I Am That

 I am not a journalist. I am not a father. I am not a husband. I am not a son. I am not a brother. I am only what I am. Happiness touches me; sadness disturbs me. I am not moved by anything. No one cheats me. No one makes me rich. I am the eternal soul, undisturbed by the coming and going of the world.

The world moves on; circumstances change. Hardships give way to luxury, and yet I remain the same person.

What moves this kind of thought? Is it delusional, or is it the only reality?

We have no way of knowing. The physical body carries all perceptions, and when it is gone, they go with it. There is no heaven or hell after that. That much is certain. Even the soul has no feelings. You need your whole body and mind to feel. Our sensory organs connect us with the world around us. But since the world also collapses with our senses, is the world real or just a clever construct of the mind?

That question is irrelevant. It is real, but its layers are certainly our creation. We are driven by the laws of society, which is an artificial construct anyway. When I die, this whole construct collapses. It leaves me, and it ceases to exist, at least for me. It may continue to exist for others, but that is their problem.

Is there a God? No, certainly not. Everything is a construct of the world that we have built.

But the world we have created in our minds certainly has some inviolable laws. Nothing good can happen to you if you have done bad to anyone. Newton's third law strangely works in this world, but perhaps a little differently. Just as every action has a reaction in the physical world, in the metaphysical world, every action has a reaction whose impact increases with time.

If the reaction is not immediate, be very wary. It will come back and hit you in a manner far more impactful than what you had put out. Principal plus interest. Sometimes, compounded interest. An action can be good or bad, and the reaction will be of the same nature. That is heaven or hell. It is here, in this life, and it is our own creation. You will see it and feel it with all your senses, convinced of its reality.

Do not get too stressed out by futile imaginings of heaven and hell. A good deed is a good deed. A bad deed is a bad deed. You are creating all this through your imagination and your actions. If you disturb another person's state of mind, the ripple will flow through creation, and you will have to deal with it because you are part of the same grid. You are no different from the person on the street. We are all sharing the same time and space, and we are all hostages to what happens here.

The best action, then, is non-action. That is what the ancient sages spoke about in India: Tathāta— whatever happens, let it be. This is the best course of action. As the Zen master in Japan says:

"Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself."