Page 46 - NAMAH-Oct-2020

Namah Vol. 28, Issue 3, 15th October 2020

poem by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886):

“I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog (2)!”
Well, if we must play many parts, it will be
best to play them authentically, without the References
stress of having to please the audience. When 1. Sri Aurobindo. Birth Centenary library, Volume
the ego is in league with our plan, perhaps 24. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust;
it won’t scream in terror when we play the 1970, p. 1354.
part of the tramp or the tyrant, or whatever
we deem to be our ‘opposite’. It will not even
worry if we drop all parts. Then we can be 2. [Online] Available from: https://en.wikipedia.
free to hitch a ride, as the froth on a wave. org/wiki/I%27m_Nobody!_Who_are_you%3F
Let me end with a refreshing and liberating
[Accessed 27 July 2020].
th

Lopa Mukherjee is a writer and documentary maker of educational and spiritual topics and a psycho-
spiritual counsellor based at San Francisco, California.

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