BUT WHY ?? 1

But why these questions in the first place???

“Why should I go through all this botheration don’t I already have enough???”

“What does all this lead up to??” and these are perfect questions …… one may call them the “questions of premise”….as they have within them (hidden) the capacity to alter the premise of life ……. The core point of view that compels us to persist with this existence despite so many complaints, unfulfilled desires, fears, doubts and the endless barrage of negativities such as boredom, listlessness, frustration etc .
Yes these negative emotions and experiences are interspersed with occasional bouts of joy, exhilaration, achievement, freedom, love etc but the ratio seems too unfairly skewed to continue existing and yet we all manage to persist existing , to continue…….

So what is it that makes us continue …… is it hope? And hope for what? And by whom? i.e. who is hoping and for what ??

So all this seems to build up again towards those unanswerable questions (these questions are actually techniques or psychological tools for a sincere seeker)
“who am I ?”

“what is all this (the entire phenomenon of time, space, matter and energy)?”

“When and where did it all begin?”

“Where do I fit into all of this (if at all)?”

Finally
“Do I and all this (the entire phenomenon of time, space, matter and energy) have any purpose ?”

“If so then what?”

THE CRITICAL JUNCTURE

…….And this is a very critical juncture …can I define my “current Psychological location” precisely or Not??? Because it is at this conflux …it is at this juncture that two very distinct paths arise.
As for the one who can clearly define his/her “current Psychological location” the proverb “well begun is half done” suits aptly but for the one who is struggling to define his “current Psychological location” it would be apt to use the proverb “better late than never”.
This juncture is a very critical one as it is here that the religions are born ……..philosophies sprout…… disciplines germinate …….techniques are invented……
The juncture where the answer to the question is in a clear cut binary form ……..black or white without any shades of grey …. And the question is
Can I define my “current Psychological location” precisely??

There can only be a yes or a no to this question for an answer maybe’s have absolutely no place over here…..
For those who have said a YES to it and are in a position to clearly define their “current Psychological location” precisely only one (rather two) more question needs to be asked and that is
“Do you like it there where you are?” If the answer to this question is Yes then we need to put a full stop to this conversation by saying “great …..enjoy it…. and continue feeling the way you do now and follow this feeling ….allow it to lead you to all your decisions and actions”
But if the answer to this question is a No then one final question needs to be asked “Then where would you rather be in your psychological universe? i.e. how would you like to feel?..........what feelings would you want to feel within you?”
Love, joy, bliss, freedom, worthiness, capability …….etc
But why these questions in the first place???

“Current Psychological location”

So before we begin our journey ….this exploration into the unknown it would be of value for the writer to define his location …….. his "current Psychological location".
{The word Psychological here encompasses the “nature of thoughts in the mind”, “general background feeling” and “the baseline emotional state” one is experiencing}.

And this defining of “current Psychological location” is of immense value even from the point of view of something that was written 4 years ago….. “Relationships”. The blog had come to a halt at his topic 4 years ago and now life seems to be seamlessly synthesizing all of it together.
We had spoken about relationships as a part of our universal desire for expansion …..as something requiring a psychological bridge between two people…… and here is the interesting thing ….

Why at times this psychological bridge gets broken?

Or

Why at times it is so hard to establish a psychological bridge to begin with?

And the answer lies in the “current Psychological location” …….
So let us begin with examining this terminology of “current Psychological location”.
The word current implies the Now ……this moment ….it’s here …now it’s gone….it’s here …now it’s gone….it’s here …now it’s gone….it’s here …now it’s gone….it’s here …now it’s gone….Yes this minutest of the perceptible moment of time…Now.

Depending upon the keenness of their awareness Now might imply a second, a minute, an hour, a day, a week or a month etc to different people. The keenness of awareness being inversely proportional to the time duration i.e. more heightened is the awareness the smaller would be the unit of time that Now implies to an individual.

The word Psychological encompasses the “nature of thoughts in the mind”, “general background feeling” and “the baseline emotional state” that one is experiencing.

And location intimates a clear cut understanding of one’s present position in the world of thoughts, feelings and emotions.
So an example of “current Psychological location” would be.....

Since past week (time period) I am feeling depressed (emotion) with these thoughts of failure and powerlessness (thoughts) and this makes me feel all the more resentful of the situation (feelings about the situation and emotion)

Or

I am feeling elated (emotion) of late (time period) and have these creative thoughts running all over my mind (thoughts) it makes me feel so alive and enthusiastic (feelings about the situation and emotion)

Who is it ?

When the writer is writing this who is he talking to?? And this strangely is a very difficult question. In this exploration as previously said ,“It’s not that the writer conjures up a writing ……instead the writing is conjuring up what is called as a writer……”, there is not a pinch of certainty; the uncertain is delving into the unknown . So in essence it could also be stated that the writer is talking to himself. Self is the keyword here. Something on the periphery has become interested to find out the core. A spoke on the periphery wants to know its hub. But the paradox or irony of the situation is that in talking to himself (loudly) the writer is talking to everyone else. As no matter how apart or oppositely aligned various spokes of a wheel maybe….. at their core they are held together by one single hub alone. 4 years later and despite the maddening current of a variety of experiences the writer still finds the premise of “self integrity”, integrating oneself completely with oneself without a miniscule of contradiction, as relevant. In fact the experience of the past years has rather infused conviction to his thought of “self integrity”. And hence we begin with the question we began 4 years ago “why do I feel so scattered?”……. “Why is there not a singular stream of thought and feeling within me?”……. “Why should I be thinking and feeling thoughts within me that are contradictory to my own dreams and desires?”…….. And the answer to all these questions could be explored from the point of view of reaching to the hub of self. Everything is alright but “who am I?” to begin with. I want to clearly delineate my self. Who is it that dreams the dreams? …….who is it that chases the desires? Who is it who fears the fears?...... “who is it who asks “who am I?””

