Sunday, December 20, 2009

Integrity

One of the dictionary meanings of the word Integrity is, ‘The quality or condition of being whole or undivided’. The basic necessity for a fulfilled life! If we ever have done any root cause analysis for any of our problems, for sure, we shall reach a point that the lack of integrity in our life and living is the root cause. The lack of integrity is due to our desires, attachments, possessiveness…

Psychologically, we are not whole. We have divided ourselves into numerous fragments – each fragment representing a small part of ourselves. We are the collection of such fragments. When we ourselves are fragments, integrity is not possible for us. On the other hand, there cannot be integrity in our life until the time we exist as fragments.

For anything and everything we have certain ideas and opinions. Once we have the ideas and opinions, we are already identified ourselves with those ideas. With that identification, each ideas and opinions are just a fragment of us. We see anything with respect to these fragments and act on anything with the fragmented knowledge gained by seeing based on ideas/opinions. Hence the action cannot be the action of intelligence, but the action of fragmented knowledge. When we act with a fragmented knowledge, we cannot gauge the necessity of that action. In fact, we cannot act, we can only react! When we act on anything without the understanding of its necessity, the outcome will be an accident. If the outcome of this accident is positive with respect to us, we celebrate and if it is negative we suffer.

When we act with integrity, all our actions will be pure and effortless. It is out of understanding of the necessity of our action. Such action does not require any effort from us.

When there is no space or interval between our thoughts, words, and actions, integrity will be established in our life. In general, almost every one of us, probably with very few exceptions, thinks something, talk something else, and act in totally different manner. The reason for this is that we do not understand the space between thoughts, words, and our actions and hence do not realize the changes happening with in that space. Due to our lack of understanding of that space, something else may enter between the spaces and hence our thoughts, words, and action are disintegrated. Such a life with disintegrated thoughts and actions is a totally disintegrated life. Suffering is inevitable in such a way of living. If we are of the type that we never complain about our sufferings, the current way of living is fine. But if we are complaining about our sufferings, the first thing we should do is correct ourselves from this disintegrated life.

For understanding the space between the thoughts, words and action, we need to have perception – Perception of our thoughts, perception of what we speak, and perception of what we do. Perception is possible only when we keep ourselves alive or when we are really living. Perceiving is living! In our current way of living, complete perception may not be possible at once. But it is possible to have perception when we keep ourselves attentive. The trap here is that if we are not able to be attentive, we may start cursing ourselves which does more harm than help. In such situations, just be aware of that inattentiveness – Which can take our perception to new levels. The basic requirement here is the understanding of need for such attentiveness and our willingness to be attentive. Once we have the understanding and willingness, integrity is our being and the space, if any, between our thoughts and action are no more occupied by anything else and hence in reality there is no space between our thoughts and action. It is a single integrated activity!

It is not a tough task to understand that whatever problems we have in our personal level or religious level or national level or global level – the basic reason is lack of integrity within the responsible personnel. For our problems, we are the responsible one. For religious problems, the so called religious leaders are responsible personnel. For national problems, the political leaders are responsible personnel and so on.

We expect those who lead us should have the quality of integrity. But are we having integrity within us. If we are totally disintegrated, what value do we have on our expectation that others should have integrity? – Whoever it may be. We are the society, we are the nation. If we are disintegrated, the society/nation is disintegrated for sure. But we may ask, if I establish integrity within myself, will be the integrity of society established? Such question is an immature question – can be asked by a mind which cannot grasp the quality of integrity within it.

Integrity is not about having a set of moral qualities. A mind entangled with morality cannot possibly understand the quality of integrity. The conflicts arises within the mind due to the urge to comply with the moral values takes away the integrity. A mind with chattering desires may not be able to have the quality of integrity. It is not that one should not have desire, but should not be within the prison of desires. A mind with fears and beliefs cannot have the quality of integrity. Fear and belief divide us into tiny fragments.

If we want the quality of integrity within our society, within our political establishments, within our religious establishments, the basic need is that we should be a person with the quality of integrity. If we don’t have integrity within us and expect others should have that quality is equivalent to that of an act of violence. When we have the quality of integrity within us, the very presence of integrity within us spread around us. The integrity within the society is thus started forming. If certain small percentage of population lives with integrity, the whole of society will prosper due to the ripple effect. Why don’t you and I start that change?

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Space with in mind

Mind is the expression of brain. Whatever the brain perceives, process, and produce are expressed as mind. We are usually aware of very limited perceptions, processing, and produce of brain. The awareness is also a part of mind or perception by the brain. On the other hand awareness is the perception of brain about its own functions. Probably, at deeper level of awareness, possibly at unconscious and collective unconscious level the above statement may not be valid, but now it cannot be discussed here. The brain is capable of being aware of its complete function – from its peripheral to the deepest layer. Probably that awareness is the intelligence. The brain’s functions include creation, maintenance, and destruction. Being aware of the complete functioning of brain may be the height of ecstasy.

With respect to the discussion in this blog, the brain’s functions can be divided into three functional domains. The first functional domain is the control center of our body, where the continuous function of creation maintenance and destruction happens without any interval. It any way takes place perfectly as long as the conditions for its functions are maintained. The second domain is the perceptions beyond the limit of our body which perceives the happening around us and it is required for our living. Probably, there is one more domain which is the psychic entity within us, which is basically a stray function of brain and illusionary in nature. Unfortunately our conscious part of mind is almost completely occupied by this third domain, which is completely illusionary.

The activities of first functional domain are real, which is actually happening but we are almost unaware of it. The second functional domain is also real, due to which we are living our life on day to day basis. And third one is completely illusionary and with which we are fully occupied. This domain process the stray information belongs to second domain and may be little bit from fist domain, which then becomes our psychic entity. As our conscious mind is full of illusionary and it is functioning without any space or interval, we are unable to be aware of the other two domains of functioning of brain.

The problem with the mind or brain is that the conscious part of mind is completely occupied by unreal and illusionary things, for which there is no possibility of any kind of perception. The mind cannot perceive the illusionary images – it can only hallucinate at this level, but due to our way of life the conscious part of mind is completely with illusion or unperceivable. Whatever little perceptions we have in our life are perceived during the interval when illusions are set aside by the mind/brain. For our living, we need to have certain minimum level of perception. Hence the mind creates space for such perceptions when and where required. The success or achievements we think that we have in our life entirely depend on our brain’s capability to create space to perceive the happenings around us. And many of us yet have reluctance to give credit for our achievements to the capability of our brain. We give the credit for our success and achievements to some unknown entities or other planets and stars in the space, on the name of belief.

As mind or brain is mainly occupied with unperceivable images at conscious level, it slowly becomes dull and perception is fading away from us. As the perception fade away from us, we have to hang on with only illusions and need not say about the results. The brain or mind has to be very active and sensitive for perception at higher levels to take place. On an active and sensitive mind, illusions will not surface as it in a dull mind.

How do we know the mind or brain is occupied with unperceivable images? How do we know what we have in our conscious part of our mind is illusionary in nature? It is our real problem. We are used for this way of living and this way of thinking. It is not just us, generations after generation we are having this problem. It is hereditary. It may not be easy to perceive that what we have in our conscious mind is unperceivable. Whatever we have in our conscious mind can only been thought about- this is again multiplying the images. Here the problem is to understand and differentiate between what is thought and what is perception.

One of the reasons for some people failing in the path of spirituality is exactly the above problem. Unable to understand and differentiate between what is thought and what is perception and enter into a state of hallucination. And this problem arises due to some beliefs which they have and never tried/try to transcend, and hence anchored in those beliefs. And probably during last few hundred years the path of knowledge has taken back seat in almost all the cultures. As the path of knowledge is in back seat, the path of devotion has slowly becomes path of demand, which has no relevance to spirituality. For the majority of population in the current generation, spirituality means asking and demanding something and in return performing some rituals at most. If we fail to look beyond the path of demand, probably the whole of spirituality may be wiped out from the major part of humanity. If it happens, the knowledge repository in the form of scriptures may become nothing for a logical mind and entertainment for the illusionary mind. This scenario is inevitable.

If we can observe our mind for some time, we can get an idea about its current way of functioning. The mind is either occupied with thoughts or it is in asleep, without any perception what so ever. Suddenly it wakes up, but again just with some thoughts. It is never be active and without any thoughts - that is the space required in the mind. It may be active but without thoughts, only when we are doing any intensive work and whatever little bit of perception apart from the perception of that intensive activity is happening along with this activity. Whatever little space we have within mind is created during the time of such intensive activity, when thought may not be required for that activity, yet intensively involved in that activity. Will it possible to be without any outward activity, yet active within mind? This is the condition required for perception – the created space within our mind. All the rituals, symbols, religions, Vedas, Upanishads, etc are preparing the mind for such a state. Are we performing the rituals and following the symbols with this awareness. If not, why are we performing rituals? Why are we following symbols?

