Once I stood directly beneath a single clean light. It was as if the world sharpened itself around me: edges became obvious, colours had no hesitation, and everything that could hide, could not. There were no shadowy corners; nothing slipped away into ambiguity. Clarity sat on my shoulders like a warm coat. I could see every small thing, even the things I usually pretended not to notice.
Then I turned my back and started walking toward the next room. Not with drama, just one step, then another. The light thinned behind me as naturally as breath. Slowly, almost by default, darkness wrapped me. It did not rush. It did not shout. It simply returned to its place, patient and inevitable. What an amazing way the truth explains things: you move away from the light and darkness that comes with you, without asking permission. A pure manifestation of default cosmic law.
After that moment, I began to notice the same pattern in other parts of life. Wherever I lost my stand, places where I opted out of light or gray areas, I found myself slipping. Let ethics loosen even by a finger’s breadth, and the slope becomes easier to slide down. Hold firm, and you stand. There are no middle or comfortable grays where the rules bend kindly around us. Either white or black. Either you stand, or you slip. Often the slip begins not with a choice but with a small neglect, a moment we call unimportant, a word we tell ourselves is harmless (ignorance). That little not-stand is the invitation.
People I have known speak in the easy tongue of justification. “Main Lakshmi ko naa nahi bolta,” they say I will not refuse the bribe. But where did I come to hear about this? Wasn’t I the person who said this? Was I the giver? Yes, “Yeh pyaar hai sir”. We rephrased it softer: a small shortcut today, a small lie to save trouble. The world listens and forgives us because we are clever at speech; the cosmos does not. The universe has its own quiet values and cycles we barely notice until we break them. The sun rises; birds chirp; animals follow the thread of their days without bargaining. There are no shortcuts in their rhythm.
We like to think of ourselves as supreme because we can break rules, and then we are even more clever: we write reasons after and convene within by stating “We are not perfect, it’s ok”. A thief will dress his act in reasons and call it necessary. But audiences, the only true witnesses, already know the shape of evil when they see it. A lie is a lie. There are not white lies and black lies; there is the simple fact of truth altered or truth kept. I believe in Truth and in Reality, and they rhyme, but they are not twins. You cannot carry both on the same shoulder.
Every human is born with a small inner voice, not loud, not dramatic, but a still, soft thing that says right or wrong. It speaks as naturally as hunger. The moment we stop listening is the moment we tilt toward not-human (the gray dwellers), the one who has forgotten the sound of the small voice.
So I love but have been unsuccessful many times, to return to that lit room in my memory or life. When I get a chance, I do stand there and let the light find the corners of me again. I will not preach from it; I will only practice to live with it. Stand now, and not because the light forces you, but because standing is the only honest choice left.
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