Hypocrisy – an epidemic / insanity - a crime

During the most intimate moments of my day in the quietest of surroundings, at the height of explosion I masturbated in my room. This time I raped the girl living in the house next to me and had the most satisfying orgasm of my life. She was distracting my thought since morning and making me feel restless. I was postponing the act for a long time but then it became simply impossible to manage and at last I had to do it. I don’t feel guilty because it was inevitable and necessary for the satisfaction of my hidden yet ever existing and omnipotent desire. I don’t think it would be difficult to face her the next time. On the contrary it would be much easier considering the psychological turmoil I used to come across on meeting her before. I may be guilty and criminal from inside but according to the society I am innocent. Somebody may call me a hypocrite but its better than to be labeled as a rapist. I would continue living my life in a similar way as I have been living before. Same old work same old food same old frustration but a new girl every day on my bed during the most intimate moments of the day. This is how I have existed till now. This is how I will continue for the rest of my life. And I am sure this is how millions of other boys or girls of my age exist in the world today and have existed before.

He was a friend of mine. We used to have a very good time. Then he betrayed me for no reason and made my life a living hell. I don’t want to see his face again. I wish a miserable life for him everyday in my prayers. I have killed him a thousand times in my dreams. But he is still there to remind me of those days and the worse he has done to my life. It’s illegal to kill and it’s too humiliating to be labeled as a murderer. I am a very respectable person of my society. Everybody pay respect to my position and my personality. I can’t take law in my hands. Only thing I can continue to do is to continue killing him in my dreams for the rest of my life and try to make life as miserable as I can for my friend. This way I can continue living my life as before and still be respected and admired without wearing the badge of a criminal.

It’s too easy to be a hypocrite and still be sane and loved by the society. But it’s too difficult to break the law and be called as an insane or a criminal. A very thin line exists between hypocrisy and insanity. If we visualize closely it would not be difficult to find rapists or murderers in our own family or friend circle. But still we love them because they haven’t done crime according to the prescribed definitions of law and society. In other words hypocrisy is a widely accepted phenomenon. We may look at hypocrisy in a negative way but in reality we all are hypocrites to a certain extent. We all live in this veil of hypocrisy. Those who come out of it are called insane; those who continue are called civilized citizens of the society. It will not be wrong to say that hypocrisy is an epidemic. But nobody is really interested in curing it. On the other hand society has defined punishments for those who cross the line. Emotions distinguish man from animals but also have made him the most hypocrite being existing in the world. In other words animals are not hypocrites. Sometimes it’s difficult to decide what is right and what exactly is not. If rape is a crime then is it right to rape a girl in thoughts and masturbate? Sex is a taboo in the Indian context. The young boys and girls are literally starved for sex for a very long time. It will not be wrong to say that millions of girls are living a life of mental prostitution in India and outside. Then why does society consider prostitution a crime when prostitution is so rampant in the minds of the youth in reality? Is there a space for this kind of promiscuity if the society is so moral and religious? Society has made everything to its advantage. It has defined everything so intelligently so that the ones who question it would always be proved out rightly wrong and be readily eliminated from the system without even their traces left behind.

Do we need to revise our definitions and prescribe new ones which would be as controversial and at the same time as wrong as the existing ones? Is it necessary to distinguish right and wrong when one can be proved the other in some other or the same context or the difference in reality is actually very superficial? Isn’t it right to say that we being the most intelligent beings are also the ones who are spiritually the poorest and the weakest?

It’s not possible to be insane and at the same time hope for a stable system everywhere. In other words some amount of hypocrisy is required for survival. But it’s also necessary to define our zone of insanity and work on it extensively to fill the loopholes in the systems around us. All we can do is to be a less hypocrite and try to view the things from a different perspective.

