We are made up of relationship. With out relation, we are not. Our entire mind must be of a web of complex relationships – relationship with our parents, spouse, children, friends, society, culture, other living things, earth, sky and every thing else in the creation which we are capable of perceiving. This relationship and reaction of relationships constitute all the layers of our mind. If the relationships do not exist, the mind is not and hence we are not; for that the psychological ‘we’ are just our mind.
In our very close human relationships, in general, we understand the relationships very well and if we really have proper understanding of that relationship, there is no problem in our life with respect to that relation ship. If we analyse our problems, it is certain that the problems are due to misunderstanding of certain relationship in our life. Does it translate to that if we understand all our relationships which make our existence, there will be no more problems in our life?
Will it be possible? – Possible to understand all our relation ships? It must be possible! But for that we need to recognise this fact that we are made up of relationship. This recognition may be possible if we can observe the content of us – the content of our mind to the extent possible for us. Once we start observing our mind, the relationships which we are made of may start revealing itself.
We are always aware about very obvious relationships which we are psychologically dependent – like parents, spouse, children, brother, sister, and friends and so on. We may recognise the relationships with street vendors, shop keeper, government employees, etc when we need their services. We recognise our relation with society and culture when some body provoke with respect to these aspects. More than that, in general, very rarely we perceive any relationships with any thing else in this world – except probably our relationship with God, with out even understanding what is God!
Do we really understand the nature of these relationships? If we do, our life must be altogether a different one, for sure! It may not be possible for anyone else to make us understand our relationships. Even though the relationships are common, the way we have our relationships are unique. No body else can understand our relationships and correct us. Hence it is we to understand our own relationships with every body and every thing.
When we understand the relationship very well, naturally we will deeply respect that relationship – the relation with whatever it may be. Unless we understand our relationship with our parent or children, we cannot respect that relationship. Unless we respect that relationship, we cannot respect them as individuals. When we are not respecting them, our action towards them will naturally be violent. When we are violent towards others, the remainder is just problems – problems in our own life!
If we go a little bit more, we are related with this cosmos and this earth. Unless we understand this relationship, we cannot understand how this earth is supporting our own life and our significance on the earth. If we happen to establish that understanding, we will be altogether a different person. We start deeply respecting the relationship between us and the earth. The relationship brings in deep gratitude towards the earth. This gratitude and showing off the gratitude will no more a formality or rituals. It will be becoming the core of our being, due to the very understanding of our relationships. Unfortunately we are going in the reverse direction and due to lack of understanding we are locked at the beginning itself. It is about the rituals we perform regularly. The rituals are to understand our life and living in its real sense. Unfortunately we stop at performing the rituals. The rituals are meaningless, if it is not taking us to the understanding it is intended for. Once we have that understanding rituals are no more necessary.
When we understand our relationship with our food, the limitless destruction of possibilities of life in each and every seed we consume for our food on daily basis, we can not but respect our relationship with our food and more importantly we cannot over consume or waste any food and with this many of our problems might have already solved. When we have such deep understanding and respect to this relation can we do any harm to anybody or any thing? – including our own earth. If we are not harming anybody or anything, there will be no conflicts with anybody and anything. When this happens, the life we live will be a heaven!
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Health
All along, the discussion in this blog is mainly with respect to psychological health. May be it is time to have a look on our physical health also. It may be very important to have physical health, if we wish to have psychological health.
The life expectancy of human population increased considerably compared to that of few decades ago thanks to the availability and accessibility of medicines and medical systems. Does it translate to more healthier human population? According to my perception it is not. Of course, the better affordability and availability of nutritious food to economically weaker section of population has increased their health considerably and reduced the child death rate enormously – still this section have to do physical activity. For the economically privileged section of population, it may be the opposite due to many factors. In spite of this deteriorating health, the life expectancy has increased just because of the availability of medical systems.
Probably understanding the term ‘Natural Selection’ with respect to evolution may be helpful for this discussion. ‘Natural selection’ is a key term in the process of evolution of living beings in earth. It is the process by which certain heritable traits—those that make it more likely for an organism to survive and successfully reproduce —become more common in a population over successive generations. For more details on natural selection refer the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection
Human beings are also susceptible to the process of natural selection. Just remember, this process of change happen over hundreds of generation. It can not happen with in few generations. From the time of evolution of human being until few decades ago, physical hardship is essential for survival of human being. Hence the natural selection has to favour for hard physical activities and it is the case. Our body is designed for performing hard physical activities, for our own survival. Now it is no more at least for a so called elite group. If the body designed for physical activity is not performing the function intended, due to the design, the body goes into havoc. But we are capable of holding it in to a survivable structure by means of medicines. If generations of this group do not perform hard physical activity and survive in this earth, the natural selection favour a design change – through gene modification slowly over hundreds of generations. But the chances are that such group may not exist for so long, due to the very nature of design of human body.
The Director’s report section of the annual report of one of the pharma company for the year 200-09 was stated as follows.
"............ ......... .Tighter controls on pricing envisioned in the new drug policy threaten to reduce margins and impact business. However, factors such as rising prevalence of lifestyle related diseases coupled with improving health awareness and purchasing power, will continue to drive growth in the pharmaceutical market...... ......... ......... ...."
Hence it is an established fact that lifestyle related health disorders are increasing steadily and it is going to be the main growth driver for Pharmaceutical companies in the future. On the other hand, by the name of lifestyle, we degrade our own body and earn profit out of it, by owning the shares of Pharmaceutical companies. What a contradiction in our basic way of living?
It is not that we are just degrading our own body due to our lifestyle, but are encouraging to degrade the body of our children also. It is the height of violence we are executing over the next and future generations. On the contrary we think imposing a little bit control over our children to channel their energy and focus to the possible right direction as violence over them.
Those are in the age group of thirty and above as on now, even though grown up in cities, might have had reasonable physical activities and opportunities to learn life independently during their growing up stage. The life of younger one seems to be real pity. The major part of such population in the middle class and above has absolutely no physical activities. Even if the elite class is having some physical activities, it is just couple of hours on weekly basis. The major part of their time is spent on academics even at the level of primary classes and whatever remaining time available is in front of visual media. The human body had undergone hundreds of thousands of years of ‘natural selection’ not for such a life style. Neither the body can be adjusted by itself for such a life style with in few generations. In such cases, the body can not sustain itself for the period intended for its survival – It has to be supported by medicines. If this is the case, is it not violence the lifestyle we are imposing over our children?
Another alarming fact is the way we are damaging our ears. The ear is designed to sense certain amount of longitudinal vibrations during the life span of body. But the way we are imposing violence on our ear drums by means of ear/head phone for each and every thing over considerable duration in any day, it is inevitable with in couple of decades to become the ear aids as common as eye glasses on today.
We are bombarding our body from every direction by the name of lifestyle. The more alarming fact is that we are encouraging the next generation to bombard their body from every direction on the name of same lifestyle. It is not that there are positive aspects of life style. For sure there are many, many positive aspects. But if we are not aware of these few negative aspects, especially the effect of lifestyle on our body and mind, all these positive aspects are nullified. If the body and mind are not in healthy condition to enjoy the lifestyle change, then what for these lifestyle changes?
The life expectancy of human population increased considerably compared to that of few decades ago thanks to the availability and accessibility of medicines and medical systems. Does it translate to more healthier human population? According to my perception it is not. Of course, the better affordability and availability of nutritious food to economically weaker section of population has increased their health considerably and reduced the child death rate enormously – still this section have to do physical activity. For the economically privileged section of population, it may be the opposite due to many factors. In spite of this deteriorating health, the life expectancy has increased just because of the availability of medical systems.
Probably understanding the term ‘Natural Selection’ with respect to evolution may be helpful for this discussion. ‘Natural selection’ is a key term in the process of evolution of living beings in earth. It is the process by which certain heritable traits—those that make it more likely for an organism to survive and successfully reproduce —become more common in a population over successive generations. For more details on natural selection refer the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection
Human beings are also susceptible to the process of natural selection. Just remember, this process of change happen over hundreds of generation. It can not happen with in few generations. From the time of evolution of human being until few decades ago, physical hardship is essential for survival of human being. Hence the natural selection has to favour for hard physical activities and it is the case. Our body is designed for performing hard physical activities, for our own survival. Now it is no more at least for a so called elite group. If the body designed for physical activity is not performing the function intended, due to the design, the body goes into havoc. But we are capable of holding it in to a survivable structure by means of medicines. If generations of this group do not perform hard physical activity and survive in this earth, the natural selection favour a design change – through gene modification slowly over hundreds of generations. But the chances are that such group may not exist for so long, due to the very nature of design of human body.
The Director’s report section of the annual report of one of the pharma company for the year 200-09 was stated as follows.
"............ ......... .Tighter controls on pricing envisioned in the new drug policy threaten to reduce margins and impact business. However, factors such as rising prevalence of lifestyle related diseases coupled with improving health awareness and purchasing power, will continue to drive growth in the pharmaceutical market...... ......... ......... ...."
Hence it is an established fact that lifestyle related health disorders are increasing steadily and it is going to be the main growth driver for Pharmaceutical companies in the future. On the other hand, by the name of lifestyle, we degrade our own body and earn profit out of it, by owning the shares of Pharmaceutical companies. What a contradiction in our basic way of living?
It is not that we are just degrading our own body due to our lifestyle, but are encouraging to degrade the body of our children also. It is the height of violence we are executing over the next and future generations. On the contrary we think imposing a little bit control over our children to channel their energy and focus to the possible right direction as violence over them.
Those are in the age group of thirty and above as on now, even though grown up in cities, might have had reasonable physical activities and opportunities to learn life independently during their growing up stage. The life of younger one seems to be real pity. The major part of such population in the middle class and above has absolutely no physical activities. Even if the elite class is having some physical activities, it is just couple of hours on weekly basis. The major part of their time is spent on academics even at the level of primary classes and whatever remaining time available is in front of visual media. The human body had undergone hundreds of thousands of years of ‘natural selection’ not for such a life style. Neither the body can be adjusted by itself for such a life style with in few generations. In such cases, the body can not sustain itself for the period intended for its survival – It has to be supported by medicines. If this is the case, is it not violence the lifestyle we are imposing over our children?
Another alarming fact is the way we are damaging our ears. The ear is designed to sense certain amount of longitudinal vibrations during the life span of body. But the way we are imposing violence on our ear drums by means of ear/head phone for each and every thing over considerable duration in any day, it is inevitable with in couple of decades to become the ear aids as common as eye glasses on today.
We are bombarding our body from every direction by the name of lifestyle. The more alarming fact is that we are encouraging the next generation to bombard their body from every direction on the name of same lifestyle. It is not that there are positive aspects of life style. For sure there are many, many positive aspects. But if we are not aware of these few negative aspects, especially the effect of lifestyle on our body and mind, all these positive aspects are nullified. If the body and mind are not in healthy condition to enjoy the lifestyle change, then what for these lifestyle changes?
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Fulfilment
Fulfilment is a state of mind, which every one wishes to have. Now the question is how do we get into such a state of mind? For that, we need to understand what is fulfilment and why are we seeking it. The very understanding it self may change our thoughts on fulfilment or may cease such thoughts itself. If it happens, there will be no more seeking on fulfilment!
We seek fulfilment only when we are discontent with what we are. It is a state of mind where the discontent or the thought of discontent dominates. The feeling of discontentment is a psychological phenomenon which gets strengthened when we compare ourselves materialistically or qualitatively with others. It may be that we compare ‘what we are’ with ‘what we should be’. We get into the idea of ‘what should be’ by means of ideals we have. The comparison triggers our ego, either in the positive or in the negative direction with respect to the current state of ego. In other words, the discontentment is an activity of our ego.
The ego is the “I centeredness” or the qualities we attach ourselves to identify ourselves. When we start understanding our ego or the qualities we attach with ourselves, we start approaching the maturity level of accepting ‘what we are’ and live the life of our own – not to imitate or try to live the life of any body else and hence there is no struggle for reaching ‘what should be’.
