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.

3 comments:

Veeravalli said...

To realise materialism doesn't bring lasting joy, one (that includes me) has to first acquire them, and then realise! is this an irony? And I am not joking either

அக மாற்றம் said...

Thanks for your comment and question.

I shall try to put it in the way I understand. The key point is that at deeper level, there is nothing called materialistic movement and spiritual movement. There is only one movement which is living. We have to have understanding of Living and the discussion of materialistic and spiritual movement may be helpful for this. Hence the notion of renouncing materialistic life is meaningless. At the same time, just submerge our life in the materialistic movement is an irony.

As a living being, we have some basic needs. To fulfill those needs comfortably, we need a social set up and when we are in a social set up, we have to have certain obligations. To fulfill those obligations we have to be materialistic. To be short, to the basic need of our life, we have to be materialistic – In the sense to sustain our life to the comfortable life; the outward movement of the thought has given to us.

Now the other movement is the inward movement – The extraordinary power of thought which can be used for freeing our animal instinct or the conditioning of billions of years of evolution or bringing in an awareness of ecstasy within us.

These two movements have to be parallel. Otherwise, one will kill the other – no doubt about that. For example, if we are taking only the inward movement, with out caring about outward movement, we can not sustain our life. We have to have depended on others to sustain our life. Even the so called sanyasi has to depend on others for his food. Others help him out of fear or respect or any such feelings. If others are not having such urge to provide help to sanyasi, he can not survive. In such case, there is no possibility of inward movement. Hence sanyasm is not a way for inward movement. In fact, it bring in lot of conflicts with in sanyasi and get him away from the inward movement.

If there is no inward movement and there is only outward movement of materialism, we already know how the society will be. If we wait for that realization to happen by itself in the materialistic movement, it is never going to happen. We will realize this fact (If at all it happens) only at our death bed. Hence it is a real irony. Irony in the sense, refusal to see the truth even though the truth is with in us and very much reachable to every one of us.

Hence, if we understand these two movements have to co-exist - which is living, one of the greatest conflicts of our life will be resolved. Resolution of this conflict is a new beginning.

Once again thanks for your comments and it really makes me to go deeper!

Deepak said...

Veeravalli,

Another aspect is that, if you are at level A in materialism and you yearn to go to level B. And let us say you go to level B. The satisfaction is only short lived. After some time the yearning to go to level C starts. But with the past experience we can see through or infer that the same experiential process will happen for levels C, D, E and so on. This process of intelligence will what will eventually lead to conclude that looking inward is the way. The sooner the better :)