DISTANT LANDS

distant lands

walking through the desert
crying over the sand
i saw the similar faces
laughing on the distant land.
tattered and shattered
i manage to see the shore
through the holes in my wounded hands.
they're calling me every minute
shining the broken pieces
of my colors of dreams,
they're talking to one another
about the stones
in my babel of screams,
distorted visions and the beads of red
glittering on the highway
storming my head,
i am trying to keep pace
with the vanishing lights
dying to survive
in the clatter of trivial delights.
i know i can
decipher the code of horizon
embrace the darkness
and laugh at the shining crimson.
crossin the dividing lines
i have come much closer
i can now stand
to spit at the victorious losers.
coming so far
from the abondoned sands
i see them disappearing
from their conquered lands.
no matter how hard you try
to break my legs and make me cry
my insanity will always beat the flock of sheep
kick them in their graves and soak their spirits dry.

my wall...

my wall...

the words glare at me every moment

the thoughts provoke me now and then

they want me to fight

the time has come

its time to win

its time to kill...

the end by doors (apocalypse now)

This is the end

Beautiful friend

This is the end

My only friend, the end

Of our elaborate plans, the end

of everything that stands, the end

No safety or surprise, the end

I'll never look into your eyes...again

Can you picture what will be

So limitless and free

Desperately in need...of some...stranger's hand

In a...desperate land

Lost in a Roman...wilderness of pain

And all the children are insane

All the children are insane

Waiting for the summer rain, yeah

There's danger on the edge of town

Ride the King's highway, baby

Weird scenes inside the gold mine

Ride the highway west, baby

Ride the snake, ride the snake

To the lake, the ancient lake, baby

The snake is long, seven miles

Ride the snake...he's old, and his skin is cold

The west is the best

The west is the best

Get here, and we'll do the rest

The blue bus is callin' us

The blue bus is callin' us

Driver, where you taken' us

The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on

He took a face from the ancient gallery

And he walked on down the hall

He went into the room where his sister lived, and...then he

Paid a visit to his brother, and then he

He walked on down the hall, and

And he came to a door...and he looked inside

Father, yes son, I want to kill you

Mother...I want to...fuck you

C'mon baby, take a chance with us

C'mon baby, take a chance with us

C'mon baby, take a chance with us

And meet me at the back of the blue bus

Doin' a blue rock

On a blue bus

Doin' a blue rock

C'mon, yeah

Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill

This is the end

Beautiful friend

This is the end

My only friend, the end

It hurts to set you free

But you'll never follow me

The end of laughter and soft lies

The end of nights we tried to die

This is the end

its all dark

yes it's dark its really dark. and this is the only reality left in my life now. it takes time to assimilate this harsh truth of life but when it gets absorbed u feel weaker . a loneliness never felt before, a kind of helplessness never experienced before surrounds and breaks you from inside. i was in a dilemma when he told me about this fact whether to believe it or not. but he was sure that i would experience it one day and feel as helpless as the people in the past had been or the people present feel when they encounter the ultimate. the most difficult part i would say had not been the realization but life with this realization. in my case the realization came in stages. the first time i felt like dancing when i saw the reflection of darkness in the figure of krishna. i felt like seeing krishna for the first time in my life. it was nothing less than an enlightenment. i wanted to dance like a child dances naked in the rain. i wanted to smile as a mother smiles when she looks at her baby the first time after delivery. it made me stunned as a boy who discovers his sexuality for the first time in the act of masturbation. i felt like reaching the peaks of mount everest standing there infront of the idol of krishna. i felt like discovering something never ever discovered before. the second time pink floyd made me realize what it really means to be dark and alone. i would have listened to those chords of the guitar a hundred times before but what they wanted to tell me i could never ever imagine. i felt as if pink floyd was formed not to create music but to make me realize the intensity of the dark canvass on which our lives have been painted. i felt like vomiting. i felt choked and wanted to suicide. that realization has made me quiet as i had never been. i feel lonely in the company of friends. the celebrations have lost their meaning for me. everything seems to be artificial and false. nobody is a friend. there is war going on everywhere and everyone wants to weaken and defeat me. i don't have the strength to fight. i don't have the means to save my life. it becomes difficult to find words now. my writings seem to have lost their effectiveness. i fear to write. i fear to express. i feel i am writing my experience on a black piece of paper with a black pen and nothing is visible when i try to read it. things will change one day. i still believe it. the time may be about to come. i waited for a long time. the wait is going to over. perhaps i am out of place now. i am exausted, burnt, may be lost. it's over now. i don't want it anymore. for the first time in my life i can feel the void inside me. it may have been there from the beginning but only now i can feel its existence. its growing every minute. just about to burst. just about to extinguish. just about to engulf every inch of my survival. its laughing. i am made to hear its cry. my ears are about to explode. eyes getting blind. everybody is happy. everybody was good. they were behaving just the way they should. only i was ignorant. i was stupid. i was wrong. all seem to be meaningless now. its all bullshit. the point has come when i am able to touch the horizon that seemed to be invincible once. the things really merge here or should i say they cease to exist at all. the party is going on. friends are enjoying, dancing, getting high. music is in the air. the smoke all around. they say its a different world. i used to be a part of it few days back. but things have turned up in a different way. i am not a member now. i have been thrown out or should i say i chose it. its all same. the void has outgrown and surrounded me all over. a vaccuum has formed. i wanted to get out. but its over now. who the fuck wants to get out? i can feel no pain no thirst no hunger. just a final desire to burn into ashes. i want to end up everything. life is just a formality now. the chain is long and i am just a small and insignificant part of it. i am no different. just another brick in the wall. all the ambiguities seem to be over. who the fuck i am roaming here purposelessly? it doesn't belong to me or should i say i am an alien. lost in the world of big people. i am a tiny speck or a worthless piece of shit. i am waiting. waiting for the things to show up fast. just want the ultimate. the end seems to be approaching every time i close my eyes. i believe in a saying that if a thing happens twice it happens for the third time also.
i am waiting, waiting for the third time...

