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Posts by Rajiv
Joined: May 2, 2007
Last Post: May 1, 2015
Threads: 55
Posts: 400  

From: India

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Rajiv   
May 26, 2007
Writing Feedback / Here's the Problem - an essay [3]

Here's my problem.

For seven years I have been drifting.

Its OK to drift - physically, but where have I come to within my thoughts?

Everytime the choice was only to apply myself to an inappropriate system, leading to nowhere, was thoroughly dissatisfying in direction, and did not motivate me.

I seem to belong to another group of people, those who are past the first promise of life and find that life is other than that earlier picture.

It must be that everyone has some solution of direction, a kind of transcending of regular life's affairs where they are able to carry on.

Carry on their bodily functions, providing for them, but the countenance can only be cheerful if they can see in their minds where they are going, whats coming up.

I see resigned expressions in aged people when I find them alone, apparantly without something to do. I find them most animated when they are with younger people, their own kin, their grandchildren. They are animated with interest in the questions the young ones ask and things they do.

But its time to return shortly to their own lives.

The old couple may walk home and the woman may occupy herself in some task. The man sits and reflects. When it isnt about affairs of their lives, the problems they may have, his mind may be seeing somewhere ahead. Whatever he sees is connected to his present life, his conception and sense of himself.

This is not different from what we have done all our lives, when we stopped and looked at where we were.

In those moments we had an accompanying feeling which projected our circumstances, and then as soon as we could, we applied ourselves to making things work out towards that picture, that end.

But now there is an acceptance of our circumstances, instead the question is more a mental one, we want to grasp something which itself is elusive. We know the feeling of when we grasp, it is satisfying. It takes away some helplessness, some confusion. What we grasp has more substance than ourselves, atleast in that little space we are exploring for answers.

We can see this happening with us as we live and move along through our experiences, but one thing seems to stick out, that life cannot go on as it is eternally. We know the world is dying, everything is dying and, we will. How to accept the abrupt ending to this almost harmonious movement of life.

The spectre of death serves a meaningful purpose though, creating a bound for our aspirations, but it feels so like something unfairly inflicted on us. Old age may prepare us, for old age is nothing more than realizing within our minds that the physical is dying, all ailments serve only in shielding us from the worlds inquisitiveness and demands. Something about ourselves, which is as it was when we were children, will be when we are in our old age. Except in the very last, as in the very beginning of our lives. A kind of coming to, an awakening to the present real circumstances and later, a taking leave of, a going away from them.
Rajiv   
May 24, 2007
Writing Feedback / Eastern thought - an introduction in three parts [24]

I wrote these pieces last year to help my daughter appreciate this side of her background, when she started studying 'Theory of Knowledge' at school. I suggested she could make a presentation of this material to her class, but her teacher found it more religious than philosophical. I wonder if you feel so too.

But can we really see our lives through the system of the Yoga Sutras? They even point to the reasons that we have the experiences we do. It is a substantial jump from what we normally come across in our lives and one can be skeptical. We think our lives are unique, which they are, and we make them as we choose. But can something be determining our choices?

We must understand here, that it is not another person who would come to know more about us, but we ourselves, gain insights into our lives.

Patanjali begins explaining the practice of Yoga in Chapter 2 with Yama and Niyamas and then briefly about Asana, Pranayama and Pratyahara. To convey what our perceptions are, he explains that we take in the world around us in its three aspects, and to refine these perceptions the last three angas give the practice in Chapter 3.

Before introducing the practice of Yoga he explains the nature of those causes which bring us grief to begin with. We should understand and identify these in our lives, because all of Yoga is the process of slowly whittling away these causes, called Kleshas.

In these sutras there is also something very significant and uniquely Indian, about Karma; the philosophical system of viewing how nature and humans interact. This concept is the foundation of Indian philosophy.

Our own mind is responsible for the world as we experience it. Not in the way, that, as somebody with a destructive mind does something destructive, and when people recognize his nature they limit his actions and punish him so he may recognize it as consequence of his attitude. This curbs his behavior and he may reason with himself that his actions were wrong and hopefully will become corrected. This is the way we deal with criminals and implies intervention is necessary else justice isn't carried out.

The Indian philosophical system says the mind begins in a state of darkness of knowledge, which breeds tendencies of passion, hate, a fear for ones existence, and an unquestioning attitude about our singularity, called Asmita. These are the five kleshas, and they do appear as primal and dark.

The purpose of all existence is the process, where it moves from this darkness into a reality, its opposite. The passage is not always straight, because Asmita more than others, leads us thinking of ourselves at cost to others.

