The Futility

No matter how much you earn,
Futile it is to be proud of.
For soon comes the yearning for more,
When you see people even richer,
Having all those possessions, which you still don’t have!

No matter how high you climb,
Futile is the rest.
For always you are below someone.
Always there is a man you want to become,
There are powers you still don’t have,
Status you have still to earn!

No matter how creative you are,
Futile it is to be complacent.
For there is always that budding prodigy in coming,
To make your art look without sheen!

No matter how many hearts you have won,
Futile is to feel accepted and absolute.
For you will in a moment discover,
People who have just opposite takes,
Rejecting you forever, with smiles fake!

No matter how talented you are,
Futile it is to feel gifted.
For you will come upon soon,
People with many folds talents more than you!

In this ocean of futility,
Futile it is even,
To be hopeless!

It is about how better one can be.
It is about how much one can use oneself –
Ones time, energy, knowledge, and skills,
To create something that makes a difference!
It is about how genuinely and authentically,
One can leave the stamp of one’s own self,
In what one does,
Each time leaving a better version of the self – one after another!

It is not about reaching a destination,
Or to be like someone, someday!
Rather it is about what is done,
That expresses who one is at her core,
And what one stands for!

It is about achieving those incremental victories,
Each and every day – in one’s own ways,
No matter how small in scale!

It is about being consistent in the direction,
The direction of the full blossoming of one’s own unique self!

At the end of the day,
It is not about what you do.
But how meaningful was it what you have done!
It is about creating a difference,
No matter how insignificant.
But the point is about making a difference,
A positive difference!

It is not about what would have been,
It is neither about what went wrong.
It is even not about that you fell down.
Rather it is about the direction you looked at,
After the fall!
It is about the road you took,
After being defeated!
It is about the story you create,
At the face of the frustration!

It is not just about the journey.
Destination is important!
It is the grandeur of the destination,
What keeps the journey on!
It is the passion for the destination,
That creates the power to face perils,
And keep the journey continued!

If the destination chosen
Is in competition with someone else,
If it is a passion to out-do someone,
Or be “like” someone,
Or might be to prove something to someone,
The journey taken is futile –
A war already lost!

It is about being aware of oneself,
It is about leveraging one’s own unique circumstances,
It is about making best use of what life has to offer,
It is about being receptive about
One’s own uniqueness –
Uniqueness of one’s temperament,
Of one’s own interests and likes,
Of one’s strengths and weaknesses,
Of one’s own life circumstances!
And then, creating something unique, something novel,
Which has the imprint of all that is unique –
All that is special with one’s own existence –
Creating a never before painting,
Expressing one’s own true self –
Never in competition with someone else!

Time is to take a break from the rat race,
Detaching oneself from
The apathy in human soul:
The ever faster pace of our lives,
The lack of contact with nature,
The artificiality of our relationships and communications,
The ephemeral and utilitarian goals we set for ourselves!

The time is to be an authentic human being:
Who can distinguish between,
The essential Vs the non-essential,
And yet give both their proper values.
Who can be creative and free,
At the same time responsible and graceful.
Who keeps her journey on,
Inspite of obstacles many!
A journey towards her chosen destination,
Unique and very personal to who she is,
And what she stands for!

It is about keeping the glow of the destination alive,
With fuel of faith, love, hope and courage!
It is about defining one’s own worth,
With the scale, beauty, meaning and novelty of that destination!

It is about being busy walking the road less taken,
Persevering the peril of time,
Incrementally improving oneself,
Making one worthy of the beacon emitting destination!

It is about seeing the unseen,
In the darkness of reality,
Through the light created from within!

Futile it is to sing someone else’s song.
But rather breaking open that silent music,
Deep hidden in one’s own heart,
To resonate with the sky and the stars!


It is about waking up from the slumber of futility.
To the new dawn of
Meaning, Freedom, Creativity, Grace and Responsibility!

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Copy Right © All rights reserved - Samrat Kar

The Fakir and his Love

After a month long travel
And stay with yogis
In the caves, forests and falls
In the Himalayan ranges
Did the fakir return
To the bustle of Kolkata.
For his dearest love
Was waiting for him!

Yes, he was deeply in love!
Had he known no love
More profound, more seducing,
Ever Before!

The Fakir was back to his work
As the chief advisor of
Research in Biophysical Sciences,
At the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics!
His domain was his love,
His long found beloved!

It was a very long and toiling story of the Fakir!
From the hilly and harsh landscapes of Kabul,
To the serenity of the Hooghly!
From the hopeless nights of poverty,
To the bright halo of international recognitions!

The Fakir with his cyan turban and white robe,
With flowing long silver beard
Walked to his chamber ardently.
In no time was he deeply immersed
In the world of his beloved
In the wonderlands of his only Love –
The Biophysics!

He was in love!
He had chosen his beloved for all his births!
All was from an insight
During one of those deep
Satori on one of those special days,
In the long hours at the laboratory,
At the Presidency College,
Watching a whole new world,
Under the electron microscope!

It was a revealing insight!
A conscious decision had risen,
To dedicate ones whole life
To the domain of BioPhysics!

It was during those days
When he had lost all he loved!
In search of love and strength
The Fakir had then kept wandering!

At times he was conned
By the illusory passions.
There was once an apparition
Of the angel with the Most Beautiful Eyes
And then was the seduction of the
Gold and riches
And There was once the eerie
Pull towards power and status!

All his loves were ephemeral,
All abandoned him in due course,
Just to make him craving for more,
Left alone in heartbreaking solitude!
What a mirage was that!
Fooling one with elegance and style!

And then in an existential vacuum
He was all alone in the journey of his life.
The Fakir was in search of
His true love. His true beloved!
An accompaniment of meaning and joy!

Decided he to transcend beyond
The debilities of humans,
Their just self preserving nature and their ego,
And natural selection’s hidden agenda at play!
Going beyond one’s push and pulls of genes!

The Fakir chose to dedicate the remaining days of his life,
To the unfaltering love for his domain of Biophysics!
Now his life was only about
Exploration the unknown horizons of Biophysics!

His domain became his medium
Of expression of his love – his creativity!
20 years have passed!
He is a veteran in his field today!
He has his own contextual world woven around him,
Shielded away from the objective world of forms!
It is his own world, His own creation!
He and his Biophysics and numerous research work!
Today he has contributed new theories,
New findings and new insights in the domain!
He has enabled humanity to be empowered with new knowledge!
New avenues of thoughts and expressions!

With his love today he was able to
Create a legacy for the posterity –
An indelible footprint of his
Left behind in the sands of passing times,
Towards eternity!

He knows his love is divine,
The lesser mortals and their ways,
Were not just the avenues right,
To waste his time, his energy and passion!

Today he is just a Fakir,
All alone lost in his own world!
He feels redeemed.
For he was able to express his love to the fullest!
He was able to advance Biophysics to the realms unchartered!

Life was simple,
An opportunity to be in FLOW,
Every moment,
Each time with a new challenge –
A scientific puzzle to un-ravel!
It was straight. It was predictable.
It was about fixing the missing jig-saws,
Completing his life to a masterpiece!

