If we want to change the world in a significant way, if we're serious about creating a better future for us all, then we have to face the fact that the only way it is going to happen is the only way it's ever happened : through the evolution of Consciousness itself.
Blog Archive : ANIRBANSPEAK http://anirbanspeak.blogspot.in
Yesterday I had this strange dream.. I dreamt that I was being born in this planet, in this time-space, but remembering everything... and my mother was giving me a discourse of what all things I shall have to forget to grow up into a 40yr.old man again.
Before she made me forget everything - those few seconds before I would become the helpless child newly-born with no memory, I had flashes of information wracking my head. I remembered that I have no official religion and it doesn't even have a name. It shall never have one. But it is not an organised religion.Organised religion is God-in-a-Web, the Great Spider in the centre of a thousand doctrines and rituals and mandatory beliefs. And people die in that web. So I have a nameless disorganised religion. I must have Something then.
I have a way of finding what is true for me. t is an experimental personal philosophy and it will never have a name, because a name is just a label. As soon as there's a label, ideas disappear and there is label-worship and label-bashing. And instead of living by a theme of ideas, people begin dying for labels. That the world needs a new religion is the last thing I wish for. My experimental privacy does not have a symbol. If it did have one, it wouldn't be an Om or a star or a crescent.If it were to have one, it shall be a cross without the bar - because I don't like 'bars'.
A cross without the bar is the number One. One in binary arithmetic means Not-Nothing, an Is instead of Isn't.One is the number of Life, no matter how many dreams I have, of Life.
A cross without a bar is the Capital 'I'.It reminds me that this nameless path is my personalised thinking, not to be suggested by circumstances.
A cross without the bar is a Little 'i'. It reminds me there's a test with a question that awaits the end of every dream I have.
And I was born again in time-space. How strange it felt,being born!Hours ago I was safe,floating, happy,systems working warm and well. Now the mind is a control room at nuclear breakdown - severe emergency. A hundred terror-bright, death-red warnings flashing : "Breathe now or die. Eat now or die. Falls kill, fire kills, water kills, enemies in the dark."
Never before have I seen so many bright precautions, and now I am wide-open,vulnerable and powerless,and I can't even sob the word for "HELP"!
I felt my mother reassuringly close to me.I wanted her to stay close till I've checked out on the fears of danger. "Tell me Ma what was I doing here?Did I pick this life for me,or did you?" Ma had answers, but all my questions were cries of a wailing new-born. The choice seemed to be to close my eyes, shut down all systems and sleep. So this was space-time, Land of no Other Choice. It is all blurs now but the more one sees, the worse it gets. Here is hunger, and thirst, and cold.
She stroked my head as she said, "Little one, the dragons outnumber you, and they lie. You can choose. You have two choices.. One - call their bluff, don't listen to their limits.Close your eyes, lift your spirit, remember who you are, beyond space, beyond time, never born, never dying..." I relaxed,and let go.
"..and the physical world will raise a fist in victory-Dead! All eyes to swear your tiny body unbreathing, all flingers agree no pulse, sign a scroll to call your victory death.Another Choice: Win by losing. Before your outer walls break, as break they must, if you are to stay, uild an inner place to protect your Truth. Protect the fact that you are infinite life. Protect that the world you know exists with your consent and for your good reasons.. Protect that your purpose and mission is to shine love in your own playful life."
"Wow! Great to be here!And so much to learn"-I thought. Good. Yes,mortals love to learn. And I shall always love to learn.This seemed to be my first learning."
FIGHT ON TILL VICTORY, YOU CAN GIFT IT TO THE MAN OR WOMAN BESIDE YOU....
Dear Reader, A break up Is painful, needless, cruel. Modern technology makes sure We see every little detail, Of the aftermath, In cold words on a monitor.
Dear Reader, A secret break up, Is almost unbearable. Sarcastic digs made on Facebook, That only you'll understand, Because all you ever were Was a lie.
