Balvinder Kumar is a senior civil servant. A multifaceted personality, his interests include painting, transcendental meditation, science and spirituality. A thinker and a philosopher, he has been an ardent follower of new age spirituality. He has held art exhibitions at the Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi, and in Lucknow, where more than hundred oil and acrylic “abstract� paintings on canvas have won him wide recognition. As a thinker he has explored quantum mechanics, neuro science and consciousness, theology and metaphysics and the philosophy of a religion. As part of the Indian Administrative Service he has held a number of important assignments in the Government of Uttar Pradesh as well as with the Central Government in New Delhi.
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Man’s
SPIRITUAL JOURNEY
Understanding the Purpose of Life
Balvinder Kumar
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MAN’S SPIRITUAL JOURNEY © Balvinder Kumar, 2014
First Paperback Edition, 2014 ISBN: 978-81-7621-265-6
Published by FULL CIRCLE PUBLISHING J-40, Jorbagh Lane, New Delhi-110003 Tel: +011-24620063, 24621011 • Fax: 24645795 E-mail: contact@fullcirclebooks.in website: www.fullcirclebooks.in
All rights reserved in all media. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review, nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other without written permission from the publisher. Design & Layout: SCANSET J-40, Jorbagh Lane, New Delhi-110003 Printed at Ask Advertising Aids Private Limited, New Delhi-110020 PRINTED IN INDIA 14/14/04/01/20/SCANSET/AAA/AAA/AAA/NP250/ NP250
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Contents
Dedication 7
Acknowledgements
8
Introduction
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CHAPTER 1
Relevance of God in the Age of Knowledge and Reason
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CHAPTER 2
Rediscovery of Brahman – “All is One”
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CHAPTER 3
Is Humanity Growing for a Better Future?
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CHAPTER 4
Humanity on the Materialistic Path
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CHAPTER 5
We are the Architect of our Own Life
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CHAPTER 6
Mind-Body Intimate Connectivity
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CHAPTER 7 The Way We Think
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CHAPTER 8
Mind’s In-built Tendency towards Negativity
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CHAPTER 9
Untapped Potential of our Unconscious Mind
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CHAPTER 10 Why Carry Emotional Baggage?
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CHAPTER 11 The World of Illusion
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CHAPTER 12 Is Free Will an Illusion?
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CHAPTER 13 Conflict of Self with Inner Self/Soul CHAPTER 14 The World is a Mirror – Reflection
of Inner World
160 173
CHAPTER 15 Man’s Inherent Nature
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CHAPTER 16 We All Are Destined to Grow Spiritually
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CHAPTER 17 Human Suffering is Avoidable
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252
Books that have helped me in My Spiritual Journey
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Dedication To my mother and father from whom I inherited the true intelligence that enables me to understand, to whatever extent, the real meaning and purpose of life and existence.
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Acknowledgements My deep appreciation and gratitude goes to Neha, my eternal partner, Akshay and Ishan, my loving sons, Mahendra and Manju, my invaluable friends for their unflappable support. And not the least, Ms Jo-Ann Langseth, Rode Island, US for editing the book.
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Introduction The purpose of this book is to gather my scattered thoughts on various interrelated issues governing our life. I want to introduce readers to the contemporary issues relating to science and spirituality, how deeply and intimately both are intertwined. Readers should get some understanding of their spiritual nature and why and how they have lost touch with their inherent nature of goodness. I have tried to explain how man learns lessons about life while journeying along its undulating roads, ever subject to its ups and downs. During these trying times we are impelled to dwell on Ultimate Questions such as: Why are we here? and What’s the purpose and meaning of life? More importantly, readers are invited to address the issues that are central to their lives. With these broad objectives in mind, an attempt has been made to compile thoughts by way of snippets on man’s spiritual journey. This book is coming out just as humanity is experiencing a period of transformation in almost every aspect of life. It is a time when the outside world, including all its institutions, is changing rapidly. On the one hand, collective human consciousness is growing exponentially, while on the other hand, due to its primarily materialistic values and pursuits, the suffering of humans has increased. We have become more intolerant and hostile toward our fellow beings, and we suffer more than ever from stress and tension. In many parts of the world, aggression and conflict at many levels are increasing. Fear and anger seem to rule our society in a way never before witnessed. Our burgeoning technologies have given rise to ever-greater complexities in the material world. While 9
societies around the world are now deeply and intimately connected, man is gradually losing touch with his inner self and spiritual nature. He has become too self-centered and materialistic, the extent of material wealth and comfort now determine the course of majority of lives. The rise of materialism in the modern world has serious repercussions for humans, and that is why spirituality has an extremely important role to play, not only in our individual life but in society at large. With the steep rise of reason and rationality in this modern age, all across the world, humanity has started moving away from rigid religious rituals, worship, dogmas, and beliefs in the existence of a discrete deity. In particular, people doubt “His” existence as a regulator and protector of humanity. Church attendance among organized religions is steadily declining as increasing number of people are losing faith in religious dogmas and turn instead to spiritual practices and the underlying Reality that gives them life. Recent surveys and studies have established that more and more people are now dis-interested in visiting churches, temples, and other places of worship. For example, modern Britain is “spiritual but not religious,” as well over half (59%) of those questioned in an opinion poll carried out by ComRes said that they believe in some kind of spiritual being or essence. Spiritual practices like meditation and yoga are increasingly embraced, not only in the Western world but throughout the entire world. As organized religion declines, spirituality rises. Until we have the courage to question our many illusions and lift the veil of ignorance covering our mind, we can’t lead a happy and peaceful life. This ignorance is about the true nature of life. We continually attempt to “grasp” and “get a handle on” the many complexities and intricacies that seem to govern our life, but to know our fundamental nature is of paramount importance to enjoy life’s enormous goodness and vastness of beauty. Man’s fundamental nature 10
is that of spirituality. We are inherently good, though we may exhibit evilness when life’s circumstances compel us to behave discordantly. We all have to suffer and struggle in our life, but when we awaken to the simple truth of our being, the way we respond to difficult challenges can change dramatically. Spiritual growth is all about knowing one’s self through self-inquiry and awareness. We must know how to pursue our desires and become aware of our attachments to material things and certain “special” people. Realization of love, compassion, and overall concern for others is the essence of spirituality. In simple words, it’s a way of life. Before I begin to describe the various chapters in this book, I thought a quick look at where humanity stands in this universe might be in order. According to scientists, it all began with the Big Bang, roughly 13.7 billion years ago, when our universe suddenly erupted. Within 10 million trillion trillion trillionths of a second, the universe grew from a size smaller than an atom to bigger than a galaxy. Now we have more than 100 billion galaxies and in each galaxy there are over 100 billion stars similar to the sun. Now imagine that on a clear night we can see only 3000 to 4000 stars with the naked eye. The earth and the solar system are located within the Milky Way, which is about 100,000 light-years (one light-year is roughly 6 trillion miles) across, and contains between 100 and 400 billion stars. Our observable universe is 1023 kms, and contains about 1050 tonnes of visible matter in the form of stars, dust, and gas, all of which create a powerful gravitational force. We live in the Goldilocks zone (that is, just the right distance from a star to support life) of our solar system in a grand galaxy within an infinite universe. Our beautiful earth offers the perfect ingredients (extremely rare to get such combinations) to sustain all that live upon it.
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Nearly 4.5 billion years ago, Earth, as another planet of the Sun, emerged. Later on, about 3.8 billion years ago, beneath the surface of our primordial ocean, six simple elements of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, calcium, and phosphorus combined in a mysterious way to form the substance that was later to make up all life, including humans. Tiny bacteria were the first to emerge. Then more and more complex organisms evolved over billions of years. By 500 million years ago, the first bony fish evolved in the sea. After the fish, amphibians, then reptiles, giant dinosaurs, and finally mammals emerged. Protohumans made their appearance around 2.6 million years ago. Around 800,000 years back, Homo sapiens, our ancestors, discovered fire. By 200,000 years ago, the modern human had fully taken shape. We began to speak. Over the next 100,000 years, we started migrating. By 30,000 years ago, Homo sapiens had reached Europe and then, somewhere around 10,000 B.C., we populated South America. Now ancient humans started colonizing the entire globe. During prehistoric times, Cro-Magnon was the anatomically modern human found in Europe and the Middle East, appearing around 40,000-30,000 years ago. In contrast to the earlier Neanderthals (Homo sapiens erectus), who were much more primitive, the CroMagnons possessed modern human features. Subsequent was the Neolithic era which began around 9,000 B.C. and is marked by the transition from roaming and hunting to an agricultural society. The first evidence for domestication of plants and animals is available from 9,000 B.C. onwards. Village communities started appearing around 6,000 B.C. and were common by 4,000 B.C. Cities began to be built in the 6th and 5th millennium B.C., and city-states were just beginning around 4,000 B.C. It took 200,000 years of human history, from the dawn of man to the year 1900, for the population to reach 1.6 billion. Over the next 100 years of the 20th century, it nearly quadrupled to 12
more than 6 billion. Today, the world’s population stands close to 7.2 billion. During the Neolithic Revolution, when man began to domesticate animals and cultivate crops, he himself seems to have come into greater significance in his own eyes. Even his understanding of the higher world of spirit became anthropomorphized – i.e. he turned spirits into human form as Gods and Goddesses. He viewed the heavens as the realm of those Gods and Goddesses, who intervene, and take interest in human affairs on regular basis on earth. Fear, insecurity, and extreme vulnerability to weather and wild animals resulted in visualized as well as conceptualized Gods and Goddesses for physical and emotional support; according to specific needs and requirements and to celebrate various occasions, Gods were “created”, and their idols were installed in various places, where worship started. From Neolithic to historic times, man became convinced that the Gods had to be unique – omnipotent, omniscient, and eternal. In fact, that was the beginning of religion as humans started to perform rituals involving divine beings or Gods. Gradually, as time passed, since the majority of the population was living under extremely adverse and hostile conditions, religious rituals, prayers, myths, superstitions, etc. became widely accepted. Fear of God – deeply embedded in the human psyche – gave birth to the organization of formal religions. During the period from 800 to 200 B.C., the spiritual foundations of humanity were laid in China, India, Greece, and the Middle East. This period gave rise to the Vedas, Upanishads, Buddhism, Jainism, Confucianism, Taoism, Platonism, etc. This 600-year period is known as the Axial Age, a term coined by German philosopher and psychiatrist Karl Jaspers. Jaspers argued that during the Axial Age, “the spiritual foundations of humanity were laid simultaneously and independently” in the aforementioned regions. Jaspers concludes, “these are the 13
foundations upon which humanity still subsists today.” Eric Voegelin, an American political philosopher, referred to this age as “The Great Leap of Being”, constituting a new spiritual awakening and a shift in perception from societal to individual values. Since this book makes references on many occasions to quantum mechanics, I thought appropriate to briefly touch this subject. In the classical or physical world in which we all live, we can anticipate the position and movement of objects with certainty, as Newtonian laws of physics unfailingly apply. Newtonian physics can predict the behaviour of our physical world, including the stars and planets of the macroscopic world. However, we are so used to seeing this macroscopic world with our own eyes that we simply can’t imagine how the microscopic or quantum world would behave. Quantum means the smallest fundamental unit of matter, but the conduct of quantum particles is bizarre compared to what we can reasonably expect in our everyday experiences. While the “classical world” demonstrates predictable and apparently rational behaviour, events in the quantum world cannot be anticipated. Behaviour in this invisible world is unpredictably bizarre and weird. First of all, in the quantum world, once-united particles that have become separated remain connected and respond to one another over distance and time. Secondly, multiple particles can condense into one united entity. Thirdly, particles like electrons appear to function as both a wave and a particle. Lastly, particles can exist in multiple possible states or locations simultaneously. Through quantum theory, modern science has reinforced the concept of “Oneness”. Everything in the universe is deeply interconnected (to the point of suggesting a hologram), and nothing is separate from anything else. Everything in the universe functions through the exchange, transfer, and transformation of energy. What the Indian sages were saying in the Vedas about Brahman, the ground of 14
reality, has been established by modern science. At the quantum level, we are indeed “One”. Separate existence is merely an illusion, as our senses are extremely limited and incapable of perceiving a true picture of this world at the deeper level. The universal field of consciousness, source of all life, is both inside and outside of space and time. The whole world is conceived, constructed, governed, and maintained in consciousness. The same consciousness is the source of mind, thoughts, feelings, and even matter. As we will see in this book, consciousness, reality, illusion, the concept of Oneness and, at the deeper level, spiritual practices and mysticism are deeply interconnected. In later chapters, I have attempted to explore the following contentious issues that are very much central to spirituality. • • • • • • • • • •
Relevance of God in the age of knowledge and reason! Interconnectedness and inseparability of the universe at the deeper level. Is collective human consciousness growing progressively? We create our own reality – we are active contributors in creating our reality. Our physical body is a product of our thoughts and emotions. Mind’s negativity bias – an inherent tendency to relish negative thoughts. Mind is designed to automate as much as possible – untapped potential of the subconscious mind. Construction of reality of the world we perceive – the illusionary reality. How free is the will? Free will is illusionary to a great extent. The world is like a mirror – outer world is merely a reflection of inner world. 15
• • • • •
Is human suffering an essential ingredient of life? How can we avoid it? We carry emotional baggage of past experiences – how can we unburdened ourselves from it? Does life have any meaning? Does merely randomness and uncertainty govern our life? Conflict of self with inner self – incessant struggle between ego and the self. Man’s spiritual journey – do we all grow toward spiritual maturity?
For me like everyone else, God is a highly personalized concept that develops with life’s experiences. During my earliest years and up to adolescence, primarily owing to my parent’s influence, I always thought of God as a Personal Being who watches all our acts/deeds and then rewards and punishes us in this or perhaps the next life. I had “His” many anthropomorphized images reinforcing my idea of His basic nature in my mind. As my thought processes evolved and more and more rationality appeared in my cognitive processes, my concept of God changed over time. Then I became agnostic, believing it impossible for us to know whether there is a Supreme Being governing our life – or not. In any case, I was convinced that God could not be the way I used to conceptualize Him. As I grew up, dealing with life’s usual complexities, I gradually became atheistic in the sense that while I believed there are no personal Gods or Goddesses in human form, watching each one of us from a distance, there may still be unknown forces that science has yet to discover. However, almost simultaneously, I started moving towards spiritual practices like meditation and introspection.
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Perhaps we can all agree that humans are grossly ill-equipped to conceptualize God’s nature and role in governing our life. With our great potential and capacity to think, the brain is still incapable of touching – much less unravelling – the mysteries of a limitless universe and the complexities surrounding our life. How can we ever hope to comprehend the infinitude that is Absolute Power? There may be universal truth, but I doubt whether our mind will ever be able to perceive the true reality of this world – especially when it comes to the reality of the Supreme Being. Because of God’s unknowable attributes, most people’s definition and concepts of God depend upon their religious and spiritual inclination. Both science and religion have obvious limitations in their conceptualizations of God’s role and nature governing our life. Chapter 1 contributes some thoughts as to how concepts of God have evolved over time, and whether ideas about God are still relevant in this age of reason and knowledge. The most significant doctrine expressed in the Vedas and the Upanishads, the first philosophical explorations of Hinduism, is that there is only one Supreme Reality, a reality called the Brahman, the Supreme Being. Brahman is infinite, omnipresent, and non-dual in nature. In other words, Reality is One, or Absolute. Buddhist philosophy also looks at the impermanence and interdependence of all things, observing that everything is in constant flux. Buddhist doctrine also holds that ultimate reality is pure consciousness. Now modern science, especially from the quantum perspective, has proved that there is a unified field of energy that directly links everything in the universe. Of the very same essence, everything is connected with everything else in the universe. Chapter 2 highlights certain thoughts on the “rediscovery of Brahman – Reality is One”. Is humanity still evolving? Many scientific studies have been carried out to observe and confirm whether collective human consciousness 17
is progressively growing towards a better future. It is possible to demonstrate that both individual minds and groups of minds, working together, can have unintended and unconscious effects on the surrounding physical world; though on an extremely small scale, this dynamic can be detected. In this way, from individual brains to groups of brains emerges the phenomenon of global brain/consciousness. Over a long period of time, many evolutionary advances have been documented. Ervin László, a Hungarian philosopher of science, advocates “humans moving from ego-bound and sense-organs-limited consciousness to a wider transpersonal consciousness as they become aware of their deep and integral ties to one another, to the biosphere, and to the cosmos.” On these issues, I offer some thoughts on the question of “Is humanity growing for better future?” in chapter 3. Look around and see discontentment, sorrow, frustration, and suffering prevailing among vast populations in the modern world. Crime, violence, and aggression persist among fellow beings and nations in this age of reason and rationality. Too much emphasis has been placed on the accumulation of money, social status, and material things. The traditional concepts of Soul/Atman and the spiritual nature of man have taken a backseat, while materialistic views have become the foundation for every field of study and endeavour, from the humanities to the medical sciences and biology. Consequently, we are paying a heavy price for many misconceived and misplaced solutions and remedies provided by science. Spiritual and physical starvation is likely to continue as the world suffers heavily from the denial of man’s own spiritual nature. Unless we change our outlook and in-look, the majority of physical and mental ailments owing to materialistic values will continue to make us suffer, collectively and individually. Chapter 4 highlights this aspect of “humanity on the materialistic path”. 18
“The New Thought Movement,” or “New Thought,” is a spiritual movement that started in the United States during the late 19th century. This movement places great emphasis on spiritual and metaphysical beliefs. One key tenet of this movement is the Law of Attraction, which maintains that everything that’s coming into our life has been attracted to us by our dominant thoughts and feelings. And it takes shape by virtue of focused attention and the creative or destructive visualization/images we are holding in our mind. In other words, we quite literally have the ability to mould and shape various events, circumstances, relationships, etc. in our life, based on how we choose to think, believe, and feel! Recent research on quantum mechanics shows that we humans are much more than simply the “observers” in this physical world, and we can directly affect the waves and particles of the universe. In this way, we become powerful creators rather than just passive observers in the world around us. In chapter 5, I gather my thoughts on “we are the architect of our own life” the basic feature of New Thought Movement. A majority of people still tend to see their physical body and mind as separate entities and believe that these systems function in isolation. However, medical science has established, beyond doubt, that both are one because of their deep and intimate connectivity. If we watch ourselves closely, we can see how emotions and feelings instantly affect our bodies. The immune system is intimately intertwined with our emotions and thought processes. There is a deep and dynamic relationship between what is going on with our feelings and thinking patterns and what happens in our body. Constant and seamless twoway communication between body and mind profoundly affects our physical, mental, and emotional health. Every day we can observe placebo and nocebo effects when we are treated for various ailments. In a doctor-patient relationship, the patient’s beliefs make a world of 19
difference to that person’s health outcomes. I discuss the broader issue of “body-mind intimate connectivity” in chapter 6. Since prehistoric times, when man began to think rationally and started searching for the answers to life’s mysteries, mind has taken centre stage in man’s thinking domain. Some of the earliest recorded views/concepts about mind and its relationship with soul and divine forces were given by the Buddha, Plato, Aristotle, Adi Shankara, and many other ancient Indian, Greek, and (later) Islamic philosophers. Most of the time, we are totally identified with our thoughts. We simply fail to observe the mind like any other part of the body; therefore, we simply don’t realize that it is the mind that draws our problems to us as we create by (unconscious) default, rather than by (conscious) intention. Therefore, as long as we are consciously unaware of our thought processes, we can’t control our mind, and that is why we become a victim of mind rather than its master. Lack of mindfulness then leads to the ways that are mostly reactive, habitual, and somewhat automatic. Chapter 7 devotes some thoughts to the working of mind “the way we think’”? Our mind seems programmed to suffer, due to its inherent (or, some would say, conditioned) tendency toward negativity. The brain’s reptilian structures (the brainstem and the cerebellum) are prone to be defensive and fearful. While dependable in controlling the body’s vital functions such as heartbeat, respiration, body temperature and balance, the reptilian brain is also fragile and reactive. It runs all the time – wildly – welcoming thoughts that come, seemingly, “from out of nowhere” and then just evaporate into thin air. Our worst enemy can be our own mind, especially when we fail to control its tendencies to relish thoughts relating to negative and fearful events and past experiences. Especially when we are under stress, the more we try to suppress negative thoughts by not allowing them to surface, the more 20
