Blindly following ethics or responding consciously ?
EXISTENCE: PERFECTION WITHIN IMPERFECTION
Sylvester Stallone hit bulls'eye with the words of wisdom from ROCKY BALBOA, stating: THE WORLD AIN'T ALL SUNSHINE AND RAINBOWS
Taking a cue from the first line itself, one can infer that the world we live in is undoubtedly filled with conflicts of many forms. There is this battle between good and evil, wealth and poverty, health and sickness, peace and war and so on.. not just this world, but the entire cosmos is structured on the principle of duality - for every form has its opposite form somewhere in the fabric of existence and one cannot exist without it's COMPLEMENTARY OPPOSITE other.
Though the topic of duality features in many of my posts in this blogsite, I have been intrigued for some time to express my thoughts on the theme of resistance, delving more into stuff like Competition, Perfection and War.
I am of the opinion that absence of 'competition with the other' results in harmony, absence of 'fanatic perfection' results in bliss and absence of war results undoubtedly in peace.
How could we understand the above statement? What was 'competition' before it became competition? What was 'perfection' before it became perfection? What was 'war' before it became war? No matter what the choice of words be, but the answer boils down some way or the other to harmony, bliss and peace; Right?? Of course, we have spared no effort to invent an opposite word- an antonym for every possible form or quality that we know exists! But the question is, is the principle of duality really true or is it some kind of an illusion that conceals THE TRUTH - THE SOURCE OF EVERYTHING ?
There are ample education sources available to explain and prove that light is not the opposite of darkness, but the absence of light; heat is not the opposite of cold, but the absence of heat (vice-versa) and so on. My question to you is - WOULD YOU CALL A WAVE AN OPPOSITE FORM OF THE VERY OCEAN FROM WHERE IT EMERGES ? Therefore, would you not agree that from the 'Status Quo' comes forth a certain agitation and leads to a series of eruption of forms that give an illusion of one form being opposite from the other? That is to say, before competition there was the state of 'no-competition' or shall we safely say The Absence of DESIRE for competition; before perfection was the state of no-perfection or The Absence of DESIRE for perfection; before war was the state of no-war or The Absence of DESIRE for conflict. Isn't it so ?
One has to be prudent to understand that the use of antonyms is in itself a desire to be separate one from the other. Words like incompetence, imperfection and peace instill in our minds the desire to remain separated - that is if you do not fall under one category, it is to be implied (sic!) that you ought to be in the other (opposite category). Why should one be either THIS or THAT ? The moment the mind thinks of 'peace', that very moment it has swung into desire to resist war. If this is so, then where is that source - the one - before even the idea of peace and war appeared? The same rational approach is applicable when examining 'bliss' and 'harmony'.
Isn't there a neutral state - a stateless state that indicates the source of forms that keep transforming and evolving ? Why do you think the wise Indian sages invented the concept of ZERO?
Check out my post on THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ZERO - RATISH IYER by searching within this blog site where I have written at length on this topic.
I agree with the fact that forms change - But is the REAL YOU to be associated with various forms you undergo? The REAL YOU is the CONSCIOUSNESS upon which all changes flow in your life - from your growing and ageing body, to your relationships, to your ideas and ideals and the perception of the environment in which you exist. No matter the length of passing time - your feeling of I AM - this consciousness remains the same until you live no more. Advaita and Zen masters preach the technique of Neti-Neti ( Not this-Not this / Not that-Not that) to arrive at knowing WHO YOU REALLY ARE. Just as the wave is no different from the ocean - although it may consider itself to be separate -- is in essence the very water that permeates 'heaven and earth' in its myriad forms.
If you read what has been written up till this point once more, you would see the use of the word DESIRE mentioned in both extremes of forms - like, desire to compete/ desire to Not Compete, desire for war / desire for peace.. what is this desire?? Isn't this very desire the very shrewd factor that makes our minds swing on to THIS and THAT? Is it of any remedial measure to swing from one extreme perception to another? Do we as a result, become ETERNALLY HAPPY? NO! Because it is the very nature of our minds to categorize and perceive! Without this, how would we experience and understand our existence? How can an experience happen without a subject and an object/ objects ? When I know war, I know what peace is, if I experience sickness, I realize what optimum health is; right ? Was I consciously aware of and knowing what peace is - without the event of war? Was I consciously aware of and knowing what it would be to have my health going off-balance/ or knowing what it is to be healthy without first falling sick? Do you recall any point in time when you were truly blissfully unaware of these opposite feelings and experiences? With knowledge and experience comes CONDITIONING and depending on the type of experience, one holds on to what is acceptable and resists what is not - the very idea of THIS and THAT - the very emergence of LOVE and FEAR. But before these two polar forms appear in our lives, we were Blissfully Unaware - a stage of nothingness to say - the stage of ZERO (Neutral) - the original nature of all things. Zen masters have a saying: WHAT IS YOUR ORIGINAL FACE - THE FACE BEFORE YOU WERE BORN ?
