There are many different kinds of Love.. love for Jesus or God or a Deity or a Religious Guru, Love for Country, Love for a Team, and more... here we will discuss only Love in the context of our daily life....
But to understand Love or what it means let's first see the context in which we live right now and how we exist... it will be easier to understand if you have read my previous articles.
And the path which brought us here and locked in this cage is the path of wisdom, knowledge, and experience gained over a million years, maybe more...
We need to understand a few things to understand duality or conflict before we go in the actual question.
We speak of Non-Violence, Happiness etc...But how do we define the idea of Non-Violence, Happiness, Non-jealousy, Non-aggressiveness, Non-greediness, Pleasure, etc. ???
The thought of Non-Violence comes only from the thought of violence and similarly for others. Similarly the thought of Happiness and Pleasure comes from the thought of Sorrow, Pain, Loss and Greed. In more simple words..imagine if we had two or more suns ..then the thought of night or stars would have never surfaced... not impossible... so if there was never any violence..then the thought of non-violence would not have come...
If we can confront hate, anger, pain, aggression, violence directly to its very root cause then we might achieve something but if try to move from one state to the other say from pain to pleasure then we cannot achieve anything and we will continue to live in duality and conflict and the struggle with that...
Similarly if we approach the Question: What Love is - we need to approach it with a free mind - free from prejudice, romanticism, free of motive, free of sentiments, the million definition in books and elsewhere, and free of all our personal emotional equations with the word...
What is Love ?
The most common answer we receive...
Yes, I think I know what is Love ( with a smile)
And this is where we put a stop to ask ourselves what really love is...If we really want to know what is love we should ask it without prejudicing our mind with personal experiences, emotions and opinions as otherwise we will close the door of perception of knowing the real meaning
Though everyone has a different opinion we can do some generalization of majority opinion that Love is a feeling which provides pleasure to our senses ( at an adolescent level we can attach words like sharing, caring, and other feelings etc. again which results in pleasure)
To elaborate : Love is a combination of the thought of desire, the memory of some experiences which gave us pleasure and chasing that image of pleasure in our mind or trying to achieve that state.
If we do not equate Love with pleasure then we can get rid of Fear, Anxiety and all the other things with it. If we can get out of the conflict of ?I am Loved? and ?I am not Loved? and chasing the memories and those images of pleasure and desire. As they will only result in conflict, sorrow, fear and frustration. Love is something beyond passion, desire and pleasure as love cannot survive in conflict.
Finally.... Love is Compassion in all sense....and in all its manifestation...
We will not be able to appreciate the beauty of this word without freeing ourselves from attachment
Saturday, June 16, 2007
What is Love ?
Posted by Debashis Dey at 6:17 AM 1 comments
Labels: anxiety, frustration, hate violence compassion, jealously, love conflict
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
The Mind
Please dont read this ...
I must also say that no body is forcing you to read this blog... but i would be happy if you go through the collected wisdom from many thinkers including me and ask some basic questions to yourself....
Maybe you will feel that the world is much nicer today than it was with so much advancement and convenience...why bother with the mind...
So please do not bother... let their be a killing of a girl child every five minutes in India , let the father sell his kids for his daily bread in africa... let the girl be sold to a brothel in bangladesh... let the powerful nations make missiles for the next 100 years... let bin laden kill innocent lives in the name of his religion... let commuters get bombed in local trains... let me loose a million soldiers across borders... let the famine flourish in africa for another 100 years... lets watch television and entertain ourselves with the dangling head hold by the hairs by some terrorist... lets watch the final swing of saddam from the gallows... lets not bother... with all the violence, pain, conflict, sorrow, war and be happy with our pizza and let go and do the same routine work at our office for the next 50 years...
We can be happy with the outer world with so much advancement etc.. but again the inner world will remain same.. the inner world is what which controls the outer world and science and technology and all its manifestations... a violent mind full of conflict and destruction and which is self-centered cannot bring in non-violence...
Posted by Debashis Dey at 8:31 AM 0 comments
Labels: conflict, desctruction, end, hunger, terror, violence, war
Mind and body
Some theories also suggest a relation between mind, body and breadth and mentions that if you control any of the two you the third will complement the others...
First let us keep one thing very clear..the body has nothing to do with mind... maybe a healthy diet and good way of living will give you a mind which is quite... but it is the other way always ... meaning the mind always influences the body and its habit and all... and also breath is just one one of the many bodily functions...