To curb these, one approach is to make just the effort. This is what we are asked to do as children and may be upsetting now. Much better to be ourself and act out our true motives, atleast, we have a chance of learning from their results.

Karma is fascinating as it seems to go beyond our normal realm to our earlier lives, to explain things happening with us. Every action is driven by a motive, so kleshas lie at the root of all Karmas. People accept karma is necessary and for that reason they do their karmas. But if we try to see how our lives follow from our efforts exactly, we cannot do it with accuracy and have to take the system on belief.

tapas, svadhyaya and isvara-pranidhana are kriya-yoga.
for bringing about samadhi and minimizing the klesas.
- reference below

Samadhi is a term denoting the state which is free of hassles. Kriya Yoga is the specific method to get there by getting rid of the kleshas, and tapa, svadhyaya and ishvar pranidhan are the three parts of this method.

These three which are also the last three Niyamas are mentioned here for those who aspire to reach fulfillment through Yoga and cannot be content with the regular pace of evolutionary progress.

It's natural that we wonder at the promised efficacy of these practices, for that's what they amount to, and wonder how they may change our lives.

There is a test of faith involved here, because we don't know how nature responds to our evolving mind-state. We are asked, and I am not sure how ready you may be to accept that, that what follows naturally and which people in general are most willing to accept, is the natural outcome of their actions. This is predictable with some uncertainty, as something may affect the outcome. We need to accept that the final outcome is the natural response to the experiencing person's mind-state. Patanjali explains that response of nature gets accumulated, and is projected as experience, bunching up with similar responses to actions the individual may have done earlier.

People turn to making wealth as a goal to this same hassle free existence, in the course of which, with a self-serving motive they only ensure more karmas, and to avail these, they need rebirth and experience.

Patanjali has instructed us the practice of kriya yoga, a method to reduce the effect of the kleshas, which like warps in our mental-states we are carrying through lifetimes. He says, the results of our past karmas are already in operation and our suffering is due to them. The fruits of our past actions take place as the opportunity presents itself to nature, like water flowing in the irrigation canals in fields. Whenever there is a breach, water can flow out. Nature behaves in that fashion. The pressure of our karmas lies waiting, our present experiences are already those which could become true for us, others lie in wait.

According to whether a person acted with an ulterior motive or a positive one, the karma is painful or pleasant. So even good intentioned motives bring a return of action.

He asks us, to step aside, go up a level, burn out the klesha inside you, the karma associated with it will never happen, like a seed which does not sprout when it has been burnt inside.

Reference:

YOGA SUTRAS OF PATANJALI by Hariharananda.( Chapter II )

1. Tapas, svadhyaya and isvara-pranidhana are kriya-yoga.
2. For bringing about samadhi and minimizing the klesas.
3. Avidya, asmita, raga, dvesa and abhinivesa are the five klesas.
4. Avidya is the breeding ground for the others whether they be dormant, attenuated, interrupted or active.
5. Avidya consists in regarding a transient object as everlasting, an impure object as pure, misery as happiness and not-self as self.
6. Asmita is tantamount to the identification of purusa or pure consciousness with buddhi.
7. Attachment is that modification which follows rememberance of pleasure.
8. Aversion is that which results from misery.
9. As in the ignorant so in the learned the firmly established inborn fear of annihilation is the affliction called abhinivesa.
10. The subtle klesas are forsaken by the cessation of productivity of the mind.
11. Their means of subsistence or their gross states are avoidable by meditation.
12. Karmasaya or latent impression of action based on afflictions, becomes active in this life or in a life to come.
13. As long as klesa remains at the root, karmasaya produces three consequences in the form of birth, span of life and experience.

14. Because of virtue and vice these produce pleasurable and painful experiences.
15. The discriminating persons apprehend all worldly objects as sorrowful because they cause suffering in consequence, in their afflictive experiences and in their latencies and also because of the contrary nature of the Gunas.

16. Pain which is yet to come is to be discarded.
17. Uniting the seer or the subject with the seen or the object, the cause of which has to be avoided.
18. The object or knowable is by nature sentient, mutable and inert. It exists in the form of elements and the organs, and serves the purpose of experience and emancipation.

19. Diversified, undiversified, indicator only and that which is without any indication are the states of the gunas.
20. The seer is absolute knower. Although pure, modifications are witnessed by him as an onlooker.
21. To serve as the objective field to purusa is the essence or nature of the knowable.
22. Although ceasing to exist in relation to him whose purpose is fulfilled the knowable does not cease to exist on account of being of use to others.

23. Alliance is the means of realising the true nature of the object of the knower and of the owner, the knower.
24. Avidya, or nescience as its cause
25. The absence of alliance that arises from lack of it is the freedom and that is the state of liberation of the seer.

