Karta: Life-Inspiring Essays On Cognition, Consciousness & Causality - Santosh Jha (read this if TXT) 📗

holism. Ignorant does not have this innocence and that’s why he is always stubborn about his ‘part truth’ and will stick to it with lots of pride that he alone knows, brushing aside the ‘also’ aspect of the holism.

This world has always been inhabited by ignorant who are often in the leadership position of society, economy, polity and religion… the true wise are too innocent to accept leadership as they are never sure….

The part-ness of truth is what majority follows as it looks more convincing, always…. ages back, all people saw the sun rise in east and set in west… so the logical truth was that sun moves round the earth…. a man said the reverse and he could not be believed…

We all are still in the same age mentally…. we still cannot accept anything more than what is our personal truth. This truth is what majority says and majority is willing to say this because their ignorant (wise for them) societal, economic, political and religious leaders say so….

Ignorance usually prevails because it is supported by majority…. and those who actually know things right are always unsure and unwilling to fight for their truth as they have firm faith, many truths together should exist… and if true, where is the need to say it is?

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Everything In Our Hands!

What makes one happy….? the list can be endless…the question is primary and primeval and therefore, it is only natural that it is most debated… that’s why, there has never been a consensus on the answer to the question… a section of opinion is that happiness is determined by perceptions as well as experiences and not material and physical things. It says, happiness depends on our subjective interpretations of events.

Some philosophers said, happiness is determined by the number of positive events experienced in life. However, the opposite view is also equally supported and popular. No doubt, money and other material wellness also counts and are equally important, if not more.

There is an interesting viewpoint however, which looks like the right balance of all competing idea. This is called ‘hedonic treadmill hypothesis’. It states that just as we adjust our walking or running speed to match the speed of the treadmill, we adjust our moods and emotions to match life’s circumstances. This means, happiness is not only very subjective, varying person to person but also something which is largely in control of a person’s own conscious abilities. As we had earlier said, ‘pain is inevitable, suffering optional’… similarly, happiness also is a conscious ability to adjust…

Researchers have established something very interesting. They have found that big lottery winners report being super happy after winning the lottery. However, their happiness falls to baseline levels about two months later. On the other hand, people who become paralyzed from the waist down, return to almost baseline levels of happiness within a few months after the accident.

Moreover, scientific studies have established something more interesting. They says, it is not only unrealistic but also undesirable to be happy all the time. Negative emotions are natural and necessary. Being happy all the time is rather an irrationality. Life has everything in its bag… and all of it are inevitable… what really makes us happy is how we all rise above all this consciously and adjust to it with control of a rational mind…

… science says, adjustment to a mean happy position or what they call a ‘set point’ is intuitive, in-built and natural in all human beings… all we need to do is to be consciously aware of the process… science calls it homeostasis… which literally means balancing… our conscious mind is the smartest catalyst for attainment of this balance and poise….

… remain happy… keep smiling… joy is good… pain is also good … if you are good, everything else can be… everything seems to be in your hand… ain’t it?

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Prescription Of Propriety

Someone said, ‘life is all about sense of proportions… the grief and joy… almost everything…’

And… it is so very difficult to ascertain, what is the right one… there is no universally accepted ‘right mix’…. and certainly no fixed benchmark transcending time-space-circumstances positioning…

Confounded, calamitous and cathartic …. it is about proportions? That's why… this world has more trial and hit geniuses and circumstantial stupid… in both cases, humanity stand to lose …. too bad!

What's the prescription of propriety then…! …. transparency …. did they say that…! Yeah….! a huge proportion of it and mix it well with magnanimity of modesty…. you've got it right…!

Affection can err… modesty can be ingenuous…. but…. transparency ensures the compassion of forgiveness…. This stands you in affectionate reckoning of a second chance… to hit the right proportions…. may we all be second time lucky…. amen….!

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Still Scope For More!

Often, we have this innate tendency to accept things in abstractions… especially those things, which are not in the easy domain of tactile and measurable… faith is one such popular human domain where abstractions fly high and mighty as intuitively as one’s socio-psychological background fuels it…

Few days back, just chanced upon a debate where western ideologists were ridiculing Hindu faith system wondering how come Hindus have 330 million gods and goddesses… even among many of us, it is a subject of curiosity and bewilderment… this is one of the greatest puzzle of Oriental spiritual-religious system….

Why 330 million deities…? …. this looks like a classic case of metaphors and symbols being made to land in tactile and realistic world and taking forms of uneasy abstractions… the rationalists have made deep inroads into the minds of faith-operators and faith-followers… they have come up with reasonably satisfactory explanations which can be accepted and acted accordingly.

It has been rationalized, “In ancient times it was believed that there were 330 million living beings. This gave rise to the idea of 330 million deities or gods. The genuine faith-operators believed that each living being is a unique manifestation of God. Each human being is the potential, a seed, which can and should grow into a tree, the entity of god.” This symbolically explains the 330 million gods of Hinduism. The idea is that we are all gods, in potential, if not in tactile and practical terms.

