Verbal Imageries

Fear in the Mirror

2018-10-04T06:33:00.000-07:00

The clouds came back last night

Returning the cold shivers of my mind

With a lightning of a thousand shadows;

I looked up and down searching for your life

Not to find it in the illusion of what appeared

If only all that had been never was.

I could call upon the angels to let you fly

But I saw despite the utter darkness

Fear in the mirror;

Oh! How a tainted blow upon the soul

Summons the guards of hell

For in the end we are mere shadows

Groping in the mirage of our light

Like apparitions you and I,

How we danced to the whims of imaginary colours!

To think we are of flesh and blood

I only know I am endowed with you

If only this feeling made us real,

I could call upon the angels to let us fly

Like darkness calling out to you

Fear in the mirror;

So I let the prisoner of reflection step out

Casting the mirror forever to dust

But the fear returns like vapour

In the break of dawn

I could see that fear was me all along.

A Walk in the Park

2017-01-08T09:48:00.002-08:00

There are phases when the mind grows weary of pursuits close to its heart. It’s time to take a walk in the park. I was trying to give form to thoughts ready to be expressed but then my heart let out a cry and wanted a breath of fresh air. I spent years arriving at new ideas but while my feet kept moving, they never took me to newer horizons and places. There were ideas for the mind but the feet were left with nothing and I could no longer let the indifference continue to bleed. So, I decided to pay heed to the eyes that wanted to look outside. I suddenly felt my lungs take in more air than it ever did before. It was not that I had underestimated my lung capacity but it was just that my mind took more blood than it needed. My lungs were left gasping for more...for more. One day my mind refused to work despite people telling me to pursue its course. How can I do that when my intellect refuses to work? I realized that I was wrong. It was not that my intellect refused to work but it was just that my mind did not let me access the intellect anymore because I had come to neglect the wishes of my body. I decided then that it was time for me to take a walk in the park.

It was a new year and I was in Cubbon park. A sunny afternoon took a nap over the trees so that I could only feel the cool breeze. I believe that it is called the freedom park because it is where the spirit of freedom is parked. I could not see the spark and I did not know where freedom was parked but I was glad that I left my mind behind and got my peace back in time. Here and there were foreigners (perhaps “English” going by the accent) talking about “stone innovations” and local couples by the bench looking to get deeper and liberate themselves from the monotony of pragmatic chores! They expressed their desire ‘to live a little’ as Americans would put it. To live a little in India is to live a lot. In America it is the least that the free spirit would expect. The romantic spirit is different from the free spirit in the loaded sense. The free spirit is broader and travels faster to stagnation while the romantic spirit slows down to a point of stillness with breathing gaining sufficient momentum every time.

I sat on a bench for a while and inhaled peacefully. There were no words of wisdom but simply an air clear of thoughts. I breathed for the first time almost like a child. I remember observing a child look at the surroundings as though they were brand new. What cannot be purchased is a clear vision without ideas. After some time, I left the park and walked over to the signal where I had to take a different pause. I did not notice the vehicles pass me by, but just their presence to be able to walk over to another direction.

I was interested in what seemed to me a place of pleasant contradictions. While at the airlines hotel, there was a pizza stop. It was a stall. Stopping over for a pizza in the open air coincided with my desire to have a Zen pizza. Under the banyan tree, I lost my mind and came out from a zone of extreme caution to a space free of cares. It was where the conflict between my mind and body found a delicate resolution.

From then on I returned as and when I pleased. When I left, there was nothing left to resolve. There was no food for rationality. I savoured the point at which I found myself in harmony. I did not realize till then that it was as easy as a walk in the park.

Does Sense of Belongingness Make Sense?

2016-11-29T06:37:00.001-08:00

A country is an artificial way of establishing togetherness. It is not the jurisdiction that gives you a feeling of being at home. Home is not just a place where you reside, but a place where you feel at home. Without this feeling, you might simply refer to it as a room or a place where you are 'residing' and not 'living'. A room in a sense is like Kafka's shell. You have a space in the midst of the wild but you belong only there and outside you see yourself as a being to the other. There is no one like you and everybody else or most people are similar to each other. If there are individuals like you they are few and far in between. You find the individual in them and do not see them as the other to you. As far as people who constitute the other in terms of common patterns of behaviour and inclinations are concerned, it would be as well to say that they are all the same and must constitute 'the other'. You are different from the other and you cannot be indifferent about it all the same. In a country where you are a citizen and you share a commonality in feature as in the physical plane you are spoken off as being one with the country say, Indian, American and so on. You may not feel at home with the place, you may not feel accepted there because you have different interests and inclinations despite the fact that they are perfectly legitimate. This could be just one of the many reasons. The patterns of madness in the nation in terms of trends and the obsessions of the mass may have you culturally ousted for no fault of yours. You cannot feel at home in your own land.

