Human Predicament
by
Chandra Shekhar Dubey
In the Mahabharta Yaksha asked Arjuna , “what is the most surprising thing in this world? ”Arjuna replied “People see deaths around them every day , yet he has the strongest desire to live”. True, the wish to live on is the strongest impulse in man. In a funeral or cremation ground ,one is filled with remorse and detachment to life but as soon as he returns to daily chores of life ,he forgets everything and indulges in all sorts of
unethical practices. This paradox is a riddle that has confronted the human beings from the time immemorial. Metaphysics explains it in terms of tangible consciousness determined by materialistic desires. Philosophically it could be seen as unsublimated and uncontrollable carnal desires for gratification of senses. In Shankara’s Advaitvad, it is maya (illusion) which blinds a man to inner reality, so that he could only see the outer realities webbed in the filaments of illusion. Such perception is deceptive. A man has illusion of perceiving a rope as a snake , the perception of rope as a snake is reality
to him , so long as the veil of illusion is not lifted and the real knowledge dawns on him that rope is not a snake .For the period ,he is under the spell of illusion ,his consciousness
is determined by this reality which is not reality in true sense of term. Psychology explains this phenomenon as hallucinatory .It also explains the other forms of this illusion. A man gropes into the wilderness ignorant of the latent reality. His state of mind is that of a lost man chasing a mirage in the lonely desert. The temptations and lures of life are such traps. It is this false consciousness which blinds him to morality, ethics and sublimity. It is this consciousness which makes him to defy God, commit blasphemy, adultery and practice covetousness. Arjuna’s answer enshrined metaphysical doubts which could be addressed in the above paradigms .An answer which demands further questions and analysis. It obliterates the boundaries of heaven and hell and negates the
existence of God, passing in the difficult terrains of metaphysics and philosophy. I have
realized it empirically too, but that could be a different area of musings altogether.
