Museful Dumplings on a Cold-lashed Day!

And dear brothers and sisters, here goes the winters caravan. Definite signs of climate change! Unprecedented fires somewhere, and icy blizzards at other places. Here, in north India, it’s unprecedently frozen.  

Homo-sapiens beat other species of the genus Homo to rule and crowd the planet to its last guts. Wait fella wait, great are the ways of evolution. Evolution doesn't end with Homo-sapiens. It's but a brief coma, a tiny pause, a cute little interlude before the juggernaut takes on further. Artificial intelligence will sow the seeds of almost a different type of species of the genus Homo. The great AI will do us what we did to other species in manipulating nature and depriving them of their natural rights.

It seems almost inevitable: the doomsday scenario born of unchecked ambitions of the Homo Sapiens. But all nightmares and fears melt in the gentle heat of real-life stories played by people like Lata Bhagwan Khare. They are the ones whose grand spirit still throws a silver lining across the dark clouds.  

She hadn't anything. Well, not in the terms we are used to evaluate possessions. Age wasn't on her side. She was 65. Poorest of the poor, the biggest disadvantage! But she had wealth, a big mountain of it, in terms of subtle intangibles. She had courage and conviction. And most importantly, she loved her husband. They were a simple farming couple in a Maharashtra village, happy in earning a day’s wage and look forward to another hard-worked but peaceful day. When you learn to stay happy and joyful in the present, life turns a string of shiny beads. Past doesn’t pinch you, the future doesn’t scare you. Life but will have its share of tests and challenges. So, like all of us face, they also faced one. The 70-year-old farm laborer fell sick. The treatment meant almost that much amount which the poor couple hadn't seen in their entire life. But she, a life-long equal partner in his life and living, was sure that she had to save her husband at any cost. He may die, like all of us will one day, but not on account of the unavailability of medical treatment. When people far younger and far more privileged would have lost hope and surrendered to desperation, she saw chance at life in the Marathi headlines on a greased local daily paper piece she was using to hold the samosa they were eating. It announced a big price for the winner of a Marathon soon to be organized. And the old woman with a young spirit ran a marathon, barefoot, her sari tucked with determination, her naked feet bleeding, and the mocking jeers of the spectators who took it as a comic act worth their cheap entertainment. Very few have the depths of soul to feel the mammoth struggles going inside a fellow human being. The woman won. Beyond the story of laurels, to her it was simply a matter of money beyond the finish line so that she could help her soulmate during his fight against the disease. Enjoy the story of this courageous woman. A story of love basically! Bask in her glory!

Let’s pump a bit more warmth into the frozen bones and eyes that seem to have lost hope through a bit of talk on ‘soulmateship’. I know we have an overestimated view of our own validity and suitability to be an idealistic soulmate, provided we come across someone suitable for our pre-existing suitability to be a soulmate. Sounds a bit egoistic! In practical life, soulmateship is fabricated and carefully formulated with conscious effort. Soulmates are delicately worked upon relationships. We presume that we are a package and wait for the destiny to make us meet our soulmates. Well, guys it doesn't work that way. Soulmates are made. We never meet someone as soulmates. Don't expect to meet yours. Love, that initial attraction and biological pull, is just the first step. After that it's a long way to a careful walk on the road to turn someone's soulmate. Beyond the categories of caste and class, soulmates like Lata and her husband are what substantiate all about life and living. With such little realizations, greatness is just one step and one breath away! Claim yours today itself!

Well, we can discuss a bit more about love which is supposed to be the bedrock of any relationship in cluding that of soulmates. I just point out a bit of advice to all those into the business of soulmateship. Hate is not the opposite of love, indifference is! You may ask, ‘How?’ Well, I give my feeble light on this. Take it if you find it digestible.  

See, love and hate are almost the shadow of each other, just a thin line between them. In fact, they may—ad they do on a routine basis—interchange. In fact, the love—hate combo fuels each other. Beware, ‘indifference’ is what kills the soul of a relationship. When the person doesn't matter anymore to you, not even worth hate, that is when a relationship dies. So, indifference is the opposite of love, not hate because even with hate, there is still a possibility, indifference kills all prospects. Don’t allow indifference to creep in. It’s the termite for the institution of soulmateship. Beyond the Love—Hate chemistry, the sole purpose of being human is to consciously try to evolve spiritually. And your love, beginning from self and those who are near to your self, is the ladder to take you there.

Coming to the more mundane wheels of life. Even in the frozen lanes of December end  streets, there are hot tempers and frayed attitudes. I am too common of an Indian to add to the noisy Chorus about NRC-CAA that has jolted India. in any case, the opposing notes from both ends have turned it into a defeating Blizzard. I am more concerned about my little issue. We haven't had electricity for the last 8 days in our village. To the hell with both the opposing armies on the NRC-CAA battlefield! All I want is restoration of electricity, so that I can continue reading with my 12 books that I am reading simultaneously. My stock of candles is gone. Inverter supply shrieked before calling it quits. I just want electricity. And most of you also need the basic necessities of life. So kindly leave the battlefield my bruised, bloodied and lacerated pro and anti NRC-CAA soldiers and come back home to find out if there is flour in the bin, light in your bulb, drinkable water in your pot, sewage channel in your street! Come brave hearts come! You have participated in the historical battle, created enough history. Now return with pride and loads of prejudices. And see the littlest things that also need your benevolent look. Come home o my brave soldiers! All I need is this f***ing flicker in my dead bulb so that I can read my books at night!

Beyond the pitched ideological battles, this lonesome tree marvels at the humans’ ingenuity in fighting over fiction and be totally unaware of the facts. The lonesome peepal! It’s left out as an insignia of the past. All around you see the brown guts of tilled earth, where not even a single blade of grass isn’t allowed without the distressed farmers’ permission. Just 40 years back, the lonesome peeplal had a big family of trees around him. But then man-born greater needs, call it greed, arose. The farmland now creeps over the horizon like a deadly parasitic creeper. Let's see, how many more misty dusks remain in its destiny?!

Under the peepal, a mighty truth is written on the soiled stage of life. These are the beautiful feathers of a bird, scattered as the aftermaths of life and living. The scythe of time reaping the harvest intangibly, everywhere in all directions. Colours melting back to seep int the womb of mother earth for another step in the corridors of creation! Nearby, in the grayish black swathes of a cold, frozen afternoon, a former colony of weaverbirds hangs like corpses of once alive dreams. The cycle gone, the caravan moved ahead and the remnants! An abandoned colony melting into the greyish dusk! Humans got any message?

Not far from the lonesome peepal, among the grassy waste outside the main village habitation, he has set up his very own colony for his son, daughter in law and a noisy brood of grandchildren. All this is complemented by pigs, goats and poultry. A world in itself. Sube Valmiki was young when we little ones hopped over the banyan’s branches. Now it's a grandfatherly sage, so is Sube Singh and me a greyish fatherly figure marveling how swiftly time flies!