When officially you are asked for your residential address, you just give an established address. You may not be residing there. That does not apparently matter. What matters is that you have an address that is legally established. This is registered and your so called "home" is in the system. The place where you live may not be your residential address; it may not be your home at all in the established sense of the term but that is the place, my dear where you feel at home and where you are at comfort with yourself. This is your true address and this is where you experience integration (many say strength but I would prefer to say integration for home is where you collect yourself). Therein you realize your identity and this is what gives you, your address. The system does not recognize it because it is not in it and as far as it is concerned the real identity "is not".

A country where your potential is curbed is not a place where you can grow, and where you cannot grow, you cannot be. Just because you are a citizen of a country does not mean you belong to the country. Your countrymen and women may expect you to be grateful to the country just because you were born in it or are a citizen. This expectation is by no means legitimate. Patriotism is scarcely germane to your existence as a being in flesh and blood, and being of soul. The pursuit of happiness or discovery encompasses landscapes that no authority on jurisdiction can fathom and no bureaucrat of administrative denominations can understand or even hope to imagine.

As a matter of self awareness in your existential time, when someone asks you, "what do you want to do when you grow up?", please feel free to say, "I just...I just want to live".

Disappearance-Incarnate

2016-11-06T07:49:00.002-08:00

You move from indifference to difference when a whole new metamorphosis has begun. The alienation as a result frees you from the roots that made you appear just like others before. Such a time loses any earthly value to you and you begin like you never did before. A quality you cannot qualify, a movement you cannot represent, the identity you cannot determine for without the perception of the other you are disappearance-incarnate.

Impossible Reactions

2016-10-17T02:04:00.000-07:00

Do all actions have reactions? Every action exhibits traits. Although these traits are visible, they are not always noticed in isolation. Traits of an action eventually constitute the characteristics of the nature of the action. It is an event under certain conditions. Without these conditions an action takes a different form. It can also be the case that it will fail to take effect, in other words the action is impossible. The sense of an action is in effect, independent of the value attached to it. This means that the action has a value a priori. It cannot not be coloured by an external agent. If the observation is coloured it is an automatic distortion having nothing to do with the impact of the action. The impact is the value of the action in itself. Under the same conditions, the action has no other value other than its shared impact. The impact takes the observation back to the nature of the action. When the conditions are changed the same action can become impossible. Impossibility is not just that which is not possible. It also includes the inconceivable.

It can be said that not all actions have the same reaction as their respective natures are different. A tree appears still. It is rooted to a place but it is part of actions. These actions cannot have reactions. When the wind blows against it, there is a rhythmic movement. This makes it look elegant. It does not shake in a clumsy manner. It adds to the gentle breeze as well, giving the atmosphere a delicate touch. It moves with the breeze. It does not get shaken by the breeze. Only when there is a storm it may get uprooted but when it does not get uprooted, it retreats ever so gracefully. There is a difference in condition here. The root cause of the break down could be the roots or the intensity of the storm/wind. If it is the roots, then the nature of the root is to be viewed. If it is the intensity of the storm, then the nature of the storm is the subject matter of focus. Is it the strength of the roots or the ferocity of the storm that has the caused the breakdown? If the roots are strong, the storm can still uproot the tree. This is a matter of threshold. It cannot be said that the roots are week just because the tree could not withstand the storm. What about the storm? The action of the storm has an impact but it does not have a reaction. This is not just a matter of semantics. It is a phenomenon very much in keeping with natural laws.

Take the shadow of the curtains. You do not see the curtains by looking at the motion of its shadow. What you see in the motion of its shadow is a different movie altogether. This movie is figment of the imagination of your mind. It is the intelligence of your body that makes the movie without your awareness. It is a distortion effect in the paradigm in which common knowledge operates but it is a phenomenon in its own right with a dignity unassailable by the closure of the consciously known. This is an unsolicited action and there is no reaction. There may be wonder or surprise but that is no reaction. Unsolicited advice makes no sense and is ignored without any reaction. It welcomes no relevance. Unsolicited action by the intelligence of your body takes you away from what you consciously know. This is welcome, a pleasant revelation of yourself beyond what you know about yourself. This is an action. There can be no reaction. It is impossible in to arrive at a meaningful value of this movie in the plane of knowledge. Even if it is called resemblance from experience, it has no relevance to the plane of physicality and does not alter the equation.

It is impossible to react to a phenomenon of no earthly criticality as much as it is to react to an action of which you are only a part.

Do Words Disappear?

2016-09-30T04:40:00.002-07:00

As I can see, great many individuals read under competitive pressure. There is a tendency to associate reading with learning. For every word that you read, the imagination has escaped your mind. You see the words in every line of every page. But where do they go? Do they disappear? I am tempted to say that these words are not ideas by themselves. I refrain from saying that only because as a reader, I am in mind the only one. What about you? Do you find yourself in your mind or do you cease to exist by becoming a reader. You may be curious to know if the thoughts and phantoms of the author fill your vessel. Your vessel is never really empty.
Your vessel can never really be full.

The brain is not an organ when you are alive. It is devoid of any value or significance when you receive the thought, character and essence of the author. As the words pass you by, you do not see the meanings in a vacuum. You sense the thought that eventually completes itself at a point of disambiguation. A point where no camouflage is possible. But what do you understand? What do you let pass by? A meaning so insanely incoherent that your soul does not let in, finds its way into your brain now filled with insolence. You read but you do not reflect. You remember but you do not absorb. You quote but you never truly understand. Whenever you quote you are always misquoting the author, if you cannot appreciate the cognitive convulsions of the author. Do words disappear? Have you killed them for the brand of your intellect? If you surrender meekly to the demands of the eyes of trend and horror, what you have only done is to deplete in vain every pulse of your self esteem. In so doing, you adorn the unreal pride of readership at the expense of clarity of the author's thought and character. Words have disappeared indeed!

You may read a book a day. You are merely replacing one author with another...one book with another. The authenticity of your mind is doomed if there is no absorption. You have no place for the author in you...the author who is you and you have a lot left to unlearn my dear friend.

Please Fund My Common Sense

2016-09-05T08:16:00.000-07:00

A man is made by the company he keeps. It is the upbringing by guardians and peers who exert a profound influence on his sense of who he is. That is why it is important to be selective about your friends. Genetic engineers might as well do research on bread and butter instead of genetic predispositions. Our bread and butter is eaten up by these life scientists through institutional funding. If every man has to do everything for himself then nothing will be achieved. If every man is left to fend for himself, then we will have a planet of lost souls. Over and above this nuisance of capitalism, why fund the biological scientists who labour in delusions in the name of clinical research? Nature has made everyone differently and everyone has a certain uniqueness that gives them strengths. They come with deficiencies as well. This is why everyone needs to help everybody else. This cannot happen in an artificial system where everything is based on process and inheritance. Biological and medical sciences cannot change people to suit the ideology of power mongers and plutocrats. It is going to be a matter of time before they face the truth.

Examining the Appearance of Disappearance

2016-08-06T05:11:00.001-07:00

With flickering will, the sense of volition comes to a standstill. This will on the verge of withdrawal from appearance resists entering the door to your absence. Once it is gone, your presence will be absent to this 'will' of yours and present to your absence. Absence and presence are unavailable to each other and invisible to each other's presence. The will that is flickering keeps the door open just in case there is a change in direction of its presence. Presence and absence cannot deny each other as the will keeps flickering. Volition is the ability to exercise this will. They are not the same but the former is a sensation of awareness, while the latter is the force that is governed. The door that is open to disappearance is a wonderland that escapes your understanding, for you know excessively and knowledge in excess closes the door. You can never enter the field of absence with your presence of mind. To be aware of your surroundings is one matter, but to be aware of what you may be unaware off indicates elucidation sans articulation.

A furnace is the awakening of your denial, a denial that you know. You cannot say that you do not know, for to be able to make sense of your awareness proves to you the tangible tendency to place a given object of awareness. It is at once heat and folly that makes you resist the absence of your sense of volition. Both volition and will lie outside the realms of Physics. The phenomenon of absence contradicts the presence which is Physics; for what is Physics- but the science of everything that is present. To acknowledge that there is a will that keeps flickering, marks the vulnerability of the physical space. The furnace is the melting point of awareness and the fuse is the position from which your will can persist in vain obstinacy to deny an absence that was once upon a time known. Is this not a fallacy my dear friend? For one who cannot enter the space that one is already in, cannot leave the space that one was never in. Yet, the sense of its fallacy is denied.

It seems like there is an object guiding the will from a source. This source is unreal and so is your drive. To think of it as a sustainable offence is to mark the end of an inquiry that led you to the door to absence in the first place. If the lamp is upstairs, would it not be the height of folly to not attribute the source of your presence to that flickering will? The unsteady determination of will gave rise to a physical space and you are in as the mobius strip of appearance and disappearance.

How Ideas Emerge

2016-06-21T08:32:00.001-07:00

Observations are made and the peculiar is touched upon. The peculiarity is a pattern that strikes the observer. Even within the mind of the observer, the ideas learned are met with actively. There is a unique response to these ideas external and internal. From this interaction emerges an idea, overlooked. This is identified as the new or the novel. The experience is an impact felt by being. Without interaction with the experience no idea can be obtained, no pattern noticed and no sensory input processed. One cannot deny ideas unless one cannot make sense of the experience or observation at all. If the observation is not made, there is no observer even if there is being. Thus novelty of ideas emerges from the peculiarity of being.

The Apocalypse of Capitalism

2016-06-16T10:31:00.002-07:00

Ideas come when you don't need them. When you're doing nothing you have a lot of thoughts. The moment you take a pen and paper your thought stops.
Creativity is about investing on time and not money. Compromise on time and you don't get value for money. Money loses value with time.

Physiological Perception and Psychological Perception

2016-05-28T08:25:00.001-07:00

Perception as an idea cannot be restricted to the functions of biological mechanisms. It is important to tell the difference between 'impact on body' and 'impact on feeling'. Impact on body is sensory while impact on feeling is a sensation. Sensory perception is physiological, while a sensation is about living the moment, which is because of the impact. It is a psychological perception. Touching fire leads to physiological reflex while feeling the heat of an argument is psychological. Yet, the idea of perception distorts your understanding of perception on the whole as an actuality. By giving life to the experience, a sensation is experienced simultaneously. There are some sensory perceptions that overlap, making it difficult to discriminate between the moment of the body and the eclipse of its mechanism.

A mirage is an illusion, no doubt. Is it physiological or psychological? An optical illusion is hard to categorize in this regard. It could be due to both physiological and psychological mechanisms. These perceptions are common at large. They constitute shared reality. Illusions, overt and covert are shared. They are also part of the experience of shared reality. As a result, illusions are real in their own right. They just have a different semantic value from sensory perceptions that enable what "we" consider to be stability without deception. In both pragmatic and para-pragmatic realms illusions are experienced as realities. They have an impact on the body. Their impact on feeling is an entirely different matter. There is an appeal to reason and the cognitive awareness of it, challenges reason itself pointing to its limitations.

If your perception is unusual and others do not experience it, they may find you rather impossible to believe. It is said to be a subjective experience. Its reality cannot be denied purely because it is not shared by the rest of the population. At any rate, remote as it may seem, subjective perception cannot be denied. It may have some physiological or psychological basis. Factors alien to the external world do not justify dogmatic dismissals. From the depths of thought, you learn that Physics is never quite beyond metaphysics. The realization that shared reality has a boundary, throws you outside its confines. You then discover that both physiological and psychological perceptions have unique signatures.

Where Does Originality Come From?

2016-05-16T04:42:00.002-07:00

Originality is found only in simplicity. With technology at our disposal, people have lost something very vital to their existence and that is their individuality. Use technology as a platform to give voice to your expression. Abuse it and there is no self and no originality. Design is mistaken for art. Art is in the thought that goes behind what you make. Without thought, design is empty of meaning. That thought or idea comes from being with yourself. This simplicity can appear sullen and destitute to the philistine, but therein lies originality.

The Romantic Editor

2016-05-04T05:07:00.001-07:00

Standards are many
Subjective and cranky
Yet accuracy is expected
In the name of logic.

Language is abused
Punctuation overused
Just to protect a profession
called copyediting.

Apply your mind
the supervisors say
Command of the language
is of no assistance,
Vocabulary is of no relevance
Too distracted for copyediting
and too analytical for copywriting.

The romantic editor needs a place
even if he is a misfit in disgrace;
With emphasis on call to duty
Perishes linguistic beauty.

Solitude in Loneliness is Like a Lotus in a Fortress

2016-04-06T09:21:00.001-07:00

Lotus in a Fortress is a collection of poems. There are poems in classical forms and poems in free verse. The title hints at a contradiction in form and at the same time, its coexistence in substance. It is possible to be free inside a structure if the so called structure is aesthetic and reasonably shapeless. If the structure is utterly well defined with no scope for fluidity then the substance takes the shape of the structure. As a result 'the contained' has no identity of its own.

If the container blends with the contained then harmony is obtained. Form and structure constitute aesthetics. The poems in "Lotus in a Fortress" are insights from experience. The beauty of classical structure in verse lies in its rhythm and metre. Writing in classical forms gives an intellectual thrill to the poet and the fulfilment that follows, needless to say, knows no bounds!

It is said that poetry leads to multiple interpretations. The poet may wish to convey only one meaning and that is perhaps the only objective of the poet. For instance, in the title, the poet represents solitude through lotus and loneliness through fortress. It is possible to be alone and seek solitude because you are made lonely on account of being excluded from the group. You are said to be alone in a group and as a result you seek solitude for being happy with yourself. The dark fortress is the state of being estranged. You are amidst people but you are all alone. Therefore you need to be alone outside in order to be at peace with yourself. If you are not accepted by people then you may go to a place where there is nobody so that you are accepted by the environment. People do not necessarily make a place; solitude can.

The construction of a structure is preserved more by the thought that goes behind its making. The insight is preserved by the delicate usage of words. How well the words are strung together determine the efficacy of their delivery. The rhythm is sustained by the dramatic element of the verse. Words by themselves do not make a poem. Even the overall meaning does not. It is nothing but the musical element. It gives the poem power. The dramatic element is the soul of poetry.
Poetry is about harmonizing opposing forces in a continuum that provides the platform to do so.

