Digital Duality

"You are either with us or with them", thunders a president.
"Non believers shall die" says a fanatic.
"God is supposed to do good, how can you justify existence of god when there is so much evil?" asks another agnostic friend.
The problem as anyone can recognize with little thought is not as much in not being able to finding answers to these questions. It actually lies in the way the questions themselves are posed. Everything when seen in terms of a digital reality..a hard Yes or No, good vs evil, believer vs non believer hides the kaleidoscope of colors that creation is. It fails to distinguish the subtle shades of dawn from the night that it follows and the day it precedes. As I read somewhere, light and darkness are not two opposite concepts. Darkness is not an independent entity. It is just the absence of light. Just as silence an absence of sound. Cold an absence of heat.
Perhaps this was the reason why the sages of yesteryears compared knowledge to light. Ignorance just as darkness is absence of knowledge. And curiously enough, light, heat and sound are all various forms of energy. And knowledge is power.
Then why do we all see this duality? Why can't our knowledge of these concepts give us the supreme bliss of nonduality?
Engineer in me points that man is critically dependent on senses to perceive the world. His very existence is defined by the senses that create the perception of the world around him. But then the senses are just like any other sensors we build. Every sensor has a limit of detection. Below or above that threshold it cannot detect any change. Therefore, even thought we live in a continuum we perceive things in a dualistic way after a point. We see things as light and dark, sounds and silence, right or wrong whereas in reality none of these differences exist on any scale.
Perhaps this is what is meant by the vedantic tradition that insists that the existence of man is dependent on his perception of dualism. The moment it ceases, he ceases to exist. Perhaps the quest is to go to the find the horizon where the dualism meets the non dualistic ocean of bliss.
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Where am I going?

As I drive on the flatlands of Midwest at night, and listen to a song about travel I am carried away.
The song talks of a traveler lost on a long journey. It talks of the futility of running away from ones own fears, searching in temples for peace while all that could be found there is just a mirage. The oasis of peace is in the mind it says.
I agree..
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Birthday

The hotel lobby was almost empty . It would have been a surprise if it was otherwise. Being in a small town of few hundred people, the hotel mostly saw travelers staying for the night. Despite the chill outside, there was a freshness that the early morning snow brought to the cold air. As I walked in to have a cup of coffee, the only people there were the woman and the child in the children's chair. I poured some coffee (despite everything, coffee has caffeine in it , one of essential nutrients for any academic..so I needed my daily dose in the absence of my tea) , put bread in the toaster and as I waited I couldn't help from overhearing the woman talking to her baby.
Happy birthday girl, happy birthday...she was trying to sing to her. The child clapped her hands and thumped the table. The woman was speaking to her about not being able to have a party because of the long drive they had to take. She was promising the child that they would have a nice dinner that evening. The child too young to understand words, perhaps understood the love in her mother's voice. She was smiling broadly, as I looked towards them.
Despite the concern of being looked at as being impolite for overhearing hearing their words, I turned and asked about her child's age. She told me it was the first birthday of her daughter. I bent down, wished the little girl. She looked at me through her beautiful blue glassy eyes and smiled as I blew air on her face. I held out my hand and grasped it with her little fingers. I spent a few minutes with the baby making some faces much to the amusement of the baby. Then went back to put another bread in toaster ass the previous one had charred.
On the way back to my room, the mother was at the other end of the corridor and the baby was crawling towards her. As I stopped, the baby looked at me and smiled, before crawling back to her mother.
That made my day
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Perspectives in journey

"You really don't understand my point.Do you?", asked a frustrated Jignasu. Jnani replied with a twinkle in his eyes and a smile,"Yes I do". That made Jignasu even more uncomfortable and he started another attempt to explain, fully knowing well that Jnani puts considerable thought before forming an opinion and wouldn't budge so easily.
"I have read these scriptures hundreds of times. You still ask me to read all of them once again? I am not like one of the many people who memorize scriptures without knowing their meaning. I put in years of effort so that I could learn both meaning as well as the verses. Then why do you still ask me to read them again? and that too starting with the basic texts that the first year students learn!"
Jignasu went on for another hour trying to demonstrate his command over the scriptures that contained the wisdom of many great men. In the end, Jnani looked with compassion and said," Come lets get some water from the river".
On the banks of river, they filled their vessels and headed back to their hut. On the way to the hut, Jnani stopped. He stood there in a meditative pose lost in himself and the surroundings. Jignasu was growing restless after a few minutes and finally said, "Can we go back now?".
Jnani replied,"Don't always be eager to do something, stand here for some time"
Slowly minutes melted into hours and Jignasu began to realize the beauty of the surroundings. The chirping birds, the rustling of the leaves in the cool breeze, distant sounds of flowing river, occasional fluttering of birds, noise of unknown insects and even the ants carrying their food to their nest. He felt happy, just a pure joy that did not demand a reason to show itself.

Jnani said later that evening,"You have been going on the same path to river for so many years, getting water everyday. So eager were you to finish the task at the hand that you forgot the beauty of the path itself. The true journey of discovery consists not in seeking new landscape but in having fresh eyes(--Mascal Proust, French Novelist). Just like that you needed fresh eyes to look at the same scriptures. No doubt, you have learnt words and meanings. Now seek their wisdom. The path may seem to be same, but recognize that the perspective is different. That was the reason why you were asked to study again."
Jignasu nodded and looked at Jnani with tear filled eyes.
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PS: Its funny how inspiration can come from surprising places. I read the quote in a flight magazine while enjoying a beautiful view of the snow covered rocky mountains below.