How to allow the space within mind? It is possible only by understanding what ‘space in mind’ is and what is ‘not allowing the space within mind’. Once we understand the element which takes away whatever little space available in mind, the very understanding starts providing the space for mind and hence allowing the brain to function. If we are willing the ecstasy of perceiving the complete function of our brain is not far away from us! This possibility is available for every one of us. Not only for just a selected, handful of beings!

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Complexities in approaching spirituality

What is Spirituality? For me, spirituality is the way of life in which the brain is allowed to reach the limit of its potential. Memory, by the way of thoughts is not allowing required space for the brain to function at the peak of its potential. When we reach the stage of having complete freedom from our memory and hence thoughts, the brain will be having sufficient space to function without any blockage. I am not sure anyone can accept this definition!

Every one of us has our own view on spirituality based on the plane in which our thoughts and perception are anchored. This plane is based on our belief systems, our environment in which we are grown, the culture which we belongs and so on. Only very few might have dared to go beyond this plane of understanding due to the very fact that this plane of life provides enormous psychological security. Under the warmth of such psychological security, we consider all our suffering as natural part of our life and never look forward towards reality or truth, upon understanding which there will be no more sufferings. Under the psychological security provided by the belief systems, even many of the people who talks about spirituality, live a life far away from truth or reality.

During at least the last ten thousand years of human existence, there were people who were living with reality. Even at current date, there are many such beings, at least very few are in the lime light. Few of these beings who were close to reality wanted to take the reality closer to the whole of humanity. The result is the scriptures of all the cultures and all the religions. The unfortunate reality is that there experience with reality had to be expressed as words. Possibly, the experience with reality cannot be expressed with the available words of any language or they might not have the linguistic expertise required to take these reality to the humanity. Hence the only possibility is expressing them in a subtle way with the words available with the languages and the linguistic expertise they had. Anybody who has no idea about what the reality or truth is, these expressions of those realized people have no meaning. At best the common population can create their own pictures from these expressions of realized masters and hence a belief system.

Now we are left with the task of interpreting those scriptures, if at all we have any urge to understand how they felt about reality. But in reality, it has no meaning for the common population except getting an idea of the possibility of experiencing something called reality or truth. As almost all the interpreters relied on their linguistic skills rather than the understanding of reality or truth, the real meaning of the scriptures might not have been revealed to us and it cannot be. The unfortunate is that with those interpretations, the majority of the human population entered into one or other belief system and distanced themselves from reality or truth. At the current moment, the only possibility available to us is transcending all these belief systems, if at all we have any inclination towards reality. Please note that it is not just ignoring them, but transcending them. If we are not doing that, we will be left with just some beliefs which do not have any meaning except providing some psychological security. Such psychological security is destructive to the spiritual growth.

There are few genuine spiritual gurus trying to impart the spiritual process to humanity. But unfortunately a cult is getting created, may be due to the irrational devotion of their followers. Of course, they need followers to carry on their social activities and spread their messages to public. Again the unfortunate event is that most of the people touched by their teaching/methods entered knowingly or unknowingly in the realm of hero worship even though those spiritual gurus are advocating against such hero worship. Also they tend to take the spiritual Guru as their spiritual authority. Once an authority is accepted for spirituality, there is no more spirituality for that person. This is because the authority takes away the freedom required for spirituality. Almost every one touched by those spiritual gurus, start emulating that guru with respect to that attribute which influenced that common person. Those people forget that they are entirely different from the guru and trying to emulate that guru with respect to any of the attributes of that guru has no meaning and any such attempt will be futile for their own spiritual growth.

The spiritual gurus have to address people who are in many planes of understanding. Hence the followers have to use their wisdom while taking the teaching of spiritual guru. Otherwise the effort of the spiritual guru may mislead the followers instead of taking them closer to reality. Due to the blind belief or hero worship or acceptance of authority the people have with the guru, they fail to recognize the subtle messages from the guru and the message addressed to the plane in which they are and hence the possibility offered by the spiritual guru is being nullified. Even the close associates of those gurus might not been anywhere near reality due to the mere following, worshiping and acceptance of authority of spiritual guru- may be with very few exceptions.

The possible way to reach reality or truth through a spiritual guru is probably being with the guru and his teachings yet emotionally away from the guru. Now the question is, is it possible for the common population who are emotionally attached with all worthless things in life, being emotionally away from a spiritual guru who may be able to transform their life itself? It may not be possible. This is where the common population has to enhance their knowledge about spirituality while attempting spirituality. And here lies the core complexity in approaching spirituality. Due to this complexity, a commendable ratio of population who claims that they are spiritualist may not be anywhere near to spirituality. The unfortunate part is that they have no means to find it out. If spirituality is approached without the awareness of the traps in this path, it is very easy to get into one or the other trap. Once we are in the trap, the whole life will be a complete waste, whether or not one is in the arm of a Spiritual Guru. The way we are living now may be much better than the life within that trap.

Why do we need such a complicated spirituality? First up all, spirituality is not complex; our mind made it as complex with all the beliefs, opinions, and slavery. Secondly with spirituality, we have a possibility of living our life.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Opinion

For any happening around us and anything around us we would like to have our opinion and views. If we are unable to form any opinion or our own view about the happenings or things, we feel inferior, but most of us somehow create certain opinion within us. If anybody interacting with us is not having any opinion or reluctant to express their opinion, we make them feel inferior. We and our education system continuously insist us to have opinion to anything and everything we come across. The media of present day create opinion about worthless maters and doing business out of that. As we are educated to have opinion about everything, we borrow the opinion of media and help the media to blossom their business.

What is opinion? Is it has any relation with perception? Is it has any relation with truth? If not, why are we having opinion about everything and why are we forced to have opinion about everything? Answering these questions may not be an easy task. Having opinion about everything and then doing anything and spend all our energy to substantiate our opinion has become our way of life.

Opinion is nothing but building an image about the object of interest based on what is seen, heard or read. If the opinion is exactly same as what is seen or heard or read, it is fact. It is not an opinion at all. We shape our opinion based on what is seen, heard or read plus the images we already have within our mind, which could be related to the object of interest in some way. For validating this opinion we may use any image we have with in our mind. Hence we never have facts with us. We are always having opinions and views. Even for the facts, we convert them as opinion and views.

What way this image helps us? Probably it may help us to show off that we are knowledgeable. Probably helps others to build a superior opinion about us, which in turn may earn respect from others. May be helps us to gain few more such petty things also. But to recognize these things as petty things, we may have to look into our life from another dimension. Unless we recognize these as petty things, which don’t have any value for our life and living, we keep on accumulating opinions.

If we really see into the opinions, we can clearly understand that they are diverting us from living. They are deflecting us from perception. They are preventing us from seeing/understanding truth and keep us away from truth. Unless we see the significance of living, perception and truth there is no possibility for us to see what is keeping us away from living - from possibility of complete perception and from truth or reality. We are never going to recognize the role of our opinions in keeping us away from living and truth.

Upon a clear examination of facts, we can understand that a life of ecstasy is not only gifted to very few selected beings. It is possibility is given to every one of us. The way to achieve it is also very easy. Only thing we have to do is just understand the possibility of such ecstasy in our life and create the space within our mind to capture it. Creating the space is that just understand the significance of our activities in our life and aware of our activities. Once we are capable of doing this, other dimensions of life will open for us.

Coming back to the subject of discussion, opinion keeps us away from seeing the reality. When we have opinion about something, we will not look into it any more with the longing to know. We take the opinion as the knowledge of that particular subject and move on without even looking into it. Even though we know change is a constant process, we fail to recognize the fact that the subject might have changed from its property when we looked at it last. We go on with our opinion and hence fail to capture the current reality of the subject as our opinion blocks us from seeing the subject with the urge of knowing. When we don’t have the intention of knowing, knowledge is not possible.

If we want to be anywhere close to reality, we must come out of the trap of opinion. While coming out of the trap of opinion, others around us may be building a negative opinion about us. To face this situation, we must be aware of the fact that others opinion about us are also just opinion and should be capable of ignoring those opinions also. This is possible only if we are very much clear about what we need and have a very clear perception that the opinions are not at all facts.

The opinion we need to come out may be the opinion about our parents, spouse, children, friends, other people, God, heaven, Guru, philosophies, religions and the list is limitless as we have opinion about each and every thing we encountered in our life. If we see this list with an opinion, it may looks like a mission impossible. But if we can really see the destructive role of opinion in our life, it is an easy task to leave all our opinions about anything and everything. Once we are free from opinions, we will be start seeing everything with delight, like a child. The delightedness on looking at our life entirely changes the quality of our life. Hence the real problem is not leaving the opinion behind us, but understanding the need for leaving them behind us.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Significance of Living

This may be a very common question for any one started looking inwardly. I have absolutely no knowledge to answer this question. However, like to put forward my views. It may or may not have any real meaning.