The state of mind corresponds to fulfilment is momentary, but the struggle for that state of mind is too long and this struggle in turn deteriorate our mind further. In this cycle, the state of mind corresponding to the feeling of fulfilment may not be possible. When we are content with ourselves, there may not be any feeling of emptiness and hence no need arises for filling any emptiness. Hence there is no requirement arises for fulfilment. On the other hand, when we are content, there will not be any thoughts with in us which demands for fulfilment. In other words the mind is completely calm. This means, the brain has its energy to spend on useful action rather then spending on deteriorating thoughts.
The action induced by the quest for fulfilment or due to discontent is a trap. As noted above, discontentment is due to our urge to move from “what we are’ to ‘what we should be’. ‘What we are’ is the truth and ‘What we should be’ can never be the truth. When our action is towards ‘What should be’, it is towards an illusionary point. But the action towards this illusionary point also produces certain result, which we must accept any way – and in most cases we welcome those results. As the action is towards a point far away from ‘what we are’, the result will also be far away from ‘what we are’. Now we are entangled with this result, as we did our action for that result and keep moving away from ‘what we are’. Now this result demand for many more actions which will be much against the fact ‘what we are’ and there is no escape… we are in a trap! We may not realise this trap, but start suffering from the chain of actions/events due to this trap.
The process of conceptualisation may lead us to the conclusion that if we are content with ‘what we are’, we may not seek and hence our progress in any direction stops at the point where we are content. Being content with “what we are” is not a substitute for activeness. Living is being active. We can live content with ‘what we are’. In fact that is living! When we are living, we are active and hence there is no standstill in our progress in any direction and that progress will be in the right direction. If our action is induced by the discontentment it can never be the right action and hence it can induce only suffering – the progress we can see on such actions are jut virtual progress, induced by the feeling of discontentment.
We seek fulfilment only when we are discontent with what we are. It is a state of mind where the discontent or the thought of discontent dominates. The feeling of discontentment is a psychological phenomenon which gets strengthened when we compare ourselves materialistically or qualitatively with others. It may be that we compare ‘what we are’ with ‘what we should be’. We get into the idea of ‘what should be’ by means of ideals we have. The comparison triggers our ego, either in the positive or in the negative direction with respect to the current state of ego. In other words, the discontentment is an activity of our ego.
The ego is the “I centeredness” or the qualities we attach ourselves to identify ourselves. When we start understanding our ego or the qualities we attach with ourselves, we start approaching the maturity level of accepting ‘what we are’ and live the life of our own – not to imitate or try to live the life of any body else and hence there is no struggle for reaching ‘what should be’.
The state of mind corresponds to fulfilment is momentary, but the struggle for that state of mind is too long and this struggle in turn deteriorate our mind further. In this cycle, the state of mind corresponding to the feeling of fulfilment may not be possible. When we are content with ourselves, there may not be any feeling of emptiness and hence no need arises for filling any emptiness. Hence there is no requirement arises for fulfilment. On the other hand, when we are content, there will not be any thoughts with in us which demands for fulfilment. In other words the mind is completely calm. This means, the brain has its energy to spend on useful action rather then spending on deteriorating thoughts.
The action induced by the quest for fulfilment or due to discontent is a trap. As noted above, discontentment is due to our urge to move from “what we are’ to ‘what we should be’. ‘What we are’ is the truth and ‘What we should be’ can never be the truth. When our action is towards ‘What should be’, it is towards an illusionary point. But the action towards this illusionary point also produces certain result, which we must accept any way – and in most cases we welcome those results. As the action is towards a point far away from ‘what we are’, the result will also be far away from ‘what we are’. Now we are entangled with this result, as we did our action for that result and keep moving away from ‘what we are’. Now this result demand for many more actions which will be much against the fact ‘what we are’ and there is no escape… we are in a trap! We may not realise this trap, but start suffering from the chain of actions/events due to this trap.
The process of conceptualisation may lead us to the conclusion that if we are content with ‘what we are’, we may not seek and hence our progress in any direction stops at the point where we are content. Being content with “what we are” is not a substitute for activeness. Living is being active. We can live content with ‘what we are’. In fact that is living! When we are living, we are active and hence there is no standstill in our progress in any direction and that progress will be in the right direction. If our action is induced by the discontentment it can never be the right action and hence it can induce only suffering – the progress we can see on such actions are jut virtual progress, induced by the feeling of discontentment.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Conceptualization
In the technical world, conceptualization is a basic and fundamental process necessary for any technical development. Almost all our day-to-day activities lies on this technical world, which is basically required for our survival. In addition to survival, it forms the basis of our comforts and luxury we are enjoying and hence supporting the growth of our ego in leap and bounds. When it comes to our inner world, conceptualization is a process that destroys our journey towards truth – if at all have we ever started such a journey.
At this point, I would like to bring the words of sage Pathanjali and J.Krishnamurti (JK) on this subject of conceptualization into this discussion. It is to indicate that over a time span of about 2000 years, the purpose (of inner journey/study) remains the same.
Sage Pathanjali gave us the famous “Yoga Sutra”, which contain four sections with about fifty sutras in each section. In the first section called “Samadi Pada”, sage Pathanjali indicates the purpose of Yoga and in first few sutras indicates few of the hindrances for Yoga. The following are first few verses of Yoga Sutra
I.2. Yogesh citta-vrtti-nirodaha
-Yoga occurs when the mind field is liberated from patterned fluctuations/distortions
I.3. Tada drashtuh svarupe avasthanam
-Then the seer abides in true form/nature
I.4 Vrtti-sarupyam itaratra
-At other times the mind fluctuates/distorts with the forms.
I.5 Vrttayah panchatayah klishtaklishtah.
-These mental fluctation/distoration can be placed within five categories which are afflictive or non-afflictive
I.6 Pramana-viparaya-vikalpa-nidra-smrtayah
-These five categories are adherence to fixed belief systems, faulty/confused assumptions, conceptual thought constructs, inattentiveness/mental dullness and past-nonintegrated memories.
According to sage Pathanjali, conceptualization (vikalpa) is one of the five hindrances for yoga to occur.
JK has spoken in length about concepts, conceiving concepts and their effects on our mind. The following is a small extract of JKs words about concepts.