insistently these thoughts will push for expression, thereby making us even more stressed. Unless we are aware and able to achieve serenity through spiritual practices like meditation, contemplation, prayer, our mind becomes more of a liability. An attempt has been made in chapter 8 to briefly highlight what appears to be the ‘mind’s in-built tendency towards negativity.’ If we pay close attention, we very often find, mind in a passive default mode, absorbed in internal dialogue. During that time, the subconscious mind reigns supreme, controlling all emotions, thoughts, and the resultant decision-making process. It has been established by neuroscientists that this unconscious state is far more active than the conscious state, and can account for as much as 90% of the activities and decisions we make. Majority of our thoughts and actions are impulsive, and the thoughts come automatically, as we don’t make conscious choices. It would appear that we have little to no control over the subconscious mind, though it plays a leading and pivotal role in our day-to-day life. In chapter 9, I explore the way the mind is designed to automate as much as possible, emphasizing the role and nature of the subconscious – “untapped potential of unconscious mind”. Most of us are weighed down by the past and present burden of negative and unpleasant memories, which we generally call emotional baggage. One of the hallmarks of emotional baggage is that it is riddled with triggers. A trigger is something that reminds us of the past, thereby bringing the old unpleasant feelings, memories, and reactions to the surface. Rather than making attempts to unburden the baggage, we keep on accumulating and strengthening its negative energy. Our reactive behaviour pattern is mostly repetitive, and never fails to reinforce its negativity. In stressful relationships, for instance, we very often suffer the bursting of emotional baggage that makes the relationship even more fragile. In such cases, the choice lies with us 21
as to whether we make this baggage heavier and unbearable through automatic and unexamined behaviour or make it lighter by witnessing and observing the triggering thoughts with complete awareness. In chapter 10, I offer a few thoughts on “why carry emotional baggage”. Whether we believe it or not, we are incapable of perceiving the true reality of the world around us. The senses through which we construct reality in our brain are ill-equipped to receive, perceive, and interpret the whole range of data pertaining to image formation (sight), smell, sound, taste, and touch. We construct reality in our brain on the basis of that limited range of sensory data. More importantly, our past learnings, formal teachings, and the hard conditioning of inculcated beliefs affect the process and construction of the mind’s reality. And that is why what we perceive as reality is illusionary, often quite misleading, and just plain “not so.” In no way, it would seem, can we be privy to true reality, but at least when we are aware of the nature of our individual limitations there will be fewer misconceptions that make us suffer. Chapter 11 has been devoted to the construction of reality of the world we perceive – “the world of illusion.” For millennia, the question of free will has been contentiously debated among philosophers, thinkers, and more recently by neuroscientists. In 1970, distinguished neurophysiologist Benjamin Libet demonstrated that thoughts about doing something occur in the brain about a second before we consciously decide to act. This unexpected sequence has been subsequently verified by many researchers. Further, we don’t know from where the intention (for taking any action) arises in our mind, its origin is altogether mysterious. Over and above this seeming automaticity, the thoughts that arise are interpreted by our conditioned mind, the mind preloaded with strong beliefs, emotions, past learnings, and experiences. This seemingly impenetrable barrier filters our thoughts before a conscious decision 22
and/or action may be made. Under the circumstances, we see that free will, which we are so passionately inclined to believe does exist, may in fact be, to a great extent, non-existent. In chapter 12, I discuss on the question whether “free will is an illusion”. In this world, the essence of spirituality is to know our true selves and to discover the real meaning of our life. The self we know, the individual ego, is a very limited form of identity. Ignorant of our true selves, we derive a false sense of identity from what we have, or how others see us, or what we do in the world. Because all the components of this world are continually changing, this derived sense of identity is always under threat, and for this reason, the ego is responsible for much of our “self-centred” behaviour. When we discover this deeper sense of self, we are freed from many of the fears that plague our mind unnecessarily. We discover a greater inner peace, an inner security that does not depend upon the behaviour and actions of others or the events taking place in the world around us. However, we very often witness “conflict of self with inner self/soul,” as there are conflicting interests between these “at odds” constituents of our mind, and this is what has been briefly explained in chapter 13. What we see in this world is a true reflection of our own inner state of mind. Our fears, anxieties, and other negativities are faithfully reflected by the outer world. In other words, what we see around us tells us a lot about our inner feelings. If someone is struggling for success or competing with others to be “the best” at something, then he or she perceives this world as having struggle and competition all around. Though this seems to be a simplistic view of this world, the fact is that our mind becomes conditioned to a certain way of perceiving and reacting to this world depending upon our own attitude and beliefs. Tranquillity and serenity of mind make the world looks wonderful and friendly. On the contrary, if we are inwardly in distress and turmoil 23
then we are certain to see a tumultuous world. Chapter 14 describes how “the world is like a mirror-reflection of inner world.” In every one’s life, gradual transformation in one’s nature and more specifically mind-set take place but since it is so slow and gradual that we generally don’t realize. Despite having all the means to enjoy and achieve happiness, many of us still wander aimlessly and make ourselves suffer, a part of man’s inherent nature. Generally, people are not focused as to what do they want from life, what is the purpose and meaning of life? Instead of enjoying all good things of life, we feel victimized of others or the circumstances not in our control. Our life mostly revolves around “I” and ‘me’; there seem to be nothing beyond. So engrossed in “I” and “my” affairs, we forget the world beyond “I”, ‘my’ family and inner circle. Too much of emphasis on “I” is the root cause of all misery, dissatisfaction and conflicts. Only when we discover our true nature, this cycle ends. Awareness is our true nature. Thoughts on such relating issues have been summarized in chapter 15 relating to “man’s inherent nature”. Life is full of challenges. Sometimes we feel it is more like a roller coaster ride, when we are subjected to jolting ups and downs and experience pain and suffering. In a way, the real test of our life comes when we pass through such turbulent and troubled phases. During such times, a spiritual orientation help us to put the mind at peace, at the same time giving courage, strength, and patience to overcome by providing much-needed insight into life’s problems. This is also the time when we can learn major lessons of trust, love, concern, and compassion. Precisely this is the meaning of spirituality to me. We all undergo our spiritual journey as we grow while learning from experiences, especially failures and during times of acute suffering. Chapter 16 treks on the path of man’s spiritual journey – “we are all destined to grow spiritually”. 24
In chapter 17, I sum up some thoughts on “human suffering is avoidable”. There are hardly any exceptions in the long run; we suffer at one point of time or the other. The First Noble Truth of Buddhism is “Life is suffering.” Suffering may be qualified as physical or mental. It may come in varying degrees of intensity, from mild to unbearable. Attitudes toward suffering vary widely according to how much it is regarded as avoidable or unavoidable, deserved or undeserved, meaningful or meaningless. When we don’t get what we desire, suffering invariably arises. Dissatisfaction comes out of chasing after happiness and pleasure primarily from the outside world, ignoring the basic fact that the source lies within the self. The situation is aggravated when we are ignorant of the causes of our suffering. If we are open and receptive to changes – especially the adverse ones – responding with an open heart to difficult and unpleasant situations and above all, by living in the present moment, we can minimize the effects of suffering.
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nm CHAPTER 1
Relevance of God in the Age of Knowledge and Reason We are not in complete control of our life. Randomness prevails. Every remote possibility is…possible! Uncertainty coupled with insecurity prompt us to look to that Supreme Being for emotional support.
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ab 1 Wrestling with one of the most perplexing questions that man has ever faced – Does God exist? – Neither science nor religion has been able to prove its case. That is, science cannot prove that God does not exist and religion cannot prove that God does exist. Though science has successfully resolved many of the great mysteries, in doing so, new perplexing questions have arisen, such as, what was going on before the Big Bang? How consciousness arises? What is the dark energy/matter that, we are told, constitutes 96% of the total universe? However, we can say, and quite convincingly based on knowledge and reason, that there is no Supreme Power/Entity who watches each one of us from a distance, regulating and emoting over our conduct, morality, and ethics. On the other hand, religion continues to be based solely on faith (belief with no evidence), which provides hope, support, and comfort to a vast population across many religious faiths and traditions. That being the case, as long as faith in God is deeply embedded in diverse religions, and science does not succeed in solving all of life’s mysteries, God will continue to exist in the human psyche.
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2 Irrespective of whether God exists or not, but majority of us need the protection of a “Divine Power, or the Supreme Being” especially when we are in distress in our life. Besides, most of us need His support for fulfilling our emotional and psychological requirements. Faith may also be helpful in guiding us to adhere to the moral and ethical standards of our society. In the absence of Higher Power, there could be more hatred, aggression, and violence in our society. François Marie Arauet (1694-1778), a French enlightenment philosopher, also known as Voltaire, has very rightly said that if God did not exist, we, in our own interest, would have had to invent Him. Universal fear, inherent insecurity, and the unpredictability of future make human beings indeed very fragile. That’s why faith in Supreme Being still persists in humanity in one way or the other, despite the man’s reliance increasingly on reason and rationality in our modern age.
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3 Man’s nature is fundamentally fragile and insecure, and throughout life the majority of us are trapped in the duality of desire/fear. Once the baby, at around the age of eight months, starts perceiving itself as separate from its mother, the individuating process begins, and continues until around fifteen months when the child develops a personalized sense of self – i.e. “me.” Then the journey begins for expansion of egoic sense of self, with a growing “me” now occupying centre stage. The individual becomes trapped in the duality of desire/ fear that invariably leads to distress, grief, sorrow and suffering. Without restricting the dominance of ego, sufferers start looking for peace and happiness. This is why man first looks to Supreme Being or God, not only to meet his emotional and psychological needs but also to fulfil his particular desires, address his day-to-day problems, and alleviate his pain and suffering.
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IJ 4 Because the attributes are unknowable, everyone’s definition of Supreme Being or God is unique and highly personal, depending upon one’s religious inclination due to parental influence and conditioning, as well as one’s spiritual nature. Both science and religion are undoubtedly limited in their conceptualizations of God’s role and nature in governing our life. To know God is beyond man’s imagining. Each one of us carries a unique image or the concept of Him. However, if we try to understand the mysteries and mysticism of life, we gradually discover the essence of God or the Supreme Power, and then eventually ourselves, and our own unique Inner Self. This intention of discovering Absolute Power can alone transform our life.
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EF 5 Why is it that we so often rely on beliefs which are irrational and unsupported by evidence/proof? Even if we have evidence against some belief (such as God’s existence), we will not accept that evidence or proof because rejection will lead to uncomfortable feelings of insecurity and vulnerability. In psychology, this phenomenon is called cognitive dissonance. To protect a valued belief, we rationalize, ignore, or even deny anything that does not support that belief. It is one of mankind’s greatest enemies as it gets in the way of learning and adapting to new situations and circumstances in life. We resist any evidence that challenges any of our core beliefs, such as God’s existence. Since belief in God removes cognitive dissonance and its associated stress, it is a necessity for the majority of human beings. As humanity continues to evolve and acquire the faculty of higher reason, many have now begun to question the existence of God (quoted from blog: Neural Being-Cognitive Dissonance).
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ij 6 In the twentieth century alone, according to an estimate, 167-175 million lives (according to Zbiginew Brezinsky, former national security advisor under the Carter Administration, USA) were lost to man’s inhumanity to man. This period is, therefore, recognized as the most murderous century in the recorded history (Eric Hobsbawn). How can the goodness of God and God’s plan for mankind be justified in the face of overwhelming human cruelty and suffering? According to George W.F. Hegel (1770-1831), a German philosopher, each disaster or human tragedy has its role to play in bringing about the greater good, which the Absolute has in store. Evils are instruments used by God to increase and refine goodness and compassion. Hence the consciousness of freedom has progressed with the passage of time. Therefore, God is vindicated against the charge that He has permitted evil, pain, and suffering to exist in the world!
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ab 7 At any moment of life, anything can happen to us. Do we have any degree of control at all? We live in a world of probabilities. Whether I will reach my office without a car hitting me is a matter of probability. However, trusting in the Unknown Power, we somehow never think of this as even a remote possibility. But the truth remains – or at least it does for me – we are not in complete control of our life. Randomness prevails. Every remote possibility is…possible! Uncertainty coupled with insecurity prompt us to look to that Supreme Being for emotional support. That’s why all the great religions teach us that absence of control over our life is really a sign of some unknowable design of that Ultimate Power, or the God!!
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8 Most of us consciously or unconsciously think God as static, nonchanging and perfect. When all the constituents of this universe including human beings are changing and non-static then how can God remain static and non-evolving? May be the answer lies in the fact that since we are insecure, imperfect and have tendency to suffer, we look God in the manner we do, so for security and to be secure from other fellow beings, we need God who is perfect, omnipotent and static. That may be the reason that we fear to see God as evolving though we are the product of evolution. Humanity should therefore shed His anthropomorphic image and start perceiving God as an ever-evolving field of consciousness that is moving towards greater self-awareness and integration (Beth Green, a renowned teacher of New Spirituality). We can then truly experience Oneness not only with other beings but also with the Supreme Being.
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9 It’s wisely said that God always gives warning prior to actual happenings; however, it’s up to us to discern His signs of impending danger or adversity. The world is a mirror reflecting not only our inner state, but also the path on which we are heading. We get continuous feedback from this mirror, but most of the time we are so engrossed in our routine work that we don’t notice those signals. Throughout history, God has warned us about our unconscious state, but still we keep plodding blindly along. When life goes well, we tend to ignore warnings and refuse to change our dead-end paths, only to learn too late. We may be on the wrong path even when life is going well. To become aware, we should learn to closely attend to God’s mode of communication with us.
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ij 10 Each of us possesses a unique gift given by Supreme Being or God at the moment we landed on this planet. The purpose of our individual lives is to express that gift to its fullest potential. We all have special qualities and attributes, along with unlimited opportunities from an inconceivably vast pool of potentialities by which those unique qualities may be expressed. Beauty lies in the way we are open to those opportune moments. God is always infinitely generous and clear in directing us to those opportunities, but He expects us to be receptive and smart enough to catch hold of the right opportunity at the right moment in our life. We can therefore be active participator in creating and moulding reality, the best suited to us.
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IJ 11 Since prehistoric times, man has been attempting to find a convincing theodicy – i.e. response to the dilemma that if God is all-loving, allknowing, and all-powerful, then why is there so much pain and suffering in the world? How can we defend God’s goodness in view of widespread evil among humanity? I feel that one best reply we can consider is that suffering and pain are necessary parts of a divine plan, which is designed for ultimate good in the long run for all beings. In many cases, pain, sorrow and suffering become the necessary conditions or driving force for their spiritual growth. Very often, man look for emotional and psychological support from God. In the absence of pain, suffering and inhumanity in our life, the majority of humans would not continue to search for the meaning and purpose in their lives and God’s creative design in the universe.
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EF 12 There is a famous parable that at the time of creation of man when God was giving finishing touch to humans, He wanted to hide all the secrets of His creation in a place where humans could not dare to approach. He was in dilemma. However, after lot of deliberations, He finally came with the idea to hide secrets deep inside the deepest layers of consciousness i.e. human inner mind. He knew that human mind would be so restless outwardly that they would not ordinarily look inside. “And the intelligent and silly human mind is still searching the God and the secret. The best-kept secret still lies deep inside the mind.� (Kartikey Singh, Physics of God, 2009) Hence to discover God, one needs inward journey rather than searching in outside world.
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nm CHAPTER 2
Rediscovery of Brahman – “All is One” All space, time, matter, and energy are interconnected and entangled, which is another way of saying that “All is One.” The reality we perceive is of one source, i.e. the mind, or the Brahman. Reality is nothing but a projection of the mind.
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ab 1 All the belief systems of major religions across the globe teach the “Law of Oneness”. Now science validates these teachings by establishing that everything is connected to everything else within our lives, the planet, and the universe. All is One, advocated by David Bohm, a world renowned theoretical physicist. He explained that the “implicate order”– the unbroken wholeness of the totality of existence as an undivided flowing movement with boundaries – is the ultimate reality behind this world, whose constituents only appear to be divided, separate, and solid. Matter, as we perceive it to be, does not exist. Bohm further theorizes that, “what we call empty space contains an immense background of energy.” On the other hand, humanity is living in a world by embracing the illusion of separation and this very illusion makes the man disconnected from not only from other fellow beings but also from the Mother Nature.
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2 We generally hold a world view of separateness in this physical reality, believing that we are discrete and autonomous entities, totally separate from our fellow beings because this is how we perceive through our senses. However, in ancient times, especially in India, man’s views were essentially those of wholeness. The most significant doctrine expressed in the Vedas and the Upanishads is that Reality is One or Absolute, changeless and eternal, the Brahman. And the ordinary human world of many separate and discrete (finite) things, which our mind perceives through our senses, is merely an illusion. Hence the Vedas speak of a unified field of “pure consciousness” that permeates all of creation. Now modern physicists have established that there is a unified energy field that interconnects everything from molecules to plants, animals, planets and galaxies in the universe.
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3 In the 20th century, for the first time, Swami Vivekananda, Indian spiritual guru and the chief dispel of the 19th century Saint Ramakrishna gave the concept of Akasha – it’s the omnipresent and all-penetrating essence of the universe. Everything evolved out of Akasha, including humans, the world around us, stars, planets, etc. Everything starts from Akasha and ends there itself. Later on, David Bohm as well as many other scientists rediscovered the concept of the Akashic field, which maintains coherence throughout the world. It is the womb of all matter and all the forces in the universe. Hence, modern cosmologists and physicists have confirmed what Vivekananda and other seers were advocating. There is a deeper reality in the cosmos, a reality recorded and expressed in an Akashic field that connects and creates coherence (Ervin Laszlo, Global Shift in the World Mind).
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ij 4 In Buddhism and many other mystic traditions, it is believed that the mind is the centre of reality. This means that in reality, all is in the mind; there is no reality outside mind. Now, 2500 years after that thought first occurred, quantum physics has rediscovered the same truth. In the quantum or subatomic world, when two particles interact with each other and then get separated – even by billions of miles – both particles remain entangled, meaning that they behave as if they are one. Since the Big Bang, around 13.7 billion years ago, when the universe was born from a point much smaller than an atom, the whole universe has therefore been interconnected through quantum entanglement. All space, time, matter, and energy are interconnected and entangled, which is another way of saying that “All is One.” The reality we perceive is of one source, i.e. the mind, or the Brahman. Reality is nothing but a projection of the mind.
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IJ 5 There is only one supreme reality, a reality called Brahman, the Supreme Being. Brahman is infinite and omnipresent. Therefore Brahman, being nondual in nature, is the One Reality. There is no reality outside the Brahman. This was the doctrine of Advaita – the non-dualistic reality expounded by Adi Shankara (788-820 A.D.). He consolidated the Advaita Vedanta, an interpretation of the Vedic scripture that continued the line of thought of some of the Upanishadic teachers. His style was later adopted by all the Vedanta schools. Buddhist doctrine also advocated that ultimate reality is pure consciousness (the Brahman). Now recent scientific discoveries show that all the matter and energy in the universe is deeply interconnected – “All is One.” Hence, the seeming reality of the world is unreal; it’s all Maya, the illusionary world, and the only true reality is Brahman.
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nm CHAPTER 3
Is Humanity Growing for a Better Future? There has been a gradual, sometimes noticeable shift in the collective unconscious from fear dominated to that of love. Though difficult to observe but studies confirm. Fear will not die easily from human psyche but once love moves forward; fear will automatically and slowly retreat.
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ab 1 Whether life is merely an incidental result of “nature� or is part of a deeper cosmic story is a contentious issue among cosmologists. The Strong Anthropic Principle holds that the universe is here because of us; that is, the universe came into existence to give rise to life and consciousness. This principle is a necessity, because if life were impossible, no one would have known it. This hypothesis is based on various cosmic coincidences, that cosmologists established, which strengthened their belief that those improbable events took place only because of the simple reason that life had be here otherwise such events would not have taken place. Paul Davies in The Goldilocks Enigma explains that the laws of physics and the evolution of the universe are in some unspecified manner destined to bring forth life and mind. It seems that the universe has always known that humans would eventually evolve.
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2 If it is true that all living creatures, including humans, are nothing but stardust, we can trace our history/ancestry through generations of stars. Every atom in our body originated in the core of stars. All elements except hydrogen came into being billions of years ago, and from them we humans eventually emerged. Lawrence M. Krauss, an American theoretical physicist and cosmologist has explained that “You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements – the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, and all the things that matter for evolution – were not created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode.... The stars died so that you could be here today.”