His sparse beard and thick moustache is snow white. His multicolored woolen cal and shiny red blanket make him stand out as a milestone as he smokes hookah sitting on his charpoy in front of his little world surrounded by wasteland and tufts of bunchgrass which have been decimated by the frost. 'You are turning into an old sadhu!' I tell him. He welcomes the compliment with a disarming smile. As a child, I remember him as a sturdy youth working for us on some house repairs. Now I am a greyish middle aged man and he is acquiring the golden shades of old age. He has settled outside the village in a world of his own. His grandchildren play with more verve and enthusiasm even than his little goats. His pride possession, Moi Rani, the lady pig is tethered. Her long rows of shiny teats along the udder a hallmark of its feminine fecundity. 'She is our offering to Moi Mata! We keep her for non commercial purposes!' he says. Well, i understand that she is a sort of offering to a local goddess. But I cannot understand fully. 'Non commercial' doesn't make much of a meaning to me. Does it mean her sons and daughters also go along the same way? Most probably not. That would be taking one's faith too far! At the most, it may mean she will not be sold for some bucks in the pocket, and won't be slaughtered to add to fun and funstry on some celebratory occasion. Her pedigree i suppose is beyond the deity's protection. Anyway, they don't think that deeply. And that is why they can have a real laugh!

He has even a pet raven. A feat in itself in taming a wild bird known for its claim on independence and gaukish  husky kawing! He had chanced upon it under a tree, a mere meatball, waiting to become something’s meal. He picked it up and showed astute mastery and common sense in parenting it. The bird flows to enjoy freedom in free skis but acknowledges its gratitude by coming back almost regularly and sit by him.     

Raven

in cuddling heaven!

Its irritable kaw-kaw melting into bearable notes,

Its erstwhile black monochrome, ewwe!

Glowing now with a likeable hue,

Love is the best form of truth and beauty,

Take it as your conscious humanoid duty!

Back home in my yard I have a little more reasons to smile over the frozen time. Rajnigandha (Tuberose) smiles at long, long last! In fact after 1.5 years! It appeared to have lost interest in life, living and smiles. Looked just a faded, forlorn bunch of grass in the pot, waiting to be cast away for some better, more attractive flower. Little did she realize that I have the patience of a grandfatherly sea. I put away any idea of any replacement. Lo, here she reciprocates with a lovely little bouquet! It's soooo fragrant! It seems to say a gentle sorry for the delay! No worries baby! Better late than never! Even long delayed smiles are better than any other alternative! Keep smiling? Nearby is the Reddest Rose. Pouting heavenward as a passionate kiss from mother Earth to the Sky, with loads of love of course! When the sky melts and goes down on its knee to kiss the petalous hand of mother earth! A holy kiss! The daughter of the yard, Hibiscus, has charted her journey from a pleasantly uncouth toddler to a lithesome, curvey, confident young woman. She has delicately touched the peak of her youth...vow...what a journey! And how can I ignore the indomitable spirit of the garden cactus!? Her forefathers braved the desert sands to bloom. She carries sturdy, hardy genes. Her flowers stay for months. Amazing. Mercury hits the bottom, but they stay unperturbed! These are five-petaled little red marvels that continue to kiss night frost and faded sunrays with same enthusiasm! Little wonder they stay for weeks after weeks. Glory be showered upon thou Garden Cactus. You beat the thorny ignominy to blossom up a flowery smile. All you need to have a flowering smile is to overlook the thorns. All of us have pinchy edges to our persona that pierce soft skins around. Accept your own thorns. Forgive others for having the same. And all you have is a bouquet of victory for all..smiles...smiles...smiles! And this Parijat showers love like a crazy lover! A fragrant heap of love is found every morning under it after the frozen wet nights. I give her an ounce of my care. She multiplies it thousand times and showers me with heavenly drizzle of scented dumplings. Thank you darling!

Outside in the streets, a group of migrant Bihari laborer is moving in this cold to reach the construction site where they are employed currently.

Their dreams frequently suffer a break,

They are but the ones who help others make!

An old woman is walking behind them. She is going for morning rituals at the temple. Devotion is the easiest means to realize the Ultimate. But out of millions and millions of hardcore devotees, how many qualify to be real devotees? Not many, I suppose! Simply because the majority of our devotion, in the form of rituals, prayers and beliefs, falls in the category of a deal with the object of our devotion. The moment your devotion becomes free of your 'deal', you take a quantum jump into realizing the hidden truths lying at every nook corner.

In a nearby chaupal, idle men are baulking in endless debates! Who says women are talkative? Have a look at them! They can beat any number of women in chatting on non-issues days after days, years after years. After a life-long war with words how many of us realize the real meaning of knowledge and information?

True knowledge, I suppose, is just coming home with the realization that all the information fed in our neural network is only a means for survival, a mere tool like a chair to sit upon. It also sets up the course for unknowing and unlearning, and the consequent swiping the screen clean, to be in sync with the intangible, but ever manifesting, intelligence in its undivided form. Logic, words, knowledge and information are mere chisels and hammers to chip away the mind-created stone from the huge rock of our assumed self, ego, and carve out a dimensionless entity. So one's logic though can't take you to the Truth, but it can at least help you in avoiding the tricks of the false. So guys pic up your tools, but remember they are nothing more than a stonemason's instruments in his rucksack as he moves to his stoneyard.

From the ones who sound most affable to the ones pounding your nerves with obnoxious ferocity, all of us are equally distant from the most presentable best 'truth', simply because there is no absolute 'truth'. The only absolute truth may be that there is no absolute truth. The so called truths are merely flimsy bubbles floating in the sky. So guys glide freely cocooned in the bubble of your truth with only this much caution that you don't crash too often into other's bubbles floating around. This is what good and bad might be all about. Otherwise, this existence does not even care what this hypothetical talk is about the absolutes, sin, piousness, etc., etc.

When my own voice starts disturbing me, I douse it under the all-overpowering notes of the great mystic Osho. The rats of my mind go to sleep. Today, I remember  him telling me:

‘Freedom and equality are two opposite conditions. If you want to maintain equality, then freedom can't be sustained. If you cherish freedom, you have to forget equality. People can be cut to a tailor-made size of equality, but it won't be possible without taking their freedom from them. You can't have equality other than in jail. And even inside the jail, if there are some elements of utility and convenience, inequality will creep in. So the jailor has to be stone like hard and unsparing in approach to manage perfect equality. Complete equality is possible only in a state of perfect subjugation and control. It should be so tight that nobody gets a chance to be unequal to anyone. So if communism takes control of earth, the entire planet will turn into a mammoth jail. Communism can't succeed without jail.’

Crossing the threshold of individual consciousness

Nothing stands in isolation. Can a drop of water stand alone in the ocean? Can an ocean exist without a drop, i.e., with a hole in its heart and the drop missing? Same is the cosmos. It's one continuity in one or the other form. Sea is nothing but drops drops everywhere in the expansion of its geographical spread. Same is with the super sea of cosmic consciousness. It's merely individual consciousness everywhere. Now the question is: how come there is a perception of individual consciousness? Well, that's how the fabric is! Start dividing a sea into tiniest dots! What happens? All we have littler seas made of tinier drops! The threshold from individual to infinite intelligence exists and doesn't at the same time. Possibly the sea itself perceives itself like a drop. Divide it into countless drops, they retain the feeling of individualty. Individual consciousness is thus nothing but a point of perception in the transforming whirlpool where the elements are going cyclically. Is a drop fundamentally and qualitatively different from a big sea? It isn't! Coming to humanoids. The so called conscious is the littlest bit of perception surrounded by the subconscious, which in turn melts into the infinite intelligence and consciousness pervading all around. That's the ladder to spread yourself, to feel more meaningful. One's subconscious part of mind is most active just before sleep and immediately after waking up. That's when the gates open tangibly for taking a quantum jump from conscious to subconscious and further on into superconsciousness. Grab it. Put your affirmation and claim to a larger self. There are infinite possibilities. What you seek at your greediest best may not be more than a drop of water desiring to double its size. You have the pathway etched to be the sea itself. You already are. Just that all that remains to be done is to start seeing through the walls of conscious, watch eagerly through the windows of subconscious in those walls and get connected to the infinite right there in front of you. It's suitable to start with tangibles to break the virtual shackles, just like it's easier to start with body in yoga. The higher battles with more virtual demons are managed further on the path. At the mind front, it's more convenient to start with the conscious part because it's tangible through its operational part through thoughts and emotions. There starts the second tier of management leading to the subconscious part and further on to be out of the prison to come united with everything around. It's not mother existence's concern whether there are storms lashing a drop, pond or sea, or peaceful calm waters pervade. To her indiscriminating eyes all things are just as they are. What happens in the drop of your consciousness is solely your own concern. You create the storms or peace in the tea cup of your existence. And the tools to make and break are conscious thoughts and their shadows in the form of emotions and feelings. They majorly decide the energy pattern pervading across this specific pattern of awareness, this little arrangement of energy within the super sea of energy. Pain, suffering, disease, stress and tensions are mere effects, little obstruction in the flow of river, the life stream. And the repair work primarily begins from the conscious part of the mind , which operates through thoughts, emotions and feelings.  So just like u go gyming, go gyming with thoughts. Work like a mason. And etch your reality, your better self on the subconscious, which in turn reflects as your truth on the endless canvas hung around with its infinite dimensions. Good luck!

