Whose Truth is nearest to the Ultimate?

ounce scattered till eternal distances in the universe, multiverse or whatever it qualifies to be. Out of this infinite option to pick up and churn out individual truth, the so called perceivable reality, the human mind also creates virtual reality. Mind you, it's as simple as you see games in virtual reality. There is hardly any qualitative difference. So we have our realities, some of which have been gathered to form collective realities in order to run this society in the form of common belief, social norms and conventions. We can't help this. This mind has to churn out our own individual reality, the so called our very own dear truth. That can't be helped. Our own truth almost seems to define the meaning of our life. Well then here starts the real problem. One's very own truth may sound a character assassination to someone from his/her point of view decided by their own truth. Why do we hurl out our truths? Possibly it's a means of survival mechanism. We probably try to unburden ourselves by letting it out. But man, our truth, the jewel it may appear to us, may be a dagger to someone. Avoid unseathing it! Even if it turns a knife inside your own self. And starts cutting your own self. But if out, it can hurt someone even more. Why should someone else be its target? It's the keeper's responsibility to manage it. Accepted that if kept inside, it will be painful, but it will cut many falsehoods inside your own self, side by side giving a few painful cuts to the softer tissues. It but saves you from committing a verbal manslaughter. Good people prefer injury to their own self, instead of harming others. And mind u this can be practiced. My new year resolution in advance! To keep my version of reality to myself, even if it hurts. It's my responsibility to keep it, to manage it, to nurture it. Our jewel may be dagger to someone else. Be careful about your simple statement that you may take as simple facts, for these might be character assassinating poison arrows to someone else. It's not about the other person. The onus is on one's own self. So guys, her I go and keep my truths to my own self. That's the path of solitude. Possibly it leads to a place where even the last doubts vanish! God bless you all!

Your Mind is the Universe

What we know and understand of the Cosmos is just a projection of our mind. The basic building blocks of life, your own and collective realities are mental building blocks being stone-worked in the mind-workshop. Thoughts are energy movement much as you have anything tangible on the physical surface. This is no mystical talk! Ask quantum physicists, they will tell you that the erstwhile fundamental entities, atoms, are not the basic entities at all. They are 'events' only. Virtual is not that virtual as we presume. It's a mammoth stone-masonry going on in the unseen subterranean cavern, laying out the foundation of your life and living. So guys be firmly in charge of your thoughts. They make and break! This existence doesn't care whether u choose to make or break. Just that we ourselves suffer, if we end up breaking.

The Gateway to the Heaven

Nothing stands in isolation. Can a drop of water stand alone in the ocean? Can an ocean exist without a drop, i.e., with a hole in its heart and the drop missing? Same is the cosmos. It's one continuity in one or the other form. Sea is nothing but drops drops everywhere in the expansion of its geographical spread. Same is with the super sea of cosmic consciousness. It's merely individual consciousness everywhere. Now the question is: how come there is a perception of individual consciousness? Well, that's how the fabric is! Start dividing a sea into tiniest dots! What happens? All we have littler seas made of tinier drops! The threshold from individual to infinite intelligence exists and doesn't at the same time. Possibly the sea itself perceives itself like a drop. Divide it into countless drops, they retain the feeling of individuality. Individual consciousness is thus nothing but a point of perception in the transforming whirlpool where the elements are going cyclically. Is a drop fundamentally and qualitatively different from a big sea? It isn't! Coming to humanoids. The so called conscious is the littlest bit of perception surrounded by the subconscious, which in turn melts into the infinite intelligence and consciousness pervading all around. That's the ladder to spread yourself, to feel more meaningful. One's subconscious part of mind is most active just before sleep and immediately after waking up. That's when the gates open tangibly for taking a quantum jump from conscious to subconscious and further on into super-consciousness. Grab it. Put your affirmation and claim to a larger self. There are infinite possibilities. What you seek at your greediest best may not be more than a drop of water desiring to double its size. You have the pathway etched to be the sea itself. You already are. Just that all that remains to be done is to start seeing through the walls of conscious, watch eagerly through the windows of subconscious in those walls and get connected to the infinite right there in front of you. It's suitable to start with tangibles to break the virtual shackles, just like it's easier to start with body in yoga. The higher battles with more virtual demons are managed further on the path. At the mind front, it's more convenient to start with the conscious part because it's tangible through its operational part through thoughts and emotions. There starts the second tier of management leading to the subconscious part and further on to be out of the prison to come united with everything around. It's not mother existence's concern whether there are storms lashing a drop, pond or sea, or peaceful calm waters pervade. To her indiscriminating eyes all things are just as they are. What happens in the drop of your consciousness is solely your own concern. You create the storms or peace in the tea cup of your existence. And the tools to make and break are conscious thoughts and their shadows in the form of emotions and feelings. They majorly decide the energy pattern pervading across this specific pattern of awareness, this little arrangement of energy within the super sea of energy. Pain, suffering, disease, stress and tensions are mere effects, little obstruction in the flow of river, the life stream. And the repair work primarily begins from the conscious part of the mind , which operates through thoughts, emotions and feelings. So just like u go gyming, go gyming with thoughts. Work like a mason. And etch your reality, your better self on the subconscious, which in turn reflects as your truth on the endless canvas hung around with its infinite dimensions. Good luck!

