The real and the unreal shadow are closely interwoven in life.
FR K M GEORGE
“Triple lockdown” is in effect in the Covidosphere in Kerala. I take a discreet early morning walk along the Kodoor rural stretch. Paddy fields are slowly swelling with the monsoon rains. The dying leaves of some leftover rice plants are sticking out of water casting their reflections below. The picture transpires some sort of semi-abstract geometrical shapes of triangles and squares. They seem to be complete in themselves and are closed polygons. But on closer examination, they are found part real and part shadow.
In order to distinguish between the real and the unreal in them, we may imagine a horizontal line across the middle of each image. Then the top half is real and the bottom half is shadow or reflection. However, our eyes take them together, that is, the real object and its unreal reflection, in order to create our complete and comfortable picture of a triangle or a square.
Traditional wisdom often compares our life to a mirror. Just like water that reflects the objects on its surface, life too reflects that which appears on its surface. The real and the unreal shadow are closely interwoven in life.
It is common knowledge that not only pleasure but pain, disease, and death are necessary to complete the polygon of life. If there is no pain of some sort -physical, psychic, or social- we wouldn’t be aware of what we now call reality. In fact, they are essential for us “to keep in touch with reality”, as they say.
It is interesting to observe that in the digital culture today we speak of more than one reality and we even can deliberately mix and manipulate realities. If what we normally call Reality is our down to earth existence, we now speak of and experience new levels of reality like Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Mixed Reality.
Especially since the onset of the viral pandemic and lockdown most of us live in virtual Reality a good part of our time. From tiny tots in the kindergarten and humble farmers in the field to ivory tower academicians, high flying rulers, world leaders, and business magnates - all enter the virtual world to do online what they are supposed to do in the real world.
For many, the Net provides an escape route to break out of the tedious mundane reality to enter another world. There have always been people who try to escape the boredom of the real world by means of some intoxication whatsoever. In fact, people invent innumerable ways to circumvent the drudgery of reality’s chores, and wish to remain always, if possible, in a state of excitement by means of arts and sports, eating and drinking, warring and violence and what not .
If the current momentum in Cyber technology is maintained humanity will inadvertently bump into ever new levels of reality. They say the emerging technologies like Quantum Computing, Artificial Intelligence and Mixed Reality together with Nanobiotechnology, 3D Bioprinting, and a host of various Human Enhancement technologies would radically alter our human reality. We shall then enter the post-human world. In fact, we have already crossed the threshold.
One may also remember that there are very old counterparts to this futuristic vision. The great spiritual and mystical traditions have always spoken of new levels of reality that one could experience by practicing certain spiritual sadhanas while living here in our ordinary reality. This is essentially experiential and subjective, and not to be compared to objective scientific methods.
All major religions and popular mythologies speak of many worlds. Heaven and hell in religious terminology are treated in the plural, and are said to possess numerous subdivisions as well.
It may be interesting that some in the field of scientific cosmology propose the hypothetical notion of multiverse or parallel universes rather than a single “universe”.
In any case, it is better to keep our consciousness open and resilient, and be ready for any new future Reality that may subtly percolate into our ordinary world without “asking the host’s permission to join’’. Change and Transfiguration, whether in the spiritual realm or in the scientific-technological sphere, is the law of life. An Incomplete, hence open polygon rather than a closed one may suggest ever-new possibilities. It seems human consciousness is still the greatest mystery on earth!
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