AS IF SEEING THE WORLD FOR THE FIRST TIME!

How do you see the world, has been the central question of Adhyatman. Not only does it ask the question, rather it also provides an alternative vision to look at the world. The terms used in these contexts, "Dhrsta" and "Sakshi-Bhaav", seem very cryptic in this regard. I have seen many people say this. But, I do not think they know the meaning of what they are saying or otherwise, why would they keep living the life that they are living. So, let us delve in this. 

I think, Sakshi-Bhaav is the feeling of seeing the world as it is. It is such a bizarre usage of words. As it is. As if the other people see it not as it is, or as it is not. What is there which you see, and they cannot see. Here, we can start deconstructing. What do we mean by, first of all, "The world" and the other, "Seeing". 

First of all, the ontological category, "The world". By the world, of course, it is not just the physical entities placed at places. First of all, we need to reject the obvious perception. We are not talking about seeing the world like we look at something. The world is not made up of things. How reductive it is about the world that we reduce it to a mere collection of objects and subjects. 

The world is not made up of objects. It is such a 2D version of the world. Rather, It is a collection of events. The world is not, rather it is "being". So, to talk about the world is to talk about existence as a whole. When you see, whatever that means, you see a whole bunch of existence unfolding in front of you. 

But this might be obvious. But the question is "Why do this obvious fact hides behind this false perception of world as things?" 

The Answer might be in Zizekian Ontology of "Parallax view". 

Let me explain that with a joke. A wife was cheating on her husband with another guy. The husband came back home only to find that there are 3 pair of legs appearing outside the blanket. He asks his wife, "Why are there 3 pairs of legs?" The wife replies, "You might be drunk, go out of the blanket to get a fresh look." 

Husband reaches the door and turns back only to find out that there are 2 pair of legs now. Now he is satisfied, he says, "yes dear, I was mistaken, they are only 2 pairs of them. I saw them wrong for the first time!" 

This is the problem with our false perception. Neither was our perception wrong in either of the times, rather the interpretation led us astray. 

When we look at the world with us in it, it seems to us like a subjective mess. People, who identify with themselves and objects that although lack self-identification, are identified by you as such, and you identify with yourself, and hence the world functions as a big register of attendance. 

When we look at the world with not us in it, it seems like a barren piece of land with some objects lying on it. 

In both the cases, there is a parallax happening, sometimes, we overestimate, sometimes we underestimate. 

To see the world, is to see a set of events unfolding in front of your eyes. It is so fast and yet so invisible. To see, is to also partially reason the changes occurring not only in the world as events, but also the seer as an event in itself. To see is to see also, through reason that you are not the same seer a second ago, and the world is not seen the same a second ago. In this vast and fast changing scenario, What could any fixed perception of the world be, but a blurred photograph clicked by a mobile phone due to the fast pace of the object it wanted to click. This haziness of world perception also brings with us the sense of incomprehensibility so immense that at points, the picture seems disjoint, non-congruent, and even broken. 

The Dhrsta is one who is able to see this discontinuity. This is so overwhelming to see, that you elate with both joy and fear. You fear the world. You fear what an immense sight. And then transformation of perception happens. You can no longer live in the same world you used to live. You do not live no longer in a boring world of objects. You live on a railway platform, where people randomly are moving very fast that barely any event notices you, and in turn, you are a process that nobody barely notice. You are an event, a happening, one day, your happening will end, and you will die. Something Organic will turn inorganic. 

This feeling of overwhelm is described by Sartre in his seminal work, "Nausea". The Dhrsta feels Nausea all the time. The constructs not only make sense, but they are also horrible at times. The simple act of riding a bicycle and going to gym seems like a weird activity. Let me explain through an example. You are riding a bicycle, a metal rod, extracted from a place of metals in mines, on which there is a leather cover, leather made by killing some animals and taking its skin. Then you ride that flesh, to reach to a place made of bricks, bricks are mud which are heated in a furnace, which in itself, is a burning place like hell. Then, You reach the gym and lift iron and different metals, so that you can progressively tear your muscles and increase your immunity and stamina so that you feel good about yourself and you sleep good and your body releases endorphins that are in themselves some signals, electrical shocks kind of, which instruct you to be relaxed and happy. 

