Identity crisis
Once we are in the
identity cage we refuse to come out, we fail to realize and value our various
types of relationships with myriads of things, ideas, people, events etc or
their relation to us. It is a dilemma wherein we unconsciously subject
ourselves to limited options or reduce our choices. I felt the pathetic
situation of the present day's talented, educated, intelligent , toiling youth
but rudderless and not getting spotted by any sane radars as well and thought
philosophically about it and wrote this essay for this New Year [this contains
many references, links etc highlighting the importance of many institutions,
individuals of real worth etc
Most of the individual problems and group
pogroms are the result of identity crisis. This
[identity adoration/affiliation] is a very important part of study of personal
psychology and socio-psychology which gets neglected or does not get the
prominence it deserves because the predominant factors that create these
identities and factories that produce these predators are the patrons and
promoters of religious and political ideologies. Now recently, technological
advancement has also jumped into this band wagon [of course at least this
offers tangible comforts and benefits].
These identity creating factories are afraid
of free and open minded persons as these open minded persons may start
questioning some aspects or the very identity itself.
There is nothing wrong with identities per se
nor are they avoidable. For example if someone is born physically
beautiful, mentally brilliant, in a highly respected family in a
particular nation following certain language, religion, culture, tradition etc
with some type of specific behavior then that person would be identified with
all those things. What can that person do about any of those identities which
he is born with, born into, groomed up with along with social inculcation,
indoctrination, insistence or voluntary inclination or interest etc?
There is nothing wrong even in human mind
getting into judgmental mode based on these identities which is one of the
natural consequences of identity affiliation and which is what is happening all
over.
There is nothing wrong even in the human mind
making comparisons, analysis, criticisms etc based on these identities which
are again natural consequences of affiliation to inevitable identities.
The problem crops up when these identities
create narrow walls of prisons of the mind and thereby creating
incompatibilities and intolerances in the functioning of many vital tools of
life and not letting life to move on smoothly in its tracks.
In brief our thoughts, ideas, actions,
feelings, interactions, attitudes etc are to a very great extent influenced by
how we relate to changing situations /circumstances /scenarios/events/environment/new
relations etc while clinging on to our identities.
Even within specific
identities there are varying degrees and intensities of manifestation.
Any
identity is /all identities are a stumbling block to any realization or
unbiased relating/relationship as well. AsJames Braha writes, in the
wonderful book ‘LIVING REALITY-My Extraordinary Summer with “Sailor” Bob
Adamson’,
“You can only know
yourself by being yourself without any attempt at self-definition and
self-description. Once you have understood that you are nothing perceivable or
conceivable, that whatever appears in the field of consciousness cannot be
yourself, you will apply yourself to the eradication of all self
identification, as the only way that can take you to a deeper realization of yourself.
You literally progress by rejection—a veritable rocket. To know that you are
neither in the body nor in the mind, though aware of both, is already
self-knowledge.”
The real nakedness devoid of any cover of
identity, probably this could be one of the connotations of the word ‘Nirvana’,
may enable us and equip us to face reality unbiased and without any pre
conditioning. Some great souls have even opined that we
can even pose real questions only from this state as Terence Mckenna says, “You are not naked when you take off your clothes. You
still wear your religious assumptions, your prejudices, your fears, your
illusions, your delusions. When you shed the cultural operating system, then,
essentially you stand naked before the inspection of your own psyche…and it’s
from that position, a position outside the cultural operating system, that we
can begin to ask real questions about what does it mean to be human, what kind
of circumstance are we caught in, and what kind of structures, if any, can we
put in place to assuage the plan and accentuate the glory and the wonder that
lurks, waiting for us, in this very narrow slice of time between the birth
canal and the yawning grave. In other words we have to return to first
premises."
Do we create our identity and getting confined
by it?
Or whether some identity actually influences
and/or creates us?
Or can we tweak some parts of the brain
surgically and create a complete leap away from affinity to identities so that
individual perceptions, actions, attitudes and social behavior etc all can be
freer and at least devoid of problems caused by contradictions and ideological
constraints? [After all physiologically even DNA is tweaked to produce
unimaginable results]
More
about identity issues in this link
When
everything else fail nature takes care is or could be the only
consolation/hope that humanity can hold on to.
