Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Can I Live with Myself? - Part 6

Contd from Part 5

Understanding Emotion and its effects on body

Nature is prakriti प्रक्रुति and being away from nature is vikruti विक्रुति. Human beings should lead their life as close to their true nature as possible instead of living in the self created, or societal created life of environmental influences. Because, most of the societal created environment has given so many unnecessary fears that has led human beings away from their true-nature. We should utilize every opportunity to move close to our true nature of peace and tranquility.

In overcoming fear, one should be honest in accepting that there is fear and all kinds of fears are caused due to conflicts. Conflict is nothing but a difference of an opinion. Because of these differences of opinions, we as humans undergo through many emotions and these emotions effect our bodies in various ways.

In the Indian scriptures there is a lot of discussion on the mind - body relationship. Based upon our thoughts and the resulting emotions from those thoughts, our bodies get effected accordingly. The Vedic mantra from Rigveda 1.89.1 states about how one should have an attitude as far as thoughts are concerned. It says "May noble or auspicious thoughts come to us from all directions - Aano bhadrah krtavo yantu vishwatah -आ नो भद्राः क्रतवो यन्तु विश्वतः ." This clearly emphasizes the importance of thoughts and its effect on human bodies. This is also an indication that since we get various kinds of thoughts which can effect the human body in various ways, if selectively noble or auspicious thoughts come to us, then the human well-being becomes more of a possibility rather than by chance. Here, it is an indication that purposefully human beings should be able to selectively think or choose auspicious or noble thoughts so that the effects of those thoughts will lead to human well-being.

The invocation sloka or verse by Shri Vāgbhatāchārya श्री वाग्भटाचार्य in Sutra Sthāna of Ashtānga Hridayam is as follows:

rāgādirogān satatānuśaktā,
naśeṣakāyaprasṛtānaśeṣān,
autsukyamohāratidānjaghāna
yo'pūrvavaidyāya namostutasmai।

रागादिरोगान् सततानुशक्ता,
नशेषकायप्रसृतानशेषान्,
औत्सुक्यमोहारतिदान्जघान
योऽपूर्ववैद्याय नमोस्तुतस्मै।

This sloka even though is an invocation sloka clearly emphasizes the causes for diseases in the body. The one that creates suffering to mind will also create suffering to body. As ऋजन्ती इति रोगाः. ṛjantī iti rogāḥ - the one that creates disturbances in body and mind is roga or dis-ease. The one that creates suffering to mind are rāgadvesha (attachment and aversion). These can be further divided into arishadvarga – kāma (craving or longing), krodha (anger), lobha (greed), moha (infatuation, delusion) mada (pride due to ignorance) and mātsarya (malice, jealousy).

Findings from one of the recent studies are agreeing to the eastern philosophy of influence of thought process on the human body. These studies have indicated that there are very close relationships between emotions and the bodily experiences. Emotions or feelings will give rise to changes in physiological reactions and vis-a-vie the physiological reactions such as the cardiovascular, skeletomuscular, neuroendocrine, and autonomic nervous systems and their somatosensory feedback mechanisms trigger emotional experiences.[1]

The royal physician Heo Jun (1539 – 1615) in his book Dongui Bogam categorized emotions into seven different groups:
  1. anger, 
  2. happiness, 
  3. pensiveness / serious thoughtfulness, 
  4. sadness, 
  5. anxiety, 
  6. fear, and 
  7. surprise.
In an other study the subjects were asked to undergo visualization of certain emotions and the changes in their physiological organs have been observed and the studies revealed close evidences of the different kinds of emotions relating to different organs in the human body. These are as follows:
  • anger relating to liver, 
  • happiness to heart, 
  • pensiveness / serious thoughtfulness to spleen, 
  • anxiety to lungs, 
  • fear to kidneys, and 
  • surprise to gallbladder.
One of the heavy influences of the human system in today's civilized world is anxiety. We are anxious of everything. We are anxious of our achievements and non-achievements. We do not have any clarity on what to achieve and what not to achieve. We get so much influenced by the advertisements and the corporate, societal lies that we want everything that is being projected by these external influences and most of the individuals thought process has got corrupted so much that if these external influenced achievements are not achieved, then there is no life at all and they are not living life. But, in reality when we look at this whole scenario and reflect, it clearly shows that all these societal influences, things, objects are simply unnecessary and not at all required. Human beings have come to that extent that they have succumbed to nervousness because of all these fears and the anxiety that is born because of constant thought process of achieving the unnecessary necessities or achievements.
Nervousness is the disease of civilization. - Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda, in "Journey to Self Realization."