Own freedom and structure in verse. Purchase your copy. Lotus in a Fortress is available online as an eBook. https://notionpress.com/read/lotus-in-a-fortress

The Agnosiac- Inability to feel Knowledge

2016-04-05T09:47:00.000-07:00

Knowledge is not restricted to reality. You can also know that which is imaginary. It is processed by your senses in a way that touches you so intensely that you express it by giving it form and shape.

The idea then becomes real even if it was once upon a time imaginary. 'Real' is what is made real. If you wish to see God, you do not see him; you see the idea. If you wish to discover, you notice a pattern. It is the emotion that drives the intelligence. What comes out is the making of a complex mind.

I would like to sketch the outline of an experience to explain what it is like to not know what you know and to not know if you can know anything at all.

Agnosia is not like agnosticism. It's not an intellectual choice, but a zone you just find yourself in.
The spinal cord does away with the intellect. Thought becomes an action and feeling breathes in every word. It's not Biology or Chemistry but inspiration that makes you alive.

Adults As Plastic Toys (A Scream Through the Tunnel)

2016-03-24T02:41:00.000-07:00

Plastic toys have very little value to adults. Just because they adorn the showcase does not mean that a human being values them. A child tends to play with toys and live a situation for them making them experience an event. Or that is how they create this situation for themselves. Just imagine what it would be like for a human being to be played as a toy. The difference of course is that a human being experiences the game as real and not ‘as though’ it is real. A human being is a bundle of contradictions but it is probably this contradiction that is most daunting and gives the essence of an experience. Without this contradiction there would be no experience. Take the case of someone who with great difficulty buys a Japanese dish and brings it home. But just when he tries to open it he drops it and becomes angst at the outcome of the care and effort that he took to buy it. Here the contradiction is that although he took great care he lost his favourite dish. This is experience. Someone who gives a lecture on life usually does not know what he is talking about. This boy who bought the dish could well look upon himself as a toy played by a heartless spirit.

If a mind-set is a choice, then who gave him this choice? -No one. What we call experience gives us the illusion that either the universe is perfect or the universe is imperfect. The person who decides to pursue one of the two courses as his mind-set is usually taking himself as a toy played by a heartless spirit. If life goes well for him then he thinks that the so called spirit is compassionate and if it does not go all that well he feels victimised whether or not he calls the spirit heartless. The person however, who gives a lecture on how to live life is removed from this zone and is rarely in touch with it. This is a secure zone trying to persuade the victim to adopt a mind-set that the spirit is compassionate. This is just one of the two binary illusions.

Take another instance when a boy is going with his friends to an amusement park and on the way they have to cross a track. While crossing the boy suddenly decides not to cross the track because he had heard of someone who got killed while crossing the track as the signal did not work. He is justified in not trusting signals and he is justified in not trusting his destiny. If we leave ourselves to chance then we are toys and if we do not leave ourselves to chance we are also toys because we are still victims. What one calls life is the result of two opposing forces trying to outdo each other and as they cannot do away with each other they give rise to the product of plastic toys that we are.

An Introvert on the Prejudices of Psychologists

2016-01-19T20:56:00.001-08:00

Introverts are the most misunderstood category of people. It is supposed that an introvert does not talk. Such a person keeps to oneself and does not seek company. Many go to the extent of considering an introvert to be arrogant. In schools, introverted children give a favorable impression to teachers. They think that if a child is quiet, he/she is well behaved and more likely to be studious. This is an automatic assumption and a psychological one. This assumption can be dramatically different if the teacher insists on team work. If the child is uncomfortable working with other children then they tend to think that there is significant discomfort and goading is the need of the hour. If a child is active and cannot sit still in class, teachers tend to view that as an aberration. It can get to a point where parents take their children to psychologists and they are often diagnosed with attention deficiency hyperactive disorder. It does not occur to teachers and parents that children have a certain natural tendency and to force them to behave in a manner that is incongruent with their natural inclinations is hazardous to their well being. There are ways of nurturing them. It takes time and children are not nurtured in a day. This applies to adults as well. If the education system is such that time is of the essence and teachers are under pressure to complete the syllabus within a time frame, then quite obviously the system is flawed.

Introverts are viewed differently in different cultures. In some countries, introvert is seen as socially underdeveloped and in some they are seen as being more focused and stable than extroverts. There is also a gender bias involved. In so called liberal countries and also countries that are midway, introversion in men is not considered desirable. In women, it is considered by such societies as more acceptable. The reason is that men were always considered to be dominant on account of primordial instincts and it would interest the readers to know that this belief is also entertained by developed nations with or without their knowledge. With blind dating and the capitalistic idea of free press, the stereotypes of masculinity and femininity have reached an all time high and intellectual acumen has hit an all time low.

