Happy Friendship Day!! 2013

A day aptly dedicated to remember, and extend the gratitude to friends and the spirit of friendship.
Happy Friendship day to you all - my friends!

Friends - what does the word imply? Is it a group of individuals forming an inner circle for an my social group, who share my interests, and laugh with me at the same joke? Or is it a group of those, who know me and understand my idiosyncrasies.  Or are they the people who as they say, "a friend in need is a friend indeed"?

I think the word friend is much more beyond that exclusive set of people who make me feel accepted and comfortable. Equally indebted am I to those, who do not like me. Those, who make me feel small, wretched and embarrassed. For only due to the second group, do I know who I am, and who I am not. Only through the second group, do I know from gut, about my barriers and shortfalls. At the same time it paints in-front of me the immense diversity of the nature! More than the sense of loss, it is a sense of gathering new knowledge and new points of view! They show one the depth of the truth of life. How can one call them foes, and not friends? Do, they not equally contribute to one's growth as a fully developed man, to be able to relate to one's existence more closure to what it is, rather than what false conception one has, about oneself and life per se?

The point is that the journey is three fold.  First is about getting stuck in that smallness of considering the other, not friends. That space is that mean narrowness of considering the other different from the self. That space is rightly termed by Marx and other masters of humanity, as the state of "alienation". This primarily is a state of melancholy, where one perceives himself as a lonely entity, on whom the world ("others") are throwing stones. The most challenging part of this stage is not to give way to death, slipping the downhill of various symptoms of neurotic separateness, manifested as hatred, sadness, emptiness, depression, jealousy etc.

The next stage is about identifying the barriers of the self, which makes one alienated, and appear separate and disconnected from the other. It is about curling inside and knowing oneself more fully. This stage is difficult as it is about going beyond what is felt or seen on surface, through the tapestry of personal biases. It is about being able to move out one's own self out of the center of the world, and putting someone else in that place. It is about relating to the other from that vantage point, as they are the center of the world. Compassion represents succinctly this state of being. It is about relating to the other from the vantage point of love, with the attitude of respect towards diversity, with the knowing that what appears so alien, is something that points oneself to something so profound that one would have never even made a sense of that profundity relating to the world, by a lone self.

Obviously when these barriers are identified the task is to remove them, leading one to connect to his fellow humans, and relating to one and all as true friends. This stage of transcendence of one's own barriers, ushers one to that unbounded openness from which life springs out in love. This stage is un-folding outside in the one's pristine nakedness.

These three states are not separate from one another in the real life's stage. They happen together, and and happen always. It depends on one's capacity and skill how much one can beautifully play this game of dynamism, progressing from one stage to the next, and then suddenly regressing with a fall, and again getting up, fully determined to climb the next level, and go on - in the dance - enjoying every moment of the play. It is like a child learning to walk. He crawls, stands, falls, and again decides to stand and continue, only to fall again. The dance continues. But the beauty is that after every fall,  he decides to start all over again! What a beauty!

And again, it appears to me, whether friendship is limited to fellow mankind? Does it not obviously and naturally extend to non-humans; to nature as a whole; to the entire cosmos? Thinking more about it, it increasingly appears that friendship is universal. In fact it is very hard to clearly know for certain, where our individuality ends, and the surrounding starts. The point is that it is very difficult to demarcate the boundary where the self ends, and his surrounding starts; where "I" end and "my friends" start. May be both directs to the same? May be one is visible only due to the other? May be both - self and the other, appear together; always?

Like, for example we have more than 10,000 different species of friendly microbes on and inside our body. They operate in the level of our DNA, capable of switching them on and off, selectively, impacting our mood, perception and our perception. Similarly in our external world, we are increasingly dependent on both people who love us, and those who hate us - For only through the pain of rejection, do we realize for sure the glory of acceptance. Without one, how could we have even comprehended the other. Sometimes it occurs to me, this world both within and outside, comprises of just friends, whose member I myself am. Certainly major part of these friends are non-humans, though unfortunately we are fixated at humans, at most of the times!

Books, ideas, inspirations, visions, purpose, art, vocation, etc are another genre of our friends, who add new meaning to who we are. Certainly such friends are the most special. For they know only one thing - To Give!

The elements - air, water, fire, earth - for sure are friends magnanimous! No complaints, no need, no ego, no quarrels! They only know to give, to inspire, to seed a new idea! The transience and energy of fire, the tranquility and humility of water, the omnipresent space of the everlasting company of the air, the unconditional openness from the unbounded openness of the Earth - reminds of the archetype of friendship!

Friends are also, the times both good and bad! Good times nourishes us, and the bad strengthen! Can there be any friend better than time - epiphanies and trials?

Those memories of love and warmth. Those memories of pain and indifference. Are they not friends of equal importance! For memories are the friends who are permanent with us - Till eternity - leaving the footprints on the vast expanse of the fleeting time.

More I think, more it comes so real to me that may be the self and the other both is encompassed in the spirit of friendship. May be even calling some other entity is a friend, indirectly points that I am separate from the other. May be it is just another illusion. In reality probably I would be absolutely unable to experience who I am and who I am not, without the other. So, does it even makes sense to consider myself as a separate entity from the other? For example how can I experience standing, if there is no earth to stand on. In that case, does the process of standing not comprising of seeing myself only in relation to me and the earth? Can one makes sense of itself, without the other? This dance of dialectics makes life really interesting!

Coming back to friendship day, I take this opportunity to pay my highest homage to the spirit of this complex connectedness, some aligning with the other, and some opposing the other, in an eternal process of transient dynamism of an un-ending transactions, creating an illusion of a varied sparkle of this physical life. From childhood this amazing cosmic play used to be fascinating to me, each time I used to review the periodic table. Just by change of one electron, and the pattern of their arrangement, we have such apparently varied perception of elements. How different is hydrogen from gold! But the difference between them is just a pattern of arrangement of the same electronic wave, and their dance of interdependence.

To that cosmic dance of interdependence, here I offer my worship, on this Friendship Day!
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My 35th Birthday!!

Today is my 35th Birthday. Having born on 17th July, my birth number is (1+7) 8. 35th birthday (3+5) matches the number 8. So it had to be special :). It was absolutely fantastic! Both at office and at home! I was absolutely ravished in pleasant surprise to see my cubicle decorated so thoughtfully by my team!! Had a grand lunch buffet with my team..and they so impeccably arranged for a cake cutting at the restaurant! There was a beautiful birthday song played by the restaurant folks in the background. All wished me!! Parents are with me after ages on my birthday!! The day was special. Very special. It was made special by my friends and family! Thank you all!!

Every birthday, I have a habit of looking back who I was, and who I am, as a man. I try to articulate the one most important take away life has taught me the last year. Most of this is based on readings I do, and my experiences when I try to apply those ideas into practice, trying to search my own truth. For me just reading great thoughts does not make sense, till I apply them, and feel their profundity. I have met many thinkers in my books. Have liked them often, have tried out their ideas, and then having gone deep into their thoughts. Many a times have taken various diversions, when the ideas did not resonate with who I am. In this journey I have abandoned many great men and women, and taken up new thinkers and ideas, which seemed to help me know more closely who I am, and who I am not.

This year also was spent in quite a lot reading, contemplating and practicing. Primarily, everything started with Erich Fromm. A deluge of enlightening ideas from this visionary social scientist. Fromm taught me what it means to love, and what it takes to be a man - he says - fully developed man. He introduced me to the thoughts of Karl Marx. Marx taught me what it means to be a fully developed man by being able to relate to fellow human, through productive and spontaneous activity. He has been teaching me the intricacies of economics, and how society is formed and shaped by the mean of production. Marx is an institution by himself. I have just started scratching the surface. Miles to go before I sleep! The ideas were also made more concrete by the writings of Kafka. I read his book - The Trial. The most symbolic book I have ever read! Thanks to Fromm. Fromm also deepened my ideas about Buddhism. I had a stint re-visiting the Christian mysticism, Sufi mysticism, etc, too. Along with that Karen Armstrong, and Fritjof Capra led me to the world of religion and physics and being again present to their interconnection. Armstrong is one of my person inspiration!

The most refreshing thing that happened to me between 17th July 2012 and 17th July 2013 was Fromm and Marx. I feel, they really helped me to know myself and the world better. I am still continuing Marx and Fromm. But recently since couple of months, I am deep into David Deida. With what a courage, audacity and truth this person speaks! Interesting perspective! Now continuing with his third book. A good place I am standing, trying to synthesize Marx, Freud, Fromm, Tolstoy and Deida! All experimenting on Love, God and Truth. Things going good!

