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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God and I

Last night I attended a seminar on coincidences and life’s intelligence at the New Acropolis - https://www.facebook.com/events/289969364347144/

It was a beautiful and learning experience – as usual. New Acropolis did not disappoint me event this time. The seminar was about an inquiry on the nature of coincidences. Ran – the teacher – brought in front of us many perspectives on coincidences from various fields – from Carl Jung’s  and Pauli’s research on Synchronicity, to Einstein’s take on the subject, to esoteric philosophies of ancient wisdom, to Mathematics and statistics. The talk ended with an invitation to contemplate on the nature of coincidences for ourselves.

I have read Carl Jung and Deepak Chopra on Synchronicity. This seminar reminded me of their works, and also brought to life that dormant understanding of God, in me.
Beautifully said by Einstein –
“Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous”

Another nice musing from the author Paul Auster –
“…I like to explore the cracks of our organized world, cause there, the real interesting things are happening…”
(I borrowed these from the class)

There is this interesting book by Deepak Chopra – Synchrodestiny on the same topic.  It is an interesting read.

In the seminar I met Manjunath Shivshankaran. An interesting person to speak to. He immediately caught my attention on his take on the matter. He said about knowing thyself. For him it was about understand who I am from within, to entirety. “I” am a subject of exploration, and by knowing myself, I know the world. It is an awareness, a mindfulness of inner self, that connects us to Carl Jung’s archetypal dimension. One’s inner self is the gateway. Taking it further, I am never alone. I have my inner self to go into, and explore, and tune to that universal consciousness (Jung’s archetype). In this process, the self enlarges, and encompasses the other individuals, earth, sky, moon, and the entire cosmos! Lovely idea!
A relevant thought from madam Blavatsky –
“The biggest illusion of all is the illusion of separation” – (from her book - Voice of Silence)

Ran – my teacher – always stresses on the fact of being, over having and doing. He invites me to be in the place of total being, sowing the seed and nurturing that seed of possibility. He repeatedly reminds me to be patient, and not get allured to the world of doing and having. Synthesizing this with the writings of Erich Fromm in his book – “To Have or To Be”, I magically had this beautiful coincidence this morning.

 I get these weekly newsletters from Deepak Chopra. This morning’s newsletter pointed me to this beautiful audio track - http://www.chopra.com/2012vip#  which says the following –

I am Space.
I am the Sun.
I am the directions – above and below.
I am the Gods.
I am the Demons.
I am all beings.
I am darkness.
I am the Earth.
I am the ocean.
I am the dust, the wind, the fire, and all this world.
I am omnipresent.
How can there be anything,
But me , me - The Spirit.
You will rise beyond joy and sorrow

The world exists in me,
The Self - the Infinite Consciousness -
Even there is a reflection that exist in the mirror.
I am the fragrance in the flower,
I am the light and radiance
And even in that light, I am the experience.

Whatever mobile and immobile beings exists in this world
I am their supreme truth or consciousness – free from conceptualization.
I am the very essence in all things in the universe.
Just as butter exists in milk, and liquidity in water,
Even so as the energy of consciousness I exist in all, That exists.

When we are established in the being
Mind, body and senses are playthings.
Purity, total fulfillment of all desires
The Absence of cravings
Friendliness to all
Truthfulness
Wisdom
Tranquility and blissfulness
Sweetness of speech
Supreme magnanimity
Lustrousness
One pointed-ness
Realization of cosmic events
Fearlessness
Absence of divided  consciousness
These are the constant experiences of one
Who is established in Being.


A beautiful mosaic of coincidences all around. It is really magical! It makes me feel closer to God – in those cracks of the organized world – into those recesses of coincidences – lie the mystery – God’s own heart!

I had written an article on my experience of God in the month of September 2011 - http://criativ-mind.blogspot.com/2011/09/sacred-journey.html

Today, I am able to feel another dimension of God, which is more sublime and magical; an experience of God from the invisible world of Jung’s archetypal universal dimension, which can be realized only through the eyes of the heart, from within.  Coincidence is that tip of the otherwise hidden magnanimous form of divinity. It feels at peace, to be in touch with that Spirit!
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The darker side of capitalism

The gradual evolution of the society since the middle ages to the renaissance has witnessed a stark change in the character of the society, from a more connected, secure and related community to a society with an increased amount of individual freedom, but at the same time an increased sense of insecurity, loneliness, and fear. In his book – “The Fear of Freedom”, Erich Fromm articulates this dual aspect of the new gained freedom, out of the modernization of society, in a beautiful and elaborative fashion. Following excerpt from the book, tries to touch upon the new found vulnerability of mankind, as a result of increasing capitalistic outlook on life. It gives a better perspective on our work life situations. At this season of performance appraisals, I found this part of the book pretty relevant.

..But although man has reached a remarkable degree of mastery of nature, society is not in control of the very forces it has created. The rationality of the system of production, in its technical aspects, is accompanied by the irrationality of our system of production in its social aspects. Economic crises, unemployment, war, govern man’s fate. Man has built his world; he has built factories and houses, he produces cars and clothes, he grows grain and fruit. But he has become estranged from the product of his own hands, he is not really the master any more of the world he has built; on contrary, this man-made world has become his master, before whom he bows down, whom he tries to placate or to manipulate as best he can. The work of his own hands has become his God. He seems to be driven by self-interest, but in reality his total self with all its concrete potentialities has become an instrument for the purposes of the very machine his hands have built. He keeps up the illusion of being the center of the world, and yet he is pervaded by an intense sense of insignificance and powerlessness which his ancestors once consciously felt towards God.

