I took the cab from the domestic terminal. It was Mumbai again. The city that never sleeps.The city of dreams and desires. The financial capital of India.Hundreds of vehicles buzzing past each other hoping to reach somewhere, anxious faces blaming the humidity and the congestion, roadside vada-pav sellers adding to the color,and faces brimming with energy ,hoping to make it big in life .This city has everything.
Ah!The Arabian Sea was visible now. It was everywhere.Vast and infinite.Unblemished.Engulfing the city of Mumbai from three sides.Half way through the journey , I was hit by a strange revelation.
What if the city wasn’t there? What if we didn’t exist or ceased to exist right then? Forget about the people and the concrete , what if even the land was not there ? Who will bother? No one . Because we are gone . Or someone will , may be the sea ? It still exists . It is still infinite and observant . But does it bother if we are not there ? Not really. It will continue to exist , unperturbed by something which is puny compared to its existence. And why should it bother ? It existed before us and will continue to exist way beyond us . It is not dependent on human fancies. It exists independently , oblivious to the tremors and transformations of human life. It is infinite. Complete.Self sufficient . But hold on . I am again attributing my own understanding to it . My senses are suggesting that I should treat it as a water body . But who knows what it is . If we are not there ? Who is there then to notice the sea? Who will acknowledge the vastness,the emptiness and the nothingness?
What if we only exist to accept and acknowledge the sea’s presence ? Are we only here as the knower and the observer of the sea? Does the sea allow us to play on its lap only for its self serving purpose ? The need of self recognition ? Self realization ?And does the sea know itself ? Doesn’t matter. Because it is the only thing left when we are gone. How can it know itself in the absence of any “other” entity?The knowing is irrelevant then. It is not the “thing” deciphered by human senses then. It is nothing. Beyond duality. Beyond the traps and concepts of knower and knowledge . It is the only thing. The only role played by the land and “us” , the humans is to give credence to the existence of the sea. No matter how we judge it , it will stay true to its form and nature.
Beyond the earth and the solar systems and the universes , within and without , there is only nothingness.There is only observation. Consciousness. Just the acknowledgement of the existence of the material world is its only trait. What else there is to fathom ? The relationship between the observed and the observer is eternal. And who knows? If both are the same ? Who knows , if it is only the degree of the power of observation that differentiates the observer from the observed. The difference between the manifested states of consciousness.
A snake cannot observe what humans can and the humans can’t hear what the dogs can. But that hardly makes any difference , only the actions of various beings get dictated by their depths of perception and observation. That is what separates the various forms of life . But who/what is the diffrentiator ? The sea remains a sea, whether viewed by a human , or an animal ( who is free to perceive it differently).
Coming to the material world , it also struck me that the existence of the dualities is an essential component of human existence . Just as the presence of land is needed to acknowledge the existence of the sea , miseries are needed in life to acknowledge the presence of happiness. The good exists with the bad , the pain with the pleasure and so on . Everything is intertwined in various degrees . But the existence of this duality ( or the perception of its existence) creates various conflicts in human minds , forcing them into thoughts and actions . When the duality disappears , there will be only one state . There will be no conflict.No differentiation. No judgement. But that is “the” only state . That is nothing. Who knows what that is ? We only have five senses sadly.The journey ended at a South Indian restaurant and I decided to feed my senses.The ever satiated sea smiled from a distance.