PROGRESS FEEDS PROGRESS

Every day I am overwhelmed by the vastness, complexity and wonder of the world around me. It is surprising that a man’s brain holds such immense power. To change, to create and to destroy, is a great gift that is bestowed only to man. The world has been designed by numerous such men, all of them great visionaries, leaders and philosophers. When I was young, my aim was to be such a Man of Power, a Man of Strength. A man like Alexander the Great, like Leornado Da Vinci, like Issac Newton and like Martin Luther King. These were men who created a dynasty, a change so strong that they had to be remembered and revered. Their legacy lives on in the heart and minds of people to this day. In the same vein, my biggest dream was to be remembered for something special, something so eternal that my name would be cherished for years after I died.

Now, these were just childhood dreams. Dreams that a lot of little boys and girls have. As I grew older, I looked deeper and thought much more about these ambitions. The caliber of the men that I aspired to be was definitely of the highest order. But I had made a mistake in what they contributed to the world in an overall sense. I realized that no man is bigger than the human race, and that no single man can define generations forever. It is all about progress. Each man builds on another man’s work, on his art and on his desire. If it was not for men like Galileo and Nicolas Copernicus, Newton would have never formulated his three laws. If it was not for the audacious moves of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King would have never fought racism so successfully. I realized that the people I aspired to be like had just done their small bit in the constant process of improving human life. They had brought the end result, but the process had been going on for centuries. They just did their small parts in a big big way. Thus, I try to think of myself as a man who will do small things in a big way, I can just do my part and not worry about the rest. Cause the rest will take care of itself.

INTROSPECTION

I’m living two lives, on the inside and the outside
Above me, I can see the pathway to golden pride
But beneath me, lies a consuming incessant restlessness
The desire to know my desires is too hard to suppress

I question myself everyday, what I’m doing and why
Frustration and angst fill me, but somehow I gotta try
To curb this revolution, to stop the introspect
Cause I know what I have, could be the only chance I’ll get

The pursuit of satisfaction
Or the life I’ve made
Disturbing distressing emotion
Or a life in the shade
The need to be my own person
Or what people need me to be
Whatever the answer, when I’m done
I know that it’ll set me free

The journey of exploration, a perturbing desire to change
If I try harder, the dream can be my life so strange
This dilemma consumes me completely, need to break out
The more and more I think, more I’m shrouded in self-doubt

I’m analyzing and introspecting, a bolt hits me out of the blue
What if I could decide my future, would be too surreal to be true
We all crave that power, but who wields it we’ll never know
Finally I realize, what I wanna reap I need to sow

The pursuit of satisfaction
Or the life I’ve made
Disturbing distressing emotion
Or a life in the shade
The need to be my own person
Or what people need me to be
Whatever the answer, when I’m done
I know that it’ll set me free

I need to put insecurity, anguish, despair and fear to one side
Forget what I need to be, forget my insides as if they’ve died
I’ll just explore and be patient till I become what I be
But I’m sure of this, the answer is lurking somewhere within me

CHOOSING BELIEFS

 

For a long time, I've wanted to write my opinions on beliefs. Cause beliefs are more than just a surety, a thought.  The brain and heart are indelibly fused while accepting something as the real thing. Once a choice is made, it gets emotionally coded in your head. Every further such choice will be compared to the previous one by your rationale. For example, a student who has once failed will know that the possibility of failure exists. The next time he gives an exam, he knows that he is no longer invincible. Thus he makes the "choice" of preparing absolutely perfectly and appearing for the paper. Any further exam given re-enforces this choice.

Nowadays, most of us believe that the choices we have made are right for us. There was a time when a person couldn't repudiate the establishment's beliefs. The dogmatic, narrow-minded views of the pre-renaissance catholic church come to mind. Galileo said that the earth was round, which was against the church's opinion. So it was deemed as heresy. What's interesting is that I am sure Galileo must have made a choice to believe so. The choice to trust scientific experiments over any other. All his life he kept on making this choice, till one fine day he announced that the world is round. To others, it was like a bolt out of the blue. Unfortunately for the church, it turned out to be true. And so they took their time to diplomatically "adjust" their beliefs. Its similar to the behavior of a sore loser refusing to admit his inferiority. Or the stubbornness of a little child when denied a chocolate. However, Im 100% sure the Pope at the time of Galileo must have surely believed that the world was flat till his dying breath. Cause his repeated choices have emotionally coded that into his brain.

