Issac Newton was sitting in an orchard, doing whatever a 17th-century youth would be doing. Suddenly an apple fell on his head. It might have hit a particular part because it switched something on in his head which led him to think about gravity.

Haven’t you had apple-falling-on-head instances that nudge you to think clearly? Or some conversations that clarify your thought process? I recently had such an experience.

Last day I was with one of my friends who loved swimming. He is a passionate one and enjoyed talking about the time he spent discovering the different rivers and seas. But surprisingly, this time he was excited about deep diving. His friend introduced him to it recently, and he took an instant liking to it. In our conversation, he said something that was apple-on-head for me. He said, “Through these years of swimming, I have missed the wonderful experience that lay just a few feet below me. I was too focused on the peripheral and too lazy, even afraid, to go deep that I completely missed the fantastic world.”

A World of Wonder

Of course, he was talking about deep diving and the pleasures it gave him. But it was a revelation for me. I started through the path of Newtonian thinking about the importance of diving deep. 

One more factor prepared me for this epiphany: the book Bhagavat Geeta Swadhyayam. It is the best interpretation of the ancient Indian dialectical text Bhagavat Geeta. I had been searching for this book for almost a decade until my friend Rajaneesh gave it to me as a gift. Unlike many other interpretations with hidden agendas, it steps away from religionizing or politicizing the Bhagavat Geeta.  

The book captivated me. Its ideas prompted me to take a deep dive into philosophy and spirituality. The deeper I dived, the clearer my view of the spiritual terrain and the more treasures I found. The thought process melted down the walls of different religions and I started to see how everyone is pointing toward the same ultimate truth, albeit from different angles.

This experience prompted me to think that I, like most, have been living a peripheral life. Without even realizing there is an unexplored world of wisdom. I have been marching around, flaunting the bits and pieces of information I gathered from dopamine-injecting media. At best, my understanding was skin deep.

Ever since I saw the beauty of deep diving, like my friend, I have been advocating it. There are depths to religion, music, philosophy, martial arts, and so on that go unexplored by a usual practitioner. With years of dedicated practice, we start to taste their essence. It opens a new world.

Indeed we need to equip ourselves with the tools for this deep dive. The guidance of a good teacher, a thought-provoking book, and so on are some tools that will help us explore the depths.

Living in the Depths

Life gets to a new dimension when we stop swimming and start deep diving. While on the surface we face strong waves of confusion, the depths are calm. As we go deeper, we see a world of wonder filled with pearls of wisdom. Life feels meaningful and less suffocating.

Also, once we see the depths, I feel it is difficult to unsee it. We start to perceive the shallow world around us; filled with sly politicians, self-proclaimed spiritual gurus, profit-oriented relationships, and much more. And we yearn to go to the depths again.

Dive deep and see how much you have been missing.

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