Tuesday, June 10, 2008

No Self improvement

Life is nothing but,
A pursuit of becoming &
Fear of not becoming!


Yoga is in vogue!

There are various spheres of influences in the society at any given time, masking other influences temporarily. Yoga is certainly one of the obvious influencing forces in the present times. It is considered to be an ancient art/science of Vedic origin.
Anything ancient has got to be precious and meaningful and everything Vedic has got to be sacred commandment. It is believed that through yoga, one can be fitter, healthier, and nobler

Man was born to seek and pursue a state better then the present. This quest has and will consume all his energy until it consumes himself, one day.

Healthier, more peaceful, more spiritually awakened, and nobler. The demarcation into black and the white is distinct in the mind, when it comes to stuff
related to health.
Physical exercise, drinking water, herbs, organic food, yoga, meditation, & vitamins are considered to do all good to one’s health.

It is the age of health freaks! One can see people running in the parks, desperate to sustain their routines, laughing there organs out, toiling to become healthier and stress free, never failing to try a new therapy or diet or technique. The market is flooded with
all kind of therapies and ‘spiritual techniques’, from water therapy to urine therapy, from kundalini meditation to tantric sex, from pranic healing to laughter clubs, cashing in at the expense of a desperate man desperately trying to achieve health and peace.
A survey conducted by an American university revealed, quite amazingly, that quite a substantial amount of cardiologists die of heart failure and a striking amount of psychiatrists commit suicide or turn insane!. If knowledge about a health matter and its prevention and management would have really worked, this survey wouldn’t have given these impressions.. Or is knowledge playing havoc, the obsession with health just doing the opposite, health giving way to disease?

This sun is pretty old,
But amazingly, it's still not cold
Why is he not weary of being the same sun
Here I travail endlessly to be someone!


Instead of representing things for the sake of communication, words have become things themselves. They have substituted life. We chew words, breathe words, and drink words, feel great digesting them and are unaware of the chronic indigestion, we suffer because of them. Words have penetrated our blood, marrow, infact each and every cell, in an attempt to take over the natural functioning of the body, whose functioning is independent of thoughts.

Boy! Isn’t it difficult, letting the body function on its own innate intelligence. We enforce our beliefs on it, to keep up with our obsession for health, ending up being sick and dependent.

With every 'charged thought’, which we call emotion, there is an altered body physiology. Fear and stress sets in secretion of natural steroids and hormones like cortical and cortisone and adrenaline, which are essential as a coping mechanism in emergencies. But this constant fear of disease and the psychological struggle to avoid it and the fight against entropy brings about deleterious chemical changes, which eventually brings about the psychological and physical disease .Mind and body are not two distinct features of the organism, they are quantumly linked, interdependent and essentially 'one’. A discrepancy in the mind is expressed in the body and vice versa.

Hey! Are you struggling to be what you are not?
Hey! Do you believe that what you deserve, you haven't got?
Hey! Do you also feel worried sustaining, what you have got?
C’mon join the band-wagon!


Permanent psychological change is impossible without one being with his present state, rather than flying to a state, which he wants himself to be in!

Life energy is always throbbing in the present and we tend to sidetrack it, in the act of becoming, seeking a desired futuristic state, which does not exist, overlooking "what actually is". With this effort to change oneself psychologically, 'one' is ignorantly and fatally divided into two halves, a part which is the actuality and the other which wants a desired idealistic change, these parts will be constantly be in conflict with each other, thus preventing any radical change whatsoever.

I have been told,
That I have a soul…


We have been conditioned for ages by the saints and the state to change ourselves into what they consider an image of an "ideal man”, thus causing this tremendous unrest and conflict within ourselves.

Spiritual business all around the world thrives on the conditioning that we are here to perfect ourselves to acheive"salvation" and whosoever with this spiritual endeavor is noble and whatsoever he does is sacred!

Doped by hope, one believes that this "relative state" of some holy authority is be all and end all of human existence and prolongs his misery in an attempt to achieve this all his life. There is a tremendous feeling of "high" and bloating of ego in being "spiritual" and attaining the religious and spiritual knowledge. The gurus and the god-men are masters in the art of concealing it, but they too are as insecure, fearful, miserable and more bloated than any other person on this earth. They too shake in their boots.

Are you a spiritual seeker? How bloated do you think, you are? just a pin prick away from bursting!!!!!!!

Mind is always hankering after pleasure or a "high", through sensual pleasures, money, power, knowledge ,spirituality, religion etc.We are made to believe that spiritual high is sacred and it is set on a high pedestal than the others. Whereas it is no different in the essence from the rest
Mind has its roots in hedonism and hedonism has its roots in mind!

Is it possible for the mind to be still, not in a seeking mode all the time?
can it be one with 'what is'?

Consciousness, Brahman, self, nirvana, are mere words loaded with meaning or knowledge of past, resultant of memory .It has no living quality.” I" is a concept about self, which actually does not exist! Life is also not life but a mere concept of life.

Each spiritual and religious sect claim themselves to be superior than others offering unique gimmicks, by which the followers are gravitated as per there psychological constitution.

