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In his book “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues” Tom Robbins wrote something to the effect that (I’m paraphrasing here) - success closes as many doors as failure does. At first it struck me as completely profound and truthful as did some line in a song by Travis – the circle only has one side. Upon further rumination, I figured both are wrong. The circle has two sides as all other objects, opinions, arguments, viewpoints and counter arguments. And while failure closes that ‘one’ option, success closes the window on all other opportunities. A person gets stuck with success, while failure helps him strive again. Ask Edison, who famously said, “I didn’t fail, I figured out 1999 ways of how not to make a light bulb!”

In 2004, a friend told me, “It would be wonderful if you study hard but fail in this exam”. At that point of time I thought it was a needlessly vicious thing to say. I did fail at that exam; I was crushed. It was the last time I cried. I still remember. 3rd of August 2004. (Well, it took me until February, the next year, to recover resolve, build determination and study again, and this time successfully. Now I find my options quite limited.) The lesson however that I learnt was not to be affected by either success or failure.

About the circle and it’s two sides: inside and outside…it smacks of the Hindu concepts of Karma and Maya. A business tycoon and a typical yogi are the same. One is running towards money, the other away from money. Money thus is the focus. To reduce the sense of dimensions even if one used a point in space, imaginary for both geometry and meditation, it doesn’t amount to much… (Rather it does because a point has some existence.) I guess that is why Sankhya, Nirvana and Kaivalya culminate in absolute nothingness.