Heaven is a place on earth

I fell asleep in my previous post. I haven't woken up yet. Or, I don't know if I have.

Here are a few questions that occupy my mind right now: What is heaven? A place of complete bliss? When does one experience bliss? I do have the answers taking some space up there too. However, they are not your answers to the questions. They are mine.

One experiences complete bliss when one feels confident to face the consequences of one's actions. That presumes that one is able to weigh different aspects of any choice involving actions that could be taken, and zoom in to what one judges to be appropriate. Once the judgement is made, the results start to materialise. When one can look forward to evaluating the results without hesitation, one is happy.

It follows that, to achieve happiness, we must be able to exercise choice, or the illusion of it. Why illusion? Because there is no way of determining whether our actions are solely determined by our thoughts, or have been a result of various cirumstances that we have come to face, or even an environment in which we have been living from the start. When we feel that we don't have choice, not even a choice to skip exercising our choice(such as letting someone else choose something for us), we cannot be happy. On the other hand, if on every event that we face in life, we feel that we have chosen to decide or not to decide on something, and we have checked validity in that choice, we are happy.

So the happiest life one can live, is a series of actions and their consequences, each action something that we love, and each consequence rising from an exercise of volition. And this is achievable on earth.

My Discussions with Nature

It all started in my room. I wanted to discover my own nature. I had heard from somewhere that it would help me discover the universe. Why did I want to discover the universe? Well, if I knew my true nature, I’d know the a answer to that question, I thought. So I set out on a journey to explore my nature.

How could I explore something I didn’t know? I had no idea. I thought the best thing to do would be to start exploring anything in my mind, till I settled on what was my nature. Perhaps it was to be a pattern in the way I think. Perhaps my nature was to keep searching for it. But that would be a contradiction. If I ever found that to be my nature, then it would no longer be my nature. Since I would stop searching for something I had already found. Yet, perhaps the very fact that I consider the possibility a contradiction makes that my true nature.

I decided to talk to nature. Maybe some part of nature would step out and cry, “Hey, I’m yours! Yeah, that’s right. Your nature!” Besides all search and research starts from nature. Why does it always start from nature? But then, what is beyond nature? Could one start a search outside nature? How does one do that? Whatever I could think of, or imagine, would still consist of some fundamental units which are derived from nature. Even contradicting nature itself takes nature as a base, and then tries to oppose it. Anyways, I could not find any other possibility, perhaps due to my nature. So I resigned myself to starting my search for my nature by talking to nature.
The tree was the first I thought of. Why a tree? Because it was standing in front of me and teasing me as I stared into the wild. It was saying, “You, who always walk past me, and treat me like I mean nothing. You wish to talk to nature?” I thought back to the last time I had entered this patch of green, and how I was lost in thought when I pranced across. I asked, “Did you feel ignored?” The tree shook a bit, and replied, “Do you think I have nothing better to do than pass moral judgments on people who walk across me?”

The tree sounded confused, I thought. But then, why did the tree speak to me today, and not greet me on the other day? I would have responded with a big smile on my face. I asked.
“Smile? Oh, no. You would have wondered who was calling you. You would have looked about you, and not cared to give a thought to this little tree here, reaching out as far as it could. Struggling to make its presence felt.”

“Do you also need to feel touch? To feel another skin against yours?” I asked, realizing for the first time that I had failed to notice it.

“May I remind you, dear, that I can’t even reach my neighbour, despite him being in sight throughout? You’re my only hope to reach out to something new, to acknowledge and nature beyond my own, through a sense of perception. Do I have eyes? Mouth? Tongue? Ears? My only means of interacting is touch. It means everything to me.”

Feeling sorry for what I had been to the tree, I hugged it tight. “Does that feel better?” I asked.

“Thank you. I really needed that. I owe you for making me feel significant. I don’t know any way I can explain what it means to me. “

“No, you don’t owe me anything. You’ve made me see something I never thought I’d see.”

There I was, noticing that I started on a hunt to find something that was mine, and had learnt that everything was mine, if I gave it attention. I had learnt that nature was not distinct from my nature. It was to enhance my own nature. I was not distinct from nature, but a part of it. Whatever value I chose to share with nature, it would share back with me.

Then I had a doubt, so I asked the tree, “When I eat your fruits, and chop off wood from you to make paper, does it hurt you?”

“Do you have a choice? If I told you it hurt, would you stop?”

I was a little worried, but said, “I would certainly try.”

The tree laughed, and said, “I scared you didn’t I? Well, you should have thought of it before you asked! Anyways, to answer your question, let me tell you that we don’t have volition. You do. But we are born with a very specific purpose, which is to transfer the sun’s energy to a form which can be used by other beings. The only volition that we have, is to evolve. Some of us have chosen to evolve forms of protection, but it only extends their lifetime by a short duration, and makes them lose some forms of beauty. Those of us who were willing to pay this price for the beauty we possess, have chosen to remain this way. That is the only choice we are capable of exercising. Those of us who exercised their choice too much, ended up in a situation where they could no longer address their purpose of life, and got eliminated in the process. We, the plants and trees, are unable to express forms of volition such as emotions. We rely on beings like you to provide that, since you have the capability of exercising your volition in our favour. “

I thought deeply on this. “When Newton came up with the theory on gravity, had the apple tree expressed his creativity through Newton?” I asked innocently.

The tree chuckled, “I have no idea! We know as much about our ancestors as you do!”

I lay down leaning against the tree, thanking it for the shade it provided me from the sun. I hadn’t stopped thinking, but I had started to feel sleepy.

Blogger Beta is here!!!

Finally, the new version of Blogger is in, and I've started using it. The interface is petty neat, but it's likely for my blog to be doing funny stunts till I officially declare it as stable in a post, since I shall be trying all sorts of experiments to get a feel of the power now given to us in the new version.

Sorry good readers to keep you still waiting!

Delay in updations...

Reaching out to my blog readers, I'd just like to say that I've planned an array of posts. However, I think my blogs all need some re-organising. I know the current arrangement is painful for those who read more than one of my blogs. I'm waiting to get the Blogger Beta! feature in my account so that I can revamp the place. Essentially, the new posts are going to be on a much wider range of topics than I had initially planned. Hence, it doesn't make sense for me to go on making separate blogs for them.

I thank one of my dear bloggers for having suggested this a long time ago. But, alas, the feature that would have let me make the shift is to be available only in the new Blogger.

So till then, have a great time. And keep checking from time to time for the change.