The Wanderer Arrives
He is here.
My son, the traveler, arrived from Zurich—via Muscat, then Kuala Lumpur, and finally by train all the way north to Penang before crossing over on the ferry. A journey half a world away, and yet here he is, with his family, with me. For a Swiss kid who’s never been to this part of the world, he’s adapting just fine. He has the makings of a wanderer—perhaps one who will travel farther, see more, and understand deeper than even his old man ever did.
The first time we met was in Dubai. That encounter was shared in my earlier blog posts—those days when Naz had arranged for us to ride out into the desert on the Arabian Nights tour. We had a blast together with the eldest, the Captain. Later, through the Captain’s kindness, I was able to visit my son again—this time in Giswil, Switzerland, in the winter of 2010. There, I met his grandparents, aunts, uncles—the whole extended family. For a traveler and dreamer like me, it was yet another moment where fiction and fantasy folded into life. Having read enough novels in my youth, the snow-covered Alps had long lived in my mind. And then, there I was, living it.
I’ve long believed in the power of suggestion—what psychologists and mystics alike refer to as auto-suggestion. When the spirit, or whatever name we give to that essence of who we are, becomes aware of its power over the mind (and perhaps even the brain cells themselves), something shifts.
The captain of a ship must know his authority. He doesn’t simply have it—he owns it. He leads. He is aligned with the purpose of the voyage. And so must we be in our own lives.
Most people will strive for achievement and success, and rightly so. But few openly share the whole truth of how it came to be. The truth is—nothing happens by accident. We create our destinies. This, the ancient Yogis taught:
“You are the master of your thoughts and consciousness, your body, speech and mind. Your environment and your circumstances—these are your birthright simply by being born human.”
If you don't instruct your brain cells what to aim for, how will they know? If you don't guide your mind with clarity, how will your actions serve your highest purpose?
So you sit.
You sit the way the ancients have taught. You silence the dual-thinking mind. You yoke all your energies—your chi—into balance, into flow. Every movement becomes an act of unity, a manifestation of your whole being in harmony.
But doubts creep in. Dreams. Fears. Hallucinations. And you lose your bearing. You become dependent on external forces. You lose control over that quiet, powerful force within—the one that rises in moments of dire need or creative spark. And then you live at the mercy of the world outside, forgetting that what is outside is just the collective projection of minds unaware of themselves.
This is the trap—the comfort zone. The illusion of safety. The cozy cage we accept as reality.
But for those of us who ask the bigger questions—who seek the deeper truths—the comfort zone is a death trap. A black hole. A chain that must be broken.
How can you even begin to know God if you do not yet know yourself?
Reading scriptures—the Bible, the Quran, the Gita, the Sutras—these can be valuable, yes. But only if they point you inward. Without understanding, they are just data. Empty words. Like a body without a soul.
You may be a genius in science or mathematics, but if you cannot feel compassion and cannot bring joy to another soul, what is it worth? You may have riches, but if your mind is decaying with regret and loneliness, what have you gained?
You die, eventually, leaving behind things and stuff—only to have them fought over by others. Tubes in your nose. Beeping machines. And still, you wonder, what was it all for?
Even if, in that final moment, the mysteries of the Universe are revealed to you—what good would it do then?
As Ken Kesey once wrote:
“It isn't by getting out of the world that we become enlightened, but by getting into the world… by getting so tuned in that we can ride the waves of our existence and never get tossed, because we become the waves.”
And Deepak Chopra put it well:
“There are only two symptoms of enlightenment…
First, you stop worrying. You become light-hearted and full of joy.
Second, you begin to see meaningful coincidences everywhere.
Eventually, the miraculous becomes a part of everyday life.”
So here I am, sitting with my son. A traveler like his father, but with his own path, his own awakening, his own waves to ride.
And I pray he learns to become the wave.
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