Today's governments are the popes and churches of the 21st century. They each define their LAWS. They're just waiting to enforce them. And if you want to live in a particular country, you have to follow their LAWS. Translation - Believe what they believe. North Korea places the country above humanity. If you want to stay amicably in North Korea, you will have to too. That does not mean North Korea is right or wrong, it just chooses to believe that. When you choose to believe in God, you choose to follow a moral code. You refuse to believe in the Big Bang. 

The day the brain has finally developed, beliefs have developed. According to that, everyone's beliefs are developed by the age of 18. Thus all their future choices and desires are all determined. The trouble lies in identifying and interpreting their beliefs. That is the process which can take a few minutes to a few decades, depending on the intuitiveness of the person or their ability to self-analyze unemotionally. Failure to identify the beliefs or "the repeated choices made since childhood" results in intense physical and mental side effects or something commonly known as "disappointments and failures".

An exception to the above is that lots of people have made inconsistent choices throughout their formative years, thus resulting in a feeling of confusion or loneliness when they become adults. In observing the subtleties of behavior, this can be better inferred. A man who doodles over simple activities and procrastinates over things is constantly making and re-making decisions. Of course the degree of procrastination does matter, but in general he has a higher probability of finding it difficult to believe in or commit to anything.

I have the good fortune of knowing a person who is completely self-aware. Thus, this is what i have learned from that person in the many interactions that we have had.

Of course, all that is written above is neither right nor wrong. I am just choosing to believe it.

LOST IN TRANSLATION

Sometimes, its required to be a little resistant to things. Cause you gotta know yourself and make a decision as to what you need to do to achieve the things you want. That is the basic function of the human brain, to understand, to imbibe and to reason. Now, most of the things that you decide to do are spontaneous, the brain is wired in such a way, that they become a reflex, what is also called as "second nature". To control that is the challenge, cause you know that in a lot of cases this "second nature" is what brings you down, it is what makes you a slave to your own self. It may sound like a trivial thing to try and control every response you send out, but if you know and understand how these responses affect your psyche, then its better to try to curb them. For example, if you know that booze makes you emotional, unhappy and just plain bitter, don't drink so much. Cause you know that its just going to generate negativity, and you'll be stewing in a pot of self-pity by the end of the night. On the other hand, if you know that listening to music early in the morning energizes you, then keep doing that, cause its good to get out the early morning blues. They say that knowing what you want is the key to success. I think that knowing yourself is the first key to success. As long as you can do things that cause you to be comfortable in your own skin, to make you not want to be somebody else, then you're fine. If that's not the case, then you've got loads of soul searching to do, my friend.

And it all begins with acknowledgment. Acknowledge that you're not happy, acknowledge that there are regrets and mistakes at every point. Accept them at the physical level. Realize that they happened cause of your own faults. "All causes of misery are internal". Once one understands this fact, then one can build towards happiness. Life is always going to throw obstacles at you, you gotta find your way through them and emerge as a self-made person. Cause that is what you are supposed to be, that is why you have been blessed with a brain. Ill give you a very specefic example for this. Have you ever felt that feeling of being lost, when everything around you and everyone seems unfamiliar. It may be in a new country, at a drug-addled party, at a gathering in your new college, in a newly painted and furnished room or in an empty train at 12:30 am. The feeling is the essence of the loneliness that people feel when they lose a sense of who they are. Cause that sense of theirs is related to external things. Their friends might define and affect their opinions of themselves, they see a mirror everyday to see how good-looking they are, their top-range BMW provides them a feeling of status. All these things leave imprints in their mind and are a massive part of their process of self-evaluation. And when these things are absent, they lose sense of themselves, cause the thing that defines them is gone. Its like they have no meaning. Its like the movie "Lost in Translation". In a new country, when no one understands you, and nothing can really emphathize with you, you look for pillars of support, for people, things, places that can redefine or give you a sense of purpose and meaning. Its the reason why Indians, how much ever they might hate each other, try and stick together abroad. Its the reason why people go to temples, to find themselves. Its the reason why people have favourite places and things. Things and places that provide them that extra definition to their life. Things that tell them why they are where they are. Things that make them say "THIS IS ME".

An important fact that people forget is that all these are impermanent, ephemeral. Once you learn to be content and with yourself irrespective of the external environment, thats real power. Thats real enlightenment, thats a real sense of purpose. Cause all that is within you is all that is required to make you move forward. Thats when you become a universal citizen, a man/woman, with no dependence on any sect, person, situation, thing, drug or emotion to keep your sense of yourself. As long as your ever-present breath, just the fact that you are living can be that anchor, can be that pillar of support, can be that defining thing in your life, then you are FREE, totally and utterly FREE.

HUMILITY

Humility is a really curious thing. To not have it, is to expose yourself to the possibility of misery. Cause having an ego does lead to great things, but it also leads to misery sometimes. Humility might keep you stable and happy, but it may not garner adulation and appreciation for you all the time. Of course the argument is also there that a truly humble person does not want adulation and appreciation. He is content in doing his own thing, living in his own world. I guess with maturity comes humility. You may have committed mistakes in the past, things that have negatively affected your life in lots of ways. Lots of people do admit to them, but it takes a big man/woman to pay the price for them. How many murderers would voluntarily go to jail? How many drug addicts would voluntarily go to rehab?

Paying the price for a mistake is the law of nature. It should happen. For the betterment of the people involved. Cause it lingers with your conscience otherwise and comes out in negative forms. Accepting it and dealing with it is the best way to move forward. Because it is the reality which you are facing. And no one, and i mean no one, can stay oblivious to reality for the long run.

IMPROVED INTROSPECTION

Its 4:30 am. I haven't been writing for a few days, but today the urge suddenly returns. Maybe i didn't have a reason to write these past few days as i was so busy doing things - things which are related directly/indirectly to my future. A myriad world is around us, but yet we make our way silently and patiently doing these "things" which seem to have the most bearing on our lives. The law of Karma is what governs our lives, even if we choose to admit it or not. It is a simple law, one that is easy to understand, but hardest to implement. Cause our minds work faster than our bodies, we imagine ourselves doing a thousand things before they actually happen, creating a world of "skewed reality" around us. We build hopes and dreams around these pseudo-realities. And when things dont happen as we want them to, or against our wishes, we cry, we rant and we let all the negativity in. Part of our lives are consumed by this negativity which is a burden, a chain, that is curbing our growth, our life. It needs to be eliminated, cause we, as human beings desire to be happy. That is our ultimate goal, cause we have senses of touch, of taste, of sound, of sight and smell. We want to please these senses, that is all. Everything we do in this world is to please our senses. You might argue, that satisfying one's ego is not pleasing of the senses. But it is, as science has shown that pleasant sensations run across the body if one's ego is satiated.

A highly important concept in life is to just observe these sensations, don't develop an emotional attachment to them. Cause they are impermanent, so dont crave for them or dont hate them. Just see them for what they really are. These were the teachings of Buddha. And he raught us a way to just observe them. A wonderful technique called as Vipassana meditation. I wont go into the details of the technique, as it can be best understood by experience, but what i will say is that, it is not something that tells you to forget about life and worldly matters. It is something that tells you to have a strong determination to move forward no matter what happens in your life. It teaches you that everything you feel, see, hear, taste and see is ephemeral. Enjoy it, but do not desire it all the time. Cause these sensations are beyond your control. They occur at the subtlest level of the mind. Your job is not to react to them.