Yes, I started growing beard and hair this year. (Family not happy) Do not know why, I am doing this. It is a fallout of a concoction many thoughts, feelings and whims. I myself am not very sure about it. I can always rationalize it saying something or the other. But, I choose not to do so, and just be in the place, without searching for any explanation and logic. I just want to be free.

Yes, this is the third year of my being a vegetarian. I am finding more and more that vegetarianism is something most natural to me. There is no feeling of righteousness in this. Neither there is any baggage of any ideology. It is just natural for me, and I would like to keep it that way. Again it is about freedom, and being authentic.

One thing makes me feel uncomfortable every birthday - being busy with all myself and me, from morning to night. Hundreds of wishes, phone calls, messages, etc. It certainly feels good that so many people love me! I feel pampered. But it tires me after sometime. It feels like being suffocated by only me, myself and I. The profound desire to break out from the dark bondage of myself, and reach out to others strongly raises its head. It is then, I try to contemplate on those beautiful words, expressions and efforts my friends and family has taken to wish me that day! It feels so good to be able to reach out to their heart, in that space of meditation, where they thought about me, and cared to either call, or send a note of wish. It feels like a communion with God - through fellow humans. It is by itself a profound state to be in! It feels so much more powerful being able to know the other, and relate to the other - their pain, inhibitions, dreams, fears and inspirations!

The primary state of being that I am in communion with through this birthday, is the spirit of being in the state of unbound openness of Love. It is about ravishing the world and myself, in profound openness. From that canvas of openness, I am trying to create every moment, relationship, and institutions, being the possibility of boundless Love. Being in that state, it is all about how I give the gift of the truth - who I am, to one and all. It is about penetrating the world with my gift of openness and Love, in the spirit of service. It is about feeling through my desires and expressing them with my gift to the world - through my words, poems, actions, and work.


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Essentials are Invisible - A Thought Experiment

Life is short. Senses are limited. Time is fleeting. Challenges are many. Distraction are innumerable. 

In this predicament of human life, it is essential to realize two things primarily - 

1. An awareness of what is essential and what is not, and 

2. The Essentials are invisible.

It certainly is of prime importance not to spend this precious life in non-essentials. But the dilemma is how to create that insight to spot the essential, and discard the non-essential. I think to be able to overcome this challenge, one has to deal with both the points above simultaneously. One leads to the other. I guess there would not be any prescription to follow to be aware of what is essential and not. But certain examples below might be able to put certain instances on the table. 

For example for a warrior, the actual fighting is non-essential. What is essential is the cause he is standing for. 

For an original painter, the canvas, or the brush is not non-essential. They are dispensable. He can switch to any better brush or medium. Rather what is essential is the idea he is trying to paint.

In a relationship, the personalities involved are non-essential. But what is essential is the invisible virtue of understanding, compassion, kindness, empathy that binds two personalities. Moment the fabric of these invisible essentials are broken, the relationship tears apart. Again the same personalities might enter into similar relationships with others. But then the fabric that is essential for any relationship remains the same. Personalities change - non-essentials are ever changing. But what is essential remains the same.

For a writer the medium he uses to write is non-essential. The language he uses is non-essential. But what is essential is that invisible archetype he is dealing with in his mind and heart. It is that experiment he is having in his mind, that commotion happening in his heart, leading him to write, resulting in the flow of a poem or a novel, is what is essential.

It is interesting to observe the amount of time and energy we squander on non-essentials. The endless pursuits to have more power, money, fame, friends, well wishers, kinships, etc that man engages in, appears non-essential to me. These aspects of daily life are just mere reflections of something invisible which is totally from a different plane. Rather than focusing on the source, we get distracted into the dissipated reflections of that. We spend time in the questing of having more and more the artifacts of something at source. That source emanates from our own being. It arises from our own understanding, our own heart and mind. I am not hinting a way to solitary exclusion. Certainly it might be a way for some. But it is not necessarily the most optimum way for all, atleast not for me, for sure. These dry artifacts are important for me. But along with having these dry artifact, the awareness that these are non-essential, and they link to something which is at core, which is invisible, is at heart of things.

Many great thinkers have spent most of their lives in figuring out a way to be centered into this invisible essential - the source. One effective way the ancient civilizations invented for themselves, to solve this existential problem, might have been the creation of the idea of God, and developing the capacity of man to concentrate on that Ideal. What might be more apt than to have a concrete projection of an Archetype in form of a personal God-head,  or an abstract idea. At least there is a point in which a person can refer to when she wants to relate to those essentials.

But, I think, this whole creative experiment defeats itself, when this idea of God is treated in exclusion to daily living. When God is treated a separate entity from one's own self, and one's own actions, and the innumerable interaction one has with others, in one's daily life. When God limits Himself to that small corner in one's living room, or a building in exclusion, one calls a temple, He fizzles out to the domain of non-essential. The whole purpose and the toil of all the ancient masters get defeated. I think that one-pointed focus on the essential, should be maintained in one's daily activities, and voluntarily one has to exclude from her awareness the non-essentials.

I try to practice it at my work, and personal life. Yes, I fail multiple times. But, again I try to stand up, shirk off the dust, and start walking again on the path. I think the key is - Finding out the essential, and one pointed concentration on the essential. At work, the issue at hand, the problem being faced is essential, and anything and everything coming our way piggybacking the issue are non-essentials. 

Even when dealing with work and life, work becomes non-essential, and life is what is essential. To clarify, I have experienced people who kill life in name of work. By killing life I mean, for them there is no room for compassion, kindness, empathy, love, joy, respect, loyalty, or humanity, when it comes to work. Humans become just a means, a resource, a robot to churn out a result. If the result does not meet a pre-determined expectation, the doer is considered worthless. The dignity of a person is attached to how much capital is created by the person, or how much productivity gain is produced by the person, and how much the person has been able to make a corporation's cult which is given fancy names as "Operating Systems" or "Standard Operating Procedures".  It is interesting to see that many times,  we are incapable to differentiating a man from his role, or artifact he produces out of an action he is forced to do at his job. 

The problem remains the same. It is about being distracted with the non-essential, and losing the sight of the essential.

To simplify, I carry with myself a logo to remind me every moment of the essential. For me the essential is - Love. It is fraternity, compassion, understanding, respect, objectivity, friendship, individuality, and respecting that sacred space for the self, and the other. 

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Upending the cost Structure. Do you have any input?

Upending the cost structure. Do you have any input?

Capitalism requires someone to create a commodity, and someone to buy it. The hidden link that connects the whole drama is money. There is a cost structure on which the empire of capitalism is built on. The aim of a capitalistic endeavor is to generate more capital. It is good to create more capital. It drives the economy. The issue is the cost structure on which the framework is built on.
This efficiently bars away people who are in dire need of a product or service but could not afford to buy it. World is today rocking and rolling intoxicated with the opium of capitalism. It has worked for decades. But that does not mean it will keep working for centuries to come. Signs have started showing up of innovative business models outside of the precincts of capitalism.
The most interesting experiment is that of the Google. I want to discuss in this article a very popular experimentation of Google - The Google Maps. Till a decade back, maps were all copyrighted, and the market was monopolized by companies like Garmin making GPS devices helping people to navigate. Garmin charges about $100 to download new maps to its device. One device costs about $200-$500. Sometimes even more.

Now compare all this with the Google Maps. And the latest feature in Google Maps to download any portion of the maps to your device, and use them offline. So, today you have a free GPS device which is way much more advanced than any Garmin device. And all these services are free. You can download the Google Map in your phone (of course if it is not running in the latest IOS) or your any other hand held device.

The most interesting thing is you can notice that cost of the service is no more the indicator of the quality of the service or the product. The free google map is any time better than the expensive maps you download from Garmin. So, here is something that is free and better. In the language of economics, you have something whose "value" is expressed independent of its "exchange value". And that the product or the service could be really sustained without an exchange value, you see.

Can such experiment be done in education? Can we upend the cost structure inherent in providing quality education? Can a free education provided to millions be if not better, as good as that provided by the Harvards and the Stanfords?

A question, many social entrepreneurs are trying to find an answer. Do you have any input?