JK: ……….. you are saying it is still a concept. Is it? When the house is burning, is it a concept? When you have pain, is that a concept? When you are faced with danger, is it a concept? Concept only comes when you avoid the fact of 'what is'. When you are confronted with 'what is', there is no concept. You act, or you run away from it. Concepts exist only when you cannot understand the fact, the 'what is' and try to translate that 'what is' according to your background of your conditioning.
In our current way of living, we conceptualize any thing and every thing. It may be about God, Life, Yoga and likes on one side of the spectrum of conceptualization and personnel behavior, materialistic requirement for living and likes on the other side of the same spectrum.
Why are we conceptualizing every thing? Can’t we live our life with out conceiving concepts? - We do not have the humbleness to say, “I don’t know”. Hence we have to know about any thing and every thing. In any conversation, we have unlimited urge to project that we are knowledgeable in the subject of conversation. The only possible way of knowing every thing in our current way of living is conceptualization. Once we have some concepts, we have the right arguments to justify our knowledge and hence the ego is satisfied. We can live without conceptualization when we are matured enough to have the humbleness so that saying “I don’t know” will no more hurt our ego.
We need to take the trouble of freeing ourselves from concepts, if we intend to live a complete life in its real sense. If our intention is just carry on our life – the way we are living now, may be with little more physical comfort and luxury, there is no need to take any trouble in freeing ourselves. In that case, why are we talking about God, religion, ancient wisdom, morality in public life, corruption and so on. We need to just carry on our life. God, religion etc. are not required for carry on our life. But we cling to God, religion, morality etc, yet we are not taking any initiative to approach truth. By way of conceptualization, we hide all our ignorance, inabilities and capabilities, and live within the shadow of concepts. What a conflict in our life at its basic level itself!
All sages from Pathanjali to JK, even before and after them, were exposed this problem. Yet we are unable to integrate their findings into our life. But we take a great pride on saying they are our ancestors and create one more shadow over the possibilities and hence safeguarding our ignorance. Until the time we bring in some awareness on what we are doing and thinking, we can’t escape from the ignorance, which wrapped our entire life. Are we really interested in an intelligence life?
If this problem is looked at from another angle, we need to get into concepts to understand any thing. Hence we cannot ignore conceptualization completely. But need to be free from those concepts. For example, when we are talking about creation, existence etc, getting into the concept of God is inevitable. But if we enclose ourselves within that concept, we cannot really understand the truth of creation and existence. Instead of that, if we are free from the concept of God itself, our knowledge about God itself may change. At the end what we call as God may be entirely different from the God of today. Yet it is a concept and have to be free from that concept also, if we intend to live our life.
And, if we do not have freedom from sage Pathanjali’s sutras or JKs concepts, we create another set of concepts and enclose ourselves with in those concepts. This is the case with followers of any spiritual system. The followers conceptualize the system they are following and alas, they are inside a trap – a trap, which they believe, will free them from all other traps. This is evident from the fact that in any spiritual system, only the master might be the realized one, seldom the followers reach the stage of realization. Only a handful of followers who are managed to free themselves from the concept of the system they are following itself reach the stage of realization.
At this point, I would like to bring the words of sage Pathanjali and J.Krishnamurti (JK) on this subject of conceptualization into this discussion. It is to indicate that over a time span of about 2000 years, the purpose (of inner journey/study) remains the same.
Sage Pathanjali gave us the famous “Yoga Sutra”, which contain four sections with about fifty sutras in each section. In the first section called “Samadi Pada”, sage Pathanjali indicates the purpose of Yoga and in first few sutras indicates few of the hindrances for Yoga. The following are first few verses of Yoga Sutra
I.2. Yogesh citta-vrtti-nirodaha
-Yoga occurs when the mind field is liberated from patterned fluctuations/distortions
I.3. Tada drashtuh svarupe avasthanam
-Then the seer abides in true form/nature
I.4 Vrtti-sarupyam itaratra
-At other times the mind fluctuates/distorts with the forms.
I.5 Vrttayah panchatayah klishtaklishtah.
-These mental fluctation/distoration can be placed within five categories which are afflictive or non-afflictive
I.6 Pramana-viparaya-vikalpa-nidra-smrtayah
-These five categories are adherence to fixed belief systems, faulty/confused assumptions, conceptual thought constructs, inattentiveness/mental dullness and past-nonintegrated memories.
According to sage Pathanjali, conceptualization (vikalpa) is one of the five hindrances for yoga to occur.
JK has spoken in length about concepts, conceiving concepts and their effects on our mind. The following is a small extract of JKs words about concepts.
JK: ……….. you are saying it is still a concept. Is it? When the house is burning, is it a concept? When you have pain, is that a concept? When you are faced with danger, is it a concept? Concept only comes when you avoid the fact of 'what is'. When you are confronted with 'what is', there is no concept. You act, or you run away from it. Concepts exist only when you cannot understand the fact, the 'what is' and try to translate that 'what is' according to your background of your conditioning.
In our current way of living, we conceptualize any thing and every thing. It may be about God, Life, Yoga and likes on one side of the spectrum of conceptualization and personnel behavior, materialistic requirement for living and likes on the other side of the same spectrum.
Why are we conceptualizing every thing? Can’t we live our life with out conceiving concepts? - We do not have the humbleness to say, “I don’t know”. Hence we have to know about any thing and every thing. In any conversation, we have unlimited urge to project that we are knowledgeable in the subject of conversation. The only possible way of knowing every thing in our current way of living is conceptualization. Once we have some concepts, we have the right arguments to justify our knowledge and hence the ego is satisfied. We can live without conceptualization when we are matured enough to have the humbleness so that saying “I don’t know” will no more hurt our ego.
We need to take the trouble of freeing ourselves from concepts, if we intend to live a complete life in its real sense. If our intention is just carry on our life – the way we are living now, may be with little more physical comfort and luxury, there is no need to take any trouble in freeing ourselves. In that case, why are we talking about God, religion, ancient wisdom, morality in public life, corruption and so on. We need to just carry on our life. God, religion etc. are not required for carry on our life. But we cling to God, religion, morality etc, yet we are not taking any initiative to approach truth. By way of conceptualization, we hide all our ignorance, inabilities and capabilities, and live within the shadow of concepts. What a conflict in our life at its basic level itself!
