An essay that won an award!
~ with blessings~received from Mrs Shyamala Iyer - my mother
FROM ILLUSION TO ILLUMINATION - THROUGH ORDER AND CHAOS
"Without order nothing
can exist - without chaos nothing can evolve." - Author unknown
We
live in a world of desires. Our desires chase happiness. But once we possess
what we desire, that happiness eludes us. Isn’t it so? And we go on chasing… We
continue our pursuit of happiness when at some point of time we may wonder when
this pursuit shall ever cease. Can we ever be happy, without ‘desiring’ to be
happy? Gautama Buddha had realised that suffering is the result of desire. And
to live a life without desire is impossible as long we live through our bodies.
The body cannot survive without the principle of consumption and elimination. The
‘programming’ or mechanism of the body can be viewed as desire governing the
ingestion of food/water/air and ejecting the excess or harmful form of the same
components as faeces/urine/sweat/gas.
Our
existence revolves around three factors: body, mind and consciousness. The
naïve perceives the ‘self’ from outside to inside, i.e. a body with a mind and
consciousness. The enlightened one’s perspective is from within to without i.e.
consciousness with a mind and body. Wisdom lies in realising and embracing
oneself as a unified entity of body-mind-consciousness.
Most
of us remain engaged in normal living; the usual day-to-day living where we
organize our lives in order to give some meaning to it. What is order? What
does order/organization have to do with normal living? The answer lies in one
word – BALANCE. Aren’t we familiar with words like ‘balanced diet’, ‘work/life
balance’, ‘balance sheet’, etc.? Balance gives a certain meaning to our lives instead
of letting chaos reign. When we experience balance, we feel secure and that
makes us happy. Subsequently after achieving such happiness, does the pursuit of happiness finally come to a
halt? Logically, it should stop; but often it doesn’t. Why? Because happiness
is a state of mind (internal) and is not something that originates from the
object of pursuit (external). Why do we fail to recognize this illusion and not
remain eternally content? It is because change sets in.
Change
is the law of nature. Nobody escapes change. Change requires order to be
agitated – that means back to chaos! We then endeavour to bring back order (to restore
balance; to regain happiness). Most people are confined to and some are even
content with this ‘chase-stop-chase’way of existence. Only an intelligent
person is able to perceive the futility in pursuing this fleeting happiness.
One asks, ‘Why am I not permanently happy?
It is because there is a conflict between me and the world in which I live, and
both have an ever-changing relationship. Why is change happening? Isn’t
anything permanent? What is the truth of my existence? If truth stands for
something that is unchangeable under any circumstance and is forever valid at
any point of time, what could it be – that reality which I have still not been
able to realize?’
Socrates
said ‘Know yourself and you shall know the world’? Be it Socrates or Albert
Einstein or the ancient sages and prophets – these extraordinary people as we
would like to call them, were people who evolved from the usual and mundane ways
of thinking and living. They were highly intelligent people who scrutinised life
using their own unique methods to understand why we suffer despite all our
endeavours to ensure we remain happy.What did the world look like to the first
person who landed on moon; to the first person who conquered the summit of Mt.
Everest? Wouldn’t anybody else wish himself/herself to be in their place or be
a part of that experience? Similarly, how would existence look like to such a
genius whose life has been devoted to (and to those who have been successfully able
to) find eternal peace or bliss?
“The
fabric of existence constitutes the weft and warp of life and death” –
Anonymous
Normal
life as we perceive it goes through four stages – birth, survival, growth and
death. We are considering it as normal life taking into account that most
people get to experience all the four stages. Desire is ubiquitous in all these
stages. Life goes through the four stages endlessly.
The
first stage is birth. We live in a
world of opposites working on the principle of duality. Every form requires its
opposite energy to also exist. Male and female energies contribute to creation
through reproduction consciously or unconsciously. Either ways, it is nature’s
way of ensuring continuum and balance through desire executed subtly. Birth of
an offspring begins with a desire. Even if the procreation comes from a conscious
desire from the individual’s perspective, from the macro-level perspective it
is actually the cosmos desiring to bring forth a new form. For creation, birth is necessary and this requires the state of order
to be imbalanced. Chaos emerges from order. In other words, the already existing
balance (order) of a male energy with its opposite (but complementary) female
energy is disturbed when a new form appears. This disturbance refers to chaos
and chaos means change. For every birth of a form, death of another form is
inevitable to maintain cosmic balance. The reason for this is mentioned ahead
in the explanation of the last stage, death. With birth, the ‘I AM’ feeling of consciousness
appears.