River, Bridge or something else altogether

Nearly 4 years have passed now; much water must have flown under the bridge. The writer must have changed the written then is bound to change……..but wait “much water must have flown under the bridge”…….the bridge remains the same. So here is an interesting question now, am I the bridge?? or the river that flows underneath?? and it is of value to know clearly which one of it is me as the difference is drastic. Though subject to change both the bridge and the river are the rapidity of rate of change of one (the river) makes the other look almost changeless. So who am I? Am I the river of constantly and rapidly changing experiences? Or Am I the seemingly changeless observer (bridge) that is aware of all this as it is happening? Or Is this analogy of the river and bridge too insufficient to encompass the human condition?

Return to the beginning

But why come back to what was left unattended for four years? To be honest it is beyond the writer …….. He goes onto a certain trip... experiences something and comes back to reflect upon it in the form of a writing and suddenly life takes him up for another ride (“suddenly” is not an appropriate word and this entire line demands an explanation lengthy enough for a few posts, as it is suggestive of life being different from the living ….. but just to avoid swaying away from the core issue we would accept it as it is for now) and now while he is on the ride …….he is on the ride …..he is not reflecting about the ride…life anyways offers roller coaster type rides but with the only difference that unlike the roller coaster (and more like the bus or train) one does not get down where he got on ……it’s a different place. His vantage point has changed and with that in all probability he has changed??? Now he wants to explore ……… Explore what happened and this is different from reflection ….. Reflection has a fixed “Reflector” the one who is reflecting….. But this exploration is different …..it springs forth from uncertainty and delves into uncertainty it does not have any element of placid certainty of reflection …. It’s not that the writer conjures up a writing ……instead the writing is conjuring up what is called as a writer…..

RELATIONSHIPS...4

Business minded or more subtle (adding beauty and richness to life) both approaches have at their heart a “desire for more” a desire for EXPANSION and this desire for expansion is a fundamental desire the cause behind all causes of “desire for more” the one single whip that keeps whipping us into constant action throughout our lives, making us do whatever we do, behave the way we behave, think the way we think etc… in essence it is the engine of the automobile of life.
EXPANSION is a very natural cosmic event or order. Big bang set it off 15 Billion years ago and since then there has been no looking back the universe is expanding at an unimaginable pace, parts of it at the speed of light. The gaseous masses expand and coalesce to become stars. The rivers (tributaries) expand by joining a larger river which in turn expands by joining the ocean. Everything in this universe is growing (& of course aging and dying), so are the human beings according to the cosmic blue print, but their growth is to occur on two planes.
The obvious physical plane and the more sublime (so to say) metaphysical plane. The growth on the physical plane is a pre-programmed fully automated process and neither requires any of our contribution nor does it bother about our consensus. But the growth on the metaphysical plane, should more aptly be called as development, is completely dependent upon our insight and action, it is an open uninitiated program waiting to be custom developed.
This process of internal development following the cosmic blue print is EXPANSION driven. That is the process of metaphysical growth is a process of expansion and relationships are its spring boards to dive into the sea of expansion. The external physical world around us nothing more than lay out generated by our internal world for its own development and expansion. Every person, situation, event and relation is opportunity passing by us any or all of them can be used by us so as to contribute to our own inner growth. But we have just been doing the opposite all along.
We stay outside the entire time holding finely cut pieces of glass which are our counterfeits to the real diamonds. That is, we act as if we are loving, caring, friendly and intimate, but this is just an act and not a reality it is a very superficial enactment with no substance from within because we have never bothered to look into the within. We all very clearly know that ours are counterfeits (glass instead of diamonds) but our inner search for expansion, for the real has driven us crazy by now because till now we have always responded to these paroxysms of inner search (inner, metaphysical development) in all the wrong directions searching knowledge, degrees, awards, certificates, wealth, fame, love, fulfilling relationships always on the outside. So this craziness of ours makes us believe that what the other is carrying are diamonds and the other person is no different from us he/she in his/her craziness sees us in possession of diamonds. Two people with counterfeits of the real diamonds (love, care, sensitivity, friendliness and intimacy) blinded by their craziness, become absolutely certain that the other is in possession of the real thing, the original diamonds. Sooner than later the truth dawns upon both the parties that the other like themselves is in possession of only beautiful glass pieces (acts of loving, caring, friendliness, sensitivity and intimacy) and not diamond and this is a shattering revelation. All romance comes to an end and bitterness fills every nook and cranny of life both parties blame the other for cheating them when the truth is that their own craziness has cheated themselves.
But for a person responding to the pangs of inner expansion with utter sincerity every person, situation, event and relation is an opportunity to share and expand. He has responded to his pangs of expansion with honesty and directed his attention inwards and he has realized that he does not possess a diamond or two instead within him is an inexhaustible diamond mine which not only defies the laws of ordinary economics rather behaves exactly opposite to them. The ordinary laws of economics say that if we give we are left with lesser than we had and if we go on giving we would soon be left with nothing. But the diamond mine of true love, care, sensitivity, friendliness and intimacy goes on expanding and increasing itself the more we spend it, in fact it shrinks and begins to disappear if we don’t spend its diamonds and securely confine them to ourselves alone. For such a person the other exists only for the joy of sharing, for giving. And when two such inner billionaires meet life becomes a dance of joy each wants to share himself with the other because he has so much and it is uncontainable and both exist not to take anything but to give everything.

RELATIONSHIPS...3

We understand that relationships are a psychological bridge between people, we also understand their two components (mental and emotional), but now it’s time to take a step further and ask ourselves a very fundamental root shaking question.
Why do we need relationships? Are relationships a real necessity in our lives?
The relationships consume so much of our energy and emotions are they worth all this?
The answer to all these questions can be a YES or it can be a NO depending on what is that we are looking for in our lives !!!!!!
So let us begin with the NO. No relationships are not at all necessary if we are interested in leading a utilitarian robotic life. No relationships are not worth the time, energy and emotion we pump into them, if we are interested in a business like investment is to return ratio from relationships.
On the other hand if we are one of those who are interested in living a life filled with sweetness, joy and self-expansion then relationships are a necessity. But still there is another paradox here, that if we enter a relationship with a want or a desire (no matter how gross or how subtle) we would find all relationships unworthy and unfulfilling.
So a PARADOX appears and the paradox is that relationships are worthwhile only for those who are looking for sweetness, joy and self-expansion and not for business minded people bothered about investment is to return ratios, but even those who plunge into a relationship with the idea of obtaining sweetness, joy and self-expansion from a relationship in their life will find it unworthy and unfulfilling sooner or later just like the business minded people do from the very beginning.
This paradox is no ordinary paradox it is a window into another world, a portal to another dimension and hence an insight into it is very important. Looked at casually the paradox implies that all relationships shall sooner or later become unworthy and unfulfilling no matter what is our initial approach to them, but a diving into its depth opens up an entirely new dimension of existence.

RELATIONSHIPS...2

The term psychology here implies two principle elements, they are MENTAL and EMOTIONAL. That is a relationship is comprised of a psychological bridge between two individuals and this psychological bridge is comprised of MENTAL and EMOTIONAL components.
The mental component comprises of intellectual agreement is very dry and business like. So much so that if mental component alone is present (and emotional component is lacking) a relationship cannot be called as a relationship it is a mere symbiosis, an arrangement for convenience of existence just as is seen in the animal kingdom between various interdependent species.
For example one has a mental relationship with his boss, his driver, his building security guard, his domestic help, his cook etc... These are all arrangements for convenience of existence there is a well defined intellectual agreement between each pair. The boss requires us accomplish the tasks as per instruction and to which he shall reward us with a promotion or pay hike. The cook needs to do timely and good cooking for us for which we shall pay him his salary. The security guard needs to take special care for our letters and arrange for our car parking and for that we shall reward him with an occasional tip here and there. These are all examples of mental relationships; these are no more than business deals and contracts but are relationships none the less. There is no margin for error and these relationships operate within a very narrow “margin of tolerance” that is if we were to under-perform or fail to deliver the expected results the promotion from the boss would turn into a sharp reprimand or even a termination. If the domestic help takes leave too often she will be fired etc... That is whenever one member fails to accomplish his/her expected role he or she is immediately rebuked or punished for that.
And it is probably necessary too since the world of market, money, power, business and industry have nothing emotional to them they have all originated in the mind and are run by it for creating a convenient living.
But there is a problem that has arisen, slowly due to continuous exposure and lingering the world of market, money, power& business has entered our homes and our hearts. It has completely overpowered and overshadowed our EMOTIONAL existence and now we are doing business even at home and in our personal lives. This is a more sophisticated and subtle kind of business though. We have become calculative; when we “invest” ourselves into a relationship we automatically have “expectations” for “returns”. But all this is very subtle nothing is brought out, nothing is on the face but there is a deep undercurrent, an undercurrent of “expectations” which governs every single thing we say and do. We are no more naturally friendly, intimate and joyous with the other person instead we mould and manipulate our behaviour towards the other person so as to obtain a response from him or her that matches our “expectations”. Children behave the way parents want them to just to manipulate them into buying the video-game or the bicycle they want. Wives act lovingly to manipulate husbands into fulfilling their demands. Husbands surprise wives and act caring in order to extract more independence and freedom. But all this is a farce, a sham, a mockery and nothing else. Sadly it is no more than a complicated symbiosis of animal kingdom, an arrangement for convenience of existence.
So deeply and completely has this disease of superficial mental relationships penetrated our entire lives that it is a struggle to quote analogies and examples of the pure emotional relationships. But all is not lost the selfless and loving care of parents towards their children is a deeply emotional relationship and it is one sided from parents alone since the child is so incapable physically, mentally and emotionally. On rare occasions there occurs a loving relationship between two individuals which is chiefly if not totally based on emotions. There are relationships between children and parents, between brothers and sisters that are chiefly emotional and these are the ones that richness to one’s life and make it worth living.
In these loving emotional relationships intellectual agreement is not a major priority. The two individuals or the group (as in a family) may hold diametrically opposite opinions on various issues of common concern but that in no way changes their love and respect for each other. Each is aware and respectful of others point of view (though not in agreement with it) and the relationship thrives on love, friendliness, openness and intimacy.

RELATIONSHIPS...1

Willingness, alertness and clarity. Which one before the other and in which order is almost like “the hen came first or the egg?” but all three are necessary. But if we were to get into the habit of precession and detailing of the social intelligence then it would be clarity first, then willingness and finally alertness.
But before all that let us delve a bit into what exactly is a relationship?
Put simply it is a psychological bridge between two individuals and this definition has some shocking implications.
It implies that no relationship actually exists!!!! It is created!!!
The biology has very little to do with any relationship it is the psychology that matters. For example a child being raised by foster parents who is unaware of this fact develops a psychological bonding with his foster parents and so do the parents. A child suffering abuse at the hands of parents will only develop more and more hatred towards them. History has been a witness to innumerable occasions of brothers fighting and killing each other for power, pride or possessions. All these and more are nothing but proofs that relationship has a major psychological component and very little if any biological component, although biology does help in a sense that the individuals related biologically, by the social design (family), spend a greater deal of time together from the earliest possible period of one’s life. So the parents condition their children like themselves and hence children, who now are running their lives with the software borrowed from their parents, find it obvious and natural to relate with them with a greater ease than anybody else.
But then a problem arises. In adolescence when the child starts to search for its own identity. But he is in a fix because up till now all his rights & wrongs, do’s & don’ts, appropriate & inappropriate, dreams & desires were fed to him by the society around him (parents, teachers, the entire socio-cultural milieu) but now when he wants something genuine something of his own then there is nothing he can find, nothing he can call genuinely his own. Frustrated with this deadlock and his exercise in futility he becomes a reactionary he begins to say no to anything and everything. It is his way of announcing his arrival, his independence, his uniqueness. The adolescent mind becomes a reactionary and a compulsive NO speaking machine. It wants to break free of all the rights & wrongs, do’s & don’ts, appropriate & inappropriate imposed on it and for the shear lack of ingenuity (and that’s because the society paralyzes his capability to think and reason from the early childhood by endlessly feeding it with a barrage of ideas and reduces him to a memory bank, an information warehouse, that just stores and reproduces given information) and an unbearable incapability of coming up with something original, something it can call “its own thing”. So instead of creating something it can call its own it starts to reject and negate everything.
And this time period is very stressful for the family, it puts a lot of strain on the fabric of family’s relationships. So we see that even though a child is biologically related to the parents and is nurtured in a loving and caring environment by them their relationship still comes under immense strain during adolescence due to the disruption of the psychological bridge on part of the adolescent who begins to resent and react to all social norms and conditionings.

THE CHAIN OF EVENTS, continued

....Now the social intelligence comes up with the most diabolical tricks from its armory. As time goes on and Susan spends more and more time with Craig, social intelligence deems Craig as “FAMILIAR” having done that it declares Craig and all experiences related to him as its sovereign domain and shuts all doors out for a possible being to being connection between the two via innate intelligence. The social intelligence does not stop at that it labels the relationship as love, creates a love folder and starts storing memories. This is where it commits another blunder, it then goes on indiscriminately storing all sorts of contradictory memories in the folder dubiously named LOVE eventually all the data from “THIS IS WRONG, IT SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING LIKE THIS” folder, all the “NEGATIVE DEVIATIONS”, are mutually shared in the love folder too.
It become like a jar in the kitchen labeled “sugar”. To begin with there had been some sugar in the jar but when it got over the lady of the house found it more convenient to store salt in this jar and when salt was finished she put an entire pack of newly opened chilli powder in the jar since no other empty container was available at that time. But throughout the chain of these incidents the jar has been bearing the label “sugar” on it and on numerous occasions the lady has put salt in the coffee (fooled by the label) and chilli powder in the deserts spoiling the whole thing but still not taking the lesson.
That just by labeling the jar as “sugar” it would not automatically start storing sugar. It can only contain what we put in it. So when the sugar in is running low or is about to get over it has to be replaced with more sugar and not salt and chillies. This will require both alertness and constant effort.
Alertness to always keep a check as to what is happening now? We may have been very happy in the past (1, 2 or 5 years ago) but are we happy now?
To keep a check that the jar of relationships is just labeled as “love” or it contains love too and that the love content of the jar (relationship) is increasing, decreasing or has remained the same. To keep a check if love is not coming out of the jar of a particular relationship then what has been stored now in the jar of this relationship of late in place of love.
It will require a lot of alertness and willingness to find the “incorrect item” (anger, jealousy, doubt etc...) filling up the jar (relationship) labeled as LOVE.
Surely it will be a lot of effort to remove the incorrect items (anger, jealousy, doubt, mistrust, irritation etc...) and again replace them with LOVE.
This makes us realize that life is a constantly flowing stream of change and the rigid and unchanging “golden memories” and “incorrect labels” only add to the confusion and misery already pervading our lives and fail despondently in fulfilling their false promises of happiness and satisfaction.
We draw two lessons and also are faced with a few new questions.
Two lessons drawn are
I. All relationships (family, friends, lovers each and every relationship without any exception) require a constant and honest reassessment of their current condition and then accordingly need to be taken up for servicing or a total overhaul as deemed fit by the assessment requirements.
II. This process requires three essential components, WILLINGNESS, ALERTNESS are CLARITY.

It also leaves us with the question as to what are these magical ingredients (willingness, alertness are clarity) that can make our lives so wonderful and worth living for?

THE CHAIN OF EVENTS

Susan meets Craig for the first time and for a moment sinks into her innate intelligence. This slipping into innate intelligence may be due to Craig’s enchanting behavior, may be due a sense of relaxation & relief (since exam results had been declared the same afternoon and she had cleared the exams along with a few others), may be accidental, may be due to the ambiance....... there are “N” number of probable reasons and one can never know for sure what made it happen but the bottom line is that on that evening at that party during her conversation with Craig it happened. Now the innate intelligence is the storehouse of all the positivity and goodness in our lives, the moment she slips into it like a flash everything change, everything appears so beautiful, so fresh, so alive and like a pleasant breeze this phenomenon just sweeps Susan (who is now feeling her existence as light as a feather) off her feet. She is experiencing profound SILENCE, the surroundings are merging into each other with indistinct boundaries and amidst this pleasant experience she is with Craig. So Susan sinks into her innate intelligence and COINCIDENTALLY it happens during her conversation with Craig.
Now begins the fundamental mistake. As soon as she reverts to her social intelligence (words and mind stuff) there is an immediate recognition of the pleasant experience she had gone through. “Conversion of a feeling generated in innate intelligence to a mere memory or idea in the format of words and labels of social intelligence” has occurred. But now the social intelligence will not rest, it is like the tiger that has tasted fresh blood.
The social intelligence which is totally unaware of the existence or the reality of innate intelligence immediately gets busy to find out the cause behind the pleasant experience she had had. Craig is identified as the obvious cause for the sense of elation and pleasantness and this precisely is the fundamental error.
“Identification of outer world objects, persons and situations as the cause of happiness which actually was generated within one’s very own self (within one’s own innate intelligence) by the social intelligence”.
Now the greed to obtain and sustain happiness via media Craig takes over Susan and it will keep her restless until she gets enough and more proof, a sought of guarantee, that her new found source of happiness (in this case Craig) would continue to be with her forever. This precisely is the cause for all the worry and excitement initially, “that whether or not this source of happiness would continue to be with me?”
Once Craig hints at his approval then this question (“that whether or not this source of happiness would continue to be with me?”) gets answered and a sense of settlement, relaxation and calm prevails all of a sudden this again pushes her back into her innate intelligence refreshing her and making her feel pleasant and now she comes out even more convinced that Craig is the cause to her happiness and her greed to obtain and sustain this happiness takes firm roots within her. Now she will become possessive and extremely so, since she sees Craig as a resource of her happiness and is haunted by the fear of losing him.
So she eagerly waits to convert this “holiday home of sorts” relationship of theirs where there is a lot of freedom for both individuals especially Craig who is still not completely committed into an “impenetrable castle” of marriage. All this is being done only to ensure that her source of happiness is ensured to stay with her. So when Craig proposes then there is no time to think or wait she takes a plunge she had been so eagerly waiting to.............

THE MIDAS TOUCH, continued

Once we successfully convert a living person into a dead memory we have opened the Pandora’s Box for ourselves. Firstly this golden memory is chiefly composed of nothing but our fantasies about how a person should be (be it husband, wife, friend, brother, in-laws etc...) and partly of edited reality which we have chosen and handpicked to corroborate our pre-existing ideas about them. Secondly no living person can be frozen and reduced to a bunch of dead memories. We had seen in our discussion on the cosmic laws, the four principle forces of nature CREATION, MAINTENANCE, CONSTANT CHANGE (EVOLUTION) and REJUVENATION (DEATH) are busy unrelentingly changing each and everything in the cosmos from galaxies, stars, rivers, rocks and mountains to trees, animals and humans. So how then is it ever possible for a living and ever changing person to continuously live up to a bunch of dead memories and ideas???
We do not understand this principle fallacy (mistake) of ours and then go about declaring that the other person used us, cheated us etc... It is we ourselves cheating us and nobody else. Please understand if a person is continuously able to live up to our golden memories and ideas about him / her then he/she too is dead and lifeless (not necessarily physically but emotionally and mentally) like the gold statues of the king, since living people will be vibrant and changing. If he / she is able to do that then be very sure that we, like the king Midas, have successfully reduced them to a figment of our fantasy and rendered them lifeless.
Instead of intelligently understanding the universal fact that “CHANGE IS THE ONLY CONSTANT THING, NOTHING ELSE CAN REMAIN CONSTANT” we hang on to our golden memories and instead of editing and updating them to the new changes we register “DEVIATIONS”.
Simply put we always cross-refer a person’s present behavior with our golden memory track record about him / her (in case of people whom we dislike it can be called as “stone sculptured memories” but they also function in the same way as the golden memories by not allowing us to see a person afresh in the present moment as he is) then we keep a score. Any behavioral pattern falling out of purview of the expected golden memory pattern is a “DEVIATION”. These deviations can be good or they can be bad.
Now comes the height of cunningness, driven by our greed to obtain and sustain happiness in our lives via the means of the other person we make decorative editions in our golden memory with the new “GOOD DEVIATIONS”, raising the bar of our expectations from the other person further and further higher. But we purposefully fail to do any addition or editing about the “NEGATIVE DEVIATIONS”. Instead we just keep a record of them (negative deviations) in the “THIS IS WRONG, IT SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING LIKE THIS” folder. As time passes by more and more entries are registered into the “this is wrong, it should not be happening like this” folder and when we compare our golden memory with the current records in the “this is wrong, it should not be happening like this” folder we get overwhelmed and now we begin our drama of declaration of being cheated and used...... etc...
So we can clearly see that what we do in the name of love is nothing but fooling ourselves and choking the other person and then putting the blame on each other.

THE MIDAS TOUCH

Again the same mistake “Conversion of a feeling generated in innate intelligence to a mere memory or idea in the format of words and labels of social intelligence”. But there is more to it than just this alone when relationships are concerned.
Remember the story about a king who prays to god for a boon that whatever he touches should turn to gold. Then he turns his entire beautiful garden into lifeless gold and rejoices in the fulfillment of his madness for money. In his excitement to show the miraculous feats he had achieved while his daughter and wife were asleep he rushed to their room. In the feverish excitement and forgetfulness of his newly obtained boon he shook both his wife and daughter to wake them up and in the process with his “MIDAS TOUCH” turned them into gold too. The story goes on to describe the continued suffering of the king because he is unable to eat or even drink since whatever he touches turns to gold...............
Well sadly we too have blessed (rather cursed) ourselves with the “MENTAL MIDAS TOUCH”.
We are always busy converting the present moment into a GOLDEN MEMORY; we are busy creating beautiful archives of our lives to be presented to ourselves and people around us at a later date that is precisely the reason why we are busy clicking away photos at the sites of breathtaking natural beauties and wondrous monuments instead of enjoying the moment itself then and there. This is on a gross physical plane on a more subtle mental level we do a similar thing. Like the king we too are driven by a kind of greed but this greed is a bit different it is the greed for happiness instead of just gold (we want gold too but happiness is an absolute must). So we too are busy en-robing the people around us, people whom we claim to love, into golden memories with are “MENTAL MIDAS TOUCH”.
So what happens is that we pick and choose the finest moments we had had with that person (whom we claim to love) edit and further refine those moments to suit our fantasy about the ideal person/partner by omitting the events that do not conform to our liking and exaggerating those that we cherish and freeze that living person in a GOLDEN IDEA OR MEMORY about him. A living person is reduced to a dead memory. And from here begin the endless fallacies.
Please understand that the GOLDEN MEMORY drafted about the other person is driven by our own greed to obtain and sustain happiness in our lives via his/her means and this so called golden memory is mostly our own fantasy about the person and only partly (if at all) reality imposed on him/her by us.
This is an act of selfishness driven by the greed of attaining and sustaining happiness for our own selves. But one of utter foolishness too, like the king whose greed for gold leaves him with nothing but suffering and misery within himself and gold on the outside we too are left with beautiful ideas and memories within our head and starkly contradictory events of reality on the outside. We are left feeling cheated, used and miserable. But the entire mistake like the king is ours..................