Sattva, Rajas and Tamas (The Trigunas)

The Sānkhya Yoga divides the life's attributes into three qualities: sattva, rajas and tamas.
  • The quality of Sattva is mainly balance. It represents the balance of both Rajas (activity) and Tamas (inertia). Hence, it provides the qualities of high and pure thinking, being compassionate, wise, enlivening and enlightening;
  • The quality of Rajas is activity - being dynamic. Too much of activity will lead to various ailments both physiologically and psychologically. While the Rajas provides the energy for the metabolism, it also provides the heat and too much of activity makes an individual restless and selfish. Hence, one needs to have an appropriate amount of Rajas quality. Not too high which leads to restlessness and not too low which leads to lethargy. One of the beneficial quality of Rajas is learning and adapting to the wisdom driven activities;
  • Tamas represents all that is inert, still, dull, unconscious, sluggish and ignorant. An individual with Tamas quality would be dull, lethargic and would like to perform mostly inauspicious activities.
A healthy person smiles and laughs, is cheerful and happy. Health is a gift from Mother Nature, the power behind life. Health is your birthright, not disease. It is as natural to be well as it is to be born.” - Swami Sivananda
Being a human being we should have a balance of the three attributes of Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. It is up to us, how much we should have these three attributes and in what proportions. While the highly sattvic body and mind has its high well-being, the others have low well-being. Hence, it is very scientific and wise also to choose the appropriate attribute in leading our life towards our overall well-being.

We as human beings undergo through many emotions through out our whole life from birth to death. It is up to us to balance these emotions so that when we leave our bodies and this world we leave contented and fulfilled.

The word emotion has its Latin origin as emotere which means energy in motion. Hence, if we define energy in motion as emotion then that means we should be able to detect this motion of energy in its budding stage and choose to channelize it appropriately so that instead of resulting in unnecessary fears and anxiety, it can be used for our overall well-being.

Every emotion triggers a stimuli in brain which sends energy into the body's nerves or various energy channels and a constant trigger of these emotions will result in anxiety and nervousness which finally results into various other diseases.

The best way of dealing with these energies in motion is to self reflect and observe or introspection. One should have open-minded presence and open-heartedness in performing this exercise. Once we know the origin of our emotions then we can channelize it accordingly by regulating our breath and using some breathing exercises or by practice of prāṇāyāma प्राणायाम.


Introspection is the one activity that when properly performed and accomplished will help an individual on many aspects. Especially when it is done in a deeper way, it will bring out the deep rooted habits, attachments, aversions to the surface and the practitioner or individual can take a decision to let go most of them, there by getting rid of many unwanted emotions that might be disturbing both physical and mental health of the individual.

Now let us look into the three attributes (sattva, rajas and tamas) as mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita.

The Sāttivk attribute:

सर्वभूतेषु येनैकं भावमव्ययमीक्षते ।
अविभक्तं विभक्तेषु तज्ज्ञानं विद्धि सात्त्विकम् ॥ १८-२०॥
sarvabhūteṣu yenaikaṃ bhāvamavyayamīkṣate ।
avibhaktaṃ vibhakteṣu tajjñānaṃ viddhi sāttvikam ॥ 18-20॥

That by which an individual perceives the one imperishable divine existence as undivided and equally present in all individual beings, know that knowledge to be Sāttvik.

