And…its 2024! But is it ..a new dawn?

Is this new or an illusion….??

The sun in all its splendour slips into the shadows ..quietly having completed another cycle of 12 months though not without the evening of noise and revelry we have accepted as a defacto ritual that one performs ..either as send away gift or in anticipation of new tidings..!The following morning the sun shows up again in all its splendour …what we then celebrate as the new dawn ….something we do everyday of our life..so what’s changed and why is this dawn different from the other one’s? In the real essence, nothing has changed …though if one were to look at through prism of the mind, lot of change..for instance,we have completed the year 2023 and now entering 2024, we are a year older, we have an additional year of experience, we have recollections of things done well in the past and we have hopes and aspirations which we feel will translate into facts as we look to the year 2024 perhaps! Unfortunately that is the dilemma most human beings live with, a dilemma between reality and perceived reality or an illusion, a dilemma of duality … which is real provided we learn to recognise it.. What better time than the perceived beginning of a new year to discuss the same … or is it excersising the mind too much though it plays a major role in this duality..!

Our ancient Hindu philosophy, Vedanta propagates that there is only one reality…and it is called Brahman. Brahman is a metaphysical concept of referring to the ultimate unchanging reality, that is uncreated, eternal, infinite, transcendent, the cause, the foundation, the source and the goal of all existence. One can also refer to it as God, Universal Soul or Divinity or Conciousness or simply the Creator.. Part of that reality also exists within each human being and is the individual soul or Jeev Atman.. However while the universal soul or pure conciousness does not change, the individual soul does get coloured through thoughts as well as the operation of the mind creating another reality one can call the Reflected Conciousness. It helps us with information from our sense organs in setting up for us our individual identity, in other words our ‘Ego’ which helps us deal with the physical world… so the duality of existence is established in essence as soon as the soul enters the physical body. Our measuring pegs of existence specially time eg the minutes, days and years too are a result of the mind and reflected conciousness. Assuming this reality to be a fact what are we celebrating today … for nothing has .. ‘Changed’… and what has, was perhaps an illusion…

Therefore…stepping back into my dual existence let me wish that the New Year 2024 … brings the best of health, happiness as well as prosperity to your lives but with an important rider that… one recognises, accepts and acts knowing that our salvation .. is the path to divinity within us for that is the truth irrespective of what the illusion leads us to believe…

Our perceptions within the reflected conciousness may not change for ‘Maya’ …the key operative for the illusion is virtually permanent along with duality of our existence, and the only route availiable to go back to the Pure conciousness or Divinty is to ..a) recognise this duality and ..b) think as well as act as if one understands about this illusion.

This is my first article for this year and I chose a philosophical/ spiritual topic to kick start the year…the other mundane expressions on topics like music travel, hospitality and some more will follow …but this is the truth..which one must understand! Have a nice week..!

Destiny…can be prewritten but has to be lived!

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One has to accept the card one is dealt with !

Was watching a new show on Disney Hotstar called ‘The Empire’, a rather opulently mounted show on the Mughal Empire. The first season is on the first Mughal Emperor Babur and his accession to the Indian throne. Besides the opulence and the rendition of a familiar incident of history, what struck me was use of the concept of ‘Destiny’ as a central theme around which life unfolds in that era. Regardless of Babur’s predisposition towards finer aspects of a man born in privilege, he was given the mantle of fighting for and leading his kingdom for it was believed that he was man destined to be the ‘Emperor’ and he did! The show is engaging but the questions as well as realisation it left behind are of a different kind. The question whether one’s destiny is prewritten or can be willed upon to change was relevant at that time as it is now. However the more pertinent issue is that even if one were to believe that the destiny is prewritten, one still has to live it whether it is good or bad and therein I guess lies the true test of life. Per the show Babur did it with reasonable aplomb leaving a legacy which lasted hundreds of years. Whether the legacy was just and reasonable is for the future generations to judge but he fulfilled his destiny.

Destiny simply put, is a predetermined course of events in one’s life considered as something beyond human power or control to change. Ancient Indian thought and the spiritual thought does explain that part of the destiny which is laid out is determined by one’s own past actions, good or bad. This is the crux as well as the basis of the Karma theory too. The past actions could have been across multiple lifetimes. The future or destiny when it unravels too is not determined leading to a complex equation of cause and effect tempered with the right play of planets and time. Not only is it difficult to understand the interplay but the fact that it is prewritten makes us mortals the pawns or the stage actors in this story of life as it unfolds in a finite timeframe. There are innumerable instances where regardless of the course our actions take, the destiny has taken a different route confirming that destiny was perhaps meant to be different. If this is true then the question which is uppermost in the mind is that who is the writer of this production or for that matter it’s master conductor? There is one but perhaps that is a discussion for another time.

The more one reads, the more one learns and slowly it dawns that one is not the only one in charge of one’s destiny. It has many variables and knowledge as well as control of all the variables is difficult. Yet the truth is that one needs to live it every minute,every hour and everyday that one is alive. One of the major cause of unhappiness afflicting the human psyche is its inability to deal with the unknown and its inability to control the future if I may refer to it. Babur lived his destiny, so did India and as individuals, we will too whether we do it knowingly or otherwise. Would it not be better if we ‘Accept’ this truth? ‘Acceptance’ even with the unanswered questions is perhaps, a good beginning to understand the new truth which stares us in the face every day which we refuse to acknowledge. It’s also a beginning of new thoughts to enter our mind frame which were hitherto blocked with the decadent knowledge already therein. Once we accept the script our performance levels in the film of life go up many times!!

If you still do have a question on what I have written, I do not blame you, as hearing such profound comments on ‘Destiny’ from an accountant is difficult. It’s perhaps time, as my spiritual mentor says,to remove the veneer of scepticism and let new knowledge emerge whichever and whoever be the medium.

Happy reading and wish you the best for the balance week!