03/06/12

What is our world other than our personal experience and definitions? Nothing more than this. There is nothing that is lying in material situations other than what we can experience about them, other than how we can define them. If all of us are having some common experience about the same material or mental situation, we may take the situation to be somewhat real or concrete. If all of us are having some common definitions about the philosophy of life, we may feel that life has a general flow, has a general direction, and has a general definition about it. Situations dont give us trouble in our life. It is our sense of reaction that makes a situation troublesome or trouble free. John may view a given situation to be in one way but Philip may view the same situation in a different way. This is very much possible. Thus, the same situation can give different experiences to different people. Out of different experiences, different solutions are also possible. What we have to understand is that by raising our level of experience

of life to lofty angles, we can easily get over many otherwise grueling situations. We will no more be complaining about life and its winding courses. A sense of acceptance will be there. We will offer less resistance to a seemingly bad situation. Now, what is good and bad other than our personal judgment about the concept? Only relative truths exist in the entirety of our material and mental world. Nothing carries the reality of absolute truth. Only gradations are possible. Only comparisons are possible. Only evaluations are possible. My evaluation need not be your evaluation. That is, my revelations of truth in life need not coincide with your findings. Any person considers his revelations of truth to be better than the rest of the world and so he tags them with good. For him, the views of the rest of the world are of inferior quality or bad. As we can see, this is only a relativistic idea. The world can think in a better way than me or you. We often miss this truth. What we have to bear in mind is that higher truths are possible since truth is relative. So, one should thrive to hold on to higher and higher truth and this is possible only out of better levels of mind. As we go higher up in this ladder, we may begin to experience the reality behind good and bad in the realistic sense. We will begin to realize that this life is more and more of goodness than badness. We will begin to understand that every life situation has something purposeful about it. Better mental culture would compel us to see only more of goodness in people and situations than otherwise. Thus, what was once thought as bad will no longer be so now. We can see that according to our views, the essence of life also has changed! Hitherto, I was considering you to be an unapproachable man but now, I understand that after all you are an agreeable man. Actually, you havent changed but that my heart has become purer with my lofty views. By shifting our scale from Good-bad-worst to Good-better-best, we can become positive people in life. The first scale has a mental cramming effect whereas the second scale has a mental boosting effect. In essence, both scales

are the same but their mental impacts are different. See the following situation: You are the worst boy of the class. You are a better boy than many of your classmates. Try to become the best. People generally ask why God, the almighty, the all powerful, the all merciful, has created such an unrealistic world where miserable situations are so common and happy situations are so rare. Now, you may have got an idea about happiness and miserability, good and bad. Actually, god has no hand in making our life more and more vulnerable. What is our viewing angle towards a vulnerable situation? Is it narrow or broad? Is it very agitative or contemplative? Before prosecuting god in this regard, one has to honestly answer these questions. Did god ask anybody to view a situation only in a miserable way and not otherwise? It is only due to our hammering thoughts and emotions. There is no plus nor any minus lying behind a given situation other than mans attribution and hence God has no hand in making a situation miserable. Suppose, for arguments sake we may say that god is really making a situation miserable. Then, we should also say that he is the man behind our amiable situations as well. Generally, do we give credit to god for all our success in life? The feeling of doer ship wont allow us to give full credit to god in this context. Even praising god for our happiness in life is not the rightful attitude because both praise and curse are only two sides of the same coin. Today, you may praise the Lord but tomorrow, you may also curse Him for your failures. The same view holds good for our thanking god for our happiness in life. Today, we may be thankful but tomorrow we may be thankless to god. We must understand that God is not just like your next door man who may or may not help you. Why should he be partial to you and me? Do you think that by enriching your life, he is gaining some monetary benefit? Then, what is he going

