Thursday, February 26, 2009

The Present state of the World

Let us go back to the beginning of this discussion to find out the relevance of ongoing discussion with respect to original intention.
We perceive problem with almost every aspects of our life as well as the environment in which we are living - like economics, politics, culture, conflict between governments, conflict between governments and citizens and any other aspect we name it. Usually we get somebody to conveniently shift the blame for each and every problem. We never realize we are also part of all those problems, but always want to solve (by ourselves or somebody else) all those problems and most of the cases suggest a solution to the problem without even realizing the intensity of the problem and practicability of suggested solution.

The core of this discussion is that we will be able to change the world as we like to have, provided we can bring in some basic changes within us. To bring in such inward change, we must have to realize that there is a possibility of inward change with in every one of us and the need for such change. Whatever we have discussed until now and in future is to give certain perspective on various aspects of life, which may help us to achieve this result. It may not be possible for everybody to look in to the world with the same perspective discussed here. But it may be possible for almost everybody to realize at least few aspects being discussed here. Once the realizations of some of these aspects are achieved, the other aspects shall also be perceived (either the way discussed here or in a perspective which is closely related to the reader’s individual composition). Once that is achieved, we will understand the need for inward change and it is not difficult to bring in the necessary changes (if required) within us.

We have seen that life has evolved continuously in this earth from the single cell being to the present life forms and it shall evolve further until the destruction or the annihilation process takes place. The human life may or may not be there in this earth at that point of time, which does not matter for the evolution of this vast cosmos. So we are at the peak of evolution curve, which shall move just upward direction in next moment and billions of years to come until the point of annihilation, which shall be the ultimate evolution of this cosmos. The irony is that at the peak of evolution (until now – during four billion years of life forms in earth and 200000 years of human form in earth), we are still feeling problems around everywhere. Hence it may not be the problem of the world, but may be the problem of our perception!

For argument sake, let us assume everybody in this world is realized being and they have already achieved inner freedom (as discussed in the topic FEAR). For such realized beings, if something is not available in their environment, they can very well forget that something and live happily with whatever available for them. They may not have to invent whatever not available for them. If everyone is realized beings there is no greed in this world.

If there is no greed, there is no tendency to accumulate more or prove more powerful. Hence there is no need for invent anything or invade somebody else territory, and since all are realized beings, unavailability of something shall not bother them.
If there is no power struggle between governments, there was no need to prove which government are stronger one and mission to moon and other planets might not have happened in 20th century.

If everyone is realized being, there is no greed, no power struggle and no economic imbalance. Hence there is no need to invent new technologies to fill the vacuum. Every one might be happier being with whatever available for them and hence there is no need for develop anything new.

Whatever comfort and luxury the human form having now is because of the past and present condition of evolution with all the disparity in this world and all the qualities labeled as bad qualities or qualities which bring destruction to the earth. But nothing may be wrong in that as it supported the material evolution in this earth. It should not be misunderstood that this discussion justifies the disorders of the world today- like disparity between people (poor and rich), disparity between nations, disparity between communities, war, and death happening around the world due to social (perceived) imbalance and so many such events.

But we have no option other than accepting the fact. It is a common sense that intelligence has to work to see the fact. Once our intelligence is working enough to see this fact, then the logical next step will be using that intelligence to live in this world of disparity, yet untouched by the disparity. At this point we need to realize that we are also the source of disparity. Unless we cease from being the source of disparity and try to fight against the disparity, then there is a conflict within us and this conflict is sufficient to kill our life. Once our intelligence start working, we understand the source of disparity and start living, yet untouched by the disparity. Now due to the working of our intelligence, we cease to be the source of this disparity and we are ready to fight against the disparity without being carried away by the disparity. Only the intelligent beings can do that. Intelligence is the process of evolution.

Hence it is up to us. Whether we like to evolve further and lead the evolution process or get stagnated and just support the evolution process by way of fear, greed, conflicts, anger and so on. Yes, the technological development is because of these constructed qualities of human being and technological development is indispensible portion with respect to the evolution of intelligence. So, it is up to us to be part of real evolution or just be the part of technological evolution.

The difference between these two may be very subtle. If we are just the part of technological evolution, we support the evolution process (we ourselves may not evolve), but will not enjoy the taste of real evolution – The major part of our life may be struggle in such case. If we really evolve intelligently, we will also enjoy the fruits of technological evolution.