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Active Compassion

Active Compassion

Merriam Webster's Dictionary defines the word compassion as - "Sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it."
All the great masters starting from the Axial Age to the contemporary world have stressed on the importance to be compassionate. But, time and again, I find it so hard to be compassionate. On the whole I am fairly a forgiving and kind person. But compassion is of a different genre all together. I discovered that compassion is not just tolerance, kindness and forgiveness. Rather it is a sympathetic consciousness of others' distress. And it does not end just at that. It is also complemented with the desire to alleviate it.

Now, in my daily life, I see myself most of the time concentrated with the daily chores concerning myself and my family. It might be work at office, or responsibilities at home. Even in the office or at home, mind always tends to think only about its own point of view. When I am distressed at work, or my personal life, what only appears to me are the faults of others, and my own tragic predicament. Mind never by itself goes to think about the distress of the others that I might be causing unknowingly. It always wants to simplify the the happenings like a child, segregating people, circumstances, etc as good or bad; as either the fairy godmother or the daemon.
I found that it is a very naive way to look at life, for myself. Mind, I have seen is always in an inertia. It tends to do thing good what it is used to. It is used to doing what it practices daily. So, if the mind is made to practice peace and compassion, it automatically does nothing both peace and compassion. If the mind is engaged into judging, hatred, violence, etc, it does nothing but the same automatically.
It is not just practice makes a man perfect. But rather it is practice what sets the mind to an inertia - an automatic avalanche of thoughts and imagery consistent to what is practiced.
I have seen this pretty consistent to my own personality. If I am in the mood of writing romantic poetry, I keep writing beautiful poems and imagery months after months. The mood overflows in my way of being, my thoughts, my preferences etc. Later, after an year, when I am deep into say Marx's Das Capital, I tend to go deep into every economic and social transaction, and try to link that with the means of production and labor. My writings reflect the same mood. And interestingly when I read those old romantic poems, I feel silly. If I am deep into Plato, I always relate to Ethics and what is that way to bring that invisible archetype to the living world. The point I am trying to make here, is that brain continues an inertia. We tend to do, act, behave with what we are actively engaged with.

The same beautifully applies to Compassion too. It is not just knowing the word, and being aware of the way of being of compassion. But rather, I try to actively practice compassion, every moment of my life. In the food I eat, in the dress I wear, in my communication, behavior, and dealings with people around me both at home and at work. Yes, I fail many times. Anger, impatience, ego, or many such psychological barriers come in the way, and blinds me from understanding the other person. But then, I try it over again. More I practice, I do a better job the next time. It feels good when I see myself improving.

There is so much antagonism prevailing in daily life, I feel the most important thing that I need to keep in mind is being compassionate, actively; not only towards others, but also towards myself.

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How about being who I am

Free from the burden of
Being good in the other's eyes,
Carrying the uneasiness
Of trying to be someone else,
How about being who I am.

Letting go that urge
To copy the other,
To see the world in the eyes of the other,
To believe on a borrowed ideology,
To create an art,
with a copied idea.
How about being who I am.

Forgoing the tiredness
Of pleasing all,
That tireless striving,
To walk in the roads,
Marked by the other,
How about being who I am.

Choosing my own path,
Swimming my own stream,
Fighting my own war,
Dancing in my own tune,
How about being who I am.

Lovely is that point of being
In awareness of who I am,
In understanding what I stand for,
In knowing my own self,
And the world.
How about doing that
What makes me feel proud,
What makes me feel relevant,
What makes me feel  I.

Reclaiming that Identity,
Here I walk the unknown path in solitude,
In this pilgrimage of life,
To my own shrine,
Being who I am.

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Marriage and Mythologies

Campbell: Read myths. They teach you that you can turn inward, and you begin to get the message of the symbols. Myth helps you to put your mind in touch with this experience of being alive. It tells you what the experience is. Marriage, for example. What is marriage? The myth tells you what it is. It's the reunion of the separated duad. Originally you were one. You are now two in the world, but recognition of the spiritual identity is what marriage is. It's different from a love affair. It has nothing to do with that. It's another mythological plane of experience. When people get married because they think it is a long time love affair, they will be divorced very soon, because all love affairs end in disappointment. But marriage is recognition of a spiritual identity....it is a mystery.

Moyers: If marriage is this reunion of the self with the self, with the male and female grounding of ourselves, why is it that marriage is so precarious in our modern society?

Campbell: Because it is not regarded as a marriage. I would say that if the marriage is not a first priority in your life, you are not married. The marriage means that two that are one, the two become one flesh. If the marriage lasts long enough, and if you are acquiescing constantly to it instead of to individual personal whim, you come to realize that that is true - the two really are one. One not only biologically, but spiritually. Primarily spiritually. The biological is the distraction which may lead you to the wrong identification.

Moyers: Then the necessary function of marriage, perpetuating ourselves in children, is not the primary one.

Campbell: No, that is really just the elementary aspect of marriage. There are two completely different stages of marriage. First is the youthful marriage following the wonderful impulse that nature has given us in the interplay of the sexes biologically inorder to produce children. The second stage is more spiritual.

Marriage is a relationship. When you make the sacrifice in marriage, you are sacrificing not to each other but to unity in a relationship. A single self that is formed by a spiritual union between you and your partner. Marriage is not a simple love affair, it is an ordeal, and the ordeal is the sacrifice of ego to a relationship in which two have become one.

Moyers: So marriage is utterly incompatible with the idea of doing one's own thing.

Campbell: It is not simply ones own thing, you see. It is, in a sense, doing one's own thing, but the one is not just you, it is the two together as one. And that's a purely mythological image signifying the sacrifice of the visible entity for a transcendent good. This is something that becomes beautifully realized in marriage, which I call the alchemical stage, of the two experiencing that they are one - spiritually, mythologically.

In the above excerpt from the book, "The Power of Myth", Campbell beautifully puts forward Archetype of marriage. Today, in India it takes 4 days to get married. There are several rituals, Vedic oaths taken infront of Fire and Spirits, and Blessings bestowed from elders, both from the physical world, and the world of the dead. Similar mythic rituals ordain this special even in one's life in various ancient civilizations. Unfortunately, in most of the cases, the mystic invisible holiness of the occasion has been lost or defiled. This disappearance of the mythical essence of marriage is even more visible in the modern developed societies. Marriage seldom transcends beyond a means of achieving personal ends, individually. Here Campbell stresses on the concept of true union, where individuals are no more different, but are the same. It is important to recognize that the state is not about graduating from a "I" to a "We". Rather it is about embracing the other in I. That is important. Only then, each individual can really related to the other, and be in harmony. It is only then, both the individual sees a new world - which they were unable to see when there were separate. So truly expressed by Campbell, marriage is not just an institution for genetic proliferation, and social order. Rather it is a sanctification of a person to a different order - an order in which they see things differently, they understand the world differently. 

Marriage is an opportunity to transcend one's individual ego. It is about going out of one's own needs and whims, and relating to the other. Not only it is about relating to the other, but also appreciating the other as the self. This philosophical exercise to achieve oneness is the starting step to get an Idea what is God. God is not an entity out there, as most of the ancient traditions have repeatedly proclaimed. Rather God is one's own self, from a different vantage point. It is about appreciating unity with one's life, circumstance, people around, challenges, and also God at the same time.

Marriage is about gaining a perspective. It is about coming closer to the Truth.

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Perfection is inhuman - An excerpt from "The Power of Myth"

[This is an excerpt from the book - The Power of Myth, by Joseph Campbell. It is a discussion between Campbell and Bill Moyers]

Moyers: Why myth? Why should we care about myths? What do they have to do with my life?

Campbell: My first response would be, "Go on, live your life, it is good life - you don't need mythology." I don't believe in being being interested in a subject just because it is said to be important. I believe in being caught by it somehow or other. But you may find that, with proper introduction, mythology will catch you. 

One of our problems today is that we are not well acquainted with the literature of the spirit. We are interested in the news of the day and the problems of the hour. No more our attention goes to the inner life and to the magnificent human heritage we have in our great tradition - Plato, Confucius, the Buddha, Goethe and others who speak of eternal values that have to do with the centering of our lives. When you get to be older, and the concerns of the day have all been attended to, and you turn to the inner life - well, if you dont know where it is or what it is, you will be sorry.

