Safety: Necessity, or Bondage..?

Got this quote from one of my friends the other day. Thought of posting it!

"A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.” William Shedd

More of my thoughts on this later. Initial ideas on the subject line! 

Crying of the Soul

Ever faced with a situation where you have an intriguing feeling, that you actually wanted to do something, but somehow are unable to recollect it…? The more you think, the more you start becoming confused… “Something has got amiss... but what?”
Then you might temporarily forget about the incident amidst the rustle and bustle of your busy life, but once coming back home, and lying down on the bed, the same thought grips you again… It is almost a never-ending trail of thoughts, which once triggered, almost has no signs to stop! Feeling confused, you get up, and start watching television. Dissatisfied, you call up over phone for chatting with your friends, or maybe start surfing internet.

But unfortunately, the thought just never stops coming, and as if waits for you be alone. You do whatever you like, but are unable to get rid of it…
Fearsome situation, isn’t it! Something wrong happening inside me, that I cannot find out!!! Someone has called it Noise of Silence *1.

But why does it happen in the first place? I believe the reason might be that there is an internal subconscious mind, which is governed by the underlying deep rooted principles of us. On the top of it, there are the ‘right thoughts’ and ‘good ideas’ that are also continuously pouring in from unknown source… *2.

This inner world of ours has a different mind of its own, and hence a different set of necessities, which may not be aligned to the goals and objectives that we have set for our lives. You know the difference of need and want, right? Need is the actual requirement, while Want is what we actually venture out to satisfy... Now as always, there might not be a positive correlation between the two! We might be actually needing something, but have our objective towards acquiring something else...

But what happens, when the distance increases between these two parameters? Our inner self starts showing discontent. As an expected response, this might start with snarls and grunts, which may be easily overlooked. Getting no redress, the discontent now slowly starts rising. Sometimes, it might simply hijack our senses, so that we might witness temporary pull-out from the surroundings, like getting lost in a dream-world. Like while reading a book which we do not like, but we must, it can happen that we start thinking something else. Only our physical presence is there, but the mind is somewhere else. Our eyes are staring at the book, but the senses are not registering anything (something which is called absence of mind)...

Still getting no response, that discontent may get converted to anger, or sadness... In the latter case, we get slowly submerged in the deep dark pit of confusion and gloom. We understand something is happening, but not sure what. We keep on trying, but can't get a clue. So we indulge ourselves more into more occupying activities in an attempt to douse fire with volcano. Apparently, as those activities (often intoxiacting like watching TV, surfing net, visiting pubs) require so much attention of our senses, we can continue to overlook the cry from inside, what was portrayed at the start of this topic.

It's like a maddening feeling, of being chased by something, from which you can run, but cannot hide...

So what may be the solution of this?

Answer is to apply plain and simple common sense. To douse fire, we will need water. Likewise, to get rid of complaints, we will need to address the particular situation. So one can ask how do we know what is the real need. The only answer is, instead of asking yourself questions, just be ready to listen to it. Be silent. Cut off all your sensory connection to the outside world. And just listen.

What happens when a toddler cries out loud? His mother, even if busy with some other work, will definitely forget everything else, and pay attention to her child. She will take him in her lap, caress and comfort him, till he stops crying. Why can't we do the same to our inner self. After all, we are the only caretakers of our inside. In fact, we are the only means by which our feelings and desires could be manifested into actions. So if we do not pay attention, who will? Is that not a sort of injustice that we commit to ourselves by not paying attention to what we need?

So we need to take up the initiative to nip the problem in its root. We can reserve some time every day, which we spend only with ourselves. So that the day never comes, that our soul has to cry. Because, hurting our soul is as henous, as hurting God Himself...

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Footnote:
*1 : The term "Noise of Silence" is from Sudeep's blog . Actually, the idea of the headline came from that particular post only.

*2 : The unknown source, to me, is the divine intelligence. Maybe we can discuss about this some other day.

What Do We Want From Life...