Evolution is the natural tendency of creation - It is material evolution as well as life evolution. The material or technological evolution in earth is due to the attributes discussed above of the living beings, where as intelligence beings evolve by using the material/technological evolution as a tool for real evolution. It is up to us to become part of any of these two categories.

So, at the beginning of this discussion our intention was to remove the disorders in this world. To remove the disorders of this world, first we need to understand the disorders of this world. Once we have the complete understanding of these disorders, we will be able to understand if there is a need for removing/changing those disorders, the source of those disorders and our contribution to those disorders. At that stage, if we need to change the world, we must cease to be the contributor of those disorders and for that there need to have an inward change within us. Once the necessary inward change is brought in, we will be able to change the world as we like. The various topics discussed here are to realize the need and bring in the basic change within us.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Fear

Fear is one of the constructed qualities of human being. The term ‘constructed qualities’ means that in nature we do not have those qualities. But due to the life style and conditioning of our minds, we attached those qualities with us and now we are in a state where these qualities are appearing as natural qualities of us. Conditioning of mind does not only mean the conditioning during our life. As discussed somewhere else in this blog, our mind contain information from the time of creation of this universe to until now. This information is with us by means of the jeans in our biological body. The jeans transfer that information to our brain/mind and it is in our mind at the levels of unconscious and collective unconscious mind.

The beauty of the construction of human being is that we have enough intelligence to understand the conditioning of our mind. Once we understand the conditioning, we understand the nature of those constructed qualities. Once we have the understanding of constructed quality, we will be having discriminating power to understand the requirement of such qualities. Once we have the discriminating power, we are ready to take what is necessary for living this life the best possible manner and leave the rest of those qualities.

So let us try to understand the constructed quality FEAR. When we were new born children, we did not have fear on any thing. Our parents had to protect us from all hazards, since we did not have the discriminating power towards environment and no memory of any hazards at that point of time. Our parents had to protect us from fire, from rain, from falling down, from hot sun and so on. Later we developed the quality of protecting ourselves from those hazards either due to our own experience or by the education by parents and others. Thus we developed a natural tendency to escape from the hazards when ever we encounter such hazards. Later we have given the name FEAR to our reaction whenever we encounter such hazards.

Strictly speaking, this reaction to hazards is not fear. It is just the process of protecting ourselves from hazards. When we encounter such hazards unexpectedly, the body generates certain reactions very quickly, which may spread some shock waves with in us to safeguard us from that hazard. This shock is the result of that quick action with in us and hence this shock wave is also not fear. If we call it as fear, we need such fear to protect us from hazards.

The term FEAR we are discussing here is the psychological fear which happens due to the projection of mind rather than due to some thing really happening at some point of time. Now the question is that how do we know whether the fear is due to real fact or due to the projection of our mind? For an illusionary mind, every thing appears to be real fact. How do we know our mind is illusionary mind or the one which see the real facts? Yes it is not an easy task when we look it just at the outer layer and we do not have the willingness to see the reality. That is the reason for the creation of so many religions and mushrooming of so many spiritual leaders, yet we are unable to find a solution. Even though all the religions and all the genuine spiritual leaders are trying to show us the path forward in this direction, we are far away from finding the solution as we identify ourselves with one of those religion or spiritual leader or procedure or method. Once we identify ourselves with some thing, naturally there is no openness within our mind and hence we are not anywhere near to the solution for this problem.

Hence the basic requirement is to approach the problem with openness within our mind. With out that openness, we can not find solution for a simple problem with in us, then how can we find the solutions for the problem of the world. Of course, to appreciate this problem itself, we need to be free from our illusionary mind at least for a moment. The fact is that every one of us is having the intelligence to discriminate the real fact from the projection of illusionary mind. However, it is our willingness to use that intelligence, which makes our intelligence to discriminate the real fact and the projection of illusionary mind.


We can see the reality if and only if our mind is open to see any thing and every thing in this world and the mind will be open enough if an only if we have the willingness to do so.

To see the reality, we need to start from somewhere. Let us start from the Psychological fear. During the course of this discussion, each one of us may find a point with which we can closely relate with our thoughts/experience and that point shall become the starting point to see the reality. Until then, if we have the willingness to see the reality, we need to approach with an open mind to all ideas. Once we get that point, then clinging to any idea will not be helpful anymore and we have to free from all the ideas. If we still attach ourselves with some ideas, again we are in to the circle of projection of mind.