Greek and Latin and biblical literature used to be part of everyone's education. Now, when these were dropped, a whole tradition of Occidental mythological information was lost. It used to be that these stories were in the minds of people. When the story is in your mind, then you see its relevance to something happening in your own life. It gives you perspective on what is happening to you. These bits of information from ancient times, which have to do with teh themes that have supported human life, built civilizations, an informed religions over the millennia, have to do with deep inner problems, inner mysteries, inner thresholds of passage, and if you dont know what the guide signs are along the way, you have t work it out yourself. But once this subject catches you, there is such a feeling, from one or another of these traditions, of information of a deep, rich, life vivifying sort that you dont want to give it up.

Moyers: So we tell stories to try to come to terms with the world, to harmonize our lives with reality?

Campbell: I think so, yes. Novels - great novels - can be wonderfully instructive. In my twenties and thirties and even into my forties, James Joyce and Thomas Mann were my teachers. I read everything they wrote. Both were writing in terms of what might be called the mythological traditions. Take, for example, the story of Tonio, in Thomas Mann's Tonio Kroger. Tonio's father was a substantial businessman, a major citizen in his hometown. Little Tonio, however, had an artistic temperament, so he moved to Munich and joined a group of literary people who felt themselves above the mere money earners and family men. 

So here is Tonio between two poles: his father, who was a good father, responsible and all of that, but who never did the one he wanted to in all his life - and, on teh other hand, the one who leaves his hometown and becomes a critic of that kind of life. But Tonio found that he really loved these hometown people. ANd although he thought himself a little superior in an intellectual way to them and could describe them with cutting words, his heart was nevertheless with them.

But when he left to live with the bohemians, he found that they were so disdainful of life that he couldn't stay with them either. So he left them and wrote a letter back to someone in the group, saying, "I admire those cold, proud beings who adventure upon the paths of great and daemonic beauty and despise mankind; but I do not envy them. For if anything is capable of making a poet of a literary man, it is my hometown love of the human, the living and ordinary. All warmth derives from this love, all kindness and all humor. Indeed to me it even seems that this must be that love of which it is written that one may 'speak of the tongues of men and of angels', yet, lacking love, be 'as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.'"

And then he says, "The writer must be true to truth." And that is a killer, because the only way you can describe a human being truly is describing his imperfections. The perfect being is uninteresting - the Buddha who leaves the world, you know. It is the imperfections of life that are lovable. And when the writer sends a dart of the true world, it hurts. But it goes with love. That is what Mann called "erotic irony", the love for that which you are killing with your cruel, analytical word.

Moyers: I cherish that image: my hometown love, the feeling you get for that place, no matter how long you have been away or even if you never return. That was where you first discovered people. But why do you say you love people for their imperfections?

Campbell: Aren't children lovable because they are falling down all the time and have little bodies with heads too big? And these funny little dogs that people have - they are lovable because they are so imperfect.

Moyers: Perfection would be a bore, wouldn't it?

Campbell: It would have to be. It would be inhuman. That is why some people have a very hard time loving God, because there is no imperfection there. You can be in awe, but that would not be real love. It is the Christ on the cross, that becomes lovable. 

People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're all seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. That's what it is all finally about, and that is what these clues help us to find within ourselves. 

It is about experience of life. The mind has to do with meaning. What's meaning of a flower? What is the meaning of the universe? What's the meaning of a flea? It's just there. That's it. And your own meaning is that you're there. We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget that the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it's all about.

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Vande Mataram!

Vande Mataram - The National Song of India, was taken from Part 1, Chapter 10, of the Bangla novel - Anandamath, written by Bankim Chandra Chatterji in 1882. The poem is a hymn to Goddess Durga, identified as the national personification of India. It played a vital role in the Indian independence movement, first sung in a political context by Rabindranath Tagore at the 1896 session of the Indian National Congress.

In 1950 (after India's independence), the song's first two verses were given the official status of the "national song" of the Republic of India, distinct from the national anthem of India, Jana Gana Mana. 

Bengali script		NLK transliteration
বন্দে মাতরম্ ৷ সুজলাং সুফলাং মলয়জশীতলাম্ শস্যশ্যামলাং মাতরম্ ! বন্দে মাতরম্ ৷ শুভ্র-জ্যোত্স্না পুলকিত-যামিনীম্ ফুল্লকুসুমিত দ্রুমদলশোভিনীম্, সুহাসিনীং সুমধুরভাষিণীম্ সুখদাং বরদাং মাতরম্ ৷৷ বন্দে মাতরম্ ৷		vande mātaram sujalāṃ suphalāṃ malayajaśītalām śasya śyāmalāṃ mātaram vande mātaram śubhra jyotsnā pulakita yāminīm phulla kusumita drumadalaśobhinīm suhāsinīṃ sumadhura bhāṣiṇīm sukhadāṃ varadāṃ mātaram vande mātaram

Here is the translation in prose of the above two stanzas rendered by Sri Aurobindo Ghose. This has also been adopted by the Government of India's national portal. The original Vande Mataram consists of six stanzas and the translation in prose for the complete poem by Shri Aurobindo appeared in Karmayogin, 20 November 1909.

    I show gratitude to thee, Mother,
    richly-watered, richly-fruited,
    cool with the winds of the south,
    dark with the crops of the harvests,
    The Mother!

    Her nights rejoicing in the glory of the moonlight,
    her lands clothed beautifully with her trees in flowering bloom,
    sweet of laughter, sweet of speech,
    The Mother, giver of boons, giver of bliss.

Apart from the above prose translation, Sri Aurobindo also translated Vande Mataram into a verse form known as Mother, I Bow to Thee. Sri Aurobindo commented thus on his English translation of the poem:
“ It is difficult to translate the National Song of India into verse in another language owing to its unique union of sweetness, simple directness and high poetic force.”

This ancient land today again rejoices in her glory of the moonlight, as I write this article. Her lands are as is clothed beautifully with her trees in flowering bloom since eternity. Sweetness of laughter and sweetness in speech, The Mother - India - Bharat Mata - is giver of boons and giver of bliss to one and all.

She has always been the true mother - always busy giving with full bounty. Mother has given to the world sacred creations as that of Vedas, Upanishads, The Bhagavat Geeta, The Mahabharata, The Ramayana, and other thousands of enlightening ideas, which have in various languages, various forms, various ways, rituals and chores, beliefs and culture, redeemed humanity. 

Today I celebrate the independence day of The Mother, not with pride, but with utmost gratitude. I bow before thee O Mother, in the words of Bankim, I say - "Vande Mataram" - "Hail Mother!". I love you Mother, for your simplicity, for your hidden mysteries, for your sweetness of speech, for your open heart! I know Mother, you are not the richest one. I know Mother, you are not the most powerful. I know Mother, you fight with innumerable basic problems dealing with your existence every day. But we are one family - not only the ones born on this sacred land, but also men from all the world, all the regions, all creed, caste and nationality. For you have taught us Mother, there is just One; differentiations are just an illusion. What is truth is just Love; just fraternity; just brotherhood.

Today I celebrate not as an Indian, but as a man standing for Human Values, and a sacred future for humanity, worshiping the Archetype of the Mother India, for her venerated suchness, her mysteries, her sacredness, her virtues, her godliness! This beautiful Archetype is present in every cell of existence, every nook and corner, every stream, mountain, ocean and skies. It depends on the individual to know the essential, see the invisible, be a worth of belonging to that pristine and pure Mother!

Happy Independence Day to all!
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The Case of God

The only truth is God. The only mission of everyday life is to be one with God, in doing one's daily work. It is a lost game to give attention on to people, institution, and the ways of the world. This is because all the ways of the world are ever changing. They are mere reflections of God. This does not mean that a person necessarily has to close himself off from the world. He can. That way he will be able to see God, if it is as per his temperament. Many masters have been able to do exactly the same. But if it worked out for say Ramanna Maharishi, it did not work the same way for Tagore, for example. Tagore had to play with his words and poetic expression to see God, and be one with Him.

The point is a man has to search God based on his temperament. He just cannot follow others. He is unique and so his path. If he is a go getter, he has to see God in his pursuits, and try to find God in his errands. A person who is a scholar, has to find God in his studies and research. There is only one pole star. Man can operate based on his own temperament, character, and the limitations imposed by the society he lives in. Each can find God in his own path. The point is man has to be one sighted fixed on to God and nothing else.

