Observer of human nature

 'Observer of human nature'. 

Quoting either the scriptures or literary pieces are useful tools but they too like slogans can block real curiosity, unbiased observation ( observation is influenced by frames of references and biases), lesser scope to accept or to understand issues, leave alone offering remedies. 

So, most observers are a bundle of biases.

' Human nature' - is it biological nature or social behaviour?

The term nature itself, is loosely used figuratively.  

Philosophy, doesn't make tall claims. Scientists and science too do not make tall claims or finality of anything.

The problem is people who confuse ideology for philosophy and religious scriptural observations to be ultimate truths and weave their world of reality and use that as a yard stick for wisdom.

Worse, still spill all over terminologies that have, somehow, got an aura around them.

Often, these appropriators of 'philosophical and religious wisdom' are prone to view everything in binaries like evil and good, good and bad, right and wrong etc. 

This has prevented humanity from both observing and/or appreciating and accepting the multitude of things that may and perhaps really do exist between, beyond and besides these binaries. 

Philosophy, as a subject , by itself is supposed to be one of the excellent subject that enabled and enables societies to observe , to analyse and to understand things beyond the clutches of religions, traditions and social pressures inflicted by them.

All great philosophers and top scientists without hypocrisies have admitted the limitations of their stream of study. 

wisdom manifested certain inevitable realities of human life's attitudes and perspectives

 Lucretius and Marcus Aurelius,

 

During my PUC I bought his book Meditations for just Rs2/- at old Moor Market.

But scholars like Marcus Aurelius, Lucretius , George Orwell, Voltaire, Lewis Carroll, William James, Richard Feyman, Bertrand Russell, J.K, Sri Aurobindo, Tagore, Victor Hugo, Mahakavi Bharathiyar, Vyasar ( of Mahabharatham) are relished more when we are able to connect to contexts at different times and different milieus because their wisdom manifested certain inevitable realities of human life's attitudes and perspectives irrespective of humanity's much acclaimed march of its civilization, sophistication and modernisation with all their concomitant developments and benefits.

That's why one can reread them many times and still get to learn something new every time one reads. 

Social Media Knowledge and understanding

Of late there has been lot of debates about lack of understanding and more knowledge in the social media.

It is good and incidentally several years back Aldous Huxley wrote a wonderful but long essay on this topic ‘Knowledge and Understanding’ and surprisingly one may find a  pdf of half the essay in Sri Ramankrishna Mission site.

Coming back to the subject.

It has become normal to confuse information for knowledge;

Knowledge for experience and thought;

Ideas formulated based on these for wisdom;

The problem is as these may inadvertently lead to an arrogance which may create unassailable prejudice, petrified presumption and start projecting what we know or think we know or presume as some great piece of tool to decipher the puzzle of life as panacea.

The most important facts of humility are that our perception or understanding based on whatever  may be the source of knowledge is defective or at least not totally prefect and therefore there is nothing that can be construed as a panacea in this world.

Education is the enlightened awareness and acceptance of facts of inevitable evolution of everything and experiencing life as a flow of all or some them as they emerge through the churning process of life where they express the multiple dimensions of everything and the various dynamics of each dimension emanating from inherent attributes as well as a reaction to external impacts.

Life is an unmapped atlas where we are not even sure whether all pieces of the jigsaw puzzles are there to create a shape.

Lot depends on proceeding on unbiased observations beyond or besides or if necessary even without existing loads of knowledge because the existing bunch of knowledge could also act as a conditioning factor if we are not alert and totally divert our understanding of anyone or anything.

Besides all these there are also factors like our attitudes towards multiple interpretations, ideological identity based inhibitions to accept certain things, attitudes and overall perspective towards what we encounter etc.

That is why it becomes a necessity to not to take on extreme positions in anything and instead maintain a balanced view.

Extreme positions can blur the view from seeing the multiple possibilities that may exist everywhere.

Phenella writes in “The Unwritten Comedy”.
“To be ignorant of many things is expected
To know you are ignorant of many things is the beginning of wisdom.
To know a category of things of which you are ignorant is the beginning of learning.
To know the details of that category of things of which you are ignorant is to no longer be ignorant.”

“Everything changes as you move through three stages of awareness:
first, that beliefs are the result of conditions;
second, that beliefs are the cause of conditions;
and third, that beliefs are themselves conditions.”
― Eric Micha'el Leventhal

 “All of us have our own inner fears, beliefs, opinions. These inner assumptions rule and govern our lives. A suggestion has no power in and of itself. Its power arises from the fact that you accept it mentally.”
― Joseph Murphy, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind

We, most of us, swing as a pendulum between excuses and justifications with a keenness to convince others and end up coming with answers like these: - A tourist guide who, when once, a lady asked him “How a row of fine rock formation were piled up”, said “they have been piled up here by the glaciers”. When she anxiously asked him “Where are the glaciers?” he replied “Madam, they have gone back to get some more rocks”. Such replies are often the result of ignorance, half-knowledge or impatience or all of these.

The problem with human beings unlike other species is that we are consciously aware and we can also collect, store and retrieve data and reuse them. This faculty along with our intellectual thinking and reasoning powers hamper us from having humility to accept the mere fact that there are many unknown as well as unknowable elements to life as a whole and even in our individual lives.

We either act or react according to what we want, what we can and what we are destined to. At different times either one of these three predominates i.e. what we want, we can we are destined to do.

Knowledge, Information, Thoughts, Ideas and Teachings are ingredients,  

Understanding is making them into a tasty cooked food,

Grasping and Interpretations are the utensils used for cooking,  

Learning is the process of cooking a tasty, easily digestible, nutritious food.

Validation and Wisdom

Can we have validation beyond and besides Oriental, Occidental, incidental or accidental values? Can such a validation lead to real wisdom? And what is wisdom?

Every word, every language, every ism, every idea , every validation has gone through a sea change and the only thing we can see is 'change'.

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

Any method of validation must be geared towards a world which offers peace and a conducive atmosphere for unity based on real understanding of the need for cohabitation on this planet of all species and elements of nature.

So, any validation must be fundamentally humanitarian in principle [ so that humane values are prioritized over any ideology or regional or tradition or trend based moralistic strictures], environment friendly in approach  [ for the sake of leaving a livable planet for posterity] and global in perspective [ for the sake of universal applicability wherever or whoever wants to adopt it].

My intention is not to sound over philosophical and dampen any sincere and scholarly attempt by anyone but it is only to ensure that one set of validation to replace another set of validation may not serve any purpose in the long run as it may even inadvertently  generating competitive merits and demerits debates and claims of  complexes etc.

So, any  validation which attempts to attract a greater number of  people , especially youth must factor in many aspects, some of which have been indicated below.

Though , at the outset, we all must accept that there cannot be a please all and fix all [problems ] validation.

In short there is no panacea for all human problems.

Still, it is worth evolving synergetic proposals when we think of validation keeping intact the sensitivities, acceptability  adoptability and the happiness of  as many as possible.

Let us journey through the many aspects to be factored in  and also see why it is necessary to take such a journey?

No event in history in any part of the world, no issue in any socio-political system, no invention in any branch of science, no idea in any philosophical system, no scripture in any religion, no art or literature depicting any cultural or regional traditional flavors, no economic activity impacting human life , no study of  human emotional or psychological  reactions, no geological or ecological changes have happened without some purpose and therefore, it would be wrong to study or evaluate any of them without or out of  context.

Everything, everyone in every domain have  contributed through evolutionary process to the present state of  life as it is.

Therefore, it is no wonder that  from time immemorial these domains namely religions, science, social systems, arts, literature, history, trade [economics],human psychology, geological wealth etc have dominated the arena of discourse and developed technologies too to suit or make optimum utilization of these aspects of human life and mathematics  chipped in to help us decipher the patterns and also project the probable growth trajectory of all these activities.

In a way, most of these domains indicated above form part of every life to some extent ,of course,  with different manifestations and varying degrees of intensities and relative importance, but, all of them are in some way interconnected, interdependent and are interrelated.

Therefore, any meaningful system of validation cannot  sustain if it fails to factor in at least a superficial macro perspective of  all the above vital aspects.

My oft repeated favorite quotes ;-

"The spirit of Advaita is not to keep away from anything, but to keep in tune with everything." -  Swami Chinmayananda

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

So, it goes without saying that no specific/particular  approach of  validation can claim greater or superior standing if it restricts itself  to any exclusive ideological identity [however lofty , good and great it may be ] or any constraining cocoon of  confirmation bias based regional, religious or national fervent doctrinal designs.  

After all, we all PICK what we want, what we can and what we are destined to.

We need  a sound  PHILOSOPHICAL approach which creates  synergy  than  seclusion be it termed as Oriental, Occidental, or incidental or accidental .

We can have any categorization and classification for intellectual and academic reference but human life requires a validation that may have wind through all of them and  transcend all that .

We PICK any or every word in any language to define what we perceive, want to project or promote or protect.

Words and languages are some of the tools and techniques used as the frames of references to record and communicate what we manage to understand to posterity.

PICK refers to

Perspectives,

Interpretations,

Contexts and connotations,

Kindles in us-what a word kindles in us.

Everything has its relevance and appeal to different souls at various levels.

That's why we cannot deny or defy the importance of anything or anyone.

No over simplifications or sweeping generalizations.

This has produced statements and literatures like religion without god, philosophy without religion, spirituality without philosophy, two days back TOI central page article God the real liability for spirituality.

Everyone of these statements or articles or books may make good sense too, but then, intellectualization of ( intellectual approach) of everything may not be grasped by everyone and that may be a crude way to exclude some souls from the ambit of enjoying certain aspects of life.

There are many things which may elude any human intellectual approach but may reveal the splendor of life in all its dimensions and dynamics.

 Besides PHILOSOPHY in brief may be defined as below

Provides prompts and perspectives to perceive life ;

Helps understand hidden aspects of life ;

Interprets intrinsic values, inner meanings and inquires into everything;

Lays out ideas to decipher life’s meanings ;

Offers operation manual for many options for open minded people;

Synergizes scientific methods and sensitivities;

Optimizes our sense of interrelatedness and interdependence;

Promotes broader perceptions beyond parochial frames of reference;

Hitches our life beyond many types of identity cages;

Yokes together our passion and compassion to observe dispassionately,

                                                  and to probe into many things in depth.

Every identity that is dear to those who live it and love it and generates lot of  pride and passion that produce great outputs in many fields.

However, such identity must not act as a protective shield to seclude one from appreciating, accepting and assimilating other identities.

  

 “Evolution itself is an open ended and indeterminate process”… “Given the remarkable progress in our understanding of biochemistry, molecular biology, and evolution as a whole … we have failed to develop concepts, ideas, even a language that could capture the dance of this life” - Guy Murchie

We may extrapolate to many other domains the following statement that is made in the context of why human beings give importance to religion.

“Humans have a need for a stable frame of reference. Religion apparently fills this need. In effect, humans crave answers to questions that no other source of knowledge has an answer to, which only religion may seem to answer. However, a sense of free will must be given in order for religion to appear healthy. An authoritarian notion of religion appears detrimental.”- Erich Fromm,

While the music of life produces melodies out of what one likes and loves; the harmony of  living requires many such different melodies.

Real values of life must value life in its totality devoid of any extraneous identity is that possible?

Each life i.e. my life, your life and the lives of all great saints are really speaking very insignificant transient events of a few years-mostly less than 100 in flesh and blood with conscious awareness- compared to LIFE as a whole which has happened some four million years before and may continue for another few millions years hence in various forms, shapes in multiple species expressing its own attributes some of which we have understood, some we are not even aware of.

In fact the whole of Bhagawad Gita, one of the reasons why it became more popular among the 28 Gitas, is that all its 700 stanzas are sand- witched between two words the starting word 'Dharma' and the last word ‘Mama’.

It must be actually read as ‘Mama Dharma’= my dharma- does not mean either Krishna’s or Arjuna’s Dharma, rather  when everyone reads it becomes ‘his Dhrama’ and all these 700 verses [ subjected to all sorts of excellent, enlightening as well as, often used as tool to justifying traditional practices, explanations by many] primarily are about attitudes to be adopted, actions to be executed and reactions to show at different situations taking into consideration the overall welfare of all [humanism].

This manual is more about balancing the intellect and emotions and most importantly through both emotions and intellect, or to be precise in short it talks about the dynamics of synthesis of human nature and nature of Truth [ define as you may- it is the inevitable and intellectual perception and sometimes all logic eluding factor].

Life is all about movements, actions and reactions which broadly could be defined as i.e. Karma but then the Laws [Dharma ] of motions [Karma] of life are very important and therefore prioritized.

But real universal wisdom in my humble opinion may be like this whether sanctioned or sanctified by either social mores or religious morality.

Wisdom is the work shop where works of evolutionary trends and experiences of everyone in it emerge to express wisely the essence of everything to enlighten everyone;

A wisdom which prioritizes living in the present context and along with practicing certain time tested values which have relevance in present context but with global perspective to bequeath a liveable planet, a lovable society with lovely infrastructures and improved living conditions;

A wisdom that evaluates everything and everyone with contextual relevance and based on the inherent attributes or merits of what or who is being evaluated without extrapolating any  presumptions, opinions, judgments, perceptions, expectations, ideologies, doctrines, identity based ideology and so on;

A wisdom which is willing to make minor adjustments, small compromises, spontaneous cooperation to create compatible and conducive atmosphere with humility devoid of any egocentric pride;

A wisdom with the realization and a perspective that must be aware that life is a constant process of learning of the multiple dimensions of many things and the various dynamics of those dimensions involving the constant interaction and interrelationship with everyone and everything.