A large part of me always felt that teaching was not a big deal. It was just anything else. In terms of skill it is, but in terms of Karma, its gold. Absolute gold. Imparting knowledge of any sort is a noble act, as it is a positive thing to do, it shows a way forward. A way to a place where you are helping yourself. And this is the biggest act of Karma. Realize that you are are helping yourself by every positive thing you do for yourself or for others. Realize that you are harming yourself by every negative thing you do for yourself or for others. Now a lot of philosophy feels like intellectual enjoyment, but it matters what you do with that philosophy. Just be aware of guidelines and do your work. Life is simple, our inabilities make it complicated.

The above are not really my original ideas. they draw heavily from the teachings of Buddha. I recently went for a Vipassana meditation course and imbibed some of these. I must say that after 10 days in isolation I realized the cause of a lot of things. Of why we suffer, why we enjoy, why we feel things the way we do. Its all internal. All answers to our questions lie within ourselves. I highly recommend the Vipassana course for anyone interested in answers to abstract questions.

P.S. The image is that of a baby meditating. :)

LIFE IS FOR LIVING

To be honest to yourself is a big thing. Most people cannot do it. Cause they always try to judge themselves from another person's perspective. Its a very addictive thing to do. Cause you can see yourself in the light you always wanted to. And you can put the blame on the other person, saying that he/she thinks that i am like this, he/she believes that these are my qualities. Now you may say that, but what you're internally trying to do is making the other person define your virtues and who you are. This is done to adjust yourself to a vision of who you aspire to be. Its one of the biggest smoke and mirrors tendencies that all humans have. Its emotional attachment to who you want to be. Its a difficult thing to control because your heart is going "Yea, that's me, Im so awesome", but a voice in your head goes "Dude, that's bullshit, you're not so great". Now obviously, most of us want to overpower that voice in your mind, cause you dont wanna hear it . You wanna live in the fairytale that your heart is capable of. It's what happens when people are deluded about themselves and their abilities. The best football player in the world...when does he think he is the best? Is it after he wins the FIFA Footballer of the Year award, or wins a World Cup, or Champions League medal? Its hard to define. And desire plays such a huge role. There are 2 kinds of effect that undying, never-ceasing desire can have.

First : When an outsider defines you the way you want to be defined, you can go "Yes, my goal is accomplished. Ive achieved what I want to be". NOW, he uses this desire to THINK about how great he is, to look at his past, predict his future and really be full of self-pride. Its an emotional moment. And these guys are more emotional than most others.

Second : When an outsider defines you the way you want to be defined, you can go "Wow, great compliment, but am i really that good? Cause i sucked at certain things yesterday. HMMM....maybe i should use this as fuel to propel me further. I shouldn't judge myself the way others judge me. That's a dangerous thing to do" Cause a lot of things are impermanent, and it pays to move on. All you can do, is try your hardest in the current moment, be the best your abilities and situations allow you to be.

It requires intense mind control to be like the second person. To not get carried away. To cut-off from the rest of the world. Its scary, cause you're kind of denying your mind all the pleasures and thoughts it wants to indulge into. You're preventing yourself from being seduced by an external locus of identity. Most of the world champs of today are of the second kind. They see life for what it is, not what they want it to be. Just the other day, at Dadar station i saw the happiest person alive. It was a menial cobbler. The moment he started cleaning shoes, all he could hear/see/feel was that. That was his LIFE at the present. He was not interested in anything else. His poverty, illiteracy and harsh life seemed to be outta the window in that particular moment. Once he was finished, he had a content smile on his face even before he was paid. Now he may not be a Ratan Tata or a Shahrukh Khan, but he saw his life for what it was and LIVED it. He didn't wonder when he's gonna be paid the money for which he toiled for the last 5 minutes, he just soaked in all that was around him. You might not think he has no ambition, but how can that be judged in just a brief meeting? But the point is, he lives in the moment, or atleast tries his best to focus only on what's in front of him, not what lies in the future or what's embedded in the past. And THAT, JUST THAT is a quality worth respecting.