Understanding Ego

 

I wish to summarize my understanding of “sorrow” based on a talk given by Swami Sarvapriyananda ji.

Causes of Sorrow

The cause of sorrow can be traced to three levels: physical, mental, and ego.

Physical: There are 3 sources from where sorrow at physical level may be caused:

Nature: Examples: extreme weather (heat/cold/dust/rain/snow); extreme events (earthquakes/tsunami/epidemics/storms/thunder & lightning).

Other Beings/things: Examples: People assaulting, abusing, insulting, deceiving, OR Stock market crash, insects/animal attack, property loss.

Within own body: Examples: sickness, accidents, ageing.

Mental: Any sorrow is experienced in the mind alone. Therefore, a thought of suffering or pain must arise in the mind for experiencing the sorrow. Under the effect of anesthesia or coma, no sorrow is experienced because the mind doesn’t receive any signal to trigger the thought of pain or suffering. If someone abuses you in a language that you don’t know, no thought of hurt will arise in the mind.

Ego: At the deepest level, we experience sorrow only when we identify with the thought of pain or suffering in the mind. Although it is my mind that experiences pain, my ego identifying with my mind tends to say “I am in pain”.

In conclusion, anything happening in the outside world or even in my own body must give rise to a thought of uneasiness or anxiety in the mind, and I must identify myself with this thought to become sorrowful. In reality, I can’t be what I experience. I am witness of an experience in my mind. No one can make me unhappy without my permission.

What is Sorrow?

Sorrow can be defined as:

Sorrow is modification in nature: Nature is made up of Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas which are constantly in dynamic motion. Predominance of Rajas is designed to give both pleasure and pain. Thus sorrow is an inherent aspect of nature.

Sorrow is appearance in Brahman (Maya): In dream we experience sorrow. While in the dream-world the sorrow is real but on waking up we dismiss it as an illusionary appearance in the mind. Similarly, when one transcends the waking-world it is realized that whatever is experienced in the waking also is an appearance in the Consciousness. You appear to yourself as sorrow.

Sorrow is Brahman: Everything in the universe is nothing apart from Brahman. Brahman or God manifests in a variety of ways, including sorrow.

Ways to overcome Sorrow (Spiritual Practices)

Devotee: Sorrow is grace of God. It brings me closer to God (Kunti asking Krisna for the boon of sorrow).

Karma yogi: Sorrow is erasing my bad karma of the past. I am becoming free of my bad karma.

Yogi: Shuts down (transcends) the mind and senses through meditation.

Gyani: It is an offence to complain about sorrow if I have realized the truth. If Brahman alone is, where is any place for sorrow?

Everyone can be a Hero

I wish to share my reflections and the essence of a beautiful talk I recently watched.

Through long research in the field of Psychology based on a 1949 published book “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” by Joseph Campbell, researchers have concluded that there are seven elements of a Hero. These seven elements are briefly described below:

1.     Protagonist

You are the protagonist of your own life story. It is up to you how you write it. What you identify with as your main identity will influence all the other elements. Don’t confuse your identity with your ever-changing roles. Your identity is you – never changing. How about being a ‘seeker of truth’?

2.     Shift in Circumstances

You should move out of your comfort zone and be open to changes in circumstances. Life will test you by putting you in different circumstances as soon as you feel comfortable in a situation. You should embrace the change without resistance, as it will open the door to new possibilities.

3.     Quest

Your identity will drive your quest or purpose in life. Try to make your quest beyond your selfish interests. The higher the quest/purpose, the greater is the fulfilment in life. You truly start living the life of a human being when your quest is beyond your physical survival.

4.     Allies/Mentors

In the pursuit of your purpose/quest, you must make alliances with like-minded people to keep you motivated and find mentors to guide you on the chosen path. Without this support/guidance, you may get frustrated or get lost under the heavy weight of your quest. No one has ever won any war without allies.

5.     Challenges

The higher the quest, the greater will be the challenge. Life presents each challenge to test one’s competence/worthiness for claiming the reward of one’s quest. Giving up in the face of a challenge is giving up this reward. Your current weaknesses or bad habits are your greatest challenges. Address one challenge at a time. Take a resolve to win over this challenge sincerely.

6.     Transformation

In finding ways to win over a challenge, one grows in competence/worthiness. You go through a transformation, however slow it may be. You don’t build a strong physique overnight. Your competition is with yourself. “Am I a better version of myself today?”, should be your daily enquiry. Learning should never stop while pursuing your quest.

