of spirituality, gods, completeness and strings

12/6/08

I was sitting in the gallery, looking out vaguely, when I felt as if there lied a thin veil of fog between me and the trees and the building at a distance. It wasn’t a fog heavy with promise of rain or the shimmering veil of obscurity born of bright burning sun. It didn’t exist except for the notion of it born of the condition singular to that time. Then I though, mightn’t it be the being that I talk of, the supernatural, the god, the repository of all loose ends of logic? (suddenly at this point myself wondering of the beauty of the words I just wrote… repository of all loose ends of logic. :D hmm.. I have potential then. And I seek out the ducktales theme song and relishing in the crunchy munchy song. Must find the hindi version.) I believe in the power of belief. And for the sake of form, (or something else, I don’t know) I believe in a supernatural entity that pervades all, continuous and ever present, dynamic: the force that aligns and directs. For comprehension I need to visualize. And to comprehend this Supreme Being I consider it as a thin mist, almost invisible but to the keen eye and mind. The quality of mist being limitless, independent of form, though can acquire and direct form at will, of silent director of the universe, of not being obtrusive but affective nevertheless, subtly or otherwise.

Then a thought occurred to me. What if this being was our senses? What if the thin mist was the vision. The sway of it - the sense of touch; the upheaval - the smell; rushing past of it - the sound; and crystallization of it - the taste. The conception of the Supreme Being not as a facilitator of senses, nor the knowledge and realization due to senses, but as the sense itself. So this being that pervades all, the being that is our sense, our belief, our being, extending outwards to all, is also the being, the belief, the senses of all and one. If we all are dipping in a common pool of life, shouldn’t it afford us into other’s belief, other’s being, other’s senses? Surely! I must try and garner some insights from it. How do I do it though? By extending myself outwards, probably playing Doris Lessing’s ‘the game’ (extending my senses outwards an inwards at the same time remaining aware of my being), probably going out and meet more folks, experimenting, debating the politics of human.

In the above discussion, I wrote three facets – belief, senses, beings while discussing a subject. Without a thought about its completeness, I shut off on it and go ahead after a moment’s stillness. Even after comprehension of such, there seems to be a huge inertia towards rethinking and probably adding some more to the ‘list’.

16/6/08

Gods. The gods, created over the past centuries and millenias are only a step or two above human beings. They show human traits. They have emotions, they even have singular purposes and motives.

But if we were to conceptualize gods now (indeed, as we do need to put our faith outside of ourselves.), we would tend to create gods that are universal, all powerful, all purposeful, malleable and most importantly not human like.

Is it because now we entertainment, more readily, the myth of perfection. We are impatient towards imperfections. So while earlier, people were ready to put their beliefs in imperfect beings so that they may be close to them. We put ours in increasingly distant beings in search of perfection.

So, earlier gods were part of everybody’s daily life, and one could hope to depend on the imperfect moody gods. Now the gods have retreated to a distant conscience and we approach the world with a resignation of faith, being increasingly isolated.

Its funny, people feeling attached to a certain place/habit separation from which is emotionally painful or confounding. Though, it seems, not to be the case with me. I can be attached and detached at the same time. Meaning, though I may harbor strong feelings of attachment and liking to the place/habit, I can easily ‘resettle’ elsewhere with ease and the new everyday existence is real to me, the past experiences some kind of myth, unreal. I carry my home within me.

Right now, I am in Nasik, having been in Mumbai for 2 months, would be staying in Ahmedabad for a year after a week of being here. Both the Mumbai experience and MICA experience are unreal to me, now. For others, Mumbai internship was not comfortable. But I quickly got used to it and it never tired or made me thirsty for home or MICA.