Now there was no complexity of human emotions to tackle,
None were the cravings of the ego,
Cravings, lust, desires – all were done away with!
Certainly a clean canvas to carve out the painting of life!

He needed no material possession to boost his ego,
Neither was a need of any guarantee of his security and safety!
He was just a Fakir!
Nothing to lose, nothing to hoard!
He was just lost every moment,
In his world of Biophysics,
In a meaningful and creative trance!

Often he used to walk down the streets of Kolkata!
For he found an age-old spirit there –
The spirit of creativity,
The spirit of invincibility,
The spirit of achieving victory for humanity!
Some people called him
The merchant of dreams,
Some called him the Sage Scientist!
Some just addressed him – The Fakir!

He was dynamic!
He was ever evolving!
Un-attached to the baggage of human existence.
He was like a river –
Adapting himself to whatever route possible,
Never forgetting its objective : sea!
So fragile at its source,
Gradually gathering strength!
After a point, its power is Absolute!
In its journey,
It was not touched by a hammer,
Or ripped to shreds by a knife!
The strongest sword in the world
Couldn’t scar its surface!

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Copy Right © All rights reserved - Samrat Kar

Darwin - His life and his teachings

It is certainly true that Darwinism can help make a person saintly. No doctrine heightens one’s consciousness of hidden selfishness more acutely than the new Darwinian paradigm. If you understand the doctrine, buy the doctrine, and apply the doctrine, you will spend your life in deep suspicion of your motives.
That is the first step toward correcting the moral biases built into us by natural selection. The second step is to keep this newly learned cynicism from poisoning your view of everyone else: to pair harshness with leniency towards others; to somewhat relax the ruthless judgment that often renders us conveniently indifferent to, if not hostile to, their welfare; to apply liberally the sympathy that evolution has meted out so stingily. If this operation is inordinately successful, it might result in a person who takes the welfare of others markedly, but at least not massively, less seriously than his own.
Some people worry that the new Darwinian paradigm will strip their lives of all nobility. If love for children is just defense of our DNA, if helping a friend is just payment for services rendered, if compassion for the downtrodden is just bargain-hunting – then what is there to be proud of? One answer is- Darwin – like behavior. Go above and beyond the call of a smoothly functioning conscience; help those who aren’t likely to help you in return, and do so when nobody’s watching. This is one way to be truly moral animal. Now, in the light of the new paradigm, we can see how hard this is, how right Samuel Smiles was to say that the good life is a battle against “moral ignorance, selfishness, and vice”; these are indeed the enemies, and they are tenacious by design.
Another antidote to despair over the ultimate baseness of human motivation is, oddly enough, gratitude. If you don’t feel thankful for somewhat twisted moral infrastructure of our species, then consider the alternative. Given the way natural selection works, there were only two possibilities at the dawn of evolution:
a) That eventually there would be a species with conscience and sympathy and even love, all grounded ultimately in genetic self-interest,
b) That no species possessing these things would ever exist.
Well, a happened. We do have a foundation of decency to build on. An animal like Darwin can spend lots of time worrying about other animals – not just his wife, children, and high status friends, but distant slaves, unknown fans, even horses and sheep. Given that that self-interest was the overriding criterion of our design, we are reasonably considerate group of organisms. Indeed, if you ponder the utter ruthlessness of evolutionary logiv long enough, you may start to find our morality, such as it is, nearly miraculous.
Having crafted a moral measuring stick, Darwin gave his life a passing grade. “I believe that I have acted rightly in steadily following and devoting my life to science.” Still, while feeling “no remorse from having committed any great sin,” he had “often regretted that I have not done more direct good to my fellow creatures. My sole and poor excuse is much ill-health and my mental constitution, which makes it extremely difficult for me to turn from one subject or occupation to another. I can imagine with high satisfaction giving up my whole time to philanthropy, but not a portion of it; though this would have been a far better line of conduct.”
It’s true that Darwin didn’t live the optimally utilitarian life. No one ever has. Still, as he prepared to die, he could rightly have reflected on a life decently and compassionately lived, a string of duties faithfully discharged, a painful, if only partial, struggle against the currents of selfishness whose source he was the first man to see. It wasn’t a perfect life; but human beings are capable of worse.

PS - The above is an excerpt from the last part of the book - The Moral Animal from Robert Wright.

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On Religion and Evolution

The theme of strict self-governance, the control of animal appetites, appears again and again in the world’s great religions. Also widespread, is the doctrine of brotherly love that Darwin found so beautiful. Six centuries before Jesus, Lao-tzu had said, “it is the way of the Tao..to recompense injury with kindness.” Buddhist scriptures call for “an all embracing love for all the universe..unmarred by hate within, not rousing enmity.” Hinduism has the doctrine of “ahimsa,” the absence of all harmful intent.
People tend to say and believe things that are in their evolutionarily ingrained interests. This does not mean that harboring these ideas always gets their gene spread. Some religious doctrines – celibacy, for example – may dramatically fail to do that. The expectation, rather is simply that the doctrines people latch on to will have a kind of harmony with the mental organs natural selection has designed. “Harmony”, admittedly, is pretty broad term. These doctrines may, on the one hand, slake some deep psychological thirst (belief in an afterlife gratifies the will to survive); or they may, on the other hand, suppress some thirst so unslakable as to be a burden (lust for example). But in one sense or another, the beliefs people subscribe to should be explicable in terms of evolved human mind. Thus when diverse sages manage to sell the same themes, the themes may say something about the contours of that mind, about human nature.
Donald T. Campbell, one of the first psychologists to get enthusiastic about modern Darwinism, has suggested as much. In an address to the American Psychological Association, he spoke of “the possible sources of validity in recipes for living that have been evolved, tested, and winnowed through hundreds of generations of human social history. On purely scientific grounds, these recipes of living might be regarded as better tested than best of psychology’s and psychiatry’s speculations on how lives should be lived”.
Some have noted that, while these religious ideas must by definition have a kind of harmony with the brains they settle into, that does not mean they are good for those brains in the long run. Some ideas, indeed, seem to parasitize brains – they are “viruses”, as Richard Dawkins puts it. The idea that injecting heroin is fun keeps infecting people by appealing to myopic cravings, rarely to the ultimate advantage of those people.
Besides, even if an idea does spread by serving people’s long term interests, the interests may be those of its sellers, not its buyers. Religious leaders tend to have high status, and it is not beyond the pale to see their preachings as a form of exploitation, a subtle bending of the listener’s will to the speaker’s goals. Certainly Jesus’ teachings, and Buddha’s teachings, and Lao-tzu’s teachings had the effect of amplifying the power of Jesus and Buddha and Lao-tzu, raising their stature within a growing group of people.
The great religions are at some level ideologies of self-help. It would indeed be wasteful, as Campbell suggests, to throw out eons of religious traditions without inspecting it first. The sages may have been self-serving, like rest of us, but that does mean they weren’t sages.