नियतं सङ्गरहितमरागद्वेषतः कृतम् ।
अफलप्रेप्सुना कर्म यत्तत्सात्त्विकमुच्यते ॥ १८-२३॥
niyataṃ saṅgarahitamarāgadveṣataḥ kṛtam ।
aphalaprepsunā karma yattatsāttvikamucyate ॥ 18-23॥

That action which is ordained by the scriptures, and is not accompanied by the sense of doership, and has been done without any attachment or aversion by one who seeks no return, is called Sāttvik.

The Rājasik attribute:

पृथक्त्वेन तु यज्ज्ञानं नानाभावान्पृथग्विधान् ।
वेत्ति सर्वेषु भूतेषु तज्ज्ञानं विद्धि राजसम् ॥ १८-२१॥
pṛthaktvena tu yajjñānaṃ nānābhāvānpṛthagvidhān ।
vetti sarveṣu bhūteṣu tajjñānaṃ viddhi rājasam ॥ 18-21॥

The knowledge by which individual cognizes many existences of various kinds, as apart from one another, in all beings, know that knowledge to be Rājasik.

यत्तु कामेप्सुना कर्म साहङ्कारेण वा पुनः ।
क्रियते बहुलायासं तद्राजसमुदाहृतम् ॥ १८-२४॥
yattu kāmepsunā karma sāhaṅkāreṇa vā punaḥ ।
kriyate bahulāyāsaṃ tadrājasamudāhṛtam ॥ 18-24॥

Action that is inspired by longing for satisfaction of desires, or performed with egotism and colossal effort, is said to be Rājasik.

The Tāmasik attribute:

यत्तु कृत्स्नवदेकस्मिन्कार्ये सक्तमहैतुकम् ।
अतत्त्वार्थवदल्पं च तत्तामसमुदाहृतम् ॥ १८-२२॥
yattu kṛtsnavadekasminkārye saktamahaitukam ।
atattvārthavadalpaṃ ca tattāmasamudāhṛtam ॥ 18-22॥

Again that knowledge by which individual clings to one body as if it were the whole, and which is irrational, has no real grasp of truth and is trivial, has been declared as Tāmasik.

अनुबन्धं क्षयं हिंसामनपेक्ष्य च पौरुषम् ।
मोहादारभ्यते कर्म यत्तत्तामसमुच्यते ॥ १८-२५॥
anubandhaṃ kṣayaṃ hiṃsāmanapekṣya ca pauruṣam ।
mohādārabhyate karma yattattāmasamucyate ॥ 18-25॥

The actions that are undertaken through sheer ignorance, without regard to the consequences or loss to oneself, injury to others and one's own resourcefulness is declared as Tāmasik.

Whilst the Sātvik attributes are close to the soul and result in peace, harmony, stillness and silence, the Rājasik and Tāmasik attributes take the individual away from the soul and results in disharmony, disturbance, restlessness and noise. Hence, it all depends upon an individual and the choices one makes on how much time one has to spend in each of these attributes.


Hence, an individual need to be balanced all the time and attain equanimity under all circumstances. Each individual has to develop the wise mind which is a balance of both the emotional and logical brains. Then, and then only an individual can live wisely, understand the purpose of life and fulfill the actual purpose of taking birth.

Concluded in Part 7.

Monday, October 21, 2019

Can I Live with Myself? - Part 5

- contd from Part 4

Courage to Walk the Path



In living the lies of the world and in the process of losing ourselves one of the most important factor that we have gained is fear. Fear has taken us for a toll in some of the following ways:

  • Fear of losing money, job, possessions
  • Fear of losing relationships,
  • Fear of acceptance of truth
  • Fear of being not in a group
  • Fear of not being in a community
  • Fear of not having a religion
  • Fear of not belonging to any particular group
  • Fear of missing out (FOMO) information
  • Fear of losing importance
  • Fear of not being prioritized
  • Fear of not getting recognized
  • Fear of not getting updated and able to use the most advanced gadgets
  • Fear of not having the latest gadgets
  • Fear of not using the right toiletries
  • Fear of not eating the right food
  • Fear of gaining weight
  • Fear of not having a proper physique
  • Fear of indigestion
  • Fear of improper communication
  • Fear of traffic jams
  • Fear of unable to choose from the plethora of choices that are made available - whether it is various educational courses in schools, colleges or universities; foods - especially processed foods in a grocery store; varieties of fashioned clothes in a mall; myriad choices of all unnecessary necessitated items
  • Fear of not having studied in premier institutions ('the B-Schools')
  • Fear of not having premier education (where there teach how to successfully sell a lie, how to buy the lie once you are out of the Universities by working your asses out, and how to successfully (unhappily ever-after) live that lie that is being sold to you in anticipation of happiness which is promised to obtain in the so called "in/near future")
  • Fear of inefficient networking (because no one has clarity what exactly they want in their lives to live the life truly)
  • Fear of not having friendly colleagues at work (because of too transactional relationships)
  • Fear of not having appropriate friends in life (again because of transactional relationships)
  • Fear of not getting appreciation
  • Fear of less performance at office or at home
  • Fear of not able to meet partners requirements 
  • Fear of disease
  • Fear of insomnia
  • Fear of losing news on what is happening in the world
  • Fear of children's future, etc., etc.,
  • Fear of not having or losing all kinds of unnecessary necessities. 
Apart from the psychological fears, we have created so many fears as above. The only reason why we got stuck or succumbed to so many fears is, because, we are not living our lives truly. We are living our lives always wearing some or the other kind of masks or living someone else's lie. We have developed so many fears purely based upon the influence of the advertisements which often sell a lie; or the influence of peers who have worked their asses out to achieve and possess the advertised products (most of them are not necessary). This way of living with masks or living someone's else's lie has not only spoiled our mental and physical health, in fact, it has also taken away from us our freedom of pure thinking and freedom of living truthfully. Here, I would like to quote words of Sri Jiddu Krishnamurti who says...
"Fear is the destructive energy in man. It withers the mind, it distorts thought, it leads to all kinds of extraordinarily clever and subtle theories, absurd superstitions, dogmas, and beliefs". - Jiddu Krishnamurti

How to live fearlessly?

The only way to live fearlessly is to face the fear. Look into its face straight.

There is an anecdote that Swami Sri Yukteswar ji shares with his disciple Paramahansa Yogananda ji during the latter's training in his ashram. The discussion from the book "Autobiography of a Yogi" goes as follows:
“My mother once tried to frighten me with an appalling story of a ghost in a dark chamber. I went there immediately, and expressed my disappointment at having missed the ghost. Mother never told me another horror tale. Moral: Look fear in the face and it will cease to trouble you".
To walk the path of Truth we have to get rid of all kinds of fears and then, and then only, we would be able to walk the path. Even if we have to walk the path alone, it just does not matter, we have to just walk.

Overcoming Fear

To walk the path of Truth, we need courage and to have courage, we need to get rid of fear. To get rid of fear, we need to have courage. So, what to do?

Breathing Technique

The first and foremost is, whenever we are afraid of something or the other, we have to observe for the location of fear. Generally 99.99% of the time, the fear starts in or from the heart region. We can sense the change in the palpitations and the variation in breath or in our breathing pattern. Instead of ignoring these variations in the heart palpitations, we should recognize them and accept them first. Then, by becoming a witness to them, we should practice deep breaths by which we become aware of the reduction in the fear as the breath becomes deeper and slower. This diminishing in fear will make us to look at the scenario with a different perspective. Then, over a period of time, we can develop our own strategies in overcoming the fear.

Self Reflection

Another method of overcoming fear is questioning ourselves and self-reflect. The most simple ways of questioning are:
  • Is this fear necessary to me? 
  • Do I need to have this fear? 
  • Do I need to undergo through this situation with this fear?
  • What if the situation would be if fear is not there?
  • What is that which is creating in me this fear?
  • What is that I would lose, in this situation, and what is the undercurrent for this fear?
  • Do I need to live someone else's lie and what if I don't? Will I feel left out? What if I am alone? Can't I live with my true self?
  • Can't I accept the way I am - pure, naked, stripped off of all external entanglements, attachments and labels?
One of the biggest factors of fear is illusion. We do not see the world, the way it is supposed to be seen. One of the truths that we forget about the world is its impermanence. We anticipate that everything has to be permanent and secured. And, in non-acceptance of impermanency of the world and its insecurity, we develop fear. One reason for this is the kind of ideas, opinions, and information that have been shared or tried to showcase on us by our peers (parents, grand parents, teachers, bosses, etc.) regarding their way of living, earning as if they are going to stay forever on this earth. Sometimes we mask one fear with a fear of another. One of the mask that we always try to wear is non-acceptance of a particular fear. With all the kinds of false ideas and opinions that we carry about our lives from our childhood, we have lost the ability of seeing the Truth. To see the Truth one need to enter into the realms of Stillness and Silence. Then one would be able to clearly discriminate what is necessary and what is unnecessary. From that discrimination, we can slowly start getting rid of all of our physical and psychological baggage thereby becoming free to be able to see the Truth.

Our minds have got so much corrupted by the external or worldly influences that we need to burn it off  mercilessly with great courage and persistence in meditation or mindfulness practices and purify it so that it can reflect the Truth.
As gold purified in a furnace loses its impurities and achieves its own true nature, the mind gets rid of the impurities of the attributes of delusion, attachment and purity through meditation and attains Reality. - Ādi Shankarāchārya.
Even if we fail in the beginning, it does not matter. We have to keep on trying it. What we require to try is courage. Once we walk the path courageously, then all fears will just leave us and we are face-to-face with the Truth and that Truth is eternal bliss.

Contd.. in Part 6.

Friday, October 18, 2019

Can I Live with Myself? - Part 4

- contd from Part 3

The Life of Masking

One of the aspect that I have observed in a lot of relationships is masking. This masking process is so much done that over a period of time, it has become a norm for individuals to live in this state and they have become so unconscious of this masking, and tend to continue to live in the lies that they have created for themselves or influenced upon.

In India and probably most of the other places, I have seen women doing most of the cooking process. And, during my interactions over lunch, dinner or casual talks, when I ask them how much do they like this process and 90% of the time the answer comes as: "it is inevitable" or "is there any other go." These answers have evidently shown that they are masking their acceptance of a process of cooking as their norm and since there is no other go, they are continuing this process. When I question working men, why they are working? They answer that "we have to run the family" and that is the main reason why they are working and they don't really like to slog so much. And, when I ask what is that you want to do with the money that you earn? The answer always comes as - I have to buy a house, car and spend on all those items that they have advertised (and promised me happiness when I use them), spend on children's education, etc. Sometimes, I ask myself and others also - is really spending hefty amounts on children's education going to make them smarter, intelligent and better human beings? Then answer is always biased and there is no certainty. There is no guarantee that we as parents are going to build a better future generation in fulfilling certain norms, duties or responsibilities.

If we question this, from where this norm has come that only women should cook at home or men should keep working for their families? (Now a days I see 70% of women working in offices and 40% of men cooking at homes) - the clear answer is culture. Have we ever questioned - is this culture true? In the process of accepting various norms of a culture, we inadvertently impinged upon us an inevitable acceptance of many lies. And, in this process of inevitable acceptance, we started masking our emotions with "relationship names" and almost perfected the art of masking and the act of lying. One of the most important masking that we have perfected is accepting a lie and renaming that lie as "responsibility." I have seen individuals suffering, abusing themselves in fulfilling these "responsibilities."

