Way, way before Big Data, zillions of years before Tik-Tok there was the Akasha Chronicle to record everything. The first humanoid to get drunk on rotten fruit? It’s been Recorded. Mudi jumping off a cliff to avoid getting killed by the drowning of Atlantis? It’s there in all photographic detail. Not that it saved him. Plato’s first gurgle as a baby? Recorded! Abraham taking Isaac up the hill to the altar? Recorded! Isaac holding a paternal grudge for ever? Recorded! First time ever someone got eaten by a crocodile in Australia? Recorded! Gautama’s eating habits before he settled for rice and dal? Recorded! Hittite love songs? Death rattle of the last tyrannosaurus? Cleopatra’s first wrinkle? That poor guy Moses killed? All recorded. You’re surprised that Amazon remembers your very first purchase two decades ago and keeps reminding you to stock up on similar products? Think again: the Chronicle keeps proposing the most amazing things from your past that you’re not aware of at all. Like giving you another chance with A. B., who was your wife, your grandpa, your cell mate, someone who loved you, someone who killed you, someone you herded goats with at different times – hundreds or thousands or millions of years ago. It all boils down to when you were one when it all began. The Chronicle knows. It even knows when Big Data was baptized, when it had its first hiccup, its first bout with mental illness.

– Sri Shantibindo (© 2024)