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.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Freedom from “Karma”
Is it possible to be free from the Karma, which is the result of knowledge accumulated by billions of years of existence? – The knowledge handed over by means of hereditary evolution! Is it possible to be free from the karma accumulated during our life until now? And, is it possible to stop being bonded with new Karmas being collected?
Upon encountering the enormous challenge in front of us, when we start looking inwardly, and if we get frightened due to this challenge, then instead of finding a solution for this problem we may start looking for some escape or some solacing answer which may make us turn away from this challenge and hence get relieved from the problem for the time being, but entangled with something else. One such, diverting and solacing belief may be the concept of rebirth. As on now, we ourselves do not know the validity of this concept. Whether we accept this concept or reject, it is just a belief and hence it shall condition our mind further. Conditioning of mind is further Karma and hence bondage. Hence, for facing this challenge, we must be careful about such entangling solaces. We must face the problem with the willingness to solve it within our life time and hence with great intensity. If we lack the willingness, we cannot have the intensive life and hence cannot face the challenges, even if we have any number of rebirths and lives.
Let us not get worried about the intensity of this problem, but approach it with the willingness to solve it now. With that willingness, if we approach this problem of karma, the solution may be very much reachable to every one of us. As we are able to understand the concept of Karma, it must be possible to gain freedom from it also.
Each individual in a group of people, observing an event understand it in different ways. No two will understand it in the same way. The understanding of each individual depends on their earlier knowledge about that event, their idea about the cause and stimulant of that event, their idea about the environment in which the event occurred and many such factors. Now their understanding of that event is getting registered into their memory. As each of them understood it in different ways, the information registered in their memory is also different. This memory of that particular event is the source of thoughts arising in their mind, and hence the thoughts about that event are different in each of those individuals. The amount of thought about that event also differ between those individuals depend on the conditioning of their mind with relevant information/idea. All these facts are well known for us, but we never give any attention to such things as we turn inwardly seldom in our life and busy with the outward life.
The very first step in gaining freedom from Karma is to understand that our thoughts are result of our previous knowledge or conditioning about the object of thinking. To be precious, the thoughts depend on our ‘image’ of the object of thinking in our mind, whatever be that object. The object of thinking may be our work, another person, our survival, etc. And our knowledge about anything, even about our spouse, children or for that matter anything we know is limited. This is because the knowledge about the object of thinking is based on our image about that object and the angle of view in which we are seeing or had been seen while registering the image of that object in our mind. Even the knowledge in the field of expertise is also limited. If we really, really gain a deep understanding of this reality, instantly we can perceive a drastic change in our response to what is happening around us. It is like, when we have some doubt about understanding of something, we look much deeper into that something before responding to that. When we realise all our understandings are due to the conditioning of our mind and we are not sure about the reality, we start giving extreme care to all our responses. At this level, we never (can) say ‘I know that is it”. We can only say ‘it may be like that’. At this level of understanding, so many things may happen within us, which may not be explainable. The humbleness arises within us due to this deep understanding of the nature of our knowledge, completely changes the way our relationships are existing currently.
The very same understanding, make ourselves gain freedom from thoughts. This does not mean, there will not be any thoughts in our mind – but we are not affected by the thoughts aroused in our mind as we are aware that the thoughts are due to our conditioned knowledge and not due to reality. Hence we respond to any situation by really seeing that situation, but not rely entirely on our thoughts and hence sufficiently free from our thoughts. The freedom from thoughts reduces the amount of unwanted information registered in the brain and as a cyclic effect we will be free from unnecessary thoughts. On the other hand, we are gaining freedom from our Karma.
When we are free from thoughts on the psychological domain, the brain must be extremely energetic and respond immediately to any situations we face. Hence thought has no space in our actions and there is no accumulation of Karmas. But as we have already noted, we need to have knowledge on functional domain to carry on our day-to-day life and technological evolution. We have no bondage with the knowledge on functional domain and hence we have no psychological problems due to this knowledge.
Upon encountering the enormous challenge in front of us, when we start looking inwardly, and if we get frightened due to this challenge, then instead of finding a solution for this problem we may start looking for some escape or some solacing answer which may make us turn away from this challenge and hence get relieved from the problem for the time being, but entangled with something else. One such, diverting and solacing belief may be the concept of rebirth. As on now, we ourselves do not know the validity of this concept. Whether we accept this concept or reject, it is just a belief and hence it shall condition our mind further. Conditioning of mind is further Karma and hence bondage. Hence, for facing this challenge, we must be careful about such entangling solaces. We must face the problem with the willingness to solve it within our life time and hence with great intensity. If we lack the willingness, we cannot have the intensive life and hence cannot face the challenges, even if we have any number of rebirths and lives.
Let us not get worried about the intensity of this problem, but approach it with the willingness to solve it now. With that willingness, if we approach this problem of karma, the solution may be very much reachable to every one of us. As we are able to understand the concept of Karma, it must be possible to gain freedom from it also.
Each individual in a group of people, observing an event understand it in different ways. No two will understand it in the same way. The understanding of each individual depends on their earlier knowledge about that event, their idea about the cause and stimulant of that event, their idea about the environment in which the event occurred and many such factors. Now their understanding of that event is getting registered into their memory. As each of them understood it in different ways, the information registered in their memory is also different. This memory of that particular event is the source of thoughts arising in their mind, and hence the thoughts about that event are different in each of those individuals. The amount of thought about that event also differ between those individuals depend on the conditioning of their mind with relevant information/idea. All these facts are well known for us, but we never give any attention to such things as we turn inwardly seldom in our life and busy with the outward life.
