Skip to main content

Mystery


Philosopher Gabriel Marcel drew an interesting distinction between problem and mystery.  Problems have solutions, he said, while mysteries are to be enjoyed unsolved.  “Life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived” is an aphorism attributed to Marcel. 

Too many things lie beyond our capacity for solutions.  The earthquakes and the cyclones belong to the nonhuman side of the universe, beyond human control.  When the variegated colours and sounds of nature enchant us we are immersing ourselves in the mystery of the same nonhuman universe. 

The universe does not comprehend the difference between the shifting of the tectonic plates and the warbling of the nightingale, between a shipwreck and a swan’s neck. 

The heavens are indifferent whether lightning strikes down the greatest monument or Beethoven composes the sweetest symphony.  The sense of wonder or despair belongs to the human consciousness.  The heavens are above and beyond the need for wonder as well as despair.  We don’t like that indifference.  Our hearts long to feel emotions such as love and hatred, wonder and despair.  That’s why we need a god (or many gods) in the heavens.  To mitigate the inhuman indifference of the heavens.  To be our alter egos up there in the emptiness, the scary emptiness, the emptiness that stares into our hearts. 

The emptiness and the indifference of the heavens is the mystery that we have to live.  Instead we fill that emptiness with mumbo jumbo offered to gods with our own shapes.



Labels:

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 6, 2015 at 10:57 AM

    A while ago, I had an argument with someone who said everything can be explained and anything that cannot be explained does not exist or is unreal. Of course, after giving up on trying to make the person understand that not everything "needs" to be explained, I went and did what every blogger would do - I wrote a poem about the incident! ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 6, 2015 at 12:14 PM

      The ability to stand in doubt and wonder, to experience the awe, is not given to all, I think. Most people need to explain everything, even the mystery! No use of arguing with such people. They can at best impose a religion on you but won't ever understand the meaning of even that religion!

      Delete
  2. AmitAagApril 6, 2015 at 11:42 AM

    One of the greatest geniuses of our times, believed to have had the highest IQ said:
    "The more I know the more I come to know that I don't know!"
    (...and we dim wits think we know!!)
    The Mystery is something to be experienced and enjoyed rather than attempted to be explained, for it is beyond words.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 6, 2015 at 12:16 PM

      The more we know the wider our perception becomes thus opening up wider areas before us... then we realise there's a lot more that we had not noticed earlier... Small minds need to compartmentalise everything!

      Delete
  3. Shesha ChaturvediApril 6, 2015 at 1:07 PM

    Things are some times simpler when we don't know. They are lived better n peacefully. In urge to know everything we somewhere disown the beauty of mystery and unexpectedness... Sometimes ignorance is bliss and sometimes having a God(s) is a strength to walk and enjoy an unseen passage and to live a negative phase with a ray of hope! Like said before not everything needs to be explained, something's are to be left untouched...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Roohi BhatnagarApril 6, 2015 at 4:10 PM

    Such profound words, Matheikal :) "In the sky there is no distinction of east and west; people create the distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.”

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 6, 2015 at 5:13 PM

      Yes, Roohi, eternity has no measurements. Nor has infinity. We, human beings, need to limit them within structures. And then some of us fight in the name of those structures we imposed.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

The Veiled Women

One of the controversies that has been raging in Kerala for quite some time now is about a girl student’s decision to wear the hijab to school. The school run by Christian nuns did not appreciate the girl’s choice of religious identity over the school uniform and punished her by making her stand outside the classroom. The matter was taken up immediately by a fundamentalist Muslim organisation (SDPI) which created the usual sound and fury on the campus as well as outside. Kerala is a liberal state in which Hindus (55%), Muslims (27%), and Christians (18%) have been living in fair though superficial harmony even after Modi’s BJP with its cantankerous exclusivism assumed power in Delhi. Maybe, Modi created much insecurity feeling among the Muslims in Kerala too resulting in some reactionary moves like the hijab mentioned above. The school could have handled it diplomatically given the general nature of Muslims which is not quite amenable to sense and sensibility. From the time I shi...
13 comments
Read more

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...
16 comments
Read more

Nazneen’s Fate

N azneen is the protagonist of Monica Ali’s debut novel Brick Lane (2003). Born in Bangla Desh, Nazneen is married at the age of 18 to 40-year-old Chanu Ahmed who lives in London. Fate plays a big role in Nazneen’s life. Rather, she allows fate to play a big role. What is the role of fate in our life? Let us examine the question with Nazneen as our example. Nazneen was born two months before time. Later on she will tell her daughters that she was “stillborn.” Her mother refused to seek medical help though the infant’s condition was critical. “We must not stand in the way of Fate,” the mother said. “Whatever happens, I accept it. And my child must not waste any energy fighting against Fate.” The child does survive as if Fate had a plan for her. And she becomes as much a fatalist as her mother. She too leaves everything to Fate which is not quite different from God if you’re a believer like Nazneen and her mother. When a man from another continent, who is more than double her age,...
6 comments
Read more

You Don’t Know the Sky

I asked the bird to lend me wings. I longed to fly like her. Gracefully. She tilted her head and said, “Wings won’t be of any use to you because you don’t know the sky.” And she flew away. Into the sky. For a moment, I was offended. What arrogance! Does she think she owns the sky? As I watched the bird soar effortlessly into the blue vastness, I began to see what she meant. I wanted wings, not the flight. Like wanting freedom without the responsibility that comes with it. The bird had earned her wings. Through storms, through hunger, through braving the odds. She manoeuvred her way among the missiles that flew between invisible borders erected by us humans. She witnessed the macabre dance of death that brought down cities, laid waste a whole country. Wings are about more than flights. How often have you perched on the stump of a massive tree brought down by a falling warhead and wept looking at the debris of civilisations? The language of the sky is different from tha...
13 comments
Read more