A strange
thought struck my mind sometimes back, since then it is like a splinter in my
head. I was unable to find the answers. I kept on thinking about it but couldn't find any explanation
for this, so I decided to go for all the possibilities for it and write down whatever comes to my mind.
I was standing on the terrace, looking at the zenith where green
farms were there, road laid with vehicles running in a hap hazard way, people
roaming, buildings installed to keep their residents safe, poor people living
in their small houses made of mud walls and tin sheds. Suddenly a thought
struck. What is this I am looking at? When I see something, it induces a
particular emotion in me, but why? Then I pondered over that thought and went
little deep. What I was seeing, is what is visible to me, there can be many
other things, which I am unable to see.
Our senses are so much bounded. Firstly, we have only 5 senses; there
can be more senses possible in the universe. People debate about having
somewhere around 20 senses, but it's still debatable. But let's focus on
defined 5 senses for this time. In addition to that, these senses are also very
much constrained. We can see so little or very small spectrum of
electromagnetic waves (which we call visible light), we can only hear a very
little spectrum of vibrations; rest is touch, taste and smell. Animals like pit
vipers, pythons and some boas have organs that allow them to detect infrared
light, such that these snakes are able to sense the body heat of their prey.
Birds and some other animals have the ability to see in the ultraviolet down to
300 nanometers. But we, humans are deprived of all of that. Some species of
animals are able to sense the world in a way that humans cannot, with some
species able to sense electrical and magnetic fields, and detect water pressure
and currents. It's even difficult for us to tell
the difference between hard ground and marsh that only looks hard.
Our few senses, which give us
capability to see and hear, learn, know and perceive things around us, in turn
make us incapable to perceive the world in its true form. From this, it can be
inferred that this world is not what we perceive. So far so obvious! that with
less capable ways to perceive, we cannot perceive a full picture. For example,
for an ant, even a round sphere is flat, but we can see its 3 dimensions. Yet
for a long wire kept at a large distance from us, our perception depicts it as
1 dimensional, yet the same ant now moving on that wire can feel its 2
dimensions. So this world is not what we perceive. It is lot more complex than
that. Isn't it?
Solid, liquid, gas has molecules, atoms, electron-protons, quarks, but as we
can't see the microscopic units with naked eyes, we perceive it the way it is.
We see and feel things as per our scale and our senses. We touch and feel the
surface finish of the surface, ignoring the fact that at the microscopic level,
there are crest and troughs and even at the atomic level, there are electron
cloud spread in space.
Now let's
take it a step forward. Here I was talking about what one was perceiving at
that moment. But what about what happened in past or what is going to happen in
future? We can't sense that even. We can only perceive thing in present and on
that basis we create experiences and learn and consider ourselves as
intelligent. Are we really intelligent? Now can you feel the plight of a
deaf and dumb person walking on the road? Now putting my questions in simple
and straight form.
Does this
mean that our reality is a canvas drawn in front of our eyes?
or
much basic version, what is reality?
and
why is the system of universe like this?
Why we
evolved(if we evolved) like this or why we were granted with such limited power
of perception?
All these
questions can't be answered. As Einstein said, a problem can't be solved by the
same mindset which created it. We have to go beyond the current level to
understand it and solve it.
WHAT DO we
actually mean by reality? A straightforward answer is that it means everything
that appears to our five senses – everything that we can see, smell, touch and
so forth. Yet this answer ignores such problematic entities as electrons, the
recession and the number 5, which we cannot sense but which are very real. Both can appear vividly real,
but we would like to say that these are not part of reality. We could
tweak the definition by equating reality with what appears to a sufficiently
large group of people, thereby ruling out subjective hallucinations.
The question
“what exists?” reduces, for what in philosophy passes for practical purposes,
to questions such as “what do we mean by ‘know’?”
One possible
explanation: (If you believe in paranormal stories) It is drawn in front of us
to keep us busy, because if humans are given immense power, this place will
become hell. So for the perception of higher world, it is left for only the worthy
one, who can achieve it by consistent effort and hard work. I won't be wrong if
I have to say that it is an arena made for us to learn, to make our soul and
inner self learn and to see and feel beyond the usual. To stretch the
dimensions of ourselves to see the actual reality and to realize the truth
hidden behind this illusive world, can be a difficult task but not an
impossible one. We see it every day, but we don't realize it, we don't
appreciate the fact that it is here for us. We play every day, every moment in
this space-time foam on the directives decided by society and others and yet we
forget the very underlying fact. We are so much into it that we don't
understand what we truly are. We just see the outer projection of this world,
which we can see partially due to our in-capabilities and we think that this is
the complete thing, not realizing the fact that there is things way beyond that.
