Now let us try to understand the child to parent relationship. Analyzing this relationship may give an additional benefit of understanding the need for security is the prime reason for attachment and possessiveness. This is one of the very complicated relationships in our culture.
Until we reach an age of independent survival, we were in the closest care and affection of our parents. At the young age, we were not building as much as images as we are doing as adults. This is the reason that children are said to be very close to the nature of God. At that stage, our survival depends on our parents and we need to have only the security and assurance of having our parents always with us. We did not need (in general) any other security as everything else were taken care by parents. Due to this dependency, we needed our parents always with us. At later stage, as we were started building psychological images and started constructing ourselves (the constructed qualities which are responsible for “ego” or “I centeredness”), we build the image of our parents and project about the comfort we would like to receive from our parents. At this age, our projection of mind will be very close to reality due to fewer images in our memory. Hence the possibility of our parents satisfying our ego is very high and this in turn builds newer images. At certain stage, we will be deeply attached to these images of our parents and the constructed quality of attachment with parents already started within us.
Due to the deep attachment with the image we projected about our parents, this is one of the most fragile relationships. Another reason for the fragility of this relationship is that at certain stage the role play of the parents interchanges. When the parents become old, for their survival, they need to depend on somebody else and naturally children will be the choice. At this stage, the there is a possibility that this relationship may break away due to two reasons.
The children had the image of parents supporting them and not the other way around. Once the children are independent, they are busy in building many more images and as there was no more need for their parents for their survival or any other need, there was no need to build further image about parents. Usually people still project the image of their aging parents and if they do so, they will be having the mind set to reverse the role play. Whenever the parents act as per their nature, which in general deviate much from the image we have about them in our mind (The image we have in our memory is just projection of our mind about parents and not the fact about parents), there is a conflict. Basically this conflict is only within us, but due to projection of mind we perceive it as the conflict in behavior of our parents. Once we start seeing the conflict in our relationships, which are mere projection of mind rather than the actual relationship, the image of our relationship start breaking. Once the image of relationship (we never had real relationship) starts breaking, we no more care about the parents. Those who are capable of seeing the conflict is due to the nature of their (image about) parents and able to cope with that difference, will still hang on with the relationships.
The parents have the image of their children, who still depend on them to fulfill their need. But the children are now grown up adults and they are actually not depending on their parents any more. Unfortunately, most of the parents are unable to leave behind the image of their children, which is an innocent, cute image. Where as the fact is entirely different and hence there is a conflict. Since the parents are still holding the image of innocent children, their ego will not allow them to listen to their children (Even though the situation forced them to listen to their children, the image deep in their mind resist it and hence become the source of conflict). Only a few parents in our culture can come out of this trap and listen to their children with out the ego clash.
The image we have about our children and parents creates the bondages and become the source of conflict with our parents and children. Freedom from this image will resolve the conflicts in parentsßàchildren relationship.
The Basic point of this discussion is that we need to realize truth to come out of various images we have built in our mind and recorded in our memory and leave our life based on this image. When we leave our life based on some image, we are far away from reality and conflict is inevitable in our life. If we live in a life of images, we can not resolve the conflicts but try to escape from the conflicts, which in turn create more conflicts. When our neighbors and we are living with conflicts (with in), conflict between us and our neighbors inevitable. Hence there is conflict with in society and which is the source of all our problems. Hence, if we want to change the world around us, first we need to ralize the truth. This realization brings in necessary changes within us so that all our conflicts within us will get resolved. When there is no conflict within us, there is no conflict with our neighbors and with society.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
Bondage & Freedom-3
In one of our earlier discussions, we noted that human relationships are invented to escape from conflicts within one and with others. The parent to children relationship (physical aspect) is the only exception to this. With the relationships, established a structure of society is formed and then culture. Since these things are invented to escape from conflicts rather than resolving conflicts, at certain stage these establishments became bondage. Now we are deeply bonded with relationships, we cannot breakaway the structure without leaving the culture and society behind. But for the purpose of breaking the bondage, we cannot leave the structure behind and move forward, which shall be meaningless. If we do so, we lose our life and there may not be any justification for such action, if we have already established such relationships within us. If we do so, it will bring in new conflicts within us and within those who are related with us. Hence the only way out is understand the social structure, live within the structure with complete understanding of the need for those structure for our life. Once the complete understanding is there, there will not be any more illusion and we can see what is there as it is. If we can reach this stage, the relationships are no more bondage for us because, we wipe out all constructed qualities from relationships as we have clear understanding of relationships and understanding of real purpose of this relationships. The understanding brings in the required inner freedom. Once we enjoy the freedom within us, there are no more conflicts within us. When there is no conflict within us, we are in a peaceful state. When we are peaceful, the world is peaceful because our world is just the outward projection of ourselves.
Let us try to understand parent children relationships. This is one relationship which no one can escape. All of us were a child of somebody. Once we understand the nature of this relationship, there will not be any new conflicts within us due to this relationship and there will not be any contamination of this relationship with attachment, possessiveness, jealous, envy, anger and any other constructed qualities. Once we understand the structure of this relationship and the basic maintenance requirement of this relationship, we can enjoy the pure relationship without any contamination.
Procreation is the nature of existence and for procreation our body has natural mechanism to have male female attraction. This is an unavoidable attraction express itself as desire, and is required for sustaining existence of human form. Because of this desire, procreation takes place and parent children relationship is already established. Here we need to understand one thing. There may be very few for who, by their very nature, the attraction required for procreation may not arise within them. For them, if the job of procreation is imposed on them by society, their life is finished there!
