SELF DECEPTION

Deception is more an art  than tricks of conscious mind.It is delusion of self where the boundaries between self and the other becomes more of appearance than reality.Human nature is more complex and human consciousness is far more complex to understand.Psychologists have interpreted human consciousness as the most complex web and human being as the most complex organism.Human consciousness is like a big hall with millions of mirrors ,reflecting the light and forming myriad shapes and figures.Looks are deceptive.The age old saying all that glitters is not gold , is true.Eliot rightly said, "there falls a shadow between appearance and reality".A deceptive person has two selves,one that is hidden to the world and  the other which is manifested.Such a person may be sweet tongued, naive, simple outwardly but cunning, harsh and selfish from within.So such persons are like sugarcoated bitter pills.Their simplicity is deceptive .Simple and gullible person gets trapped by their cunning tricks.It is this concealed self of the deceptive person which is camouflaged by different forms and textures.It is difficult for a person to perceive the crooked face hidden under the mask of a loving face.It has been  often said that beautiful sea creatures are tempting, luring and dreadful.One needs to be protected against the poisonous tentacles because within the veil of beauty lies a monstrous face.Sita was abducted by  Ravana as a  sanyasi asking for alms ,and Marich distracted Ram by feigning as a beautiful golden deer.Deception lies in temptation.I know a lady for many years,who is so well behaved, so pleasing and yet so cunning.No one can frame any fixed opinion about her.You cannot count on her.I had to revise my opinion of her so many times that  I don,t have any opinion of her at all.There is another man whom I trusted to be very naive but after some years he shocked me by revealing his true character.All saffron clad men, with long beard and hair are not god men but we see the real devil hidden in this  saintly robes.A man dons several selves within his natural self. Each self is projected in a specific level of interaction suited to his needs.My grand nanny used to tell us a story of a wicked churrail(witch) who lived on a mango tree on the back of our orchard.She had several faces which she used as mask suited to her object of prey.She used to keep these faces in the trunk of the tree.As a child I could neither understand nor question my grand nanny out of fear as to how a witch could have so many faces which she could use as dress.Now I understand it, as I have grown to see real life witches.And I remember the maxim , never give any final judgment on any person till one is dead.


CHANDRA SHEKHAR DUBEY