The
West predominantly and psychologically cannot understand anything outside its
preconceived and stereotyped views that it looks with suspicion on everyone
with long beards and certain specific names and at the same time plays dirty
games in international politics with these very people to settle scores and
sabotage progress from areas in the atlas which it has predetermined are not fit
to become powerful politically and prosperous economically.
It
is much easier to over simplify and over generalize everything as a crisis of
identity and inclusion/exclusion etc. Ultimately that is what almost every
analysis of the calamities both those supporting and blaming allude to.
But
a slight scratching of the surface will reveal the rotten history, hysterical behaviors
and histrionic reactions to historical blunders.
Well
while what Mr. Jeyamohan has written may be true to a certain extent we must
remember, refer to as well as reject lot of stereotyped reactions, symbolic
gestures etc; though they may be the only options hitherto known to or
exercised by humanity. Unfortunately, what they do is, as usual divert humanity from
addressing the issues on its inherent strengths or short comings depending on
how you look at it .
But
present day happenings in international politics are the work of poly tricks
where everyone engages in either justifying or defending or blaming some
group/individual/ideology/religion/institution/nation etc, while in reality
everyone, every nation, every political ideology and every religious group is
equally good or bad, as after it everything is relative. Any religion, nation,
political ideology cannot claim authority or superiority, of course, unless and
until they prioritize humaneness, compassion, protecting human life and
environment and providing at least opportunities to every human being to
empower with a sense of caring and sharing and all these are ultimately in the
interest of survival of the human species.
Whatever
is happening today is a heady mix of many highly volatile things/aspects which
can turn anytime anywhere equally provocative and aggressive. These manifest
certain feeble atavistic tendencies; histrionic reactions to historical
blunders; self created or aggravated problems further fueled by sensationalism
seeking media, scandal mongering journalists, guilt inflicted international
manipulative leaders and nations; fanatical bonding with misinterpreted
superficiality of religious edicts; perverted unsolicited participation into
the internal affairs of other nations and religions etc. There are certain
common factors to all these: like misguiding and misusing certain individuals
by emotionally charging them, funding them etc.
I
am not going back to the times of inquisition, crusades, Nazism, Stalinism etc
all of which too killed millions and millions of human beings senselessly but
revisiting certain recent events.
All
of us know who or which nation funded and armed Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden
initially and also who attacked them later on and why? Now the same forces or
nations are funding Pakistan which the whole world knows what it contributes to
humanity and how women and children are treated there? Human rights
organizations are too busy to get involved there so they can be excused.
All
of us also must be aware now that Europe is trouble again, after being the
initiators of two world wars; I pity the innocent and intelligent citizens of
Europe who end up as unfortunate victims, not only dying and suffering
physically but ideologically getting putrefied by a parochial propaganda
mechanism which homogenizes to conveniently hegemonize and forcefully make the
whole population herdish.
It
did in the early 19th century through compulsory conscription
wherein many potential intellectual brains who could not or did not want to
take the gun and fight died. We don’t know how many potential Voltaires and
Bertrand Russells the world has lost to the military madness.
From
Indian perspective the West in addition to all the following atrocities that
they have committed in their own lands in the name of inquisition, crusades,
Nazism, Stalinism etc and also killing so many red Indians and aborigines and breeding
Africans to use as slaves, introducing passages justifying these in their
religious texts, atrocities in the name of colonialism etc are now required to
answer to all the following as well.
I
read somewhere this news item
German authorities have received specific
warnings of the risk of, security sources told Reuters on Friday,
after pre-dawn police raids on 12 homes linked to radical Islamists.
Most European nations have a soft corner for
"Jihadis" seeking "Asylum" from Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan,
Syria etc - But will NOT allow Indian techies even a work permit let alone PR
status ! They recognize such Jihadis as freedom fighters in their own
lands like Pak Occupied Kashmir etc. Worse still pay through their own tax
money maintenance amount for every child , well, the Pakistanis and
Bengladeshies are really enjoying this. Imagine if India and China start paying
some 300 dollars every month for every child! But on the other hand no work
permit for Indian techies. This will go on till Belgium changes its name ( will
be the first in Europe) to Belgistan ! By that time, more sensible nations
would have dissolved EU.
The
west has much to answer for:
1. In
the early fifties, they gave asylum and encouragement to the Naga secessionist
Phizo.
2. They
gave asylum and support to the JKLF. The first non-IRA terrorism in the U.K.
forty years ago was the murder of Mhatre the Indian Deputy High Commissioner by
the JKLF.