I know I might be accused of oversimplifying something fundamentally challenging!. You may crib that I'm asking you to ping Bill Gates each day going to bed and waking up, as if you have some hotline handy. You may crib, 'Crawling out of my materialistic mess and rising to lofty heavens! Is that really so easy?! Shedding off all the past karma! Isn't it like having to first sail through all of its roller coaster effects and then arrive at the ladder to lofty heavens?'

I truly understand your point my dear Sir! But you have to be open to mine also! The yogic practices enable one to rectify lots and lots of energy blocks born of past and present karmic debts attached to an individual's consciousness. There are two ways: either allow things to take their natural course, or forge an alternative reality, totally brand new, free from karmic debt through concerted, aware and hyper-conscious effort.

But then you may still retain your skepticism and counter: 'From a myriad of spiritual practices available, how would a novice discern? Which path to take? Is it okay to leave path of devotion (bhakti) .. unconditional surrender .. and step up to yogic sadhana .. the path of active karma?'

Well, my simple explanation is all I can manage. Bhakti marg is the easiest one. But we have to understand that to completely believe in something we have to unclutter our subconscious of routine fears and insecurity bred by rampant thinking and logical reasoning of the conscious part of our mind. To be receptive and surrendering is a blissful state. But how many of us can be true believers in modern times? Not many! We can think that we are believers hypothetically, but disbelief lurks and that undoes all effect. Modern education, competitive times, dehumanized society and scores of problems have put our mind burdened with anxiety, fear, insecurity, tension. Where is the space for faith and true belief to germinate? Bhakti yoga is for all those whose subconscious is already at position where most of the shadows don't exist. For educated people, whose minds have been bombarded with unchecked what's and why of life, and the consequent anxiety and complexity of mind, they need some conscious efforts to somehow clear the ground to begin with. The modern mind is bruised and burdened under merciless cold hard facts, figures, knowledge and information, and hence least qualified to be a proponent of bhakti yoga. To cut iron, one needs iron. These are the phantoms of mind. It needs going down there with conscious effort and do a bit of de-weeding first.

Recover, Recuperate, Re-surge and Rejuvenate

What if the roomful of miseries appear immovable at the moment? Understood that the room having thick walls is beyond your might to shift and change. You cannot push its walls to change its shape and change the interiors. You might even be incapable of removing the darkness inside having lost the light of enthusiasm, the sunrays of your will power, and the brightness of your passion. It is not necessary to be a revolutionary fighter all the time. You can very well sit in a still darker corner of the room full of your own miseries, most of them invisible to the uncaring world outside. But then sitting in a dead dark corner is being dead and we have no business to be dead before we actually die. Temporary shelter in the lap of a deathlike stale corner might be of some utility, but not more than allowing the tears and anguish of self-pity and helplessness to flow out through the feeling of being a victim.

This little puss out of your system; after this it has no purpose. A little bit of crying after being overpowered by the feeling of victimization helps. Crying helps in letting out salt from your injuries. It also clears the eyes. After the watery outpour you are supposed to see better and clearer. You have been on the hospital bed, taking a bit of rest for the diseased, afflicted self, now you are supposed to step down, wear your slippers and walk away to claim what you lost while you were forced to take a rest. Looking beyond your dark corner in the dark room with immoveable walls, you can at least open the windows that either you or the situational winds have banged shut. Do not move walls, do not even try to bang against the locked door, just open the openable window to allow a bit of light, to expose yourself to the fine traces of light that will surely burn the fire in you again, that will definitely ignite your passion, enthusiasm and will power lying dormant. If you cannot lift your roomful of miseries on your head and throw it miles away, you can surely lift little-little signs of your worth and capabilities lying around your feet in the dark and look at these against the light from the just-opened little window. These are the imperishable seeds, these cannot die, and will surely grow into luxuriant harvest, provided you give them the moisture of you feeble self during the re-germination.

You might not be able to laugh to the full contentment of the self, but you can smile at the little world outside your tiny peeping window. Even the slightest semblance of smile will do. These are the flower buds that will surely blossom into full laughing flowers. Your hands might not be still ready to go agog and start breaking the mightiest boulders around. But you can raise your hands and wave gently at the world outside, it will wave back with grace and acknowledgement, giving back its share with kindest interest. You might not be still ready for the marathon, but you can shuffle your feet and count your steps and listen to your slow pace between the walls. It will prepare you for the longest journey that you might take. It will be a prelude to your first step on the winnable journey that you will definitely take.

Close your eyes and with an open heart accept your share in making things dark in the room. Nobody is perfect and we just have the bigger or smaller share in our miseries. We cannot change the universe, but we can definitely bring about a little reformation in the self. You might not be able to overhaul your personal self, but you can definitely change tiny bits of life in general. It will blow up the wrong shades, leaving you a totally different person. Close your eyes again and think of your positives, your advantages, your good qualities. There will be many I‘m sure. Look around with a gentle look, these must be somewhere around. You will surely spot them. Smile at the little basketful of your qualities. These are your weapons to help you win through the battles and wars. A mere acknowledgement of their existence will do at this stage. Just caress your qualities and look at these with a proud smile. These and many little things will help you. Forget about bigger things. These little seeds will grow into a bigger harvest. Just gather these seeds, hold them, they will take you back to the bigger world of baleful of roles, responsibilities, praise and achievements.

A Laotsian Bird

A master camouflage. The smallest of a rag tag inconsequential nest. Almost like the few remaining sinews of an old old nest. And a pulse of life throbbing to bide precious time. Each beat counts. It means a huge step towards free-winged flights in a few days. Here each second counts. It's a laughing dove hatchling.
Well, a dove is a dove indeed. A silent most stoic bird. I always wonder how come they even survive as rest of the birds appear to be angrily, enthusiastically and energetically competitive. Doves look like the ascetics of the birdie world, always sitting silently on the laid back sidelane. I even laughed at them as lazy ones, having witnessed seemingly half-hearted attempts at patching up a famished little nest that would allow the mother to put merely paws in the middle, leaving rest of her body out. But then i also had an inkling about mother existence's ways of squaring up things even in those apparently weak cases where the odds appear terribly against them. Now this hatchling clings almost unseen, barely at a height of 8-9 feet. Cats have been duped. Even a greater coucal, ill famed for spotting tiniest of nests in the foliage, sat a few yards away on the wall and missed it. Wonderful!
Well, these are Laotsian birds. They win by not fighting outrightly. Their strength is their patience, composure and calmness. They go about their nesting business almost imperceptibly. After the hatching, the already famished nesting hut has lost many more sinews to make it look like the useless wreckage of a many season old little nest. And on its edge, lost in the colours of deception, throbs the prospect of a life. The only clue to what is going on is the laughing museful song of the laughing dove parents now and then from a distance. They hardly raise a ruckus when i check out their little household, as if under a mystical realisation that that which can't be cured, must be endured. They stoically do what they can, and watch over the unmanageable without that typical browbeating.
Imagine, last season an oriental white eye had patched up the littlest of nesting cup. It was a wonder of nesting architecture. So small, hidden under the leaves. But its symmetry turned it outstanding. The predatory caucal spotted it, leaving me flabbergasted how come its radar caught this few grams of grassy cup weaved with such effort. And now this apparently clumsy jottiing of few dry twigs and pieces of dry grass, in the branches of a small tree, barely 8-9 feet above the ground, and not even hidden too much in the foliage, carries its success story so far. The altruistic attitude of doves takes them onto a path of surrendering spontaneity, a sort of open hearted acceptance, which hardly creates ripples on the stage of life, allowing them to carry out this cute coup. Well, may be they laugh so cutely to be named laughing turtles. Possibly, they laugh at this world competing on the scales of complexity, while they laze around in the hazy sunshine of early winter and laugh out into the cool air.