LOVE: The Ultimate Alchemy

Ravindranath Tagore says, “Love is the only reality and it 

is not a mere sentiment.” The great mystic and poet very 

suitably sees it as “the ultimate truth that lies at the core of 

creation”.

Love defines the countless pathways to the cause of creation 

as Lord Byron points out with poetic precision: “Love will find 

a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.”

Do you think fear, anger, hate, envy, jealousy, ego, lust and 

greed have their own standing? No. Just like darkness is simply 

an absence of light, all these tortuous tools that lynch our self 

are nothing but phantoms doing painful rounds in the absence 

of love. Like a tiny lamp puts out darkness simply by casting 

light, without fighting the dark, a simple ray of love, a symbol of 

our true self, chucks out the flimsy appendages of the unreal self.

There is definitely limit to everything in cosmos. But there 

is one exception: Love, prem as we say it in Hindi. Yoko Ono 

feels the mankind’s regret in not fully absorbing their self in the 

sea of love when he says: “The regret of my life is that I have not 

said ‘I love you’ often enough.”

One need not fight fear, fury, hatred, jealousy, distrust, ego, 

lust and greed at various fronts to defeat them. They have a 

common root: burial of your loving self, your essential nature, 

under the peripheral dust of illusions and ignorance, making you 

identify with what is essentially not your real self. Remove the grime, allow the light of love to emanate from your soul, enter 

your behavioral self, and all around you see peace, harmony and 

balance. The vices, which you yourself condemn against yourself 

after being judgmental on your own self, just dry up, like fresh 

rays of sun dispel the last traces of dark clinging to the morning 

twilight.

A house—an assemblage of concrete, mortar, bricks and 

steel—turns a home only with love and care. Without affection 

decorating it from inside, it’s merely a soulless structure. Billy 

Graham says it very aptly: “Nothing can bring a real sense of 

security into the home except true love.”

The mankind’s fears driven by greed have already resulted 

in nukes and super-nukes having the capacity to destroy not 

just earth but many planets and stars around. Does it serve any 

purpose? The modern civilization sitting on the stockpiles of 

death and destruction is always one button push away from 

annihilation. No man, we don’t need hate anymore. We need 

more loving people around. The moisture of love will dampen 

the explosives of death and destruction.

Love for your man, your woman, your family, friends and 

near and dear ones is the seed that holds the potential to blossom 

into universal love for all and everything making you a loving 

person. So guys start your journey on the love path as a lover, as a 

caring husband, wife, parent or friend and proceed onto nurture 

the seed to help it grow into a robust tree of loving kindness 

for all. This basically is supposed to be the natural evolution 

course for your consciousness attached to this mater, this mix 

of materials called body comprising water and few kilograms 

of matter found in earth. The consciousness, the blueprint, the 

carrier of your previous journeys, is on the path of evolution, to 

merge into the all pervading super-consciousness, like a drop of 

water is moving to mix with the seas.

Do you think you can fight darkness by flailing your arms 

and fists in the dark? No man, that’s not the way. Darkness 

cannot be dispelled. It stays irrespective of your fusillade. All you need is a small lamp. It simply leaves darkness redundant 

by itself.

“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy 

into a friend,” Martin Luther King, Jr. Love definitely is the 

panacea for thousands of ailments afflicting human society. The 

Modern Gandhi of the West further says, “Darkness cannot 

drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive 

out hate; only love can do that.”

Haven’t you felt almost fully alive when in love with your 

man or woman? Well, that sums it up. This feeling is just a 

glimpse of the eternal bliss available on the higher rungs on the 

same ladder. Move up. There are no alternatives. This is the sole 

destiny.

Mind you, there are no sinners. We just have loving and less 

loving people. Come, join me in tilting the scale in favor of love. 

That is your destiny. Later or sooner, in this avatar or in the ones 

coming up next, you have to get along. Just like a river’s natural 

destination is the sea, your soul’s journey is to merge into all-

encompassing love of the eternal entity. The so called sinners, 

who we scorn at, are nothing but strayed selves, like the river 

exploring its final path to the sea gets into a lake somewhere but 

finds it unviable to stay there and takes on the journey again. All 

of us have to explore and find the fallacy of many a thing that 

our disillusioned self makes us believe and come face to face 

with the ultimate meaning of life.

Max Muller says: “A flower cannot blossom without 

sunshine, and man cannot live without love.”

Come, let’s explore the path of love, the alchemy, which 

remedies the suffering self, making it a beautiful, loving entity.

Love is the seed of spirituality. Holy people of all religions 

and faith reached one single point, all-encompassing love.

Saint Basil: “A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. 

A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, 

and he who plants kindness gathers love.”

Love, compassion and kindness are the biggest commonality 

across various faiths and belief systems. Love is basically the 

essential nature of soul. Kindness, compassion, gratitude, 

generosity, truth, beauty, and all other virtues we hold in 

high esteem are simply the manifestations of love. Love is the 

light that shows everything as it is. It dispels the dark corners 

surrounding our selves. It is the guiding light that takes us on 

the path of our individual and collective destinies.

Though no words are sufficient to cover the fathomless 

power of love, let’s try to know a bit more about our loving self 

and its miraculous powers in shaping our lives.

This book is meant to set up an instructional manual to 

help one rise higher on the scale of evolution by changing one’s 

limited love, defined by family and relations, to universal love 

for a compassionate and all-loving being.

The work is meant to help one hone the art and craft of 

building a loving character, which in turn sets up the base for 

a happy and joyful life. All the chapters in the book are full of 

commonest of the common day-to-day techniques, which can 

build up our compassionate self, like we work in the gym to 

strengthen our muscles.

Things are rapidly aggravating. It’s an angrier world than 

ever. Material progression has proved counterproductive. 

Mother Nature is ailing due to our greedy onslaught, which 

borders on raping mother earth. Now an ailing nature is 

handing over its pain and miseries to the human society in the 

form of wars, diseases and strife. Irony is that we are materially 

the most advanced society in history with the USP of being the 

most miserable one at the same time. Isn’t it the right time to go 

into a pause and rethink our collective priorities? Through my 

work, I am simply trying to ask individuals and organizations 

to reconsider their values because there has been a basic flaw, 

otherwise why would there be so many problems.

