Twelve Principles of Buddhism
By Christmas Humphreys
1. Self salvation is for any man the immediate task. If a man lay wounded by a poisoned arrow he would not delay extraction by demanding details of the man who shot it or the length and make of the arrow. There will be time for ever-increasing understanding of the Teaching during the treading of the Way. Meanwhile, begin now by facing life as it is, learning always by direct and personal experience.
2. The first fact of existence is the law of change or impermanence. All that exists, from a mole to a mountain, from a thought to an empire, passes through the same cycle of existence; birth, growth, decay and death. Life alone is continuous, ever seeking self-expression in new forms. "Life is a bridge; therefore build no house on it." Life is a process of flow, and he who clings to any form, however splendid, will suffer by resisting the flow.
3. The law of change applies equally to the "soul". There is no principle in an individual which is immortal and unchanging. Only the "Namelessness", the Ultimate Reality, is beyond change, and all forms of life, including man, are manifestations of this Reality. No one owns the life which flows in him any more than the electric light bulb owns the current which gives it light.
4. The universe is the expression of law. All effects have causes, and man's soul or character is the sum total of his previous thoughts and acts. Karma, meaning action-reaction, governs all existence, and man is the sole creator of his circumstances, and his reaction to them, his future condition and his final destiny. By right thought and action he can gradually purify his inner nature, and so by self-realization attain in time liberation from rebirth. The process covers great periods of time, involving life after life on earth, but ultimately every form of life will reach enlightenment.
5. Life is one and indivisible, though its ever-changing forms are innumerable and perishable. There is, in truth, no death, though every form must die. From an understanding of life's unity arises compassion, a sense of identity with the life in other forms. Compassion is described as the "Law of laws-eternal harmony", and he who breaks this harmony of life will suffer accordingly and delay his own enlightenment.
6. Life being One, the interests of the part should be those of the whole. In his ignorance man thinks he can successfully strive for his own interests, and his wrongly-directed energy of selfishness produces its cause. The Buddha taught four Noble Truths:
a) The omnipresence of suffering;
b) its cause, wrongly-directed desire;
c) its cure, the removal of the cause; and
d) the Noble Eightfold Path of self-development which leads to the end of suffering.
7. The Eightfold Path consists of: (1)Right Views or preliminary understanding, (2) Right Aims or Motives, (3) Right Speech, (4) Right Acts, (5) Right Livelihood, (6) Right Effort, (7) Right Concentration or mind-development, and, finally, (8) Right Samadhi, leading to full Enlightenment. As Buddhism is a way of living, not merely a theory of life, the treading of this Path is essential to self-deliverance. "Cease to do evil, learn to do good, cleanse your own heart: this is the Teaching of the Buddhas".
8. Reality is incomprehensible, and a God with attributes is not the final Reality. But the Buddha, a human being, became the All-Enlightened One, and the purpose of life is the attainment of Enlightenment. This state of consciousness, Nirvana, the extinction of the limitations of selfhood, is attainable on earth. All men and all other forms of life contain the potentiality of Enlightenment, and the purpose therefore consists in becoming what you are: "Look within; thou art Buddha".
9. From potential to actual Enlightenment there lies the Middle Way, the Eightfold Path from desire to peace", a process of self-development between the "opposites", avoiding all extremes. The Buddha trod this Way to the end, and the only faith required in Buddhism is the reasonable belief that where a Guide has trodden its is worth our while to tread. The Way must be trodden by the whole man, nor merely the best of him, and heart and mind must be developed equally. The Buddha was the All-Compassionate as well as the All-Enlightened One.
10. Buddhism lays great stress on the need of inward concentration and meditation, which leads in time to the development of the inner spiritual faculties. The subjective life is as important as the daily round, and periods of quietude for inner activity are essential for a balanced life. The Buddhist should at all times be "mindful and self-possessed", refraining from mental and emotional attachment to "the passing show". This increasingly watchful attitude to circumstances, which he knows to be his own creation, helps him to keep his reaction to it always under control.
11. The Buddha said: "Work out your own salvation with diligence". Buddhism knows no authority for truth save the intuition of the individual, and that is authority for himself alone. Each man suffers the consequences of his own acts, and learns thereby, while helping his fellow man to the same deliverance; nor will prayer to the Buddha or to any God prevent an effect following its cause. Buddhist monks are teachers and examplars, and in no sense intermediaries between Reality and the individual. The utmost tolerance is practiced towards all other religions and philosophies, for no man has the right to interfere in his neighbor's journey to the Goal.
12. Buddhism is neither pessimistic or "escapist", nor does it deny the existence of God or soul, though it places its own meaning on these terms. It is, on the contrary, a system of thought, a religion, a spiritual science and a way of life, which is reasonable, practical and all embracing. For over two thousand years it has satisfied the spiritual needs of nearly one-third of mankind. It appeals to the West because it has no dogmas, satisfies the reason and the heart alike, insists on self-reliance coupled with tolerance for other points of view, embraces science, religion, philosophy, psychology, ethics and art, and points to man alone as the creator of his present life and sole designer of his destiny.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Saturday, May 24, 2008
What Ads have done to us!
Ads gleam with promises of transformation and transcendence – via material objects. Jean Kilbourne decodes this gigantic propaganda effort.
These ads are meant to be funny. Taken individually, I suppose they might seem amusing or, at worst, tasteless. As someone who has studied ads for a long time, however, I see them as part of a pattern: just two of many ads that state or imply that products are more important than people.
We are surrounded by hundreds, thousands of messages every day that link our deepest emotions to products, that objectify people and trivialize our most heartfelt moments and relationships. Every emotion is used to sell us something. Our wish to protect our children is leveraged to make us buy an expensive car. A long marriage simply provides the occasion for a diamond necklace. A painful reunion between a father and his estranged daughter is dramatized to sell us a phone system. Everything in the world – nature, animals, people – is just so much stuff to be consumed or to be used to sell us something.
The problem with advertising isn’t that it creates artificial needs, but that it exploits our very real and human desires. Advertising promotes a bankrupt concept of relationship. Most of us yearn for committed relationships that will last. We are not stupid: we know that buying a certain brand of cereal won’t bring us one inch closer to that goal. But we are surrounded by advertising that yokes our needs with products and promises us that things will deliver what in fact they never can. In the world of advertising, lovers are things and things are lovers.
It may be that there is no other way to depict relationships when the ultimate goal is to sell products. But this apparently bottomless consumerism not only depletes the world’s resources, it also depletes our inner resources. It leads inevitably to narcissism and solipsism. It becomes difficult to imagine a way of relating that isn’t objectifying and exploitative.
Tuned in Most people feel that advertising is not something to take seriously. Other aspects of the media are serious – the violent films, the trashy talk shows, the bowdlerization of the news. But not advertising! Strangely,just about everyone still feels personally exempt from its influence. In truth, we are all influenced. There is no way to tune out this much information, especially when it is designed to break through the ‘tuning out’ process. As advertising critic Sut Jhally put it: ‘To not be influenced by advertising would be to live outside of culture. No human being lives outside of culture.’
