Philosophy

Due to the power of consciousness and capability to compare, we tend to have many questions on every aspect of our life. Many questions pertaining to our existence also arises within us. These questions may not have any direct answers. We need to comprehend the perceivable and then derive the answers for such questions. These questions, method of deriving the answers and the answers together may be termed as philosophy – a simple definition of philosophy!

The general tendency towards philosophy is that it is only for the so called “think tanks” as it does not have any practical application. If we consider the above definition of philosophy, it has practical application in every aspect of our life, practical application in how we perceive even the simplest object/subject we encounter on moment-to-moment basis. Philosophy is not for read, memorise, and follow. It is for asking questions and then gets clarified from our own experience – either inner or outer.

Our entire life goes on just our struggle for survival. The first survival requirement is physical. For sustaining our life, we have to have the means for physical survival otherwise we have to give up our life. Once this is accomplished, we spend our entire energy for the survival of our ego – not only survival of ego, but growing the ego. We not even recognize that we are wasting the entire energy of our life just to support and grow our ego, which in reality never exists. Ego is a function which developed and nurtured in our mind field with support from our imagination power, which find ways for our physical well being to some extent as well as the destruction of mankind. How to recognize such waste of energy? Philosophies come to our rescue. Philosophy doesn’t mean verbalization of all abstract thoughts of some so called “think-tank”. It is our questions of why, what, where, when and how, and the answers we find ourselves– not the answers of somebody else, which is their philosophy, not ours; at best we can take them as a reference, not as authority.

When we enter into the realm of philosophy, we need to be very careful about one aspect. Our mind is so powerful it can get convincing answer for any and every question, if we allow it to find an answer. On this attempt, the mind creates so many illusions which if we are not aware, take it as real and come to a conclusion for our philosophical question. If we accept somebody’s authority on philosophical thought, it is easier to reach such conclusion. And if it happens, it is not easy to change that conclusion we arrived. It gets into our brain as final answer. Now we start looking into everything with reference to this answer only – we remain in constant illusion. It is a trap from which we never can exit if we are caught into it, unless we recognize the trap. Almost every one of us is caught into a nest of such traps. The only way to come out of that trap is to recognize it. The possibility of reorganization is there only if we accept the possibilities of such traps exist.

Many learners of philosophy are just learning it as a concept. Hence they are not able to taste the philosophy, but put into their brain as concepts and words. It can be only used to put forward conceptual arguments. There cannot be any real use out of such learning. Equally dangerous is the habit of questioning certain philosophy and if gets negative answer, reject the whole line of philosophy itself – including the one which we understood at the core of our being. In such case, the best option will be keeping the question open and carry on with other questions. Down the line, we will get the answer for sure, because every question/answer start from one concept and ends at another.

Philosophies are to stimulate our questioning capabilities – not for providing predetermined answers and nullifying our questioning ability. The answers given in any established philosophy are just some guiding tools, but the real answer has to come from our being – be it Veda, Upanishad, Vedanta, Githa or whatever it may be. As soon as we take it as an authority, our philosophical search is completed within a trap. No philosophy can be an authority for us. We are the authority for ourselves - any particular philosophy may become our being, but not authority. The philosophy should not dictate the terms in our life, but it can be our way of life. One has to be very clear about this distinction. If not we will be ending our life in a trap – The illusion on philosophy.