All sages from Pathanjali to JK, even before and after them, were exposed this problem. Yet we are unable to integrate their findings into our life. But we take a great pride on saying they are our ancestors and create one more shadow over the possibilities and hence safeguarding our ignorance. Until the time we bring in some awareness on what we are doing and thinking, we can’t escape from the ignorance, which wrapped our entire life. Are we really interested in an intelligence life?
If this problem is looked at from another angle, we need to get into concepts to understand any thing. Hence we cannot ignore conceptualization completely. But need to be free from those concepts. For example, when we are talking about creation, existence etc, getting into the concept of God is inevitable. But if we enclose ourselves within that concept, we cannot really understand the truth of creation and existence. Instead of that, if we are free from the concept of God itself, our knowledge about God itself may change. At the end what we call as God may be entirely different from the God of today. Yet it is a concept and have to be free from that concept also, if we intend to live our life.
And, if we do not have freedom from sage Pathanjali’s sutras or JKs concepts, we create another set of concepts and enclose ourselves with in those concepts. This is the case with followers of any spiritual system. The followers conceptualize the system they are following and alas, they are inside a trap – a trap, which they believe, will free them from all other traps. This is evident from the fact that in any spiritual system, only the master might be the realized one, seldom the followers reach the stage of realization. Only a handful of followers who are managed to free themselves from the concept of the system they are following itself reach the stage of realization.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Emptiness
Often we feel emptiness or meaninglessness in our life, even without any significance change in our life or way of living. Probably we feel it when our life events become a routine, may be it when we are not able to entertain ourselves or the entertainment itself become a routine, or when we encounter a joyous moment where we have a feeling of mission accomplished or at an extremely sorrow moment.
There is a difference in the emptiness we feel, in each of these events. In one set of events, the emptiness or meaninglessness due to the fact that thought is active but it cannot find anything to chew and the thoughts are tiered with the usual chewing. In another set of events, it is due to the fact that the thought itself is not there. The emptiness or meaninglessness in this case is due to the absence of thoughts, where being submerged in the field of thought is our usual way of living.
The first set of emptiness is due to the fact of repetition of events in our life. When the life events are just repetition, it becomes a habit and the consciousness does not have any function there. Due to our lifestyle, our consciousness has shrunk to a small layer where it lost its capability to observe the continuous changes within our body and mind. There are many, many activities happening within our body and mind, but they have already gone beyond the reach of our consciousness. Since the consciousness has shrunk and shrinking, we have to fed consciousness with new activities to keep it active. When the consciousness is unable to find any activity, the ego is also not fed with anything. When the ego is not able to find any supporting events, it projects emptiness and meaninglessness so that the consciousness is motivated to find activities and hence the ego is supported. In the other side when we are sensitive, the consciousness goes deeper and deeper, where we start understanding the function of ego and its illusionary nature. The deeper we understand about our ego, the less will be the projection of emptiness or meaninglessness of life.
Again we feel emptiness or meaninglessness of our life, when entering in to the realm of philosophy. The philosophical quest may ground all our beliefs on which our life is supported. Once the beliefs, morality, etc, which formed the base of our egoistic existence are grounded the outward activity required is just for the survival of our physical body and we start ignoring our ego. Yet our ego is possibly active within us. When the ego is active, it must be fed with activities which support its existence. When our philosophies direct us towards meaninglessness with our regular activities except the survival of physical, the ego get into a struggle for its survival and project that the life itself is meaningless without the activities that support the very existence of ego. It is a trap by our ego for its survival. To get out of this trap, we must have the understanding of trap – the ego itself. If not recognize this trap, our philosophical quest may lead us to emptiness
At moments of extreme joy or extreme sorrow or moments of accomplishments, we may enter into a state of emptiness or meaninglessness. During such moments, the thoughts cease to exist. It is a moment where we have a feeling that nothing else to enjoy or nothing else to suffer or nothing else to achieve. As long as we are in that state, without any thoughts it is fine. As soon as the thoughts come in again, it tries to capture the moment of thoughtless state. The active ego projects it as emptiness of life. If there is nothing available to support the ego, it is emptiness for ego, even in actuality we live in abundance. As long as the ego is active, we may not be able to perceive the vastness of this emptiness or the emptiness which enclose everything else with in it. In such moment of thoughtlessness, if the ego is not active, the emptiness contains everything within it which the mind can perceive.
On one side, the feeling of emptiness and meaningless provide enough motivation for carry on with our daily activities, but the sensitivity of our body and mind are taken away. On the other side, we regain our sensitivity towards our body and mind or our consciousness is being expanded, but may live with a depressed feeling of emptiness. On an over look, this seems to be contradiction. Because this translates into the postulate that for having sensitivity we have to be with emptiness and meaninglessness. For, sure it cannot be the case. Instead of having a depressed empty life, being insensitivity may be a better option. If we analyse that feeling of emptiness or meaninglessness, it will be very clear that such state is not the real state, but a projected state. As long as the ego is active, it creates conditions to support it. The feeling of emptiness or meaninglessness is such condition created by our ego to find enough motivation for getting into activities which support ego. The feeling of motivation is a condition created by our ego, to get support. Out of this motivation, we are ready to go any distance – at the end the ego is satisfied and supported.
We may need motivation for doing any activity. But motivation is a condition created by our ego. This again seems to be a conflict. To resolve this conflict, we may have to understand what motivation is? Can we carry on our life with our complete capability without the need for any motivation? This may be a subject of another title “Motivation”.
On one side, we lose our sensitivity due to the routine activities and hence habits. With this insensitivity to happenings within us and around us, the ego needs more violent activities and hence projecting the feeling of emptiness. On the other side, due to our sensitivity, momentarily we enter into a state of thoughtlessness and in this case also, the ego projects the feeling of emptiness. A real conflict, difficult to resolve! Ego is the base for this conflict and understanding our ego is the only way out to resolve this conflict. Once we understand our ego, ego is no more!
