Memory

Memory, like excessive affection, is a double edged sword.

It can be a cure as well as a curse.

Memory can supply sweet solace or suck us into sadness and sorrowful moments or crowd us with excess of garbage.

Life is in our mind space.

Our main choices and decisions must be on what we need to prioritize to occupy that space.

Of course, while doing so, we need to factor in certain basic values and consciously chosen individual as well as social responsibilities without sacrificing compassion and gratitude for the sake of gratification of any kind.

If we are able to keep these in balance when we relate with others or things then we may not even require most of much hyped, contextually irrelevant and outdated  socio-religious morals based on ideologies, doctrines and even scriptures.

Affinity and identity

Everyone gets hooked on to SOMETHING that binds them through generations of active involvement ingrained in their genes or something internalized through:- imitation or interest or impulse or intellectual analysis or instantaneous emotional appeal or that creates some innate connection etc.

That SOMETHING could be any sort of affinity for or fervent and fond fixation avidly pursued which may lead to some identity.

That SOMETHING could be some art, belief, culture, cult, doctrine, dogma, faith, idea, personality, religion, political ideology, sports, music, science, technology, thirst for knowledge, keenness to understand life in depth through some search, helping others in multiple ways, making money, accumulating wealth, involvement in a profession or job, devotion, love of one's family or one's nation etc.

Therefore, everyone is at liberty to choose and claim affinity for any one or some of these SOMETHINGS.

So, those who find fault with a national identity manifesting as nationalism, would they be willing to give up their affinity for money, family, profession or their religious beliefs and practices.

However, the manifestation of one's fond affinity must not generate hate towards that of another or injure others or cause damage to the environment.

So, the ways of expressing or exhibiting one's fondness for a particular SOMETHING must not be too violent or exhibit any extremism.

Fanaticism and Nationalism

Fanaticism and Nationalism

Fanatics cannot fight a foreign funded fool.

He has been made to know what he is doing.

Being foreign funded fool with an idiotic and skewed mentality to extrapolate everything to some predetermined ideology he knows only to carry on doing what he does.

Fanatics carry their liking to lunatic levels in any field and exhibit hatred through hyper hysterical reactions.

In some cases, actually ignoring or being indifferent can yield better results.

The  ideology which secretes such chaps petrifies sense by freezing the perception into rock solid fixation; putrefies everything through their perspective and pollutes everything through a puerile extrapolation of the ideology that excreted them on everything from physical to psychological to cultural contexts.

Only thing that this ideology secretion industry has not secreted is anatomy specialists.

Otherwise, such an anatomist would in his  hyped sense of concern for equality may say ( either for or without Magsaysay award), 'why only cover vital organs- aren't then eyes, nose , mouth etc vital. If so cover everything and suffocate or leave everything naked'.

Nationhood is a creation for facilitating cohabitation based on  shared identity -oriented unification with common and collective aspirations and not mere imagination.

Countries are geographical classifications with real estate boundaries but nationhood is a common identity.

Whether all these are necessary or correct or justifiable are all debatable.

But to resort to over philosophizing with over generalization and over simplification is merely idealistic and doing it selectively only to nationalism is hypocritical.

How do we talk to ourselves when no one is listening?

Slowly and surely emerging inevitable trends and terms of life may have to necessarily become comprehensive and more inclusive.

Besides, certain aspects of all the following domains economics, religions, castes, races , politics may be required to either totally shed or reduce the degree of intensity with which those aspects are insisted upon or enforced.

This is required as an inevitable process of sophistication or progressive civilization enabling happy and peaceful cohabitation of human beings and other species.

  How do we talk to ourselves when no one is listening? 

Are our words kind, patient, compassionate and accepting? 

If this is not how we speak to our self,  we are doing a disservice. 

Remember the loudest and most important voice is our own: it is the closest to our ear emerging from the pectoral palace [heart] . 

Let us pay attention to our whispers; they will manifest in our life. Become our biggest cheerleader or catalytic agent or catastrophic chemical.

Whether we call it inner voice or manifestation of  internalized responses to life outside based on our own acquired and assiduously developed WRAP.

Ways of 

Relating with things and persons based on our 

Attitudes and

Perspectives

This is precisely the reason why we must carefully cultivate our attitudes and perspectives  purely based on rationalism and humanitarianism because the aspects of life that we can tune in and control are only through them, even our emotions are vulnerable.

All other faculties like ability to tune in with intuition, esoteric and spiritual dimensions seem fuzzy and/ or imaginary purely because they are beyond the realm of most of our common modes of perception;  Besides they elude radar of universally comprehensible mode of communication.

Probably some of us either knowingly or unknowingly may be graced with such faculties which are a great boon or bonus, albeit not accepted and much less understood by others.

Those  who have such advanced faculties have another difficulty that they cannot easily convey or communicate their unique or not- so- common- faculty- based perceptions through existing methods of communication that the human brain can process.

This is the case  even with some emotions wherein we fail to tune in to the relevant or correct frequencies and contexts hence end up failing to understand others' feelings and end up with lack of compatibility.

These are labeled in various ways like the vociferous minority and the voiceless majority bla bla. 

"There are two kinds of people who monopolize conversation: those who like the sound of their own voice and those who don't know how their voice sounds like"-G.K.Chesterton

With all due respects to great authors like G.K.C again their pun, pessimism, perspective, perception, prescription are all addressed to externalities like conversation and communication which are mere manifestation of comprehension.

Whereas, the compatibility that we need must be preferably based on such a comprehension without even a necessity of any communication.

This is called as communion in certain domains considered as lofty and at mundane life as compatibility or understanding. 

It is like when a baby is either whimpering in a muted tone or crying loud we must attend to it to know what the discomfort or demand or protest that the baby wants to convey.

Biographies and travelogues.

                Biographies and travelogues.

Beethoven was a phenomenon as I came to know only through Sullivan's biography of him.

So were Saint Purandara dasa and Saint Thyagaraja.

It is unfortunate that  Indians have not bothered to respect , to relate with and relish properly the great souls.

Navin Sullivan has written, because of his understanding, an excellent biography of ‘Beethovan'- a great genius.

This was not only an eye opener for me to understand better Beethovan but also to approach biographies better.

This motivated me to try my hand at small biographical sketches of great souls.

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.com/2015/10/art-of-biography-writing.html?m=0

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.com/2012/11/saint-tyagaraja-spiritual-journey-of.html?m=0

I have read some excellent biographies and travelogues.

They have enabled me to relate better in people and places.

Calm observation

                             Calm observation

We all need at least once a day ( preferably in the early morning before our routines and reminders occupy our mind space) a calm observation of our consciousness and a conscious observation of our inner self to freely flow into the ocean of unbiased attention.

Then, gradually we must practice to fine tune our internal PA ( Perspective and Attitude) and encounter with conscious awareness the external world with an intention to create a synergy among various frequencies and vibrations to generate a vibration of harmony.

This  process must be carried out with total intensity and intense totality ( durations and narrations do not matter much then).

We may call it meditation, prayer, or self appraisal or attempt to understand our significant contribution for the day or we may call it by whatever terminology that appeal to us.

But one thing is clear that this activity refreshes us psychologically.

All may not have the luxury of relaxing in calmness in the morning.

It does not matter when we slip into that calmness, but it is preferable that we do so any time of the day at least for a brief duration.

I wrote an article for World Peace Foundation in Australia some 12 years back which got published in some journals and they also gave me some certificates etc and asked me to verbally and visually present it in a single slide for pre college students and they followed it by asking me to write about unity.

Then I put forth the practical hurdles involved in creating unity and the myriad manifestations and inherent hindrances or factors which prevent a conducive atmosphere for unity, harmony and peace.