An introvert is reflective and derives strength from within. There is a stronger need for solitude and it is in silence that an introvert recovers from the vicissitudes of life. To conclude that such people do not want friends is a mistaken notion. There are introverts who seek like-minded company. They may not participate in interactions with people but they can be unusually observant. Those who engage in interactions do not have the distance to notice subtle variations in people. This distance proves to be a natural advantage for individuals who would much rather watch a social game than play it.

Psychologists, parents, teachers and peers harp on the need to have self-confidence. If there is a word or phrase in the English language, I do not like, it is self-confidence. Confidence does not refer to anything specific. There is only a context against which it is measured. Usually glamour obsessed people judge someone as confident by looking at their mannerisms and body language. This does not make someone confident. In fact it tends to amount to stupidity. What people see is a reflection of who they are. What they can see is a reflection of what they want to see.

Psychologists and personality developers especially in India tend to lay greater emphasis on the importance of such projections without delving into details. You can only be confident about what you know. To be confident about what you do not know is a sign of insecurity. There is a tendency among people of fashionable dispositions to pitch style over substance. This is detrimental to the development of their psyche and the collective psyche of the masses unless the latter is beyond the influence of the former.

Psychologists have yet to understand the nature of their own misplaced sense of moderation. They swear by the idiom that anything in excess is bad. This is limiting as a masterpiece is always borne out of the excesses of a vibrant intellect. People with moderate constitutions have never produced a work of art of any significance. Masterpieces have been produced only by minds in frenzy. Take any artist as an example and recoil in horror.

To define is to limit and psychologists have made professions out of defining human behaviour. They have to be rejected if the potential of your being has to blossom.

‘’Be as you are” is not just a book by David Godman. It is necessary to understand yourself better and realize your full potential. History is full of theories but no theory has survived history.

The Mistake of Intelligent Design

2016-01-04T18:03:00.003-08:00

It is generally supposed that God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. If he was omnipotent he should have the ability to correct the flaws in the universe. I personally do not see him doing any of those corrections. The distinction between good and evil is at least in a profound sense blurred. It is difficult to say for sure if you can rest trust on any one individual including your ‘self’. The self is constantly changing and so are the emotions that accompany it. The Hindu thinker says that if there is one aspect that never changes, it is the ‘self’. We will weigh this statement a little later. But now if you take into account the experiences that you go through in life you cannot be impervious to the fact that there are so many flaws in the world around you. One part of the world is well off with high life expectancies and the other part is the exact opposite. Animals get killed by carnivorous animals. No one can blame them because it is not in their design to find alternate sources of nourishment. If they are not to blame then there is only one person and that is nature or maybe even God.

It may even be a fallacy to suppose that there is a God because there are so many logical contradictions in the possibility for the existence of God. For one it is difficult to conceive of a perfect being creating an imperfect world/ universe. The other argument which is a bigger contradiction lends itself to a question, “what did God do before he created the universe?” We can see around us that the living beings and even inanimate matter change through a process of conflict and struggle. The process as observed is self-sufficient. There seems to be no need for any intervention.

The fact of the matter is that the cosmic force is impervious to the destruction as a result of the conflict which is all pervasive. So God as a being full of compassion is a matter of doubt. Is God omnipresent? If he was then the universe may as well worship itself. God would have been the other to man and man the other to him. There seems to be here a duality that challenges creationism.

Observations tell man that what happens around him is unjustifiable. You take for granted your existence as the self to the other and you observe the universe as a phenomenon of duality. You cannot observe otherwise because it is as much impossible to deny yourself as it is to deny experience or sensation. The only time when sensation is denied is when you are not conscious.

The state of nothingness so to say only exists as a concept. This in itself is a flaw in ontology. You exist as a self and you exist as the other to the other self and what you have to justify existence is a circular argument. Existence is an a priori phenomenon as a result of sensation. The mistake in intelligent design, if at all there is an intelligent designer is to create life out of contradictions. A life out of contradictions can only produce ethics out of contradictions and the duality is itself the dwelling centre for the impasse called infinite regress.

On ‘the Search for Happiness’

2016-01-04T18:00:00.002-08:00

One emotion that unfortunately does not have a clear meaning is happiness. Although it is considered a desirable state to be in no one is able to explain without ambiguity what happiness really is. Some say it is a state of mind; others say that it is a euphemism in some sense for the word ‘pleasure’ which is normally a word used in the context of human or animal instincts and there are those who say that happiness in the ideal sense is an illusion. But whatever be the specific meanings that people ascribe to it, it remains a word of the heavens. By ‘word of the heavens’ I mean something that does not have an earthly place as it is not a plain emotion. Yet people are searching for it hoping that they will find it sooner or later. In the struggles of their situations some may give up the hope of finding happiness and be content with their predicament. This is a rather unusual state to be in because on one hand they have not found the state of mind that they are looking for and on the other they give up the search accepting what little they have and they find it! But there is a pathetic fallacy associated with the search for happiness and it is that one usually does not know to what extent happiness is possible and how to preserve it till the end; yet one wants it quite desperately.