There is a difference in the emptiness we feel, in each of these events. In one set of events, the emptiness or meaninglessness due to the fact that thought is active but it cannot find anything to chew and the thoughts are tiered with the usual chewing. In another set of events, it is due to the fact that the thought itself is not there. The emptiness or meaninglessness in this case is due to the absence of thoughts, where being submerged in the field of thought is our usual way of living.
The first set of emptiness is due to the fact of repetition of events in our life. When the life events are just repetition, it becomes a habit and the consciousness does not have any function there. Due to our lifestyle, our consciousness has shrunk to a small layer where it lost its capability to observe the continuous changes within our body and mind. There are many, many activities happening within our body and mind, but they have already gone beyond the reach of our consciousness. Since the consciousness has shrunk and shrinking, we have to fed consciousness with new activities to keep it active. When the consciousness is unable to find any activity, the ego is also not fed with anything. When the ego is not able to find any supporting events, it projects emptiness and meaninglessness so that the consciousness is motivated to find activities and hence the ego is supported. In the other side when we are sensitive, the consciousness goes deeper and deeper, where we start understanding the function of ego and its illusionary nature. The deeper we understand about our ego, the less will be the projection of emptiness or meaninglessness of life.
Again we feel emptiness or meaninglessness of our life, when entering in to the realm of philosophy. The philosophical quest may ground all our beliefs on which our life is supported. Once the beliefs, morality, etc, which formed the base of our egoistic existence are grounded the outward activity required is just for the survival of our physical body and we start ignoring our ego. Yet our ego is possibly active within us. When the ego is active, it must be fed with activities which support its existence. When our philosophies direct us towards meaninglessness with our regular activities except the survival of physical, the ego get into a struggle for its survival and project that the life itself is meaningless without the activities that support the very existence of ego. It is a trap by our ego for its survival. To get out of this trap, we must have the understanding of trap – the ego itself. If not recognize this trap, our philosophical quest may lead us to emptiness
At moments of extreme joy or extreme sorrow or moments of accomplishments, we may enter into a state of emptiness or meaninglessness. During such moments, the thoughts cease to exist. It is a moment where we have a feeling that nothing else to enjoy or nothing else to suffer or nothing else to achieve. As long as we are in that state, without any thoughts it is fine. As soon as the thoughts come in again, it tries to capture the moment of thoughtless state. The active ego projects it as emptiness of life. If there is nothing available to support the ego, it is emptiness for ego, even in actuality we live in abundance. As long as the ego is active, we may not be able to perceive the vastness of this emptiness or the emptiness which enclose everything else with in it. In such moment of thoughtlessness, if the ego is not active, the emptiness contains everything within it which the mind can perceive.
On one side, the feeling of emptiness and meaningless provide enough motivation for carry on with our daily activities, but the sensitivity of our body and mind are taken away. On the other side, we regain our sensitivity towards our body and mind or our consciousness is being expanded, but may live with a depressed feeling of emptiness. On an over look, this seems to be contradiction. Because this translates into the postulate that for having sensitivity we have to be with emptiness and meaninglessness. For, sure it cannot be the case. Instead of having a depressed empty life, being insensitivity may be a better option. If we analyse that feeling of emptiness or meaninglessness, it will be very clear that such state is not the real state, but a projected state. As long as the ego is active, it creates conditions to support it. The feeling of emptiness or meaninglessness is such condition created by our ego to find enough motivation for getting into activities which support ego. The feeling of motivation is a condition created by our ego, to get support. Out of this motivation, we are ready to go any distance – at the end the ego is satisfied and supported.
We may need motivation for doing any activity. But motivation is a condition created by our ego. This again seems to be a conflict. To resolve this conflict, we may have to understand what motivation is? Can we carry on our life with our complete capability without the need for any motivation? This may be a subject of another title “Motivation”.
On one side, we lose our sensitivity due to the routine activities and hence habits. With this insensitivity to happenings within us and around us, the ego needs more violent activities and hence projecting the feeling of emptiness. On the other side, due to our sensitivity, momentarily we enter into a state of thoughtlessness and in this case also, the ego projects the feeling of emptiness. A real conflict, difficult to resolve! Ego is the base for this conflict and understanding our ego is the only way out to resolve this conflict. Once we understand our ego, ego is no more!
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Knowledge
Knowledge is the crown every one wish to have. Due to our nature, we have the basic urge for gaining knowledge. Again, based on our nature, the urge for the type of knowledge we seek differ. On one side it is technological knowledge, simple techniques we use in our day-to-day life to complicated rocket launching technologies or the medical technologies for maintaining our own body. They are mere technological knowledge, which helps us to make our life comfortable.
On the other side, we have the knowledge in psychological realm – any knowledge which supports the existence and growth of ego. As long as the technical knowledge is pure, without any interference from knowledge in psychological domain, they are great. It helps us to have a better, comfortable, easy life. But that is a very rare possibility on considering the general tendency of human being. For a common man or women or child, the technological knowledge gets superimposed by the knowledge in psychological domain. This may be the starting point of all our troubles and sufferings. Almost all destructions by human being might have been due to the interference of knowledge in psychological domain with the technological knowledge; for any destruction, technological knowledge is must, but technological knowledge alone cannot initiate any destruction – It can only cause an accident.
If we like to have only the technological evolution and eliminate human initiated destruction, we must understand the interface between technological knowledge and knowledge which support our ego. That may be the Wisdom. For that knowledge, we have to have the capability of understanding the mechanism of any technological knowledge being infected by our own ego. For that we must have complete understanding of our own ego; understanding of our ego amounts to the dissolution of ego itself. If that happen what remains is pure technological knowledge.
Knowledge is also a trap, inescapable trap. When we are unaware of our ego and its functions, we never recognize what is real and psychological domain of knowledge. Whatever reaches the mind, it takes it as knowledge about the subject – it cannot recognize the egoistic component of that knowledge, as the superimposition of egoistic component happens simultaneously as we start conceiving any thing in our mind. As we are deep inside an unlimited such nests of knowledge, it is nearly impossible to realize truth – the only way out is start understanding our own ego, which may start unwind the nests and possibly make us free; free from our own knowledge and hence ego.
