Loved the simplicity with which harb wrote this under the blog ‘Can we change our Destiny ?” There is a fascinating discussion going on there that you should visit.
“As for the purpose of life, imagine yourself to be a part of a flowing river, rather an indistinguishable part. Pushed by and flowing with the flow you just carry on with your life and the question of purpose does not arise in you. You do so in fact in your childhood and youth phases in the River of Life.
A child does not ask for purpose rather enjoys living his natural life which comprises mainly of playing games and indulging in senses. So with a youth, he does not ask the purpose, rather enjoyes his life chasing opposite sex, loving and so on….
hen reverting back to the river, thanks to some excessive energy thrust now imagine yourself to have become a whirlpool in the same river (in real science you have become a dissipative structure in the river of energy). Now you think yourself to be separate from the river, from its flow, on your own, sometimes having the feeling of even flowing opposite to the direction of the river. You feel cut-off from your beginning, from your end, from you natural energy flow; you feel impriosned in your whirlpool-like existence, you feel suffocation, seek a way out, so begin to think, begin to ask questions, and finally come to the basic questions of the likes of “who am I” and “What is the purpose of your life.”
The previous two phases to which I call the phases ‘to grow’ and ‘to love’ are like what you call your lower self (actually there is only one self and this is a misnomination but we can go along). Now you have entered an inbetween phase, ‘to know.’
As long as your energy as a whirlpool will increase, your ego will increase and the prison around you in the form of thoughts will increase in strength. And so long you will ask questions and more questions, try to understand your situation more and more, suffer more and more. Eventually you will be left with question like “Who am I?” and “What is the purpose of my life?” and then some day suddenly you will again re-estblish your link with the main flow…After which merging with the flow in full will only be a matter of time. Now you may be said to have entered the phase of higher-self identified by me with the phase “to be.”
Then again, as in childhood and youth, you will no longer ask yourself the prupose of your life. You will be eager to enjoy the play of that phase, in which you just replace a particular opposite sex with the whole of nature (You then act as Shiva and nature acts as Parbati). The place of physical sex with the opposite sex will now be taken by physical interaction with the whole world as a spiritual guru/teacher like J.Krishnamusrti etc and the place of just loving will be taken by just sitting lost in the oneness of whole of nature like Ramana.
The problem you are facing now is that you are trying to understand the situation of the last phase while in the third phase or while still in the state of whirlpool howsoever weak. Time will slowly take you beyond it. Then rest assured you will not ask the question of purpose. You will rather be enjoying life somewhere in some way, your unique way.
thankx dear shekhar for creating more room/space:)
hi shekhar !
yeah…..i’ve been going there fairly often too coz there is a lot happening there !
who does not like to be part of the smooth flow in the river of life, shekhar ? in retrospect, those times invariably become ‘the best days of our life’ ? yet, when the whirlpool comes along…….does it ever ask our permission for doing so…….:) ?
that too is PART OF OUR DESTINY……..
while in the whirlpool, there is nothing else to do but surrender and keep your faith in the energy that is responsible for it…….knowing that the smooth flow too, came from the same source !
my personal experience is ,that the whirlpool somehow manages to empty you out ! thats when you expect to be ‘finished’……..but funnily, another level begins right there where its basically just you and the divine light that shines brighter after emptying you ! then onwards……..you may seem to be solitary to other people but there is an inexplainable inner peace within you and you are one with everything………the darkness does’nt frighten you, the rains and storms become your friends , birds find comfort around you……..animals know you will never harm them……..
what i do wonder after this is, are you good for the ‘worldly’ manipulations and intrigues which you are expected to be equipped with for survival in the ‘real world’, after such a ride (experience)……..? ( more so since you have NOT reached oldage as yet ! ) how do you get back into it ? does it ruin your experience of having experienced ‘the light’in the long run by plunging into the ‘lower self’ after having been with the divine light for such a longtime ?
and shekhar this in a way is interesting..how?? just the other day when U were talking about other people on the blog and introduced Sonya..i willed to ask you to include uncle herb like Sonya on this blog, but i did not say it, and it did.
hey uncle herb where are you(this is what i will call you from now on). i had posted few posts there in our old room and now posting them here as well :
let’s begin first with a related querry on Maharishi’s statement related with the topic of Destiny and Free Will.
what does Ramana Maharishi mean when he says “Neither is everything predestined, nor do we have free will in everything.” or what does K mean when Krishna says “He does not interfere with the free will of a living entity.”
[the way i perceive destiny and free will is as : a combination of universal consciousness(SELF generated), karmas(pralabdhas – continuity and discontinuity due to past actions), and free will(a sort of rational thought – positive/negative originating through brain/intellect/memories /inspiration)] justbe
The perplexity lies –
which dominates which and when and how???
or is there anything more? or less?
Also the idea is never become too serious!
Thank you Shekhar for this thoughtful gesture.
Dear :), yes, the whirlpool is definitely a part of our destiny. In fact the very homo sapiens are the product of this whirlpool on the level of species in the River of Life.
In fact at all system levels the cycle passes through four phases and the third phase is the product of this whirlpool. So it is at our individual life level. Our middle age (40-60)is the product of this whirlpool.
