Some of the Western authors stress too much upon the concept of “I” in their lectures and writings on what they call as “Self-Improvement techniques”, “Path to Achievement” etc. Their concept of achievement is itself misunderstood or ill-conceived as they focus only on superficial achievements. They always talk about the self, what a self can do for itself etc. If everyone starts focusing on themselves, then the concept of “self-less” service would soon vanish. A mother would think twice before rearing kids and a kid would think three times to take care of its sick parents. A lot of real life examples are available about the ill-fate of kids of highly successful parents because they could not spare time for their kids. In a way these authors are misleading because the real achievement in life is forgetting the “I” and getting dissolved in to the oneness of the universe. The real happiness is not in achieving or getting all material things that we want but by forgetting ourselves in the service of “LIFE in general” or GOD or MANKIND. Life is not all about achieving what ever we dream about ourselves but helping others to achieve theirs. The real happiness is not being happy but being able to make others happy.
Also, the real happiness lies in accepting things on hand, what is given to us and not in getting dissatisfied with them trying to change them because it is like waging a losing battle. The peculiar aspect of mind is that it either gets satisfied or it never gets satisfied at all. So if some one says that he would be happy the moment he gets a million, please bear in mind that he says it in ignorance. The moment he gets a million, his mind would prompt him to go for a billion. The fundamental aspects of life remain the same irrespective of whether one lives alone on his own luxurious island or with a group under a thatched roof. Any relentless pursuit of selfish material aspects will lead to strong dissatisfaction. The actual road to achievement begins from the moment we accept our life and be contended with what we have in terms of material possessions and start working on the path of self-realization, maximising the potential of mind and working on what it can achieve. Most of the great leaders and noble souls whom the world still remembers have lived a FULL life for others. Had they lived a life for themselves they would have been forgotten even by their own progenies. The real conquers in life are not in winning over people, money or material but winning one’s own EGO, PRIDE, ANGER, JEALOUSY and all those related qualities.
In an universe which is loosely hanging in space, in a solar system which is constantly rotating and revolving under a strange force amidst so many flying objects, on a planet’s surface which is surrounded mostly by water and finally on a land mass which is constantly under the threat of tremors, man’s life is completely shrouded with uncertainty. Is it not foolishness to think about permanence of life and to fight for whatever we can in the name of achievement? The attitude of man in facing his life should not be like “Let me enjoy the maximum I can because life is uncertain and short”. It should be like “Let me serve others to my level best possible”. Only when man overcomes his survival instincts and begins to act beyond its influence, he gets nearer to godliness and only that can be termed as the ultimate achievement.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
The myth of positive thinking and discourse by western authors
There is no dearth of books on the subject of “positive thinking”. Any book written by any author is a best seller, atleast in the U.S. I doubt if there is so much of negativity out there though the country tries to put up an image of a Super power that can save the Earth from any catastrophe. To better understand this mentality of theirs, please watch movies like Armageddon etc. Returning to the subject on positive thinking, I honestly feel these western (and even some copy-cats from other parts of the world as well) authors are very naïve at the subject, especially if one gives even a cursory glance to the magnum opus from India, the “Bhagavad Gita” and then read their books again. Some of its prominent concepts like “Soul and Body are separate, soul is born again and again and takes different forms” and “Do your duty and do not bother about the results”, sums up “LIFE” and how we must approach life to lead a life filled with positive energy and happiness.
What is being repeated in these books is how to respond to particular situations or incidents in life and not a holistic and comprehensive approach to life. It is like advising people to control anger without looking in to the background factors that lie behind “Anger”. When one tries to address the background factors like materialistic affinity, Ego, Selfishness to name a few, “Anger” will be phased out of life as a side effect. The emphasis should be to address the cause and not the effect. For example, Ego is the cause and Anger is the effect of being egoistic. Any suppression of a negative feeling in the name of adopting positive thinking will only lead to an eruption at a later point of time.
On the other day, I was almost moved to tears to see a poor old man in his seventies, carrying his handicapped grand daughter on his shoulder who was blind, deaf and was suffering from polio attack. I cannot even imagine talking about the western concept of positive thinking to that gentleman. I wondered if any of those authors or their books can create any positive thinking in that gentleman unless they were able to answer his most fundamental questions of life, as to why on earth he was suffering like that.