It may be a meaningless question, yet we have to have some convincing answers for this question to carry on our life. If we come up with a negative answer, the questioners may convince themselves to end their life also. There were instances of mass suicides on the name of spirituality or other reasons referred as cult suicides. Refer this link for some info about cult suicides - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_suicide. This might be due to the negative answer they could drive for similar questions. That could be the reason for so many belief systems across the world, including the religions – to derive any significance to the life. Belief is the easy way to find an illusionary significance for our life – Then we are going into the realm of irrationality. We may create our God and make the goal of our life as seeing the God. We may create the concept of Atman and make the goal of life as understanding the Atman. We may create the rituals and make the goal of our life as performing these rituals. We may create the concept of heaven and set our goal as reaching heaven.

What is living? Not the living of human being alone – Living for everything in the existence including animate and inanimate objects. We may define living thing as a group of material, with harmonious interaction with each other so that an energy field is created with in that group. Any material body have to have this energy field to keep its shape and property. This energy field may have fundamental relation with the existence itself. The whole existence may be one living thing, which may be referred as GOD. Each galaxy in the universe may be a set of living thing within the first one. Each star system may be living things with in the galaxies. Each planet may be living thing within the star system. Each stone, tree, animal, human are living things within the planet earth. The bacteria and other microorganisms may be another set of living things within us and other animate living beings on earth. The molecules and atoms may be living thing in the micro level. And subatomic particles may be living things at still lower level.

If we can consider this definition, our life has the same significance of existence itself! And an animal, stone, and atoms have the same significance for their existence as that of ours. Hence, when the existence destroys itself, it will destroy us also. Since there is no specific significance for our life, we may decide to end our life; there is no significance for that act also. Our body and energy will still be a part of this existence only. In the solar system, earth provides the proper condition for animate living things to evolve. We are aware that there are billions of star systems within this universe like solar system. Hence it may be possible in some other star systems to have condition for evolution of animate living things. Then what is the significance of our life? There may not be any significance for our life with respect to the whole existence other then the significance of existence itself.

If we look it from another angle, in the whole of infinite (with respect to our perception) existence, we are the only being with the power of thought and power of perception beyond sensual perceptions. We are the only being, using the power of thought and perception can understand and wonder the vastness of existence. We are the only being, with the power of thought and perception can live in never ending joy. Is it not a significance of our life? Why do we suffer in such a significant life? Why do we need to end such a significant life? If we are not living such a joyous life due to the ignorance of ourselves, does it erode such a significance attached with human life? Every moments of our life should be a celebration, for having such a significant life.

Now, we are a group of material on which the energy field operates. At this level, the significance of our life may be to establish the fundamental relation between the energy field which is our life and the existence itself, with the power of our thoughts, perceptions, and intelligence. In the existence, each and every particle is in support of existence itself. Hence the significance of our living also may lies on supporting this existence.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Perceptions

Sensual perception is the common factor for all living beings. It differs between the living beings only with respect to the number of senses. Human being is the only living species who have more than sensual perception, which is widely referred as sixth sense.

It may not be an easy task to capture the real meaning of perception beyond sensual perception in words. The description may lead us to some sort of imagination. There are multiple dimensions of perceptions beyond sensual perceptions. We human beings are capable of perceiving all the possible dimensions of perceptions. Yet we are unable to go beyond or can go just at a micro level beyond the sensual perception due to the way we are living our life. On the other side, we started losing the sensual perception also to a great extent due to the way of our living.

The term ‘way of our living’ indicates here about our attention to things happening with in us and around us. Due to this varied attention, the perceptual threshold is altered very frequently for various sensual perceptions, which leads to insensitivity to the senses, which is same as loss of perception. Are we incapable of being attentive to everything happening with in us and around us? Surely not! Our mind is inattentive to happenings due to its preoccupation with things which are created by the mind itself and caught between the things created by it. As the mind becomes the slave of its own creations, the thoughts, it appears to be very active but in an imaginary zone which has no reality. Due to the whirling movement of our mind within the things created by it, it has no space available for allowing even the sensual perceptions. When we are not able to perceive the senses itself, there is no question of the dimensions of perception beyond senses. When we are not able to completely perceive at least the sensual perceptions with zero or near zero perceptual threshold, we are actually not living. We just exist!

Our life is to live this wonderful life. When we are not in the field of perception, we are just wasting a possibility available to us – the possibility of living. What are the perceptions beyond our five sensual perceptions? We know that there are unlimited number of activities happening with in our body. The flow of blood, the contraction and expansion of muscles, the functioning of our internal organs are some of those functions. Are we able to perceive any of these happenings within our body? For example when we are attentive we can perceive to some extent the functioning of heart – the heart beat. I think this perception itself is something beyond our sensual perception. When we are in relaxed mood, are we able to perceive certain perceptions in the relaxed part of our body? When we have such perception, our relaxation actually gets multiplies. If we allow our mind to have enough free space, it is capable of perceiving such perceptions of our body and when we have that perceptions, the body and mind will be in a really relaxed mood. Please note that this perception is not due to imagination. If it is due to imagination, it is not perception – it is hallucination.

Why should we have perception? Perceiving is living. Perceiving is not in the past or not in the future. Perceiving is from moment to moment. It is living. If we do not perceive from moment to moment, we are not living – we are just existing.

All our problems are due to lack of perception. For example, when we eat a tasty food, we fail to perceive the taste from moment to moment. Due to the preoccupation of our mind with its own creations, we tend to recognize the taste only after the moment the taste bud senses the taste. We recognize it by comparison which is in the field of thoughts and not in the field of perception. Due to this, we tend to feel it again but repeatedly fail to perceive the taste as it is sensed by our senses. We compare the senses and after that we decide whether it is tasty or not tasty. Due to this failure in recognizing the taste as it is sensed, we rarely satisfied with the food and tend to over eat. If we really perceive the taste as the taste bud sense the taste, we will not over eat due to the desire of enjoying taste. We stop eating when required to stop, but will have a complete satisfaction of eating due to our complete perception of taste.

Another major problem for every one of us in our lives is the problem in relationships. This is the problem which constitutes the major part of all our problems. This problem is due to lack of perception. We never perceive or attempt to perceive others and other life forms. We just make images of others and other life forms and take this image as our perception at best. Then we act on these images, which never be the real action required based on perception. Due to this lack of perception or action based on image, a gap is developed between our actions and others and other life forms, which in turn create all the problems in relationships. Then how to perceive others and other life forms? It may not be possible to capture in words with our current level of perception. Unless we are capable of perceiving completely our senses and the happenings within us, any attempt to understand or explain the other dimensions of perception will enter into the domain of imagination. The discussion here is just to understand that we are capable of perceiving multiple dimensions of perceptions and the first step towards it is to perceive our senses completely and the happenings within our body and mind.

If we start perceiving these basic perceptions, nobody else is required for us to explain the other dimensions of perceptions. Our brain is capable of perceiving all those dimensions, if we allow the mind to have and expand the space within it which is created by the basic perceptions.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Our Relation with Nature

I think there is a fundamental conflict in this heading itself! We ourselves are also nature or a part of nature. The heading suggests that we are different from nature and hence establishing a relationship between us and nature. But the way we are living now, we separated ourselves from nature and started believing as separate entities and hence distanced ourselves from nature. As a consequence of this, we started destroying the nature with out knowing that we are destroying ourselves.

Since we are already distanced ourselves from nature, we need to establish the relation with it again. Otherwise the nature will be completely destroyed by us with out our knowledge. On the other hand, we will be completely destroyed by ourselves as we ourselves are nature or part of nature.

We are just a group of material which stays together in harmony and hence have an energy filed within it. This energy field, then sustain the harmony and hence the togetherness of this group of material. If this statement is valid, death may be considered as the weakness of this energy which is no more sufficient to keep this heap of material together in harmony. In this complex structure evolved from nature, there is a control center called brain and the processing of this brain is expressed as mind. The energy field with the brain might have given the intelligence to us. We must have got this intelligence to support the evolution process of nature. Unfortunately, instead of freeing ourselves using this intelligence from the struggle of evolution process, we are bonded with the struggle of evolution process and hence not allowing the required space for the intelligence to function.

In the process of evolution, till the time we were not having the function of thoughts and such a limitless memory (thoughts evolve out of what is there in the memory), the only functions we were doing were survival and procreation – to sustain evolution. There were no ego and hence no struggle to sustain ego. And hence there is no separation of us from nature. Once we got the thinking power, with the power of thought we were able to protect ourselves from other animals and then from the cycles of nature itself – Still we were without any ego and hence been with nature.

At certain point, due to the difference in capabilities and strengths, the concept of ownership might have been developed. This must have been the starting point of psychological entities like possession, attachment, desire and so on. With these psychological entities, the ego is already formed with in humans. Once the ego is there, then the question of sustaining it arises and we are at what we are now!

The above discussion might be a story. But if we observe ourselves closely enough, we can see the possibility of above story might had been the reality.

If we closely observe the nature of earth, everything exist here is in support of something else. Any living thing in this earth consumes something else and gives out another thing, which is required to sustain some other part of earth. That is, nothing in this nature is going waste. Nature has everything to sustain all available life forms in this earth. If there is anything excess in this nature, even any life forms including human species, by its own nature, bring in control of that excess item. If we observe closely enough, we can clearly perceive this from the historical events and the events happening now. On the other hand, everything in this nature is closely related with each other – with anything else in the nature.

