Beyond Choice

Sorry, I haven't posted anything since long time. Its not that I haven't written anything. there are many posts pending in draft. I just don't feel like publishing them. Why? because when I reread them i find them as full of lies. They aren't really "my" thoughts. or to be more precise, they are results of some very temporary states of mind. i change too quickly; so much so that I no longer know what my fundamental belief system is. whatever I think I also am aware of its opposite, and thus begins an infinite regression of thoughts, leading nowhere.
Now, what to write? not that I lack material to write, the problem is just opposite - too many things, but none with a solid basis. I want to write, but just don't know what!

I think I would like to share some realizations I am having since past some time. Choosing one over the other is not going to give you peace. Truth is neither on the left side nor on right. all choices are biased, all choices are corrupted. choice, by its very nature, is corrupted. so there remains no point in thinking that left is more better or good than right; as long as you choose between them its bound to fail...you won't get the desired result (by result i mean things like peace, happiness, truth etc.). This is one of the fundamental things I have learnt from past experiences.
Truth lies somewhere inbetween, through a, kind of, smooth, seamless path that pierces through this duality of choice and goes beyond it. a state where these choices don't matter. a state where you are not concerned with results. ofcourse results are going to make effect on you, yet they don't matter. you see them with a dispassionate eye, or atmost, with compassion. I don't know how to define it, how to make it more clear, but I have felt that state, experienced it many times. I used to experience it in my school days also and even now it occasionally occurs, mostly while travelling in bus,.. and all doubts seem to clear up. Then i try to explore it more and more because I know its very temporary state and the moment I enter my house and say the first words to some family member it will be gone. it used to happen then, it happens now. So i try to explore it as long as it remains so that i may try to induce it at home too. But you know there hasn't been much success. I have been able to recognize some its properties, its characteristics, one of which i have written above. but that doesn't change anything. one hour of home environment is enough to completely forget it and return to same old behavior. Then even if I try to I can't produce even a momentary glimpse of it...even the memory of that experience becomes corrupted. so engrossed and entangled I get into the web of choices. you can imagine the impenetrability of this web by the fact that choosing to become choiceless is also a choice! its something transcendental, something that happens but you can't do it.

Well that's it. maybe i will write more about it later...


                    

Yesterday Truths

Mind has a tendency to fabricate things. It can create a mountain out of a mole. Freud has shown that out of a simplest desire that might have occurred during the day, the mind can fabricate a whole reasonable, full-fledged dream during night. now, if one has occurred such a dream and he sets out to understand, interpret or decode it, probably he won't be able to do so. he won't be able to come to conclusion that the real root of the dream was that small desire. 

And I think that's how our life has become also. what we call human nature, human tendencies, human truths are results of the past situations our minds have gone through. this includes both childhood upbringing and evolutionary history. that's common, i know. its probably called evolutionary psychology. But what I want to say is that what philosophers and psychologists and spiritualists tries to discover through rigorous thinking and practice can be extracted and reached to through this relatively simple method. They discovers a human truth and makes it feel like something sacred and very important for future, although in reality there is nothing divine in it...it can simply be the result of some practical situation our ancestors faced in finding food. that tendency is now, when food is easily available, buried into our unconscious and is giving birth to and controlling our passions and thoughts. humanity is the result of its past. there is nothing divine about it, nothing at all. we have repressed too much in the past. our unconscious is very large. this mind, this clever, creative, always-trying-to-be-reasonable mind has mixed up and matched up every unconscious attribute in order to make sense and that grand story fabricated by it now is called human nature. 

Now, Psychoanalysis, as freud said, means making the unconscious conscious. it wants to bring out the root of trouble i.e. that memory. so, can the same method be applied for realizing the truth of life and universe also?

maybe Meditation, which they call the way to truth, is this same method. or maybe not. but one thing is sure: what has been regarded sacred and holy by religions isn't so holy objectively...and not the truth for sure.

We are what we were.

Yesterday's truths are today's living lies.