"What do we want from life"
Ever thought what in this world motivates us? A lot of research like Maslow's theory have already been made on this. But the question is, has anyone come up with a general set of rules that is the lowest common denominator for all...?

In this cosmopolitan society, different people have different aspirations, different strategies, different goals. But does all of us have something in common?

I believe, all of us are in pursuit of satisfaction, in pursuit of completion. Say, why do we work the way we work? Some will say, for money, some for praise, some for power, and some others just for mere satisfaction. Though we might do a work following someone, the underlying motivation might be different. Like, when we are small, we follow our parents blindly, because we somehow trust their judgement completely, to an extent more than we trust ourselves! Then as we grow up, we start getting indulged in materialistic gains, and we start aiming to satisfy our ego... That's how the question of money, power, praise comes up.

But we also hear saints telling that everything material around us is Maya, an illusion created by God Himself, so that we remain detached from the truth of life- whose sole objective is to be one with God (to achieve Mukti).

Now, there are two questions out of this.
First, are we indeed doing any task that is in line with that ultimate goal?
Second, if God knows that our ultimate task is to be one with Him, why has He created Maya?

Well, the answer to the second question is beyond the domain of this particular discussion. Maybe we will try to answer this some other time. But regarding the first question, if any of our task is related to only the material surroundings, and no other value, then most possibly, that task is not aligned to the right objective. I was reading a fantastic example on this in newspaper today. When several people were asked to select their cups to drink coffee, the cups to be chosen last were those with very ordinary looks, while all the shiny and designer ones were taken first...
So, inspite when the true objective was to have coffee (content), everybody put more attention on cup(container).

So are we doing the same with our lives? Why is the general happiness level of public going down, inspite a class of people becoming richer by the day? The average number of successful people are much more now, than that some centuries back... So is this because we are sufferring from banana problem(Just like pronounciation of banana, which can be extended indefinitely...)?

We need money to survive on this planet, so there is no escape from this materialism. But does that necessarily imply that we become materialistic in the process? Now has earning money become more important than living itself...? How else can you explain that the rich and famous have little time enjoying their wealth. They are so overcommited to their commitments, to sustain the present grandeur, that the amount of free time they have for themselves and for family diminishes.

When you have money beyond a point, won't the first point of concern be how to preserve it, and then how to spend it... how to enjoy it...? Then won't we be allowing our life to be controlled by material values, while the only significance of money is that it is an enabler to help us live better?

Now here we come back to the question with which it all started... "What do we want from life".
Might be that we want a life, which will have no regrets, so that we can face ourselves in front of the mirror every morning... So that we can sleep when we lie down on bed, without any more worries... Where my means will meet my needs... Where I will no longer have to run in a race where I never want to participate... Where I can do what I really want... Where I will never have to be concerned about lack of trust on other people... Where I will know, that I will no longer have to fear people from their double standards so that I can trust anyone I choose to without the fear of rejection...

Did I just mention of utopia, or such world is still possible... Is this what we want from world...?

Questions, just endless questions...




Disclaimer: This is not any article, but a post that is based solely on the judgement of the author. Most of the ideas are based on facts, but since this work is not formal, so no attempt was made to back them up with real statistics, and there is no liability of the author in terms of accuracy of this work.
It is not aimed to highlight any discrimination of any caste, religion, gender or belief. Its aim is to simply express the thoughts of the author, so that they do not get lost with onslaught of time...

My First Blog

Till now, I responded erratically to some of the interesting blogs I saw. Then I thought, I can do better.

I created this blog profile to create a viewable record of the outcome of the conversation that I try to have with myself. The Self, which you can only hear when you are Silent. When all your outer sense organs are no longer registering anything, you tend to dive deeper within yourself, to try and find out the answers of the questions that you kept on asking, but never found an answer...

Who knows, it might be your Silent Self, where you can ultimately hear all what you wanted to know!!!

The above picture is distributed under a Creative Commons License