THE INTRICATE MISTAKE, in relationships

So what exactly was the intricate mistake in all these situations?
“Conversion of a feeling generated in innate intelligence to a mere memory or idea in the format of words and labels of social intelligence”.
So what’s wrong with that? And what has it got to do with relationships?
Susan meets Craig for the first time and somewhere amidst there exciting conversation there occurs one eye contact and she is swept off her feet, a wonderful experience dawns upon her being!!!!!!
Moments later she snaps out of her personal bliss zone and returns to the normalcy of the mundane reality. Now her mind (social intelligence) has kicked into action “this is it......... this is LOVE” “this is what you have been looking for all your life!!!!!!!!” Excitement grips her. This is an Excitement of being in love mixed with the excitement of uncertainty. She is unable to be at rest, she is constantly stormed by “does he love me too?” or “does he not”. All is this is very unlike the soothing and joyous experience she had had upon her first meeting but it is exciting and unrelenting none the less. Day in and day out she figures out ingenious new ways to strike a conversation with Craig and amidst the conversation she is busy scrutinising each and every word and gesture of his to find a clue to the two bothersome duo in her mind “does he love me too?” or “does he not”. As days pass by Craig seems to be resigning into Susan’s persistence and not exactly on a particular day or date but somewhere with indistinct boundaries of date and time they both slowly realize a mutual liking exists between the two. So now Susan gets a sort of confirmation (an indirect one through extrapolation of Craig’s behaviour and by reading between the lines) that Craig also likes her and Craig on the other hand finds a number of characteristics of Susan very affable. So he too is declaring this phenomenon as LOVE to himself.
Now the state of affairs is quiet a pleasing one, the tormenting excitement of “does he love me too?” or “does he not” has been replaced by sense of a more relaxed longing to meet Craig often ,within Susan, and Craig’s doubts and dilemmas about “is she the one?” have given way to “there cannot be any one better”. The eagerly awaited rendezvous, the excitement of meeting each other, stealing glances, the endless exchange of innumerable words, time just evaporating away in each other’s company............... Oh this is bliss..........
And finally it happens; Craig proposes and does so with a genuine style and flair. Susan, who of course has been expecting and eagerly awaiting for this to happen at some point in time, is touched deeply emotionally by his gesture and accepts the proposal amidst the overwhelming tears of joy. They get married and lived happily ever after............????
Yes they do get married and they did live with each other, only for a while though. Slowly the excitement of meeting and being in each other’s company has vanished into thin air without a warning. As days progress to months something drastically different starts to occur , instead of enjoying each other’s company they start enjoying television programmes better and instead of going out with each other they now go out with their friends. As the mounting months give way to the year something dramatically different has started taking place, Susan finds a number of Craig’s habits as extremely repulsive and Craig feels that Susan is intolerably nagging and complaining continuously. The same time which used to fly away and vanish in each other’s presence now seems to have come to a standstill. Everyday is the same heavy drag of nagging, arguing, complaining and then repeating the same cycle afresh the next day with seemingly new agendas.
And then the unthinkable, yet ironically, inevitable happens. They break up.... why???
Because Susan is convinced that Craig is cheating her based on certain circumstantial and situational extrapolations she vehemently pours her wrath on him one night not willing to listen to or give the chance for any explanation. Interestingly Craig is not bothered to give any (explanation) either. He has no reason or interest now to hang on to Susan any further. What follows are nothing but bitter law suits and ugly mudslinging allegations sessions on the days of court hearing.
So what went wrong? And where did it go wrong?

THE RADICAL INSIGHT, the intricate mistake explained

So we do understand that we have been made to chase a “mirage of lasting happiness” until now. There are brief moments of pleasure in life but they are hugely interspersed with prolonged spells of boredom, anxiety, fear of failure and greed of greater success. In essence it’s an unfair deal, there is too much of investment in the form of actual effort, anxiety about the correctness and quality of effort, fear of failure to attain the requisite goal and occasional “run amok” system overrides in the form of greed for greater success completely capsizing our entire system just to get the return in the form of the aimed for goal and momentary whiff of pleasure. But all of this could be changed very easily if we were to agree upon single statement.
“HAPPINESS LIES WITHIN US AND NOT OUTSIDE OF US”.
“Oh come on, I have been hearing that lame statement all my life its absolutely meaningless”, “even if it had a meaning it does not apply to me, I am a person engaged neck deep in daily activities, I have bills to pay, I have a job to do, a promotion to achieve.......... how does it apply to me anyways?”. The mind (social intelligence) has entered its denial and rejection mode even before getting started. (There is a big reason behind this too, as to why our mind is responding in such a cynical fashion to this simple truth, we shall see that too, a bit later though).
Let us analyze this statement in reference to the “sunset view point”, what happened there?
The mind or the social intelligence drops for a while upon witnessing the magnificence and beauty of the sunset at the viewpoint in that perfectly picturesque setting due to two reasons, because it is an entirely new (first time) experience and there is no previous memory label available for the situation and hence it has to be lived “as it is”, secondly natural beauty and magnificence has a capability to override our social intelligence and directly connect with our innate intelligence (if we remain aware and cooperative).
So upon the first visit the social intelligence (that works exquisitely through the past in the form of experience, memory and labels) is dumbfounded by this entirely new experience, secondly the magnificence and grandeur of the natural beauty is easily able to override an already dumbfounded social intelligence and push us into our innate intelligence easily. In essence we live the experience through our innate intelligence and hence it is felt as such an intense and wonderful experience. But as we come to the view point again and again the intensity and the overall quality of our experience keeps declining. The natural beauty and magnificence has not changed, the natural experience is still the same BUT the “ONE WHO EXPERIENCES” has changed.
Now our social intelligence has already created a label for the place as “good”, it has the full backup of memory of past experience, it comes to the view point every time and updates itself with all the useless details as to “how many minutes it takes for complete sunset to occur”, “how many people generally come to witness the sunset”, “how many food stalls are there in and around the place” etc etc....... the endless list of useless facts and figures. So every time we come back to the view point the mind or the social intelligence becomes stronger and stronger about the place. So now not only does it NOT get dumbfounded immediately upon witnessing the picturesque panorama it also RESISTS the attempts of override by natural beauty to directly connect with our innate intelligence. And hence slowly keeps diluting our experience, until it declares the sunset view point as FAMILIAR. That is the death blow, since as soon as anything is declared FAMILIAR by social intelligence it becomes its “sovereign domain” and no interference of innate intelligence in it would be allowed,this is a part of “LABELED AND LEFT OUT” phenomenon (will be dealt with later in detail). Hence as soon as the social intelligence or the mind becomes familiar with a situation, place or person (or declares a situation or person familiar) there will be no room for innate intelligence there. So the same sunset view point which when lived through (although without our understanding of the phenomenon) the innate intelligence was such a splendidly profound experience at the first visit is now reduced to a boring drag of WAITING for the sun to quickly sink in and disappear within a few subsequent visits.
This is precisely the reason why we all love SURPRISES, since there are no memories for that situation and hence social intelligence gets is dumbfounded for those moments and hence lets us easily slip into innate intelligence for a few moments which seem to be so joyous and so pleasurable!!!!
Because “HAPPINESS LIES WITHIN US AND NOT OUTSIDE OF US”.