The question here is how we react to those situations where we feel injustice is being done to us, though to our conscience, we have not done any wrong and hence we don’t deserve it. Some events happen to us in our lives, the reasons for which are beyond our comprehension. The truth is that there is a meaning to our lives and suffering and this meaning will remain beyond our comprehension unless we make an attempt to know it. I am sure whatever logical thinking that has evolved in the western world until now is still lacking to understand this meaning. Even the top most scientists are still struggling to answer the question of “WHY” about life though they claim to have answered some of the “WHAT”s and “HOW”s. The eastern thought of soul being separate from the physical body and that a soul will be born again and again until its “karma” is relinquished is the best closest logic to understand this. It makes sense to account for the good and bad of our previous lives to understand today’s suffering. Otherwise everybody should be born equal in terms of all aspects. All our lives and karma are interlinked. The goal of this life should be to realize this and take measures to minimize or eradicate the bad karma. If we start pursuing the goal, we will not even think about positive thinking! Ofcourse “what is good and bad karma” is a separate topic and needs another article!
What is being repeated in these books is how to respond to particular situations or incidents in life and not a holistic and comprehensive approach to life. It is like advising people to control anger without looking in to the background factors that lie behind “Anger”. When one tries to address the background factors like materialistic affinity, Ego, Selfishness to name a few, “Anger” will be phased out of life as a side effect. The emphasis should be to address the cause and not the effect. For example, Ego is the cause and Anger is the effect of being egoistic. Any suppression of a negative feeling in the name of adopting positive thinking will only lead to an eruption at a later point of time.
On the other day, I was almost moved to tears to see a poor old man in his seventies, carrying his handicapped grand daughter on his shoulder who was blind, deaf and was suffering from polio attack. I cannot even imagine talking about the western concept of positive thinking to that gentleman. I wondered if any of those authors or their books can create any positive thinking in that gentleman unless they were able to answer his most fundamental questions of life, as to why on earth he was suffering like that.
The question here is how we react to those situations where we feel injustice is being done to us, though to our conscience, we have not done any wrong and hence we don’t deserve it. Some events happen to us in our lives, the reasons for which are beyond our comprehension. The truth is that there is a meaning to our lives and suffering and this meaning will remain beyond our comprehension unless we make an attempt to know it. I am sure whatever logical thinking that has evolved in the western world until now is still lacking to understand this meaning. Even the top most scientists are still struggling to answer the question of “WHY” about life though they claim to have answered some of the “WHAT”s and “HOW”s. The eastern thought of soul being separate from the physical body and that a soul will be born again and again until its “karma” is relinquished is the best closest logic to understand this. It makes sense to account for the good and bad of our previous lives to understand today’s suffering. Otherwise everybody should be born equal in terms of all aspects. All our lives and karma are interlinked. The goal of this life should be to realize this and take measures to minimize or eradicate the bad karma. If we start pursuing the goal, we will not even think about positive thinking! Ofcourse “what is good and bad karma” is a separate topic and needs another article!
Man and Religion
I wrote a small poem beginning with a query ‘if God made Man or Man made God’. The poem goes on to quip that Man indeed made God because there are so many forms of God today, causing endless troubles in the name of religion to the creator himself, the Man. Why is man so religious and why are there many religious wars and skirmishes? When I ponder deeply on the evolution of God and the associated religions to where we are today, I think it all started when Man started wondering about the superiority of devastating natural forces and bigger wild animals. Realizing his limitations, he simply accepted their supremacy and deified them. In the process, he started performing certain rituals in order to pacify them and to invoke their blessings for survival. All these rituals and beliefs were codified and passed on to his generations to come in the name of religion. This basic form of religion can be found to be still alive in some of the tribal people who are yet to come out of survival mode and who have not yet been corrupted by the modern man.
Once Man settled down by means of agriculture and domestication, he could subdue most of the wild animals but not the natural forces. Hence natural forces continued to find a place in his concept of God. The intelligence in Man also grew in this period to a greater extent that he started questioning the supremacy of the natural forces and if there is further a superior force to reckon, which actually controlled everything. Though the most intelligent realized that God is formless and he is one (Monotheism), the ordinary could not conduct their day to day life without some form of God. Man found it difficult to worship God without a symbol and thus even the realized individuals themselves became objects of worship and thus subjects of conflicts. In all religions, it has been a practice to deify some people who lead exemplary lives showing a direction to the common man’s life and in whom the ordinary mortal found Godliness.
There are many religions that originated at different places and at different times but interestingly all the major religions of the world are monotheistic. Each religion started drawing a lineage of Saints, emanating from the God himself and culminating with a “Saint” whom they believed to be the last messiah of their faith. Most of the religions spread on the basis of violence, suppression and elimination of other faiths though a few others grew by tactically embracing smaller faiths along with their gods and demigods in to their fold. In this process they transformed to be polytheistic (though ideologically remaining monotheistic) and thus grew too comprehensive and complex to understand.
