Everything we see, hear, feel, perceive is an illusion, when I said these words aloud to myself I realized that this is not an original idea but in fact even when translated into other languages one sees this philosophy floating around. Which means that the idea is at least thought worthy. This illusion is interpreted and defined and having thus gone through this process becomes a reality-but it is a limited reality. When we come into the world and in our encounter with everything in the world there is nothing that came with a label e.g. when the first man came on Earth he did not find sticky notes on 'sun', 'water', 'soil', 'God', 'fire', 'cold', 'hot' etc. The story of illusions becoming realities is the story of development of language. Our journey through life is but a journey of naming what we perceive exists in this world and learning their labels. So an illusion becomes a reality, whether it is God or a grain of sand or a drop of water. These are not necessarily realities in themselves but our definitions-some handed down to us- have made them realities.
When I look at myself and see myself looking at the world- my perception of the world and my encounters, everything is built on how the world has been defined for me so far. Each new experience has a link to the past experience, every choice I make is dependent upon my past choices, my judgments, my thoughts, my actions all of them are linked to my past and how things have built on each other to create a framework of my thoughts. Many people - my family, friends, teachers, media, my whole environment has shaped what I am today....or so I think.
Now if we were to look at someone who has committed a heinous crime and were to judge the person, would that be fair? But how can we locate and incriminate every encounter that the criminal had to this point? One can possibly locate encounters with people but what about ideas, places, impressions, how does one even begin to account for these? And if one does not, how can justice ever be complete? By subjecting someone to a punishment for a crime limited in time and space are we not only accounting for that briefest of moment when the crime manifested itself but are disregarding many other moments when the criminal of 'that' moment was a victim? Who would account for all of those moments?
When I look at myself and see myself looking at the world- my perception of the world and my encounters, everything is built on how the world has been defined for me so far. Each new experience has a link to the past experience, every choice I make is dependent upon my past choices, my judgments, my thoughts, my actions all of them are linked to my past and how things have built on each other to create a framework of my thoughts. Many people - my family, friends, teachers, media, my whole environment has shaped what I am today....or so I think.
Now if we were to look at someone who has committed a heinous crime and were to judge the person, would that be fair? But how can we locate and incriminate every encounter that the criminal had to this point? One can possibly locate encounters with people but what about ideas, places, impressions, how does one even begin to account for these? And if one does not, how can justice ever be complete? By subjecting someone to a punishment for a crime limited in time and space are we not only accounting for that briefest of moment when the crime manifested itself but are disregarding many other moments when the criminal of 'that' moment was a victim? Who would account for all of those moments?
Comments