THE INTRICATE MISTAKE 2, continued

So what exactly happened at the sunset view point? And how does a similar phenomenon occur in every aspect of our lives including relationships?
Well............ the phenomenon that happened at the sunset view point is called “LABELED AND LEFT OUT”. So what is this “labeled and left out” phenomenon?
To understand this phenomenon we need to make a revolutionary shift in our basic understanding of life as a whole itself!!!!!!!!!!!!
All are lives we have been endlessly deluded with the idea that happiness lies somewhere outside of us. It is there in achieving great marks/grades in the exams, it is there in going to great universities and pursuing the fanciest of courses, it is there in having the most beautiful/handsome girl/boy as your girlfriend/boyfriend, it is there in having a “cool” group of friends to hang out with, it is there in getting a job with the fattest pay check, it is there in having a perfect man/woman as your husband/wife ...........................the list is endless and it does not stop even at the funeral pyre or the burial ground because there are pre-defined criterion of a good death and how to attain a perfect after life too!!!!!!!!!!
So all our lives we just keep striving helplessly and obviously without a choice to attain all these pre-determined criterion's of a “GOOD LIFE” without even reflecting even once over its reality. Each one of us has surely crossed some of the above mentioned marks, or fulfilled the pre-determined criterion's, of a “GOOD LIFE”. Let us at first take a good, honest, a critically analytical and a totally unbiased look at own lives. Are we living the promised “GOOD LIFE”?
Yes of course there have been moments of celebration upon attaining the gold medal, the promotion, the best job offer, the perfect life partner etc...... But at what price?
364 days were spent with the waxing and waning botheration about the 365th day of result announcement, 364 days were spent with a constant irritation and worry about the impending promotion on the 365th day, 364 days were spent with the crest and trough of faith and doubt about the great job offer etc.........our entire lives were reduced to just one background thought of a constant scuffle between two thoughts “will it happen?” (Our dream coming true) or “will it not”. If it did (that is we did succeed in attaining what we wanted to) then how long did the exhilaration last? A week? A month? A month is probably too much to ask for!!!!! As soon as we attained one landmark on our laid out road to “GOOD LIFE” our mind was already off to the other landmark. Sometimes it wasn’t even there to celebrate the achievement. No sooner did we get our gold medal for graduation and the mind was already brooding over great jobs and hefty pay checks it wasn’t even there at the awards ceremony!!!
So we clearly see that we are running after a “mirage of lasting happiness” that only goes further and further away (in time, as in the future, and in newer achievements) from us the more we chase or try to come near it.

THE INTRICATE MISTAKE 1

Suppose we go to a beautiful hill station with the perfect environment as we would like to. We happened to enjoy a marvelous sunset over there. As we witness the grandeur and magnificence of nature suddenly our inner chatter of unceasing words within our social intelligence ceases and we, almost by accident, are pushed into our deeper self (the innate intelligence) a genuine stir of feelings occurs in our innate intelligence as we connect with the nature around us, an “instantaneous awareness of the present moment as it happens”. By the time the sunset is over and we are ready to head back we have already converted our feelings into an experience, a gray (transition) zone between innate and social intelligence, by LABELING it as good (a good experience).if at this moment we remain silent and contained within ourselves we would be able to relive the experience and continue to experience similar, if not the same, joy we were experiencing during the actual event (sunset). But by the time we reach home (or the holiday resort) we have already transferred the whole incident from our innate intelligence to our social intelligence as a memory in the format of words “oh it was such a nice experience at the view point, the sunset between the hills, chirping of birds, the pleasant breeze etc......” etc... But this word document of memory has the attachment of experience tagged along with it. So every time we hear or think (words, word document) of that sunset view point automatically the linked attachment of experience also opens up in our system, without our knowledge of course, and fills our system up with that pleasant experience we had had. And here begins the fundamental error. Now we start believing that going to that view point will give us pleasure. We start visiting the view point often, but with every passing visit the intensity of our pleasurable experience seems to be reducing and yet we do come back with those same words “oh it was such a nice experience at the view point, the sunset between the hills, chirping of birds, the pleasant breeze etc......” reeling in our heads. Though we keep repeating these same words, just a layer underneath them (words) we are acutely aware of the fact that it does not feel the same, the intensity, the joy, the contentment all of it seems to be fading away. By now the visit to the view point has become more of a ritual, it is a drag and no joy or pleasant experience emerges out of it. Slowly we start feeling that the place is not that great after all, we don’t just stop at that we revisit our memory files and make corrections even there. Reducing or even falsifying the intensity of previous experiences, thus creating conflicts and contradictions within ourselves.
Well.... what just happened with the view point happens with almost everything in our life and sadly that everything includes our relationships too.