Modern man’s feeling of isolation and powerlessness is increased still further by the character which all his human relationships have assumed. The concrete relationship of one individual to another has lost its direct and human character and has assumed a spirit of manipulation and instrumentality. In all social and personal relations the laws of market are the rule. It is obvious that the relationship between competitors has to be based on mutual human indifference. Otherwise one of them would be paralyzed in the fulfilment of his economic tasks – to fight each other and not to refrain from actual economic destruction of each other if necessary.

The relationship between employer and employee is permeated by the same spirit of indifference. The word “employer” contains the whole story: the owner of the capital employs another human being as he “employs” a machine. They both use each other for the pursuit of their economic interests; their relationships is one in which both are mans to an end, both are instrumental to each other. It is not a relationship of two human beings who have any interest in others outside of this mutual usefulness. The same instrumentality is the rule in relationship between the business man and his customer. The customer is an object to be manipulated, not a concrete person who0se aims the business man is interested to satisfy. The attitude towards work has the quality of instrumentality; in contrast to a medieval artisan the modern manufacturer is not primarily interested in what he produces; he produces essentially in order to make a profit from his capital investment, and what he produces depends essentially on the market which promises that the investment of capital in a certain branch will prove to be profitable.

Not only the economic, but also the personal relations between men have this character of alienation; instead of relations between human beings, they assume the character of relations between things. But perhaps the most important and the most devastating instance of this spirit of instrumentality and alienation is the individual’s relationship to his own self. Man does not only sell commodities, he sells himself and feels himself to be a commodity. The manual laborer sells his physical energy; the business man, the physician, the clerical employee, sell their “personality”. This personality should be pleasing, but besides that its possessor should meet a number of their requirements: he should have energy, initiative, this, that, or the other, as his particular position may require. As with any other commodity it is the market which decides the value of these human qualities, yes, even their very existence. If there is no use for the qualities a person offers, he “has” none; just as an unsalable commodity is valueless though it might have its use value. Thus, the self-confidence, the “feeling of self”, is merely an indication of what others think of the person. It is not he who is convinced of his value regardless of popularity and his success on the market. If he is sought after, he is somebody; if he is not popular, he is simply nobody. This dependence of self esteem on the success of “personality” is the reason why for modern man popularity has this tremendous importance. On it depends not only whether or not one goes ahead in practical matters, but also whether one can keep up one’s self-esteem or whether one falls into the abyss of inferiority feelings.

There are factors to help him overcome the overt manifestations of this underlying insecurity. In the first place his self is backed up by the possession of property. “He” as a person and the property he owns cannot be separated. A man’s clothes or his house are parts of his self just as much as his body. The less he feels he is being somebody, more he needs to have possessions. If the individual has no property or lost it, he is lacking an important part to his “self” and to a certain extent is not considered to be full-fledged person, either by others of by himself. Other things backing up the self is the prestige and power.

Such is the petty state of the so called modern civilization with all its advances. Most of these aspects are interestingly hidden from conscious realm of humanity, and the society behaves as a herd of sheep, intoxicated with such capitalistic propensities.

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Selfishness Vs Self Love

The assumption underlying the thinking of Luther and Calvin and also that of Kant and Freud, is: Selfishness is identical with self-love. To love others is a virtue, to love oneself is a sin. Furthermore, love for others and love for oneself are mutually exclusive.

Theoretically we meet here with a fallacy concerning the nature of love. Love is not primarily “caused” by a specific object, but a lingering quality in a person which is only actualized by a certain “object”. Hatred is a passionate wish for destruction; love is a passionate affirmation of an “object” : it is not an “affect” but an active striving and inner relatedness, then aim of which is the happiness, growth, and freedom of its object. It is a readiness which, in principle, can turn to any person and object including ourselves. Exclusive love is a contradiction in itself. To be sure, it is not accidental that a certain person becomes the “object” of manifest love. The love for a particular “object” is only the actualization and concentration of lingering love with regard to one person; it is not, as the idea of romantic love would have it, that there is only one person in the world whom one can love, that it is the great chance of one’s life to find that person, and that love for him results in a withdrawal from all others. The kind of love which can only be experienced with regard to just one person demonstrates by this very fact that it is not love but a sado-masochistic attachment. The basic affirmation contained in love is directed towards the beloved person as an incarnation of essentially human qualities. Love for one person implies love for man as such. Love for man as such is not, as it is frequently supposed to be, an abstraction coming “after” the love for a specific person, or an enlargement of the experience with a specific “object”; it is its premise, although, genetically, it is acquired in the contact with concrete individuals.

From this it follows that one’s own self, in principle, i9s as much an object of one’s love as another person. The affirmation of one’s own life, happiness, growth, freedom, is rooted in the presence of the basic readiness of and ability for such an affirmation. If an individual has this readiness, he has it also towards himself; if he can only “love” others, he cannot love at all.