Imagine a person, playing an online virtual
world game, and he is so much into it that for few moments he forgets about the
reality, the world, etc. He is in his avatar, who is in the virtual world. His
character dies there in game, he himself feels bad. What is that?
But there we
know that it is a game, although it's 3D, etc. but at the end we know it's a
game. Then what about this real world? Can't it be like a game? in which
users are so much indulged.
Maybe the reader can argue that this
concept was discussed in Matrix movie. Yes, I agree, but there is more to it. I
am not arguing about the virtual world to keep the humans busy, I am asking,
that maybe this is the complete picture and we are incapable of seeing it.
Maybe someone doesn't want us to see it the way it is, or maybe we are not
ready yet.
Have you ever
thought that our brain working is so vast and we can use it to decode anything,
but to tame such power one needs a lot of effort, so we caged it to keep it
under control. I don't know, we caged it or someone else caged it. I would say, We
have made a mental cage of worldly illusions and entanglements and feelings and
emotions that doesn't allow us to think and release our brain's higher
functioning. We cannot think beyond our mental cage that we have created to
bind our brain working. We have created it because of its unlimited power. Just
like we defined comfort for our body and don't want to work. But to work is to
keep our body working, not for anything else. But that's what we call hard
work. Similarly we did for our brain.
Now let’s look it other way round, Me in office, office in city, city in
country, country on earth. look for outside, we are just small as speck of dust
and yet we have a vast information processing unit. What’s that? That, I
believe, is the spec of god's light in us. That make me , ME, not my physical
appearance, but my inner self, my feelings, my emotions, which decides my deeds
and actions. To break that mental cage, we need to think beyond the bars
of the cage, to make it work beyond the measures what society has set for us.
But again question arises, how can be think beyond our perception. Our thinking
is bounded by our in-capabilities to perceive the full picture. We have to
think logically without entangling in small things. What we do is just a work
which gives us living because food and living is not free nowadays. But we are
lot more than that. Our brain gives us infinite capability to think and reason
beyond measures, but we are entangled in the petty fights and jealousy
issues. Thinking big means thinking nontraditional, thinking beyond our
petty problems, thinking beyond this display of world. But how?
This feeling
of me, which keeps me alive and gives my brain so high power, is kind of an
energy which makes us unique but how is it possible? Everybody having same body
organs, and same energy which keeps them alive, still they all are different.
Is it because of our life, circumstances we grew in, problems, we faced, what
people showed us. Does that made all of us different and unique otherwise we
would all have been same. But on the other hand, we are all same on the bigger
picture; the energy within all of us is same. But many don't realize it and
live their life normally, but in some people this splinter lights up and they
start using their brain and explores the hidden reality of the world, which
helps them to break the bonds with the worldly things, which helps them to see
beyond the problems, solutions, people, their relations, everything.
If what we
are seeing is just what we can see, then what I feel, I am, is also what I can
feel, due to my incapability to feel and think and sense. So can I say, I am
more than that or I am also an illusion to my senses. I see myself in the
mirror, which shows me my looks, but my senses don't allow me to see the light
waves which got reflected by my body and then hits the mirror and comes to my
eyes. I can't see the small imperfections in the mirror. I don't see myself; I
just see the outer projection this body gives me, which was in turn the outcome
of the mating of my parents. How to get in contact with that inner self which I
can only feel and which keeps me alive and gives this sense of perception and
consciousness, how to feel it properly, how to realize what it is?
Reality can be defined in a way that
links it to world views or parts of them (conceptual frameworks): Reality is
the totality of all things, structures (actual and conceptual), events (past
and present) and phenomena, whether observable or not. It is what a world view
(whether it be based on individual or shared human experience) ultimately
attempts to describe or map.
At one level, perception is all we
have. It is not possible to experience physical reality -- what is "out
there" -- directly, and so we live inside the world of our perceptions.
Our brain does the best job it can at keeping our perceptions consistent with
physical reality based on the information it receives from the senses, but
consistency is ultimately the best we can hope for.
Perception is like relative velocity.
We tend to compare something or someone relative to our own perception. And
thus, what we infer is relative to our belief structure, and not absolute in
judgement.
The Vedantic philosophers of ancient
India spoke of this confusion as maya. Often translated as "illusion"
(a false perception of the world), maya is better interpreted as "delusion"
(a false belief about the world). We suffer a delusion when we believe the
images in our minds are the external world. We deceive ourselves when we think
that the tree we see is the tree itself.
When a person sees a leaf, he sees the
green color of that leaf and makes an impression in his mind that ‘leaves are
green’, but think what science told us, the light rays from the source, fell on
the leaf and got reflected back, as science found out that the leaf surface
absorbed a very specific frequency of the light ray and when it was perceived
by our brain, it turned out to be green. Still can you say, “leaf is green”?
