Serving nonsense towards making more sense for all concerned!

Thanks to the random site below for this pic.

http://katenasser.com/leadership-is-humility-a-fad-or-the-future/

Reality is a spectrum of multiple overlapping aspects that spread between multiple extremes, but our linear mind likes to see it at the best three dimensional, and also as discrete contrasted in black and white. Therefore, while the reality is confusing with its multitude of complexities, we are not helping it at all, by not engaging in an optimal manner to deal with the confusion associated and adding to the very confusion with our own rhetoric's and biased positions.

Let us understand the inherent confusions first. When we want to talk about any topic, there is always an aspect of established truth as a set of natural principles. But again, here too, there are exceptions to the rules and these exceptions are applicable in different situations, which again cloud the clarity.  So, what we believe as the absolute truth as a spotless cream floating on the muddy water itself bites us back with exceptions, and these exceptions also become unpredictable.

Another source of confusion is that the reality in anchored on opposing characteristics together in various degrees that dynamically varies in space and time. For example, let us take any good food. While it sustains in some contexts, it could also be unsustainable in some other contexts. While consuming the food may be pleasurable activity, accomplishing that may have pains associated. Also, the after effect of the food can be not so pleasurable, especially when it needs to be dealt with shit and fart. So, it is our biased mind which wants to look at the reality as I want it to be rather than what it is, is further distorting our abilities to deal with it optimally.

Another source of confusion is the limitations of our senses, mind, feelings and energy to do full justice to the vast realm of the reality, even in the local sense. For example, when we deal with the light, our eyes can deal with only upto a certain spectrum of frequencies, so is with the sound, touch etc. etc. But, we are not willing to put a disclaimer in associating with our experiences, we like to establish our own distortions as the absolute truth, while this approach allows an individual to go some far, it definitely does not allow the collective to harmoniously coexist with all its elements together.

So, we do have confusion challenges at two distinct levels, individual and collective. Collective again is a multitude of hierarchies interacting and intersecting across multiple dimensions. For example, family is a simple collective, within it, a relation with spouse is distinct from that with the siblings or progeny. The complexity extends as we reach out to friends, colleagues, neighbors, community, race etc. Then we have civilization related approximations which are our ongoing best efforts to make sense, but dynamically it is a cesspool of sense and nonsense competing in different dimensions, contexts etc.

Therefore, through simplistic ways of dealing with clarity alone, we have rendered ourselves further ignorant, stupid, suffering and adding muck to mud always there. As a result, we are not helping ourselves by the vary nature of ourselves, we need to put an effort to see things differently than they look for us to seek as much clarity as possible.

I can go on like this and bring different aspects of our reality only to convince us that we are in deep shit and while we hope to come out of it, we are adding to it going deeper and deeper.

Therefore, it is counterproductive or limiting for us to look at things in black and white, in terms of nonnegotiable rules, in terms of discrete aspects and with bias and judgement. Therefore, next phase of human evolution depends upon extending our abilities to do better justice to our reality and also implementing individual and collective life styles to empower a better sense of convergence while the divergences continue to make a hay day.

The purpose of this thought is not to promote anarchism or despondency, rather to get a measure of the muck we are in and the muck we produce further in spite of good intentions.

So, the first step is to align on the objectives at the level of individual and collective. Then apply benchmarks for these objectives and assess the reality for corrections, improvements and evolution.

At the level of individual:

1.       Innate sense of purpose for this existence, meaning and expressions associated

2.      Dealing with the dynamisms of aging, space and time.

3.       Dealing with the complex multitude of our own existence, summarised into four realms for simplicity: Body, mind, heart and soul. The mirroring of these four realms from the reality around us as four distinct realms.

4.       The connectivity between ourselves and the worlds around us at different hierarchies. We usually tend to look up, but we could look down too, we are anchoring miniature worlds inside us, while we deal with them in abstract manner, the expression down there is quite contrasting. For example, the germs in my stomuch may be jobless today and might have decided for an expression like Bhajan seeking more mercy and good will from the God concerned, which is we ourselves, while we may not get this message distinctly, our realms may sense this intelligence automatically and respond. Similarly, we could be germ like in an higher context and we could be damaging the higher context while deeply committed with the devotion to the higher context as God Almighty, the funny thing could be that God Almighty also may not know enough about our dealings as much he or she needs to know. This is funny and could be quite offending to some that I am hinting that our God too has limitations built in.

