An Elaborate Hoax

The things we see, the things we feel, the thoughts we have, the time we perceive, the space we travel, the people we meet, the events that we encounter, the poetry we read, the music we listen to, the science we enjoy, the long journey of life that we experience, the books we read.. hard to believe its all one big hoax.

Its fascinating , its mind boggling, its thrilling, its exciting , its incredible and fantastic. This idea that all of our experience is a detailed fabrication appearing to be experienced and reported by our mind is beyond wildest of imaginations. The memories, the detailed recollections of early days, the joy of childhood , the vivid memories of uncles, aunts, grand fathers and grand mothers, cousins and friends, school and home and all the fun and not so fun times, are impossible to be dismissed as unreal.

The unsure beginnings, the progress, the falterings, the love, the sighs of reliefs, the angers, the shame, the embarrassments, the pride, the inquisitiveness, the pursuits, silence ... all of these are so intense and so real, they are the experiences, they are the very definition of life.. can all this be unreal?

The sequence we call life that we have lived so far, is organized, and orderly, its always the same no matter how many times we recollect. Same people, same events, so very real. So many years and so many moments, can they all be myth?

The history as we know, the birth of rational thought with Descartes, the wonderment of Kepler, the insatiable Leonardo, Newton's debacle in the stock market, the discoveries, the invention, the progression of thought, Peano's Axioms, Fermat's Last theorem..Vivaldi's Four seasons, Sankara's writings, Parmenides, Zeno, Russel, Einstein.. all unreal?

This long string of events, both personal and impersonal whole, can happen only in the passage of time. A sequence can happen only in time. One after the other, after the other, followed by another.. An investigation of time reveals, that time does not exist. The possibility of an yesterday and a tomorrow, a past and a future, even at the momentary infinitesimal level, does not exist. All that is, is a mere Now. and a mere Here. In this singularity of Now and Here, the past is one complex sequence of recollections from a non existent memory by an unreal Mind!

This revelation makes One rest in amusement at this incredibly elaborate hoax called life.

Arithmetic of the Infiinte

The pursuit of knowledge of various things, primarily beginning at the phenomenon of the perceptible world, eventually leads to the sublime. 

The observable and the measurable lead us to the theories that are perceived only through their manifestation. For instance, the Newton's First law can never be perceived as a thing, except as an idea in the mind or as a string of symbols on apiece of paper. However we can perceive its manifestation by observing real world phenomenon such as a satellite in orbit, or a near perfect snooker table. All laws of Science are of similar nature. H2O is a sequence of symbols. For someone who know the elements and the manner in which they combine to create different substances, this could imply a certain substance.But this can be perceived only by touching and feeling water. Water=H2O is a mere mental activity.

Such generalizations simplify our world and help us perceive and understand reality deeper. 

A progression of such cycles of observations,measurements ,theorizing, validations takes us into a more and more compact representation of the observable phenomena. One can embrace billions and billions of liters of water in the whole of the Universe by the simple three symbol string H2O. All the Gold in the world by 'Au'. Well that's a stretch! The point is, by studying and abstracting the observable phenomena, the mind creates a manageable and simplified repository of the Universe.

In other general pursuits of life, one encounters a variety of experiences, some seem to make you happy, such as possessions, recognition, companionship and so on. All of these have the property of 'diminishing returns'. they seem to loose the edge of making you happy as you keep enjoying them. This is true even to Knowledge. While knowledge of things, a superior abstraction and generalization, seem to boost the ego and make it feel superior and hence happy, even that looses its ability to make one happy perpetually. This is so merely because such is its property. One can verify from observation that it is true about every phenomenon we experience.

In the arithmetic of happiness, if we were to quantify the things that seem to provide us happiness, this quantification will be a number that diminishes over time, and will all individually tend to zero as time progresses.

Limit         H(t) → 0

(t → ∞)

In all these pursuits of life , there is a pursuit of the one who pursues. The investigation and ultimately understanding  who you are. Understanding the true identity of your self, and realizing its separateness from the world of phenomena has a value of ∞ . If we add this to our other possessions, then we have,

Hnew(t) = H(t) + ∞.

Limit         Hnew(t) → ∞

(t → ∞)

This modified equation clarifies the uselessness of the variation is values possible due to various functions of H individuals may have. Thus enabling one to pursue the Infinite, reach it and hence live Joyfully.