Do it anyway - A poem by Mother Teresa

Do it anyway 

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. 
Forgive them anyway.
...
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.  
Be kind anyway.
...
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you.  
Be honest and sincere anyway.
 ...
The good you do today, will often be forgotten.  
Do good anyway.
...
In the final analysis,
It is between you and God.  
It was never between you and them anyway.
                                     
                                                                              - Mother Teresa.

In this powerful poem by Mother Teresa,
Our acts are not seen as reaction to others but through them, a response to God.

It tells us to respond with goodness even if others are otherwise.
That is logical because good for good only, makes it a trade, not a virtue.

We can look at it in another way,

Bad deed require a personal cause or reason,
but a good deed doesn't require a reason, cause or personal motive.

For instance
To hate some one, we need a reason to do so
But,
To help someone,we don't need a cause or reason.

Normally,
all our acts have personal motive(cause) behind it and resonate with ego.
That makes life a causation of ego.
But an act which have no personal motive(cause) behind, doesn't resonate with ego.

Then,
These acts frees consciousness from the order of ego and
make it resonate with cosmic order or God.

Kinds of LOVE – Instinctive, Emotional and Conscious Love

Love as a feeling is of three kinds based on its source.

Its source could be unconscious Instinct, impulsive Emotion or Conscious mind.

Based on its origin, its purpose is defined and its purpose determines its life cycle.

Instinctive Love –

Instinctive love is biological in nature and its origin is unconscious drive.

Its only or primary role is biological, that is to create off springs.

The lover could not be aware of the unconscious drive that triggered the feeling of love.

For the same reason, instinctive love would not be in lover’s control.

Lover may think it is long lasting love but instinct love follows its movement.

Once the purpose of unconscious drive is served / failed,

the unconscious would lose interest and subsequently instinctive love itself would become stale and fade away.

This may leave the lover disillusioned about the love because the lover never knew the real cause behind instinct love.

Emotional Love –

Emotional love is not based on biology and can be even be anti-biological.

It is based on emotional affinity towards another.

It can happen between opposite sexes or the same sex.

Movement of emotional love is directly linked to the state of emotion that triggered it.

That is, when the emotion withers or change, emotional love will also go with it.

So emotional love can be short-lived.

And as well, when underlying emotion fades, the lover may become indifferent to the object of love.

It is also possible that object of love would become object of hatred for the lover.

In this case, the lover would become the slayer of the object that he loved.

Like instinct love, emotional love also creates.

In mythology, emotional love creates strange creatures.

But in the real world,

Emotional love may create off springs and by heightened emotion may create artistic works and the like.

Both, Instinct and Emotional love are utilitarian in nature.

They are self-centered and seek their own gratification or other gains.

So, as long as love aids in realization of their objectives,

love will remain intact, then / otherwise it will fade or turn to indifference/dislike.

Conscious Love –

Conscious love is rare because it requires conscious effort, intelligence and diligence.

Conscious love is not self-centered but it is centered on the object of love.  

The lover wishes and aids the object of love to attain its own wholeness by being its complement.

So, conscious love is non-utilitarian in nature.

But, in its primitive form, conscious love is also utilitarian in nature.

For instance,

We exercise conscious love while nurturing a garden or pet animals but only to serve our own purpose.

Only at higher level, it becomes non-utilitarian and elevating.

To do that, the lover has to make a conscious decision regarding love,

Then, its source cannot be unconscious instinct or transient and unstable emotion.

So, in the case of conscious love,

Lover is conscious of movement of love at every stage and in complete control;

nothing escapes from the lover’s awareness.

Lover is intelligent enough to identify the essence and nuances of the loved object.

Lover is diligent enough to accept pain and sustain the effort to nurture and elevate the object of love to its wholeness.

Generally, it is supposed that conscious love is reciprocated because lover’s sustained effort enters the subconscious of the other and brings about change.

Like Instinct and Emotional love, Conscious love also creates.

It creates a new being – rebirth of the lover and the object of love in unison

Conscious love may also create other things but creation of a new being is its plane.

Conscious love is possible only for humans.

Strangely it is very rare among humans,

Implying that human psyche is still dominated by instinct and utilitarian in its pursuit.  

Levels of Mind - Personal and General(Buddha and J Krishnamurty)

There is an incident in Buddhist traditional history.

A woman, who lost her son approached Buddha and

asked him revive her dead son with his power.

Buddha said to have told her that if she could bring food from any house where there was no death, then he would revive her son.

It is apparent that there can be no such house,

and then what could be his underlying message!

According to mystics.

All sorrows are human sorrows and there is nothing ‘personal’ about them.

It is ‘human sorrow’ that is manifested in an individual and personalized by the ego.

It can be understood this way.

Firstly,

We have evolved as a species, not as individuals.

So, the brain and mind we have is that of a species and doesn’t belong to an individual.

That is, physically one may have a separate brain, but in essence it is only a ‘human brain’.

Similarly, in essence ‘personal mind’ is only a piece of ‘General/Human mind’.

This is because all minds are conditioned by more or less similar environments. 

We can look at it like a hologram.

A hologram, if broken to pieces, each piece would again contain the whole image with distinct perspective, not the fragment of the image.

Similarly,

Each’ personal mind’ contains the image of a ‘general mind’ with a particularity imposed by the ego.

So, there is no ‘Personal’ sorrow, only ‘human’ sorrow.

Then, solution may not be at the level personal consciousness but at the level of

non-personal consciousness.  

But, ego-centric view personalizes the sorrow and blocks ‘general’ (unbiased) perception.

Moreover ‘personal mind’ tend to seek only fulfillment of its wishes and not solution.

For instance,

If I am thirsty, my mind may seek coke but solution is water.

This is only to say that our personal mind always projects its wish as the solution.

It may be obvious in the physical plane.

In the psychological plane, when our perception is entirely enveloped by the ego.

it is difficult to see whether we are seeking our personal wish or solution.

It is possible to distinguish, only when ego-centric view of the problem is avoided.

Being so,

If one can avoid egoistic perception of the sorrow,

then the problem behind the sorrow  can be depersonalized.

Once the problem is depersonalized, the mind would not be seeking ego-centric solutions. 

This creates depth in one’s awareness and brings balance and clarity.

And, it also enables one to approach the problem with more empathetic attitude than

frustration, anger and self pity, which are all part of ego-centric view.

Also,

One no longer wrestles with the problem to make it go or expect a wishful outcome.

Facts are faced as they are and it brings about its own resolution.

It may not be possible always to exercise such perception

and may appear even impossible in certain situations.

But,

This is the perception that can bring rational and objective approach to a problem.

Perhaps, this can be the underlying message that Buddha was conveying to the woman.

According to J.Krishnamuty ,

Problem at the level of ‘personal mind’ have solution only at the level of ‘general mind’. 

He states - “It is not an abstract answer, it is the only answer”.

"World is You, You are the World" - Is it so?

When we say world,
it is not the mute physical world but meaningful psychological world in which we are engaged.

In fact, our life is an engagement with the world.
We are engaged with the world through our desires,

So, it is through our project of desires, the world is revealed to us as this or that.
The knowledge we have about the world is also only through these projects and
engagements.

For instance,

a piece of lush land would mean different things to different people.

For a farmer, it would be a worthy farmland.
For a real estate businessman, it would mean worthy investment.
For an artist, it is a beautiful landscape worth capturing on a canvas.
For a passer by,it doesn't even exist.

It is so with all other objects around.
Their meaning and knowledge is derived from our own particular engagement with them.
If we are not engaged with them,they merge with the background.

Normal perception is common world is out there and we are engaged with it.
Common world might be there, created by the collective (society) as a background.
But, the particular world we engage with, is a world extracted/abstracted from
that massive background by each one through their particular desires.

The world i see outside is reflection of my own inner world.
So, my joys and sorrows with respect to the world are my own creation,

If i choose to be a businessman in the world,
implicitly i also choose profit and loss as source  of joy and sorrow.

In this sense,the adage "World is you,you are the world" is true.

We are engaged with a world of our own creation,
like a lamp engulfed in its own smoke.

What is the real you? ( Self Image,Image for Others and Image By Others).

In Indian spiritual tradition self has three profiles -

Ahamgara - Self Image, image one has about oneself.

Mamagara - Image for Others, Image projected to others

Anyagara - Image by others, Image held by others.

The life as such revolves around these three images.

Among these images,

“Image for others” is consciously built by us, so we know it is an image.

Similarly,

we know “image by others” is only an image because it is opinion of others.

But, when it comes to self image, it is difficult to know that it is also an image.

We take self image as our true self, though it is also an opinion, a self opinion.

All the relationships in our life are between this self image and images of others

and all aspirations in life are aspirations of this image.

When image changes or mutates, everything changes along with that.

To put it concretely,

“wife” is an image of a woman,

It is very rare for a man to look at the woman behind the image of wife and vice versa.

It is so with other labels as well.

Coming back to abstract,

If, what I consider as ‘me’ is only a self image,

What is the substratum on which this image is built?

Is there such a thing or there is only image and nothing else.

To understand the question, we can look at it from a different angle.

Nature exist.

Nature exists independent of the image i have about it.

Likewise,

Does a self exist independent of the image i have about it (Self Image)?

There has to be such an entity because,

We, being part of nature,

There must be a element within us which is part of that independent nature and so

independent of our self image.

That element is the true self or the true ‘me’ or ‘you’.

This can be felt or one can have a glimpse of it by transcending the images.

Transcending the self image begins with looking at facts and not sticking to one’s opinions.

Even if the facts are uncomfortable to one’s  self image.

Constant awareness and effort gradually loosens the grip of images and enable us to see

the existence of such an entity.