Are we really aware of this fact? If so, we will not consume anything more than required from nature, which will bring in an imbalance in the nature itself. If we are really aware, we will not be doing anything which destroys the condition required for other living beings. If we are really aware, we will never waste any natural resources.

The fact is that, we do not have such awareness! We are over consuming. Not really consuming, but wasting! And the real fact is that we are killing ourselves and destroying conditions required for the future generations to survive due to this lack of perception.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Rationality

It is a common notion that in spirituality there is no rationality and spirituality is just a set of beliefs. This is one of the reasons, the persons with capability to look deep inwardly and the persons having the capability to question are shying away from spirituality and looking inwardly. Unfortunately the domain of spirituality is occupied by personalities (the majority) who believe spirituality has foundation on beliefs. And it is unfortunate that the crowd follows such personalities to become more dump and blindfold. Naturally the mass with questioning mind rejects such believers or those propagating the belief systems. Then another group with the name of rationalist, for them the meaning of rationality itself is unknown, evolved and attracted the questioning minds. Here also the questioning minds were mesmerized by the so called rationalists, who are again blind believers – in the sense, a total irrational non-belief. Their job is just convincing the questioning mind against the belief system on the name of rationality. Unfortunately, the already shattered questioning mind failed to recognize the irrationality in the argument of so called rationalities as their ego find security with the so called rationalists. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the population falls in to any one of these categories and failed to recognize the rationality in spirituality or irrationality in the argument of so called rationalists.

What is spirituality? Is it some thing like searching a heaven for us? Or is it some thing like getting the grace of some unknown entity? Or is it something like renounce every thing in our lives and search for something which is unknown? Or is it chanting some manthras regularly and performing some rituals on daily basis with extreme belief on something created by their own thoughts? Or is it living the life in hope? Or is it some thing like following certain rules and refuse to see the beauty of existence without any flexibility? Or is it some thing like living in places of worship? Or is it mastering and then just following the religious scriptures?

For me, none of them looks like spirituality. All of them are just entertainment or tools used to forget the severity of life or tools used to escape the challenges of life. Spirituality cannot be all these things. It must be a way of life – way of gracefully living the life. In living, there is no scope for blindness caused by beliefs. In living, each and every thing is based on cause and effect. There cannot be an effect with out a cause and there will not be any cause which is not producing any effect. Hence in spirituality, there is no scope for irrationality. If we are irrational, we cannot be in the path of spirituality. Or if we are irrational, actually we are not living our life. Spirituality is about understanding our life. It is about understanding the existence. It is living our life.

We can live our life only when we understand our life and understand the existence. Then, what we are living now is not a life? It may be a very difficult question to answer. If we are completely happy with our current way of life – whether it is a life with understanding or ignorance, then there is no scope for the above question. We are completely OK with our life and there is not at all a need for looking inwardly or outwardly or anywhere else, other than the current way of life. But in practice we are not OK with our life. We are always complaining for one or the other. If we say, we are perfect and the complaint is due to the problems created by others – It is due to complete ignorance. In such case we are not really living the life gracefully. Here is the need for understanding spirituality and hence understanding our life itself.

If we really live a spiritual life, we have the complete understanding of ourselves and the existence. Once we have that understanding, not belief of any sort, there is any scope for irrationality exists. On the other hand a rational way of living is spiritual living and spiritual living is completely rational.

But the general notion is against what is discussed here. If we go with the conditioning of this general notion we may miss to look into another possible way of living. If we are really rational, we may possibly question this general notion and find our way of living - a better way of living may be possible for us. It is up to us whether we would like to be rational or irrational – Completely gaining freedom from the conditioning by the general notion.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Awareness

Awareness is another jargon used in Indian philosophical and spiritual context. It may be appropriate to discuss it here. Even though the meaning of ‘awareness’ is straight forward, due to the constant use of it in philosophical discussions, it has become a jargon.
Awareness is the perception of ‘what is happening’ and ‘what is there’ from moment to moment. We know that there is nothing constant in this existent, except continuous change. At this moment we are not same as what we were in the last moment and will not be same as what we are now in the next moment – both physically and psychologically. As we do not have much awareness, we recognize this fact only during our birth day celebrations – we realise the change taken place within us only when we know, we have passed one more year and many of us still try to hide this change! The change is unavoidable for anything around us – For both animate and inanimate objects. The planets, stars, galaxies are changing with respect to their physical property as well as their position in the space from moment to moment. Even in the space, the contained energy states may be changing from moment to moment. This is a fundamental realization in the path of inward journey and without this realisation no possibility of looking inward. When we understand this fundamental and realise change as our way of life, the awareness may start blossom within us.

How far are we aware of these changes? We may be able to understand the changes after the change has been taken place by means of measurements, with the help of science and technology – but that is not awareness. It is just knowledge. The awareness is living. The extent of our living depends on the extent we are aware of the existing and the change of existing from moment to moment. On the other hand, if we are not aware of what is there and what is happening within and around us, we cannot claim ourselves as living entities.

Why are we unable to be aware of our life? For being aware, the brain have to be alert at all times. Our senses capture the change within and around us and send the information to the brain all the time. Whether we are aware or not, this functioning of senses is always happening. But we are living in a life where the brain is unable to process all the information received from senses. It is not that our brain is incapable of processing these information, but we are loading the brain with all psychological factors of fear, belief, pain, suffering, pleasure, desire………… When our brain is occupied with so many such (psychological) challenges, it spends its entire energy to find solution or escape from those challenges. Due to the enormous challenges it faces from time to time, escape from that challenge is the only possible way for survival of brain. On this struggle, the brain may start decaying also.

It is obvious that to be aware of happening in and around us or to be live in the right sense of living, our brain and hence mind has to be freed up from these psychological challenges. The freeing up of mind from the challenges is possible only if it is able to recognize and understands the real challenges. When the challenges are recognized and understood, those challenges will be no more challenges and hence the mind will be free from the thoughts generated by those challenges. Hence the brain is free with respect to space and energy to process the information received from senses. When the brain completely responds to all our senses, it is the ecstasy. Every one of us had had such an ecstasy, at least with lower intensity and momentarily, multiple times in our life. The irony is we are so insensitive that either we fail to recognize it or recognize it only after its completion. Hence it goes as an insignificant event.

One point to be noted with respect to fewer thoughts in mind is that it should not be achieved by controlling or concentration. If we concentrate our mind on certain things and bring it to a thoughtless state, what we are doing is contracting the mind to a single point. In this case, there is no space available within the mind for the awareness to flower. On the other hand, when we achieve thoughtless state by concentration, we will not be aware of anything else other than the point of concentration. Our current way of life is definitely better than such a contractive mind, at least now we are aware of our pain and sufferings.

When we are completely aware of happenings within and around us, in addition to the ecstasy, the intelligence may work at its peak. At this level of intelligence, we may not be having any choices to choose in the life. The intelligence may guide all our actions and we will be doing what is required for us.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

The Limit of Thoughts

We have a general notion that there is no limit for the thoughts. According to this general notion, thoughts can go anywhere and can see anything. But it is not. Thought has its limitations. It is the limitation of our ego and our knowledge. The thought can go only to the extent that the “me” or “I” or our ego can expand from its center. The knowledge is the contributing factor for expansion of ego.

Before understanding the limit of thoughts, we need to understand the domains of thoughts. As discussed earlier, thoughts can be divided into thoughts belongs to functional domain and thoughts belongs to psychological domain. Our education system just looks into knowledge on functional domain only. Probably the education system for philosophical studies may little bit relevance to the thoughts of psychological domain. Hence in general we give no attention to the psychological domain of thoughts and hence rarely able to distinguish between these two domains of thoughts. Due to this difference, thoughts belongs to psychological domain interfere with the thoughts belong to functional domain, which greatly affect our functioning in general.

In the functional domain, in general, we think to the extent it is required for our day-to-day life and work. In functional domain, hence it is clear that our thoughts are limited to our knowledge on that function. If our thoughts need to go to additional distance, we gain knowledge from different sources and let the thoughts to travel this additional distance. There is no confusion on this. We are the product of gradual evolution. If it is true, it may be possible that the entire knowledge of evolution/creation is embedded in our brain. Probably, only the knowledge invoked by our intelligence can be expressible by thoughts.


For understanding the psychological domain of thoughts, we have to understand what is the knowledge or memory within us, with respect to the psychological domain. Any act or knowledge or memory which sustains our ‘ego’ or ‘me’ or “I” within us is in the psychological domain. The knowledge or memory or thoughts which are totally irrelevant to the ‘ego’ or ‘me’ or ‘I’ is in the functional domain. In general, we are not giving any attention to the psychological domain of thoughts and hence it interferes with thoughts in functional domain. The result is that seldom we distinguish these thoughts within us.

Let us look into the limit of thoughts in the psychological domain. Knowledge or memory is the source of any thoughts. Hence the psychological knowledge is the source of our thoughts in the psychological domain. Any thoughts which sustain our ego are within the psychological domain.