Much of advertising’s power comes from this belief that it does not affect us. As Joseph Goebbels said: ‘This is the secret of propaganda: those who are to be persuaded by it should be completely immersed in the ideas of the propaganda, without ever noticing that they are being immersed in it.’ Because we think advertising is trivial, we are less on guard, less critical, than we might otherwise be. While we’re laughing, sometimes sneering, the commercial does its work.
Taken individually, ads are silly, sometimes funny, certainly nothing to worry about. But cumulatively they create a climate of cynicism that is poisonous to relationships. Ad after ad portrays our real lives as dull and ordinary. Because of the pervasiveness of this kind of message, we learn from childhood that it is far safer to make a commitment to a product than to a person, far easier to be loyal to a brand. Many end up feeling romantic about material objects yet deeply cynical about other human beings.
Unnatural passions We know by now that advertising often turns people into objects. Women’s bodies – and men’s bodies too these days – are dismembered, packaged and used to sell everything from chainsaws to chewing gum, champagne to shampoo. Self-image is deeply affected. The self-esteem of girls plummets as they reach adolescence partly because they cannot possibly escape the message that their bodies are objects, and imperfect objects at that. Boys learn that masculinity requires a kind of ruthlessness, even brutality.
Advertising encourages us not only to objectify each other but to feel passion for products rather than our partners. This is especially dangerous when the products are potentially addictive, because addicts do feel they are in a relationship with their substances. I once heard an alcoholic joke that Jack Daniels was her most constant lover. When I was a smoker, I felt that my cigarettes were my friends. Advertising reinforces these beliefs, so we are twice seduced – by the ads and by the substances themselves.
The addict is the ideal consumer. Ten per cent of drinkers consume over sixty per cent of all the alcohol sold. Most of them are alcoholics or people in desperate trouble – but they are also the alcohol industry’s very best customers. Advertisers spend enormous amounts of money on psychological research and understand addiction well. They use this knowledge to target children (because if you hook them early they are yours for life), to encourage all people to consume more, in spite of often dangerous consequences for all of us, and to create a climate of denial in which all kinds of addictions flourish. This they do with full intent, as we see so clearly in the ‘secret documents’ of the tobacco industry that have been made public in recent years.
The consumer culture encourages us not only to buy more but to seek our identity and fulfillment through what we buy, to express our individuality through our ‘choices’ of products. Advertising corrupts relationships and then offers us products, both as solace and as substitutes for the intimate human connection we all long for and need.
In the world of advertising, lovers grow cold, spouses grow old, children grow up and away – but possessions stay with us and never change. Seeking the outcomes of a healthy relationship through products cannot work. Sometimes it leads us into addiction. But at best the possessions can never deliver the promised goods. They can’t make us happy or loved or less alone or safe. If we believe they can, we are doomed to disappointment. No matter how much we love them, they will never love us back.
Some argue that advertising simply reflects societal values rather than affecting them. Far from being a passive mirror of society, however, advertising is a pervasive medium of influence and persuasion. Its influence is cumulative, often subtle and primarily unconscious. A former editor-in-chief of Advertising Age, the leading advertising publication in North America, once claimed: ‘Only eight per cent of an ad’s message is received by the conscious mind. The rest is worked and re-worked deep within, in the recesses of the brain.’
Advertising performs much the same function in industrial society as myth did in ancient societies. It is both a creator and perpetuator of the dominant values of the culture, the social norms by which most people govern their behaviour. At the very least, advertising helps to create a climate in which certain values flourish and others are not reflected at all.
advertising and religion share a belief in transformation, but most religions believe that this requires sacrifice Advertising is not only our physical environment, it is increasingly our spiritual environment as well. By definition, however, it is only interested in materialistic values. When spiritual values show up in ads, it is only in order to sell us something. Eternity is a perfume by Calvin Klein. Infiniti is an automobile, and Hydra Zen a moisturizer. Jesus is a brand of jeans.
Sometimes the allusion is more subtle, as in the countless alcohol ads featuring the bottle surrounded by a halo of light. Indeed products such as jewellery shining in a store window are often displayed as if they were sacred objects. Advertising co-opts our sacred symbols in order to evoke an immediate emotional response. Media critic Neil Postman referred to this as ‘cultural rape’.
It is commonplace to observe that consumerism has become the religion of our time (with advertising its holy text), but the criticism usually stops short of what is at the heart of the comparison. Both advertising and religion share a belief in transformation, but most religions believe that this requires sacrifice. In the world of advertising, enlightenment is achieved instantly by purchasing material goods. An ad for a watch says, ‘It’s not your handbag. It’s not your neighbourhood. It’s not your boyfriend. It’s your watch that tells most about who you are.’ Of course, this cheapens authentic spirituality and transcendence. This junk food for the soul leaves us hungry, empty, malnourished.
Substitute stories Human beings used to be influenced primarily by the stories of our particular tribe or community, not by stories that are mass-produced and market-driven. As George Gerbner, one of the world’s most respected researchers on the influence of the media, said: ‘For the first time in human history, most of the stories about people, life and values are told not by parents, schools, churches, or others in the community who have something to tell, but by a group of distant conglomerates that have something to sell.’
Although it is virtually impossible to measure the influence of advertising on a culture, we can learn something by looking at cultures only recently exposed to it. In 1980 the Gwich’in tribe of Alaska got television, and therefore massive advertising, for the first time. Satellite dishes, video games and VCRs were not far behind. Before this, the Gwich’in lived much the way their ancestors had for generations. Within 10 years, the young members of the tribe were so drawn by television they no longer had time to learn ancient hunting methods, their parents’ language or their oral history. Legends told around campfires could not compete with Beverly Hills 90210. Beaded moccasins gave way to Nike sneakers, and ‘tundra tea’ to Folger’s instant coffee.
As multinational chains replace local character, we end up in a world in which everyone is Gapped and Starbucked. Shopping malls kill vibrant downtown centres locally and create a universe of uniformity internationally. We end up in a world ruled by, in John Maynard Keynes’s phrase, the values of the casino. On this deeper level, rampant commercialism undermines our physical and psychological health, our environment and our civic life, and creates a toxic society.
Advertising creates a world view that is based upon cynicism, dissatisfaction and craving. Advertisers aren’t evil. They are just doing their job, which is to sell a product; but the consequences, usually unintended, are often destructive.
In the history of the world there has never been a propaganda effort to match that of advertising in the past 50 years. More thought, more effort, more money goes into advertising than has gone into any other campaign to change social consciousness. The story that advertising tells is that the way to be happy, to find satisfaction – and the path to political freedom, as well – is through the consumption of material objects. And the major motivating force for social change throughout the world today is this belief that happiness comes from the market.
Ads gleam with promises of transformation and transcendence – via material objects. Jean Kilbourne decodes this gigantic propaganda effort.
These ads are meant to be funny. Taken individually, I suppose they might seem amusing or, at worst, tasteless. As someone who has studied ads for a long time, however, I see them as part of a pattern: just two of many ads that state or imply that products are more important than people.
We are surrounded by hundreds, thousands of messages every day that link our deepest emotions to products, that objectify people and trivialize our most heartfelt moments and relationships. Every emotion is used to sell us something. Our wish to protect our children is leveraged to make us buy an expensive car. A long marriage simply provides the occasion for a diamond necklace. A painful reunion between a father and his estranged daughter is dramatized to sell us a phone system. Everything in the world – nature, animals, people – is just so much stuff to be consumed or to be used to sell us something.
The problem with advertising isn’t that it creates artificial needs, but that it exploits our very real and human desires. Advertising promotes a bankrupt concept of relationship. Most of us yearn for committed relationships that will last. We are not stupid: we know that buying a certain brand of cereal won’t bring us one inch closer to that goal. But we are surrounded by advertising that yokes our needs with products and promises us that things will deliver what in fact they never can. In the world of advertising, lovers are things and things are lovers.
It may be that there is no other way to depict relationships when the ultimate goal is to sell products. But this apparently bottomless consumerism not only depletes the world’s resources, it also depletes our inner resources. It leads inevitably to narcissism and solipsism. It becomes difficult to imagine a way of relating that isn’t objectifying and exploitative.
Tuned in Most people feel that advertising is not something to take seriously. Other aspects of the media are serious – the violent films, the trashy talk shows, the bowdlerization of the news. But not advertising! Strangely,just about everyone still feels personally exempt from its influence. In truth, we are all influenced. There is no way to tune out this much information, especially when it is designed to break through the ‘tuning out’ process. As advertising critic Sut Jhally put it: ‘To not be influenced by advertising would be to live outside of culture. No human being lives outside of culture.’
Much of advertising’s power comes from this belief that it does not affect us. As Joseph Goebbels said: ‘This is the secret of propaganda: those who are to be persuaded by it should be completely immersed in the ideas of the propaganda, without ever noticing that they are being immersed in it.’ Because we think advertising is trivial, we are less on guard, less critical, than we might otherwise be. While we’re laughing, sometimes sneering, the commercial does its work.
Taken individually, ads are silly, sometimes funny, certainly nothing to worry about. But cumulatively they create a climate of cynicism that is poisonous to relationships. Ad after ad portrays our real lives as dull and ordinary. Because of the pervasiveness of this kind of message, we learn from childhood that it is far safer to make a commitment to a product than to a person, far easier to be loyal to a brand. Many end up feeling romantic about material objects yet deeply cynical about other human beings.
Unnatural passions We know by now that advertising often turns people into objects. Women’s bodies – and men’s bodies too these days – are dismembered, packaged and used to sell everything from chainsaws to chewing gum, champagne to shampoo. Self-image is deeply affected. The self-esteem of girls plummets as they reach adolescence partly because they cannot possibly escape the message that their bodies are objects, and imperfect objects at that. Boys learn that masculinity requires a kind of ruthlessness, even brutality.
Advertising encourages us not only to objectify each other but to feel passion for products rather than our partners. This is especially dangerous when the products are potentially addictive, because addicts do feel they are in a relationship with their substances. I once heard an alcoholic joke that Jack Daniels was her most constant lover. When I was a smoker, I felt that my cigarettes were my friends. Advertising reinforces these beliefs, so we are twice seduced – by the ads and by the substances themselves.
The addict is the ideal consumer. Ten per cent of drinkers consume over sixty per cent of all the alcohol sold. Most of them are alcoholics or people in desperate trouble – but they are also the alcohol industry’s very best customers. Advertisers spend enormous amounts of money on psychological research and understand addiction well. They use this knowledge to target children (because if you hook them early they are yours for life), to encourage all people to consume more, in spite of often dangerous consequences for all of us, and to create a climate of denial in which all kinds of addictions flourish. This they do with full intent, as we see so clearly in the ‘secret documents’ of the tobacco industry that have been made public in recent years.
The consumer culture encourages us not only to buy more but to seek our identity and fulfillment through what we buy, to express our individuality through our ‘choices’ of products. Advertising corrupts relationships and then offers us products, both as solace and as substitutes for the intimate human connection we all long for and need.
In the world of advertising, lovers grow cold, spouses grow old, children grow up and away – but possessions stay with us and never change. Seeking the outcomes of a healthy relationship through products cannot work. Sometimes it leads us into addiction. But at best the possessions can never deliver the promised goods. They can’t make us happy or loved or less alone or safe. If we believe they can, we are doomed to disappointment. No matter how much we love them, they will never love us back.
Some argue that advertising simply reflects societal values rather than affecting them. Far from being a passive mirror of society, however, advertising is a pervasive medium of influence and persuasion. Its influence is cumulative, often subtle and primarily unconscious. A former editor-in-chief of Advertising Age, the leading advertising publication in North America, once claimed: ‘Only eight per cent of an ad’s message is received by the conscious mind. The rest is worked and re-worked deep within, in the recesses of the brain.’
Advertising performs much the same function in industrial society as myth did in ancient societies. It is both a creator and perpetuator of the dominant values of the culture, the social norms by which most people govern their behaviour. At the very least, advertising helps to create a climate in which certain values flourish and others are not reflected at all.
advertising and religion share a belief in transformation, but most religions believe that this requires sacrifice Advertising is not only our physical environment, it is increasingly our spiritual environment as well. By definition, however, it is only interested in materialistic values. When spiritual values show up in ads, it is only in order to sell us something. Eternity is a perfume by Calvin Klein. Infiniti is an automobile, and Hydra Zen a moisturizer. Jesus is a brand of jeans.
Sometimes the allusion is more subtle, as in the countless alcohol ads featuring the bottle surrounded by a halo of light. Indeed products such as jewellery shining in a store window are often displayed as if they were sacred objects. Advertising co-opts our sacred symbols in order to evoke an immediate emotional response. Media critic Neil Postman referred to this as ‘cultural rape’.
It is commonplace to observe that consumerism has become the religion of our time (with advertising its holy text), but the criticism usually stops short of what is at the heart of the comparison. Both advertising and religion share a belief in transformation, but most religions believe that this requires sacrifice. In the world of advertising, enlightenment is achieved instantly by purchasing material goods. An ad for a watch says, ‘It’s not your handbag. It’s not your neighbourhood. It’s not your boyfriend. It’s your watch that tells most about who you are.’ Of course, this cheapens authentic spirituality and transcendence. This junk food for the soul leaves us hungry, empty, malnourished.
Substitute stories Human beings used to be influenced primarily by the stories of our particular tribe or community, not by stories that are mass-produced and market-driven. As George Gerbner, one of the world’s most respected researchers on the influence of the media, said: ‘For the first time in human history, most of the stories about people, life and values are told not by parents, schools, churches, or others in the community who have something to tell, but by a group of distant conglomerates that have something to sell.’