Selfishness is not identical with self love but with it is very opposite. Selfishness is one kind of greediness. Like all greediness it contains insatiability, as a consequence of which there is never any real satisfaction. Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without reaching satisfaction. Close observation shows that while the selfish person is always anxiously concerned with the fear of not getting enough, of mission something, of being deprived of something. He is filled with burning envy of anyone who might have more. If we observe still closer especially the unconscious dynamics, we find that this type of person is basically not fond of himself, but deeply dislikes himself.

Selfishness is rooted in this very lack of fondness of oneself. The person who is not fond of himself, who does not approve of himself, is in constant anxiety concerning his own self. He has not the inner security which can exist only on the basis of genuine fondness and affirmation. He must be concerned about himself, greedy to get everything for himself, since basically he lacks security and satisfaction. The same holds true with the so called narcissistic person, who is not so much concerned with getting things for himself as with admiring himself. Though on the surface it seems that these persons are very much in love with themselves, they actually are not fond of themselves, and their narcissism – like selfishness -  is overcompensation for the basic lack of self-love. Freud has pointed out that the narcissistic person has withdrawn his love from others and turned it towards his own person. Although the first part of this statement is true, the second is a fallacy. He loves neither others nor himself. 

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PS - This excerpt is taken from the book - "The fear of freedom" by Erich Fromm.

On Socrates

Socrates is the saint and martyr of philosophy. No other great philosopher has been so obsessed with righteous living. According to Plato, who was there at the time, Socrates told the judges at his trial that, “you are mistaken..if you think that a man who is worth anything ought to spend his time weighing up the prospects of life and death. He has only one thing to consider in performing any action – that is, whether he is acting rightly or wrongly.”

Socrates was poor, had no conventional achievements to his name and was of humble birth – his father was stonemason and his mother midwife. The fact that he nevertheless had an entrée to Athenian high society attests to his remarkable powers of conversation.

The trial of Socrates took place in 399 BC when he was nearly seventy. The charges were that he refused to recognize the official gods of the state, that he introduced new gods and that he corrupted the young. There was a vivid political background to the trial. In 404 BC, five years before the trial, a twenty seven year war between Athens and Sparta had ended with the defeat of Athens. The Athenian democracy was overthrown and replaced by a group of men, subsequently know as the Thirty Tyrants, who were installed by Sparta. In the course of earning their name, the Tyrants murdered so many people that they lasted for only a year, though it was not until 401 BC that democracy was fully restored. Understandably, the democrats were still feeling rather insecure in 399 BC. There were plenty of reasons to be uneasy about the presence of Socrates in the city. The condition was worsened when a few of Socrates disciples got involved in tyranny.

Socrates never charged any fee for his teachings. The superior wisdom of Socrates lies in the fact that he alone is aware of how little he knows. Of course, there is a little more to Socrates’ wisdom than just that, as he claims, “the arguments never come out of me; they always come from the person I am talking with”, he acknowledge that he is “at a slight advantage in having the skill to get some account of the matter from another’s wisdom and entertain it with fair treatment.” He aptly described himself as an intellectual midwife, whose questioning delivers the thoughts of others into the light today. But his sill in education and debate, which he obviously had in abundance, is not a form of real wisdom so far Socrates is concerned. Real wisdom is perfect knowledge about ethical subjects, about how to live. When Socrates claims ignorance, he means ignorance about the foundations of morality. The pedagogy Socrates always followed was the art of dialectics. He was against preaching, and always advocated argumentative philosophy.

In all his dialogues he talked about his ignorance. He used to insist he merely acted as a midwife for ideas of others. He used to say, philosophy is an intimate and collaborative activity. It is a matter for discussion among small groups of people who argue together in order that each might find the truth for himself.

Plato and Aristotle were two main witnesses of the Socrates. Plato was the direct disciple of Socrates, and he revered his teacher a lot. Aristotle never heard Socrates’ opinions first hand, he studied for some twenty years in Plato’s Academy and had plenty of opportunity to hear Plato’s views from Plato himself. He was therefore in a position to disentangle the thinking of the two men. To a considerable extent, Aristotle’s testimony lets one subtract Plato from his own dialogues and see the Socratic remainder. Aristotle was also much less in awe than Plato was, and therefore managed to take a more dispassionate approach to his teachings.

At first Plato largely limited himself to recreating the conversations of his revered teacher. Gradually, Pythagorean and other mystical glosses were put on Socrates’ ideas as Plato came increasingly under the influence of Italian Pythagoreans. And eventually Plato reached a point where he invoked the name of Socrates to expound on all sorts of subjects.

