Differences or Illusions?

 Differences or Illusions?

A pretty picture from We heart it. Artist unknown.

Differences of beliefs, opinions, point of views, race, gender, ethnicity, caste, creed, religion and what not. But how many of these are actual differences and not mere illusions?

It wouldn't be wrong to say that the differences of opinions and point of views result in most of the conflicts in our daily lives, since every other person has a different perspective which might not be in line with somebody else's perception and thus: disagreements; it is easy to label these differences as illusions just to demean those dissensions. 

But no, the differences of point of views, perspectives and thought processes are justified and very valuable, as they represent the infinite forms of the expression of creation, that exist among us. Every individual is unique because of the mixture of these differences and this same world looks different through every different pair of eyes. Imagine, what would the world look like if everybody had the same opinion, and everybody's perception of the world had been just the same? We would've still been the early men we were ages ago.

Whereas, the so called "differences" of race, ethnicity, caste, religion etc. are mere illusions that instill hate and separate humans from humanity. The factual reality is, we're all one human race, living on our home planet Earth.

Isn't it quite questionable that how come this entire world stands divided today when the beginning of the entire existence was unity? Be it science or religion (the 2 most popular causes of humanity's rise as well as downfall) both agree on the point that the entire world be it a stone or a stone cold human, developed through one entity. In the words of Stephen Hawking (as a representative of Science), this entity was the universe as an infinitely small singularity which expanded out and gave us "space" then the other things that are in it along with the big bang. On the other hand, Religion (despite of what brand of religion you believe in) says that the entire existence is made from one source i.e. God. So how come, we started united but today we stand divided in groups of different genders, races, ethnicities, castes, creeds, religions and what not! Some may argue that these "groups of division" are our identity and so it is justified for them to exist, otherwise we may lose our identity. But the point is, is it really justified to root something as important as our identity: the definition of us, our meaning, into something as illusionary as these categories? God/Universe never created "categories", so how did these categories even came to exist?

The answer is, it was the work of some people driven with the greed of power who developed these categories so that they are able to "control" a part of the mass who follow them without questioning them. Let us take the example of nationalities. Years ago, when people had no means to travel around the world, different groups of people existed on different parts of land, completely oblivious of the fact that there are more humans like them at a farther place. Among those groups certain people declared themselves as rulers (be it due to any reason), and the remaining started following them blindly. When people started travelling from one part of land to another, the kingship of these power seeking greedy rulers was threatened by one another and thus they decided to divide lands so that they can maintain their rule.

But when this greed grew, it led to so many wars that I do not need to describe how people have fought to acquire the other's land. Had there not been this division of land, our history books would've talked of compassion and humanity more, instead of talking about blood and violence.

Although the division of lands enabled better way to civilise and develop humanity, still charging tax and limiting humanity's freedom to access all land, for moving from one part of Earth to another, the Earth which belongs to all of humanity and not just some manipulative controllers who stand as "rulers", is unfortunate.

Similarly, let's talk of religion, God who is known to have created the entire world, how can that God be so arrogant that it would want people to accept a certain "label" to give them love and blessings? Why would God want people to call themselves Christian/Hindu/Muslim/etc. to be merciful to them? And if God never said so, why have most wars in history, happened due to religion?

It is because certain greedy, manipulative, power seekers, wanted all of humanity to follow them blindly, so they chose to hide under the shade of "God" and started selling their own label of religion to other people so that their followers base can be enlarged.

The point is- Is it really justified to associate our identity with such divisions that were created by man for their own selfish greedy motives, that wouldn't have even existed if they were not created by man in the first place? How would've we identified ourselves then? These labels have existed in our social system for so long that today we have confused them to be our "identity" because these categorical labels were passed down to us from generation to generation and were so normalised that nobody questioned them and those who did, were mistreated. 

So out of fear or out of ego and arrogance and the greed of power, we have these differences among us in such a largely accepted manner that it is disheartening to see so much hatred among humans on the topics of religion, nationality, gender, etc.

There's a quote from Rabindranath Tagore-

         'I will never allow patriotism to triumph over humanity as long as I live.'

If you're reading this and you understood even 1% of what I wished to convey, I hope you put humanity at your first priority and not be blinded by those illusionary differences that promote hate and instead you be an advocate of love and compassion. I hope you're able to see and recognize those manipulators and choose not to be manipulated by them, I hope you stand with humanity: your only true identity and not your illusionary identities.

🤍Love

Charvi🌸