to do with his richness? Can we increase his bank balance by giving donations to temples and churches? Actually, it is the feeling of doer ship that lies at the bottom of all troubles. You cannot claim for yourself only the victorious moments and raise your index finger towards the Lord for your failures in life. This is a one sided attitude. Can you also claim for yourself all your failures too setting the Lord free of all charges? Then, it is okay. How many of us are doing this? We can see that it is our own attitude that is pulling us down. Can we see that the cycle of life is taking its own course and that we have a sense of acceptance all about it? If we can accept life as it comes, without being resistive, we can see that life doesnt offer any misery or happiness to us. All situations become quite natural situations, the many possibilities. By offering resistance to miserable situations, we dont actually gain anything. By accepting such situations instead, we may try to solve the riddle from better angles. For example, you get stranded due to your car getting breakdown. If you try to mentally resist the situation, if you try to curse the situation, you only will become emotional and agitational. This can further mar the situation. Instead, try to accept the situation. Accept the fact that such situations are possible. Calm down and try to solve the situation. Now, the situation is in your hands and not in the hands of destiny. You will soon find that many alternatives are possible. Work them out. With a calmer mind, solutions are easier to follow. One can face life without difficulty if the following can be understood as axioms:1. Everything is a question of attitude. It is the right attitude that transforms life. What is your attitude towards work, places and people? 2. Pain and pleasure are bound to exist in life. Both are only our mental angles, to be the truth. If we are very positive, our pain will be much less. Otherwise, pleasure will be much less.

3. Boredom happens out of our mismanagement of time. It is better to cultivate some hobbies and recreations right from early age. 4. We are only custodians of whatever we possess. Tomorrow, we have to give back all our possessions to the upcoming generation. This earth and the whole Nature come under our custodianship. Hence, we have a responsibility to take care of every aspect related to them. Are we polluting the air and water? Are we draining the resources of this good earth leaving nothing to posterity? 5. The degree of our mental holdings decides our freedom in life. Our consciousness is linked to the planes of body, mind, intellect and ego. The more the strength of the linkage in one plane, the more will be the agony resulting from that level. For example, if we are too body conscious, we will get worried even for a simple cold or cough. We will be ever watchful of the medical world. If we are too ideologically bound, then, we may engage in a battle with the world to secure our ideology. If we are mentally bound, we will be disturbed emotionally when life doesnt offer us the right kind of feelings. 6. In life, everything is a passing show. Even the Present is not real in the strictest sense. Then, what to speak of the Past and Future? But we take both the Past and Future to be so realistic and begin to cry for no reason. During a heated exchange, we often would unnecessarily drag the Past and make the situation more and more worse. Unpleasant Past would amount to a heap of scrap. It is this heap that we would dig out from our memory files and dump before our opponent to silence him! We forget that Past is Past and that life has moved to a different level from those times. You have changed and your opponent has also changed but we wont admit this reality. Past is no more a reality for both of you and yet you would only try to drag your unpleasant Past in hope of teaching the other man a lesson, in hope of defending yourself. Is it not nonsensical to

do this? The truth is that you havent yet overcome your unpleasant Past. You have still taken it for real. Nothing is real in life beyond our experience. We are pinned down very much by our experiences. Experiences can be transcended with better insight. One experience need not get repeated always. The same experience can be viewed from different angles to get different experiences of the same one! So, past is not real. Our experiences have no concrete levels. We can look upon our Past only as a witness. A film is just running on the wake of memory and you are only watching the show without any judgment and conclusion. You do not encounter with your Past in any way. This is the central idea. 7. Every utterance reveals a hidden truth. This truth is but the voice of Absolute truth at a particular level. The utterance may be very crude but the truth remains. 8. All human possibilities at body, mind and intellectual levels are equally embedded in this Nature as well. What we are not is what this Nature is also not. Thus, we are intricately linked to all levels of this Nature. All our tendencies and thoughts are attributable to this Nature at subtle levels. So, the philosophy of life is the philosophy of this Nature. Our discoveries and inventions are but revelations of this Nature. For example, electromagnetism gets revealed in the form of radio, television and computer. So, by the study of Nature, we are only discovering various systems. So, by the care of Nature, we are only taking care of us. 9. Money cannot give us freedom and peace in our life. It is for freedom and peace that every individual strives throughout his life but in different ways. Even a man who is trying to answer the world with gun is hoping to get freed from certain bondage. The only problem is that he has resorted to an unhealthy practice to free himself from his enemies. His enemies

