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.