A wisdom that is willing to accommodate multiple methods or means of life with some overall tolerant attitude embedded on humanitarian concerns towards all human life and environmental or natural concern towards all other species.

A wisdom that gets its clarity of understanding through a churning process that takes into consideration several aspects from the practical to the philosophical to the all fantasies of the mind.

Global Leadership

                                         Global Leadership

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/08/global-governance-is-good-idea-but.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2017/01/synergy-to-become-global-citizen-and.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/01/global-citizen-and-worldology-what-are.html

Humility, tolerance, humanitarianism and wisdom

Humility, tolerance, humanitarianism and wisdom

Here in India more frequently we indulge, interfere or are indifferent rather than involving with humanitarian concerns.

We suffer from two extremes of unloving criticism and uncritical love.

Greater than anything else is the attitude of humility, tolerance and real wisdom evolving from them.

We need to evolve many behavior patterns to make life better on planet Earth [ which itself is a wrong word used for something which has more than 70 per cent water] which  has unfortunately been divided by the atlas of national boundaries and spoiled by excessive dominance of human species.

However, evolution fortunately has ensured in all spheres and in all its manifestations that variety has been held in tact which human beings unfortunately have misunderstood as differences.

No one is either big or pig. All are morsels of biochemical organism infused with energy and interrelated in many ways than individual human brains can understand or have bothered to understand.

Love for any language, art, culture, tradition, religion etc need not necessarily lead to either identity veneration or vilification.

It is not what language we speak, what tradition we follow, what culture we love that matter.

What ultimately matters is how we treat others? How we treat other species? How compassionate are we? How humanitarian are we?  

But I feel while everyone has every right to feel euphoric about something close to their emotions, heart and mind it also must ensure to imbibe a spontaneous or subconscious or studiously developed sense of humility and tolerance towards others and what others are trying to say and wanting to say with all sense of humor and subtle sarcasm.

These alone can bring many of us out of both egocentric and ethnocentric whirlpools of self deceptions and complexes [either superior or inferior]

There could be multiple versions of wisdom in various forms imparted through myriad scriptures and religious practices.

But real universal wisdom in my humble opinion may be like this whether sanctioned or sanctified by either social mores or religious morality.

Wisdom is the work shop where works of evolutionary trends and experiences of everyone in it emerge to express wisely the essence of everything to enlighten everyone;

A wisdom which prioritizes living in the present context and along with practicing certain time tested values which have relevance in present context but with global perspective to bequeath a livable planet, a lovable society with lovely infrastructures and improved living conditions;

A wisdom that evaluates everything and everyone with contextual relevance and based on the inherent attributes or merits of what or who is being evaluated without extrapolating any  presumptions, opinions, judgments, perceptions, expectations, ideologies, doctrines, identity based ideology and so on;

A wisdom which is willing to make minor adjustments, small compromises, spontaneous cooperation to create compatible and conducive atmosphere with humility devoid of any egocentric pride;

A wisdom with the realization and a perspective that must be aware that life is a constant process of learning of the multiple dimensions of many things and the various dynamics of those dimensions involving the constant interaction and interrelationship with everyone and everything.

A wisdom that is willing to accommodate multiple methods or means of life with some overall tolerant attitude embedded on humanitarian concerns towards all human life and environmental or natural concern towards all other species.

A wisdom that gets its clarity of understanding through a churning process that takes into consideration several aspects from the practical to the philosophical to the all fantasies of the mind.

Schooling for mass literacy has its short comings but are there many easily adaptable alternatives out there ?

Very interesting, important and impactful speech but……then ….

I got it last week itself through the link given below.

https://www.scoopwhoop.com/Rapper-sues-education-system-in-powerful-video/#.fpwan2plp

Everyone cannot but agree with this person on many issues but….

Subject of speech: - Homogenized and uniform literacy.

I have already seen this and as you rightly said excellent and I rate it as among the many speeches which have had a great impact on the listener that they force the listener to think.