are his mental bondage to be the truth. By annihilating his enemies, he hopes to enjoy freedom and peace! This truth lies in the substratum. 10.All the knowledge is within us only. The external world is only a spark. The world actually doesnt teach anybody anything. It only reveals the treasure that is hidden in us. This is to be clearly understood. All the designs, all the laws, all those definitions have come out only from within and not without. 11.Peace cannot be achieved by any external means. Such results are only temporary. The reality is that peace is a state beyond our mind and thoughts. Even the phrase Peace of mind is only an approximation. Mind cannot be at rest and hence cannot attain a peaceful state. Mind is a collection of thoughts and the lesser are the number of our thoughts, the more peaceful that we can remain. If we can watch the flow of our thoughts as a witness without getting entangled with the flow, that could be the first step in getting rid of unwanted thoughts. All our attempts to attain peace through external aids are but conditional and hence result in incomplete results. For example, all our Peace Pacts are very much conditional and we all know how they are functional. Peace is quite unconditional to be the truth. 12.What is the meaning of living at the Present? The Power of Now? It is nothing but listening to the voices of life without any conclusions. One can judge but need not conclude. The moment you conclude, then, you are locking the doors. Our conclusions are invariably related to our previous experiences and prejudiced views. Our conclusions are only our conclusions and not the reality of the world. This is to be properly understood. By our conclusions, we stamp the people and the world to be this and that. We draw a graph and emboss it in our memory. It is this embossment that brings in problem at later stages. The flow of life is prejudged and pre-concluded every time by such embossment. Flow is only a flow. Can we look upon every situation, every man without our pre-

conclusions? This is the central idea. For example, if you are listening to a song, just listen and do not allow yourself to get entangled by various thoughts related to it. Just merge with the song and melt away your personal identity. Another example if you are happening to meet the man with whom you had a bad experience, say, some decades ago, dont allow yourself to get entangled by those thoughts once again. Past is Past. Leave it aside and you may silently walk past him. Past should not begin to haunt you in anyway. This is the central idea. Till meeting this man that long forgotten past was only lying in a suppressed state. It had not really vanished from your deep consciousness. In other words, you had really not transcended your Past. Again, by a proper attitude, you can do this. Remember, no moments of pain are eternal or any times of happiness. 13. Only those who are desire less would get all that are desirable. When we are trying to fulfill our desires in various ways, problems begin to crop up at various levels. This would leave us into a state of frustration. Desire and expectation have no universal scale about them. Every person has his own standard according to his level of contentment. If we continue to work in a desire less manner, we can see that results are automatically coming in. Desire less manner means that holding the attitude of us being only an instrument in the hands of god. When we begin to take care of life with all our sincerity, as a custodian, then, life will begin to take of us as well. This is the prime idea. 14.So long as love is conditional, it will definitely cheat us one day. Conditional love means this the moment you begin to hate me, I will no longer continue to love thee. You also have the same theory. Actually speaking, even though the world may claim that it is pouring out love in a measureless manner, this is not to be so in reality. The world is much in expectation to receive love in the first place than in pouring out love. Thus, the world is always in expectation of being loved than loving the

world. Why should we expect the world to love us? Cant we go out into the world with the candle of our love? 15.Nature is a question variety. Life is also a question of variety. We often view these as a totality of various differences and conflicts. That is not to be so. Growth and mental expansion are only possible with the first kind of view and contraction is the only result with our second view. If there are 600 crores of people around the world, it only means 600 crores in variety. The feel of being a variety can produce a complementary effect whereas differences can produce a conflicting effect. We have to shift our focus from the level of difference to the level of variety for full expansion of life. Until we can recast our levels, life will remain only as a stagnant pool gathering more and more dirt on the surface. Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx