Transported, Transcendent, Truth

Rather a mouthful, that title... Maybe too much of a burden of words for the singularly evanescent feeling I'm trying to describe.

I had a thought about 'work'. Sitting near my window with the breeze blowing onto me and my music turned up as loud as it will go (loud enough to wake the whole world), I suddenly had a memory: In was in Goa for New Year's Eve a couple of years ago. My friends and I planned to go to what I very economically told my parents was a 'party'. Bless them, they didn't press the issue, but 'party' was about 1000 times too tame a word. Well, they needn't have worried. My asceticism - and what I learnt there - would do them proud if I told them about it. This is what it was like:
Hundreds of people, a large number of them stoned out of their minds, or drunk. All my friends were with me. The press of people everywhere. Pulsating, wordless music so loud you could feel your insides shaking. Dark starlit sky above, deep deep sea below. Only Goa can be like it was that night. And yet, in the middle of that press of people who one could argue were as debauched as it is possible to be: drunk, stoned, sexed up, on the prowl, a small ray of innocence and beauty - I found out what it is to really dance. Not a single cigarette touched my lips, or a drop of alcohol, or drugs of any kind. My only beverage was mineral water. People tried to dance with me - they soon gave up, I wouldn't open my eyes to acknowledge their presence. Someone came up behind me and put his arms around my waist. He soon gave up too. You can't dance with a girl who is simply not there, 'at' the party. And yet, I heard every single sound around me, underneath the music. People's feet. The sound of my friends voices. For one incredible second, even the sound of a cigarette flickering to life and the click of the lighter that ignited it. My friends bought me a bottle of water and I drank some of it mid-dance. I didn't stop once. I danced. Flew on the wings of that music, tirelessly, without a single thought, all night. Sometimes as fast as my body would move, sometimes standing perfectly still with my eyes shut, but still somehow caught up in movement. At one point I felt like bursting into tears, but didn't. I never once wanted to stop from either tiredness or boredom.

Complete. Total. Absolute. Unthinking. Release.

The purity of those 10 hours has stayed with me since - I only have to remember it to feel it's grace. I want the long hours I want to spend on this PhD to feel like that.