7.     Legacy

Did anyone else benefit from your life’s journey? Did your life inspire someone else? Are you leaving behind any legacy for others on a similar journey? A true hero always leaves behind a rich legacy that survives much after he/she is gone.

Further research has shown that those who inculcated all the above seven elements in their life find their life most meaningful, fulfilled, and happy. A very useful way of finding this out is to write your own life story to date and check how much of these seven elements are already involved in it and work on improving them in the future. Thus, everyone can become a hero of his/her own life story and enjoy complete fulfilment.

Dealing with Decision Dilemma

Every decision shapes our future. However, we often face situations where decision making becomes very difficult and we are not sure if the decision taken is correct. We are caught up in the decision dilemma. Recently, I came across a talk that gave a practical approach to solve this dilemma. Here, I share my understanding of this approach.

1.     Decide to Challenge

Most of us live our lives like a traveler who doesn’t know from where he came, where he is going and why is he on the train. We simply follow others like herds of cattle. So, the first thing one has to do is to challenge the ‘status quo’ and other’s definition of success. You must find your own definition of success. You must pause and ask: “What is it that will give me ultimate fulfilment and happiness in life?” Look around and check if those, who have reached the top of their respective career following common belief of success, enjoy ultimate fulfilment and happiness. It is possible that you may not figure it out on your own.

2.     Decide to Consult

It is time to look for external help. This help may come from reading inspiring books, listening to motivational talks, or consulting someone who radiates happiness around. Such reading and consulting will open your eye of wisdom through which you can clearly see your ultimate goal in life. Maintain this relationship with books and mentors throughout your life.

3.     Decide to Connect

Having defined the ultimate goal of life, take every decision that is connected with this goal. This is the best use of your available time, energy and resources. Don’t give up what you want most for what feels good now. Temptations born out of old habits will lure you towards immediate pleasures, thus draining your precious limited assets. However, your conviction on the ultimate goal will help you steer out of such pitfalls. Test every decision by asking: “Will it help me move towards my goal?”

4.     Decide to be Courageous

Drop all doubts, hesitations, fear and anxiety while pursuing your goal. Once you mentally surrender to the goal, you will be filled with the required courage to overcome all barriers. Take risk, if you must, to progress on the path. Enjoy the thrill of breaking out of your comfort zone. Every time you step out of your comfort zone, you get stronger and matured. Life will continuously test your strength by posing challenges on the way. Reward of winning a challenge is a bigger challenge. A player wins a tournament by consistently winning over increasing challenges through the tournament. Play the game of life in this spirit while enjoying every challenge.

Is Artificial Intelligence (AI) Scary?

While the media is abuzz with the application of AI in almost every fabric of our personal and professional lives, people are worried about being replaced by the robots in the not so distant future. Is this going to be true? Will the robots rule over humans?

Let us first decipher what does Artificial Intelligence mean? Artificial intelligence (AI) is a term for simulated intelligence in machines. These machines are programmed to "think" like a human and mimic the way a person acts. Artificial intelligence is based around the idea that human intelligence can be defined in such exact terms that a machine can mimic it.

Let us now look at how human intelligence works.

Judea Pearl and Dana Mackenzie in their book, “The Book of Why” explain. Human intelligence essentially works in three ways: Seeing or Observing, Doing or Intervening and Imagining; retrospection or understanding.

Through observation, we associate the observed fact with a conclusion or belief. In this approach, we limit ourselves to the passively collected data and try to find a pattern which may help us predict a conclusion.

Through doing or intervening, we mentally try to change the observed data, which is the basis of prediction. We ask, “What would be the result, if I did something else? Or, how can I make this happen?” No amount of passively collected data can help us answer such questions. And yet, we humans often use this approach effortlessly in making-up our minds.

Through imagining, retrospection or understanding, we go back in time, change history, and ask, “What would have happened, if I had not taken that job?” Passively collected data become ineffective to answer such questions. We cannot run an experiment of denying job to a person who has already worked on that job and compare the results. Yet the human mind makes such explanation-seeking inferences reliably and repeatedly.

George Bernard Shaw has famously said, “There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”

Now the question is, “Can this vast human intelligence be defined in such exact terms that a machine can mimic it?” If yes, we have reasons to fear AI.

Presently, machine learning programs (including deep neural networks) operate almost entirely in an associational mode. They are driven by a set of observations to which they attempt to fit a function. However, complex this function may be, raw data still drives the fitted function. The programmed driverless car cannot predict how a pedestrian under the influence of alcohol will respond to a honking horn. A recent fatal incident involving a driverless car and a pedestrian in the USA is a testimony of such serious flaws.