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3 Is life random, simply a by-product of long drawn-out evolutionary processes, or we are here with some meaningful purpose? While humanity has been debating this question for generations, there is yet no convincing evidence to back either side. However, a radical view of consciousness – as the ground of all Being, in which both subjective and objective reality come into existence (Deepak Chopra) – has revolutionized the way we see the world around us. Quantum theory has established that consciousness creates reality. Consciousness is not an ultimate result of brain complexities, as most brain scientists assume, but rather is that which creates the universe. Hence, the whole concept of life is undergoing a paradigm shift. Though it may be difficult to believe, it is gaining ground day by day among scientists. If this is so then life has a purpose, or purposes, and we are here not because we were “spun out” by the universe; rather, the universe is here because of us – i.e. consciousness.
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ij 4 Our lives are becoming more and more complex and noticeably interconnected. Societies are far more intertwined, simultaneously challenged by many social and environmental crises. Though they may seem regressive if seen locally and over a short period of time, these changes are undoubtedly progressive. Humanity is growing in stages. According to Dr. Clare W. Graves, an American professor of psychology, humanity is indeed making a momentous leap in consciousness. He described human development as progressive movement upwards through increasingly complex stages. This upward movement is an adaptive response to our changing life conditions. Based on Dr. Graves’s research, the evidence suggests that we are approaching a time of significant and rapid global changes, especially due to the internet and environmental movements. The way humanity is shrinking and connecting, it will eventually emerge as one global tribe (“global village�), a new level of existence facilitated by novel bio-psycho-social coping systems to address existential problems and bring harmony.
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IJ 5 Scientific studies show that humanity is still evolving, and obviously it’s towards a superior race as evolution is always progressive. The majority of changes that we see around us are eventually for the betterment of our life as well as for society as a whole. Neale Donald Walsch, in his When Everything Changes, Change Everything, argues that life can fundamentally change in only one direction: the direction that evolution requires, the direction that expansion demands, the direction that keeps it flourishing. Our collective goal should be towards greater self-consciousness and moral responsibility; love for goodness and beauty will naturally follow. We must discover our self and search for the meaning and purpose of life. In this way, our collective consciousness can evolve for betterment of whole mankind.
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EF 6 The fear of our prehistoric forebears has been passed along to us, and is still prevalent in the modern-day world. That fear remains deeply imbedded in man’s collective psyche. Universal fear is the pattern that runs deeply in the fabric of our collective consciousness, and may be described as our core. The collective unconscious is a term coined by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung to describe the inherited repository of human’s past experiences, preserved and shared in the unconscious mind of each one of us. The inherent fear prevailing in the mind of prehistoric man has been stored in the collective unconscious of modern human beings. However, there has been a gradual, sometimes noticeable, shift in the collective unconsciousness from fear dominated to that of love. Though difficult to observe but studies confirm. Fear will not die easily from human psyche but once love moves forward; fear will automatically and slowly retreat.
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ab 7 Studies have shown that even if a small percentage of the population achieves peace among themselves, it is reflected in the world around them. However, the problem is that most of these people are isolated and their influence is limited to themselves, while those indulging in aggression and crime against fellow beings have a far greater influence/ effect over others. Even Maharishi Mahesh Yogi postulated that the quality of life, harmony and order in society would be noticeably improved if only square root of 1 percent of the population practiced the Transcendental Meditation-Sidhi Programme. This is known as “Maharishi Effect�. When peace-loving and spiritual people become a critical mass of the entire population, we witness a tipping point (the levels at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable) whence we may start to see the fundamental change in our collective mind-set/consciousness.
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8 There has been a discernable correlation between collective global consciousness and the physical world, especially during extraordinary human events. Experiments by Global Consciousness Project have shown that human consciousness can make a string of random numbers appear in a slightly less random – or rather, more orderly way when people hold common intentions to do so, or when there is a special state of coherent group consciousness. In other words, our minds can organize the physical world at a quantum level. In this way, from individual atoms to individual brains to groups of brains emerges global brain, or global consciousness. Now, if consciousness is indeed universal and omnipresent, then everything that exists in the universe may ultimately be interconnected and unified through consciousness.
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9 Undoubtedly, overall violence has declined over the centuries due to a sharp drop in genocides, wars, tortures, superstitious and sacrificial killings, etc. but individual crime and violence against fellow humans has not shown any downward trend. This may appear to be comparatively the most peaceful era in the recorded history; though the basic human impulses including violence and cruelty are still deeply imbedded in our collective psyche. However, thanks to our “better angels” governing self-control, capacity for empathy, ability to reason, and the moral sense residing deep inside our psyche ( Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature), these violent impulses are increasingly held in check as more and more people are applying reason, logic, and rationality in human affairs. This may be true at the global level and in the long run, but in our contemporary times, in many parts of the globe, there seems to be a spurt in aggression, crime and violence as humans are increasingly becoming insecure and intolerant.
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ij 10 Some evolutionary psychologists, on the one hand, think that there have been a few noticeable changes in the brain and physical body of humans over 50,000 years of their evolution, while scientists on the other hand are establishing progressive changes in human consciousness. The Indian sage Sri Aurobindo sees evolution primarily as an ongoing emergence of consciousness and holds that the human mind is much too imperfect a vehicle to be the final abode of nature, and that just as life developed out of matter, and mind out of life, a still higher form of consciousness is bound to develop out of the mind. Similarly, Ervin Laszlo, a famous Hungarian philosopher of science, advocates humans moving from ego-bound and sense-organ-limited consciousness to a wider transpersonal consciousness as they become aware of their deep and integral ties to one another, to the biosphere, and to the cosmos.
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IJ 11 Both, good and evil, are deeply ingrained in the collective human mind. Are we, as many believe, fundamentally good, but somehow our goodness is contaminated by evil? Or do we have an inherent tendency towards being evil, which is overshadowed by goodness? Philosopher and naturalist Francis Bacon (1561-1626) expressed that “the inclination to goodness is imprinted deeply in the nature of man …It is our uniqueness as a species, coupled with our fundamental character of goodness, that opens the door for the message in our cells to seed real and lasting change in our lives.” Abraham Maslow, one of the greatest psychologists of the twentieth century, believed that “people are all decent underneath.” His unwavering faith in our goodness remained through the last days of his life, when he wrote that humankind “has a higher nature” as part of our essence, and our species can be “wonderful out of their own human and biological nature.”
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EF 12 Is man inherently good and evilness is an aberration? – we have been debating this question for millennia. Human nature is an extremely complex issue, as it is intricately linked with many psycho-social factors. Undoubtedly, most of us fall in between the extremes of goodness and evilness. Generally, brutality and cruelty in man’s behaviour is primarily due to genetic aberrations and/or environmental factors such as an abusive childhood. However, because the goodness in human beings emerges when we are connected – when we share and spread empathy and compassion with one another – goodness expresses something fundamental about human nature, even if it might be sometimes difficult to see. On the other hand, Evilness emerges only when we are broken off into disconnected fragments. (The Real Meaning of Good and Evil, posted by Steve Taylor in Psychology Today)
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nm CHAPTER 4
Humanity on the Materialistic Path Insecurity and fear lead to accumulation of material things‌.. This is what is happening in this mechanistic and Newtonian world, where man’s spiritual nature has been overshadowed by his own strong urge to become secure and successful by all means in life.
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ab 1 Until around 1543, people had been thinking themselves to be at the centre of the universe, God’s beloved offspring, living under the mantle of his protective care. Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) then published his heliocentric model, proving that the sun and not the Earth is at the centre of our solar system. Since then, as scientific discoveries are made, one after the other, man’s self-image has gradually devalued. One of the biggest shocks came when Charles Darwin (1809-1882) postulated his theory of evolution. To many, it was unthinkable...! Man, a descendent of the lowly ape! Man, competitor in a pitiless game of “survival of the fittest!” Cosmologists finally turned poetical, declaring that “we are stardust.” As is true of all other living beings, most of the elements in our body were made in the centre of stars through fusion. Many scientists have gone as far as to say that what we revere as life is “just” the property of a handful of chemicals and RNA, with DNA holding pride of place among them. This eventually leads to a mechanistic perspective of man’s existence.
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2 Just as the biggest hurdle to individual spiritual growth is our deeply embedded sense of separateness – wherein the “I” is regarded as completely separate from the “I” of all others – similarly the mankind suffer from the delusive sense of separateness from the biosphere/natural world. This fundamental sense of alienation, which is at the root of ignorance and suffering in our personal life, is also making mankind suffer from global climate changes. Until rather recently, we had no idea we were so deeply and intimately connected to Mother Nature. Instead, humanity has been obsessed with “exploiting” and “conquering” her for its own narrow interests. An interesting scientific study conducted by economists at Princeton and the University of California, Berkeley, has linked worldwide violence and human conflicts with global climate changes. Therefore, like the self, human civilization and the ecosystems that sustain it are all affected by this fundamental delusion. (Awakening from the Illusion of Our Separateness posted by David Loy).
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3 In this modern world, the traditional concept of Soul/Atman and the spiritual nature of man have taken a backseat, while materialistic views have become the foundation for every field of study and endeavour, from the humanities to the medical sciences and biology. Consequently, we have paid heavily for many misconceived and misplaced notions and remedies provided by scientific interventions, which were primarily based on mechanistic concepts and theories. In our lifetime, too much emphasis has been placed on the accumulation of material things, leading to material riches but spiritual starvation. This world has suffered deeply from the denial of man’s own spiritual nature.
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ij 4 What has happened to man’s nature and behaviour, and why is it that man with such enormous capability to think and act rationally and intelligently is becoming more aggressive and hostile towards others? Why are we losing touch with the Inner Self, and how can there be so much ignorance of love, compassion, and care for our fellow beings? Something has gone terribly wrong in the way we feel, think and act. These questions can’t be easily answered! However, I feel that one of the most important reasons is that man has followed by and large a materialistic way of life. With the advance of civilization, most of us haven’t adopted spirituality as an essential ingredient of life and some where we have lost touch with our inherent spiritual nature. This view is reinforced by the fact that most societal problems which existed before the rise of materialism have gradually worsened through the application of materialistic solutions.
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IJ 5 Despite the fact that suffering, discontentment, and violence have become integral themes in our everyday lives, there is scant recognition that we need to amend the way we think and live. Very few sufferers make serious efforts to de-condition the beliefs that cause their ailments. Why do we cling to the ways and beliefs that inhibit our lives? Nearly a century has passed since we discovered quantum mechanics, which reinforced the ancient belief that the physical world surrounding us is interconnected at the deepest level, and that we humans are fundamentally linked with all other humans (and trees, animals, rocks, etc.). However, we never teach this essential finding to our children because we ourselves are not quite convinced of it. Most still believe what they see – Seeing is believing – and not what the actual reality is. And the result is that we quite often feel alone and isolated, a lonely individual, among more than seven billion other isolated beings! Unless we change our ways, physical and mental maladies because of materialistic style of living will continue to make humanity suffer.
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EF 6 The biggest problem of mankind arises from the deep-rooted feeling of being separate from one another. We feel we are single, discrete entities, unrelated – except, perhaps, by blood – to others and not connected, even at the deepest level. From antiquity, we have been taught that this is so, and experience seemed to bear it out. This view, which is reinforced every day as we watch the evening news or simply observe activity in our own little sphere, is deeply ingrained in the collective human psyche. During Vedic times, there were many strong believers of interconnectedness at the most fundamental level but gradually man’s faith shifted to materialism. Unless humanity has a strong sense of its inseparability and interconnectedness, man’s inhumanity to man will continue unabated.
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ab 7 We entered this world with clenched hands, and will eventually leave it with empty hands. However, we keep on accumulating wealth and other worldly comforts as if we are not going to die at all. This universal delusion has led to the domination of materialistic life. It’s a world view based on Newtonian views, and permeates every aspect of our lives. It assumes that the world is indifferent and mechanical, with no place for soul and spirit. Many of those who believe they are following religious paths do so without love and compassion for those who need them the most. Too many have lost touch with goodness and nature’s beauty. Man suffers himself and makes others suffer too, while journeying on this seemingly unholy path. We behave as if we own the world and the nature, in all its expressions. We believe that we are the centre of the universe.
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8 Man has an extremely limited capacity to see and perceive the true reality of the world around him. Indeed, no two individuals interpret the world in exactly the same way due to their unique genetic endowment, and the socio-cultural environment in which they grew. Complicating matters further, the fear, insecurity, and anxiety has also been deeply embedded in the collective psyche since the protohuman stage. Worst of all, majority of humanity had left spiritual and holistic way of life when we adopted the reductionist ways of the post-Newtonian era, around 300 years back. However, with gradual recognition of spiritual ignorance, we have now cautiously started looking to a new way of life in the embrace of spiritual values and practices, which we left centuries back.
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9 Since everything in this world is continuously changing, our derived sense of identity, the ego, most of the time feels insecure. Striving hard to elevate or simply maintain its status/state, our ego is therefore responsible for most of our “self-centred” behaviour and the resultant frustration and suffering in life. Over and above, universal fear is the current that runs deeply through our collective psyche and it, most of the time, rules our emotions and behaviour. Insecurity and fear lead to accumulation of material things, besides, struggling hard for power, status and authority in the society. By doing so, we become more insecure and anxious to maintain and further expand what we have acquired in life. Rather than feeling secured and contended, we suffer more as we are trapped more into that vicious cycle. This is what is happening in this mechanistic and Newtonian world, where man’s spiritual nature has been overshadowed by his own strong urge to become secure and successful by all means in life.
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ij 10 At the most basic level, humans tend to be insecure and anxious in the world, almost totally cut off from the inner source of their being. To handle this inherent weakness, we have become unconscious, and pushed the reality of our insecurity far into the background. By creating a rich culture with lots of activity and diversions (James Redfield, The Celestine Vision), the problem goes largely unnoticed. To overcome the insecurity problem, we started “playing games� with one another to gauge and take advantage of energy levels; hence conflict and aggression arose in many of our interactions. In this way, we gravitate towards conflict and struggle, the essential ingredients of materialistic life rather than recognition and delight in our eternal and spiritual nature.
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IJ 11 Thanks to the media, regardless of how sheltered we may be, we are all accustomed to watching frightful examples of man’s inhumanity to man, including rapes and murders. But very conveniently these horrendous incidents/events tend to fade from consciousness within a short span of time. We behave as if nothing has happened. It seems we are hardwired and armoured to think and behave indifferently, cynically, and shallowly. Recent science shows that the underlying culprit seems to be envy (Why Are Humans So Cruel? posted by Michael Shammas). As f-MRI scans show that our mind’s reward centres get all fired up when people we envy suffer misfortune. The resulting ugly elation is expressed in feelings of so-called “damage-joy”. The essential qualities like empathy, compassion, and concern for the wellbeing of others that make us truly humane are becoming uncommon in our routine life. Is this self-centredness and indifference towards others a product of materialistic and mechanistic living? Is there no role for man’s divine nature? These questions need to be pondered, not answered.
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EF 12 Though surprising but it’s true that human killings have declined in the long run, as empirical data confirms. After 41 homicides per 100,000 people per year in the 15th century, the murder rate has steadily dropped in every subsequent century, to 21.9, 11, 3.2, 2.6, and finally 1.4 in the 20th century. But that’s primarily due to the drastic decrease in genocide, political assassinations, and wars between nations. As far as individual crimes are concerned, there has been hardly any improvement in many parts of the world. In fact, in certain parts, crime and violence has decreased considerably. Human consciousness simply has not grown, and most of us are still carrying a primitive mind which naturally tends to be envious, intolerant and selfish and we inflict harm on others whenever challenges to one’s ego arise. Due to these tendencies, anger, hatred and rage towards those who seem to be beyond the “circle of us” and individual crime and inhumanity are still prevalent and persist in modern societies.
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ab 13 The world is in a state of crises. Mankind is currently passing through the worst period and the crises are on various fronts. Something is wrong around here. Something fundamentally wrong! Centuries of our best and the brightest efforts to create a better world have failed or even backfired in certain areas. As this realization sinks in, we respond with despair, cynicism, numbness or detachment (Charles Eisenstein, The Ascent of Humanity). The root cause of all crises is primarily the denial of human nature. We have denied ourselves as other than what we are, as separate from each other and separate from the nature and the world around us. Charles Eisenstein identifies the root cause – it’s the humanity’s separation from nature and our individual alienation from self, spirit and nature. The only solution which we can see is to transform the way we think and look on our fellow beings and Mother Nature.
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14 Humanity is growing lopsidedly. Growth is not balanced. Progress in science and technology is not seeing a corresponding rise in reason and rational thinking. Technological advances have made life far more comfortable, secure, and easy going. However, because ways of thinking have remained more or less static, man’s suffering has not abated. Fundamentally, we feel more alienated and separate from our fellow beings. Albert Einstein has eloquently remarked that, “We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of our consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” Unless we change the way we think about our fellow beings, humanity will continue to suffer.
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15 If we ask any cosmologist about the origin of the atoms and molecules which are the fundamental particles of the human body, she or he will explain how we are, in a sense, stardust. These very atoms were formed in the womb of stars through chemical reactions billions of years ago. Initially the stars were nothing but hydrogen, but as gravity compressed hydrogen in the core, other elements like helium, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen were formed. Our bodies are therefore nothing but part of the cosmos itself. As expressed by Marcelo Gleiser, world-renowned theoretical physicist and author, “If we are bits of star stuff – as is any other aggregation of matter across space – we are one with the cosmos: we are in the cosmos and the cosmos is in us.” We are a product of cosmic evolution, which started with a Big Bang nearly 13.7 billion years ago. Life appears to also be the product of a series of astounding “coincidences.” If this is so, then we have a sense of purpose. We are here for a deeper purpose.
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We are the Architect of our Own Life In a completely revolutionary interpretation of our relationship to the world, we are seen as active contributors to everything that we see, just as the spiritual traditions of the past have advocated. In a sense, our world exists only because we perceive it and create it.
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ab 1 Whatever our mind can conceive, can be achieved in life. We all have a set pattern of inner thoughts and that very pattern affects everything that happens in our life. It is well said that “Once you focus on your aim and are simultaneously willing to take the desired steps, the world will start to unfold for you.” For example, creative visualization is the technique of using one’s imagination to visualize specific behaviours or events occurring in one’s life. It is suggested by many that creating a detailed scheme of what one desires and then visualizing it over and over again can achieve what we desire. In other words, if we focus our mind persistently and create a strong belief about what we want to do or achieve, and start pursuing it by taking the desired steps while learning from occasional mistakes and failures that we experience. Then we can, surely and positively, achieve anything we desire.
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2 Modern scientific studies have confirmed the “Law of Attraction,” which is the main tenet of the New Thought Movement, widely recognized all over the world. It holds to “a holistic world view” emphasising that the mind, body and spirit are interrelated. The central theme is “what you focus on, you attract.” What happens in life is based on what we think is now firmly established. The principles behind quantum physics can be summed up in a quote made by Albert Einstein: “All matter is energy.” Since everything in the physical world is interconnected by invisible energy fields, our intentions and focused thought patterns shape the reality around us. Therefore, when we think about something, energy is created, not only in our bodies but also in our personal space, whereupon that reality unfolds.
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3 Our mind has a vast capacity and ability to change the world around us, but is very often thwarted by its own unwillingness to trust that power. We keep on doubting our ability. Discoveries made in the world of physics brought the quantum realm to life and introduced new perspectives on spirituality, healing and reality. Quantum mechanics has established that we, as observers, have a direct and very real effect on the nature of reality. We do have tremendous capacity to induce changes in our life. However, to manifest those desired changes, we need focused and positive thinking along with sustained attention. We may then witness the results ourselves. In this way, we can become the main author of the events that shape our life.
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ij 4 Generally we lack focused thinking or attention because our average attention span is only 6-10 seconds per minute! That’s why it is so difficult to concentrate on anything, regardless of how attractive it may be to us. The Law of Attraction (we attract whatever thoughts and images we have of ourselves, including our subconscious desires, whether positive or negative) does not discriminate between good and bad thoughts. If mind thinks superficially on routine and ordinary matters, then those thoughts can not create focused attention. Most people assume that they don’t have enough time to attend to anything other than their own immediate needs. They become frustrated and give up when manifestation is long in coming. This is simply because they have not learned to utilize the “Law of Attraction” to work for them and provide the results that they want.
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IJ 5 Recent studies reveals that we always transmit both positive and negative energy, and all those who come in contact with us feel those energy vibrations in subtle ways and respond in kind. Positive people will encourage and support, while negative people will de-motivate and discourage us. We feel good and always look forward to meet and interact such people with pleasing personalities. Becoming a positive person today will help us attract more positive people/energy into our life tomorrow! More so, the universe will always respond to our energy vibrations, so we should transmit only vibrations harmonious with our desires and eager expectations, and not frustrations, discontentment, and other negative feelings.