From time to time it has been observed that we go through happy moments now and then. If they are outcomes of the dreadful word ‘success’ then you can be quite sure that it is subject to insecurity. Preservation of a success induced joyful state is by no means happiness. Happiness is a joyful state which is experienced for its own sake or when you are involved in an activity that you like without any intentions of benefiting from it in the future. Happiness from this angle never exists in the future. Attempts to discover happiness only leads to creating techniques that will have to be applied to be able to find it. But application is a process which has nothing to do with the end result, which in this case is happiness. There have been people who write about happiness; psychologists who research on the subject and find only their own perspectives of it. Whatever be the attempts to find the heavenly state and preserve it till kingdom come, you should be spared the vanity of associating it with success or priggish talks. It must be noted that one who experiences anxiety does not want to be unhappy but is desperately trying to find this heavenly state of mind. One who is anxious is not just tired but is terrified at the thought of consequences of not finishing the line or entering mainstream. He is anxious and not unhappy.

The only person who really is unhappy is one who is able to see that nothing in life can ever bring him happiness. If nothing can bring me happiness even from within then I would not want to keep searching for it as it is a waste of intrapersonal effort. If I am unhappy then I may consider not looking for happiness at all and this unhappy mind does away with itself. It has let go of my unreasonable search of that which I cannot describe. If I cannot describe it and have no idea of what it is then it does not exist in my being. If someone else finds it in common pursuits then I can be quite sure that that is not my concept of happiness because I cannot find it. Happiness is simply a myth.

Show Me The Exit Clause

2015-11-15T11:04:00.002-08:00

Show Me The Exit Clause

I wish time comes to an end

So that loneliness may perish

The part that makes a difference burns

The source of life, vitality, happiness

And everything that follows crumbles

Before a trembling idea of the future

The path of good hope can never be paved,

For it is not here and now.

The path of hope is never buried

You come to life every time you realize

There is a new tomorrow

But it is this tomorrow that lies buried

While you live in the moment

Where you are just a plastic doll

A puppet of trust and circumstances

Tomorrow is dead and today no more

I am here under the morrow

Beneath every subtle desire and instinct

My loneliness is all I have to dedicate to you

The living moment is a fortress

In which there is no awakening

The rigid cell of my body from you

I cannot partake.

And separate the pillar from the open air theater

Like my loneliness that keeps my wishes

From crumbling

A puppet of trust and circumstances

Tomorrow is dead and today no more

There is no exit where there is no door.

I have filled the open air theater

With voices louder excitement greater

There is no exit there is no door

Where tomorrow is dead and today no more.

Rage Against Reason

2015-11-09T22:56:00.000-08:00

Close your eyes to the image

The words you hear are harmless

Listen to tunes of thin air

Insulate you from the fear

Of good hope

The rhythm of your nature is preserved

While inhibition gives way to restitution

Of despairs of an existence

That can only be repaired by exaltation

Of the free spirit

You realize that you were never who you are

Was it the maple syrup in your oats

Or your tongue she tasted sweet?

With red pepper in your hopes

You begin to weep

Likewise without the image of what you see

You are likely to experience in reality

A certain idiosyncrasy as it may appear to the age of reason

You realize that science all along was intellectual treason.

Ambiguity in Faith

2015-11-08T22:42:00.002-08:00

Predominantly one tends to be preoccupied with thoughts relevant to the demands of the immediate present. This immediate present does not give too much time for your mind to speculate as you need to do what is necessary ‘now’. Needless to say, there have been several books written on the need to give ultimate importance to the immediate present. If you venture to open a bank account in a relatively new bank you would not find yourself raising metaphysical questions. You would worry about questions pertaining to the immediate present. This is because the immediate present needs you to engage with the situation you find yourself in without compromising on your attention. It would be wrong to conclude that metaphysical questions are absurd as when there is little to do there is a lot of room for speculation. You ponder, reflect and raise questions when you are marooned in time. It is similar to being marooned in an island.

One question that I have had recourse to raise is regarding the nature of belief and faith in God. It is a rather difficult question, I have found and to answer without any trace of ambiguity is even more difficult. This, for some reason or the other is unpalatable for many. The confusion in question has a lot to do with the lack of understanding of the word ‘agnosticism’ which is not quite the same as ‘atheism’. You tend to lose grip of the significance of this difference as you may find it to be, nothing but splitting hair. The word ‘agnosticism’ has its relevance when it comes to the subject of how much a human being can know about the nature of the universe. In simple words, if I am not all knowing how can I be certain of my beliefs, especially the metaphysical ones such as the validity of the existence of God.

