Brahma with the searching souls: -314-

Before his excursion to the Earth, Brahma had expressed a desire to host a ‘meet-the souls’ event. Rarely, he gets side tracked but the projects Yama and Chitragupta brought up intervened and resulted in a postponement. Now another hick up has risen. He had permitted Chitragupta to go incommunicado to wherever and however long, to an undisclosed location, to think about his project. Yama remained untraceable, probably lecturing the sinful souls in some secret location or must have switched-off the tracking device.

Yama and Chitragupta would have enlivened the proceedings. But he was unwilling to create a doubt in the minds of the souls that he was the one vacillating to face them alone. He decided to go ahead with a ‘come what may, let me get it over with’ mindset. Within the limited space available to them, his heads started to move left and right, indicating agreement. He acknowledged them, ‘very considerate of you, my dear heads’.

On his signal, the waiting souls silently floated in and occupied their allotted hanging space. Brahma surveyed them, looking for such bent upon souls with intent to parley with him. On their part, the souls silently willed one another, to come forward and be the ‘spokes-soul’. 

A slight smile played on Brahma's faces, as he watched them hedging. Maybe this could be to his advantage or it might turn out to be the deceptive act of the souls. Before going incommunicado, Chitragupta had studied the list of attendees and left warning notes about this deceitful behaviour. He noticed some of them getting impatient and beginning to gyrate and soon like leaves in a gentle breeze every one followed suit.  On any other occasion, Bramha would have enjoyed and appreciated this waveform dance. 

At random, he pointed out at a soul and gestured it to come forward and said, “Pose as many questions as you want to, but you have to answer every one of them”. The soul hesitated to float forward. To ease its apprehension, Brahma chose four more souls, indicating that they would be next. 

This settled the hesitant soul and posed this question: “Illusion is not reality yet reality is an illusion, why?” 

Brahma was all ears to hear this scientist’s philosophical explanation. The soul straightened a little and said," Let me tell a story. We, a group of students were listening to our teacher trying to explain the difference between illusion and reality. He used this day-to-day example. We can't see air but it exists. To make it visible, he just threw a fistful of coloured powder and declared, ‘Now, the air reveals its presence but needed a colouring material’. He ended by saying, though air was invisible, it became visible by the movement of the colouring material in it.” 

Continuing the soul said, “Before the class ended, one student asked this doubt. “Sir, you have not explained this. The air existed in reality and yet we needed the movement of the coloured particles to perceive it. In that case, is it not the projected illusion?  The colouring material created a reality and the mind confirmed it?  The student wanted to know, "why to prove an invisible reality by making it visible?  Why, we need to use two other realities namely the powder and movement of air, to prove an existing reality?" 

Brahma understood that being humble, this soul did not claim the credit for posing these questions. Besides, he had indirectly managed to position his thinking - why to prove a reality by looking at an illusion, when that illusion itself was created by using two other realities? The philosophical connotations the student had made was that one’s own perception made it temporary and relative whether it was real or an illusion. 

Immensely pleased, Brahma decided to reserve a slot to have an exhaustive one to one with this spirit, to discuss about holographic universe and maya, at the end of this session. To test the perception of this soul in depth, Brahma readied some typical questions. 

Chitragupta had marked this particular soul, second in line, as a bundle of confusion. To test the level of confusion, Brahma had arranged to have a highly polished object.  He called the second soul and asked, “What do you see?"

The soul replied, "An image of me." 

“Can you feel the image or hold it in your hands?”

“No. How can I, it is not a real?”

“If you move away, then what happens?”

“I, no longer would see the image.”

“Now, what do you think of this image - real or an illusion created by your mind?”

The soul remained silent. Brahma thought, “Probably he was not a bright student in the class. Let me try in another fashion.” 

Brahma asked. “Would you be able to picture yourself in your mind?”

“I tried to many times ,but found it impossible.”

“Which of my examples would answer your question with a better explanation - illusion is not a reality but reality could become an illusion?”

The soul fumbled for an answer and replied, "Oh, Brahma, who else would be a better teacher to clarify my doubts about illusion and reality. What would you command me to do?”

Brahma thought to himself, “He has chosen the path of surrender!

“Spend time here and find answers about your existence – a reality or an illusion?” 

With a little swagger, showing attitude, the third soul, posed these doubts.

“When assumed, it is there and if searched for, it is not there, why?”

“When something is created from nothing, then the something will create nothing, why?” 

Brahma felt another philosophical talk coming out, this time from a biologist.  