This feeling that you get, when you deconstruct the set of events to the minutest level possible where no added concepts are used. This is not merely seeing but also, partially reasoning. You could only see an animal skin in the leather when you know it and reason it as such. Otherwise, you become oblivious that just for your usage of a bicycle, some animal must have died. "Common sense" is banned from this analysis. Otherwise, nobody will deconstruct what a gym actually is. 

So, Seeing the world as it is, is a philosophical task of reason. Deconstructing it like a deductive argument. And then you add traditional religion in the mix, the strive for a job in the mix, things become so nauseated that you might even puke. 

Religion gives us vomiting. But only the person who sees it like a Dhrsta. To be Sakshi, or attendee of this can be massive. To be able to look at things as they are, without adding additional concepts like, "Self", "Me" etc. This definitely put us in a fix but then releases us from all our obligations. 

You might be a bad son, but who is a son if everything organic and lively this second can turn into a rock the next moment. When your father dies, he becomes a rock. He becomes dust. So you are a bad son of soil? You can a bad son of a pile of dust. That does not seem bothering, does it? 

But, the problem is, this deconstructive view of the world is not useful to the man working in the world. It is not at all useful, rather it is detrimental in his attempts to make a life in this world. To be able to make a life in this world, to earn, to be good sons and daughters and lovers and husbands and wives and fathers etc. is a task which involves a mute acceptation of all the defined concepts of language without questioning. 

The scope of dogma fed to this life is immense. The dogma fills insecurity. The dogma fills the man with shock perpetually. Today he is sad that he could not find a good job. Tomorrow he will be unhappy because he could not help his father make a home. The dogma here remains, you consider a pile of dust, today alive, as your father, and you want to join together burnt bricks and put cement and want to stay inside it since you, as a pile of dust, have come out of your father in a form of a liquid, called semen. 

This makes it horrible, doesn't it? It takes away all the good feelings and dopamine, that you used to get due to acceptance of these false concepts of being a son, being a working person, and leaves us astray in desert of existence with everywhere dust and sand becoming something and then demolishing itself. 

Seeing the world like this, every time like the first time, in our childhood, but this time, knowing what you are seeing, will be also a fascinating experience. The seer, thus, fears nothing, craves nothing, and hence is not insecure like a normal man. He is in a state of perpetual wonder that how all of this came about. 

The world still wishes to grab him in his claws of self-made concepts. But he is free. He always has been. He just sees it now. He is not sad. He is not happy. He is just excited. Excited what the world has to offer. Alas, most people cannot see it and most problematic, those who see, instantly switch off these lights of reason to unsee it, otherwise how will they experience the pleasures that false perception brings. How will you enjoy sex, if you understood that you are squishing with your hands a blob of flesh, made up of cellulose and starch, sometimes fat which are made of chemical bonds, and the buttocks you like to view, are actually, from where the woman excretes the food she eats, and inside of the beautiful face that you write songs on and elate, is a skull, as horrible as a ghost. The dust that she is made of, will one day find its way. The skin, the whiteness of which blinds you, one day will melt in the soil or in fire, and the bones will be dust. 

Instantly a turn off right? you will say, these things we know, but the real fact remains that currently she is beautiful. No, you don't know. You talk about currently like it's forever. That is your problem. Currently is in fact closer to "never" than it is to "forever". Your perception of present is so small a time, that in that, her skin got hundreds of changes. 

This is the world you live in. Still if someone is pre-consumed by the ideas of me, my father, my fiancé, my job. How strange? To see the world as it is, is not strange, to see the world as a prejudiced set of concepts, that is weird. 

Prejudice is not in seeing dust as dust. But dust as a family, dust as a friend circle, dust as a girl you like. These are all sand-castles one day doomed to destroy.