My work involves simple tools and techniques of going into 

self-discovery to see things in a larger perspective. It’s a semi-spiritual journey looking within and out to be aware of the 

bigger plights written everywhere, to inculcate a basic loving 

nature almost at the instinctive level, to be more observant of 

the self as much as we observe things outside. It breeds self 

responsibility, leading to a considerate nature. These are the 

basic building blocks of a compassionate self.

For decades I have been into spirituality and meditation. 

All the simple instructions, guidance tools and observations are 

born of my own experiences. Spirituality is not something about 

mysteries in the farthest corners of the universe. It’s simply about 

being a more aware person. It’s about realizing the basic loving 

nature in each and everyone around. It’s about harnessing joy 

out of the mundane incidences of life.

Working on this book itself has been really rewarding. I 

cannot ask for much other than writing it. It has given me so 

much of unconditional love and peace while working on it. I 

am not looking much on the material front from this treatise on 

love. All I need is one more partner in spreading the message of 

unconditional love, peace and harmony.

I firmly believe that ordinary beings possess extraordinary 

potential to win against odds, to jump over hurdles, to smile 

over tears, and, most importantly, to be happy when there aren’t 

enough reasons to be. People like you and me are the faceless 

constituents of a massive commonality. We are surrounded by 

a swiping generality. We are coloured in the monochromes of 

mundane reality. Still we are special. And that speciality is love 

at the core of our being.

Through my work, I acknowledge and celebrate the 

extraordinary in the ordinary people. I see heroes and heroines 

on the common stage of life chugging around. And most 

importantly, we have the very same essentially loving nature 

at the core. Just that the flimsy clouds of ego and apparent 

sufferings keep it buried inside. I try to help people unearth the 

basic seeds of goodness inside to help them grow into luxuriant 

trees of compassionate beings.

We fight, and oftentimes fail, but write a little passage in the 

infinite book of life: an ordinary life that was lived substantially. 

On the small stage of life, we live very intensely. Somehow, the 

world would not be the world that is still beautiful without our 

contribution. We heave humanity onwards in its march to some 

better destination. Just that all this gets overshadowed by the 

shifting clouds of ego, stress, frustration and jealousy. We simply 

need to look beyond the clouds to spot the glorious sun.

With our essentially loving nature fully acknowledged in 

our daily lives, all of us can be the heroes and heroines of our 

stories. The seed in us, the seed of love, carries the potential 

to be the tallest, luxuriant-most tree. The powerful force of 

creation propels the potential for maximization. Nature doesn’t 

want it to be a world of half-smiles, half-growths, half-blossoms 

and half-potential. There is a tendency for fullness. It pulls the 

process of evolution for the maximum, for completion, for what 

we call greatness. And the driving force for all this is love. It exists 

in each and every atom in the cosmos. All we need is to be aware 

of it. And this awareness needs practice. I have put an effort to 

nurture this habit of always reminding ourselves of our basic 

loving nature.

O my mind, my seat of potentiality, take my journey further,

Be the seat of my strength, not weakness,

Be the seat of kindness, not cruelty,

Be the source of light, not darkness.

You, me and all of us are born for the stories of greatness. 

Let’s acknowledge our loving nature to see through the journey. 

Please be my partner in sharing this message of universal love.

Is it about Right or Wrong?

So now Shiv Sena is a bit more secular, or call it an iota lesser Hindutvavadi. The Congress and the NCP are a fragment less secular and an ounce of more Rightist. The BJP would have adjusted anything ranging from less or more secularism to less or more nationalism to stir its constituents in the political cauldron to form government. So guys, beyond the smokescreen of ideology and all, the only recipe to power and privilege turns out to be plain old, bland pragmatism and practicality. So my dear voters, when this pragmatism for power is written so brilliantly in the sky for all to read and understand, why don't you guys also demand the bijli, pani, sadak, hegeiene, less pollution and bla bla, instead of just hypothetical stuff to gratify misplaced ego like caste, class, creed, religion etc etc. When you know that our Netas will go to any extent to retain power, why don't you demand the common day to day amenities to help your life and living? If you demand seriously, they will do it I am sure now after witnessing their limitless capacity to adjust to stay in power. So guys now is the time to turn kingmakers and demand your share against your vote. Demand the little little things that facilitate the life of a common man. Forget about never to be seen magical items flung into your face with hallucinating hyperbole by the tricksters wearing magic hats!

Whose Truth is nearest to the Ultimate?

ounce scattered till eternal distances in the universe, multiverse or whatever it qualifies to be. Out of this infinite option to pick up and churn out individual truth, the so called perceivable reality, the human mind also creates virtual reality. Mind you, it's as simple as you see games in virtual reality. There is hardly any qualitative difference. So we have our realities, some of which have been gathered to form collective realities in order to run this society in the form of common belief, social norms and conventions. We can't help this. This mind has to churn out our own individual reality, the so called our very own dear truth. That can't be helped. Our own truth almost seems to define the meaning of our life. Well then here starts the real problem. One's very own truth may sound a character assassination to someone from his/her point of view decided by their own truth. Why do we hurl out our truths? Possibly it's a means of survival mechanism. We probably try to unburden ourselves by letting it out. But man, our truth, the jewel it may appear to us, may be a dagger to someone. Avoid unseathing it! Even if it turns a knife inside your own self. And starts cutting your own self. But if out, it can hurt someone even more. Why should someone else be its target? It's the keeper's responsibility to manage it. Accepted that if kept inside, it will be painful, but it will cut many falsehoods inside your own self, side by side giving a few painful cuts to the softer tissues. It but saves you from committing a verbal manslaughter. Good people prefer injury to their own self, instead of harming others. And mind u this can be practiced. My new year resolution in advance! To keep my version of reality to myself, even if it hurts. It's my responsibility to keep it, to manage it, to nurture it. Our jewel may be dagger to someone else. Be careful about your simple statement that you may take as simple facts, for these might be character assassinating poison arrows to someone else. It's not about the other person. The onus is on one's own self. So guys, her I go and keep my truths to my own self. That's the path of solitude. Possibly it leads to a place where even the last doubts vanish! God bless you all!

Your Mind is the Universe

What we know and understand of the Cosmos is just a projection of our mind. The basic building blocks of life, your own and collective realities are mental building blocks being stone-worked in the mind-workshop. Thoughts are energy movement much as you have anything tangible on the physical surface. This is no mystical talk! Ask quantum physicists, they will tell you that the erstwhile fundamental entities, atoms, are not the basic entities at all. They are 'events' only. Virtual is not that virtual as we presume. It's a mammoth stone-masonry going on in the unseen subterranean cavern, laying out the foundation of your life and living. So guys be firmly in charge of your thoughts. They make and break! This existence doesn't care whether u choose to make or break. Just that we ourselves suffer, if we end up breaking.

