BEYOND WORDS AND BEYOND LIMITS

What no.is greater than infinity ?

What do four dimensional objects look like ?

What are the units of measuring the depth of one’s love or hate for someone ?

What is beyond the ‘Universe’ ?

What is this unknown something with which the reason collides when inspired by its paradoxical passion ,with the reason of unsettling even man’s knowledge of himself ?

It is that which is BEYOND WORDS AND BEYOND LIMITS.

It is the unexplainable , only imaginable.

The boundary between life and non-life is fading away . The heart throbs of the inanimate atom are all little less wonderful than the highest flights of man’s imagination . The universe is sprung of thoughts . Thoughts faster than light . Weird than the ‘Bermuda Triangle’ . Bizzare than the ‘Black Hole’.

Human thought often does not take the form of of language. Language can be mutable and watery. One thinks without words and the mind works with concepts instead of words .

Language , on the other hand , is a means of expressing these thoughts . When we hear the word ‘dog’ we think of four legged ,furry thing that makes the sound we call ‘bark’ . But what do we think of when we hear a word like ‘love’ or any other word representing an abstract concept ? Here the use of language as a medium for expression of thoughts begins to break down .Can a book ,whose only possible means to stimulate the means of expressing an idea is through the use of language , express “pure thoughts”, where language is usually absent ?

Expression of particular concepts , thoughts and feelings can be achieved only with the use of similies or metaphors : saying this idea is like this… Comparisons , however fail to convey the exact idea . This gap cannot be overcome . Even giving credence to the idea that thoughts themselves are essentially inexact , bags the question for whether words and languages are capable of expressing them fully .

Any being that perceives , anything , encounters limitations in its perceptions . One can only see so far ,for example , or if light falls within a small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum ,or if there is the perceptible level of light . The same is for hearing : one can hear a sound with having frequency in a particular range.

But is there a limitation to what ,how much,when and where one can ‘THINK’ ?

No analogous limitations exist on conceptual perception .If the ‘mental landscape’

were laid out like a Cartesian grid ,there limits would be asymptotic.

An image I would like to use is an infinite hallway stretching behind and ahead infinitely . One sees the two walls ,floor , and ceiling merging into single point, and no matter how much walking is done towards that point ,it never gets closer . However ,the things on the walls of this hallway would appear to emerge spontaneously from the vanishing point ,growing until they reach the viewer ,and then shrinking as the viewer walks away ,finally merging with the vanishing point behind the viewer . It is impossible for us to explain what lies behind that point in words .But can’t we imagine it ? Can’t we think beyond words ,beyond limits?

Here the hallway is a metaphor and not an isomorphism . conceptual limitation need not be absolute in the way the percepted or physical limitations are .It is intuitive to believe that the conceptual realm we perceive is based in some way on the physical world we understand through our senses .But when closely examined this intuitions falls apart .While there is a loose correlation between the physical and the conceptual ,there is also no axiomatic limits of possibility for the latter but for the former there is.

Another thing is something called ‘SADHANA’(the complete devotion) – the state of transcending beyond conceptual limitation . There is an Abyss separating the mundane from the sacred ,and the crossing of it is the most holy task facing the aspirant .No thought ,no individuality , may pass beyond the Abyss ,and in this sense it is not only a conceptual limitation , but limitation of all limitations combined into one .It is almost as if conceptual spacecurves are asymptotically upwards near the Abyss ,stretching to infinity just short of the mark . But am I not able to create a picture of this in my mind and think about this asymptote meeting the Abyss at infinity while writing the previous statement ?That’s the power of thought .The strength of imagination. Isn’t it beyond our words and limits ?The human thoughts .

My poetic feelings say,

It is something unattainable

that no one can’t live without.

It is something unexplainable

that one riddled with doubt .

Things begin ,things decay,

And It’s got to find a way .

This ‘It’ is that which is beyond words and beyond limits .

Amarkant

I had got first prize for this in an essay competition back at college. Topic was provided beforehand. Pata nahin kya kya likha hoon :P :P

Title nahin bujhaya :P

Naye lakshya aur nayi khshitij

Gar Hum pana chahen,

Kyun fir intjar Karen ki

Lahren tham jayen?

Jiwan ki is uthal puthal mein

Tufan kayi aatein hain,

Par lahron se darne wale

Kya kabhi moti dhoondh pate hain?!!

Amarkant

College Days… I wrote this in 2006, my first year at college.

