Onlyness - Santosh Jha (best black authors .TXT) 📗

small part of the overall preparations for reception of answers. As I told you, learning comes natural and easy for kids but for grownups, the toughest part is unlearning. You already have an established worldview and the culture you have lived in and have been successful in, have ingrained deep in your subconscious. Your subconscious mind already has loads of referrals, which automatically comes up before your mind consciousness as primary decision-matrix for right and wrong. It shall need huge amount of innocence and trust within you, which could help you override your instinctive as well as cultural decision-matrix for the utility and fruition of any new answers and learning. The stage where you rise above the elements of nature and nurture starts with initially forced consciousness of innocence and faith. Later, it becomes an automatic and first instinct after lots of practice, enabling smooth assimilation of new learning.”

It is long discourse for Melissa and as words queued up for entry into her mind, she keeps quite for a while. She understands only a part of what Shiv said, still grappling with many words, he said. He is closely watching her face and reads her well.

“Melissa, the first innocence is acceptance of the fact that mind is not omnipotent. It is a poor processor of information it is fed from different sensors of body. You first need to consciously put ahead your innocence like a kid and say with child-like simplicity that you did not understand something. Your mind cannot process an input, which it does not already have in its memory of experiences. You speak French to me and I won’t even blink as my mind cannot process it. Secondly, when you say you could not understand it, you need to have total faith in yourself that you shall never take it as your ignorance. There is nothing called ignorance in this universe. It is just that all minds receive something for the first time and then only it becomes available for subsequent value summation.”

“Yes Shiv, you are right. I am beginning to understand that while I am with you, there shall be many firsts for my little mind. Probably, dad is right as he told me that while in USA, I have experienced only one side of the larger worldview. He said, I needed to be exposed to different worldviews. Be sure, now on I shall always tell you if I do not understand anything. As you said, I shall make a conscious effort to make my innocence upfront.”

“It is not that you do not know something. Everything is within us therefore, in true sense, everything is available for you to know that I can ever know. The only difference is, both you and me have a large piece of land full of diamonds. I was fortunate to have a mind training, which enabled me to dig them out and bring them on surface. Your diamonds are there too, but still beneath the land, which you can dig out, whenever you like.”

“Shiv, let me tell you this, not with innocence of a child but out of a woman’s curiosity to make this diamond metaphor a bit simpler for me. I want my diamonds. I know you may have plenty of them but I can be happy with one large one”, she said smiling.

“You shall have plenty of them. Diamonds actually belong to women.”

“Then make this digging thing simple for me to understand.”

“This is the core trouble with all enterprises of life. There can never be one simple aspect of anything. Things always are multidimensional and it takes a convergence of all these dimensions at one point of time to create a utility. For example, everyone has a piece of land full of diamonds, however, only that person shall begin to dig for it, who has the knowledge that diamonds are precious. Otherwise, it is just a stone. If a farmer has this land who does not know the worth of diamonds and is obsessed with fertility of his soil for cultivation, shall throw them away along with other pebbles and weeds. Other farmer may have the knowledge of the worth of diamonds but he may not have the knowledge that in nature, diamonds do not come as polished and shining. He shall dig and even find them but still throw them away taking them as any other useless stone. Another farmer may be knowledgeable of all these still, he may not have the patience to dig deep and discern between real diamond and loads of other stones that may come up during digging. He may stop digging mid-way. In digging wisdom, we all face such troubles. It takes multidimensional elements of preparations and readiness, all being in one person at some point of time, for the treasure of diamonds to become available.”

“At which stage of preparedness and readiness, you think I stand?”

“It is a difficult decision. You know the best. What I wish to tell you is, what is of utility and benefit to someone in his or her life, is independent of the real and true worth they have. It is you and me who create worth in anything. Then we pursue it and devote our lives in having them and that too in plenty. A diamond does not have any worth on its own. It has worth for humans. A monkey shall find it, taste it and then throw it away. For the monkey, an apple is million times more worthy and precious that this hard, tasteless stone.”

“This means, our lives, whatever we all do with our lives and what we chase life-long, have worth and value only to the extent, we assign them and believe in it?”

“Not even that. Most people do not even assign their own value and worth to what they do and achieve in life. The contemporary culture, they are born in and brought up, usually decides the benchmarks of utility and worth for all pursuits of their lives. The worth of diamond is a cultural benchmark of utility. In the culture of all other living species of Earth, other than human, it is almost worthless like any other stone. There is a worldview of all other species, other than humans, where value and utility of all pursuits by all members of the species are decided by their natural instincts, which ensures their survival. In humans, the instincts are also there and they decide utility and value of human pursuits too. However, most of human pursuits are decided by popular cultural benchmarks of utility and worth, which humans themselves create and keep changing.”

“My dad always told me to keep away from populism. Probably, he wanted me to decide my own benchmarks of utility and self-worth. You know Shiv, from childhood; he always called me empress and expected me to present myself as one. I think, he also meant what you are telling me now.”

“Melissa, most men and women live their lives and base their decision about right and wrong on the basis of a mix of their nature and nurture – the instincts and culture. It looks like; their consciousness is a function of an interaction of the two broad elements of instincts and culture. However, this is only a small portion of the self – the larger consciousness. There are infinite shades of one’s consciousness, which one can decipher and it is like digging them from the land of one’s consciousness. This is a very difficult task. One has to completely unlearn the cultural consciousness, which usually accounts for the bulk of one’s popular consciousness. Then, one has to assign completely new sets of values, utility and worth to all those natural instincts, which usually make auto-decisions for us. Then only, the doors of multiple shades of higher consciousnesses open up.”

“So, finally, we have come back to the same point. What I could understand is – there is a super consciousness like realism, within us, which becomes largely independent of both instincts and culture. This super consciousness of the self is the facility of being the conscious decider of what should ideally present yourself with your decision-matrix of real and true utility and worth at any point of time in your life.”

“You are almost there.”

“But Shiv, this still leaves my question unanswered. Now I truly wish to know how one can reach to this stage of super consciousness.”

“It is really good that you keep faith with your question. However, from here, you shall need both faith and courage of conviction to journey to the answer.”

“Why this courage element, are we moving to some dangerous territory?”

“Dangerous is the extreme word, yes, there is the element of uncertainties. I explain it to you and it shall be completely on your discretion, whether you wish to take this mind journey or not. From here, we shall have to enter a domain, where even science is not sure. Naturally, what we shall deal with is the domain of philosophy. We have to deal with the question of consciousness, about which even science still searches for answers. The ancient Indian philosophy offers answers but not amenable to finality in a way science accepts. These philosophical ideas are very much available for practical tests on realistic grounds, yet they are only self-evident, not amenable to across the board evidences, which a scientific fact must have. As you are from a culture where scientific evidences matter for very utility as well as finality of an idea, you shall need the courage of conviction to travel faithfully with the new idea of self and life worth.”

“Hmmm… I understand. Is that all Shiv? Anything else, which I should be cautious of?”

“Yes, there is another aspect of this new learning, which needs larger courage. In search of this super consciousness, which you wish to arrive at, you may confront a completely novel set of realisms about consciousness and life. These realisms and their experiences can be destabilizing for you initially as you shall not be used to it. They may even be in conflict and contradiction of your existing cultural ideas and worldview. This can be destabilizing, as your current consciousness shall have to battle with them. It is only very natural that when your decision-matrix goes for a complete makeover, your consciousness shall stand in a domain of uncertainties. Your subconscious mind shall prompt you to reject and run away from the new ideas and inputs. It shall engender a sense of futility of enterprise in your conscious mind. Your previous matrices may stand to lose ground and this shall instill a sense of loss and void within. You shall need the courage of conviction to accept a new self, which shall grow within you, standing to reject or renew your existing self, which you have evolved over long years and which has been so dear to you.”

“Shiv, to be honest, I cannot understand much of what you say about the new experience, which are lined up on road to the super consciousness. I cannot even perceive of the experiences, you are cautioning me against. I cannot visualize them right now.”

“I understand that Melissa. There are so many experiences, which we have for the first time and it is only our nature to be cautious of them. Once you visualize them, the initial fear goes away. You must take time to think over what we have discussed today. We can talk about it next day.”

“You are right. Shiv, can I ask you, what your feelings were, when you started your journey on the road to super consciousness thing. You too might have been unsure, cautious and timid.”

“I started when I was quite young and I was not given a choice. I had complete faith in my teacher and I followed him, where he took me to. There was fear but not about the new knowledge but about whether I shall be able to stand up to the expectation of my teacher or not. A child does not usually have conflict