These lines from the song ‘Gin Soaked Boy’ by The Divine Comedy pose an interesting paradox at multiple levels:
I’m the goodness in the bad
I’m the saneness in the mad
I’m the sadness in the joy
I’m the gin in the gin soaked boy
On the surface, it seems like a litany of contradictions put together to create a rhythmic effect. However, a deep dive reveals not just the lyrics of a song enjoyed by inebriated patrons in a pub, but also contradictions life presents to us, choices we make, and inherent meaning we derive from them.
‘I am goodness in the bad’ challenges the absolutist view of the world; nothing is absolute. There are several grey areas reminding us that what we perceive through our senses may not be the whole truth. Light creates shadows, joy contains possibility of sadness, goodness can exist within flawed people, and even falseness may contain a lesson or a fragment of truth.
Things are fluid, everchanging phenomena that have no independent existence according to the Buddhist view of pratitya-samutpada. Existence is an interconnected web with forces operating beyond our ken.
The Advaita view challenges duality. In Chapter 2, verse 4 of the Ashtavakra Gita, Ashtavakra explains that foam and bubbles are not different from water; likewise, the universe emanating from the Self is not different from it. Both good and bad, light and shadow exist in the Self that shines forth in the cave of the human heart. Two birds perched on one tree; one eats the fruit and other watches. The bird that eats fruit represents us as we go through life, with joy and sorrow, success and failure. The bird that watches is a detached witness. The witnessing bird is Atman aware that temporal world is a web spun by it and will one day collapse in the Self.
The gin in ‘the gin-soaked boy’ represents alcohol in the system at a physical level, but to a mind tuned to the positive note, it is a drop in the ocean. Jalaluddin Rumi said, “Listen, O drop, give yourself up without regret, and in exchange gain the Ocean,” for the drop is not different from the ocean but the ocean itself. Temptations and desires, needs and wants, ego and ambition drive us, but in the end, we have to ride the wave and know that we are both the drop and the ocean. Amir Khusro sang, “ Khusrau dariya prem ka, ulti wa ki dhaar,Jo utra so doob gaya, jo dooba so paar,” – Khusrau,the river of love runs in strange directions. One who jumps into it drowns, and one who drowns gets across.
The ‘Gin Soaked Boy’ ends with a question: ‘Who am i?’ The response bridges the doer and witness, the bird that eats fruit and the one that simply watches nearby. The way home to the Self is the coming together of contradictions that make us who we are. With our inherent paradoxes, we must choose to rest in ‘I’.
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