The concept of evil – still people seem to find it useful, and the reason is that it is metaphorically apt. There is indeed a force devoted to enticing us into various pleasures that are (or once were) in our genetic interests but do not bring long term happiness to us and may bring greater suffering to theirs. You could call that force the ghost of natural selection. More concretely, you could call it out genes. If it will help to actually use the word evil, there is no reason not to.

When the Buddha urges digging up the “root of thirst”. He isn’t necessarily counseling abstinence. Certainly there is talk in many religions of abstinence from various things, and certainly abstinence is one way to short-circuit the addictiveness of vice. But the Buddha put his emphasis not so much on a laundry list of proscriptions as on a generally austere attitude, a cultivated indifference to material rewards and sensory pleasure.

This fundamental defiance of human nature is encouraged in some measure by other religions. The Hindu scriptures, like Buddhists and Christians, dwell at more length, and more explicitly , on withdrawal from the realm of pleasure. The spiritually mature man is one who “abandons desires,” who “has lost desire of joys”, who “withdraws, as tortoise his limbs from all sides, his sense from the objects of sense.” Hence the idea man as depicted in the Bhagvad Gita: a man of discipline, who acts without worrying about the fruits of his action, a man who is unmoved by acclaim and by criticism. This way the image that inspired Gandhi to persevere without “hope of success of fear of failure.”

That Hinduism and Buddhism sound so much alike is not shocking. The Buddha was born a Hindu. But he carried the theme of sensory indifference further, boiling it down to a sever maxim – life is a suffering – and placing it at the very center of his philosophy. If you accept inherent misery of life, and follow the teachings of Buddha, then you can, oddly enough, find happiness.

In all these assaults of the senses there is a great wisdom – not only about the addictiveness of pleasures but about their ephemerality. The essence of addiction, after all, is that pleasure tends to dissipate and leave the mind agitated, hungry for more. The idea that just one more dollar, one more dalliance, one more rung on the ladder will leave us feeling sated reflects a misunderstanding about human nature – a misunderstanding, moreover, that is built into human nature; we are designed to feel that the next great goal will bring bliss, and the bliss is designed to evaporate shortly after we get there. Natural selection has malicious sense of humor; it leads us along with a series of promises and then keeps saying “Just Kidding.” As the Bible puts it, “All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled.” Remarkably, we go our whole lives without ever really catching on.

The advice of the sages – that we refuse to lay this game -  is nothing less than an incitement to mutiny, to rebel against out creator. Sensual pleasures are the whip natural selection uses to control us, to keep us in the thrall of its warped values system. To cultivate some indifference to them is one plausible route to liberation. While few of us can claim to have traveled far on this route, the proliferation of this scriptural advice suggests it has been followed some distance with some success.

It remains true that pleasure is ephemeral; that its constant pursuit is not a reliable source of happiness; that we built not to easily grasp this fact; and that the reasons for all this are cleared in the light of new Darwinian paradigm.

There are scattered hings in the ancient scriptures of an understanding that human striving – after pleasure, after ewalth, after status – is yoked to self-deception. The Bhagvad Gita teaches that men “devoted to enjoyment and power” are “robbed of insight.” To pursue the fruits of action is to live in a “jungle of delusion”. The Buddha said that “the best of virtues is passionlessness; the best of men he who has eyes to see”

This grasp of our naturally skewed perspective is bound up with exhortations towards brotherly love. For a premise of those exhortations is that we are deeply inclined not to view everyone with the charity we extend to our kin and ourselves. Indeed, if we weren’t so deeply inclined, if we didn’t buttress this inclination with all the moral and intellectual conviction at our disposal, you wouldn’t have to start a whole religion to correct the imbalance.

PS - The above is an excerpt from the book - The Moral Animal by Robert Wright.

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The Solitary Traveler

The solitary traveler,
In robe blue,
White beard flowing down
As a fall of wisdom,
Winnowing on the passing breeze!

In the full moon night,
The path lit by the eternal fire,
Showing the way ahead,
Tread the man – the institution – the grace!
All alone he was,
With a song in his lips,
And Memories in his heart!
Fond and old..
Memories from distant lands,
Distant dreams and distant desires!

He was old,
Fragile and wrinkled.
But had he nurtured inside…
Deep inside in his self,
A young heart over-brimming with love,
Overflowing through eternity,
Ardent and passionate,
Love of his,
From the distant lands, the distant dreams,
That sparkling smile -
That avalanche of happiness!
Those Most Beautiful Eyes -
The life giving radiance of Morning Sun!
Those affectionate glance –
Like the drops of the first monsoon,
On the parching land!

He was on his solitary journey,
Along him was none,
All left behind,
Far away from him..
Beyond his mortal reach
In the realm of form….

Universe wanted it that way.
For he had to part,
Part from what he loved the most!

But, little did the stars know,
His love was beyond
The Constrained and constricted,
 Realms of reality!
What appeared to be parted
Eons apart,
Was deep inside his heart,
Deep inside his thought,
Very much with him,
With every breath of his,
Swinging on the flowery hammock,
Caressing his being alive!

With him lived ever after,
As his own self,
Being part of his heart and Body,
Mind and Soul!
His love, his passion, his ardor, his reason to be alive –
Those Most Beautiful Eyes!
Imparting spark of life to his existence!

And Bravo!
His love, his passion, his longing,
Transcended the cage of his heart!
Broke the captivity of his mind,
The clutches of his soul, mind and body!
Got expressed that profound love,
In the form of his creations –
His poems, his sculptures, his songs!

World thought it was
Michel Simoni and his genius mind!
But the truth knew only him,
Not even the Gods!
It was only that long gone by memories,
Of The Most Beautiful Eyes,
That profound attraction,
The sacred love,
The pristine longing,
Purest in its form,
Un-touched and un-seen!

That divine force,
Just flowed through Michel Simoni!
He was just a medium,
Silent and surrendered –
As usual – To his most sacred love!
He was just channel!
The art was not his –
But that of the Angel,
With The Most Beautiful Eyes!

PS - This is my 3rd composition in the Simoni Series.
For the other poems of the same series, you may refer -
http://criativ-mind.blogspot.com/search/label/SIMONI%20SERIES

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Copy Right © All rights reserved - Samrat Kar

My Mind to me a kingdom is...

My Mind to me a kingdome is,
Such present joy therein I find,
That it excels all other bliss
That earth affords or grows by kind;
Though much I want which most would have,
Yet still my mind forbids to creave.

No princely pop, no wealthy store,
No force to win the victory,
No wily wit to salve a sore,
No shape to feed a loving eye;
To none of these I yield as thrall:
For why? My mind both serve all.

I see how plenty sufriets oft,
And hasty climbers soon do fall;
I see that those which are aloft,
Mishap doth threaten most of all,
They get with toil, They keep with fear;
Such cares my mind could never bear.

Content to live, this is my star;
I seek no more than may suffice;
I press to bear no haughty sway;
Look, what I lack, my mind supplies:
Lo, thus I triumph like a king
Content with what my mind doth bring!