Now we pass through four phases not only in our whole life but in our whole half life as well, in our whole half-half life, in our whole half-half-half life down to we pass through four phases in each day as well. And we experience entering into and going beyond the whirlpool in the third phase of each of the above parts of life.
Now, if you have the experience of going beyond the whirlpool at the end of your middle age (around 60s -the end of the third phase of your whole life), the world would always remain for you the way you have described in your last but one paragraph. There will be no question of any manipulations/intrigues encountering you….the darkness does not frighten you…everything/person becomes your friend.
The second best will be if you have this experience at the end of the third phase of the first half of your life. You have this experience around your thirties, enjoy it the way you have described up to your forties and then you will enter the third phase or the whirlpool of now your whole life and in the process will ALMOST forget the experience. You will then come out of it by your sixtees. Even in this you will have no problem facing the world’s intrigues/manipulations for your experience will have bestowed you with sufficient awareness not to fall into them thenceforth. Though you will again fall into the trap of whirlpool/ego, you will not completely forget your beyond-ego state of the past experience and so will not fall too deep into the mud of manipulations and intrigues of the world. On the background of your existence there will always be the unforgettable peace of your past experence to pull you back at the last moment.
Then you may have had the experience at lesser and lesser third phases and in that case you will be having them and forgetting them and it may even seem you have only understood them intellectually rather than by having the actual experience (as the contradictoriness in your last but one and last paragraph will seem to suggest to the casual reader). Then you will be the way you have described in your last paragraph. Yet, if you are evolutionally ripe enough you will strongly jump beyond at your due times in future.
There is an other explanation because of which the new generation may not feel being in the whirlpool and going beyond it so strongly even at anytime in their lives as againt the previous generation:
Since even the global culture as a whole goes through the like four phases and according to my understanding it has already entered the fourth phase to which I call the Age of Intelligence (as against the previous, the Age of Reason and Anxiety)the new generation as a whole is already in a way beyond the whirlpool and so may neither feel the suffocation nor the accompanying ecstacy of going beyond of the previous generation. In which case they may always feel in and out of it. The new generation in this case will be too soft that even the minor manupulations and intrigues of the world, especially of the world of the old generation, will be too much for them. I strongly feel that this is part of the reason why the new generation as a whole feels stressed when faced with the harsh realities of life which to the previous generation were just a part of life. The new generation in fact has no ego, hence no spine, no killer instinct as one of my brothers used to say and hence no power to withstand/encounter even minor manipulations and intrigues. In fact these manipulations and intrigues are the product of mind and they are in a way already beyond mind. They belong to the next, the era of intelligence, the era of being ‘as inside so outside’ as against that of the previous one, the era of intellect, of being different inside and outisde as most of our politicians of old era very aptly depict.
Harb
As long as your energy as a whirlpool will increase, your ego will increase and the prison around you in the form of thoughts will increase in strength. And so long you will ask questions and more questions, try to understand your situation more and more, suffer more and more. Eventually you will be left with question like “Who am I?”
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Then again, as in childhood and youth, you will no longer ask yourself the prupose of your life. You will be eager to enjoy the play of that phase, in which you just replace a particular opposite sex with the whole of nature
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‘Bravo’
Shekharrrr I hear the birds chirpinggg alas!! The call of nature doesnt seem to awake me anymore!!
So still yet so restless!!
Hugss
dear harb,
thanks so much for the detailed response.it really helps in making fluid thoughts concrete. i agree that once you have experienced the presence of the divine it always remains in your subconscious and infact helps stabilise you as you realise that humans are bound by mortality but beyond humans is not the emptiness all of us fear but the bright light that never forsakes you !
regards the cesspool of worldly manipulations…….:)……..if we are intelligent, then we can certainly see through them, but the participation itself seems like stepping downwards…………compared to the exalting ( divine ) experience is’nt it ?
yet, it would also be our karma to participate and that too will be a means to the completion we all yearn for !
harb…….to an extent i am still in the phase where i am on the threshold …….out of the whirlpool , taking tentative steps into the next level. these things are more experience related , rather than age bound is’nt it ?
still……. one would now endeavour that ones worldly experiences also have a fragrance of the earlier divine one.
my dear shekhar,
i just had to let you know that visiting your blog, has taken the significance ,of a precious daily chat with a dear friend……..in my mind !
Dear Harb, What makes you so firmly say that there is going to be a change in era or as you say it has already changed? Even the Brahhmkumaris sect says so.
Hi Shekar,
I have a question hope you reply.I have seen many changes in my life i moved to canada at the age of 34yrs lived there for two years, loved it( i am a social worker worked in India for 12 years, it was most fulfilling ) now moved to usa trying to start over at 36 i am not sure whether i want to be in same profession or do something else . whats my calling, my passion, how to find that ultimate goal in life.i believe every body has ultimate purpose and they are on this earth to fulfill that purpose. whats mine????????
hope i am able to convey.
ruchi, that is the toughest question to answer. Because our lives have been formed by what we percieve are other people’s expectations of us. nd then our own expectations of uprselves that form as if there is someone outside ourselves that expecting us to behave, act and perform in a certain way. You have to get rid of that person, your own persona tat you yourself have created. Allow yourself some play time, do do things that have no value either in your eyes or in the eyes of others. Just spend time being for a while. There is great value in doing nothing. It is the surest way of allowing your own self to emerge. Then you will find what you really want to do. But don’t worry, you are not alone in this quest, shekhar
shekhar……in your response to ruchi….