To understand the truthfulness of our knowledge, we must have enough freedom from the knowledge we gained. We must be capable of withstanding the shock of knowing that our knowledge is just illusion. Almost none of us have that quality. Our entire life is built on the belief that we are knowledgeable. If we need to face the fact that our knowledge is just an illusion, the entire span of life we had until now is meaningless. The void generated by the understanding that our knowledge is illusion lead as to believe that our life is meaningless. Now we need to have the courage to face a meaningless life. The very thought (note – it is the thought) that our life is meaningless may takes away our desire to live – for sure, no one like to be in such a state!
Look at the same scenario from another angle. We are sufficiently free from our knowledge. This freedom gives us the capability to just go ahead in our life, even if we understand our knowledge on certain subject is illusion – because we have no egoistic attachment with our own knowledge. This very freedom allows as look into the subject from another perspective – This may be the true knowledge about the subject. Anything here in the world is constantly changing and hence the subject under study can also change at any point of time. As we are free from our knowledge, we can look into the same subject again and again with perspective required for the new situation. This is the true knowledge. That is the knowledge gained with freedom from our own knowledge is true knowledge – The knowledge of life on moment-to-moment basis. In such a life, the knowledge of any religion is unnecessary, the knowledge of any scripture is unnecessary, the knowledge of any morality is unnecessary. What we need is just the knowledge about ourselves. It is experiencing ourselves. It is Living. Without experiencing our own existence, what we call as living is not living – it is, just existing.
On the other side, we have the knowledge in psychological realm – any knowledge which supports the existence and growth of ego. As long as the technical knowledge is pure, without any interference from knowledge in psychological domain, they are great. It helps us to have a better, comfortable, easy life. But that is a very rare possibility on considering the general tendency of human being. For a common man or women or child, the technological knowledge gets superimposed by the knowledge in psychological domain. This may be the starting point of all our troubles and sufferings. Almost all destructions by human being might have been due to the interference of knowledge in psychological domain with the technological knowledge; for any destruction, technological knowledge is must, but technological knowledge alone cannot initiate any destruction – It can only cause an accident.
If we like to have only the technological evolution and eliminate human initiated destruction, we must understand the interface between technological knowledge and knowledge which support our ego. That may be the Wisdom. For that knowledge, we have to have the capability of understanding the mechanism of any technological knowledge being infected by our own ego. For that we must have complete understanding of our own ego; understanding of our ego amounts to the dissolution of ego itself. If that happen what remains is pure technological knowledge.
Knowledge is also a trap, inescapable trap. When we are unaware of our ego and its functions, we never recognize what is real and psychological domain of knowledge. Whatever reaches the mind, it takes it as knowledge about the subject – it cannot recognize the egoistic component of that knowledge, as the superimposition of egoistic component happens simultaneously as we start conceiving any thing in our mind. As we are deep inside an unlimited such nests of knowledge, it is nearly impossible to realize truth – the only way out is start understanding our own ego, which may start unwind the nests and possibly make us free; free from our own knowledge and hence ego.
To understand the truthfulness of our knowledge, we must have enough freedom from the knowledge we gained. We must be capable of withstanding the shock of knowing that our knowledge is just illusion. Almost none of us have that quality. Our entire life is built on the belief that we are knowledgeable. If we need to face the fact that our knowledge is just an illusion, the entire span of life we had until now is meaningless. The void generated by the understanding that our knowledge is illusion lead as to believe that our life is meaningless. Now we need to have the courage to face a meaningless life. The very thought (note – it is the thought) that our life is meaningless may takes away our desire to live – for sure, no one like to be in such a state!
Look at the same scenario from another angle. We are sufficiently free from our knowledge. This freedom gives us the capability to just go ahead in our life, even if we understand our knowledge on certain subject is illusion – because we have no egoistic attachment with our own knowledge. This very freedom allows as look into the subject from another perspective – This may be the true knowledge about the subject. Anything here in the world is constantly changing and hence the subject under study can also change at any point of time. As we are free from our knowledge, we can look into the same subject again and again with perspective required for the new situation. This is the true knowledge. That is the knowledge gained with freedom from our own knowledge is true knowledge – The knowledge of life on moment-to-moment basis. In such a life, the knowledge of any religion is unnecessary, the knowledge of any scripture is unnecessary, the knowledge of any morality is unnecessary. What we need is just the knowledge about ourselves. It is experiencing ourselves. It is Living. Without experiencing our own existence, what we call as living is not living – it is, just existing.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Intelligence
For the purpose of arriving the meaning of intelligence, let us use the term ‘Artificial Intelligence’. An artificial intelligence is a logic solver which process multiple, complicated logics and produces an output – a choice less output. From this, we may be able to arrive the definition of intelligence as the capacity of our brain to produce action without choice.
In all aspects, intelligence is one of the assets every one wish to possess and believe having possessed. But the general meaning considered for intelligence is something like capability to choose from the available choices by means of assumptions, imaginations and conclusions arrived out of these two or similar parameters. Due to our urge to possess intelligence, and the meaning we considered for intelligence, we push ourselves to the extent of making choices even in simple activities where choosing is not at all required and then suffer on those choices. We also call the learning of decision making to choose as education. It does not require any intelligence to understand wherever choices are there, suffering is inevitable. On the other hand, we call the learning of how to suffer (in most of the cases) as education! It is a real pity!
Having the capability of unlimited consciousness, human must be the only species in this earth capable of having unlimited intelligence. We must be already having this intelligence. This intelligence within us must be masked by our ego and the qualities supporting and growing the ego. Once we understand what intelligence is and realize that we have this unlimited intelligence, there is a possibility of unmasking our intelligence, in its real sense.
The intelligence may be explained further by the function of brain within the realm of our body. If there is any infection in our body, the brain sends antibodies to required location and stage a war against infection. This is intelligence. There is no choice to choose for the brain, if an infection is detected. The only choice is fight against infection as long as the body has the capacity. None of our education systems provide such intelligence to us. Our education system provides just information. We need to have intelligence to process that information imparted by education. Of course, every one of us has the intelligence, but each one of us unmasked it to different extent.