Some have too much, yet still do crave;
I little have, and seek no more
They are but poor, though much they have,
And I am rich with little store;
They poor, I rich; They beg; I give;
They lack, I leave; they pine, I live.
- Sir Edward Dyer.
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PERSISTENCE - The life of Abraham Lincoln

Failed in business - 22 years of age
Ran for legislature. Defeated - 23 years of age
Again failed in business - 24 years of age
Elected to legislature - 25 years of age
Sweetheart died - 26 years of age
Had a nervous breakdown - 27 years of age
Defeated for speaker - 29 years of age
Defeated for elector - 31 years of age
Defeated for Congress - 34 years of age
Elected to Congress - 37 years of age
Defeated for Congress - 39 years of age
Defeated for Senate - 46 years of age
Defeated for Vice President - 47 years of age
Defeated for Senate - 49 years of age
Elected the President of the United States - 51 years of age.
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Likes & Dislikes

Born and brought up in a social context, most of us have immense opportunity to interact, collaborate, and transact with multiple other people, in the course of our life time. Most of these interpersonal transactions are based on what evolutionary psychologists term – “Reciprocal Altruism”. It is being good to others, with the un-conscious understanding that the goodness will be reciprocated when needed. Sometimes such payoffs are engrained into the fabric of an institution. For example, colleagues in a corporate environment generally are good to each other. These being good to others is something which is evolutionary hard wired in humans – as this appears most optimal in the perspective of natural selection.

Reciprocal Altruism is visible in human societies since thousands of years, from when humans started living in big groups – who are not related to each other through family ties. Most of these “likings” were un-consciously guided for the long term wellbeing of the self and her immediate kin. This included helping each other in the times of draught, natural calamity, wars, disease outbreak etc. Similar reciprocal altruism is prevalent even today, in our daily affairs.

There are instances of other form of likings that are also prevalent in human society. I term that say, “ardent affection”. Such bonds are manifested in familial bonds, bonds between very close friends, etc. The uniqueness of this form of interpersonal attraction is its sheer depth. These bonds are not only guided by mutual economic and other benefits, but also it is nourished and strengthened by deeper physiological, genetic and psychological factors.

Most of our arduous likings are guided by our psyche much deeper than our conscious self. These are more guided by our genetic makeup, up-bringing and social conditioning. These un-consciously control our behavior towards others. We do not logically “think” and decide on these likings and attractions. For explain our likings for a particular cuisine is NOT calculated by our conscious minds. But it is by our genetic pre-disposition and social conditioning, we are inclined towards a particular cuisine – by design. Same is the case with our appreciation for general design and aesthetics. For example I have observed, I like a specific type of formal shoes. Since childhood, I have observed that leather shoes with conspicuous soles were always my liking. Such a pre-disposition for a specific style might be an outcome of various cognitive, social factors and other personal value system. Same pattern is observed not only in our likes and dislikes of in-animate objects, but also other human beings. In my life experience, I have observed, I have always been attracted to particular type of personality. Such personalities keep coming again and again in the close ring of people I ardently love. I get amazed by the similarity in their likings, attitude, the nature of the familial bonds they share with their respective families, sometimes geographies they belong to, their preferences of food, their personal value systems, etc. The most interesting point is that it is not true that these personalities have always been compatible to me, on cognitive levels. Most of the times these personalities have caused more psychological disturbances in my internal psyche, than others! But still I have always considered them as those few special people I love and care the most! It looks totally illogical, and irrational – on surface.

Sometimes there is an interesting twist to the tail. Interpersonal interactions often crop up between individuals, where one party exercises “reciprocal altruism”, but the other party exercises “ardent affection”. Such an interpersonal interaction breaks down. The party A has an un-easy stand on the extra, un-wanted care demonstrated by the party B, and the party B always keeps expecting one glance of that pure authentic affection from the other. This situation has a potential failure mode in the transactions carried between the parties.

The issue gets intensified when the party B keeps going out of her way, trying to be “nice” to the party A, to win over her affection. There is an in-grained superstition involved in such a move. The superstition is that likes and dislikes are rational and logical – love and care will be returned by same authentic love and care. One has to be aware that the knobs to likes & dislikes are much deeper and are affected by many aspects of human psyche much deeper than conscious brain. No matter how good the person tries to become, she will never be able to convert the superficial “Reciprocal Altruism” to “ardent affection”. Such an understanding helps to better deal the situation.

With this state of affairs, evolutionarily humans have adapted to this predicament pretty ingenuously. Most of the relationships which are based on “ardent affection” are thus formed only with members belonging to the same family. And if such a new relationship is sought out of the family tree, the parties get into an social treaty (like marriage) to extend the familial ties. Such institutions have multiple significances. One major is the economic and utilitarian interdependence. Complemented with such worldly accountabilities, the relationship becomes stronger, by increasing the incentives involved.

Humans very tactfully maintain the “reciprocal altruism” in place, and do not mistake it with “ardent affection”. The latter is reserved for people within the family and those few very close friends. Humans intrinsically become aware of the nature of a transaction and immediately drift apart when there is a discrepancy in the stream of affection.

Strangely most of the major religions have preached that one should unconditionally shower selfless affection and love to her fellow humans. This sounds phony – at least on surface. It is like someone forcing me to say I like every cuisine in the world. Or say, I love all the models of the cars. To say that, would be a big lie.

But when dealing with humans, it certainly has atleast some grounding. One major reason is humans are not inanimate objects. They are rather a bundle of dynamic psychological propensities. It certainly makes sense to relate all fellow humans with unconditional love and care – without any expectation of a direct or indirect pay off. Following are four dimensions that I describe in details, which try to support this point of view.

The first aspect is, at any point of time in life, it is very difficult to judge whether there is an inherent payoff in a given transaction or not. Humans by evolution are short sighted, and unidirectional. We never have a big perspective of the entire life taking into consideration myriad of possibilities and factors affecting those possibilities. Hence, it would be utter naiveté to not love and care someone for no apparent vested interest. It certainly builds of psychological capital to unconditionally love others.

The second aspect is that most of the times perception of a person is nothing but the projection of her internal self. If a person is in the state of compassion, love, and care, she would end up seeing nice and lovable people around. On the other hand if the person is herself deep drowned in the poison of suspicion, hatred, and selfishness, she will end up seeing only such people around. Hence for one’s personal wellbeing, it makes a sound psychological case of well being, to be in the state of un-conditional love towards one and all.

The third aspect is that humans have an extremely malleable consciousness. Based on the feedback one receives from her surrounding, one keeps re-assessing her internal psychological framework. A consistent way of relating to someone with love and care, might in long run, transform a “Reciprocal Altruism” to “Arduous affection”. But yes, this transformation will occur only when there it goes well with the genetic compatibility and other various factors taken together.

 The fourth aspect is that it certainly increases the depth and wellbeing of a person, when she has more “arduous affection” manifested in most of her relationships. The level of Serotonin and other hormones related to wellbeing increases in her physiology. Her immune system enhances. The general happiness index is certainly enhanced.

The aspect of un-conditionality is wise to have. This is because it helps the person to prepare for a possible failure mode. It is a matter of fact that after being all good, the mutation from the “reciprocal altruism” to “ardent affection” might not happen. This happens not due to a deficiency in any of the party involved. But rather deeper aspects of the wring of brain cells, social conditioning, genetics, etc. It is more physiologically centered. The aspect of un-conditionality keeps the person having a responsible and pragmatic perspective.