With the advent of modern Science, all the religions need a strong correction in terms of their beliefs and practices! While religion has to be considered as a means to realize God, the end, the irony is that man is more obsessed with the means, the differences and hence all the unrest. What Man has failed to understand is that while there have been numerous instances of demolition of places of worship, massacres in the name of religion and many other atrocities done by him in the name of religion, God never seems to have actually appeared and stopped him. Is it not weird? It is high time man starts re-thinking about his understanding on religion and God! We have enough things to worry about our survival and let us keep atleast Religion out of it!
Once Man settled down by means of agriculture and domestication, he could subdue most of the wild animals but not the natural forces. Hence natural forces continued to find a place in his concept of God. The intelligence in Man also grew in this period to a greater extent that he started questioning the supremacy of the natural forces and if there is further a superior force to reckon, which actually controlled everything. Though the most intelligent realized that God is formless and he is one (Monotheism), the ordinary could not conduct their day to day life without some form of God. Man found it difficult to worship God without a symbol and thus even the realized individuals themselves became objects of worship and thus subjects of conflicts. In all religions, it has been a practice to deify some people who lead exemplary lives showing a direction to the common man’s life and in whom the ordinary mortal found Godliness.
There are many religions that originated at different places and at different times but interestingly all the major religions of the world are monotheistic. Each religion started drawing a lineage of Saints, emanating from the God himself and culminating with a “Saint” whom they believed to be the last messiah of their faith. Most of the religions spread on the basis of violence, suppression and elimination of other faiths though a few others grew by tactically embracing smaller faiths along with their gods and demigods in to their fold. In this process they transformed to be polytheistic (though ideologically remaining monotheistic) and thus grew too comprehensive and complex to understand.
With the advent of modern Science, all the religions need a strong correction in terms of their beliefs and practices! While religion has to be considered as a means to realize God, the end, the irony is that man is more obsessed with the means, the differences and hence all the unrest. What Man has failed to understand is that while there have been numerous instances of demolition of places of worship, massacres in the name of religion and many other atrocities done by him in the name of religion, God never seems to have actually appeared and stopped him. Is it not weird? It is high time man starts re-thinking about his understanding on religion and God! We have enough things to worry about our survival and let us keep atleast Religion out of it!
Life is all about Problem Solving
Life is all about Problem Solving and the smartest are those who solve their problems with the least amount of energy and resources being spent. The greatest among those smartest are the ones who stretch out to solve other’s problems as well. While almost all of us eat and sleep to solve our basic problems of hunger and tiredness, there are a few amidst us, ignoring the basic ones, yearning to solve the ultimate problems of existence, evolution etc. Whatever the problems are, there are some of us who choose to solve them, some trying to avoid them, some more wishing to forget them and there are some more that choose to live with them just because either there is no solution or atleast they think so. There are some people who get carried away by others’ problems and involve in it deeply losing their own happiness and there are some smart managers who delegate all their problems to their gullible subordinates and lead a blissful life.
It is a myth that problems can be solved completely because most of the problems are always recurring and only some instances are solved. Infact there are some problems that continue to exist as long as life does. Psychologists may wish to call problems as needs and wants and Spiritual thinkers may prefer to call needs and wants as problems!
The important question is how do we solve our problems and incase some problems are insolvable then how do we handle them. Incase we choose to solve a problem, how much of time and energy do we spend in order to solve it? Do we create more problems by solving one or do we actually avoid many impending ones by solving one. There are many guidelines to the problem of problem solving itself and there are three important ones that we should always bear in mind. The first among them is to ascertain if there is a real problem at all or is it only perceived. Most of our problems are in our minds and don’t exist really. The next one is identify where exactly the problem is. Have you read this joke in which a “Sardar”, without knowing that his thumb is injured, complains to a Doctor that his entire body is paining whenever he touches it with his thumb? Infact most of us are like him, in the sense, we don’t realize that we are the reason for our problems in most of the cases but we blame others and the environment for the same. And the next step is to find if the problem is affecting others as well. If so, it is better to join hands and solve it than struggling alone.
One of the main characteristics of a great Leader is his ability to solve problems of his group. History is replete with heroics of great people who even gave their lives in solving problems. Interestingly there are also examples of some self- proclaimed Leaders who have invented problems, justified their existence and wasted time, money and energy in solving them (only to complicate them further) just to keep up their leadership by creating fear psychosis in their subjects. One question that we should constantly ask ourselves is why do we always look outside to solve problems? Is it because of the classical conditioning or lack of correct understanding or the lack of courage to face it? Having said all this, Life is all about gearing ourselves always to solve problems or atleast reducing the number of instances if we don’t have control over their occurrence.
