Hiatus

I leave
But to return
I part

~Aditya

The End II

This poem is an afterthought of my own story, The End. This started as a thought and now rests as a full fledged poem. One is incomplete without the other. Even though you can understand this as a stand alone piece, it is not meant to be one.

My brothers,
Unknown,
Took your life,
They took
What you held dear.

I do not know
What they did,
I do not know
Why they did
What they did.

Now you stand
In front of me,
Claiming revenge,
Claiming
An eye for an eye.

I did not kill,
I did not plunder,
I did not ravage,
I did not murder,
I did not destroy.

Why do you
Do that to me,
When I did
Nothing
Directly to you?

You can take,
Take my heart,
Take my soul,
Take my life,
If it, you, satisfies.

If
My blood,
Soothes your,
Drink my friend,
Drink till the end.

~Aditya

Truth

This post has its origins with a question that I was asked - is truth absolute, or is it relative.

Truth is supposed to be a fact verified. It is supposed to be conformity to reality, and a value near to a true value. This brings us to the question, whose reality, whose verification and who is the person who sets the true value.

The process of knowing the truth is simple, know the fact to be verified, have the prerequisite knowledge, and cross verify this fact against the knowledge. This means that of the three steps two are ours. The knowledge and the testing process are ours.

When there is two-thirds of the truth that is subjective, how can truth be objective? How can it be absolute?

The truth is always relative.

Let as assume that there is some fact, which has not been verified yet. As long as someone does not know of its existence, it is not truth. It has no bearing on anything and it does as good as not exist at all. The reason being until someone can acknowledge its presence there is not effect of its existence.

When the first person perceives it, he shall perceive it according to the set of rules that he has formed for himself. He shall perceive that fact according to his own knowledge and shall state it to be a truth for the first time. This is the first truth and it is relative.

As time passes, more and more people will perceive the same fact and shall test its authenticity based on the knowledge and rules that they possess. This is to say that each person shall take this relative truth relatively. When they too come to the same conclusion based on their own cognitive processes, the authenticity is established. More the people who are in accord, more is the strength of the truth. If there is not one dissenting voice among the crowd, the truth shall get to be absolute.

Regardless of whether the fact is absolute truth, perceived by many to be the same thing, or relative, the moment I see it and start applying my thought process to understand it, it becomes relative. If my conclusions agree with the majority, the authenticity is enhanced, if not I become a dissenting voice. In the case of the latter, one would need to go over the truth forming process one again to ensure that they have the knowledge required and have used the correct cognitive processes for coming to the conclusion about the fact.

Truth seen for the first time
Is relative,
It is mine, it is new.
You agree, so does he,
We make it absolute.
When I see it anew,
I see it with my senses
It becomes relative.
Truth to me,
Is never truth to you.

God and Man

This post is inspired by the comment on Suchitra's Nandi

Man of flesh
To god of stone
Hear with stony silence
Words of lament
Words of pain.
Give me what I need
Give me what I want
Do not let me go alone,
Stay beside,
Do not tell me you are there.

Man of flesh
To god of heart
Hear my heart
As it cries out to you.
I hold you inside
For outside I mistrust
I hold you inside
For inside
Mine is truth
Truth is mine.

Man of flesh
To god of flesh
You gave me form
Which I gave you
Hold on to me
I hold on to you
Look out for me
Look out at me
For I can’t
Look you out

1st May 2007
~Aditya