Real vs. Unreal

In the face of great emotional pain and ego death, what helps me hold on is the remembrance of these beautiful words from the Bhagavad Gita -"What is Real is never lost and what is lost is never Real."

We dont know who we are. Due to our life experiences, we gather a set of thoughts in our head (eg: I am Thehseen. I like biryani, etc.). These thoughts act like an inner person (ego) and we believe this is who we are. Then we get attached to the ego and we start defending our ego and that is suffering. So life and consciousness (with infinite possibilities) taking form of a body gets limited into the box called ego. Ego is just a bunch of thoughts, remember.

In our daily lives of egos interacting with egos, (my way versus your way), there is always emotional pain because egos get bruised. Then we cry and "suffer." And say "Oh my poor life. What is to become of me!!" Who is this me? You dont even know who you are!! You misidentify with ego and then cry when that is being taken away from you!! Can you see the absurdity of it?!

You think you can think your way out of it? No!! All thinking is more ego. You hav to be very still. Earnestly self observe. Stay in the NOW. Gently bring your attention into the physical sensations of body and breath to anchor yourself. Let everyone and everything be as they are. Surrender to life. And maybe by God's grace, you wil one day become aware of the gap between thoughts. And then these gaps may widen. Wisdom and love will flow from the stillness that resides in these gaps.

Every moment, you r you. Yet you never know you. You can never be an object that you can know. You are the subject. You can only know who you are not. You can never lose you (that which is Real can never be lost). You lose many things you know (what was lost was never Real).

So every time someone comes along and tries to make fun of your way and tries to impose their way over you, rejoice. Your ego has the chance to melt a little so that the Real in all splendor can shine more and more. How grateful we should be to these great teachers who appear in our life to release our inner awesomeness from the prison box of the ego.....

Relinquishing resistance

Whatever choice we make, we must do it wholeheartedly.

There are only two kinds of people in this world - ones who are open to love versus ones who need love desperately. Those who need love are always afraid. Their heart has closed due to fear and so love does not flow freely. When we see such a person, we must open our heart even more and allow a big wave of compassion to flow through our heart to them. Where there is love and light, darkness and fear naturally are absent. Love is not something that we shower on people depending on their merits or how they behave toward us. Love flows effortlessly when our hearts are open.

Our hearts are open when we are surrendered to God, peaceful in our faith that God will take care of us no matter how bad a situation may look. From that faith, we lean back and relax. There is no need to think too much. Rest in the moment because the only power in this world is taking care of us. Allow Him to. Then our heart wil remain open and through that gap, love will flow freely. Allow everyone to be who they chose to be.... Relax.....

Intolerance

The right wing wants to turn the debate on intolerance on its head. It wants to now cast itself as the victim of intolerance while its own intolerance wil henceforth only be called nationalism. It wants to redefine nationalism and appropriate all national symbols. The right wing will make an enemy out of any voice questioning anything connected with Hindu religion, its gurus, its practices, its symbols etc. so that it can position itself as the champion of Hindu religion. It needs only imagined slights to do so. It will vehemently oppose n deride any debate on its policies or its definition of nationalism. Debate, counter voices, and a different narrative - these are signs of a vibrant democracy but these are threatening to the right wing. The right wing takes the rational legitimate questions posed by civil society, intellectuals etc. and makes these questions look like violent acts against the nation. While its own violent acts against the nation like destruction and killing of persons and goods of minorities, killing of hindu intellectuals like Kalburgi, Dabholkar, Pansare for speaking against superstition; killing of Hindu dalits by upper caste Hindus; Dadri killing; making announcements that it is ok to kill those who eat beef thus dictating the most fundamental of personal choices which is food; changing textbooks and history to favour a divisive anti-scientific agenda; shift in foreign policy favouring colonial powers and corporate interests abandoning morality; an economic agenda that is bent on helping corporates grow at the cost of the poor farmers, labourers and environment, attempts to intimidate and suppress debate in universities, suicide of Rohith Vemula etc. wil be considered as defensive and naturally occurring responses against anti-national forces.

Thus the right wing wants to bring legitimacy to its claim that those who call them fascist or intolerant are the ones deserving these appellations. The right wing wil now claim that its adherents are being persecuted unfairly for imagined slights. They wil continue this hollow cry at imagined enemies until they silence every opposing voice so they can make India into a Hindu Pakistan. Fortunately there are a great many sane voices in India who see through their agenda and are bravely struggling to build an India that is inclusive, pluralistic n secular; an India free of poverty, corruption n greed; an India where everyone has equal  access to quality education healthcare n food - the INDIA of our freedom fighters.

This reform must begin from within

I appeal to Muslim leaders to fashion a code of conduct that is more in line with the true spirit of Islam. The Muslim law as it exists now does not embody the progressive ideals that Islam originally espoused. Many Muslim women are unaware of the rights afforded to them by Islam. If practised accurately, the Islamic injunctions place Muslim women in a dignified position at par or even exceeding that enjoyed by modern women. It is my humble request to all concerned that these just and peaceful principles be brought to fruition. The kind of Islam that terrorists practise will never become mainstream not just because they are a negligible minority but also because their views are myopic and contrary to the soul of Islam. But the phobic response to that threat can result in a violent rejection of all things Islamic by the non-Muslim world and to prevent this, Muslims have to wake up and make their peaceful voices heard.

The ABC of radicalisation

Terrorism is to be condemned outright and with no excuses. There is no honour in it nor is it justified. That being said, it is vital to understand the causative and contributing factors in order to put an end to this scourge.

Terrorists exploit a distorted version of religion to add a veneer of respectability to their violent designs. But the genre of the religion itself is incidental and has little bearing on terrorism. Whether perpetrated by a state or by a coalition of disparate scattered individuals who share common goals, a significant motive is revenge. They come upon genuine grievances but instead of addressing them in a mature, compassionate and creative way, their emotions overwhelm them and they descend to chaos and aggression.

As vital as it is to understand these grievances and redress them, there is another important component that can save lives. This is to make the learning of emotional and social skills a part of our academic curriculum. Only when exquisite minds trained to compete and succeed are conjoined with compassionate hearts, can the balance be restored and a peaceful coexistence envisaged.

Freedom

There is consciousness and then there are the objects of consciousness. U r consciousness itself. Not an object of awareness. When u observe a tree, u r consciousness and tree is the object of awareness. Similarly, when u observe a thought, u r consciousness and thought is the object of awareness.

Objects of awareness keep changing. But consciousness itself does not change. U r consciousness itself. U never change. No object of awareness can make u weak or strong or less or more. Nothing can b taken away from u. Nothing can b added to u. U are immutable, unattached.

The objects are always so fascinating. The stories that are woven are so interesting. One such interesting story is the "I story." What is this "I?" A bunch of thoughts that go round n round in loop. "I am Thehseen. I am suffering. I want to b free."

So this suffering "I" is a thought arising in consciousness. It is an object of consciousness. But consciousness itself can never suffer. This body, these thoughts, emotions (the impact of thoughts on the body) are all objects and they change constantly. But consciousness itself does not change. Reality, consciousness, aanandam - One without a second.

To experience this each moment without being deluded is freedom. Freedom for whom? Isnt consciousness always free. Then who needs to b freed?? Where is the soul that needs to be saved? What is this that we call soul?

End of games

Socrates said "Know thyself." I want to take a Transactional Analysis (TA) view of the importance of this wisdom.

One important aspect of suffering in human life is  the games that people play.  Games in TA language stands for unconscious manipulative behaviour that results in a psychological payoff of negative feelings for the people involved. I propose that people play games because they do not want to let go of the false idea of who they are. Everyone has an internal image of who they are. If this imaginary self is in congruence with reality, then the person is well adjusted. However if the self image is widely different from reality, there is unconscious fear to face this fact. This fear is mitigated by indulging in behaviour that will support the person's idea of the self image.

One way to do this is to project one's own personality flaws on to another. There are myriad ways that thus result in what we call games. So the solution is to face the truth of who we are not. In exploring that lies our salvation and an end to suffering.