The very first step in gaining freedom from Karma is to understand that our thoughts are result of our previous knowledge or conditioning about the object of thinking. To be precious, the thoughts depend on our ‘image’ of the object of thinking in our mind, whatever be that object. The object of thinking may be our work, another person, our survival, etc. And our knowledge about anything, even about our spouse, children or for that matter anything we know is limited. This is because the knowledge about the object of thinking is based on our image about that object and the angle of view in which we are seeing or had been seen while registering the image of that object in our mind. Even the knowledge in the field of expertise is also limited. If we really, really gain a deep understanding of this reality, instantly we can perceive a drastic change in our response to what is happening around us. It is like, when we have some doubt about understanding of something, we look much deeper into that something before responding to that. When we realise all our understandings are due to the conditioning of our mind and we are not sure about the reality, we start giving extreme care to all our responses. At this level, we never (can) say ‘I know that is it”. We can only say ‘it may be like that’. At this level of understanding, so many things may happen within us, which may not be explainable. The humbleness arises within us due to this deep understanding of the nature of our knowledge, completely changes the way our relationships are existing currently.
The very same understanding, make ourselves gain freedom from thoughts. This does not mean, there will not be any thoughts in our mind – but we are not affected by the thoughts aroused in our mind as we are aware that the thoughts are due to our conditioned knowledge and not due to reality. Hence we respond to any situation by really seeing that situation, but not rely entirely on our thoughts and hence sufficiently free from our thoughts. The freedom from thoughts reduces the amount of unwanted information registered in the brain and as a cyclic effect we will be free from unnecessary thoughts. On the other hand, we are gaining freedom from our Karma.
When we are free from thoughts on the psychological domain, the brain must be extremely energetic and respond immediately to any situations we face. Hence thought has no space in our actions and there is no accumulation of Karmas. But as we have already noted, we need to have knowledge on functional domain to carry on our day-to-day life and technological evolution. We have no bondage with the knowledge on functional domain and hence we have no psychological problems due to this knowledge.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Karma
Karma is a very common jargon in Indian philosophy. When discussing about inner change, the word karma is unavoidable as it was so much used by various cultures and belief systems in India. Hence it may be appropriate to get into the detailed analysis of Karma, which may give some insight into our understanding of Karma.
Karma is referred in more than one context. In one sense Karma is referred as action. Another sense, it is referred as the imprint of our actions carried from one life to another life of the individual (for the belief systems which propagate the concept of rebirth). And in the medical sense (Karma Dhosha in Ayurveda), it refers to the hereditary diseases passed on from generation to generation – as per ayurvedic principles, one can be affected by the hereditary diseases from previous seven generations.
In the context of this blog, we may analyse Karma in the sense of imprint of our actions, which goes into our brain. It may be appropriate to revisit the concept of Transactional analysis, discussed earlier in this blog. The following three paragraphs are part of one of the earlier posting, which gives some basic idea about transactional analysis – a term in modern psychology.
\\Transactional analysis talks about the ego states with in individuals. The ego state of an individual can be classified into three states. They are Parent ego, Adult ego and Child ego. Every one has all the three ego states, but at a different proportion. The traits of an individual depend on how the three ego states are mixed with in an individual. The parent ego is authoritative ego, adult ego is matured ego, and child ego is the playful ego. When ever a person communicates with another one, he/she always will be at one of these three ego states. That doesn’t mean, he communicates always with the same ego state. That particular ego state depends on his/her personality, situation, and few other psychological conditions. The same is the case with the other person also. Wile communicating, the first person can be in any of the three ego states and the second person also in any of the three ego states. Hence there are nine possibilities of interpersonal communication. The each communication between two persons is called transaction. The transaction is not only verbal communication, but also the communications like gestures. Hence the transaction between two persons shall be Parent to Parent, Parent to Adult, Parent to Child, Adult to Parent, Adult to Adult, Adult to Child, Child to Parent, Child to Adult and Child to Child. When ever the persons transacting are in the same ego state, the transaction will be a healthy one. If they are in different ego states while communicating, the result of the transaction will always be negative.
Then there is a thing called STAMP in transactional analysis. It is an impression that happens with in the mind of personnel involving in the transaction, created as a result of this transaction. Each transaction will have a stamp for each individuals participating in a transaction. To make it clear let us assume, the first person involved in the transaction is at its parent ego state and the second person involved in the transaction is in child ego state. The first person says “You are idiot”. By transacting this he collect a stamp which has an imprint that “Others are always idiots”. The second person who is in the child ego state, seeing some body says him as “Idiot” collects a stamp with the imprint of “I am always Idiot”. If the second person involved in this transaction is with his adult ego state at the time of transaction, he may collect a stamp with some other imprint, probably a healthy one, depend on his mind conditioning. And also the point to be noted here is one can not be in the same ego state always. For the functioning of life, one has to have all the three ego states at different moments. Even a child need to have parent ego at certain circumstances.
The essence of transactional analysis is that with any communication between individuals, they collect stamps and store them in their mind or memory. With so much communication happening between people, we can imagine the amount of stamps we have collected and dumped into the mind and memory during our life period.//
In the above discussion on transactional analysis, the term stamp is nothing but the imprint in our memory as a result of inter-personnel communication. In Indian philosophical term, it is Karma. The term Karma is more than that.
Karma can be generalized as the result of any of our action (physical or psychological), which goes into our memory which in turn initiate the thought process within us. There is nothing called good Karma or Bad Karma. Any karma is Karma. It is contrary to the general notion that our good action yield good Karma and our bad actions yield bad Karma. This is because there is no action which can be classified as good or bad. An action looks like good or bad depend on our view on that action, which entirely depends on our psychological conditioning. If we are free from the psychological conditioning, there is no notion of good or bad.
