The Mask

There was a joke.
It seems once, a zookeeper found one of the animals ‘missing’ from its cage. It was a Bear. The cage was at a prominent place in that zoo, and the supervisor would notice it too soon! To avoid any problem till the bear could be located, the zookeeper found a well-built volunteer, offered him a sizeable sum of money, gave him a bear-skin mask, and told him what to do inside the cage. Our ‘dummy’ did a wonderful job, and visitors to the zoo did not notice anything amiss.
Towards night, our dummy felt the need to relieve himself very urgently, and since it was dark, decided no harm in letting himself out of the cage for a while. But while returning, he happened to choose the wrong cage! He did not realize his mistake for a while. It was when he decided to find a cozy corner to sleep, that he looked around, to only find another huge creature sharing his cage! He could make out that it did look like that Lion! The bear skin could not hold the sweat that he started to profusely emit! He was also shivering due to fear! He managed to hold himself still, waiting for day break! Any slight movement might provoke that massive creature waiting so close!
When day light came, he found to his shocking surprise that the “Lion” was also in a similar grip of fear, sweat and shiver! He was also a ‘dummy’ !

When we wear similar masks, trying to be something when we are not really capable of being one, the problem is further complicated! The deep fear, clothed with an ego problem, manifests in the form of even ‘superiority complex’, undue harassment upon others, extra control on others, needless suspicion on juniors, superiors etc and what not!

Those of us who can draw comfort from reconciling to one type of acceptance that we are prepared to take things as it comes, without worrying too much about ‘what four people will think’ also are vulnerable in yet another arena! The vulnerability is not from outside! It is from within, our own selves! A well educated, evolved daughter poured out this ‘helplessness’ in a very magnificent manner, enough to occupy a significant mention in the prominent week end edition of a widely circulated national newspaper! This lady could not forgive herself for having failed to notice the earliest symptoms of a dreaded ailment that had crept into her dearest Mom!
This time, the ‘mask’ is right on her very own eyes! By a different name ‘pre-conditioned’ eyes!

Evaluation is too strong a word. Awareness, in its deeper sense would take care of this. Human being undergoes the consequences of lack of this, to the proportional extent. Awareness would help deepening the perception.

When present day youngsters tend to look down upon the simple lifestyles of our ancient people, they fail to take notice of their perceptional capabilities! A recent Giant, one of the Shankaracharyas, when he was yet to become one, demonstrated this capability right within himself, having observed it through his inner eyes, from ancient Masters. The brief preface about the author in the book ‘Vedic Mathematics’ would give details of ‘how’ and ‘what’ he did.
The sutras that he narrated in the book are too brief, terse, and have the potential to be infallibly interpreted so as to accommodate many of the concepts of our modern mathematics, in a ‘micro-chip’ fashion! Just 16 miniature ‘surtas’ like “Ekadhikena poorvena”(Sanskrit for ‘one more than the previous) etc! (‘Sutra’ literally means a thread, and whatever flower we use to weave, the thread holds the garland well!). Please try to visualize, if these brief 16 formulas are enough to solve almost all mathematical problems under the sun, then are they not giving us sufficient competition to try for a better ‘pen-drive’/lap-top/calculator etc?

Armed with such deep vision, to just look and grasp things around, and then to infallibly ‘apply’ the right formula in its right mixture of derived complexities, are they going to miss anything worth noticing around them! This perception is what I had in mind, when I wrote a fictional post on the blog, using that simple looking equation, 4 x 4 = 16.

The next level of the mask is on our mind itself! A preconditioned mind! The causes are multiple, since the inputs are incessant, and the processor too is racing all the time, unmindful of that pure awareness being deprived of its ‘due’ share of prominence! Most of my blog-post hover around this aspect one way or other, so it is redundant to stretch any further.

Regards,Psn(26th Sept, 2009)