Shadows cannot ‘create’, they only humbug

Living in sync with higher powers alone keeps us fit and kicking. That also gives meaning to life.

During around 6,57,000 hours of our sojourn on earth (presuming an average life span of 70 years), man harbours a myriad ambitions, weaving a thousand dreams. But he fails to understand that he is but a miniscule, ephemeral entity in the scheme of cosmos. Just a droplet of water, he believes himself to be no less than a vast ocean pregnant with numerous ‘original’ ideas. That sets varied distortions, perversions, and sicknesses in our life.

Human life has often been compared with a shadow. Says a popular lyric of Sahir Ludhianvi: “Sansar ki har shay ka, itna hi fasana hai; ik dhundh se ana hai, ik dhundh mein jaana hai” (संसार की हर शय का इतना ही फ़साना है / इक धुंध से आना है इक धुंध में जाना है). [Meaning: everything, each life in the sublunary world has same story; it appears from some weird mist, and finally proceeds towards another].

Ego, which restricts real growth, tends to feed megalomania. Referring to the consequence of this base instinct, the bard said, “By this fell the angels, how can then man, the image of his Maker (the Almighty) hopes to win by it”. Folklores, scriptures, and literature, both contemporary and ancient, show how ego replaces good sense leading to individual’s downfall. In contrast, alignment with higher powers alone can rescue him from the muck.

Obsession with the original: Repeated attempts to create something new can be frustrating to the author or artist because each time one discovers that same stuff has been already covered elsewhere. Yet when you eventually bank upon one, it may eventually emerge as a masterpiece of sorts.

Since originality is a myth, one has to do with whatever is available. ‘Thought’ has no copyright either. One is free to mix, remix, and improve. Mankind ever looks forward to a constructive, fresh presentation or interpretation, shaped by individual perceptions and expressed conscionably. All concepts, theories, and thoughts we claim and dub as original have their prototypes in space, says Napoleon Hill in ‘The Law of Success.’ It is as if in a hard drive with inputs by legendary masters in diverse specialities of knowledge and know-how. Behind this premise is the divine connection of thought of any description. Only supreme consciousness is the truth, all else an illusion or sham (Brahma Satyam, Jagat Mithya – Adi Shankaracharya). So, ‘Thought’ is an extra mundane entity.

At death when the soul departs, one is referred just as ‘body’ irrespective of the grandeur and the paraphernalia once associated with the deceased. The good thing is, the creative folks with vision and perseverance can draw from the repository in place. Kahlil Gibran’s proclamation, “… thought is a bird of space that in a cage of words, which may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly” is in sync with the Indic belief that our true self is soul, and not the assemblage of flesh, blood, and bone. The issues of thoughts and emotions lie beyond human jurisdiction, and science cannot explain it. A section of neuroscientists now acknowledge that thoughts of all descriptions already exist though they remain clueless about the source of thoughts. Lack of evidence and a cavalier stance towards divine powers inhibit their better understanding of the nature of thoughts.

However, belief that each entity, whether living or not, is but integral part of supreme consciousness, can help keep us shed unwarranted ego, and stay in peace and harmony. The message is, one needs to keep in alignment with the higher powers to live a life worth living.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The shorter version of this article was published in The Economic Times (edit page, Speaking Tree column) on 26 December 2025, the Friday with the title, ‘Claims of Originality’. Link of the online edition of paper: https://m.economictimes.com/opinion/speaking-tree/claims-of-originality/amp_articleshow/126176804.cms

**************************************************************