The Karma is the breeding point of thoughts within us; for our present way of life, thought is the origin of any of our actions and hence Karma is the breeding point of all our actions. We already know that thoughts originate from memory. Hence the content of our memory is the Karma. Whatever goes in to our memory is our account of Karma. Our intelligence uses certain knowledge, only when it is required. For example, the way to our home from our office is in our memory. In general our intelligence uses this part of memory only when we need to go to our home. Hence we are psychologically free from this knowledge of way to our home or we are free from that part of Karma, if we use this knowledge only it is really required.
Now at certain point of time in our work, due to certain projection of mind, we got a thought “I have to get recognized for this job in my work place”. As soon as this thought arises, it goes in to our memory and it is becoming a Karma. Now whenever we think about this job, this desire of being recognized will come into our thought and it interfere with our work and hence the result of our work. The result may be positive or negative, depend on how far this Karma affected our job. Hence the karma is acting on all our further actions and implications on the results of our actions without any need and hence we are bonded with this Karma. We can imagine how many thoughts are coming in our mind on daily basis and how it is getting registered in our memory and how this registered thought is again creating new thoughts and so on. On the other hand, we can imagine how is our Karma gets multiplied on each moment of our life.
As we have heard about Karma in so many places and in our scriptures with so many different notions, the above simple explanation may be hard to believe! But if we really see in to the concept of Karma explained in any scriptures, we can very well understand ourselves the validity of above explanation.
We already know that our mind is conditioned by the process of evolution at one hand and by our culture, religion, society, etc. on the other hand. All these conditioning are Karmas in our account. Now the big question is, is it possible to be gain freedom from this Karma? The solacing answer must be a big ‘Yes’, if we are willing to be free from this Karma, and naturally the next question is, how is it possible?
One of the primary functions of brain is to register in memory, everything it comes across. For example, when we see something it is registered in our memory. We cannot avoid such registering and it is required for our day-to-day life and technological evolution of world. But we do not need the thoughts arising out of past and projection of future. When such thoughts are no more generated by our brain, the entire Karmas due to psychological factors are ceased to get added. Is it possible to free from Karma or from our thoughts? The thoughts are due to the knowledge and experience we have. Hence the real question is can we gain freedom from our knowledge, yet have the knowledge required for our living and evolution?
- The above questions shall be analysed in next posting!
Karma is referred in more than one context. In one sense Karma is referred as action. Another sense, it is referred as the imprint of our actions carried from one life to another life of the individual (for the belief systems which propagate the concept of rebirth). And in the medical sense (Karma Dhosha in Ayurveda), it refers to the hereditary diseases passed on from generation to generation – as per ayurvedic principles, one can be affected by the hereditary diseases from previous seven generations.
In the context of this blog, we may analyse Karma in the sense of imprint of our actions, which goes into our brain. It may be appropriate to revisit the concept of Transactional analysis, discussed earlier in this blog. The following three paragraphs are part of one of the earlier posting, which gives some basic idea about transactional analysis – a term in modern psychology.
\\Transactional analysis talks about the ego states with in individuals. The ego state of an individual can be classified into three states. They are Parent ego, Adult ego and Child ego. Every one has all the three ego states, but at a different proportion. The traits of an individual depend on how the three ego states are mixed with in an individual. The parent ego is authoritative ego, adult ego is matured ego, and child ego is the playful ego. When ever a person communicates with another one, he/she always will be at one of these three ego states. That doesn’t mean, he communicates always with the same ego state. That particular ego state depends on his/her personality, situation, and few other psychological conditions. The same is the case with the other person also. Wile communicating, the first person can be in any of the three ego states and the second person also in any of the three ego states. Hence there are nine possibilities of interpersonal communication. The each communication between two persons is called transaction. The transaction is not only verbal communication, but also the communications like gestures. Hence the transaction between two persons shall be Parent to Parent, Parent to Adult, Parent to Child, Adult to Parent, Adult to Adult, Adult to Child, Child to Parent, Child to Adult and Child to Child. When ever the persons transacting are in the same ego state, the transaction will be a healthy one. If they are in different ego states while communicating, the result of the transaction will always be negative.
Then there is a thing called STAMP in transactional analysis. It is an impression that happens with in the mind of personnel involving in the transaction, created as a result of this transaction. Each transaction will have a stamp for each individuals participating in a transaction. To make it clear let us assume, the first person involved in the transaction is at its parent ego state and the second person involved in the transaction is in child ego state. The first person says “You are idiot”. By transacting this he collect a stamp which has an imprint that “Others are always idiots”. The second person who is in the child ego state, seeing some body says him as “Idiot” collects a stamp with the imprint of “I am always Idiot”. If the second person involved in this transaction is with his adult ego state at the time of transaction, he may collect a stamp with some other imprint, probably a healthy one, depend on his mind conditioning. And also the point to be noted here is one can not be in the same ego state always. For the functioning of life, one has to have all the three ego states at different moments. Even a child need to have parent ego at certain circumstances.
The essence of transactional analysis is that with any communication between individuals, they collect stamps and store them in their mind or memory. With so much communication happening between people, we can imagine the amount of stamps we have collected and dumped into the mind and memory during our life period.//
In the above discussion on transactional analysis, the term stamp is nothing but the imprint in our memory as a result of inter-personnel communication. In Indian philosophical term, it is Karma. The term Karma is more than that.
Karma can be generalized as the result of any of our action (physical or psychological), which goes into our memory which in turn initiate the thought process within us. There is nothing called good Karma or Bad Karma. Any karma is Karma. It is contrary to the general notion that our good action yield good Karma and our bad actions yield bad Karma. This is because there is no action which can be classified as good or bad. An action looks like good or bad depend on our view on that action, which entirely depends on our psychological conditioning. If we are free from the psychological conditioning, there is no notion of good or bad.
