“Where are you going’ asked the boy
“I’m going into the darkness”
“But why are you going into the darkness” asked the boy his
curiosity aroused
“To search for the truth”
“But how can you search for anything in the darkness”
“Darkness is the truth. It was there before nothing was
illuminated by light and it will be there till the end of time. You cannot
fight darkness because it is just not there. And yet it is everywhere. The
whole universe is darkness. Everything that is born, everything that has a genesis
eventually dies out but darkness was neither born nor sustained nor will ever
die. It will remain forever. Isn’t this a magical quality of darkness?”
“You are not making any sense. You were saying something
about truth and now you’re blabbering about” The boy was beginning to get
irritated
“Is it not quite obvious? Realize that the darkness is the
same as truth. It can be hidden temporarily, you might be made to believe that
it has gone away because of the bright flash of the material world but it is
just there, waiting to come out as soon as the light goes away, as soon as you
close your eyes. It is just all around us but we refuse to see it and when we
do see it we are sleeping.
The pain, the sorrow, the suffering, the anger, the jealousy
are all things that you feel. No body else does it to you, you do it to
yourself. However our mind is so programmed that it mistakes all of these as
the truth. However the truth is something you cannot see, cannot hear, cannot
feel. It is hidden inside you and what is inside you is completely dark for
you. When you meditate , when you sleep and when you die are the times when you
are the closest to the truth. These are the times when you are closest to
enlightenment, closest to the light which is actually darkness
Darkness like truth does not have any shades. Either it is
dark or there is some light. When there is minimal light you call it dim.
Similarly the truth can be corrupted by few falsehoods, more falsehoods, a lot
of falsehoods. Falsehood can never have a single shade, it is either dim,
bright or blinding. The truth is always a single shade. Black.
Paradoxically we always relate the truth to light and
enlightenment. Bible proclaims ‘let there be light’ and there was creation,
that was the genesis. But what before that.
There was nothing, but there was darkness”
“So what is the truth”
“Alas my son, I wish I could tell you that. I’m still
searching and am in the dark. But I am convinced that the place to search for
the truth is darkness not light”
“It again does not make any sense. So darkness is nothing,
but truth is something. How can there be something in nothing” The boy said
“Something and nothing are the ultimate versions of the
duality of nature. The whole world is made of something and nothing, of matter
and anti matter, of particles and waves, of ones and zeros, of love and hate,
of creation and destruction. Something
always springs out of nothing. You would have learnt of the big bang. What
before that. It came out of nothing. The lord said ‘Let there be light’. What
before that. The light came out of darkness.
Do you know what is the shiv linga that you pour milk on once
a year. It is an ellipsoid. Whenever something springs out of nothing, it takes
the shape of ellipsoid. It is the first shape for any object of creation
however large or minute. The whole universe was an ellipsoid once. All the time
new universes are being created, universes within universes, all are
ellipsoids. The ellipsoid is the only shape which can hold energy for eternity.
That is why we have the twelve Jyotirlingas which are still preserved in the
country. They hold the divine energy of Shiva and the one in Benaras he had
consecrated himself. These lingas are living proof of the fact that something
comes out of nothing”
“Oh is it. And I thought Shiva linga was the male body
part…” The boy’s voice trailed off
“You are right. It is mostly considered that as when the
European conquerors came, they considered us pagans and heathens and likened
our forms and idols to the ones they had seen back home. However understand
what Shiva means. It means ‘that which is not’ or nothing. Shiva is the
ultimate embodiment of truth. For millenniums people have followed the
teachings of Shiva or the Adiyogi to attain the ultimate truth. However he gave
a very beautiful hint in his name itself. To search for the truth is to search
for Shiva is to search for nothing. Nothing signifies nothing more than
darkness. And nothing is more dark for you than your inner self. It is
absolutely pitch dark and no one can throw a light there .It is in the
innermost recesses of the darkness within himself that a man paradoxically
finds the greatest light and attains enlightenment.
Hence enlightenment means finding the source of the
darkness. The source of the darkness is the divine creator himself sitting
inside all of us. To find the truth, the holy grail or the amrit it all means
just find the source of the darkness within you.