We spend our days. We meet people, interact with them. We do multiple actions. We plan our work. We execute them. We indulge. We sacrifice. There are millions of the work we enter from morning to evening, from birth to death. In doing each of these activities, it is important not to let the countless differentiation in the gross features in the realm of form, impregnate into one's self feeding just his emotional, physical and mental needs. Allowing this rainbow of expectations, worldly needs, and the varied colorful shades of myriad colors of the manifested world, as specified in the Gita as Kaam, Krodh, Raag, Dwesh, one simple beats around the bush. It is just being enchanted by the mirage. It is not that they are wrong and one has to guard oneself from them. It is not about repressing them or suppressing them. The point is about using them as gateway to reach the invisible Archetype which is the only truth. It is not a mystical abstraction. Rather it is hard core truth. We all know we will die. We all know we will lose all those whom we love. We all know our possessions will rust, break and disappear. We all know our body will be engulfed in weakness, wear-tear and diseases. We all know people change their opinions. We all know it is an impossibility for any one to really know the other from core. One just relates to the other from a mere fuzziness of what his own mind perceives about the other, which is neurologically, psychological and sociologically entire different from the other. We all know, eventually all are alone in this path of life. But, still we tend to expend so much time and energy in the pursuits of the worldly things. One has to be aware of being connected to the higher realm through the nature of things around.

To explain in the most concrete level, it is something like this. When one buys a good book, he does not get enchanted with its cover, binding, fonts, quality of page, the fragrance of the papers, etc. Yes, certainly these have the first impact on the reader. But as one really start reading the book, and drinking the wisdom encoded in the words of the book, one starts relating to a world which is invisible and inspiring. What was non-essential was all visible - the manifest beauty of the book's appearance and make. What was really essential - the wisdom in the mind of the author was always invisible. It was upto the efforts of the reader to really do his job to really understand, apply and appreciate the wisdom. That is an active participation in the part of the reader to be able to really "see" the book.

Today those great men in flesh and blood are no more. Men of the stature of Buddha, Jeremiah, Jesus, Moses, Einstein, Gandhi, Tagore, etc are no more. But their  thoughts, their ideals their inspirational work still remains and will continue to do so, helping humanity to be better and realize its full potential till eternity. It is the devoted activity these men entered into to discover the truth about themselves and the nature, which blossomed those perennial flowers of wisdom.

So, it is the Karma - the activity, qualified with the intention and effort to know the truth, is what is important. It is not about what one gets out of the activity, in the domain of form. Because whatever you get in the domain of the form is just a reflection of a hidden truth. For example, as I am writing this article, as I look outside the window infront, I see an expanse of trees swaying in the morning breeze. What is visible to me is an expanse of green land, and multitude of trees. A poet who sees this visible beauty, in the effort to search the invisible truth in this expanse of nature, might visualize his love for his muse, swaying in freedom in the music of her love. A naturalist might see the truth hidden in the form of the nature of the soil, the impact of the trees on the soil and the ecosystem around. A real estate businessman, might be thinking about ways to clean up the forest and raise a multi storied building in its place. All are busy in their own created realities. This one level getting into what is apparent.

The second level is even more profound. For the poet, can he transcend his love for his muse, to the love for that immutable? Can that muse be the archetype of Love itself, rather than a person in flesh and blood? When he goes deep into his feelings he discovers it was not the love for anything in form, which was inspiring him. But it was the love for the hidden immutable archetype of Life itself, that was so inspiring - the songs of the birds, the expanse of the sky, the brotherly dance of the branches of the trees. More creative effort a person applies on what is apparent, more he is able to come home to the truth.

A doctor does not get overwhelmed with the dilapidated condition of a visiting patient. Rather he looks through what is visible, and applies his reason and knowledge of the anatomy of the body, to come to a conclusion. What is apparent to the doctor on first sight of the patient is just an illusion. What he discovers after an active devoted activity is what is truth.

The same applies to the life of a software developer. Bombarded with multiple issues coming every day on the product he is working, he cannot afford to be moved by what is just reported by customers, test engineers, system folks, etc. He has to debug the issue and find out the real cause. In each moment spent in the actual debugging and finding out the root cause, he discovers the truth - the immutable - The God.

The idea is not to get lost by the outer manifestation of life. The outer manifestation of life is a ploy of natural selection to continue the proliferation and propagation of genes. That does nothing greater. Rather, the need is to rise, and grow from a boy to a man. It is the time to grow from a girl to a woman. It is about growing from naive to the Knowing.

It is about shunning the laziness to be passive in life and be impacted by the whims and fancies of the self and the others. It is about being an Arjun; lifting his "Gandiv" and fight the war. Fighting the war is about engaging in a creative activity to know the truth, in the field that suits the temperament of a person. It is about getting involved in work, not just to be busy. But rather to search for the truth, to bring the invisible Archetype to the sensible world.

It is not only about knowing the world around. It also about knowing one's own self. It is also about going deep within and know one’s own self in reality. It is about getting in touch with the latent power of one's own self. It is about discovering the personal manhood and womanhood hidden inside. It is about also finding that aspect of divine hidden in oneself. It is about transcending from intellect to intuition and intelligence. The famous photographer - Pierre Polain speaking about his photographs puts this idea pretty beautifully in his book "Wisdom through lens" as -
"The reality, the truth behind a picture, its idea and sentiment cannot be described because it does not belong to the visible sphere but to the invisible. This is why a photograph has to be seen through he "eyes of the soul" at least as much as with our physical eyes. A photograph is a door, an open passage from intelligible to the sensible, from the invisible to the visible, and looking at its inner nature is looking into a mirror: it can help us discover ourselves; it can help us get to know ourselves. The photograph is a means for the archetype to make its way into the visible and temporal world, and thus looking at the photograph will awaken a profound and mysterious sentiment, which is the echo of the same archetype inside us."
 He further says, "The artist is, in fact, the real Prometheus..he does not steal the fire from Zeus to bring it back to humanity, like the divine hero did, but he does "steal" the vision of the archetypes - especially Beauty and Harmony, and makes it perceptible to the rest of humanity through his own art."

So, can a man have the courage to be the Prometheus? Yes, that is what life is for. It is about realizing one's whole self and the knowing the world around. It is about knowing the laws of nature, and being part of the big scheme of things, being creative and taking that small step, which helps man to see Truth, and bring forward to humanity the Truth - in its special form - unique to the expression of the individual.

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Ekla Chalo Re - Being Human

"Jodi Tor Dak Shune Keu Na Ase Tobe Ekla Cholo Re" (Bengali: যদি তোর ডাক শুনে কেউ না আসে তবে একলা চলো রে, Jodi Tor Dak Shune Keu Na Ase Tobe Ekla Cholo Re, "If no one responds to your call, then go your own way alone"), commonly known as Ekla Chalo Re, is a Bangla song written by Rabindranath Tagore in 1905.

Originally titled as "Eka", the song was first published in the September 1905 issue of Bhandar magazine. It was influenced by Harinaam Diye Jagat Matale Amar Ekla Nitai Re, a popular Bangla Kirtan song of Dhapkirtan or Manoharshahi gharana praising Nityananda, disciple of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Ekla Chalo Re was incorporated in the "Swadesh" (Homeland) section of Tagore’s lyrical anthology Gitabitan.

The song exhorts the listener to continue his or her journey, despite abandonment or lack of support from others. The song is often quoted in the context of political or social change movements. Mahatma Gandhi, who was deeply influenced by this song, cited it as one his favorite songs.


Here is the translation in prose of the Bangla original rendered by Rabindranath Tagore himself -

If they answer not to thy call, walk alone. 

If they are afraid and cower mutely facing the wall,
O thou unlucky one,open thy mind and speak out alone.

If they turn away, and desert you when crossing the wilderness,
O thou unlucky one,trample the thorns under thy tread,
And along the blood-lined track travel alone.
If they do not hold up the light when the night is troubled with storm,
O thou unlucky one,with the thunder flame of pain,
Ignite thy own heart and let it burn alone.

The original song in Bangla is as follows -
যদি তোর ডাক শুনে কেউ না আসে তবে একলা চলো রে।
একলা চলো, একলা চলো, একলা চলো, একলা চলো রে॥
যদি কেউ কথা না কয়, ওরে ওরে ও অভাগা,
যদি সবাই থাকে মুখ ফিরায়ে সবাই করে ভয়—
তবে পরান খুলে
ও তুই মুখ ফুটে তোর মনের কথা একলা বলো রে॥
যদি সবাই ফিরে যায়, ওরে ওরে ও অভাগা,
যদি গহন পথে যাবার কালে কেউ ফিরে না চায়—
তবে পথের কাঁটা
ও তুই রক্তমাখা চরণতলে একলা দলো রে॥
যদি আলো না ধরে ওরে ওরে ও অভাগা,
আলো না ধরে যদি ঝর বাদলে আঁধার রাতে দুয়ার ধেয়ে ঘরে-
তবে বজ্রানলে আপন বুকের পাঁজরা জ্বালিয়ে একলা জ্বলো রে।।

This song reminds me of the teachings of the Buddha, to stand on your own feet, and relieve yourself of the crutches - in various forms - both material and spiritual. The Buddha quite succinctly had rendered this idea of his, in the following verses of the Dhammapada -

By self alone is evil done, by self one is defiled;
By self is evil left undone, by self alone one is purified.
Pure and impure on self alone depend;
No one can make another pure
- Verse 165 -Dhammapada.

It certainly is in the hand of man, in his total control, what he is to be. He has to walk alone, and burn his heart with the pain, and light the path on his way in the dark wilderness, as Tagore puts it. This is not a gesture of cutting oneself off from others. Neither it is a stance of an egoic obstinacy. This idea comes out from the sense of being a complete human - standing on one's own feet. It is about not being a creeper. It is about being the light, being the creator. It is in the words of Erich Fromm - being productive, grounded in love. Also to be noted is the possibility of man to do so, is taken as a possibility. By Fromm, the Buddha, Tagore, Plato and the Neo-Platonists, it is considered that Man can really walk alone, and it is a possibility of him to realize the Truth - all by himself. That is a major jump in human imagination, revived from the ancients both in the European Renaissance during 1400-1600 AD and the Bengal Renaissance started by Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1775–1833) and ended by Tagore (1861–1941)

This spirit of Humanism has been beautifully put forward by Pico della Mirandola in "Oration on the Dignity of Man", explaining the Biblical myth of Adam.
"Adam, we have not given you a fixed place, nor an appearance of your own, nor any particular privilege, so that the place, the appearance and the privileges which you may desire, you yourself may obtain and keep according to your desires and your feelings. The well-defined nature of the other creatures is limited by the laws we have decreed, but you who have no such constraints that will determine your own nature according to the free will into whose hands I have given you. I have placed you in the middle of the world so that from there you can better understand all that is in the world. We have made you neither celestial nor terrestrial, neither mortal nor immortal, so that, as the free and supreme modeller and sculptor of yourself, you can sculpt yourself into the shape which you have chosen. You can degenerate and fall towards the inferior beings who are animals; you can, if you so decide, regenerate yourself and rise towards the superior beings who are divine"

Fernand Schwarz in his book,"The Spirit of the Renaissance" observes - "The miraculous character of man is due to his unique place in the center of an ordered universe: he can overturn and ruin everything, just as he can redeem everything in a liberating transfiguration. His humanity is not given to him from outset: he has to forge it for himself; it is a choice and an effort. It is his actions which shape it. He can choose good or evil, play the part of the angel or the best. He is responsible for his infinite freedom. Situated between the diabolical and the divine, he has the responsibility to find the right path: that of glorification of the work which utilizes the given order to create a ladder of ascent. The ambiguity of human nature obliges man to face this uncertain and perilous adventure.
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Meister Echart take on Being and Freedom

Meister Eckhart says we should be free from our own things and our own actions, to be really free in this world. This does not mean that we should neither possess anything nor do anything; it means we should not be bound, tied, chained to what we own and what we have, not even to God. 

Eckhart approaches the problem of having on another level when he discusses the relation between possession and freedom. Human freedom is restricted to the extent to which we are bound to possession, our works and lastly to our own egos. By being bound to our egos, we stand in our own way and are blocked from bearing fruit, from realizing ourselves fully. Freedom as a condition of true productivity is nothing bud giving up one's ego, as love is free from all egoboundedness. Freedom in the sense of being unfettered, free from craving for holding onto things and one's ego, is the condition for love and for productive being. Our human aim according to Eckhart is to get rid of the fetters of egoboundedness, egocentricity, that is to say the having mode of existence, in order to arrive to full being. 

In the having mode of existence what matters is not the various objects of having, but our whole human attitude. Everything and anything can become an object of craving: things we use in daily life, property, rituals, good deeds, knowledge, and thoughts. While they are not in themselves bad, they become bad; that is, when we hold onto them, when they become chains that interfere with our freedom, they block our self realization.

Eckhart uses "Being" in two following different though related meanings - 

1. Being denotes the real and often unconscious motivations that impel human beings, in contrast to deeds and opinions as such and separated from the acting and thinking person. He says, "People should not consider so much what they are to "do" as what they "are"...Thus take care that your emphasis is laid on being good and not on the number or kind of things to be done. Emphasize rather the fundamentals on which your work rests." Our being is the reality, the spirit that moves us, the character that impels our behaviour; in contrast, the deeds or opinions that are separated from our dynamic core have no reality. 

2. The second meaning is wider and more fundamental: being is life, activity, birth, renewal, outpouring, flowing out, productivity. In this sense, being is the opposite of having, of egoboundedness and egotism. Being, to Eckhart, means to be active in the classic sense of productive expression of one's human powers, not in the modern sense of being busy. Activity to him means "to go out of oneself", which he expresses in many word pictures: he calls being a process of "boiling", of "giving birth", something that "flows and flows in itself and beyond itself." Sometimes he uses the symbol of running in order to indicate the active character: "Run into peace! The man who is in the state of running, of continuous running into peace is a heavenly man. He continually runs and moves and seeks peace in running." Another definition of activity is : The active, alive man is like a "vessel that grows as it is filled and will never be full". 

In Eckhart's ethical system the supreme virtue is the state of productive inner activity, for which the premise is overcoming of all forms of egoboundedness and cravings.

(PS - This article is taken from the chapter 3 of the book - To Have or to Be, by Erich Fromm. The point 1 and 2 above are critical. Just by going with the point 1, one might mistake the state of being as a state of inaction. One might go the wrong way of detaching oneself from the material world of activity. The second point completes the state of Being, beautifully. It is not about detaching from the world of action. But it is about using action, to escape from one's egoboundedness and craving of having. One needs to remind oneself is that being in a state of  inaction, is not the state of being. It is a dead state of mind, where one is stuck with a given set of beliefs and biases. Such a state is also another manifestation of Having - this time a bit more dangerous and camouflaged. 

So, it is nothing wrong in having more, or doing more. It is neither bad to have less, and to have done less. But the point is about going beyond the attachment and boundedness with one's having and doing domains. The point is about being in spontaneous activity to be able to affirm who one really is - one's true self. This activity might be anything, and has to be free from the hidden agenda to have or accomplish something. It is just a process. It is interesting to remind oneself, similar thought expressed by Krishna in the Bhagavat Gita. The point is not how much you have in your plate. But whether you are able to experience Beingness, through freedom, love, productivity, expressing your real self. This state of one's being is related to be being one with God by the ancients. Bhagavat Gita talks about this state of beingness as the state of Sattva. I have discussed this in my earlier article - http://criativ-mind.blogspot.in/2012/06/on-action-and-law.html)

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On Action and the Law

Dharma is the Omnipresent law, the Archetype, the ideal. Dharma is the Way. Karma is the vehicle to tread the way. It is the means to be one with Dharma. It is the manifested dharma. If dharma is the order, karma is what keeps it alive. 

Karma exists in 3 fold manifestations - the knower, the knowledge, and the known. All these three dimensions of karma can exist in the following 3 climates or temperaments - Rajas, Sattva, and Tamas. 

Following words try to express the feel of Rajas: 

Plurality, analysis, individuality, separation, alienation, arrogance, fear, stress, anger, nervousness, anxiety, restlessness, disbelief, meanness, stinginess, prejudice, go getter, material efficiency. 

Following try to explain what constitute the Tamas: 

Attachment to an individual, lust, attachment to having something or somebody, indulgence, laziness, driven by baser instincts, attachment to results, to profits, helplessness on the face of obstacles, rationalization, over intellectualization, delusion, inactivity, habit 

Sattva stands for unity, integration, non attachment to the material manifest, one sighted concentration on the Archetype, the Dharma, the Ideal. From this vantage point all the three constituencies of Karma, viz - Knowledge, knower, and the known are considered as a way to be one with "Krishna" – the invisible Ideal – The Truth – The Source. From this standpoint every moment of existence becomes a worship. The action or the outcome of the action per se loses its importance. What is primary is the process of being in the act to be able to "see" the invisible in all the three material constituents - the knower, the known and the knowledge. 