Today while writing the date in my notebook in class a jolting and quivering feeling surpassed my mind milieu .I saw ‘06’ at the end of the date and could vividly feel it to be ‘96’….my whole body shivered for an instance…..a trepidation came in my psyche….I was filled with some sort of very nostalgic terror…..I turned around the whole class once without being noticed…..Komal was smiling…Akanksha a bit tensed….but smiled when met my rolling vision…Akshay chatting with Neha...... Amit , Basant , Deepu , Chandu , Prateek….all were so jolly and lively…..again I was quaking from inside……….

Will all these friends of mine be there to make and shake everything with me when I will be writing ‘16’ at the last of a date????? My heart ached for a moment…

Days go by

life goes by

Away they fly

who knows why

until we die ……

Suddenly sir called my roll no….and I replied ‘present sir’… was I present there???

Anyway I had to come back from those dreading array of thoughts….Back to the heaven,

Back to the ‘actual dreamland’… our class…

Have u not gone to your own school and college days for a moment while reading it? Are you not having the same quaking nostalgic feeling at this moment? Is your heart also not painful for a split second? Anyone who has attended a single day of class with friends surely will… memories flooding across one’s thought matrix.

Now that high school is over and one has freedom to choose among different careers, probably for the first time in our life one is to make the most serious choice one have ever faced. One should go back and revise ones childish dreams in ones memory and try to find out where ones heart truly lies. And when one does, the most exciting years of your life begin and you become a college student…a college student

These unforgettable college days, oh, carefree days that fly. These ivy-covered professors in ivy-covered halls. Here's parties we toss, the games that we lose. Here are girls young and sweet. Here’s the spacious back seat giving employment to many of us in the form of the degree of MBBS(members of back benchers society)… Here we have the cuddling and laughing moments (without any laughable reasons) with our roommates. Here we have excuse for every mistake. We sleep during lectures. We also have sleepless nights before exams here, then also scratching head in the examination hall. We go to movies during class hours, obviously by bunking ( thing in which we take much pride). Even make lecturers cry at times. Have a single notebook for all the subjects, we jump over hostel gates, fight with the hostel cook. Lots of fun we have….

Seeing her always in the class, saying ‘yes sir’ with full gaze on her…. Every moment having a new dream (obviously with her), but just the next moment flirting with the other….some infatuations, some attractions, some love. Daily message her till late night or rather till early morning and then be late for the first period or rather early for the second one…. These cards, chocolates, time spent with her and her smile…. Oh! these killer ones… And after all the thing which matters most – having a lots of these ‘her’s.

When again in our life we will have this privilege??

Away from home having nostalgic, lonely, solitary period on the bed at night before going to sleep with finding oneself with parents and brother and sister…..waking with no one around but the roommates…. Then rush for the class, getting ready in 15 minute and then taking breakfast within 2 min….

Having parties almost daily, asking treat to everyone for every small thing, also having to give treat for almost every minute happiness… food court, canteen, Punjabi dhaba, all these places for filling our belly but with these jokes and laughters with friends….

Here we are hearts full of youth, hearts full of truth….

We won’t get these moments back…

But as we go our sordid separate ways,

We shall never forget thee, thou golden college days.

Amarkant

1^st year (2006)

The unknown geniuses

Who did invent the decimal system?

Who made the first wheel in the world?

Who baked the first brick?

Who made the first plough?

Who first of all extracted oil from seeds?

Who invented the art of writing?

Who made alphabets and words?

Who made the first sheet of paper?

Who has discovered the match stick?

Who planted the first garden?

Who was the first painter or the first musician?

We do not even know there names. Similarly, we do not know the names of numerous other persons who have rendered valuable services to mankind in various ways. They are our anonymous geniuses. Social life and civilization have been built up to a great extent by our anonymous benefactors. In later ages millions profited very greatly from there pioneer work and exceptional men similarly profiting from the work of our anonymous geniuses won name and fame. Thus even famous people owe a debt or deep gratitude to these anonymous people.

It follows that great servants of humanity are not necessarily well known or famous men. Milton says that he thirst for fame is the infirmity of the noble minds. It is only a half truth. Great work, good work, useful work has been done and is being done even today without publicity or without the desire for fame. Fame or no fame, let each of us do our best to relieve hardship and suffering and to bring about improvement and progress in life. Goodness and usefulness are greater things and more real things than fame. To be famous and well known is not the purpose of life.

Fame is often unreal and short-lived. One should be proud to belong to the common run of men and to be humble and serviceable. This is the lesson we are to learn from the lives of thousands of our anonymous benefactors.

Amarkant.

Inspired by : A short essay book by Firaq Jaipuri, I used to be a big fan of this book in my school days.