Truth Splits the World Open

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A couple of days ago, my niece shared with me a poignant extract from a poem that had inspired her. In the poem “Käthe Kollwitz” from her The Speed of Darkness collection, Muriel Rukeyser had said:

“What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.”

There is a quiet power in that image — the world splitting open under the force of truth. I have often thought that truth, when spoken from the depth of one’s being, doesn’t just reveal; it rends the veils we have so carefully woven around ourselves. It lets in light, and for a brief, trembling moment, everything false falls away.

Illusion wraps around us in many layers.

What we call reality is, to begin with, māyā (illusion). Yet within that vast illusion, each person builds further illusions of their own: comforting fantasies, self-serving narratives, curated lives, beautiful lies to mask the disarray beneath. It is a hall of mirrors, reflections within reflections, and soon we begin to mistake the shimmering for substance. The collective noise of these overlapping illusions floods our senses and drowns the quiet truth that lies buried within.

But for the one nursing grief, that noise offers no solace. The world’s chatter cannot drown the ache that demands to be heard. Pain has a brutal clarity; it refuses to participate in illusion. So when someone, weary of pretense, dares to speak the truth — unadorned, unvarnished — it is a shock of relief. The world splits open, and for a while, we breathe.

Yet that moment passes. Even truth, once spoken, can harden into another story, another identity, another illusion. The only lasting relief lies in seeing through it all, in realising that everything we perceive, every drama and disguise, every joy and despair, unfolds within māyā.

This realisation is not an escape from life but a deep reconciliation with it. To know that all is illusion is not to reject the world, but to hold it lightly, to dance with it without becoming entangled. Those who learn to live with māyā as one might live with a dream, aware, awake, yet participating, find a quiet fulfilment.

Otherwise, we are tossed endlessly by the tumults of illusion in all its variegation — chasing shadows, grieving phantoms, mistaking reflection for truth. But once even one person tells the truth, and the world splits open, perhaps we begin to see: the light that pours through the crack was always there.

Four Layers of the Mind

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I have written about this before but I see it as important enough to repeat. Bear with me.

Sigmund Freud identified 3 layers of the mind, and that hypothesis has been largely adhered to till this day. He divided mental functions into instinct, reason and morality, each governed by the id, the ego and the superego respectively. In addition to Freud's label, the word ego is also applied to the identification of self and the associated selfish behaviour exhibited by people.

A more recent study has discovered a profound bidirectional communication between the brain and the digestive system via the vagus nerve. This explains the "gut feeling" that people often get, which has been associated with the system of instinct that we have observed in animals.

I have learned from the Tripurashakthi Upanishad about the antahkarana (inner instrument), explaining the four component nature of the mind - manas, buddhi, ahamkara and chitta. To explain them, I have equated them to our current understanding of how the mind works, using a computer model as a reference.

Manas is the memory bank that stores the input received from all the senses as well as records of outputs generated by the mind. Memory is the best evidence that the mind has only a physical base. When a person totally loses his memory, the mind goes blank. Without memory, we have no mind.

Buddhi is the intellect, the thinking part of the mind which uses the information stored in manas as well as fresh input coming in from the senses. The rules for processing the information were also learned from the senses and stored in manas. These rules/guidelines (algorithms) are used to make decisions on what to do with the information and how to do it.

Ahamkara is the ego, the seat of personality, the source of self-identity. Ahamkara is governed by emotion and is subject to pride, envy, despair and so on. Ahamkara usually directs the buddhi on the decisions to be made, often overriding logical conclusions and taking rash, emotional actions. Ahamkara may be residing within the vagus nerve system.

The above three functions are easily understood and equated with our understanding of the human mind as well as computer systems (for the first two functions). For those who believe there is no afterlife, the above three are sufficient to explain what our mind does. There is no need for more.

Chitta is explained as the consciousness that comes from beyond the material realm of spacetime. It does not actively participate in our actions and remains the silent observer, collecting a record of all the decisions made by the buddhi. This record is carried beyond the death of the body into the afterlife.

Buddhi, manas and ahamkara are formed in the brain of the person, are of this material realm and expire with the death of the body. The true Self, the chitta, was never created, is never destroyed and continues into the subsequent stages of our existence.

It is important to understand that chitta is not of this material realm, and is attached to neither the body nor the mind. It comes from the realm of the Divine and is the Divinity Within each of us. Chitta is not governed by death, transcends space and time and has the potential to transcend the karma of the body.

But while the person remains bewildered and ignorant of the true nature of the Self, the chitta will become saturated with the cares of the mind and be just as bewildered. Even after leaving the body, the chitta can carry traces of the old personality which can lead to tragic consequences.

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Chitta suffused with the physical mind

Antahkarana and AI

Separating Awareness and Intellect

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During meditation recently, as I was striving to distinguish my chitta from my buddhi, I realised how inseparable my awareness and my intellect have always been. That's when it dawned upon me how the chitta can become so immersed with buddhi that it loses the ability to disentangle from the maya of the material realm.

All my life, my chitta and buddhi have moved as one. My intellect analyses, plans, worries, remembers and I had no idea that there even was an awareness behind it all. As a child, while my mind was developing, my awareness would have been the silent guide. When my ahamkara had developed and I grew a sense of self, I had no clue that there were separate parts of my mind, each performing its own task. 

From Avatāra to Prophet

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Two Mirrors of Human Evolution

Humanity's story has often been told in two great idioms - the Dharmic story coming out of the Indian sub-continent and the Abrahamic story from the eastern reaches of the Mediterranean. These idioms have been commonly taken to mean something less - merely incarnations of divinity or prophetic appointments by divinity. When examined closely, they tell a deeper story of human evolution.

In the Dharmic view, the ten incarnations of Vishnu, the Daśāvatāra, depict the gradual evolution of human life - from water to land, from beast to human, from ignorance to awakening.

• Matsya - fish (aquatic) 
• Kūrma - turtle (amphibious) 
• Varāha - boar (mammalian) 
• Narasiṃha - lion-man (half-beast) 
• Vāmana - dwarf (early human)
• Paraśurāma - primitive warrior 
• Rāma - civilized man
• Kṛṣṇa - embodiment of love 
• Buddha - awakened soul
• Kalki - redeemer? 

The Kalki Avatār remains a mystery. Perhaps we will find out in our lifetime.

Religion and Spirituality

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A couple of days ago I joined an interfaith webinar on this subject. It was interesting to hear the perspectives from several religions. Following the webinar, I posed a number of questions to ChatGPT to see where a logical analysis would go. I provided no input apart from my opening definition and subsequent leading questions which guided the flow of the conversation.

What follows is entirely the work of the AI. The result looks pretty good to me. What do you think?

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When Revelation Becomes Religion: The Arc from Spirit to Structure

Spirituality and religion share a common root — the human longing for connection with something greater — yet they diverge in how that longing is lived.

Spirituality is the relationship between a person and what he believes in — intimate, interior, and transformative.

Religion is the relationship between people who share a common belief — communal, structured, and institutional.

Each answers a human need, but each carries within it a shadow.