingering nature. We pay a price for it. Man is so stupid. He does positive and negative acts at the same time. On the name of correction he destroys. I told the audience that I approach the  canvas peacefully and try to have a dialogue with the canvas’s mind. The art which is the outcome of catharsis is of one type and when someone approaches the canvas with a quiet mind then there is another kind of art. Painting is not a drug to correct society.

Corrective drugs have done a lot of damage to society. There is another approach - let it be. By being quiet the healthy mind communicates with the canvas and an image will surface that will not be aggressive. Those people who are too anxious to communicate become aggressive. Aggression is also a form of communication but a very low form. We should aspire for higher level of communication that is not aggressive. I am gentle even with paints, I brushes, paper. I don’t even touch them aggressively. It is a meditative approach, cleansing approach and Western artists are not familiar with that approach. Eastern art is peaceful and inspire the viewer to experience peace within him. If someone uses art to experience catharsis and projects his aggression on the canvas then the viewer will also experience aggression within himself. Some artists project shit on the canvas. It is true that we all have shit within ourselves, does that mean that we promote t. I don’t          know whether I was able to express myself well in that conference or not. I am in a dilemma. I am an Eastern artist but I am living in the West.”

Sohail:  “If we follow the line of thinking of meditative approach then it culminates in silence. If all artists followed that approach then there will be a lot of peace and silence but no art, no creative expressions.”

Sohan: “Let me approach it in a different way. Jesus said love thy neighbor the way you love yourself and he also said love they enemy the way you love yourself.

 St. Augustine was asked to explain these two sayings. He said your enemy is nobody else except your neighbor. When Jesus said love they neighbor he gave a motto. He told people what to do. The question is did that help? Do people love their neighbors now? We had beautiful mottos for centuries. Did they work? Of course not. But why not?

There is another motto offered by Buddha. He said, ‘Don’t keep enmity with your enemy”. He did not day, love they enemy. He just said don’t keep enmity.

Don’t hate your enemy. He knew that if you love someone, anytime it can change into hate. Love cannot be tested without hate. In any communication there is an element of tension. When you do something for someone you experience a reaction and you also have expectations. Buddha said get rid of the desire because desire will never be fulfilled. Desire is a double-edged sword. Buddha promotes silence. What is wrong with silence. Silence is also a form of communication. Love is also a form of communication. I am not against love but one should be aware of love. It can anytime turn into hate. Even if someone loves his neighbor and neighbor loves back there is still a danger that love can turn into hate. But silence is different. You are not dong anything. One way of climbing the mountain is by not climbing it. Those people who focus on doing this and doing that are doing an act of mental jugglery, mental acrobatics. Buddha said don’t hate our enemy. By not hating you don’t do anything. Your mind then can be peaceful. Buddha said that 2500 years ago and I don’t think people have understood him even now.”

Sohail:     “But such silence might lead to inactivity, inertia.”

Sohan:     “But silence can also give birth to love. It will not create hate. Communication by words creates tension, conflict and war. By doing, by loving, one can produce hate. Silence may or may not create love but it will not create hate. You and I are not solving a problem. We are having an honest dialogue, looking at the problem from different angles. Trying to come up with convincing linguistic phrases is a politician’s job. That is why they fail. Even when they convince others they fail.

There must be another way of communication. Another way to explore human possibilities because human beings are possibilities. They are not finished products.”

Sohail:     “How can an artist who likes to express and a mystic who keeps silent co-exist in the same person?”

Sohan:    “First of all they are not two people. There is no duality. Any person is divided in two, in duality, by a lazy mind. A lazy mind feels easy in divisions. A lesser mind lives in divisions because he can hide behind those divisions. As I said before every human being is a possibility. He is a bridge. One can go backwards or forwards. Both are possibilities. Nothing in this world is inherently good or bad. Good and bad are produced by a lesser mind who divides, who interprets, who judges. I am a mystic. I don’t care about good or bad. I don’t believe in interpretations. I believe in looking - witnessing without interpreting. I see what I cannot express in words, Talking and interpreting is a linguistic jugglery. I am a painter. I believe in the art of seeing. How do I know what my mind is interpreting is right. How do I know that the yard stick that my mind uses is correct. I have nothing to base my interpretations on. Nothing is important because it is neither good nor bad. People can judge me. They can reject me as a mystic or accept me as a painter. It is up to them.

Some Eastern mystics believe that only the person who is alone can be good because he does not compare. Human beings have the gift of language, by language we communicate, we re-create. Human beings interpret the world through their senses. They can only have that knowledge that can be tested by senses but animals also have senses. Animals live in here and now. A deer uses his sense of smell to survive. A deer stays alive by being alert. He does not want to be attacked and killed by a lion. Everything in life is moving; changing. Rest is not possible.