Leaf was color-less, due to its special property, it absorbed the particular frequency of the light rays
which gave it the form which we perceive. Similarly, with sound and smell, it’s
the real form of the substance that gives us a sense of reality. Science has
tried to unleash this for us, but still when science is trying to dig deeper,
the perception of the experimenter is a big boulder.
From Kant to Newton, Einstein to present
quantum physicists, people were constantly trying to understand the reality in
terms of mathematical equations and gave astounding theories which changed our
beliefs and made us to think about the reality again. They debated about the “observer”
and shown that how important the role of observer is while acquiring knowledge
or perceiving something. But that observer is still bounded by his incapable
senses.
For a moment, imagine a situation, what
if we can see Xrays, so instead of getting your xray done in hospital, you
could have simply asked that another person to look into you. What about the
clothes that we buy today? If that would have been the case, these clothes
would have been useless. Then the human form we draw and learnt, would have
been like the Xray images we see in hospitals. The mirror would show that form.
Then a person would have really required hair gels, and all other cosmetic to
make this skin glowing?
See, simple mental exercise with a
change in senses changed a whole lot of reality.
Now from this, a major question arises
Is reality mental – mind; or is it
physical– matter and energy? If mind, is there a deeper consciousness
underlying appearances that unites us all and is the source of our conscious
thoughts? If matter, can we understand how the play of material objects and
forces can give rise to conscious life?
If reality is mental, we might best
connect with it by skillful introspection; by a pure, deep, and penetrating way
of thought that would see past appearances and show reality directly to the
mind. Alternatively we might passively receive, by a process of revelation, a
mental image of reality. In revelation, the cosmic mind could speak directly to
us, in apparitions or visions.
If ultimate reality is instead composed
of matter and energy, the method recommended is more empirical; that is, more
reliant on the senses. This method, which we call ‘science’, involves the
formulation of statements of proposed facts (observable truths) about the
physical, along with statements about relationships between the facts, in the
form of physical laws. In science, these statements of laws and proposed facts
are subject to criticism and testing by observation and experiment. The
statements that at any time best convince, after testing and criticism, are
given the status of ‘actual fact’, or if you wish, reality. In Kant’s view, we can never truly know
reality in itself, what he called ‘the noumenal world’, because we are limited
to our mind’s imposition of fixed ‘categories’ of knowledge upon our
perceptions of it (this giving us what Kant called ‘phenomenal’ knowledge). So
it would seem we are forever cut off from reality as it is in itself, that is,
distinct from our minds’ apprehension of it. It is very easy to distort this
perception, and this can be done through mind-altering drugs or through the
loss of one of the senses.
Now I can safely say that Reality is the relationship between the
personal autonomy and the surroundings. We experience on the basis of our
senses, and we keep those experiences as memories, that are called learning.
Life would be hard if one starts doubting his own experience, some neurological
patients have this problem of unable to rely on their experiences, and hence
they experience hallucinations and other disorders. Experience is not by
choice, it was forced on us. We are forced to experience the world the way we
can, not the way it is actually.
Thus ending this debate,
we have a speck of energy in us that makes us unique and conscious, without
realizing it. All of us have that speck in us, then too some people do marvelous
things, however some don’t. Does that mean, we don’t have capabilities to do
extra ordinary things? We have that capability as the speck of energy that keep
our body machine alive and working for on an average 70-80 years(there is no
such energy supply invented yet, which can keep any machine working for such a
long time), we have a very high functioning personal unit given to us as a
brain. Then also we are entangled in all this world, and complaining and blaming others, and forgetting our true potential. And strangely we are entangled in the world, which we can't even perceive properly, which we don't is real or not, which we have built around us based on our experiences, which in turn was the result of our incapable senses. Isn't this situation like a room full of kids, playing with their toys and then fighting as they want other things also, but they being ignorant don't realize that there is a big world outside the rooms, there are adults who are keeping them in the rooms busy. Now decide do you want to be that kid or do you want to open the door and see what is outside?
You go to an amusement park. Do you go to live there? Do you set your permanent residence there? No, you go and play and enjoy and see the wonders other people have created, admire them and then come back. Then why doing with this amusement park? You are not only fully entangled in it but you are jealous of what other person is doing.
It's not to offend anybody, it's just to realize that how ignorant we are and yet we claim to be the intelligent species. Are we really that intelligent?
I have seen people often saying, that they are not capable or blaming their luck. But if for once, we change our way of perceiving things and events, the new reality will come in front of us where we will find ourselves as capable and powerful as we can be.
