The Lost Realist

The air was arid and scorched, blowing in long gusts. Each burst seemed like a storm laced with the agony of a hundred dying souls crying to the heavens to save them from themselves. The sun showed down brilliantly, as if mocking the vain fantasies of those fighting down below, not leaving a single dark nook in which they could hide their ignorance and the utter thoughtlessness of their actions and the war in which they were currently involved. On the side of the battlefield stood a lone warrior, unwavering like a pillar, Jahshuka, the one they said could stand in front of a roaring lion without blinking an eye. And he observed as the last members of his clan were wiped out by the Tantros, barbarians who knew nothing of culture, prosperity, or peace.

They were not always like this. Once they had been an advanced and peaceful clan, but with time they had developed far enough that they became the lords of war. No one could match the sheer excellence of either their skill or their strategy in the battlefield. Soon enough they realized that its much easier to plunder the resources of others than work with their own. Greed and the lust for power replaced contentment and thoughfulness and soon they degenerated into an anarchy. Now they just went around looting, plundering, raping and consuming whatever that came in their way, but one thing didn’t change: they still were the best when it came to war. And today, Jahshuka saw with his own eyes how ruthlessly efficient the Tantros were at what they did. Their weaponry was not that elaborate, and some other tribes had probably exceeded them in that respect, but their main weapon were their warriors, highly trained in the martial arts.But Jahshuka already knew this, he had studied the arts of the Tantros before they had degenerated into what they were now. He knew their ways, and most of all he knew the mindset of a warrior, as his teacher and mentor, the best of all Tantros warriors, the late Zenfel had taught him.

Zenfel was a very kind-hearted man, but he was known for the strictness with which he used to teach his pupils. His pupils used to joke amongst themselves that at least he didn’t feed them to his pet lion, Numa. Jahshuka trained with Zenfel for many years and learned all the warrior arts but somehow he always felt unsatisfied. It seemed that he had learnt and mastered every single technique that Zenfel had to teach but he was still missing something, he didn’t feel like a complete warrior yet. When he was training with Zenfel one day in his grove, he couldn’t hold back his confusion anymore and he asked “Master, can I ask you something?” “Yes,” said Zenfel, “I know what you want to know.” Surprised, Jahshuka asked, “So what is the answer to my question?”

“Every single warrior who has trained under me and achieved greatness has asked me this.”
“So what does it mean?”
“It means that you have learnt everything you could learn from me.”
“But I still feel that I haven’t learnt everything.”
“Yes you haven’t. In fact, you haven’t yet learned the most important thing of all.”
“You can’t teach me that thing?”
“No. You will have to learn it from my teacher. He is the only perfect warrior.”
“Don’t joke with me master. You are the best of the Tantros, a self-taught man. You _have_ no teacher.”
“Its a secret I have told only my best pupils, and today I shall tell you who my teacher is.”
“So who is your teacher, master?”

Zenfel turned around and called out: “Numa!” and from a dark corner, ambling majestically, came his lion at his call. “He,” said Zenfel, “is my teacher. I have learnt everything from him. From this point forth, he is your teacher, I am done with all I have to teach. The rest, only he can teach you. The reason I have been so strict with you is because Numa is even more unforgiving than I am. If you ever interfere in his ways, he might attack you, so be careful. But you are trained enough now to be his pupil and learn from him. And whenever you think you have learnt everything from him, tell me the mind of the perfect warrior. If you pass, I will bow before you as a fellow warrior.”

This exchange left Jahshuka quite puzzled. He felt somewhere that maybe Zenfel didn’t think he was talented enough to learn everything and had said all this to get him off his tail. But then, Zenfel was known to be a very straightforward man, he was never the one to say or do frivolous things. So Jahshuka decided that he will do as his master said. And he would follow Numa all day as he went about his daily activities. Everyone knew that a lion was a splendid and proud creature, but seeing Numa everyday, Jahshuka realized that there was nothing so great about a lion. Most of the day, Numa used to lay around in the grove blissfully, grooming himself and just lazing around. There was not a single thing he did that distinguished him from a house cat, except that he was much bigger and powerful. After almost an year of chasing around Numa, Jahshuka was starting to question both the wisdom and the sanity of his teacher. But one day changed everything, that was the day Jahshuka understood.

Jahshuka had followed Numa into the jungle one morning, where he had went to hunt. Initially Numa seemed to be sleepy and lazy, and was just lying around, hidden in some bushes. He seemed to be completely relaxed and tranquil. But then he heard some noise and his head popped above the bushes to see a pack of wild deers running across the plains. His ears became erect and he studied the situation carefully, planning out to find which deer was the slowest and lagging the most from the pack. His eyes, ears and mind seemed to be completely focussed on just one thing: which deer to hunt and how to get to it. He waited. He waited patiently for the deer to pass before him, his expression still completely calm and serene, it was visible that he was neither trying to concentrate, nor worrying about anything else, his mind was completely absorbed in the deer. And then came the moment of Jahshuka’s realization: As the last deer passed in front of Numa, he pounced with the quickness of an arrow and pinned down the deer and killed it almost immediately. He didn’t bother about any other deer, although he could have easily killed many more of them. Then he leisurely ate the deer as if there was nothing violent about it at all. Again, the lazy house cat was back. Finally, Jahshuka understood.

The next day, Jahshuka went to meet Zenfel.
“I have learnt everything I had to learn. I understand.”
“So do you have an answer to my question?”
“Yes”
“What is the mind of the perfect warrior?”
“The mind of a lion when it pounces on its prey.”

A wide smile came on Zenfel’s face, he knew his pupil had finally understood. But still he asked a few more questions:

“Is the lion a violent creature?”
“No”
“Why so?”
“A lion hunts to feed, to survive, it doesn’t hunt to kill”
“But wouldn’t a lion be merciful if he let all deer live?”
“No. A lion is merciful because he eats exactly as much as he needs. No more, no less. That is mercy.”
“And what about a lion which plunders the whole jungle? Is he evil?”
“No. He is just stupid. For the next day, he will starve to death. Eventually, neither he, nor the jungle gains.”
“What do you think of a lion who gives up on hunting and starves to death. Wouldn’t that be noble?”
“Such a lion would be just as stupid as the one before, he isn’t fulfilling his purpose. His desires are there for a reason. If he can’t comprehend the reason for his desires, he has no right to renounce them.”
“But doesn’t that make a lion an unemotional killing machine?”
“No. He is not unemotional. His desire to eat is an emotion. A lion obsessing over this emotion becomes a killing machine. A lion depressing over the presence of such emotions and trying to supress them becomes a house cat. Both are equally aberrant.”
“Good answers Jahshuka! You really do understand. So tell me, I know already its hard to put in words, but elaborate for me the mind of a lion just before it pounces on its prey.”
“Complete clarity. His emotions and thoughts are completely serene. But its not the serenity of a sleeping child. Its not the serenity of laziness and inaction. Thats an illusion. Rather, its the calmness and stability of an arrow about to leave its bow. And the moment he pounces, he has only one thing in his mind, the prey and how to kill it efficiently. And because his mind is calm and serene, he has no place for error or doubt, he achieves perfection without even trying. Thats why a lion is a perfect warrior. He is perfect because he lets himself be what he is, never _trying_ to be perfect.”

Hearing this, with tears in his eyes, Zenfel bowed before Jahshuka and said, “Indeed you know a perfect warrior’s mind now Jahshuka. Indeed. Always remember Numa’s teachings. Its unfortunate that the member of a rival clan understands these teachings but none of my fellow warriors do. I have given them the power of a lion, but I am afraid they don’t have his sense. I don’t know what the future holds for us, but I bid best of luck to you.”

It had been ten years since Jahshuka had left Zenfel. He had passed away since and Tantros had degenerated as he had feared and today he stood in the battlefield against the very same warriors who had learnt through Zenfel’s lineage. The wretchedness of the whole situation nauseated him and he felt rage and anger for the murder of his fellow clan members. Suddenly, seeing him standing at the side, one of Tantros’ members attacked. Jahshuka pounced, not for revenge, just to defend. His opponent lay dead, the sword had gone right through his throat. Seeing his swiftness, Soto, the best of the Tantros came forward. “You are the only perfect warrior alive, I’ve heard.” “Yes, the best next to Numa.” Soto smiled and said, “So what do you want?”
“To kill every single one of you.”
“I understand, you want revenge,” Soto said, laughing.
“Not revenge. You have killed too many innocent people. And you can’t be stopped with peaceful means. You have killed every single clan which has depended on dialogue. You have made war the only option. Its a destiny you have chosen and in doing that, you have chosen my destiny too. I won’t bow down and let my throat be cut. If my and everyone else’s survival means killing every single one of you, that is what I am going to do. Its not a war between good and evil. Its a war between the wise and the foolish.”

to be continued…