Mantra sadhana (mantra meditation along with several supporting rituals) enables a mind to explore other states of consciousness. While in one of these states, a person can experience some sort of psychic abilities. Some people get so overwhelmed by the clutter of confusing, contradictory emotions that they lose the awareness of these abilities while most others succumb to a worldly negativity and start denying any such possibility. Only a rare few, who possess the necessary clarity, can completely understand their achievements and even they can be susceptible to the ways of the rogue.
The lure of being able to do things not many can do, though misdirected at times, can be a potent motivator. I used to meditate on a mantra of goddess Durga for hours, pushing my limits, drawing new lines, discovering something new each day. The more I practiced, the deeper I could dive. In the process, I dodged many venomous creatures, attracted many more and it wasn't long before I could get to the larger pearls.
One morning, while meditating, I had a vision. I saw garbled phrases in a strange language. Later, I wrote down whatever I could recall. This continued for many days. It looked like the source code for a computer program in a language I did not know. With some effort, I was able to recognize and learn that programming language. I continued working on it, tweaked the program a bit and, some time later, made good money off of it.
Many such incidents later, I once saw myself riding my motorbike on a familiar road. Near a turn, I saw a girl coming from the opposite direction. I was awestruck by her beauty. I even started wondering about the possibility of finding a common friend or something and meeting her so that things could move in the romantically right direction.
That very moment, a truck came out of nowhere and crushed me to death.
The vision was so shockingly realistic, it took me a while to realize that I hadn't actually died. I couldn't shake off the aftereffects of the experience. The surreal pain, the idea of an abrupt ending of my unaccomplished life and the worry about my parents overwhelmed me to the core. I knew, there was no way to prevent it; still, I vowed never to go down that road again.
The vision continued repeating itself with a little more detail each day. In a matter of day, I knew the time of the incident; the make, color and number of the truck; details about the girl's clothes and makeup; and virtually everything around. One day, the vision stopped just as suddenly as it had started.
Time passed by, life took over the thoughts of death and I almost forgot that vision.
I've always believed that whatever happens, happens for a reason. Something as common as fatigue, too, has to have a purpose. That was a day like any other with a slight difference. I was tired, a little less involved than usual in the physical world, roaming the streets on my own accord, I didn't realize that I had taken a wrong turn towards the forbidden road. I didn't need to have a déjà vu to understand the happenings around me.
"So, this is it", I thought. In a way, I had accepted it and since I had had plenty of time to prepare, I was sure of the best possible outcome. Nobody can cheat death so it was pointless to even try. Things hurriedly moved forward the way they were supposed to and there she was exactly as I had seen her in my vision.
Beauty is to be admired. Amazing beauty, like hers, can make the time slow down. And it did. In the distance, I could hear the roar of a powerful engine - cracking, uneven sound - approaching me at a thundering speed. I could feel my skin collide with the air displaced by a voluminous object. My heart was pounding with all its might, as if it was trying to beat as many times as it would have, had it not been its time to prematurely stop.
Beauty is to die for. I took a deep breath, probably my last, and gazed upon her face one last time. One must think about something very beautiful in their last moments. There was something more beautiful than the girl which I had ignored all along.
Sometimes, it is good not to think. Sometimes, it is better not to worry about consequences. Sometimes, it is best not to follow rules. Sometimes, it is awesome to be riding on a single lane road.
I swerved my motorbike at an insane angle, narrowly missed a few motorbikes coming from the opposite direction and barely avoided hitting a tree on the other side of the road. The truck also took a wild turn and passed right through the spot where I would've been had I not taken that drastic step.
I looked around but couldn't find the girl anywhere. Either she was a figment of my imagination or the goddess had taken that form to save the most beautiful thing there - my life.
