It is said that man is living in a bottle and wants to come out of it. But he has to come out of the bottle without breaking it. It’s the truth of life but very few reach out to it. Humanity thinks they are the bottle and identify with the label attached to the bottle. Identity becomes a dilemma. People are in a hopeless situation including the speaker as he doesn’t get what he hopes for. Every day one creates a new hope and runs after it to be hopeless.
That which is existence does not change and has never changed as it exists as existence. What we call existence is only a word to denote it. We can’t define existence as the opposite of non-existence but that-which-is. We have to use the meaning of the opposite to define the definition as to say, we have to use time and language can only be said in time. You are either that or this. But that-which-is is both this that and also not this that. It is a limitation of language. Existence has not changed from the day it was imagined to have come into existence. It does not begin nor end. It simply exists. Man exists like existence. Then why does he live in dilemma? What is this becoming something? What is this hopelessness?
The dilemma is of the time. Man thinks his life is changing. This change is a circle, man goes around and comes back to the point where he had begun. Change never happens in existence. If you are a student of existence, you would understand through existence change does not happen, change happens outside of it. Nothing changes. But if you are a student of time, you would understand change happens. Time is created by change. Time is changing, it changes as per mind. Mind is evolved due to comprehension of change. Time has evolved as a measurement of change. Mind is a physical entity and artificiality of mind is meant for measuring the unit of change that we have adopted as part of the artificiality of life. What we call second, minute, hour, day, and year are units of measurement of time that the mind thinks is happening as change.
In existence, we exist. Whatever happens as part of the body and environment, our mind takes note and measures it in terms of time. If you are walking, mind calculates the walk, say you walked for one hour. Mind is just to keep an account and can also tell you that you have a meeting after one hour but the mind is not being in existence. You walk and if you walk fully conscious of your existence, only the walking remains, you become the walking. That makes you meet to be one with existence consciously. At best time can be described as a tool. I could turn my being into a period of time or the distance travelled into words of knowledge to note down on my memory, it is not being in the being—it is utility. We hope to get something. Man is running after hope, his senses, and God that is also hope.
Existence is simple, straight, and gullible. The mind of the man is most critical and it fancies criticality and complexity. It is born to communicate. Communication bred competence. It has evolved complexities. The mind lives in complexities and doesn’t fancy simplicity. Thus, the mind has evolved into an ego. Ego wants to go to the moon, to Everest, to deep waters. Ego builds fancy houses to compete. Ego wants to do everything to look distinguished and to do all that, you need time. All those things happen in time. If you want to be what you are, then you can be right here and now. You want to be what you hope to be that won’t happen as you can be right now and not in future as existence exists. It doesn’t exist in hope of tomorrow to be. You don’t change a bit. What you were in childhood, you remain the same in youth and in old age but your body changes. Change is time so change passes you by. Time passes you by, you don’t pass time. Time simply pass by in the watch that tells chronological time or your mind that tells psychological time. Your mind is changing.
All religions teach goodness. Goodness becomes morality which is societal. If you are good, society will continue forever. All religions are divided between whether God is formless or distinct, whether God is of some virtues but existence is both good and bad. Religions are belligerent. Existence is the God. Existence is both birth and death, darkness and light, good and bad, formless and distinct. Such words that seem opposite are two points of the same thing. Existence is the sum total of all the opposites. Time is duality. Existence is one. God is as much in a good person as much in a bad person. Goodness is followed by badness, and vice-versa. Existence doesn’t follow morality preached by religion. Religion understands God in the limitation of language. Language is half-truth. ‘No’ can be defined as the opposite of ‘Yes’. If there was no ‘Yes’, ‘No’ would not have survived. If both are said together, they will have no meaning. Existence views them together. To say something to the existence, language is not needed. All religious scriptures are languages that man has accepted as maps to tread upon in the event of no hope. But hope is there. Thus, hopelessness disturbs him but doesn’t make him hopeless. To go out of the bottle: break the bottle or don’t. To come out of the bottle without breaking it, see the bottle from the side of existence and not by the side of the bottle. The choice is yours.
The author is a spiritual teacher.