'MATRIX AND BHAGWADGITA'

"The door to your right leads to the source and the salvation of Xion and the door to your left leads from matrix to her and to the end of your species. And as you have already put, the problem is choice."
- The Creator says to Neo in Matrix

Going back to the streets from where I started the journey i.e. going back to the concepts of illusion (my first blog) which got revived last night when I finally watched Matrix after years of resisting myself, considering it to be nothing more than a sick, graphically manipulated action flick. But to my wonder I found it to be a 21st century translation of our very own bhagwadgita, Gita which answers the very question of existence of human life on the earth and the purpose for which a man gets trapped in this web of life and death and the only way out to achieve eternity. Applying the model of matrix in our own context this whole world which we deem to be real is nothing but a beautiful illusion crafted by the perpetrator, whom we call God. The very reason of our existence is a purpose, a very unique one. Once that purpose is achieved, the doer is exterminated (in the language of matrix; gets deleted). The only real problem, keeping the rest of all aside for a moment (irrelevant in the real sense), is the problem of choice, the choice between real and unreal, the choice between desire and freedom, illusion and fact, benign and sinister, and the choice between existence and salvation. But the man smart enough to deal with the problems, already decided which way to go to, eliminates this whole problem of choice. As the Oracle explains in matrix to Neo when she offers her a candy, he asks her in return that how did she know he was going to take it? I view ‘Oracle’ as a composite of all religions, sects, scriptures, hymns and manuscripts which are there with us the entire life, guiding us always which road to take but we hardly pester us to follow them. So the question of choice doesn’t arise in practical terms. The choice has already been made. Everything is planned and already decided. Belts have been tightened and I am ready for a flight, flight to the world of my dreams, my oceans and mountains, my aspirations and realities. I am educated… I am the master... I am the ultimate. I have found the secret code. This is the only purpose of my very existence. Destruction. To born, age and consequently die without actually realizing what are life and death in actual expressions. And here lies the key to the door opening into the world of myriads lost in the fixture of life and death, i.e. the door to the left leading from matrix to her and to the end my species.

But why is it so difficult to choose the right door and why isn’t it the choice we always make? Is it really so hard to comprehend the real world which is in fact a world of illusions? What I understand is that it’s like a mirage. You try to grab it; it disappears and reappears far away, taking you further away from the door to the right, i.e. the door that leads to the source and salvation. Really, a brilliantly designed program by a mastermind who must be laughing at the moment when I am trying to crack his own puzzle.

'DIED INSANE'

i was strolling on the road
when i saw it coming
i could escape the collision
but i let it go
it shattered me to pieces
but i saved the very thing

they call me insane...

STRUGGLE FOR SANITY...

