পথের শেষ কোথায়, শেষ কোথায়, কী আছে শেষে !
Pather shesh kothay
Ki ache pather sheshe
Where this path leads us
What is over there
Today I’ll try to write on a topic, which I am sure I am not qualified to talk. And also I am not such a great soul with exceptional human quality who deserves to talk on this subject. Still I am making a humble attempt to write something on it. There are three reasons.
Sometime momentarily, just like anybody else, I get some overwhelming feeling of clarity in my thought process, at that moment I think I can explains so many things discussed all around the world but nowhere I can find, somebody explains that exactly in the same way I get my answer. But it appears to me so appropriate or obvious from the experiences of my life. So I think many people like me might be going through similar life experiences and wonders with those questions. This writing may help them to connect few more dots in their mind.
Another reason I am getting courage to talk on this topic is, from my very close observation, I have noticed that, in this domain of thought process development, though apparently sometime, it seems, today’s thought is quite in contradiction with the thoughts I had yesterday, but in reality it is just outcome of more opened up more complete form of yesterday’s thought. I’ll try to take an example from my life’s journey at the end to explain this. In this aspect, I think, I can relate with, what Swami Vivekananda wanted to tell by “from truth to better truth” . Your thoughts which are very close to your heart always accommodate your previous thoughts in that direction, though sometime apparently it seems contradicting but you know deep in your heart your new thoughts are expansion of the previous one. So if I can express from my heart, whatever I’ll write, won’t make me to repent for talking nonsense after.
The third inspiration behind getting some confidence to write on a topic on which I myself don’t have enough knowledge comes from a story of Mahabharata, before Vishwa leaving the earth Krisna told him to give a last advice to Pandava. Then Vishwa expressed, when as a pure knowledge you are being present with them, where is the importance of my advice. Then Krishna exclaimed absolute knowledge cannot reduce importance of experience from a life. You have a great life experience, which has its own value and its place. So I might not have enough knowledge but the knowledge I received from my own unique experience may have its own little importance, which may be worth to share.
Before jump in to topic let me explain, How we’ll travel this article, we’ll watch some audio visuals from youtube along with the word journey to sense the completeness of the article.
Now let us start our journey with a small video of Carl Sagan on a photograph of our planet earth send by space shuttle Voijer from beyond of the solar system ….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g
Wow!! what a sensation flows thorough the spin every time I watch this video…
Now lets listen an amazing experiences of a Neuroanatomist. Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another. Lets take a look…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU
Amazing…isn’t it? The experience she is talking is not much different from what the spiritual leaders try to explain from their meditation or other deliberate spiritual efforts.
It takes a lot of courage for a celebrity to step forward and talk about his or her spiritual awakening. Actor and comedian Jim Carrey steps forward to talk about his spiritual awakening which, hopefully, will open the door for others. In this video, Carrey lays it on the line and gives a heart-warming rendition of his spiritual awakening.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI1KKveHFGA
In absence of BBC one this one is close :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKEOGGE7MFk
Now lets pause for a moment here what these three presentations are talking about, why why its catching so much of our attention, what is it….how can we possibly explain it…..
There are many more materials available in this line, but we’ll stop here to go along with our original topic.
I believe the divine experience is an experience which no word could describe. But, not only we all have enough potential to realize it but also we already experienced it at some point of our active memory or other. Only we don’t realize it and more often mistakenly associate it with something else. The feelings flows through us when we are watching the above listed videos’ are nothing but a spontaneous flow of that realization.
People often says unless you deny all worldly pleasure you won’t realize the ultimate but reality is different, once people get a glimpse of this experience and realize the true source of this, they feel so much emptiness in everything else, its simply not be possible to get attached with anything else for long. In the words of Jim Carry ….ever since I always try to be at that moment and take as many people as I possibly can over there.