THE INSUFFICIENCY part 2

So where are we going with this discussion? what do we want to bring to light or highlight with all these examples???
“Words or languages are good at conveying a broad overview of things and facts (as in numbers, figures etc...) but they fail miserably when it comes to conveying, or replicating in the minds of others, minute and precise details of PEOPLE, SITUATIONS and EXPERIENCES”.
This is what we want to highlight, the insufficiency of the language to objectively and precisely convey details in the THREE most important domains of our lives that are “PEOPLE, SITUATIONS and EXPERIENCES”. We saw very clearly in the previous example how the discussion over Mr. Albert (people) generated a myriad variety of responses due to the different environments in which they had met (situations) leading to very distinctively different experiences. The example of the Boxer breed dog highlights the fact that no matter how much ever amount of factual data is pumped into the information provided the responses generated in each and every mind are markedly different and is based on their experiences in life.
EXPERIENCE is very closely related to feelings; in fact no experience whatsoever is possible without the involvement of one or the other faculty of feeling. A very subtle understanding exists at this juncture. An experience is generated, or takes birth, beyond the social intelligence and hence is beyond language or words. It (experience) is generated via media feelings. Feelings as we would remember are defined as “an INSTANTANEOUS AWARENESS generated within our system either in response to an outer world stimulus or situation or instantaneous awareness of our inner self WITHOUT the involvement of words or language”. During the moments of its occurrence there is only feeling alone an instantaneous awareness that’s all. After the passage of the moment the recollection of what had happened, the reminiscence of the past moment and the instantaneous awareness generated by it is what we call as an EXPERIENCE. So in essence an experience is a MEMORY of a feeling.
Memory as we would remember is defined as “an “INNER WORLD REPLICA” of an outer world incident”. This is very subtle and demands keen attention. Feelings generate experience which creates a memory. So in essence something beyond words or language happens within us in our innate intelligence (feelings), which remains in a gray zone between innate and social intelligence immediately after the passing of the incident and the feeling. Later in time all these events (feelings and experiences) which occurred in the innate intelligence get transferred and recorded for the purpose of archiving and ease of retrieval (since we mostly operate from social and rarely or only accidentally from innate intelligence) into the social intelligence in the form of words. And this is that critical juncture of a very fine understanding that when an event beyond words and language gets recorded in the form of words and language discrepancies are bound to occur. This is one of the foundation stones of all our confusions, mistakes and miseries

THE INSUFFICIENCY part 1

So now we understand that in our case we do a clear violation of the “felling – thought – verbalization – expression” pathway by starting at the wrong place that is thoughts instead of feelings. But that is only natural to us because we are stationed within our social intelligence and have lost all links with our innate intelligence which is the true birth place of feelings. So the language which was born to express the feelings in the first place has now overridden and overwritten its own creator, the feelings. Please understand that the language was born out of the FEELING of necessity to smoothly and effectively communicate but now language itself has filled, occupied and completely cloaked our entire system, so much so that its own creator (the feelings) is hard to find in our system. Language (a facet of social intelligence) has created a poor substitute, a cheap replica of feelings that is MOOD and we are repeatedly fooled by it into accepting moods as our feelings. But our previous discussion has made the difference between the two (moods & feelings) amply clear. Now when we communicate without feelings and purely through thoughts we are in desperate need of a “Common reference database” in the form of language we use but this “Common reference database” defined previously as “a generalized agreement upon MEANINGS IMPLIED by a variety of syllables, sounds, gestures and script symbols for the ease of conveying thoughts, ideas and feelings between individuals” has its limitations after a certain point. For example the words DOG refers to dogs as we all know the animal that we all know so well for its loyalty (and barking) but each one of us in our own minds and according to our own experience and likings is seeing a different breed of dog ( an Alsatian or a beagle or poodle etc...) . They are all dogs none the less but each starkly apart a poodle against a bull dog or a Chihuahua against a boxer are all worlds apart. This example aims to expose the inadequacy of language and its shortfall at its ability to convey details beyond a certain limit. One may argue that in the previous example if instead of the words DOG had a specific breed name been mentioned then each and every reader would have visualized the same thing. Wrong again!!!! Well even if the specific breed name was mentioned each one of us would only end up imagining (visualizing in our minds) that dog of that breed which we have seen and then again the differences between individual dogs of each breed are stark. So now we get downright ridiculous we say “a 7 years of age boxer dog of 80 pound weight, 24 inches height, with distinctive drooping jowls, a sleek, tight fitting coat that needs minimal attention.” Is everyone able to see that same boxer in their mind..............? Impossible. So now let us discuss another example but with a more human touch to it. A group of people are at a party and an elderly lady makes a reference about a common acquaintance of the group, Mr. Albert, who has yet not arrived and is delayed. One lady is all praises and says that Albert is such a charming and obedient person, she is his aunt. A young man present there just smiles (and does not speak) but holds a contrastingly opposite opinion, he feels that Mr. Albert is an overambitious, domineering and very intolerant man, he is Mr. Albert’s subordinate at the office. A young lady, one amongst the gathering, feels that Uncle Albert is the most charming and considerate person in the entire family, she is his niece. Another person just chuckles and nods his head in disagreement without saying a word but he feels that Mr. Albert is the most callous, insensitive and deceptive person on the planet, he is a customer to whom Mr. Albert sold a piece of property through his firm.
Please understand all the people at the party are talking about only one person, and they all know him well (unlike our unseen boxer breed,dog,example), yet the images, visualizations and feelings generated upon referral of that one name are so very different. At one end is love and respect and at the other are anger, disgust and hatred.