Reality behind Reality: If Memories Fade, What Remains?

I recently watched Saiyaara, a poignant Bollywood film directed by Mohit Suri, starring debutants Ahaan Panday as Krish, an impulsive singer, and Aneet Padda as Vaani, a journalist-turned-songwriter. Their whirlwind romance is shattered when Vaani receives a diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's, forcing them to confront the fragility of love, memory, and identity. The film's heartfelt music and emotional depth lingered with me long after the credits rolled, sparking a cascade of questions about the very fabric of our existence. What makes us us? If our lives are woven from the threads of recollection, what happens when those threads unravel?

The Edifice of Memory: Building Our World on Shaky Ground

At its core, our sense of self is a grand tapestry of memories. From the mundane to the monumental, they form the scaffolding of our reality. We draw on the past as a compass for the present—recalling a childhood friend's laugh to navigate a heated argument today, or the sting of a past failure to fuel ambition. These echoes propel us forward, sketching visions of tomorrow: a promotion, a wedding, a quiet retirement. Our entire world, it seems, is a recursive loop: past begets present, which births new memories, which in turn illuminate potential futures.

But this loop isn't as seamless as it appears. Ancient Indian philosophy, particularly the Nyaya Sutras, offers a profound dissection of time that exposes its illusions. In the Nyaya tradition, time isn't a linear arrow but a slippery continuum where the present is perpetually elusive. One interpretation posits that the "present" is but a razor-thin slice, half-anchored in the residue of the past and half-projected into the anticipation of the future. Truly, there is no pure, standalone now—it's a mirage, a fleeting intersection that dissolves the moment we grasp it. Without a stable present as our reference point, how can we anchor the past or extrapolate the future? The Sutras challenge us: if time is this fragmented, so too is our memory-dependent reality. We're not living in a solid timeline; we're adrift in a flux of half-remembered shadows.

Consider the sensory symphony that colors our days: the twinkling stars we gaze at on a clear night, evoking ancient myths or lost loved ones; the sturdy oaks we brush past on a morning walk, whispering of seasons cycled and roots deepened; the gentle breeze caressing our skin, a fleeting touch that stirs nostalgia for summer freedoms. Or the birdsong piercing the dawn, a melody that transports us to carefree picnics. Even subtler triggers—a whiff of rain-soaked earth summoning playground escapades, or the distant strains of a lullaby from our toddler years—forge these moments into indelible imprints. Layered together, they sculpt our personality: the resilient optimist, the brooding artist, the pragmatic planner. Add a pinch of ego—that insistent "I" claiming ownership over it all—and voilà, we emerge as distinct beings, striding through life with purpose.

Yet, this edifice is perilously fragile.

Image Credit: Milwaukee Independent

When Memories Vanish: Who Are We Without Them?

What if the floodgates open and these memories drain away? Conditions like Alzheimer's, as depicted in Saiyaara, don't just erode facts; they dismantle the self. Vaani's journey in the film isn't merely about forgetting lyrics or faces—it's a slow erasure of the woman Krish fell for, the dreams they shared, the identity she clung to. Stripped bare, are we still us? Or do we become hollow vessels, echoing with the echoes of others' recollections? And who, precisely, is that "we" in the void—the raw consciousness flickering in the ruins?

The terror deepens when we question the memories' authenticity. What if they're fabricated? A vivid nightmare bleeds into waking hours, masquerading as lived truth; a suggestion from a storyteller plants false roots in our psyche. In Saiyaara, the power of music—a song becoming a lifeline across memory's abyss—hints at this: could our realities be symphonies composed by unreliable minds?

The Dream as Reality's Shadow – Insights from the Mandukya Upanishad

The Mandukya Upanishad, one of the shortest yet most profound Vedic texts, uses the dream state as a masterful analogy to probe the nature of existence. It delineates four quarters of the Self (Atman): the waking state (Jagrat), where we engage the gross world through senses; the dreaming state (Svapna), an internal realm of subtle creations; deep sleep (Sushupti), a blissful void of undifferentiated awareness; and the transcendent fourth (Turiya), the unchanging witness beyond all states.

In the dream quarter, the Upanishad reveals how the mind conjures entire worlds—cities, lovers, perils—as vividly real, complete with joys and terrors. Yet, upon waking, we dismiss them as illusions, mere projections of the subtle body (Taijasa). The text equates this to our waking life: what we deem "real" is but another layer of dream, sustained by ignorance. Just as the dreamer forgets the waking world while immersed in nocturnal adventures, we mistake sensory input for ultimate truth. The Upanishad whispers liberation: recognize the dream-like mithya (unreal) nature of all experiences, and awaken to Turiya—the eternal, non-dual Self where reality resides, untouched by time or memory.

The Abyss Stares Back: Purpose in a Memoryless Void

If our lives hinge on memories—real, imagined, or ephemeral—then what is reality? A collective hallucination? A neurological glitch in an indifferent cosmos? And if Alzheimer's or a rogue dream can dissolve it all, why persist? What purpose animates our striving—the careers we chase, the bonds we nurture, the dreams we dare? Why should we do anything when the ground beneath us is quicksand?

These questions don't yield easy solace, but they invite a radical pivot. Perhaps reality isn't the memories themselves, but the awareness that beholds them—the silent observer chronicled in the Mandukya's Turiya, or the logical inquiry of the Nyaya sages. In Saiyaara's tear-streaked climax, Krish clings not to Vaani's fading recollections, but to the love that transcends them—a defiant act of creation amid loss. Maybe our purpose isn't etched in stone or synapse, but emerges in the choice to witness, to connect, to infuse meaning into the flux.

Or perhaps, in questioning reality, we glimpse its essence: not a fixed edifice, but an eternal now, half-past, half-future, wholly alive in the asking. Why do anything? Because in the void, we are free to invent—memories or not. And in that invention lies the spark of the divine.

What do you think—does this unraveling affirm life's absurdity, or ignite its poetry?