Women are not always happy in cooking or working in offices, men are not always happy in working. Eventually what we started in avoiding this suffering is, masking this non-acceptance of suffering with worldly enjoyment. The new definition or norm of enjoyment that the world has successfully sold us as a big lie, and has more or less provided tools for masking comprises the following:
  • Watching TV programs (it just does not matter how much BS they might show) and accept that as a norm and discuss on those topics they telecast;
  • Watching movies;
  • Visiting malls and spending heftily on junk non-healthy food (even though we can make good and healthy food at home);
  • Instead of working at home, spend hefty amounts and work-out in gyms; (working at home has become drudgery, because we have bought so many items that marketing people have successfully made us to buy, that we no longer have much space to move around in the house and all those bought items have occupied 90% of the space and we feel suffocated to stay longer in the same house);
  • Visit various places that advertisers have advertised and promised discounts for X-days, X-nights stay;
  • Buying all those latest gadgets and show-case them to friends, relatives or colleagues and indirectly telling them that how much updated we are (but actually not realizing the truth, that we have become fools, lost our wisdom and succumbed to the advertisers and believed ourselves that we are buying happiness from a lie, which we will never get and eventually lead us to suffering);
  • Visiting pubs to drink and dance and forgetting ourselves and know not what we are doing and why we are doing? 
  • Talking continuously either in person or on mobile phones on worldly matters and providing justifications on how hard we are trying, to live worldly lies while considering it as a metric for success and seeking validations from others;
  • Succumbing to various other practices.
All of the above are being done just to escape from ourselves and avoiding the process of self acceptance and self-reflection.
  • So, do we need to continue in the same way, generations after generations? or
  • Is there a way that we stop this nonsensical and highly unreasonable life-style that we are living with us and change the DNA of the future generations?
  • What is that we want to pass over to the future generations? - Suffering or freedom from all these unnecessary necessities?
It is high time for us to reflect within ourselves and find out what the Truth is about Life and its purpose.
Who could be so lucky? Who comes to a lake for water and sees the reflection of moon. - Rumi


- to be contd in Part 5.


Thursday, October 17, 2019

Can I Live with Myself? - Part 3

-contd. from part 2

Avoiding boredom

One of the biggest block in accepting oneself or self-acceptance is boredom. In the means of avoiding boredom we accept all those lies that society impinges upon us.

Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda on a topic "Be a Smile Millionaire" in the book "Man's Eternal Quest" says "The average man is familiar with four states of mind. When a desire is fulfilled, he is happy. When a desire is denied, he is unhappy. When he is neither glad nor sorrowful, he is bored. When these three emotions, these three states of mind — pleasure, pain, and boredom — are sloughed off, he has peace."

So, we as human beings are trying to seek pleasure always and in this process of seeking pleasure, we end up most of the times in those activities that eventually lead us to frustration and misery. All of our seeking depends mainly upon our senses and we believe firmly that our senses do not mislead us. In gratifying our senses we become so much emotional that we will make all attempts to justify our emotions and eventually end up living our misbeliefs which will create more and more lies and make us to live a life sans contentment.

We as human beings are ending up in boredom because of non-understanding of the Truth and in avoiding boredom we are either seeking pleasure or pain unconsciously and searching for contentment in this process of seeking. In this process we end up most of the times in passing judgmental statements either against others or ourselves. Sometimes we might become so self-critical that we stop loving ourselves and our bodies.

When it comes to the aspect of our bodies, the main fuel for running this body is food and in satisfying the sense of taste and its corresponding sense organ tongue, we again live a big lie that of ourselves, cultural and societal. How many times we listen to our bodies and provide it the right nourishment that it requires to survive and to be healthy? In this aspect we get so much hypnotised by the advertisements that we end up consuming all types of heavily to moderate processed foods and end up into psychological and physiological uneasiness. It is very surprising that some of us just eat so unconsciously to avoid boredom and end up becoming obese.