STRUGGLE FOR SANITY…

A painter scribbles four lines on paper in a random fashion and calls it the masterpiece of his life. He had never been so justified in his presentation. He always wanted to draw something like that but just now he got the real combination and accomplishment. For the first time in his life he had been so true to those four lines. For the first time he had been different. For the first time he had broken a wall. Just then four boys walk into the room and have a look at his masterpiece. They burst into laughter and call it the joke of the century and absolutely rubbish. They call him insane. They scratch the painting and tear it into pieces. The painter contented as has never been, just looking at them and doing nothing, standing there with a smile on his face collects the torn pieces from the floor and put them in his pocket. He picks up his brushes, colors and throws them in his bag and walks out of the room with the same smile on his face and retreat to sleep. He never woke up after that. But that night he dreamed of something profound. A ray of light coming from behind the mountains, dazzling into his eyes and asking him to follow its path. The path which has no road, no turns and very few accompanying travelers who look contented with the same mysterious smile on their faces. They join their hands and wave them into the air for someone standing far away at the horizon waiting for them for centuries. Just then the dream vanishes into eternity and the breath leaves the matter…

Who’s sane? Who’s insane? Who wins in this struggle for sanity? These are some of the questions which need to be answered… till then remain insane…

'THE SAME OLD ROAD'

‘THE SAME OLD ROAD’

Everyday we walk the same old road to the lecture hall. The road which we have traversed through a hundred times in the past three years, the same old road besides the field and the parade ground, then a short course in front of the haunted girls’ hostel, then making a short cut through the abandoned, barren piece of land stretching from Midway canteen to the Open Air Theatre saving 5 minutes of our long and arduous journey to the class, finally reaching the destination by another short cut through the mortuary. The road is the same, the destination too the same. Only the new faces have been added up. But their energies still the same. Everything looks apparently unchanged, identical. But things are not that similar as they apparently appear to be. A lot has changed. The only thing is that we don’t want to look at them. Rather we fear to look at them. Everybody wants to follow the Buddhist philosophy, “if there is a problem that cannot be solved, there is no use worrying about it”. They want to follow the middle path no matter where it leads them to. Talking about the changes, the vehicles have virtually disappeared from the way, ‘thanks’ to the ban on the motorized two wheelers.
The road has been flooded with a number of warning boards demanding the use of helmets and horns while driving besides speed limits below 20 km ph. Everyday we see the abandoned, barren piece of land getting converted into a beautiful garden sprawling with fountains and plantations, becoming more beautiful day by day. About 50 people working on it day and night. Their efforts have started giving dividends too. But beauty comes with a curse.The stretch has been banned from regular usage. Those who cross that land would be called trespassers and would be fined for the same. Now, we don’t use the regular way, instead travel the entire road around the once abandoned land to our destination.

Sometimes I feel guilty, guilty of becoming a part of the change, guilty of my helplessness to change the things which I want to. I feel getting consumed, slowly and slowly by the guilt from inside. The river is taking me to the place where it wants to and I am getting driven along with it. I curse myself of becoming the system, the very system which I hate the most, the very system which calls me a trespasser and the very system which restricts my thoughts and actions. I want to cross the land again but my hands are tied. I want to break the ties but the fears surround me. But whatever it is the joy of getting to the destination through the short cut remains etched in my mind, hurting me always whenever I see that road.

Walls walls everywhere
I want to see beyond
Let me go the other side

Let me break the wall…

THE FLOCK OF SHEEP AND MY POWER

“Power is when you have the power to kill someone and you don’t. That is what the emperors do”
- Oscar Schindler

“Now I think you are a little drunk…!”
(From the movie Schindler’s list)

I am educated. I am sitting on the chair. I have the power to consume what I want to. Thousand knocks on my door. They want water. They are starving. I will die if I share what I have. I can’t run. I will be caught. I will sit inside and not open the door. This is the only way. They know what is happening inside. But at the same time they are helpless. I have the power to exploit. I have the power to hide. They are meek. They can’t organize or revolt. They are handicapped. They need someone to initiate. A spark. Simply seems impossible to light up from anywhere. Someone needs to be insulted badly. Someone needs to be ripped. Darkness is their weakness, their darkness my power. Phone is ringing. A warning call. A call for help. They know that I will not pick up the phone. But still want to try their luck. Luck is their last resort, their luck my escape, my power. They chose me. They have to suffer now. They could stand up at that moment. Block my way if they wanted to. But they didn’t want to clutch anything. They were having nice dreams. Feared they would depart if eyes see the morning sun. Dreams were their leisure, their dreams my realism, my power. I didn’t want to drop what was coming my way, what was in my ‘luck’. They were dwarfs. Lonely dwarfs. I had friends for support, ‘TRUSTWORTHY ONES’. Now they are caught badly in a web. A web of dreams, a web of lucks, a web of helplessness. I have the power to destroy the web, to break the wall. But I will starve if I help them. I have to eat. Someone has died outside. They are crying. They are howling for help. Believe someone would come. Their belief is their legacy, their belief my treasure, my power. I am helpless to help them. We both have the key to the door. I have not changed the locks. I didn’t have time. I had to eat. They have lost it somewhere. They can search it if they want, open the door and kill me. But I don’t fear that they would find the key. You need to jostle for that. They can never ever. They want to cry and dream and try their luck. They are adamant. Ignorance is their steer, their ignorance my light, my power. Oh! I can’t listen to the music. They are screaming like beasts. But who cares for the music. I am starving. I have the power to eat.