Mahabir said even Atma is changing. Atoms are moving. Electrons and protons are moving though we can’t see them. So nothing is. There is no tree. Tree is being tree. So if everything is changing, moving, how can human beings interpret. How can you judge and interpret something that is changing. Human beings are possibilities, not finished products. Human beings have language, so they can interpret. It is our blessing but it is also our tragedy. We can understand things through language but we can also misunderstand things through language. Animals don’t have language so they don’t have our problems. One other thing that differentiates humans from animals is our sexual freedom. We can be sexually aroused anytime. Nature does not control our sexuality. Our language and our sexuality differentiates us from niniiJS Buddha said semen is in man’s mind. It is the mental attitude not the sexual organs that are important. Outside factors don’t control our sexuality.

It is our attitude, our mind. Human beings control their own sexuality, not nature. Human beings have more sexual freedom and that is why they have more sexual responsibility because each freedom comes with a responsibility. But human mind is in conflict. He wants the freedom but does not want the responsibility. He wants to avoid consequences of his behavior. No animal species except human beings make love to a pregnant female.

I believe one day science will prove that a lot of congenital abnormalities occur when parents make love while mother is pregnant. While making love, so much heat is produced by excessive blood circulation that the embryo can not tolerate it.

Sohail:      “What do you think of those saints and prophets who left their pregnant wives home and went to the jungles in search of truth?”

Sohan:     “The responsibility I am talking is different than the one you are talking. You are talking about social and moral responsibility which is a hoax. I don’t give a damn about it. It is again a social interpretation. Society says only that man is responsible who takes care of his children. Who said it? Who wrote it? Who has the right to pass judgment on others? Who has the right to punish another human being? These social and moral norms are created by good but ignorant people. I don’t mean that we should not have morals, I am just not sure which morals should be followed. All the morals we had so far did not work. So a child like me who was born in a small village in India has realized that although he does not have a formula to follow, others’ formulas have not worked either. Who was Jesus? We don’t know. Who was Nanak, we don’t know. We only know what they said people should or should not do. One can only understand Jesus by being Jesus. One can only understand Nanak by being Nanak. How can we pass judgment on others? We can only interpret and as I said before I doubt interpretations. "

Sohail:     “When were you introduced to the teachings of Buddha and Mahabir."

Sohan:    “As a child by my teacher. When I grew older I started to doubt interpretations even my own. I started to learn the language that Buddha spoke so that I could read the original teachings and not interpretations.”

Interview Part 2

Sohail:           “In the last interview you mentioned your teacher that you used to visit as a child. Can you share a little more about your relationship with him?”

Sohan:          "I used to visit my teacher under the pretence of learning tabla but I never learned tabla. I just enjoyed his company. He was never my formal teacher. I used to visit the temple he prayed in. I visited whenever I felt like. He never compelled me to come regularly. He was a sinyasi. He was also a singer. He used to chant. He used to come to the village early in the morning and pray for people. I liked his voice. He also used to come to the village to beg and take dry food, like flour or rice, not cooked food, to his temple.

Buddha called his disciplines Sinyasis and wanted them to beg. He wanted to break the traditions of Hindus who cafled their mystics Swamis (Masters). When I started visiting my teacher more often as a child I did not like him begging especially at my own door. He was my guru. I washed his feet. I bowed on his feet every time I visited him with reverence, with a child’s reverence. It used to trouble me. Finally one day I gathered the courage to deal with the issue. I filled a big bag with flour, put it on my bicycle, took it to his temple and offered it to him. He received it without saying anything. I did not want him to come to my door and beg. I wanted him to stop that. It used to embarrass me. A few days after I delivered flour I asked him why did he come to the village to beg. I told him I will bring as much food as he needed to his temple. Fit avoided my questions. He did not answer. After a few days I asked him again. At that time he got angry and said “Do you think I come to the village to get flour? I have a small stomach and a small hunger. I don’t need food”. “Then why do you come’?” I felt lost and confused. He said, ‘is not only for flour. Begging has so many meanings. It keeps you humble.”

My teacher was a yogi and a music teacher in Lahore before he renounced all that. He said he begged to lower his ego. He was a learned man. He said even by teaching, by giving, one’s ego can get inflated. But when one swetches one’s hand to beg, one gains humility. One feels humble. After his explanation I learnt the real meaning of begging. He was very knowledgeable and he knew that knowledge can also be dangerous for human ego. Ego of the knowledgeable is very dangerous. It took me thirty years to understand what my teacher was trying to teach me. I am still trying to understand some of it.”

Sohail:            “What do you think is the difference between Buddhist philosophy of begging and Christian philosophy of charity?”

Sohan:          “Buddha thought and rightly so that involvement in any type is not good for human ego. Involvement can even be hindrance in human growth. Jesus said love your neighbor. Buddha said don’t hate your enemy.

Christ wanted involvement and attachment. Buddha wanted to end attachment. Buddha wanted humans to be self aware so that they can become free of the other. Charity involves the other and by charity human ego is boosted. Although it is a beautiful involvement but it is still an involvement. Buddhism does not teach charity. Buddha teaches indifference. Neither in favour nor against. If you give charity you are in favor a cause, if you don’t give you go against. Buddhism teaches the middle way. Neither in favor nor against.”

Sohail:            “In the West indifference has a negative connotation; People feel indifferent person does not care.