3. All
western countries supported the Khalistanis. The Canadians were casual, callous
and incompetent apropos of the Kanishka.
4. Western
countries supported the LTTE and still keep talking about Sri Lankan Government
Human Rights violations conveniently forgetting that the LTTE used women and children
as human shields.
5. Some
years ago, the Danish Prime Minister, when he was President of the EU gave
India a gratuitous and sanctimonious lecture on Kashmir, Human Rights etc.
6. In
the late forties, Noel-Baker, the British delegate to the U.N. deliberately and
consciously sabotaged India’s position, supported Pakistan and ensured that
Pakistan would hang on to POK.
7. The
British and the Americans loved the whisky-drinking Ayub Khans and Yahya Khans
and disliked our sanctimonious dhoti-wearing politicians.
8. Wavell
went on record that the British could deal with Muslims, but not with Hindus.
9. Olaf
Caroe worked hard to create an anti-Soviet Islamic grouping at CENTO and SEATO
with Pakistan as the pivot.
10. Reagan
called the Afghan Mujahideen leaders the equivalent of the “founding fathers”
of America.
11. Successive
American administrations till George W Bush, did their best to deny India
technology and uranium and worked very hard, very persistently and very
diligently to thwart Indian science and technology while conniving with the
Chinese nuclear build-up and Chinese support for Pakistan’s nuclear arms. The
Chinese support was supplemented by Dutch and Swiss support with the knowledge
and connivance of the CIA.
12. Nixon
and Kissinger not merely connived but supported the selective genocide of
Bangladeshi Hindus despite the U.S. Consulate in Dacca calling this event in no
uncertain terms. Kissinger is supposed to have joked that Yahya and Tikka
viewed the killing of Hindus as an entertainment.
13. The
BBC has for years opposed India and Israel.
14. The
U.S. and the U.K. denied visas to Modi while merrily giving visas to
Jihadists----what an irony!
15. Some
forty years ago the Principal of a British Government school was sacked for
political incorrectness because he felt that Muslim schoolgirls should learn
swimming just as other schoolgirls should.
16. The
British use of the word “Asians” or Sub-continentals” is a joke. The fact is
that immigrants from Pakistan as more likely by orders of magnitude to be in
jail or on welfare rolls as compared to immigrants from India. This fact is
always euphemistically avoided.
17. France
broke off military sales and relations with Israel after 1967, in order to
curry favour with Arab states.
18. When
Indian or Israeli officials warned western officials, the western reaction was
one of contempt and indifference.
19. And
now, the chickens have come home to roost!
20. Response of both European / American
Administrations AND Civil Society is INEXPLICABLE on any rational grounds?
21. What could their possible motivations be in
upholding human / asylum rights of primitive barbarians spouting BARBARIC
INHUMAN IDEOLOGY?
Dear Devdutt
Pattanaik ,
Your
‘Origins of Religion’ has raised more questions than it has answered. I am not
even questioning or bothered whether you support, practice, and follow any
religion or many religions. But you are trying to make certain sweeping
interpretations with more vagueness and trying to ensconce them in flamboyant
language and feeble statements like, “ Religions provide humans with maps that help
them navigate through life. Yes, religions cause violence because from religion
comes the notion of identity. Religions locate us in a cosmic super map. Attack
religion and you attack identity, a simple fact that rationalist and atheists
do not understand.” This is precisely what many aspects of religion
have done to humanity and diverted them from facing the stark facts and reality
life and instead covered them up with all sorts of entertainment,
ornamentation, appealing doctrines, ideas etc. Humanity has fallen a prey to
these fancies and attractions and failed to experience life as it is with all
its superb as well as silly things. Not even imaginations but hyper fancies and
hyped up rituals form major part of religious way of life.
All religions are equal and every religion has its own
beauty, beliefs, benefits and banalities.
Let us not either over
simplify or over generalize to suit our preconceived interpretations and
inferences but instead just observe plain facts as they are and be humble
enough to accept them and try to understand, not necessarily judge, what they
are? What has been their contribution? What are their inherent qualities or
attributes? Etc.
What any individual /group do
/did /shall do with them merely shows how they relate to it and has nothing to
do with the subject matter per se.
