Why is there diversity in the world?
Question:
Dear Sir,
Since we talked the last time, I have been pondering on one question: why are you the way you are and why am I the way I am or Jiddu the way he is or Osho?
I mean, we briefly talked about this a few months ago. We talked about: “A wound is a place where the light enters you”. We said that being sensitive is the door.
Sir, when I look at my childhood, I had an extremely traditional upbringing. For four years, I learned the art of rituals and that too from teachers and I was at the top of my class. I even won a ritual scholarship which luckily never materialised. Like all my friends, before IMT and in IMT, I was subjected to the same tirade of falseness.
Now I did my MBA, I had a 98 plus percentile and I would have gone to IIM if I had made it. I took a high paying job – the only difference was I knew (at least partly) that all this was rubbish – careers were rubbish. I knew. I always knew. I knew what you were saying before I met you or knew you. But you made me know that I know.
Why am I not ambitious? Why do I see falseness? Is is genetics? Is it conditioning? Is it plain luck?
I am not complaining. I am glad to at least see some of the rubbish, if not all. But why? Why did I escape? Why did you escape? Why did Osho escape?
Broadly, why do some people see and others don’t?
Acharya Prashant: You are essentially asking ‘why is the world the way it appears to be?’. Same question.You say ‘Why does one see and the other doesn’t?’. That is the same as asking ‘Why is there diversity?’.There is diversity because that IS the world. Will there be a world if all is same? Same colour, same gender, same stage of evolution, same form? The world can be recognised as the world only because it is diverse.Diversity means that the nature of the world is Relative. It means that the mind can look at a thing, or a person, only in comparison to something else – from the past or from elsewhere. Diversity hence means space and time.In the world, the existence of everything is dependent upon, and hence the same as, the existence of everything else. This ‘elseness’ is what you call as diversity – the appearance that one is ‘different’ from the other.Please meditate over what is meant by different, diverse, same…The world is many, because all that the mind can perceive is ‘many’. The world may be One, but will your mind perceive the One? Have you asked me ‘Sir, why is everything the same? Why do I find such oneness everywhere?’ No, you haven’t asked that. You perceive diversity.There may be another mind that does not perceive diversity. In the Paul Reps book, there is that monk who asks a butcher: which piece of meat in your shop is the best? The butcher says: every piece is the best. An immediate satori descends upon the monk.
Every piece is the same. There is no diversity. Except in the mind.
Or, you could say – all that is diverse is mind, unreal.(Dated: 1/13/13)
