The art of life beyond self-preservation

Self-preservation is genetically ingrained in our apparently individual consciousness. It's the basic need for the energy, the soul, to keep clinging to the matter, the body; matter being just a transitory phase in the ever-going cyclical surge of energy. The nature of this energy is nothing yet everything at the same time. It’s a self-sustaining ripple, a pulse, a flicker, in the void; a kind of echo, where the echo itself recreates further echoes; a kind of self-generated reverberation.

The apparent matter is nothing but momentary hiatus, a sort of sabbatical, on the path of energy journey when it decides to drop its guard at low frequencies and minimum speed to be visible and give rise to phenomena, shapes, sizes and the consequent interplays at extremely slow pace in comparison to its normal speed, i.e., the speed of light that we have measured so far. This galactic slow-down of the energy floats around in the form of the five primary elements. The first four namely earth, water, fire and air are floating to maintain equilibrium in the fifth element, ether.

Well, this cosmic macroscopic view may sound too intimidating, filling us with this helpless feeling about our inconsequentiality and worthlessness. So let’s come back to our little backyard on planet earth. Returning to the instinct for physical survival, this urge for survival in a particular form has the natural inclination to go overboard and turn into a chronic obsession. As is the natural law, anything beyond a limit is harmful. Too much of nectar is poison and even poison within limits is beneficial and healing. So this tight grip on survival beyond a limit turns counterproductive.

(I)llness is nothing but the sense of ego 'I' gone overboard, a kind of autoimmune syndrome triggered by lopsided consciousness. Its rampant competitiveness and insecurity turns it almost blind, leaving it capable of going against its own organisms that it is supposed to protect. It harms the matter, the body, that it presumes to protect. It breeds illness of both body and mind. It in turn leaves its negative imprint on the soul—the core point of consciousness functioning as the bedrock for this body—in the form of painful, suffering account pool of karma, which in turn guides it further as per the potential created by the pool of ingrained memories along the path.

(We)llness is nothing but 'I' diluted and replaced by 'We'. The hard knot of ego melts to give way to get a more proportional consciousness beyond the hard limits of the physical self and its obligations of relentless fight for self preservation. The only way we can check this running down the precipice to self doom is to calm down 'l'—leading to Illness of both body and mind—and nurture 'We'—leading to wellness. It’s a quantum jump on the path of creation from illness to wellness. We are the agents of creation. Just that uncontrolled self-obsession turns us the slayers of the self instead of the creators of something bigger. Life’s meaning is just in actualizing this potential.

Life is what we ‘create’ using the tool of consciousness through the process of living. This is a kind of self generation. It’s not necessary that what we hatch out in our pursuit of our free-will will fit in the normal standardization of achievements, rewards and victories that we see around us. These are simple destinations where many people have felt comfortable in creating their lives around the axis of comfort and common acceptance. But it doesn’t mean that these are the sole parameters to judge and evaluate our lives. Life needs evaluation not judgments. The judgements unjustifiably categorize it as high-low, good-bad, success-failure, etc. This narrow compartmentalization is no justice to the infinite dimensions we are capable of adapting to and recreate new avatars. If we live life by judgments, we cut short our potential as per the standard barometer. It may sound safe, but the outcome is equally mundane. It always leaves us with that persistent nagging feeling that we didn’t kiss the nectar of ultimate freedom, choosing rather to tie the chains of our convenience. In contrast, as a creator, we simply evaluate beyond the scales of moral or ethical judgments. We see life in totality with a smile and carve out our own world where we are the sovereign, ruling as per our own set of laws. This is what we mean by freedom. This is the territory where we may feel at rest, free from that nagging restlessness and incompleteness that usually plagues most of us.

We have the collective platform in the form of genetics born of systematic, generational grooming of consciousness along specified paths. It decides in what shape we come out starting from an invisible couple of cells to a meat of ball to finally this body. We also have the surrounding pool of socio-economic platform among which we open our eyes and learn the basics of life. Genetics and the surroundings where we grow are the kindergarten for us to help us lead to a bigger platform. Unfortunately, most of us grab our doctorates and post-docs from the kindergarten only, completely forgetting that we were supposed to come out of the learner’s stage long ago and be creators.

I know genetics and the surroundings we are born in are beyond our control. These are but just the launching pad. After this what we create in the form of life through well directed consciousness is always within our hands. It’s suitable to accept our status to be creators. Create life. Don't survive as a creation, accidently pushed and prodded by the collective factors that have given birth to this body and the circumstances around.