It’s all backwards by Atul Singh

 We see it all the time. It’s all backwards. More often than not, what is evident is the exact opposite of reality.

The most violent traditions ever, scream their lungs out about being the vanguards of peace. The biggest empty suit and loudest opining person at a social gathering is the one who makes the least sense. The most vigorously virtue signaling social or political entity, is often the most un-empathetic, self-serving, intolerant of divergent opinions. The most “God fearing” men often cause the harshest violence in their homes, in nature and to other beings. It is hard to miss. Pretty much anything worn on the sleeve including kindness, politeness, empathy, goodness, confidence, intelligence often turns out to be a facade. A well worn cloak to hide the the true identity, which is exact opposite of the pretend one. It is a method to drive an ulterior motive, of the religious, social, political or profiting kind.

In case of our understanding of the nature of reality, similar obervations may apply. Even the nature of time itself. What seems to be true may actually be the exact opposite of the truth. Sort of like our view of the Earth itself. Naked eye observation and basic intuition suggests a flat ongoing Earth and celestial bodies moving in the skies. But it is the exact opposite of reality, is it not? 

Time, in which our life seems to be wrapped up like a pinch of salt is, in a wrapper, seems to flow from infinite past into infinite future, piercing the present like an arrow. Indeed it is referred to as the arrow of time. Time we understand intuitively to be flowing like a river in front of us, moving .. while we on the shore watching the river flow. Aside from the changes in our bodies, we seem to be standing still on the shores and time like a river with it’s embedded views and events seems to be flowing right past and through us. Morning, day, night.. repeat… seasons, years… on and on. Sunrise, birds chirping, day and its clamor, sunset, night, sleep. Then one day suddently all the views we were supposed to have seen or been part of are exhausted and we drop dead, unable to be a participant or observer to this flow. 

Is it the correct view though? 

Is it possible that we are sitting on a raft and riding on the river of time and watching the shore instead? The view is changing because we are moving, riding time. With each passing moment, what comes into views is changing. But it existed before we got there, riding the raft on the river of time and will be there after we pass it also. Only it is gone from our view or is yet to come into our view. 

The implication of the second analogy is that whatever will ever exist(come into our view) already exists. Whatever left our view, did not cease to exist. This belies the concept that something ceased to exist. Like the view of the bird flying by, that I cannot see now due to passage of 10 seconds, now has no existence. Where did it go? Not where did the bird go, where did the view from 10 second ago go? Did it de-materialze? That, to me seems less plausible than the possibility that it exists still, somewhere, in some dimension only that we don’t have an ability to be aware of it via our senses. If we can travel back in time by 10 seconds we can still see it. That is what the scientists also believe. Time travel into the past is possible. 

Our knowledge of the Universe afterall is in direct proportion and corelation to our senses. A blind mans knows no such thing as color, a born deaf person knows no such thing as sound. If all senses are turned off one by one for a person, the Universe, and time will mish mash into a characterless blob of awareness, with everything that is or was co-existing. So it is our senses that pose the limitation of us not being able to see beyond the present moment horizon, and it is not that existence changes it’s nature beyond that horizon. This seems like is a plausible thought. 

What about the future though? Is there a Unverse of possibilities that exist already or is the future generative, i.e. we spawn it with the interaction of our thoughts, emotions and the existential matter or counciousness of the Universe? An interesting question this. 

I see a possibility that can be illustrated by the example of a fish in the Ocean. Imagine a small fish in a block of 100 square miles of Ocean. For the Fish, the Ocean is practically Infinite in all directions. Where did the fish come from? It was spawned by the Ocean itself, with whatever evolutionary process it followed. That is a fair statement. Same applies for us and the Universe perhaps. Now as the fish grows hungry and seeks food, it is not writing Daal, Chawal on the water with it’s snout. It actually has an image of what it considers food emerging in its awareness. With that in mind the fish moves about the Ocean, as if pulled by that food possibility till it finds it. So the web of conciousness ties together the fish, the Ocean and the food, drawing the fish to it’s destiny which either exists already or is getting spawned with the interaction of the Fish’s mind, a larger conciousness of which the Ocean and the fish are both a part. In either case, what came into being is not getting destroyed as discussed earlier. So time … as in the past, present and future are co-existing. There is no arrow of time. There is just is. The Ocean here like the Universe is teeming with all the possibilities possible. Of the fish getting eaten, of the fish starving, of the fish mating. What ends up happening with the fish is then a function of the picture in it’s head and some probablity game. Sort of like us and life in this Universe. 

Coming back to the simpler two dimensional view of us riding a raft on the river of time, it may be that we are moving on the raft, not just viewing the shore but also accessing the views and events we are holding in our mind, energized by our emotions. There are lanes and by lanes in that journey coming into view, as if being spawned, by the interaction of our thoughts and the all spanning cloud of Conciousness, the original cause. Also referred to as God by some. There are billions of other beings at play simultaneously as well and if we are not engaged in choosing our own reality by being emotionally tied to it, we live in the generative realities of others. Of those who understand this or are just more able to project out a world they want to experience. This may also be getting criss-crossed by incidents, accidents and random events. Nothing is out of bounds in this Universe that is generative, and being generated by our thoughts and those of others. Additionally what is, nevers ceases to be and what will be, already is and is what we will navigate to in time, like the fish did to it’s food.  We just have not gotten there yet.  

If you think this is nonsensical, try spending a day with me when I debate whether to disengage two leaves on a plant in my house, fighing for sunlinght like children or letting them be and follow the jungle law. Tough love type of shit. That debate gets weird. Worse still is a stupid poem about that!! Damn!! 

Thank you for your sympathies. 🙏