Awareness is another jargon used in Indian philosophical and spiritual context. It may be appropriate to discuss it here. Even though the meaning of ‘awareness’ is straight forward, due to the constant use of it in philosophical discussions, it has become a jargon.
Awareness is the perception of ‘what is happening’ and ‘what is there’ from moment to moment. We know that there is nothing constant in this existent, except continuous change. At this moment we are not same as what we were in the last moment and will not be same as what we are now in the next moment – both physically and psychologically. As we do not have much awareness, we recognize this fact only during our birth day celebrations – we realise the change taken place within us only when we know, we have passed one more year and many of us still try to hide this change! The change is unavoidable for anything around us – For both animate and inanimate objects. The planets, stars, galaxies are changing with respect to their physical property as well as their position in the space from moment to moment. Even in the space, the contained energy states may be changing from moment to moment. This is a fundamental realization in the path of inward journey and without this realisation no possibility of looking inward. When we understand this fundamental and realise change as our way of life, the awareness may start blossom within us.
How far are we aware of these changes? We may be able to understand the changes after the change has been taken place by means of measurements, with the help of science and technology – but that is not awareness. It is just knowledge. The awareness is living. The extent of our living depends on the extent we are aware of the existing and the change of existing from moment to moment. On the other hand, if we are not aware of what is there and what is happening within and around us, we cannot claim ourselves as living entities.
Why are we unable to be aware of our life? For being aware, the brain have to be alert at all times. Our senses capture the change within and around us and send the information to the brain all the time. Whether we are aware or not, this functioning of senses is always happening. But we are living in a life where the brain is unable to process all the information received from senses. It is not that our brain is incapable of processing these information, but we are loading the brain with all psychological factors of fear, belief, pain, suffering, pleasure, desire………… When our brain is occupied with so many such (psychological) challenges, it spends its entire energy to find solution or escape from those challenges. Due to the enormous challenges it faces from time to time, escape from that challenge is the only possible way for survival of brain. On this struggle, the brain may start decaying also.
It is obvious that to be aware of happening in and around us or to be live in the right sense of living, our brain and hence mind has to be freed up from these psychological challenges. The freeing up of mind from the challenges is possible only if it is able to recognize and understands the real challenges. When the challenges are recognized and understood, those challenges will be no more challenges and hence the mind will be free from the thoughts generated by those challenges. Hence the brain is free with respect to space and energy to process the information received from senses. When the brain completely responds to all our senses, it is the ecstasy. Every one of us had had such an ecstasy, at least with lower intensity and momentarily, multiple times in our life. The irony is we are so insensitive that either we fail to recognize it or recognize it only after its completion. Hence it goes as an insignificant event.
One point to be noted with respect to fewer thoughts in mind is that it should not be achieved by controlling or concentration. If we concentrate our mind on certain things and bring it to a thoughtless state, what we are doing is contracting the mind to a single point. In this case, there is no space available within the mind for the awareness to flower. On the other hand, when we achieve thoughtless state by concentration, we will not be aware of anything else other than the point of concentration. Our current way of life is definitely better than such a contractive mind, at least now we are aware of our pain and sufferings.
When we are completely aware of happenings within and around us, in addition to the ecstasy, the intelligence may work at its peak. At this level of intelligence, we may not be having any choices to choose in the life. The intelligence may guide all our actions and we will be doing what is required for us.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
The Limit of Thoughts
We have a general notion that there is no limit for the thoughts. According to this general notion, thoughts can go anywhere and can see anything. But it is not. Thought has its limitations. It is the limitation of our ego and our knowledge. The thought can go only to the extent that the “me” or “I” or our ego can expand from its center. The knowledge is the contributing factor for expansion of ego.
Before understanding the limit of thoughts, we need to understand the domains of thoughts. As discussed earlier, thoughts can be divided into thoughts belongs to functional domain and thoughts belongs to psychological domain. Our education system just looks into knowledge on functional domain only. Probably the education system for philosophical studies may little bit relevance to the thoughts of psychological domain. Hence in general we give no attention to the psychological domain of thoughts and hence rarely able to distinguish between these two domains of thoughts. Due to this difference, thoughts belongs to psychological domain interfere with the thoughts belong to functional domain, which greatly affect our functioning in general.