“Bleeding and babbling we fell on his neck with a scream
Wave upon wave of demented avengers
March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.”

- From the song ‘sheep’ by Pink Floyd

THE MYSTERY MAN

THE MYSTERY MAN

I often talk to him. He looks like me only. He behaves like me, talks like me, walks like me. Too many similarities. Sometimes, hard to decide, who is who? He gives me tics, makes me laugh, and sits with me when I am alone. He never abandons me. On a lonely evening, watching the sun setting, sitting in the gallery of my room, when I remember the sweet memories of childhood friends and long nights of laughter with my sisters, he plays Pink Floyd for me on my laptop. In return he never expects anything. A strange union but as cohesive as the molecules in a solid.

So many similarities but differences do occur. He contradicts me sometimes. I feel like slapping him on the face. He burdens me a lot when I am about to take a decision. A unanimous one rarely occurs. I walk west when he wants to take me east. Despite the differences we walk together. Not talking to each other on the road, struggling to remain quiet, cursing inside. He screams at me when we finally reach the wrong destination. I often think that he already knew it would be the wrong way. He is too egoistic. He accompanies me where I want to go even if it’s the wrong path but never stops me in between. His warnings are mysterious. They don’t really come as warnings. Feeling frustrated what to do, I try spy on him. But it doesn’t really help at all. I call him psycho. He smiles at me. A mysterious smile. Hard to comprehend. He takes it lightly when I give him pain as if it doesn’t pain him at all. I try to starve him, drench him, but it only makes him more rigid. Once I tried to hide from him what I was doing. But ultimately found him standing behind me, monitoring everything closely, stealthily. He knows everything about me, my weaknesses, my limitations, when I will stumble. But often remains quiet. The mystery of this mysterious man boggles me…

I have found something… But how can it possible? ... It’s absolutely rubbish… I just can’t believe… Oh! I think I heard him coming. It’s time to go now.

……..

He … lives… in…ME… but… it’s… not… ME…!

GHOST STREET

Walking alone on the street
Everything quiet
A deafening silence
But thousand shadows chase me
Anonymous
Silent
As if they are dead
Trying to keep pace with me
I fear to look behind
As if something stops me
The shadows get darker
Thicker fatter
Revealing them slowly
Every moment every second
They seem to be familiar
I have met them once
Their expressions seem to remind me
Something I fail to remember
Pointing at me sarcastically
Whispering about me in shear silence
Frightening me
They want to tell me something
I am weakening every moment
Losing myself in bits and pieces
Getting shattered
Broken
A deafening silence
I fear to look behind
I think I have recognized them
How could I not…
I look behind
The shadows disappear…

I AM INSANE...

I am insane…

I don’t walk on lines. I walk in between the lines, naked, haphazardly, undecidedly, purposelessly but I reach where I want to. They call me insane.

Black windows of paint

I scratched with my nails

I see others just like me

Why do they not try to escape?

They bring out the older ones

They point in my way

They come with a flash of light

And take my family away

And very later I have learned to

Accept some friends of ridicule

My whole existence is for your amusement

And that is why I’m here with you

To take you away with me.

- (the song ‘paper cuts’ by nirvana)

Sitting naked in my armchair on the edge of a tall building, glittering and gleaming sunrays shining into my eyes, lost in my own world of thoughts, I want to feel the wind on my face and the heat of the everlasting sun, I want to enjoy the fear of the invincible death and laugh at the immortality of human soul, getting closer to my end each moment I want to get the glimpse of my 21 year old life in a fraction of seconds and giggle at my helplessness to save this matter from getting perished away, I want to see the beauty of the world below and the madding crowd from the eyes having no ego at all at the moment, just a last and a little desire to fill the entire horizon in their aperture, life will never ever be that beautiful again, I want to sink in the depths of the deepest oceans, burn in the heat of the hottest stars and fall from the heights of the highest peaks, there is something between life and death, not just life and death only, which I want to experience in this moment, I want to be me just me.

