Friday, August 25, 2006

The Problem is Choice !!!!!!

Of all the questions haunting mankind, the enigma of self-realization is the most illusive one.

The Questions like Who Am I ?, Why Am I Here ? , are the ones that pose far greater challenge than anything else in the world.

In other words, what is the purpose of life, that we are living.

The careful analysis of Matrix trilogy along with Vedic Philosophy gives a nice insight on this very fundamental question..

The concept of matrix is very appealing one . It graphically explains the Vedantic concept of Maya.

Maya OR Matrix, in the words of Morpheus, is a dream world drawn in front of man's eyes, to keep himself from realising the simple and obvious truth. It is prison for the mind. But this, I guess is not a complete understanding of the true picture. It is later understood that even the apparently free-people are not free. Zion itself is a fictional system created by machines to keep the rebels at bay. And the character of NEO, the one, is himself a part of this control system. Everybody considers this apparent freedom as real one.

Purpose is a word, just like Karma. It is way of saying why we are here. Although, it does not answer the basic question, it satisfies the mind of the answer-seeker to large extent and gives him peace. Purpose is an Assumption OR a Hypothesis which is used to explain other aspects of life, like joy and sorrow and many others.

For a person who believes in classical vedanta, purpose of life is to attain moksha OR liberation from cycles of birth and death. His purpose of life is to burn out the sanchita karma and head along towards salvation.

But how much is this hypothesis testifiable is what drives seeker crazy. Here arises the question of freewill.

Seeing inside, we can compare these things with our lives. The things which we say as joy, sorrow, success, failure, the ideas are so much pre-programmed in our mind somehow. It is like a set of rules are there which tell us the nature of our experience. If we experience feeling X, it is joy.. If we experience feeling Y, it is sorrow. The very concepts of love and hate are pre-programmed. No one knows, but seeing from this perspective, I feel that these concepts and PREJUDICES should be unloaded. Who knows even we are controlled by some higher power. May be some people call it God. Others call it fate.

We are not even free from the programmed feelings. How can we even think of understanding the purpose of our own existence, if we are not able to transcend our own prejudices..

Atheist is the one who is really open to accept the truth. The one who questions the establishment becoz he feels that some thing is wrong with the system. It is like although he is FREE, still he is bound by some higher power. That power is shown as the ARCHITECT in matrix. He lets NEO know that he is not the only ONE. There have been many ONES before him. This is the moment of choice when the anomaly of the system is revealed both as beginning and end.

Absolute freedom is an illusion!!! Freedom is freedom to choose our own set of bondages and commitments. I think, this is the basis of free-will in the system which we live in. I guess, human being has been granted this freedom. But very few exercise it. This is the choice that most of us are afraid of making. And this is where we lose the purpose of life and submit to fate/God. Even if HE does not exist, we assume him to be present. Just like einstein assumed the Universal constant in his general theory of relativity.. To make his own life easy..

Hence, I think, the purpose of life, as I see it today, is to understand the degrees of freedom that are made available to mankind for usage, by the system we live in. To check the limits of our freedom, our choices..

This is sounding too much vague. But, isn't this question extemely relative? For nothing in this universe/multiverse is absolute. Everything is relative.. Even Time..

As aptly put forth by Neo... The Problem is Choice...

1 comment:

Viyoma said...

Excellent peice..the line liberation from cycles of birth and death describes Moksha Perfectly!
Keep writing!