The notion that there is no limit for our thoughts is because our thoughts can go anywhere which we have not seen by ourselves or the thoughts can live in prosperity which in reality we are not; the thoughts can perform any actions which in reality we are not capable of doing and so on. Is it that limitlessness of thoughts? It is not. It appears so because, we are not aware of the distinction between functional and psychological thought. If we see the psychological thoughts with respect to our functional limitation, the thought is limitless. But these two are two different domains and hence cannot be equated.

We may be at our home. Our thoughts might have completed a round across the globe and returned back our home. If we closely observe these thoughts, we can clearly understand that it can go to the countries and continents which we have some knowledge about. Our thoughts cannot visit a country about which we have absolutely no idea. Or our thoughts cannot visit any terrains in which we have absolutely no idea. The idea about the terrain which our thoughts are visiting might have gained by means of stories, mental projection of some thing we heard and so on. But there must be some knowledge about anything the mind is thinking. If there is no knowledge, the mind cannot think. On the other hand our knowledge is the limitation of our thoughts – The derived point from here is that if we gain freedom from our knowledge what so ever it be, we will be free from thoughts.

We know that all our problems in this life are due to the thoughts in psychological domain. To make it more clear, all our problems are created by us only – by our thoughts. Nobody else can create problems for us. The major part of the brain’s energy is wasted on this psychological domain, due to the problems created by thoughts. This energy can be preserved if and only if there are no more thoughts generated by the brain in the psychological domain. It is possible only when there is no need to sustain the ego. As long as there is ego, the brain is conditioned to sustain it and hence thoughts in the psychological domain. Hence the only possibility to preserve the energy is, possibly, by completely dissolving the ego. Dissolving the ego involves understanding of its content – the qualities and relationships. Understanding of the content is possible only if we are free from all our beliefs, fear, morality etc. Such a freedom is possible only if we have the willingness to gain freedom. Willingness is possible only if we know the possibilities. It is an endless circle. Somewhere we have to break the circle, if we are concerned with the significance of our lives. If not, just go with the flow as we are going now – No botheration about significance of life and what so ever it. Let us undergo, whatever happiness and pain the life is offering as well as the happiness and pain created by our own thoughts. If we ourselves are not concerned, nobody else, who so ever it may be, will come and save us, even if we call and cry to any extent.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Ego

Ego is another jargon we use very often while expressing our dissatisfaction with the behavior of somebody else and also in philosophical and religious (not ritualistic religion) studies. Hence it may be appropriate to get some insight in to this term “Ego”, which is referred as “I” or “Self”

It may not be very easy to understand the term “I”. If we really get a deep understanding of the term “I” and its real (un)importance in our life, probably all our problems will be solved. Hence it may not be an easy task. However, we may try to get an idea about this “I” and this idea can be translated into understanding. At this point we have to clear about one thing. All our psychological conditionings are due to the fact that we have some idea about everything. On the other hand, ideas are just the conditioning of our mind. Hence, if we are getting into an idea about “I” we must be aware of it purpose and sufficiently be free from this idea itself. Otherwise we may fall into just another conditioning and it will be an additional burden.

In the material sense, “I” refer to our body. It is obvious. When we enter into psychological or philosophical domain, defining the term “I” may not be easy. The Indian philosophies (Advitham, Dvaitham, Vishistadvaitham….) are referring the Atman as “I”. For all of us, if at all we are aware and thought about the term Atman, it is just an idea or belief. We might have built this idea based on the scriptures like Bagavad Githa or form write-up of Indian philosophies like Advaitham, Dvaitham, etc. For sure, none of us are having any experience of Atman if at all the Atman is existing and if any one of us has experience of Atman, for sure, the content of this blog are premature for them. As long as it is just a belief, there is no meaning in pursuing it. It will just block our awareness to reality. The above statements do not reject the idea of Atman, but just refuse to accept it either. The reason is that, if we are open about this idea, it may be possible to find it if it really exists, or go beyond and find the reality if it does not exist.

At this point, I would like to bring into a definition of theist and atheist which I came across recently. Theist make god and believe on him, atheist make god and disbelieve on him. Same is the case, if we happen to believe or disbelieve the concept of Atman. At our current level of knowledge on this thing, keeping it open will help enormously on our progress on such trivial issues.

By setting aside the term Atman, let us try to find the meaning of “I” or “Self”. In general, we use the term “I” to refer our qualities which we believe that we are possessing or refer the ownership of (material and social) relations we believe of having possession. What are these qualities and relationships? Qualities are the result of comparison. We constantly compare ourselves with others with respect to certain aspects and find a result. Then identify ourselves with that finding. This identification becomes the “I”. The comparison starts at very early stages of our life, induced by our parents. They start rewarding and punishing as for our actions at early stages of our life and the notion of good and bad starts from there. Once we starts identify good and bad, we starts identifying ourselves with those good/bad. Now the “I” or self has given birth. We start calling ourselves as good or bad. After this each of our activities and thoughts add additional layer of this “I” and now it has become a very thick junk

What is “I” with respect to relationships? The psychological relationships are due to our qualities of attachment and possessiveness. These two qualities were discussed earlier in this blog under the title Bondage & Freedom – 1 and Bondage & Freedom – 2.

All our actions and thoughts are forming additional layers of this “I”, it becomes our psychological center, and now we have the urge to grow this “I”. Hence endlessly attaching qualities over quality and strengthening the feeling of “I”. It has gone to the extent, now we cannot do anything without considering the center – the “I”. In most of the cases, we compare ourselves with others who are having less than what we are having, thus the “I” can be strengthened. But in some cases, the mind sees a danger for the “I” in this superior comparison, in such cases it looks for inferior comparison and secures the feeling of “I”.

If we are not comparing our wealth with anybody else, do we ever get the notion that we are rich or poor? In that case there is no identification that we are rich or poor. We earn money or spend money according to the need – there is no psychological barrier with respect to money at all. There will not be any urge to limitlessly earn or spend money at any cost and at any method. Hence, all thoughts associated with earning/spending money cease to exist. If we are not comparing our kindness towards other beings with that of others, do we ever get the notion that we are kind or non-kind towards others? In that case, there is no identification that I am kind or unkind person. We look into other beings as per the demand of situation. There will not be any urge due to the feeling of kindness/unkindness. In this case, all thoughts within us with respect to the quality of kindness cease to exist.

If we analyse our thoughts and actions, each and every one of them are around the “I” or “me”. All our thoughts strengthen the feeling of “I” and “me”. If we state this in terms of Karma, all our Karmas are due to the “I” or “me” and each Karma strengthen the existence of “I” and “me”. When the philosophies say understanding “Self” is the highest purpose of life, it must be in this context – meaning, understanding our qualities which wrap the “I”. When we deeply understand the qualities which we identify ourselves and clearly see the unworthiness of being attached with this quality, the mind drops the identification of ourselves with that quality without any effort. There is unlimited number of such qualities we are being attached with both in the outer layer of mind where we are aware and in the inner layer of mind where we are not aware, in the way we are living now. The understanding conscious level of identification brings in awareness within us and this awareness reveals the qualities in the unconscious level of mind. If we are free from all these identifications, there will be no more thoughts in our mind. The mind is free and enormous amount of space available within it, in which the awareness flowers by itself.

Here we must be clear that we have to have things like “My Money”, “My bank Account”, “My House” etc. These things belong to the functional domain. For our day-to-day life, we have to have these things. Renouncing in spiritual sense really means renouncing the identification we have and not renouncing the family, wealth, home and getting into saffron dress or moving into some ashram.

The sense of psychological “I” or “me” is the ego. When we lose the sense of “I” it is not unconsciousness – It is the state of extreme awareness. The awareness is not because of any superficies thing. It is just because when we do not have the sense of “I”, there will not be any thoughts in our mind – we will not be living in the past or future. There will be infinite space within our mind and we live in that moment – live at the current moment. The meaning is our brain may be having enormous amount of energy so that it responds to all the senses instantaneously. At this level of living, we will be able to perceive each and every thing happening within us and around us, as our mind is extremely free for being aware of all our senses. It is ecstasy of life!

Every one of us must have had such feeling of extreme awareness (of at least our senses) momentarily at many occasions. The moment of extreme Joy and the moment of sex are few such occasions. We are capable of having such moments at all times. The only thing we have to do is completely forgo our ego! It is not a dream – Possible for every one of us, in this life itself, if we are willing.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Looking Inward Vs Outward

Life can be looked as outward or materialistic movement and as inward or spiritual movement. In our current way of life, very few of us might be having the urge and courage to look into our life to see any purpose. Even in that very few, a small fraction actually have the intention to look the life inwardly. Even in that small fraction, only a handful actually tries to look in to the inward life. And in that handful, probably a minor proportion may really look into the life inwardly. Why is it so? Why don’t we ever have the urge to find if there is any purpose for our life? Why is this strong resistance or reluctance to turn inwardly?