For example if there is a
cow, it is just an animal. You can do anything with it: leave it to lead its
life it wants, or feed it, play with it, milk it, worship it, sit on it and
ride, torture it, cut and eat it and so on. So what is done with or to the cow
has nothing to do with the inherent attribute of cow but how every
individual/group relates with the cow.
Let no one get emotional or
act as if they are more enlightened than another religion or sect and therefore
more eligible to preach or sermonize others. Let us all calmly and candidly
look at facts of history starting from times of recorded history. While the
whole world makes lot of money talking and making movies about terrorism and
terrorist cause lot of damages to both people and property, very few try to
study the underlying reason.
No one in his sane mind will
resort to become suicide bomber or assume by causing calamity and ending
his/her own life in the process is going to become a martyr? Then what or who
causes such trends and tendencies? Be it inquisitions, crusades, saiva samana
in fights in ancient Hinduism, the silencing of Bhuddism in India in remote
past by Hinduism etc.
We all can see the obvious,
if only we are honest. Osho used to say, ' if you say a fruit tree is great you
can prove it only based on the fruits that it produces' Especially after what
happened in France , I thought of communicating some simple and plain facts
which must be addressed and I did to almost all the major media houses in
Europe and USA through these links. Religion-its role, evolution, purpose, religion and science etc.
The first two I wrote in the last three days after what happened in France.
Religions, all religions, by
themselves are a big problem why?
and fortunately the Vedas and
Bhagawad Geetha nowhere mention the word Hindu. So Hindus cannot claim them as
their texts though they may be part of epics and literature that has emanated
from a place the present day Hindus live and they also convey many excellent
and high philosophical traditions that people who follow Sanathana Dharmna have
along with many unpleasant rituals of that period.
Actually religion as an
entity, I am not confining to the tall claims or great philosophies in any
religion, but religion, I mean all religions, as they are practiced or followed
do not as Mr. DEVDUTT PATTANAIK claims, “provide humans with maps that help them navigate through
life.” But on the contrary they define the boundaries, construct fences, create
cultural biases and reinforce identities to both classify and differentiate
human species, human intellectual approaches, human understanding, human
compassion etc based on its predefined modes of perception.
Again Pattanaikji “from religion comes the notion of
identity”.
As
in the cow example given at the beginning of this small write up different
identities emanated from how each one related to the cow and not because of the
cow.
“We
are programmed by habit and constant preconditioning to create defenses against
and make fences around us towards anything new [it could be good, better, best
or bad I desist from using the usual good, bad and ugly as it has more
negatives] that crops up in us or around us. It is a sort of protectionism that
goes to envelop in some specific identity or label and further firm up our
prejudices and prevent us from experiencing the new. Gradually this identity
creates such strong concrete walls that enforce us to experience life only in
terms of what is approved of that identity.
Almost all of us are gullible to this attribute
of experiencing life through any existing or well established or socially well
accepted or religiously sanctioned or personally enjoyable and pleasing
identity/identities, which reflect in our actions and attitudes. We are thus
led by the expected experiences which must fit into this readymade or readily
accepted patterns, I am not saying either they are good or bad, but we are thus
prevented from experiencing life as it is happening at this moment.
So, in real terms there is nothing new when we
deal with life based on predetermined and past experiences. Or attempt to do
things to get a result for a future goal. Thus, in a way we are slaves of our
past or to our future. None of our behavior patterns, perceptions,
attitudes or attributes are new or authentic as they are guided by prefixed
identities.
In fact, in a way, most of the individual
problems and group pogroms are the result of identity crisis.
This [identity adoration/affiliation] is a very important part of study of
personal psychology and socio-psychology which gets neglected or does not get
the prominence it deserves because the predominant factors that create these
identities and factories that produce these predators are the patrons and
promoters of religious and political ideologies. Now recently, technological
advancement has also jumped into this band wagon [of course at least this
offers tangible comforts and benefits].
These identity creating factories are afraid
of free and open minded persons as these open minded persons may start
questioning some aspects or the very identity itself.
There is nothing wrong with identities per se
nor are they avoidable. For example if someone is born physically
beautiful, mentally brilliant, in a highly respected family in a
particular nation following certain language, religion, culture, tradition etc
with some type of specific behavior then that person would be identified with
all those things. What can that person do about any of those identities which
he is born with, born into, groomed up with along with social inculcation,
indoctrination, insistence or voluntary inclination or interest etc?