Even though it is a natural process, it is because of our desire the procreation happened and we are completely responsible for our action. In this case, it is the action due to our desire. The child is a product of our desire. Hence it is our responsibility to prepare the child as a socially compatible being. This is the very nature of parent-child relationship with respect to the parent. For us, whether we execute our responsibility or not, we start projecting the relationship out of our (virtual) need of psychological security. Having the child with us and its very nature of innocence, we start enjoy the togetherness. If it stops there, it is fine. But we would like to have the quality of innocence with the child forever and the attachment with the child is already there. We are in a state, even before the birth of child, we do all sort of mental projections about the child and its innocence and build the attachment even before the birth of child. And in many cases even before the child is created we do our mental projection and form an attachment with a non existing entity.
As explained in previous discussions, the attachment will slowly become possessiveness. Once possessiveness about the child is created within us, the natural extension is fear and all our inner freedom is gone at once! If the question arises then, what to do with the child after he/she is born? Just leave them aside and go away? Definitely not! The child is a product of our desire. We have the complete responsibility for bringing up the child as a socially compatible being. While doing this process, we may enjoy the innocence of the child as long as it is with the child without any expectation having that innocence forever, because it is practically not possible. Watch and enjoy each step on the growth of child and get relieved from our responsibilities over the child.
Just think over as an outsider, what sort of happiness and peacefulness we will have, if we just execute our responsibility without entangled in the bondage of attachment and possessiveness with the child. It is not just theory. We can practically implement it in our lives, if we allow our intelligence to work, if we allow our intelligence to see the truth, if we allow our intelligence to understand the relationships.
Let us try to understand parent children relationships. This is one relationship which no one can escape. All of us were a child of somebody. Once we understand the nature of this relationship, there will not be any new conflicts within us due to this relationship and there will not be any contamination of this relationship with attachment, possessiveness, jealous, envy, anger and any other constructed qualities. Once we understand the structure of this relationship and the basic maintenance requirement of this relationship, we can enjoy the pure relationship without any contamination.
Procreation is the nature of existence and for procreation our body has natural mechanism to have male female attraction. This is an unavoidable attraction express itself as desire, and is required for sustaining existence of human form. Because of this desire, procreation takes place and parent children relationship is already established. Here we need to understand one thing. There may be very few for who, by their very nature, the attraction required for procreation may not arise within them. For them, if the job of procreation is imposed on them by society, their life is finished there!
Even though it is a natural process, it is because of our desire the procreation happened and we are completely responsible for our action. In this case, it is the action due to our desire. The child is a product of our desire. Hence it is our responsibility to prepare the child as a socially compatible being. This is the very nature of parent-child relationship with respect to the parent. For us, whether we execute our responsibility or not, we start projecting the relationship out of our (virtual) need of psychological security. Having the child with us and its very nature of innocence, we start enjoy the togetherness. If it stops there, it is fine. But we would like to have the quality of innocence with the child forever and the attachment with the child is already there. We are in a state, even before the birth of child, we do all sort of mental projections about the child and its innocence and build the attachment even before the birth of child. And in many cases even before the child is created we do our mental projection and form an attachment with a non existing entity.
As explained in previous discussions, the attachment will slowly become possessiveness. Once possessiveness about the child is created within us, the natural extension is fear and all our inner freedom is gone at once! If the question arises then, what to do with the child after he/she is born? Just leave them aside and go away? Definitely not! The child is a product of our desire. We have the complete responsibility for bringing up the child as a socially compatible being. While doing this process, we may enjoy the innocence of the child as long as it is with the child without any expectation having that innocence forever, because it is practically not possible. Watch and enjoy each step on the growth of child and get relieved from our responsibilities over the child.
Just think over as an outsider, what sort of happiness and peacefulness we will have, if we just execute our responsibility without entangled in the bondage of attachment and possessiveness with the child. It is not just theory. We can practically implement it in our lives, if we allow our intelligence to work, if we allow our intelligence to see the truth, if we allow our intelligence to understand the relationships.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Bondage & Freedom-2
WE have seen that attachments with respect to relationships are due to the security sought by the mind so that it can escape from conflicts. When the need for this security intensifies, the attachment become possessiveness, even with the relationships and we can sense at this point the problem is worsening and new conflicts are arising within the relationships. Now we need to escape from (we not yet reached a stage for resolving the conflicts) more conflicts and it has become a cascaded system of conflicts and escapes. Now we start seeking an ultimate escape (not yet reached a stage of thinking of completely resolving all the conflicts) and hence we (our ancestors) invented GOD for that purpose. Now we are conditioned so much due to the conflicts during last twenty thousands years of human existence, GOD is an inseparable entity for us. From this above discussion, we might have understood, there is no escape from conflicts. The more we try to escape from conflicts the more we caught in between the conflicts and hence the term ultimate escape itself is deceptive in nature.
Let us allow our intelligence work for ourselves for some time and try to understand the constructed quality possessiveness, which may helpful to resolve a couple of conflicts, if we can integrate the understandings into our life, we may little bit closer to reality.
We have noted that possessiveness is nothing but intensified attachment. With this view we clearly know that possessiveness is an unwanted quality as it was just the glorification of another unwanted quality called attachment. We already established that attachment is an unwanted quality. Let us look into possessiveness as a fresh entity.
Let us try to analyze possessiveness with respect to relationships. This is because if we can resolve the conflicts with relationships, it is very easy to resolve any other conflicts. Having psychological security is a way for escaping from conflicts. We have numerous conflicts within us. We are constantly increasing those conflicts within us in addition to the conflicts genetically handed over to us from our ancestors and together already handed over to the next generation or will handover shortly. Only very few try to resolve the conflicts, yet they cannot help from handing over those conflicts to next generation. The next generations have to workout freshly, if they want to resolve those conflicts rather than escaping from them.
Possessiveness is the result of our urge to have psychological security. The spouse is a completely different entity from us with respect to our present level of perception. What we know about our spouse is a small fraction of what he/she is. There is no second opinion about this. To make it further clear, what we know about our spouse is just the projection of our mind (except, may be the physical nature). We imagine this and that are the qualities of our spouse, exactly the same way about their image of us within them.
The problem starts when we want to hold on this image for ever. On the other hand, when we desire to possess this image for ever within us to have a sense of security with that relationship, we are already having the constructed quality possessiveness within us. Now we are possessive of our spouse. When the spouse exhibit his/her real nature (which we don’t know at all!) and when it differ from the image we have about our spouse, it is a great psychological blow to us. This is because, we lost the psychological security projected by our mind (not actual, but projection of mind) as his/her expression of himself/herself is not coinciding the image we have projected within our mind, with respect to our relationship with the spouse. So, new set of conflicts aroused within us.
If we go back from this point, the new conflicts are not there, if we don’t have a psychological blow with respect to the expression of our spouse. The psychological blow is not there if the expression of our spouse is not against our image about the spouse. If we do not have a projected image about our spouse, there is no possibility for a conflict between these two (The expression of spouse is unavoidable where as our image about the spouse is avoidable). The image about the spouse is not required, if we understand the relationship itself. Once we understand the relationship, its need and its existence, there is no need for seeking security and hence holding on with the projected image, which is possessiveness. On the other hand, possessiveness on our relationship with spouse is our demand on our spouse to comply with our image about him/her. We claim that the attachment and possessiveness are due to our deep love with our spouse. If we really love him/her, can we ever insist them to always comply with our demand? If we truly love them, we love each and every of their action, irrespective of, what their actions are! With the present social set up and at our present dimension of perception, none of us can really exhibit such a love. When we are not able to love him/her, Why should we need to create an illusion about Love and to support this illusion why should we create the constructed qualities like attachment possessiveness, which just give a false sense of security and the breeding point of new conflicts and fear and take away all our inner freedom and bind us with all these illusions of security. Why can’t we accept our inability for true Love, but live our life with in the social structure. Once we are capable of doing this, there is possibility of better understanding between the spouses and probably they can enter into the domain of true Love also.
The same concept is true with any relationship and hence what is the need for possessiveness in our life with respect to relationships. Now the problem is shifted to understanding the relationships
Let us allow our intelligence work for ourselves for some time and try to understand the constructed quality possessiveness, which may helpful to resolve a couple of conflicts, if we can integrate the understandings into our life, we may little bit closer to reality.
We have noted that possessiveness is nothing but intensified attachment. With this view we clearly know that possessiveness is an unwanted quality as it was just the glorification of another unwanted quality called attachment. We already established that attachment is an unwanted quality. Let us look into possessiveness as a fresh entity.
Let us try to analyze possessiveness with respect to relationships. This is because if we can resolve the conflicts with relationships, it is very easy to resolve any other conflicts. Having psychological security is a way for escaping from conflicts. We have numerous conflicts within us. We are constantly increasing those conflicts within us in addition to the conflicts genetically handed over to us from our ancestors and together already handed over to the next generation or will handover shortly. Only very few try to resolve the conflicts, yet they cannot help from handing over those conflicts to next generation. The next generations have to workout freshly, if they want to resolve those conflicts rather than escaping from them.
Possessiveness is the result of our urge to have psychological security. The spouse is a completely different entity from us with respect to our present level of perception. What we know about our spouse is a small fraction of what he/she is. There is no second opinion about this. To make it further clear, what we know about our spouse is just the projection of our mind (except, may be the physical nature). We imagine this and that are the qualities of our spouse, exactly the same way about their image of us within them.
The problem starts when we want to hold on this image for ever. On the other hand, when we desire to possess this image for ever within us to have a sense of security with that relationship, we are already having the constructed quality possessiveness within us. Now we are possessive of our spouse. When the spouse exhibit his/her real nature (which we don’t know at all!) and when it differ from the image we have about our spouse, it is a great psychological blow to us. This is because, we lost the psychological security projected by our mind (not actual, but projection of mind) as his/her expression of himself/herself is not coinciding the image we have projected within our mind, with respect to our relationship with the spouse. So, new set of conflicts aroused within us.
If we go back from this point, the new conflicts are not there, if we don’t have a psychological blow with respect to the expression of our spouse. The psychological blow is not there if the expression of our spouse is not against our image about the spouse. If we do not have a projected image about our spouse, there is no possibility for a conflict between these two (The expression of spouse is unavoidable where as our image about the spouse is avoidable). The image about the spouse is not required, if we understand the relationship itself. Once we understand the relationship, its need and its existence, there is no need for seeking security and hence holding on with the projected image, which is possessiveness. On the other hand, possessiveness on our relationship with spouse is our demand on our spouse to comply with our image about him/her. We claim that the attachment and possessiveness are due to our deep love with our spouse. If we really love him/her, can we ever insist them to always comply with our demand? If we truly love them, we love each and every of their action, irrespective of, what their actions are! With the present social set up and at our present dimension of perception, none of us can really exhibit such a love. When we are not able to love him/her, Why should we need to create an illusion about Love and to support this illusion why should we create the constructed qualities like attachment possessiveness, which just give a false sense of security and the breeding point of new conflicts and fear and take away all our inner freedom and bind us with all these illusions of security. Why can’t we accept our inability for true Love, but live our life with in the social structure. Once we are capable of doing this, there is possibility of better understanding between the spouses and probably they can enter into the domain of true Love also.
The same concept is true with any relationship and hence what is the need for possessiveness in our life with respect to relationships. Now the problem is shifted to understanding the relationships
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Bondage & Freedom-1
Before going further let us introduce a concept here. Whatever we perceive about outside is the projection of our mind. This implies if our mind is violent, we perceive violence outside us, if our mind is in order we perceive the outside world in order. Please do not come to the conclusion about this statement that this world is illusion or Maya as explained by few of the followers of Vedanta. The world is the existing entitiy, we are existing entities, everything happening in the world is happening in real time.
