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