All the meditation techniques, religious workouts, yoga promote division . Promising a transformation from 'what is' to 'what should be’ Oxygen equipments would have been the best tool for enlightenment, if pranayama could have delivered what it promised. Some "yogis" may argue that there is no self when they are into Samadhi, but there knowing that they were in Samadhi augurs that the division was always there and it is just a form of self deception .various religious experiences are resultant of the altered physiology of the body, which many drug addicts have also reported to experience after getting high!.
Many addicts, who had no spiritual background or knowledge have visualized mandalas and other esoteric symbols after the Tripp by getting an access to the collective consciousness with the help of the drug.
One who preaches to go within, doesn’t know that by dividing the self into inner and outer ,one is just perpetuating conflict and making sure that no-one gets disillusioned!.
"choiceless awareness" is not choiceless and too is divisive in nature as one cannot be aware of anything without prior knowledge about it.

Life is a balance of complimentary forces…
If one doesn’t know what happiness is, one will never be unhappy!
Hope of deliverance makes one shackled
Hope of becoming healthier makes one frustrated with one's health
And if you are honest, you must admit,
That you were moving in a circular orbit
An illusion of change, at every curve and every bend
And lastly, a realization, that its the start where one ends!
what is the formula for a radical psychological change? To be one with the life energy,how to get rid of this eternal conflict and pain.How to get rid of our insecurities and fears? How should one act?
Any answer given here pulls you back to the same rut! Any action undertaken has to be from a centre ,or a (non existing) individual self,and can only strengthen the"I", which is up against "you" .and no unity thus possible.
All the psychological self-improvement thus is a wrestling between two set of thought processes,one trying to curb another .Taking an instance of an effort to control one's anger, there is a part of oneself which is burning in anger and a part who's conditioned to pursue a state of peace,knowing his actions are wrong! and without being with the anger,which is natural, one justifies oneself by being guilty or by escaping into an ideal state of non-anger The supression ,or exercise of will thus pushes the problem deeper and sustains and nourishes the conflict.
One cannot be still or passive either as effort is implied in being still ,unfortunately it's a no win situation.If one is destined to, the division may end one day, but for heaven's sake ,can we stop , trying to change?!
still on the run!
M-9818089129

10 comments:

Our World said...

Wonderful post :)

Anonymous said...

Interesting post, but that's not what I experience among most people I know. Most of them are so self sufficient that they don't have that desire to change you're talking about. They just want to get as much satisfaction as possible with a minimum of effort.

I agree that making an obsession of changing oneself can be counter-productive but I think seeking improvement lies in human nature. And I think this is what keeps us sane and healthy, working to achieve an ideal, working to become anything good that we can become, working to transform potentiality into reality.

I lived for a few years with ideas similar to yours, just trying to realize WHAT IS REALITY and to accept everything as it is by not letting my thoughts shape the way I see things. I was trying to find the meaning of life by deeply searching inside myself, knowing that it is not to be found in the outside world.

Maybe I did some things wrong, but unfortunately, this approach led me to a state of passivity, of non-involvement, of isolation, of uselessness and I came to feel a deep dissatisfaction, almost falling into a depression. I HAD TO DO SOMETHING TO CREATE HAPPINESS FOR MYSELF AND FOR OTHERS!!!

I came to appreciate the following words of wisdom:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
the courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.

And I am now conducting my life taking great care about what I think and what I do, deeply knowing that these words are very true:

Sow a thought, reap an action.
Sow an action, reap a habit.
Sow a habit, reap a character.
Sow a character, reap a destiny.

Maybe I missed your point, but in this case you could provide more details as to how exactly are we to lead our lives in order to feel satisfied without seeking improvement.

zorba the buddha said...

if only we cud just be, accepting ourselves totally as we r,
that state is nirvana.

beautiful words has been taenished by the many millions of fake gurus, no wonder people get discouraged.
and of course health car einsdutry id floded with goods to fool people promising them magic health, playing with people's hope, cheating them.

Dr Vikas Khanna said...

dear traveller
sorry for the delayed response!

all i wud say
is
as you sow,so shall you reap
not free, not to sow
not free,not to reap!



your passivity was also an action----aspiring of a desired goal and destination
thus creating a division from the begining!

what to do!
again that vicious circle--the question itslf is wrong!'
t.c

zorba the buddha said...

only those who seek shall find,
only those who desire shal find,
by making an effort u wil relaize effort is not needed,
but tht state can be reached only by those who have experienced that all effort, all desires r in vain,
but not derived by logical conclusion.
logic and mind r superficial .. man is much more than just mind or logic...
experiencing is needed....
gautam tried and treid ike crazy for years
when he dropped desires, tired of them all, he beacme a buddha.
THEN he realized desires were coming in the way.

hope this helps

Anonymous said...

Gathered enough knowledge to make people realize what u consider is correct!
But the notion of resisting a change among masses is pushing them way back from where they began to realize their worth!
Without seeking a change the sanguinity of life will be lost & that's going to promote a stygian
atmosphere to live, & no more amenable!
So the "NO CHANGE" notion is going to thwart the thought processes. the idea is seemingly inchoate!

Sajeev said...

good post really

Anonymous said...

excellent post

Anonymous said...

Thoughtful... really good

Anonymous said...

Excellent post