Why am iSad?
Well, that last word is from a phrase doing round online. A tribute to perhaps an icon - Steve Jobs.
I remember as a kid having read that Steve Jobs along with his friend had made the Apple computer in a garage. And from their they moved mountains. As I was grew up and learnt about computers, I was saddened that despite having the best features, Apple was not the number 1 selling machine. Much later, not until I had done my management, did I understand the difference between a great product and great business.
The non-understanding of why Apple was what it was and the understanding of why Apple is what it is, does not change one thing - I feel sad on the loss of Steve. Honestly, I do not care what happens to Apple's share price. But I do care, on what has happened to Steve Jobs.
And, I am surprised at myself. He was not related to me. I am also not a gadget geek - I have till date not worked on a Mac or an Apple machine. I have seen the fancy stuff around me, but never worked on them. I am fairly technology neutral. I do not particularly love inventions, nor do I love challenging the rules of science. Steve and Apple did not change my life - as they perhaps did to the millions around. Yet I mourn. And paradoxically, the death of a figure that is impersonal to me.
Or maybe not. Perhaps, it is about the Steve Jobs - the person. Not the inventor, the creative genius, the maverick - but the person, who relates to the person within me. I remember having read Steve Jobs Commencement Address to the Standford University graduates in 2005. It lodged itself at some place in my heart. And I forgot about it. And now, I see it all over the net once again.
As I read each and every word of it - again and again - I realise what profundity of thought lies behind those words. Behind the creative, maverick, genius, lay a person willing to see himself vulnerable. A person willing to chase his dreams, a person willing to fail and then rise up again. It is not the spirit that moved Steve - he moved the Spirit within. For a person who is willing to be vulnerable is a person with the maximum strength.
As I look back at the history of Apple computers and of Steve Jobs (from whatever little I know), I realise one thing - what made Steve Jobs the man he was, was his strength of vulnerability. It sounds paradoxical - but to me, it does not. Only a person who has the courage to be vulnerable, is the person who has the 'courage' in life.
I am reminded of Rudyard Kipling in "IF" (ladies, please pardon the sexist word 'he':
"If you can fill the unforgiving minute,
with sixty seconds worth of distance run;
Yours is the earth and everything that's in it -
and which is more,
You'll be a man, my son."
To give the unforgiving minute, the sixty seconds worth of distance run, requires one to put all at stake. For each second is just in the moment. Giving that minute a run means letting go of yourself and running. And that is life. Steve Jobs perhaps lived that. We do not know his deepest thoughts, but from his actions and life, we can surmise, he had the courage to be vulnerable.
Or perhaps, is it that Steve Jobs, though a being outside, is also a construct and a concept inside. A voice somewhere deep within me - that calls me to my destiny. That calls out for me to listen to my own self. And perhaps the recognition that one man i.e., Steve Jobs lived it all. As he said in is Stanford Lecture:
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma -- which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
Perhaps, it is that voice within. Maybe, he is just the archetype (to borrow from Jungians) - the archetype of Steve Jobs - and it is this archetype that calls me. And at this moment confronts me - with an example of a life lived. Maybe, all this while, while Steve lived the life he did, I could project my own archetypal Steve Jobs on him and not live it myself - the life that the voice deep inside wants each one of us to live. And perhaps, with his death, the curtain has fallen and now we are confronted to see our own selves as the actor has gone. They say that the actor is actually in the audience and the audience create the cast. As we stare in the mirror, all that we see is a vacuum where we cannot project that voice and live our lives vicariously.
Perhaps, that is why I mourn the death of Steve Jobs. In some ways, it feels like a stage of suspended disbelief. And however, hard I try to write or think or feel, deep down in my heart, I still do not know:
Why am iSad?
Friday, October 7, 2011
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Reflections | On Life as Pilgrimage | 17th July '11
I wonder...
I sometimes feel I am weird. Actually, it is just this sense of strangeness with my own self that comes across at times. The times when one feels so familiar with oneself, or an aspect of self; and yet, that aspect or the self at that moment seems so distant and so different. Maybe not 'normal' as far as the events of the world go by.
Have you ever had that sense of waking up one day and realising that there is something at work. Some hand that you cannot name or hold or see; yet, that hand is behind you - guiding, beckoning and taking you forward. No matter what happens in your daily life, you go to bed with the sense of something or someone just there. The presence is so palpable, yet, it is elusive. And the frustrating question: What is the meaning of it all?
If you have had that sense, then perhaps, you can understand what I mean. Why do I write this? I write to commune with you. So that the same spirit / principle / Being / Entity / call it whatever is honoured and reflected upon. You need not be alone, nor do I need to be alone - in this experience of mine. There is a great temptation to put a name, a label, an image to this experience and to this Being. We can call it God, or Divinity or The Holy Spirit or whatever. But that I feel would be missing the point.
It will be missing the point, because then it is so easy to get away. So easy to walk away from what is calling me. So easy to duck what comes along with it. So easy to rest in the warmth and comfort of humanity and be with it and yet duck what is at hand. Modern depth psychology has a principle of 'projection'. Simply put, something that you have deep within but cannot admit it as yours - so you go ahead and dump on the other. Now this could be good or bad (when viewed as a moral judgment). I may feel you are the biggest liar on earth (and deep down not acknowledge that the liar lies within me too). I could equally see the Divine in something 'out there'; and not within - for acknowledging that is so so so difficult.
I guess part of the reason (at least for me) is that there is a confusion between that spirit and 'goodness' of daily life. There is a moral judgment I have about what I do, how I behave and how I am in my daily life towards people and things. And inexorably, to live this life, I have to be all - good, bad and ugly. For e.g., I may think of myself as the gentle helpful nice person; but one day when I caught myself boarding the local train pushing and jostling away with people equally ready to throw you off and get inside, I saw that I was not all that nice and gentle. It was painful to see that. For I have a moral judgment about it. But then I learnt to forgive myself. To own up and realise that I owe myself a duty of survival, of care. And then it helped me a lot - it helped me as I learnt to be less angry at others - for the pushing and jostling they did. I could understand them. I could understand their fears, and concerns, and anxieties. I had them all within me. Jungians would call it an encounter with the Shadow.
So I was at the point of acknowledging the spirit. I carry this judgment within me, having seen the bad and ugly of me. And with this judgment or view of my own self, I make it an either - or situation. That if, I am not wholly pure, then I cannot really have the spirit within me. I find this logic cracking now within me. And that is what causes me bother. I am reminded of Lord Krishna - for all what his life was, he is still a manifestation of the Divine, of the eternal spirit. So what is it really to be in touch with the spirit. Yes, at one level, there is a certain degree of detachment, but at another level, it does not mean being completely above and over the emotions and thoughts of human life - of la vie quotidienne.
And this is what bothers me. We all have those experiences. And I wonder how do we make sense of it? What is the meaning of it all?
Sometimes, I feel that life is like one endless pilgrimage. The only thing that happens at times is the inversion of what constitutes a pilgrimage. It is something like what pilgrims encounter in their quest for a glimpse of divinity: Whether they are doing the pilgrimage or the pilgrimage has happened to them? The other day, I was reading the book, "Tibet's Sacred Mountain: The Extraordinary Pilgrimage to Mount Kailash" by Russel Johnson and Kerry Morgan. At one place, they write: "A true pilgrimage lifts the traveller out of his everyday self into a realm beyond ego. When it returns his self back to him, all of life has become a single, endless pilgrimage."
So it is with life: Do I live life? Or does life live me? No, this is not rhetoric; but a real struggle within me. And I share with you - maybe, you may have something to offer to me. What I mean is this: If the circumambulation around Mount Kailash (or any other holy place - call it Kaaba, or Jerusalem or anything), is a physical manifestation of the urge within to glimpse divinity, is not this daily life a circumambulation around the divinity one can call as the Self. The walk around the temple, the altar or the mosque - are they not symbolic of the walk I do every day around my own inner being? Is not the life that I lead every day, nothing but a small inwardly going circle to the centre - the centre of being that we can call Self and that which is perhaps the spirit?
But why all this circling? Why not go straight - as the Americans say, 'straight to the point...'? I guess maybe there is some meaning in the circling - in the meandering.
I've started liking the word 'meander'. It is the fate of every major river in its middle stages. What is the purpose of it all? - I can ask from a general standpoint. What purpose does it serve? If ultimately, the river is to meet the sea or the ocean, then in its course of its evolutionary journey, the river is wasting time. It will be better off if it moved straight on. But would we value such a river? Would such a river ever make the land fertile? Would such a river ever be respected? You see, it is paradoxical that the same river whose purpose is to meet the sea or the ocean has to meander. It has to go through apparent purposelessness. I use the word 'apparent'. For, to the river, the purpose is not clear during the meandering phase (I write it if I was the river).
But then, it is the very meandering of the river, that gives meaning to so many; that gives purpose to so many; that gives life to so many. And perhaps that is what happens to us all. We meander during our life - and we may feel that we are lost, actually, that may really be the process of generating and creating meaning. Is meaning and purpose found or is it created and generated? Does it exist outside of itself or does it exist within? For the river, is meaning present in its destination or in its journey? Paradoxical.
I don't know I like what I just wrote because it holds true or because (as I suspect) it provides me with an answer with which I can assuage the questions that emanate from somewhere within - at least for the time being. When the mystery is too great, one has to unravel it bit by bit. So maybe, this set of reasoning helps me find meaning in where I am. Maybe as I meander more in life, I may find other sets of questions and other sets of answers. Till I reach my ocean / sea.
And that's when confusion happens. Where am I? What is my sea? Do I have a sea? I don't know. I just have some questions. I still search for answers.
I do not have the answers. I wish I had them.
And then, I wonder...
I sometimes feel I am weird. Actually, it is just this sense of strangeness with my own self that comes across at times. The times when one feels so familiar with oneself, or an aspect of self; and yet, that aspect or the self at that moment seems so distant and so different. Maybe not 'normal' as far as the events of the world go by.
Have you ever had that sense of waking up one day and realising that there is something at work. Some hand that you cannot name or hold or see; yet, that hand is behind you - guiding, beckoning and taking you forward. No matter what happens in your daily life, you go to bed with the sense of something or someone just there. The presence is so palpable, yet, it is elusive. And the frustrating question: What is the meaning of it all?
If you have had that sense, then perhaps, you can understand what I mean. Why do I write this? I write to commune with you. So that the same spirit / principle / Being / Entity / call it whatever is honoured and reflected upon. You need not be alone, nor do I need to be alone - in this experience of mine. There is a great temptation to put a name, a label, an image to this experience and to this Being. We can call it God, or Divinity or The Holy Spirit or whatever. But that I feel would be missing the point.
It will be missing the point, because then it is so easy to get away. So easy to walk away from what is calling me. So easy to duck what comes along with it. So easy to rest in the warmth and comfort of humanity and be with it and yet duck what is at hand. Modern depth psychology has a principle of 'projection'. Simply put, something that you have deep within but cannot admit it as yours - so you go ahead and dump on the other. Now this could be good or bad (when viewed as a moral judgment). I may feel you are the biggest liar on earth (and deep down not acknowledge that the liar lies within me too). I could equally see the Divine in something 'out there'; and not within - for acknowledging that is so so so difficult.
I guess part of the reason (at least for me) is that there is a confusion between that spirit and 'goodness' of daily life. There is a moral judgment I have about what I do, how I behave and how I am in my daily life towards people and things. And inexorably, to live this life, I have to be all - good, bad and ugly. For e.g., I may think of myself as the gentle helpful nice person; but one day when I caught myself boarding the local train pushing and jostling away with people equally ready to throw you off and get inside, I saw that I was not all that nice and gentle. It was painful to see that. For I have a moral judgment about it. But then I learnt to forgive myself. To own up and realise that I owe myself a duty of survival, of care. And then it helped me a lot - it helped me as I learnt to be less angry at others - for the pushing and jostling they did. I could understand them. I could understand their fears, and concerns, and anxieties. I had them all within me. Jungians would call it an encounter with the Shadow.
So I was at the point of acknowledging the spirit. I carry this judgment within me, having seen the bad and ugly of me. And with this judgment or view of my own self, I make it an either - or situation. That if, I am not wholly pure, then I cannot really have the spirit within me. I find this logic cracking now within me. And that is what causes me bother. I am reminded of Lord Krishna - for all what his life was, he is still a manifestation of the Divine, of the eternal spirit. So what is it really to be in touch with the spirit. Yes, at one level, there is a certain degree of detachment, but at another level, it does not mean being completely above and over the emotions and thoughts of human life - of la vie quotidienne.
And this is what bothers me. We all have those experiences. And I wonder how do we make sense of it? What is the meaning of it all?
Sometimes, I feel that life is like one endless pilgrimage. The only thing that happens at times is the inversion of what constitutes a pilgrimage. It is something like what pilgrims encounter in their quest for a glimpse of divinity: Whether they are doing the pilgrimage or the pilgrimage has happened to them? The other day, I was reading the book, "Tibet's Sacred Mountain: The Extraordinary Pilgrimage to Mount Kailash" by Russel Johnson and Kerry Morgan. At one place, they write: "A true pilgrimage lifts the traveller out of his everyday self into a realm beyond ego. When it returns his self back to him, all of life has become a single, endless pilgrimage."
So it is with life: Do I live life? Or does life live me? No, this is not rhetoric; but a real struggle within me. And I share with you - maybe, you may have something to offer to me. What I mean is this: If the circumambulation around Mount Kailash (or any other holy place - call it Kaaba, or Jerusalem or anything), is a physical manifestation of the urge within to glimpse divinity, is not this daily life a circumambulation around the divinity one can call as the Self. The walk around the temple, the altar or the mosque - are they not symbolic of the walk I do every day around my own inner being? Is not the life that I lead every day, nothing but a small inwardly going circle to the centre - the centre of being that we can call Self and that which is perhaps the spirit?
But why all this circling? Why not go straight - as the Americans say, 'straight to the point...'? I guess maybe there is some meaning in the circling - in the meandering.
I've started liking the word 'meander'. It is the fate of every major river in its middle stages. What is the purpose of it all? - I can ask from a general standpoint. What purpose does it serve? If ultimately, the river is to meet the sea or the ocean, then in its course of its evolutionary journey, the river is wasting time. It will be better off if it moved straight on. But would we value such a river? Would such a river ever make the land fertile? Would such a river ever be respected? You see, it is paradoxical that the same river whose purpose is to meet the sea or the ocean has to meander. It has to go through apparent purposelessness. I use the word 'apparent'. For, to the river, the purpose is not clear during the meandering phase (I write it if I was the river).
But then, it is the very meandering of the river, that gives meaning to so many; that gives purpose to so many; that gives life to so many. And perhaps that is what happens to us all. We meander during our life - and we may feel that we are lost, actually, that may really be the process of generating and creating meaning. Is meaning and purpose found or is it created and generated? Does it exist outside of itself or does it exist within? For the river, is meaning present in its destination or in its journey? Paradoxical.
I don't know I like what I just wrote because it holds true or because (as I suspect) it provides me with an answer with which I can assuage the questions that emanate from somewhere within - at least for the time being. When the mystery is too great, one has to unravel it bit by bit. So maybe, this set of reasoning helps me find meaning in where I am. Maybe as I meander more in life, I may find other sets of questions and other sets of answers. Till I reach my ocean / sea.
And that's when confusion happens. Where am I? What is my sea? Do I have a sea? I don't know. I just have some questions. I still search for answers.
I do not have the answers. I wish I had them.
And then, I wonder...
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Reflection | On Blogging & Meaning Making | 16th July 2011
I saw a light flickering. Oh, that was a beep also from my cell phone. Message from a friend, "What is your blog ID?" I smiled. The sense of shy pride that fills our heart when someone asks about what we consider our own; but somehow refuse to openly acknowledge it.
I shared the blog link and as I sat wondering on the long silence I've had on my blog, saw another message, "You better start writing... as i want to read and reflect." My fistful heart simultaneously swelled with pride and cringed at the thought. I am still trying to sort myself out.
I mean, this is the second time I have received something like this. While I now do acknowledge that what I write has its own strength, I also can't help but wonder at the underlying thought: "Hey man, help me make some meaning." Is that not what I do myself?
As I write, I help uncover some meaning, to my thoughts and to my experiences in life. Sometimes, I wonder if the Forum Leader at The Landmark Forum was correct in saying, "We are nothing but a meaning making machine." At one level, meaning making gives purpose and a sense of direction; yet at another, it just robs one of the spontaneity of life. They say that in the Taoist thought, 'meaningless' of life is the greatest virtue. My little reading of Carl Jung tells me that even in his scheme of things, there is a similar metaphor for the highest objective of life.
Where does the sense of meaning and purpose reside? We can explore it from all angles, but eventually, I wonder if anyone ever has a sense of what is "it" all about! I like the word 'IT' - a good word to use when something can not be defined; alternately, at times a way of getting to state without stating yourself. For e.g., "It was a great function." Superb - where are you in the statement? What were your feelings? No - that all can be avoided by use of the word "it". And as you can see that is precisely what I have done too!
For I don't know what to even feel or think. Sometimes, there is that deep sense withing that life "is" - on the "isness" of things, people, events, place, whatever... But still "it" eludes - and so I try to fill with meaning and purpose. Somehow, just sitting and doing nothing is so ridiculous. I am reminded of another friend of mine who once said: "We are so scared of ourselves, that we fill ourselves up every moment with anything that comes our way - anything that can occupy us." Even Krishnamurty used to say something similar. How convenient (and necessary) it is for us to "fill" ourselves up.
And so as I write this, I am "filling" myself up with the meaning of writing - the purpose of writing. Perhaps you will read this and comment on it. Good / Bad / Ugly - while all comments will have their affective level response from me, yet, underneath them all, I will smile inwardly - for the I would have gotten some meaning!
Perhaps my friend who asked me the question might also read this - and find some 'meaning'. Did I give her something to reflect upon and find meaning? Or did she invest in me to get this writeup for herself and find meaning? Having said that, the question comes back: What does it matter? And how does it matter? Maybe, it matters just as much as a candle matters - it burns and shows its alive and finds its significance. Maybe, that is why it matters. A candle of me!!! Aah.
A see a light flickering...
I shared the blog link and as I sat wondering on the long silence I've had on my blog, saw another message, "You better start writing... as i want to read and reflect." My fistful heart simultaneously swelled with pride and cringed at the thought. I am still trying to sort myself out.
I mean, this is the second time I have received something like this. While I now do acknowledge that what I write has its own strength, I also can't help but wonder at the underlying thought: "Hey man, help me make some meaning." Is that not what I do myself?
As I write, I help uncover some meaning, to my thoughts and to my experiences in life. Sometimes, I wonder if the Forum Leader at The Landmark Forum was correct in saying, "We are nothing but a meaning making machine." At one level, meaning making gives purpose and a sense of direction; yet at another, it just robs one of the spontaneity of life. They say that in the Taoist thought, 'meaningless' of life is the greatest virtue. My little reading of Carl Jung tells me that even in his scheme of things, there is a similar metaphor for the highest objective of life.
Where does the sense of meaning and purpose reside? We can explore it from all angles, but eventually, I wonder if anyone ever has a sense of what is "it" all about! I like the word 'IT' - a good word to use when something can not be defined; alternately, at times a way of getting to state without stating yourself. For e.g., "It was a great function." Superb - where are you in the statement? What were your feelings? No - that all can be avoided by use of the word "it". And as you can see that is precisely what I have done too!
For I don't know what to even feel or think. Sometimes, there is that deep sense withing that life "is" - on the "isness" of things, people, events, place, whatever... But still "it" eludes - and so I try to fill with meaning and purpose. Somehow, just sitting and doing nothing is so ridiculous. I am reminded of another friend of mine who once said: "We are so scared of ourselves, that we fill ourselves up every moment with anything that comes our way - anything that can occupy us." Even Krishnamurty used to say something similar. How convenient (and necessary) it is for us to "fill" ourselves up.
And so as I write this, I am "filling" myself up with the meaning of writing - the purpose of writing. Perhaps you will read this and comment on it. Good / Bad / Ugly - while all comments will have their affective level response from me, yet, underneath them all, I will smile inwardly - for the I would have gotten some meaning!
Perhaps my friend who asked me the question might also read this - and find some 'meaning'. Did I give her something to reflect upon and find meaning? Or did she invest in me to get this writeup for herself and find meaning? Having said that, the question comes back: What does it matter? And how does it matter? Maybe, it matters just as much as a candle matters - it burns and shows its alive and finds its significance. Maybe, that is why it matters. A candle of me!!! Aah.
A see a light flickering...
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Muse | There are those times... 26th March 2011
There are times...
Ah, well; this one starts out on a reflective mode. "Oh Yeah! Which one does not?", asked a friend of mine to me once on my blogs.
You know sometimes in life it is that feel - that feel to which you cannot give a name or meaning; or rather you "DARE" not give it such. The feeling that there is something in life which is far deeper than what we experience in every day life (la vie quotidien)? The feeling that, borrowing from Carl Jung, there is a rhizome underneath and what we see is only the exterior. The feeling that there is life in that subterranean that is always 'as is' despite all the mental and emotional complexities of our daily actions and reflections.
I was talking with this friend of mine. Incidentally, in today's world text messages also are counted as 'talk'. Well, coming back to our conversation. We got sharing on how our lives have been the past few months and both of us felt that there is a life other than what we call life or live or see it every day. It is the inherent silence, depth, richness, call it whatever which is ever present; and possibly what we call life is only an offshoot of that real life.
How else do you account for the experience that despite feeling terribly low or mighty high, there is a sense inner calm that we experience at times. There are times when no matter what our emotional and mental state is, there is a sense of peace deep down. No matter what happens on the outside, there is still something within. I wonder often what it is; and I pine for those moments more and more.
Yes, There are those times...
Ah, well; this one starts out on a reflective mode. "Oh Yeah! Which one does not?", asked a friend of mine to me once on my blogs.
You know sometimes in life it is that feel - that feel to which you cannot give a name or meaning; or rather you "DARE" not give it such. The feeling that there is something in life which is far deeper than what we experience in every day life (la vie quotidien)? The feeling that, borrowing from Carl Jung, there is a rhizome underneath and what we see is only the exterior. The feeling that there is life in that subterranean that is always 'as is' despite all the mental and emotional complexities of our daily actions and reflections.
I was talking with this friend of mine. Incidentally, in today's world text messages also are counted as 'talk'. Well, coming back to our conversation. We got sharing on how our lives have been the past few months and both of us felt that there is a life other than what we call life or live or see it every day. It is the inherent silence, depth, richness, call it whatever which is ever present; and possibly what we call life is only an offshoot of that real life.
How else do you account for the experience that despite feeling terribly low or mighty high, there is a sense inner calm that we experience at times. There are times when no matter what our emotional and mental state is, there is a sense of peace deep down. No matter what happens on the outside, there is still something within. I wonder often what it is; and I pine for those moments more and more.
Yes, There are those times...
Monday, January 3, 2011
Muse | On being lost...
“Where are you?” “Kahan ho tum? Kahan gayab ho gaye, yaar?”
Some of the phrases I’ve heard in the recent past. And reluctantly, I am now coming out – like a crab. Crab – aah, my moon sign is Cancer!
Yes, I have vanished. Vanished from my blogs, vanished from my ‘witty repartees’ and ‘soulful thoughts’ on Facebook. I wonder sometimes that do I really need to do all this? Why do I blog? Why do I make my presence felt on Facebook or LinkedIn? My friends find it silly that one should “think” so much of such trivial matters. A colleague of mine said, “You know what – I don’t know why you think so much. I cook because I like to cook. I go for a movie, because I like to see a movie. My life is simple and not so complex.”
Complex – well, can’t help but think if my life is complex or I have a ‘complex’? Somewhere, something deep down does not allow me to rest in peace. It craves for more and more. It craves to know me more. It craves to go deep down to the deepest.
Ok, I digressed. Back to the point of vanishing. Well, I did partly because I was in touch with myself and trying to get to reality. Well, I made a trip to the Holy Kailash Mansarovar – the desire of lifetimes (yes, I believe in rebirth) and the fulfillment of purpose and meaning. Coming back, I just had nothing to write. What can I write of? What can I write about? There is no place of majesty and serenity as is the divine place of Kailash Mansarovar. Where our mere standing is a fulfillment of universal grace. English does not have an equivalent word for what in Hindi we say, “nistabdh” (loosely translated as ‘the awe of silence’). Yes, I was ‘nistabdh’ after my trip. Thank you Lord. Thank you universe.
How does one describe the sense of oneness? How does one describe the sense of being? How does one describe the sense of ‘feelingless feeling’?
But now that I am back from the trip, back to ‘la vie quotidien’ – familiar problems plague me – of job, finances, education, love and so on. But I was supposed to have transformed? After all, a trip like this acts like the alchemist’s stone. But here I am back to earth and worried over what I used to worry over. So is it that I have failed or what? Was this trip a pass-fail examination? My deep inner sense says it is not. So, perhaps the answer may lie in my understanding of transformation?
Dr. Wayne Dyer in one of his books writes about transformation as a conjunction of ‘trans’ + ‘form’ + ‘ation’. Which means going beyond the current state through action. While I agree to this definition in some ways, I also find it is incomplete. It is incomplete because it talks of reaching an altered state by way of action. Logical, Cartesian-Newtonian physics would make me agree to this statement. After all you need action to alter a state.
But is it so really? Does transformation come from action? What is action? Is it something that you see (as in breaking a wall)? Or is it something whose effect you see (like a seed becoming a sapling)? In case of former, there is an agent who undertakes an action. In the latter, who is the agent? Does the seed which we all agree is inert act? When does a seed sprout? My biology tells me that it sprouts when it gets the right conditions for germination – adequate water, temperature and nutrients from surroundings like soil etc. So lets assume we put all the necessary conditions and the seed in that condition. When the seed sprouts who took that decision to sprout? Did the inert seed take it? Or did the environment take a decision? That cannot be, for then it means admitting that wind, air, water, soil are animate! So the question still remains – who took the decision to sprout? A seed that has germinated is said to have life – it is animate and alive. An ungerminated seed is intert – it is inanimate and does not have life. But what happens in the transition? Or can I use the word ‘transformation’?
If this transition of seed to sapling is a transformation, who took the action? There is no agent (and I don’t mean this as a laboratory usage) – even then a transformation has happened? So do we really need action for transformation? And if transformation can come about without action, then what / who makes it possible? Extend this logic further, and this is what I’ve been grappling with. Do I take action and write a blog OR is a blog written (just like a seed grows when right conditions exist)?
And then I ponder over these questions? Pondering is going within – away from action. But alas, I find no answers.
And then I ask myself this question:
“Where are you?” “Kahan kho gaye ho?”
Some of the phrases I’ve heard in the recent past. And reluctantly, I am now coming out – like a crab. Crab – aah, my moon sign is Cancer!
Yes, I have vanished. Vanished from my blogs, vanished from my ‘witty repartees’ and ‘soulful thoughts’ on Facebook. I wonder sometimes that do I really need to do all this? Why do I blog? Why do I make my presence felt on Facebook or LinkedIn? My friends find it silly that one should “think” so much of such trivial matters. A colleague of mine said, “You know what – I don’t know why you think so much. I cook because I like to cook. I go for a movie, because I like to see a movie. My life is simple and not so complex.”
Complex – well, can’t help but think if my life is complex or I have a ‘complex’? Somewhere, something deep down does not allow me to rest in peace. It craves for more and more. It craves to know me more. It craves to go deep down to the deepest.
Ok, I digressed. Back to the point of vanishing. Well, I did partly because I was in touch with myself and trying to get to reality. Well, I made a trip to the Holy Kailash Mansarovar – the desire of lifetimes (yes, I believe in rebirth) and the fulfillment of purpose and meaning. Coming back, I just had nothing to write. What can I write of? What can I write about? There is no place of majesty and serenity as is the divine place of Kailash Mansarovar. Where our mere standing is a fulfillment of universal grace. English does not have an equivalent word for what in Hindi we say, “nistabdh” (loosely translated as ‘the awe of silence’). Yes, I was ‘nistabdh’ after my trip. Thank you Lord. Thank you universe.
How does one describe the sense of oneness? How does one describe the sense of being? How does one describe the sense of ‘feelingless feeling’?
But now that I am back from the trip, back to ‘la vie quotidien’ – familiar problems plague me – of job, finances, education, love and so on. But I was supposed to have transformed? After all, a trip like this acts like the alchemist’s stone. But here I am back to earth and worried over what I used to worry over. So is it that I have failed or what? Was this trip a pass-fail examination? My deep inner sense says it is not. So, perhaps the answer may lie in my understanding of transformation?
Dr. Wayne Dyer in one of his books writes about transformation as a conjunction of ‘trans’ + ‘form’ + ‘ation’. Which means going beyond the current state through action. While I agree to this definition in some ways, I also find it is incomplete. It is incomplete because it talks of reaching an altered state by way of action. Logical, Cartesian-Newtonian physics would make me agree to this statement. After all you need action to alter a state.
But is it so really? Does transformation come from action? What is action? Is it something that you see (as in breaking a wall)? Or is it something whose effect you see (like a seed becoming a sapling)? In case of former, there is an agent who undertakes an action. In the latter, who is the agent? Does the seed which we all agree is inert act? When does a seed sprout? My biology tells me that it sprouts when it gets the right conditions for germination – adequate water, temperature and nutrients from surroundings like soil etc. So lets assume we put all the necessary conditions and the seed in that condition. When the seed sprouts who took that decision to sprout? Did the inert seed take it? Or did the environment take a decision? That cannot be, for then it means admitting that wind, air, water, soil are animate! So the question still remains – who took the decision to sprout? A seed that has germinated is said to have life – it is animate and alive. An ungerminated seed is intert – it is inanimate and does not have life. But what happens in the transition? Or can I use the word ‘transformation’?
If this transition of seed to sapling is a transformation, who took the action? There is no agent (and I don’t mean this as a laboratory usage) – even then a transformation has happened? So do we really need action for transformation? And if transformation can come about without action, then what / who makes it possible? Extend this logic further, and this is what I’ve been grappling with. Do I take action and write a blog OR is a blog written (just like a seed grows when right conditions exist)?
And then I ponder over these questions? Pondering is going within – away from action. But alas, I find no answers.
And then I ask myself this question:
“Where are you?” “Kahan kho gaye ho?”
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