There is however, one way of avoiding the well of absolute skepticism and that is the immediate present which you cannot deny. In fact even this is trivial and does not get you far in understanding the nature of your faith as you have only solved one problem effectively, which is not really of a philosophical nature. It may interest you to know that there is an extension possible and that is the concept and reality of ‘evolution’. If you are not sure about whether or not God exists, you may want to wait till you gain more knowledge, wisdom and experience. You then look at intuition and extrasensory perception a bit more seriously. You also start developing an appreciation of wonder and insights which are ahead of the curve of common logic. This position may be termed as ‘evolutionary mysticism’ which by no means is vague and is in harmony with your reasoning and state of mind. There is then less justification for jumping to conclusions without having sufficient data even when it seems more comforting to make a black and white decision. It is this ambiguity in faith that one tends to fill up with words. These words do not reveal exactly the nature of one’s metaphysical position. There is dynamism about the state of mind which indicates the mental process of evolution where answers are not quite as clear cut as we would have liked them to be. I for one find ample grounds for respecting ambiguity in faith as it is ‘evolutionary mysticism’ in disguise.

Zen

Apprehensive sunlight

Throws little light

For humans to move.

The Picture of a Timeless Young Man

2015-10-15T00:15:00.003-07:00

I spent an evening in the drawing room and this is what I realized. You cannot insulate yourself from who you are for way too long. Despite your efforts to deceive yourself, the real ‘you’ remains unscathed. I chanced upon the eyes of hell and what did I see- a dark blue book that has a picture of a retiring gentleman who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally. There was a sense of mystery when I looked at that book. It filled me with profound thrill so much so that I could not articulate what it was, that threw me in a state of wicked frenzy. To this day when I examine myself, I am all the more certain that this dark moment marks the turning point of a dangerous kind of innocence. It is unknown and unheard off. It is revealed only to those who wish to reject the tree of good and evil and discover the tree of life.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is in the mirror. It is sufficient to open your eyes to the mental sensation. There is no need to visualize the descriptions of the passages in the novel. Wilde is not quite at home with his sensitivity because he feels that the world is not ready for the poetry of warm emotions. Yet he cannot deny them. How does he bear this conflict? His novel is testimony to how the split occurs. Does it occur in one’s psyche or is there a conscious sense of disparity in one’s being? How would acceptance follow? His only novel undresses the binaries that human beings have come to sublimate. It is more than what Wilde could be because ‘’mystery is in the visible and not in the invisible”. If you cannot see, you do not know what is there. If you can conceive of that which you cannot see, then it exists devoid of enigma as an idea in print. If you can see an image and would like to understand it, you would like to judge it all the same. It is enigmatic and hence arrests your curiosity.

In ‘’The Picture of Dorian Gray”, Lord Henry is a hypnotic cynic who speaks to the young male reader. His words are at once flippant, witty and petulantly profound. He mocks at the tendency to worship virtues that are simply practices of convenience. This work is relevant even today when old dogmas are replaced by new ones. What was considered noble, is now barbaric; what was once considered romantic is now perceived to be a sign of weakness but one gets the feeling that beneath the tough exterior of the machine age, there is a craving for the natural processes that keeps us warm devoid of the alienation that we have hitherto come to experience.

Hypocrisy in contemporary times lies in denying this craving for personal reunion and holding in high esteem professional supremacy. The smart phones, social networking sites and instant messages have substituted personal interaction by promoting technology-enabled extroversion. We live thus in monumental stereotypes groping in the evanescence of trends worshiped and fashioned by the dictates of commerce. In so doing, we lose all vitality and synthesize our appetites. Thinking has taken a back seat and the new age iconoclast is a human being of quaint tastes inexorably socialistic. Such has come to define the times we live in. We do not know what anti-hypocrisy is because we never fully understood hypocrisy. A nice individual is considered to be a confidence trickster. Hypocrisy has merely assumed different forms. These forms are more complicated than ever. Duality of Victorian England that Wilde reveals is just fundamental to the complexities governing our existence. They multiply with experience till sincerity becomes elusive. As Wilde himself says, “Little sincerity is a dangerous thing; too much sincerity would prove fatal.” Every time I read this novel, my perspectives only increase because there is in it a thought much larger than what a message can convey. It is inconsistent and inconstant, which is why it cannot be brought down to a terrible moral that Wilde said would be revealed not to the puritan but only to those who are pure at heart. It is the picture of a timeless young man.

Adieu

2015-09-18T21:22:00.000-07:00

Oscar Wilde helped me sail through every experience

while other philosophers were busy splitting hair over words and reason.

It's not the thesis but the theatricality behind his words

which proved to me that 'Truth' can never be found in human reason.

Wilde did to me what neither the mystic Shankara nor the analytic Russell could do.

Even though I live in pieces I know eventually I will die peacefully.

Adieu!

To Grief- Remedy I Don't Want You

2015-09-18T21:11:00.000-07:00

A flower grows out of nowhere
To offer you a remedy
Once you withdraw from a projection
Where your identity can never find its place
A shadow remains still;
When colors refuse to change
The only flower that withers is time
There is no dimension more benevolent
Than an open landscape without limits.