The important discussions of the real Socrates were exclusively concerned with how one ought to live. They were mostly about the virtues, of which there were conventionally held to be five –
1.    Courage
2.    Moderation
3.    Piety
4.    Wisdom
5.    Justice

His mission was to urge people to care for their souls by trying to understand and acquire these qualities. This task was enough to keep Socrates busy, but Plato was much more ambitious. He had one eye fixed on to the invisible – the divine – the perfect – a Pythagorean impact.
Socrates pursued the virtues because he felt morally obliged to, here and now. Earthly life imposed its own duties, brought its own blessings and was not simply a preparation of something else. Plato’s motives were less straight forward because he had latest one eye fixed on something beyond. One belief about virtue that the two men held in common is the pursuit of goodness is not only a matter of acting in certain ways but also an intellectual project. Yet they saw this project differently. Socrates believed that coming to understand the virtues was necessary precondition for possessing them. A man could not be truly virtuous unless he knew what virtue was, and the only way he might be able to get this knowledge was by examining accounts of particular virtues. That is why Socrates went around questioning people and arguing with them. Plato believed in this argumentative search too, but he also interpreted it as something almost mystical. While Socrates saw the search for definitions as a means to an end, namely the exercise of virtue, Plato saw the search as an end in itself. While Socrates saw the search for definitions as a means to an end, namely the exercise of virtue, Plato saw the search as an end in itself. To look for a definition was, for Plato, to seek the ideal, eternal, unchanging Form of whatever was under discussion; the contemplation of such Forms was itself f the highest good. That is what he thought Socrates’s questioning really amounted to and what it ought to aim at.

For Plato, philosophy was the ladder to this elevated world of Forms, but not everyone could climb it. Its higher rungs were reserved for those who were especially talented in dialectical argument, an elite, like the initiates of cult religions, of the followers of Pythagoras who had been privy to the master’s secrets. Socrates had a more egalitarian approach to knowledge and virtue. The unexamined life, as he famously said in his defense-speech, is not worth living, and this is not a fate to which he meant to condemn all but a chosen few. Socrates would happily question, and argue with anybody, cobbler of king, and for him this was all that philosophy was. He would have had little use for Plato’s Forms or the rare skills needed to find them.
One thing that led Plato to the mysterious Forms was his fascination with mathematics, again a Pythagorean matter and again a point of difference between him and Socrates. Above its gates, Plato’s Academy was said to have had the words “No one ignorant of geometry admitted here”. What stuck Plato about the objects dealt with  in mathematics, such as number and triangles, is that they are ideal, eternal, unchanging and pleasingly independent of earthly, visible things. Plainly one cannot see or touch the number four: it therefore exists in a different sort of realm, according to Plato. And the lines, triangles and others sorts of objects that figure in mathematical proofs cannot be identified with anything physical either. Particular physical lines and triangles are nothing more than approximations to ideal mathematical ones. A perfect line, for example would have no thickness; but any visible line, or rim of a physical object, always will. Given the impressiveness of mathematics, Plato reasoned, others sorts of knowledge ought to copy it and be about ideal and incorporeal objects too. These objects of knowledge were the Forms.

One striking aspect of Socrates’ teaching was that he firmly believed people fail to be virtuous simply because they had not yet learned  enough about virtue. According to him, a complete reflection, contemplation and knowledge about any virtue automatically leads the person to be virtuous, on its own accord. Socrates saw human action and emotion in largely rational or intellectual terms; he ignores impulses and willful irrationality. He used to say, “No one acts against what he believes best – people act so only by reason of ignorance.” This explains the exaggerated importance that Socrates attached t inquiries about virtue. If the only reason why people fail to do whatever is best is that they are ignorant, then the cure for immortality would indeed be more knowledge.

 On this subject, Plato seems for once to have been more down to earth and realistic than Socrates. He recognized an irrational part of the soul and saw it as often in conflict with the rational part. He taught virtuous living has to be developed by careful training and discipline of the young and close attention to their early environment – event of the sort of music they listened to and the sort of stories they were allowed to hear.

Socrates’ theory starts and ends with the soul; in the Apology, he says that the most important thing in life is to look to its welfare. The soul, he says elsewhere, is that which is mutilated by wrong actions and benefited by right ones. To do good is to benefit one’s own soul and to do wrong is to harm it. Since the soul’s welfare is paramount, no other sort of harm is so important. Nothing that other people can do to you can harm you enough to cancel out the benefit you bestow on yourself by acting rightly. It follows that bad people ultimately harm only themselves.

This conflicts with old Greeks moral conventions, according to which it is acceptable to harm one’s enemies. Though not one’s friends and especially not one’s family. The rigorous ethics of Socrates removes such distinctions between people and enjoins a universal morality instead. One striking thing about it is that it does so by appealing to self-interest, not to the sort of altruistic feelings that are usually thought of as the main motive for moral behavior. Doing good is a matter of looking after the part of yourself which matters most, namely your soul. Neither does this unusual ethics rest on any hope of heavenly reward or fear of its opposite. The benefits of virtue are reaped more or less immediately, for “to live well means the same thing as to live honorably and man is happy and the unjust miserable”. In Socrates’ view, happiness and virtue are linked, which is why it is in peoples’ own interests to be moral.

It turns out that among the aspects of the good life which is subtly and surprising linked are virtues themselves. Socrates argues that they come as a package-deal or not at all. His arguments typically proceed by trying to show that some particular virtue cannot work properly unless another is present as well. Courage for instance, requires wisdom. It is not good being darling if we are foolish for such would be courage will degenerate into mere rashness. And all the other virtues are intertwined in similar ways.

One of the virtues – wisdom, plays a special part in the teachings of Socrates. For without any degree of wisdom, people will be too bad to seeing the consequences of actions to be able to tell what is right and what is wrong, which is fundamental prerequisite for virtuous living. Without wisdom they will be unable to be rarely happy  either, because every benefit that has the potential to make one happy also has the potential to be misused and thus to do the opposite. One therefore needs wisdom both to reap the benefits of good things and to be virtuous.  