5.       Managing the complexity of existential dilemma across multiple realms within us. For example, the higher realm may be pushing us into a field of karmic journey while our current tendency is to resist it. Again, it is too simplistic to think that resistance is futile or uncalled for, as the resistance in itself may be a productive phenomenon for the higher realm like a germ doing its battle in our stomuch gets the food digested. Pure germ could be confused whether it is doing the right job right and wondering all the time what is the ultimate purpose of all these.

6.       etc. etc.

At the level of collective:

1.       Dealing with the overlapping complexity of the multitude of hierarchies and overlaps. For example, a newly married is quite concerned with the conflicts of interests between wife and mother. Imagine the complexity a Prime Minister or President needs to go thru on issues riddled with confusions and contradictions. One cannot make everyone equally happy and some get jipped. While it is important that sacrifices are made to protect a country, the sacrifice at an individual level can be confounding if the values do not match between the individual and collective. Therefore, it is mandatory that the values are established between the individual and collective towards smooth functioning. But, given the complexity of relations between the two, values are contradicting and conflicting.

2.       While the collective has inherent mechanisms brimming with chaos superimposed with deterministic efforts at the level of individual and collective, resulting in some clarity temporarily in an isolated manner and doing otherwise all the time, the very existance is riddled with 99.99% struggle for 0.01% or less fulfilment that is fleeting. In other words, there is a vast sense of nothingness and does not matter aspect, and only way to deal with it is with the opposing force, which is everything matters and has meaning. No wonder, why we will always need meanings, philosophy and religion.

3.       If you observe the ants world, and let us say, they can sense our peeping into them as some stupid gaints at it again, their sense of self esteem is that the ants rule this world in spite of these human gaints, and they remain hopeful to contain or collaborate with us. Similarly, we have a sense that this earth is meant to serve us humans, and the rest are just the pawns towards it. As a result, it looks like we may be stuck in the evolutionary path as a giant block in the intestine against daily motion, and the very being needs to go for unusual measure to get rid of this block, and only mechanism that being is counting on is that the block grows to a level that its pressure in itself pushes it out.  We humans could be behaving with increased stupidity in the name of progress, actually dooming ourselves towards a phenomenal enema and troubling the higher realms in the mean time.

4.       etc. etc.

So, you may ask what is the point of depressing us further with this rhetoric. Actually, this rhetoric could help. One, to appreciate that we do have solid reasons to be depressed. Second, by admitting the depression, we can wake up to deal with it, and hopefully get rid of it. So, what options we have.

Options for us.

1.       Continue to unlock the secrets of our reality. While this effort may not pay off us in our life time, it adds up and brings evolution or improvement for the future.

2.       Acknowledge that the we are idiots individually and bigger one collectively. Therefore implement idiot proof systems and processes as much possible. Love and compassion are one such measure.

3.       Take all the feedbacks and messages from our as well as other realms. While majority of the feed do not make sense, keep the logs, distinguish clarity made and confusions raising. Analyze the outliers and exceptions continually and get a sense of dynamism and direction.

4.       Engage the individuals and collective towards more productive life style suited to this confusion and needing to make progress in spite of it.

5.       Establish universal benchmarks for the individuals and collectives as to the quality of journey in the mean time and continually engage the individuals and all the collectives to improve the measures as well as the benchmarks.

In conclusion, we are not only blind in various degrees, we are also idiots in varying degrees. The ones lacking humility and pounding their chests are likely to be bigger blinds and idiots. While we continue to fight and mess around, we are missing the real avenues that lead us to more light, clarity, contribution an fulfillment. Let us call this as Faith. Let us always start from there and see what we can do together to deal with what we have before even we can come together to help ourselves.

One option is to bring two opposing measures for each context. For example, if we talk about success, let us talk about failures too. Never isolate a context without an equal opposite measure. When you talk about food, also deal with shit and vice versa.

At the minimum, let us acknowledge the options ahead of us for higher knowing, learning, contribution and fulfillment. If this does not leave good taste in our being, let us at least settle for hakuna matata for all concerned including ourselves and leave everyone including self to their own devices and jump to the muck and play with the mud with good belly laugh, especially towards those who are the cause for bigger laugh. So, we cannot ever ignore our ignorance and stupidity, at least let us learn to laugh at it and even celebrate it, at the levels of both individual and collective.  Humility and humor together is the much needed religion for us ahead. 

I might have to live to right a book called "God exists but may not care beyond a point!". Hope I survive the ordeal before and after! But I believe, the book will help if I write, else I wont write. (The aspect of it not helping may still loom beyond one's imagination though! That is humility and humor, right there! ;-)  )

Mastering the art of eternal dance between the Essence and the Expression

Mastering the art of eternal dance between the Essence and the Expression

There are two key phenomena that will make one wonder all the time, that of nature at one end and that of humans at the other end.  To make this fascination more complex, there is a question on needs to deal with, which is whether the mankind is part of the nature or outside the nature.

The age of science which wants to do justice know more about both essence and expression is showing some signs of fatigue, I believe it is not because of its inability to make inroads into either of the two, I believe the realities of current age is bit slipping in getting a grip around balancing the two. Hence, this exploratory note. It may turn out to be total bullshit, or better, it may be a turning point for the entire humanity to converge to a better balance. Let us hope for the best, if not this time, out of collection of many bullshits, it is possible a lotus can emerge in right conditions!

So, I am attempting to model the current expression of both nature and humans using the parallelism of essence and expression.

Essence is best represented by the energy. Expression is best represented by the form. There is link between the two. One feeds the other, both constructively and destructively. We can appreciate the dance between the essence and expression in any context. Since the contexts are hierarchical and nested, this phenomena make it difficult to understand the rules of the game between the two.

Let us attempt to understand this both in the context of nature and humans. Coming to the nature first, what is the essence of the nature? Essence of the nature is to express in cycles, nested within hierarchies (world within the world) with a sense of connection and continuity between these, to house living beings where possible with a cycle of evolution which has its own expression comprised of waves of expansion and destruction. So, the essence of nature can be appreciated by looking at its expression, whether it is moon going around the earth, the earth moving around sun, sun moving around in the milky way and so on. Locally, on the  earth, there is a cycle of seasons linking to weather and vegetation changes. 

Similarly, we can see the expression of different beings with these cycles and the cycles of evolution. The expression is not limited to living beings, it is extended to what we call “non-linving” aspect also, whether it is river, volcano, mountain, sea etc.  Close linkage between the living and nonliving allows us to combine all under on heading called nature, and we can simply say the nature is living breathing thing, therefore the earth also can be considered as a living thing.

If earth is a living thing, then this universe will have similar ones elsewhere. So, the painful question is why such things are so far off and why not yet visible to us. There is not much proof for one to argue that life is only on earth and not elsewhere.

What makes this question more confounding is that realms like earth, i.e. planets, stars and galaxies have their own life cycle, that means they too have their own expression of life time, so the definition of “life” we are used to is quite local, there is another altogether definition of life related to the phenomena like birth of a star to the destruction of a star.

Therefore, we can also say that one expression of the nature is continuation across multiple life spans  within its vastness and nestedness. By the same token, it is possible to imagine that the entire universe is one nature interconnected with each of its components and sectors,  and this universe can also be called as GOD for convenience.  If we do so, then GOD also is another living being, while we are in some isolated corner of such a being, GOD could also be another such isolated nothing in its own larger universe having its own another SUPERGOD.  Such is the complexity of this nature, and unfortunately beyond a point we cannot make sense experientially or even through a logical thought like a bacterium inside our body failing to understand ourselves as its GOD.

Therefore, it is easy for someone who understands the nature, to accept the concept of GOD which primarily means that our realm extends beyond our ability both in the dimensions of expansion and contraction, and acceptance of our limitation in this context helping us to acknowledge the unimaginable extension of our reality is the acknowledgement of GOD and a surrender to such a reality with the acceptance of our own limitations even beyond the pinnacle of our evolution.

If we notice the link between the essence and expression in the nature, they seem to be programmed with a set of principles, yet there is a level of randomness in the expression and also a sense of purpose hidden in the trajectory of evolution or lifecycle in the higher contexts.  Therefore, when it comes to the study of nature, whether it is through science or any other discipline, the closeness  of relationship between the two (essence, expression) are well understood and the exceptions like evolution and linkage to the life cycle at the higher realm are also appreciated. For example, it is understood that the life on earth has gone through evolution and likely to continue its journey, while the life span of the earth itself is limited owing to that of the sun and so on.

If we treat humans as part of the nature, then all the principles of the nature can be applied to humans. The essence of the humans can be appreciated in the context of the nature, so is about the human expression, and so is the linkage between the two.

When a religion acknowledges the whole phenomena as one nature, it will attribute the characteristics of this nature beyond our senses and abilities to appreciate as GOD.  Then it will attempt to explore the pathways that are there between the nature that we can understand and that we cannot understand.  While some of these pathways can be explained by Science (like the time taken by the light from a star to reach us) or the disciplines which are quite contradictory to science (eg. Paranormal phenomenon). There is a holistic integration of all in a nature based religion allowing both science and non-science to  coexist harmoniously and work in tandem to understand and explain the nature.

When a religion moves away from the nature, when it personifies GOD, when it introduces higher truth as dogma, the trouble starts. It tends to give priority to personal GOD more than the nature and it can even attack the prevalent knowledge of nature to save its dogma (eg. Earth is flat).  Another damage it does is in the personification itself, it needs to assign a gender, male or female, the non-assigned gender becomes the downtrodden in the society. Worse, if the human nature displays a phenomena that can be gender neutral or multiple gender combined, the very nature will be attacked again to protect the dogma around GOD. That is the trouble we see around homosexuality and other exceptional  expressions of human in particular.

Another problem with the humans is that of science. The modern science equipped with industrialization, fueled by colonization and religious propagation destroyed the societies built on the concept of nature and GOD merged into one, and may be for a very justifiable reason we idiots cannot yet appreciate.  In the name of modern civilization, it even called such societies as savages and even took pride in destroying them using both technology and logic. Now a days, we see the saturation of such a science. It is failing to expand and maintain the equilibrium in the human society.  Its price is more than its value, for example modern medicine.  It also has brought the humans into the brink of annihilation through nuclear warfare, destruction of nature for building human societies and settlements, and unregulated usage of valuable an limited commodities  that are available on the earth.  So, it is not the problem of science per se, but the mindset behind the science, the mindset of arrogant and insensititive aethiesm (Please note, I am not attacking aethiests per se, I dint get a better word, may be I need to coin one) which is to declare that the collective human expression is the supreme thing. In a way, the science is acting as a devil in this manner.

Taking the clue from here, I am saying that there is a choice for humans, one to accept that human expression is part of nature and the other is to defy the nature as we understand (There is always more than what we understand). When the human expression is part of nature, there is a limit as to its expression, but it helps to conserve and harmonize. When the human expression is considered supreme to nature, it justifies to destroy the nature and also bring self destruction on self, may be with a very meaningful expression at the time of annihilation saying , “oops!”, which in no way helps.

The source of this choice among humans is also debated. One school of thought is that the humans are evolution or mutation  within this earth and therefore can be considered as part of nature native to earth. Another school says that the current humans are the hybrids between some neanderthals of yesteryear's and the superior beings coming from outside the earth, these beings are using earth as a colony to serve their ends which we are yet to fully understand and appreciate.  Well, the current human expression favors the second hypotheses, but I do currently believe that the current human expression is a localized aberration in the saga of evolution on earth. Earth can afford to lose humans altogether like dinosaurs, the key difference being  the dinosaurs were extinct due to natural phenomena like meteors, where as humans may bring their own destruction by destroying the nature through their settlements or expressions like wars or simply something going wrong with their creation like nuclear war heads.

Such a situation leads to three types of activism collectively. One is both to search for a place to live and to change our nature based living into space station based living when the earth goes bonkers, fueled by the modern science, helping us to search for future settlements in space or on Mars etc. Second one is to behave in a converging manner through limits, self governance, safety features around nuclear arsenal , conservation, and returning to nature based systems changing our collective mindset to be less audacious. Third one is fueled by the folks with access to paranormal knowledge saying that before the earth is destroyed or by the time earth is destroyed, the humans will learn to live only with the spirit and with no or limited body, the human machine interface will facilitate the spirit to express at par or better than the current or past humans. The hypotheses of management of human settlement by extra terrestrials fuels this logic further.

So, when we observe the human expression today and compare it  with the essence of humans or the nature in general, we are living through a confusing time, allowing us to be bombarded by multiple conflicting paradigms, each one vying to outwit the others.  It is only possible that one can focus on the art of peace for self among this confusion, it is very unlikely that there is clarity for anyone single individual, including a godman or a super human serving the extra terrestrial. Even if such superior knowledge exists with a few chosen ones, they can only have a logical explanation to explain our current mess, but will not have clarity as to bring collective clarity to the whole civilization as such, in that sense, they too are messed up.

This article originally aimed to seek an art of balance between the essence and expression for humans. But, it got derailed first on the issue of whether humans are part of nature or not, if part of nature the balance is built in, and if not, the destruction or escape is inevitable, it is very unlikely that humans will master the nature to the level of slavery to suit themselves.

The article also got derailed on the second aspect which is our inability to link the phenomena of higher or lower realm to our current realm, which is likely possible to explain either as a nature, or as a slavery to superior beings out there.

But the question remains and needs to remain, which is what is the art of balancing between essence and expression in this confusing time.

So, the rest of the article will attempt to ruminate with what is reasonably known.  Embracing the essence is to embrace the nature with all its knowledge, limits of the knowledge, its possibilities and limitations and the conflicting expression within the nature. This is very well laid out to some extent as an art of living by the eastern religions and the natural sciences.

Embracing the expression is to optimize the human experience and productivity both at the individual and collective level.  The concept of “Devil” helps to understand the relation between the human psyche and its impact to the expression, and the art of influencing human psyche towards local gains. The advertisements industry thrives on such knowledge.  Therefore, it is reasonable to say that the human expression devoid of linkage with essence is satanic and is destructive to self and others in the long haul, while it brings unreasonable benefits and thrill in the short run.

Therefore, human societies built on such satanic ways need superior hierarchical control and will need dumbing down of the human as a creature of productivity and behavior under control. Such a human society is very unlikely to evolve to higher possibilities in the long run other than only serving other beings with more productivity like the chicken in the modern day hatcheries having less quality life but bringing better productivity to greedy humans. Here, in this example, such a mechanism can bring disaster to the masters too, in this case too much antibiotic usage damaging the human genes towards wrong direction in the evolution. Similarly, the human greed beyond a point could damage their masters, if any in the form of superior beings, in such a case, superior beings will have to abandon the dependency on us, and when they abandon, our societies will go through a run away condition in a worst hit natural condition, therefore human destruction is again inevitable on this earth with the greed fueled approach to build our future societies. There is a limit in this logic like the smart ants who have created a colony in our garden saying that "there is a way to live ourselves, else our master, the gardener who stomps around us quite often may destroy us, so we need to think of being useful to our master, but we dont know and that is depressing."  I am going this way only to highlight how screwed we can be for no mistake of us, but definitely due to the very limit built into and around us.

What will make this article a bigger joke is if there is a higher knowledge already available with selected humans to which this joker is not a party to, and this could be quite likely. In such a case, everything is understood as hunky dory by such people, and this joker will keep writing this kind of mad muse into and beyond admission to mental asylums. That is the risk of thinking at the edge of our thinking limits, the risk of free fall to the bottomless pit at the other end always exists, bringing total death or bed ridden disability for the rest of the life.

So, we need to go forth with two possibilities, one that everything makes sense to someone, just not me or us, but to the superior beings among us; the other one is that nobody makes sense and we are living with an attempt towards sense of balance until we can balance, and beyond the balance, we surrender to the fact that we submit ourselves to major disaster if and when it happens. This dichotomy of thinking can coexist in an individual or in different shades of mix across the human collective.  I cannot help this dichotomy beyond a point other than asking a pertinent question as to what is the art of living within the lunacy of this dichotomy, both at the level of individual and overall human society at different levels.

One clarity emerges. Let us accept that we are rendered lunatic both at the level of individual and collective. Therefore, let us examine all our truths again and again to be manageable, conducive to accommodate all lunatics under the roof of one large asylum on this earth. Let us allow each lunatic to play a role, one as a doctor, one as a sooth sayer, one as a nurse, one as a philosopher, one as a story teller and so on. But, let us not give right to one particular lunatic or a set of lunatics to go against the diversity of the lunatics , but still understand that loony folks will still attempt to harm each other based on their roles and the logic of that role with limited knowledge, so let us attempt to refine our living style to accommodate more respect, space and expression to all the diverse loonies out there, and whenever  hell brakes lose in the asylum, we go after the ones who violate this rule of tolerance first and not based on who is more loony than the other. Let us also look out for the loony who bring more damage in the name of tolerance, but brimmed with intolerance for the other kinds.

The sanest person in such a case is the one who admits he is insane and is willing to work with self and the rest with and in spite of such limitations.  Basing one’s expression on essence helps one to learn that mindset.  Mending the current expressions to align to a set of essence also helps, as the alignment happens, the choice of essence can bring in further reforms. The one with such a mindset can also help to educate the rest on their lunacy and teach the art of living. It is also important to maintain distance and protection against the loonies who have gone further crazy.  It is also possible to build a collective agreement to limit or even destroy in exceptional cases, the loonies who do not allow other loonies to coexist. The phenomena around ISIS in today's world gives significant clues in this direction, both as what is built in already and what may further evolve.

So, bottom line, we all are screwed beyond hope in a way, but we can still make a decent living with an art of living within this individual and collective lunacy. And that requires us to be dedicated to master both our essence and expression, and this path is endless while our lunacy remains in spite of mastery.

Watch out for a master who claims to help other loony’s  but not willing to accept self also as one among them, he is very dangerous to begin with.

No need to say that one needs to keep safe distance from all the loonies who are not willing to accept that they are one. Such people will have a tendency to attack anyone as anyone can be easily proven to be loony at any time, because one is already.

So, coming to the essence requires a set of values. Eg. Humility, surrender, faith, linkage of self with the infinite, everything connected with each other, accepting imperfection yet commitment to move towards perfection in a harmonious manner.

Coming to the right expression requires  a set of values: Love, compassion, hope, oneness,  detachment, humor, balance between opposite values, creativity, realistic, Tolerance, diversity, collaboration, harmony, balance, negotiations, art of war, art of communicating in an asylum  etc. etc.

When these two converge and merge, let us hope that the higher knowledge the possibility of which still always exists to anyone in the maturity curve though that in itself has limits will dawn to guide further. In contrast to such an optimism, if someone is attacked with a depression packed with pessimism, moving towards essence helps, whether it is singing in praise of God or learning to live in a cave or off-grid.  Too much optimistic one is likely to be beaten badly by other lunatics, so he or she is likely to learn to mix with right amount of pessimism as the beating intensifies. Cant help that some perish in such a beating.

Bottom line, do not stick to one side of the scale; Rather, as the scale moves, move across the bar to balance self with the moving scale. So, be alert and stay on the move. To sit still, is to invite death, totally or in some partial manner! So, let us live fully while death keeps attacking  on a daily basis, and let us make it merry with all loonies around!

It is loony times on eternity. While we live with it, there is a sense of sanity inside, let us hold onto it all the time, even when we are unnecessarily getting beaten by other loonies who think they are saner than us. When time comes to save ourselves, let us manage our expressions as needed, but never give up on that sense of sanity burning bright inside, that is one thing that keeps all these things worth all the trouble.

I bow down to that sense of sanity experienced by every loony out there including self!

Namaste!