In the functional domain, in general, we think to the extent it is required for our day-to-day life and work. In functional domain, hence it is clear that our thoughts are limited to our knowledge on that function. If our thoughts need to go to additional distance, we gain knowledge from different sources and let the thoughts to travel this additional distance. There is no confusion on this. We are the product of gradual evolution. If it is true, it may be possible that the entire knowledge of evolution/creation is embedded in our brain. Probably, only the knowledge invoked by our intelligence can be expressible by thoughts.
For understanding the psychological domain of thoughts, we have to understand what is the knowledge or memory within us, with respect to the psychological domain. Any act or knowledge or memory which sustains our ‘ego’ or ‘me’ or “I” within us is in the psychological domain. The knowledge or memory or thoughts which are totally irrelevant to the ‘ego’ or ‘me’ or ‘I’ is in the functional domain. In general, we are not giving any attention to the psychological domain of thoughts and hence it interferes with thoughts in functional domain. The result is that seldom we distinguish these thoughts within us.
Let us look into the limit of thoughts in the psychological domain. Knowledge or memory is the source of any thoughts. Hence the psychological knowledge is the source of our thoughts in the psychological domain. Any thoughts which sustain our ego are within the psychological domain.
The notion that there is no limit for our thoughts is because our thoughts can go anywhere which we have not seen by ourselves or the thoughts can live in prosperity which in reality we are not; the thoughts can perform any actions which in reality we are not capable of doing and so on. Is it that limitlessness of thoughts? It is not. It appears so because, we are not aware of the distinction between functional and psychological thought. If we see the psychological thoughts with respect to our functional limitation, the thought is limitless. But these two are two different domains and hence cannot be equated.
We may be at our home. Our thoughts might have completed a round across the globe and returned back our home. If we closely observe these thoughts, we can clearly understand that it can go to the countries and continents which we have some knowledge about. Our thoughts cannot visit a country about which we have absolutely no idea. Or our thoughts cannot visit any terrains in which we have absolutely no idea. The idea about the terrain which our thoughts are visiting might have gained by means of stories, mental projection of some thing we heard and so on. But there must be some knowledge about anything the mind is thinking. If there is no knowledge, the mind cannot think. On the other hand our knowledge is the limitation of our thoughts – The derived point from here is that if we gain freedom from our knowledge what so ever it be, we will be free from thoughts.
We know that all our problems in this life are due to the thoughts in psychological domain. To make it more clear, all our problems are created by us only – by our thoughts. Nobody else can create problems for us. The major part of the brain’s energy is wasted on this psychological domain, due to the problems created by thoughts. This energy can be preserved if and only if there are no more thoughts generated by the brain in the psychological domain. It is possible only when there is no need to sustain the ego. As long as there is ego, the brain is conditioned to sustain it and hence thoughts in the psychological domain. Hence the only possibility to preserve the energy is, possibly, by completely dissolving the ego. Dissolving the ego involves understanding of its content – the qualities and relationships. Understanding of the content is possible only if we are free from all our beliefs, fear, morality etc. Such a freedom is possible only if we have the willingness to gain freedom. Willingness is possible only if we know the possibilities. It is an endless circle. Somewhere we have to break the circle, if we are concerned with the significance of our lives. If not, just go with the flow as we are going now – No botheration about significance of life and what so ever it. Let us undergo, whatever happiness and pain the life is offering as well as the happiness and pain created by our own thoughts. If we ourselves are not concerned, nobody else, who so ever it may be, will come and save us, even if we call and cry to any extent.