The soul continued, “Life forms encompassing botany, zoology, ecology, and genetics started this long journey, from next to nothing. Evolution proceeded by creating diversity, structure, function, growth, and interactions of one life form with another. So many things have been created, not relying on that initial nothingness anymore. This answers the first question. 

The stock of nothingness having been exhausted, no more newer things are being created. This is my explanation to the poser that if from nothing something has been created then the created something has used up everything and leaves nothing, really nothing! This is the answer for the second question.” 

Brahma had the same exact feeling he used to get, whenever Chitragupta tried to explain something but ends up really not to explain anything! He chuckled to himself, “Pitting this soul against Chitragupta would be fun to watch from the sidelines!” 

Will the fourth soul be any different? Shall I call for a break? Over ruling his own need for a break, Brahma called that spirit to come forward. 

The soul started with, “Assume it is there and search for it, it is not there!” and “why illusion and reality are being treated as separate entities”? 

Brahma wondered why this soul is repeating the question asked and explained earlier? 

Unaware of this, the soul continued. “Assumption is based on certain things learned or heard. Illusion is one such assumption. Human mind does not stop at this point. It tries to device ways to prove the existence of an illusion as real. In this condition, if an argument is made that an assumption is an illusion, then it becomes a knowledge of reality. Now, where is the illusion? How it will be accepted - as an illusion of a fertile mind that has created a reality? 

The second question is, if mind can create both the illusion and the reality, why it is trying to deal with it as separate entities? Is mind trying to seek an escape portal to the safety of illusion, from experiencing the hard realities? If there is an in between state, what it would be called and why it is not being deliberated? There are many questions but few answers for this. 

Brahma sat upright. This soul had posed one question and in answering it, it had posed many other questions begging for answers. It deserves credit for having come here to seek and find the philosophical depths. Brahma decided to take the time to fully go through the points, word by word, not to understand but to frame a response to convince the soul that spoke in questions! This soul competed with the third souls to remind him of Chitragupta and his explanations! 

The fifth and final candidate, fidgeting to spend nervous energy, came forward unbidden. It spoke, “Is there a thing called reality or illusion.? Is it not a delusional shroud, to get away from finding out what they are? 

This line of questions Piqued Brahma and he hurriedly ran a mental check for any alert Chitragupta might have left on this soul. Yes, he found the flag-almost won a Nobel Prize. It confused him a little as his protégé has not added a note about this Nobel thing. He decided to let the ‘almost won Nobel soul’ to continue. 

“Some of the interpretations of quantum mechanics, particularly the entanglement and worm holes have led to the philosophical discussions in popular media about whether "reality is an illusion" or "at least locally not real." The religion can simply allude to it as maya and leave it at that. But science cannot afford to do that, as it strives to offer an explanation or proof on empirical evidences and testable hypotheses. Currently it has come to the view that the universe is objectively real, even if our perception of it is limited or can be described by complex models at best as locally not real! 

The religion can survive without offering a proof but science cannot remain still but has to push the limits to reach a level of understanding, where it no longer under an obligation to provide proof. Religion leaves it to perception. Science tries to demystify by leveraging quantum phenomenon, super positioning and a host of novel theories and hypotheses to say “nothingness exists but inside something that has been created from it!” 

Brahma wondered whether this point on ‘nothingness exists but inside something that has been created from it’ would satisfy the third soul that raised this question or he would get another complex explanation! He also noted that the souls who spoke first, third and fifth, shared one thing in common - thinking and trying to explain what reality is and what is not. 

He broke the silence and asked, “why did you not get the Prize?” 

“I declined it. They asked me why? I asked them a question, that did sit well with them” 

“What did you ask?” 

“Why to search for answers when universe itself is the answer?”  And they queried, “Where from this question came?” 

I smugly replied, “From the universe itself!” They did not leave it there and persisted, “What about the multiverse?” 

In reply, I asked, “Hold an object in between two mirrors, how many reflected objects you would see? When the object is removed, will the mirrors have anything but themselves to reflect.?  A real object is needed to create virtual objects. First, understand the original and then try to explore the other universes. I would argue and answer that multi and parallel universes are but reflected images of an original, from different angles and perspectives. 

One more candidate getting an entry, Brahma thought he would have a busy time, with three one-to one discussions. It would be tan opportunity to find out how far the human race has advanced to understand about all the created universes under his care! While thinking like this, his heads reverberated with the doubt whether all the above-mentioned universes are really under his care or merely it is an illusion created by his multiple minds?

Before concluding the session, Brahma carefully listed some counter questions and his own explanations to convince any of the souls still hovering over doubts.

Oh! Chitragupta, where are you? We have to mount a spirited defense.