My personal opinion is, the biggest cause of the unrest in the modern society is the absence of that element from our life. But this was as common part of human life as retiring to bed at night. Those content silent moments were as readily available in the life as singing dancing or even as water. Very naturally falling into those quite moments of spending time with self helps to propel through joy and expand heart (hridaya prasari) and fill us with simple joy or bliss ….and this was very common in daily life. Lets listen to a song from Rabindranath Tagore to catch the feeling…
Ananda Dhara Bahiche Bhubane....
Joy and bliss flow in all of creation...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4AzPHJjxR8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHm10HobV1M
Now the biggest obstacle for missing this element from life is television and other electronic media, which occupies our invaluable time with ourselves. Not knowing the joy of those moments, we often get scared or bored when we have to be with ourselves and we desperately seek for company if not anything else rush towards the TV or internet. Which not only eats up those valuable time, but also bombards our brain with thousands of extrovert thoughts and kills the very natural introvert ness of the human expression. All these opinion, false portraits of happy life, make our tired confused mind more stressed or slowly made us another zumbie of that school of thoughts on which we walk but don’t know why we are walking. Effect of missing that element of joyful silence from our lives, which could have fill ourselves with full of vitality and make our intellect sharp enough the make choices, is reflected in every aspect of modern society and also in our personal life.
This quite time doesn’t mean day dreaming or laziness, both of them has equally adverse effect in our life, but to get connected with inner silence. The potential of all dynamism lies in it. Once we can stay few moment in that silent conciseness naturally you get tremendous motivation for creative work, the outcome, can be visibly displays in the passion and intensity of our work we do in our day to day life. Now the question is, getting engaged in activities is a fall of the divine existence from its ideal state. The answer is no, that passionate dynamic state is also a nature of expression of the pure soul. Ignoring this, is the common mistake in the so called religions or even spiritual path…….Quite often we ignore inspiration as another divine nature. Stay in that joy of creative state (Sristi sukher ullase) like an innocent child with full of life and dynamism is also equally divine.
We impose so much formalities, rules, restrictions on our life and on our world of action, but we simply ignore to appreciate the dynamism of pure inspiration which rises from pure inner aspiration as a divine expression. With that mind set when we take up a work with half-hearten will, we don’t find our sprit in action, don’t get the joy of work. Any effort of restricting that expression results emptiness.
I believe all the rules, regulations, laws, formalities are created only for one reason, to prevent ourselves from the addiction of some activity, which comes from attachment. The moment we wrongly associate the source of joy from work to some external object, it kills the very free nature of our existence. Then we get engaged to that activity not from the inspiration of free will but (Moha) to seek pleasure or happiness or anxiety. But in the process of stopping ourselves from addictive work we mistakenly started discouraging the inspired work too.
There is an acid test for realizing a work is from attachment or an inspired work. This explanation, I heard from somebody in TedTalk. After finishing an inspired work we leave with an ah-ha moment just feel good from the extension of the feeling during execution but doesn’t want to go back to do again the same activity but an attached work we tempt to do it again to sick some sense of fulfillment.
From outside, people can observe the passion, the intensity at the time of executing the job, which is a result of pure inspiration. No wonder, passion is the new buzzword of professional life. So we should try to embraces those inspired motivated feelings spawn inside of us and try to channelize it in some creativity or productivity. When we can identify some work and can devote ourselves in it, that time also gives a great feelings.
Many time people wonders, why India, in spite of having so much spiritual knowledge failed to display its prosperity in today’s world. I think, answer to this will be, historically a lot of rule regulations have been imposed on our society but we forgot the true intention of it, so as if blocking every initiative become our social moto. To prevent ourselves from some attached work which causes misery, we started discouraging any form of dynamism, this is one of the main reason behind the failure of India to flourish with its knowledge heritage.