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EF 6 Watch the thoughts, we experience; they come and go incessantly. If we carefully observe our mind (the consciousness), we see that it is actually a centre of awareness and ground for expressing freedom through choice. We live in an interactive world where thoughts and intentions play a major role in shaping the reality around us. We should realize that each and every thought creates according to its own nature. We can choose those thoughts that will take us where we want to go. We have complete freedom to choose thoughts that reinforce our dreams and ambitions. That is when we start regulating our thought patterns rather than the other way round. This is how we can transform our life by becoming an active participator in an interactive world.
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ab 7 Our thoughts determine our reality. When we stop thinking about what we don’t like and start thinking about what we want to experience and achieve, our lives begin to brighten. Scientific studies have corroborated the active participation of thoughts in creating the reality around us. Gregg Braden in The Spontaneous Healing of Belief (2008), while elaborately explaining the basis of this finding, has concluded that we go through our lives based on what we believe about our world, ourselves, our capabilities, and our limits. Instead of working against our desires and intentions, we should think and act harmoniously with them. Gautama Buddha has rightly said, “All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think, we become.”
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8 All physical reality is made up of vibrations of energy. Likewise, our thoughts too are vibrations of energy. This is the profound reality revealed by science. It explains how our thoughts have such a powerful influence; they actually shape and give substance to what happens to us. Masami Saionji, a Japanese spiritual leader, explains that “each thought, word, and emotion holds a unique vibration. And those having a similar frequency band together to form a creative field. When the energy of a particular creative field accumulates to a critical point, it manifests itself on the visible plane in one way or the other. As a creative field continues to grow in size, it exerts a stronger and stronger influence on people emitting similar thoughts. It therefore affects people’s decisions, behaviour, relationships, and health conditions.”
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9 “We create our own reality,” proclaimed physicist Fred Alan Wolf – and many others in the 1970s. Since then, there has been considerable ground-breaking research in many parts of the world as to how our thoughts and focused attention can affect the physical reality that we perceive all around us. However, a pertinent question arises: If our thoughts can affect physical reality, then why we are not sufficiently aware and able to see the results of this fundamental phenomenon in our lives, and why don’t we use this simple formula to our advantage? The answer lies in the fact that mental focus is, most of the time, generally lacking. Divided attention commonly occurs in everyday life when we pay close attention to more than one task at a time. It is rare for someone to be engaged in just one task; we all are generally engaged in multitasking. That’s why, despite having irrefutable evidence of the Law of Attraction, this fundamental principle is not yet grounded in our belief system.
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ij 10 If we want to transform ourselves, the first thing to do is to attend to the mind. It is the state and health of mind that determine the flavour and flow of life. For beginners, we need to look into thinking pattern. In the mind we experience an incessant stream of thoughts, randomly appearing and evaporating mysteriously. All thoughts are nothing but energy and information at the subatomic level. And this very energy, when focused and infused with intention, becomes mental waves, which have the potential to profoundly affect the world around us. Positive thoughts and emotions are powerful because they strengthen our awareness of connection with God (Brenda Barnaby, Beyond the Secret). In this way, we create the experiences that we envision and expect through our thoughts.
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IJ 11 The universe and the world we experience are made of ever-changing fields of energy, which interact with one another to create the world we perceive. We can describe this as the world of probabilities and possibilities. Quantum mechanics has transformed our conscious role from that of passive observer to active contributor, or the active agent of change through our interactions with energy fields throughout the universe. All the properties that create reality are contextual; they depend on the acts of observation. Quantum theory has opened the door to a noetic, mind-based universe. Reality, we would infer, is mind-based (Deepak Chopra, Menas Kafatos, and Rudolph Tanzi, The Mysteries of Reality). In a completely revolutionary interpretation of our relationship to the world, we are seen as active contributors to everything that we see, just as the spiritual traditions of the past have advocated. In a sense, our world exists only because we perceive it and create it.
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EF 12 We humans are much more than simply the “observers” in this physical world and we can directly affect the waves and particles of the universe, as physicists tell us. Gregg Braden, an American author of New Age literature, who has argued that human emotions affect DNA and collective prayer, may have healing physical effects. He further explains that “despite the role played by our DNA, the success of our relationships and the peace of our mind are based on what we believe and the way we think of ourselves. The universe responds to our beliefs. It is this difference in our thinking that make us powerful creators rather than passive observers – that has become the crux of some of the greatest controversies among some of the greatest minds in recent history.” In short, our beliefs have the power to change the course of events in the physical world. Believe it or not, in a participatory reality, we are creating our experiences through our beliefs, as well as experiencing what we have created.
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ab 13 Like all living beings, the universe is conscious and aware of itself, says Deepak Chopra, an Indo-American holistic health/New Age Guru. Recent studies in cosmology and quantum physics reveal this astonishing fact. There is no sound of a tree falling in the forest if we are not there to hear it, quantum studies show. Likewise, there is no universe without us. Stars are there only when we watch them. Therefore, we as observers participate in creating reality. When the observer (consciousness) is not there, there is no reality, because there is no collapse of wave function, and everything is in pure potentiality. Hence, there is no awareness outside of consciousness.
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Mind-Body Intimate Connectivity Mind and body are “two sides of the same coin,”…..what we think and believe has an amazing ability to heal psychosomatic conditions through mind-body interactions.
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ab 1 While hard to believe, it’s true that at least 95% of the human population comes into this world with a perfect genetic blueprint, but over the course of time, these same people develop physical and mental aberrations due to their environmental conditions and inputs. Every cell has receptors on the outside cell membrane and these receptors receive signals/information that then cause changes in the cells. The most important influence of environmental conditions surrounding us comes from thoughts which cause diseases. Negative thoughts and their associated feelings are now known to be at the root of all our ills, from the simple cold to heart attacks, diabetes, and cancer. Psychologists estimate that 70% of our thoughts are negative and redundant. Positive thoughts and perceptions enhance health, while negative thoughts and perceptions lead to illnesses. Today, man’s greatest enemy is his mind, when it is unreins.
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2 The human body is an extremely complex mechanism, with billions of molecules constantly reacting and interacting by way of chemical and other physiological processes. Latest findings suggest that there is, in fact, a tremendous degree of coherence within all living beings. Dr. Kingsley L Dennis, co-founder of WorldShift International, says that “invisible quantum waves are spreading out from each of us and permeating into all other organisms. This incredible new discovery actually positions each living being within a non-local quantum field consisting of wave interferences (where bodies meet). Each person is thus not only in an empathic relationship with each other but is also entangled with one another.” Therefore, a universal Mind/Supreme Consciousness is connecting all of us at the deepest level.
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3 Most of the time in this mechanistic and materialistic world, we rely on our mind rather than heart in making decisions or choices. Very often we ignore our heart’s voice, despite knowing that it is more reliable because it is not based on the self-centeredness and fear of ego. Now science has established a closer relationship between heart and emotions, finding that heart produce by far the body’s most powerful rhythmic electromagnetic field, which can even be detected a few feet away by sensitive instruments. Further, the heart’s energy field is a carrier of emotional information. It comes as no surprise that most of the religious and spiritual traditions have long highlighted the value of experiencing and expressing “feelings of the heart,” such as love, care, compassion, tolerance, and forgiveness.
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ij 4 All of us have an enormous capacity to control our brainwaves and therefore our state of mind. By increasing or slowing down our brainwaves, we can very easily alter how we think, feel, and act. By learning to control the four different brainwave frequencies (alpha, beta, delta and theta), we can improve our state of physical and mental health and, broadly, our overall state of well-being. While waking and sleeping, the brain moves through all four stages. At any given time, there is a range in brainwaves that determines how deeply we have entered into that particular state. By understanding how these states function, we can consciously enter into a particular state and control our thought processes. Therefore, by learning about the deeper states of consciousness, we can open our subconscious mind and create our reality at will, and with precision. This will surely help us in becoming happier and better spiritual beings.
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IJ 5 We humans are basically chemical beings, as millions of chemical reactions are continuously taking place at the cellular level. Our emotions, thoughts, feelings, and all other reactions produce biochemicals in the brain. In addition, every memory has a unique associated feeling and emotion which is produced by a particular chemical or combination of chemicals. Now we know that the brain is both neurologically hardwired and chemically dependent upon our emotions. If our current circumstances or the environment do not permit that chemical balance, then we try to create physically and/ or mentally such a situation so that the particular chemical balance is maintained in the brain. In this way, we become addicted to the chemistry of our usual emotional states or circumstances (Joe Dispenza, Evolve Your Brain]). That’s the reason, we either love to stay or create those emotional states for which we are addicted.
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EF 6 When we are addicted to negative emotions, ironically we feel good under circumstances that provide us those very emotions. To overcome an addiction, first of all we must be aware of those particular emotions that create and drive the addiction. The second step is to consciously make serious efforts to detach ourselves from emotions that the experience creates. Though hard to practice, for a sound mind and body it’s essential to stop the addiction altogether. And it’s far easier to replace an old addiction with a new one, rather than simply overcoming a hardened addiction. Therefore, we should gradually try to replace negative emotions with positive ones through awareness and mindfulness.
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ab 7 When mind is engaged with negative thoughts and emotions, there is a noticeable negative impact on healing; even medicines and other interventions won’t work. This is called the “nocebo effect”, the opposite of the “placebo effect”. Science tells us that positive and negative beliefs impact not only our health and well-being but all other aspects of life as well. There are innumerable instances wherein a patient died due to negative beliefs coupled with fear because they were misdiagnosed by doctors. Similarly, when patients are given just sugar pills or some other placebo, this approach may be equally effective in healing the patients. We have to realize that mind and body are “two sides of the same coin,” and the way we think and feel has tremendous impact on well-being. To summarize, what we think and believe has an amazing ability to heal psychosomatic conditions through mind-body interactions.
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8 We now know that intelligence is not located in the brain/mind but throughout the entire body; the traditional concept of mindbody separation has been thoroughly invalidated. The brain houses various kinds of chemical transmitters, one of which is neuropeptides. According to Dr. Candace Pert, neuropeptides also transmit signals throughout our body. If someone is happy, sad, or disgusted, then certain neuropeptides would carry those particular emotions to every area of the body. These very chemicals connecting emotions and receptors are present in all cells of the body. Dr. Pert concludes that “since neuropeptides (information molecules) and their receptors exist in the body as well, hence the mind is in the body, in the same sense that the mind is in the brain.”
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9 Although we come into this world with genetically predetermined body, yet we have enormous potential to change our thinking, behaviour, and actions through the working of neuroplasticity (changes in neural pathways and synapses which are due to changes in behaviour, environment, etc.) in the brain. The mind can change the structure of the brain. When we use awareness to intensively focus on anything, we not only change the function of the brain, we change its structure. In fact, when we practice meditation or awareness techniques or focused attention, the brain is re-wiring itself. In other words, our brain is plastic and we have the power to mould it structurally and functionally. However, since most of us tend to stay in our own “comfort zone,” we generally don’t tap this enormous power of our brain.
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ij 10 According to neuroscientists, when we think about love and compassion for others, or God as a benevolent force, a tiny area in the front part of the brain (prefrontal cortex) called Anterior Cingulate Cortex is stimulated. Andrew Newberg and Mark Waldman in How God Changes Your Brain (2010) suggested that this part also helps in generating feelings of empathy toward others who are suffering or hurt and moreover, that this is the true “heart� of our neurological soul. When this part of the brain is activated, we feel greater tolerance and acceptance toward those who hold different beliefs. This part can be strengthened by meditation and other spiritual exercises. In this way, love, compassion, concern, and tolerance for others are all hardwired in our brain. God resides within each one of us.
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IJ 11 Believe it or not, our physical body is the product of our thoughts and emotions. The nature of thoughts, feelings, and emotions determines the majority of physiological functions in our bodies. The mind-body relationship is so deep and intimate that our way of thinking has direct bearing on our mental-physical body. The majority of lifestyle diseases and ailments result from stress, tension, and negativity of our thought processes. On the other hand, positivity usually results in sound health. The placebo and nocebo effects of medicine are further examples of the mind-body connection. Even a single negative thought pattern can generate, if unchecked, enough stress to lead to illness. Conversely, love, gratitude, and forgiveness can dissolve all the negativity accumulated over a lifetime.
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EF 12 New discoveries are showing that beliefs have a powerful effect on our mind-body. In fact, faith, science, and spirituality all eventually merge on a common ground. For example, if patients have merely strong belief in the medicine or the doctor, they can be cured with a sugar pill (placebo effect). Though surprising but it’s true that nearly one third of patients get cured only through this effect. While lifeaffirming beliefs can heal us, negative beliefs from shock and trauma can hurt us as well (Gregg Braden, The Spontaneous Healing of Belief). The belief that a treatment will not work plays a significant role in the outcome of the treatment. We must therefore accept the power of belief to shape our life.
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ab 13 Pain – especially physical pain – is a mechanism that fits very well in the theory of natural selection and survival of the fittest. Had there been no pain system in the human body and brain, life expectancy would have been far shorter. Physical pain is actually a necessary condition for human survival. Evolutionary biologist and outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins concludes that physical pain, like everything else about life, is a Darwinian device which functions to improve the sufferer’s survival. Pain motivates the individual to withdraw from damaging situations, to protect a damaged body part while it heals, and to avoid similar experiences in the future. The brain has a built-in mechanism that commands: “If you experience the sensation of pain, stop whatever you are doing and don’t do it again.”
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The Way We Think Like universal laws of physical world, there is law of the mind – as the mind thinks, so we become. As we think, so we live.
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ab 1 We are, most of the time, totally identified with our mind and thoughts. On those moments we are completely lost in our incessant thought process. Thoughts arise from nowhere and disappear on their own, liked popped bubbles. Observe carefully and you will realize that you are not your mind. Subconscious thoughts become conscious when awareness arises. As long as we are not consciously aware, we lose the capacity to control our mind. Uncontrolled, the mind is like any other body part, and can be treated whenever disturbances arise. Nothing outside us can cause trouble. If we leave our mind as it is, it will become calm. Awareness is the key to unlock its vast potential for inner peace and eternal bliss.
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2 One of the main causes of human suffering is mindlessness. When mind is in default mode – also known as autopilot – we may be actively engaged in several activities but unaware of any of them. We simply don’t pay much attention to what’s going on around and within us. Lack of mindfulness makes us likely to react in ways that are mostly habitual and somewhat mechanistic. This state is extremely common. On the other hand, when we live with mindfulness, we can experience the world directly, as it actually is. This condition, in turn, frees us from the past, our hardened habits and expectations. We respond appropriately to events as they are. All our senses become alive when we live in the present. Mindfulness is not difficult, but the problem is that we don’t remember to be mindful. Practice invariably serves to remind us about being mindful.
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3 Our consciousness is, at its root, an ever-moving and jumping from one perception, feeling, and thought to another. We can never hold it still or focus it on a single point for long. Like the quantum world at the subatomic level, the more we try to hold our consciousness on a fixed point, the greater the uncertainty we feel. So when we focus and narrow our consciousness to a single point, it is all the more likely to suddenly jump with a great rush of energy to some seemingly unrelated aspect of our inner life. We all have such experiences throughout the day. We try to focus our mind on some problem only to suddenly experience a shift to some other domain in ourselves, wherein another image or emotional current intrudes and then vanishes again.
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ij 4 The mysterious and intricate structure of mind, as well as how it functions, has been a puzzling phenomenon for scientists and philosophers since ancient times. All conceivable thoughts that can potentially appear in mind are merely waves of possibility, and when the wave of any thought is collapsed by consciousness, then that particular thought appears in mind (actuality). Hence, mind is a perpetual event in which thoughts appear and disappear in an infinite progression. Because of this, the mind engages us in a continuous streams of thoughts which consciousness attends to so closely that it fails to acknowledge itself. The beauty lies in the mindfulness/stillness of Inner Self; through it, we can switch off the incessant flow of data by using thoughts from the core consciousness.
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IJ 5 Modern science has established that meditation has a very profound basis in quantum physics. Fred Alan Wolf in The Yoga of Time Travel explains that conscious life consists of patterns of focused and unfocused activities, and that these patterns give rise to the ego or body-mind, which evolutionarily arose as a mechanism for survival. Through meditation we learn how and when to focus and unfocus our mind. When we focus or unfocus, we gain or lose control over our body and our environment and learn how and to what extent we can manipulate them. By “unfocusing� in the act of meditation, we can surrender or dissolve our ego by keeping mind/consciousness unaware of our own mind-body throughout this period.
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EF 6 There is one physical world here on earth but with billions of different internal worlds (minds). We are all in our own private theatres, witnessing entirely different shows, yet we behave as if we are in the same audience, watching the very same event we call life (Why Our Thoughts Are Not Real posted by Rev. Nancy Colier). Thoughts just appear in the mind; we don’t choose them. We have no idea, how these thoughts appear, when we are not conscious of ongoing thought process. We only know when they appear in our awareness. Thoughts become real when we give them our attention; otherwise they are nothing and nowhere. Hence, through awareness, we can choose thoughts by paying attention.
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ab 7 Life is inherently good – however, choice is our whether we want to live in “heaven” or “hell ”. Many good people and pleasant things are always around us and the mind has a tremendous ability to make us all feel peaceful and produce any amount of contentment. Like universal laws of physical world, there is law of the mind, that is, as the mind thinks, so we become. As we think, so we live. If we nourish our mind with good thoughts and positive emotions we can experience amazing satisfaction and goodness in us. We don’t need an outside agent, with mindfulness awareness we can ourselves practice it. Man is great, so as its mind and surrounding nature.
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8 Man is inherently imperfect, his decision-making mostly flawed. First, mind is usually in a big rush to make decisions and leap to conclusions based on imperfect and incomplete information. Second, our thinking process or cognitive system is far from perfect, despite the beauty and the wonder of a brain that seems “fully loaded” – with roughly 100 billion neurons, each with 10,000 to 100,000 dendrites/branches that form synaptic connections with other neurons, generating computational power of trillions of operations per second. There are many known cognitive biases and fallacies, such as mob mentality, gambler’s fallacy, halo effect and placebo effect that distort our thinking process. So we are bound to commit errors in judgement and make mistakes. When we err, as we inevitably will, and then own responsibility, all sorts of problems may be experienced. A simple realization, that we are not the owner and author of outcomes from decisions that we make, can help us in better understanding of life’s intricate ways.
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9 That the brain is elastic and constantly changing has been established by neuroscience. Simple thinking can affect not only the way our brain works but also its shape. This we can clearly see in f-MRI. Whenever we think, act, or behave, various brain areas get excited and “light up” due to neural firing. Each and every thought we experience changes the structure and function of our brain at the micro level by altering the neural connections. Even imagination can produce structural changes in neural pathways. Therefore, mental exercise, such as practicing the piano or guitar and solving crossword puzzles, can effect changes in the brain. In one experiment, researchers found that simply imagining doing a physical exercise also increases muscle strength, because the neurons responsible for the activation of movement are still being used and strengthened. Dr. Andrew Newberg believes, “There is a coevolution of spirituality and consciousness, engaging circuits that allow us to envision a benevolent, interconnecting relationship between the universe, God, and ourselves.”
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Mind’s In-built Tendency towards Negativity Silent and impersonal observation of mind, without making judgements, is the key to inner stillness by countering the negative tendency of mind.
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ab 1 We are all hard-wired to notice, register and remember negative experiences more quickly and deeply than positive ones, this has been established by neuroscientists in their recent research. Neuropsychologist Rick Hanson refers to this as “the brain’s negativity bias.” The human nervous system, he says, scans for, reacts to, stores and recalls negative information about oneself and one’s world. We have been evolved to be fearful since pre-human era. We were very vulnerable to being frightened and intimidated by threats during that period. Over the millennia, our mind somehow couldn’t adapt to newly civilized conditions and same reptilian brain (we have the same parts of the brain found in reptiles, namely the brain stem and the cerebellum) is conditioned to react the way we all experience. The best way to address the problem of brain’s negativity bias is to make use of intention and attention in a sustained and focused manner. By doing so, we can do much to overcome this inherent aberration of our mind.