So in other words, experiences happen when one form (event) is perceived in relation to its opposite other (form). And as long as this desire to know/experience/create exists, it automatically triggers the existence of its complimentary opposite form. For the layman's understanding, this is where Einstein's theory of relativity comes in where an experience/event is understood on the basis of space-time continuum. And within this structure we form our personality based on our ideas and experiences and with constant conditioning, we look at the world/ the other form/ existence with Love or Fear depending on the intensity of our consciousness. The only difference between an enlightened person and the normal/ ignorant person is that the former knows the truth about Non-Duality - that in essence we are the same. albeit subject to changing forms in order to REMEMBER THROUGH RELATIONSHIPS (based on experiencing duality) AND DISSOLVE BACK TO OUR TRUE SOURCE.
Coming back to the topic of Perfection/Competition/War - ask yourself: WHO AM I PERFECTING? WHO AM I COMPETING WITH? WHO/ WHAT AM I IN CONFLICT WITH ? When the world and I are no different, what is the fear that is driving me to perfection/competition/war ? Why should I even cling to the notion of peace/harmony/bliss? Where is the original nature of all things before categorization set in ? That state - where there is neither the Love of what is acceptable, nor the Fearful denial of what is not acceptable - should we call it Pure Innocence or Ignorance is Bliss? Should we adulterate that understanding by even naming it? Because the moment it is uttered, it loses its pure identity - such is the Satori! If there is any Zen wisdom that can put the aforementioned attempt to explain, in the most brief and profound manner - it would be this:
" WHEN YOU SEEK IT YOU CANNOT FIND IT" - Zen riddle
If you are able to be struck with even the slightest flash of understanding from the above, you would realize that we are so heavily conditioned with our ideas and doctrines that we forget that we are truly inseparable from one another - and that means the entire existence of the past/present/future !
In spite of our notion that our lives are imperfect, Existence has perfectly blended perfection within imperfection. Check out the following facts:
A WATER THAT IS PERFECTLY PURE CANNOT BREED FISH
EXTREME LAUGHTER LEADS TO TEARS, EXTREME CRYING APPEARS AS LAUGHTER
SHARPEN A BLADE TO THE EXTREME AND IT IS OF NO USE ANYMORE
ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY; ALL PLAY AND NO WORK MAKES JACK A DISASTER- (Self-quoted for humor's sake)
The moment you start associating yourself with one form you are bound to have an antagonistic relationship with the other - After all who doesn't want happiness all the time? But we aren't eternally happy, are we? How does Existence ensure phenomena govern our lives? Boredom, of course! Desire for change comes into action: When static mode sets in, dynamic mode takes over. But dynamism cannot go on forever. There is always the need for balance. The balance is between static energy and dynamic energy. The point of balance is neutrality, where one can perceive it as the beginning or the end of either forms. Neither form dominates the other for one is non-existent without the other. A simple example to consider here would be the rotation of the earth on its axis and the revolution around the sun: indicating why there is day on one side of the globe and night on the other side; why there are seasonal variations on either side of the globe; why vegetation differs across the globe.
Therefore, the desire to have only one side of existence as dominant is utterly futile! Even in the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna explains to Arjuna that there has never been a time nor will there ever be a time when everyone including themselves (Krishna, Pandavas) and their foes (Kauravas) ever was or shall be non-existent - the forms vary but the essence/ soul beyond the dual forms remains infinite. So, for every good there will always be a bad -- for neither can exist without the other.
Thus, the idea of UTOPIA is NOT that everything is only good in such a world, but the truth is that UTOPIA CAN ONLY REFER TO A WORLD WHERE THE OPPOSITE FORMS OF EXISTENCE REMAIN IN BALANCE AND HARMONY.
For those who have watched and enjoyed the movie series of THE MATRIX -
In the final part, the protagonist's (Neo) choice to die at the hands of the antagonist (Agent Smith) comes after Neo having contemplated thoroughly the purpose of his existence and what is required of him to be done. After terminating Neo, the antagonist is left perplexed. He was under the illusion of usurping Neo's energy to become 'the Ultimate', but eventually he ends up being annihilated himself! Why? How? Smith fails to realize what Neo had realized - Being opposite forms of each other, Neo's death meant that his 'opposite other' (Agent Smith) was also required to be pulled out of the equation to reset balance, i.e. the very event had to ensue the programmed execution of the Matrix's rules (nature's law) - the deletion of the opposite! In the end balance sets in, but the audience is left to contemplate as to how long such a status shall prevail...!
