Страннику

Странник, пути нет, но идти надо.

 (Надпись на стене одного древнего монастыря в городе Толедо)

Antevasin

A Sanskrit word appeared in the paragraph: ANTEVASIN. It means "one who lives at the border". In ancient times this was a literal description. It indicated a person who had left the bustling center of wordly life to go live at the edge of the forest where the spiritual masters dwelled. The antevasin was not one of the villagers anymore - not a householder with a conventional life. But neither was he yet a transcendent - not one of those sages who live deep in the unexplored woods, fully realized. The antevasin was an in-betweener. He was a border-dweller. He lived in sight of both worlds, but he looked toward the unknown. And he was a scholar.


...In the modern age, of course, that image of an unexplored forest would have to be figurative, and the border would have to be figurative, too. But you can still live there. You can still live on the shimmering line between your old thinking and your new understanding, always in the state of learning. In the figurative sense, this is the border that is always moving - as you advance forward in your studies and realizations, that mysterious forest of the unknown always stays a few feet ahead of you, so you have to travel  light in order to keep following it. You have to stay mobile, movable, supple. Slippery even...


...I am just a slippery antevasin - betwixt and between - a student on the ever-shifting border near the wonderful, scary forest of the new. 
                                                       (Elizabeth Gilbert. Eat, Pray, Love.)