It is a journey without any idea of a destination.

It is not about knowing the unknown but unknowing the known.

Sect of Christian mystics called it “Cloud of Unknowing”.

Is there a God?, is it a scientific question? - (Vedanta and Cloud of Unknowing)

Is there a God?
Is there any way to prove the hypotheses through science ? - presence or absence.
When something similar was put to physicist Dr. David Bohm.
He replied, as a scientist he can't answer the question.
The reason he gave was, scientific questions have a notion of solution.
But, the question of God provides no such thing.
So,the implication is,
it is not a scientific question in the first place, so can't be answered scientifically either way.
May be science can't answer it today, is it possible some time in future?
But, we know knowledge is additive  and ever growing.
Therefore  knowledge at any point of time will remain limited and
with the limited knowledge we can't answer questions of absolute.

Then, it seems question of God/absolute can not be approached with objective knowledge.
If we can't approach it with objective knowledge, then what other tool is there.
The tool could be self knowledge or knowledge of one's own psychological self.

We are all familiar with the phrase 'Know Thyself'.
On the surface,
Knowing oneself would be for behavior modification to become more efficient and successful
in material life.
At the deeper level
Knowing oneself means to transcend the psychologically conditioned self ( Ego) and arrive at
the unconditioned or authentic self.

With the conditioned self called as Ego
What we see is what we want to see and
What we experience is what we think we experience.

According to mystical traditions,
It is the unconditioned self, which will reveal what is actual and will answer the
questions What is God and What is meaning of life.

There are two established traditions that speak about it.
Hindu Vedanta
Christian Cloud Of Unknowing.

Vedanta (Ved -knowledge, anta -end) -
Ending of knowledge (Psychological, not technical) to arrive at unconditioned authentic self.

Cloud Of Unknowing -
Stripping of thoughts (Conditionings) to arrive at  unconditioned authentic self.

How to go about it is another thing.

According to these traditions, answers to question of God and meaning of life is in
discovering one's own unconditioned or authentic self.

It is feeling, not thinking - Is there such a thing?

We often come across people saying that 'it is feeling, not thinking'
We ourselves might have used it without 'thinking' about it.
Is there actually a 'feeling', which is not related to our 'thinking'?
Because, we recognize our feeling only through the thought behind it.
If our wish is realized, we feel happy.
It is our wish, which is a thought that enable us to recognize that the feeling we have is happiness.
It is so with our anger or sadness.
Without a thought behind it, a feeling can't be recognized.
So, when we say 'it is feeling, not thinking', it must be unrecognizable or indescribable.
More importantly, that feeling is not product of our thinking.
That is, it can't be our wish. It just happens.

We can classify our feelings as
-  Feelings that are recognized immediately ,
-  Feelings that are recognized later by comparison.
-  Feelings that remain indescribable.

Recognizable feelings.

If we take feeling of anger, normally there is always a thought behind it.
 May be something happened against one's thought or wish.
 Wish or thought is based on one's thinking pattern.
That is, what makes one angry, may not make another one angry.
This thought alone enable us to recognize that it is anger.
Otherwise, it will remain an uncomfortable feeling without a name.
Most of our feelings are of this nature.
Whether they are pleasant or unpleasant,
they are caused or qualified by our thoughts only.
So, these are not  -  'it is feeling, not thinking'.
These feelings are products of our thinking.

Feelings that are recognized and labeled later.

This is another kind of feeling.
When we look at flaming sunsets or a roaring water fall.
We lost our selves in fascination.
One is entirely lost in that feeling.
When it is happening, there is no recognition of what feeling it is.
Mind is absent, there is no seer and what is seen. There is only seeing.
Later on , we may label it as beautiful by comparing it with other such experiences.
Next time around, it won't be so fascinating.
But, during the episode - 'it is feeling, not thinking'.

Indescribable feelings

Normally feelings with respect to religious/mystical/spiritual experiences,
Near Death Experience and Out of Body experiences are considered as indescribable feelings.

They are indescribable because we can describe only what our ego can experience but
these feelings lie outside the realm of ego.

Still, we can try to see what kind of feeling that could be by trying to look at things
without allowing ego to taint the perception.
For instance,
When a man looks at his wife, it is always through the label MY WIFE with all the
imports.
If he can 'look' at the WOMAN behind the WIFE,which is ego-centric perception.
Not theoretically but actually, then perception would undergo change.
Not only about the 'wife' but about everything around.
Nothing is lost but perception becomes more authentic.
The feeling one goes through during such perception cannot be described
because it lies outside the realm of  ego.
This is not altered consciousness induced by drugs but pure consciousness, not opinionated by ego elements.
This is indescribable - 'a feeling, not thinking' of different order.

The link below takes to the real life incident of Near Death Experience and Out of Body Experience
of an ex Indian Model and Actress Anu Agarwal and her current avatar.

Courtesy - The Hindu

Click Here