Life is an opportunity to practice Sattva every moment of being alive. It is about living in touch with one’s sense of Being, instead of Having. Both Tamas and Rajas are flavors based on the mode of “having” 

It is easy to be swept in the delusion of having something or somebody. The way media, society and the world around imposes its noise on our minds, It is very easy to fall in the trap of the rat race of searching one’s self worth, one’s identity, in the form of one’s possession of power, knowledge, education, a lucrative job, profits, deals, relationships, etc. Not much attention is given to Be. Even if someone is giving a passing thought into one’s being, it is always weighed against what he shall “have”, out of “being” that. So, a person would prefer reading a book, if one is convinced that it would help one at work, and everyday living, manipulating life and people to achieve one’s own end. Or others might want to read, to have a stint of fantasy, to escape from one’s own reality. Not much thought is given to just Being. 

The state of Being is mostly misunderstood as the state of inaction. Rather it is quite contrary. The state of being is actually as state of immense internal and external activity, which helps a person to express out who she really is. It is a journey to discover one’s real self. It is a journey of self analysis to know one’s own self, the life, and the world around. It is a life lived in deep contemplation observing and knowing life. It is about being in that profound gratitude and appreciation of the creation and grandeur of nature. It is about trying to solve the mystery of one’s own existence. 

Being is what remains with man – his increases awareness, his growing respect of life and people, his enhanced capacity to love, his enlarged soul and heart, his resolution to stay with the Dharma, love, peace and harmony – no matter what. Being is that immortal sheen on one’s soul that transcends one’s life. It continues to be in this creation long after the body ceases to exist. After 2500 years of the death of the prince Siddhartha, the shine of his Being still is so young and relevant in this world. Same is the case of Beethoven, Dickens, Shakespeare, Blake, Mozart, Michelangelo, Jesus, and hundreds of masters who have made their being sublime in their lifetimes. Certainly no matter what they had, has all perished away. Nature and life has not even a passing awareness of them. But it was their Being which has remained timeless. 

Today is the world of markets. It is the world of business, of industry, of capitalism. Capital is the God. It is not for wellbeing, man wants capital. But it is for capital, one needs more capital. Capital is no more just a means. But it has become an end to itself. Everything is measures in the backdrop of its salability. Even before taking up a hobby, it runs out in the mind of man, on the aspect of its salability to the society. Today, in the shelves of the best sellers, you see books which worship the men who “have” – in the form of power, capital, prestige, knowledge, or any other such forms of getting more capital in return. Unconsciously man has started measuring his own worth based on this skewed scale. 

But, remembering the ageless wisdom of the Vedas, if we practice the Sattvik form of living - a living based on the way of being, life becomes a beautiful play of discovery and enchantment.

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Adding that needed depth

"Go and be somethingological directly", Mrs Gradgrind orders her children in Charles Dickens's Hard Times (1854). The children are brought up on their father's strict utilitarian principles - or rather, on Dickens's ferocious satire of them. So they have "a little conchological cabinet, and a little metallurgical cabinet, and a little mineralogical cabinet; and all the specimens were all arranged and labelled", but they have no fairy tales or nursery rhymes - nothing that might encourage fancy or wonder.

Not surprisingly, the children come to bad ends. On her deathbed, Mrs Gradgrind tells her daughter: "There is something- not an Ology at all - that your father has missed, or forgotten."

Science, in Dickens's view, does immense good - moral, social and intellectual - but only when it works hand in hand with imagination and reverence. Dickens being a Protestant Christian, did not see science as a threat to religious faith. On the contrary, he argued, learning the true nature of forces or objects brings us close to their creator. In a speech he gave in 1869 at the Birmingham and Nidland Institude, he speculated that Jesus might have taught scientific truth about the "wonders on every hand", but chose not to because "the people of that time could not bear them". 

Dickens's objection in Hard Times was not to science itself, but to the reductionist principle that imposes stultifying order and leaves no room for emotion or imagination. Plenty of Victorian scientific writers would have agreed with him. Michael Faraday, for example, taught that "in the pursuit of physical science, the imagination should be taught to present the subject investigated in all possible, and even in impossible views."

Dickens was appalled by people whose scientific knowledge was not connected to imagination or feelings. As soon as we meet Bradley Headstone, the teacher in Our Mutual Friend(1865), we know that he will prove a villain, because his mind is rule-bound and sterile: "From his earliest childhood up, his mind had been a place of mechanical stowage...astronomy to the right, political economy to the left - natural history, the physical sciences, figures, music, the lower mathematics and what not, all in their several places." The same tidy-mindedness that incidcates the barrenness of the little Gradgrinds' natural specimens foretells Headstone's descent into criminal insanity. 

What excited Dickens most about science was its ability to reveal an unimagined world behind ordinary objects. "The facts of science are at least as full of poetry, as the most poetical fancies", he wrote in an 1848 review of RObert Hunt's The Poetry of Science. By revealing the wonder of everyday things, science compensates us for the beloved but ignorant beliefs it destroys. "When science has freed us from a harmless superstitions" Dickens wrote in the same review, "she offers to our contemplation something better and more beautiful, something which rightly considered, is more elevating to the soul, nobler and more stimulating to the soaring fancy." Dinosaurs, he went on, are really far more impressive than dragons, and coral reefs more so than mermaids.

Accordingly, Dickens championed writers who used science to show the world as spectacular, magical or astonishing. Among his close friends were mathematician, and father of the computer Charles Babbage, and Richer Owen, the comparative anatomist who coined the word dinosaur: Owen was enthralled by Dickens's novels, following them avidly as they came out in installments. Science historian Gowan Dawson has argued that there are strong similarities between Owen's paleontological studies and the way Victorian novel readers tackled serially published novels. 

On the same lines of Dickens, many greatest names in the field of physical sciences like that of Pythagoras, Archimedes, Kepler, and more recent Neil's Bohr, Newton, Einstein, Pauli, etc, have time and again hinted on the danger of the reductionism of science.

In our contemporary world similar over simplification raises its ugly head in the way children are taught  in schools, workers work in offices, managers and clerks manage the administrative works, engineers work out engineering feats, teachers teach and do research, priests carry out religious practices, doctors treat patients. 

Time is ripe, when there is an immediate need for man to step back, and listen to the in-audible, see the invisible, reason out the non-apparent, thereby being fully human. Mankind needs to focus on depth and not breath - on quality, not on quantity - on being, not on having.

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On Loving - An Action

Erich Fromm speaks about Love, marriage and relationships from the perspective of "having" and "being", beautifully as follows in his book - "To Have or To Be"

"Love has two meanings, depending upon whether it is spoken of in the mode of having or in the mode of being.
Can one have love? If we could, love would need to be a thing, there is no such a thing as "love". In reality there exists only the act of loving. To love implies caring for, knowing, responding affirming, enjoying: the person, the tree, the painting, the idea. It means bringing to life, increasing his/her/its aliveness. It is a process, self-renewing and self-increasing.
When love is experienced in the mode of having it implies confining, imprisoning, or controlling the object one "loves". It is strangling, deadening, suffocating, killing not life-giving. What people call love is mostly a misuse of the word, in order to hide the reality of their not loving.
The same may be said of marriages. Whether the marriage is based on love or, like traditional marriages of the past, on social convenience and custom, the couple who truly love each other seem to be the exception. What is social convenience, custom, mutual economic interests, shared interest in children, mutual dependency, or mutual hate or fear is consciously experienced as "love" - up to the moment when one or both partners recognize that they do not love each other, and that they never did. Today one can note some progress in this respect: people have become more realistic and sober, and many no longer feel that being sexually attracted means to love, or that a friendly, though distant, team relationship is a manifestation of loving. This new outlook has made for greater honesty - as well as more frequent change in partners. It has not necessarily led to a greater frequency of loving, and the new partners may love as little as did the old.
The change from "falling in love" to the illusion of "having" love can often be observed in concrete detail in the history of couples who have "fallen in love".

During courtship neither person is yet sure of the other, but each tries to win the other. Both are alive, attractive, interesting. Neither yet has the other; hence each other's energy is directed to "being", i.e. to giving to and stimulating the other. With the act of marriage the situation frequently changes fundamentally. The marriage contract gives each partner the exclusive possession of the other's body, feeling and care. Nobody has to be won over any more, because love has become something one "has", a property. The two cease to make the effort to be lovable and to produce love, hence they become boring, and hence their beauty disappears. They are disappointed and puzzled. Are they not the same persons any more? Did they make a mistake in the first place? Each usually seeks the cause of the change in the other and feels defrauded. What they do not see is that they no longer are the same people they were when they were in love with each other; that the error that one can have love has led them to cease loving. Now, instead of loving each other, they settle for owing together what they have: money, social standing, a home, children. Thus, in some cases, the marriage initiated on the basis of love becomes transformed into a friendly ownership, a corporation in which the two egotisms are pooled into one: that of the family.