The Karma is the breeding point of thoughts within us; for our present way of life, thought is the origin of any of our actions and hence Karma is the breeding point of all our actions. We already know that thoughts originate from memory. Hence the content of our memory is the Karma. Whatever goes in to our memory is our account of Karma. Our intelligence uses certain knowledge, only when it is required. For example, the way to our home from our office is in our memory. In general our intelligence uses this part of memory only when we need to go to our home. Hence we are psychologically free from this knowledge of way to our home or we are free from that part of Karma, if we use this knowledge only it is really required.
Now at certain point of time in our work, due to certain projection of mind, we got a thought “I have to get recognized for this job in my work place”. As soon as this thought arises, it goes in to our memory and it is becoming a Karma. Now whenever we think about this job, this desire of being recognized will come into our thought and it interfere with our work and hence the result of our work. The result may be positive or negative, depend on how far this Karma affected our job. Hence the karma is acting on all our further actions and implications on the results of our actions without any need and hence we are bonded with this Karma. We can imagine how many thoughts are coming in our mind on daily basis and how it is getting registered in our memory and how this registered thought is again creating new thoughts and so on. On the other hand, we can imagine how is our Karma gets multiplied on each moment of our life.
As we have heard about Karma in so many places and in our scriptures with so many different notions, the above simple explanation may be hard to believe! But if we really see in to the concept of Karma explained in any scriptures, we can very well understand ourselves the validity of above explanation.
We already know that our mind is conditioned by the process of evolution at one hand and by our culture, religion, society, etc. on the other hand. All these conditioning are Karmas in our account. Now the big question is, is it possible to be gain freedom from this Karma? The solacing answer must be a big ‘Yes’, if we are willing to be free from this Karma, and naturally the next question is, how is it possible?
One of the primary functions of brain is to register in memory, everything it comes across. For example, when we see something it is registered in our memory. We cannot avoid such registering and it is required for our day-to-day life and technological evolution of world. But we do not need the thoughts arising out of past and projection of future. When such thoughts are no more generated by our brain, the entire Karmas due to psychological factors are ceased to get added. Is it possible to free from Karma or from our thoughts? The thoughts are due to the knowledge and experience we have. Hence the real question is can we gain freedom from our knowledge, yet have the knowledge required for our living and evolution?
- The above questions shall be analysed in next posting!
Saturday, September 12, 2009
What are we doing in our Life?
Not many of us can give any serious answer to this question, if we ignore premature answers like “I am enjoying in this world” and superficies answers like “I am living my life according to my destiny”. It may be because, we are not yet aware about what is life! Or we are not sensitive to the life process! Or we have not yet given any attention to understand the various forms of life in this earth!
If this question is posed to a common forum, the vast majority will just ignore this question itself, because it is meaningless for the majority. It is meaningless because, we are so busy in securing our ego and growing it, we never thought about such questions. And when our ego is growing and glowing, there is no space within us for such questions and do not feel any necessity for such questions. Our desires to earn more money, better than present status, secure the current social status are few of the factors which fuel our ego to grow on one side and they are the result of our egocentric action on the other side; as a result the ego and the desire ‘to be’ are acting as fuel for each other and hence in an endless spiral, unless we break it consciously. As long as our ego is engaged in growing itself, there will not be any space for such questions within our mind and naturally we will not be asking and enquire such questions. Hence it is meaningless question for us, if it is posed on us, as long as we are unaware of ‘what is life?’
If we do not have any inclination to such questions and finding answers, are we placed better than those who are asking this questions or placed in an inferior position than the so called enlightened beings? It is definitely not on both ways. We are also supporting the life process and evolution process in certain way and hence the purpose of our life is being executed. But we may be missing another way of life, where we are completely in charge of our life process and the evolution process, which may be altogether different experience by itself. In our current way of life, we may be just supporting the evolution process and we ourselves are not evolving; we are just the instrument for the process of evolution and not the process itself – But we are capable of being the process itself, if we are willing to be. How does it matter for us, whether we are supporting the process or being the process? When we are supporting the process as we are doing now, we are always having the urge to grow further, which is manifesting within us in many healthy and unhealthy ways. Once we become the process itself, there may not be this urge to grow further, because we ourselves are the process. If we ever have turned a bit inwardly, we can clearly understand that we never like to be a supportive process, always struggling to become the central process. It is just that!
We are aware that there are countless life forms in this earth. The only difference we are aware about these life forms is the number of senses they have. The difference between human species and other animal species are the so called sixth sense, which is the thought process. It may not be correct, if we say just thought process, but it is extensive thought process. This is because; thought process is the result of memory (and retrieving from memory). Animals are also having memory, hence must have limited thought process also. Due to this limitation, animals do not think about the past and do not perform projection of future from the past. Hence there is no psychological suffering or pleasure for animals. On the other hand animals and all other living beings except human are living their life entirely at the present. To be more specific, except human species all other living beings are living their life completely. The animals must also be having some sort of ego or identity, due to the limited thought process there is no possibility of supporting their ego. We, the human species are either living in the past, meaning suffering or driving pleasure form the thoughts of what was happened in the past or anticipating with fear what will happen in the future, which is the result of projection of what was happened in the past – Hence fails to live in the present and always living in the past. Unfortunately we have become the slaves of our thoughts – which are the result of evolution process supposed to be an instrument for us to evolve further. Due to the bondage of our thoughts, instead of being the process of evolution, we are now forgotten how to live the life itself!
All our problems in this world and all changes we like to have in this world are due to the urge within us and within the society due to the fact that every one of us wants to evolve from supportive process to central process, but without the understanding of what we are! To understand what we are, we must understand the conditioning of our mind by heredity, culture, religion, belief systems and so on. When we understand what we are, the evolution of ourselves from supportive process to central process is natural. Once we are there, we are completely contained with the world as it is and all our actions will be based on the need of ourselves (At that point, the boundary of ourselves may be different from our current perception of ourselves).
