A word is worth a million images

A word when read or heard will form a unique image in the mind of the listener or reader. Unique because each individual has his or her own perspective on everything, which exist within the reality they have created for themselves.  For example take the word 'love', it will form a different image in each individual's mind. Each image viewed differently for the same reality.

For each word, billions of people, can potentially envision billions of unique images.

Why is this important to appreciate?

Harmony between people can only be achieved if people are willing to accept that different individual and communities have different realities Each reality shaped by environment, society, family, learning and experiences.

Openness and engagement helps us evolve and becoming wise, permitting us to broaden, deepen and make vibrant our individual perspectives and allows us to better understand and respect the perspectives of others.

It is useful to remember that, the foundation of a civilisation is respect, not tolerance.

Paths to Truth

 

Most of us are in search for the truth, whatever that means.

The meaning of truth differs for different people and differs for the same being at different times.

There are three paths to discover the truth of reality. One is the scientific approach, the second is the logical approach, the third is the spiritual approach.

The scientific mind will experiment, and test repeatedly in the objective world. Only when there is proof, the scientific mind accepts.

The logical mind, by using philosophy, evaluating pros and cons, reasons out the truth and conclusions are drawn. No testing is carried out. The entire exercise is subjective and in the mind.

The spiritual approach, where one experiences the truth. They often know not why it is so, but it is.

Scientific approach is of the material world and the exterior, it deals with the objective. In this category belong great people like Newton, Aryabhatta, Ramanujan.

The logical approach is pure mind work and it deals with the subjective and is of the interior. In this category belong Socrates, Kautaliya and Einstein.

The spiritual is the link between the interior of our existence and the exterior world in which we exist. Linking our being and our world, and in this category belong Guru Nanak, Gautam Buddha, Jesus, Kabir Das, etc.

Every individual has a natural inclination and sometimes the gift of teaching and guiding others. Some go the scientific route and some logical and some spiritual.

The scientists often laugh at the spiritual and the logical people for their lack of hard facts and truth.

The philosopher thinks the scientist blind in his arrogance, and the spiritual being as a fake.

The truly spiritual being, simply smiles in bliss and says nothing about others. He or she simply knows.

We are like water, each one a droplet. We take birth springing out along with other droplets of water soon to form a stream. Soon streams merge to form rivulets and they in turn become the river.

Some rivers flow almost straight some wind their way forward. Some rivers flow east, others flow west. Thousands of rivers known by a million names some mighty and some little but all will eventually flow into the ocean where no one can describe which water came from which river.

Each droplet with all its arrogance will eventually return to the ocean. Who knows which drop is right and which is wrong, which is greater. No drop is insignificant but none is also eternally significant.

So it is with each individual and our truths Each one originating from the same ocean as a droplet and returning to the ocean through a long journey back to the ocean.

Truth is so evident and yet so elusive. It is like the air, we cannot grasp it with our hands and minds. It can only breathed in and experienced.

________________

Note: I am grateful to my elders and various friends and teachers who taught me so much and help me awaken even if so little.

Where the women are loved

 

Nowadays one sometimes reads about incidents in India of mistreatment and disrespect of women, and that can never be condoned. However just like a few trees do not define a forest, an aberration does not define a civilisation.

Contrary to common belief, in India, as in most agrarian societies the Goddess the provider of all things, as mother nature, has always been revered. In such societies the female has always been respected, loved and worshipped. Hindu and later Sikh tradition have always honoured women with the highest status of which women are rightly deserving.

Somewhere along the way, this valuable lesson which kept man and nature in harmony got disturbed. Influence of patriarchal and alien religions and cultures industrialisation, urbanisation etc. amongst other causes has taught man that nature and hence females are to be exploited for man's convenience and pleasure. Exploitation can never bring honour, dignity or love, only submission and resentment.

Our salvation and lasting joy can come only by loving and cherishing nature, which is manifested in the female.

Culture is shaped by both tradition and historical influences, and provides us many valuable lessons. Love, trust, and respect can never be legislated, or taught. Respect for women can only be instilled in the hearts and minds of our children by the example of elders and parents in every household.

It is not possible to impose values like respect, love and trust upon individuals, nor can it be taught in classrooms. Though this  is often attempted by the government, media, priests, schools, and civil society with little or no benefit except to enhance their own grandeur and power.

I can share what I have learnt.

If you are a man attempt not to understand them, rather try to cherish and respect the women in your life. If you are a woman, then accept them as imperfect yet honour, respect and care for the men in your life. If we do this the days of our life will be wholesome, because divine energies will reside along with us.