When we were discussing about the topic of self image we noted that whatever we know about ourselves is just the image of what we have about ourselves. That is the knowledge about ourselves itself is the projection of our mind. It is just the qualities we imagine about ourselves. That is whenever we use the word “I” or “Me”, it is just the bundle of qualities which our mind is projecting about ourselves plus our body. When the Indian philosophies indicates that we must forego our “ego” or “I centeredness” or “self” to reach the state of realization means, we must come out of this projection of our mind about ourselves to enter into pure reality. That implies, we are no more certain bunch of qualities, we are just the absolute existence as it is. We have the complete knowledge of existence within us by means of our conscious/subconscious/unconscious/collective-unconscious mind.
Let us analyze how this image affects our perception of world and hence before solving the problem outside, the requirement about the need to solve the problems inside. To solve the problem inside, what are the necessary changes to be happened inside and how to bring about those changes!
Normally we say we are deeply attached with our spouse, children and parents, at least. Let us try to see how far it is true. This analyze is not to prove that what we have is not attachment or we do not love those relations. But to indicate all these attachments and whatever we are saying are just the projection of our mind. Once we understand our present state, towards these relations are just the projection of our mind, we will be able to give true Love to them, which will give pain neither to us nor to them, but provide the ultimate happiness. That is the basic essence of this discussion. Please note that this discussion is not for bringing in any conflicts within us, but to eliminate the conflicts within us. After the discussion, if any new conflict arises within us, say about our relationships, it implies that the essence of this discussion has not entered in to our perception, but only the words entered into our perception as a fragment.
Whatever we know about ourselves is the projection of our mind. In such case, what about our knowledge about the spouse? At this point, we need to realize one thing. Our spouse is a separate entity, which is entirely different from us in the dimension of our perception. To understand this, just imagine how much of our qualities are known to our spouse. Our spouse may know slightly better than others due to the intimate relation. But the spouse’s knowledge about us is just a fraction of what we are (or what we consider as ourselves). The same is true with us about our spouse. If we do not know about something, can we really love that entity? If we cannot do it with something, surely it is applicable with respect to our spouse. Please note that this is not to bring in a conflict within our relationships and forgo the spouse, but to resolve the conflict and have better relationship. Whether we truly love our spouse or not we need that relationship for a social life.
At this point, it may be appropriate to discuss a little bit about society, culture and relationships. Two hundred thousand years ago we were just animals. There were no culture and no relationships. Like animals, we were also just doing whatever necessary for our survival and procreation. May be until twenty to thirty thousand years we were like that, but evolving slowly. At this point we got intelligence to use the nature for our survival. Due to continuous evolution and development of intelligence, conflict started between the human beings. To escape from conflicts, (Note that it is not resolving the conflict, but escaping from conflict. We are still in the state of finding means to escape from our conflicts and not at all trying to resolve the conflicts) they devised certain rules. By these rules, they must have been able to escape from the conflicts at that time. Since it was just the escape from the conflict, other conflicts pop out from some other direction. To escape from this new conflict another rule and so on. Different group of human being must have established different set of rules and this has become culture and society. Once they started complying with the rules of their culture and society, relationships must have been developed.
So what we see today as culture, society and relationships are the means of escape from conflict. This does not mean to resolve the conflicts we must forgo culture, society and relationships. Even though if we do that completely with the awareness of what we are doing, we can end all conflicts within us. But practically it is not possible. We are deep in to the cultural, social and relational field and we cannot live a life without such social establishments. Here the reality is we have to have a social life.
Coming back to the point of our attachment to the relationships, our spouse is a totally different entity with respect to ourselves with respect to the present dimension of our perception. We are in that relationship just because of social establishment. Because of our quest to comply with the social establishment and its rules, we seek security in that relationship. The first problem started at our quest to comply with rules and the second problem started when we seek security in the relationships.
When it is said that the first problem started at our quest to comply with rules does not mean that there is no need to comply with the rules. If we want to be in social establishment we need to comply with the rules. The point here is that we need to change inwardly so that complying that rule will not become a problem, but due to our inward change, the conflicts get resolved. This is the essence of this discussion. We need to take utmost care while discussing such a sensitive issue.
Now the point here is are we really having any security with the relationship? If we look it as an outsider of this establishment we can clearly understand there is no such security in any of the relationships. It is because the life of us or our spouse may end at any time, may be now or next moment or next year or next decade or after sixty years, which is (The time scale) uncertain. There is a possibility of misunderstanding and hence breaking the relationship is also there. There is a possibility of moving away from each other for long period due to the requirement of our survival and endless possibilities. Hence there is no actual security for relationships. We caught in between many such conflicts never allow our intelligence to work and hence we somehow like to have a feeling (not real) of security. The mind now establishes a feeling of security (Illusion about relationships) by projecting about this relationship. While doing such projection, the mind also establishes security in availability of many other requirements for basic life like security in shelter, food, money, health, loneliness and so on. Understanding this fact – that is all our feelings of security are just the projection of mind, is really not easy. This goal can be achieved only if we allow our intelligence to work. If we are caught in some belief system or conditioning, which will just project another form of security and that will also be an illusion. For its projection, the mind establishes and uses the constructed qualities like attachment, possessiveness and so on.
We have discussed the mechanism of establishing the constructed quality of attachment with respect to relationships. The above discussion of attachment with the relationship of spouse is applicable to all other relationships exist in our social framework, like parent children relationship, friends relationship and every other relationships.