Although it is virtually impossible to measure the influence of advertising on a culture, we can learn something by looking at cultures only recently exposed to it. In 1980 the Gwich’in tribe of Alaska got television, and therefore massive advertising, for the first time. Satellite dishes, video games and VCRs were not far behind. Before this, the Gwich’in lived much the way their ancestors had for generations. Within 10 years, the young members of the tribe were so drawn by television they no longer had time to learn ancient hunting methods, their parents’ language or their oral history. Legends told around campfires could not compete with Beverly Hills 90210. Beaded moccasins gave way to Nike sneakers, and ‘tundra tea’ to Folger’s instant coffee.
As multinational chains replace local character, we end up in a world in which everyone is Gapped and Starbucked. Shopping malls kill vibrant downtown centres locally and create a universe of uniformity internationally. We end up in a world ruled by, in John Maynard Keynes’s phrase, the values of the casino. On this deeper level, rampant commercialism undermines our physical and psychological health, our environment and our civic life, and creates a toxic society.
Advertising creates a world view that is based upon cynicism, dissatisfaction and craving. Advertisers aren’t evil. They are just doing their job, which is to sell a product; but the consequences, usually unintended, are often destructive.
In the history of the world there has never been a propaganda effort to match that of advertising in the past 50 years. More thought, more effort, more money goes into advertising than has gone into any other campaign to change social consciousness. The story that advertising tells is that the way to be happy, to find satisfaction – and the path to political freedom, as well – is through the consumption of material objects. And the major motivating force for social change throughout the world today is this belief that happiness comes from the market.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Meeting Jefferey Archer.......... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What a delight it was to listen to and meet Jefferey Archer!!!
He is an amazing guy, had come to Pune for the launch of his new book 'The Prisoner of Birth" and spent a lot of time with fans who thronged the Landmark store. I ve read only one book of his, but having met him, I 'll surely read this new book autographed by Lord Archer.
He spoke little of his new book and spent more time dscribing what it means to be and live the life of an Author or to be more specific- a Novelist. I must say, he has definitely sparked my imagination which fantacizes to be a Novelist or a Short Story writer someday..!!
What a delight it was to listen to and meet Jefferey Archer!!!
He is an amazing guy, had come to Pune for the launch of his new book 'The Prisoner of Birth" and spent a lot of time with fans who thronged the Landmark store. I ve read only one book of his, but having met him, I 'll surely read this new book autographed by Lord Archer.
He spoke little of his new book and spent more time dscribing what it means to be and live the life of an Author or to be more specific- a Novelist. I must say, he has definitely sparked my imagination which fantacizes to be a Novelist or a Short Story writer someday..!!
Sunday, November 25, 2007
The Meaning of Life
Its wierd to see how many ways there are to make sense of the life we live. (Wait a minute- Is that the meaning of life as I see it?)
(Anyways,) Each one of us attributes some meaning to his or her life and that of others- and spend a lifetime devoted to it.
I would like the enumerate the 10 most prominent beliefs which people have about the 'Meaning of Life' . Read them and think if any of it is true for you:
1.To enjoy or experience life.
Enjoy the ‘moment’ , ‘the journey’.
To laugh often and much’ and ‘to appreciate beauty’
life is a very short trip—while alive, live
You got to get it while you can.
life can be enjoyed even if that is all there is.
If I go to a play I do not enjoy it less because I do not believe that it is divinely created or divinely conducted, that it will last forever instead of stopping at eleven, that many details of it will remain in my memory after a few months, or that it will have any particular moral effect on me. And I enjoy life as I enjoy that play.
2. To love, help, or serve others.
Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.
love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. The salvation of man is through love and in love.
My consolation and my happiness are to be found in service of all that lives, because the Divine essence is the sum total of all life
3. Life is a mystery.
“I don’t know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I do not know that meaning and that it is impossible for me to know.”
“If we find an answer to that (why we and the universe exist), it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we would know the mind of God.”
4. Life is meaningless.
Life is that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose
It is meaningless that we are born; it is meaningless that we die.
Life ia like a disease, and the only difference between one man and another is the stage of the disease at which he lives
Comparing life to a ship that is tossed by every wave and by every wind; a ship headed to no port and no harbor, with no rudder, no compass, no pilot, simply floating for a time, then lost in the waves.
5. To serve or worship God and/or prepare for the next (or after-) life.
Life as “only a preparation for the eternal home, which is far more important than the short pleasures that seduce us here”
In life we should “give God glory by reflecting His beauty and His love. That is why we are here and that is the purpose of our lives”
“I just want to do God’s will”
6. Life is a struggle.
life is one damned horrid grind
Life is a tragedy wherein we sit as spectators for awhile and then act our part in it.
Youth is a blunder, manhood a struggle, old age a regret.
7. To contribute to something that is greater than ourselves.
The meaning of life lies in the chance it gives us to produce or contribute to something greater than ourselves.
To leave the world a bit better
You should be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity
The true joy in life is being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one.
8. To become self-actualized.
To develop or ‘evolve’ as a person or as a species.
To pursue truth(s), wisdom, or a higher level of being.
Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is
To become what we are capable of becoming is the only end of life.
9. To create your own meaning.
Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be
The ‘hard truth’: We live in a vast and awesome universe in which, daily, suns are made and worlds destroyed, where humanity clings to an obscure clod of rock. The significance of our lives and our fragile realm derives from our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life’s meaning.
10. Life is absurd or a joke.
The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.
Life - a tragedy when seen in close-up but a comedy in the long shot.
Our ability to understand life: reading ‘Sanskrit’ to a pony.
There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
Its wierd to see how many ways there are to make sense of the life we live. (Wait a minute- Is that the meaning of life as I see it?)
(Anyways,) Each one of us attributes some meaning to his or her life and that of others- and spend a lifetime devoted to it.
I would like the enumerate the 10 most prominent beliefs which people have about the 'Meaning of Life' . Read them and think if any of it is true for you:
1.To enjoy or experience life.
Enjoy the ‘moment’ , ‘the journey’.
To laugh often and much’ and ‘to appreciate beauty’
life is a very short trip—while alive, live
You got to get it while you can.
life can be enjoyed even if that is all there is.
If I go to a play I do not enjoy it less because I do not believe that it is divinely created or divinely conducted, that it will last forever instead of stopping at eleven, that many details of it will remain in my memory after a few months, or that it will have any particular moral effect on me. And I enjoy life as I enjoy that play.
2. To love, help, or serve others.
Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.
love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. The salvation of man is through love and in love.
My consolation and my happiness are to be found in service of all that lives, because the Divine essence is the sum total of all life
3. Life is a mystery.
“I don’t know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I do not know that meaning and that it is impossible for me to know.”
“If we find an answer to that (why we and the universe exist), it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we would know the mind of God.”
4. Life is meaningless.
Life is that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose
It is meaningless that we are born; it is meaningless that we die.