how will you determine that your ‘playtime’ where you do nothing is infact that or a vaccuum you have created , simply to avoid taking the bull by its horns…….? sometimes in your subconscious you ‘know’ you have to take a fundamental step……..one that may shake you up, so you ‘porcupine’ your existence in the hope that the ‘recreation’ will open up other avenues if you ignore your inner voice long enough……!
if the playtime is empty of that burden then it becomes creative space for ideas to grow…… whereas, if you are running away from a core change required of you……then , it is going to be sitting just where it is smiling in the face of the porcupine once it surfaces again …..:) ?
brahmastra, in an other thread you asked :” I’d love to know any physical experiences you’ve had while practising self-inquiry such as chakra vibrations, heat, etc.”
I never practised self-enquiry in the usual sense nor knew anything about chakras, vibrations and so on and so forth when I had what I call my first experience of oneness (already described at this blog, link given below).
I was rather against all things religious, spiritual and even ridiculed the believers. Of course my birth had a special twist to it (read the link given above in post 17 if you are further interested) and in the initial years of my life I almost had to read religious books to “meet God’ – then of course a childish wish and childish effort. Ultimately God was not to meet me and I became a rebel and an atheist.
But then a time came when I had to face the harsh realities of life and my special childhood in which I was supposed to be a reincarnation of a certain late saint ( as per the above story)came in my way of facing the world in its own coin. So I had to find my real identity, the effort took the form of asking the questions which ended up becoming a self-enquiry as I later came to know when after about five or six years of the experience I came to know about Ramana Maharshi almost in a miracle.
After my first experience and eight years of life of abandon I again made an introspective journey and in the process not oly realised the above oneness again but came up with an insight regarding the evolutionary scheme of things of the universe as well. Which later became the basis of my self-published book Self-Designed Universe (google it if you want to know more).
Anyway, below is the link at which I have already described what I call my first experience of oneness.
https://www.shekharkapur.com/blog/archives/2008/03/is_nothing_some.htm#more
Read post 15 of it.
I hope we will make some progress on the road with this material.
SS, in continuation of post 15…I had written some interesting material at the website of my book, which though now does not open for some reason (being revised). I am here giving a copy of first few paragraphs from that. You will be able to see the whole website after a few days.
****
Welcome to the Website of the book Self-Designed Universe
At the most fundamental level all we need to explain the ‘evolution’ of the universe and of every system within including the system of species on earth is what the physicists call four basic forces or interactions of nature, i.e., gravitational, electromagnetic, strong and weak interactions. Call it design if you will. But Darwinism is definitely secondary. This is Self-Designed Universe in a nutshell.
The universe gets wound up into and unwound from four basic forces on its eternal cycles of contraction and expansion or involution and evolution just as, to a certain extent, a tree gets wound up into and unwound from its seed to become the next tree.
In getting unwound, which begins with and thanks to the big bang, the universe goes through four basic interactions in the order of gravitational, electromagnetic, strong and weak in its every minute space-time accretion as well as a whole.
In the process the universe goes through mutations at all these levels, from which then Darwinian mechanisms of variations, selection and survival take over in the case of species on earth. Forget that chance causes mutations.
So no more heated arguments on design and evolution or rather design and Darwinism! Both are two sides of the same coin of the universal scheme of evolution here on earth. The universe’s going through four basic interactions and consequent mutations provide it with basic and design part. Taking over from there by Darwinian mechanisms of variations, selection and survival in the case of species provides it with the secondary and evolution part.
No more heated arguments on determinism and free will! The universe’s going through four basic interactions till it gets unwound from four basic forces completely provides it with purpose, determinism and arrow of time. While Darwinian mechanism of selection provides scope for the operation of the correspondingly gained free will on it in the case of species on earth.
Sorry man, you are as much a product of the same simple laws of physics in the form of four basic interactions as minerals, plants, animals and in fact all the other entities in the universe are. All you did with your famous free will was just to play the reaction part to the action part of the interactions. Again, in fact, just as all the other entities unconsciously or subconsciously did at their own levels! Of course you need to re-apprise your understanding of the mere “matter” which you study with physics. For, at its ultimate level of Oneness, it has all the properties which you usually attribute to God.
******
“While Darwinian mechanism of selection provides scope for the operation of the correspondingly gained free will on it in the case of species on earth. All you did with your famous free will was just to play the reaction part to the action part of the interactions.”
please elaborate this.
#11
Shekhar, the story I am writing so fits into your answer to Ruchi that I feel I should give the first two chapters here as also a synopsis of the rest (I assure you people here will not get bored reading it), so that you will not have to go to the link to read it. I want you to read it because who knows it may inspire you to make a meaningful movie on it in future.
So here are the first two chapters:
1)The Story of My Birth
December 17, 1949.
It was a day like any other day. But not in the house – a house situated in one of the most backward areas of the state of Punjab of India – of one Mr. Dara Singh. His wife, Bibi Pritam Kaur, was again expecting a baby today.
Twelve long years of their married life had passed but they were yet without a son. In fact, they had three daughters and two sons born to them during this period, but while the daughters remained alive, the sons were either born still or died soon after.