Our mind with the thought inside destroys all kinds of real feeling - even the feeling of love... thought can offer only material pleasure.. and keeps us away from the path of love... it gives pleasure like the pleasure of having a pizza ... a glass of good wine... all these are a product of thought and just to exercise a control on this pleasure - by suppressing them has no real sense - it will only create conflict inside (like my many friends who go on a diet....) and compulsion... body has no role with mind... whereas the mind with its judgments, prejudices, its own interest creates all problem... if you have a healthy mind which is aware - ( awareness without thought influencing it), full of vigor you will be sensitive. And then the physical part of yours will function at its best - the body or the physical being of any living organism has a natural intelligence - and can function on its own - its only our mind which spoiled it by habit, taste and external influences, strictures and so called advertisements... so we must begin only with mind and not with the body... here by mind ..our thought and various manifestations of thought...
Also, we should not try to tackle our mind... instead create a blank page free of any prejudice, past, belief, guidelines and knowledge... like when you walk on the green grass and enjoy the early morning sun glistening on a dew drop of a just born green leaf....when u observe something without knowledge influencing it and can appreciate it truly....
So What...
Some people might ask so what... life goes on on its own..why bother with all these stuff...
My answer is "Nothing " ... there are many more things.. but this philosophy...( i am not alone... I am just a participant thinker...) covers ALL aspect of human life and existence... we can of course ignore the questions raised.. and continue... with life...
You can forget all these and do what you have been doing for the past so many years - the coder can continue to code for the next fifty years... the peon can get tea for the nest 30 years... the driver can drive for the next 20 years.... people can switch on their TV sets and listen to news for the next 50 years... bin laden can go on abusing innocent lives for the next 509 years..science can throw out emissions for the next 100 years... the beggar can beg for the next 50 years... the director can aspire for the next 30 years... couples can fight for the next 20 years.... I can write poery for the next 10 years...nations will re-arrange our boundaries for the next 100 years... philosophers can invent new philosophies for the next 100 years and yet fail to make people secure... the church can spread their doctrines for the next 1000 years.... US can produce the latest missiles for the next 100 years... and so on and so forth live in a world with perpetual conflict.... nothing matters...
Of course it will give us an illusion that the world is much better and convenient and advanced ... but Sandy..that is the outer world.. the inner world with all its conflict, pain, sorrow and fear will remain still the same...and of course there will be unrest and revolution and destruction... but what they will cut is the tree and not the root... which feeds the conflict, the division, the fear... hope Lafa is listening too... you can rob a bank... or paint a whole country red... but unless you dig inside and destroy the roots ... many a reds will come and fade away into mediocrity...
The civilization will go in rotation.... destroy - build - destroy - build... and man will never have peace.. never be secure... and will always live with fear..ultimately destroying himself... in a cyclic pattern... but each circle a bit bigger than the last one... until we reach the biggest infinite one.... non-violence cannot come out of a mind with conflict or with violence....
Posted by Debashis Dey at 8:23 AM 0 comments
Labels: civilization, conflict, destruction, non-violence, peace
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Questioning can purify the mind
Only questioning can purify the mind... questioning which is not a product of our thought process...
Nearly all the religions are based on books some one and some several...but none of them allows you to question or doubt... if you question the entire religious world in the west, east and all paces crumbles down in one day... but questioning, doubting something purifies our mind and can only give us the most clear and bright picture of everything. But questioning something is a process with a flow... like if u believe something first and then question you may go from certainty to uncertainty..while the other way round if u start with a blank slate maybe you will reach a level of certainty and strength.... otherwise if we just go into questioning if there is something beyond this material world ... you will get caught in the net of many organized institutions spreading the illusion of security.
We are correct when we think that the mind has also achieved something in the field of science, technology, communication, art, literature, medicine, transport....but psychologically we are stiill the same with our animalistic mind...still with the same conflict with the same insecurity.Your body and mine is different, we exist in different places, maybe speak different languages, eat different foods and are different entities in all physical sense, but only our physical body is an individual - not our mind... the consciousness is not an individual entity.... from the very beginning it was only one... the individually or self centered nature is only an illusion contributed by thought.
We have always learn from questioning... we questioned if the world was really flat... we questioned if the sun was really moving around us... if there is anything on the other side of the ocean... similarly though it may sound preposterous or crazy maybe we need to question the basic structure of our society and nation which breeds materialism, sorrow, pain, greed, hatred. Maybe its too early maybe this civilization like many others will destroy and a new one will come which will grow a bit further... the physical evolution is not yet complete ... but maybe on the final phase....and maybe it will take a million years and many more civilizations before we see the mind evolve into being one.... and instead of thinking that i am an individual we start thinking that my problem is also others and we all share the same conscious mind and maybe from there thought will convert into complete actions - actions based on high moral standards and which generate love and compassion !
Posted by Debashis Dey at 10:27 AM 0 comments
Labels: compassion, fear, hate, love, questioning, violence
Religion is an institution build on the foundation of human insecurity...