The Gateway to the Heaven

Nothing stands in isolation. Can a drop of water stand alone in the ocean? Can an ocean exist without a drop, i.e., with a hole in its heart and the drop missing? Same is the cosmos. It's one continuity in one or the other form. Sea is nothing but drops drops everywhere in the expansion of its geographical spread. Same is with the super sea of cosmic consciousness. It's merely individual consciousness everywhere. Now the question is: how come there is a perception of individual consciousness? Well, that's how the fabric is! Start dividing a sea into tiniest dots! What happens? All we have littler seas made of tinier drops! The threshold from individual to infinite intelligence exists and doesn't at the same time. Possibly the sea itself perceives itself like a drop. Divide it into countless drops, they retain the feeling of individuality. Individual consciousness is thus nothing but a point of perception in the transforming whirlpool where the elements are going cyclically. Is a drop fundamentally and qualitatively different from a big sea? It isn't! Coming to humanoids. The so called conscious is the littlest bit of perception surrounded by the subconscious, which in turn melts into the infinite intelligence and consciousness pervading all around. That's the ladder to spread yourself, to feel more meaningful. One's subconscious part of mind is most active just before sleep and immediately after waking up. That's when the gates open tangibly for taking a quantum jump from conscious to subconscious and further on into super-consciousness. Grab it. Put your affirmation and claim to a larger self. There are infinite possibilities. What you seek at your greediest best may not be more than a drop of water desiring to double its size. You have the pathway etched to be the sea itself. You already are. Just that all that remains to be done is to start seeing through the walls of conscious, watch eagerly through the windows of subconscious in those walls and get connected to the infinite right there in front of you. It's suitable to start with tangibles to break the virtual shackles, just like it's easier to start with body in yoga. The higher battles with more virtual demons are managed further on the path. At the mind front, it's more convenient to start with the conscious part because it's tangible through its operational part through thoughts and emotions. There starts the second tier of management leading to the subconscious part and further on to be out of the prison to come united with everything around. It's not mother existence's concern whether there are storms lashing a drop, pond or sea, or peaceful calm waters pervade. To her indiscriminating eyes all things are just as they are. What happens in the drop of your consciousness is solely your own concern. You create the storms or peace in the tea cup of your existence. And the tools to make and break are conscious thoughts and their shadows in the form of emotions and feelings. They majorly decide the energy pattern pervading across this specific pattern of awareness, this little arrangement of energy within the super sea of energy. Pain, suffering, disease, stress and tensions are mere effects, little obstruction in the flow of river, the life stream. And the repair work primarily begins from the conscious part of the mind , which operates through thoughts, emotions and feelings. So just like u go gyming, go gyming with thoughts. Work like a mason. And etch your reality, your better self on the subconscious, which in turn reflects as your truth on the endless canvas hung around with its infinite dimensions. Good luck!

I know I might be accused of oversimplifying something fundamentally challenging!. You may crib that I'm asking you to ping Bill Gates each day going to bed and waking up, as if you have some hotline handy. You may crib, 'Crawling out of my materialistic mess and rising to lofty heavens! Is that really so easy?! Shedding off all the past karma! Isn't it like having to first sail through all of its roller coaster effects and then arrive at the ladder to lofty heavens?'

I truly understand your point my dear Sir! But you have to be open to mine also! The yogic practices enable one to rectify lots and lots of energy blocks born of past and present karmic debts attached to an individual's consciousness. There are two ways: either allow things to take their natural course, or forge an alternative reality, totally brand new, free from karmic debt through concerted, aware and hyper-conscious effort.

But then you may still retain your skepticism and counter: 'From a myriad of spiritual practices available, how would a novice discern? Which path to take? Is it okay to leave path of devotion (bhakti) .. unconditional surrender .. and step up to yogic sadhana .. the path of active karma?'

Well, my simple explanation is all I can manage. Bhakti marg is the easiest one. But we have to understand that to completely believe in something we have to unclutter our subconscious of routine fears and insecurity bred by rampant thinking and logical reasoning of the conscious part of our mind. To be receptive and surrendering is a blissful state. But how many of us can be true believers in modern times? Not many! We can think that we are believers hypothetically, but disbelief lurks and that undoes all effect. Modern education, competitive times, dehumanized society and scores of problems have put our mind burdened with anxiety, fear, insecurity, tension. Where is the space for faith and true belief to germinate? Bhakti yoga is for all those whose subconscious is already at position where most of the shadows don't exist. For educated people, whose minds have been bombarded with unchecked what's and why of life, and the consequent anxiety and complexity of mind, they need some conscious efforts to somehow clear the ground to begin with. The modern mind is bruised and burdened under merciless cold hard facts, figures, knowledge and information, and hence least qualified to be a proponent of bhakti yoga. To cut iron, one needs iron. These are the phantoms of mind. It needs going down there with conscious effort and do a bit of de-weeding first.

Recover, Recuperate, Re-surge and Rejuvenate

What if the roomful of miseries appear immovable at the moment? Understood that the room having thick walls is beyond your might to shift and change. You cannot push its walls to change its shape and change the interiors. You might even be incapable of removing the darkness inside having lost the light of enthusiasm, the sunrays of your will power, and the brightness of your passion. It is not necessary to be a revolutionary fighter all the time. You can very well sit in a still darker corner of the room full of your own miseries, most of them invisible to the uncaring world outside. But then sitting in a dead dark corner is being dead and we have no business to be dead before we actually die. Temporary shelter in the lap of a deathlike stale corner might be of some utility, but not more than allowing the tears and anguish of self-pity and helplessness to flow out through the feeling of being a victim.

This little puss out of your system; after this it has no purpose. A little bit of crying after being overpowered by the feeling of victimization helps. Crying helps in letting out salt from your injuries. It also clears the eyes. After the watery outpour you are supposed to see better and clearer. You have been on the hospital bed, taking a bit of rest for the diseased, afflicted self, now you are supposed to step down, wear your slippers and walk away to claim what you lost while you were forced to take a rest. Looking beyond your dark corner in the dark room with immoveable walls, you can at least open the windows that either you or the situational winds have banged shut. Do not move walls, do not even try to bang against the locked door, just open the openable window to allow a bit of light, to expose yourself to the fine traces of light that will surely burn the fire in you again, that will definitely ignite your passion, enthusiasm and will power lying dormant. If you cannot lift your roomful of miseries on your head and throw it miles away, you can surely lift little-little signs of your worth and capabilities lying around your feet in the dark and look at these against the light from the just-opened little window. These are the imperishable seeds, these cannot die, and will surely grow into luxuriant harvest, provided you give them the moisture of you feeble self during the re-germination.

You might not be able to laugh to the full contentment of the self, but you can smile at the little world outside your tiny peeping window. Even the slightest semblance of smile will do. These are the flower buds that will surely blossom into full laughing flowers. Your hands might not be still ready to go agog and start breaking the mightiest boulders around. But you can raise your hands and wave gently at the world outside, it will wave back with grace and acknowledgement, giving back its share with kindest interest. You might not be still ready for the marathon, but you can shuffle your feet and count your steps and listen to your slow pace between the walls. It will prepare you for the longest journey that you might take. It will be a prelude to your first step on the winnable journey that you will definitely take.

Close your eyes and with an open heart accept your share in making things dark in the room. Nobody is perfect and we just have the bigger or smaller share in our miseries. We cannot change the universe, but we can definitely bring about a little reformation in the self. You might not be able to overhaul your personal self, but you can definitely change tiny bits of life in general. It will blow up the wrong shades, leaving you a totally different person. Close your eyes again and think of your positives, your advantages, your good qualities. There will be many I‘m sure. Look around with a gentle look, these must be somewhere around. You will surely spot them. Smile at the little basketful of your qualities. These are your weapons to help you win through the battles and wars. A mere acknowledgement of their existence will do at this stage. Just caress your qualities and look at these with a proud smile. These and many little things will help you. Forget about bigger things. These little seeds will grow into a bigger harvest. Just gather these seeds, hold them, they will take you back to the bigger world of baleful of roles, responsibilities, praise and achievements.

