Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academy-advaita.com
The Netherlands
8 May 2023
Green Leaves
“Colour”
Branches of tree in winter are brown and barren. In spring, the branches of the tree are filled with green leaves. Shape of a leaf and the colour green are absent in the branch, the tree trunk and the soil, yet nature turns green with many colours and shapes.
Colour and shape in nature convince man or woman that life is real and not illusory. Logic and reason support this conviction. The enlightened, however, have indicated that life that is known and experienced is a play of light and sound, meaning that life is illusory and not real.
Nature is very colourful for a reason. The reason is that, if life were without colours and shape, it would be impossible for man either to identify or recognise anything that exists in life. It would also not be possible for man to recognise dimensions or directions in life.
In short, life would be impossible for man to live in without the help of colours and shape. Now, light is information and it is obvious that light is information, because the smart phone and the computer that give us information function due to electricity and electricity is light. Therefore, light not only gives us information of colours, light also gives us information on the existential nature of colours and shapes.
Nature and our surroundings are filled with electromagnetic radiation, because sunlight, with which we are surrounded, is made up of different wavelengths of radiation. Also, everything that exists in the surroundings, including us, is made up of atoms and atoms are nothing but electromagnetic radiations. Therefore, all are exposed to different wavelengths of light.
This implies that sunlight-radiation enters the eyes, both directly and indirectly, when sunlight-radiations are reflected from everything that exists in the surroundings. It is important to understand that these electromagnetic radiations of sunlight are just light and not coloured lights.
The receptors in the retina and the optic nerve, which conduct the electromagnetic radiations from the eye to the brain, are all made up of atoms, which are once again nothing but electromagnetic radiations.
The different wavelengths of electromagnetic radiations are mysteriously transformed by the brain as thoughts of colours. Therefore, colours are thoughts in the mind and are neither external actuality nor internal reality.
"We think of colour as a fundamental quality of the world around us. But, in the outside world, colour does not actually exist. When electromagnetic radiation hits an object, some of it bounces off and is captured by our eyes. We can distinguish between millions of combinations of wavelengths – but it is only inside our heads that any of this becomes colour. Colour is an interpretation of wavelengths, one that only exists internally."- David Eagleman, Ph.D. in Neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine.
The enlightened accept nature as it is and do not expect nature to be what it should be.
Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright V. S. Shankar 2023
Editors Comment:
In the language of metaphor, a veil has been lifted and the eyes have been miraculously opened. It is a new world, but one that has never been absent. The door to this new world is open for those who are meant to enter. Every man and every woman is welcome.
Julian Capper
German Translator‘s Note:
The intelligence in life creates colors in the human brain where there are none, thoughts where there are none, feelings that only the individual experiences. The colorless life is colored in the mirror of the mind, in numerous, illusory facets. To be happy in this illusion succeeds in a lasting way only if this is deeply understood. Therefore, the enlightened share the realization that what we perceive is not the truth of how things really are in themselves, but that everything perceived is mysteriously colored by our senses, experiences and conclusions. Life in the form of Dr. Shankar, who gave this article and much more to humanity, has the eternal gratitude of having opened our eyes to life as it is.
Marcus Stegmaier, Germany.