There is nothing wrong even in human mind
getting into judgmental mode based on these identities which is one of the
natural consequences of identity affiliation and which is what is happening all
over.
There is nothing wrong even in the human mind
making comparisons, analysis, criticisms etc based on these identities which
are again natural consequences of affiliation to inevitable identities.[1]
The problem crops up when these identities
create narrow walls of prisons of the mind and thereby creating
incompatibilities and intolerances in the functioning of many vital tools of
life and not letting life to move on smoothly in its tracks.
In brief our thoughts, ideas, actions,
feelings, interactions, attitudes etc are to a very great extent influenced by
how we relate to changing situations /circumstances
/scenarios/events/environment/new relations etc while clinging on to our
identities.
Even within specific
identities there are varying degrees and intensities of manifestation.
It would be pertinent to
mention what ― Idries Shah the great Sufi writer says in Reflections
“You have not forgotten to
remember;
You have remembered to forget.
But people can forget to forget. That is just as important as remembering to remember - and generally more practical.”
You have remembered to forget.
But people can forget to forget. That is just as important as remembering to remember - and generally more practical.”
As a consequence of this [doing everything
while clinging on to our identities]our understanding of life itself is to a
very great extent depends on how well we understand our relations/relationships
to these changed situations /circumstances/scenarios /events/environment/new
relations etc.
Any
identity is /all identities are a stumbling block to any realization or
unbiased relating/relationship as well. AsJames Braha writes, in the
wonderful book ‘LIVING REALITY-My Extraordinary Summer with “Sailor” Bob
Adamson’,
“You can only know your self by being yourself
without any attempt at self-definition and self-description. Once you have
understood that you are nothing perceivable or conceivable, that whatever
appears in the field of consciousness cannot be your self, you will apply
yourself to the eradication of all self identification, as the only way that
can take you to a deeper realization of your self. You literally progress by
rejection—a veritable rocket. To know that you are neither in the body nor in
the mind, though aware of both, is already self-knowledge.”
The real nakedness devoid of any cover of identity, probably
this could be one of the connotations of the word ‘Nirvana’, may enable us and
equip us to face reality unbiased and without any pre conditioning.
Some great souls have even opined that we can even pose real questions only
from this state as Terence Mckenna says, “You are not naked when you take off your clothes. You
still wear your religious assumptions, your prejudices, your fears, your
illusions, your delusions. When you shed the cultural operating system, then,
essentially you stand naked before the inspection of your own psyche…and it’s
from that position, a position outside the cultural operating system, that we
can begin to ask real questions about what does it mean to be human, what kind
of circumstance are we caught in, and what kind of structures, if any, can we
put in place to assuage the plan and accentuate the glory and the wonder that
lurks, waiting for us, in this very narrow slice of time between the birth
canal and the yawning grave. In other words we have to return to first
premises."
-
-
Life is never fulfilled with unfulfilled relationships within
the family, with others in the society, with the environment, with the many
sciences, subjects, systems that we come across which are useful to us, used by
us or we are used by them and so on. So, the quality of life is the
manifestation of the quality of the inter play of these various relationships.
Even in parenting after donating
a sperm and leasing a womb and initially taking care of the physical well being
of the Child it is all about weaving meaningful and mutually respectable
relationships psychologically all the while factoring in many socio-cultural
changes and the generational differences.
Can we ever succeed in
overcoming the difficulties and fulfill all our relationships?
Probably if we sincerely, seriously and sanely try to understand
them through two important primary factors, namely completely listening and
curiously learning followed by involvement and responsibility and all these
done with total intensity and intense totality. Very often the greatest mistakes in our relationships, overall
perceptions and evaluations occur because we read three fourths, listen half,
understand quarter, think zero and are indifferent to the impact of our
actions, reactions, thoughts and words on humanity and the environment. [2]
The vital
factor/essence of any relationship is the connectivity /link and the best way
to be aware of it, savor it and sensibly understand this vitality is to be
detached to the ultimate results, as Bhagawath Geetha says and again to quote Simone
Weil,
“ Attachment is the greatest
fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is
detached”.
Because the fact is life is neither
a mere predesigned product with preprogrammed operations nor is it merely any
of the existing proclaimed and sanctified order nor is it the result of any
mere catastrophic accident.
‘Neither our
Brain nor our Character is Cast in Stone’ [3]
Do our perceptions and/or thoughts,
feelings, knowledge etc influence our experience or our experiences influence
our perceptions and/or thoughts, feelings, knowledge etc?