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PS - Most part of the above article is taken from the book - The Dream of Reason: A History of Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance - by Anthony Gottlieb

Winter Solstice and the Psychology of Death

Hunter and Gatherer to Agriculturist – A quantum jump in human evolution

Agriculture was developed atleast 10,000 years ago. As civilizations slowly moved out of the usual mode of hunting and gathering, to agriculture, there was a cultural threshold mankind was crossing – from a primitive race, which was struggling to survive, to a culturally advanced race which was thriving to create memetic innovations. In 1960, Robert Braidwood, a University of Chicago archaeologist, depicted agriculture’s advent as, “culmination of an ever increasing cultural differentiation and specialization of human communities.” The deep seated basic instinct in man – the urge to impress, started getting shape as society evolved to higher levels of complexity. The evolution of agriculture went hand in hand with the increasing differentiation of the community. Man started to live not for bread alone – but also for status, art, entertainment, communication, social interaction. All these enabled mankind to play bigger games, uniting into bigger communities of diverse men, creating a never before fraternity in the society.

This new formed fraternity and an continuous increase in its scale has been appropriately articulated by Charles Darwin as follows –

As man advances in civilization, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races.

This gradual evolution of the human civilization to bigger and bigger groups played a very important role in the development of culture, traditions, symbolisms, and religious practices. The advent of agriculture was the radical innovation which was giving this unique character to the human civilizations, giving it a character which is more close to the culturally evolved modern man.

Winter Solstice

Festivals in ancient societies occurred in accordance with agricultural practices. Winter time was a period of leisure, crops having already been harvested, and some livestock slaughtered so there were fewer mouths to feed. After the harvest, alcohol was made from dried grains left to ferment. This combination of leisure, fresh meat, harvested crops and alcohol, made winter time the perfect occasion for exuberant parties

The longest night of the year is honored by many traditions as a sacred and rich time. In the past, it's been a night to gather around the fire, or set out candles to call back the Sun. The seasonal significance of the winter solstice is in the reversal of the gradual lengthening of nights and shortening of days. Depending on the shift of the calendar, the winter solstice usually occurs on December 21 to 23 each year in the Northern Hemisphere, and June 20 to 23 in the Southern Hemisphere.

Worldwide, interpretation of the event has varied from culture to culture, but most cultures have held a recognition of rebirth, involving holidays, festivals, gatherings, rituals or other celebrations around that time.

Symbolism

Death of Darkness

In Latin, solstice means sun set still and Winter Solstice is the great stillness before the Sun's strength builds, and days grow longer. It can be a time to rest and reflect. It's the fruitful dark out of which new life can eventually emerge. In ancient times and for some today, the darkness itself is the spiritual cradle into which the Sun is reborn. Everything lies dormant in the silent night, a sacred time of rest before the awakening, and the slow build toward longer days.

The longest night is a fruitful time for setting intentions, to be birthed with the newborn Sun. What you conceive now can grow with the Sun, and gain momentum in Spring. You might start a tradition of setting Winter Solstice intentions, and in one year, see how many have come into being. Put them in a special tin or box that has meaning for you. The dark before the dawn, just like new Moons, can be a powerful moment of magic, drawing in what you'd like to see happen in the new year.

Hence this time of the year is associated with the death of the evil and darkness, and ushering of the light of enlightenment and goodness. To celebrate this aspect various civilizations have different festivities during this time. Requiems for the dead were held and Manzai and Shishimai were performed throughout the night, awaiting the sunrise.

Re-birth

The cosmic event of the end of the longest night, and the emergence of the Sun, ushering an gradual increase of the day henceforward, has been adopted symbolically by almost all the ancient civilizations as heralding of a new life, after death. This aspect has been celebrated in many forms in different cultures.

Various forms of faith

Judaism

This time of year is associated with light -- string lights, sparklers and of course, candles. Hanukkah in the Jewish tradition is the Festival of Lights, with 8 days of ritual illumination of the menorah. There's the advent wreath of the Christian faith and the all-night bonfire for the burning of the Yule log, a tradition with roots in Northern European pre-Christian times. The lights are reminders of the inner light, and hope for the return of sunny days.

Christians

In the 4^th century Rome and 11^th century England, Christmas or Christ's Mass is one of the most popular Christian celebrations as well as one of the most globally recognized mid-winter celebrations in the Northern hemisphere. Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, called the "Son of God," the second entity of the Holy Trinity, as well as "Savior of the World." The birth is observed on December 25, which was the Roman winter solstice upon establishment of the Julian Calendar.

Zorastrian

Since the days are getting longer and the nights shorter, this day marks the victory of Sun over the darkness. The occasion was celebrated in the ancient Persian Deygan Festival dedicated to Ahura Mazda, and Mithra on the first day of the month Dey.