Hence going deep into the religious prescription of practicing unconditional love for all, one might come to terms with the sound psychological case supporting the stance.

It is very interesting how the likes and dislikes are governed in the psyche of humans, and a society.

[To refer to the  first part of this article please refer to - http://criativ-mind.blogspot.com/2011/02/illusion-of-understanding.html although I have tried my best to keep this article not dependent on any information presented in the first part.]
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The Enchantment

Michel Simoni – (May his tribe increase)
Walked down the highway
In the city of Florence,
Past midnight.

The night was dark,
Cold and Foggy.
Alone waked the sage sculptor!
 With silver beard,
And gold heart!

Sky was back,
Dull and dark.
With no moon no star.

Michel was alone,
Trod he the dark ways,
Enchanted to his core!

Enchanted was he with the Fire!
The standing torches – The glaring Fire!
Stood they burning with all ardor,
On both sides of the highway,
Determined to show the way ahead,
To Michel Simoni!

The standing torches – The glaring Fire!
They knew not Michel Simoni.
Knew not they other thousands of travelers,
On the way every night through ages!

Nothing they expected,
Nothing they wanted.
Only they knew  -
To fight darkness away,
To bring into sight -
The destination for others.

Kept they burning,
All through the night,
Without a moan, or a cry!
They knew there was a thing
More Important than their pleasure,
It was the wellbeing of others!

The standing torches – The glaring Fire!
The essence of their existence,
The reason of their life,
Was to give –
Warmth, Light and Direction!

Fighting the darkness, ignorance,
And pain of the world,
With the enlightening
And guiding radiance!
The sole purpose was to
Burning till the last breath,
Reducing the self to ashes,
Just with one purpose,
One meaning, and one ambition –
To light the path of the weary travelers!

Enchanted was Michel!
Awestruck at the grace and pride!
Of the torch burning high!
Kissing the heavens as a knight!

Stopped he by the post,
Looked up askance towards the torch,
Asked Michel –
“What you get? Why you burn? Are you not tired?”

All the torches laughed at one go!
Sarcastic laughter thundered the sky and the earth!
Groaned the torch to Michel –
“If I don’t burn, I cease to be who I am.
  If I don’t burn, I cease to be relevant.
  I am not a form,
  I am not a dead sculptor of yours!
  I am a process, a happening, a celebration!
  I am a continuous urge, an un-tiring hope,
  I am a cosmic dance,
  Busy in creation – Creating Beauty of Light and Awareness!
  I might be in pain, burning agelessly,
  But I am proud! I am in grace!
  For I am RELEVANT!
  I don’t need the traveler’s gratitude!
  Nor I need a sight of understanding and care!
  What does a process need?
  How can a dance ask?”

 The standing torches – The glaring Fire!
 All pronounced in unison -  
“Go ahead Michel Simoni!
 What will you know what is being a FLAME!
 You are just a mortal – caged in your earthly cravings!”

[This is my second composition of the Simoni series. The first one is "The Sculptor's Sin"
http://criativ-mind.blogspot.com/2011/04/sculptors-sin.html]
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Juliet and her Romeo

So said the bard -

"For never was a story of more woe

Than this of Juliet and her Romeo”

There lay on the cold stony floor,

Stabbed, blood oozing body - dead and cold

Of Juliet and her diseased Romeo!

Romeo Montague – lovelorn for Juliet Capulet!

Mistaking her to be dead,

Lost the reason to be alive!

Drank he the poison,

At the bottom of his despair!

Awaken from her sleep the Capulet princess,

The queen from the heavens,

With the most beautiful eyes,

And golden heart,

Shocked seeing his lover dead!

Leaves the world of life,

For the hope to catch him

To the world of the Gods!

Dead was Romeo,

Dead was Juliet!

But what did not die,

Was the magic of true love!

The divine love,

Bound the Montagues and the Capulets,

In the embrace of friendship!

Love prevailed forever!

Ages to come!

Love – That pure and selfless Love,

That pristine feeling of being part of someone else,

That warmth of liking someone,

The strength of that awareness of being Loved!

That enlightenment to the profundity of Love,

When denied forever!

Lives forever, eons and eons!

Through the songs of poets,

Writings of bards,

Art works of Sculptors,

Paintings of painters,

Love always had been immortal!

Manifesting again and again,

Either through a Romeo and his Juliet,

Or through the Sonnets,

And Songs!

An extension of the worlds of the Gods,

Lightens the dark ages of the mortals,

The glow of love,

Keeps the hope alive

To eternity of being a human!

Countless civilizations were born,

Countless perished!

What never died,

Was the fervor of Romeo’s throbbing heart,

Enchanted with those Most Beautiful Eyes!

Juliet did die,

Romeo did pass away.

What never died

Was that love,

Which keeps the creation alive!

Till date that love keeps wandering,

Searching for those most beautiful eyes,

In an eternal quest,

Of celebrating,

The Bliss of being Human!

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Buddhism and the Essence of Being a Professional

Buddhism is based on the precinct that by design life blossoms on the context of the schema of suffering - "Dukkha". Ostensively it might appear to be pessimistic outlook. But going deeper into understanding  this model, one starts appreciating the pragmatic dimension of the philosophy. Left to itself life or any of its manifestations cannot escape the possibility of a failure mode. Accepting that aspect ingrained in the fabric of reality, establishes a person in the stance of taking as-is what life has to offer, and then working towards making things better. Having given one's whole self in making things better (or achieving ones goal), the person is fully aware that everything might go haywire, and she might have to start all over again. A person is not vexed at suffering, as she realizes that by design life occurs out of the womb of "Dukkha", and the foundation is of suffering. Any point of time, the real nature can show up. Having such awareness makes it possible for the person never to ask a question like, "Why me?". At the same time, it prepares the person to better equip herself to face any possible failure mode that might inevitably appear. This attitude is at the source of impeccability of human creation.

In the context of society, by definition, a professional is a person who has a special training and know-how to solve a specific problem, which ordinary members of the society do not have. A doctor, an engineer, a management professional, an architect, etc - all are trained to solve specific problems, or create something which common man is not able to. 

Bringing the concept of Dukkha of Buddhism into the anthropological context, a professional is a person who is paid by the society to alleviate a particular form of Dukkha from the society. The doctor is paid to cure the disease, and engineer is paid to solve engineering challenges, a management professional is paid to manage an organization, its mission and vision.

The important thing to be aware is that professionals are relevant till there are Dukkha's to be solved. If there are no diseased, a doctor loses her relevance in the society. Similarly if an engineering project does not have an apparent in-solvable problem, engineers are irrelevant to the society. If an initiative of a business organization is not faced with a complex problem, the existence of a management professional ceases to exist.

It is dis-heartening to see professionals vexed with problems at hand. It is something like a doctor saying, "What the heck! So many diseases exist. Those nut-headed people! They do not know how to take care of themselves!". It is not only about being aware that purpose of being alive for a professional is solving issues (Dukkha), but there is another grander essence of being a professional.