Religion should have been the arm which dissipates scientific knowledge for the betterment of living but it never happened in that direction. From the day we started living in a clan, marked our territories, our flock of cattle our women ... the illusion of security was developed in our mind... human beings have a tendency of following.. follow the leader, the religious guru, the philosophies, the beliefs.... and this nature of following breeds from the sense of security. In the early days ... the two men who had the strongest power were the ones who had the muscle... and the other one was the aged ... with wisdom..who knew when the seasons will change, when to plant the seeds, which herbs comes to cure, which stones can be used for arms.... and he enjoyed some privileges... and the foundation of priesthood was formed... for quite some time they enjoyed almost equal and in some cases greater power than the ruler...( we even find coronations happening now with a religious leader...) ... Anyways..down the ages as we accumulated knowledge man has started inquiring.... if there is something beyond this daily life... the daily pain, the conflict , the sorrow, the daily routine ... if there is something meta physical beyond our known realm... and the entire domain of religion got institutionalized but like the earliest times even now they survive and flourish on the same basis of insecurity.... and fear.
And also the fear of death ...which has played an important role in strengthening the foundation of religion... let me explain.. the feeling of security is there when you live in constancy... the end of constancy is insecurity... and death means the end of attachment and the fear of leaving everything behind you....and so we went towards religion as it provided the assurance of heaven of resurrection and even of re-incarnation....
Our brain is conditioned over a million years by accumulation of knowledge, experience and our pain and sorrow and fear..and since the earliest time we are always seeking security - as security of mind and our physical existence as it will bring our mind to a totally different level - a different state.... but the sense of security still remains an illusion... in both the physical and mental world...and that's where the thought creates gods, saviors, new philosophies, and the priests, the psychoanalysts, the religious gurus who make merry of the situation to catch you in their net... the mind also plays it part in building an illusion of security in the form of many a things like vastu, numerology, crystals, ying & yang, zen, yoga.
There can be no good from religions which give strictures, which binds people, encages the mind from questioning, which makes one group of people hate the other, which divides people - the only religion can be living with a true sense of morality and integrity where the mind does not follow thoughts and actions flow out of only love and compassion.
From the begining of time...
From the very beginning the process of thought have created a sense of separation... a sense of division... right from the day we invented fire... and came across the barbecued flesh... when we invented crops..planting seeds, keeping cattle.... it has driven us towards insecurity... we wanted security.. we wanted the security from hunger, security from the other tribe, security from the animals, security from the storms, security from the fellow people. We formed clans, groups, marked our cattle, territories... and stayed in groups with a belief that this will give us security...
And later we started breaking up humanity in every form of isolation - on the basis of religion on the basis of nationalities, economics, commerce, ideology, philosophy and advanced toward fragmentation and destruction. We "thought" there was security with the tribe, with the religion i follow, and with the nation i live. That is our knowledge made us think that we are secure with a particular group ..and so on and so forth we created different nations, different flags, set up boundaries and each nation started thinking they are different from the other....
And from one century to another as we progressed the feeling of individuality - that every one has a separate entity as an individual grew strong... but we forgot that the way we feel the individuality is also felt by others in the very same way with the same insecure feeling, same fear, they also have their own escapes in the form of religion, philosophies, beliefs and all accumulated and structured by the same thought process..the very fact that we have a different physical body and bio-chemistry makes us think that i am a different individual with certain special distinction....with some particular quality...but all these qualities are just a superficial layer..take that away and we are all same....the qualities which are common are pain,sorrow, fear, insecurity, loneliness...we are all same...one entity...if you remove the few extra qualities from a nation ( the military, the extra resources, etc.) then we all become same...
And the same thought process developed in our mind, our own set of illusions in the form "escapes" be it a philosophy or psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, astrologers, philosophies, wars, politics and religions - be it Christianity or Hinduism or Buddhism or Islam. The next card is on religion....
Posted by Debashis Dey at 10:18 AM 0 comments
Labels: begining of time, individuality, mind, self centered
Knowledge time and thought
Our whole life is based on action which is driven by our thoughts which again is based on knowledge. Knowledge acquired either by study, research, through experience, accumulated over time or out of action (meaning you do something without thinking and then learn out of it). We lead our daily life out of this actions, learn and again modify our act from that knowledge. But the accepted fact is - knowledge is never complete in any spheres - be it science, arts, relation, music, poetry, literature, farmer, or with anyone. A part of the knowledge is always filled with ignorance.... and action out of such knowledge can never be complete... there is yet to be an action which is complete, which is free of greed, jealousy, aggressiveness, confusion, and which never results in attachment, conflict, pain and sorrow. Even in love or in marriage all our actions are based on the image of our partner or our spouse which we cultivate in our minds based on our previous impressions, images - and we act based on that image in our mind - (from knowledge) which gives rise to conflict, division and biasness, coz we think we have complete knowledge when in reality we do not. Also to be mentioned here love is not just valentines day where again we see commerce eating into human emotions. As such our actions based on incomplete thought which again based on incomplete knowledge is always incomplete in nature and bound to result into conflict between each and everyone of us even man and woman.
