Tuesday 13 December 2016

Life is not a subject of the mind....

All of us try to understand life with our logical thinking.  But sages have always told that life is not a subject of the mind. So then how to understand life?  But scientific/logical mind never gives up. It tries extremely hard to understand life, without understanding that higher the degree of their inquiry, the farther they go away from life.  Mind is very very small product of life. Then how it can understand Life itself. So understanding life seems to be an impossible task.

It seems Life is a subject of experiencing, not understanding.  People who never bothers about understanding life, actually live better. This can be also understood in another way, that people who think they are spiritual are not spiritual at all.  Because a person is spiritual only when he/she is not aware of it. 

For logical people, this philosophy can also be understood from a mathematical equation. The product of mind and life is equal to constant. That means; Life is inversely proportional to mind and vice versa. More the mind less the Life and more the Life less the mind. In Geometric terms, we can say that, the axis of Mind is located perpendicular or orthogonal to the axis of life. They never meet. Mind can never find life. It can also be understood from physics point of view. The function of mind involves time, but the function of life does not involve time. Life is timeless. So how time can find timeless?

Karma Yoga tells us not to bother about the outcomes/results and to worry only about the task. What this is pointing at?  It is telling us to forget the results, which actually means it is asking us to forget time. Because the results can be only based in time.  But task should be done in timelessness (full of life) for perfect results.

It is also said by many teachers that life has no purpose. This is similar to karma yoga statement mentioned above. Purpose means results and therefore time. But as soon as we involve time, we invite worry, anxiety etc. Then how the task at hand will be done properly. Therefore, people who involve purpose in life, mostly miss life. They may meet the purpose. So why we want to have purpose in life?  We want to have purpose in life, so that we can be busy. We think that we will be satisfied, if we meet the purpose. But it is general experience that all purposes end in dis-satisfaction. People look for purpose, only because they are un-satisfied at present. But someone who is un-satisfied now, how they can be satisfied later. Life can only be experienced by people who are satisfied now. They are only alive, others are mostly dead.

People who have great purposes in life, like welfare of the society etc., never acknowledges that they have initially found fault in the creation. They generally try to save creation. How?  By actually harming creation. People who have great purposes, often go to other planets and galaxies to save the earth. But they do not recognize that they may be harming earth for that.

There was a short story. One needy person went to a scientist seeking help. Scientist was apparently working on space missions and he was extremely busy person. He got angry and said to the needy person, "Don't you see, I am a very busy person. I do not have time for you". The needy person asked 'Why are you so busy?" The scientist said, "I am working on space exploration, to help everybody on the earth". The needy person could not understand and replied, "Why don't you help me directly. Why you need to go to moon to help me". He added, "You rather need help. You get upset and angry very soon. Please try to help yourself before helping others".

The above story points to an paradoxical truth. A person full of life (timeless) have plenty of time for others, while person devoid of life (full of mind) does not have time for others. Life is now. Just experience it. Please do not try to understand it. You may be mislead.

Thanks for reading. Your comments are most welcome. Learning by sharing.

3 comments:

  1. Very profound words! Thoroughly enjoyed reading your thoughts. I would like to add to what you have said:

    Life-Mind is also like the SIgnal-Noise Ratio (SNR). If the signal is very high compared to the noise, the noise doesn't really matter. And if the noise is very high, the signal becomes hard to detect. It seems that the mind-noise is very hard to decrease and not really within our control. However, the life-signal can be enhanced through various practices.

    I am also slowly beginning to realise that 'understanding' is a very low level process. I used to put too much importance on this but now trying to accept the limitations of 'understanding'. But its a very hard thing to give up specially for people in our profession. :)

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  2. Thanks for acknowledging.

    I am yet to adopt any practices, because of some unknown reluctance. I need guidance in that regard. Perhaps I will talk to you sometime.

    I agree that staying foolish is not all easy. If we can do that to some extent, it will enhance anything we do, including our profession. Can recall great words of Steve Jobs here, "Stay foolish, Stay Hungry". Probably, that is the secret of "Apple".

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    1. I think there is a huge difference between what Steve Jobs is suggesting and what you have written about. Steve wants to stay foolish and hungry because he wants to be more and more productive. He also has a strong desire to be the best in his line of work. Now, what you are suggesting will also lead to enhancement of productivity, but only as a byproduct and not as the main goal. So both processes may lead to similar outcomes on the outside but I think they create a very different world on the inside.

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