Dear Reader, A break up, With messages long since forgotten. It's not an inbox anymore, it's a thread of 'I love you baby', 'I miss you baby', 'You are everything to me', Slowly turning into a kiss-less need to know messages. 'I'll be home at 6', 'chicken for dinner'.
Dear Reader, A break up, That only valued close friends know about. But don't have the guts to admit to them, That they were right. That it didn't last, That it didn't work.
And me and my bloody ideals. Nobody can make anybody 100% happy, But a commitment is a commitment, And I will work on it. And I won't give up on it, And I'll never walk away from something that makes me safe.
Dear Reader, A break up, Because of humanoid problems. Stupid Internet has ruined it all for me. Nude pictures, soppy emails. I'd rather be ignorant and happy, Than going through a break up.
Dear Reader, Don't break hearts. Don't. Just don't do it.
[this is, on request, for a 22 year old man and a 20 year old lady (a couple which reads my blog). One of them sent me an email, wee bit unexpectedly as they usually send me a considerable chunk of my daily/weekly quota of brickbats. I hope this smells like a complimentary bouquet for the two, and maybe for their generation. I used to be twenty too. And twenty two ; but that is prehistory]
Today, on the 178th Birth Anniversary of Sri RamaKrishna, I had shared a post on him by my learned friend Amitava Chatterjee - he has rightfully discussed the relevance of the great man's teachings against the backdrop of today - contemporary times. It is impossible even for the audaciously loud and nosy parker that I am (with my irritating, 'omni-pervasive' nose in every possible pie around) to script an essay on RamaKrishna. I'm not mentioning the headlines of today's newspaper but I guess in troubled times like ours, it is important to look, feel and learn with the correct perspective, and Ramakrishna's teachings are amongst the best to refer to while one does that. A couple of points come to my mind though, which makes the philosopher yet more nobly unique. As I think deeper, I remember how I, as a 4 year old child, had reacted to the element of Ramkrishna's presence in the adult world - that at home and outside, while as years passed by and I grew up hopping up school classes. I guess I can analyze why he was a always comfortable presence in the princedom of my consciousness. RamaKrishna is perhaps the only divine philosopher who neither needed any practical institutionalized support, nor did he end up summarized in any block of man's sectarian Religiosity. In fact his philosophy prompted the birth of an institution that fulfills social duties and has spread its global embrace over time. Man tends to associate anything spiritual with personalized divinity. A particular occidental, and rather popular perspective that grossly looks upon RamaKrishna as a Hindu saint or preacher is an immense misperception. It is here I think it reveals the theocentricity of man's restrictive spiritual character.
The beauty of his philosophy in this context is successfully visible in the lineage of his followers which has survived over generations. I' ve observed that those amongst us, even at this moment, who follow his "form" of principles are not overtly religious, particularly ceremonial religion, whatever religion they might be from. This shows an evolutionary trait of our society that is blossoming over time albeit silently, without the archetypal fanfare, and rightly so.
I think this is the biggest Unique Success of his philosophy, for what else can man's spiritualism attain greater heights by, than the inclusive evolution of its own form over time. I feel the ever ascending glory that keeps emanating from his spiritual core. We are a blessed lot. The flame, leading kindly light, shall burn forever.
Only yesterday I was doing some extensive commentaries on the Vedas and the Upanishads in a social networking site. It's another matter that my comments got mired in an avoidable slinging exercise between the rights of two religions. Those who understood me shall always will. A couple of those who didn't, didn't want to understand perhaps. I do not believe in organized religion so it is meaningless to persevere in conversations where my comments are percieved as personal bias to a specific religion and antagonistic towards another. However it's when I feel perspectives are being imposed on independent voices, I become vociferous in protest.
While I never impose my perspective even on my own shadow, I respect others having their own perspectives because I believe in man's intellectual freedom and his right to exercise it at any point of time. Personalizing a quote of Voltaire here I say that while I may not agree with one's point of view, I shall defend to my last breathe, his/her right to have it and express it.
