ESSAY: MEANING OF LIFE PART 2 author: Prakash Thapa

 ESSAY: MEANING OF LIFE part 2  

From Imaginations and Other Essays by Prakash Thapa

However we live in society, go to work, talk to each other and share experiences through words and they are important for such communication however truth cannot be confined by the limitations of words so it seems that truth can exist by itself yet we try to interpret it, discuss it in the verbal level so that we can communicate truth to each other but truth is not the mere word because it is there even if there are no words, no interpretations and so on.

So truth which we understand through words are not total, it cannot represent the wholeness of realities, cannot reflect the totality of beings in particular so that truth is self-sufficient, it is complete in itself, it cannot be divided into fragments because even if we divide, it is total in itself.

We are therefore living in illusion because everyone defines the world according to his own choices, according to his own words, ideas, experiences, memories and concepts which in fact cannot give the true picture of the world.

So aren't we living in false impressions, aren't we living in artificial realities, aren't we creating false images, aren't we creating false beliefs? For we understand truth to certain extent and define it through words: we limit it to narrow confinements, distort realities to something else creating false images of life. 

For instance we define river through the word river but the word river can no longer represent the real river of water, the movement of water so that the words always give us the false impression of realities and we go on creating such false beliefs bringing more miseries in life instead of contentment.

So our life is full of falsities, full of lies, full of illusions because we believe in words and their impressions and how can we understand the nature of truth in particular, how can we get rid of such false entities?

Have we ever observed the silence of nature, the movement of cool breeze blowing in the surroundings, the silence of the sky and the night attentively? Aren't they beautiful, aren't they silent, and aren't they truth in themselves? Do we need words to understand the very silence?

So it seems that we have been slaves of words for we live by words, interpret the world through narrow vision of the words and feel the false pride in what we are doing and isn't it the result of narrow thinking?