When we were discussing about the topic of self image we noted that whatever we know about ourselves is just the image of what we have about ourselves. That is the knowledge about ourselves itself is the projection of our mind. It is just the qualities we imagine about ourselves. That is whenever we use the word “I” or “Me”, it is just the bundle of qualities which our mind is projecting about ourselves plus our body. When the Indian philosophies indicates that we must forego our “ego” or “I centeredness” or “self” to reach the state of realization means, we must come out of this projection of our mind about ourselves to enter into pure reality. That implies, we are no more certain bunch of qualities, we are just the absolute existence as it is. We have the complete knowledge of existence within us by means of our conscious/subconscious/unconscious/collective-unconscious mind.
Let us analyze how this image affects our perception of world and hence before solving the problem outside, the requirement about the need to solve the problems inside. To solve the problem inside, what are the necessary changes to be happened inside and how to bring about those changes!
Normally we say we are deeply attached with our spouse, children and parents, at least. Let us try to see how far it is true. This analyze is not to prove that what we have is not attachment or we do not love those relations. But to indicate all these attachments and whatever we are saying are just the projection of our mind. Once we understand our present state, towards these relations are just the projection of our mind, we will be able to give true Love to them, which will give pain neither to us nor to them, but provide the ultimate happiness. That is the basic essence of this discussion. Please note that this discussion is not for bringing in any conflicts within us, but to eliminate the conflicts within us. After the discussion, if any new conflict arises within us, say about our relationships, it implies that the essence of this discussion has not entered in to our perception, but only the words entered into our perception as a fragment.
Whatever we know about ourselves is the projection of our mind. In such case, what about our knowledge about the spouse? At this point, we need to realize one thing. Our spouse is a separate entity, which is entirely different from us in the dimension of our perception. To understand this, just imagine how much of our qualities are known to our spouse. Our spouse may know slightly better than others due to the intimate relation. But the spouse’s knowledge about us is just a fraction of what we are (or what we consider as ourselves). The same is true with us about our spouse. If we do not know about something, can we really love that entity? If we cannot do it with something, surely it is applicable with respect to our spouse. Please note that this is not to bring in a conflict within our relationships and forgo the spouse, but to resolve the conflict and have better relationship. Whether we truly love our spouse or not we need that relationship for a social life.
At this point, it may be appropriate to discuss a little bit about society, culture and relationships. Two hundred thousand years ago we were just animals. There were no culture and no relationships. Like animals, we were also just doing whatever necessary for our survival and procreation. May be until twenty to thirty thousand years we were like that, but evolving slowly. At this point we got intelligence to use the nature for our survival. Due to continuous evolution and development of intelligence, conflict started between the human beings. To escape from conflicts, (Note that it is not resolving the conflict, but escaping from conflict. We are still in the state of finding means to escape from our conflicts and not at all trying to resolve the conflicts) they devised certain rules. By these rules, they must have been able to escape from the conflicts at that time. Since it was just the escape from the conflict, other conflicts pop out from some other direction. To escape from this new conflict another rule and so on. Different group of human being must have established different set of rules and this has become culture and society. Once they started complying with the rules of their culture and society, relationships must have been developed.
So what we see today as culture, society and relationships are the means of escape from conflict. This does not mean to resolve the conflicts we must forgo culture, society and relationships. Even though if we do that completely with the awareness of what we are doing, we can end all conflicts within us. But practically it is not possible. We are deep in to the cultural, social and relational field and we cannot live a life without such social establishments. Here the reality is we have to have a social life.
Coming back to the point of our attachment to the relationships, our spouse is a totally different entity with respect to ourselves with respect to the present dimension of our perception. We are in that relationship just because of social establishment. Because of our quest to comply with the social establishment and its rules, we seek security in that relationship. The first problem started at our quest to comply with rules and the second problem started when we seek security in the relationships.
When it is said that the first problem started at our quest to comply with rules does not mean that there is no need to comply with the rules. If we want to be in social establishment we need to comply with the rules. The point here is that we need to change inwardly so that complying that rule will not become a problem, but due to our inward change, the conflicts get resolved. This is the essence of this discussion. We need to take utmost care while discussing such a sensitive issue.
Now the point here is are we really having any security with the relationship? If we look it as an outsider of this establishment we can clearly understand there is no such security in any of the relationships. It is because the life of us or our spouse may end at any time, may be now or next moment or next year or next decade or after sixty years, which is (The time scale) uncertain. There is a possibility of misunderstanding and hence breaking the relationship is also there. There is a possibility of moving away from each other for long period due to the requirement of our survival and endless possibilities. Hence there is no actual security for relationships. We caught in between many such conflicts never allow our intelligence to work and hence we somehow like to have a feeling (not real) of security. The mind now establishes a feeling of security (Illusion about relationships) by projecting about this relationship. While doing such projection, the mind also establishes security in availability of many other requirements for basic life like security in shelter, food, money, health, loneliness and so on. Understanding this fact – that is all our feelings of security are just the projection of mind, is really not easy. This goal can be achieved only if we allow our intelligence to work. If we are caught in some belief system or conditioning, which will just project another form of security and that will also be an illusion. For its projection, the mind establishes and uses the constructed qualities like attachment, possessiveness and so on.
We have discussed the mechanism of establishing the constructed quality of attachment with respect to relationships. The above discussion of attachment with the relationship of spouse is applicable to all other relationships exist in our social framework, like parent children relationship, friends relationship and every other relationships.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Functioning of Brain/Mind
It may be useful to discuss a bit about the functioning of our brain/mind before discussing about the constructed qualities like attachments, possessiveness, anger etc. We have already seen that mind is nothing but the functioning of brain or the result (or process) of processing of brain. Brain records all information it process into the memory. The sense organs are the input devices for brain and the whole body and memory are its output device. It sends the output of processing to required part of the body. It processes all information it receives through the sense organs. But the extent or level of its processing depends on few factors which depend on the individual. After processing the information, it stores everything including the details and method of processing into memory. The operation of processing expresses itself as our mind. If we are attentive enough, we can see the complete processing of brain as our mind. But due to various factors, our attention is distorted so much and we can observe only a fraction of the processing of brain.