26. Clear and distinct discriminative knowledge is the means of liberation.
27. Seven kinds of ultimate insight come to him.
28. Through the practice of the different accessories to yoga when impurities are destroyed, there arises enlightenment culminating in discriminative enlightenment.

** we discussed 19, as the four levels, in the previous essay.
Rajiv   
May 23, 2007
Writing Feedback / Eastern thought - an introduction in three parts [24]

Thank you very much Sarah!

It's more challenging to address the next part which I want to write about.

I wish to convey how we may become more than what we normally consider ourselves to be. To bring about that, there are more ways than one. Patanjali points us there through the practice of Yoga and we often have to discover what he means through some of our own effort.

Apart from the practice itself, its interesting to try and grasp the concept how we may literally become, not just understand our Self. This chapter is about Siddhis, extra-natural abilities and perceptions.

The most interesting thing about Indian philosophy is that it says it is possible to see into the future and the past. From one point of view this is completely impractical but from Yoga's point of view this comes about by understanding the world around us differently than we see it normally. Imagine, the world is like a football stadium with those huge night lights. If the sun really stood still like those lights, we would lose our concept of time, because now, its foundation in our minds is based upon the motion of the sun and the changes associated with that change during day and night.

Then take the astronomical view and see the solar system from outside, and you know the sun is stationary, the earth revolves around its own axis and moves around the sun. Imagine coming closer and closer to the earth, not forgetting you are stationary with respect to the solar system, that is you are free to move by your own will, not moved by the rotations of the earth, and then you focus, remaining yourself unseen, on some things just as you are now. What this has done for you is remove your binding with time and you can see things more as they are. You will notice change happening as an evolution in everything. Your mind is not in a spin because you have to follow the imagined concept of time and you will notice the change happening in things, individually.

Patanjali says you will notice three aspects in anything. Its Dharma, its Lakshanand its Awastha.

Dharmais the stages anything goes through. Everything has a Dharmaand it progresses evolutionarily through those states.

Lakshanare signs indicating where it is going next and where it's coming from within the sequence determined from its Dharma, and Awasthais when we can say how long something has lived in its present state, its age.

If along with objects we consider other things like relationships, our jobs and businesses, our neighborhood. To all of these too we normally ascribe a sequence of stages, we notice signs of change and make judgments of their age, and that's really all we do. We try to define precisely these involuntary natural perceptions all the time. The better we can the more effective we feel we are.

In the practice of the last three Angas we refine these perception to their ultimate degree. We transcend a barrier to our own nature, since in our present perception-cognitions we have to deal with these above aspects, which are really manifestations of a mental limitation and eroded away by the practice.

Reference:

YOGA SUTRAS OF PATANJALI by Hariharananda.( Chapter III)
Rajiv   
May 22, 2007
Writing Feedback / Eastern thought - an introduction in three parts [24]

Part 1 will be of help in recognizing and categorizing actions and behaviour from the view of the Yoga system, part 2 should be of interest as it introduces the technique of developing concentration with one consequence of the ability, and part 3 goes back to earlier in the book to bring in the real, why life isn't perfect for us.

Understanding philosophical theories is about establishing their relevance, the correspondence in the ideas they express and our experience. Instead of making enormous efforts at understanding a theory alone, is it not a better learning if our experiences can be interpreted in the ideas of a philosophy.

My intention is to convey some of those ideas and how life may actually be happening in that way. That is, we can look at life in a particular way and things begin to make sense, and then as we see it happening, we take assurance that what we learn and believe is not untrue, and have confidence that life may work out like that all the way.

An important philosophical text is the 'Yoga Sutras of Patanjali'. These are a collection of aphorisms, about fifty each in four chapters. The part easiest to connect with is in chapter 2, where Patanjali outlines the practice of Yoga, called Asht-anga, eight-limbed Yoga. I will tell you how I understand the philosophy from this sutra till the 15th sutra in chapter 3, where he explains how the Yogi's perceptions can transcend average natural abilities.

I will step back and speak in general terms of the ideas expressed in these sutras, because they have to be interpreted and understood by a person individually. If I try to explain the sutras one at a time, I may not be able to do it effectively. I will try instead to give the general ideas expressed in these, and then you see when you take them one at a time, how they may apply to your life.

The eight Angas or limbs are a progression and we are spread in our life-experience among them, depending upon how we may be applying these principles. The first idea is about Yama and Niyama, the first two Angas. Each has five elements. The Yamas are manifest as behaviors to control. They are recognizable principles in our lives; non-violence, non-stealing and truthfulness are acceptable values everywhere. The other two, sexual restraint and non acceptance of charity have different emphasis in India compared to West.