A Laotsian Bird

A master camouflage. The smallest of a rag tag inconsequential nest. Almost like the few remaining sinews of an old old nest. And a pulse of life throbbing to bide precious time. Each beat counts. It means a huge step towards free-winged flights in a few days. Here each second counts. It's a laughing dove hatchling.
Well, a dove is a dove indeed. A silent most stoic bird. I always wonder how come they even survive as rest of the birds appear to be angrily, enthusiastically and energetically competitive. Doves look like the ascetics of the birdie world, always sitting silently on the laid back sidelane. I even laughed at them as lazy ones, having witnessed seemingly half-hearted attempts at patching up a famished little nest that would allow the mother to put merely paws in the middle, leaving rest of her body out. But then i also had an inkling about mother existence's ways of squaring up things even in those apparently weak cases where the odds appear terribly against them. Now this hatchling clings almost unseen, barely at a height of 8-9 feet. Cats have been duped. Even a greater coucal, ill famed for spotting tiniest of nests in the foliage, sat a few yards away on the wall and missed it. Wonderful!
Well, these are Laotsian birds. They win by not fighting outrightly. Their strength is their patience, composure and calmness. They go about their nesting business almost imperceptibly. After the hatching, the already famished nesting hut has lost many more sinews to make it look like the useless wreckage of a many season old little nest. And on its edge, lost in the colours of deception, throbs the prospect of a life. The only clue to what is going on is the laughing museful song of the laughing dove parents now and then from a distance. They hardly raise a ruckus when i check out their little household, as if under a mystical realisation that that which can't be cured, must be endured. They stoically do what they can, and watch over the unmanageable without that typical browbeating.
Imagine, last season an oriental white eye had patched up the littlest of nesting cup. It was a wonder of nesting architecture. So small, hidden under the leaves. But its symmetry turned it outstanding. The predatory caucal spotted it, leaving me flabbergasted how come its radar caught this few grams of grassy cup weaved with such effort. And now this apparently clumsy jottiing of few dry twigs and pieces of dry grass, in the branches of a small tree, barely 8-9 feet above the ground, and not even hidden too much in the foliage, carries its success story so far. The altruistic attitude of doves takes them onto a path of surrendering spontaneity, a sort of open hearted acceptance, which hardly creates ripples on the stage of life, allowing them to carry out this cute coup. Well, may be they laugh so cutely to be named laughing turtles. Possibly, they laugh at this world competing on the scales of complexity, while they laze around in the hazy sunshine of early winter and laugh out into the cool air.

The Broken Egg

Pre-script: How I wish I could hold the monkey and give some exercise to my grandpa's oldest walking woody aid to gift the monkey the reddest bum on earth!
A bleeding crack that robbed a winged prospect of airy swirls by a life. The broken spotted munia egg. For weeks the parents matched the human efforts in building a skyscraper and built a safe globular grassy nest. Their feeble preening chirps looked up to upcoming more onerous duties of raising hatchlings. Then the storm came. Well, not windy. It was rather let loose by our genetic ancestor. The errant kid on the ladder of evolution, presently at a stage where we homo sapiens were a few millenium back. The monkeys. While rest of the species, fight merely for food and procreation, our genetic match goes beyond these two essentials to jump into mischief, fun and revelry. Out of a big horde that has raided the village, and most of the females proudly carrying their little ones, one gallant jumped into the Soft Parijat tree. The wood is soft. It must have enjoyed the breaking sound of its funstry like we humans do. The poor tree severely jolted. Some branches broken. The nest unhinged and scanned for some morning fluidy lollipop. I am sure it must have hardly the patience to even look seriously inside and take out what it intended to do while breaking the nest. A monkey carries the feeble imprint of human tendency to play errant to draw a strange sip of gratification. So the nest was blown apart. The eggs tossed around like tiny plops and shelled projectiles. Here lies the cracked egg. Out of instinct, the parents still flit around the broken nest entangled in branches. This is loss. Just that they don't suffer like we humans. Simply because they do all this without any sense of gain. Minh Ngo there is a difference between pain and suffering. They feel the instinctual pain of it, of course. But they don't suffer like we humans. Simply because they just follow the call of cosmic intelligence while putting that selfless labour in setting up the nest. They don't have a sense of gain guiding their routine unlike we humans. As all experiences stand on the duality, so in the absence of a clear cut sense of gain and profit, the sense of loss can't sustain beyond the momentary instinctual pain. And that saves them from the perpetual agony and suffering of humans, whose major portion we hurl into our environment and society. A major portion of what mankind does to nature is born of his own inner discontent and suffering.

Her Full Smile even with a Broken Self

Look at its injury. The spine almost broken. Forgetful and forgiving, it decides to move on. A little leafy bandage of hope and resurgence sprouts around the wound. A sort of bridge to keep the juice of life eager to move on and realise its full blossom. It's the flagpost of life and living. The accidental storm had snapped her spine. It but decides to live.
The brave Pink Purslane (Portulaca Pilosa) aka Kiss-me-Quick has her last smile. She has won it. She has retained her smile and pouts forth with an inspirational 'Kiss-me-Quick' tale of forgetting pains and conquering blooming heights.
What an inspirational story portrayed in a small corner by this tiny strand of this pink ground cover flower. A clear winner. The snapping, breaking tragedy has melted into the background. She has claimed her canvas to paint her bright smile. Well, that's a humungous life lived. What a smile against the breaking odds.

Her Reddest Lipstick and the Himalayan Yogi

A blissful creative moment and a babysoft sapling of life, love and living holds out its tiny baby finger to hold onto the mighty, grand old hand of mother creation. Well, all is well that ends well!
Actually, the brooding banyan plant appeared to have gone into an otherworldly detachment. Rains lashed. I also showered my affection. The sun also beat down nutritional beams. It but won't come out of its trance. Like a famished yogi in a Himalayan cave, it shed all its leaves. Keeping just one leaf as a sign of its still remaining attachment to this world. And then the yogi slowly opens its eyes after many months and sees this fleeting world through its softly sprouting eyes. The tiny shoot is now cradled in the care of fabulous September end breeze. Welcome back to this sweet sour worldliness Yogi Maharaj!

She has the reddest lipstick...ladies stay away...no competition at all...she is a winner all and out...keep smiling my girl, Canna Indica aka Keli....you win the pageant!

The Infantile Wings that would never Kiss Free Air in the Open Skies

The parents will miss a new life's eager chirps to take an independent flight. In the indifferent womb of mother nature, such stories are ever unfolding. The globular grass house of the Spotted Munia will be emptier today. For the last one week it sounded a house full of noisy toddlers as parents cargoed baby food throughout the day. From the jingling notes emanating from the grass house, I could make out around three kids. One has toppled down today. Its shape of matter is melting into thousands of ants as they jump onto the stage of infinite series of matter/energy transformations. I could hear a lone, almost sad, note from the nest. There is supposed to be at least one birdie toddler there, wondering why the house has become silent and emptier. In this ever flowing stream of energy, the selfless love, like here shown by the birdie parents, creates temporary loops of thriving lumps of life. Out of many possibilities, the impenetrable, secret doctrine of mother nature unfolds endless pictures on the fluid canvas whom we, due to our limited sense perception, see through the prism of pleasure, pain, agony and ecstasy. Well, that's what makes us humans. A sad interjection in the tiny birdie phrase here. But then I would be happy if at least one hatchling takes on the journey of an adult, crossing the grassy threshold and fly into the uncharted skies. Like a huge breech tree in pristine forests produces millions of seeds in its lifespan of a few hundred years. Out of all these possibilities, if even a single seed germinates to be an adult tree like the mother tree, it's called a successful reproduction cycle. Similarly, multiple chirps jingle musically in a nest, and at the most one note carries the song ahead to keep the story alive and kicking. Well, that's how life is my dear friends!

