XAT 2018 — VARC Question 20
Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow:
A spirit that lives in this world and does not wear the shirt of love, such an existence in a deep disgrace.
Be foolish in love, because love is all there is.
There is no way into presence except through love exchange.
If someone asks, But what is love? Answer, dissolving the will.
True freedom comes to those who have escaped the question of freewill and fate.
Love is an emperor. The two worlds play across him. He barely notices their tumbling game.
Love and lover live in eternity. Other desires are substitute for that way of being.
How long do you lay embracing a corpse? Love rather the soul, which cannot be held.
Anything born in spring dies in the fall, but love is not seasonal.
With wine pressed from grapes, expect a hangover.
But this love path has no expectations. You are uneasy riding the body?
Dismount, travel lighter. Wings will be given.
Be clear like mirror holding nothing.
Be clean of pictures and the worry that comes with images.
Gaze into what is not ashamed or afraid of any truth.
Contain all human faces in your own without any judgment of them.
Be pure emptiness. What is inside of that? You ask. Silence is all I can say.
Lovers have some secrets they keep.
How are the words "freewill", "fate" and "will" used in the poem above?
Answer & solution
All the three words are opposites of love.
- B
These words are used as a hallmark of an intelligent person.
- C
Freewill and will connote self-determination while fate connotes loss of control.
- D
These are used as something that corpses do not possess.
- E
Freewill and will are synonymous while fate is an antonym to both.
The answer can be obtained from the following stanzas:
If someone asks, But what is love? Answer, dissolving the will.
True freedom comes to those who have escaped the question of freewill and fate.
These lines imply that “love” leads to “freedom” only if someone has dissolved the will and escaped the question of freewill and fate. Thus, when we take “opposite” to mean something which is “conflicting, contrasting, or incompatible”, love and freewill/ fate/ will take contrasting meanings.
Hence, the correct answer is option 1.