Next, in the five elements of Niyama, meaning discipline, the first is purity and cleanliness. It is a very acceptable quality and may even be better practiced in the West. The next, contentment is opposed to values in America, but may be acceptable in Europe. The next three again maybe somewhat acceptable in European culture, but I wonder if austerity is considered practical as a practice as is implied in the text. Similarly self study, even as reflection on oneself maybe ambiguous, because I don't think Western culture may consider pondering on just the idea of our existence as having any benefit for us, and on surrendering of the outcome of all our actions to God; the last of the Niyam, people may see that as implying too ready an acceptance of failure. I will say more on these last three Niyams later in explaining how their practice may lead us towards the desired goal.

Here is the point I am trying to make though. Look at these on one hand and the extent to which within our own lives we may be following them. Notice their outcomes as one practices them to perfection explained below. We may ask how much individually, have we acquired of these 'rewards in nature'. If we accept this philosophy as a correct description of 'nature's behavior', then every human is really living by these principles, even unknowingly, all over the world.

Reference:

YOGA SUTRAS OF PATANJALI by Hariharananda.( Chapter II )
Rajiv   
May 21, 2007
Writing Feedback / an altogether different way of understanding how we make observations. [40]

Greetings again.

Contemplating the infinite should yield us something of worth else it would be
considered an exercise in futility.

I really like the way you are saying what I want to too, but in another way. Yes, I am being more literal and want to take it even further, because I wish to assert that it is literally so. The higher element is not an abstraction of space or infinity, as one may believe, and as I can gather from your statement. Unless you have actually read any text on this subject, nowhere else in world literature has this 'higher constituent of space' been defined. It is as concrete as the real things around us, the point being, it is even more so.

This is really the break one has to make with the past way of thinking about our surrounding reality. And, do you?

We are talking about the third level of existence.

Other than this, 'higher constituent of space' , existing at the same level are the higher constituents of other nature's elements, of earth, water, air and fire. There is one another, very significant, call it of ego-sense. This last, imparts to each of us our sense of individuality - but of note is, that the existence-play doesn't end even for us with the understanding of this one alone. We are yet connected to the reality in the fourth level, the one which as an un-differentiated 'cause itself' makes everything happen.

Thank you for persisting so long in your efforts to unravel all of this. I really do mean that.
Rajiv   
May 21, 2007
Writing Feedback / an altogether different way of understanding how we make observations. [40]

Greetings!

But which determines the other's limit?

Are you saying that our capacity to think out enough will fix the real size of the universe. That isn't how scientists would approach something - they accept a complexity in something as given and study it to determine more they can about it.

Thanks
Rajiv   
May 20, 2007
Writing Feedback / an altogether different way of understanding how we make observations. [40]

Hello Sarah,

I like this fact of your legal background.

I think, why the explanation I gave above is most difficult to accept, is not letting go of the concept of Space as we have in our mind. Yet if you move to an inner sense of yourself, right now, it is as much possible to think of everything you see outside, as manufactured for you by your senses; in the process as you perceive them.

Something else, appears as space. Our particular understanding of space, as we know it, is a result of our mind reacting with that element. This higher level element sitting alongside our mind, is the primary cause of space. We only see it as we do, on the outside. The concept of "alongside" as much depends on the concept of space, but we can still think of the higher constituent of space as having a relationship with our mind.

At least as it happened with me, getting past this particular barrier did most in terms of accepting this theory. Where is the edge of the universe?

thank you.
Rajiv   
May 19, 2007
Writing Feedback / an altogether different way of understanding how we make observations. [40]

In the second layer of existence are the senses, together with what they connect to in the natural world; and we, as we know ourselves are in the third. Not just ourselves, but all we interact with begins at this layer, that is why the close connection with causes, of things happening as they concern us. Space is part of manifestation of nature, co-existing alongside us, upto the third level. In this sense plurality, as seperation between things, happens as they are expressed in the lower levels.

Events have a pre-determined flow, we live with them in our minds, and when we wish to see connections, we can by reaching in. Else our easy, normal awareness is in the third level of existence, not straining too much.
Rajiv   
May 18, 2007
Writing Feedback / an altogether different way of understanding how we make observations. [40]

There is a text in Indian philosophy called, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Like many things belonging to the past of India, there is some uncertainty about when this was composed, though likely, 500 BC or so. Patanjali too, may be more than one person, and Sutras, means aphorisms, which these originally are, but extensive commentary has been added with each aphorism.

This is the theoretical basis of Yoga, and if you have heard of Yogis having extra-ordinary abilities, then the basis of their practice leading to those abilities was based on the direction in these.

I am usually reluctant to reveal them as the source of where I am arguing from, because I do not wish the person to become so awed that the discussion is not rational anymore. And then, of what significance will be any conclusion if we cannot derive them from experiences in our lives now. Of course one may think these are anachronistic perhaps, but the matter is so deep, that time itself is but a principle to be understood within its framework.

Why don't you set the tone for me to continue further please?

thank you

Rajiv
Rajiv   
May 18, 2007
Writing Feedback / an altogether different way of understanding how we make observations. [40]

OK. Let me approach it like this.

If we understand all existence to be in four layers, where the lowest is the things we interact with and the highest is where we are able to think and reason. Everything happening has a manifestation in each of these layers. When we try to express what constitutes the highest layer, we cannot. But that is where we are reaching to, for our understanding of things. When we understand something, we really see its picture there. So, everything is explained in that highest layer, but its totally formless, and ..

If this is bringing some clarity, I will continue.
Rajiv   
May 17, 2007
Writing Feedback / an altogether different way of understanding how we make observations. [40]

How did the tree make a sound, then, or even fall, for that matter, if there was no one there to experience it?

It is obvious as we read this that this is an image conjured up in our mind. At this particular instant it is, but of course at some other time it will be true.

Can we say, when we read a report of someone hit by a falling tree, that it happened because he was the cause of it, not in the obvious way of physically making it topple, and yet?

Are we saying accidents don't happen? That those involved really cause them. If we can see no connections between events, we do not accept them as related. So it is as much a case of what we are able to connect that determines for us, a cause-effect relationship.

If we accept the existence of that signature for each of us in the nether-realm, does it make things that happen seemingly by accident, appear more coherent? And if it does, is that not a sufficient reason to accept that it must be so, only beyond our present capability of perception and maybe even of inference.

So the situation is one of looking only at effects and attempting to deduce the causes. We feel ourselves straining in that attempt when something unexpected happens, why, why did this happen? And when we reach a satisfactory explanation, can we say with certainty it was all about finding the external events leading to that event. Is there not some internal mental resolving involved too, something we feel fleetingly but is yet satisfying in its power of closing for us the question we have? Something falling into place, but we see no outlines to it, it quickly vanishes from our memory?

To be acceptable this should be true every time. Anytime before an unexpected occurrence a person should have some inkling, some premonition. And, don't they? How else to explain them? The difficulty is in attempting to explain to ourselves, the space wherein these occur; but that is only our attempt to recall them. But these could have the same lifetime as real events, those we see outside, and are true for an instance, and then on their way. We are not able to capture them.
Rajiv   
May 17, 2007
Writing Feedback / an altogether different way of understanding how we make observations. [40]

I thank you, for the honesty and simplicity of the way in which you ask the question.

In reality, we would be more concerned about the significance of this statement, as it applies to us, at this very moment, even. But immediately that you do this, you have a sense of almost overwhelming anxiety, and responsibility, because, it then seems the entire world and its events are tightly linked to your being. Even if you disregard, maybe with a twinge of irresponsibility, consequences your actions may result in for others everywhere on this planet, just those things which concern yourself are in themselves overpowering.

We therefore prefer a certain freedom in and from the actions we are doing, and for that reason cherish a little sense of irresponsibility, it is soothing to us, and why not!

But, the converse of this picture isn't one of getting trapped in a thick quagmire of events. The converse should be even more liberating than the way we now feel. It should free us from some fears and anxieties we otherwise carry. So does it? And then what's this way of understanding this simple statement that, we are ourselves the cause of things which happen to us?

There is no denying that we have to accept the existence, somewhere, but why is that in itself more important than the consequence, that, if there is such a signature for each of us, existing in some nether realm, what then?
Rajiv   
May 16, 2007
Writing Feedback / an altogether different way of understanding how we make observations. [40]

Hello again,

I understand how this may be becoming tiresome for you, and I really hope you do not think it is my intention to drag this for the sake of dragging it.

I have once again reached the point in discussing these same issues as I have many times before, with the difference, that this time the entire discussion has more clarity.

If, what I am saying is true, it is quite a staggering statement, is it not - that the experiencing person is the real cause of events. Ofcourse you realize it is not my original hypothesis.

I am sorry I am not expressing the importance I feel this subject has for me, and for some others too, well enough.

Rajiv
Rajiv   
May 16, 2007
Writing Feedback / an altogether different way of understanding how we make observations. [40]

Greetings Sarah!

I do imply it as you say it - without the person who is experiencing it, it does not happen.

