potential creative force, and through degrees of coming down we have reached this present state of

sensorially perceived human individuality, like the apex of a triangle whose base is above, wider than
the pointing apex. Perhaps it is in this light that the Bhagavadgita tells us that creation is like a tree
which is inverted in its position, with its roots above and its trunk, branches, and leaves, etc., spread out
downward. That is to say, our origin, the origin of each and every one, human or otherwise, is the root
thereof, which is high above in what we call the heavens; and what we see with our eyes are the
branches, the twigs, the leaves and the fruits in the form of our experiences.

Why is it that we are born? Who has called us to come down to this Earth? This is the mystery which the
Upanishads, the Brahma Sutras, and such scriptures have tried their best to explain. It is a condensation
of Cosmic Existence—physically, mentally, intellectually, aesthetically, and in every way—into a localised
point in space and time. For what purpose? For playing a joke or enacting a drama. Very good actors in a
theatre put on costumes and behave as something which they are not actually in themselves. They can
descend into a little role from the high stature that they perhaps occupy in society. But in the case of a
human actor in a theatre, the difference is that the actor is conscious of what he really is. Though he has
changed his costume and behaves like something quite different from what he is, his consciousness of
what he really is made of does not convert him into the ruse of the role which he assumes.

But in this drama, a reverse order takes place. When we put on the costume of a human individual, we
do not 234

remember who it is that has put on this costume. The costume assumes that it is itself the individual. It
assumes a reality, and struts about on Earth, overruling the reality which has put on this costume, and it
looks as if the person who has put on this costume is dead completely. Only the parading costumes look
like living realities.

Sometimes, life in the world is compared to a theatrical performance. Poets have gone into great detail
in their description of the dramatic character of human performances—finding out thereby that the
entire performance in this world is a play, a diversion, an entertainment, as it were, to something which
is much greater than what is presented in the theatre. But intense identification with the formation can
compel the source of this performance to forget itself, in the same way as concentration on a sense
object intensely for a long time makes one forget one’s own self, and one runs to the object as if one has
poured oneself on the object. Totally, the subjective side has become the object of attraction.

In a similar manner, the creation of the individual seems to have taken place. The littleness of human
individuality, the finitude of it, cannot survive merely with the consciousness of finitude, because to be
finite is to be an untruth. Satyam eva jayate nānṛtam (Mundaka Up. 3.1.6)is a well-known saying. Truth
triumphs, and anything else will not. What is the truth? The cosmic relationship of human individuals, of
all things, is the truth. What is the untruth? The feeling that one is this individual, come from a chosen
pair of parents.

Because of the suffering caused by this erroneous outlook of finite nature, it creates a heaven out of
hell, as it 235

were, by projecting sense organs, apertures through which it can peep outside through space and time,
and contact the world as if it stands totally external to it, to be handled in a particular manner. Do we
not think in this manner? The world is something in front of us, totally unconnected with us, and we
have to deal with it in some way or the other, in this way or that way, for our personal satisfaction or
group satisfaction. But the truth is not that the world is standing outside us. It is an integral part of our
own self. The suffering continues because the senses insist on emphasising that our reality is this
physical location only, and we think the pain of this kind of existence is mollified by contact with what
we ourselves are not.

To be one’s own self as a finite individual is the greatest of sorrows conceivable. That is why no one can
sit alone somewhere without coming in contact with things. One would like to talk to somebody, go to
the market, do this, do that. It would be a veritable death to be alone to oneself. This is because the
truth is not in this localisation of human individuality. To perpetuate this foolish clinging to this body as
if it is the only worthwhile thing in the world, the sense organs are projected gradually, even during the
child’s placement in the womb itself. All the future of a child, of the personality, is hidden in the
mother’s womb, and it only intensifies itself when it comes out into the world.

To free ourselves from this tragic condition in which we are placed, the Yoga Sastra prescribes
techniques of absolvement from the sorrows of life—that is, a retracement of our steps in the fashion in
which we came down. How we came, and in what manner have we to go up 236