THE   DECONSTRUCTED   CENTRE

Dr Sudhansu Kumar Dash

All human beings live with a hope of their own kind that works as the centre of their purpose of living. The hope may either be spiritual or material. There is not the third kind of hope for any human being. But the question is: where from the hopes come? The most undeniable fact is that hopes come out of the falsity of the being. All hopes are false and to hope is to be in the false. If one is authentic and real there is no need for any hope. When there is no need for any hope then one never thinks about the future about what is going to happen .There the future disappears.

When one is not real, future appears to be most significant and then one starts living in the future. The reality of one’s being therefore is not in the present .It is somewhere in the dreams one makes those dreams look real.

All the false hopes combined together is the Ego. It is not a reality as it is the collectivity of one’s dreams, one’s unrealities which are all false. The essential property of ego is that it cannot exist in the present When one looks at the phenomenon sincerely one can well observe that the ego always exists either in the past or in the future .It is never here and now. It is quite impossible for the ego to live now. Whenever one thinks one certainly thinks of either of the past or of the future. Always past is no more and future is yet to appear So both are not-only the present is and in the there is never found anything like the ego.

It is also a fact that when all hopes are dropped ,the ego is dropped and the man will feel himself dead. Dropping the hopes here does not mean that a new hope of some other kind is created and that is the difficulty. Then the question may come as to why do we live and for what? As the goal has disappeared  with the disappearance of hope  then why to move from one moment to another if there is nowhere to reach? Can we live without hope? There are so many questions coming to the surface.

It is felt that one can not live without hopes because whenever one is hoping ,he appears to be more vital, more alive, more strong but not hoping ,he appears to be more weak ,more depressed, not knowing what to do ,where to go. One feels meaninglessness coming to him. Immediately one creates  a new hope as a substitute of no-hope because one cannot live in a gap. But living without any hope is the real life and for the first time life is authentic.

The ego is false and we are a victim of this false ego. We all are living around the ego and we are seeking more and more egoistical journey .It is nothing but we want it. Somebody through wealth, some through power ,some through prestige, some through status ,some through politics ,some through religion ,some through priesthood and in number of ways. But the result is the same at the end.

All hopes for the future have constructed the ego and because it is false it needs no effort to be dropped .Just seeing the point it disappears. man running scared afraid of his own shadow one stops him and tells him his own foolishness as nobody is following him. Nobody is there except himself. It is only his own shadow. But once one starts running the shadow also runs. The faster one runs, the faster the shadow runs behind the body. Running stopped, shadow stopped .No effort to stop  the shadow is needed ,it is just to see that it is dropped.

All our pleasures and sufferings that we have are but related only to the phenomenon of ego and our whole problem to drop the ego is that we want to preserve the pleasure and to drop the sufferings. It is impossible to drop half of the shadow. Either the whole is to go or the whole clings to us. This is the problem. Whatever one does becomes futile

Dropping the ego always happens in this moment. There is no progressive or gradual process for it .It cannot be because the happening is momentary. One cannot get ready for it, prepared for it because whatever one does as a preparation will strengthen the ego. The gradual process is an effort and every gradual effort strengthens the ego. It is just like a jump discontinuous with the past and only then ego drops.

The ego is of the past ,that we have done,accumulated,all conditionings, desires and the whole past is the ego. The dropping is non gradual, sudden ,a discontinuity .The past is no more ,the future is no more and one is left alone here –now and the ego cannot exist here now. The ego is around us and we are at the centre, egoless.

The child is egoless because the child has no past. Therefore the child is beautiful and fresh. It cannot say ‘I ‘because from where he will bring that ‘I’? The ‘I’ comes gradually when he gets the so-called education ,awards,punishment,appreciation or condemnations. The ‘I’ is gathered. The beautiful child becomes old and ugly not because of old age but because of possessing the accumulated ego ,too much of the whole past.The old man can become beautiful ,even more beautiful than the child when he drops the ego.

There is even a possibility of self deception when one thinks of oneself to be humble like a child .One’s humbleness, one’s humility is just a secret hiding place for the ego and nothing else. To the so called most humble person if one says that somebody is more humble than you  he will feel hurt. So who is hurt? It is none but remaining hidden ego.

So’ what to be done ‘for this problem creates the problem. In fact there is nothing to be done. One only needs clear eyes more perspective eyes more penetrating eyes and a fresh look at the centre of the Being .The ego is dropped .It is no more .The centre of the falsity is deconstructed and the reality of the ‘Being’ appears, which is nothing but a void, a non-being.  

Lecturer in English

Shreedhara Swamy college of Education and Technology

Sadangi,Dhenkanal,Odisha,INDIA.