Deconstructing Life's Plan!

During the Vipashyana Meditation Course, it became clearer to me regarding what a typical mind is up to. I earlier had an understanding about the typical behavior of a human mind but it was crystal clear during my Vipashyana (aka Vipassana) course.

The mind has a habit of delving into the past and always thinking about future. The most important thing which is HAPPENING (means the present) is somehow taken granted by us. The thought of I wish this could have happened then I would have been happy and the thought of I wish this will happen and I will be very happy are the major stakeholders of our thought process. And almost every activity of your life is based on these postulates. A corollary of these postulates would be the thought that THIS should not happen to me (so that I can be happy again!)

I guess from the birth itself we are in a planning mode. Planning for the future always and learning from the past. And not even your own past but the past of different people, collectively calling it as KNOWLEDGE. This is exacerbated by the fact that since childhood, we are exposed to different simple ideas. Remember Christopher Nolan’s INCEPTION? The idea has to be in its simplest form to grow on you- on your mind and then on your body

Vipassana says that the sub conscious mind is capable of understanding the facts only on account of experience and nothing else. The bookish knowledge doesn’t entice the subconscious mind. The superficial mind is a ‘nodding miracle’ according to me for a common man. Anything written in the books, told on account of knowledge from the past and our superficial mind starts nodding. Oh yes, right, that’s true, agreed..what?

The irony is -  it is not the superficial mind which is continuously exposed to plethora of information decides the behavioural pattern of a human being but the subconscious which learns from pure experience. The subconscious knows only two things- very simple ideas – to crave and to hate. All the other activities are woven around these two ideas. A simple inception! We are sure to have two emotions for every matter – crave or hate. And we start planning our life accordingly so that we could get whatever we crave for and we could avoid whatever we hate.

We plan to get good marks in our school, impress parents and teachers. We plan to get our admissions in the best of the universities and colleges. We plan to crack our job interviews. We plan to settle in our lives. But tell me..does life allow us to settle down? Does everything happen as you had planned? Tell me if you are what you had planned when you were a kid or possibly an adolescent. No….because what you experience is a CHANGE every time

The universe is changing at a blinding speed. A blink of your eye and everything around you is changed. Even a simple act of walking for couple of minutes instead of sitting at a place changes our future dramatically. We just fail to sense it until it is in your face.

You may counter-argue – Are you against planning one’s life? Not at all. Planning is good but I am not in favour of attachment with a specific outcome especially a quantitative aspect. You may pounce on me – this itself destroys the very purpose of planning. My dear friend, what is this attachment with numbers? I will give you a number- our subconscious is capable of processing 400 billion bits of information per second and the planning you do with your Noddy mind processes information at 2000 bits per second. Is there any comparison with what our mind is actually thinking and what you have planned for it?

We don’t have any idea about our abilities until and unless we are put in a particular situation. With such a superfast processor, you have the capability of handling almost every situation you are simply not aware about. So if you drop your attachment with the outcomes of the activities (which is indeed a difficult thing but at least start trying it from today) then you will find yourself in a far more comfortable position than you were yesterday.

And regarding Deconstructing Life’s Plan…. No we can’t do that! That was a catchy title. Life doesn’t have a plan. It is full of surprises. Sets your adrenalin rushing in the blood. Why make it dry with a so called ‘constructive’ thinking (it’s pretty rhymic to this word ‘destructive’!)Enjoy every day as it comes and you will have no regrets! J

Fantasies of Freedom

As a human being, we tend to possess some fundamental qualities which are in sync with the animal kingdom itself. There is hunger, there is thirst, there is curiosity, there is fear, there is defense. As a human being grows, the form of the qualities changes. Hunger for food turns into a hunger for money when you grow up, thirst for the water flowing from the tap turns into a thirst for power and position in the complex society (ok! thirst for knowledge is also considered but that is not bound by the phase of life), curiosity regarding blooming of the flower is taken over by the curiosity over what other people think about us (especially of the opposite sex!), fear of not completing the homework is replaced by fear of the consequences.

I feel that all these emotions are inter-related and very basic to any animal. But what makes me wonder is that these emotions are fundamentally functions of the very basic nature of any mind (not necessarily just human but the whole animal kingdom) I feel that all these emotions focus on achieving a single target, irrespective of the phase of mind, cultures, religion, country and natural form. The target is - FREEDOM

Freedom has always caught the fancy of a gibberish as well as the most sophisticated mind. Being an Indian, the word freedom was in my face through the details of our history books in school. India’s history is all about fighting for freedom. So has been for the world. The sense of freedom or liberty so subtle in every act that we actually don’t understand that we are doing this or that to achieve some kind of independence or some kind of freedom. The mankind always has had the fantasies of freedom!

We define the sense of freedom in our own way. For a baby*, may be walking on its own legs without a support could give happiness which could be as good as a young woman (let’s be feminist for  a while) getting an appointment letter for her dream job. However, the sense of freedom in such achievements is pretty fragile. Because the individual is not aware about the path which he/she is going to trot in the future. It is just a momentary jubilance of achieving a milestone; but is normally confused with freedom.

(*I won’t talk too much about the baby’s independence after learning to walk; but can’t resist from sharing a wonderful joke making rounds of facebook these days. It depicts a picture where a cat is telling a baby – the baby is yet to learn to stand – that the moment he/she will stand on its two legs, he/she will be dispatched to school. And the baby had a horrific look on its face asking,”Really??” J)

Say, the girl in the above given example may take huge pride in calling herself as an ‘independent’ woman for a while, keeping her head high (Oh yes! That is the way to do it!), the sense mellows down for many people (and women) when the reality sinks in.

Suddenly, one starts feeling the pang for going to work. You find it difficult to get up. Though you drag yourself in front of the mirror in the bathroom, your eyes refuse to open wide. You don’t find the breakfast tasty though prepared with best ingredients. Then the regular dialogues start visiting your vocal chords regularly “Oh, I’m stuck here!” “God, please help me!” God must have shot back,”Oh dear, I thought you were living your dream!”

I guess the problem is our confusion of freedom with living other person’s life. We always tend to get inspired by the people who you may know or you may not. In a way, it is good that your life gets a direction through inspiration. But the problem is destination. We really don’t know what the person is seeking from the life when he/she is doing something which excites and inspires us. In this process, we give up being ourselves and try to adopt a lifestyle which is entirely not ours. We refuse to find our own destination and confuse it with the path of other people, the destination of which is not known to us. We in a way are sacrificing our freedom to lead someone else’s life. That is an initiation of misery and 90% of you must have understood it if you would have shown the patience to go through this torturous text

By any means, I am not saying that the process of understanding self is simple. Our mind is enthralled and captured by so many secondary experiences that it is difficult to come out of that thick burden. Remember Uma Thurman digging out of her way through coffin while being buried in the grave in “KILL BILL”? Life may not be that unkind though and will keep on giving multiple signals to understand who you are. You just have to be either smart or fortunate to capture them. The day we realize our goal is the day you may celebrate the freedom and give up the fantasies…

I want to end this note with a beautiful thought from the film ‘Asoka’(Yes, I watched it!) – It says that the destiny of a traveler is nobler than anybody else, even than the kings and monarchs. You just need to know the destination….

Best of luck for your journey…..

Regards,

Amit

The Act of Balance

Since this is my first blog and I am writting all of`them as randomthoughts, it is pretty clear that I haven't actually thought about the write up and would be writting as the thoughts are flashing in my mind. You may argue that the title certainly requires some premediatated ideas to write upon but actually, you need not. You are experiencing it every second and executing it so beautifully and in a subtle way that you are not at all taking any note of it!
I was intrigued by a conversation (or rather some bits of conversation as I was not the immmediate listerner) of a spiritual person. He was explaining the nuances of work-life balance and I would presume that most of his audience certainly belong to the material world and are not like him.
My first encounter with the act of balancing was me seeing my uncle (in his college days), balancing a cricket bat on just one finger. I was awstruck. How could he do this? The bat has to fall!!!
A few days later, a circus came to our town, Miraj. The town is still a town (or let me call it a fast emerging city in SouthWestern Maharashtra). I vividly remember the staged conversation of the manager (presumably) and his assistant to fix a 5 m wooden pole vertically so that one of their acrobats can perform the gravity defying act on the top of the pole. But how to fix the pole on the ground? Then emerged a well built volunteer from the back stage and offered to balance the pole on his teeth (Yes! the teeth in his own mouth). My eyeballs almost protruded out while watching the girl doing amazing stunts on the top of the pole while the man is doing his act of balance on the ground!
Consequently I grew up (really??) and made my way to 8th standard where physics told me that the man (subjects are normally gender biased) is able to balance himself only when the 'centre of gravity' passes through the area covered by his feet. Then came a spiritual (or ritual??) awakening with the elders telling about the act of balance by the three big gods (Yep, there is a discrimination in the heavens too! :)) The Bramha creates, The Vishnu sustains and The Mahesh (for teenagers, that's our Mahadev or Shankar or Kailashpati etc) destroys! Simple but yet brilliant delegation for balancing.
As I have already mentioned, balancing is a subte skill your mind acquires with experience. Or rather, there is no need to acquire this skill as it is inherent to the mind.But, if you are willing to win a medal for the forthcoming Olympic Games at London, you need to train your body though as the skill is not so inherent to the human body! :)
We are also obsessed with balancing in a day-to-day life. For a working professional, reaching office on time, completion of the designated work within the deadline or preferably well before the deadline and the act of balance is pleasing your wife (or husband), your parents, bros,sis etc etc, meeting your friends or calling them occasionally, read a wonderful book you had bought 3.5 years back or catch up with your favourite movie, listening to music or BLOGGING!!!
Note - The students, housewives, retirees, army men, aliens should chalk out their own balancing acts. I am not going to jot down all of them!
When a working professional like me starts cribbing about the work in a spare time, there you start losing the balance o life. Frankly speaking (and statistically no proven), i believe that 95% of us (working professionals) hate to see office everyday and peak is actually attained on Monday Mornings. So almost everybody is sailing in the same boat. Hello, the rest of the 5% professionals and some of the unfortunates from 95% lot, please concentrate on the office work you have brought home for the weekend!
The cribbing eats the rest of the conscious hours available with you where you can make merry. Precisely, at this point, you tend to lose your 'centre of gravity' which goes off the feet. There is an increased (or rather 100% probability) that you will fall flat on your face. Never lose this time! Make the best use of it!
I am not an expert to give remedies about the swollen face if you have already fallen flat. And you don't need one. Because you know what you have to do!
May the 'centre of gravity' be always with you!

Best Regards,
Amit