Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds

Here goes one of the famous Love sonnets by the bard –

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
               Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,
               Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
               That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,
               Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
               Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
               But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,
               I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
                                              William Shakespeare  
                                                (1564 - 1616)


Going by what Shakespeare has to say about love, love is something which is eternal. It is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove! Given the transient nature of the existence of humanity, this claim of the bard appears a paradox. But when he claims so strongly in the last line – “If this be error and upon me prove, I never writ, nor no man ever loved”, it is too difficult to ignore his claim.

As Erich Fromm succinctly puts forth in his writings, happiness can be achieved only by being able to realize the self and bridge the separateness with man and nature. He theorizes that entering into a creative spontaneous activity enabling one to express one’s own self, and simultaneously enabling the other to express their own self, enables one to bridge the gap between men and nature, and get back to the lost one-ness. He states further love is the foremost component of this spontaneity. But, “love” that Erich Fromm formulates, is different from what generally people understand the word. Fromm states –
“..all attempts for love are bound to fail, unless he tries most actively to develop his total personality, so as to achieve a productive orientation; that satisfaction in individual love cannot be attained without the capacity to love one’s neighbor, without true humility, courage, faith, objectivity, concern and discipline..”

Certainly love that is subject matter of this discussion is not just the popular romantic love. It is the love binding man to man, and man to nature. Shakespeare has been hinting on this capacity of human love in his sonnet. Certainly love is eternal, and lives an indelible mark on the person having the capacity to love. This not an emotion, rather it is a capacity, a faculty of expressing one’s personality as a whole. It aids a person to express being human. It enables one to discover and express one’s own real self. This is a means to realize Godliness being in human form. It is not tied to a personality, or an object of love. It is an innate evolution of the lover, to grow his awareness of who he is, and redeem his connection to humanity and nature. It transcends time and form. It is an invisible energy, in its highest form, which enables man to get a glimpse of what it feels to be a human. Being a human is the utmost goal of a man’s life.

To be able to realize love in its true form, to be able to love one’s neighbor, transcending the apparent narcissistic aberrations of one’s own mind, is a big challenge. That is what Shakespeare expresses by saying, “Let me not to the marriage of true minds, Admit impediments”. The idea is to achieve victory over the seeming impediments, through knowledge, contemplation, thought, reason and faith. The extensive availability of judgment, hatred, separateness between humans, countries, regions, expresses these impediments in daily conversations, news, media and stories. Shakespeare labels these as the “tempest”. Love certainly is an “ever-fixed mark, that looks on tempests and is never shaken”. Given all the inconsistencies and narrowness of mankind since ancient ages, love, fellowship and fraternity still holds strong, and has transcended the dark ages, coming to its heights in the period of renaissance, and again raising it invincible head, again and again in today’s neo-middle ages – an age in the darkness of utilitarianism, capitalism, and materialism. Each time the likes of Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu and the recipients of the Nobel peace prize every year, come to mind, one reminds oneself of the faith in love and peace!

Certainly love has lived through eternity, from the age of Socrates and Buddha and their pre-historic ancestors, in their love for virtue and ethics, giving it more importance than their own lives, to the present day of Yemen’s iron woman, Tawakel Karman. It is so very true when Shakespeare says,

“Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
               But bears it out even to the edge of doom.”
 

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Managing Spontaneity

Spontaneity needs to be directed, managed and modulated when being expressed. It is important to be one’s own self. It is important not to wear pseudo masks. It is also important to express your real self. It is even of utmost importance to reduce one’s separateness.

But one has to modulate his spontaneity, based on the audience. Life is an art. One has to keep in mind though that it is not about being deceitful and a fraud. It is also not about being an automaton and a pseudo self. Rather it is about artistically beautifying your expression to the outer world in a form which leads to the following simultaneously –

1.    Expressing your real and authentic self

2.    Expression is done only when asked, and to the right person, who really wants it.

3.    The message is communicated effectively and un-ambiguously.

4.    Spontaneity and expression are two different things. You can be spontaneous, and not expressive. You can remain spontaneous in your inner self, and express the same inside your being, or creating some work of art, like painting, poetry, essays etc. It need not to be expressed to another person. Expressing the same to an outer self is to be done only on demand. And while expressing the same, it has to be stepped down, and modulated based on the state of the recipient.

5.    Separateness is resolved with the recipient, through supreme concern and the orientation of service to the other

6.    Affirmation of the self and the other.

7.    Proper modulation and artistic beautification is done on the expression, so that the recipient gets to understand the expression, and is enriched by the same. This is done from the mind-set of service.

8.    There are many instances when there should be no expression, viz – a circumstance when the expression is not solicited explicitly.

You cannot express Upanishads in its original form to a child. You have to codify the philosophy into an interesting drama as the Puranas, or the epics like Mahabharata and Ramayana, to pass your message to the child. Codifying is the modulation I am talking about. The most important thing to remember while modulation is keeping one’s real self intact, and having the spirit of service to the recipient.

You have to remember life is not about forcing out, or vomiting our own real self. That is not the spontaneity Erich Fromm is trying to express. There is a very thin line between pseudo act and modulation of the real self for a productive outcome. While modulating the expression, you should keep in mind not to vitiate your real self. And also there are many instances when you should hold on your expressions, and just be quiet. That does not mean you are not in spontaneous activity. You are in spontaneous activity inside your own being, working on your capacities of objectivity, love, humility , compassion, etc (Lotus of spontaneity). Spontaneous activity does not necessarily ask for you to express. Remember the story of the lama who said he had compassion for his jailor. He did not go and hug the jailor, or said to the jailor – “I love you”, to express his spontaneous real self, to reduce his separateness, although he felt the same in his inner being. He rather chose to be quiet, and silently express his one-ness with the jailor, forgiving him for his wrong doings.

It is always to be kept in mind that expression and spontaneity are two different things. Spontaneity is your inner state of being. You don’t express your inner high voltage real self as is, at any moment you wish to. People would get confused. They have their own needs, fears and personality make up, as you have your own. Men are alike, for they share the human situation and its inherent existential dichotomies; they are unique in the specific way they solve their human problems. The infinite diversity of personalities is in itself characteristic of human existence. If you express out the spontaneity in its original form, that will lead to more separateness. People will shun you, as this is against the principle of letting the other affirm themselves. You always have to keep changing your expression based on the context. Sometimes you might have to stop your expression to them, and continue to express to the self using poems, paintings and essays, as spontaneity is not always about being expressive to others. It stars from being expressive to one’s own self.

There is not division between love for one’s own people and love for strangers. The condition for existence of the former is the existence of the latter. It is not having an inner circle with whom you are real self and with others you are pseudo self. The idea is that when you interact with others – both your own and others, it should be driven by a productive orientation, based on service for the other. This enables one to enter into a spontaneous activity, which helps one to affirm one self and affirm other. This also enables the real self to develop and discover its innate strengths and potentials. Expression is creation. It has to yield a productive and beautiful outcome, in the eyes of the world.

One has to actively snap oneself out of narcissism. One has to be oriented exocentrically, to be able to be spontaneously engaged with man and nature, enabling oneself to realize himself, and the other. This is the secret of happiness, creativity and living one’s own self fully.   

Expressing oneself is the usage and expenditure of one's psychological capital. You should not keep expressing each and everything that spontaneously comes in your mind. That is crass. Rather one should live an artistic life. Expression should be beautified to really express one's own real self. Most of the times, we are rising and falling in the elevator of the 7 fold constitution, from Sthula to Atma. The real self is the full expression of the Manas, Buddhi and the Atma, through ones own reason and sensuous capacities. This needs enough homework to be done on ones own ideas and opinions. So, modulation is a very important step before the expression is out in the world.

I have tried to express this philosophy in the form of the following diagrams -
http://criativ-mind.blogspot.com/2012/01/philosphy-of-my-life.html
http://criativ-mind.blogspot.com/2012/01/modulations-of-expression.html
http://criativ-mind.blogspot.com/2012/01/copy-right-all-rights-reserved-samrat.html

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Resolving Separateness - Spontaneous Activity

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Amalgamation

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Modulations of Expression

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Philosphy of My Life

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The discovery of my real self – Creative Spontaneous Activity

The following article is inspired from the book – “The Fear of Freedom” by Erich Fromm.

In the quest of the truth, this is another threshold I am crossing, while I am continuing my research, contemplation and synthesis of the ideas of Erich Fromm. Most of his ideas related to social psychology are captured in his following books – The Art of Loving, The Fear of Freedom, The Sane Society, Man for himself, an enquiry into the psychology of ethics, To have or to be. 

In the book – “The Fear of Freedom”, Fromm delves into the post industrialized world, and analyses the overwhelming impact of the rising capitalism, modernization and materialism on human psyche.  He explains in detail how with rise of freedom and individuality in the post modern world, there has been an increase of loneliness, separateness and split in human nature. He shows that freedom from the traditional bonds of medieval society, though giving the individual a new feeling of independence, at the same time made him feel alone and isolated, filled him with doubt and anxiety, and drove him into new submission and into a compulsive and irrational activity. This compulsive and irrational activity to which man has been driven into out of this feeling of fear, separateness and discontent, take the form of either sado-masochism, or a total submission.

Sadism is a form of being which is totally authoritative. A sadist kills the individuality of others, and forces his thoughts and ideas on the other. This way he overcomes the separateness he has with the other. An example might be an old fashioned father, who in the name of love for his child, decides what is best for the child, and does not allow the child to grow and realize her real self.

Masochist is a person who is totally submissive to an authority. By being so, the person succeeds in resolving the separateness, by discarding his real self. A masochist derives pervert pleasure out of being in pain, being mutilated by the Sadist. A typical example might be one’s masochistic relationship to his idea of God, as an all powerful entity, punishing him when he behaves against His will, and loving when he behaves as per His will. In this relationship, God takes the place of the Sadist individual, and the follower becomes a masochist.

In the case of total submission, the person forgoes his real, authentic self, and submits to the pseudo thoughts and philosophies from external sources. For example, if a person who does not have any training and interest in visual arts, visits a world famous museum, and looks at a classic painting, he appreciates it. But the appreciation is a pseudo one. He neither has the authentic appreciation of the painting, nor is interested in it. He appreciates it just because he should appreciate that. This certainly is different from one’s intellectual quest to learn more and experience more, from outside sources; in which case the person learns, reflects, contemplates and synthesizes the truth for himself. That is more about discovering one’s own real self, being informed from the works from the exponents in the past, in the related domain. But an in-authentic submission is about just aping outside ideologies superficially. Submission helps the person to be a part of the crowd, and hence resolve his separateness.

But most of these mechanisms – sado-masochistic cravings, and submission to the external world, are in-authentic and temporary methods to cover up that fear. Modern man is starved for life. But since, being an automaton, he cannot experience life in the sense of spontaneous activity he takes a surrogate any kind of excitement and thrill: the thrill of drinking, of sports, of vicariously living the excitements of fictitious persons on the screen. Fromm goes ahead to investigate the real solution to overcome the fear.  He terms it as freedom and spontaneity.
Fromm says that man can be free and yet not alone, critical and yet not filled with doubts, independent and yet an integral part of mankind. This freedom, man can attain by the realization of his self, by being himself. He continues -

Idealistic philosophers of the guild of Plato and the neo-Platonists, have believed that self-realization can be achieved by intellectuality, so that man’s nature may be suppressed and guarded by his reason. The result of this split however has been that not only the emotional life of man but also his intellectual faculties have been crippled. Reason, by becoming a guard set to watch its prisoner, nature, has become a prisoner itself; and thus both sides of human potentiality, reason and emotion, were crippled. From says that he believes that the realization of the self is accomplished not only by an act of thinking but also by the realization of man’s total personality, by an active expression of his emotional and intellectual potentialities. These potentialities are present in everybody; they become real only to the extent to which they are expressed. In other words, positive freedom consists in spontaneous activity of the total, integrated personality.

While spontaneity is a relatively rare phenomenon in our culture, we are not entirely devoid of it. In the first place, we know of individuals who are or have been spontaneous, whose thinking, feeling, and acting were the expression of their selves and not of an automaton. These individuals are mostly known to us as artists. As a matter of fact, the artist can be defined as an individual who can express himself spontaneously.

Spontaneous activity is the one way in which man can overcome the terror of aloneness without sacrificing the integrity of his self; for in the spontaneous realization of the self man unites himself anew with the world – with man, nature and himself. Love is the foremost component of such spontaneity; not love as the dissolution of the self in another person (masochism), not love as the possession of another person (sadism), but love as spontaneous affirmation of others, as the union of the individual with others on the basis of preservation of the individual self. The dynamic quality of love lies in this very polarity: that it springs from the need to overcoming separateness, that it leads to oneness – and yet that individuality is not eliminated. Work is the other component; not work as a compulsive activity in order to escape aloneness, not work as a relationship to nature which is partly one of dominating her, partly one of worship of and enslavement by the very products of man’s hands, but work as creation in which man becomes one with nature in the act of creation. What holds true of love and work holds true of all spontaneous action, whether it be the realization of sensuous pleasure or participation in the political life of the community. It affirms the individuality of the self and at the same time it unites the self with man and nature. The basic dichotomy that is inherent in freedom – the birth of individuality and the pain of aloneness – is dissolved on higher plane of man’s spontaneous action.

In all spontaneous activity the individual embraces the world. Not only does his individual self remain intact; it becomes stronger and more solidified - for the self is as strong as it is active. There is no genuine strength in possessions as such, neither in material property nor in mental qualities like emotions or thoughts. There are also no strength in use and manipulation of objects; what we use is not ours simply because we use it. Ours is only that to which we are genuinely related by our creative activity, be it a person or an inanimate object. Only those qualities that result from our spontaneous activity give strength to the self and thereby from the basis of its integrity. The inability to act spontaneously, to express what one genuinely feels and thinks, and resulting necessity to present a pseudo self to others and oneself, are the root of the feeling of inferiority and weakness. Whether or not we are aware of it, there is nothing  of which we are more ashamed than of not being ourselves, and there is nothing that gives us grater pride and happiness than to think, to feel, and to say what is ours.
This implies that what matters is the activity as such, the process and not the result. In our culture the emphasis is just the reverse. We produce not for a concrete satisfaction but for the abstract purpose of selling our commodity; we feel that we can acquire everything material or immaterial by buying it, and thus things become ours independently of any creative effort of our own in relation to them. In the same way we regard our personal qualities and result of our efforts as commodities that can be sold for money, prestige and power. The emphasis thus shifts from the present satisfaction of creative activity to the value of the finished product. There by man misses the only satisfaction that can give him real happiness – the experience of the activity of the present moment – and chases after a phantom that leaves him disappointed as soon as he believes he has caught it – the illusory happiness called success.

If the individual realizes his self by spontaneous activity and thus relates himself to the world, he ceases to be an isolated atom; he and the world become part of one structuralized whole; he has his rightful place, and thereby his doubt concerning himself and the meaning of life disappears. This doubt sprang from his separateness and from the thwarting of life; when he can live, neither compulsively nor automatically but spontaneously, the doubt disappears. He is aware of himself as an active and creative individual and recognizes that there is only one meaning of life: the act of living itself. This way he gains strength as an individual and he gains security.

The idea of spontaneous activity needs more explanation. It is not the mindless act of giving up to one’s irrational whims and fancies. I feel Fromm should have qualified his spontaneous activity as Creative Spontaneous Activity. By adding the extra qualifier – creative, I would want to stress on Fromm’s idea of originality, constructive and positive aspect of one’s own action. Through his spontaneity man has to realize his real self, engaging into an activity which affirms goodness – both within and outside. It is not enough just being spontaneous in certain private and spiritual matters, but above all in the activity fundamental to every man’s existence, his work. It is about engaging in a creative enterprise, which not only helps the person to express his real self, but also that activity should uplift humanity per se.

The Creative Spontaneous Activity should come from the place of love, compassion, dignity, respect, beauty, positivity, growth, freedom, joy, courage, decency and kindness. It should be firmly grounded in the belief of human equality and individual uniqueness. At the same time, there has to be the perspective of general good – that insight of positively impacting people and institutions.  The only criterion for realization of freedom is whether or not the individual actively participates in determining his life and that of society, and this not only by the formal act of voting but in his daily activity, in his work, and in his relations to others. Modern political democracy, if it restricts itself to the purely political sphere, cannot sufficiently counteract the results of the economic insignificance of the average individual.

I have tried to express this philosophy using the following diagram -
http://criativ-mind.blogspot.com/2012/01/copy-right-all-rights-reserved-samrat.html

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On Truth and original thinking

I was reading the book - The fear of freedom, by Erich Fromm. The following excerpt on truth and its nature, and the way human relate to truth, was eye catching. As usual, Fromm forces the reader to contemplate into dimensions he has always ignored - 

"..Another closely related way of discouraging original thinking is to regard all truth as relative. Truth is made out to be a metaphysical concept, and if anyone speaks about wanting to discover the truth he is thought backward by the "progressive" thinkers of our age. Truth is declared to be an entirely subjective matter, almost a matter of taste.

Scientific endeavor must be detached from subject factors, and its aim is to look at world without passion and interest. The scientists has to approach facts with sterilized hands as a surgeon approaches his patient.

The result of this relativism, which often presents itself by the name of empiricism or positivism or which recommends itself by its concern for the correct usage of words, is that thinking loses its essential stimulus - the wishes and interests of the person who thins; instead it becomes a machine to register "facts". Actually, just as thinking in general has developed out of the need for mastery of material life, so the quest for truth is rooted in the interests and needs of individuals and social groups. Without such interest the stimulus of seeking the truth would be lacking.

There are always groups whose interest is furthered by truth, and their representatives have been the pioneers of human thought; there are other groups whose interests are furthered by concealing truth. Only in the latter case does interest prove harmful to the cause of truth. The problem, therefore, is not that there is an interest at stake, but what kind of interest is at stake. I might say that inasmuch as there is some longing for truth in every human being, it is because every human being has some need for it.

As a child, every human being passes through a state of powerlessness, and truth is one of the strongest weapons of those who have no power. But the truth is in the individual's interest not only with regard to his orientation to the outer world; his own strength depends to a great extent on his knowing the truth about himself. Illusions about oneself can  become crutches useful to those who are not able to walk alone; but they increase a person's weakness. The individual's greatest strength is based on the maximum of transparency to himself. "Know Thyself" is one of the fundamental commands that aim at human strength and happiness.

...with regard to all basic questions of individual and social life, with regard to psychological, economic, political, and moral problems, a great sector of our culture has just one function - to before the issues. One kind of smokescreen is the assertion that the problems are too complicated for the average individual to grasp. On the contrary, it would seem that many of the basic issues of individual and social life are very simple, so simple, in fact, that everyone should be expected to understand them. To let them appear to be so enormously complicated that only a "specialist" can understand them, and he only in hi sown limited field, actually - and often intentionally - tends to discourage people from trusting their own capacity to think about those problems that really matter. The individual feels helplessly caught in a chaotic mass of data and with pathetic patience waits until the specialists have found out what to do and where to go.
The result of this kind of influence is twofold: one is a skepticism and cynicism towards everything which is said or printed, while the other is a childish belief in anything that a person is told with authority. This combination of cynicism and naivete is very typical of the modern individual. Its essential result is to discourage him from doing his own thinking and deciding."

From the above passage this is what I synthesize -

1. Truth is absolute, and can be obtained not just be accumulation of facts, but rather synthesizing, analyzing, contemplating, and really "thinking". Having said that it does not go to under-estimate facts. Rather it emphasizes the need of complementing facts with original thinking of the student, the need of relating the facts with the experience, emotions and interests of the student. It is about simmering the thoughts and facts in the moments of deep contemplation.

2. Quest of truth is rooted in the interest of individuals and social groups. Without such interest the stimulus of seeking the truth would be lacking. One has to be aware of the nature of interest involved. Following are the nature of the interests involved -

i) There are always groups whose interest is furthered by truth, and their representative have been pioneers of human thought. For this group truth is the means, and the end to itself. It works like a exploration of an uncharted land. More a person explores, more he is filled with awe, and more he is motivated to explore. It is the truth which he finds, and that fuels his search for truth to the next level.

ii) There are other groups whose interests are furthered by concealing the truth, either in the name of faith, harmony, status-quo, solidarity, etc. This nature of interest forces a pseudo thinking and in-authentic act on the person involved.

3. Every human longs for truth. This gives him power. As a child, every human passes through a state of powerlessness, and truth is one of the strongest weapon of those who have no power. Truth is in the individual's interest not only with regard to his orientation in the outer world; his own strength depends to a great extent on his knowing the truth about himself. Illusions about oneself can become crutches useful to those who are not able to walk alone; but they increase person's weakness. For example an illusion on how a person relates his inner self with say God, or love or his inner model of reality, might give him comfort, but will make him weak, if he does not remove the illusions and bring out the light of truth. This action requires immense discipline, patience and courage. This act of lightening up of one's inner self, with truth, has been termed as varied as "self-realization", "enlightenment", "nirvana", etc. So aptly is the inscription at the entrance of the temple of Delphi of the ancient Greeks - "Know thyself".

4. There is a need to develop a critical thinking faculty. One has to go beyond naivete and skepticism. The root of this what Fromm says about smokescreening the otherwise easy truth in the name of over-specialization.

Creativity is a fallout of original thinking. At its core it is much more involved with the human nature, than is popularly even acknowledged by the masses.

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