Everything that exists, is a flowering of the creative dream of God. We are a part of it. And everything that we see is part of our consciousness. And hence, belongs to us.
Dr. Jernail S. Anand | India
Years ago, I had written a book ‘I Belong to You: A Treatise on Cosmic Culture’ and it was translated into Persian by an Iranian scholar, Nargues Mohammadi. As the title suggests, the running theme of the book was the idea that I and you, the person whom I address, are two different entities, no doubt, but we belong to each other. There is a larger family of which, we are members. Just as people from a family are related to each other by blood, in the same manner, we who come from the commonwealth of the creator, also belong to each other by means far more than mere blood.
I Belong to You
Today, when I look back over all these fifteen or so years when this book was written, I feel a change in my perspectives. This is the result of what I have thought and lived through, during these years, and how my ideas and philosophizing has developed in a world which was rapidly changing, losing its old worldliness, and acquiring a new persona, of a high tech society. When I said, ‘I Belong to You’, the object of importance was ‘I’. It was self which looked more important. It often happens, when we are passing through the age of puberty, these are our immature years, and here, our conduct too lacks discernment, which is often found to be rash. In fact, in these conditions, we react too fast, and we lack the retention powers, which come with age.
So, though it appears to be a sagacious work which talks of spirituality, yet, what I discern in it is that it focused more on myself. Self was in the driving seat, and when I said, I belong to you, it was to some extent, and somewhere, a condescending way of loving the other. If we place the two together, we appear to suggest that love flows from me to the others. In a way, it is establishing a connection with the outside world, and saying ‘I love you’. The main focus of the story is the subject, the I.
You Belong to Me
Now, when I have seen so many winters, and it appears, may disappear in next ten, I find a different perspective appearing in my perception. It is just the reverse of what I was thinking 15 years backs. You Belong to Me is the new reigning thought. On the surface, it appears to be a case of simple belonging, whether I belong to you, or you belong to me, it is the same thing. There are more than 15 years between these two perspectives, how can they be the same?
Certainly, I may not write another book now with the renewed title: You Belong to Me. But I do find there is something which has undergone a sea change in me. I do not look upon the world as I did at that time, when I found myself too important, and I could feel like a tower from which I looked at the world outside. I in fact have a feeling, as my mental horizons have grown, as if I am taking more and more of the living expanse into my perceptive powers, while my ‘self’ is in a reduction mode. The focus has been shifted from the ‘I’ to the ‘You’. Between these two positions, rests a great realization, a revelation, a lightful expanse of understanding that the creation in its entirety belongs to me. Everything to whom I am addressing, all the objects, have gained in significance, and they are now beckoning to me, as if calling out aloud that they belong to me. All the good and the evil that I found in the world, the good I claimed, and the evil disclaimed, have now got together, to address me once again, and I feel this world is only my spread. All the good and all the evil that reigns in the world belong to me. I am not their creator, but I am an agent of the Creator. These things were created before I was created. And what I have created is too small in comparison to the winds and waters which support life.
All the men that are born outside me, somehow belong to me. The person in front of me, who is full of hundreds of viles, shares my blood stream. Animals, birds, vegetation, and all that man has created, the mechanical empire, the electronic empire, – are they not at my command? Whatever God has made, lies bare in front of me. And whatever man has made, too, is lying bare, waiting for me.
The Third Dimension: From Dualities to Trialities
The world that has unfolded during the last fifteen years is different from the world that had unfolded thirty years back. Decades back, people could talk of the dualities of existence, like this world or that, good or bad, decent or indecent, and the most important duality was the physical and the spiritual. During these years uptil now, a third dimension has shaped into existence. Now, it is a world, not of dualities, but of trialities. Between the physical [natural] and the supernatural [spiritual], there is a third force, called technology, which is partly human and partly divine. It is physical because it is created from the earthly matter and lacks divinity, while, at the same time, I would like to call it para-divine, because it has been created by men, who are a part of the divinity. So, finally, everything that man has created possesses some aura of divinity, although it might lack the sensitivity and conscience that marks living beings.
It is this triality that makes things difficult for men to negotiate. Technology is a trap of convenience. We go for easy solutions, but steroids ultimate damage our moral health. And, to negotiate this trilateral trek, we need more experience, and greater perceptivity.
My stance here is: Everything that exists, is a flowering of the creative dream of God. We are a part of it. And everything that we see is part of our consciousness. And hence, belongs to us. It is not that I as a person belong to all this. The fact is that the entire spectrum of creative flowering belongs to me. It makes me richer, even if it contains contentious conceptualities.
Cited works:
Anand, J.S. ‘I Belong to You: A Treatise on Cosmic Culture, 2011 publication by Jnanda Prakashan, New Delhi. The 2nd edition of the book under the title “I Belong to You: The Dynamics of Living’ appeared in 2013 self-published by Createspace.
Read: The Cosmic Regeneration of Mankind
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Dr. Jernail Singh Anand, based in Chandigarh, is an Indian poet and scholar credited with 170 plus books of English literature, philosophy and spirituality. He won great Serbian Award Charter of Morava and his name adorns the Poets’ Rock in Serbia. He was honored with Seneca Award LAUDIS CHARTA by Academy of Arts & Philosophical Sciences, Bari, Italy 2024. He is Founder President of the International Academy of Ethics and conferred Doctor of Philosophy (Honoris Causa) by University of Engineering & Management, (UEM) Jaipur. Email anandjs55@yahoo.com
Bibliography:
https://sites.google.com/view/bibliography-dr-jernal-singh/home
