Multiple realities

Actually, this abstraction applies to the man-woman relationship too. The overlap is the shared areas of their lives as a couple: bed, breakfast, mortgage, kids, parents, parties, vacations and festivals. But the bits that don’t overlap are their individual lives — close friends, work, the tastes that make them two individuals on the surface, and certainly in their separate inner lives. Multiple realities, surely? Or is it one Reality that has different expressions at the same time?

Bring this deeper into our own lives. On the surface, we never cease doing, touching, tasting, yet uneasy as hell inside. Where is the Reality of the ‘Self’ promised by scriptures? One lyrical, haunting image is in the Mundaka Upanishad, which is a very important Upanishad for India because our national motto, ‘Satyameva Jayate’ is taken from one of its mantras: ‘Satyameva jayate naanrutam satyena pantha vitato devayaanah’ (MU 3:6). “Truth alone conquers, not falsehood; by Truth is laid out the path leading to the gods.”

The image that sustains the concept of multiple realities occurs in MU 3:1 — “Two birds, close companions, cling to the same tree. One eats the sweet fruit, the other looks on without eating. It is the human soul that sits eating, but unhappy; when it sees the other bird, the Lord, it realizes its own greatness and no longer feels sorrow.” The soul, of course, is the Jivatma, the bird that eats its fill of the ‘fruit’ of the tree of life but nevertheless feels sad, while the other bird that watches is God, the Paramatma. The act of recognition, when the individual soul connects with God is the beginning of happiness, say the seers. Both Hindus and Muslims define God as Truth. May Truth conquer.