Sohan:          “Buddha felt by caring you can cripple yourself. Maybe you help others or your environment but you can cripple yourself. Before I talk about a person who is capable of genuine caring I want to share with you that there are four types of mind

Taker’s Mind: His mind takes and takes and takes.

Giver’s Mind: He gives and gives and gives. He is not much different than the taker. I- is just the opposite. He is just the reverse. Even when he does not have anything to give he wants to give. To give one has to take from somewhere else. We are all born with nothing and will leave this world with nothing. So to give we have to take. Giver can only be a giver because he is also a taker.

Buddha taught compassion. He cared but he taught caring that was genuine. I will explain the idea of genuine caring by a Buddhist parable.

A man fell in the well. A sadhu came and saw him and left him there. He said you are in the well because of your karma. If I take you out of this well, you will fall in the next. Why to fall twice. I am not taking you out. Someone can say he was a cold hearted man. Buddha said if you have fallen in the well, meditate upon the process of falling rather than trying to get out.

Later on a Christian priest came. He saw the man in the well. He ran here and there to find a rope to get the man out of the well. He pulled the man out. Everybody praised his act of charity. After that the priest carried the rope looking for a fallen man. He was not happy if he did not see anyone fallen in the well. He might even have wished people falling in the well so that he could take them out with his rope.

This is the tragedy of a giver.

Indifferent Mind: A mind that does not give or take or interfere. A mind that does not get emotionally involved and let things happen as they are supposed to happen. You let it be. People who are trying to save the environment are creating more problems for the ecology.

By correcting you can interfere. By giving you expect an appreciation. A giver who wants to do well is passionate but he can also do harm.

Buddha’s passion is in compassion. Buddha believed human beings are only a part of the universe. They cannot improve upon things. By trying to improve they can destroy things.

Natural Mind: Be natural in whatever you do. Once someone is natural then he can give or take or be indifferent whatever comes natural to him. That is Taoist philosophy. Go with the flow. Follow things don’t try to guide them.”

Sohail:            “You have given lectures all over the world on Aesthetics and Metaphysics. Can you share with me the essence of your philosophy as a mystic artist?”

Sohan:        “Aesthetics is an attempt to understand beauty — any beauty Beauty of silence, beauty of a smile, beauty of a cry. When a child smiles he means it. He is an artist too. Poets and painters are not the only people who are artists Aesthetics is our human capacity to look and feel and appreciate Just being yourself is very aesthetic A caveman, to kill a deer or break a nut, made an axe with a sharp edge which seemed an extension of his teeth or flintstone. After he used the axe to kill animals and look after his belly and hunger, he tried to beautify the axe and carved a flower on the back of the axe. It was to satisfy his aesthetic hunger. A flower had nothing to do with his physical hunger; it was something more, something beyond that physical hunger. It had something to do with aesthetics. Over the centuries humans have been sharpening the stone, the axe and now we have missiles and they are also beautifying that flower in the form of art and paintings. That’s why we have Taj Mahal, a modern version of that flower.

The sharp edge of the axe and flower on the back of axe have stayed together over the centuries. In different cultures the standards of beauty and criteria to appreciate art have changed. In Africa women burn their skin to look beautiful while in Europe and North America even a pimple on the skin is not tolerated. Artistic values are different in different cultures. But for a caveman a flower was a spontaneous expression of his innocent artistic hunger. I believe that a caveman is still alive in you and me and in every man and woman. A cavemen had no past, no artistic values, no critical theories. He was honest and innocent and spontaneous. Innocence is precious.

In Metaphysics that innocence was lost by the birth of religion — an orientation to power. Power has the capacity to corrupt people. You are a psychiatrist you know who has the need to gain power. Only that person who must feel weak inside.

Buddha talked about indifference. He said don’t try too hard to de good. Taoism said let things be natural. Do not interfere with the natural flow of life.

Metaphysics is a beautiful word but I do not want to get trapped by the word. Metaphysical is just the extension of the physical. It all boils down to awareness. If a stone becomes aware of itself it becomes God. When stone becomes aware of itself it becomes a spiritual being.”

Sohail: “You mentioned once that every human being is a bridge between a stone and God.”

Sohan:          “Yes, human beings are bridges. They are in a process. It is a matter of existence. Stones exist but they are not aware that they exist. Human beings exist but they are also aware that they exist but still don’t know who they are. Human beings are possibilities.

They can become stones by not being aware of their existence or become God by becoming aware who they are. Such awareness transforms man into God.

Only Anna can say, “1 exist” and is fully aware of his existence.

First step is Stone

Second step is Human

Third step is A God

And then the journey is over.

Every human being has the possibility to become God

but it is still a possibility.”

Sohail: “Is that the process that transformed Siddhartha into Buddha, an ordinary man into an enlightened being?”

Sohan:        “Yes, that is true. It was an extraordinary phenomenon and we all human beings are born with that potential with that possibility — a possibility that is not actualized yet.” 

“The answer dances when the questioner dies in the question”

“The Himalaya is lost behind a speck of dust in the eye” 

“Know thy feet twice retreat a step to know thyself”