The Fallacy of the Ultimate Truth

All of us have felt the heat of the very same age-old nagging clash between religion and science, both sniggering at each other, claiming to represent the absolute truth in their own ways. The religion finds it to be a formless and attributeless experience. The science, on the other hand, goes into a direction, where everything has to be logically qualified and calculated to build up hypothesis, and take us to the inviolable, flawless and irrefutable knowledge, the final frontier of logical understanding, i.e., the ultimate truth.

The problem here is that there is no fundamental entity to define the absolute truth. Whatever you think is your own invention. All we have is the cyclical transformation of multidimensional interplay of matter/energy transformations. It has infinite possibility for the things and phenomenon to be interpreted the way one wants, provided one takes orderly, sequential steps in a specific direction to invent a temporary truth, a little halt, on the energy highway. It’s a multidimensional infinite canvas, on which the scientist can draw the lines with the brushstrokes of logic and reasoning to invent a picture, just like a painter does on a two dimensional canvas. Now, just because the scientist builds a hypothesis, it doesn’t mean that he has arrived at something that was already there, existing in an abstract form to be explored exactly in the shape and form it has been found now.

The scientists are driven by a dream to reach a know-all stage. However, the more they try to know, the more they realize that the sea of the unknown has in fact expanded instead of appearing to shrink. It is just because there is no limit, no fundamental confines that will help them to gauze the extent of their reach, and feel happy about the extent covered and congratulate themselves over the less remaining domains to be covered.

There is no such thing as absolute knowledge. All we have is an approximation of the apparent facts, gathered on the basis of the level the researches we have attained. However, these attempts to understand the reality enable us to build laws, hypothesis, theories and calculations that help in channelizing the flow of energy in a closed set to ease our survival. It is mere resource utilization, just like any other species is doing at their level.

In the absence of a fundamental entity, the only recourse left is the mystical way of experiencing it. In the absence of any entity like the absolute truth, you cannot know it. If you cannot know it, you cannot say or express it, and consequently you cannot prove it. The endeavor to prove something draws on the presumption of some fixed entity. Therefore, the only truth is that there is no fundamental, absolute truth against which we can measure, evaluate something in the terminology of right/wrong. If at all there is any reality beyond all supposed truths, all our versions of approximations, it is there to be felt and experienced in totality. One pale version of truth can be the experience of that totality in which nothing is permanent and everything is getting transformed into a self-evolving pattern. In this cyclical transformation, there is an infinite possibility for things to be visualized and interpreted logically as well as illogically.

Now they say that Newton is proved wrong because his gravitational laws don’t hold in case of black holes. Einstein is holding for the time being. However, in future Einstein will have Newton’s fate because the platform of understanding and approximation will take a shape where you need more than what Einstein has offered. It only proves that Newton is not wrong. At his level, he perceived and interpreted the evolution of things and phenomenon around us. It had its practical uses and brought us to Einstein. How can you reach the right destination, i.e., Einstein, following the wrong path, i.e., Newton? Therefore, it’s beyond the concept of right and wrong because there is no ultimately fundamental law to prove one right and the other wrong.

It’s a cosmic pool of infinite possibilities, where you create your reality, your truth that practically holds on a little stage to help you and serve you like your mother serves you dinner. You systematically move in one direction on the basis of certain presumption, and even expectation, because the genesis of scientific theories lies in certain assumptions and acceptance. It is the seed of scientific approach, like a banyan seed, out of which the freshly minted version of self-forged truth sprouts forth. In fact, it’s just a fluid and expanding pool of approximate knowledge and information. There is no such a thing as truth. The set of knowledge that serves us the most, and consequently, turns dearest to our heart becomes our ‘truth’.

As the transformation of this energy is going around, we use our logical portion of brain to create a ladder on which we first fix one step then another and then still another. You reach a conclusion. This is your own self-derived knowledge, which you accept as truth. It gives a satisfaction that you have arrived home. We humans need to have fixed targets and hence this obsession of taking transient knowledge as truth, or at least the path to the final truth. So, on the highest step on your ladder that you have built so far, you proudly look around and reach a conclusion to view your knowledge as truth. All this is your own invention, not that it was something existing in abstract for someone to come and find it. You have created a little hatchling of truth from the open-ended possibility impregnated in the cosmic womb. The problem arises when we take our efforts as the nearest representative of the last truth possible.

Someone, moving from the same point, but in other direction, can have a different approximation of knowledge, leading to a different version of truth. And mind you, even that would have served us, differently though, thus giving rise to a totally different picture of reality from what we see it now. So it proves, it is not necessary that only this picture was possible where we have reached. We have this picture because the best brains visualized it to be this way. Those who proposed otherwise somehow fell short in painting or forging their version to be accepted as a hatchling of suitable truth.

It is thus an infinite cosmic river having the multidimensional interchanges of energy transformations. We are just like a kid sitting on the riverbank, scooping out a bit of water on the palm, and thinking I have captured the seed of the ultimate essence of things. We use our scientific inventions to scoop out a bit of energy from the ever-flowing river of energy for our transitory purpose on the basis of certain parameters in a closed system, which holds like our house weathers against a storm, and use it for individual and collective comfort and convenience. These little pieces of forged truths, basically knowledge packets holding for the time being, are the mere means of convenience.

Absolute truth doesn’t lie in a corner in the cosmos to be reached by building specific linearity in the flow pattern on the basis of little portion that we can see. An ant sees a far less fraction of this world than a human being. So in case there is a far more evolved intelligence, having multiples of senses than we have, it will definitely have a broader view of the flow and the consequent usage of it. Their forged set of knowledge, leading to their truth, will be different from ours.

Our attempts to define the ultimate reality are simply like drawing tiniest straight lines on the periphery of a circle having infinite diameter. Now, a straight line is an attempt to simplify the path, to understand, to have a view from this horizon to that. It may be convenient, but it cannot replace the total essence of the infinite arc of which it’s a mere part. The straight line bears a direct corollary to our scientific pursuits. You just create a specific linearity on the basis of self-observed, in fact, self-created laws—not that they exist as such in neutrality; these could have been interpreted some other way also. For example, you may have a night-centric civilization. On our planet earth, the nocturnal world is a minority; who knows, under a separate set of self-created knowledge and understanding, you may have a busily buzzing nocturnal world, where during the day you have just some exceptions hitting the ground to play their role.

All we have is an ever-pregnant possibility for things to adopt shape on the basis of concerted efforts that go systematically. There are all the elements that can be picked up, like Humanoids in case of earth, to reshape the channelization of this energy in a particular direction that later on establishes itself as truth in that little corner. It’s futile to treat this tiny endeavor at approximation of knowledge as the path to the ultimate facts about the laws of existence. It is beyond right or wrong. It is only about at what level a particular set of conscious beings harnesses the waters of that cosmic pool, which is ever getting recharged by matter/energy cyclical transformations.

The nature has provided us two spheres in the brain: the left portion for logic and the right one for emotions and aesthetics. Just because a scientist channelizes his logical creativity to hypothesize a picture, it should not be accepted as having a copyright to hold the beacon to understand the ultimate truth. The scientists say that they have to prove everything. How can you say that the aesthetic part used in creating something is off the mark? There is hardly any fundamental difference between the left and right approach. In one case, you want to hurtle on the cemented highway to reach the destination, while in the other you take a slow-paced recourse on foot across the countryside. A painter in using his aesthetical tools to paint a picture is just like a scientist using her logic to build up steps to understand a bit more about the cosmic web. The canvas in the latter case has infinite dimensions, out of which one can draw, with focused pursuit, x, y, z dimensions to paint a picture of practical reality.