There is one more factor to it which is time - as gathering knowledge requires time - we learn over a period of time. Even to know your loved one you require time. Time is also there in our psychological existence like i am an executive today - i want to be a manager , i love this girl and want to marry her, i have a bike but i will drive a car - and we think time will help us to attain these positions... all our desires, greed, expectations, assumptions, ambitions are time dependent. So the basic component of our mind is thought, knowledge and time which determines 100% of all our actions.
Like in the next card we will see how human beings have lived a million years with this conflict from the very beginning ...and we are still continuing to live with the same conflict... and so i believe and maybe others also that there is something drastically or radically wrong as our actions emerge from the same destructive mind... and maybe we will remain trapped in that self centered being for another million years...unless....( that is another card ... the final one...)
Mind, action and thought
Our mind is the most strange phenomenon in nature. One one hand it is extremely complex and on the other very simple. Rather, it is made complex due to the many psychological compulsions we have or acquire during our existence in this material world which causes the conflict and the pain, the resistance to certain aspects and the acceptance and acquisition of some. To be stoic, and just observe them without involving our "conditioned thought process" and let them pass by and not be entangled in them, is mission impossible - i am not saying unattainable. Life was always like a vast ocean and we float on this ocean with our small fishing net... catching things every now and then...we hold on to some while some we throw away thus creating - happiness and unhappiness.
Again all this acquired knowledge is used to build only our own self - our own beliefs, our illusions making everyone of us a self centered entity.Whatever we observe is guided by our desires, our motive our memory our thought. I want this , i don't want this, i am correct, i want to be a director, i want to an actor, i don't want a aeroplane, i don't want to read this shit, i know better, i want sex, i want solitude, i hate liquor, i like guys, i like to show off, i like to blah blah... knowledge makes us create an image of our own self and others around us in our mind from which our actions take shape... actions which takes shape from the self-centered knowledge and our selfishness, ego, vanity and aggression is always damaging and will give rise to conflicts - conflicts between man and woman, conflict between societies, nations, institutions, religious groups and all people.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Science, Pseudo Science, Knowledge and Imagination
Only yesterday I was debating about the realms of knowledge and things like astrology, tarot, numerology etc. Not that I believe in them and not that I discard them as absurd and rubbish. There was a time when nearly all of mankind thought that the world was flat except maybe a single soul:)
However to explain this - i took help of a little diagram which will speak a lot more than my words.
Knowledge expands the circle of science both towards the past as also the future.
If you search for a meaning - a meaning can be found in almost everything - astrology, tarot, numerology, reiki, vastu et. all.. it's not the source of reasoning which is important - what lends strength to your meaning is the faith and belief you have in it or in the reasons and mostly in yourself .... human insecurity has alwys pushed mankind towards this escapes and many a philosophers ,and religious gurus has built up institutions on them - if you go by strictures or if any particular philosophy tells you do that and do this..then its useless... you have to search for the truth on your own... with a free mind....
Science prospers on the strength of imagination which on one hand extends the boundaries of mystic or unknown while on the other leads us to unravel them with reasons....
Knowledge helps us extend the boundaries of science both into the past as also the future - you can prefer to live inside the shell of an egg and discard everything which tries to define what's outside - or you can question and try understand the unexplained....
Imagination has always made us dream that there is a door and questioning has always shown us the right path... but imagination always need to come from a blank state of mind which is free of any prejudice which knowledge or experience brings...
Posted by Debashis Dey at 5:24 AM
Labels: science knowledge imagination pseudo science astrology future past
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Origin of Earth and Mankind
This blog will try to deal with two vital questions - origin of earth and origin of mankind.
Some things are scientific - where we try to find logic within our knowledge and explore deeper for answers again within our knowledge. Like a child's vocabulary is limited by the sounds he can make - similarly our science and reasoning are also bound by our knowledge.
An example would be the famous story of Issac Asimov - Nightfall . Imagine a world with six suns - and people living there who have never known or seen what a night is and never thought there can be a universe outside. The story is beyond me words and has to be read to fully realize the philosophy within...
This post is not a science fiction - this post is about a logical reasoning ( again the logic is limited by our perspective) on what could be our origin - is it by chance , or by creation or by experiment or by anything else beyond perception...