This fact can be understood better with few examples. The Ayurvedic medical system evolved few thousands of years when no external instruments were available to understand the functioning of organs of body, yet it describes preciously the functioning of almost every part of body. How was it possible? We know that brain is the control center for the whole body. Hence the functioning of each and every cell will be monitored by brain by means of collecting information, processing and sending command. All these processing is expressed as mind. If we are attentive enough, we can observe the information received from each and every cell of our body and the commands sent to them by the brain. Hence the logical conclusion shall be that whoever devised the ayurvedic medical system must have been attentive enough to their brain/mind so that he can observe his mind to core of the details and expressed as ayurvedic system for the help of humanity.
Gautama Buddha has expressed that there are 72000 energy channels in human body. (I am not sure whether science has established/confirmed this fact or not, most probably not!) How can Gautama Buddha observe it without the means of any instrument? The energy channels send signals to brain and hence the brain processes the information of those energy channels and which is expressed as our mind. If we are attentive enough, we ourselves can find out these things.
How to tell the brain to process certain information and leave certain other information? If we can command what to process and not, to the brain, all our problems and hence problems of society will be solved. There is a way to do that. For doing that, we need to bring in certain changes within ourselves.
For example when we walk down the street we see many activities happening in the street. The details of all those activities will not be processed by the brain and recorded but process and record only certain events or activities which get our attention. If we can understand this mechanism, probably we are leap ahead in the process of commanding brain what to do and not to do, and eliminating reactive thoughts and hence the constructed qualities.
In the above example, the eyes are seeing everything in street the ears are hearing every noise in street, nose smells every fragrance in street. But not all get the complete attention of brain and recording as memory. If we observe closely, out of whatever sensed by our sense organs on the street, only those items which has certain utilities for us are processed extensively and stored by the brain. Other information are also processed by brain, but find no utility for us and hence stop the processing at that point and discard that information from being stored into the memory. To make it clear, where ever we are aware that certain information do not have any use for us, those information are not processed by the brain extensively. If the brain already has some information about certain sensed event and it is not aware of the uselessness of that event, and within the brain already there is a projection of that event, that particular event will be processed by brain extensively and stored in memory. On the contrary, even if the projection of that event is already in our mind and we are aware that the event is not useful for us, the brain will not process that information extensively.
For example when we go from a town to a big city for the first time, all the tall buildings and the lavish shops will get our attention and enter into our memory. Here we see it as adding knowledge about the structure of a city and whatever we see there will get into our memory. After some time we will be used to such a city and all its tall buildings and busy streets have no more meaning to us. Now we happen to visit another city. Here our attention will not be like when we visited any of the cities for the first time in our life. This is because now we understand that the knowledge about each and every element of the city is no use for us and what we know is where to go and how to come back. The brain processes only the information relevant for any purpose and discards all other information, because we are aware that all those information have no use for us. As all our examples, this example too cannot be taken as universal. This is because every one of us is different in our constructed qualities (Because constructed qualities are projection of mind and each one of our minds shall be projecting itself in different directions) and hence same example can not applicable to everybody. But you may be able to appreciate the validity of this example by relating to something else, depend on individuals mind.
Here the key point is the awareness of uselessness of certain information.
Now we have to understand what we need and what not. We have to understand what is of any use and what is of no use. Once we understand these things, it is not a difficult task to eliminate reactive thought process and hence constructed qualities. Understanding few of the constructed qualities may be helpful to understand what is needed and what is not.
The difficult task is to realize we are the result of physical and psychological conditioning during the 200000 years of human existence, probably the result of conditioning from much, much before that. To reach a state of commanding our brain/mind, we need to be free from conditioning of our brain/mind. We have to have the willingness to be free from conditioning of our mind. That willingness will come only if we see that we are the result of such conditioning and then only it is possible to undo those conditioning. Our intelligence has to work to see these facts. Without seeing these facts we will never be willing to change ourselves. Intelligence works only if we get away from projection of mind. There might be many methods prescribed for achieving these results. The key point is not the method, but seeing the fact. Once we see the fact, any of the prescribed methods may work or we ourselves can find a method.
Probably, the discussions in this blog may help to understand few of the facts and once we have the understanding of few of the facts, our intelligence shall takeover to do the rest of work to bring in the necessary change within us to facilitate complete realization
This fact can be understood better with few examples. The Ayurvedic medical system evolved few thousands of years when no external instruments were available to understand the functioning of organs of body, yet it describes preciously the functioning of almost every part of body. How was it possible? We know that brain is the control center for the whole body. Hence the functioning of each and every cell will be monitored by brain by means of collecting information, processing and sending command. All these processing is expressed as mind. If we are attentive enough, we can observe the information received from each and every cell of our body and the commands sent to them by the brain. Hence the logical conclusion shall be that whoever devised the ayurvedic medical system must have been attentive enough to their brain/mind so that he can observe his mind to core of the details and expressed as ayurvedic system for the help of humanity.
Gautama Buddha has expressed that there are 72000 energy channels in human body. (I am not sure whether science has established/confirmed this fact or not, most probably not!) How can Gautama Buddha observe it without the means of any instrument? The energy channels send signals to brain and hence the brain processes the information of those energy channels and which is expressed as our mind. If we are attentive enough, we ourselves can find out these things.
How to tell the brain to process certain information and leave certain other information? If we can command what to process and not, to the brain, all our problems and hence problems of society will be solved. There is a way to do that. For doing that, we need to bring in certain changes within ourselves.
For example when we walk down the street we see many activities happening in the street. The details of all those activities will not be processed by the brain and recorded but process and record only certain events or activities which get our attention. If we can understand this mechanism, probably we are leap ahead in the process of commanding brain what to do and not to do, and eliminating reactive thoughts and hence the constructed qualities.
In the above example, the eyes are seeing everything in street the ears are hearing every noise in street, nose smells every fragrance in street. But not all get the complete attention of brain and recording as memory. If we observe closely, out of whatever sensed by our sense organs on the street, only those items which has certain utilities for us are processed extensively and stored by the brain. Other information are also processed by brain, but find no utility for us and hence stop the processing at that point and discard that information from being stored into the memory. To make it clear, where ever we are aware that certain information do not have any use for us, those information are not processed by the brain extensively. If the brain already has some information about certain sensed event and it is not aware of the uselessness of that event, and within the brain already there is a projection of that event, that particular event will be processed by brain extensively and stored in memory. On the contrary, even if the projection of that event is already in our mind and we are aware that the event is not useful for us, the brain will not process that information extensively.
For example when we go from a town to a big city for the first time, all the tall buildings and the lavish shops will get our attention and enter into our memory. Here we see it as adding knowledge about the structure of a city and whatever we see there will get into our memory. After some time we will be used to such a city and all its tall buildings and busy streets have no more meaning to us. Now we happen to visit another city. Here our attention will not be like when we visited any of the cities for the first time in our life. This is because now we understand that the knowledge about each and every element of the city is no use for us and what we know is where to go and how to come back. The brain processes only the information relevant for any purpose and discards all other information, because we are aware that all those information have no use for us. As all our examples, this example too cannot be taken as universal. This is because every one of us is different in our constructed qualities (Because constructed qualities are projection of mind and each one of our minds shall be projecting itself in different directions) and hence same example can not applicable to everybody. But you may be able to appreciate the validity of this example by relating to something else, depend on individuals mind.
Here the key point is the awareness of uselessness of certain information.
Now we have to understand what we need and what not. We have to understand what is of any use and what is of no use. Once we understand these things, it is not a difficult task to eliminate reactive thought process and hence constructed qualities. Understanding few of the constructed qualities may be helpful to understand what is needed and what is not.
The difficult task is to realize we are the result of physical and psychological conditioning during the 200000 years of human existence, probably the result of conditioning from much, much before that. To reach a state of commanding our brain/mind, we need to be free from conditioning of our brain/mind. We have to have the willingness to be free from conditioning of our mind. That willingness will come only if we see that we are the result of such conditioning and then only it is possible to undo those conditioning. Our intelligence has to work to see these facts. Without seeing these facts we will never be willing to change ourselves. Intelligence works only if we get away from projection of mind. There might be many methods prescribed for achieving these results. The key point is not the method, but seeing the fact. Once we see the fact, any of the prescribed methods may work or we ourselves can find a method.
Probably, the discussions in this blog may help to understand few of the facts and once we have the understanding of few of the facts, our intelligence shall takeover to do the rest of work to bring in the necessary change within us to facilitate complete realization
Monday, March 2, 2009
Desire
Desire is one of the constructed qualities of human being, which is condemned by almost all religions and spiritual leaders with very, very few exceptions. But it is common sense to understand that there may not be anybody in this world without any desire; for that the want to be without desire itself is a desire.
If we understand desire and the cause of desire, we do not need anybody else to advise us whether we need desire or not, or what to do with the desire arising within ourselves and the effect of desire within us. Once we have these understandings, then it is not at all a problem if we have any sort of desire. This is because we understand the cause and effect of desire and with that understanding we are fully prepared to face the effect with complete willingness and happiness. As long as we are ready to face the effect of our action happily there is nothing wrong in our action, whatever may be that action. On the contrary, if we are troubled or disturbed with the effect of noblest of our actions in this world, that will be wrong doing with respect to ourselves. This concept has a great deal with respect to our intention of the change required in this world and hence it may be relevant to discuss about desire here.
We all know what is desire, but we might not have thought about the mechanism of desire arising within ourselves, unless we have ever observed any of our desires from beginning to end. That is, observing it from the birth of any of our desires to its grave, even the smallest of desires which we ever had.
When we see something, the brain process that information, identify it store the result as memory. In the process of identifying that item it leaves many unanswered leads with in our mind. Due to our nature or due to the method we programmed ourselves, the brain get hold of one or few of those leads and the reactive thought process shall be initiated to complete the unanswered lead, which is actually not required. The reactive thought process get hold of the projection of mind/brain already stored in our memory and further project to the extent of answering, what will happen if we possess that something. This is just a projection of mind and not a fact. The other constructed qualities like possessiveness, attachment, jealous, envy etc complement this projection of brain/mind. The projection will deepen to such a level that we will get attached to that something. Having attached with something but not possessing that thing invokes the urge to possess that thing. This urge is called desire. Once we possess something with which we are attached and if we are unable to remove attachment with that item, that will be the beginning of other constructed qualities like fear and sorrow.
For example, if we see a nice house (nice with respect to our experience/knowledge), the image of that house shall go into our memory. When we go back to our house, the reactive thought process starts comparing our house with the image of that nice house. As we do not possess that nice house, we will be having all sort of projections about that house and this projection of mind create attachment over that nice house. Now at various point of time and for various reasons, our mind start seeing that house and each time it does a projection within our mind about that house and finally the mind start projecting the scenario of owning such a house. The desire of owning that house is sowed within our mind. Depend on the frequency of our mind projecting the scenario of owning such house, our attachment towards that house intensifies, and hence the desire intensifies. IF we have the means to own such a house we own one and that is the ending point of that particular desire. In case we do not have the means to fulfill the desire, it will start becoming sorrow, pain, self pity, etc depend on the projected information in our memory/brain. And if we do not have the means but owned the house somehow, then another set of problem propels out of that due to cause and effect theory.
