What you see is what you believe. But unfortunately what you see is not a complete picture of what actually is. Or for that matter, what you hear, what you smell, what you feel with your skin or what you taste with your tongue is not a complete representation of what actually is. The reason being, your five senses operate within the boundaries of their own limitations. You can detect acoustic disturbances or sounds as long as the frequencies lie within the range of 20Hz to 22KHz. But that does not mean that there are no other frequencies floating around. Similarly, the human eye can detect electromagnetic radiations (visible light) as long as the wavelengths of these fall within the range of 380nm (violet) to 750nm (red) - the optical spectrum. But that does not mean there are no other wavelengths floating around. This logic applies also to the other three sensory capabilities namely taste, smell & touch. The way we humans smell, taste or touch is not all about what exists; because we can smell, taste or touch only the way our human anatomy allows us to.
Just as we humans perceive the universe through our senses, in the animal kingdom, other creatures like birds, reptiles and other mammals are also endowed with sensory capabilities which help them in sensing the universe around them. However the boundaries of these senses vary from animal to animal. Some animals can detect or for that matter survive upon ultraviolet & ultrasound frequencies which humans cannot sense. Therefore, the bats sense things that we cannot sense, the elephants can sense signals that we humans cannot detect. The world would appear different when seen through the eyes of a cow as compared to the eyes of a tiger or a human. Similarly, the a chili would be tasted differently by a parrot as compared to a human. Your image in the eyes of your family would be different from your image in the eyes of your pet dogs. All creatures including humans coexist in the same universe. But the perception of the universe is different for different creatures. While we as humans can perceive certain aspects of the universe that other creatures may not be able to perceive; and vice-versa.
So is there an absolute truth? Or is truth relative? What is silence to me may be highly noisy for an elephant. So am I right or is the elephant right? What is dark to me may be very bright for an insect. So am I right or is the insect right? What appears as red to me may appear as colourless to a horse. So am I right or is the horse right? All are right in their own places, within the boundaries of their own capabilities & limitations. If all are true, then is it possible to deduce a superset of all these "partial" truths? If all perceptions of all creatures on earth are integrated to form the super "truth" will we have done enough justice in painting the absolutely true and complete description of the universe? May be not yet. Perceptions by the same creature can vary if it is being made on earth or in the moon or in some other location in space. Similarly it could be relative to speed (recall Einstein's theory of relativity, time dilation, length contraction etc.)
So, the absolute truth can at best be an imagination, although it may be existent. And, we lesser mortals have to satiate ourselves & operate within the framework of an incomplete truth.
2 comments:
very intriguing.. somewhat on the lines of what i felt thru in my first post.. the question of incomplete truth can very well be extended to the spectrum of outright righteousness.. we being the lesser finite beings only tend to discern the invincible infinity of the Universe, in a perspective exclusivley to ours, not necessarily the Universe's itself..
Well written Bedanta.
Two points.
-1. The universe or the world around could be or is - not just what our sense perceptions perceive but much more than that. And when one goes beyond the sense perceptions, does the possibility of spiritual dimension start.
-2. At a huamn dimension too - it would make sense to extend the analogy to the differences in how two people see, think and feel about the same situation. So if we see the world, only through one person's perception (or paradigm) are we missing the complete picture? Are there multiple realities that exist - depending of who is “seeing”?
Is there any one reality then - in our social or organisational systems? Probably no. When we move to such thinking, we can then attempt to go beyond uni-dimenstional world view to the view of co-created reality.
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