Though the topic of duality features in many of my posts in this blogsite, I have been intrigued for some time to express my thoughts on the theme of resistance, delving more into stuff like Competition, Perfection and War.
I am of the opinion that absence of 'competition with the other' results in harmony, absence of 'fanatic perfection' results in bliss and absence of war results undoubtedly in peace.
How could we understand the above statement? What was 'competition' before it became competition? What was 'perfection' before it became perfection? What was 'war' before it became war? No matter what the choice of words be, but the answer boils down some way or the other to harmony, bliss and peace; Right?? Of course, we have spared no effort to invent an opposite word- an antonym for every possible form or quality that we know exists! But the question is, is the principle of duality really true or is it some kind of an illusion that conceals THE TRUTH - THE SOURCE OF EVERYTHING ?
There are ample education sources available to explain and prove that light is not the opposite of darkness, but the absence of light; heat is not the opposite of cold, but the absence of heat (vice-versa) and so on. My question to you is - WOULD YOU CALL A WAVE AN OPPOSITE FORM OF THE VERY OCEAN FROM WHERE IT EMERGES ? Therefore, would you not agree that from the 'Status Quo' comes forth a certain agitation and leads to a series of eruption of forms that give an illusion of one form being opposite from the other? That is to say, before competition there was the state of 'no-competition' or shall we safely say The Absence of DESIRE for competition; before perfection was the state of no-perfection or The Absence of DESIRE for perfection; before war was the state of no-war or The Absence of DESIRE for conflict. Isn't it so ?
One has to be prudent to understand that the use of antonyms is in itself a desire to be separate one from the other. Words like incompetence, imperfection and peace instill in our minds the desire to remain separated - that is if you do not fall under one category, it is to be implied (sic!) that you ought to be in the other (opposite category). Why should one be either THIS or THAT ? The moment the mind thinks of 'peace', that very moment it has swung into desire to resist war. If this is so, then where is that source - the one - before even the idea of peace and war appeared? The same rational approach is applicable when examining 'bliss' and 'harmony'.
Isn't there a neutral state - a stateless state that indicates the source of forms that keep transforming and evolving ? Why do you think the wise Indian sages invented the concept of ZERO?
Check out my post on THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ZERO - RATISH IYER by searching within this blog site where I have written at length on this topic.
I agree with the fact that forms change - But is the REAL YOU to be associated with various forms you undergo? The REAL YOU is the CONSCIOUSNESS upon which all changes flow in your life - from your growing and ageing body, to your relationships, to your ideas and ideals and the perception of the environment in which you exist. No matter the length of passing time - your feeling of I AM - this consciousness remains the same until you live no more. Advaita and Zen masters preach the technique of Neti-Neti ( Not this-Not this / Not that-Not that) to arrive at knowing WHO YOU REALLY ARE. Just as the wave is no different from the ocean - although it may consider itself to be separate -- is in essence the very water that permeates 'heaven and earth' in its myriad forms.
If you read what has been written up till this point once more, you would see the use of the word DESIRE mentioned in both extremes of forms - like, desire to compete/ desire to Not Compete, desire for war / desire for peace.. what is this desire?? Isn't this very desire the very shrewd factor that makes our minds swing on to THIS and THAT? Is it of any remedial measure to swing from one extreme perception to another? Do we as a result, become ETERNALLY HAPPY? NO! Because it is the very nature of our minds to categorize and perceive! Without this, how would we experience and understand our existence? How can an experience happen without a subject and an object/ objects ? When I know war, I know what peace is, if I experience sickness, I realize what optimum health is; right ? Was I consciously aware of and knowing what peace is - without the event of war? Was I consciously aware of and knowing what it would be to have my health going off-balance/ or knowing what it is to be healthy without first falling sick? Do you recall any point in time when you were truly blissfully unaware of these opposite feelings and experiences? With knowledge and experience comes CONDITIONING and depending on the type of experience, one holds on to what is acceptable and resists what is not - the very idea of THIS and THAT - the very emergence of LOVE and FEAR. But before these two polar forms appear in our lives, we were Blissfully Unaware - a stage of nothingness to say - the stage of ZERO (Neutral) - the original nature of all things. Zen masters have a saying: WHAT IS YOUR ORIGINAL FACE - THE FACE BEFORE YOU WERE BORN ?
So in other words, experiences happen when one form (event) is perceived in relation to its opposite other (form). And as long as this desire to know/experience/create exists, it automatically triggers the existence of its complimentary opposite form. For the layman's understanding, this is where Einstein's theory of relativity comes in where an experience/event is understood on the basis of space-time continuum. And within this structure we form our personality based on our ideas and experiences and with constant conditioning, we look at the world/ the other form/ existence with Love or Fear depending on the intensity of our consciousness. The only difference between an enlightened person and the normal/ ignorant person is that the former knows the truth about Non-Duality - that in essence we are the same. albeit subject to changing forms in order to REMEMBER THROUGH RELATIONSHIPS (based on experiencing duality) AND DISSOLVE BACK TO OUR TRUE SOURCE.