For somebody seeing a house invoke desire, for somebody seeing tasty food invokes desire, for somebody seeing a brand new car invoke desire, for somebody seeing a beautiful woman/man invoke desire and it is an endless list. This is the whole mechanism of advertisement industry, which creates desire to the listeners of those advertisements at various intensities. Only a fraction of the population distracted by the advertisement industry can fulfill that desire and the remaining vast majority of the population start living the life with the scratch of those advertisements. Only the intelligent people escape from this trap.
Let us now analyze the need for such desire. Like any other quality, desire also has two sides. On one side, we are here because of desire. All the comfort and luxury in this world are here due to desire. All the technological and cultural developments are here because of desire. On the other side, all our pain, suffering is because of desire. The corruption and crime in society are because of desire.
We can conclude that we have to have desire for a decent social life, yet we have to be untouched by desire to have a life without pain, sorrow, and suffering. This state of having desire yet untouched by desire can be achieved if and only if our intelligence works for us. For the intelligence to work, we need to have a complete understanding of desires we have and its utility and means. Once we achieve that state, naturally our intelligence will take over the rest and we will doing what is needed for that situation, instead of carried over by the projection of mind or desire. Intelligence works based on fact and not based on projection of mind. Hence the basic requirement shall be allowing our intelligence to work. For the intelligence to work, the thought process has to stop for projecting something out of nothing. For such a state we may have to reach a state of fearlessness. We already know few of the constructed qualities which are creating fear. We may analyze few of those qualities during coming days.
If we understand desire and the cause of desire, we do not need anybody else to advise us whether we need desire or not, or what to do with the desire arising within ourselves and the effect of desire within us. Once we have these understandings, then it is not at all a problem if we have any sort of desire. This is because we understand the cause and effect of desire and with that understanding we are fully prepared to face the effect with complete willingness and happiness. As long as we are ready to face the effect of our action happily there is nothing wrong in our action, whatever may be that action. On the contrary, if we are troubled or disturbed with the effect of noblest of our actions in this world, that will be wrong doing with respect to ourselves. This concept has a great deal with respect to our intention of the change required in this world and hence it may be relevant to discuss about desire here.
We all know what is desire, but we might not have thought about the mechanism of desire arising within ourselves, unless we have ever observed any of our desires from beginning to end. That is, observing it from the birth of any of our desires to its grave, even the smallest of desires which we ever had.
When we see something, the brain process that information, identify it store the result as memory. In the process of identifying that item it leaves many unanswered leads with in our mind. Due to our nature or due to the method we programmed ourselves, the brain get hold of one or few of those leads and the reactive thought process shall be initiated to complete the unanswered lead, which is actually not required. The reactive thought process get hold of the projection of mind/brain already stored in our memory and further project to the extent of answering, what will happen if we possess that something. This is just a projection of mind and not a fact. The other constructed qualities like possessiveness, attachment, jealous, envy etc complement this projection of brain/mind. The projection will deepen to such a level that we will get attached to that something. Having attached with something but not possessing that thing invokes the urge to possess that thing. This urge is called desire. Once we possess something with which we are attached and if we are unable to remove attachment with that item, that will be the beginning of other constructed qualities like fear and sorrow.
For example, if we see a nice house (nice with respect to our experience/knowledge), the image of that house shall go into our memory. When we go back to our house, the reactive thought process starts comparing our house with the image of that nice house. As we do not possess that nice house, we will be having all sort of projections about that house and this projection of mind create attachment over that nice house. Now at various point of time and for various reasons, our mind start seeing that house and each time it does a projection within our mind about that house and finally the mind start projecting the scenario of owning such a house. The desire of owning that house is sowed within our mind. Depend on the frequency of our mind projecting the scenario of owning such house, our attachment towards that house intensifies, and hence the desire intensifies. IF we have the means to own such a house we own one and that is the ending point of that particular desire. In case we do not have the means to fulfill the desire, it will start becoming sorrow, pain, self pity, etc depend on the projected information in our memory/brain. And if we do not have the means but owned the house somehow, then another set of problem propels out of that due to cause and effect theory.
For somebody seeing a house invoke desire, for somebody seeing tasty food invokes desire, for somebody seeing a brand new car invoke desire, for somebody seeing a beautiful woman/man invoke desire and it is an endless list. This is the whole mechanism of advertisement industry, which creates desire to the listeners of those advertisements at various intensities. Only a fraction of the population distracted by the advertisement industry can fulfill that desire and the remaining vast majority of the population start living the life with the scratch of those advertisements. Only the intelligent people escape from this trap.
Let us now analyze the need for such desire. Like any other quality, desire also has two sides. On one side, we are here because of desire. All the comfort and luxury in this world are here due to desire. All the technological and cultural developments are here because of desire. On the other side, all our pain, suffering is because of desire. The corruption and crime in society are because of desire.
We can conclude that we have to have desire for a decent social life, yet we have to be untouched by desire to have a life without pain, sorrow, and suffering. This state of having desire yet untouched by desire can be achieved if and only if our intelligence works for us. For the intelligence to work, we need to have a complete understanding of desires we have and its utility and means. Once we achieve that state, naturally our intelligence will take over the rest and we will doing what is needed for that situation, instead of carried over by the projection of mind or desire. Intelligence works based on fact and not based on projection of mind. Hence the basic requirement shall be allowing our intelligence to work. For the intelligence to work, the thought process has to stop for projecting something out of nothing. For such a state we may have to reach a state of fearlessness. We already know few of the constructed qualities which are creating fear. We may analyze few of those qualities during coming days.
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