Krishna: He who sits

Suppressing all the instruments of flesh,

Yet in his idle heart thinking on them,

Plays the inept and guilty hypocrite:

But he who, with strong body serving mind,

Gives up his mortal powers to worthy work,

Not seeking gain, Arjuna! such an one

Is honourable. Do thine allotted task!

Work is more excellent than idleness;

The body's life proceeds not, lacking work.

- bhagwadgita

0600 hours: Drenched with perspiration, lying on the cold floor of my closed room, naked, febrile, bruised, lacerated, soiled, masturbated, immersed in my own vomit, in a subconscious state of mind, heavily doped, suffocated, my arms weakened by phlebitis, the beats of pink Floyd running in my blood, numb, comfortably numb, I can hear no birds, no hymns or division bells, I cannot see the awakening sun shunning away the darkness of the night, I cannot feel the fragrance of the wet soil, I feel no pain, no weakness, just a beautiful and seductive feeling of virtual bliss, a feeling more pleasurable than an orgasm , I can see what I want to see, I can think what I want to think, I can hear what I want to hear, I can scream and cry without any inhibitions, they say that I am hallucinated but this hallucination is more real for me than their reality, the wall has cracks but I see none, I can only see the mountains, the birds, the roses, the meanders, all dancing with me in my tunes, everything is beautiful, splendid and glorious, everyone is my friend, no foes, I know no hatred, no vulgarity, no differences, I feel no gravity, I am flying, I have an answer to every question, I am floating in the river of my wisdom, I can dream what I feared to dream, I can achieve what once seemed impossible, I am rich, I am supreme, I am educated, I am what I am.

 

Krishna: As smoke blots the white fire,

as clinging rust

Mars the bright mirror, as the womb surrounds

The babe unborn, so is the world of things

Foiled, soiled, enclosed in this desire of flesh.

The wise fall, caught in it; the unresting foe

It is of wisdom, wearing countless forms,

Fair but deceitful, subtle as a flame.

Sense, mind, and reason- these, O Kunti's Son!

Are booty for it; in its play with these

It maddens man, beguiling, blinding him

Cut then atwain

With sword of wisdom, Son of Bharata!

This doubt that binds thy heart-beats!

cleave the bond

Born of thy ignorance! Be bold and wise!

Give thyself to the field with me!

Arise!. - bhagwadgita

I love her, she loves me, I can bring the stars to her feet, I can rip my flesh at her disposal, she makes me feel significant, magnificent, I forget my egos, my consciousness, my apprehensions in her company, all my words seem to exhaust when she smiles, her love is sacred, knows no profanity, salvation seems to have been attained when I embrace her, all the revolts, both inner and outer, pacify when I lied naked with her beside the fireplace, I look different in her eyes, beautiful as I had never ever been, she can never betray me, she can think of nobody else when I am around, she is fearless when I hold her hand, she knows no shame when I kiss her and squeeze her into my arms in public, she gives her entire being into my custody keeping nothing for herself. I love her but I have to kill her… I killed her.

Krishna: The Doors of Hell

Are threefold, whereby men to ruin pass,-

The door of Lust, the door of Wrath, the door

Of Avarice. Let a man shun those three!

He who shall turn aside from entering

All those three gates of Narak, wendeth straight

To find his peace, and comes to Swarga's gate.

- bhagwadgita

I wander in the streets, starved but satiated, injured but healed, naked but clothed, lonely but contented and live but dead.

They call me insane. I laugh at them.

Krishna: Religion is not his who too much fasts

Or too much feasts, nor his who sleeps away

An idle mind; nor his who wears to waste

His strength in vigils. Nay, Arjuna! I call

That the true piety which most removes

Earth-aches and ills, where one is moderate

In eating and in resting, and in sport;

Measured in wish and act; sleeping betimes,

waking betimes for duty.

- bhagwadgita

LIVING THE 'ILLUSION'

“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

This famous Einsteinian quote perturbs me a lot and puts me in a dilemma. Dilemma of existence of this very being, dilemma of futility of the fourth dimension of space i.e. time in which everything is so intertwined and submerged that it will take a whole lot of humanity to destroy and reincarnate itself to abolish its significance, dilemma of the very purpose of this life, dilemma of the boundaries existing between us and the Forces that tend to unite us all, dilemma of the presence of atoms, molecules and the protons and the neutrons within. If everything according to Einstein gets narrowed down to an illusion (a stubbornly persistent one), an illusion which being persistent is not stable, it continually moves with us, it breathes with us, lives with us, eats with us, mourns with us, laughs with us (rather laughs at us) and dies with us in this illustrious soil; then everything becomes so simple, completely uncomplicated and completely comprehensible. Ahhhh! At last the problem is solved. What a relieving and exhilarating moment! A wait has finally ended and moksha has been attained. Now no problems seem to sneak and trouble the mind. The answer seems to have been present with us since ages. We should have looked for it and it would have been ours a long time ago. We would have been the masters of this universe and this world would have been our baby. We would have conquered the invincible and plundered the nature of its splendor and glory. We would have been gods, gods in disguise of an illusion, gods in search of an illusion, gods in fight with an illusion and gods in love with an illusion. But is it so easy to believe this so called fact and reduce everything to an illusion and be a part of this illusionary world and the illusionary glamour? Does our search for the answer ends here, here in this illusion? If everything is an illusion, then why are we deceiving ourselves every moment, trying to ignore the existence of this very illusion? Why are we struggling every second and dividing the illusion into past, present and the future? Why are we always busy in drawing the lines between you and me? Why are we always making comparisons between the things that don’t really exist? If Everything is an illusion, then all the distinctions, distinction between good and bad, man and animal, reality and idealism, virtue and sin, knowledge and ignorance, holy and profane, cryptic and candid, benign and sinister, seem to become redundant and lose their meaning. All differences seem to have hugged and accepted each other in their indifferent form and being. But does masking everything with a veil of illusion solves the mystery of our existence and struggle in this illustrious world? A question has been answered but a part of it still remains unanswered.

Herman Hesse in his masterpiece novel Siddhartha tries to make to make the things simpler and uncomplicated when Siddhartha, the central character of the novel, explains his friend Govinda ;
“Never is a man or a deed wholly Samsara or wholly Nirvana; never is a man wholly a saint or a sinner. This only seems so because we suffer the illusion that time is something real. Time is not real, Govinda. I have realized this repeatedly. And if time is not real, then the dividing line that seems to lie between this world and eternity, between suffering and bliss, between good and evil, is also an illusion. The potential Buddha already exists in the sinner; his future is already there. The world, Govinda, is not imperfect or slowly evolving along a long path to perfection. No, it is perfect at every moment; every sin already carries grace within it, all small children are potential old men, all sucklings have death within them, all dying people - eternal life. It is not possible for one person to see how far another is on the way; the Buddha exists in the robber and dice player; the robber exists in the Brahmin. During deep meditation it is possible to dispel time, to see simultaneously all the past, present and future, and then everything is good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman.
Accepting the fact and living with it are two different things. If today I accept the fact that I am an illusion and time, in which everything finds its measure, is nothing, but an illusion, then will this acceptance make the things simpler or more difficult for me, blocks my mind with ambiguity. Siddhartha answered many unanswered questions but it has given me more questions to ponder over. A traveler on a long and arduous journey in search for his destination finally attains it but when he reaches there, he finds to his surprise that path which he took to reach his destination never existed and what he has attained in the end is nothing but a betrayal. It’s like waking up from a fulfilling dream and then repenting over. It’s like robbing you of your entire wealth when you have finally earned it. It’s like arriving at an orgasm and then finally withdrawing from its inexplicable pleasure. It’s like stripping the mother of her smile when she finally sees her baby after the pain she went through during the delivery. But there can be a another side to the coin also if I find that whatever I wanted to attain, fulfill, earn, arrive or smile at never actually existed for me. It was never meant for me or if it was meant for me then it was always with me. The fault existed within me. I never endeavored to look for it. I never tried to feel it. I never struggled to comprehend it. It had always lived with me, always, throughout my trifles and my failures. It used to laugh at my disappointments. It used to ridicule mehttp://l.yimg.com/www.flickr.com/images/spaceball.gif throughout my expedition. But I never felt its existence. In both the situations I will attain nothing but restlessness and disappointment. Does that mean I should continue living the way I have been living till now or should I accept the fact and make my life more complicated, more onerous, more incomprehensible? The answer remains to be found. May be its possible that the answer itself is an illusion but following it remains the only answer to the puzzle…