It is a myth that problems can be solved completely because most of the problems are always recurring and only some instances are solved. Infact there are some problems that continue to exist as long as life does. Psychologists may wish to call problems as needs and wants and Spiritual thinkers may prefer to call needs and wants as problems!
The important question is how do we solve our problems and incase some problems are insolvable then how do we handle them. Incase we choose to solve a problem, how much of time and energy do we spend in order to solve it? Do we create more problems by solving one or do we actually avoid many impending ones by solving one. There are many guidelines to the problem of problem solving itself and there are three important ones that we should always bear in mind. The first among them is to ascertain if there is a real problem at all or is it only perceived. Most of our problems are in our minds and don’t exist really. The next one is identify where exactly the problem is. Have you read this joke in which a “Sardar”, without knowing that his thumb is injured, complains to a Doctor that his entire body is paining whenever he touches it with his thumb? Infact most of us are like him, in the sense, we don’t realize that we are the reason for our problems in most of the cases but we blame others and the environment for the same. And the next step is to find if the problem is affecting others as well. If so, it is better to join hands and solve it than struggling alone.
One of the main characteristics of a great Leader is his ability to solve problems of his group. History is replete with heroics of great people who even gave their lives in solving problems. Interestingly there are also examples of some self- proclaimed Leaders who have invented problems, justified their existence and wasted time, money and energy in solving them (only to complicate them further) just to keep up their leadership by creating fear psychosis in their subjects. One question that we should constantly ask ourselves is why do we always look outside to solve problems? Is it because of the classical conditioning or lack of correct understanding or the lack of courage to face it? Having said all this, Life is all about gearing ourselves always to solve problems or atleast reducing the number of instances if we don’t have control over their occurrence.
How much can you stretch physically?
There are so many of us who wish and dream a lot but somehow lack the will to take steps to make them a reality. How can we build this so called will? Well, there could be many ways of building one’s will like getting in to tough mental exercises, reading a lot of self help books and so on. But the point is that somewhere we have to get going. If you are not a sports person (and if you are not the initiated), then the real medicine is to have simple physical stretch goals and keep stretching the goal itself as and when you keep achieving it. The goal can be anything from touching your toes without bending your knees to running a mile or jogging. Jogging can be really a demanding activity and one really needs to jog in order to better understand its benefits with respect to building or enhancing one’s will. (Better check your fitness before hopping on to such activities). When one pursues such a goal daily, it brings in not only a sense of accomplishment which is more tangible, but also a lot of motivation. This kind of physical stretching equips one with the tenacity to stretch mentally and walk the extra mile, be it at home or work. And the spin off is good digestive system and doing away with bottles of “Digene” or “Himcocid”. When such a physical activity is being taken up as a family, it only serves multiple purposes. Infact, many of the Top management executives pursue some form of physical activity (ranging from running to playing tennis) to improve their perseverance and may be this quality of stretching is what keeps them on the top.
The topic assumes much importance in today’s context. The change in lifestyle (& job style) has rendered us unfit not only to run a mile but even to climb a flight of stairs. A typical morning queue before the elevator at office is a real testimony to this. Even at a relatively young age, many of us are bestowed with symbols of prosperity (big bellies to name one), an add-on benefit of fat pay packets. A quick glance (without venturing in to statistics) at today’s workforce would reveal how the “resources” (or the workforce) are grossly out of shape and lacking physical vigour. To put it simply, most of us cannot stretch! Added to this, the height of comfort that we have at home (from coffee maker, water heaters to automated shoe polishers), one hardly needs to move a hand or shake a leg before landing directly on the revolving chair at one’s desk. Even mild form of routine physical activities can ward us off from fatigue and boredom, helping us to gain the much needed spirit. Playing games in the weekend (like Shuttle cork) can be a very good energising activity to recharge our battery and it incorporates the winning spirit which is very much needed in today’s rat race. It adds to the glow in the face as well.
I remember a short story that I read when I was in the School Primary. A rich man, suffering from digestive disorder, visits a doctor on his horse cart. The Doctor, a shrewd man, examines him but insists that he will disclose the medicine only to the cart man. The rich man, surprised, returns to his cart but the cart starts off without him and he ends up reaching home running behind it. The story goes on that after reaching home so tired, he has a sumptuous meal, thus realising the importance of physical activity. A Sound mind dwells in a sound body and there can be no two different views about it. So, the question is “How much can you stretch physically?”.
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