______________

* The Manu-Smriti, also known as Manav Dharam Shastra, is the earliest work on Brahminical Dharma in Hinduism. Manu-Smriti is believed to be the word of Brahma, the Creator and it is classified as the most authoritative statement on Dharma.

The scripture consists of 2690 verses, divided into 12 chapters.  It is presumed that the actual human  author of this compilation used the eponym ‘Manu’, which has led the text to be associated by Hindus with the first human being and the first king in the Indian tradition.

Why does familiarity usually lead to contempt?

When we get together with friends and family we let down the masks we wear and drop the persona we adopt in front of the world, and mostly revert to being ourselves.

Family and friendship seems to grant to us the privilege to be ourselves. And by ourselves we are often irrational, emotional and unique and that make individuals appear strange to others.

Everyone is different and it is difficult if not impossible for people to be just like us and we constantly look for faults in our family and friends. Since these very people are in the inner circle of our existence we are very familiar with them and their character.

Whenever two creatures come together a hierarchy comes into being because the laws of nature dictate that overtly or subtly one tries to dominate the other. We try to make members of our group family, friends and colleagues come around to and conform to our way of thinking, talking and behaving and rise to our expectations. No one can meet our expectations or satisfy us, this is  in part because our own expectations themselves are constantly changing.

If we are more controlled by our animal instincts than our human qualities our familiarity with family, friend, and colleagues will make us feel contempt for them.

If we dare to be inspired and evolve both emotionally and intellectually, we will come to accept our family, friends and colleagues unconditionally, and try to adapt ourselves with their strengths and shortcomings to get the best out of them and ourselves.

Do not walk ahead of me, I might not follow,

Do not walk behind me, I might not lead,

Just walk beside me and be my friend.

It seems that both following and leading can be problematic. As the Guru taught us, "I am everyone's friend".

Vitality of Laughter

 Laughter is a natural and universal phenomenon witnessed in every society through all times. In some cultures it comes easy and increasingly in some societies it has been greatly repressed particularly in public.

A society that cannot laugh is unnatural and one can judge how liberated a civilisation is, by how easily and openly the people laugh. 

Government officials, bosses of all kinds, rich and powerful people, priests and clergy, Masters and teachers, and in short, people who wield any position of authority, generally consider their presence in society as very important, even vital. With seemingly  heavy weight on their shoulders they generally find it difficult to smile, leave alone laugh.

The great philosopher Osho made a vital observation. When we laugh, our mind stops  analysing, thoughtless and free from anxiety, greed, regret, etc. This is exactly the same state we attain in meditation, to be free of the mind.

When we genuinely laugh, for those precious few moments  we get disconnected from our material, mental, and emotional worlds. abandoning by reflex our artificial selves and revert to our most natural childlike, innocent state of being.  The very same goal sought by all great masters.

It is at that moment we [encounter the sacred](https://www.guruwonder.in/post/happiness-is-our-encounter-with-the-sacred). 

We will laugh, and laugh frequently when we look at the absurdity of reality and of human existence and our ways. If we can only get over the ridiculous notion that laughter is a sign of the  socially, financially, politically, intellectually and religiously lowly, we could easily progress in nourishing and setting free our spirit.

I crack jokes all the time, and don't mind it when my family and friends point out my idiosyncrasies and strangeness, after all I am human and unique just like everyone else. Laughing at oneself is spiritually therapeutic, for it tends to demolish our arrogance and release us from our ego (ego being an artificial construct we use to identify and define ourselves). This is a precondition for spiritual liberation.

This is why every royal court had a jester, a person who reveals the heavy truth in a light manner to let the monarch and the court know that they are but mortal and thus keep the monarch and his subjects sane and balanced.

The possibility of laughter is universally available to everyone, and probably the easiest way to meditate. Laughing frequently will lightly and in small steps could lead us to spiritual liberation.

Have you laughed recently?

‘Political Correctness’ screws up life.

 

'Political Correctness' specifies what is considered as the appropriate way for members of society to dress, speak, and behave both in private and in public.

Power within every society or organisation is always concentrated in the hands of a small minority. This is why Political Correctness, has remained the most powerful weapon used by political and religious leaders and their forces to control the majority of the members of society.

A culture can be defined by its Political Correctness. Generally the greater the demand for correctness, the greater is the control of political and religious forces on the lives of members of society.