Hindu

In Punjab, the winter solstice is celebrated as Lohri. Lohri is of Punjabi folk religion origin. It finds no mention in the Hindu Puranas but has over time been twinned with the Hindu festival of Makar Sankranti which is celebrated a day after Lohri and is known as Maghi. For this reason, Lohri is not actually celebrated on the winter solstice but at the end of the month, Paush

Viking age

Yule or Yuletide ("Yule-time") is a winter festival that was initially celebrated by the historical Germanic people as a pagan religious festival, though it was later absorbed into, and equated with, the Christian festival of Christmas. The festival was originally celebrated from late December to early January on a date determined by the lunar Germanic calendar. The festival was placed on December 25 when the Christian calendar (Julian calendar) was adopted. Scholars have connected the celebration to the Wild Hunt.

Ancient Greece

Winter solstice celebrations often include two activities related to the failing sun: producing light and enjoying the cover the darkness provides. Thus, it is common for winter solstice celebrations to include candle lighting, bonfire creation, and drunken debauchery.

While it may be mostly Pagans and Wiccans who celebrate the Yule holiday, nearly all cultures and faiths have some sort of winter solstice celebration or festival. Because of the theme of endless birth, life, death, and rebirth, the time of the solstice is often associated with deity and other legendary figures. No matter which path you follow, chances are good that one of your gods or goddesses has a winter solstice connection.

The Psychology of death

The fear of death

Humans, alone among animals, are capable of fearing death. It is a frightening territory of complete psychic extinction – the absence of memory, personality, knowledge, skills – which follows death. This constant fear of death has been beautifully expressed in the following lines of Milan Kundera –

“It takes so little, so infinitely little, for a person to cross the border beyond which everything loses meaning: love, convictions, faith, history. Human life - and herein lies its secret - takes place in the immediate proximity of that border, even in direct contact with it; it is not miles away, but a fraction of an inch”

Overcoming the fear of death

Treating this subject of overcoming fear of death from a psychological angle, Prof. Nicholas Humphrey nicely puts the following theory in his book – Soul Dust. He says that man had evolutionary taken up the following three strategies to overcome this fear of death –

1.       Discount the future – and live for the present

2.       Disindividuate – and identify yourself with culture entities that will survive you.

3.       Deny the finality of bodily death – and believe the individual self to be immortal.

Betrand Russel as he entered old age, wrote:

The best way to overcome [the fear of death]...is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river - small at first, narrowly contained within its bank, and rushing passionately past boulders and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the water flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue.

This gradual shift from an individual consciousness to a universal consciousness has been articulated in various ancient philosophies starting from African Ubuntu philosophy to the Hindu Upanishads. The same them is reverberated in the words of Pythagoras, and later by Plato and neo-Platonists. Plotinus very succinctly expresses the same as follows –

“I am striving to elevate what is divine in me to what is divine in the Universe.”

Plotinus is seen to contemplate on similar idea in his book Enneads –

“What then is our course, what the manner of our flight asks Plotinus and answers: This is not a journey for the feet; the feet bring us only from land to land; nor need you think of coach or ship to carry you away; all this order of things you must set aside and refuse to see; you must close the eyes and call instead upon another vision which is it be waked within you, a vision, the birthright of all, which few turn to use.”

It is pretty interesting to see how the fear of death and the complete extinction of the self has been beautifully transmuted by the philosophies of most of the ancients to an increased ardor to live. This meme has enabled civilizations to enter into positive and productive enterprises to further the evolution of mankind to higher frontiers.

Upanishads put the concept of eternal life in an interesting way. It says the fact that the individual consciousness has for its essential reality the Universal Self implies the possibility that every human being can rend the veil of separateness and gain recognition of his true nature and oneness with all beings.

David Galin, a psychiatrist with a special interest in Buddhism, has explained:

“The Buddhist tradition holds that Ordinary Man’s inborn erroneous view of self as an enduring entity is the cause of his suffering because he tries to hold on to that which is in constant flux and has no existence outside of shifting contexts. Therefore a new corrective experience of self is needed. Buddhism takes great interest in how people experience their self, rather than just their abstract concept of it, because Buddhist practices are designed to lead to new (correct) experience. It takes arduous training to modify or overcome the natural state of experiencing the self as persisting and unchanging.”

Mind over Matter

In an effort to reconcile the mortality of physical state of man, most of the ancient civilizations have given much of focus on the non-form. Since conceptualizing an invisible aspect of that non-form becomes strenuous through shallow logical reasoning, there is an effort to go beyond the unidirectional logic and rational, and stick on something beyond – an active faith, through contemplation.

In ancient Greek thought, theory meant not hypothesis but contemplation, the act not of a speculator but of a spectator. It is not the result of investigation as that of the process of investigating, the beholding itself. Theory provides the necessary basis of effective realization. The Greek usage brings out that no realization can be attempted without an adequate theoretical preparation.

Meditation is considered not an argument. It is just holding oneself steadily in front of the truth. Here the process of abstraction, isolating the self from the objective is employed. Concentration is the condition of prayer. The Upanishads asks us to return to a field or a forest where the world and its noise are out of sight and far away, where the sun and the sky, the earth and the water all speak the same language, reminding the seeker that he is here to develop like the things that grow all around him. The truth can be taught only up to a point. It has to be assimilated by personal effort, by self-discipline. It is said that the highest stage is attained when the five senses, mind and intellect are at rest.