One of the first steps that we need to question ourselves is:

  • Why are we getting bored? 
  • What is that which is leading us to boredom? 
  • In the process of living someone else's lie, are we trying to avoid something which is genuine to us and ending up in boredom?

When we put these questions, it will reveal to us that we are avoiding Truth of what we are in reality in living the lie. We gave higher priority in living the lie rather than living the Truth.

Now to understand what the Truth is not an easy task, especially when we are so much surrounded by the information overload of lies.

Hence, the best way is to slow down and may be stop most of the activities and reflect on Self. This reflection on Self will lead us to peace and the best method for this is to meditate or practice mindfulness.

One of the easiest methods of escaping from the influence of information overload is to focus on the breath. Hence, whenever we are ending up in boredom and instead of trying to seek pleasure or pain, we should just focus on our breath and its movement. Probably play a while with breath in regulating (not manipulating) it. Become more and more aware of its movement and eventually it will lead us to stillness and silence and that would be the best moment for self-reflection.

This self-reflection when carried out in stillness and silence will provide a platform to live with ourselves.

Process of Self-reflection

The process of Self-reflection is not an easy process. One should be brave enough for all kinds of consequences it will result in. Many a times it surfaces so much of filth that we might get scared to accept and probably don't even want to attempt it.

When we get into stillness and silence by practicing mindfulness/meditation practices, mainly by focusing on breath, they make us to become non-judgmental and unbiased over a period of time. The more we practice them, the more sensible and courageous we become and we would increase our capability of accepting the Truth.

During these meditation/mindfulness practices, whenever we enter into some amount of stillness/silence, we should ask ourselves the following questions:

  • Am I living the way I am supposed to be?
  • What is the actual way of living?
  • To what extent I am influenced by the external world or the people whom I come across in terms of various relationships (friends, relatives, spouse, children, peers, etc.)?
  • In taking any decision, what is that aspect that I would rely on and to what extent that aspect is influenced by any of the external or worldly influences?
  • Can I be completely unbiased and non-judgmental in my decisions?

When we put ourselves these questions and reflect upon the Self, it surfaces that most of our decisions and actions and the results based on those decisions are phenomenally judgmental, biased and ego-based.

People of the world don't look at themselves, and so they blame one another. - Rumi

- to be contd in part 4.

Can I Live with Myself? - Part 2

-contd from Part 1

Accepting Oneself / Self-acceptance

In terms of definition of "Self-acceptance" the Wikipedia mentions it as:

  • being aware of one's strengths and weaknesses
  • the realistic (yet subjective) appraisal of one's talents, capabilities, and general worth, and,
  • feelings of satisfaction with one's self despite deficiencies and regardless of past behaviors and choices.
According to Shepard (1979), self-acceptance is an individual's satisfaction or happiness with oneself, and is thought to be necessary for good mental health. Self-acceptance involves self-understanding, a realistic, albeit subjective, awareness of one's strengths and weaknesses. It results in an individual's feeling about oneself, that they are of "unique worth".

If that is what the definition is - how many of us are really accepting ourselves?

When it comes to be aware of one's strengths and weaknesses, how are we going to define strength and weaknesses? Again it comes to the definitions what society has given us and which are made in such a way that it will be in comparison to someone or something and will eventually lead one to judge and make to live someone else's definition of a lie.

In satisfying someone's definition of strength and weakness we have humiliated ourselves so much that we lost our self-esteem. Some, succumb to this lie so much that when they cannot achieve this "someone else's lie" they make suicidal attempts. Now if we question again - how much it is wise to live someone's definition of a lie as a success, strength or a weakness?

Here I would like to quote Albert Einstein's words "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

So, in this game of life didn't our parents anticipated that we being a fish, they wanted us to climb a tree?, and are we also not doing the same thing with our children and then pass on the same lie to the next generation?

We need to stop this process of "passing the lies" generations-after-generations somewhere and make the next generation more evolved and make them responsible to define what is success, strength and weakness for themselves. We can help them in facilitating the journey of thinking being contemporaneous and wise as per their present needs and definitely not wants or desires or what the so called marketing people want to sell.

-to be contd in part 3

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Can I Live with Myself? - Part 1

Can I Live with Myself?

One fine day during my morning meditation practices this is the question that I got and was rock still for few minutes. My mind tried to ask another question - "Can you live with yourself"?

How much time do I spend with myself?

In this whole life, how much time do we really spend with ourselves? Except for sleeping time where we would enter into the deep sleep where we live with ourselves unconsciously, otherwise are we living with ourselves?

We are living someone else's lie

When we deeply look into our life and the way we are living, we are constantly trying to live someone else's opinions which are excellently manipulated and marketed by various skilled advertisers and impinged or pressed upon us. Hence, a reality check will very clearly tell us and probably scare us that we are not living with ourselves (or our life), but constantly living someone else's lie that has been so much hypnotized upon us, that we almost lost the skill of how to live with ourselves (our actual life). In the process of civilization we have created so many lies and in the process of living all those lies that have been created and nurtured generations after generations, we have left the truth into oblivion.

One of the biggest blockhead in this scenario is accepting oneself. For most of the people on this earth self-acceptance is a huge bottleneck. The kind of external paraphernalia in terms of social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.); movies, pubs, outings, picnics, parties, etc.; all are diverting our attention towards anything external and very rarely gives time to turn within. And, when our mind turns within and introspects, that introspection is so much influenced by the external information and the false belief systems that we have unconsciously built. And, most of the time we end up succumbing to someone else's opinion which will eventually lead us towards frustration at some time or the other in future, and further leads to depression and many psychological and psychosomatic disorders.

The kind of frustration I see most of the times on each individual's face whom I come across makes me bewildered and forces me to ask questions - why and what makes them so frustrated if they have chosen to live the way they want? I think, they rarely see themselves in the mirror and think about this question.

In my life whenever I made (and hopeful to make in future) an every attempt to ask this question and almost every time the answer comes out as - do you need to live someone else's lie?

In terms of marriage, bearing children, living in the society the way it runs, and it is supposed to be run, reveals to us that we all are living someone else's lie. Just because there are about 3000 years of history on how people lived does not mean that we need to live like them and make the same mistakes as they made. Some of the examples that would be suffice to share for the present generation are: a big house (may be a 2 or a 3 BHK), a car or one car for each member in the family, all kinds of insurance policies, working in fortune 500 companies, having a huge bank balance, having more physical assets, house with all latest gadgets, huge and costly furniture, various kinds of toiletries for physical grooming, various kinds of clothes, footwear, etc, etc,; all those so-called unnecessary necessities that have been hypnotized upon us by the highly skilled marketing people and to which we have succumbed to the advertiser's agenda and started feeling deprived of these external paraphernalia and rarely realized that we got lost ourselves, and in this journey of losing ourselves, the advertisers and the rule makers made us successfully to forget how to live with our selves (our true Self).

Avoiding further damage

To avoid further damage to our self, we need to take a step back, stop doing all those nonsensical activities that we have been doing or have done and reflect on what exactly we really need. For this to happen we should start spending time with ourselves. May be a silent walk alone to start with. May be a retreat for a couple of days where there is no external information being added into. May be just a reflection for 4 to 5 hours without any external aid also would suffice to start with. And, in this self-reflection we should ask one question and that is, "how much I am living someone else's lie"?

This self-reflection if done properly, will surface us to an enormous amount of revelation and probably will shit scare us, that in reality we are just living someone else's lie and somewhere in this journey convinced ourselves that, that lie is our life and our life's ambition.

If an individual can take this daring step, then the first step of accepting one's self happens.


- to be contd... in part 2