It could be the hereditary conditioning of our brain and hence mind. If we look into the living beings in this existence (Our knowledge of living being in the existence is limited to the living beings in this earth only) every one of them – from the single cell being to the human being have the strong urge to survive. At the same time, every living being have to kill some other living being on regular basis for sustaining the life. If we are not killing another living being, there is no food for us and hence no life. Same is the case with all living beings in this earth. Hence there is a constant battle for sustaining their life, by killing other life forms for sustaining their life and killed by other life forms to sustain the life of those life forms. This struggle existed also for the human beings till recent past (probably up to about 10 to 30 thousand years ago). But the conditioning of survival instinct was passed on to us from the conditioning of more than 3 billion years of existence of life forms in this earth. Due to the survival instinct and the power of thoughts, the human species started to set up social network so they were able to protect themselves from being killed by other animals for their survival.

Now the human beings have the power of thought, which they got as result of gradual evolution. The thoughts could have been used to get outer prosperity and get freedom from the previous three billion years of conditioning. Unfortunately it did not happen in the direction of freedom, but the human being started separating themselves from other living beings, and in this process might have started identifying themselves with the material prosperity they achieved with the utility of their thinking power. Alas! The ego must have been formed at this level. Ego is at psychological level. Now the conditioning of brain for survival instinct must have been directed to the survival of ego also. Now the inward movement has also started parallel to the outward movement. The outward moment must have been copied to the inward movement so that the entire struggle for the survival of outward moment also transferred as an inward movement – a psychological movement. As it is a copy of outward movement, it has all the survival instinct of outward movement. As like protecting the body from enemies- protect the ego also from enemies, feed food for the body by killing other living forms- protect the ego by torturing other living forms psychologically or enforcing psychological violence to other beings. The ego gets its food very easily, by enforcing psychological violence to fellow human beings, where there is no physical attack is required – only the free falling thought is required.

Probably the human species is in critical stage now. Due to the thoughts related to outward moment, we have achieved material prosperity and already protected from being killed by other living beings for their food. We have no fear at all in this direction. Hence no more need to spend our energy in physically protecting us from other beings. If we are not realizing this fact and the energy we have, we are in a great danger of directing all our energy to feed our psychological movement or feed our ego. It already started happening and if it is not contained, we are in a danger of psychologically enforcing violence on each other. As on now, the social set up protects us from physical violence between each other. But if the psychological violence is not contained, the social set up will be broken and physical violence and killing may explode. It already started in small sections here and there, but every one of us are also prone to kill each other if we do not understand the effect of our conditioning and set ourselves free from the conditioning. On the other hand, we have no rights to condemn those who are killing each other, because we are also prone to do the same thing, if not today, may be tomorrow, all due to the conditioning happened over three billion years.

The only possible solution to this problem is to start looking inwardly and start observing the inner movement. If not, the major part of the human species will be wiped out by humans itself with in a period of probably few hundred years. On the other hand, if we are not initiating the change to look inwardly, probably we will be survived for our life time, but our offspring’s will be extinct from this earth and we are responsible for that. Probably, the human species might have got the power of thinking to look inwardly and set ourselves free from the conditioning of animal instincts – If so, it is our responsibility to use the power of thought or the so called ‘sixth sense’ for the purpose intended for.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Freedom from “Karma”

Is it possible to be free from the Karma, which is the result of knowledge accumulated by billions of years of existence? – The knowledge handed over by means of hereditary evolution! Is it possible to be free from the karma accumulated during our life until now? And, is it possible to stop being bonded with new Karmas being collected?

Upon encountering the enormous challenge in front of us, when we start looking inwardly, and if we get frightened due to this challenge, then instead of finding a solution for this problem we may start looking for some escape or some solacing answer which may make us turn away from this challenge and hence get relieved from the problem for the time being, but entangled with something else. One such, diverting and solacing belief may be the concept of rebirth. As on now, we ourselves do not know the validity of this concept. Whether we accept this concept or reject, it is just a belief and hence it shall condition our mind further. Conditioning of mind is further Karma and hence bondage. Hence, for facing this challenge, we must be careful about such entangling solaces. We must face the problem with the willingness to solve it within our life time and hence with great intensity. If we lack the willingness, we cannot have the intensive life and hence cannot face the challenges, even if we have any number of rebirths and lives.

Let us not get worried about the intensity of this problem, but approach it with the willingness to solve it now. With that willingness, if we approach this problem of karma, the solution may be very much reachable to every one of us. As we are able to understand the concept of Karma, it must be possible to gain freedom from it also.

Each individual in a group of people, observing an event understand it in different ways. No two will understand it in the same way. The understanding of each individual depends on their earlier knowledge about that event, their idea about the cause and stimulant of that event, their idea about the environment in which the event occurred and many such factors. Now their understanding of that event is getting registered into their memory. As each of them understood it in different ways, the information registered in their memory is also different. This memory of that particular event is the source of thoughts arising in their mind, and hence the thoughts about that event are different in each of those individuals. The amount of thought about that event also differ between those individuals depend on the conditioning of their mind with relevant information/idea. All these facts are well known for us, but we never give any attention to such things as we turn inwardly seldom in our life and busy with the outward life.

The very first step in gaining freedom from Karma is to understand that our thoughts are result of our previous knowledge or conditioning about the object of thinking. To be precious, the thoughts depend on our ‘image’ of the object of thinking in our mind, whatever be that object. The object of thinking may be our work, another person, our survival, etc. And our knowledge about anything, even about our spouse, children or for that matter anything we know is limited. This is because the knowledge about the object of thinking is based on our image about that object and the angle of view in which we are seeing or had been seen while registering the image of that object in our mind. Even the knowledge in the field of expertise is also limited. If we really, really gain a deep understanding of this reality, instantly we can perceive a drastic change in our response to what is happening around us. It is like, when we have some doubt about understanding of something, we look much deeper into that something before responding to that. When we realise all our understandings are due to the conditioning of our mind and we are not sure about the reality, we start giving extreme care to all our responses. At this level, we never (can) say ‘I know that is it”. We can only say ‘it may be like that’. At this level of understanding, so many things may happen within us, which may not be explainable. The humbleness arises within us due to this deep understanding of the nature of our knowledge, completely changes the way our relationships are existing currently.

The very same understanding, make ourselves gain freedom from thoughts. This does not mean, there will not be any thoughts in our mind – but we are not affected by the thoughts aroused in our mind as we are aware that the thoughts are due to our conditioned knowledge and not due to reality. Hence we respond to any situation by really seeing that situation, but not rely entirely on our thoughts and hence sufficiently free from our thoughts. The freedom from thoughts reduces the amount of unwanted information registered in the brain and as a cyclic effect we will be free from unnecessary thoughts. On the other hand, we are gaining freedom from our Karma.

When we are free from thoughts on the psychological domain, the brain must be extremely energetic and respond immediately to any situations we face. Hence thought has no space in our actions and there is no accumulation of Karmas. But as we have already noted, we need to have knowledge on functional domain to carry on our day-to-day life and technological evolution. We have no bondage with the knowledge on functional domain and hence we have no psychological problems due to this knowledge.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Karma

Karma is a very common jargon in Indian philosophy. When discussing about inner change, the word karma is unavoidable as it was so much used by various cultures and belief systems in India. Hence it may be appropriate to get into the detailed analysis of Karma, which may give some insight into our understanding of Karma.

Karma is referred in more than one context. In one sense Karma is referred as action. Another sense, it is referred as the imprint of our actions carried from one life to another life of the individual (for the belief systems which propagate the concept of rebirth). And in the medical sense (Karma Dhosha in Ayurveda), it refers to the hereditary diseases passed on from generation to generation – as per ayurvedic principles, one can be affected by the hereditary diseases from previous seven generations.

In the context of this blog, we may analyse Karma in the sense of imprint of our actions, which goes into our brain. It may be appropriate to revisit the concept of Transactional analysis, discussed earlier in this blog. The following three paragraphs are part of one of the earlier posting, which gives some basic idea about transactional analysis – a term in modern psychology.

\\Transactional analysis talks about the ego states with in individuals. The ego state of an individual can be classified into three states. They are Parent ego, Adult ego and Child ego. Every one has all the three ego states, but at a different proportion. The traits of an individual depend on how the three ego states are mixed with in an individual. The parent ego is authoritative ego, adult ego is matured ego, and child ego is the playful ego. When ever a person communicates with another one, he/she always will be at one of these three ego states. That doesn’t mean, he communicates always with the same ego state. That particular ego state depends on his/her personality, situation, and few other psychological conditions. The same is the case with the other person also. Wile communicating, the first person can be in any of the three ego states and the second person also in any of the three ego states. Hence there are nine possibilities of interpersonal communication. The each communication between two persons is called transaction. The transaction is not only verbal communication, but also the communications like gestures. Hence the transaction between two persons shall be Parent to Parent, Parent to Adult, Parent to Child, Adult to Parent, Adult to Adult, Adult to Child, Child to Parent, Child to Adult and Child to Child. When ever the persons transacting are in the same ego state, the transaction will be a healthy one. If they are in different ego states while communicating, the result of the transaction will always be negative.