Do we create
our identity and getting confined by it?
Or whether
some identity actually influences and/or creates us?
Or can we tweak some parts of the brain surgically and create a
complete leap away from affinity to identities so that individual perceptions,
actions, attitudes and social behavior etc all can be freer and at least devoid
of problems caused by contradictions and ideological constraints? [After
all physiologically even DNA is tweaked to produce unimaginable results][4]
Ultimately one thing is clear that there are neither any
absolutes to something as temporal as individual life nor any eternally valid
or universally applicable models to emulate as the only way or only option to
our mortal life. There are no eternal explanations to everything in any single
source. Nor is there any omnipotent panacea for everything. The vague
randomness that unfolds as we live life is the very beauty of life and probably
the most important sign of human evolution and growth of civilization. No
single person is an expert on everything.
All relationships effect a transformation, a transition from a
present status influencing and impacting ourselves, others, our environment and
our very relationship which causes this and so on. This transformation happens
due to many of the factors mentioned above in the normal process in a gradual
way or sometimes by suddenly overcoming the constraints of time and space, and
due to different affinities to various other identities. This happens when
there is unqualified complete love as Jeff
Brown points out "You don’t measure love in time. You measure love in
transformation. Sometimes the longest connections yield very little growth,
while the briefest of encounters change everything. The heart doesn't wear a
watch- it’s timeless. It doesn’t care how long you know someone. It doesn’t
care if you had a 40 year anniversary if there is no juice in the connection.
What the heart cares about is resonance. Resonance that opens it, resonance
that enlivens it, resonance that calls it home. And when it finds it, the
transformation begins…"
Does reality really require an observer? Not necessarily.
Does reality change
because of the observer? Not necessarily.
Has reality any inherent
existence irrespective of the presence of the observer?
If it rains heavily in a very remote place uninhabited by any
human being, still there would be all effects of a heavy rain irrespective of
whether anyone was there to observe it or record it or measure it.[5]
Or as the great Neale Donald Walsch says, “The definition of
everything depends on how you look at it. Nothing is as it seems, and the
moment you change your perspective you see that. Therefore, there is no such
thing as Reality; there is only the reality you create by the way you are
looking at something. You are creating your reality through the use of
perspective”.
So, very meaningful reality exists of its own within the realm
of our observation or sometimes unnoticed, unknown and unnamed, beyond and/or
beside the realm of our observation, our measuring it, our labeling etc.
Various gifted souls and scholars have tried to perceive it
through various methods, expressed their understanding through different
subjects, through different frames of reference in varying degrees of
intensities, each one grasping the splendor of different facets of the same
diamond called the totality of life. What their understanding unraveled is very
educative and enlightening and highly motivating for us to explore further and
deeper the meanings of life.
[5]
Both Einstein and Ramana Maharshi
made almost identical statements that "everything is predetermined".
Nobel Laureates Eugene Wigner and Francis Crick (co-discoverer of DNA) made
similar statements. The ground-breaking experimental work of Libet and
many contemporary cognitive neuroscientists support these statements.
This is the first part of a presentation at the Science and Non-Duality Conference in San Rafael, CA in October 2009. The second part is covered in the video "Intelligence Choice is Impossible"; the third and last part is covered in "You Are Not In Control".
There is a new video "Predestination, free will, control and the illusion of time" which explains much on these concepts.
Additional information is @ blog:happinessbeyondthought.blogspot.com website: happiness-beyond-thought.com book: Happiness Beyond Thought: A Practical Guide to Awakening. Downloadable @ http://preview.tinyurl.com/bslfll8 youTube: Gary Weber Nonduality FB
Interview @ Towards A Science of Consciousness conf @http://youtu.be/bEOujFKnHwc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqLDWyk1uLQ
This is the first part of a presentation at the Science and Non-Duality Conference in San Rafael, CA in October 2009. The second part is covered in the video "Intelligence Choice is Impossible"; the third and last part is covered in "You Are Not In Control".
There is a new video "Predestination, free will, control and the illusion of time" which explains much on these concepts.