Origin of God (and his death)

Behold! i have understood the problem now. Behold! i will write my story now. the story of the birth and death of God. the story of the afterworld, the otherworld. all these three years of engineering i was searching for my problem. and i have found it now. not one but there were two, but the one is the source of other. yes, the real is the source of virtual, and its the story of how the virtual became real.
I won't tell you the first death of god. yes, in me, god died twice. but i will start from the first birth of him. because his first death was sacred...a thousand times sacred than his zeroeth birth.
The reason of first birth of god was my cowardice, my lack of courage to face society, to fight against society in innocence. they combined when the soil was fertile and god was born. and how did the soil became fertile? ah! i can give reasons but in reality the seeds were always there. in my golden times also the seeds were there. the seeds were sown by my lack of courage and and my fear of future. and all other outer reasons were just fertilizers which increased the pace of growth of god.
and i started sinking down and down in those fears. it was a spiral downward. hell were those days. but this i want to say: i was true to the earth even in those days. i never left the earth and seek otherworld. i was still searching for solutions only in science and psychology. i faced that downgoing face to face.
And then came that fateful day. i don't know what would had happened of me had that thing not had happened. i amuse myself imagining possibilities. would i had become a scientist? or a follower of self -help books? or a positive thinker!? but none is the case because fate had otherwise. that day Ashish introduced me to OSHO. Osho, ah! how can i forgive him? and in doing so, how can i forgive myself!? my friends, my downgoing was not the direct reason of the birth of god. it was only preparing soil. the direct sower of seeds of god into me was Osho. he placed in my heart the otherworld. he made me a dreamer and took me away from the earth, my beautiful earth. he caught me in my doomdays and took me away. ah! how good and tempting it feels na to throw away the blames on someone else! but to whom am i lying? no it wasn't his fault. he was an all-rounder. his intelligence was universal. how could he left so many other troubling souls just to save me? his nets were largest, his mission the broadest. i was just caught in one of them, and in my attempt to understand the whole net i unknowingly, subtly gave birth to god. (you can guess by now what i mean by god. its faith in otherworld).
But the story is not complete yet. that which is born has to die too. and can you guess who killed him, the god? Osho's favorite author himself - Friedrich Nietzsche. when he proclaimed "God is Dead" this proclaimation was enough to kill him. why?because he was virtual, mental. i created him in my mind through ideas. thus ideas can kill him too. he was never real. you know what is real in all this? its fear.
remain true to the earth. seek, chase, pursue only that what is real. remain true to the man, remain true to yourself. that's the doctrine of Nietzsche.
(god isn't dead yet. but i believe he will, because i have got the idea. and an idea can kill another idea).
Behold! i will no longer be an escapist. behold! i will face the earth again, i will face my face again.

The Tell-Tale Brain

                             


I watch this COSMOS series by Carl Sagan whenever I am free and in some curious mood. yesterday I was watching its episode on 'The persistence of memory'. That made me wonder, again, on how our brain works, what is this self, and how, through it, science and spirituality are connected.
He showed the anatomical structure of brain and its evolution and its various parts, and showed what function is associated with each part. Apart from Cerebral cortex other parts of our brain are quite the same as brains of reptiles or lower mammals. He showed how they are associated with tendencies like aggressiveness, territoriality, jealousy etc. so these features are quite deeply ingrained in us. they follow it, so do we. now I wondered what separates us from them. Carl Sagan said its the 'Thought' that's characteristic to us and its produced by cerebral cortex which stores memory, synthesize and analyse it and finally produce something called thought from it.
But I wonder what is thought. in other animals, whatever comes in their brain they immediately act upon it. if due to some outer sensation their part of brain producing aggression activates, then their body will immediately react accordingly i.e. aggressively. they cannot 'think' over this aggressiveness they are feeling; they must act under it...they are bound to act; they are slaves of their brain. But what happens in us? aren't we too slaves? suppose our brain also produce same aggressiveness due to same outer sensation. Now what will we do? In us this aggressive feeling will act on the memory cells of cerebral cortex and those cells which are related to current outer sensation will activate. then these activated cells will be "analysed" by elaborate network of cerebral cortex and this analysis manifests itself as a thought. But then what? who will "see" this thought and act on it? where am "I" in this scene? I wonder what is self. this question must be answered if i am to reach anywhere. A thought is a kind of second action. body is no longer the only way to act now. that aggressiveness  indeed has done its part by producing a thought. its like we are divided into two selfs now - the body and the thought. or you can say that thought is preliminary to body, a kind of its assistant.
But that's not the answer. what is the self that is experiencing that thought, that analysis. who is judging that thought and drawing out future plans based on it. Is it all brains doing? its too complicated, too interconnected. why will brain do so? why, and more importantly how, will it add an extra step in its working i.e. a judger, a self? why don't it simply do the analysis and act accordingly? why bring a judger, a future planner? can't it plan future itself based on that analysis? or do the self simply easy up its task in doing so? you know, I do have its answer but I somehow don't want to accept that (don't know why). V.S. Ramachandran did indeed pointed out in 'the tell-tale brain' that self is an illusion produced by brain so that it can work smoothly. its a kind of imaginary focal point of all the doings of brain. self thinks it is doing everything although in reality brain is doing them independently. but i don't accept it by heart somehow. my own self don't allow me to perhaps :-P. I must work it out before i can step any further or draw out any conclusion.
to be continued....

