Saturday, February 09, 2008
At dawn, it seems as if only a few hours earlier the sky looked like a canopy bedecked with a million shining stars. But now all of them have disappeared and the sun alone is shining bright. But is this the truth? In reality, the other planets and stars have not lost their existence; they have merely been overwhelmed by a more intense light.
Can existence ever end? Can something that exists today be regarded non-existent in the future? Both existence and non-existence are eternal. A tree which becomes bare in autumn puts on rich foliage in spring and with the onset of autumn once again sheds its leaves. They provide the evidence that the tree exists. Likewise, life and death are mere expressions of our existence. Our perception of truth is not simply the direct observation of reality. When the abstract changes into concrete, the hidden becomes manifest and the remote becomes close; then the invisible turns into the visible and the inaccessible becomes accessible.
What I can see in the light I cannot see in the dark. The microscope reveals more than the naked eyes. Yet the best of the microscopes cannot reveal what inner enlightenment can.
Every process must have an ultimate stage. There must also be an ultimate means of knowing the truth. This according to Indian philosophy is called Para-knowledge. On the basis of this knowledge, it can be said that the visible, the concrete, the manifest and the close are as much true as the invisible, the abstract, the hidden and the remote. When I use my imagination, the truth appears boundless. When I use my senses and the intellect the truth like a closed room appears placid and limited. I become surrounded by indirect apprehension of the truth.
One day I was intently gazing at the sky. My philosophical disposition reminded me that the sky was limitless. But my practical experience opposed it and maintained that it had a limit. I was confused. Suddenly I heard an air-raid siren, and anti-aircraft guns started firing. I became curious to know why it happened? The enemy aircraft had penetrated into our airspace and they were being shot down. Our ancestors knew the boundaries of the earth and they also were acquainted with the sea. Both the earth and sea have boundaries. Therefore it was natural for them to regard them as limited. But they could not conceive the sky being limited.