In fact when I listened to it the first time it took me back to the movie ‘ And Justice for All’ wherein Al Pacino used to argue his case and come out and sit on the stairs of the court or the wonderful arguments of  Howard Roark or the great talks of Osho and JK.

I am using all these for the impact that they have on the listener.

Of course, there are innumerable examples in the plays of Shakespeare, Kalidasa and many epics across several languages which got men to think of multiple possibilities and many logical approaches and evolve many systems and methods to lead a life.

In this particular subject I have also read some 26 years back De–schooling society by Ivan Illich and such similar stuff.

Having said all these, mass literacy, like democracy or anti-biotic, is accepted for want of a better alternative and sometimes we adopt it in totality as if it is the only method or succumb to it and unfortunately it also becomes  inevitable in certain circumstances.

However, within it or along with it or beyond it we can always play around.

Until and unless we have better alternatives or keep trying for better alternatives or at least allow space to think of better alternatives and also ensure to make the vested interest groups involved in promoting certain methods  all great thoughts, ideas and speeches will remain as unfertilized potential eggs pandering to  few moments of sensational titillation.

This also , invariably happens because of our utter disgust with existing systems we tend to oversimplify or over generalize extremely complicated and complex issues which as bad or little less  as those who have been trying to homogenize human beings, especially their psychological aspirations, feelings and creativity .

All these emanate as a result of a fundamentally wrong perspective based on bias towards homogenization and uniformity.

You may if you have time and want in detail links 1,2,3,4 given at the end on literacy, education, homogenization and the presumptions of success.

We need to carefully tread on issues where the speeches tend to be too judgmental, even if well meaning because their impact is so heavy that anyone can fall for them and that is what they are meant to be.

It is perfectly alright and nothing wrong but they may not be the ultimate solution especially without clear cut, easily adaptable alternatives.

Because such speeches are meant to be taken seriously as those who are making them are doing it out of total sincerity.

This is what I have learned while reading modern judgments, I mean the legal ones.

On Judgments:-

I have read many historic judgments (including some from the international court of justice as they used to get published in the 90s in some British magazines and many magazines which were using some of those judgments as tools to justify certain events and happenings).

Some excellent verdicts which I used to categorize and read based on clever interpretation of legality of the land; mastery of verbal articulation involving both logic and the 42 major logical fallacies; verdicts which showed the intellectual sharpness as well as concern for the principle of humanitarianism based on the philosophy of optimum benefit to the maximum number without hurting the feeling of many.

On articulation:-

Articulation is both an art and science but must not be mistaken as a mere mastery of words or linguistics skills.

Its greatness is its ability to deliver effective communication for various occasions and on several topics.

It is because articulation I believe is the flow of thoughts and ideas that use the wings of expressions to weave appropriate and appealing patterns.

That's why all great leaders, especially political and religious ones are very articulate and they do not exercise any restraint unless for diplomatic wheedling.

Articulation with appropriate definition and adequate elaboration brings out multiple nuances and niceties like canine senses of smell and which are all cleverly and pleasantly ensconced in the colorful expressions with a beauty like the multiple shades of pavonine splendor.

All said and done everything evolves and we must evolve along with active participation and involvement of wisdom, by wisdom I always mean these.

On Wisdom:-

Wisdom is the work shop where works of evolutionary trends and experiences of everyone in it emerge to express wisely the essence of everything to enlighten everyone;

A wisdom which prioritizes living in the present context and along with practicing certain time tested values which have relevance in present context but with global perspective to bequeath a livable planet, a lovable society with lovely infrastructures and improved living conditions;

A wisdom that evaluates everything and everyone with contextual relevance and based on the inherent attributes or merits of what or who is being evaluated without extrapolating any  presumptions, opinions, judgments, perceptions, expectations, ideologies, doctrines, identity based ideology and so on;

A wisdom which is willing to make minor adjustments, small compromises, spontaneous cooperation to create compatible and conducive atmosphere with humility devoid of any egocentric pride;

A wisdom with the realization and a perspective that must be aware that life is a constant process of learning of the multiple dimensions of many things and the various dynamics of those dimensions involving the constant interaction and interrelationship with everyone and everything.

A wisdom that is willing to accommodate multiple methods or means of life with some overall tolerant attitude embedded on humanitarian concerns towards all human life and environmental or natural concern towards all other species.

A wisdom that gets its clarity of understanding through a churning process that takes into consideration several aspects from the practical to the philosophical to the all fantasies of the mind.

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/05/literacy.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/09/education.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/09/success-and-happiness.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/10/uniformity-homogenization-and-panacea.html

These could .....