Decoding Suffering

How can one think rightly if his mind is not free. its a vicious circle, a very dark, violent, hellious, inescapable circle. suppose one's mind has changed somewhat (which keeps happening from time to time). now there will originate conflict b'coz of differences of past and present. this conflict will lead to suffering. he will suffer and will think for ways to get out of this suffering. but nothing will work since the origin of change of mind is not in our hand. and so things won't work out and he will thus suffer more because of this frustration of why am i not getting out of suffering while i am putting this much effort. this will flood his mind with fears and passions and desires. and in this way his mind gets bounded and no longer remains free the way it was before change. now because of these passions filling his mind he won't be able to think rightly.  the more he will think of ways to get out the more he will sink. ah! what pity. what viciousness and violence! Is there no way out? is one doomed to suffer?
for solution we must take a deeper look at its origin. why did his mind change? well, in my experience i have found that here there is no control of me. mind seems to have its own mind. it changes all by itself. perhaps based on some other laws like astrology, or perhaps not. But the change is there, and it can occur anytime. that's for sure. Now why does conflict arise because of this change? here may lie the solution because after conflict suffering is bound to come and with that everything else. why can't one accept change and MOVE ON? if he could do so, perhaps he will never suffer.
How does one suffer? what is this suffering? to tell you frankly, a suffering that can be put in proper names and statement is a very superficial suffering. a very childish, on the surface, Hippocritic suffering. But this is what is visible to us. we can think in words only. so we take it for true and keep working on it. have you ever tried to FEEL your suffering? not to put it in words or its causes but just to  feel suffering alone? here lies its reality. you will find that you are not suffering from this or that, but there is just suffering itself. a cause unto itself. it is a mind filled with trouble, a chaotic mind. that's what suffering is -- a chaos.
Now, how to get out of all this?.. from this suffering? What happened with me this time is what I am going to write now.
My mind is in chaos. I am in chaos because I am this and I want to be that. I am split. I am spending my days in suffering. Thinking ways to get out of all this. but none is working. some may console me for some time or work temporarily for some time but again and again it comes down to suffering. so that's how my days are passing. Now, what if you suddenly one day feel quite at ease. what if you feel like suddenly a load has been removed from your head and you are feeling light after a long time. Has this ever happened to you? maybe you are visiting a new place, or have just finished a light, heartly chit-chat with your loved one or dear friend. have you felt relieved at such occasions...a temporary forgetfulness of a heavy load of daily thinking pattern for some moments? It may happen at such moments. MAY. I am not saying that it WILL happen at such moments or ONLY at such moments. no. I just wanted to give a kind of hint of how it feels when it happens.  In my case I was attending a seminar. there was a kind guy teaching there. very honest and frank kind. so I enjoyed the whole time of seminar, not by its content but by the way he was teaching..his voice and all that. and when I came out (I was alone as none of my friend agreed to wait for it) i was walking down the stairs and then towards the water-cooler. at this time I suddenly reflected on myself. and I found that i was not worried. I was not in any troubled state. before this, my past usually used to come over me to give me all kind of worries and anxieties the moment i used to be alone. but not this time. the past was not over me. I was in present. and i was at ease. and in all my journey of one and half hour through bus i just kept reflecting on myself and comparing my present state with past states. and it lead to a kind of bliss in all over my head and mind. I was feeling very light and happy.
This was personal experience, but what had happened was that I got out of my troubled state. so easily, so in a smooth fashion.
But now, after 2 days or so, I can again see it coming back. all that is again taking branches in my mind. and perhaps I will soon fall back in same old trap and circle. the fiber of net maybe new (or maybe not) but the trap is same. not I, but my mind. but since I am identified with my mind, I will too.