Survival
takes off from birth, where the ‘I AM’ through the mind, experiences separation
from the source. Psychologists may know it as birth trauma. The ‘I AM’ identity is the first layer of ego. Ego is
in essence, the mind framing its first identity as a consequence of separation
– that of being an individual entity. Crystallization of the ego begins. The ‘I
AM’ starts getting conditioned by self-imposed and socio- environmental
factors, forming a shell layer by layer (I am XYZ). In the case of humans, the
layers comprise one’s name, religion, family, nationality and so forth. The ego
begins to learn and adapt to the environment, even moulding the environment to
suit oneself – fuelled by the desire to survive. Survival of the self means
surviving chaos and that involves the impulse of controlling oneself and
controlling others. Fear is the driving force of survival and that means chaos
must be managed with order. At this
stage, order emerges from chaos.
Growth is where the
primary needs of birth and survival have been successfully met. Humans become
philosophical and introspective at the highest level. This is only possible
when the basic survival needs are met. That means a reasonable order was
required to succeed up to this level. Now, change is essential to
prevent complacency or stagnation setting in. Thus, horizons of learning and
perception widen to understand the relationship of self with the cosmos. Where order rules birth and survival, chaos
is a pre-requisite for growth and so it springs forth from order. The self
evolves through chaos at all levels – physically, mentally and socially with
the desire to obtain the ultimate understanding or what is commonly termed
‘enlightenment’. A collective revolution is impossible without evolution at an
individual level (the self). Here come into play the great thinkers and
leaders, sages and healers, artists and teachers, scientists and doctors, etc.
who bring about a fresh perspective by way of breakthrough concepts,
discoveries and inventions. When we see the bigger picture, all socio-political
structures including religions, cultures and civilizations become dynamic to
accommodate new changes and once again
order is sought to sustain the same.
Death is where the
old is replaced by new. Creativity means that the old must pave the way for the
new. The new then becomes old and finally makes way for another new to come. This
process goes on forever. Death upsets order by eliminating the old and bringing
in the new. Death is the final act of balance wherein chaos on unit level leads to order in the existence as a whole.
Logic
demands answers to some questions based on the above: Where does the old go? And
how is it possible to have overall balance when a part of the whole is affected?
What is this paradox of death being a double agent of chaos (microcosm
perspective) as well as order (macrocosm perspective)?
When
we talk about balance, we ought to look at it from two levels – the individual
(micro) level and the collective (macro) level. The interesting thing about our
creative universe is that it works on the principle of recycling. What are we
referring to when we say recycling? Remember the science lesson from our school
days – energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it can only be transformed?
Quantum physicists tell us that matter and energy are not different from one
another. Matter is condensed energy appearing to have a certain structure based
on our subjective perception. The whole existence is said to be a field of
energy. So, old and new essentially represent the same energy albeit in varied
forms. That means the concept of opposites is an illusion. Darkness is not the
opposite of light; it is the absence of light. Cold is not the opposite of
heat; it is the absence of heat. Could it be true then, that death and life are
not opposites but merely appearing so? Could it signify that life is the
visible part of the field of energy due to the presence of our perception and
death is the absence of that very perception? That means our minds work on the
principle of split perception or selective perception in order to understand
the phenomenal world in which we live. Why is it said that our mind is like an
iceberg with the major potential remaining invisible and unutilized? It is
because if we were to perceive everything at once the sight will be that of
chaos! To live is to experience; to experience means to have understanding.
Understanding requires having to split chaos into fragments using the concept
of space and time. The act of splitting means separation. And doesn’t death
refer to separation? That means what we consider exists no more…what we
consider having been separated from us (read death) has actually taken another
form in some dimension within the space-time fabric and now that old form is
absent from our existing perception. This is the wisdom of reincarnation. Death
is the final act of balance wherein chaos
on unit level leads to order in the existence as a whole.
