Are we Genuine Fakes?
Very often we behave as if, for example, we know all about wine because we have convinced ourselves that we have ‘grasped’ what wine is all about through reading about wine. We have become familiar with the concept of wine through the words used to describe wine. We therefore start posturing as if we are wine connoisseurs who know all about wine by sharing all that we have read and understood about wine. We sound genuine, but we are fake. The represented conceptual world becomes our real world.
We mistake words for experience
We communicate through the alphabet and now more and more through digits. The language used is representative of reality. For example, the word ‘tree’ symbolises a tree but is not an actual tree. Similarly, the digital world creates a virtual reality which is just a simulation of reality. And these words and virtual reality are treated as reality by us.
We mistake words for experience. We try to fit our experience into words. We realise its futility yet persist in trying to show our cleverness. Words become the enabler of expressing the entirety of life and how it should be ordered, for example, through the rule of law. And we all know that the ‘law is an ass’. Whatever we want to prove to be right or wrong can be proved by law. Words and concepts cannot capture the entirety of life. There will always be nuances and gaps. And the more a society gets governed by convention and rules, the more litigant it becomes. And to avoid too much litigation we then get ruled by dictatorship. Any which way life’s inner spirit gets quashed. We fail to recognise Beauty, Truth or Goodness. But we still believe we know it all.
We try to fit into society
We convince ourselves that the world we have created is the real world and then try to live up to its expectations. While our true selves fight to reveal themselves. But we suppress or repress the same and show the world what good people we are. Through being politically correct. Doing good out of a sense of duty. Living by the letter of the law to show how upright we are. We become robotic mannequins that appear to be real. The sad part is that we don’t realise this. We still feel we are for real. And that is why we are genuine fakes.
We choose career over calling
Education has come to cater mainly to the needs of Industry. So, domain expertise is emphasised. Education is not bothered too much about the individual discovering his/her inner spirit. Education is interested in creating a society which emphasises excellence but has no soul. One goes forth in life achieving milestones and showing the world how happy one is but deep down one grapples with emptiness. The genuine fake. We get locked into the tunnel of finding a career rather than being introduced to the inner panorama of discerning one’s calling. The fact that we are spirits in a temporal body doesn’t matter anymore. We have trashed God out of life. And created skeletons seeking jobs. And the irony is that the goods and services which are being produced by these jobs do not truly satisfy either the skeletons producing them nor the robots consuming them. And besides, they destroy the planet too. So, what on earth are we doing?
We have made God into a commodity
Communication has become a verbal disease. We talk, talk and talk. Using words, words and more words. We are not willing to sit still and listen to the sound of life. God in most religions is experienced through the chanting of sounds. It is only in this stillness will we possibly realise how fake we are and in true humility experience the silent inner voice of our God within. The probable reason why the world is in chaos today is that we have not experienced God. We are just acting out as if we have.
We use words, words and more words to describe God and our experience of Him/Her. It’s as if we make God into a commodity where we know all there is to know about Him/Her. And then we begin arguing about God based on the concepts we have of Her/Him. Not only that, we use the principles of persuasion to convince others about the existence of God. Not realising that the experience of God which is beyond language cannot be experienced through language nor be communicated by language. We talk about God but not of God.
As Lao Tsu said
“Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.”
We need to regain our spontaneity
We have mistaken words for experience. We have mistaken concepts for life. We have mistaken symbols for reality.
We have lost the natural spontaneity of life as is seen in little children. They experience life without any concepts or words or symbols or representations. They are the genuine piece.