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2 We all suffer and deplete our energies with wasteful and negative thoughts. Interestingly, as high as 80% of these thoughts are repetitive from previous days. Many of these thoughts are inconsistent. The mind mostly wanders aimlessly and randomly. Further, most of these redundant thoughts are perceptions, attitudes, beliefs, and opinions about one’s own life and that of others. It is therefore critical to our health and well-being that we shift our mind’s energy to positive, lifegenerating thoughts, and eliminate the ever-present and debilitating negative thoughts (Dr. Bruce Lipton, The Biology of Belief). Aided by the regular practice of yoga, meditation, and prayer we can neutralize this very basic nature of mind by creating positive patterns of thoughts, leading to stillness in mind.
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3 We have in-built pessimistic attitude, that is why our mind generally relishes thoughts pertaining to negative or sensationalistic events/ moments which “spark up” our routine life. This gives rise to the most troublesome feature of mind. The reasons go back to prehistoric times when man was living a fearful and dangerous life owing to the ever impending threat of violent animals. The same fear and anxiety, which is deeply embedded in the limbic system/amygdala of our brain, rule our individual and collective psyche, giving rise to the inherent tendency of negativity in us.
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ij 4 Because of this inherent tendency towards negativity, the mind is kept busy thinking about negative events/moments of not only our own experience but also those of others. Under stress, the more we try to suppress negative thoughts by not allowing them to surface, the more of these very thoughts surface again and again (this is described in a theory of ‘ironic processes of mental control’)This is considered the worst feature of mind, almost impossible to control. This very nature of mind leads to almost all the lifestyle diseases, including heart ailments, diabetes, and cancer, via the intimate mind-body connection. Fear, expressed as insecurity and anxiety, is the by-product of mind’s basic inclination towards negativeness. Silent and impersonal observation of mind, without making judgements, is the key to inner stillness by countering the negative tendency of mind.
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IJ 5 We all possess enormous goodness in us. However, because of our mind’s in-built negative sensitivity, this goodness is very often overshadowed by negative thoughts and experiences/memories. If we can stop reacting to the actions and behaviour of others and if we can be free from our previous unpleasant memories then certainly the flow of those negative thoughts into our mind can be minimized. We should therefore consciously look for experiences that will build positivity by erasing the unpleasant and negative thoughts stored in the mind while suppressing the tendency of mind (through awareness and be present on the moment) to enjoy negativism. This can surely lead to serene and pleasant mind.
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EF 6 Life is inherently good and provides an ocean of potentialities from which to learn and grow. However, since our mind is inclined towards unpleasant thoughts, we keep on reinforcing by repeatedly recalling them. If our thoughts, even subconscious thoughts, are constantly focused on negative emotions and beliefs, then we have essentially erected a barrier between ourselves and the abundance of possibilities lying before us. To dissolve this barrier, we should deliberately need to look for positive experiences to counter that stored negativity in us. Once we start becoming aware and are able to gradually control this in-built mechanism/habit of mind (through spiritual practices like meditation and prayer), we will begin to harness many of those opportunities otherwise being overlooked by us.
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ab 7 We now know that everything at the most fundamental level of reality is energy, and that there is a constant exchange of energy all the time with others. All humans are nothing but bundles of quantum energy, which is constantly pulsating and vibrating. Whenever we are charged with negative energy through anger, hatred, aggression, fear, etc. to this unified field, we get back more and more negative energy. The negativity we feel and experience is in fact the negativity we are giving back to this universe in one way or the other. Likewise, the reverse is true for positivism. Since everything exists as part of a pair system, each aspect is created to relate to the other. This occurs through giving and taking, both in human society as well as in the natural world.
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8 Believe me, 80-90% of what we fear (will happen) never happens in life. We are genetically hardwired to take things too seriously, especially when it’s adverse or negative in nature. Our mind somehow is ultrasensitive and heavily inclined towards negativity. Even on the smallest possibility for any incident/event to happen, mind makes us alert (no doubt a good feature) but the mind will magnify that threat perception beyond proportion and in the process makes us suffer. Then comes the worst feature of mind, the more we suppress that negative thought, more forcefully that thought will reappear (ironic process). What immediately required is to counter that fear/thought(s) with positive thoughts after realistic assessment of the situation. Mere realization and awareness of mind’s tendency can make our life far more simple and peaceful and relieve us from such incidences to a great extent.
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9 Our brain is supersensitive to negative and unpleasant news and events that take place around us. Our capacity to weigh negative inputs is extremely high compared to positive ones. In fact, what really separates contented couples from those in deep marital misery is a healthy balance between their positive and negative feelings and actions toward each other’s. (Hara Estroff Marano, Our Brain’s Negative Bias) Researchers have found that a very specific ratio exists between the amount of positivity and negativity required to make married life satisfying to both partners. That magic ratio is five to one. As long as there were five times as much positive feelings and interaction between husband and wife compared to the negative one, the marriage was likely to be stable over a period of time. It’s the frequency of small positive acts that matters most to tip the scales towards happiness.
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Untapped Potential of our Unconscious Mind The unconscious mind, over which we would appear to have very little control, plays a leading role in making choices at crucial moments, which could, in turn, change the course of life.
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ab 1 Most of us are, in a way partially, conscious by leading a routine and repetitive life. Our untrained minds and tendency to react to mostly unconscious and conditioned responses force us to live within that comfort zone throughout our life. We hardly try to come out from that secured though repetitive life. In that case, we would never be able to know the loss of not venturing out from that zone. How can we know about the road on which we have not journeyed? Some of the philosophers and thinkers such as George Gurdjieff, an influential Russian spiritual teacher, have gone to the extent of saying that we are effectively “asleep,” – unaware of reality while totally engrossed in our routine affairs.
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2 We are generally in our “default stage” when mind is totally absorbed in internal dialogues. That’s unconscious stage and brain is too busy in its own thinking and we are not consciously aware of that stage. It’s more or less a sleeping stage. Ego is working incessantly with its main driving parts i.e. emotions, desires and fears. However, when we meditate, internal dialogues stops and we come out from the default stage. Thoughts along with associated emotions backtrack and we push the brain into a quite space so that our mind becomes serene and quite. This amounts to what Deepak Chopra called “rebooting your brain” and you are allowing your brain to blossom into what many would argue is the next stage of evolution for the brain as it ties to mind (Tanzi with Deepak Chopra in Youtube).
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3 When we are not aware, most of our thoughts and actions are impulsive and automatic, as we don’t make conscious choices. Later on, however, our mind invents an explanation for our feelings and behaviour, convincing us that we were logically and rationally justified and in total control right all along. This is called backwards rationalization. It’s an unconscious defence mechanism in which perceived controversial behaviour or feelings are logically justified and explained in a rational or logical manner in order to avoid any true explanation (Wikipedia). In a way, it’s our way of “making excuses” for irrational or extremely selfish behaviour. Hence, even after committing an obviously wrongful act, we strongly support our actions and feelings, to ourselves as well as to others. Very common indeed!
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ij 4 Why and how do we think the way we do? We are mostly unaware that most of the decisions (about 90%) we take or the way we behave are done by our unconscious mind, though the ownership is solely ours. Our minds are designed to automate as much as possible in our lives. The result is that we make decisions and take actions based on our mind-ware programs, the software that runs our brains (Why Neuroscience Matters to You posted by Bebel Brown). We create this programming based on our past experiences, beliefs and backgrounds. Though there are many other programs that drive our lives but this one has the most important impact on our actions and behaviour. Life really is all in our minds, but ironically we have no control on its major (subconscious) part.
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IJ 5 Destiny is not a matter of chance but the outcome of our choices and decisions, especially at pivotal moments of our life. Destiny is not a thing that comes to us automatically, but is rather the outcome of crucial choices/decisions we have made in the past. It is now recognized that the subconscious mind is bigger and faster than the conscious mind, and can account for as much as 90% of our activities/ decisions each day. According to Cell Biologist Dr. Bruce Lipton, the subconscious operates 500,000 times faster than the conscious mind. To whatever extent our decisions are made by the subconscious mind, we are not responsible for them and the events they lead to. The unconscious mind, over which we would appear to have very little control, plays a leading role in making choices at crucial moments, which could, in turn, change the course of life.
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EF 6 Quite often we act irrationally and feel as if we mislead ourselves regardless of how smart and intelligent we are. However, later on, we justify those actions or behaviour though those were not our conscious acts. This is due to fact that people are governed by what Sigmund Freud called irrational and unconscious urges. Our subconscious mind is larger and much faster than the conscious mind. We become conscious of such acts or decisions very late but we think we took those decisions. That’s why we later justify those acts. In fact, we have an “interpreter module” in left hemisphere of our brain which creates an explanation and provides the story line and narrative, and we all believe we are agents of our own free will, making important choices (Who’s in Charge posted by Michael Gazzaniga). It’s all an illusion that we act consciously though very often we are a not party/agent to those decisions.
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ab 7 Are we undermining our personal responsibility when we say that subconscious mind plays a leading and pivotal role in our decisionmaking process. If subconscious mind is so powerful and dominant shaping our life’s events and experiences, how far we can blame it. Occasionally we take shelter of this argument in view of existing criminal/ judicial system. C.S. Lewis, an Irish literary critic in Abolition of Man has argued that “ever since sin entered the world, human beings have sought excuses for their behaviour but materialism handed us an inexhaustible supply of excuses. No matter what we do, it can be attributed to a cause other than our own choices: our social environment, subconscious drives or brain chemistry.” Any decision or action we take irrespective of conscious or unconscious choice can be significant enough in shaping our destiny.
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Why Carry Emotional Baggage? If instead of living in the present we carry the burdensome baggage of past negativities/ unpleasant memories and recall them frequently, then hell is automatically created by us.
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ab 1 For those who remain totally entangled in old and habitual patterns of thought, behaviour, reaction, and desire, the future is usually a replica of the past, says Eckhart Tolle. Though superficial changes are possible, real transformation is rare in such people. This very hard conditioning of thought and behaviour seriously hinders growth in the vast majority of population. In such people, thinking and behaviour pattern is repetitive and tend to occur subconsciously. Essentially, habits are developed through frequent repetition and reinforcement. Unless such conditioning is dissolved and people become aware and ready to avail themselves of the opportunities surrounding them, real transformation is unlikely. Through awareness and receptivity, we can successfully address this self-limiting thinking and behaviour.
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2 We all carry our past along life’s journey, but the burden of past negative experiences weighs most heavily in our minds. Rarely do we try to shed that burden of unpleasant memories; rather, we keep on piling more and more mental and emotional baggage. Our personality, which is conditioned by the past, becomes our prison (Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth). This very negative energy becomes the stumbling block to our personal growth. The only way to control or erase such accumulated energy is to practice mindfulness, and be present in the moment whenever this rusted energy is activated. We can surely and gradually unload that excessive baggage.
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3 We all have a past. Most of us must have been wounded mentally from someone or the other in the past. For those events, we carry some kind of emotional baggage that keeps accompanying us. Quite often, when this becomes heavy, it slows down our mental and spiritual growth, especially due to obstructionist and our over-reactive behaviour in our relationships. We have a choice, either we keep on adding weight or make it light. Surely, we can drag our emotional baggage around with us or realize that what’s in the past can stay there and we are free to move forward taking only what we really need and want (Owning Our Emotional Baggage in Relationships posted by Robin Hoffman)
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ij 4 We are the architects of our own personal “hell” as well as “heaven” long before we die. No one else is responsible for their creation. The choice is solely ours. If instead of living in the present we carry the burdensome baggage of past negativities/unpleasant memories and recall them frequently, then hell is automatically created by us. The reverse is true if we wipe out/minimize after effects of painful experiences/events and live afresh, enjoying each day with positivity. The key to handling such past memories of unpleasant experiences is to be aware of them, know them, own them and then overcome them. In brief, awareness is the key to the doors of hell and heaven that we create during our life time.
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IJ 5 Because no one’s life is without sorrow, pain, and suffering, many of us carry those unpleasant memories of past experiences. Whenever we are subjected to emotional drama that resonates with a pain pattern from the past, we strengthen what Eckhart Tolle, one of the most popular spiritual author in A New Earth calls the pain body. It is primarily an old emotional pain living inside us. It is awakened from its dormant state by anger, hatred, grief, jealousy, sadness and many other kinds of emotional triggers. Generally, we become mute spectators when such negativity activates our pain body and “takes over.� The best way to dissolve the pain body is to learn the art of staying in present and being sufficiently aware to lighten the baggage of past negativities and accumulated painful experiences. We need to simply observe it, and be witness, be the space for it. Then gradually, its energy will decrease, as explains by Eckhart Tolle.
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The World of Illusion We deceive ourselves when we think that the reality we see is the true reality. When we lift the veil of illusionary reality, only then do we become aware and realize the true nature of reality.
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ab 1 We humans simply can’t imagine in truer sense the reality of this world/universe. For instance, when we read this statement, we feel that we are stationary, but the earth spins eastward on its axis once daily at a speed of 1040 miles per hour. As the earth orbits the sun, we are being carried along at 70,000 miles per hour. As the sun orbits the Milky Way galaxy, we are moving at 500,000 miles per hour. Imagine further that the earth is situated 27,000 light-years from the centre of the Milky Way galaxy (our galaxy is among approximately 200 billion galaxies in the universe). Do you know, one light-year is six trillion miles? Now we can imagine the place each one of us occupy in the universe. Hence, we all depend on our brain for construction of reality which looks so real and not letting us realize our incapability for knowing the true nature of reality.
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2 We live in a mysterious and intricate world. The more we explore the world; the greater mystery is revealed to us. In the words of Thomas Edison (1847-1931), “We don’t know a millionth of one per cent about anything.” But we are pathetically confident that we know much about everything that happens around us. To know the reality of this world is beyond our current capabilities, as sense perception has a limited capacity, and therefore not reflecting the true nature of reality, and open to as many subjective interpretations as there are minds. Despite those limitations to know the true reality of this world, we very smartly reconstruct our own reality uniquely with scanty information!
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3 Each mind has a unique ability to construct reality out of limited information. In fact, the brains have been designed by evolution not to discover “reality” but to make the best sense they can, at any given time of inputs that are ambiguous, that might in principle be interpreted in any of an infinite number of different ways (Quoted from Brain Stories). That’s why we live in the light of imaginary constructions of reality (by way of informed guesses) leading to a large set of diverse illusions in an organized and systematic way. And somehow we never try to deconstruct this illusionary reality as we are not consciously aware. Hence, there is frustration, dissatisfaction, and therefore mental distress and suffering in life because of many false and inaccurate perceptions and interpretations of reality, we construct and interpret.
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ij 4 “There is no reality except the one contained within us,” said a character in Hermann Hesse’s Demian. “That is why so many people live such an unreal life. They take the images outside them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself.” Inner reality is a reflection of true reality. At their peril, people attempt to reconstruct reality based on those images and events outside of them. Each one of us perceives reality through a barrier/screen of conditioned thoughts, beliefs, and perceptions from past experiences. Hence, everyone may interpret identical circumstances/situations in entirely different ways. We all interpret and distort reality in our own peculiar way, which is very often far from objective reality. In this way, we never allow the world within our mind to reveal itself to its truer sense.
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IJ 5 We have a tremendous capacity to imagine, visualize, and perceive “reality” based on the limited/scanty information that we gather from the generally unreliable outside world. Most of the time, we make no attempt to verify it, but are sure of that “reality” and act accordingly. It’s like defining reality by the tip of an iceberg, while ignoring all that lies beyond our purview. This means that we live in a largely imaginary and illusory state, far from truthful representation of the world around us. This very ignorance of truth generates host of problems and distressful situations eventually leading to suffering in life. Recognition and awareness of this limitation alone is sufficient to overcome its impact on our life.
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EF 6 In this material world, most people cling to their rock-solid notions in perceiving reality, such as that what we perceive as solid, like a chair and a table, are distinct entities, separate from all other things. Secondly, we assume that whatever we perceive through the senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch are real and are not illusions. We further assume that as observers, we have little to no role in creating the reality around us, including whatever takes place beyond the range of our senses. Likewise, there are innumerable hidden assumptions upon whose basis we take for granted what may or may not be possible or true. Most of us are locked into these perceptions without even knowing how we got engulfed with them. When we look deeply and unwaveringly into those rigid notions, we realize how far we live from an objective and true understanding of reality.
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ab 7 Because everyone’s mind has its own selective filter, we perceive the world around us in our own unique way. This filtering apparatus is built in our mind so that we perceive only a partial view, depending upon what we are most drawn to seeing. The selectivity of mind is determined by what one most wants and/or needs to become aware of. Researchers have also established that the brain cannot take in all the information from its surroundings. Instead, it uses partial information as coordinates by which to construct a mental world that includes each one of us. The brain uses this raw data to create a model of the world, and this is the mental world in which we all live. Most often this leads to an erroneous perception of reality because each individual sees the world in a particular way through their own peculiar filtering system. Therefore, each one of us lives in a world which is quite different from that of all others.
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8 Plato’s cave allegory summarises man’s dilemma of relying on his senses for his conception of the world around him. In this famous allegory, Greek philosopher Plato (428-348 B.C.) depicted men as chained prisoners in a cave, their unfortunate condition from birth. And all they could see in this cave was their own shadows on the front cave wall, made possible by a fire burning outside the cave. Unaware of the reality beyond cave walls, the prisoner’s view of shadows cast on the wall was the one and only reality of their world. They were utterly ignorant of the reality existing outside the cave. Plato’s shadows represent our sensory data, beclouded by the sensorial process itself; the men bound in the cave are our essential souls, suffering because of our bonds. We all need to come out from that shadowed world and experience the true reality of this world.
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9 Usually we are so conditioned and habitual that we see and interpret everything and everyone with our narrow mind-set. This very mindset limits our perception and capacity to see things as they really are. If we want to perceive that which is true of the world surrounding us, we need to expand our own consciousness so that we may learn to observe things in a broader perspective. By doing this, we can continually reframe and reinterpret events and find new meanings within a rapidly changing context. Guided by a noble purpose, we can therefore develop a flexible and resilient mind-set that will help us to grow to a higher level.
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ij 10 Thinkers and philosophers have long been saying that there is a hidden reality underlying and quite different from the world we perceive. Way back in 18th century, German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously postulated that the reality we experience is one that has been constructed and shaped by our minds, and that minds are limited by our beliefs, experiences, and desires. On the one hand, we have this hard conditioning of mind, and on the other, our thinking is limited by poor memory and a very brief attention span (we are hardly able to concentrate/focus). Too much reliance on visualization makes us poor in observing and perceiving the reality of this world. We are therefore not privy to true reality that really exists.
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IJ 11 No two individuals perceive reality in the same way. Having seen a movie, each watcher will take away his or her own impression of its contents. Everyone’s perception of reality is unique. We perceive reality uniquely depending on our past experiences, beliefs, attentiveness, and therefore our expectations and desires are relative to those particular moments. Of the vast data/inputs from the outside world, only a very small fraction of that data is consciously processed by the senses. We select our reality based on a three-step process of deletion, distortion, and generalization (Your Quantum Mind in Action, posted by Rebel Brown). No two of us will select the same reality, even when we are experiencing exact the same data. That’s why we all interpret reality in our own conditioned way, only marginally aware that others have their own construct of reality!
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EF 12 Reality is what each one of us constructs for ourselves. The brain, through our sensory organs, composes this reality which is then uniquely perceived and interpreted by all of us. However, the true (whole) physical reality “out there” is far beyond our capability to perceive, as sensory organs are ill-equipped to perceive data of that range and magnitude. Only a very limited range/frequency of sensory data pertaining to visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory impressions can be perceived and organized by the brain. Moreover, we interpret reality through conditioned beliefs, habitual thoughts, and automatic behaviours. This barrier distorts – or some would say determines – the nature of that very reality. Most of us are totally ignorant of this fact. We deceive ourselves when we think that the reality we see, the only reality we believe we could ever know, is the true reality. When we lift the veil of illusionary reality, only then do we become aware and realize the true nature of reality.
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ab 13 Whenever we recall our personal experiences, as part of self made stories about ourselves, we very conveniently manipulate and colour the past, so that our role as “hero/heroes” remains intact. This has been established by many researchers. Elizabeth F. Loftus, an American cognitive psychologist and expert on human memory, has conducted extensive research on the creation and nature of false memories. She has shown that our recollections are indeed reconstructions that are partly true and partly fiction. Therefore, our memories are reconstructed “stories” built from episodes of true experiences but coloured by fictional additions and modifications. In other words, even our dearest memories are not reliable, as we have distorted them to fit into the bigger (and usually more self-flattering) story. According to research scholars, an inflated self-concept, due to such memory illusions, may result in greater confidence, which fuels success. We are left with an illusory self, which may, or may not, be conducive to a better good.
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14 There are no ways by which we can know true reality, or what’s “really” real. And the reason is simple: brains have limited capacity to interpret and analyse data which we incessantly receive through our senses. From billions and billions of bits of data perceived by sensory organs, a fraction of that is filtered and received by the brain; the rest of the data is beyond the range/frequency that is perceptible to the senses. Dogs, bats, owls, whales, etc. can perceive data which is imperceptible to humans. Hence the brain is a processor of input/information, not a mirror to reality. Whatever data does make it to the brain is further filtered through a screen of conditioned thinking and behaviour. Preconceived notions, expectations, biases, inherent fears and, above all, unwillingness to consider what we don’t want (close-mindedness), further distort that information. Each one of us interprets information in our own peculiar way because of that filtration. Unless we are receptive, open, and willing to take things as they are, we will always be far removed from the true “reality” of the world.
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Is Free Will an Illusion? When we realize that we have no responsibility for the decisions that we make, or for the outcomes of the imaginary “free will,� we get true freedom.
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ab 1 Spiritual gurus and sages have long been advocating the illusory nature of free will, but to many of us, this is not readily acceptable. First, there is no scientific data to establish this assumption, and second, we ourselves exercise, day and night, free will in our routine life. An American scientist Benjamin Libet, who has done pioneering work in the field of human consciousness, has demonstrated that a thought occurs nearly half a second in the brain before we decide (or acknowledged). This is considered a revolutionary discovery and has been verified by subsequent researchers. If it’s so, then the phenomenon of free will appears to be an illusion, as spiritual leaders have been saying right along. It seems that our unconscious mental processes have already taken steps to initiate an action before conscious mind is aware of any desire to perform it. (Wikipedia)
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2 Most of us feel that we are the master of our own thoughts and actions. But watch carefully how thoughts come into our mind. We realize that the emergence of thoughts, intentions, and also the choices we make is basically a mysterious process. They just appear in the mind, popping out of the void in an unexplainable manner. If that’s so, then where is the free will, which we supposedly exercise all the time? Thoughts and intentions simply arise in the mind and on that basis we act. The neurobiologist Martin Heisenberg has explained that due to random processes in our brain, much of our behaviour can be considered as truly “self-generated.” Sam Harris has, in his Free Will, arrived at the conclusion that “thoughts and intentions simply arise in the mind. What else could they do? The truth about us is stranger than many suppose: the illusion of free will is itself an illusion.”
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3 We see the world as a function of the way we have been taught to see it. We have been trained and conditioned to believe certain things which are not necessarily true/logical. From infancy, we have been taught and influenced by our parents, teachers, friends and society at large. Gradually, most of our programmed beliefs become deeply embedded in a set pattern of thought. We see the world from our biased and self-centred vantage point, generally oblivious to its true nature. Everyone harbours his or her own perception of self and others filtered through their biased and prejudiced mind. That’s why, Robin Sharma in Discover Your Destiny With The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari says, “This world of ours is not, of course, a computer-generated fantasy. But what you currently see as the real world, my friend, is just an illusion.”
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ij 4 We all have an autopilot - the unconscious mind running with habitual patterns of thoughts and beliefs. If one is not consciously aware of ongoing moments, then the person reacts unconsciously. Each one of us is conditioned to behave in a particular way depending upon past experiences, learning, beliefs, values, etc. If that is so, then free will is illusory. He thinks he is making choices freely, but in reality he has been programmed by his conditioned mind to think and act from limited awareness. Most of humanity is at this infant stage. Only receptivity, sensitivity, and clear-sighted openness to changing moments can awaken us from this stage.
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IJ 5 We take instant decision and then act from subconscious prompting over which we have no control whatsoever. Even when we make seemingly conscious and well-thought-out decisions, subconscious content plays a significant role in determining their logic and desirability, along with our subsequent behaviour patterns. Over millennia, to ensure survival of mankind, various specialized processing areas have been developed in our brain. These parts incessantly work behind our conscious experiences; we would not have survived without these areas of the brain. Given these circumstances, not only do we exercise very little (if any at all) of the so-called free will – about which we are generally so confident – but we are also largely incapable of accurately explaining and justifying our actions and behaviour.
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EF 6 We all live in an ocean of unlimited potential that we may actualize through the choices and actions available to us via God’s gift of free will. We create our own world through every choice and action. However, free will comes with a rider; we pay a huge price to enjoy free will. It is only through his free will that man exercises evil, cruelty, and inhumane acts over others. Good people suffer at merciless hands controlled by cruel minds. History bears ample witness: millions have been killed due to man’s inhumane nature. The only alternative is mankind without free will, and that is simply inconceivable. Free will is a necessary condition for man’s survival – and realization. Philosophers and thinkers have been searching for answers to this “perennial question” for millennia. For man to evolve to higher planes of consciousness, pain and suffering may serve to open the heart to the love that is divinity.
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cd 7 Does the law of uncertainty and indeterminism governs our life? We all know that the outcomes of our decisions are not in our hands. If we observe carefully, we realize that our control on thoughts, feelings, and emotions appears to be almost non-existent. Likewise, the inflow of thoughts also appears to be a totally random and mysterious phenomenon of wave-function collapse (in the parlance of quantum mechanics). Among infinitude of possible thoughts, streams of thoughts simply arise in the mind. Past learning, personal experiences, and our genetic makeup also influence the decision-making process. Therefore, the decisions we make on the basis of these thoughts and emotions, and the results/outcomes of these decisions, do not altogether correspond with our strong belief in freedom of choice. In other words, the concept of free will becomes very suspect. However, when we think we have complete or adequate control over our life, but then things just don’t turn out as we desire or wish and we suffer. Therefore, when we realize that we have no responsibility for the decisions that we make, or for the outcomes of the imaginary “free will,” we get true freedom.
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Conflict of Self with Inner Self/Soul When true self starts exerting itself over our egoistical mind and once ego backtracks, journey takes a fast pace towards spiritual evolution.
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ab 1 We all love to hear our own voice (the ego is our Self) rather than listening to our Inner Self. The Inner Self, or soul, always has our best interests at heart and knows about the inner intend about everything we do. That’s the reason there is so often a conflict between what our Self say and what is voiced by the Inner Self. Remember Self concerns with physical well-being, power and accumulation of material things but Inner Self on the one hand, keeps check on ego’s never ending demands and on the other hand, drive us towards spiritual growth and transformation. As our True Self emerges, it challenges how we think, how we see the world and how we live our life. Inner Self doesn’t allow us to suffer, but when we ignore the feeling of its voice, we do indeed suffer.
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2 It is well said that God resides within each of us with all the secrets and mysteries of life. However, due to our mind’s near-total preoccupation with worldly affairs, we barely take the time to look inside for their answers. The only way to realize true happiness is to acknowledge and live according to our true selves. We can’t be happy if we don’t know who we are. And we can know only by dissolving the hard conditioning, accepted throughout our lifetime, and then journeying inward, in search of Inner Self. Real peace and tranquillity and the lasting happiness will not come from the outside world but from the inner realm.
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3 We will not find a single person who has been happy and contented all the time. Every one we meet carries some sorrows and woes, is afraid of something, loves and desires something, and has lost something. Life is like that. Man himself is vulnerable, and due to his flickering mind, his unpredictable mood and temperament. His mental state changes all the time. We are far more sensitive to other people’s actions and behaviour, and situations that are not at all our concern. Preoccupied with routine and mundane things of outside world almost all the time, we overlook our own Inner Self, the source of eternal bliss!
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ij 4 What we (as our ego) consider to be mistakes and failures in life are not at all problematic to our soul, which knows no mistakes and failures. Rather, every mistake and failure is a learning experience. The main purpose of our soul is to take us to a higher level of mental and spiritual development, regardless of what is suffered from those events/incidences. So, why do we not take all apparent failures as opportunities to learn? It’s difficult because all the time, our ego is thinking, and not our Soul.
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IJ 5 Soul-to-Self: I, your soul, always keep your best interests in mind; whenever you consult me. I guide you to the best decisions and actions. But I know that you, on many occasions, do not look at me for fear that I would not approve of your ego-actions. I always try to keep you away from suffering, but you ignore me at such times. You know I whisper in your mind when you take a wrong path or go against my harmony, but you don’t hear my voice. When you are in trouble, I come to your support and expand your awareness. I even remind you about your impermanence in this world and your fragile, insecure, and fearful nature, because I know your ignorance will make you suffer if you don’t listen to me. (Fred Alan Wolf, The Spiritual World)
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EF 6 If we observe our mind deeply, we realize that it operates at two levels; hence there are two entities within our head. On the outer level, we have what Buddha called the monkey mind. It’s mostly restless, capricious, inconsistent, indecisive and very difficult to control. Here “I� reigns supreme. If we separate our true self from this mind and ignore the clutter of our thoughts, we find our Inner Mind/Self. The problem is that our thinking mind (monkey mind) engages our consciousness with so much fast-changing data from the surrounding world that we forget to acknowledge our Inner Mind/Self. True and lasting peace comes not from outside world but from the Inner Self. We can approach this realm through meditation and other spiritual practices by exercising and embodying love, compassion, and concern for others.
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ab 7 In this mechanistic world, we keep accumulating material “goods� while constantly working to improve our comforts and status, unaware that our fundamental problem is psycho-spiritual ignorance. Mind will never be satisfied with mere things which give us money or feelings of power and status. And do you know why? Because we are totally blind to the real world, which lies within our mind. Outer self is where all misconceptions and illusions arise, which in turn bring dissatisfaction and unhappiness. We need to look inside and listen to what our Inner Self wants. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens, well said by Carl Gustav Jung.
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8 We all construct stories about our “self,” while keeping “I” as the central figure. Based on that story (in reality, a personal myth), we define our “self.” With the help of our clever and biased brain, we distort/ revise, delete, and manipulate facts of our past and current experiences so that our ego, or big “I,” remains hero/heroine of that story. Such accounts are illusory because they are not grounded in reality, instead following a cannily crafted story line of “I” – “myself.” Consciously and unconsciously, we keep on adding our experiences, perceptions, beliefs, and views to this personal saga in such a way that “I” remains idealized. It’s the central figure of successful or tragically unsuccessful hero or victim of circumstances, who seldom if ever commits any mistake or vice or wrongdoing. (Bruce Hood, The Self Illusion)
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9 In our initial phase of personal growth, we view the world as competitive, hostile, and indifferent; it appears to work on the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest. This is because most of the time our selfserving ego governs all of our projections and responses. Moreover, there is disconnect between the Outer Self and the Inner Self due to conflicting interests. As insecurity prevails in our life, we tend to build and expand our fortresses of material “protection.” However, with gradual realization of this fact prompt reversal and then begins when our inner circle starts to expand.
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ij 10 Each one of us, sooner or later, realizes that the delicate balance between the ego and the Inner Self/soul is of utmost importance along the higher path to eternal peace and happiness. Ego controls almost all aspects of our actions and behaviour. At the fundamental level, the ego should play the role of dedicated bodyguard for the soul. However, a problem arises when the bodyguard forgets its primary function and vainly attempts to eclipse the soul’s splendor and dictate a totally self-centered course of human behaviour. Unless some balance is achieved, we will continue to find ourselves in constant conflict between ego and soul. When we are conscious of the ego’s motives and embrace our soul, we can check this ongoing conflict. Our soul doesn’t need protection, but ego does need to be refined.
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IJ 11 Our ego and Inner/true Self are always in conflict. It’s the ego that dominates our thoughts and actions and it concerns primarily with pursuit of physical well-being and personal power besides, accumulation of material things. On the other hand, our true Self is our great observer and the guide for showing the path for higher level of consciousness. As spiritual awareness begins to grow stronger, the ego will start diminishing. That’s the reason, ego and true self are in perpetual tussle. However, the day we start witnessing a struggle between egoistical Self and our true Self, that’s the beginning of spiritual journey. That’s when true Self starts exerting itself over our egoistical mind and once ego backtracks, journey takes a fast pace towards spiritual evolution. Indeed, a crucial time of our personal growth.
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EF 12 “Look at your thoughts,” urged beloved Indian guru Ramana Maharshi “and see that they all arise from the I-thought, the core thought that dominates in our mind.” When we observe and investigate the “I”thought, we realize that the “I” is simply an egoistic “I” which does not reflect our true Self, the Inner Self. Rather, it acts as a channel through which all our thoughts, feelings, and actions are filtered and directed. This very “I” (and special “me,” and possessive “my”) is the root cause of egoistic thinking, which leads to self-centred and manipulative behaviour and actions. Predictably, this “I” works indefatigably to defend and reinforce the constructed sense of identity i.e. again “I”. When we step out from that mode of thinking and look at the world from the eyes of Inner Self, only then can we see through the untainted lens of “I”, which is free from fear, desire, and attachment.
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The World is a Mirror – Reflection of Inner World The universe has been designed like that, if we want happiness in our life and the surrounding world then create happiness inside.
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ab 1 The world is like a mirror; if we are serene and happy, we see happiness all around us. If our mind is filled with negative thoughts and emotions, this same world will look gloomy, sad, and unfriendly. We, therefore, perceive this world in our own way, depending on our state of mind. That’s why we see only a partial reality, on the basis of what we are most open to or most interested in, and/or needful of experiencing. The world around us is beautiful and full of joyful and smiling people if we are good at heart, giving love and affection to others. Otherwise, plenty of negativity – that appears to be in the outside world – may not let us live peacefully.
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2 Our internal fear, sorrow, frustration, and other negativity whatever we have inside, if any, would be reflected by the outer world. The truth is that our mind becomes conditioned to a certain way of perceiving and reacting to this world depending upon our attitude, behaviour, and beliefs. Everything in the universe is resolved into our own inward experience. Yes, the world around us is a mirror indeed – it’s a reflection of our own inner world. It’s all a reflection of our state of mind. There is a famous saying of Anaïs Nin that “we don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are.” The potential we see in others is possible for us as well, and the beauty we see in others is our own beauty.
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3 It is well said that there is no reality outside your mind. Everything you perceive in the world has its roots in your inner world of thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. Tranquillity and serenity of mind will make the world wonderful, with friendliness all around. On the contrary, if we are inwardly in turmoil then we are certain to see a tumultuous outer world. Nothing in the world creates our misery; it was our response, our own state of consciousness that creates the ugliness (The World is Simply A Mirror, posted by Enoch Tan). Hence, the outer world is but a mirror reflecting one’s inner mind. Buddhist Zen masters say that the reality is your mind is your world. The ego that created the apparent separation makes us perceive the world as out there. It’s an Inside World, Outside Reality.
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ij 4 Our life reflects our beliefs, emotions and actions. In a way, the reality we perceive and experience in physical world is the replica of what we experience inside. External problems and obstructions are precisely the reflection of our internal state of mind. When we address our inner shortcomings and obstructions, outside reality unfolds accordingly and we start feeling world the way we feel inside. The universe has been designed like that, if we want happiness in our life and the surrounding world then create happiness inside. Others are simply the mirrors of us. If we love others, we will see that love in our reality mirror, which is our perceived external world and this is reflected in a new perspective. Follow a simple mantra, just adapt yourselves rather than changing the forces operating in the outside world.
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IJ 5 “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world�, said Lord Buddha around 2500 years back. We are far more than that. In a real sense, we are an active participator in the creation of reality around us. We are nothing but vibrating energy. We exchange energy with the universe, and we synch with similar energies that we bring back into our world. Like attracts like. Surround yourself with negative and angry thoughts and this will be your world (Tao of a Zen Warrior posted by Thomas D. Craig). We all are a reflection of our thoughts, words and actions. We create the world as we want it to be. The key to throw out of something from our external world is to eliminate it from our internal world.
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Man’s Inherent Nature Life is unpredictable. Change is the only constant‌.The realization and acceptance of change is the biggest realization one can have in life. It is the echo of life itself.
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ab 1 The more we love and accept ourselves by realizing the true nature of Inner Self, the more we are able to love and accept others. Love is the ultimate essence of life for which we all strive. Fear and insecurity, which are so deeply ingrained in the human psyche, can be neutralized only by exhibiting love and compassion for others. Only through love can we lead our life with meaningful purpose. We all inevitably go through ups and downs, feeling pain and sorrow, pleasure and joy, and it’s at the heart of those peaks and valleys, while learning the truth of life, that we grow spiritually by expanding our circle of love, concern, and compassion.
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2 Whenever we meet any person, we feel either good or bad “vibrations/ vibes.” That’s why in our social circle, we have persons with whom we always love to meet and interact because of the positive vibrations emanating from them. These vibes are the sum total of thoughts, emotions, and actions that person has launched. This is because every thought, emotion, and action is fundamentally energy, with a unique vibrational frequency. Love, compassion, and serenity in one’s inner self expand the circle of positivism, while anger, hatred, jealousy, etc. reflect negative vibrations (negativism) from each of us.
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3 Somewhere deep inside each one of us, two wolves reside – a wolf of love and a wolf of hate. In most of us and most of the time, the wolf of love is stronger and bigger than the other one. However, the wolf of hate, being potentially dangerous and itching for dominance, always looks for opportunities to become stronger than the wolf of love. He relishes anger, hate, contempt, aggression and fear thus encouraging us to behave negatively and feed him the nutriment he needs to survive. Never make the mistake of trying to kill or starve him, because this will only make him stronger (suppressed negative feelings lead to depression, anxiety, and all manner of negativity). It’s therefore far better to keep nourishing and encouraging the wolf of love. This wolf will himself take care of the other one.
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ij 4 Whenever any terrible incident or event takes place, or something goes seriously wrong, we very often revert to the old “Why me?” syndrome. While the whole world is partying, why has tragedy struck me or my family? This very question haunts. God’s seemingly unfair treatment can also incite us to blame our bad luck or past karmas. This very feeling puts us in a vicious cycle – further aggravating the already weakened will/ morale to deal wisely with that situation. What we need, at that time, is the realization that everything that happens in our life is not without any higher purpose. Somehow, it is only through such heartopening challenges that we learn the most and grow in compassion and empathy toward others. Often our spiritual nature is moved to embark upon a fresh journey during these times of intense change and stress, leading to radical transformation of our perspective and perception of life. More importantly, increased sensitivity and appreciation occurs in our relationships. We start seeing others with care, concern, and compassion.
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IJ 5 The hindrance that most of us face in our spiritual journey is the accumulated layers of ignorance which skew and distort our perception and understanding of ourselves and the reality we experience around us. The more hardened our accumulated beliefs, ideas, and judgements, the denser and darker our mind becomes, and the more difficult is the process of stripping away that conditioning. Yet we can take heart in William Blake’s clear-sighted observation: “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.� This cleansing process necessarily delays, but is prerequisite to, our awakening. Most conditioned beliefs are generated directly or indirectly by fear. We are generally afraid of challenging those deeply imbedded beliefs. We need courage and a deeper openness to the true nature of reality to clear that accumulated debris of conditioned beliefs and behaviour. With clarity comes an ever-new beginning in the spiritual journey.
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EF 6 The essence of spirituality is to know our true selves and discover the meaning of our life. Since all the constituents and circumstances of this world are continually changing, our derived sense of identity, the ego (the image of ourselves that we have built around ourselves throughout our lifetime) is always under threat; hence our ego is responsible for much of our self-centred behaviour. At the most fundamental level, all of our ego’s responses come from fear. Patterns of fear run deeply through human consciousness and govern most of our thoughts and actions, the ego ever “on guard” to defend its very life. To check one’s ego, first look at his/her pattern of fear. It is well advised that we should not attempt to suppress or diminish our ego, but rather observe and critically look at the fear, the integral part of ego. To address fear, we should have the courage to confront it directly and handle it.
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ab 7 No segment of society is free from fear and “free-floating” anxiety. Fearful, discordant states are the principal drivers of behavioural patterns. Fear of death, loss of power, prestige, reputation, youth, money, trust, and other potential losses are reflected in our behaviour and thinking patterns. Though we may justify our fear by saying that it is a necessary emotion that alerts us when something is wrong or prepares us in advance for eventualities, these arguments may be called into question, as most of the time fear is unreal, imaginative, and based on presumptions. Gregg Braden in The Divine Matrix explains, “Fear has many masks in our culture… Fear surfaces almost on a daily basis as a pattern in our lives that we don’t recognize. But interestingly, this pattern may not even be ours.” Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), a British philosopher and historian had very rightly stressed the fact that “to conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.”
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8 We all are generally trapped in the continuing pursuit of desires. Many of those desires are aimed at making our life better, but some of them are self-destructive and make us suffer in the pursuit of happiness and pleasure. Problem starts when we are attached to desires and their outcome. Desire and attachments are related and both are expressions of ego. We have entangled ourselves in a web of desire, and if we want to evolve beyond our coarsest impulses, the only way is through a higher purpose that benefits everyone (Deepak Chopra and Leonard Mlodinow, War of the Worldviews). Merely a realization that ego and its demands/desires are unreal and never-ending, and the source of suffering in our life, can transform our perception and show the way to inner happiness.
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9 Unconditional love and compassion is the only answer to all of our life’s challenges. We are here to learn lessons about a simple reciprocal principle of love, the more you love others, the more love you experience in life. Accepts others wholeheartedly, especially their inner essence rather than their beliefs. Accepts others without being judgemental, as every one of us is unique and has come into this world for the same purpose of learning about love. To live our lives for sharing love and concern with others is the greatest lesson what science, religion and spirituality teach us.
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ij 10 The immediate purpose of life is to remain happy, contented and joyful. From the very core of our being, we want satisfaction in life. The more we care and extend love and compassion to others, the greater is our own sense of satisfaction, happiness, and well-being. Maintaining a loving and warm-hearted attitude towards others automatically puts our mind at peace. More so, this feeling removes whatever fear, anxiety, and insecurity we may harbour and gives us inner strength to deal with the problems we face in our life.
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IJ 11 Our life is not determined by what happens to us, but by how we react to what happens to us. In other words, what really matters is not what life brings to us, rather our attitude in embracing life. A positive attitude sparks a chain reaction of positive thoughts and events. It seems people with a positive attitude simply live longer, happier, healthier, more successful lives… and who doesn’t want that!! Realize that it’s not about what happens to you, it’s about how you react to what happens. It could possibly be the best thing we could do for both our emotional and physical health! Positive attitude is like a spark that can brings extraordinary results in our life.
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EF 12 In A Net of Jewels, renowned spiritual guru Ramesh S. Baleskar tells us that self-enquiry is the direct path to self-realization or enlightenment in life. The only way to make the mind cease its outward orientation is to turn it inward. Initially, self-enquiry usually requires considerable effort to counteract the mind’s conditioned tendency to go outward towards the object rather than inward to the awareness of the object. With experience, however, less effort is needed as the mind is drawn to the peace that comes from focusing on Self. When we are inward, the activities of the body-mind and of the rest of the world may continue, but they will not affect us. The more time we spend inward, the more we realize our true nature and the better we feel.
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ab 13 As we grow, we go on accumulating layers of ideas and beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. This layering is caused by what we learn and assimilate from various sources/mediums. However, many of those layers become fixed encrustations due to the rigidity of ideas and beliefs through cultural and social conditioning. This very deeply conditioned rigidity retards our progress to self-actualization and spiritual growth by distancing us from the true reality of the world. In extreme cases, such rigidity can be retrograde and self-destructive. Only after becoming aware of limiting beliefs, we become open to fresh ideas and possibilities. Mindfulness of what is actually going on around us can dissolve the rigid layers of conditioning.
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14 You are the only person upon whom your happiness solely depends. You always make the choice to stay happy in each situation and in each moment. If your happiness depends on other people, especially those who are close to you, then you will surely find yourself in sad situations. So if you decide to remain happy, just trust yourself, and lock joy and happiness inside. Also remember that you should not involve yourself and waste energy unnecessarily in petty and trivial matters. We must learn to see things in right perspective. Otherwise life could surely be meaningless and a waste of God’s unique gift to us.
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15 For peace and happiness, we must see (and analyze) things from the proper perspective. That is, keep your mind on the big picture – view current circumstances from a distance, as if taking in a work of art. Be mindful of the impermanence of whatever is at issue. All the conditions, events, and their attendant passions that have led to unhappiness are subject to inevitable change. From the perspective of eternity, most of what we argue, or the reasons and causes that have led to suffering, really don’t matter that much. Whether heartbroken or simply peeved, you might ask yourself: Will this feeling or event mean anything if we analyze in broader perspective or see it over a long period?
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ij 16 One of the greatest and most difficult realizations in life is that we are wholly and solely responsible for creating (or constructing, philosophically speaking) the world wherein we live and grow. We are the product of choices that we make with the best of intentions and the resources at our command. We choose the feelings we experience and we decide the way we will respond and act. That’s how we create our own destiny. It’s well said that we have only one life and one chance to do all the things we want to do. In nutshell, we are the weavers, designing and weaving the web of reality around us.
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IJ 17 It is interesting to note that one of the most common regrets of the dying person is “I wish that I had let myself be happier” (as hundreds of patients confessed on their deathbeds before Bronnie Ware, a palliative nurse). Many of us won’t realize until the end that happiness really is a choice. We are generally stuck in old patterns and habits (hard conditioning). The so-called “comfort” of familiarity overflows into our lives. Fearing change, we tend to hide out in our comfort zones believing that we are happy and content but, deep within, longing to laugh and be silly and fully enjoy life!
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EF 18 There is an old Tibetan saying, “When you smile, half the smile is on your face and the other half is for someone else.” That’s why we all like smiling and happy faces. “Peace begins with a smile”, nobly said by Mother Teresa. Some neuroscientists suggest that the brain has a system for positive feeling that stays primed for activity, causing people to be in upbeat moods more often than negative, and to have a more positive outlook in life (Daniel Goleman, Social Intelligence). This is the reason that our brain prefers happy faces. There is some evidence that faces with happy expressions are recognised better than other faces. Psychologists call this phenomenon the “happy face effect”. So keep smiling in life because you are smiling for others too.
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ab 19 Generally we are either wasting time thinking about past incidents/ events – often negative ones – or are being anxious and insecure about the future. No matter how pleasant and happy our world is but anything can happen any moment. The world is like that. Despite this uncertainty, we seldom bother to appreciate and enjoy the moments at hand; hence, we lose those precious present moments. To live in the present moment is a miracle. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now. More so, we live as if we are never going to die, and then finally die without ever having really lived (Thich Nhat Hanh).
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20 Believe it or not, many of us do become experts in the blame-game. Whenever something goes wrong or something unpleasant happens to us, defence mechanisms come into play as we conveniently project the blame onto someone else, or even discredit our “luck”. The reason is simple: behind this smoke screen is the sole ego. Ego’s function is to justify its own beliefs and their resulting action or inaction, while maintaining its proud and inflated state. Almost never can it see that the fault lies within us. Seldom accepting full responsibility for our own actions, our futile attempts to justify our mistakes and shortcomings continues!
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21 Life is not as we generally perceive it to be. We first construct and then keep on reinforcing our story in such a way as to keep “I” in control of everything, including work and relationships. We struggle hard to predict and control the events in our life. The discovery that this control of life is impossible becomes an ever-increasing crisis (Steven Harrison, Doing Nothing). Truly, change is the only constant, and life is unpredictable. All things, including relationships, change with time. The realization and acceptance of change is the biggest realization one can have in life. It is the echo of life itself.
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ij 22 Our quality of life depends on the quality of the seeds that lie deep within our mind. Some seeds we get from our ancestors (by way of genes) and some are sown by others like our parents and teachers during childhood; other seeds we sow and grow ourselves, as we age. Our life depends on the choices we make while growing and watering those seeds. If we water the seeds of love and compassion, we grow on a spiritual path, while enjoying inner peace. On the other hand, if we choose to water seeds of hatred and anger, we reap stressful moments, eventually leading to pain and suffering.
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IJ 23 We are continually shaped by those around us. Even the story that we construct and update about ourselves after each experience and event in our life is largely based on what others tell us about it – and about us. Hence, our self is a product of our mind, which in turn is a product of our brain working with other brains (Bruce Hood, The Self Illusion). However, very adroitly we keep on editing, deleting, and manipulating our story in such a way that we are always winners (or victims of circumstances or others when we fail). This is because our egotistical mind is ever at work, updating the story of self, and not the Inner Self that knows the truth.
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EF 24 Things come to us when we are ready otherwise how hard and desperately we try, things would not simply move. This is an extremely important realization. No one can prepone or postpone the arrival of good or bad news. Impatience and anxiety can only do harm and do nothing to expedite desired happenings. We hurry about the present, worrying about fixing the now, or guarding against future calamities, but things will happen in their own good time. As Dr. Brian Weiss has very rightly summarized in Same Soul, Many Bodies, “Before we are born, we look over the landscape of the life to come, only to forget it after birth.�
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ab 25 If we don’t live “well ” and not become the author of our own life’s story, then life will be full of conflict. If we resist changes and cling to material comforts and superficial relationships, then problems are bound to occur. When we live in a dualistic mode of life, contradictions will naturally arise. Somehow we are fascinated by contrasts like good and bad, pain and pleasure, darkness and light. In the teaching of non-duality, the world has no meaning in itself. Birth, death, suffering, enjoyment – all are impersonal. Our minds break up the wholeness and this very illusionary separation then draws boundary lines, always with the potential to become battle lines. We should realize that all polar opposites or dualities are only conceptualizations in the mind, while in reality, wholeness exists. The world is in fact a seamless and dynamic unity, a single living organism that is constantly undergoing change (John Snelling, The Elements of Buddhism, 1990).
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26 Most of the time our life revolves around “I” and “me,” there seems to be nothing beyond that individual. Fully engrossed in “I” and “my” affairs, we forget the world beyond “I,” “my” family, and inner circle. We should always be aware that all separation between objects and relationships is conceptual, and in a sense, illusionary. Wei Wu Wei describes the situation succinctly: “Why are you unhappy? Because 99.9% of everything you think, and everything you do, is for yourself. And there isn’t one.” Once our minds have constructed the notion of “I”, it becomes our central reference point. We attach to it and identify with it totally. John Snelling says that “Though we can’t see it when caught in convulsions of ego, there is something in us that is larger and deeper: a wholly other way of being.”
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27 It is a universal truth that you cannot love others unless you love yourself. Love is our true nature; love is what we spontaneously discover, and not something that we do or have. However, when we are totally identified with “I” and feel we are in complete or pretty good control over our life’s affairs, and then something goes horribly wrong, we blame ourselves, and/or others. Dissatisfaction or even disgust with oneself is common when one takes responsibility for wrong decisions or their outcome. That being the case, self-love becomes difficult. Self-love is possible only when one accepts life’s circumstances as they unfold. When we discover our true nature, we start trusting the inherent nature of goodness and kindness within ourselves. Accepting all our experiences unconditionally, we find that the tendency to blame ourselves, and/or others, begins to wane, and self-love grows and blooms!
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ij 28 What each one of us wants the most in life is happiness. In pursuit of happiness, we look to the outside world to accumulate the material things, the like-minded friends, the adoring family members, and the public regard that seem necessary for a fulfilled life. However, quite often the realization comes very late that true and lasting happiness is totally independent of the outside world, especially in regard to material circumstances, though these may be essential for temporary pleasure and comfort. Recent studies show that it is relationships, and not material success, that contribute most to our collective happiness. However, I feel that inner peace and happiness are deeply interrelated, and that peace comes as we welcome what we do have in life. Resistance to change and the exercise of control over our circumstances and relationships can often prove counter-productive. We need to accept wholeheartedly the circumstances and the changes we experience in our life, especially when it comes to close relationships; it is a time-tested mantra for happiness.
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IJ 29 One who loves himself will never harm another, Buddha is quoted as saying. Hence, compassion for others begins at home. It is only through compassion that we come to know that others are suffering; they are in pain and sorrow. We also get an answer to Why Me?, the perennial question as to why God has chosen me for the trouble and pain I am going through. Neuroscientists have also demonstrated through studies that those who practice compassion are more likely to enjoy good health and inner happiness. (This doesn’t mean that sick people lack compassion) Too, they can manage their suffering in a far better way. Until he extends the circle of his compassion to include all living things, man will not find peace (Albert Schweitzer).
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EF 30 Love is everywhere – it’s endless. Beauty lies everywhere – it’s limitless. All moments can be filled with joy. Music, sports, recreational activities, learning, and family and close friends –- even new acquaintances – can be immense reservoirs of serenity and peace. However, we need to open our heart, as all the love, beauty, and peace reside there. Sadly, most of us search for these joys in the outside world. Too many of us seek satisfaction and happiness through the conditioned and quite often addictive behaviours of scrambling after our outward desires. This very mind-set has made us so busy with superficialities and appearances, such as money and material objects, that we are alienated from our heart and Inner Self, where love and beauty abide. Make an attempt to transform from the inside, not from the outside. Love and beauty are the only reality. We are here to learn how to love ourselves and others, and to accept ourselves and others completely, without any judgement.
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ab 31 How many of us wholeheartedly accept life as it is presented to us? Majority of us are not satisfied with what we possess and want more material things to feel “secure”. We want more control over our life. However, life is not like that. “Life presents problems because we fight life: we don’t accept what is in the present moment. We want to become something other than what we are. We want something other than what we now have,” says Ramesh Balsekar in A Net of Jewels. This happens when we are completely identified with “I”. Too much emphasis on “I” is the root cause of all misery, dissatisfaction, and conflicts. Only when we discover our true nature, will this cycle end. Awareness is our true nature. It is well said that “I” do not exist as a separate individual – “I” as an individual am simply an arising in “I” as Awareness. To see this directly is to be liberated from all suffering.
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32 Nothing is more important than having a feeling of love and compassion for others. It’s far more reassuring than visiting a temple, mosque or gurudwara, or attending church services and reciting prayers. It is in our heart and mind that God resides, not elsewhere. No philosophy or pursuit is more important than the simple formula of compassion and empathy. The key to happiness and peace lies within our mind; we must use that key to open the door of love and compassion for others. No matter who or what these seeming “others” are or have done, ultimately this is what we all need.
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33 Very often we are deeply involved with the continuing pursuit of desires. No doubt, many of those desires are with the good intention of making our life better. However, some of those desires are selfdestructive and make us suffer in their pursuit. Since desire is invariably accompanied by fear of failure to get the desired result/outcome, suffering is inevitable. There is no harm in having a desire – as long as we don’t become attached to its potential outcome/result. But generally that’s not the case and we get ourselves trapped in desire-fear duality. The mere realization that desires are never-ending, illusionary in nature, and the source of suffering, as Buddha used to teach, can be the very first step towards mitigating suffering associated with desire-fear duality. If we can minimize our desires, we can learn to cultivate happiness, irrespective of whatever happens in the outside world.
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ij 34 We perpetuate problems in our lives by continuously thinking about them. Why do so many of us keep on reiterating the same old stories of negative/sad experiences from the past? By doing so, we enter into a vicious cycle as neural connections (networks) are reinforced and strengthened each time we recall those experiences. In turn, we are increasingly inclined to recall those incidents again and again. This makes us more vulnerable and prone to repeat such sad stories. This becomes the way of life, as we are not aware of that conditioning and thus don’t try to address the problem. We simply can’t find any solution in the outside world. And the more we try to suppress such energies, the more likely they pop up to the surface (in the conscious mind). Look inside yourself, beneath the wounds and prior to all conditioning, and discover that peace is here, and available now (You Are Already Whole posted by Gail Brenner). Awareness, along with mindfulness and focused distraction, holds the key to escape from such recurrences.
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IJ 35 We are all, most of the time, so engrossed in thinking that we forget it’s the mind that does thinking. It’s compulsive thinking, as we simply don’t know we are thinking. We are totally identified with our mind. We are trapped in incessant streams of thoughts, which are mostly repetitive and useless, predominately negative and above all, “not real.” We are neither alert nor attentive, and we, therefore, miss the moments at hand. Past has gone, future is a fantasy or foreboding, and the present we lose by “unconscious” thinking. Only when we are attentive and alert are we in the present moment. During those times, we are thinking. Watch your mind closely. Observe carefully! There is an undifferentiated stream of consciousness just below the level of thinking. It’s a realm of “no thought,” where there is no past, no future, just eternal peace.
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We All Are Destined to Grow Spiritually The purpose of our life is the evolution of our Being from its present level to a higher level, while undertaking this journey on an often undulating and rough weathered road.
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ab 1 We are all destined to die. It’s only the prerogative of Supreme Being to how many tomorrows each one of us is going to see. Yet most of us act as if we are going to live forever. So then why can’t we enjoy life, make others happy, show love and concern for them and, more importantly, find meaningful purpose in life? To search the meaning of life can itself be a purpose of one’s life. And since the very nature of love is inclusive – not exclusive –why not welcome all others into our inner circle of love, where only I, our friends, and family members currently abide? Be good to others and enjoy the simple yet abundant pleasures of life! Then see the unique treasure in each of these relationships which God so beautifully expresses.
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2 Life is like a pendulum. At one extreme we feel that life is inherently good, but when the pendulum swings the other way, we perceive life as fundamentally “bad,” with suffering and pain all around. When all goes well, life is wonderful, brimming with abundant opportunities to enjoy what we all strive for. The next moment, life can seem full of struggle. All of us strive for the good things in life, while fearfully avoiding pain and suffering. But the fact is, we are prone to error and the experience of failure because the outcome is not in our hands. Decision-making is inherently flawed, but responsibility is ascribed to us. Even after struggle, if we achieve what we want, then happiness is often short-lived. Human nature is like that. Soon we are back to where we had started. If there is no struggle, then life is boredom, which itself is worse than struggle. Hence, the cycle repeats itself: struggle, momentary happiness, boredom (Schopenhauer’s pessimism). Both sides of the pendulum are integral expressions of life. To conclude, let the search for happiness and joy motivate you to learn, change, and grow!
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3 Very often a question arises, how to know whether we have begun our spiritual journey. There is no yardstick to measure the extent of spiritual journey we perform, at different stages in life. Here, success is not measured by our personal achievement/fulfilment that we experience on the way. In fact, the successful journey brings goodness as well as happiness not only to the person concerned but also to those who are around that person. Others should feel positive vibrations when in touch with the spiritually enlightened person. How we can serve to those who are not with us on the spiritual journey? The awareness of others is what separates a genuine spiritual journey from new-age fantasy of personal fulfilment disconnected from anyone or anything else (Brad Hirschfield, How to Take A Spiritual Journey).
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ij 4 Our life is all about learning to connect with our own Inner Self. The entire spiritual journey is a journey to discover who we truly are. Why we are here? It is well said that find out first what we are. That’s all. Rest is all in details. According to Lama Thubten Yeshe, we invariably find that there is already a part of our mind that is flowing in a spiritual direction. As we evolve spiritually, we begin to understand that we already have within us that which we seek from the outside world – all the love, happiness, and peace that has been present right along. The journey begins with a journey inward, not outward. That’s insight as old as the beginning of civilization.
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IJ 5 When our normal and happy life is disrupted especially on occasions like when we experience failure or commit grave mistake leading to mental pain and agony, on those very occasions learning becomes faster and more meaningful. Learning is mostly a critical prerequisite for personal growth and development. If we don’t learn our lessons properly, those mistakes and failures may likely to recur. Lessons may become painful and difficult. Quite often, God issues a “warning” before any serious event takes place in our life or around us. If we study any natural disaster or calamity, we generally find that God’s warning, meant for taking corrective and preventive measures, was ignored. Every such incident bears some hidden meaning or lesson which we realize only at a later date.
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EF 6 During our life’s journey, we pass through different stages of spiritual development. At the bottom are those who are leading a strictly selfserving life; they are self-centred, manipulative, intolerant, busy in accumulating material things and moreover, largely unaware of their conditioned thinking and behaviour. Yet most of them, as they age, develop spiritually at varying pace. M. Scott Peck, in Further Along the Road Less Travelled, identifies four sequential stages of spiritual development, most occurring gradually (but there are exceptions). Along the way, one becomes principled and self-governing. Eventually, the (apparent) last stage is realized, when one becomes “mystical�. Mystics experience inter-connectedness among humanity, and beneath the surface of chaos and disorder they see unity and coherence.
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ab 7 We keep on learning lessons until the very last day of our life. There’s no part of life that doesn’t contain its lessons. Everyone makes mistakes and faces failure at one time or other during one’s career or service or in relationships. But the choice is always there to convert those incidents/ events into opportunities, and to use those hurdles and obstructions as stepping stones. If we don’t learn, the lessons are repeated until they are learned. Lesson-bearing circumstances are attracted to us in various forms until we have learned what we are required to learn. It’s an old saying that failure is the mother of all successes, just as necessity is the mother of invention.