This aspect of resting the five sense, is put by Confucius as follows –

“Cultivate unity. You do your hearing, not with your ears, but with your mind. Not with your mind, but with your very soul. But let the hearing stop with ears. Let the working of the mind stop with itself. Then the soul will be negative existence, passively responsive to externals. In such a negative existence, only Tao can abide. And that negative state is fasting of the heart.”

Kabir puts it more succinctly –

“When I was there, He not. When He was, I not.”

Conclusion

We are heirs of a richer heritage than most of us are aware of. If we cut ourselves away from rich treasury of wisdom about man’s aspirations on this earth which is available to us from our own past, or if we are satisfied with our own inadequate tradition and fail to seek for ourselves the gifts of other traditions, we will gravely misconceive the spirit of religion.

This winter solstice with all its symbolism from various ancient schools of wisdom yet again ponders on the aspect of death and re-birth, of perishing away and rejuvenating again. This brings into a perspective of an eternal cycle of birth, nourishment, destruction and then re-birth.

The winter season naturally makes us go inward to stillness and contemplation, reserving our vital energy, cutting ourselves from the distraction (cold) of the outside world (Maya). This spirit of the season has been celebrated through thousands of rituals since ages.
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On this special day...

[Dedicated to my better half - my eternal love - Manisha - on her birthday today]

On this special day
I still remember, Long past
Those excruciating anxious moments,
Which snailed liked never passing years –

Waiting for that one glimpse,
Bathing my heart with bliss,
For that charming smile,
Nourishing my soul with immortalizing nectar.
For that nightingale voice,
A sacrament to my inner self!

And then there was that special moment!
When you would alight
As a crowning glory to my life,
Making me feel so special, so unique, so loved!
Never had I felt ever,
So much with meaning,
So much conspicuous,
So very important!

And then, when you were there with me,
Time would fly in a jiffy – uncaring, unheeded!

And then the most beautiful thing happened to me,
The day when you were mine!
Life’s all splendors; all wealth was at my feet!
For you were mine, and I yours!

Today, I reminiscence that special day,
When you came in this world,
From the heavens far away,
Just for me – o fairy queen,
Continuing our journey
Of eternal togetherness,
Births after births,
We are yet again together!

Strung together in strong bond of love,
Interwoven are we,
Our soul, spirit and self!
We are one, complementing each other,
You are my better half,
I your lovelorn boy!

Wishing you all bests of life,
All that is good and bright!
Meaning of my existence has been
Decorated with the shiniest jewel –
Your happiness and wellbeing!

In the dreary dry desert,
Of everyday life,
With an indifferent universe,
And impersonal society,
When parched with melancholy,
Of bitter reality,
Your presence is like
A divine quench to the soul!
An understanding that –
Yes there is something so beautiful,
So loving, and so caring!
An understanding that God is present,
Right here, right now,
In your closeness with me!

In my journey of life,
Each time I am reduced,
With criticism, hatred,
Rudeness, and mockery.
Each time I bleed by the thorns,
Hidden in the rose,
Each time I am stabbed,
With the dagger of the cold
World out there,
I cherish having re-birth,
Like the Phoenix from the ashes,
When I come back to you,
At the end of the day.

In your embrace,
How real is my goodness to me!
How strongly I get a reason to go on,
Un-tired, un-scathed, by the perils of
The life’s reality!
I cave in the all embracing,
Understanding, loving and protective spell,
Of your love,
Still determined to be what I am,
What I stand for.

More than just a friend,
A life partner,
My better half, dear Paku,
You are my shelter,
You are my blessings,
You are my faith,
You are my meaning!
 You are the reason behind my smile,
You are reason of each beat of my heart!

Seasons come, and seasons go.
In all their splendor,
They teach, they caress through,
With all their splendor,
They go as they had come.
Through all those seasons,
From the sweaty summer,
To the freezing winter,
From the abandon of the fall,
And Bountifulness of Autumn,
From the fragrance of the spring,
To the humid rain.
All wax and wane,
Transiently passing over
To their own finalities.
It is you and I,
And what we create together,
Live forever held tight,
In the warmth and peace,
Of our un-faltering love,
Continue we both in our journey,
Of the eternal togetherness.

The grandeur of the sky,
The glory of the Sun,
The bliss of the moon,
The passion of the ocean,
The resoluteness of the Everest,
All stand in ovation,
To our eternal love!
For that is the most beautiful,
More beautiful than any other creation,
Ever conceived by God!

In gratitude to you,
And the almighty,
For decorating my life,
With your loving
Presence of solace,
I celebrate this special day,
Contemplating together,
In each others arms.

Happy Birthday Paku.
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Copy Right © All rights reserved - Samrat Kar

Life’s Philosophy

What is life’s philosophy, for my little self?
Was a question I was contemplating on.
Searching was I answer for none other, Just for my self,
Answer which works for me, and just for me.
You might laugh Or might find it irrelevant.
Might be that you call me a fool.
May be I am one.
But this is what I feel right,
Just for me, and my little self.

Life for me is working hard to earn my living.
With care and concentration carrying out my duties,
Enjoying and contemplating on simple things in my little life –
The job, the books, music, art, my poems,
The city life in public bus, my family and friends,
The characters of my poems, the open blue sky,
The changing seasons, the blossoming flowers.
All make me feel, part of one big family.
A family encompassing all flora and fauna!
A family containing all of humanity!
Where, I am at home,
At every moment, every day, with every person,
And every circumstance!