On the other hand, the aesthetic creator of a different reality formulates her visualization using a softer version of reality that is pliable without any hard boundaries. Here also there is hardly any criterion of right or wrong. The best portrait born of an utmost concentration and a mindless scribble have their own standing in existence. Just because we find one better than the other doesn’t, in any way, mean that it is nearer to the absolute truth. But yes, it may be closer to a human face and that qualifies it to be a more acceptable version of truth. The art forms have changed from mesmerizing natural portraits to the contemporary abstract art. Can we define each other according to their relative terms to praise one as right and the other as wrong? Similarly, the pursuit of science cannot also be termed in a language like Newton was wrong and Einstein is right. The simple fact is that now we see a bit more from the self-created ladder to look at the interplay around.

The quantum physicists now accept that at the tiniest levels deep inside the apparent things and shapes around, the basic building blocks of this overall transformation aren’t permanent, fundamental entities. These basically don’t exist as they appear on the superficial level. Lot many realities surface once you have the onlooker on the scene. It gets defined in a way, more or less, where either they have convinced themselves to be, or where, on the basis of the ‘perception platform’ they stand upon, they are able to take out a little sip of meaning from the hubble-bubble fluid having many more possibilities of being logically defined, just like these set of people are doing. Just like a painter using the aesthetic energy with the help of her artistic sense, the scientists also create a different version of painting with the brushstrokes of logic and calculations. This picture is always open-ended. It is never closed and framed to contain the nutshell of truth. Its one end is always open to include the reframed shots later on. It’s a book of endless canvas sheets. There is infinite possibility to draw your portrait as per your knowledge and understanding and, of course, the systematic and institutional support.

Other intelligent forms elsewhere in cosmos must have contrived their own set of knowledge, not necessarily matching with our calculations. We create knowledge, not that it exists there to be explored and retrieved. This is the beauty of this ultimate law, that you can contrive smaller self-sustaining laws. The research is only about building the pool of knowledge and information, not discovering something that abstractly existed, waiting to be explored. It’s just one set of apparent reality fabricated with the help of individual and joint abilities to project their understanding on the screen full of infinite potential.

This basically is an infinite screen, where we can project our own set of realities. The one that gets maximum acceptance to serve the highest of the lot comes near to shake hands with the so-called truth. And there is no limit to this filming. It can go forever. We can hardly afford the luxury of having this feeling that OK this is the final point and beyond this, there is no possibility of creating more viewpoints out of this cosmic fluidity. This fluidity has infinite dimensions where you can, propelled by the best brains among us, create a picture, a set of knowledge that we treat in terms of being near to truth or otherwise. It holds as long as it serves us. It allows that incessant flow to be molded and channelized in a way so that it takes a suitable form. So the mystics just emphasize on ‘experience’ instead of ‘knowing’. The best way of using logical creativity lies in the use of resources, instead of seeking the final frontier of truth.

Aren’t we merely a bit more sophisticated apes in our language and contrivances to use resources to survive? They do khee-khee; we have a bit more distinct, sophisticated khee-khee. They use resources within a clump of trees; we do the same over a bit broader stage. There is hardly any qualitative difference. So truth as such is not human-centric, just like this existence isn’t. It simply cannot be. All the species have their own truth forged by the best brains and brawn across their generations. So all the debates and words, books and scriptures fall flat when it comes to represent the ultimate truth. Simply because there isn’t any. All we have is an ever-shifting stage. We try to gather foothold on this shaking stage and that momentary stronghold, enabling us to stand and survive, appears like an imprint of the ultimate reality. Words can get anything under the sun except conveying the so-called ever-sought ultimate truth. These can pacify ego, bestow commendable oratory, can help you build an impressive career in corporate, politics or as a social reformer, but they hit off the mark when they claim to have a copyright on the ultimate truth. Simply because there isn’t any. This statement itself might come nearest to the biggest truth.

Now, we have lot of issues about global warming, destruction of flora and fauna, forest fires, and more and more problems. We are scared that earth may not remain suitable for humans anymore. Existence is not bothered about such issues. However, we are entitled to be anxious about it because we have created it. It’s natural for us to hold this wish to stay at the level where we have evolved to. It’s a pleasant nostalgia. Dinosaurs are no more by the way. During their time, they also ruled this planet. Hope you get my point!

When the mother planet no longer remains suitable for maintaining our current physiognomy, the primordial flow of energy will take recourse to introducing artificialities into the human system so that it copes with the changed climate. When it becomes totally unsuitable for the mankind to survive here, it will take recourse, with the help of the further use of this interplaying energy in the infinite pool of resources, to further building on all the groundwork that has been done to paint a still bigger picture of reality, enabling the humanoids to settle on other planets. To mother existence, it hardly matters that in this little corner of the cosmos, where some particular, incidental cyclical transformations have resulted in this type of temporary screen on which the mankind is playing his self-created picture of approximate knowledge.

Even if earth gets blasted suddenly, simply its matter/energy will be sucked into the cosmos. It will spread across the quantum field. It may get clumped with other celestial bodies. Will it even make an iota of difference to the biggest picture in the cosmos? To us, of course, it matters, as it means a sudden swipe at our reality that has been forged over millions of years generally, and particularly during the last few thousand years when the mankind took more concerted efforts to forge a truth that is humanoid-centric only. However, on the cosmic scale, even now many stars are breaking and new ones are getting formed. Does it concern us?

You move methodically, you build your hypothesis, use logic, equations and calculations, all this while moving on a ladder that you have created. It’s not that this is the only path that could have been chosen. Just because you are moving in that direction, it doesn’t prove that it is the only path. You can reach the summit from all around. Some channel appears more convenient, the pre-existing suitability leading to a momentum building up, some initial steps walking over the grass, leaving foot-tracks that later turn into paved broad highways of our advancement. Nonetheless, there are adventurists also. There truth lies in scaling the peak from the most treacherous and risky path. So just that a sense of safety helps you arrive through the so-called conventional path, a commonly accepted approximation of knowledge passing off as truth, it cannot deny the existence of titillating paths for many whose priority isn’t merely the safest path. They paint their picture in totally different colors. It means that the present picture, as we see it, wasn’t waiting for us to come and make it what it inevitably was supposed to be. This transient energy could have been molded into other realities also. The selected brains, who can forge the picture ahead, will continue doing so from the platform of the already done work. But all this has nothing to do with the absolute knowledge, the self-sustaining, self-surviving, self-holding and ever-shifting ultimate picture. Somewhere in the ever-pregnant womb, we just cash on the tendency to paint a stable picture, carrying the genes of the ultimate law, to create tiny field channels to water our fields to survive. So this mere fight to survive ought to be avoided from being termed as the path leading to the absolute truth.

The mystics feel these traces of intuitive wisdom and emphasize to sense and experience it. The scientists say, no we have to understand it using our logic. But logic needs words, and words are incomplete, contrived by us only to convey what we see and perceive, so the debate turns endless, and will remain open-ended. It only proves that there is no final point to be reached.  

Finally, of all the humanoid churn-outs from the infinite broth, the emotions bordering on positivity, love, care and compassion are the brightest gems. They define the soul of our entire endeavors to paint a better picture. Hold you paintbrush confidently. You owe it to mother existence to contribute in forging a better truth.