Yesterday morning, as I was waiting for Bala at the Indira Nagar metro station, a cat in a rickshaw appeared—a ZenCat master, checking if coaching is needed. Bala himself—my manager @ Wipro Systems in ’95, mentor since then, now trying to teach me Advaita—is an Advaita teacher.
Masters arrive in many forms: fur, spreadsheets, Upanishads. Coaching is not only about answers, but about presence. ZenCat masters pass by everywhere. Sometimes they purr, sometimes they quote, sometimes they simply wait with us. And they are not territorial at all. Zen and Advaita. Cat master and human teacher. They coexist with every other sentient being and coach without coaching with their presence.
And as we walked away in different directions after the meeting, I told him that the place where we met first for my interview, S.B. Towers (Times of India building at M.G. Road), has vanished. Gone back to dust.
And he laughed and said: Everything will be like that. Will go back as dust.
This morning, my better half rushed to Chennai. Her cousin—almost the same age—had already returned. Yes. Back to dust.