And without sons, the people of the area thought they had no issue/heir. Daughters were only private property, to be taken away by their masters – by their in-laws – one day.
Though Mr. Dara Singh did not really subscribe to such thinking and loved his daughters like sons, the same could not be said of his wife, Bibi Pritam Kaur.
Bibi Pritam Kaur was again expecting today.
This time she was more hopeful. Last year a stillborn son was born to her on the birth anniversary of the first guru of their faith, Guru Nanak. While the people were taking out a procession in honor of the guru, Pritam Kaur was having her labor pains. And just when the procession was crossing their house, she once again gave birth to a stillborn son. In sympathy the whole procession prayed to God then and there that the couple be sent the same son before next anniversary.
Bibi Pritam Kaur felt solaced. She had great faith in the prayer.
Even more faith she had in the saint whose blessings she was able to have about a month later.
Known as the ‘Lasan Wallah Sant’ because of a peculiar black spot on his left arm, called ‘lasan’ in their local language, the octogenarian saint was at the time visiting their area. He had large following among the people of the area. For, the people thought he was an accomplished sage who could give them boons.
Just after a month of the above delivery, Bibi Pritam Kaur’s neighborhood friend took her to the saint.
The saint on that particular day seemed to be in an overly happy mood and gave Bibi Pritam Kaur his blessings saying: “God will fulfil your wish Bibi. We are also coming to your village soon”.
And true to his word the saint visited their village Chamba Kalan the next day, though he died there the same night.
Bibi thought the saint meant he would be born to her when he said that ‘he was also coming to her village’.
Strange things do happen in this world. Not only saint’s blessings, but even Bibi Pritam Kaur’s thoughts seemed to have come true when, after about ten months, she gave birth to a baby boy with the same lasan or black spot and on the same place as that of the saint, i.e., on his left arm.
Soon the news of the birth of the baby with the same black spot on his left arm as the saint spread like wild fire in their village. People, particularly close followers of the saint, began to flood Dara Singh and Bibi Pritam Kaur’s house. They thought it was their Messiah born again.
After about a month and with much religious fanfare they collectively named the baby Harbhajan – ‘Praise be to God’.
(2)Askewed Childhood
With the passage of time, Harbhajan, the baby with the peculiar black spot on his left forearm, the same as that of the Lasan Wallah Sant, grew up into a very healthy boy. Bubbling with abundance of energy he surpassed his peers in almost all games. Particularly fond of wrestling, he would often request his friends to wrestle two at a time with him.
But one could also see an unmistakable ring of melancholy around him. A part of him always seemed to be lost into something, or perhaps into his own self.
The followers of the late saint, who thought of him as their new messiah, often came to see him. They would bow their heads before him, rub their foreheads on the black spot and weep over it in the memory of their departed guru. Harbhajan would look at all this in amazement and pride: amazement, for he did not understand it all, pride, for it gave him an ego-inflating sense of being somebody special.
Slowly the persona of the saint began to get the better of Harbhajan’s bubbling, playful natural self. Seeing that his mother and other neighborhood women were at their most amazed and happy when they saw the followers of the late saint bowing before him and thus putting the persona of a saint on him, he slowly began to playact the role of a saint on his own.
He had by now known that the so-called religious people – and the saints to him were just the most religious of them – often sat with their eyes shut, “doing meditation” as his mother had told him, and often read religious books. He had also seen, mostly from the pictures of the so-called holy men, that their eyes had peculiar half-asleep looks even while they were apparently fully awake. As he had come to know from his mother it was because they were absorbed in the remembrance of God.
He did not understand anything of it. But he began to imitate those holy men whenever and in whatever way he could. He would take a religious book from his mother’s trunk, put it on some small wooden bench or chowki, sit behind it and feign reading it. He would see from the corners of his eyes the overly pleased looks of his mother and others around while he would be doing so. Sometimes he would just sit with his eyes shut like those holy men. He made sure that his mother would find him sitting like this though apparently he sat at some secluded place in the house. He would try to give his eyes that half-asleep look he had seen on the face of those holy men even in his routine living.
He would do all this at the cost of his time for games and other childhood pranks. Slowly his natural inclination for such things began to diminish. Proportionately, his friends and playmates began to shun him. That began the ring of melancholy around him, which only increased with time. More so because simultaneously he began to think what being a saint really meant, and whether he really had something special in him. The sadness of the part of him which must have been missing the games and other natural childish pranks further exaggerated the situation.
Meanwhile, he went to schools – first to the primary school and then to the high school. As in games, he surpassed his friends and peers in studies too, though often he just did not seem to care much about it. He got high marks with least apparent effort, high enough to deter his teachers to disturb him. But they knew and sometimes even said so that he could stand first in the region if he was a little more serious towards his studies. But he seemed to be interested only to the extent that his teachers would not be able to scold him, or complain to his father.
Interestingly, the persona of the saint took the better of him in another way in schools as well. He just did not know how but a reputation had developed around him in schools that whatever he will say will come true. To his amazement a couple of times such things had actually happened even in his full knowledge. And to cap it all, one day even the coach of the Volley Ball team of his school asked him to bless the team for victory. Not sure of what to say or do, Harbhajan had just smiled and shied away.