Additional information is @ blog:happinessbeyondthought.blogspot.com website: happiness-beyond-thought.com book: Happiness Beyond Thought: A Practical Guide to Awakening. Downloadable @ http://preview.tinyurl.com/bslfll8 youTube: Gary Weber Nonduality FB
Interview @ Towards A Science of Consciousness conf @http://youtu.be/bEOujFKnHwc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqLDWyk1uLQ
All these identity
stuff can be found in my blog post
But
whatever humanity may do or come up with religion will continue to have its
sway because of various factors
I
would like people like you who are much read by public, I read all your books ,
attended a few of your lectures, must first be convinced and then convey that rationalism and atheism are also
very much part of human attempt to explore and understand life. They may sound
different, they may approach differently but nonetheless they do unravel much
more reasonable, more practically applicable, logically laudable and easily confirmable evidences rather than
mundane justification like status quo addicts or passive followers or people
who love to confirm to existing views with mere verbal and/or scriptural
references/ justifications.
I am
all the more appalled by these comments coming as they do just a day before
Swami Vivekannada’s birth anniversary who wanted that Man must learn to live with a religion which
commends itself to intellectual conscience and the spirit of rationality who also believed that
whatever we do must be justified and supported by reason. So I would like to
place on record some of his quotes here on this issue of rationality and reason
being given a priority in perceiving as well as practicing religion.
“There are four general types of men—the
rational, the emotional, the mystical, and the worker. For each of these we
must provide suitable forms of worship. There comes the rational man, who says,
"I care not for this form of worship. Give me the philosophical, the rational—that I can appreciate."
So for the rational man is the rational philosophic worship.”
“The scriptures of different religions point
out different means to attain the ideals of universal love, freedom, manliness,
and selfless benevolence. Every religious sect is generally at variance as to
its idea of what is virtue and what is vice, and fights with others over the
means of attaining virtue and eschewing vice, instead of aiming at realising
the end. Every means is helpful more or less, and the Gita (XVIII.48) says,
"Every undertaking is attended with defects as fire with smoke"; so
the means will no doubt appear more or less defective. But as we are to attain
the highest virtue through the means laid dozen in our respective scriptures,
we should try our best to follow them. Moreover, they should be tempered with reason and discrimination. Thus, as we
progress, the riddle of virtue and vice will be solved by itself.”
“Personally I take as much of the Vedas as
agrees with reason. Parts of the Vedas are apparently contradictory. They are
not considered as inspired in the Western sense of the word, but as the sum
total of the knowledge of God, omniscience. This knowledge comes out at the
beginning of a cycle and manifests itself; and when the cycle ends, it goes
down into minute form. When the cycle is projected again, that knowledge is
projected again with it. So far the theory is all right. But that only these
books which are called the Vedas are His knowledge is mere sophistry. Manu says in one place that that part of
the Vedas which agrees with reason is the Vedas and nothing else. Many of
our philosophers have taken this view.”
“When, by reasoning,
Truth is comprehended by the intellect, then it is realised in the heart, the
fountainhead of feeling. Thus the head and the heart become illumined at the
same moment; and then only, as says the Upanishad, "The knot of the heart
is rent asunder, and all doubts cease" (Mundaka Upanishad, II.ii.8).”
No single human being,
nation, system, organization, institution, religion, culture, social system of
governance is an island of inferiority or superiority. But each have a distinct
identity which is the manifestation of variety, a fact we all must accept and
appreciate. We must strive to strengthen
the interconnectedness and inter-relatedness to further the process of unity
leading to maximum security and happiness of the maximum number possible
involving prioritizing of people, environment and economic development.
It is indeed sad to see
people still fighting in the name of religion, ideologies, national boundaries
etc even in the 21st Century. When and how are we going to shape really global
peace and economic development if we allow these narrow walls to distance us?
National identities are
determined by the cultural and social bonds and the growth of civilization
which have established certain distinct features after several centuries of
churning by human beings involving several wars, cravings for utilization of
resources, accustoming to certain cultures etc and settled in certain real
estate places which have a distinct identity as a nation.
It is the responsibility of
every educated and enlightened human society to respect and ensure to protect
these national identities without engaging in destructive activities of either
open war or proxy war through sponsoring terrorists.
This becomes a greater
necessity in nations which are economically under developed or in the process
of development. So the persons in positions of governance in these types of
countries must work together to weed out narrow minded people and vested
interest groups unleashing violence on innocent citizens through terrorist
activities.
These are not vague
generalizations but statements valid for every context involving or concerned
with human life, environmental protection and economic development.