Searching for
is a never ending activity of life.
‘Neither our
Brain nor our Character is Cast in Stone’ so we all keep constantly searching
for …..
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
