From Revolution to Evolution

We had our independence day a few days back and i was attending a meeting associated with independence and revolution being the theme of discussion and speeches. A grand occasion to pay tribute to freedom fighters and pay homage to their sacrifices. It also made me think of revolution in todays context. Is it still relevant?

 

We have our share of challenges as society and human beings. Poverty, hunger, malnourishment, female infanticide, caste, religion issues still plague us. We have come a long way from midieval times but these challenges still persist. Today we don't have to fight outside invaders or conquerors as much but fight these internal challenges. Therefore we need revolutions from time to time to break the status quo and bring significant changes in the society. At the same time we need internal revolutions.

 

We had green revolution, white revolution in recent past which were for productivity and enhanced living conditions for the people. These were the bloodless revolutions. Revolution is a term generally associated with revolt and more often than not, blood shed is involved.We still have them in many parts of the world today. We need other non violent forms of protest or changes. Mahatma Gandhi showed such things are possible too when he made India independent from the British raj.

But going forward I believe we have to move from revolution to evolution. Evolution of human consciousness. We have to think beyond boundaries , regions, caste, language differences. Diversity and identity is important and has to be celebrated but many times these identities create boundaries and differences.One persons belief and identity becomes a source of conflict with the other persons belief and way of thinking. It happens in a family or a small section of society too.

 

Human consciousness can only evolve when we think of each other as spiritual beings. It is said that we are spiritual beings having human experience not other way round. Soul is said to be beyond identities. If we really look, we just took on the identity and beliefs where we were born and raised. It was not so much a conscious decision or that we did any world religion comparative study and chose a particular belief.

 

So we need to evolve as a human race. Be more interdependent than independent. Be more kind and compassionate towards fellow human beings. Progress as a society as a whole rather than individuals or select group of countries. Vasudhev kutumbakam or one world family should be our goal.

 

Then only we can truly say that we have truly evolved as human society. We will not need revolutions any more.

       Managing our Emotions

Feelings or emotions are inherent part of human beings and it is what make humans human. Animals too feel emotions to varying degree. This is what makes animal and human species different from machines or computers. Computers can do all the heavy duty processing and number crunching but when it comes to experiencing and expressing emotions they are no match.

Today lot of research is going in Artificial intelligence and machine learning field to make computers more human like.  They can now by processing thousands of music records or painting data sets, can learn patterns and create new music compositions or paintings in the style of Mozart or Vinci. Soon we will have virtual composers and painters to compete with.

 

But machines are still far off from experiencing and demonstrating emotions.

 

Emotions come both as a blessing and a curse to human beings.

The love and joy, happiness we experience on doing any activity or being with a person or with nature can give way to hate , jealousy , anger , sadness in no time. Today depression is a major ailment affecting even affluent countries in Europe and America. So we need to learn to how to manage emotions.

 

A little dose of these "negative" emotions are useful like salt in our food.

A little fear determines our fight and flight response in a situation like confronting a tiger or a robber, a little jealousy can make us compete better. Little dose of anger is required at times to make a child realize a mistake or a person not behaving properly in a public place. But when these emotions run amok they have a ability of taking over our sanity and causing more harm to the individual expressing it than the person targeted against. These emotions can burn us.
 

Today a lot of ailments like blood pressure, hyper tension, obesity, heart problems, cancer can be attributed to these emotions which go unmanaged over a period of time. How to deal with emotions is a thing which does come from experience but why wait till old and wise. Simple techniques can help quite the mind and manage emotions..

Breathing helps. Long deep breathing, pranayama, yoga can get rid of anger and anxiety, both in short term and long term. Learning these techniques from certified teachers or known yoga centers can be the first life changing step.

 

Also switching the  diet to non vegetarian food over period of time make you less aggressive. Eating less spicy, satvic food can help you maintain calm composure. It is said you become what you eat. Eating non vegetarian food which are more complex to digest and in taking of meat from an animalwhich has undergone certain emotions of fear and trauma at the time of its death can influence our chemistry. Also it is found that animal slaughter houses contribute a significant amount to greenhouse gases comparable to automobile emissions. Go vegetarian is the new mantra.

 

Channelizing emotions

When feeling jealous channelize your jealousy to something positive. Convert jealousy into inspiration. Get inspired by the person you are jealous of. See what good qualities made the other person achieve his or her kind of success. Complement the person on his abilities. Better still remember you are a unique individual with creative and fertile mind. Why to copy others and follow the herd mentality. Make your own choices and pursue interests and excel in them. You have to live your dream and not some other persons dream.

 

If you are afraid of heights or water or anxious in public places. It is best to tackle your fears. The opposite of fear is love. Try to gain more knowledge about the fear. If we start dabbling in the things we fear say for example fear of public speaking, one  can join courses like toastmasters and soon you will find yourself enjoying and loving it more than fearing. If you are afraid of heights you can join a hiking group who will be around you and same time you can climb various peaks. Soon the things we fear we will start loving them.

 

Identifying and accepting negative emotions just like we accept any positive emotion is the first step. Next is to channelize them into positive emotion using the techniques above will help in managing them.

 

Soon you will find yourself a transformed individual.

 

 

 

 

I Don't Know - The Beginning of Knowing

Once there was a turkey, he was getting old and hence weak. He could not find sufficient food. His friend a bull saw his  plight and told him, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings. That way you will get stronger  and hop around a bit. So first day the turkey nibbled on some of the droppings,  gained some strength.He perched on the first branch of the tree. Next day he had some more and could fly to the second branch. The third day to the third. After a week it could fly to the top of the tree. He sat their like a king beaming looking around.

One day a farmer was passing by. He saw a  fat turkey perched on top of the tree. Thanks giving was near and he thought wouldn't it be wonderful, if he could have the turkey for the feast. He  took his shotgun that was slung across his shoulder and took aim and shot the poor turkey. He then carried  it away happily to his wife. They then cooked it and had a grand feast the next day.

So what is the moral of the story. 

Moral of the story is bull shit can take you to the top but cannot keep you there, for long.

Story was just to highlight that most of our life we are talking things which we don't even understand , bull shit in fact. This has come from the notion that more we talk about  some thing , the more knowledgeable we will appear to the society.

There is a difference between knowledge and wisdom. Earlier we used to live in times where survival of the fittest was the norm. Now it is survival of the well informed. Next era could be survival of the wisest.  

What is different between information and wisdom. Information is accumulation of all the ideas,  happenings around in every sphere of life. People are afraid to appear as uneducated. You may remember coming across an individual who appeared so knowledgeable , seemed to know everything under the sun. You just had to ask a thing and pat will come the answer

I had  an acquaintance  who could talk at length on any topic. Seemed to know all about

countries without having visited them. Initial admiration turned to consternation when all talk happened to be one way traffic. Sort of verbal diarrhea. A wise person on the  other hand will talk frugally, choose words carefully and hopefully give a few simple things to take away which has power to change our life or to change our thinking.

World has always been  about one persons opinion against another persons opinion. 

We seem to think that if we don't  know answer to any question we would stand out as a fool or looked down upon. Everyone is trying to educate you about something or the other. 

Little do we realize that I don't know can be a great journey. Some   questions are more important than answers. Today we have internet , we just have to have a question in our mind and immediately we google it . Internet is a great tool . We don't have to memorize much, answers are available at click of a button. Life  is great that way. 

But what about existential questions. Where we have  come from , where we will go. Is life a continuum or it is just a temporary phase, how universe came into existence, what makes us happy and so on. These existential questions are experiential and they cannot be instantly answered. They are revealed to you when you are ready. So hold on to these questions dearly. Run from those who want to give ready made and instant answers. This is your  own journey. You have to learn by trial and error. Meeting people of different wisdom traditions. Learning and applying their thoughts.

Let "I don't know" lead you to something bigger and greater. Stay uneducated.

The Life Remote

              

After a hard days work you come home. You look for the favorite piece of furniture, your couch. You then become the perfect "couch potato". Then what do you do. You grab the potato chips packet and rip it open and put a few mouthful. Then you look for the most important thing. "The Television Remote".

The television remote gives us a feeling of achievement, power. We can change channels

at will , make actors appear and disappear at will. 

If you don't agree with me think of the times, when you did not have the remote in hand and you wanted to watch the all important football match. A family member had the remote. The anguish, helplessness you felt at that time. If only you had the remote in hand.

Now you may agree and say, yes a television remote is important but not so important an object to talk about at length. To allay your fears, i am talking of another remote. Your Life Remote, the 

remote with which you control your emotions/ state of affairs, your inner well being.

Just as a television remote is important, so also your life remote is equally important. 

Consider a situation. You get up in the morning. Lovely morning, great sunshine , birds chirping, cool breeze wafting across your room. Suddenly, your eyes rest on the wall clock . It shows 8:30 am in the morning. 

Your heart skips a beat. You realize you are late for the all important office meeting.

You immediately get up,   brush your teeth, skip the shower, wear your formal clothes and rush down the stairs. You get into your car, turn on the ignition and hit the road. Today your driving skills would be put to test.

You have barely gone a hundred meters you come across a cyclist coolly cycling in the middle of the road, humming some tune.You apply the brakes. You are totally out of tune. You shout at him and ask him to take the cycle lane and not block you.

You again step on the gas and you have barely driven 500 meters that you come across an old lady who at that moment decides to cross the road. Auspicious time for her, perhaps. You again apply the brakes thanking your stars for not having hit her. She gives you her blessings but you are in no mood of any blessings. You want to curse her  but etiquette prevents that. You have to check your anger and rising frustration at all these events.

You accelerate , this time there is no room for any further interruptions. But as you approach your office you realize that the whole world has descended upon . Every one wants to reach office in time.

You finally get through the traffic and reach your office. You are anxious , fearful for being late to the meeting.

You open the meeting room door only to find looming figure of your boss. He yells at you and tells you, Govinda, the only thing you  are consistent in life is, coming late. You feel a sense of shame and hurt being ridiculed in front of your colleagues. You quietly make your way to the cubicle with drooping shoulders. You want to just vanish from the scene.

As you sit in your chair soaking in the whole situation , out of nowhere few of your colleagues appear. Each wants some task or the other to be done. You dismiss them curtly and they quickly retreat hurt.

You now sit there blaming the world, situation. Everyone is to blame but yourself for your state of affairs, your emotions.

If you dig deeply then the cyclist , the lady who crossed the road, your boss, traffic etc all were just excuses to trigger a reaction within you. You decided to part with your life remote. You gave privilege to them to  change your emotions. 

You may argue that you could have avoided all these situations by getting up early. Perhaps. But these situations can pan out, in different ways during the day. 

Just as you guard your life remote so preciously so also you should guard your life remote and not part with it.

The privilege of how you feel should rest only and only with you.

So an exercise which may help. Every evening /night before you hit the bed. Go over the daily event without judgement. Relive those events where you gave away your life remote to a person or situation and the other person  or situation was able to change channels within you. Once you are aware of those situations you can take charge and remedial  steps. 

So be protective about your life remote and be in charge.

Perfection in Life

The usual walk in a park in the early evening in nature reminds of wonderful creation. Nature is way too perfect. The tall trees , beautiful flowers . Sun light streaming through the trees and radiating on the flowers bring a kind of joy and peace which otherwise during the day seems out of reach. The day is full of activity our mind and body gets immersed in various tasks , the rut of things kind of make it look ordinary , nothing perfect here.

But once we connect with nature we are reminded of the perfection that exists . Everything happening

in harmony. From the earth rotating and revolving around the sun , the seasons changing, the clear blue skies , sun rising and setting each day without fail. Occasional mood swings are 

when the sun gets clouded.

Human beings too strive for perfection, the perfect diet, the perfect body , perfect house, perfect relationship.Some how that quest for perfection brings with it immense effort and stress. Our expectations and inability to meet high standards can leave us feeling dissatisfied, angry at results. even if success is achieved it is at a cost of many things. While one should strive for success and perfection one should not get lost in the drive to attain it. 

Athletes competing at Olympics have to be at their best, beat the best. It would not be possible were it not for perfection. only thing that separates this kind of perfection from perfection in nature

in nature everything evolves organically , flowers blossom , fruits ripen at the right time only, sun rises and sets at given time, seasons change at given time.In case of human beings everything has to be forced. Time is premium.

Trying to be "always" happy is again sign of perfection. But it leads to depression eventually. 

Pain and suffering have a place. They are our greatest teachers. Imagine if you were not to feel pain

on lifting the utensil on fire you can cause severe burns. Or if there is no pain in stomach on eating junk food we would carry on with our eating habits eventually causing us greater harm. At a deeper level this pain and suffering make us seek alleviation from it and we then become seekers and look for answers and cure else where and correct those situation.

So have room for imperfections and don't be too hard on yourself. Don't fret and fume at not being able to accomplish things. Only thing that matters is our drive and ability to give 100 percent. Results are consequential.