I am saying, I don't get how this is contradicted when things happen unobserved or the question, did the falling tree make a sound when no one was around.

I do in a sense get it, but if you say it, I may better be able to state the position of my own statement on it.

Thank you very much.

Rajiv
Rajiv   
May 15, 2007
Writing Feedback / essay on - why I write [17]

Greetings !

I was pointing to an excessive importance we give to living our present existence. That there could be, for us too, existences where we evolve even faster, understanding life in bigger gulps, if that is our quest.

thanks
Rajiv   
May 15, 2007
Undergraduate / Effect of bad friends - causes and effect essay [11]

mssgrim,

If you feel weighed down by the role you have had already - just let it go, while you write this paper. Imagine instead, yourself doing the older child's part just as you see right. To make it interesting bring in a crisis where you have to play the role of your parents..

like my suggestions..?

Rajiv
Rajiv   
May 14, 2007
Writing Feedback / Reporter at Large interview paper [5]

Thanks paperhanger,

Something that struck me right away was that you were addressing something very personal to yourself. You ask, if we can guess who Duncan is, well if it is not yourself, it is someone very close to you, in that, his struggle is almost your own.

Other than how well your language flows, I liked the way you describe the acrid effect New York has on Duncan. Until I read this in your writing, I had hardly imagined it would be just so. It helped me, having myself not grown up in the countryside of United States to see something I can still relate with.

Hey, thanks again. Just liked your clear diction and the style of bringing those questions alive.

Rajiv
Rajiv   
May 14, 2007
Writing Feedback / Analytical Essay - characterize Capote's view of Holcomb [4]

Hello there bizkitgirlzc,

you have real ability and it's so to the point you have been asked to do.

I don't know why I get the impression you're in a bit of a hurry to get it over with, even though you must have enjoyed doing it. Just a picture I'll try and paint for you here; many, many years from now you will be sitting, writing, having discovered that as your true love, and, you may have to try hard to imagine this, but you will be getting all your life's sustenance, all that really keeps you up, from your writing. Consider that, you will want to look at what you are doing now, with even more respect.

hope nothing offensive said here.
Rajiv   
May 14, 2007
Writing Feedback / Reporter at Large interview paper [5]

Hey paperhanger,

I enjoyed your essay very much too. But I hesitate to say anything more, before you are comfortable about my doing so.

Rajiv
Rajiv   
May 14, 2007
Undergraduate / Effect of bad friends - causes and effect essay [11]

Hey mr_student,

I love this name you've given yourself, sounds something your teacher may have called you!

My instinct is, I think you probably are a great person to be friends with - you just got to watch out how far you let yourself go. Like, not start sacrificing too much of your time, now you're getting into college.

just another friend,

Rajiv
Rajiv   
May 14, 2007
Writing Feedback / essay on - why I write [17]

Greetings Sarah,

In the first paragraph, I hope I understand your allusion correctly to be about living life in some awe, with some humility, but something more positive than negative.

To answer your next point - in Western cultures it is known as depression, but in the Eastern this mental state is considered as having a very real and productive seed. Hence the really interesting question to me is, how acceptable is what follows in the essay to you.

Thanks

Rajiv
Rajiv   
May 13, 2007
Writing Feedback / essay on - why I write [17]

I can take you into deeper waters, just in case that's what you really are looking for :

Why do I go about thinking almost everyone is smarter than me, knows more about life, is managing better. I am surprised that I have been thinking so. So many of the people I look at, are at the same stage where I was too at sometime. What kept me looking ahead was a projection in my mind of what the future will be. This is an illusion we are pointed to by those we work for. But, our destiny headed down a peculiar path, with no missteps, no breaks, inevitably, and almost no real surprises; why did we not believe this is how it would turn out back then? We wanted to see ourselves at the top, and I wonder why. What of everything we learnt at the turns which came along our path, real, like other real things; to avoid them would have been a weakness, a putting off, a knowledge we did not want to go on without. And so, the knowledge learnt was well learnt and now suddenly life has a meaning quite different, and I feel it is the same for all others I can relate with, of my age and beyond.

The mystery that life is, is the most significant thing now. We look around at others, of our own age and length of experience; in the city, everywhere, it is almost a certainty they all feel it the same. Something else matters more now. I look at a person spending more than I can, but I can tell with certainty he travels along the identical troughs and peaks of reality that I do, and that, almost all others at this stage of life do. What then to make of life?

We can ask ourself, what was it all about. Why did those things seems so important and these, which seem significant now, seem less.