When a couple cannot get over the yearning for renewal of the previous feeling of loving, one or the other of the pair may have the illusion that a new partner (or partners) will satisfy their longing. They feel that all they want to have is love. But love to them is not an expression of their being; it is a goddess to whom they want to submit. They necessarily fail with their love because "love is a child of liberty", and worshipper of the goddess of love eventually becomes so passive as to be boring and loses whatever is left of this or her former attractiveness.

This description is not intended to imply that marriage cannot be the best solution for two people who love each other. The difficulty does not lie in marriage, but in the possessive, existential structure of the both partners and, in the last analysis, of their society. The advocates of such modern-day forms of living together as group marriage, changing partners, group sex, etc, try, as far as I can see, only to avoid the problem of their difficulties in more "lovers", rather than to be able to love even one."

Beautifully expresses so succinctly, Fromm points to the root cause of attachment and pain, or disillusionment one undergoes in love, is rooted in one's propensity of "having" the object of love, in the above abstract in his book. Love in all forms loses its sheen, its life, its vitality and potency, when the love falls down to the form of a commodity to be "had". A person would be in excruciating emotional pain till he has not "had" his love. Countless poets have expressed their heartbreak, loneliness and helplessness in being in defiance from their love object. If by luck, the lover is able to "have" his love, then, as Fromm has rightly explained, the magic evaporates, as precisely occurs to one, when one buys the latest iPhone, and then loses interest in that, when a new version of iPhone is released the next year. I know here I have taken the subject to an extreme, and no one compares his lover to an iPhone. The comparison here is symbolically done to put a point.

The way out of this existential dilemma is always to relate love as an action - a productive, creative, nourishing and beautiful action. When one says, "I love you", one should relate it to saying, "I am standing in an act of caring, respecting, feeling, appreciating and affirming, who you are and who you are not". It is true that one cannot "fall in love". Rather one can only walk in love, stand in love, sing in love, write in love, create in love, see in love, paint in love, and live in love. I like to be always "inlove" :)

It is so true when Fromm says - "To love implies caring for, knowing, responding affirming, enjoying: the person, the tree, the painting, the idea. It means bringing to life, increasing his/her/its aliveness. It is a process, self-renewing and self-increasing." Yes, when one is not able to self-renew and self-increase, and do the same for his object of love, one has to be aware that it is not love that one is. But rather it is a personality defect - a craving, a need, a parasitic and symbiotic attachment.

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An Effort

I have been talking about the insanity of "having" the current society in some of my previous articles, such as http://criativ-mind.blogspot.in/2012/04/dont-kill-just-listen.html
http://criativ-mind.blogspot.in/2012/03/karl-marx-on-being-and-sham-of-having.html

This propensity of having is so ingrained in everyday life, that it is most often hidden from our conscious selves. It is rather easier to come out of this race of having more and more on a material realm, related to possessions in material, once man sees the innate emptiness in just material possessions. But the addiction of possessing more and more in the mental and emotional realm is much more tricky. Man many a times is prey of his own rationalizations, and get stuck to the illusion of having.
Erich Fromm portrays in a beautiful and simple way the nature of "having" knowledge and learning, and its difference from the higher state of "being" in the realm of knowing, in his book "To Have or To Be". He says-
"The difference between the mode of having and the mode of being in the sphere of knowing is expressed in two formulations: "I have knowledge" and "I know". Having knowledge is taking and keeping possession of available knowledge; knowing is functional and serves only as a means in the process of productive thinking.
Our understanding of the quality of knowing in being mode of existence can be enhanced by the insights of such thinkers as the Buddha, the Hebrew prophets, Jesus, Master Eckhart, Sigmund Freud, and Karl Marx. In their view, knowing begins with the awareness of the deceptiveness of our common sense perceptions, in the sense that our picture of physical reality does not correspond to what is "really real" and, mainly in the sense that most people are half awake, half dreaming, and are unaware that most of what they hold to be true and self evident is illusion produced by suggestive influence of the social world in which they live. Knowing, then, begins with shattering of illusions, with disillusionment. Knowing means to penetrate through the surface, in order to arrive at the roots, and hence the causes; knowing means to "see" reality in its nakedness. Knowing does not mean to be in possession of the truth; it means to penetrate the surface and to strive critically an actively in order to approach truth ever more closely.
The Buddha calls on people to wake up and liberate themselves from the illusion that craving for things/people lead to happiness. The Hebrew prophets appeal to the people to wake up and know that their idols are nothing but the work of their own hands, are illusions. Jesus says : Truth shall make you free. Master Eckhart expressed his concept of knowing many times; for instance, when speaking of God he says: "Knowledge is no particular thought but rather it peels off all coverings and is disinterested and runs naked to God, until it touches him and grasps him". According to Marx, one needs to destroy illusions in order to create the conditions that make illusions unnecessary. Freud's concept of self-knowledge is based on the idea of destroying illusions through ones own rationalizations in order to become aware of the unconscious reality.
All these thinkers were concerned with human salvation; they were all critical of socially accepted thought patterns. To them the aim of knowing is not the certainty of "absolute truth", something one can feel secure with, but the self affirmation process of human reason. Ignorance, for the one who knows, is as good as knowledge, since both are part of the process of knowing, even though ignorance of this kind is different from ignorance of the unthinking. Optimum knowledge in the being mode is to know more deeply. In the having mode it is to have more knowledge.
Our education generally tries to train people to have knowledge as a possession, by and large commensurate with the amount of property or social prestige they are likely to have in later life. The schools are the factories in which these overall knowledge packages are produced - although schools usually claim they mean to bring the students in touch with the highest achievements of the human mind. Many undergraduate colleges are particularly adroit in nurturing these illusions. From Indian thought and art to existentialism and surrealism, a vast smorgasbord of knowledge is offered from which students pick a little here, a little there, and in the name of spontaneity and freedom are not urged to concentrate on one subject, not even ever to finish reading an entire book."

This is beautifully expressed! I would not have agreed more to the thoughts of Fromm, and could not have expressed it so to-the-point, precise and correctly. It amuses me when I get weekly newsletters from various organizations presenting abstracts of various books and articles. The so called think tanks of the current world like Harvard Business Review, The Economist, and others in the league, try to bring out tit-bits of knowledge form here and there. Most of the articles try to give a peek to the reader, some deep and long research work of some professors inside the hallowed walls of the greatest universities of the world. It is good that this helps the common man to have a peek onto what is happening in the realms of the frontiers of leadership, science, archeology, etc. But the issue is the common man is satisfied with an abstract, or an illustration, or a simplified "digestible" format of the knowledge. With the half baked knowledge the reader extrapolates it and tries to use it for himself. Neither there is a depth of thinking that is developed in the reader, nor the reader is able to create something unique and original. Most of the things he says, believes and opines are borrowed thoughts, which are not even understood properly. I understand that one has to learn from the giants. But "learning" from the giants is reduced to "copying" from the giants. The scope of the writings of the greatest masters and thinkers get reduced when man tries to relate to them from the mode of having, and not giving enough time and energy to go deep into the real essence of them. No wonder I see many writing in their interests section, in their profiles in the social networking sites - Bollywood gossips, films!
Our society is in dire need of increasing depth and quality, and reducing the quantity. An effort needs to be taken from each individual to take a breath, step back, and be mindful of his present - what he is reading, what he is watching, what he is doing, what he is thinking. And from that point, he has to go deeper into each realm, trying to break through the forced illusion that is being intricately woven by the modern plague of capitalism, consumerism, commoditization, globalization, and what not. It is high time to ask ourselves questions like - "Which book am I reading nowadays?", "What I understood for myself from the book I read last?", "What is that I care the most?", "What the great thinkers of yesteryears had to say about their lives and nature of the world?", "What are the illusions I subscribe to without even questioning?", "Was I helpful to others in any way today?", "Was I in a state of love or hatred in the moment just passed?", "What is the legacy I am leaving behind", "What I would like to leave inscribed on my epitaph, when I die" etc.

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