Coming back to the topic of Perfection/Competition/War - ask yourself: WHO AM I PERFECTING? WHO AM I COMPETING WITH? WHO/ WHAT AM I IN CONFLICT WITH ? When the world and I are no different, what is the fear that is driving me to perfection/competition/war ? Why should I even cling to the notion of peace/harmony/bliss? Where is the original nature of all things before categorization set in ? That state - where there is neither the Love of what is acceptable, nor the Fearful denial of what is not acceptable - should we call it Pure Innocence or Ignorance is Bliss? Should we adulterate that understanding by even naming it? Because the moment it is uttered, it loses its pure identity - such is the Satori! If there is any Zen wisdom that can put the aforementioned attempt to explain, in the most brief and profound manner - it would be this:
" WHEN YOU SEEK IT YOU CANNOT FIND IT" - Zen riddle
If you are able to be struck with even the slightest flash of understanding from the above, you would realize that we are so heavily conditioned with our ideas and doctrines that we forget that we are truly inseparable from one another - and that means the entire existence of the past/present/future !
In spite of our notion that our lives are imperfect, Existence has perfectly blended perfection within imperfection. Check out the following facts:
A WATER THAT IS PERFECTLY PURE CANNOT BREED FISH
EXTREME LAUGHTER LEADS TO TEARS, EXTREME CRYING APPEARS AS LAUGHTER
SHARPEN A BLADE TO THE EXTREME AND IT IS OF NO USE ANYMORE
ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY; ALL PLAY AND NO WORK MAKES JACK A DISASTER- (Self-quoted for humor's sake)
The moment you start associating yourself with one form you are bound to have an antagonistic relationship with the other - After all who doesn't want happiness all the time? But we aren't eternally happy, are we? How does Existence ensure phenomena govern our lives? Boredom, of course! Desire for change comes into action: When static mode sets in, dynamic mode takes over. But dynamism cannot go on forever. There is always the need for balance. The balance is between static energy and dynamic energy. The point of balance is neutrality, where one can perceive it as the beginning or the end of either forms. Neither form dominates the other for one is non-existent without the other. A simple example to consider here would be the rotation of the earth on its axis and the revolution around the sun: indicating why there is day on one side of the globe and night on the other side; why there are seasonal variations on either side of the globe; why vegetation differs across the globe.
Therefore, the desire to have only one side of existence as dominant is utterly futile! Even in the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna explains to Arjuna that there has never been a time nor will there ever be a time when everyone including themselves (Krishna, Pandavas) and their foes (Kauravas) ever was or shall be non-existent - the forms vary but the essence/ soul beyond the dual forms remains infinite. So, for every good there will always be a bad -- for neither can exist without the other.
Thus, the idea of UTOPIA is NOT that everything is only good in such a world, but the truth is that UTOPIA CAN ONLY REFER TO A WORLD WHERE THE OPPOSITE FORMS OF EXISTENCE REMAIN IN BALANCE AND HARMONY.
For those who have watched and enjoyed the movie series of THE MATRIX -
What do we learn from Neo ?
1. The Matrix (Nature/Existence) is made up of duality - opposite forms interdependent and complementary to each other. Good and Bad co-exist.
2. Perfection that means only good should remain - is an illusion - as long as we live in this world made up of duality.
3. Imperfection does not mean that 'Bad' is really bad for the system - Where good is bad must be! So it is futile to project the illusion of Utopia where only good should flourish.
4. Our decisions should be focused only on harmony of the dual forms and we must strive to achieve the right balance.
So how do we make an 'ideal' choice or the 'perfect choice' given our limitations? The first step would be to accept the present moment and Existence as it is and acknowledge the validity and harmony of duality. The second step is to transcend duality through conscious awareness. The third step would be to act consciously based on the conscious decision and trusting existence to take care of the consequences - regardless of what the choice entails - balance will always prevail !
THE POINT IS: WILL YOU BE DELUDED THAT THERE IS A DOER, AND CONTINUE RESISTING, OR WILL YOU ACHIEVE THE HIGHEST UNDERSTANDING THAT 'EVENTS HAPPEN, DEEDS ARE DONE, BUT THERE IS NO DOER' AND LET EXISTENCE FLOW TAKING ITS NATURAL COURSE ?
THE CHOICE ON THE PATH OF TRUTH LIES WITH YOU!
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Very well written.. Deep thinking..enlightening.. Thank-you
ReplyDeleteThank you so much :)Your blessings are much solicited and appreciated ~
ReplyDelete