When there really seems no answer, and everything seems to be falling away, we look to the future and imagine only a dark and bleak void; no answers at all, where we came from, why did we come, and no idea where next. In such a state, a man may accept almost anything which will remove this oppressing image of the future. And so he resists giving in to mental falsity, for he believes in the power of his own thought, his thinking abilities, that have stood by him like some trusty staff. He will stay with that. He wants to meet anything you throw at him with a resounding blow. So what do you set before him now!

Try this idea, you tell him. Imagine this for now, though I want to say, that it is really so. You have always been, always, for all eternity, your body has not, though. The world springs from your mind. On one side is the sense of yourself, illumined by consciousness, and on the other it illumines the world. Thoughts in your mind become colored by imprints of your experiences, but you can see it is this identity which asserts itself through life, the one we talk about above, that dissolves. Not the consciousness which illumines it, your awareness.

Then you go under like a stick floating on a river, and when you come up to the surface, in its light you are visible again, you to your self, and you also see the world. You can float as long as you please, ultimately you will tire of this journey.
Rajiv   
May 13, 2007
Writing Feedback / on sounds and meaning - an essay [4]

Greetings!

Questions, when we encounter them, seem to demand attention. But I mean most questions as enquiries, lying out there, you may notice them, but their purpose is to indicate depth in that direction, which we may be moving towards later in the essay.

I say this not without acknowledging my writing is quite clumsy, and often I am hoping for just the idea to go through because you may relate to it. Convey what I wish to, in the way familiar ones are put together. Far too inadequate, but I don't want to make pretensions about it, as technique.

That said, I do not apologize for what I feel strongly, know well enough about. To me, it came in a very different setting from now; the difficulty is in bringing the wholesomeness of those experiences to you and others who may never be there.

thanks.
Rajiv   
May 13, 2007
Writing Feedback / on sounds and meaning - an essay [4]

The question is - what is the position of words, spoken and read, in our inner realm. Why do they acquire a special significance, or even, how do they have the power to affect us more deeply than even the things we see, objects. All words are constructed with individual sounds but connect as though to our minds in a particular and special way, uncovering the dross.

All our learning, development of our minds has been through written or spoken words, so we could say the knowledge we prize in ourselves has so come about.

What is the significance of this, how does it come to be this way. Something very basic in our minds must have some similar constitution, which is not sound in itself, yet keeps our mind stabilized in some inner knowledge.

There are two ways in which words are real - as written and spoken. What they convey comes also from what precedes and follows them but the existence of written and spoken words is different from those which come to our mind with our ideas. These become a part of the real world, though spoken words are still less permanent than written ones.

What is the significance of sounds in general that surround us. We swim in them as a part of our atmosphere and some are definitely assuring depending on where we are. How disconcerting it would be if we were to hear only 'silence' on a crowded street.

Sounds happen and we attend to them, to first understand their context, what could this sound being there at all mean. Does it fit. I expect a person sitting next to me to create sounds, most likely words, but not like those that can come from vehicles, or an animal. I notice a certain alertness for this in myself, like creatures in the wild have for prey or danger. It has an instinctive quality and for that reason is on the surface.

Past this boundary we admit sounds into an inner sense, those we want to feel with greater sensitivity, as though mixing them with our own thoughts to understand them. A word, an idea or sentence is introduced into a living sea of our mind that works with an intelligence forming structures with this entrant. Sometimes it is happy to discover that it is outside its ability to make it a part of itself, and is still intrigued by it.

To identify a sound in a myriad of many, the mind sifts through its own structures, finding one which relates to the one holding our attention. Till that happens we exert at holding the mind in that state of awareness. We may also become aware at this time of other unresolved things on our mind.

We try to hold just the sound of this unfamiliar word, but seek something to make it easier to hold on to it with, a meaning, to strengthen our grasp. What if there is very little we find in our repertoire, anything similar, how would our mind behave in that situation.

We reach a deeper layer of purpose in our mind which determines our resolve to grasp this unfamiliar sound. We say to ourselves this has to be. If the meaning lay outside of us, it's almost as though we force the outside to let us have it, a need as though to expand our mind.
Rajiv   
May 12, 2007
Writing Feedback / an altogether different way of understanding how we make observations. [40]

I think one of the most unsettling experience would be, to have to leave something you took as literal, to be not real, and instead accept something you took only metaphorically, as real.

There is so much to let go in the earlier system of things, but more unsettling would be to hope to find meaning enough in the metaphorical, which will allow you to transfer your entire being to it.

thanks

Rajiv
Rajiv   
May 12, 2007
Writing Feedback / essay on - why I write [17]

Is it an inference? as will He always be beyond our ability to percieve Him, as we do other things and are comforatble with their being 'in real' for us.

The roving eye is a metaphor to our mind's constant movement, examining one thing after another, till it is time to sleep, and then it dims down, an almost involountary action, but in harmony with everything else's retiring, and then, where are we?

but are you asking for something a little more...
Rajiv   
May 12, 2007
Writing Feedback / essay on - why I write [17]

you are being twice modest.

as you have said it, it is exactly as I was struggling to do.

you have the meaning just as I intended, but you leave it at that, and let it sail past; but your response to what I am saying is always as important to me.

thank you so much.
Rajiv   
May 11, 2007
Writing Feedback / an altogether different way of understanding how we make observations. [40]

scientifically = explicable entirely through external cause and effect.

the experiencing person himself/ herself is the real cause for something happening. Not by the actions they do preceding the event, but due to their state within; of this internal realm.

this is the method of maya, of befuddling us, and we take it, that all events happen only as they appear to.
Rajiv   
May 11, 2007
Writing Feedback / an altogether different way of understanding how we make observations. [40]

the same idea came in 'how we evolve' , the earlier essay.

we exert to improve our circumstances. We fear we might otherwise be deluding ourselves into accepting what we do not have, so the physical change is a necessary validation of a real change to our lives - whenever it happens. Like becoming rich!

It seems true then, that the physical change follows after a particular change in our way of our thinking. We may say we became rich after we learnt how to.

--

... but this is really where I am leading to, in the same, (edited for clarity)

we may have difficulty in accepting this paradigm because, if something should exist in a space within, we cannot imagine a more direct means of uncovering it, than the present one, of learning.
Rajiv   
May 11, 2007
Writing Feedback / an altogether different way of understanding how we make observations. [40]

Wonderfully penetrating, your comments are.

I wonder though, where the question about wishing to push the veil aside is coming from. It's not your 'literalist' self.

Would you be willing to accept that the 'literal' is, as much, part of the veil? That's not so easy I am sure, since we believe it's scientifically there.
Rajiv   
May 11, 2007
Writing Feedback / essay on - why I write [17]

Thank you Sarah; do you catch something here, though...

If we look at the process of going to sleep, it seems to begin from outside, a darkening of the sky, the returning of people to their homes, a movement within, all the time of settling the body, replenshing it, then withdrawing. Something is withdrawing within, something other than ourselves, but we can identify with; but who goes to sleep when the roving mental eye dims down, are we totally extinguished, are we inferring our own presence?
Rajiv   
May 10, 2007
Writing Feedback / essay on - why I write [17]

is the concept of God only an inference?

who goes to sleep?

the roving mental eye dims.

if the earth did not go around, and the sun stood still, would we have no concept as time?

if we look at the process of going to sleep, it seems to begin from outside, a darkening of the sky, the returning of people to their homes, a movement within , all the time of settling the body, replenshing it, then withdrawing. Something is withdrawing within, something other than ourselves, we can identify ourselves with, but who goes to sleep when the roving mental eye dims down, are we totally extinguished. Are we inferring our own presence.
Rajiv   
May 10, 2007
Writing Feedback / an altogether different way of understanding how we make observations. [40]

Thank you Sarah!

Yes a 'we' was left out there, and I'll be more careful with my spellings. To be honest, I thought I was inventing that word right then. I can be so conceited!

Please do not hesitate to give me, hard to swallow feed-back, along with other things you say. I need some very real directions.

...to be read, to be understood... my gratitude is boundless!

Rajiv
Rajiv   
May 10, 2007
Writing Feedback / essay on - why I write [17]

to continue...

So it seems that the physical world is like a scaffolding, and it comes into reality through our senses, mostly of sights, sounds and touch. Another substratum lies within and beyond it, of events which take place, our significant and personal experiences.

These are independent of time as we are familiar with it, but related as sequence and consequence, and it is here we see ourselves existing as we do, striving to be more.

This is the realm where we also accept the meaning of things, the reason, why meanings appear more acceptable, and we assimilate them into ourselves more easily than the objects and sounds they represent.

It is in this realm one would find the trails in ourself which indicate the events yet to be for us. The outside world will faithfully follow the direction of this internal force of will. The man who wronged us, sometime long ago, actually anytime back to eternity, has left the imprint in our mind, our consciousness, and if we bump into him, even in the most incidental way, the recognition will try to emerge out from this inner consciousness and in the event his motive earlier was in fact to do us wrong, the events around us on this occasion are so created that, almost without anything which may be attributed to us as motive, we will be avenged. We will feel a lightening within ourselves, a removal of a crease in our consciousness, unless we had already let it go earlier, and had forgiven him his wrong to us.

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