Then there is a thing called STAMP in transactional analysis. It is an impression that happens with in the mind of personnel involving in the transaction, created as a result of this transaction. Each transaction will have a stamp for each individuals participating in a transaction. To make it clear let us assume, the first person involved in the transaction is at its parent ego state and the second person involved in the transaction is in child ego state. The first person says “You are idiot”. By transacting this he collect a stamp which has an imprint that “Others are always idiots”. The second person who is in the child ego state, seeing some body says him as “Idiot” collects a stamp with the imprint of “I am always Idiot”. If the second person involved in this transaction is with his adult ego state at the time of transaction, he may collect a stamp with some other imprint, probably a healthy one, depend on his mind conditioning. And also the point to be noted here is one can not be in the same ego state always. For the functioning of life, one has to have all the three ego states at different moments. Even a child need to have parent ego at certain circumstances.

The essence of transactional analysis is that with any communication between individuals, they collect stamps and store them in their mind or memory. With so much communication happening between people, we can imagine the amount of stamps we have collected and dumped into the mind and memory during our life period.//

In the above discussion on transactional analysis, the term stamp is nothing but the imprint in our memory as a result of inter-personnel communication. In Indian philosophical term, it is Karma. The term Karma is more than that.

Karma can be generalized as the result of any of our action (physical or psychological), which goes into our memory which in turn initiate the thought process within us. There is nothing called good Karma or Bad Karma. Any karma is Karma. It is contrary to the general notion that our good action yield good Karma and our bad actions yield bad Karma. This is because there is no action which can be classified as good or bad. An action looks like good or bad depend on our view on that action, which entirely depends on our psychological conditioning. If we are free from the psychological conditioning, there is no notion of good or bad.

The Karma is the breeding point of thoughts within us; for our present way of life, thought is the origin of any of our actions and hence Karma is the breeding point of all our actions. We already know that thoughts originate from memory. Hence the content of our memory is the Karma. Whatever goes in to our memory is our account of Karma. Our intelligence uses certain knowledge, only when it is required. For example, the way to our home from our office is in our memory. In general our intelligence uses this part of memory only when we need to go to our home. Hence we are psychologically free from this knowledge of way to our home or we are free from that part of Karma, if we use this knowledge only it is really required.

Now at certain point of time in our work, due to certain projection of mind, we got a thought “I have to get recognized for this job in my work place”. As soon as this thought arises, it goes in to our memory and it is becoming a Karma. Now whenever we think about this job, this desire of being recognized will come into our thought and it interfere with our work and hence the result of our work. The result may be positive or negative, depend on how far this Karma affected our job. Hence the karma is acting on all our further actions and implications on the results of our actions without any need and hence we are bonded with this Karma. We can imagine how many thoughts are coming in our mind on daily basis and how it is getting registered in our memory and how this registered thought is again creating new thoughts and so on. On the other hand, we can imagine how is our Karma gets multiplied on each moment of our life.

As we have heard about Karma in so many places and in our scriptures with so many different notions, the above simple explanation may be hard to believe! But if we really see in to the concept of Karma explained in any scriptures, we can very well understand ourselves the validity of above explanation.

We already know that our mind is conditioned by the process of evolution at one hand and by our culture, religion, society, etc. on the other hand. All these conditioning are Karmas in our account. Now the big question is, is it possible to be gain freedom from this Karma? The solacing answer must be a big ‘Yes’, if we are willing to be free from this Karma, and naturally the next question is, how is it possible?

One of the primary functions of brain is to register in memory, everything it comes across. For example, when we see something it is registered in our memory. We cannot avoid such registering and it is required for our day-to-day life and technological evolution of world. But we do not need the thoughts arising out of past and projection of future. When such thoughts are no more generated by our brain, the entire Karmas due to psychological factors are ceased to get added. Is it possible to free from Karma or from our thoughts? The thoughts are due to the knowledge and experience we have. Hence the real question is can we gain freedom from our knowledge, yet have the knowledge required for our living and evolution?

- The above questions shall be analysed in next posting!

Saturday, September 12, 2009

What are we doing in our Life?

Not many of us can give any serious answer to this question, if we ignore premature answers like “I am enjoying in this world” and superficies answers like “I am living my life according to my destiny”. It may be because, we are not yet aware about what is life! Or we are not sensitive to the life process! Or we have not yet given any attention to understand the various forms of life in this earth!

If this question is posed to a common forum, the vast majority will just ignore this question itself, because it is meaningless for the majority. It is meaningless because, we are so busy in securing our ego and growing it, we never thought about such questions. And when our ego is growing and glowing, there is no space within us for such questions and do not feel any necessity for such questions. Our desires to earn more money, better than present status, secure the current social status are few of the factors which fuel our ego to grow on one side and they are the result of our egocentric action on the other side; as a result the ego and the desire ‘to be’ are acting as fuel for each other and hence in an endless spiral, unless we break it consciously. As long as our ego is engaged in growing itself, there will not be any space for such questions within our mind and naturally we will not be asking and enquire such questions. Hence it is meaningless question for us, if it is posed on us, as long as we are unaware of ‘what is life?’

If we do not have any inclination to such questions and finding answers, are we placed better than those who are asking this questions or placed in an inferior position than the so called enlightened beings? It is definitely not on both ways. We are also supporting the life process and evolution process in certain way and hence the purpose of our life is being executed. But we may be missing another way of life, where we are completely in charge of our life process and the evolution process, which may be altogether different experience by itself. In our current way of life, we may be just supporting the evolution process and we ourselves are not evolving; we are just the instrument for the process of evolution and not the process itself – But we are capable of being the process itself, if we are willing to be. How does it matter for us, whether we are supporting the process or being the process? When we are supporting the process as we are doing now, we are always having the urge to grow further, which is manifesting within us in many healthy and unhealthy ways. Once we become the process itself, there may not be this urge to grow further, because we ourselves are the process. If we ever have turned a bit inwardly, we can clearly understand that we never like to be a supportive process, always struggling to become the central process. It is just that!

We are aware that there are countless life forms in this earth. The only difference we are aware about these life forms is the number of senses they have. The difference between human species and other animal species are the so called sixth sense, which is the thought process. It may not be correct, if we say just thought process, but it is extensive thought process. This is because; thought process is the result of memory (and retrieving from memory). Animals are also having memory, hence must have limited thought process also. Due to this limitation, animals do not think about the past and do not perform projection of future from the past. Hence there is no psychological suffering or pleasure for animals. On the other hand animals and all other living beings except human are living their life entirely at the present. To be more specific, except human species all other living beings are living their life completely. The animals must also be having some sort of ego or identity, due to the limited thought process there is no possibility of supporting their ego. We, the human species are either living in the past, meaning suffering or driving pleasure form the thoughts of what was happened in the past or anticipating with fear what will happen in the future, which is the result of projection of what was happened in the past – Hence fails to live in the present and always living in the past. Unfortunately we have become the slaves of our thoughts – which are the result of evolution process supposed to be an instrument for us to evolve further. Due to the bondage of our thoughts, instead of being the process of evolution, we are now forgotten how to live the life itself!

All our problems in this world and all changes we like to have in this world are due to the urge within us and within the society due to the fact that every one of us wants to evolve from supportive process to central process, but without the understanding of what we are! To understand what we are, we must understand the conditioning of our mind by heredity, culture, religion, belief systems and so on. When we understand what we are, the evolution of ourselves from supportive process to central process is natural. Once we are there, we are completely contained with the world as it is and all our actions will be based on the need of ourselves (At that point, the boundary of ourselves may be different from our current perception of ourselves).

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Morality

When we are disguised with the disorders in society and when we want the society to be in a different order, naturally conflicts arises within us due to the mismatch between actuality in the world and the way we like the world should be. Due to this conflict, which actually happens within us, we suffer and hence as an escape from this suffering, we set moral values for ourselves and adhere to these moral values. We start believing that the moral values shall bring order into the world. We not only believe and adhere the moral values we conceive, but also propagate it and want others to adhere these moral values, hence creating new set of conflicts between relations. The new conflicts with our relations due to our moral values bring disorder in the world, which is our relation to the existence.

Morality is a set of rules we set ourselves for us due to the fact of seeing disorder in the world. Each one view the world distinctly and hence their want of order in the world is also distinct. This translates to the fact that the conflicts within each one are distinct and hence the set of moral values are also distinct. Now, each one tries to enforce their set of moral values to the one around them which may create chaos in the social set up. Due to the way we live our life, there are many chaos within and around us and we do not have any sensitivity to perceive the additional chaos created by our moral standards.

When we look into the above discussion, on the outer view, it may looks like a senseless discussion as we are taught and made believe that everyone in the society should have moral values to have a right way of life. But if we see more deeply in the requirement of moral values, we can clearly understand that our moral values are due to the conflicts within us and our incapability to live the life. When we find conflicts within ourselves and incapable of living our life, as an escape from the conflicts we catch hold of our moral values.

