No search can ever be divorced from our narrow walls of perception. It could be to go beyond that or confirm that and consciously try with the help of perception to search for something that can/may enlighten us or take us to a new realm of joy or happiness that may put a stop to our mortal cravings or revelation of some stark reality that can open our conscious awareness to a different facet of life.
The search could also be to find solution for many things that we are not satisfied with and we want to change.
So in a way every search is motivated by our craving for something else, a wished for change and mostly emanates from our perception of existing state to migrate to experience another state of life and living.
Do our perceptions and/or thoughts, feelings, knowledge etc influence our experience or our experiences influence our perceptions and/or thoughts, feelings, knowledge etc?
If we know already why must we search for it at all? “Why search anymore? The whole universe has come together to make your existence possible. There is nothing that is not you. The kingdom of God, the Pure land, nirvana, happiness and liberation are all you”, Thich Nhat Hanh
On the contrary how can we search for something that we do not know anything about, just because someone says that you must search for it, try to experience it, try to realize it etc? So we embark on a journey full of doubts, vagueness, fuzziness etc.
“The search ends with the realization that there is no such thing as enlightenment. By searching, you want to be free from the Self, but whatever you are doing to free yourself from the Self is the Self”, U.G.Krishnamurthy.
Search for Reality need not proceed from any presumptive goal then it ceases to be search, it is merely an attempt to achieve a goal. The very adventure is the uncertainty and vagueness. But at the same time because of this inevitable contradiction, on may wonder, then, why any search at all? Of course, there are motivations and that is at least attempting to try to dispel our lingering doubts and longing to know the permanent and look out for possibilities to seek security for at least our temporal life.
Therefore, we are not necessarily seeking any enlightenment, or any vision of either any God or any favors from any God. Who knows serendipity has secrets up her sleeve that she may startle us with sweet surprises. The famous Sufi saying,” I searched for God and found only myself. I searched for myself and found only God”.
Or as ‘Sailor’ Bob Adamson says, “The reflection is not in the mirror but of the mirror”.
So, nothing is needed to prevent us from the journey of searches but the vehicles used are
I would like the search also to be more exploratory, not dogmatic, open-minded, deeply passionate, and perceptive to the appeals of rationalization, but, in due course, also acknowledge without prejudice and becoming sensitive to the deeper stirrings and movements that are beyond and beneath rationalization.
More or newer doubts popping up due to the constant curiosity etc as William Lyon Phelps puts it, “One of our secrets of life is to keep our intellectual curiosity acute”. “Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing.”-Thomas H. Huxley
All these not necessarily following any particular sequence but at random because we don’t have either a map and therefore no GPRS and all the routes around seem to have everything:- beauty, blessings, bumps, boisterousness, barricades, beasts, boons etc with lots of twists and turns with only constant factor being change.
All these probably chosen as preferable options going by observations like this one by H.P. Lovecraft, in The Call of Cthulhu “The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”
By’ “Every adaptive system has what can be called a perception apparatus and information processing structures and so forth. Science is part of the perception/thinking of social systems. All perception has its “blind spot”. Perception is ignorant of everything except for a tiny slice that it evolved to select and focus attention on. Thinking is there to interpret in a certain evolved way. Humans, being parts as well as environment of social systems, cannot grasp the perceived world of social systems, let alone map out their blind spots. Scientists are especially suspect when it comes to judging the blind spots of science.”
“I presume it is the same with many people who sincerely seek intrinsically valuable answers to many aspects of life, nothing kicks off without doubts, questions, arguments, contradictions, confusing contemplations etc. Invariably when we doubt, we enter into real search and enquiry. When in doubt, of course, nowadays we resort to google which throws up lots of material good, bad, ugly, authentic and unauthenticated etc. When we seek answers and solutions to many of our intellectually and emotionally incomprehensible and unjustifiable happenings and events surprisingly we somehow get lots of answers from multiple sources. Only thing is we must frankly ask all sorts of questions and fearlessly put forth our doubts. Fear masquerading as hesitation can and does play havoc in many things
The scope of our view, purview, perception, concern etc are determined by various factors and aspects like our unbiased observations [if at all that is possible], frames of reference, tools of perception, focus of attention, fathom of intentions, intensity of involvement and interest, sensibility and sensitivity of our selections, clarity and conviction of our choices.
Intellectual perceptions tended to become barriers but I have enjoyed and accept happily and humbly, as even the great Poet Shakespeare once said “I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people”.
On a social level we search for these
Sometimes we goof up our searches through our predetermined or preconditioned belief systems through which tend to justify everything rather than merely observe them as they are and deal with them either by accepting, appreciating and adopting or rejecting.
I have a written a lot about searching for in my blog post given below and most of what I have indicated have been taken out from that
No comments:
Post a Comment