It is the responsibility of the professional to keep the society insulated with the reality of Dukkha. It might be either building a robust, safe and error-free Flight Management System, or doing a research in life science inventing a new drug. That is pretty interesting, honorable and significant task at hand, for which every professional should be grateful, and proud at the same time.

Another interesting aspect of being a professional is aspect of compassion. When a client at the psychoanalyst's office shouts at her and rebukes her, she does not retaliate immediately being defensive. She does not judge the client as grouchy. Rather she starts thinking of the root cause of such a behavior, having a problem solving stance. When a true engineer faces a problem in a system, the immediate thing that starts running in her head is what are the possible issues the system might be facing, and how to solve them. She does not think of the meanness of the user or the in-competency of the other developer who might have introduced the problem in the system.

Same thing applies to other professionals at their work. Most of the time stresses are caused when a person gets vexed with a problem, expecting that the problem should not have surfaced in the first place. There is an un-conscious belief that someone else is the cause of the problem. Utilizing the concept of Buddhism, accepting Dukkha as inevitable, and the ultimate truth, it relieves the person from anxiety and stress. The person is able to take a problem solving stance, making the world a better place to live in.

This applies to all the aspects of life. Both personal and professional. There is an urgent need for humanity to understand that the phrase - "They live happily every after" is the biggest hoax ever created by humanity. There is nothing like this in life in its most basic and real form. Then, is it not possible to create a life of celebration, meaning, fulfillment, elegance and wellbeing? Yes it is possible. Only through continuous action, vision, knowledge and working to alleviate the inevitable Dukkha, with a problem solving stance - Living life to the fullest.  

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A New Model of Reality

Most of humanity lives a life in an effort to reduce pain, increase ones well being, satisfying cravings and needs. This is something which is important and it has enabled the continuous evolution of mankind since thousands of years, towards higher complexity. 

But living intoxicated in this model, one develops an automatic attachment to pleasure and wellbeing. This takes a form of a pathological addiction. Problem is that these romantic destinations of pleasures are mostly transient. These sensual gratifications either weather away with time, or have a potential suffering inherent ingrained in them by design.

If one observes closely the way life unfolds, one comes to terms that it is suffering which is constant and real. And most of the greatest creation of mankind have happened in an effort to alleviate suffering. Nothing great has ever occurred from the passive cradle pleasure. There always have been pain which has straightened and carved out beauty out of human existence.

Having said that I do not mean to paint a pessimistic outlook of ones existence. It might be true that a person at the moment is experiencing absolute bliss. But then my point is two folds - one is that it is transient, and the other is that a passive pursuit of pleasure is useless by itself. It is a spending. Not an earning.

Having said pleasure is transient, it is also true that pain is transient too. But there is a unique attribute in pain. It presents an opportunity to human to create something beautiful, to be able to alleviate the pain. It is totally up to the personal choice of a person. Whether she wants to be drowned by the pain, or she wants to carve out something new to transmute the pain into a work of art. Pain gives a kick to the person - a push to the protagonist, to go for something new, something creative. That personal choice not to get perturbed by pain, and not surrendering to the biology, social conditioning or ignorance ingrained in human awareness, and standing with strong defiance against these lesser dimensions of existence, immersing oneself into creating something inspiring, makes life relevant.

Probably life might be considered as a canvas made of suffering and pain in the background. Along with this, human beings are provided with a brush and paints which they use to transmute the background of pain with strokes of human ingenuity and creativity. There is an ingrained urge to avoid/remove/transmute all these pains in the background, hardwired in humans by the natural selection.

Point here is about bringing to oneself the acceptance that the life indeed is born out of the darkness of suffering. This acceptance gives immense freedom, and an awareness that transmutes all fear, apprehensions, worries, hatred, stresses, and innumerable other negative states of mind. When a person knows that suffering is by design a universal truth, she does not get perturbed when disturbed by the same out of a blue moon. She accepts it as an opportunity to use her brain to do something about it. Typically manifest problem solving stance.

Another important outcome of using such a model of reality is that happiness and states of well being are taken up with more gratitude. No moment of bliss is taken for granted, and it is experienced with full veneration. At the same time there is an awareness that - "this shall also pass away". There is an added grace of gratitude, non-attachment and freedom complemented to ones existence.

As far as interpersonal relationships are concerned, such a stance brings about an increased level of compassion. It tends to remove the focus on the other person's in-adequacies, towards the actual problem, and what the mind of the self is going through. Similarly this added wisdom better equips a person to handle catastrophes that might land up out of a blue moon, in any form - natural, sociological or medical disaster. 

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Problem Solving Stance

Most of the life is spent dealing with emotional upheavals. These take form of heartburns, anger, hatred, jealousy, fear, worries, stresses, etc. Most of these are emotional eruptions triggered by one or more social situations. Paradoxically such eruptions are more severe when the situation involves people whom we are more attached.

In response to this psychologists proposed a mode of acting without fear on the one hand and without anger on the other. This brand of counseling goes under two headings –
1.    Problem Solving Therapy, and
2.    Emphatic Assertiveness Training.

The fundamental recommendation is : Treat any difficult social or interpersonal situation as a problem to be solved, by engaging the mind. The individual is trained to take a “problem solving stance”.
Most of the times we do not do this. We react only emotionally. Someone frustrates us and we lash out. With the problem solving stance the client is taught to consider strategies for resolving the situation. Using role playing the client is shown how to operate without emotional interference.

There is a very interesting direct consequence of having a problem solving stance. It presents before oneself a range of possible actions (solutions) that can be considered to get out of the situation. Allowing oneself to be winnowed by the emotions, leads one to a single narrow way of being. That way one typically focuses on just one type of the solution. For example, anger makes us think of punishing the other person (verbally if not physically), of threatening of seeking vengeance. In both cases a range of other possibilities are overlooked. When one takes a problem solving stance, the first step is to ask : What alternatives are available to me.

The easiest way to get away from the clutches of emotions (negative emotions to be specific) I find, is considering myself NOT as a noun – rather as verb. It helps when I think myself as a means, a medium, a link – trying to create something. In such a state of mind, it becomes less painful when the thought comes that someone hates me, or has hurt me, or I have lost something. The stance of the mind is always one of a problem solver. Fear gets transmuted into opportunities. Heartbreaks become arena to remind myself to go back being a verb, getting rid of the clutches of ego. Uncertainties of life, gives a tactile anticipation of something coming to be solved! Life thus becomes a saga of action – works of art – activities of creation – either solving a problem, creating something new, growing, learning and exploring. Everything becomes a verb!

Being in this stance, life is no more a waiting room for a beautiful destination. Nor it remains as a fearful and fragile anticipation that things should go right. Life becomes free and a carefree trip to adventure. It becomes a journey – and the person become a traveler. Each moment life becomes an arena to provide an opportunity for the person to leave out a mark – creating, solving, and fixing something that makes life more beautiful. Such a stance transcends the life of the person. It is eternal. It is not bound by the flesh and body of the person. Rather it is eternal! The best side-effect of such a stance is that the needs, cravings, and genetic urges of the person is automatically made less powerful, enabling to reduce entropy in the consciousness. This further enables the person to continue on a creative quest!

