When I was a little kid I always dreamed of owning a cycle, imagining going to the school in it, riding and chasing the wind , the cold breeze caressing my hairs when I ride on it. So please guess how happy I was when I really had a new bicycle? well, I am sorry to disappoint you by saying that I wasn't happy at all when I had it. I bought my top gear when I was in college and that time most of my friends were riding their motorbike.
When I had the dream of owning a cycle,I was happy in it , I could feel the joy even after I woke up from my dream, it was as if I have lived in the dream. Then when I actually bought one I didn't take it to college I was embarrassed to take it, I felt sad for not owning a pulsar which would be so cool if I rode with my sunglasses on. But today when I look back and think about it I feel perplexed thinking which one was actually the reality. The dream in which I rode the bicycle happily or the time in which I rode the cycle embarrassingly . If you say that the one in which our body need to be present is the reality. then I would assert that in my dream I had my body. Now you can debate that the one in which you are in and could be perceived by others apart from you is considered as the reality. Then my theory about dream could be my reality would seem to be a flawed one.
So are those what we can see or feel with our sense organs the only reality. Then we will have a conflict with reality. Assume you are walking your dog and suddenly you see a rainbow and tell your dog how beautiful it is ,having seven colors so bright , and at that moment your dog would stop you and then say, "wait a second , is there something wrong with you? are you really glorifying this dull yellow ,blue and dark band", it doesn't matter how hard you try to convince him about the beauty of rainbow still it would assert you that it isn't beautiful. Because dogs can't see that range of colors and the fact that the dog doesn't perceive it the way you do doesn't make the rainbow any less real. Which obviously give light to one thing, whatever we could perceive is not the ultimate but a fraction of the unknown, the real world or the reality is out there laughing and mocking at us when we say that we know it all. The truth is we don't know it all. We know whatever we are aware of. I can give you an example that I heard of. Look around in your room you have to memorize all the things which have the green color , memorize it thoroughly,which I will later ask you to remember.
Now close your eyes and try to remember all things that were red color in your room,no no I didn't say it wrong. As you were looking for green it actually kept your awareness away from red objects because you can't remember all the red things in your room doesn't make it invisible. it is always there but you weren't looking for it. So don't you think it is possible that our life could be coexistent with something more than what we perceived as us. I am not implying anything. I am just asking questions because I am curious
lets come back to the dream, Today it doesn't matter whether the dream was or the other one was the reality because looking back both ones seems to be as insignificant as the other, whether I was happy riding it or sad it doesn't have anything to do with my present state of being. I can say that the dream wasn't the reality the one which I rode the bicycle embarrassingly wasn't the reality either but today this moment is the only reality I have. But thinking about it a question popped into my mind, what happens to today when I turn sixty? How insignificant the problems of today will seem to be for the old myself.
So is this moment the reality or that when I turn old is the reality? To know it more I need to tell the story of king Janaka. Janaka was a Just king, one day he was sleeping in his palace and suddenly he saw his soldier running towards him crying about the attack made by his enemies. King Janaka fought a ferocious war to defend his country but he was defeated and then his enemy king exiled him from his kingdom. So there was Janaka walking with torn clothes and beaten body begging for food . Finally, he reached the neighboring kingdom and he found a long Que of beggars waiting for food. Because of hunger this King joined them when misery comes, it will come in a herd and that's exactly what happened to Janaka. when his turn came to have food the food was over, but seeing the condition of the king the supplier got very sympathetic , so he asked him whether he would take the starch, King Janaka took it from him and when he was ready to drink it a crow flew from the branch and spilled it from his hands. That was enough for the king to lose his emotions, he cried loud lying in the mud
Hearing the sound of the king a soldier came to Janaka and asked him what happened, then only Janaka realized that he was having a nightmare . This made Janaka ask himself one question which he uttered to everyone till he met his guru Ashtavakra . He asked Ashtavakra " was that I saw in sleep a dream(or the reality) or is this I am in now is a dream(or the reality)?. To which Aashtavakra replied when you were in the dream did you have the kingdom, your precious stones , the queen , ministers and all that you have now, to which Janaka replied "no". Then Aashtavakra said, "well then it wasn't the reality". Hearing this Janaka curiously asked him , "so is that what I am in now the reality". for which Ashtavakra replied" do you have the same depression, sadness, and loneliness that you felt in the dream with you today", Janaka replied "no" for that too. Ashtavakra continued " my King then this is also not the reality, the only thing that was real during the both experience was you , so you are the only reality.
The happiness sadness and all the emotions are temporary, they won't define you, it could create a ripple on you externally, but we need to understand that the real you is not the external the outward turbulent water flowing on the river but you are the inner currents that flow isolated from all those external happenings. As Mandukya Upanishad has pointed out years before that we are not the person that is awake, nor the person who is dreaming or not the person who is sound asleep in a blank space but we are the fourth form which is beyond our imaginations to understand , but once we understand it then we shall know that we all transcends beyond our body, beyond our differences in politics, our differences in thoughts, our external color or beauty. But we all are one who is interconnected like a big world wide web.
I know it sounds crazy but the idea of interconnected unimaginative formless you is not a novel one ,The Hindu wisdom tells about sages who conducted intergalactic travels and transferred their soul from one body to another. I know now I am treading a narrow path between fiction and philosophy which could always raise eyebrows of the reader. But this kind of travel we do this every day unknowingly. Assume you are watching the footages of a war on your television , the Syrian crisis. And when you see the images of Omar Daqneesh , the little boy who lost everything in a second or the image of Aailan Qurdi , the Syrian refugee kid whose body was washed up on the seashore , we feel pain , an unbearable sadness that can transform into tears. Why is it so? It's not happening to you , it's something happening miles and miles away from you but still, you can feel a fraction of what they felt. Well, we have already named it as compassion or sympathy. Now think about someone without these powers to think and feel from the point of view of another human being like Hitler or Mussolini. Then they will surely raise eyebrows thinking what the hell we were talking about by saying that we could feel the pain of Ailan or Omran. This exactly sounds like us when we question the existence of one interconnected system that we can't imagine. What if this power of sympathy is only a tip of what you could actually do.
I know i have tread a long path in this essay but let me paraphrase it and conclude this by saying that Nothing around you is as real as you. You may feel that your aspirations , your happiness,sadness , the worries, the anxieties about future and everything to be real, but they are just illusions , which will transform into something else in the near future, but what will remain is you , not the external you or not the mind ,but something that transcends both of them. But it is not different from the person next to you, but you and him are both the same. Just like the copper wire and utensil can be both different for a customer but for the metalsmith both are the same, the copper itself. So its high time that we keep away our differences and treat everyone the way we would like the world to treat us.