As time passed his natural self got buried deeper and deeper into his psyche, just as that unmistakable ring of melancholy got darker and darker around him.
******
Synopsis of the rest:
Harbhajan enters youth. On one side he feels the pull of sexual energy on the other and seemingly exactly opposite to it the pull of the persona of the saint. With the result that he cannot form meaningful friendships/relationships with the girls of his age. He tries various known and usual efforts such as reading holy books day and night, going to Gurdawaras day and night and so on so that Gid shows himself to him, so that in some way he knows that he has some real, special connection with God and so he should stick more strongly to the moral constraints usually associated with saints. But all his efforts go in vain. In despair he even falls into the habit of satisfying his sexual urge by wrong means.
He goes to college and there eventually becomes a full-fledged rebel and atheist. But once again into the thick of life after completing his studies, he faces the dilemma of saints dont do this, dont do that while in real world you have to make compromises at every step. Finally he questions himself to find his real identitiy for he neither seems to be a saint – for he could not see God inspite of his best efforts – nor the one of the usual world. What follows is his first experience of his basic unalloyed self, of oneness of all nature through it to boot as described in an other thread here. Thanks to it, he also comes face to face with the absolute freedom of his core identitiy, core “I”.
For the next eight years he wallows in the things which were a taboo for him as a saint. Eventually he gets rid of them and is left free of any weaknesses ususally associated with men.
Having purified himself enough he then goes once again downwards to his roots to find his raison de’etre in coming into this world and comes up with an insight into the working of universe’s evolutionary scheme of things…Once having written it he seems to be in absolute peace with himself. He has really become the saint though people cannot make a difference between him and a most ordinary man. He lives in them yet unknwon to them all alone as well. At due time he will be ready to indistinguishably merge with the One once again. Even this will seem to the others around him for as for he himself is concerned he is already one with the One from the core where he really resides most of the time.
Sorry Shekhar if I should not have written these lengthy pieces here.
Thanks Shekar and Hard and every body who took time to answer my quest,
Shekar your advice of play time or down time is great and go very much against my basic nature. i see my self as a hyper active and sensitive person thats why i choose to be a social worker. like every profession this profession also has his ugly and pretty face and during these 15 yrs i am kind of disillusioned by it but not by my own commitment to it.
there is a creative person somewhere inside me who wants to do something other then counseling.
as a child i was average in every thing i did and as adult also i feel i am still there averge ( according to society)so i think social work and helping others gave me that fulfillment and recognision of being above average.
i quest of self i have gone to many gurus known , unknown, read books and attended talks buddha and his teachings attract me a lot and i am able to mold my life accordingly.
Is this a mid life crisis that every men /women go through in their life or some times its good not to ask questions and go with the flow of the life???? i always believed that being rest less is a sign of growth and change and change is painful am i right???
sorry more questions
Hello Shekhar,
I quite enjoyed reading this article. As you have mentioned the first two phases of childhood and youth, or rather ‘to grow’ and ‘to love’, I quite agree on the phase of ‘to know’..or more like ‘to explore’. However, do we really say that we ‘know’ stuff? It is said that there is 25% of knowledge we know that we know; 25% that we know we do not know but 50% that we do not even know that we do not know! In earlier times, there was childhood, youth and old/senior/adult (expected to ‘know it all’) but in recent times, there is an in-between phase of youth and adulthood (fear of not wanting to transition into being an adult), is that of odyssey years. I was reading an article on this of how the odyssey years/phase truly defines an individual and her/his journey to evolve into what she/he is destined to be. So that is what drives us to our purpose. Someone wise once told me, that God has a purpose for all of us for which he has already prepared us.
My 2 cents..
Dear Harb,
Sir, I read your links, and I’m at a loss for words cause after the indirect teachings of the greatest Advatic sages, your live words are ringing within me at an extremely opportune time. I guess we both know how rare it is to meet a real jnani in today’s world. Where you are at is where I hope to be soon.
“Science failed in it because they encountered zeros and infinities in their equations, which for me was natural because grandunification will actually involve the subject/experimentor in it as well which really those zeros and infinity signified but science in a way will keep them out.”
That is simply divine. I’ve been long peddling an alternate amateur version of that which suggests that infinity = zero LOL all and nothing as they say. I guess you have read “Be as you are” by David Godman on Ramana Maharshi’s teachings. It has some ultimate wisdom on creation theories and such, which, of course, after postulating a few theories to quench the thirst for the knowledge-hungry, says that ultimately there is no creation or evolution or destruction, a by-product of being in natural nothingness.
However, I maintain a simple theory that our mind is a program which, upon maturity (probably after going through various life forms to work out an embedded set of desires), self-destructs into nothingness. For a mind to assume free-will is like the pictures you see on the computer monitor assuming responsibility of being there, where in fact, it is a mere illusion which disappears when the computer is turned off. And when the computer is turned on, a zillion things happen to get it coherently functional again. The “necessary” disease of philisophy is to stop enjoying the pictures on the screen to analyse the bits and bytes of the process. Anyway, I think I got a little self-indulgent here, will catch you later. Thanks again.
brahmastra, I am leaving for somewhere so will be brief. I understand and fully agree with what you are saying. And thank you for good words. More later.
ruchi,so shekhar and I understood your predicament almost correctly, you ARE disillusioned with your present occupation of a social worker..and really wish to return to your true self. So, go as shekhar has suggested, realx, laze around, enjoy yourself a bit…and just watch…believe me the world is perfect, the imperfection is in us. So dont kill your real self in making it perfect rather revert back to your self and first fill in the blank spaces within.