Yesterday late night I went back to the very texts that I had referred to hours before. It is always exhilarating to re read quality literature because every time I go back to revising it, I learn something new, yet another fresh concept arises out of the pages.
The Upanishads are summarizingly called "Vedantas" as they are, in a way, a unique structure of comments on the Vedas, a set of philosophical discourses on what the Srutis reveal to express. The fact that they do not represent thoughts constrained within a specific era of evolving consciousness of the human mind and society at large, uphold the validation of the timelessness of this literature. They have been written over centuries by brilliant philosophers of yore, as they have strived to philosophize their discernment in their own ways, each being a brilliant analysis of the knowledge gathered and its application to put the essence in relevance to contemporary times.
Yesterday I referred to it as a work of brilliant philosophy on humanism - how it comments on the spiritual evolution of man and how that results in making life better for one and all. It makes me realize the actual value of human life, and what should be the essential goal of life. In the same capacity I find the Vedantas to be a wonderful reference when human relationships are comtemplated upon. While nowhere it is specifically written to be so, one does reach conclusions about its message in a broader, holistic reference frame - the reason why the relevance of these scriptures is timeless.
Talking about human relationship, it makes me stress on the absolution of Detachment if happiness and elegance are chosen to be sustained in any meaningful relationship. The Vedantas identifies Attachment as the primary factor when clashes and conflicts disturbs the harmony of a valuable relationship. Overt attachment arises out of emotional insecurity. Doubts on the strength of bonding between two human beings arise when one feels threatened by the presence of others in another's life and emotions. Spontaneous interactions appear to be antagonistic and they appear to threaten one's presence and place in the other's life. The sanctity of mutual trust and its privacy is disturbed when that happens. And naturally one begins to get misunderstood, perceptions of his entity change not only in the mind of the other one but ofor those whose presence in the other's life started the entire process. At the end the relationship breaks down as one is shunned by the other. What a waste.
Looking back at my own life, I wouldn't clarify whose part I played in relationships - one who started feeling insecure, one who shunned/had to shun at the end or one whose presence in one's life became the unintentional cause of a breakdown. But this study of relationships is very, very meaningful to me as a person without a sibling, one who lost a parent to a rather inglorious death, one who fell out with the other parent because of conflict of principles, one who got widowed, one who got divorced, and one who lost a little daughter to that divorce. Though it was never really an active participation on my side that these relationships of varying depth of emotional involvement got destroyed, they got destroyed all the same. And it's never futile to look back and analyze and learn.
The Vedantas tell me that the way out of human misery in such situations is detachment. In a way it is love/affection in a more primal, uncomplicated form. One should love the other as the person he/she is, to accept the reality of the person. The moment you bring in expectations and demands, you start restricting the other person. It is a happy story if the other person doesn't feel restricted by emotional expectations (and I personally don't see why there should be any difficulty if the intent and fondness is truly genuine), but that is not the way it plays out in reality.
Keeping yourself devoid of any expectations and emotional needs to be voiced out can ensure that the love or affection you get back in return is mostly undiluted and spontaneous. A few years back I would have percieved a dichotomy here ; is love with a hidden sense of detachment true? Does it agree with the actual character of the emotion called Love? The years that have elapsed since teaches me the futility of such a perception.
What I write here is my story, my realization. There's no need to generalize when it comes to the usual or the normal, or the common. But it takes all sorts of stories - happy and tragic, complete and incomplete, successful and otherwise, to write down the Script of Life. And with time the ego called 'I' and the needs called 'My Needs' get obliterated as the mind strives to achieve higher states of consciousness. I am awaiting my turn if there is any.
"...Teach him that all men are not just, all men are not true, but teach him also that for every scoundrel, there is a hero; for every selfish politician, there is a dedicated leader; teach him to learn to lose, and teach him also to enjoy winning; teach him to sell his brawn and brain to the highest bidder, but to never put a price tag on his heart and soul." -- Abe Lincoln in a letter to his son's headmaster.
How perspectives change in intensity and never in essence... I read Abe Lincoln's letter 20 years back. And I learnt something then. Or maybe I didn't. Today after I happened to stumble across a yellow, two decade old hand-written worn-out note that I wrote to myself, I realize something. And that is : For every time my heart pushes my brain to revolt, to despair, to criticize bitterly, to vent angst towards God-knows-who, there are moments of silent discourses between me and I, Every time. And every time my heart tells my brain to calm down, to feel good for there is Hope. And it is Hope that makes a true man. That inspires me to try to be a true man, tomorrow perhaps. I guess it will inspire you too, long after I shall be gone.
Days back, during a casual online hit chat, I and my recently introduced lady friend came to the extremely relevant to our contemporary times, now oft-trodden pasture of Patriotism. I am an Indian and live in Mumbai,(my dear friend resides in a foreign land) and so it wasn't long before Bollywood movies were invited into the virtual dialogue.I'm still feeling bad because I guess I startled her big time by replying, "Pyaasa", when she asked what were my favourite movies on Patriotism.
During any interaction of mine about country, pride, patriotism, idealism. (etc..you know the drill) elements of loud (and empty) rhetoric and jingoism frequently rush in fast which soon make it center-stage, pushing the actual topic off it. I'm trying hard and am hopeful that soon I'll fully realize the futility, the futility of playing host to vices like these,) and grandstanding should follow Content, and not precede it.
I'm disappointed that I couldn't succeed at least this time as the nonsuspectingly poor lady showed strong expressions, of shock and disbelief. Since then I am trying hard and since morning I've been doing that only. It's a tedious job - making a refreshed list which should contain national flags, wars and sacrifices and soldiers and firepower and bazookas and car pert-bombings.. Certainly not "Pyaasa'.
Old habits die hard. I am a bit disconcerted, so here I am once again having a problem in problematic times, searching an answer. Pleading for Help as always. This problem compels me to go back in time so that I remember a few things.
I was 9 years old. Our recently purchased television was in a wooden cabinet, which had a wooden double-door entry. Movies shown on Door Darshan on Saturday afternoon, had a crowd of curious audience, overawed and revelling in the magic monochrome melody that came out pof it..
One Saturday afternoon, it was 'Pyaasa'. Ma was visibly excited and happy, ready to watch an old favourite, and songs that perhaps used to make her reminisce of her emotions during her teen years...(she was frank about that trait with me in privacy). I didn't feel very deep though. But yes, what classics used to be composed in Hindi movies! The gems were immortalized - as we see around us today. Sometime during the movie, I went out to answer nature's loud call. On my way back, nature silenced for now, I was still outside the room when I heard a song coming out of the TV. It was Mohammed Raft's voice, lipped by Guru Dutt, his soulful eyes and his thin yet prominent and deep furrows that looked over frowned brows, eyes that were fatigued and sad, trying to hide an intense fire that raged on till his death. still don't know. At that age I could understand Hindi to an extent that could cover day to day demands of survival. I hadn't understood many sequences in the movie, particularly why sad expressions persisted even after the saddening causes were taken care of (I was completely ignorant about complexities of the human mind, of things fine and nuanced, if unchecked would result in complications.) " KAHA HAIN, JISSE NAAZ HAIN HIND PAR, WOH KAHA HAIN, KAHA HAIN KAHA HAIN.......?....."
I still have goosebumps. It was an overwhelming wave of previously unthinkable courage, of Hope that told me that there are many things of interest outside the world of books, paint brushes, cricket and school. It told me that one day I have to think deeply which shall direct the script of every day of the life I'll live.
Patriotism is not meant to be instilled in times of war and bloodshed. It is already there during Creation, it is there when a child is born, so that it can identify it as an intended suggestion already put so that no war and bloodshed take place.