From my very little understanding about what is tried to be described as ultimate in any religion or spirituality, this is not such a type of Nirvana after that everything is in as calm and peace as absolute zero, neither reaching some place of ever indulging enjoyment what is loosely described as heaven, but it can be a vibrant, intense dynamism too. Now how to understand, what state is appropriate at this very moment for me ? is it vibrant dynamic or static blissed ? The answer is very simple, our nature will drive this spontaneously and effortlessly , as an human being our job is to direct our active moments in to creativity and silent moments into bliss as said in Shrimad Bhagabat Geeta…. Prakritistang niyogshati.
When we are indulging ourselve into a passionate, creative work with our full conviction that’s great but some inspired works demand to interact with outside world that opens up a new challenge in front of us. How and with what intension we should interact. Very quickly we classify people in good or bad and start interacting with that preoccupation even before we realize that. We all have a tendency to earmark others as friend and foe, this preoccupation plays a dominant role in our interaction with others but we all know how false it appeared in our life so many times. Next comes the never satisfying question, if we consider the true nature of all human beings are same then why there is so much diversity.
In this dynamics of interacting with others understanding Prakriti ( nature) is a very important, which we have totally ignored in our development process. So let us try to take an analytical approach to understand this aspect of us.
Human life is expression of some behaviors sparked from our very own unique believe system ( sanskar). At first some elements of this believe system we get from parents and relatives, then comes contribution from friends and our educational systems, thirdly all the pleasant and painful experiences we go through in our life and some parts of it, nobody knows from where it comes, this is what some of eastern philosophies say, we inherit from our previous life. Characterizing of this believe-system into a person or in a living being, is called as its Prakriti (nature).
All of us have our unique nature(prakriti) and which not only other considers as us but also more often we ourselves consider as ourselves. So it is very loving to us. And all living beings has a tendency to confirm ( to prove it is the only truth ) its nature in outside world. And this is very very powerful in the world of action, this phenomenon is named as Maya ( illusion) . All living beings [ including us :) !! ] interact with world through that Maya (an unrealistic view of existence). The strange thing is, it is so correct to us at this very moment that we can’t think of any other idea to be correct but in a short while our view itself get changed and another view appears as perfect truth. So in reality, we all are perceiving the world through an unique glass of maya of this very moment but strange thing is we are not ready to accept it. That gives all the diversities in the world.
The moment our nature or believe system get challenged by another nature we become very arrogant. This phenomenon is called as our ego. So it is wise not to challenge any nature not for a little kid too, it only results arguments neither does good for who is challenging nor to whom is being challenged. But when other challenges it to us, we don’t have any other option than defend it, at that time we should try to justify only our action with reasons nor by challenging others nature or action and at the same time if we can remind ourselves, they are just criticizing our nature and our nature has a momentary existence, that’ll help us to calm down and won’t hold us back with that incident. We should neither get flattered with praise of our nature for the same reason.
For us the first thumb rule for productive interactions is : never challenge any prakriti nor go out of the way to praise it ( Praising nature and action is different), because the nature is ever changing.
One thing we all observed, we feel very comfortable with whom we consider as friends and those people have a lot of similar life experiences. A man, they say, is known by the company he keeps. This is because there are lot of similarities in our nature and we can easily confirm or get assurance about our nature is correct, from that company. That’s what we all want to see world is doing to our nature. We must have observed when somebody gets in line with our thought we just get some comfort but really not expanding, it just pamper our ego and get some sense of relief. Many times, those friendly interactions are not much productive but more self-assuring. That is why gossiping ( Paro Ninda Paro Charcha) is so delicious. As much as possible we should try to avoid seeking for these relief as no Prakriti is exactly identical so at some point staying without purpose won’t n be that comforting.
At this point let me add a line in a low voice ( as I have stated, I am not an authority to give statement in this faculty, as I don’t have enough study in all the religious believes, not even in a single religion, neither I very strictly follow any religious practice, whatever I am talking is from my personal curiosity of solving puzzles and reading or collecting information in bits and pieces from here and there, whatever caught my interest or stimulate my thought process, and also attempt to make sense of whatever happening around us ) : All religious and spiritual practice have only one goal in mind removing the Prakriti from us when its achieved there is no difference between God and his followers. Lets take help from Rabindra Sanget to catch the emotion….
