If I were to say that you are not the body because the body will die, and you were to agree in that moment; and the very next moment you pick up a glass and the glass were to get stuck to your hand. And then I say, ‘but you are not the body’. And you respond, ‘yes, but I have to get the glass off my hand first’, then I am the mad one for your obviously valid concern. The truth doesn’t change depending on your perspective though.

The more one may explain, the more redundant seem the explanations. The mind, body, soul, are concepts to weave philosophies and then debate upon. It keeps one engaged but not liberated. Engagement is necessary to have one consider the possibility of a possibility such as liberation. It doesn’t in itself hold the possibility. One cannot talk or hear their way out of their own madness. One has to be rid of it on their own through their own cognition, recognition, and efforts to the extent of their madness. The word madness makes sense in this discussion because the human condition is fairly insane.

A human being, in light of its own doing, has caused itself into a situation where it needs to indulge in life by intoxicating themselves off their mind. The compulsive patterns of behaviour and thought need to be heightened with the hope of surpassing them, through the indulgence of its own compulsiveness in order to become aware of it. And even in becoming aware of it, the memory of the momentary high or thrill is capable of spinning another pattern of compulsiveness. This state of intoxication comes from indulging in our residue. The residue is where our identifications lie, which creates a sense of identity, which in turn causes other identities in the mind, and therefore a palpable mind that’s separate from the rest. In other words, intoxicating ourselves with our ignorance to create a false sense of self, is responsible for the beliefs, philosophies, purposes, and madness that’s managed to pass off as the way of the world.

What’s really nice about all this is that truth is not away from anything. It is as much as this, and as much as it is not. It is absolutely nothing. Nothing of all this. Not even that.

Yuvraj Goswami is the author of No Point Talking. available on amazon. Excerpts are on www.elefemel.com and @nopointtalking on Instagram.