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Sunday, March 25, 2018

Life is all about synergy and synthesis


                           Life is all about synergy and synthesis

In the recent past I read two very interesting and thought provoking write ups from two great writers /critics of modern times.

Naturally both articles [links given at the end are interesting] at least triggered a thought process to explore the meaning or meaninglessness of life and many things.

When too may thoughts and ideas; too vast records of past experiences are around, it is a matter of ‘embarras de choix’. Then, the most preferable perspective may be to go in for synergy and synthesis because life’s multiple dimensions, dynamics are interlinked.

These two articles landed me in giving a long reply as follows:-

There may be some redundancies, rather reiterations to emphasis, because every moment of life is repeated, not necessary in a similar way, much less the same fashion.

Let me start with my favorite quotes which sets the tone and premise to proceed on the pilgrimage of perceptive perspectives.

“In the end nothing less than the whole of everything can be the truth of anything at all”- William James

“We live in a changing universe, and few things are changing faster than our conception of it”-Timothy Ferris

"Existence consists in the interplay of a plurality of elements whose true nature is indescribable and whose source is unknown. Combinations of these elements instantaneously flash into existence and instantaneously disappear, to be succeeded by new combinations of elements appearing in a strict causality." - Earle Ernst, The Kabuki Theatre 

As D.J.Mercier, the Archbishop of Malines has said even “Sound Philosophy sets out from analysis and terminates in synthesis”.

This applies more to philosophy of life.

First we all must at least accept one thing that LIFE is live and therefore constantly evolving and has to be experienced on the move.

It is neither a pass it on baton nor it has ‘pause button’.

Life is jigsaw puzzle with multiple pieces at our disposal but which are constantly moving with which we presume that we are supposed to figure out an unmapped atlas.

Therefore, obviously the task becomes too daunting.

So, we resort to conceptualize an atlas in a broad canvass and try to draw our own maps each according to one’s perspective, mostly determined by contexts, conveniences and concomitant relevance based on confirmation biases and belief systems.

Therefore, life has no panacea and as whole eludes any specific over simplistic prescriptions of ideology or ism purely because nothing is static about life.

To put it differently life is a constant churning process.

Wherein, we neither decide the cauldron or the ingredients; nor are we even sure of the size or material with which the kirn–staff or churning stick is made of.


However, human life  ( unlike other species whose reference manual of how to live is supposedly is possible only through inherited instincts and genetic memory) has an additional advantage of recorded retrievable knowledge bank of multiple experiences of life lived through different  periods of time in the past.

It is precisely for these reasons that we cannot deny or defy the importance of any incident, issue, information, idea, instant, individual, interlinked innumerable aspects of life’s journey as a whole.

The use of conscious awareness and reason enables and enhances the evaluation of multitude of options, rather than binding one with blinkers to view only at certain things from specific perspectives.

Every life primarily wants to survive and live physically and then explore multitude of options to live a life through and beyond the physical realms.

This process tries, toys with and uses various concepts, philosophical approaches and scientific knowledge and technological tools etc.

So, if we try to oversimplify life into any category or classification; through any ideological or identity based ghettoes ; attempting to suggest any homogenized prescriptions, then, in all these cases our understanding of  splendor of  life’s harmony and the harmony of living will both get distorted.


Meaning of Life is the result of churning of the outer world by the inner self or the way inner self relates with the outer world in all its multiple manifestations.

So, ‘meaning of life’ is neither predefined and nor, fortunately, patented and therefore cannot be prescribed as ‘such and such’ with a definite label.


It is so because life itself has too many facets and dimensions and perceived and lived differently by different species at different times and at various places.


Meaning of life cannot be defined away or described away by any conceptual definition or description however lofty and logical, and irrespective whichever source it emanates from.

Everything is part of life and not apart from life and therefore cannot be kept apart for a future date or an assumed future condition or fit into any particular concept.

Life mostly is lived and perceived in the Time and  ​Space conundrum but happens beyond these two.

That's why sometimes things happen in a jiffy when the human mind is not even given options of dealing with it in Time and Space, physical lives just end.

Therefore, in our attempt to understand and sometimes to exercise some control over life, we make many choices and decisions at every moment and they are ensued by concomitant actions and reactions based on them which we think are the best ways to deal with life.

The beauty of life consists in the unknowns and the unending searches and researches –the unending process of evolutionary trends in everything.

Growing up and growing out of certain things are natural process of evolutionary metamorphosis both biologically and psychologically.

Life is functionally a dynamic energy; visually a multi faceted splendor; in reality a marvelous mystery which unfolds itself through each and every one of us at every moment and so on. Therefore life cannot be either generalized in any manner or simplified into any predefined categories.


Life continues to evolve in its dynamic energy every moment and constantly throws up challenges in varying degrees and intensities, in different dimensions and at unexpected intervals.


In ThinkEdu16 conference in concluding session Sri Sri Ravishankar answered spontaneously very well to Vice Chancellor of a university in very simple terms how to avoid irrational depressions due to high expectations and corresponding disappointment.

He used just three very effective words. “He said you definitely need 'Passion' to perform effectively but 'Dispassion' to carry on with shortcomings and failures. He said when you succeed in Passion you enjoy, when you have this 'Dispassion' then you do not 'hate yourself' between these two if you have 'Compassion' then you do not hate or blame others. So, he said you need Passion, Dispassion and Compassion -all the three.”

There are lot of links and sub-links given below which will lead you through an unending journey of, hopefully, interesting reading.




















The concepts of MORALITY itself may be mostly contextual http://www.scribd.com/doc/101199648/Morality-is-Just-Contextual

The two articles that triggered the above write up are


Published on March 22nd



Published on March 20th



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