Keno megh ase….
Why do clouds engulf my heart....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2MD1h4sUF0
Now lets go back to our word journey, when we are executing a team work, through an one to one interaction, what is the right way to interact or what is the secret of creating a good time in job, I think, it is not attitude to help or being helped not even exchange advice, not praise each other, answer will be what Puru replied to Alexander. The expected behavior is what a King does with another King, not a boss and subordinate, not a customer and salesman, not a driver and rider , not a teacher and student, not any other relation tagged in society, more worldly terms getting engaged in something spontaneous and creative work. From my experience it gives the best possible time in group activity at any situation, anywhere in the world, then only we can a feel, we are getting connected to the other person.
Another thing that we can do is exchange something what will keep a feeling nobody is gaining or loosing nobody is trying to cheat each other, again in today’s terminology doing an win-win business.
When we are among others, it is wise to try to offer an active spirited presence but just in case if we don’t get enough enthusiasm and can’t be out of that situation also, at least we should try to appreciate creative inspirations flowing from others more importantly not to criticize them. At the world of action dynamism is more accepted than inactive virtue.
When we don’t find inspiration and nothing upfront is there which is demanding our presence, we should not go out to world to provide excitement to us( rescue us from boredom ). Still if we find it difficult to be with ourselves reading book or listening music are better choices than TV or internet. Our TV or internet time should be active time, they should not be a passive time pass object, I think that habit is becoming very dangerous for todays’ world. As I heard from a lecture in Chinmayananda Mission “ Are you killing time or time is killing you ?”.
Finally I’ll come to the last point, as I have expressed before, based on what observation, I am being bold enough to write this article. With more experiences from life my understanding will evolve, so view point may change, the perspective horizon will be broaden but that will not contradict what I tried to express here, I am sure that will have enough space to accommodate my today’s thought, standing in a different landscape of experience.
Long before Sri Sri Ravishankar could make ‘Positive Living’ and ‘Art of Living’ as a common topic of discussion in households of urban society of India and abroad, back in early 90s, I got a flyer from somewhere. I can’t remember exactly where, most likely from Chinmayananda Mission. That little piece of paper has become a very important part of my life for last two decades. There was nothing much in that paper, a bold heading ‘Positive Living’ and some bullet points under that.
POSITIVE LIVING
Live Dynamically
Think Positively
Plan out Deliberately
Work Productively
Exchange Meticulously
Approach Smartly
Behave Friendly
Read Daily
Pray Ardently
Meditate Regularly
Grow Divinely
Once upon a time, it was hanging from my hostel wall, then after entering in professional life, it always found a way to stay close to me. After joining Premier Automobiles, I didn’t have any personal desk, so every day, I used to carry it with my other small belongings in a polythene bag. Then when I have got an old fashion office desk, I used to keep it on my desk, under the glass slab. After that, when I have got my own computer with MS windows those words rolled on my computer screen as a screen saver, then when I got my first modern cubical in FIAT with a small discussion table the paper got pinned up on the cubical wall. Then finally, I entered in to the laptop era, but still it always become my screen saver where ever company policy allowed my own screen saver. Over those years I added few more points which were not there originally, initially hand written on the paper but now I maintain the soft copy only.
Whenever world gives me a hard blow, I go through this and try to do some self analysis. The advantage of having on screen saver is, whenever I got emotionally very down, sit on my chair and just stare at the laptop screen after few minutes it starts rolling in front of my eyes.
After about twenty years, I tried to express this ten bullet points, may be in two bullet points ( divine static and divine dynamic state ) but all of them is well fitted in this two without negating any of them. This is my source of confidence to put it on internet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow0YebWGFdw
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