A stance that allows mankind to get a glimpse into divinity!
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The Bequest

An Angel's hidden within me.
I've studied every thought, mood, sense.
No, there is no evidence.
But something keeps eluding me,
Like fragrances from memory:
The scent of sacramental wine
And smells of yellowed scrolls. I know
An angel's hidden within me.

"The shift toward the red", the astronomer said, "reveals that space at every place we look expands. It's empty. Empty space is all the tallest telescopes can see. Oh, here and there's a galaxy, but each recedes predictably. There's nothing mysterious, nothing free; no hint of any divinity. Just cosmic dust spreading relentlessly through vast, black space."

An angel's found within me.
It lies inside a speck of light;
Relies on me. Day and night
It drifts and waits.
But I don’t know
The nourishment to make it grow.
I look for signs. What does it need?
How do I feed an angel,
The angel found within me?

"Inside the head", the biologist said, "are ten billion cells and nothing else. We study the brain thoroghly with electrodes and x-ray microscopes. Sorry to disappoint your hopes, but there's nothing mysterious, nothing free. A splendid machine is all we see, run on electrical energy. It's machine that does calculus, writes and sings.(Did you know that robots now do these things? They're based on circuits we found in the brain.)"

Behind the veil of daily life
On the far, dark side
A firefly blinked.
I had my first glimpse through
The glittering scrim.
In that instant the angel minutely grew.
Then I knew that wisdom
Was its bread and wine.
An angel smiles within me.

"God is dead", the philosopher said. "It's all explained historically. The threat of thunder, volcanoes, and death gave rise to myth. By well-known sociological laws, the myths become the essential cause of creation of God. Belief and worship then arise, and persist. All based on myth. With radical change in the myth, god dies. This change, of course, our science supplies. The death was predicted; there's no surprise. (I can explain it again, if you like, with slides.)"

The angel says,
"It's true, the ancient God is dead.
But as He lay there, as He bled,
He saw the endless years ahead,
Saw empty centuries stretched ahead.
Saw countless Thebes and Babylons.
He gestured, whispered that his will,
Long untouched, should be unrolled.
HE took a pen and mended then
His will; He scrawled a codicil.
To each of you He there bequeathed
A speck, a grain, an angel seed."

"The universe is dead and bare". The scholar justifies despair. An angel winks within me...

PS - This poem is taken from the book - "The Positive Psychology of Buddhism and Yoga: Path to Mature Happiness, By Mervine Levin"

I have a Dream...

It is nice to have a dream, and live it day in and day out. This becomes even more interesting when the dream is not about a specific destination; but about a journey.

When it comes to journey, there are primarily two aspects of it that qualifies it – direction and being in action. The moment any of these aspects cease to exist, the journey does not remain a journey. It transmutes to stagnation.

Another very interesting aspect about a journey is its sensuous seduction. Being in a journey, the traveler is absolutely seduced by what she is going to explore, see, experiment and learn. She doesn’t even have a passing reference to what she has left behind, when she started the journey. It becomes a unidirectional cruise towards present and future – towards the unseen, unexplored. Life transforms to a solo journey solely in the pursuit of learning, experience, and exploration. 

I see myself as a solo traveler in a dream cruise. I am in a journey in the pursuit of learning - in all its forms - what life has to offer - in terms of books, life situations, people, institutions, relationships, etc, etc. Yes, I am an eternal student. Life is my classroom. And all around me are my teachers. In process of learning, sometimes I brush on others something they too might in-case learn from me. Life becomes pretty exciting when it takes the shape of such a pursuit.

To be specific this pursuit is consciously directed to understand life, nature, humans, and civilizations. It is also directed towards learning and contemplating on what great souls of yester years had to say. It makes me feel very grateful when I find this vast plethora of wisdom left behind by thousands of great men and women since last thousands of years. Certainly life appears to have such a short duration to be able to read, contemplate and synthesize holistically all this universe of knowledge. To be able to do justice to this pursuit of knowledge, hence it is imperative for the traveler to narrow down to one specific domain. That makes things manageable.

For me I have chosen the domain of the cognitive world of Human Beings. It is about the way humans think, behave and create.  It is about what and how humans have thoughts, behaved and created since inception of human race, till the current era. Certainly this domain asks me to do deep study into psychology, brain science, anthropology, evolutionary sciences, history, evolution of various major religions, and other related humanitarian disciplines. Along with these I have chosen to also delve into the mind of the poets, writers and other literary behemoths. It gives me a great insight into various lateral thoughts and new ideas what the great poets and writers had to say. This certainly gives a deeper insight into how human beings think. Ofcourse I am just a pygmy infront of this vast possibility!

The best part of my journey I have chosen for myself is that it gives me an opportunity to know myself, and people around me better. The outcome of that is I get an opportunity to know life in a more profound way. I strongly feel it is a life being fully lived – about utilizing the grand opportunity conferred on me – by the accidents of nature – inform of my existence!

Another very important dimension to this journey is the overarching meaning attached to this journey. This is the most important aspect, which decides the value of the journey. The degree of sensuousness of the journey depends on how magnanimous the meaning of the journey is. For me I have chosen the purpose and the sole meaning of the journey of my life to achieve a victory for mankind. A victory dedicated to humanity itself. A victory that enables mankind to do something what it is not able to do at present.  Achieving this victory makes my life relevant. I feel giving my best in order to achieve such a victory would make me feel on my death bed – “WOW what a life I have lived!!”. At the same time I will feel that I did justice to countless such synchronicities the universe endowed on me in my life, giving me that invaluable vantage point to go to the next level!

Yes, I have miles to go before I sleep. I have already spent 33 years of my life. Almost half of the life is over. In the remaining part left, I have to scale mountains high, swim across oceans vast, allow deeper scars in my soul, explore uncharted lands, and also have to create a legacy – a meaningful legacy – for generations to come!

I have a dream. The dream is this journey I am in… 
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The Freedom of the Wind!

Carefree lived he a lofty life!
Cruising across the Sky, the Earth and the Ocean.
No limit had he,
Full of Energy, and Freedom!

Laughter was there in every breath of his,
Always in motion,
Busy creating things beautiful!
Either in form of colorful kites in sky,
Or carrying pollen across miles!
Flying high, taking the birds in his lap,
Back to their nests at twilight!
Drying the wetness of the land,
Or caressing and combing the golden hair,
Of the princess from the palace high!

He was fearless, he was free,
Far away from any clutches of heaviness!
No baggage had he,
Did what his heart felt!
With all freedom and delight!

He had nothing to lose,
For he had lost everything -
His Love, his Dreams, his Hope and Ambitions!
All his riches were taken,
Taken away was even his most possession –
Those dreamy Most Beautiful Eyes!

“ Nothing to fear, nothing to lose have I,
For gone is all!”
Said the blowing wind in all his speed!!
“None is here to stop me,
None is here to love.
None is here to keep me attached,
In the confinement of anything –
In the world of form!”
Continued the Wind!