There should be another way of living where there is not any need for moral values, yet we can live a harmonious life with nature and society. This is because, the life with moral values are leading us to a strained relation with society as well as different segment of our thoughts itself and hence a life of conflicts. The new way of life is possible only when we bring in necessary changes within us. The basic changes which free ourselves from the bondages we have in our life - The bindings discussed all along in this blog and more. When we are free from all bindings, there will not be any conflicts in our life and in our relation with the society. When there is no conflicts exist within us, there is no requirement of any escape and hence moral values. When we are free from all illusions, the mind is free from its projection and the mind is having enough space for the intelligence and perception, our intelligence shall work at its peak. With this intelligence, our perception will be very clear and the action arises out of this perception shall be the right action for the situation at the time of action. At this level of intelligence and perception, we do not need any moral values to guide us in this life.

When we are at such a pure level of action, we shall not beg for any change in the world and environment around us, but act for what is required for us, the world and the environment yet with complete freedom from the world and environment.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Commercialism & Consumerism

Commercialism and Consumerism are the two materialistic and psychological aspects which have brought in the technical evolution which are providing comfortable and easy life to the mankind. There cannot be second opinion about this fact. At the same time we cannot have second opinion about the fact that commercialism and consumerism are the aspects where all the problems of ourselves and our world are enrooted, if we really see commercialism and consumerism at certain deeper level.

Commercialism is due to the greed of mankind and consumerism is due to lack of understanding of desire. Both are the illness of this world, if an undue importance is given to them. Due to uncontrollable greed, commercialism already started destroying the resources of this earth and psychology of human beings. Due to uncontrollable desire, consumerism encourages the destruction of the resources of earth without even realizing the need for preserving the resources or preserve the condition so that the resources sustain themselves and hence sustain life forms in this earth for billions of years to come, till the time we have our sun with enough mass to keep the earth with in its gravitational field.

And as an escape we, the components of commercialism and consumerism, often make some noise about environment. As usual, we never pay attention to what we talk about environment and hence fail to follow the statements or noise we ourselves make. As it is an escape from this threatening problem just for the time being, we never bother to take responsibility of our being part of commercialism and consumerism. We just show our fingers to others and refuse to take responsibility and hence refuse to take actions on this threatening problem. Acting on the problems of commercialism and consumerism does not mean that to remove it completely from the world. We cannot do that because, without them we cannot enjoy the comforts what we have now. We are also not bothered to understand the facts of commercialism and consumerism and hence do not know how to handle these giants of destruction, without losing the comforts of life. It is possible if and only if a radical change takes place within us – the originator of both these giants and understands its facts.

Due to this lack of understanding, commercialism decides the psychology of consumers which is exactly opposite to what is supposed to be happening. Due to lack of understanding of the consumers about their need, the commercialism infuses need for the consumers by altering the psychology of consumer and creates lust and desire within the consumer. Once the lust and desire goes deep into the mind of consumer, he goes for the need so created by lust and desire rather than the real need or passion. The consumer is so conditioned by the commercialism, the lust and desire is seen as need and passion of the consumer and a concept of consumerism take shape there to protect the conflicts within the consumer with respect to desire and need.

In most of the cases, we are taking part in both commercialism and consumerism. We are being part of the commercialism on our profession and takes part in consumerism when we caught between lust and desire. On the other hand we are in a real trap. Unless a real change takes place within us, we cannot get out of this trap. The change will takes place by itself, if we really pay attention to our lust and desire and understand these two elements. How do we know that what we are having is a lust and desire or need/passion? This is a real problem; because the commercialism with its continuous effort of psychological conditioning of consumers makes us, the consumers, to believe what we are having is need or passion. This can be understandable, if we pay enough attention to the need/passion/desire/lust of us. The attention brings in a clear understanding of these facts, and if it is mere desire or lust, the attention itself gets away the desire and lust. We need not put in any effort to control the desire and lust other than paying sufficient attention to the conditioning so infused into us by commercialism. The mere attention on it is sufficient to eliminate the undue lust and desire.

Once the consumer changes within him/her self to pay real attention to the commercialism and the factors with in consumers which makes the consumers as slaves of commercialism, there is no other way for commercialism to state the real factors rather than arousing the lust and desire of consumer by attacking the psychology of consumer. This to happen, the consumer has to bring in necessary changes within themselves so that they will be capable of looking into the factors. Once the consumer gets freedom from commercialism, they will be free from the psychological attack of commercialism to get what they really need for their comfortable and passionate life. Once this happen, we will really know the priorities of our needs and hence this knowing will start correcting the disorders of the society by itself. On the other hand we have to just clear off our disorders, and the societies disorders will be cleared off by itself.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Reluctance to Initiate Change

We clearly understand the need for initiating an inward change to have order in this world and the change has to be initiated from us, by us. On the other hand, we understand that as individuals we need to change within ourselves to change the society as a whole and also we understand that it is our responsibility to change ourselves. Yet we refuse to bring in the basic change within us. Why is this inertia or reluctance for an inward change? Is it possible to initiate the change?

One of the doubts arises before initiating inward change within oneself is that we are living in a society with all the greed, violence, struggle, overpowering and all other ills. If one changes within oneself, will that person compatible for living within such society? Does it required for one to isolate oneself from the society before initiating the change within oneself? If not, will the changed person be washed away by the violent society? If that is the case how can one ever initiate an inward change within one self? These are the basic and valid questions one may have within the mind, who understood the need for an inward change to live a meaningful life in this society. This is a conflict within us. On one hand we understand the need for an inward change and on the other hand we have enormous doubt about the security of our life, if we change inwardly.

Yes, we need to understand this question must get a clear answer and resolve the conflicts around this issue, and then only one can change inwards within ourselves. Otherwise that person will be caught between moral values and conflicts and undergo much more suffering than the present way of life. On seeing this anyone around such person may create negative prejudice about such radical way of thinking and never dare to look for such a beautiful, inwardly free life.

For getting an answer for this question and understand the conflicts aroused around this issue we need to understand what are family, society and world. In the existence, anything and everything is related to many thing else. We are also no exceptions. We have to be related with fellow human beings and many other things in this world. Without this relation, one cannot live or be a part of this existence. Hence the notion that one has to isolate oneself from family and society to bring an inward change itself is an utter illusion. Human beings are often referred as social animal. Yes we are offshoot of animals. Due to our capability of mind we established the setups for our security and these setups get matured and become culture, which is our differentiator from animals. On the other hand to secure our relationship with others, we established the family setup. The family alone is not sufficient. The family has to relate to others for the survival of family itself. To secure the relationship of family with other needs, the social setup is established and a society is there. It can be put in another way- all our family and society are need based. It is for our need to have relationship with others for our survival in this existence. Then we attached some selective emotions with these relationships and these emotions are now inseparable from us and becoming the root cause of most of our problems. The relationships are not our problems, but the lack of understanding of our relations and the undue emotions aroused due to this lack of understanding are the cause of our problems.

To be make it clear, the family, the society, and the world are our relations with fellow human beings and other things in the existence which are required for our life with in this existence. Hence isolation is not a solution for our problems or society’s problems and the inward change being discussed here does not call for isolation from family and society, but make the relationship with family and society as lively one, which will make our life beautiful and joyful.

The inward change discussed all over this discussion indicates the need for an inward change so that there will not be any conflicts with our relationships. It is very clear that the relationship between X and Y will be harmonious if and only if both X and Y clearly understand their relation and the need for their relation. At the same time, it is very much possible if X is concerned about the problems of his/her relationship with Y and solves the problems and has a harmonious life with respect to X’s relationship with Y, even if Y is not bothered about it. When X understands his/her exact relationship with Y, the action of X will not cross the limit demanded by his/her relationship with Y and there will not be any conflicts with in X due to X’s relationship with Y, whatever be the action/reaction of Y over this relationship. Even if Y is not having such understanding and react negatively with X in their relationship, X can harmoniously do what is needed for sustaining the relationship with Y due to the understanding of their relationships and the need for sustaining that relationship. Once X treat his/her relationship with Y with understanding and due dignity, Y has no choice other than reciprocating it, even though there may be some resistance at the beginning. On the other hand, if one change inwardly with respect to the relationship with society, the society will have to reciprocate this change, no other choice is available for the society. To be more precious, the inward change within oneself is the change taking place in the society itself.

This is exactly what will happen, if we bring in necessary inward changes within us. Irrespective of whether our family is bringing in that change within themselves or the society is bringing in the change within itself, if we bring in necessary changes within ourselves, we can live harmoniously with our family and society, by doing what is required for ourselves, our family, the society and the world due to the fact that we understand and know the exact relation we have with our family society and the world and due to the understanding of our need for sustaining that relationship .

When we live harmoniously with the family, society and the world, what else change we expect from the family, society and world?

By the way, what is the inward change we are talking about here? It is nothing complicated. It is about just opening up our mind from all our psychic conditioning due to genetic factors, our beliefs, our education, our ego to get freedom from this entire psychic conditioning and live a complete, fulfilled, Joyful life.