Before understanding the limit of thoughts, we need to understand the domains of thoughts. As discussed earlier, thoughts can be divided into thoughts belongs to functional domain and thoughts belongs to psychological domain. Our education system just looks into knowledge on functional domain only. Probably the education system for philosophical studies may little bit relevance to the thoughts of psychological domain. Hence in general we give no attention to the psychological domain of thoughts and hence rarely able to distinguish between these two domains of thoughts. Due to this difference, thoughts belongs to psychological domain interfere with the thoughts belong to functional domain, which greatly affect our functioning in general.
In the functional domain, in general, we think to the extent it is required for our day-to-day life and work. In functional domain, hence it is clear that our thoughts are limited to our knowledge on that function. If our thoughts need to go to additional distance, we gain knowledge from different sources and let the thoughts to travel this additional distance. There is no confusion on this. We are the product of gradual evolution. If it is true, it may be possible that the entire knowledge of evolution/creation is embedded in our brain. Probably, only the knowledge invoked by our intelligence can be expressible by thoughts.
For understanding the psychological domain of thoughts, we have to understand what is the knowledge or memory within us, with respect to the psychological domain. Any act or knowledge or memory which sustains our ‘ego’ or ‘me’ or “I” within us is in the psychological domain. The knowledge or memory or thoughts which are totally irrelevant to the ‘ego’ or ‘me’ or ‘I’ is in the functional domain. In general, we are not giving any attention to the psychological domain of thoughts and hence it interferes with thoughts in functional domain. The result is that seldom we distinguish these thoughts within us.
Let us look into the limit of thoughts in the psychological domain. Knowledge or memory is the source of any thoughts. Hence the psychological knowledge is the source of our thoughts in the psychological domain. Any thoughts which sustain our ego are within the psychological domain.
The notion that there is no limit for our thoughts is because our thoughts can go anywhere which we have not seen by ourselves or the thoughts can live in prosperity which in reality we are not; the thoughts can perform any actions which in reality we are not capable of doing and so on. Is it that limitlessness of thoughts? It is not. It appears so because, we are not aware of the distinction between functional and psychological thought. If we see the psychological thoughts with respect to our functional limitation, the thought is limitless. But these two are two different domains and hence cannot be equated.
We may be at our home. Our thoughts might have completed a round across the globe and returned back our home. If we closely observe these thoughts, we can clearly understand that it can go to the countries and continents which we have some knowledge about. Our thoughts cannot visit a country about which we have absolutely no idea. Or our thoughts cannot visit any terrains in which we have absolutely no idea. The idea about the terrain which our thoughts are visiting might have gained by means of stories, mental projection of some thing we heard and so on. But there must be some knowledge about anything the mind is thinking. If there is no knowledge, the mind cannot think. On the other hand our knowledge is the limitation of our thoughts – The derived point from here is that if we gain freedom from our knowledge what so ever it be, we will be free from thoughts.
We know that all our problems in this life are due to the thoughts in psychological domain. To make it more clear, all our problems are created by us only – by our thoughts. Nobody else can create problems for us. The major part of the brain’s energy is wasted on this psychological domain, due to the problems created by thoughts. This energy can be preserved if and only if there are no more thoughts generated by the brain in the psychological domain. It is possible only when there is no need to sustain the ego. As long as there is ego, the brain is conditioned to sustain it and hence thoughts in the psychological domain. Hence the only possibility to preserve the energy is, possibly, by completely dissolving the ego. Dissolving the ego involves understanding of its content – the qualities and relationships. Understanding of the content is possible only if we are free from all our beliefs, fear, morality etc. Such a freedom is possible only if we have the willingness to gain freedom. Willingness is possible only if we know the possibilities. It is an endless circle. Somewhere we have to break the circle, if we are concerned with the significance of our lives. If not, just go with the flow as we are going now – No botheration about significance of life and what so ever it. Let us undergo, whatever happiness and pain the life is offering as well as the happiness and pain created by our own thoughts. If we ourselves are not concerned, nobody else, who so ever it may be, will come and save us, even if we call and cry to any extent.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Ego
Ego is another jargon we use very often while expressing our dissatisfaction with the behavior of somebody else and also in philosophical and religious (not ritualistic religion) studies. Hence it may be appropriate to get some insight in to this term “Ego”, which is referred as “I” or “Self”
It may not be very easy to understand the term “I”. If we really get a deep understanding of the term “I” and its real (un)importance in our life, probably all our problems will be solved. Hence it may not be an easy task. However, we may try to get an idea about this “I” and this idea can be translated into understanding. At this point we have to clear about one thing. All our psychological conditionings are due to the fact that we have some idea about everything. On the other hand, ideas are just the conditioning of our mind. Hence, if we are getting into an idea about “I” we must be aware of it purpose and sufficiently be free from this idea itself. Otherwise we may fall into just another conditioning and it will be an additional burden.
In the material sense, “I” refer to our body. It is obvious. When we enter into psychological or philosophical domain, defining the term “I” may not be easy. The Indian philosophies (Advitham, Dvaitham, Vishistadvaitham….) are referring the Atman as “I”. For all of us, if at all we are aware and thought about the term Atman, it is just an idea or belief. We might have built this idea based on the scriptures like Bagavad Githa or form write-up of Indian philosophies like Advaitham, Dvaitham, etc. For sure, none of us are having any experience of Atman if at all the Atman is existing and if any one of us has experience of Atman, for sure, the content of this blog are premature for them. As long as it is just a belief, there is no meaning in pursuing it. It will just block our awareness to reality. The above statements do not reject the idea of Atman, but just refuse to accept it either. The reason is that, if we are open about this idea, it may be possible to find it if it really exists, or go beyond and find the reality if it does not exist.
At this point, I would like to bring into a definition of theist and atheist which I came across recently. Theist make god and believe on him, atheist make god and disbelieve on him. Same is the case, if we happen to believe or disbelieve the concept of Atman. At our current level of knowledge on this thing, keeping it open will help enormously on our progress on such trivial issues.
By setting aside the term Atman, let us try to find the meaning of “I” or “Self”. In general, we use the term “I” to refer our qualities which we believe that we are possessing or refer the ownership of (material and social) relations we believe of having possession. What are these qualities and relationships? Qualities are the result of comparison. We constantly compare ourselves with others with respect to certain aspects and find a result. Then identify ourselves with that finding. This identification becomes the “I”. The comparison starts at very early stages of our life, induced by our parents. They start rewarding and punishing as for our actions at early stages of our life and the notion of good and bad starts from there. Once we starts identify good and bad, we starts identifying ourselves with those good/bad. Now the “I” or self has given birth. We start calling ourselves as good or bad. After this each of our activities and thoughts add additional layer of this “I” and now it has become a very thick junk
What is “I” with respect to relationships? The psychological relationships are due to our qualities of attachment and possessiveness. These two qualities were discussed earlier in this blog under the title Bondage & Freedom – 1 and Bondage & Freedom – 2.
All our actions and thoughts are forming additional layers of this “I”, it becomes our psychological center, and now we have the urge to grow this “I”. Hence endlessly attaching qualities over quality and strengthening the feeling of “I”. It has gone to the extent, now we cannot do anything without considering the center – the “I”. In most of the cases, we compare ourselves with others who are having less than what we are having, thus the “I” can be strengthened. But in some cases, the mind sees a danger for the “I” in this superior comparison, in such cases it looks for inferior comparison and secures the feeling of “I”.
If we are not comparing our wealth with anybody else, do we ever get the notion that we are rich or poor? In that case there is no identification that we are rich or poor. We earn money or spend money according to the need – there is no psychological barrier with respect to money at all. There will not be any urge to limitlessly earn or spend money at any cost and at any method. Hence, all thoughts associated with earning/spending money cease to exist. If we are not comparing our kindness towards other beings with that of others, do we ever get the notion that we are kind or non-kind towards others? In that case, there is no identification that I am kind or unkind person. We look into other beings as per the demand of situation. There will not be any urge due to the feeling of kindness/unkindness. In this case, all thoughts within us with respect to the quality of kindness cease to exist.
If we analyse our thoughts and actions, each and every one of them are around the “I” or “me”. All our thoughts strengthen the feeling of “I” and “me”. If we state this in terms of Karma, all our Karmas are due to the “I” or “me” and each Karma strengthen the existence of “I” and “me”. When the philosophies say understanding “Self” is the highest purpose of life, it must be in this context – meaning, understanding our qualities which wrap the “I”. When we deeply understand the qualities which we identify ourselves and clearly see the unworthiness of being attached with this quality, the mind drops the identification of ourselves with that quality without any effort. There is unlimited number of such qualities we are being attached with both in the outer layer of mind where we are aware and in the inner layer of mind where we are not aware, in the way we are living now. The understanding conscious level of identification brings in awareness within us and this awareness reveals the qualities in the unconscious level of mind. If we are free from all these identifications, there will be no more thoughts in our mind. The mind is free and enormous amount of space available within it, in which the awareness flowers by itself.
Here we must be clear that we have to have things like “My Money”, “My bank Account”, “My House” etc. These things belong to the functional domain. For our day-to-day life, we have to have these things. Renouncing in spiritual sense really means renouncing the identification we have and not renouncing the family, wealth, home and getting into saffron dress or moving into some ashram.
The sense of psychological “I” or “me” is the ego. When we lose the sense of “I” it is not unconsciousness – It is the state of extreme awareness. The awareness is not because of any superficies thing. It is just because when we do not have the sense of “I”, there will not be any thoughts in our mind – we will not be living in the past or future. There will be infinite space within our mind and we live in that moment – live at the current moment. The meaning is our brain may be having enormous amount of energy so that it responds to all the senses instantaneously. At this level of living, we will be able to perceive each and every thing happening within us and around us, as our mind is extremely free for being aware of all our senses. It is ecstasy of life!
Every one of us must have had such feeling of extreme awareness (of at least our senses) momentarily at many occasions. The moment of extreme Joy and the moment of sex are few such occasions. We are capable of having such moments at all times. The only thing we have to do is completely forgo our ego! It is not a dream – Possible for every one of us, in this life itself, if we are willing.
It may not be very easy to understand the term “I”. If we really get a deep understanding of the term “I” and its real (un)importance in our life, probably all our problems will be solved. Hence it may not be an easy task. However, we may try to get an idea about this “I” and this idea can be translated into understanding. At this point we have to clear about one thing. All our psychological conditionings are due to the fact that we have some idea about everything. On the other hand, ideas are just the conditioning of our mind. Hence, if we are getting into an idea about “I” we must be aware of it purpose and sufficiently be free from this idea itself. Otherwise we may fall into just another conditioning and it will be an additional burden.
In the material sense, “I” refer to our body. It is obvious. When we enter into psychological or philosophical domain, defining the term “I” may not be easy. The Indian philosophies (Advitham, Dvaitham, Vishistadvaitham….) are referring the Atman as “I”. For all of us, if at all we are aware and thought about the term Atman, it is just an idea or belief. We might have built this idea based on the scriptures like Bagavad Githa or form write-up of Indian philosophies like Advaitham, Dvaitham, etc. For sure, none of us are having any experience of Atman if at all the Atman is existing and if any one of us has experience of Atman, for sure, the content of this blog are premature for them. As long as it is just a belief, there is no meaning in pursuing it. It will just block our awareness to reality. The above statements do not reject the idea of Atman, but just refuse to accept it either. The reason is that, if we are open about this idea, it may be possible to find it if it really exists, or go beyond and find the reality if it does not exist.
At this point, I would like to bring into a definition of theist and atheist which I came across recently. Theist make god and believe on him, atheist make god and disbelieve on him. Same is the case, if we happen to believe or disbelieve the concept of Atman. At our current level of knowledge on this thing, keeping it open will help enormously on our progress on such trivial issues.
By setting aside the term Atman, let us try to find the meaning of “I” or “Self”. In general, we use the term “I” to refer our qualities which we believe that we are possessing or refer the ownership of (material and social) relations we believe of having possession. What are these qualities and relationships? Qualities are the result of comparison. We constantly compare ourselves with others with respect to certain aspects and find a result. Then identify ourselves with that finding. This identification becomes the “I”. The comparison starts at very early stages of our life, induced by our parents. They start rewarding and punishing as for our actions at early stages of our life and the notion of good and bad starts from there. Once we starts identify good and bad, we starts identifying ourselves with those good/bad. Now the “I” or self has given birth. We start calling ourselves as good or bad. After this each of our activities and thoughts add additional layer of this “I” and now it has become a very thick junk
What is “I” with respect to relationships? The psychological relationships are due to our qualities of attachment and possessiveness. These two qualities were discussed earlier in this blog under the title Bondage & Freedom – 1 and Bondage & Freedom – 2.
All our actions and thoughts are forming additional layers of this “I”, it becomes our psychological center, and now we have the urge to grow this “I”. Hence endlessly attaching qualities over quality and strengthening the feeling of “I”. It has gone to the extent, now we cannot do anything without considering the center – the “I”. In most of the cases, we compare ourselves with others who are having less than what we are having, thus the “I” can be strengthened. But in some cases, the mind sees a danger for the “I” in this superior comparison, in such cases it looks for inferior comparison and secures the feeling of “I”.
If we are not comparing our wealth with anybody else, do we ever get the notion that we are rich or poor? In that case there is no identification that we are rich or poor. We earn money or spend money according to the need – there is no psychological barrier with respect to money at all. There will not be any urge to limitlessly earn or spend money at any cost and at any method. Hence, all thoughts associated with earning/spending money cease to exist. If we are not comparing our kindness towards other beings with that of others, do we ever get the notion that we are kind or non-kind towards others? In that case, there is no identification that I am kind or unkind person. We look into other beings as per the demand of situation. There will not be any urge due to the feeling of kindness/unkindness. In this case, all thoughts within us with respect to the quality of kindness cease to exist.
If we analyse our thoughts and actions, each and every one of them are around the “I” or “me”. All our thoughts strengthen the feeling of “I” and “me”. If we state this in terms of Karma, all our Karmas are due to the “I” or “me” and each Karma strengthen the existence of “I” and “me”. When the philosophies say understanding “Self” is the highest purpose of life, it must be in this context – meaning, understanding our qualities which wrap the “I”. When we deeply understand the qualities which we identify ourselves and clearly see the unworthiness of being attached with this quality, the mind drops the identification of ourselves with that quality without any effort. There is unlimited number of such qualities we are being attached with both in the outer layer of mind where we are aware and in the inner layer of mind where we are not aware, in the way we are living now. The understanding conscious level of identification brings in awareness within us and this awareness reveals the qualities in the unconscious level of mind. If we are free from all these identifications, there will be no more thoughts in our mind. The mind is free and enormous amount of space available within it, in which the awareness flowers by itself.
Here we must be clear that we have to have things like “My Money”, “My bank Account”, “My House” etc. These things belong to the functional domain. For our day-to-day life, we have to have these things. Renouncing in spiritual sense really means renouncing the identification we have and not renouncing the family, wealth, home and getting into saffron dress or moving into some ashram.
The sense of psychological “I” or “me” is the ego. When we lose the sense of “I” it is not unconsciousness – It is the state of extreme awareness. The awareness is not because of any superficies thing. It is just because when we do not have the sense of “I”, there will not be any thoughts in our mind – we will not be living in the past or future. There will be infinite space within our mind and we live in that moment – live at the current moment. The meaning is our brain may be having enormous amount of energy so that it responds to all the senses instantaneously. At this level of living, we will be able to perceive each and every thing happening within us and around us, as our mind is extremely free for being aware of all our senses. It is ecstasy of life!
Every one of us must have had such feeling of extreme awareness (of at least our senses) momentarily at many occasions. The moment of extreme Joy and the moment of sex are few such occasions. We are capable of having such moments at all times. The only thing we have to do is completely forgo our ego! It is not a dream – Possible for every one of us, in this life itself, if we are willing.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Looking Inward Vs Outward
Life can be looked as outward or materialistic movement and as inward or spiritual movement. In our current way of life, very few of us might be having the urge and courage to look into our life to see any purpose. Even in that very few, a small fraction actually have the intention to look the life inwardly. Even in that small fraction, only a handful actually tries to look in to the inward life. And in that handful, probably a minor proportion may really look into the life inwardly. Why is it so? Why don’t we ever have the urge to find if there is any purpose for our life? Why is this strong resistance or reluctance to turn inwardly?
It could be the hereditary conditioning of our brain and hence mind. If we look into the living beings in this existence (Our knowledge of living being in the existence is limited to the living beings in this earth only) every one of them – from the single cell being to the human being have the strong urge to survive. At the same time, every living being have to kill some other living being on regular basis for sustaining the life. If we are not killing another living being, there is no food for us and hence no life. Same is the case with all living beings in this earth. Hence there is a constant battle for sustaining their life, by killing other life forms for sustaining their life and killed by other life forms to sustain the life of those life forms. This struggle existed also for the human beings till recent past (probably up to about 10 to 30 thousand years ago). But the conditioning of survival instinct was passed on to us from the conditioning of more than 3 billion years of existence of life forms in this earth. Due to the survival instinct and the power of thoughts, the human species started to set up social network so they were able to protect themselves from being killed by other animals for their survival.
Now the human beings have the power of thought, which they got as result of gradual evolution. The thoughts could have been used to get outer prosperity and get freedom from the previous three billion years of conditioning. Unfortunately it did not happen in the direction of freedom, but the human being started separating themselves from other living beings, and in this process might have started identifying themselves with the material prosperity they achieved with the utility of their thinking power. Alas! The ego must have been formed at this level. Ego is at psychological level. Now the conditioning of brain for survival instinct must have been directed to the survival of ego also. Now the inward movement has also started parallel to the outward movement. The outward moment must have been copied to the inward movement so that the entire struggle for the survival of outward moment also transferred as an inward movement – a psychological movement. As it is a copy of outward movement, it has all the survival instinct of outward movement. As like protecting the body from enemies- protect the ego also from enemies, feed food for the body by killing other living forms- protect the ego by torturing other living forms psychologically or enforcing psychological violence to other beings. The ego gets its food very easily, by enforcing psychological violence to fellow human beings, where there is no physical attack is required – only the free falling thought is required.
Probably the human species is in critical stage now. Due to the thoughts related to outward moment, we have achieved material prosperity and already protected from being killed by other living beings for their food. We have no fear at all in this direction. Hence no more need to spend our energy in physically protecting us from other beings. If we are not realizing this fact and the energy we have, we are in a great danger of directing all our energy to feed our psychological movement or feed our ego. It already started happening and if it is not contained, we are in a danger of psychologically enforcing violence on each other. As on now, the social set up protects us from physical violence between each other. But if the psychological violence is not contained, the social set up will be broken and physical violence and killing may explode. It already started in small sections here and there, but every one of us are also prone to kill each other if we do not understand the effect of our conditioning and set ourselves free from the conditioning. On the other hand, we have no rights to condemn those who are killing each other, because we are also prone to do the same thing, if not today, may be tomorrow, all due to the conditioning happened over three billion years.
The only possible solution to this problem is to start looking inwardly and start observing the inner movement. If not, the major part of the human species will be wiped out by humans itself with in a period of probably few hundred years. On the other hand, if we are not initiating the change to look inwardly, probably we will be survived for our life time, but our offspring’s will be extinct from this earth and we are responsible for that. Probably, the human species might have got the power of thinking to look inwardly and set ourselves free from the conditioning of animal instincts – If so, it is our responsibility to use the power of thought or the so called ‘sixth sense’ for the purpose intended for.
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.
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).
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