What I learned from all this is that Truth is neither in worrying nor in not worrying, since both are temporary states. Why at one time mind is troubled and in peace at another time? why are its states so temporary? whatever the reason. but its not its temporariness that leads to suffering. its my playing the role, my identification with the state. mind changes, and I gets changed with it. almost immediately I take up the new roles given to me and starts playing again. Don't become the player again. remain detached, don't get carried away. none of your doing matters. it doesn't better things up, at best it only worsens them. guard yourself.

"Be at peace Govinda, Be at peace."      -- from the movie 'Siddharta' 

Beyond Thought

Now I am gonna write it out publicly. Enough is enough.

The case is this:
I was on my holiday trip to Port Blair. We all were ready for the next event - seeing adivasis, cavemen. that day, before sitting in bus, my mood was somewhat (-ve) or sad. so in the initial journey one kind of thoughts were coming in mind ((-ve) type), and I was well applying reason and logic to extend and generalize them further to draw out some conclusions about Truth or Life. those conclusions were looking very right and true at those moments.
Now, as the journey proceeded, we were passing through a jungle. and seeing all the variety of beauty all around me my mood changed in pleasant and joyous..i.e. (+ve). after this (+ve) kind of thoughts started coming in mind; and again I applied logic and reason and drew out different conclusions about life and truth. and again, conclusions were looking very right and true at those moments.
So you see, conclusions about a thing depends mostly on one's mood, or better say, state of mind. You cannot find any fault in the logics applied in drawing out conclusions.  No, logic applied is always right. but still the conclusion is wrong and faulty. that's because its origin was faulty. its origin was impermanent.
the original, the initial thoughts didn't occur independently. they depend on state of mind. the kind of state your mind has, same kind of thoughts will originate from it, bathed in its color, its flavor  they can't be independent or pure. and so, can't be right.

so this is what I want to say: THOUGHTS ARE UNRELIABLE.

the case above is actually a very ordinary case. such a thing happens with everybody many times. that hum jaisa dekhenge jahan he waisa hi, the nature of world depends on how we see it. and this finding too is a very ordinary finding. But even after finding and knowing it conceptually, I somehow always get lost in its net.
Its not the first time I am finding this fact that thoughts are unreliable. I had strongly realized it when my state of mind went through a big change (circle of life). at that time also I saw strongly how all my thoughts, my ideals, my views, my sankalps..all these things which characterizes me and which I think I am, how strongly they depends on my state of mind. and how easily most of them got changed once my state of mind changed. But slowly slowly again new kind of thoughts started coming and new kind of views started becoming. and I was again lost in them, thinking them as so mine, so permanent, so true. And I again started working and efforting in the direction to try to grow and perfectize them, as if they are extremely important in my life. One (I) may easily waste weeks, months, years or even whole life in considering these thoughts as something very important and trying to develop them. these thoughts are very illusory, very mine looking, very close, very true looking.
Also the question comes - what else to believe, what else to follow, what else to seek if not my own thoughts? If my own thoughts are unreliable, what else to rely on? well, i have no answer to this question as per my experience. but in theory i may say that we should seek and rely on growth of our being, the real being, the real 'I'. that maybe of some real use, some real significance.

   

                                                     this is our guiding light!