I agree with you that restlessnes is good. In my younger days I used to say…when people on meeting will ask me “Kion, set ain?”(hello, alright with you?”) And I will retort…” I dont want to be set…to be set is to be dead for me…I want to remain upset…”
Of course the goal is really to be ‘set’ but dynamically set and not as I understood it at that time…like set cement. LOL.
SS, sorry, a little later.
dear harb,
that was some journey……you narrated ! the ‘windmills of GOD grinds them all’ is’nt it ?
the other TRUTH that surfaced very strongly again is that it is when you get derailed by other people’s perceptions of you ( people who are too basic and average to even understand you but add bulk to the public body ) that you suffer the worst moments of your growth process.
the in between phase where you went to the other extreme before finding your peace reminded me of a passage by kahlil gibran :
” of the good in you i can speak, but not of the evil. for what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst ?
when good is hungry, it seeks food, even in dark caves, and when it thirsts, it drinks even of dead waters. ”
Hi Harb,
is aging a psychological phenomenon or a biological phenomenon?
kedar
aging is biological phenomenon via psychological phenomenon…just as on a greater level universal evolution is universal phenomenon via universal noumenon.
harb (camp shimla)
Ty Harb…
dude…
film is slowly shaping up… due to low budget production every one is working part time hence the delay…
edit is over… basic back ground score is ready… now arrangement is going on…
parallel to this my writing is on…being an artist i am know to keep myself busy… 🙂
ty…
kedar
(dude…taking liberty to ask some questions to Harb…)
Hi Harb…
so if aging is a biological process via psychological process…that means THOUGHT comes before MATTER…
and if our perception about universe is based on matter-energy then how can we explain something which is beyond its scope?
at the most we can study the changes in sub atomic particles when a thought is generated in the brain…and once we can generalize the pattern through which this happens, we can call that pattern as THOUGHT( read MIND)…
and this very pattern can prove to be a theory of universe like big bang… 🙂
but then what about the uniqueness of THOUGHT? this question wont arise because the pattern would be the same for a rock, donkey and einestine…only in case of dead things the pattern will be static…
now what about CHOICES? well…choices are man made…!
Mechanism of car or universe dont understand feelings!… Thought( READ MIND) comes before emotion…
my question is what is the status of scientific research on this? Neuro surgeons and scientists must have studied this already but the whole question is whether they are studying the pattern of sub atomic particles or only neurotic patterns? because neurotic patterns can differ with every human depending upon his back ground…his cluster of knowledge…his CONDITIONING…
is it possible that Sub atomic particles have their own memory and with each individual they create different patterns? because as i said above MIND comes before MATTER…it will be applied to sub atomic particles too…
after reading what i have typed…i am forced to ask whether science has answer to a simple question- WHAT IS MIND?
is it that DARK ENERGY which is keeping the balance of the universe?
old scriptures say ‘GET RID OF MIND AND YOU WILL GET RID OF THE UNIVERSE’ ( karmon ke feron se nikal jaoge)
is MIND the DARK ENERGY?
if it is then can we prove some thing scientifically which is non scientific at its core?
is there any such differentiation as scientific and non scientific…or its a play of again- MIND!
Or is everything STATIC and spread like different photographs and our MIND found this magical phenomenon of 24 frames per second using TIME, the fourth dimension and hence we feel life is linear where as actually every thing is static? ( like that small book we used to flip and see KAPIL DEV hitting a sixer where as actually it used to bunch of phtographs of KAPIL DEV…) then again what about CHOICES…if we make different CHOICES there would be different worlds…( as i type this i recall a book written by Richard Bach- ONE)
Reflect!
kedar
kedar, perhaps a few days back you said my website does not open. It can now open and you may click on my name to visit it. Otherwise its address is http://www.selfdesigneduniverse.com. May be it will throw some light on your above question as well.
Harb
Justbe, refer your questions in post #62 of thread “Can we change our destiny”. Here are the answers:
Q#1. Yes.
Q#2. No. You have reached beyond the mind but not into the Heart. Satori experience may not be necessary for your generation, but reaching the Heart via the efforts already being made by you is. The rest will be done by Time. Then you will establish permanently in the state described in the paragraph which holds the question 1.
We fall so that finally we can get up without any dhyana, similarly, thoughts come to us so that finally we can go beyond them without any efforts on our part. Till then bring yourself to your thoughtless state again and again. Leave the rest to Time.
Ramana represents the end of mind/intellect – for him no world exists except in your mind – but not really the next state, the state of the Heart – the state of some Zen masters for whom the world exists yet does not exist at the same time.
