Saturday, September 10, 2005

Kindling Hope

"I guess I'm just an asshole man"
"What makes you say that?"
"Just. I know it. Should let go.....but can't. In a way, I don't know what I'm doing"
"Huh? I think you know exactly what you're doing..."
"No. I know what I should be doing....and just can't do it."

It's weird. At times you know what's best for you and yet you can't do it. Most people seem to face that. That's why people hold on to lost causes. People cling on to memories and feelings when they should learn to move on. People dream and hope when it's best to bury both and seek newer things in life......everyone does it.

I guess it's just too hard to let go for most people. Moving on means you face the past, it involves facing your failures and your miseries. It's just much easier to cling on to hope....however hopeless it may be. It's the quintessential proof of human weakness and it's one of the things that people just can never seem to do anything about. Like I said, you know what's wrong and you know how to fix it......you just don't have the balls to start.....

For a while now, I've been feeling an emptiness. A feeling that there was something missing. There were answers I didn't have, questions that seemed to have no form and life seemed to lack meaning, logic and directoin quite honestly. Thinking about it somehow made things worse at times......it does for most people....after all, that's why they say, "Ignorance is bliss". Which is quite a thought. After all, why should ignorance be bliss? After all, isn't it better to have the answers than to be swept along by the tide for a purpose you have no inkling about and with people you have no wish to be associated with?

As I pondered upon that, it seemed to me that the answer once again was that it's very difficult at times to face the truth about yourself. Once you start thinking about certain things and asking certain questions, the answers are difficult to find and even tougher to accept. But once you start down that path, you can't stop......the torment drives you on to seek more.....like a friend of mine mentioned last night, "I don't want to think.....maybe I am asking for too much....maybe I'm scared......I don't know...." It's something that's inevitable.....as long as you don't think about things, as long as you seek no truth and want no answers, you feel good about yourself and feel like you're a knowledgable person with all the answers you need to have....

Then you ask questions and suddenly realise you know nothing and the thirst is now unquenchable......thus begins the misery......the end of bliss....the false bliss caused by ignorance.

"I reached what proved to be a crisis. Everything I had lived for had ceased to satisfy......I found myself thirsting for more, much more, without knowing what or why". Reading these lines in the introduction of a book felt surreal. After all, this was sounding very, very familiar. I picked up the book (I was looking for something on the same subject anyway) and am now half-way through the book. It's on the Upanishads. At some points I have different interpretations from the author's. Luckily the book is in the form of (translated) excerpts from different Upanishads followed by the author's interpretation, so I am able to form my own interpretations too (however flawed they may be ;-) ).

The beauty is the purity of the philosophy. There is no concept of God (although the author brings God in at times in his interpretations, but I ignore that, knowing that Indian philosophy defines no "god"). There are no rules.....there is just a quest for truth. From what little I have read, I can say that these texts surpass anything that Socrates, Plato or any other Western philosopher ever imagined......

The concept of duality dissolves into nothingness.....there is no duality....the answers are simple.....realization is something that hardly anyone will achieve....but it's still nice to know that there are answers there...and there is a path to follow......or at least there are directions....must get hold of the entire texts though......the excerpts are awesome but there's the annoying thought that so much has been missed out......

5 comments:

Vidhi said...

if only we cud be so strong as to be able to let go of our past...but for some of us the past is so tortuous, we cant forget the pain we underwent. of course, things wud be much easier if we learnt the lesson and moved on...but then things were always easier said than done!

Nikhil said...

thnx!

Anonymous said...

the impossible task is forget and move.but we just can't earse part of the past.its gonna be there maybe in sinking mode but would emerge whenever we find a moment,something similar to it.it would overpower us.

Anonymous said...

recall the Johri Window. your post reflects themassive space occupied by the third quadrant,the Blind.

As Dr. Hasselbacher mused upon seeing a negro limping by," You have two ideas on your mind."

shri shri (happy?)

Darth Midnightmare said...

@Vidhi No one can forget the past....but the point is that people err when they hang on to it. They do not realise that the moment has passed. Hope lingers. That's the mistake. To cherish the past or learn from it is the only way to live....but as long as you keep hope, sorrow or misery in your head, you can't move on......

Ultimate Q: ??????? Thanks????? What for???? Welcome anyway.....

Red: Like I said, trying to erase the past is silly. You can't. But even when you think of the worst events ever, you should after a while be able to look back without sorrow or misery.....otherwise, you are stuck in a time-warp.....and misery.....

Shri Shri Shri Pandeyji: Never was a truer word spoken.....but are there really 2 ideas? Or just one? Your presence here is a true honour :-)