Life for me is giving understanding and compassion,
Even on the face of hatred and rudeness.
Being so, is not about being righteous and grand.
Rather it is about giving space, freedom and respect
To the other, who has a different point of view.
Being so, is more about exercising the choice out of “hatred for hatred” and “tit for tat”,
As it is a heavy burden to carry, and tough maths to tally,
 That too in a transitory and short journey of life.
It is a decision more out of self-love,
To be free and happy. To love and care.

Life for me is actively creating the relatedness
With people, institutions, things and circumstances around.
A relatedness that is born from the womb of affection and compassion.
A relatedness that is born out of the desire to increase one’s awareness and mindfulness.
A relatedness which is more focused on productively and creatively
Bring out an aspect of beauty, over the debate of who was right.

Life for me is being relevant to others,
Either with a caring gesture, or a helping hand.
It is about being of some use,
In bringing happiness and beauty around.

You are not separate from me.
You create who I am, in your thoughts, in your judgments, in your biases.
You make me realize who I am, and who I am not.
You are my extended self.
For without you,
How would I ever have discovered what I stand for?

Life for me is not being moved by adversity,
Brought by my little self,
Giving into the crass basic instincts of
Judgments, hatred, anger and ego.
It is about being victorious over them,
Overpowering the darkness with the light of
Love, peace, understanding, respect, compassion and concern.
This light is sometimes not visible with the eyes.
But is visible only through heart.
It is about being present not to the absence of love.
But to the presence of barriers within my little self,
Hindering the radiance of love ushering in.

Yes. It is a choice – simple, but stern.
Not giving into what the eye sees, and the mind thinks.
But to let heart overpower all that is shallow,
With the embrace of positivism and love.
Yes. Positivism is the essence of the aesthetics of life.
It might appear to be an illusion to many.
But I remind myself,
An illusion is an illusion till it is discovered that it was not so.
And that discovery should be given a chance.
The chance gives space and respect to the other – a person or circumstance,
To be who they are, and what they stand for,
And allows creation of a world which is really diverse and mutually respectful.
For every such an instance, creates an opportunity to learn, to grow, to evolve.


Life for me is enjoying every moment of my life,
Lost in my own tune – a tune consciously created, every moment.
The unending symphony of
Goodness, service, contemplation, devotion, and ethics.
Consciously unheeding to the endless drone
Of hatred, generalization, meanness, fear, prejudices and self-importance.
It is going beyond what is obvious,
Consciously creating what is desired.
It is an active war,
Defeating the passiveness of cynicism to
The Vigor of bright and happy positivity!

Life for me is overcoming the desire to have more,
Trying to live with the least,
Being a giver instead of a snatcher.
It is about overpowering the natural urge to expect,
With the beautiful gesture of giving!

The real fortune of life for me,
Is not the number of friends I make.
Neither it is the amount of wealth and reputation I garner,
Neither it is about the respect and understanding and support,
I get from others.
Rather it is about how close to nature I am.
It is about how transfixed I am at the Ethics, the Perfect, the Truth.
The truth that stands for responsibility, meaning, solidarity, objectivity,
Service, love, compassion, respect, creativity, honesty, active faith, aesthetics,
(some give them the name of God)
Beneath the transience of emotions, human rattling, and narcissist propensities.

Being steadfast in that Invisible, that central axis,
It is about being able to contribute meaningfully
To my little world studded with the precious gifts –
Family, friends, society, institutions, causes, humanity, fraternity, ethics, and ideals.

To me life is about knowing from where I have come,
The thousands of years of human civilizations,
Contemplating on the teachings of the ancients,
Observing how mankind has evolved,
The mystical way history has repeated itself,
The beautiful relevance of mythologies,
Since millennia, increasing in relevance,
With all their symbolism and profundity,
To the contemporary and the future.

Life for me is to stand in awe,
At the magnanimous spirit of being human,
Manifested by the greatest works of mankind,
From the pyramids of the Giza,
The ethereal veneration of the Stonehenge,
To the grandeur of the Coliseum,
To the marvels of the Pantheon and tower of Pisa!

Life for me is standing in ovation,
At the greatness of men in flesh and blood,
But with the spirit of the Gods!
Men like Homer, Pythagoras, Buddha, Socrates, Plato.
Men like Marcus Aurelius, Plotinus, and their guild.
Men like Tagore, Milton, Blake, Tolstoy, Thoreau, Shakespeare.
Men like Bhaskara, Copernicus, Archimedes, Newton.
Men like Bohr, Einstein, and Heisenberg.
Men like Subhas, Gandhi, Martin Luther, Che Guevara, Nelson Mandela.
Grateful I feel when I look back
At the rich legacy of human souls,
Who made a meaning out of their lives,
Enabled humanity to think in a way,
It was never able to otherwise.
They inspire me. They make me pause and think –
 What I am upto?

What I am upto. I do not know.
I am not a visionary, nor a genius.
Neither am I a revolutionary, and an intellectual.
I have made a fool of myself, times many.
But, just know I one thing for sure.
Life for me is being the possibility of Love and Peace.
No matter what, No matter when.
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Copy Right © All rights reserved - Samrat Kar