You must have heard the Zen saying: “Before you study Zen, the mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers; while you are studying Zen, mountains are no longer mountains rivers are no longer rivers; after you have completed the study of Zen, mountains are once again mountains rivers are once again rivers.” Ramana represents the second stage – where mountains, rivers (the world)no longer exist. But there is a state yet beyond, the state of the Heart, or even the stateless state, where you are at one with the world once again as described in your para 1 and dont bother much for anything spiritual or otherwise, good or evil, true and false. All is the Play of the One Self for you and you just flow with the flow. Reaching and residing there permanently, that is, without any effort, is your finally goal.
Q#3. No.
The real Self is not connected with any thoughts but the real self is also not connected with even silence. The real Self is connected with nothing, is bound by nothing. Here you can be silent and yet speaking and you can be speaking and yet silent. Here mountains can be there yet not there and rivers can be there yet not there, world can be there yet not there and world can be not there yet there. The thirst for “Who am I?” will really end by reaching this third stage. But I think for you it may only be a matter of time, more than doing much efforts. Of course, you may encounter some upheavels on the way but at the end those will only help to make you permanently establish in your Self.
Regarding a and b, the thoughts come so that finally you can go beyond them permanently. Then you will permanently establish in the stage of ‘Being the Self’ as above.
Harb
PS: You may be interested in seeing the website of my book Self-Designed Universe. Click on my name.
kedar #31:
The One/universe (or Soul or Spirit or even God) gets entangled into four basic forces in the virtual world (noumena, Aristotle’s world of ‘Potentia’ and which acts as brain/mind when things come to our levels, also dark matter/energy)and gets disentangled from them in the actual world (the world of phenomena, our usual world/universe).
What goes at the level of universe goes at our levels too. We as a part of the universe are at various stages of the above disentanglements from four basic forces and so have different thought patterns and different life-situations so to say. This explains our uniqueness as also the uniqueness of our choices. The aging is just a measure of this disenatanglement from forces relevant to any given entity’s level.
The process of above disentanglement begins from the side of superforce of the big bang in the case of the universe, and the enveloping matter of the singularity reacts to it giving birth in the porcess to various forces/forms.
Again as at the level of the universe so at our levels. The process of disentanglement begins from within us (now superforce of the big bang has taken the form of what is called kundlini shakti and pushes us on to this disentanglement process from within)through our genetic makeups and we as a body/brain only react to this push. For example, the kundlini shakti from within pushes us to stand up in our childhood, we as a brain/body try to keep ourselves in our centers of gravity or in balance in the process reacting to this push. As we evolve further and further the same above action pushes us to entangle into various intellectual concepts and we likewise react to them and in the process try to remain in balance, or try to remain in our intellectual centers. What seemed automatic at the level of our trying to keep balance while trying to stand up in our childhood now seems as if we are making a choice to keep ourselves in our centers or in balance. We have different chocies because we all are at different rungs of the ladder of evolution and that means are at different levels of entanglements. Some of us may yet be entangled in emotions while some others may have outgrown emotions but entangled in reason, in intellectual activity, in concepts of various hues. Eventually we will outgrow these too…
So our choices are not really man-made, these too are part of the larger process. We are forced to make them relevant to at what evolutionary stage we are.
Harb
Harb,
Interesting theory…will have to read the book… it seems you have done a lot of work there…what was the reaction from scientific community?
what ever excerpts are there on the sight are fascinating…
ty
kedar
kedar, reading your post #31 I really really felt like asking you to read my book because it so responds to all your questions. But I restrained myself thinking lest some people should think I ma here to sell my book. Nope, I dont even think this is my book. The scheme of things forced it through me and I felt simply a pawn in its hands and was able to free myself only when I completed it and sent to the publisher. I have never thought of earning a single rupee from it nor I thought I knew what I wrote in it, oftentimes the whole paragraphs would write themselves as if on their own through me and then I would try to understand them…
Scientific community is too lost in its whirlpool to be able to appreciate something which is from beyond it. Someday though – when Time will push them beyond the whirlpool – they will have to come around to it. Perhaps now their computers (read brains) have not enough space to absorb something from the cutting edge of all the sciences and even philosophy and mysticism as a whole which this book really contains.
Thanks, Harb
thankx uncle herb:) cya
Hi Harb,
Yes…i am going to read your book…i have been thinking of these things for many years now and i am sure your book will be a valuable addition to my information…
Mathematics!…is it possible to create a new branch of mathematics? which will be called Emotional mathematics or say Conscious mathematics…!
why mathematics? because any other branch of science is based on mathematics…every branch at its core is mathematics…and it is at least RIGHT if not TRUE to its core! ( are you getting what i am trying to say? No… hmm…even i think its foolish… lol)
One is mindless… SOMETHING HAPPENS and the universe is created!…now this created universe through its perception about itself goes back to ONE…And on this GOING BACK TO ONE journey man has created MATHEMATICS…we feel we are stating scientific theories but those theories are limited to Individual’s perception ( Level of Entanglement as u said)…its simple to understand…Complex scientific theories are not understood by a layman…but if he learns the rules and studies them his conscious level about them grows and one day he becomes master…same about life…so actually Science is not what scientist think is it…it is a man made external path to find answers!
and what today’s science is lacking is exactly that!…The personal experience of the scientist!
Eienstine’s theory can not be understood by any one who knows science…every one who has tried to understand it will realize that he has to THINK to understand it…or has grown to a level where he can understand it without thinking…
So by considering some CONSTANT or UNKNOWN ENTITY we can start from DIRT to HUMAN and beyond! and with the help of genetic science can come up with CONSCIOUS MATHEMATICS…which will explain the process of evolution mathematically…every time this CONSTANT will be carried to next level or will be the factor which represents CONSCIOUSNESS…!
and this way when we will reach to HUMAN level and we can prove mathematically what CONSCIOUSNESS is!…
its like proving your theory MATHEMATICALLY!!!
lol…yes…its a foolish thought…but MATHEMATICS…its RIGHT if not TRUE!
kedar
Kedar, sorry for late reply. And no, these are not foolish thoughts but the thoughts of an intellect on the cutting-edge.
Though starting from Heart (what you call consciousness)since the universe really becomes tangible from mind (where consciousness of Oneness develops a knot/ego so to say and thus gets divided into that of the Heart in the background and that of the mind as a superstructure on it – our usual evolving universe in other words – on which reason, only an other name for mathematics, begins to operate) so there is no reason why from this onwards it cannot be represented by mathematics.
In fact scientists have already developed a theory of everything – only an other name for my theory- with the place of Heart being taken by zeros and infinity which invariably come into their equations, but hard science has been unable to accept it as it is.
I dont feel like writing more on this lengthy subject as I have already written much on every aspect at an other blog (http://www.intentblog.com/archives/2007/01/maulana_rumi_ti.html)
(read all posts under the name Harb as also all the following HQR threads for complete picture)
but I have also said what you are saying in an other way in my book as well – in which according to me Einstein’s famous equation E = mc2 already contains the whole matheamtics so for as I am concerned, and if you are more interested you may read about that on the following link also, which I have specifically created for you.
http://harb-selfdesigneduniverse.blogspot.com/
Harb
Ty Harb
i think it time i should start taking myself seriously…lol…will read the pages referred by you…
i have to first refresh my basics again so that i can study this further…
best wishes
kedar
PS: i havent found time to visit a book store to look for your book…or say i havent been in a right frame of mind to visit a book store…will do that soon…
Kedar, the book may be available on online bookstores only since it is self-published. Moreover it is a very boring read so I really don’t recommend it. You can have a gist of my theory from my site. If you must you google “self-designed universe” and then look for suitable online store from where you can buy it. It may be easy if you live in the west.
Harb
Matter Of Faith
It depends on what you mean by religion. If it is prayers most of which you do not understand but recite by rote, going to places of worship to be in the company of like-minded people, undertaking pilgrimages to places you regard holy, fasting on certain days, abstinence from sex, and abstaining from consuming some kinds of food or drink, my answer would be an emphatic ‘no’ because these practices are of no consequence: conforming to them does not make you a better human being. On the contrary, they prevent you from thinking for yourself. Sigmund Freud, the famous psychologist, was right in holding, “When a man is freed of religion, he has a better chance to live a normal and wholesome life.” Galileo, the celebrated astronomer, said the same thing many centuries earlier. “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”
Abraham Lincoln put it succinctly: “When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.” How true! If you have to justify your words or actions, be sure your feeling good is flawed.
In the final analysis, everyone should make up his or her own religion and not unquestionably conform to the one he or she was born into. Since we do not know where we came from, belief in God as our Creator is optional. But there is no justification for calling Him just or merciful because there is little evidence of justice or mercy in our world. In earthquakes, tsunamis, cyclones, He takes lives of good and evil, believers and non-believers, old and young indiscriminately. All of which we describe as acts of God.
Why we are here is also an open question because we are not sure of the answer. All we can do is to teach ourselves how to live in peace with ourselves and get the best out of the faculties endowed to us without harming people among whom we live. This is not asking for too much and many people manage to live such lives.
What happens to us after we die should not be of much concern to us. There is no evidence whatsoever for believing in heaven, hell or re-incarnation. They are man-made fantasies to beguile ourselves.
Khuswant singh
Hi,
I didn’t know that you are a philosopher ? -)
This is a Great blog and I have immensly enjoyed read many comments. I would encourage reading the Book ” The teachings of Gita by Swami Vivekananda” many of your questions might get answered..( It is written in a totally different form)- if at all any questions here. I got lot answered for myself too..It talks about the Nothing, limitless perspective of ourselves which is more than mind, thoughts and to be well aware of what we are and what we think..
Everybody seems to be searching for something or the other.. I am not trying to promote something. . it’s more of a question of being ” SUBMISSIVE” to yourself.. that’s what I think Shekhar meant being doing things in the ” unknown” DO we always have to count to something.. to finish something.. why can’t we just enjoy..or being in flow of Life. Ofcourse we are all responsible in our ways of life, the way we think and all that.. but thoughts are like thinking threads what comes to our mind.. and that constant negative chatter keep pushing us to do things subconsciously..which actually is more powerful than being conscious.. So I think constantly doing things which pleases us in a good way is the way to GO.. Something which is more positive and inspiring.. Being inspired is always good.. what you guys think ?? Am I making sense ?
This would means ” Applying Force to have a thought process until it becomes positive” I am becoming that and I think quiet openly on any perspective and respect all perspectives now…
I loved all your comments and ofcourse we all need a SOUNDING board to be more aware of ourselves..
Manav
SEKHON FARM CHAMBA KALAN PUNJAB INDIA