If this question is posed to a common forum, the vast majority will just ignore this question itself, because it is meaningless for the majority. It is meaningless because, we are so busy in securing our ego and growing it, we never thought about such questions. And when our ego is growing and glowing, there is no space within us for such questions and do not feel any necessity for such questions. Our desires to earn more money, better than present status, secure the current social status are few of the factors which fuel our ego to grow on one side and they are the result of our egocentric action on the other side; as a result the ego and the desire ‘to be’ are acting as fuel for each other and hence in an endless spiral, unless we break it consciously. As long as our ego is engaged in growing itself, there will not be any space for such questions within our mind and naturally we will not be asking and enquire such questions. Hence it is meaningless question for us, if it is posed on us, as long as we are unaware of ‘what is life?’
If we do not have any inclination to such questions and finding answers, are we placed better than those who are asking this questions or placed in an inferior position than the so called enlightened beings? It is definitely not on both ways. We are also supporting the life process and evolution process in certain way and hence the purpose of our life is being executed. But we may be missing another way of life, where we are completely in charge of our life process and the evolution process, which may be altogether different experience by itself. In our current way of life, we may be just supporting the evolution process and we ourselves are not evolving; we are just the instrument for the process of evolution and not the process itself – But we are capable of being the process itself, if we are willing to be. How does it matter for us, whether we are supporting the process or being the process? When we are supporting the process as we are doing now, we are always having the urge to grow further, which is manifesting within us in many healthy and unhealthy ways. Once we become the process itself, there may not be this urge to grow further, because we ourselves are the process. If we ever have turned a bit inwardly, we can clearly understand that we never like to be a supportive process, always struggling to become the central process. It is just that!
We are aware that there are countless life forms in this earth. The only difference we are aware about these life forms is the number of senses they have. The difference between human species and other animal species are the so called sixth sense, which is the thought process. It may not be correct, if we say just thought process, but it is extensive thought process. This is because; thought process is the result of memory (and retrieving from memory). Animals are also having memory, hence must have limited thought process also. Due to this limitation, animals do not think about the past and do not perform projection of future from the past. Hence there is no psychological suffering or pleasure for animals. On the other hand animals and all other living beings except human are living their life entirely at the present. To be more specific, except human species all other living beings are living their life completely. The animals must also be having some sort of ego or identity, due to the limited thought process there is no possibility of supporting their ego. We, the human species are either living in the past, meaning suffering or driving pleasure form the thoughts of what was happened in the past or anticipating with fear what will happen in the future, which is the result of projection of what was happened in the past – Hence fails to live in the present and always living in the past. Unfortunately we have become the slaves of our thoughts – which are the result of evolution process supposed to be an instrument for us to evolve further. Due to the bondage of our thoughts, instead of being the process of evolution, we are now forgotten how to live the life itself!
All our problems in this world and all changes we like to have in this world are due to the urge within us and within the society due to the fact that every one of us wants to evolve from supportive process to central process, but without the understanding of what we are! To understand what we are, we must understand the conditioning of our mind by heredity, culture, religion, belief systems and so on. When we understand what we are, the evolution of ourselves from supportive process to central process is natural. Once we are there, we are completely contained with the world as it is and all our actions will be based on the need of ourselves (At that point, the boundary of ourselves may be different from our current perception of ourselves).
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Morality
When we are disguised with the disorders in society and when we want the society to be in a different order, naturally conflicts arises within us due to the mismatch between actuality in the world and the way we like the world should be. Due to this conflict, which actually happens within us, we suffer and hence as an escape from this suffering, we set moral values for ourselves and adhere to these moral values. We start believing that the moral values shall bring order into the world. We not only believe and adhere the moral values we conceive, but also propagate it and want others to adhere these moral values, hence creating new set of conflicts between relations. The new conflicts with our relations due to our moral values bring disorder in the world, which is our relation to the existence.
Morality is a set of rules we set ourselves for us due to the fact of seeing disorder in the world. Each one view the world distinctly and hence their want of order in the world is also distinct. This translates to the fact that the conflicts within each one are distinct and hence the set of moral values are also distinct. Now, each one tries to enforce their set of moral values to the one around them which may create chaos in the social set up. Due to the way we live our life, there are many chaos within and around us and we do not have any sensitivity to perceive the additional chaos created by our moral standards.
When we look into the above discussion, on the outer view, it may looks like a senseless discussion as we are taught and made believe that everyone in the society should have moral values to have a right way of life. But if we see more deeply in the requirement of moral values, we can clearly understand that our moral values are due to the conflicts within us and our incapability to live the life. When we find conflicts within ourselves and incapable of living our life, as an escape from the conflicts we catch hold of our moral values.
There should be another way of living where there is not any need for moral values, yet we can live a harmonious life with nature and society. This is because, the life with moral values are leading us to a strained relation with society as well as different segment of our thoughts itself and hence a life of conflicts. The new way of life is possible only when we bring in necessary changes within us. The basic changes which free ourselves from the bondages we have in our life - The bindings discussed all along in this blog and more. When we are free from all bindings, there will not be any conflicts in our life and in our relation with the society. When there is no conflicts exist within us, there is no requirement of any escape and hence moral values. When we are free from all illusions, the mind is free from its projection and the mind is having enough space for the intelligence and perception, our intelligence shall work at its peak. With this intelligence, our perception will be very clear and the action arises out of this perception shall be the right action for the situation at the time of action. At this level of intelligence and perception, we do not need any moral values to guide us in this life.
When we are at such a pure level of action, we shall not beg for any change in the world and environment around us, but act for what is required for us, the world and the environment yet with complete freedom from the world and environment.
Morality is a set of rules we set ourselves for us due to the fact of seeing disorder in the world. Each one view the world distinctly and hence their want of order in the world is also distinct. This translates to the fact that the conflicts within each one are distinct and hence the set of moral values are also distinct. Now, each one tries to enforce their set of moral values to the one around them which may create chaos in the social set up. Due to the way we live our life, there are many chaos within and around us and we do not have any sensitivity to perceive the additional chaos created by our moral standards.
When we look into the above discussion, on the outer view, it may looks like a senseless discussion as we are taught and made believe that everyone in the society should have moral values to have a right way of life. But if we see more deeply in the requirement of moral values, we can clearly understand that our moral values are due to the conflicts within us and our incapability to live the life. When we find conflicts within ourselves and incapable of living our life, as an escape from the conflicts we catch hold of our moral values.
There should be another way of living where there is not any need for moral values, yet we can live a harmonious life with nature and society. This is because, the life with moral values are leading us to a strained relation with society as well as different segment of our thoughts itself and hence a life of conflicts. The new way of life is possible only when we bring in necessary changes within us. The basic changes which free ourselves from the bondages we have in our life - The bindings discussed all along in this blog and more. When we are free from all bindings, there will not be any conflicts in our life and in our relation with the society. When there is no conflicts exist within us, there is no requirement of any escape and hence moral values. When we are free from all illusions, the mind is free from its projection and the mind is having enough space for the intelligence and perception, our intelligence shall work at its peak. With this intelligence, our perception will be very clear and the action arises out of this perception shall be the right action for the situation at the time of action. At this level of intelligence and perception, we do not need any moral values to guide us in this life.
When we are at such a pure level of action, we shall not beg for any change in the world and environment around us, but act for what is required for us, the world and the environment yet with complete freedom from the world and environment.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Commercialism & Consumerism
Commercialism and Consumerism are the two materialistic and psychological aspects which have brought in the technical evolution which are providing comfortable and easy life to the mankind. There cannot be second opinion about this fact. At the same time we cannot have second opinion about the fact that commercialism and consumerism are the aspects where all the problems of ourselves and our world are enrooted, if we really see commercialism and consumerism at certain deeper level.
Commercialism is due to the greed of mankind and consumerism is due to lack of understanding of desire. Both are the illness of this world, if an undue importance is given to them. Due to uncontrollable greed, commercialism already started destroying the resources of this earth and psychology of human beings. Due to uncontrollable desire, consumerism encourages the destruction of the resources of earth without even realizing the need for preserving the resources or preserve the condition so that the resources sustain themselves and hence sustain life forms in this earth for billions of years to come, till the time we have our sun with enough mass to keep the earth with in its gravitational field.
And as an escape we, the components of commercialism and consumerism, often make some noise about environment. As usual, we never pay attention to what we talk about environment and hence fail to follow the statements or noise we ourselves make. As it is an escape from this threatening problem just for the time being, we never bother to take responsibility of our being part of commercialism and consumerism. We just show our fingers to others and refuse to take responsibility and hence refuse to take actions on this threatening problem. Acting on the problems of commercialism and consumerism does not mean that to remove it completely from the world. We cannot do that because, without them we cannot enjoy the comforts what we have now. We are also not bothered to understand the facts of commercialism and consumerism and hence do not know how to handle these giants of destruction, without losing the comforts of life. It is possible if and only if a radical change takes place within us – the originator of both these giants and understands its facts.
Due to this lack of understanding, commercialism decides the psychology of consumers which is exactly opposite to what is supposed to be happening. Due to lack of understanding of the consumers about their need, the commercialism infuses need for the consumers by altering the psychology of consumer and creates lust and desire within the consumer. Once the lust and desire goes deep into the mind of consumer, he goes for the need so created by lust and desire rather than the real need or passion. The consumer is so conditioned by the commercialism, the lust and desire is seen as need and passion of the consumer and a concept of consumerism take shape there to protect the conflicts within the consumer with respect to desire and need.
In most of the cases, we are taking part in both commercialism and consumerism. We are being part of the commercialism on our profession and takes part in consumerism when we caught between lust and desire. On the other hand we are in a real trap. Unless a real change takes place within us, we cannot get out of this trap. The change will takes place by itself, if we really pay attention to our lust and desire and understand these two elements. How do we know that what we are having is a lust and desire or need/passion? This is a real problem; because the commercialism with its continuous effort of psychological conditioning of consumers makes us, the consumers, to believe what we are having is need or passion. This can be understandable, if we pay enough attention to the need/passion/desire/lust of us. The attention brings in a clear understanding of these facts, and if it is mere desire or lust, the attention itself gets away the desire and lust. We need not put in any effort to control the desire and lust other than paying sufficient attention to the conditioning so infused into us by commercialism. The mere attention on it is sufficient to eliminate the undue lust and desire.
Once the consumer changes within him/her self to pay real attention to the commercialism and the factors with in consumers which makes the consumers as slaves of commercialism, there is no other way for commercialism to state the real factors rather than arousing the lust and desire of consumer by attacking the psychology of consumer. This to happen, the consumer has to bring in necessary changes within themselves so that they will be capable of looking into the factors. Once the consumer gets freedom from commercialism, they will be free from the psychological attack of commercialism to get what they really need for their comfortable and passionate life. Once this happen, we will really know the priorities of our needs and hence this knowing will start correcting the disorders of the society by itself. On the other hand we have to just clear off our disorders, and the societies disorders will be cleared off by itself.
Commercialism is due to the greed of mankind and consumerism is due to lack of understanding of desire. Both are the illness of this world, if an undue importance is given to them. Due to uncontrollable greed, commercialism already started destroying the resources of this earth and psychology of human beings. Due to uncontrollable desire, consumerism encourages the destruction of the resources of earth without even realizing the need for preserving the resources or preserve the condition so that the resources sustain themselves and hence sustain life forms in this earth for billions of years to come, till the time we have our sun with enough mass to keep the earth with in its gravitational field.