Light as ever,
With dynamism dire,
Being the vital force of creation!
Although invisible and un-heard!
Busy was he in action –
Enlivening creation in all forms!
Lighting the spark of life,
To whatever he touched on his way –
In his eternal journey!
Loving, Giving , Caring and Creating!
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The Meta Mind

The way we behave and act in our conscious realm is guided by the way our mind works. Of course the way mind processes information, is shaped by many things - social conditioning, education, upbringing, value system, social circle, etc.
Also there is something very special in we humans. Psychologists call this as meta mind. Somehow, after continuous evolution for billions of years, the nerve connections between the neuron cells have gone so complex that, the mind system has started being aware of itself! This is something very unique.
The idea is that mind can observe its own thought. This aspect of mind can be termed as the "meta-mind" - a neural system that not only is an audience to the thought systems of a person, but can also act as a director of those thought systems.
This meta mind governs the quality of our existence. This is because it sorts out and refines our response to the stimulus we get through our five senses. This creates a sense of discrimination, a sense of choice, a sense of stance we take.
Now, it is very important to mentor the meta mind, so that it can work as a good director to the smaller mind - the little self - which is constantly under the push and pull of urges, propensities and external stimulus. So psychologically speaking the goal for an optimal existence is two fold -
1. Mentoring the Meta Mind
2. Establishing a strong link between the meta mind and the little mind - which governs our behavior.
 In Hindu philosophy meta-mind can be termed as Atman. Interestingly more than 900 years before the birth of Christ, in India there was a discipline which was prevalent which aimed at establishing this link. It used to be called as Yoga.
In Sanskrit Yoga means "linking"/"coupling" etc. So the aim of this discipline was to calm the little self, and thus allow humans to see the Atman (name used for the meta mind in this framework).
Once you are able to see the Atma - it meant you had a link established between your little mind - behaviors and actions with the meta mind.
The mentoring aspect for the meta mind was established with contemplation, reading, listening to gurus, etc.
In our daily life in 21st century, to be able to utilize this effective framework, I feel the mentoring part can be met by reading good books, writing and contemplating. I do not mean to be a loner, and not indulge into pleasures of life. I mean to be mindful and totally indulged in everyday life and its responsibilities and expectations, and the pleasures of daily life - with a deeper awareness, complemented with nurturing the mind with good books, knowledge and good influence.

The linking aspect can be effectively met by meditation and Yoga. All the sub-categories of Yoga – The Bhakti Yoga, The Gnana Yoga, The Hatha Yoga and The Karma Yoga can all be simultaneously exercised to be able to lead a more fulfilling life!
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On Pain

Buddhism does a good analysis of Pain as experienced by humans. It is so very interesting to discover that this in accordance to what the science of psychology has also investigated –
Going deep into the nature of Pain – Buddha found following are 4 dimensions of it has. I name these dimensions as - 
1.    The Reference Frame –
Whatever humans experience is out of this world – this life – Our Reference frame. By design life entails a great deal of sufferings. This ranges from commonplace feelings (grouchiness, fear, anger, boredom, depression, heartaches and pains, loneliness, etc) to acute forms (produced by wars, famines, disease, natural calamities, etc).
Buddha characterizes a world in which there is a great deal of unhappiness, ranging from abject pain, loneliness, anxiety, hunger, being with hateful people, lots of those we love, to unpleasant states of feelings as described above.
Having said this I am not propagating the idea that world is a hopeless land of limitless suffering. On contrary, I am by temperament immensely optimist. The idea is just to bring to ones attention that pain is inevitable in this world – by design.
2.    Transitoriness of pain –
Pain includes an idea of change, perpetual flux, what Buddha refers to as “transitoriness”. It implies that misery is always potential – in coming. For example if a person says, “All these suffering does not apply to me. I have a well paying, interesting job, a happy marriage, and good health.” The Buddhist thesis would be : All good the person sited is subject to change. For example, the man’s wife may one day stop loving him. Or he may wake up one morning realizing that he no longer loves her. And the loss of job, health, or stability is notoriously common. The conditions of our happiness are all subject to change. The idea is that there is nothing like – “live happily ever after”.
If one is happy – she is fortunate indeed. She should obviously savor and relish it. But she should have the awareness that pain in some form is always potentiona – either in the form of commonplace feelings or acute forms as described in the point 1 above.
Again the idea is play life fully. Cherish happiness as if this is the last day of one’s life. But when pain comes, accept it as natural and normal – by design.
3.    The Causal Matrix –
This idea being adopted as-is from Hinduism, Buddha establishes another dimension of pain. The idea is that we live in a world which is highly interdependent. The events in life are related to a matrix of numerous other factors and coincidences. This has been explained in the Karma Theory of the ancient Vedantic philosophy.
This dimension has been poetically articulated by the famous Buddhist monk – Thich Nhat Hanh. He describes one of Siddhartha’s insights as he was coming to enlightenment  -
“He looked up at a pippala leaf imprinted against the blue sky, its tail blowing back and forth as if calling him. Looking deeply at the leaf, he saw clearly the presence of the sun and the stars – without the sun, without light and warmth, the leaf could not exist. He also saw in the leaf the presence of clouds – without clouds, there could be no rain, and without rain, the leaf could not be. He saw the earth, time, space and mind – all were present in the leaf. In fact, at that very moment the entire universe existed in that leaf.”
This interdependence applies, of course, to all life, including each human life.
This causal nature of suffering brings the Buddhist conception closer to the western scientific world outlook. All of science has its foundation “this is like this because that was like that”. For example, the cause of the annoying behavior of a tyrannical and abusive boss might be the ill grooming of his during his childhood by an alcoholic father. The idea is that all forms of pain might have its seed in a remote an seemingly un-related event. Life is thus a mosaic of such varied interdependences.
4.    The last link within –
The Buddha places the ultimate cause of suffering squarely within the individual. This can be explained with the following example –
We may think that a person who cheats us is the cause of our suffering. In the Buddhist view, it is our anger at being cheated, our craving to retrieve our money, our brooding over the event that is immediate cause of our suffering. The fact of being cheated is an important event in the causal sequence, but is one step removed from the final cause of suffering. This view, then, focuses not on the external, more instant causes of our suffering, but on the immediate inner link of the causal chain, on our motivational and emotional makeup.
This emotional makeup – the final link to push us into distress – is dependent solely on the human being’s inner state of heart and mind. This is ofcourse an outcome of the social conditioning of the individual.
For example the 1930s middle class American culture, in which it was made to believe that promiscuous girls were bad, homosexuals were bad, and it was important that a girl should marry being virgin – were social conditionings – which cause vulnerabilities in a lady, causing not only pain in her internal psyche but also pain in others.
So, life can offer us as many touch situations as possible – as a result of many other interdependent happenings, on which we might not have least of control. But the best part of life is that the quality of our life – our inner state of bliss or un-rest is solely dependent on that critical and last link in the causal chain – how we take it. If we re-design our inner self such that it is not affected by these un-controllable outer causal happenings, we might have a way out of the suffering.

[This article is my synthesis of the initial chapters of the book - The Positive Psychology of Buddhism and Yoga by Dr. Marvin Levine]
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