This beautiful metaphor was later corrupted by the intuitive abstractions of humanity. Early Hindu texts explains this metaphor in details… but only a handful have the mind-pathway to understand this metaphor in its originality… the popular abstractions are easy to accept and follow for most, hence populist notion of 330 million Hindu deities…

A great soul and an authority in Hinduism has said, “There can be as many spiritual paths as there are spiritual aspirants, and that, similarly, there can be as many gods as their devotees to suit the said devotees' various moods, physical needs, feelings and socio-psychological backgrounds”. So, a student shall worship Saraswati, a businessman would worship Luxmi. It is convenient model for focusing attention and getting compartmentalized wishes addressed…

And, this is not only a metaphor. Perhaps once, a long time ago, many great souls of India became so enlightened and evolved to a higher level of being that they reached the iconic stature of gods and were duly worshipped.

This has always been a spiritual realization in Indian faith mechanism that we are all gods in the making and that once we climb high enough, we will move on to the ‘god plane’. And, as this happens with a person, he or she becomes the object of worship for other common humans as this is something, very few can achieve. It is always easy to ask for free fruits … tough to be a tree and get one’s own fruits to give others …

This is why, Krishna said in Geeta, “jo mujhe jis bhaav mein dekhe, main usko usi bhav mein milta hoon (he who seeks me in whichever disposition, I meet him in the same facilitative consciousness).”

Human emotions and dispositions are probably more than 330 million. That still makes a scope for lots more.

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Better Carry Blame Than Guilt

It is archaic wisdom – you cannot change anything but yourself…!

Such a passive proposition….!

However, the mind wants options; if not the capacity to effect a change for suitability; if not better. Some people, some really talented people, were struck with an idea – If We Can’t Change The Existing, We Can Create An Alternative.

The mainstream people called in their groove and even blamed them as escapist. It is still better to carry blame than guilt. Probably better to create a small space under this colossus universe and make your own rules of living…! And see, these mainstream persons themselves say – it is better to rule the hell than be ruled in heaven!

Leisure in contemporary consumptive world is deemed a big sin. And sinners should ideally live in the margins of mainstream society or be put in the confines of jail. Better it is to keep away… find a space far away even from the margins… and create your own jail where you are free and the popular societal benchmarks are behind secure walls of the cell. The lords of this jail prefer to call it their micro-nations…! It is the best way to practice non-violence – of attitudes and actions. No need to carry either blame or guilt.

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Can We Be Just Paper; Not Pencil And Eraser!

A life; anyone’s life; can be full of unimaginable stupidities but it looks inconceivable that people at large or even a few ‘like-minded ones’ would be interested in knowing about them. Somebody said, people love to know about others’ stupidities as they derive the sadistic pleasure that they were not as idiots as others, who dare to make public their stupidities.

Someone; or anyone for that matter; may have his or her truths, experiences and revelations which their stupidities and that of others’; bestowed on them; made possible. But still, it is beyond simple conviction that people would accept them. ACCEPTANCE is not the contemporary INTELLECTUALISM! 

Sad and unfortunate it may be but a stark situational reality of contemporary life. In twitter, facebook, and other social networking sites, everyone is out to prove other wrong. Rejecting and rubbishing ‘innocence’ has come to be recognized as highest intellectual pursuit and the social networking sites look like the best place to see it happen at its worst.

Even on television, anyone can see how every panelist pounces upon the simplest and most innocuously innocent of assertions of others. They say: If you are an intellectual, the first thing you must do is to say, ‘I beg to differ’ even when you do not actually know why and what you differ. 

Can it happen that people just listen, don’t accept, don’t reject, don’t applause, don’t boo and jeer… don’t say things of any nature…just imbibe! Looks impossible! Since childhood, we all are trained to react and compete. We are made to learn the functions and importance of pencil and eraser but never made to understand the nature and purpose of the poor paper, which absorbs all words, good or bad… and never ever reacts and competes with either pencil, eraser or even the writer. Can’t we be just papers…!

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Being Loner Is No Guilt, No Blame Either

Life seems full of contradictions but it is ‘this’ energy that powers evolution. We are social creatures and our minds are trained to find all possible joys and satisfaction in society. This is a big contradiction. We actually find more pains and less satisfaction from our relationships. Still, we run in their pursuit…!

Truth seems somewhere mid-way. What we gain from society is Structural Support System for safety and comfort, which are necessary preconditions for individual’s joys and satisfaction but are not joys and satisfaction unto themselves. The two are intrinsically individualistic pursuits and accomplishments and seldom a societal by-product.

Being a loner is no guilt...not even a blame… at times, loneliness looks like an allergic reaction to social toxin. Be sure and joyously confident of your choice of not accepting what is dished out to you and remain stubborn.