As long as we are in the realm of duality and hence comparison, intelligence cannot be put in action. The existence of duality within our mind and hence the act of comparison generate thoughts in the psychological domain which support the ego at one side and fragment our mind at the other side. Fragmenting the mind means, it stores the information about any subject where ever the thought goes and put bits and pieces of information into our memory. Thought can go only up to the extent of our knowledge. Thought cannot conceive anything which we did not know. Hence thought cannot capture the complete information about any object/subject. Since the mind has fragmented information about the subject, it uses this information to describe the subject. The mind is nothing but the information processed in our brain. Now the information processed is fragmented information about the subject, our mind itself is fragmented.
With this fragmented mind obviously intelligence cannot act. The brain cannot solve the logic with so many fragments about a subject. In such situation, there are many possible ways of action or choices and hence many possible outcomes.
Intelligence cannot be acquired. It cannot be cultivated. We can only remove the veil wrapping our intelligence. Intelligence can be unwrapped only with knowledge – the knowledge of the veil wrapped around our intelligence. This unwrapping of intelligence makes us completely understand and in synch with the eternal cosmic rules or Dharma, in Buddhist terms. Even without our intelligence functioning, we are forced to obey the cosmic rules, but with the functioning of intelligence, we may be living in synch with cosmic rules and hence with cosmos. On the other hand, we may state that intelligence is being synch with the cosmic rules pertaining to the subject.
All inanimate objects are in synch with the cosmic rules pertaining to those objects. They have no tendency to be away from cosmic rules. This is the case with all animate beings, having up to five senses. As the number of senses increases, their understanding about cosmic rules may also increases and the intelligence pertaining to those beings make them to adjust themselves to be in synch with the cosmic rules. We can very well understand these facts, by giving a little bit attention to the behavior pattern of animals, birds, plants etc.
If we extrapolate that, human with sixth sense must have much higher intelligence and must have the capability to understand and be synch with the cosmic rules of much higher level. But in general, we are much away from this fact. This could be very well due to the limitlessness nature of our sixth sense and hence our inability to handle it. Are we really incapable of handling our senses? It cannot be. The creation must have much higher intelligence and if we are not capable of handling our sixth sense, it must have been limited within of the limit our capability. Being given the sixth sense, definitely we are capable of handling it. If we are unable to handle it and hence suffering then it is our mistake. Due to this mistake and escape from our incapability, we wrapped our intelligence with veils, which we are unable to remove it now and hence suffering.
Unless we live with our intelligence, we are not living the life pertaining to the human species.
In all aspects, intelligence is one of the assets every one wish to possess and believe having possessed. But the general meaning considered for intelligence is something like capability to choose from the available choices by means of assumptions, imaginations and conclusions arrived out of these two or similar parameters. Due to our urge to possess intelligence, and the meaning we considered for intelligence, we push ourselves to the extent of making choices even in simple activities where choosing is not at all required and then suffer on those choices. We also call the learning of decision making to choose as education. It does not require any intelligence to understand wherever choices are there, suffering is inevitable. On the other hand, we call the learning of how to suffer (in most of the cases) as education! It is a real pity!
Having the capability of unlimited consciousness, human must be the only species in this earth capable of having unlimited intelligence. We must be already having this intelligence. This intelligence within us must be masked by our ego and the qualities supporting and growing the ego. Once we understand what intelligence is and realize that we have this unlimited intelligence, there is a possibility of unmasking our intelligence, in its real sense.
The intelligence may be explained further by the function of brain within the realm of our body. If there is any infection in our body, the brain sends antibodies to required location and stage a war against infection. This is intelligence. There is no choice to choose for the brain, if an infection is detected. The only choice is fight against infection as long as the body has the capacity. None of our education systems provide such intelligence to us. Our education system provides just information. We need to have intelligence to process that information imparted by education. Of course, every one of us has the intelligence, but each one of us unmasked it to different extent.
As long as we are in the realm of duality and hence comparison, intelligence cannot be put in action. The existence of duality within our mind and hence the act of comparison generate thoughts in the psychological domain which support the ego at one side and fragment our mind at the other side. Fragmenting the mind means, it stores the information about any subject where ever the thought goes and put bits and pieces of information into our memory. Thought can go only up to the extent of our knowledge. Thought cannot conceive anything which we did not know. Hence thought cannot capture the complete information about any object/subject. Since the mind has fragmented information about the subject, it uses this information to describe the subject. The mind is nothing but the information processed in our brain. Now the information processed is fragmented information about the subject, our mind itself is fragmented.
With this fragmented mind obviously intelligence cannot act. The brain cannot solve the logic with so many fragments about a subject. In such situation, there are many possible ways of action or choices and hence many possible outcomes.
Intelligence cannot be acquired. It cannot be cultivated. We can only remove the veil wrapping our intelligence. Intelligence can be unwrapped only with knowledge – the knowledge of the veil wrapped around our intelligence. This unwrapping of intelligence makes us completely understand and in synch with the eternal cosmic rules or Dharma, in Buddhist terms. Even without our intelligence functioning, we are forced to obey the cosmic rules, but with the functioning of intelligence, we may be living in synch with cosmic rules and hence with cosmos. On the other hand, we may state that intelligence is being synch with the cosmic rules pertaining to the subject.
All inanimate objects are in synch with the cosmic rules pertaining to those objects. They have no tendency to be away from cosmic rules. This is the case with all animate beings, having up to five senses. As the number of senses increases, their understanding about cosmic rules may also increases and the intelligence pertaining to those beings make them to adjust themselves to be in synch with the cosmic rules. We can very well understand these facts, by giving a little bit attention to the behavior pattern of animals, birds, plants etc.
If we extrapolate that, human with sixth sense must have much higher intelligence and must have the capability to understand and be synch with the cosmic rules of much higher level. But in general, we are much away from this fact. This could be very well due to the limitlessness nature of our sixth sense and hence our inability to handle it. Are we really incapable of handling our senses? It cannot be. The creation must have much higher intelligence and if we are not capable of handling our sixth sense, it must have been limited within of the limit our capability. Being given the sixth sense, definitely we are capable of handling it. If we are unable to handle it and hence suffering then it is our mistake. Due to this mistake and escape from our incapability, we wrapped our intelligence with veils, which we are unable to remove it now and hence suffering.
Unless we live with our intelligence, we are not living the life pertaining to the human species.
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