The best way for political and religious leaders to retain control over members of society is to impose as many restrictions as is possible on the people, particularly women. Why the great emphasis on control of women? This is because when one controls the man, one tends to control an individual, but when one controls a woman one can usually control an entire family.

One should view with great suspicion people and self proclaimed leaders who demand political correctness, for with these demands they have begun to impose dictatorial control over our lives.

Political Correctness has always been around, and imposed through followers of organised religion. It it has become prominent only recently with the increase in production, and distribution of news, information and entertainment through various media channels. It has also become a very powerful tool in conditioning of youngsters within educational institutions. 

Political correctness appears as a reasonable restriction or demand on behaviour and the use of particular language, but in reality it is an attempt to muzzle thought.

One of the greatest victims of political correctness is humour and comedy. Laughter and happiness are defining features of human existence irrespective of culture. A society that cannot laugh freely is a dead or dying society. Only a free and living society can laugh with abandon, and only an evolved human being can laugh at himself or herself.

"Against the onslaught of humour, no force can withstand" ~ Mark Twain.

Have you laughed or been able to speak what you think and believe yesterday?

If not, then you may have already been politically corrected.

A Woman is never happy to share her man, so ...

 

Whether by luck, parental arrangement, love, lust or seduction, once she has him a woman is never happy about sharing her man.

I am talking not only about sharing her man with another woman, but also with friend, mother in law, etc. A  woman resents sharing her man, with other interests, which begs the question 'why is this so?'

Permit me to explain.

Though I use the terms 'husband' and 'wife', to explain, it also applies to temporary relationships and live in arrangements, as to why there is so much confusion between the sexes about sharing.

In regard to marriage/relationships, our existence can be viewed in two parts. Our partner whom we can call our 'love' and everything else we do which we can call our 'life'.

When a woman loves or invests in a relationship, her love dominates her life. Her love and life converge becoming two sides of the same coin. Women, when they love, usually do so with their entire being.

Women find it incomprehensible, 'why can men not feel and behave the same as women?' and they make their displeasure known often and loudly.

Even if men may want to feel and behave in the same manner they cannot, because by their very nature men are differently inclined.

In contrast to a woman, a man's existence is divided in two different compartments, in one he has his love and in the other he has his life. The love compartment  is for his woman and the other compartment containing everything else in his life. These include his work and career, hobbies, interests, entertainment, his family and his friends, etc. (Children move from one compartment to the other in a man's life).

When a man is focussed on life he fleetingly remembers his love, until it is approaching time to head back home or meet his love or partner. As a consequence even though men may try very hard, they often fail to remember many important tasks, dates, remain hazy about promises to their love and are usually absent minded about matters that seem important to their woman. This is why women have to keep on reminding men ever so often, not surprisingly men still forget. Probably this is the reason for women having to constantly to nag their men to get anything done.

This seemingly one way traffic of concern by the women infuriates and frustrates them. Grumbling rarely helps because men are wired differently from women, they simply cannot appreciate what the fuss is all about, and why a man's behaviour is not good enough and is also viewed as irresponsible and a direct indication of an absence of love or care for the woman and her feelings by her man.

Both men and women have friends, sport, work, hobbies, politics, and a hundred other interests that can potentially fill their life in addition to focus on their love. Women usually manage to  juggle all these demands on their time yet focus on their love,  unfortunately men not so well.

Women view most of a man's interests as competitors to her needs of attention and love, hence she becomes hostile towards most of these 'distractions', be they other people, beings or activities other than his core work.

If wives do not place demands it is quite likely that husbands will disappear for long spells returning to either protect their families or showing up only when they want either food, rest or sex.

A woman in marriage or in a relationship tries her best to minimise her man's extracurricular interests so that he is more available to her. This leads to a constant tug of war between man and woman.

Women have a psychological need to be the central focus in her man's life. On the other hand a man's interests in people, things and phenomena keep on shifting to return briefly to his woman and then wander off again trying to investigate, fight over (sport is a substitute for this), acquire or defend something, someone or idea.

I have learnt that if a man wants to be happy in a relationship, he should make the effort to make his woman feel she is the most important being and element in his life and yet find time to pursue his wide range of interests thus giving his woman and himself space.

Lockdowns have highlighted the importance of an individual's need for space. 

It is plain to see the dangerous consequences on the mental and emotional health on two or more active creatures confined to limited space and activities for an extended time. 

Try as hard as they may, men will never understand women and their wants, so it is best to follow Oscar Wilde's advice, "Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood."