Sunday, May 9, 2010

Emptiness

Often we feel emptiness or meaninglessness in our life, even without any significance change in our life or way of living. Probably we feel it when our life events become a routine, may be it when we are not able to entertain ourselves or the entertainment itself become a routine, or when we encounter a joyous moment where we have a feeling of mission accomplished or at an extremely sorrow moment.

There is a difference in the emptiness we feel, in each of these events. In one set of events, the emptiness or meaninglessness due to the fact that thought is active but it cannot find anything to chew and the thoughts are tiered with the usual chewing. In another set of events, it is due to the fact that the thought itself is not there. The emptiness or meaninglessness in this case is due to the absence of thoughts, where being submerged in the field of thought is our usual way of living.

The first set of emptiness is due to the fact of repetition of events in our life. When the life events are just repetition, it becomes a habit and the consciousness does not have any function there. Due to our lifestyle, our consciousness has shrunk to a small layer where it lost its capability to observe the continuous changes within our body and mind. There are many, many activities happening within our body and mind, but they have already gone beyond the reach of our consciousness. Since the consciousness has shrunk and shrinking, we have to fed consciousness with new activities to keep it active. When the consciousness is unable to find any activity, the ego is also not fed with anything. When the ego is not able to find any supporting events, it projects emptiness and meaninglessness so that the consciousness is motivated to find activities and hence the ego is supported. In the other side when we are sensitive, the consciousness goes deeper and deeper, where we start understanding the function of ego and its illusionary nature. The deeper we understand about our ego, the less will be the projection of emptiness or meaninglessness of life.

Again we feel emptiness or meaninglessness of our life, when entering in to the realm of philosophy. The philosophical quest may ground all our beliefs on which our life is supported. Once the beliefs, morality, etc, which formed the base of our egoistic existence are grounded the outward activity required is just for the survival of our physical body and we start ignoring our ego. Yet our ego is possibly active within us. When the ego is active, it must be fed with activities which support its existence. When our philosophies direct us towards meaninglessness with our regular activities except the survival of physical, the ego get into a struggle for its survival and project that the life itself is meaningless without the activities that support the very existence of ego. It is a trap by our ego for its survival. To get out of this trap, we must have the understanding of trap – the ego itself. If not recognize this trap, our philosophical quest may lead us to emptiness

At moments of extreme joy or extreme sorrow or moments of accomplishments, we may enter into a state of emptiness or meaninglessness. During such moments, the thoughts cease to exist. It is a moment where we have a feeling that nothing else to enjoy or nothing else to suffer or nothing else to achieve. As long as we are in that state, without any thoughts it is fine. As soon as the thoughts come in again, it tries to capture the moment of thoughtless state. The active ego projects it as emptiness of life. If there is nothing available to support the ego, it is emptiness for ego, even in actuality we live in abundance. As long as the ego is active, we may not be able to perceive the vastness of this emptiness or the emptiness which enclose everything else with in it. In such moment of thoughtlessness, if the ego is not active, the emptiness contains everything within it which the mind can perceive.

On one side, the feeling of emptiness and meaningless provide enough motivation for carry on with our daily activities, but the sensitivity of our body and mind are taken away. On the other side, we regain our sensitivity towards our body and mind or our consciousness is being expanded, but may live with a depressed feeling of emptiness. On an over look, this seems to be contradiction. Because this translates into the postulate that for having sensitivity we have to be with emptiness and meaninglessness. For, sure it cannot be the case. Instead of having a depressed empty life, being insensitivity may be a better option. If we analyse that feeling of emptiness or meaninglessness, it will be very clear that such state is not the real state, but a projected state. As long as the ego is active, it creates conditions to support it. The feeling of emptiness or meaninglessness is such condition created by our ego to find enough motivation for getting into activities which support ego. The feeling of motivation is a condition created by our ego, to get support. Out of this motivation, we are ready to go any distance – at the end the ego is satisfied and supported.

We may need motivation for doing any activity. But motivation is a condition created by our ego. This again seems to be a conflict. To resolve this conflict, we may have to understand what motivation is? Can we carry on our life with our complete capability without the need for any motivation? This may be a subject of another title “Motivation”.

On one side, we lose our sensitivity due to the routine activities and hence habits. With this insensitivity to happenings within us and around us, the ego needs more violent activities and hence projecting the feeling of emptiness. On the other side, due to our sensitivity, momentarily we enter into a state of thoughtlessness and in this case also, the ego projects the feeling of emptiness. A real conflict, difficult to resolve! Ego is the base for this conflict and understanding our ego is the only way out to resolve this conflict. Once we understand our ego, ego is no more!

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Knowledge

Knowledge is the crown every one wish to have. Due to our nature, we have the basic urge for gaining knowledge. Again, based on our nature, the urge for the type of knowledge we seek differ. On one side it is technological knowledge, simple techniques we use in our day-to-day life to complicated rocket launching technologies or the medical technologies for maintaining our own body. They are mere technological knowledge, which helps us to make our life comfortable.

On the other side, we have the knowledge in psychological realm – any knowledge which supports the existence and growth of ego. As long as the technical knowledge is pure, without any interference from knowledge in psychological domain, they are great. It helps us to have a better, comfortable, easy life. But that is a very rare possibility on considering the general tendency of human being. For a common man or women or child, the technological knowledge gets superimposed by the knowledge in psychological domain. This may be the starting point of all our troubles and sufferings. Almost all destructions by human being might have been due to the interference of knowledge in psychological domain with the technological knowledge; for any destruction, technological knowledge is must, but technological knowledge alone cannot initiate any destruction – It can only cause an accident.

If we like to have only the technological evolution and eliminate human initiated destruction, we must understand the interface between technological knowledge and knowledge which support our ego. That may be the Wisdom. For that knowledge, we have to have the capability of understanding the mechanism of any technological knowledge being infected by our own ego. For that we must have complete understanding of our own ego; understanding of our ego amounts to the dissolution of ego itself. If that happen what remains is pure technological knowledge.

Knowledge is also a trap, inescapable trap. When we are unaware of our ego and its functions, we never recognize what is real and psychological domain of knowledge. Whatever reaches the mind, it takes it as knowledge about the subject – it cannot recognize the egoistic component of that knowledge, as the superimposition of egoistic component happens simultaneously as we start conceiving any thing in our mind. As we are deep inside an unlimited such nests of knowledge, it is nearly impossible to realize truth – the only way out is start understanding our own ego, which may start unwind the nests and possibly make us free; free from our own knowledge and hence ego.

To understand the truthfulness of our knowledge, we must have enough freedom from the knowledge we gained. We must be capable of withstanding the shock of knowing that our knowledge is just illusion. Almost none of us have that quality. Our entire life is built on the belief that we are knowledgeable. If we need to face the fact that our knowledge is just an illusion, the entire span of life we had until now is meaningless. The void generated by the understanding that our knowledge is illusion lead as to believe that our life is meaningless. Now we need to have the courage to face a meaningless life. The very thought (note – it is the thought) that our life is meaningless may takes away our desire to live – for sure, no one like to be in such a state!

Look at the same scenario from another angle. We are sufficiently free from our knowledge. This freedom gives us the capability to just go ahead in our life, even if we understand our knowledge on certain subject is illusion – because we have no egoistic attachment with our own knowledge. This very freedom allows as look into the subject from another perspective – This may be the true knowledge about the subject. Anything here in the world is constantly changing and hence the subject under study can also change at any point of time. As we are free from our knowledge, we can look into the same subject again and again with perspective required for the new situation. This is the true knowledge. That is the knowledge gained with freedom from our own knowledge is true knowledge – The knowledge of life on moment-to-moment basis. In such a life, the knowledge of any religion is unnecessary, the knowledge of any scripture is unnecessary, the knowledge of any morality is unnecessary. What we need is just the knowledge about ourselves. It is experiencing ourselves. It is Living. Without experiencing our own existence, what we call as living is not living – it is, just existing.