And as an escape we, the components of commercialism and consumerism, often make some noise about environment. As usual, we never pay attention to what we talk about environment and hence fail to follow the statements or noise we ourselves make. As it is an escape from this threatening problem just for the time being, we never bother to take responsibility of our being part of commercialism and consumerism. We just show our fingers to others and refuse to take responsibility and hence refuse to take actions on this threatening problem. Acting on the problems of commercialism and consumerism does not mean that to remove it completely from the world. We cannot do that because, without them we cannot enjoy the comforts what we have now. We are also not bothered to understand the facts of commercialism and consumerism and hence do not know how to handle these giants of destruction, without losing the comforts of life. It is possible if and only if a radical change takes place within us – the originator of both these giants and understands its facts.
Due to this lack of understanding, commercialism decides the psychology of consumers which is exactly opposite to what is supposed to be happening. Due to lack of understanding of the consumers about their need, the commercialism infuses need for the consumers by altering the psychology of consumer and creates lust and desire within the consumer. Once the lust and desire goes deep into the mind of consumer, he goes for the need so created by lust and desire rather than the real need or passion. The consumer is so conditioned by the commercialism, the lust and desire is seen as need and passion of the consumer and a concept of consumerism take shape there to protect the conflicts within the consumer with respect to desire and need.
In most of the cases, we are taking part in both commercialism and consumerism. We are being part of the commercialism on our profession and takes part in consumerism when we caught between lust and desire. On the other hand we are in a real trap. Unless a real change takes place within us, we cannot get out of this trap. The change will takes place by itself, if we really pay attention to our lust and desire and understand these two elements. How do we know that what we are having is a lust and desire or need/passion? This is a real problem; because the commercialism with its continuous effort of psychological conditioning of consumers makes us, the consumers, to believe what we are having is need or passion. This can be understandable, if we pay enough attention to the need/passion/desire/lust of us. The attention brings in a clear understanding of these facts, and if it is mere desire or lust, the attention itself gets away the desire and lust. We need not put in any effort to control the desire and lust other than paying sufficient attention to the conditioning so infused into us by commercialism. The mere attention on it is sufficient to eliminate the undue lust and desire.
Once the consumer changes within him/her self to pay real attention to the commercialism and the factors with in consumers which makes the consumers as slaves of commercialism, there is no other way for commercialism to state the real factors rather than arousing the lust and desire of consumer by attacking the psychology of consumer. This to happen, the consumer has to bring in necessary changes within themselves so that they will be capable of looking into the factors. Once the consumer gets freedom from commercialism, they will be free from the psychological attack of commercialism to get what they really need for their comfortable and passionate life. Once this happen, we will really know the priorities of our needs and hence this knowing will start correcting the disorders of the society by itself. On the other hand we have to just clear off our disorders, and the societies disorders will be cleared off by itself.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Reluctance to Initiate Change
We clearly understand the need for initiating an inward change to have order in this world and the change has to be initiated from us, by us. On the other hand, we understand that as individuals we need to change within ourselves to change the society as a whole and also we understand that it is our responsibility to change ourselves. Yet we refuse to bring in the basic change within us. Why is this inertia or reluctance for an inward change? Is it possible to initiate the change?
One of the doubts arises before initiating inward change within oneself is that we are living in a society with all the greed, violence, struggle, overpowering and all other ills. If one changes within oneself, will that person compatible for living within such society? Does it required for one to isolate oneself from the society before initiating the change within oneself? If not, will the changed person be washed away by the violent society? If that is the case how can one ever initiate an inward change within one self? These are the basic and valid questions one may have within the mind, who understood the need for an inward change to live a meaningful life in this society. This is a conflict within us. On one hand we understand the need for an inward change and on the other hand we have enormous doubt about the security of our life, if we change inwardly.
Yes, we need to understand this question must get a clear answer and resolve the conflicts around this issue, and then only one can change inwards within ourselves. Otherwise that person will be caught between moral values and conflicts and undergo much more suffering than the present way of life. On seeing this anyone around such person may create negative prejudice about such radical way of thinking and never dare to look for such a beautiful, inwardly free life.
For getting an answer for this question and understand the conflicts aroused around this issue we need to understand what are family, society and world. In the existence, anything and everything is related to many thing else. We are also no exceptions. We have to be related with fellow human beings and many other things in this world. Without this relation, one cannot live or be a part of this existence. Hence the notion that one has to isolate oneself from family and society to bring an inward change itself is an utter illusion. Human beings are often referred as social animal. Yes we are offshoot of animals. Due to our capability of mind we established the setups for our security and these setups get matured and become culture, which is our differentiator from animals. On the other hand to secure our relationship with others, we established the family setup. The family alone is not sufficient. The family has to relate to others for the survival of family itself. To secure the relationship of family with other needs, the social setup is established and a society is there. It can be put in another way- all our family and society are need based. It is for our need to have relationship with others for our survival in this existence. Then we attached some selective emotions with these relationships and these emotions are now inseparable from us and becoming the root cause of most of our problems. The relationships are not our problems, but the lack of understanding of our relations and the undue emotions aroused due to this lack of understanding are the cause of our problems.
To be make it clear, the family, the society, and the world are our relations with fellow human beings and other things in the existence which are required for our life with in this existence. Hence isolation is not a solution for our problems or society’s problems and the inward change being discussed here does not call for isolation from family and society, but make the relationship with family and society as lively one, which will make our life beautiful and joyful.
The inward change discussed all over this discussion indicates the need for an inward change so that there will not be any conflicts with our relationships. It is very clear that the relationship between X and Y will be harmonious if and only if both X and Y clearly understand their relation and the need for their relation. At the same time, it is very much possible if X is concerned about the problems of his/her relationship with Y and solves the problems and has a harmonious life with respect to X’s relationship with Y, even if Y is not bothered about it. When X understands his/her exact relationship with Y, the action of X will not cross the limit demanded by his/her relationship with Y and there will not be any conflicts with in X due to X’s relationship with Y, whatever be the action/reaction of Y over this relationship. Even if Y is not having such understanding and react negatively with X in their relationship, X can harmoniously do what is needed for sustaining the relationship with Y due to the understanding of their relationships and the need for sustaining that relationship. Once X treat his/her relationship with Y with understanding and due dignity, Y has no choice other than reciprocating it, even though there may be some resistance at the beginning. On the other hand, if one change inwardly with respect to the relationship with society, the society will have to reciprocate this change, no other choice is available for the society. To be more precious, the inward change within oneself is the change taking place in the society itself.
This is exactly what will happen, if we bring in necessary inward changes within us. Irrespective of whether our family is bringing in that change within themselves or the society is bringing in the change within itself, if we bring in necessary changes within ourselves, we can live harmoniously with our family and society, by doing what is required for ourselves, our family, the society and the world due to the fact that we understand and know the exact relation we have with our family society and the world and due to the understanding of our need for sustaining that relationship .
When we live harmoniously with the family, society and the world, what else change we expect from the family, society and world?
By the way, what is the inward change we are talking about here? It is nothing complicated. It is about just opening up our mind from all our psychic conditioning due to genetic factors, our beliefs, our education, our ego to get freedom from this entire psychic conditioning and live a complete, fulfilled, Joyful life.
One of the doubts arises before initiating inward change within oneself is that we are living in a society with all the greed, violence, struggle, overpowering and all other ills. If one changes within oneself, will that person compatible for living within such society? Does it required for one to isolate oneself from the society before initiating the change within oneself? If not, will the changed person be washed away by the violent society? If that is the case how can one ever initiate an inward change within one self? These are the basic and valid questions one may have within the mind, who understood the need for an inward change to live a meaningful life in this society. This is a conflict within us. On one hand we understand the need for an inward change and on the other hand we have enormous doubt about the security of our life, if we change inwardly.
Yes, we need to understand this question must get a clear answer and resolve the conflicts around this issue, and then only one can change inwards within ourselves. Otherwise that person will be caught between moral values and conflicts and undergo much more suffering than the present way of life. On seeing this anyone around such person may create negative prejudice about such radical way of thinking and never dare to look for such a beautiful, inwardly free life.
For getting an answer for this question and understand the conflicts aroused around this issue we need to understand what are family, society and world. In the existence, anything and everything is related to many thing else. We are also no exceptions. We have to be related with fellow human beings and many other things in this world. Without this relation, one cannot live or be a part of this existence. Hence the notion that one has to isolate oneself from family and society to bring an inward change itself is an utter illusion. Human beings are often referred as social animal. Yes we are offshoot of animals. Due to our capability of mind we established the setups for our security and these setups get matured and become culture, which is our differentiator from animals. On the other hand to secure our relationship with others, we established the family setup. The family alone is not sufficient. The family has to relate to others for the survival of family itself. To secure the relationship of family with other needs, the social setup is established and a society is there. It can be put in another way- all our family and society are need based. It is for our need to have relationship with others for our survival in this existence. Then we attached some selective emotions with these relationships and these emotions are now inseparable from us and becoming the root cause of most of our problems. The relationships are not our problems, but the lack of understanding of our relations and the undue emotions aroused due to this lack of understanding are the cause of our problems.
To be make it clear, the family, the society, and the world are our relations with fellow human beings and other things in the existence which are required for our life with in this existence. Hence isolation is not a solution for our problems or society’s problems and the inward change being discussed here does not call for isolation from family and society, but make the relationship with family and society as lively one, which will make our life beautiful and joyful.
The inward change discussed all over this discussion indicates the need for an inward change so that there will not be any conflicts with our relationships. It is very clear that the relationship between X and Y will be harmonious if and only if both X and Y clearly understand their relation and the need for their relation. At the same time, it is very much possible if X is concerned about the problems of his/her relationship with Y and solves the problems and has a harmonious life with respect to X’s relationship with Y, even if Y is not bothered about it. When X understands his/her exact relationship with Y, the action of X will not cross the limit demanded by his/her relationship with Y and there will not be any conflicts with in X due to X’s relationship with Y, whatever be the action/reaction of Y over this relationship. Even if Y is not having such understanding and react negatively with X in their relationship, X can harmoniously do what is needed for sustaining the relationship with Y due to the understanding of their relationships and the need for sustaining that relationship. Once X treat his/her relationship with Y with understanding and due dignity, Y has no choice other than reciprocating it, even though there may be some resistance at the beginning. On the other hand, if one change inwardly with respect to the relationship with society, the society will have to reciprocate this change, no other choice is available for the society. To be more precious, the inward change within oneself is the change taking place in the society itself.
This is exactly what will happen, if we bring in necessary inward changes within us. Irrespective of whether our family is bringing in that change within themselves or the society is bringing in the change within itself, if we bring in necessary changes within ourselves, we can live harmoniously with our family and society, by doing what is required for ourselves, our family, the society and the world due to the fact that we understand and know the exact relation we have with our family society and the world and due to the understanding of our need for sustaining that relationship .
When we live harmoniously with the family, society and the world, what else change we expect from the family, society and world?
By the way, what is the inward change we are talking about here? It is nothing complicated. It is about just opening up our mind from all our psychic conditioning due to genetic factors, our beliefs, our education, our ego to get freedom from this entire psychic conditioning and live a complete, fulfilled, Joyful life.
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