Life ia like a disease, and the only difference between one man and another is the stage of the disease at which he lives
Comparing life to a ship that is tossed by every wave and by every wind; a ship headed to no port and no harbor, with no rudder, no compass, no pilot, simply floating for a time, then lost in the waves.
5. To serve or worship God and/or prepare for the next (or after-) life.
Life as “only a preparation for the eternal home, which is far more important than the short pleasures that seduce us here”
In life we should “give God glory by reflecting His beauty and His love. That is why we are here and that is the purpose of our lives”
“I just want to do God’s will”
6. Life is a struggle.
life is one damned horrid grind
Life is a tragedy wherein we sit as spectators for awhile and then act our part in it.
Youth is a blunder, manhood a struggle, old age a regret.
7. To contribute to something that is greater than ourselves.
The meaning of life lies in the chance it gives us to produce or contribute to something greater than ourselves.
To leave the world a bit better
You should be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity
The true joy in life is being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one.
8. To become self-actualized.
To develop or ‘evolve’ as a person or as a species.
To pursue truth(s), wisdom, or a higher level of being.
Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is
To become what we are capable of becoming is the only end of life.
9. To create your own meaning.
Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be
The ‘hard truth’: We live in a vast and awesome universe in which, daily, suns are made and worlds destroyed, where humanity clings to an obscure clod of rock. The significance of our lives and our fragile realm derives from our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life’s meaning.
10. Life is absurd or a joke.
The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.
Life - a tragedy when seen in close-up but a comedy in the long shot.
Our ability to understand life: reading ‘Sanskrit’ to a pony.
There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
The Outsider - by Albert Camus
I just finished reading the Outsider by Albert Camus. I am not quite sure if I regret having read it or feeling fortunate to have come across it. But all I can say with certainty now is that whoever will read it will feel a profound sense of respect for Albert Camus for having created a character like Meursault and letting us look at the world through his perspective. I think one must read this book and experience this world for himself at his own risk, beacause its quite possible one may never be able to come out of it.
It easily ranks among the greatest novellas ever written!
That is all I would say to review this book!
I just finished reading the Outsider by Albert Camus. I am not quite sure if I regret having read it or feeling fortunate to have come across it. But all I can say with certainty now is that whoever will read it will feel a profound sense of respect for Albert Camus for having created a character like Meursault and letting us look at the world through his perspective. I think one must read this book and experience this world for himself at his own risk, beacause its quite possible one may never be able to come out of it.
It easily ranks among the greatest novellas ever written!
That is all I would say to review this book!
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Hyperrealism
The term hyperreality characterizes the inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from fantasy, especially in technologically advanced postmodern cultures. Hyperreality is a means to characterise the way consciousness defines what is actually "real" in a world where a multitude of media can radically shape and filter the original event or experience being depicted.
Most aspects of hyperreality can be thought of as "reality by proxy." For example, a viewer watching pornography begins to live in the non-existent world of the pornography, and even though pornography is not an accurate depiction of sex, for the viewer, the reality of "sex" becomes something non-existent.
Some examples are simpler: the McDonald's "M" arches create a world with the promise of endless amounts of identical food, when in "reality" the "M" represents nothing, and the food produced is neither identical nor infinite.
Baudrillard suggested that he world we live in has been replaced by a copy world, where we seek simulated stimuli and nothing more. The example can be given of a society whose cartographers create a map so detailed that it covers the very things it was designed to represent. When the empire declines, the map fades into the landscape and there is neither the representation nor the real remaining – just the hyperreal.
Hyperreality is significant as a paradigm to explain current cultural conditions. Consumerism, because of its reliance on sign exchange value (e.g. brand X shows that one is fashionable, car Y indicates one's wealth), could be seen as a contributing factor in the creation of hyperreality or the hyperreal condition. Hyperreality tricks consciousness into detaching from any real emotional engagement, instead opting for artificial simulation, and endless reproductions of fundamentally empty appearance. Essentially, fulfillment or happiness is found through simulation and imitation of a transient simulacrum of reality, rather than any interaction with any "real" reality.
If you're interested in knowing more...then google up and explore!!!
Thursday, November 15, 2007
I SHALL NOT CARE
When I am dead and over me bright April
Shakes out her rain-drenched hair,
Tho' you should lean above me broken-hearted,
I shall not care.
I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful
When rain bends down the bough,
And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted
Than you are now.
-Sara Teasdale
(This beautiful piece,she wrote just before she committed
suicide by an taking an overdose of sleeping pills)
When I am dead and over me bright April
Shakes out her rain-drenched hair,
Tho' you should lean above me broken-hearted,
I shall not care.
I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful
When rain bends down the bough,
And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted
Than you are now.
-Sara Teasdale
(This beautiful piece,she wrote just before she committed
suicide by an taking an overdose of sleeping pills)
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
What A Wonderful Life
Only rarely do you come across stories so incredible to be true and yet you would want to believe them. 'Its a Wonderful Life' is one such story. A film you watch and at the end of it you feel this immense sense of gratitude towards all the wonderful people and things that happenned to you and you thank God for all the simple good things of life.A story which each one of us would yearn to live after having watched it!A big thanks to all who have played their part in making this movie experience possible...From Conception to free delivery through a free download on the Internet and those wonderful unlikely circumstances and coincidences that lead me to download it and watch it.
Watch it and you'll thank me!
Only rarely do you come across stories so incredible to be true and yet you would want to believe them. 'Its a Wonderful Life' is one such story. A film you watch and at the end of it you feel this immense sense of gratitude towards all the wonderful people and things that happenned to you and you thank God for all the simple good things of life.A story which each one of us would yearn to live after having watched it!A big thanks to all who have played their part in making this movie experience possible...From Conception to free delivery through a free download on the Internet and those wonderful unlikely circumstances and coincidences that lead me to download it and watch it.
Watch it and you'll thank me!
Giving up Smoking...
Friend (Who wont change for anything):I just want to run away from here,as far as I can as fast as I canSo many expectations from work and I am in capable of doing anythingBesides, have smoked only one cigarette.Maazha doka phiraaylay
Me: (Who fails to pursue every time) Smoking is all there is to ur character/identity now....There is nothing else to talk to you about,which both of us can understand and identify with.We hardly talk about anything else.Besides ur s/w stuff and cricket, i dont really know what u understand,You do not exist otherwise.
If we take responsibility for our emotional response to all events in our life, there is nobody else to blame if we are not happy! The choice is ours alone.
Friend (Who wont change for anything):I just want to run away from here,as far as I can as fast as I canSo many expectations from work and I am in capable of doing anythingBesides, have smoked only one cigarette.Maazha doka phiraaylay
Me: (Who fails to pursue every time) Smoking is all there is to ur character/identity now....There is nothing else to talk to you about,which both of us can understand and identify with.We hardly talk about anything else.Besides ur s/w stuff and cricket, i dont really know what u understand,You do not exist otherwise.
If we take responsibility for our emotional response to all events in our life, there is nobody else to blame if we are not happy! The choice is ours alone.
Religion....
"You see, I’m an atheist. And I have only one religion; the sublime in human nature. There is nothing to approach the sanctity of the highest man possible, and there is nothing that gives me the same reverent feeling, the feeling when one’s spirit wants to kneel bareheaded… do not call it hero-worship, because it is more than that. It is a kind of strange and improbable white heat, where admiration becomes religion and religion becomes philosophy and philosophy, the whole of one’s life." - Ayn Rand
"You see, I’m an atheist. And I have only one religion; the sublime in human nature. There is nothing to approach the sanctity of the highest man possible, and there is nothing that gives me the same reverent feeling, the feeling when one’s spirit wants to kneel bareheaded… do not call it hero-worship, because it is more than that. It is a kind of strange and improbable white heat, where admiration becomes religion and religion becomes philosophy and philosophy, the whole of one’s life." - Ayn Rand
Thursday, July 26, 2007
In the Shoes of God...
Nobody Dies of Smoking Just One Cigarette!So,get up,get going,go for it.You gotta do what you gotta do.
We are humans afterall...
The mind gets tired, needs relaxation.When throat is parched, we give it water.When stomach is empty we give it food. Similarly the mind gets tired. And afterall its Your mind, it cant be your foe.Its just like a child, needs to caressed with love.
In a way, we are all addicts, only our subjects are different.Even in a sage,there is a psychopath hidden. Even God goes against the good he defines, just to give meaning to that which he calls evil.The entire creation, the whole of manifestation is God's play ground- We are merely roleplayers in the Cosmic dance of His. God can Believe,prove,do,preach,practise absolutely anything- so can his children. Its just his Gift to his children.You too should allow yourself to be fooled sometimes, simply to get that pleasure, to measure the good in you.
So when a temptation shows up, do not panic, do not resist it,do not run away from it- Just let it come of its own, let it seep inside you and become one with it.
Then there is Unison, only then there is harmony,there is peace.
Understanding that everything we know,experience,crave for,do and die for is merely a speck of dust in the nebula of God's plans.
Its not very easy to look at world from this position, not everyone can.Only a few gifted souls know of God's plans and join him in a mood of servitude.
He is in all of us...He simply is Us.
(This might just be one of the concoctions of some deranged mind. This post is merely to give you an idea that Merely Thinking and Reasoning is not enough, what is important is to always lead them to and also derive them from Values- Real,Positive,Uplifting,Pro-life and Pro-coexistance)
Nobody Dies of Smoking Just One Cigarette!So,get up,get going,go for it.You gotta do what you gotta do.
We are humans afterall...
The mind gets tired, needs relaxation.When throat is parched, we give it water.When stomach is empty we give it food. Similarly the mind gets tired. And afterall its Your mind, it cant be your foe.Its just like a child, needs to caressed with love.
In a way, we are all addicts, only our subjects are different.Even in a sage,there is a psychopath hidden. Even God goes against the good he defines, just to give meaning to that which he calls evil.The entire creation, the whole of manifestation is God's play ground- We are merely roleplayers in the Cosmic dance of His. God can Believe,prove,do,preach,practise absolutely anything- so can his children. Its just his Gift to his children.You too should allow yourself to be fooled sometimes, simply to get that pleasure, to measure the good in you.
So when a temptation shows up, do not panic, do not resist it,do not run away from it- Just let it come of its own, let it seep inside you and become one with it.
Then there is Unison, only then there is harmony,there is peace.
Understanding that everything we know,experience,crave for,do and die for is merely a speck of dust in the nebula of God's plans.
Its not very easy to look at world from this position, not everyone can.Only a few gifted souls know of God's plans and join him in a mood of servitude.
He is in all of us...He simply is Us.
(This might just be one of the concoctions of some deranged mind. This post is merely to give you an idea that Merely Thinking and Reasoning is not enough, what is important is to always lead them to and also derive them from Values- Real,Positive,Uplifting,Pro-life and Pro-coexistance)
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Monday, July 02, 2007
Essential Reading: (Many I have still not read,but want to , soon)
The EssentialDifference
The Artful Universe Expanded
Descartes' Baby
Curious Minds
The MurdererNext Door
DesCartes' Error
The Ancestor's Tale
Sweet Dreams
The Math Instinct
Mediated
Collapse
Why We Do It
The Quantum World
Radical Evolution
FAB
Incompleteness
The Fabricof the Cosmos
A View From theEye of the Storm
The End of Faith
Victory & Vexation in Science
Rational Mysticism
Miss Leavitt's Stars
Everything BadIs Good For You
The Singularity Is Near
Mutants
The (Mis)Behaviorof Markets
The Birth of the Mind
What the Dormouse Said...
What MakesBiology Unique
Saturday
Augustine
The Road to Reality
A Passion For Mathematics
The Blank Slate
Warped Passages
Mind: A BriefIntroduction
Authentic Happiness
Science Friction
Natural Selectionand Social Theory:Selected Papers
On Human Nature
The EssentialDifference
The Artful Universe Expanded
Descartes' Baby
Curious Minds
The MurdererNext Door
DesCartes' Error
The Ancestor's Tale
Sweet Dreams
The Math Instinct
Mediated
Collapse
Why We Do It
The Quantum World
Radical Evolution
FAB
Incompleteness
The Fabricof the Cosmos
A View From theEye of the Storm
The End of Faith
Victory & Vexation in Science
Rational Mysticism
Miss Leavitt's Stars
Everything BadIs Good For You
The Singularity Is Near
Mutants
The (Mis)Behaviorof Markets
The Birth of the Mind
What the Dormouse Said...
What MakesBiology Unique
Saturday
Augustine
The Road to Reality
A Passion For Mathematics
The Blank Slate
Warped Passages
Mind: A BriefIntroduction
Authentic Happiness
Science Friction
Natural Selectionand Social Theory:Selected Papers
On Human Nature
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
The Pleasure Of Not Finding Things Out
All of you would agree with me that we find it absorbing and rivetting to solve puzzles,be it crossword or world problems. We say that we find them 'stimulating' and it gives us a great amount of satisfaction, a sense of achievement , when after battling for a long time with pen and paper, we come up with anwers or solutions.
What is about these puzzles and questions that we find so interesting? Why do they stimulate us, at all? Don't you think that evolution has favoured our capacity and ability to find pleasure, a 'pleasure sensation' in finding things out? It infact has, that is for sure.
Buts it is not quite this pleasure that I wish to draw your attention to, but rather the exact opposite of it - The pleasure of not finding things out.
Haven't we all came across questions or puzzles that could never be solved?
How did we react to it- Once we learnt that it can't simply be solved by us (or anybody, for that matter) , we pass it on to others.
I dont just believe that we have all evolved to better solve puzzles, but also have evolved in a way that we tend to keep unsolved ones alive - alive in our memory and alive in our culture. Which means our brains have evolved not just to to give emotional/harmonal rewards on solving puzzling questions but also to retain them in memory and passing it on to others. Evolution might have favoured this tendency because it found that having answers to such questions, helped us survive better. Such animals were better equipped to survive because every puzzle of nature that they solved , increased their knowledge base. Everytime man faced with a new piece of information, he tried to resolve the contradictions within the sum total of the information that we had before stumbling across the new piece. With a larger knowledge base he could organize more information and further expand his knowledge.
So an animal aware of an unsolved puzzle had a better future that the animal which is not aware of the puzzle at all.
Soon the amount of information and knowledge that made up this culture of survival became so large that the investment of energy and risk needed to cross this knowledge barrier to a higher level, beacame unaffordable. The brain's ability fell into a strange predicament- a trouble hitherto unknown- complacency and stagnation.
Many of the questions that we had then, we call- the Eternal Questions. Questions like- how are the seasons created, where does the sun go after it sets, does nature have a controller, where do we come from, Is there a God, Who am I, Why am I, so on and so forth- are questions / puzzled raised as we move from one Knowledge strata to another. It is this state of human mind, this state of culture that gave rise to religion- dogmas and superstitions, blind faith and blind beliefs.
Only an extraordinary mind, a brave sceptic could break out of the shakles of religion and take the human mind to the next level. It is this mind that we salute and show our gratitude to- and many such minds that would follow- Socrates, Aristotle, Leonardo da Vinci,Galileo, Isaac Newton, Fraraday, Darwin.... the real heroes.
So whenever we realize that we, consciously or sub consciously, are finding some pleasure in knowing and remembering the unknown and unsolved, we must immediately shake ourselves out of the dream- of complacency and stagnation- to struggle our way towards the solution- to the next level- to a level where in lies the future- a hope for better life- and ofcourse- A Pleasure unsurpassable by any other.
All of you would agree with me that we find it absorbing and rivetting to solve puzzles,be it crossword or world problems. We say that we find them 'stimulating' and it gives us a great amount of satisfaction, a sense of achievement , when after battling for a long time with pen and paper, we come up with anwers or solutions.
What is about these puzzles and questions that we find so interesting? Why do they stimulate us, at all? Don't you think that evolution has favoured our capacity and ability to find pleasure, a 'pleasure sensation' in finding things out? It infact has, that is for sure.
Buts it is not quite this pleasure that I wish to draw your attention to, but rather the exact opposite of it - The pleasure of not finding things out.
Haven't we all came across questions or puzzles that could never be solved?
How did we react to it- Once we learnt that it can't simply be solved by us (or anybody, for that matter) , we pass it on to others.
I dont just believe that we have all evolved to better solve puzzles, but also have evolved in a way that we tend to keep unsolved ones alive - alive in our memory and alive in our culture. Which means our brains have evolved not just to to give emotional/harmonal rewards on solving puzzling questions but also to retain them in memory and passing it on to others. Evolution might have favoured this tendency because it found that having answers to such questions, helped us survive better. Such animals were better equipped to survive because every puzzle of nature that they solved , increased their knowledge base. Everytime man faced with a new piece of information, he tried to resolve the contradictions within the sum total of the information that we had before stumbling across the new piece. With a larger knowledge base he could organize more information and further expand his knowledge.
So an animal aware of an unsolved puzzle had a better future that the animal which is not aware of the puzzle at all.
Soon the amount of information and knowledge that made up this culture of survival became so large that the investment of energy and risk needed to cross this knowledge barrier to a higher level, beacame unaffordable. The brain's ability fell into a strange predicament- a trouble hitherto unknown- complacency and stagnation.
Many of the questions that we had then, we call- the Eternal Questions. Questions like- how are the seasons created, where does the sun go after it sets, does nature have a controller, where do we come from, Is there a God, Who am I, Why am I, so on and so forth- are questions / puzzled raised as we move from one Knowledge strata to another. It is this state of human mind, this state of culture that gave rise to religion- dogmas and superstitions, blind faith and blind beliefs.
Only an extraordinary mind, a brave sceptic could break out of the shakles of religion and take the human mind to the next level. It is this mind that we salute and show our gratitude to- and many such minds that would follow- Socrates, Aristotle, Leonardo da Vinci,Galileo, Isaac Newton, Fraraday, Darwin.... the real heroes.
So whenever we realize that we, consciously or sub consciously, are finding some pleasure in knowing and remembering the unknown and unsolved, we must immediately shake ourselves out of the dream- of complacency and stagnation- to struggle our way towards the solution- to the next level- to a level where in lies the future- a hope for better life- and ofcourse- A Pleasure unsurpassable by any other.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Kunidu Kunidoo Bare ... ( Mungaru Male Lyrics )
(I post the complete lyrics of my favourite song from the kannada film Mungaru Male for readers who cannot read kannada like me but can understand and speak fluently.... So Simply Enjoy Maadi.. )
Kunidu Kunidoo Bare, Olidu Olidu Baare
Kunida ninna mele, maleya haniya male
Jeevake jeeva tandavale, Jeevakinta saneha baare
Olave vismaya,Olave vismaya....
Ninna prema rupa kandu naanu tanmaya...
Huchchu huduga neenu, bichchi helalenu
Jeevake rekke tandavane, Baanigere haaruva baare
Olave vismayaa .....
Irulalli neene-ellu mai muridare, nanagelli naviraada ho-kampana
Kannalli Nee Kannittu baraseledare, maatilla kateyilla bari romanchana
Ninna kannatumba , irali nanna bimba, Hoovige valava tandavane, parimaladalli araluva baaro,
Olave vismaya....
Oolave neen-Oliva kshana-dindale, ee bhoomi, ee baanu hosadaagide
kushiyinda ee manavella hoovaagide, bere enu bekilla neen-illade
Kunidu Kunidu Bare, Olidu Olidu Baare
Kunida ninna mele, maleya haniya male
Jeevake jeeva tandavale, Jeevakinta saneha baare
Olave vismaya,Olave vismaya....
Ninna prema rupa kandu naanu tanmaya...
Huchchu huduga neenu, bichchi helalenu
Jeevake rekke tandavane, Baanigere haaruva baare
Olave vismayaa...
(I post the complete lyrics of my favourite song from the kannada film Mungaru Male for readers who cannot read kannada like me but can understand and speak fluently.... So Simply Enjoy Maadi.. )
Kunidu Kunidoo Bare, Olidu Olidu Baare
Kunida ninna mele, maleya haniya male
Jeevake jeeva tandavale, Jeevakinta saneha baare
Olave vismaya,Olave vismaya....
Ninna prema rupa kandu naanu tanmaya...
Huchchu huduga neenu, bichchi helalenu
Jeevake rekke tandavane, Baanigere haaruva baare
Olave vismayaa .....
Irulalli neene-ellu mai muridare, nanagelli naviraada ho-kampana
Kannalli Nee Kannittu baraseledare, maatilla kateyilla bari romanchana
Ninna kannatumba , irali nanna bimba, Hoovige valava tandavane, parimaladalli araluva baaro,
Olave vismaya....
Oolave neen-Oliva kshana-dindale, ee bhoomi, ee baanu hosadaagide
kushiyinda ee manavella hoovaagide, bere enu bekilla neen-illade
Kunidu Kunidu Bare, Olidu Olidu Baare
Kunida ninna mele, maleya haniya male
Jeevake jeeva tandavale, Jeevakinta saneha baare
Olave vismaya,Olave vismaya....
Ninna prema rupa kandu naanu tanmaya...
Huchchu huduga neenu, bichchi helalenu
Jeevake rekke tandavane, Baanigere haaruva baare
Olave vismayaa...
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Will I be able to write this post?
I am writing a post after about a year and the reason why I write today is quite an important one for me. And although I intend to it to be more of a confession, it is a atleast in disguise- A test to check if I can really write something on my own-think and write on my own- am I creative in the sense that I'm not a mere mimic. So only time will reveal the truth- but if I shall be able to post this one, it will be quite a beginning for me- to start trusting myself on my individuality and independence.
So, how was this dragon of suspicion unleashed?
I ve been reading this book- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainence- over half way through. The author was discussing his past years, when he was a schizophrenic - or as far as I can tell a different person altogether- An advocate of the Church of Reason- a character whom he refers to as Phaedrus.
Phaedrus - a staunch rationalist Professor of English- taking the processs of reason itself for granted- tried to integrate his entire world into the fabric of reason- by spending a lot of energy thinking and trying to resolve contradictions- sadly,unsuccessfuly.
Everything went all right until the day he stumbled upon this concept of 'Quality' - but he failed to reduce it to a concept- an entity which you can slice seperate with the knife of objectivity and then examine it- suspending it in vacuum. He says you cannot define Quality for the same reason.And this line of thinking is what triggered his madness- which I believe (as I havent read that far) and taking it to the hilt- where he lost his mind entirely- along with wealth, family and relationships.
So, when he was trying to discuss this with his students he tries- as a rationalist must- to justify his stand on the issue of Quality. He says that all kinds of creativity,innovation and original thought-even hypothesising in science- have their origin in our ability to snese and produce 'Quality'.
He asks one of his students to write an essay of 500 words on the town Bozeman. her mind went bonkers- she couldnt figure out what to write,where to start and what to ignore. So,when she came confused to him, he asked her to write an essay on The Main Street in Bozeman. she could nt do that as well. Then he asks her to write an essay on the topmost-left brick in front of a particular building in Bozeman.
She came back to him with an essay of 5000 words with a truly original personal account. This is getting a bit lengthy, anyways- He says that she could do that only when she could realize that she could have a fresh first hand experience of visiting the place and writing an account.-Otherwise all she could do was imitate something already on her mind, fed in by books,peers ,teachers etc and she could do that because she could choose what to write and what not to write.
Robert says - Robert Pirsig the Author of the book- that this habit of imitation is an evil, a result of external compulsion- it kills our oneness with quality- our potential to create on our own something fresh,original,personal, individual.
I think I ve gone a little to far into this-like Phaedrus but without going anymore further, I must conclude, that I could on my own conclude this post, giving me a hint that I could write and not merely copy or imitate. I intend to do a lot more of writing in this near future and will descibe my experience of reading the rest of the book, as well.
I am writing a post after about a year and the reason why I write today is quite an important one for me. And although I intend to it to be more of a confession, it is a atleast in disguise- A test to check if I can really write something on my own-think and write on my own- am I creative in the sense that I'm not a mere mimic. So only time will reveal the truth- but if I shall be able to post this one, it will be quite a beginning for me- to start trusting myself on my individuality and independence.
So, how was this dragon of suspicion unleashed?
I ve been reading this book- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainence- over half way through. The author was discussing his past years, when he was a schizophrenic - or as far as I can tell a different person altogether- An advocate of the Church of Reason- a character whom he refers to as Phaedrus.
Phaedrus - a staunch rationalist Professor of English- taking the processs of reason itself for granted- tried to integrate his entire world into the fabric of reason- by spending a lot of energy thinking and trying to resolve contradictions- sadly,unsuccessfuly.
Everything went all right until the day he stumbled upon this concept of 'Quality' - but he failed to reduce it to a concept- an entity which you can slice seperate with the knife of objectivity and then examine it- suspending it in vacuum. He says you cannot define Quality for the same reason.And this line of thinking is what triggered his madness- which I believe (as I havent read that far) and taking it to the hilt- where he lost his mind entirely- along with wealth, family and relationships.
So, when he was trying to discuss this with his students he tries- as a rationalist must- to justify his stand on the issue of Quality. He says that all kinds of creativity,innovation and original thought-even hypothesising in science- have their origin in our ability to snese and produce 'Quality'.
He asks one of his students to write an essay of 500 words on the town Bozeman. her mind went bonkers- she couldnt figure out what to write,where to start and what to ignore. So,when she came confused to him, he asked her to write an essay on The Main Street in Bozeman. she could nt do that as well. Then he asks her to write an essay on the topmost-left brick in front of a particular building in Bozeman.
She came back to him with an essay of 5000 words with a truly original personal account. This is getting a bit lengthy, anyways- He says that she could do that only when she could realize that she could have a fresh first hand experience of visiting the place and writing an account.-Otherwise all she could do was imitate something already on her mind, fed in by books,peers ,teachers etc and she could do that because she could choose what to write and what not to write.
Robert says - Robert Pirsig the Author of the book- that this habit of imitation is an evil, a result of external compulsion- it kills our oneness with quality- our potential to create on our own something fresh,original,personal, individual.
I think I ve gone a little to far into this-like Phaedrus but without going anymore further, I must conclude, that I could on my own conclude this post, giving me a hint that I could write and not merely copy or imitate. I intend to do a lot more of writing in this near future and will descibe my experience of reading the rest of the book, as well.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
unclaimed
To make love with a stranger is the best.
There is no riddle and there is no test.
To lie and love, not aching to make sense
Of this night in the mesh of reference.
To touch, unclaimed by fear of imminent day,
And understand, as only strangers may.
To feel the beat of foreign heart to heart
Preferring neither to prolong nor part.
To rest within the unknown arms and know
That this is all there is; that this is so.
-- Vikram Seth
To make love with a stranger is the best.
There is no riddle and there is no test.
To lie and love, not aching to make sense
Of this night in the mesh of reference.
To touch, unclaimed by fear of imminent day,
And understand, as only strangers may.
To feel the beat of foreign heart to heart
Preferring neither to prolong nor part.
To rest within the unknown arms and know
That this is all there is; that this is so.
-- Vikram Seth
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
My Favourite Quotes from V for Vendetta
- [Quoting Macbeth from Macbeth Act I Scene 7] I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none.
- I, like God, do not play with dice and do not believe in coincidence.
- Artists use lies to tell the truth, while politicians use them to cover the truth up.
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