The Fear is due to psychological insecurity. It may be due to insecurity in the remaining days for this life or death, insecurity in finance, insecurity in relation, and so on. All these insecurities are felt by the mind because we are conditioned to live a dependent life. We are conditioned such a way that we cannot think of a life of freedom. We need to understand the term freedom. Freedom is not about doing what we want to do irrespective of the environment. It is the psychological freedom in which the environment will not affect us in any way as we are independent of environment. With that psychological freedom, we will be in such a state that we are capable of using whatever available in the environment and, do not bother about whatever not available in the environment. It may be hard to understand for those who have not thought about this type of freedom at some point of time. But one can understand this statement, if one approaches this statement with enough openness in mind and observe the daily events in life with such openness.

How to reach such a state of freedom so that we will be fearless? It can be only by understanding the bondages which block us to reach the freedom and by understanding the cause of the insecurities.

Attachments, possessiveness, dependency, jealous, guilty, and angry are few of the factors which block us from reaching the state of freedom. These are also the constructed qualities, which in turn induce insecurity with in us and hence induce another constructed quality Fear. We may discuss these constructed qualities at later stage so that we may understand and remove our misconceptions about these qualities, which in turn may help us to achieve the state of freedom.

Freedom makes us fearless! Fearlessness can give the strength to change the world as we like to have!

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Choice

The way we are living our life today is entirely based on the choices we have taken from our childhood to until now. It is a big question that whether we are aware of those choices or not. But it is the fact. Some body else might have forced us towards choosing a particular choice, but ultimately the choices were that of ours. The majority of us never agree that we are living a comfortable life, where ever we are positioned and whatever lifestyle we are living now. We have so many reasons for supporting this claim. And we also call the support of destiny to give a psychological relief from our problem. Once we called the support of destiny for our problems, we turn spiritual (??) and claim that it is destiny, which is driving us and that is the way our lives are now.

We conveniently put the blame on destiny and forget, in times not even aware of, the choices we have taken, which took us to the position where we are now. And this is a convenient method of shifting our responsibility to some body/thing else, who can not retaliate on us. For the purpose of understanding these problems, we may have to ask few questions to ourselves and try to answer genuinely to ourselves. This part of analysis is just to make us to realize that if there is some thing called destiny, to drive us or not, it is we who are responsible for what we are today. Whether we are successful, joyful, and hopeful or whether we are bunch of failures and worries or what ever may be, it is entirely because of us. Once we are capable of understanding and are aware of this fact, we can notice a drastic change in our attitude and the way we face the outside world with an entirely different perspective of life.

Most of us give the credit to our successes to ourselves only. We give only the credit of our failures to destiny or God. Hence it is more relevant to analyze the facts related to failures than success; any way for success we have already taken the responsibility. It is not that once we take the responsibility of failures, there will not be any more failures. As long as we are with in the duality of success and failure, there will be always success and failure. The number of success and failures in our life depends on where we have kept the reference point, which divides between success and failures. But by taking the responsibility, we will undergo a complete change in attitude and we start looking the outside in a different way. With this change happening with in ourselves as a result of taking responsibility of our actions and choices, keeps us in a joyful state irrespective of the success or failure. Any way what we want is a joyful life and hence taking the responsibility of all our actions shall be a logical right step.

Again, we need to take our choices, whether we like it or not, as long as we are in the domain of duality. If we start taking the choices consciously, slowly we shall start shifting the reference point between the dual aspects towards one direction. As our consciousness on this increase, there is a possibility of transcending over the domain of duality. Once we transcend over the duality, there is no more need for choosing choices. Here after we need to just act depend on what is needed. As we are transcended over the duality, we act only for what is needed and there is no choice to choose for. There may be multiple methods to transcend over duality. What we are discussing now is a method of transcending duality with the use of our knowledge. And this is about knowledge on just one aspect, where us there may be countless such aspects and when we gain knowledge on such aspects, slowly we shall transcend over duality. What we need is just a conscious effort. Nothing more than that!

Now we can claim that we are already in the domain of choice less action, as we are acting as and when needed. Here it is not that the actions are choice less. Here we are just not aware of our choices. As long as we are not conceptualize duality – duality of happy and sad, success and failure, and any such thing we name it, there is not much difference (in perception) between the choice less actions what we are doing now(claiming as doing) and the choice less action as a result of transcending the duality. Once the concept of duality is clear with in us, we will be able to appreciate the vast difference between these two way of action. Yes, some effort is required to understand the concept of duality. Once it is understood, we start taking conscious choices. We have discussed little bit about the concept of duality in the last section.
Responsibility is the key for taking conscious choices. We may discuss on another day about responsibility.