Shekhar Kapur reflects on the misunderstood nature of consciousness and love

Referencing spiritual icons like Rumi, Buddha, and Shiva, he described consciousness as something immeasurable—beyond the grasp of ego and intellect.

Mumbai: Veteran filmmaker Shekhar Kapur, on Sunday, shared a deeply introspective post exploring the elusive nature of consciousness and love.

Taking to Instagram, he posted a powerful image of the Buddha alongside a lengthy note where Kapur questioned the human need to define the undefinable. Referencing spiritual icons like Rumi, Buddha, and Shiva, he described consciousness as something immeasurable, beyond the grasp of ego and intellect. Shekhar Kapur wrote, “Consciousness…a word so widely used and yet so misunderstood. Almost as misunderstood as the word ‘love’, for how can a drop in the vast eternal ocean isolate itself from the ocean and then try to understand the ocean outside itself? What is this ‘itself’ the drop imagines? As Rumi said so famously, …”

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“You are not a drop in the ocean but a whole Ocean in the drop.’ The very issue with consciousness is our attempt to define it. But surely if consciousness is the vast eternity in which we exist, then it has to be undefinable, immeasurable, and infinite.”

The director, known for his reflective posts, added, “But our mind, our ego, is addicted to conclusions … to definitions. Our mind needs to define everything. Consciousness cannot be a definition nor a conclusion. For consciousness is not what is or what might be… Consciousness is ‘what is not’… for while we may be able to define ‘what is,’ we have no way to measure that which is not… Nothingness is not measurable. There is a reason Shiva is described as the Lord of Darkness, of Nothingness, and the Buddha spoke of Enlightenment as a vast Emptiness. That’s how He described Consciousness.”

In his previous post, Shekhar Kapur explored the deep connection between creativity and mental health.

On the work front, the 79-year-old National Award-winning director is known for helming films such as “Masoom,” “Mr. India,” and “Bandit Queen.”