ArpitGarg's Weblog

Humans have always wondered what if the reality we are living in is not real. What if it is just a façade? Movies like Matrix have taken it up in popular culture. Although I must state, living in a simulated reality was nothing but funny. But the larger question that underlies it all is the same, “Why are we here”? If you watch the movie closely, it tries to answer the same question. We are here, doing what we are doing, because machines make us do so.

In India, generations after generations of saints have done tapasya to look for the answer. Only their approach was not based on any research but inner-search. Research entails looking around the world. Knowing what others know and analyzing. Research wants us to know more than we already know. It’s flow of data from outside into our brain. Inner-search entails tapasya, believing that we already have the answers to all the questions. It’s only a matter of concentrating and delving into that part of the brain which stores these answers. Inner search does not involve flow of information into our brain; it just involves analyzing what we already know.

Both approaches have tried to find the same thing. Yet, both approaches couldn’t have been more different. One requires data, other abhors data. One requires talks and discussions, other is held in complete silence. More than the quest for answer itself, the choice of approaches has always amazed me. Not surprisingly, both approaches have yielded nothing. We are no closer to the answer than we we already were.

My view is sometimes in search for fantastic, we ignore the obvious. In a bid to find quantifiable answer to satiate our quest, we have ignored the possibility of chaos. What if there is no answer at all. What if all is by chance? How many centuries have we wasted then? Or consider the cyclical loop, “What if we are here to find the answer of why we are here”. Mind bender right?

Similar is the life that we lead. We look for breakthroughs, defining moments and we waste a lot of time doing that. Any moment that you can make worthwhile, becomes a defining moment. Our success is made up of small efforts, which in cumulation becomes huge.

I suggest, instead of searching for an answer worth our time, we should answer, how much time it is worth?