Gazing from the Hill Top

Standing on the hill top I view the vast expanse that lay ahead of me, dotted with high rising buildings and a few green trees strewn on the landscape. The cool evening wind caressing my cheeks and playing with my hair, soothing the ruffled nerves of an over worked mind.

As calm and peace wrapped its comforting arms around my brain, it tickled a thought existence and life. Running in this rat race called life, setting superficial goals, achievement of which gives us momentary pleasure and an instantaneous high that is what existence has dome down to. Mere breathing and chasing, stumbling, falling, rising running again. Sometimes we don’t even know what we are running after. The fog that envelopes life gets thicker and thicker till the time we stop and say, “I can see no more. The fog has clouded my vision. Is there a road ahead or a cliff, I fail to recognize. All I know is that I am running, chasing something. To put a name to it or describe it beyond my limited faculties of comprehension.”

So I go to the hill top and view the vast expanse of land that lay ahead of me, and look at life from the outside. My eyes rest upon the high rising buildings which signify success and mechanism at one level. Success accrued, courtesy capitalism which behind its façade stinks of degeneration. Vaguely reminds me of my chase.

The eye then turns to the green trees symbolic of nature withstanding the feats of man of making it a living hell for all that is natural and simple. Simplicity at the slaughter of intelligence and advancement. I hear the air whisper in my ears, all that is simple shall not last.

Then the shimmering lights on the streets and of the vehicles moving attract the eye. The vehicles slithering on the serpentine roads. Going to... Coming back from? I fail to fathom.

All and sundry and on the move going somewhere and chasing something. That which is static like the tree is at the altar of decadence.

From the hill top, where everything looked minute like drops in the ocean, I removed the chaff from the seed. Differentiated between living and existing. We are all mere pseudo existential puppets who are living without knowing what they are living for. Chasing without knowing what they are chasing. Going through stages of obscurity till it all becomes opaque and chokes us to death.

Nature is always the rescue to elucidate on the most absurd notions. After the long hours of a cold winter night where the dense fog rests heavy in the air, the dawn cuts the fog with the warmth of the sun to spread the light of life. Only then does the human eye witness the beauties of nature. Obscurity needs to be shattered after a point to see what lies ahead to add value and meaning to existence.

THE PARADISE OF IGNORANCE

When Eve ate the fateful apple it appeared to be a delicacy to her but when the wall of ignorance was shattered she realized that the delectable apple was nothing but a plot. The paradise was lost and repentance, animosity and bitterness replaced the bliss of ignorance.

It is a less realized truth, that ignorance is actually bliss. Ignorance creates a self satisfied realm where the ‘happily ever after’ syndrome seems real. The rosy dreamy eyed girl enjoys the wind caressing her face and believes that all her dreams of the knight in shining armor will come true. The make believe becomes a real-time faith. Ignorance enables us to accept theories at their face value. Appearance is the truest form of existence, the attractive apple which appeared to be sweet becomes actually sweet. Ignorance brings with it happiness and the tranquility of peace. Our belief in what is out there brings about a complacence which induces lethargy to question.


But as time passes by and man undergoes change, the blissful mist of ignorance is invaded with the sunlight of knowledge. The light of awareness and exposure caves in with breath taking speed and pierces the mist of ignorance. And before we know, our make believe world seems like a farce, we undercut everything that exists. Critique replaces acceptance. As the light of awareness spreads far and wide every human starts questioning relationships and the very essence of existence.

Its then that realization dawns upon us and we see that what appeared to be an exotic landscape in the mist of ignorance is nothing but a heap of scum in the light of awareness. A relationship which was built on assumptions was happy till the time man believed those assumptions to be real. The day he woke up to question them, the relationship broke and reality stared him in his face. The happiness that prevailed with ignorance gave way to misery brought about by rebellion. The day man stands up and questions the validity and the reason for existence that will be the day he will be able to distinguish between the seed and the chaff, the genuine and the farce. He will see that what he believed to be true was nothing but makes believe and the real is something which is shrouded in the oblivion.

In the present day awareness and exposure is rampant. Man’s mental faculties are exposed to knowledge. The power of knowledge has enabled man to use reason as a weapon to test the waters of existence. The age of ignorance where the prince and princess lived happily ever after has come to an end. The paradise has been lost and the age of reason prevails.

WHEN REALITY IS NOTHING BUT A MYTH

WHEN REALITY IS NOTHING BUT A MYTH

We all have our own realities, our realities which we create by using our faculties of imagination. A picture we paint with our favorite hues. With clear skies and white birds fluttering in the limitless expanse of blue and green fields teased by the warm air. We like to call it picture perfect i.e. a reality we like to dwell in and a world where we create life and position our soul. A pristine view where everything is monitored by us. The control of monitoring perfection lies in our hands because we have created this world with our hands and make it reside in our minds.

We live in this world much our lives. With every passing moment of our lives we try to fit all instances, big or small in this reality .We mould these instances according to the overall picture we have created.

Slowly and steadily, with every passing day of our existence, we start getting consumed by this image. This fictitious image which we call our own reality starts overpowering us. The balance of creation and the creator is altered. The creation by deriving all the power from the creator starts controlling the creator. It starts dominating the hand that painted it. The image dictates what is applicable to the painting and the creative freedom of the creator starts losing ground.

The reality which we created blinds us and separates us from the world outside. It becomes like the fortress where our soul resides as a hostage. We begin to believe what we have created and the world outside get blurred. We feel that our creation is the truest form of existence and the world outside is just a cosmic conspiracy.

A perfect example of inversed roles. The reality which was created as a figment of imagination supersedes the outside existent world. But then the storm strike, the calm tranquility of the picturesque reality is hit by the choppy waters of time. It lashes out the walls of the fortress and the water gushes in ands washes out every bit of the creation. The outside world reacts to make inroads into the fictitious reality and everything crumbles down like a pack of cards.

The rosy picture is spoilt and the soul that resided in the picture is left like a forlorn child after a war. The soul is left gaping wide at the havoc wrecked by the harsh world. And we are jolted with the fact that the reality which we created for ourselves was nothing but a make believe image. In the course of time the creator got so obsessed with his art work that he forgot that it is just a masterpiece and is not reality itself. It is just a depiction of the same.

Many a times in life we create numerous such images which we start believing in as realities of our existence. May be we are at odds with the world outside that instigates us to create these images and because they are opposed to what is existent, makes us have faith in them. But seldom do we realize that this act of creation is making us digress from the reality furthermore.

A concoction of the mind which we choose to call reality is nothing but a myth.