Creating An Alternative Reality For Yourself
Sudhamahi Regunathan
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As children, when we asked questions about some customs followed at home, not all of them were entertained. Grandmother had a way of saying, “That is how it is. And that is what you have to follow.“ If grandfather tried to make me understand, what he said was, “These are traditions that our elders have followed and so we too should do the same. Ours is not to ask why.“The mystery made us feel that it was all so esoteric and it could not be shared with children. For that reason alone, even inane acts like not crossing over a sleeping person, or not walking under a ladder or not touching what was `pure' or `cleansed' clothes, or wearing a bindi, were followed, albeit reluctantly .
Growing up, one realised there was nothing esoteric about these beliefs; they were dismissed as superstitions by most. To me, they and many other acts of ours on which we base our daily lives, form an integral part of who we are. They build our belief system.I also realised many reasons that were given to me by my grandparents probably did not have a logical basis.
We created myths, told stories and thereby developed an alternative reality . In order to find explanations to our lives, so impermanent, so full of surprises, we developed ideas that explain them. The ideas developed in relation to the milieu within which we grew; others became pan-world.Like the idea of love. Mythology talks of infatuations and lust but does not dwell at length on “relationships“ and what we understand today as love. But we have built a bubble and fed it with romantic songs and created a comfort zone in which we would like to live. If that does not happen, we get depressed, unhappy .This is just an example. Yuval Harari, an Israeli historian and author of the book, `Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind', says that our imagination and our capacity to tell stories combined with our ability to work together, co-operate on any single theme, is the short of our long story of evolution. For instance, if you visit any ashram today, the followers form a cohesive and even loving group. They all believe in their Guru. So they can all come together.
This is also called alternative reality.The alternative reality could come from any philosophy... atheistic or theistic.Literary or sportive. Any activity where you are with yourself, pursuing a goal that you think is very engaging and you lose yourself, is an alternative reality that you are creating for yourself.
What then is real? Difficult to articulate, reality gives us a glimpse with the idea that Yama or Death finds no point of time inaccessible; that we do not know what lies ahead of this life or what lay before. Reality asks us why we are here in this world and laughs when you say you love a person more than life.
Reality is. That is all seekers like us can say about it. One can also however say it is the alternative reality within which we live that Shankara called `maya'. He did not say this world is a lie.He said the world we have created with our minds and intellect not necessarily in our lifetime but over our evolution is maya.
Growing up, one realised there was nothing esoteric about these beliefs; they were dismissed as superstitions by most. To me, they and many other acts of ours on which we base our daily lives, form an integral part of who we are. They build our belief system.I also realised many reasons that were given to me by my grandparents probably did not have a logical basis.
We created myths, told stories and thereby developed an alternative reality . In order to find explanations to our lives, so impermanent, so full of surprises, we developed ideas that explain them. The ideas developed in relation to the milieu within which we grew; others became pan-world.Like the idea of love. Mythology talks of infatuations and lust but does not dwell at length on “relationships“ and what we understand today as love. But we have built a bubble and fed it with romantic songs and created a comfort zone in which we would like to live. If that does not happen, we get depressed, unhappy .This is just an example. Yuval Harari, an Israeli historian and author of the book, `Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind', says that our imagination and our capacity to tell stories combined with our ability to work together, co-operate on any single theme, is the short of our long story of evolution. For instance, if you visit any ashram today, the followers form a cohesive and even loving group. They all believe in their Guru. So they can all come together.
This is also called alternative reality.The alternative reality could come from any philosophy... atheistic or theistic.Literary or sportive. Any activity where you are with yourself, pursuing a goal that you think is very engaging and you lose yourself, is an alternative reality that you are creating for yourself.
What then is real? Difficult to articulate, reality gives us a glimpse with the idea that Yama or Death finds no point of time inaccessible; that we do not know what lies ahead of this life or what lay before. Reality asks us why we are here in this world and laughs when you say you love a person more than life.
Reality is. That is all seekers like us can say about it. One can also however say it is the alternative reality within which we live that Shankara called `maya'. He did not say this world is a lie.He said the world we have created with our minds and intellect not necessarily in our lifetime but over our evolution is maya.