To
summarize the role of chaos and order in four stages of existence with desire
as its theme: Creation/Birth starts with chaos. Survival requires putting chaos
in order. Growth requires chaos for evolution in adherence to the creative
design of the Cosmic Intelligence. To carry forth this growth, order is
required for development to continue. Death is the final act of cosmic balance
where chaos occurs at a micro level but order results at macro-level. Chaos and
order are opposite yet complementary and interdependent energies.
So
far we have examined the functioning of chaos and order and the significance it
has in our individual and collective lives. We notice that it is desire that
fuels chaos and order. We understand now that the act of desire occurs on both
micro level as well as macro level, that is to say, that when change occurs in
a part it certainly has an effect on the whole – BUT - it does not necessarily ‘affect’ the whole.
What seems to be a disruption at individual level (the self) may not
necessarily affect the whole of existence (universe) but can be for the benefit
of the entire cosmos. The wave when descending to the surface may feel that it
is losing itself, but if it opens it eyes and looks around it realizes itself
to be the mighty ocean itself in perfection. If only we could place ourselves
in the capacity of a wave and the universe as the ocean, we would never fear
anymore, we would never think of life and death as separate but mere illusions
playing on the screen of consciousness.
Now,
when imagining oneself as a wave ending up as ocean ultimately, is there
actually that feeling of eternal freedom and peace? Are we really happy to see
ourselves dissolved – into something greater? Can we picture ourselves existing
no more this very second? It is extremely frightening, isn’t it? Alas! It is
very difficult to extinguish our precious individuality and become one with the
universe. Why is it so difficult for us to understand and experience death
without fear? What is the resistance that holds us back from becoming ‘Fanaa’(the ‘self’ dissolving and
merging with the cosmos) as the Sufi mystics rightly say? The answer is simple
– we resist something because we are unhappy. But this simple point needs
further examination.
At
this point we would need to refresh our understanding so far and observe our
unhappiness more closely. We are unhappy because there is a conflict reigning
within us which is sometimes silent, sometimes loud. That conflict has been the
result of our conditioning. That conditioning has been sown in us to base our
actions on the concept of right and wrong. The concept of right and wrong has
come about as a result of order/classification/separation. So we are again left
to examine what we had discussed earlier, but with a fresh perspective - how
does order affect my ability to be happy?
Doesn’t
order refer to organization through separation/classification/segregation? Isn’t
it true then that order is but chaos split so as to perceive existence to
achieve understanding? Isn’t order a desire initiated by the self so as to
understand chaos part by part through duality; the mechanism of duality
(perceiving the world of forms having opposites) being programmed into us by
nature? If chaos is an infinite ocean, then order represents the waves. In
essence both symbolize water. One mirrors the other. A piece of Buddhist wisdom
states that it is not difficult to perceive a drop in the ocean, but rare it is
to come upon a wise one who sees the entire ocean in a drop. That there are
opposites is an illusion of mind. Perceiving something as opposite is to have
the desire to remain in duality. Ego thrives on duality. Eliminating the duality
is as good as death. Now observe: I
exist. You exist. There is a relationship. The perceiver is the subject. The
perceived is the object. For me, you are the object. For you, I am the object.
Within you there is the ‘I Am’ consciousness. So it is within me as well. Now,
what happens when this ‘I Am’ consciousness no longer exists? Feel it. Does
fear creep in? What is that fear? That fear is the fear of death; the fear of
ego losing its identity. This fear makes us unhappy. Death is considered good
in the overall picture as it brings about order. But when it comes to our
individual selves, we cherish our lives and do not wish to be a part of this
overall cosmic order. Thinking of death makes us unhappy. This answers the
question about the cause and effect link between order and unhappiness.
The
mind is very clever. We suffer when we choose one aspect consciously and
unconsciously reject its’opposite. If we are bodies of energy existing in a
field of energy, then thought is also energy. In time, rejected thoughts remain
as suppressed memories in our sub-conscious mind. Suppression built up over a
period of time become repression. Our repressed energies surface in those
moments when we experience that we have acted abnormally. Psychologists call it
catharsis, in which such repressed or
suppressed energies are released, resulting in peace and balance of the
‘body-mind-spirit’. Sages see it as duality dwindling away. It is no wonder
then that the experience is so relieving after such an immense release that one
finds peace and harmony. The gist of the aforementioned analysis is that
consciously we seek duality – the illusion of opposites, but unconsciously we
are always seeking our way back home (reunion).