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8 God has laid down a path for each one of us to follow. We all have our own unique way of learning while travelling along that path. Wending our way uphill and downhill, we encounter sharp and unexpected twists and turns that teach us lessons for the path ahead. Learning on those events of struggle, failure or when we commit unintended mistakes is an essential part of our growth in life. If we fail to learn, our trek offers more shocks and jolts until we realize the need to learn. Ever learning along the way, our soul keeps on testing the lessons that we have learnt and continues to guide us to our spiritual growth.
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9 Along life’s journey, we encounter new faces. Some of them help us by holding our hand to overcome obstacles, inspiring us to a higher rung on the ladder (of success). However, others may hurt and betray us, insult and humiliate us, or even worse, push us off that ladder. Forgive them, though very difficult but still we should forgive them. As Jesus said, “they know not what they do”. These souls are also meant to cross our path and teach us crucial lessons about life that we would not otherwise learn. They teach us about trust and the importance of being cautious before we open our heart to them. Learning lessons is the sole purpose of our life!
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ij 10 We are not here accidentally. There is a meaningful purpose behind our existence. Each one of us is here to learn and grow with a meaningful purpose – lessons to be learnt and specific tasks to be completed during our life’s journey (Acharya Rajneesh, an Indian mystic, guru and spiritual teacher). A meaningful life is a broad term encompassing a varied number of definitions having to do with the pursuit of life satisfaction (Wikipedia). To lead a meaningful life, our lives need to be filled daily with purpose, and responsibility. We should make all possible efforts to live as a true human being. We all have a collective responsibility to grow, thereby making the future of humanity better and more meaningful.
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IJ 11 We navigate our developmental journey from womb to cremation or burial ground. Mistakes that we occasionally commit and failures we experience are all parts of the on-going learning process. Life is not simple; on many occasions, unfolding of events takes place in mysterious ways. Along the way, we grow physically, mentally, and spiritually, simultaneously or may be one after the other, while learning lessons about life. Gradually, as we learn from life’s complexities and appreciate its mysteries, quite often through painful experiences and failures, we begin to expand our own circle of love and compassion and feel more of other people’s pain; this is what the meaning of spirituality is.
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EF 12 The purpose of our life is the evolution of our Being from its present level to a higher level, while undertaking this journey on an often undulating and rough weathered road. Throughout this journey, we come across many ups and downs, but are always able to keep on growing by learning lessons related to our challenges and problems. All of us are open to wide possibilities and opportunities for growth by availing ourselves of those opportunities. However, most of us are so absorbed or even lost in our own small personal worlds that we hardly even glimpse the world in the right perspective. Too many of us are not even available to those opportunities around us. Beauty lies in embracing the opportunity at the right moment from the vast reservoir of possibilities. Then those possibilities are manifested in our life.
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ab 13 Life is a unique gift of God, with a meaningful purpose. We may have different purposes at different times depending upon the circumstances and stages of development, but meaning of life generally remains the same for a long time for each one of us. Every one of us design his or her own unique meaning of life. Along life’s journey, every one of us is open to wide possibilities, and we grow in the direction of those possibilities. However, we need to be receptive and sensitive if we want to avail ourselves of those opportunities. Sensitivity begins with learning how to listen to the voices of your Inner Self, and allow those voices to be taken seriously by your mind.
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14 We do come across purposeful choices while journeying through life, but only if we believe that the goal is attainable. Otherwise, we tend to wander aimlessly and waste energy and time by pursuing routine things in life. Instead, we should decide and focus what we need in life and then start channelling energy in that direction. For this, one needs to overcome the hard conditioning of ideas, thoughts, emotions, and beliefs, which have been built up over the years and are difficult to change. Hence, we should first know ourselves as clearly and deeply as possible, and be open to personal evolution and transformation. When we transform ourselves, we transform the world.
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15 To search the meaning of life is itself a purpose that needs to be fulfilled in our lifetime. Life gives us a wide range of opportunities for learning lessons that are needed to open to a higher level of consciousness. The lessons we learn make us better human beings in all aspects of life. If we keep on clinging to material things, comforts, circumstances, and the “special” people relating thereto, and are not receptive and open to the lessons that come our way, we simply can’t evolve to that higher level. Each one of us assigns different meaning of their life. However, at the most fundamental level, an answer to the question “What’s life all about?” may simply be the receptivity to and promotion of those qualities and characteristics that take us to ever higher levels of awareness, whence we can contribute more and more to the well-being of our fellow humans.
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ij 16 Ours is a roller-coaster ride that eventually terminates at some unknown point. Along the way, we are given every opportunity to grow physically, mentally, and spiritually, either step by step i.e. through gradual evolution or quantum jump to the next or still higher stage. However, it’s up to us how and when we avail those opportunities, lying in abundance along the path. Despite tremendous potentiality to grow, we quite often miss those opportunities as we are either not aware or not ready/prepared ourselves. If we are ever to grow and become more of the person we are truly capable of becoming, we must be receptive and courageous enough to come out from the comfort zone where we all intend to stay safely and grab the opportunities successfully.
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IJ 17 We all can grow in two phases. The first phase is when the purpose of life is nothing more than the inflation of our ego. Ego is purely selfserving. We accumulate wealth and its material expressions to satisfy our ego’s desires and wishes. Many remain in ignorance and die while pursuing their ego goals. However, many of us start asking ourselves the perennial questions, such as, what’s the meaning of life? Why are we here? Is life random and aimless? These are the ones who enter into the second phase of life, seeking answers to those questions by way of expanding their consciousness. They seek a higher level of awareness, at which love, compassion, empathy, and concern for others hold all the meaning in their life.
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EF 18 No matter what our plan or aim, life may change its course unexpectedly and sweep us into uncharted waters. John Lennon very rightly said, “Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.� Beauty, however, lies in our ability to be receptive and flexible in adapting to new situations. We should accept challenges wholeheartedly and learn from these experiences when our plans fail. No experience of mistakes and failures is without a hidden lesson. We must accept responsibility unconditionally for any outcome/result of our actions. Receptivity and acceptance of changing circumstances is a key to success and its associated happiness.
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ab 19 The outside world is illusory and quite often deceptive, its “rules� very often unpredictable and arbitrary. To understand the true reality of this world, we must go inward. An inward journey is necessary for true realization of who we really are. Going inward simply means taking the path of introspection and self-contemplation. The only person we have the power to change is ourselves. Through the inward journey, we can learn about the direction we are taking, and why. So the greatest gift we can give to ourselves is the opening to and flowering of self-awareness. By doing so, we get to observe the mind and its thoughts coming in and out of our awareness. Self-observation will eventually free us from the entrenched conditioning that so often impedes our progress.
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20 We travel along our self-made pathway, but eventually all of us have the same destination. We all move at a different pace, depending upon personal growth, and achieve while experimenting with the myriad opportunities that life presents. If we don’t venture out into new areas, and continue to stay within our comfort zone, our pace will slow down or at worst, become stagnant. With definite purpose, we should keep moving forward on the path we have chosen. The drive that inspires the human journey is a desire to have a clearer understanding of life’s mysteries and our role or purpose in it (Brian Luke Seaward, Quiet Mind, Fearless Heart: The Taoist Path through Stress and Spirituality).
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21 “You cannot affect the past; you cannot affect the future ...In other words, our past has occurred in the only possible manner and nothing could have taken place in any way other than the way it actually happened” (David A Shiang, God Does Not Play Dice). This world view of determinism was advocated very strongly by Albert Einstein and other great intellects. It’s the philosophical position that for every event exist conditions that could cause no other event. In other words, preconditions determine the outcome of any event. Therefore, things couldn’t have happened in any other way. However, we spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about things that have happened and can’t be changed. Regrets aside, a lesson must be learned!
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ij 22 There is now a widely accepted view that synchronicity, the experience of two or more events that are apparently unrelated occurring together in a meaningful manner, happens to everyone in their lifetime but very few people are able to identify and appreciate those incidents, which may otherwise look random. However, such events occur for a meaningful purpose; moreover, these incidents are supposed to be turning points in our destiny. Hence, one should eagerly embrace such (seeming) coincidences as important guidance from the Supreme Being or what we could say God. They generally lead to a pathway/direction that is appropriate in the long run for our growth. Synchronicity is meant to be interpreted carefully to understand its profound meaning.
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IJ 23 Why is it so that even small and minor incidents or decisions can have vast and devastating effect on our life? This is called the “butterfly effect” wherein small variations in an initial condition may produce large variations in the long-term behaviour of the system. The name to this effect was first coined by Edward Lorenz. According to quantum mechanics, we live in a “participatory universe” where we have the ability to modify and change the world around us. In the realm of quantum possibilities, we appear to be made to participate in our creation. Gregg Braden in The Divine Matrix explains, because we appear to be universally joined on the quantum level, ultimately our connectedness promises that the seemingly little shifts in our life can have a huge influence on our world.
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EF 24 Life, on the face of it, looks random but it always seems to have a meaningful pattern. Everything that happens in life, in the long run, gets balanced and evened out. Everything in life, such as pain-pleasure, success-failure, win-lose, light-darkness, and ups and downs, exists in equilibrium. This is how nature behaves. Dualities apply to everything that we witness and feel in life. Each one of us will, in the long run, get a more or less equal share of pain and pleasure, success and failure, etc. Beauty lies in the way we learn to accept these dualities as the integral way of life. Hell and paradise may both be experienced in a single lifetime. This fundamental truth of life is realized only when we see life’s events with a broader perspective. Knowing this, we find everything to be much more “acceptable,” and suffering naturally eases.
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ab 25 In everyone’s life, gradual transformation of one’s nature and more specifically mind-set takes place, but since it’s so slow and gradual we generally don’t notice its advance. Some exceptional cases aside, we grow progressively in our life while learning from experiences. Though one’s life is usually repetitive and revolves around a fair amount of routine, all are subjected to successes and failures alike. Life is always a mixed cocktail of unexpected events and the outcomes of our thoughts, words, and deeds. Those very events and experiences shape the course of our journey. Although there are exceptions, as when our learning comes from circumstances that are joyful, most of us learn lessons more powerfully from mistakes and failures, pain and suffering – the challenging circumstances of life. It is during distress and stress that we are more receptive to the dynamics that we witness and create.
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26 How many of us have the courage to “march to our own drumbeat,” living life to the fullest, rather than as others expect us to? There is so much expectation and, in turn, pressure from outer institutions like family and society, that often we can not hear what our own heart is saying. Most of us underestimate our potential to learn new things and venture out into new areas. We all love to stay in safe comfort zones of predictability and familiarity, due to fear of change. This tendency greatly hinders growth. We don’t honour our dreams and then, at the end of the journey, we regret not fulfilling those dreams. Life offers choices every moment. It is our life. We must choose what is right for us and not what others think is right for us.
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nm CHAPTER 17
Human Suffering is Avoidable Suffering arises when our thinking mind takes us to unpleasant events/experiences of the past or makes us fearful and anxious about the future.
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ab 1 Undoubtedly, much of human suffering is of our own doing. When we are not open and receptive but, on the contrary, resist those inevitable changes that take place in life from time to time, suffering arises. Changing circumstances themselves don’t cause suffering, but the reactive thoughts and emotions associated with them lead to pain and sorrow. On those occasions when egoic sense of self is threatened, we assume there are no alternatives to our defensive or aggressive reactions. Let us be spontaneous, open, and receptive to changes, responding with an open mind and heart to unfamiliar or difficult situations. In this way, we will minimize the suffering associated with adverse changes.
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2 It is rightly said by Gail Sheehy that “If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.” Change is the only constant; we witness constant change in our body, relationships, working environment, etc. However, suffering arises when we resist and react negatively to changes, especially when we are attached to particular outcomes. What do we do then? Suffering is in the mind. “Mind has thoughts. Witness those thoughts that resist change. Those very thoughts are attachments. Witnessing your thoughts, in other words the attachments, is a way of getting out of that. Then you realize you are not a person who is identified with attachments, but you are, rather, the witness. Once you recognize the witness, the spiritual being, in your soul, you will experience far more love than you ever got from “out there.” This is the beautiful realization of contemporary American spiritual teacher, Ram Dass.
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3 Life quite often makes us suffer, despite our best efforts. It’s natural. Each one of us is vulnerable to suffering. Remember what Buddha says about this world – its most salient feature is that it is full of suffering. Nothing we experience or possess will stay with us. All will vanish, including wealth and relationships. The physical body changes every minute. Billions of molecules are replaced by new molecules within the few seconds it takes you to read this paragraph. What we have without change and until we die, is our awareness – to feel oneself in the world as it is right here. Suffering simply vanishes when we are present in the moments we have. The emotions, feelings, and stream of thoughts will simply pass away, if we just watch them. By doing so, we can discover a space of unconditioned wholeness, where healing isn’t needed (Feeling – Story = Meditation posted by Mack Paul).
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ij 4 We all struggle hard to avoid pain and suffering, simultaneously striving for pleasure and happiness. Knowing very well its inevitability, we are yet afraid of dying. To secure and get comfort in our life, we possess and accumulate material things, many of us without drawing a line, knowing fully well that this will inevitably lead to further suffering. This is one way of describing the duality of consciousness that operates throughout our life. However, beauty lies in the way we balance the duality in our life. The Buddhist realization that duality is unavoidable and has to be balanced is essential to address suffering in life. By accepting the duality that life brings, we can learn to swim and flow comfortably between the banks, one representing sorrow and suffering, and the other happiness and pleasure, without clinging to either side/bank.
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IJ 5 “Life is suffering”, the Lord Buddha used to say in his sermons. It is “the” fact of life. Every one of us is subject to pain and suffering. Presumably, pain exists because it’s useful for survival, since it is a sign of physical harm or illness somewhere in the body. Suffering is more psychological in nature. Regardless of how rich or secure or successful we are, a fundamental dissatisfaction still persists. Everything that we desire or hope for is not fulfilled. Of course, most of us fall into the delusional belief-trap that this dissatisfaction can be taken care of by pleasure and happiness by getting or accumulating more of what (and who) we want. Pain and suffering are simply for the reason of developing and experiencing compassion, empathy, and active concern for others. Without suffering ourselves, we would not be able to understand the suffering of others.
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EF 6 There is no suffering when we live in the present moment. Suffering arises when our thinking mind takes us to unpleasant events/experiences of the past or makes us fearful and anxious about the future. Our strong attachment to past memories and anxiety about the future leads to suffering. The only way to overcome unpleasant moments is to focus on the present moments. But unless we train our mind, its tendency is to divert our attention away from the present moments. There are many techniques such as meditation, which primarily aims at going inward and feeling the subtle movements of breathing, that bring the mind back to the ongoing moments. The past is gone, the future is uncertain, and only the present is here for us to enjoy, relish, and make best use of. We must enjoy the beauty of just being alive in this present moment.
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ab 7 Where there is desire, there is a fear, and vice versa. Most of our actions and behaviour are controlled by this desire-fear duality, which very often leads to suffering, discontentment, and anxiety into our life. The fact is that the more desires we have, the greater the fear of their non-fulfilment. If we desire healthy old age, then the fear of early death starts. By understanding the nature of life and its inherent dualities, we can diminish fear and thereby the suffering associated with it. If we make ourselves aware that illusory “I, me and my� is behind the web of desire/fear, I think that’s the first and the foremost step in mitigating suffering.
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8 Suffering is universal; no one is free from pain and the sufferings we experience in life. We suffer more when we take the expressions of life personally, and resist them. But when we realize that suffering is impersonal, and accept the circumstances and incidents as they are presented to us, everything changes. Acceptance has a great healing effect. When we are convinced that we, in reality, have no control over our actions and thoughts, and that the outcomes of decisions motivated by thoughts and emotions are based on our conditioning, we feel relief. If “we” think “we” have the free will and “we” think “we” should have taken a different course of action, it is inevitable that “we” will suffer. A solution to suffering is: Investigate the “me.” If “we” do so, “we” might not be able to find it. No “me,” no suffering (Stanley Sobottka, A Course in Consciousness).
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9 Of the vast pool of humans, how many of us are really awake or enlightened beings? In the absence of any objective criteria, it is very difficult to identify the stages of awakening through which most of us pass while journeying through life. Generally, we know when we begin to awaken as we become more and more aware of ourselves. Suffering eases, inner peace stabilizes. All genuinely enlightened beings have compassion and selfless love for their fellow beings because they no longer see separation between themselves and the “other.” As we become gradually less identified with the dualities of life such as pain and pleasure, good and evil, etc. this fundamental realization of unity is inevitable. What we require to do is a deeper understanding of suffering, its sources, and the most harmonious response to it. Then we become aware of not only our strong identification with “I” but also our thoughts, emotions, feelings, and perceptions. When we start accepting them rather than resisting them, we hold the key to the beginning of the end of suffering.
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Books that have helped me in My Spiritual Journey A Brief History of Everything and The Marriage of Science and Soul by Ken Wilber A Brief History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson A Hidden Wholeness by Parker J Palmer A History of God, The Case for God and The Great Transformation by Karen Armstrong A Mind Of Its Own by Cordelia Fine Beyond The Secret by Brenda Barnaby Blink and Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell Code Name God by Mani Bhaumik Conversation with God and When Everything Changes Change Everything by Neale Donald Walsch Dialogues with Death by Eknath Easwaran Discovering The Gift by Demian Lichtenstein and Shajen Joy Aziz Discovery of God by Rafiq Zakaria Doing Nothing by Steven Harrison Einstein For Everyone by Robert L Piccioni Evolutionary Enlightenment by Andrew Cohen Evolve Your Brain by Joe Dispenza Freedom is Not Free by Shiv Khera Galileo’s Finger, The Great Ideas of Science by Peter Atkins 252
Global Shift In World Mind by Ervin Laslo God Does Not Play Dice by David A Shiang God is a Person and Science, Spirituality and the Nature of Reality, Life, Matter and their Interactions by Sir Roger Penrose and Dr T P Singh God is not Dead, Science and Spirituality - A Quantum Integration, Quantum Doctor and Creative Evolution by Amit Goswami How God Changes Your Brain by Andrew Newberg How To Become Buddha by Giulio Cereare Giaeobbe Molecules of Emotions by Dr Candace Pert Pascal’s Fire-Scientific Faith and Religious Understanding by Keith Ward Peace and Harmony in Daily Living by Ramesh Baleskar Phantoms In The Brain by Sandra Blankslee and V S Ramachandran Physics of God by Kartikey Singh Reinventing The Body, Resurrecting The Soul, War of the Worldviews by Deepak Chopra Same Soul Many Bodies, Messages from the Masters, and Through Time Into Healing by Dr Brian Weiss Searching For Me by Ramesh Vaish Social Intelligence and Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman Tao of Physics and The Web of Life by Fritjof Capra Thanks God for Evolution by Michael Dowd The Argumentative Indian by Amartya Sen The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski The Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton The Book of Understanding, Tao – The Pathless Path, Zen – The Path of Paradox, Body Mind Balancing, Meditation by Osho 253
The Buddha’s Brain by Rich Hanson and Richard Mendius The Celestine Prophecy, The Celestine Vision, God And The Evolving Universe by James Redfield The Divine Matrix, The God Code and Deep Truth by Gregg Braden The Emperor’s New Mind by Roger Penrose The Essence of Buddha by Ryuho Okawa The Expected One by Kathleen McGowan The Free Will and The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris The God Delusion and A Devil’s Chaplain by Richard Dawkins The God Impulse by Kevin Nelson The God Impulse by Kevin Nelson The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching and Understanding the Mind and Buddha Mind and Buddha Body by Thich Nhat Hanh The Illusion of Self by Bruce Hood The Language of God by Francis S Collins The Mind of God and The Goldilock’s Enigma by Paul Davies The Mind of the Guru by Rajive Malhotra The New Science and Spirituality Reader by Ervin Lazlo and Kingsley Dennis The Physics of Miracles by Richard Bartlett The Power of Now, Stillness Speaks and The New Earth by Eckhart Tolle The Power of Positive Words, 21 Laws of Positive Living by Rakesh K Mital The Quest of the Overself by Paul Brunton The Reason of God by Timothy Keller The Road Less Travelled, The Road Less Travelled & Beyond and Further Along The Road Less Travelled by M Scott Peck 254
The Seat of the Soul and Spiritual Partnership by Gary Zukav The Story of Physics by Anne Rooney The Telle Tale Brain by V S Ramachandran The Theory of Everything, The Grand Design and Briefer History of Time by Stephen W Hawking The Thoughts & Meditations, Spirit Rebellious, The Madman The Forerunner and His Selected Works by Kahlil Gibran The Universe Inside You by Brian Cligg Upanishads For The Modern World by Dr G K Pillai
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