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Showing posts from May, 2009

How to leave the Matrix

To realize we are living in the matrix shouldn’t take too long: Close your eyes, clear your thoughts of everything. Now open them and take in everything. Ask yourself this: 1. Why am I here? 2. Why do I look the way I look [A creature with two hands, two legs, a torso and a head]? 3. Why is it that my name is X? 4. Why do I have a family? 5. Is it real? 6. Does it even exist? 7. Why? And why in this specific configuration? Why do I need to continue breathing? 8. Where has all this come from? 9. Who turned on the switch to this movie? 10. Who wrote the script? 11. Who set up the stage that I am acting in? 12. Why? 13. But Why? 14. What right now is the perfect most beautiful thing to do? 15. Will this movie keep playing after 5 minutes? 16. Why does it exist like this? 17. Why am I here? 18. What is right and what is wrong? 19. Why is right right and wrong wrong, why do I know these words? Why do they exist? What is the point? 20. I can hear someone, I can feel my back against the chair

Maturity - a journey from Birth to Death

Life is a journey from birth to death and there are many angles from which to look at this journey. One such angle is “maturity”. At birth one is here to “get”. When a baby dirties his/her diaper they cry; the baby continues to cry till the diaper is changed or the baby goes blue in the face. The baby does this to “get” their diaper changed. At death one leaves this world and whatever he has with him. Everything he had, if only a torn piece of cloth is left behind. He “gives” to anybody who is there to take it. This is a journey from “get” to “give” and the journey in between is what I describe below. The journey viewed in this way has three stations. The first station belongs to the baby and to the child who eventually grows into a demanding teen. When his demands cannot be met his parents “resist” and so the teen has to develop a new tactic. He has to “give to get” and this then brings him to the second station [He has progressed from “get” to “give to get”]. Many of us are now in th

Rung dae [Color me]

When you put a piece of cloth in a bowl of ink the cloth takes its color. However the degree to which the cloth does this depends on the type of the cloth. While “pure cotton” might absorb more of the ink, a synthetically made piece of cloth may absorb very little. That said the following two results are inevitable for any piece of cloth put in ink: 1. The cloth will absorb ink 2. The amount of color absorbed will depend on the material that the cloth is made of In Sufi discourse "Rung dae" is the final milestone between a teacher and his disciple. It translates into “color me”. When the disciple says this he means "today let my understanding reach its highest level yet by allowing your influence on me to be complete".

Positive energy and Negative energy

At a microscopic level we are composed of cells and the cells of atoms and the atoms are composed of tremendous energy. So basically we are ‘energy’ and like us everything in nature around us is also energy. There is however “positive energy” and “negative energy”. When you are in the company of a “positive thinker” his or her impact on us is discernable. Similarly when we are with people who think “negatively” their influence on us is also something we can feel. If I were to make a “mathematical formula” out of this it would go onto say that positive energy combines with positive energy to create an upward spiral of greater positive energy and that negative energy similarly combines with negative energy to create an inverse spiral. This very well describes the effect on us of watching a beautiful sunset, dolphins swimming in the ocean, a roaring waterfall, the sound of chirping birds early in the morning and so on. I think it would be safe to conclude that one must “make sure” they ne

The future of mankind

In a society where people have equal rights; right to vote, right to education, right to health, right to security, right to a good job; everybody who would work hard could do well. Everybody would thus be free to pursue happiness. This society would be more evolved than one where such equality of rights is not present. In any case for equality of rights to exist at a societal level, equality of rights would have to be a value accepted by society. In such a society however people could still view a relationship among individuals as being based on an [economic] transactional model where the value of a relationship is proportional to its benefit to the individuals. If however, society were to evolve to a higher value where a relationship among individuals were not viewed as a means [to success] but as a goal [of success] i.e. the milestones in the relationship become the milestones of success [in the journey to self-actualization], individuals would have to keep the “wellbeing of the oth

Thinking from the heart

Somebody said: “Leave the Church of your mind to enter the tavern of love”. The mind it has been said earlier judges, fears, envies, thinks itself superior to others and wants to be recognized as superior, loves to live in a “high/elite” culture apart from the rest of the world. While the heart loves; it loves simplicity, wants to help others [is always in search for common ground], enjoys company, recognizes misery, and appreciates effort. The heart I feel was made to guide the mind and therefore point it to the knowledge it needs. If we were to ask the question: How should my relationship with person X be? The answer given from within the Church of the mind will be different from that given from within the tavern of love. This could very well be the case for all relationships. This is also true for many other questions; a few are given below: 1. What should my partner be like? [marriage] 2. What should my role on this planet be? 3. Is learning a complex-abstract-horrifying process or

How to relate better with people

To relate better with people it is necessary to find common ground with them. To improve our ability to do this we should meet people from very diverse backgrounds and empathize with them in as many aspects of their lives as possible to discover principles that they all agree to [even though they may not always act upon these principles]. Everybody will appreciate the idea of resolving an issue in a more non-violent way than a violent way if [the non-violent method] can in fact be shown to solve the problem. Similarly everybody will appreciate the negative connotation of being helpless because of circumstance and how making an effort to improve one’s condition is commendable [although many would think the amount of effort almost impossible]. Everybody will respect the love between a husband and a wife – [I am sure] societies from all over the world have written literature on the topic. Everybody will agree that humiliating other people is not acceptable as a general mode of behavior. O