The
overall cosmos is always in balance no matter how chaotic it appears to us.
Where birth is, death must be. Cancer cells are those cells that oppose death
as required for growth. When cancer cells refuse to die, they multiply
relentlessly under the illusion that they can survive. At individual levels
cancer cells seek and march towards immortality. But when we see the overall
picture, due to these cells’ irrational desire to live on, the whole body
ultimately dies to sustain the balance in accordance with the laws of nature.
Real growth is when the old dies to make way for the new. That is why it is
said that we do not have the same bodies as we had them say, even six or seven
months back.To the wise, death is but a gate leading back to where we came
from. According to Osho, birth and death are not separate. It is as if
existence is divided into two sides by a common door. One side of the door
reads BIRTH. The other side is labelled DEATH. The interpretation of existence
depends on which side of the door one faces. Osho also described in a similar
context, how land and water are not separate in the actual sense - in the depths
of land, one finds water; in the depths of seas, one finds land.
Following
are some excerpts from The Book of Mirdad by Mikhail Naimy pointing out at the
suffering caused by an illusory separation nursed by one’s ego:
“Yours is a
world of cradles turning into tombs, and tombs becoming cradles; of days
devouring nights, and nights regurgitating days; of peace declaring war, and
war suing for peace; of smiles afloat on tears, and tears aglow with smiles…
Yours is a world set against itself, because the ‘I’ in you is so divided.
Yours is a
world of barriers and fences, because the ‘I’ in you is one of barriers and
fences.
Some things it
would fence out as alien to itself. Some things it would fence in as kindred to
itself. Yet that outside the fence is ever breaking in; and that within the
fence is ever breaking out.
For they,
being offspring of the same mother – even your ‘I’ – would not be set apart.
And you,
rather than joy in their happy union, begird yourselves anew for the fruitless
labour of separating the inseparable. Rather than bind the cleavage in the ‘I’,
you whittle away your life hoping to make thereof a wedge to drive between what
you believe to be your ‘I’ and what you imagine other than your ‘I’.”
Should
we not halt and reflect upon our own lives? How estranged are we from one
another with our various superficial labels of name, religion, nationality,
race and cultures, forgetting that we are in essence one and the same? Good and
evil are two ends of the same universal spectrum. The epitome of good can be
considered as God. The extreme end on the negative end of the spectrum can be
considered as Devil. Religion is after all a matter of personal interpretation,
but the fact remains that we change our forms within this spectrum fluctuating
mostly somewhere in the middle. Some incline to one end of the spectrum, and
the others swing to the opposite end. Some religions appraise these actions
based on the ‘judgement day’ doctrine and some religions call function on the
concept of ‘Karma’ in which actions are ruled by cause-effect principle; the
‘As you sow, so shall you reap’ theme of reincarnation. New age spiritualists
and philosophers are of the opinion that all actions are rooted either in fear
or in love - all positive actions stem out of love; all negative stem out of
fear. But if studied carefully, fear and love are two sides of the same coin of
existence. Fear is absence of love. Love is absence of fear.
To sum up, unhappiness is the result of feeling
incomplete. Incompletion stems from separation. Desire is the root cause of
separation/ duality. Desire causes chaos. Chaos causes evolution. Order
eliminates imbalance and the process of elimination is nothing but
destruction/death. Hence chaos-order, birth-death, evolution-destruction are
actually complementary but ‘seemingly’ opposing energies required for cosmic
harmony.
In
conclusion, from our own experience we should be able to identify and measure
the burden of negativity that we carry knowingly and unknowingly. Living in an
illusion of opposites, we forget the truth of non-duality and remain in
conflict. We are always inter-connected in every way, no matter how different
or separated we perceive each other from by means of our imperfect senses that
keep us in illusion.With the light of this truth, let us individually kindle
our minds trapped in the darkness of ignorance. When collectively illuminated,
we could then co-create worldwide peace and balanced progress. The successive
generations must inherit a much better world, mustn’t they?
*****