Mathematicians and Scientists have realized such serious limitations of the machines and are busy developing “Causal Models” that may try to mimic human way of thinking, but will they come even close? We must not forget that a machine is after all developed by a human mind. And hence, no matter how advanced they may become, they will remain subservient to human mind.

Having said this, AI powered machines will take over all those jobs which are currently based on passively collected data and their analyses. However, this shouldn’t be viewed as a threat. Indeed, this is an opportunity for humans to rise above the current level of working, and tap into those areas of their minds which have remain dormant all this time.

Therefore, upskilling and reskilling is the only way forward for the human race to sustain and thrive in the future.

I suggest taking following steps to capitalize on this golden opportunity of the AI knocking at our future doors:

• Make friendship with the AI. It is here to help us do our work more efficiently and effectively. Indeed, we should call it “Augmented Intelligence”, instead of “Artificial Intelligence”.

• Learn and use available and evolving AI tools in day-to-day work. Many of them are freely available, at least at present. Make a habit of getting familiar with one tool every week. A word of caution: don’t share your confidential information/document with any online tool.

• Focus on sharpening your soft skills: communication, teamwork, leadership, time management, adaptability, problem-solving, critical thinking, work ethic, creativity and emotional intelligence.

• Make your life simple. Declutter all those aspects that create confusion and irritation in the mind.

• Spend some time with the nature and practice meditation. This will help you rooted in the reality, lest you get lost in the virtual world.

• Search for the real purpose of your life and what makes you deeply happy. Direct your energy towards such goals.

• Remember: you are a unique creation of the nature with unlimited capacity to think and create.

Anger Management

 

Anger is a by-product of desire. When a desire for something or someone is obstructed, anger arises against the obstruction. The obstruction can be a person, situation or a thing.

The ideal condition is to not have any desire at all. No desire, no potential for any anger. However, it is not practical to live in the world with ‘zero’ desire. We can reduce the number of our desires and improve their qualities through discipline and practice, but eliminating them altogether is a Himalayan task assigned to an ascetic or a monk.

So, we have to live with some desires to fulfil our needs and manage its by-product ‘anger’.

Anger is the channel of wasting our vital energy. It is a common knowledge that we can’t solve a problem or achieve desired result through anger. Worse, it creates further problems. And yet, we fall prey to the anger wasting our precious energy, which we could use for other creative tasks. It is like having a powerful car which we can’t drive properly. We are bound to make accidents instead of using it for a safe journey.

There is a very small gap between anger arising and expressing itself in our behavior. Often this gap can’t be noticed. However, with acute alertness it is possible to detect the rise of anger within and allow no action for at least 90 sec. Research has shown that the hormones released by the anger will flush through our body and mind within 90 sec. After this delay, we will be in a much better condition to respond to the undesirable situation in a creative way.

Constant practice of this method in every small undesirable situation, while reflecting on the merit of our desire and its fulfilment, will strengthen us to tackle larger undesirable situations and avoid wasting vital energy through anger.

Quietening the Mind - Going beyond Speech

This blog is based on my understanding from a talk by Swami Anubhavanand given on the occasion of Ramnavmi on 30 March 2023 in Washington.

Mind is a chatter box in default mode. It's never at rest. This restlessness of the mind keeps tormenting our lives continuously, except when we fall in deep sleep. How can we gain control over our own minds and regain the elusive peace? This is the subject of this blog.

Mind is the domain of thoughts and thoughts are based on words that we speak. We can't think without using any word. If you doubt this, try thinking without using any word. So, thinking is closely linked to speaking - whether loudly or silently.

Speech (vani) occurs at four levels:

1. Un-manifest (para vani), when it is in its potential form as pure awareness or consciousness
2. Ready to manifest (pashyanti vani), when it arises in the mind as an urge devoid of any thought
3. Manifested as thought in the mind (madhyama vani), when you start hearing yourself talking in the mind
4. Manifested as speech (vaikhari vani), when others can hear you speak

Through a long unconscious living, we have built a storehouse of un-manifest/unfulfilled desires. These desires give rise to thoughts which turn into speech. We also need to understand that we need thoughts to live in the world for communicating with others. Therefore, thoughts, per-se, don't create problems. It is the uncontrolled flow of thoughts that create havoc in our minds and lives. Just as a gently flowing river doesn't create any problem. But the same river with a strong flow of water overflows its banks and cause destructions.

We generate a strong flow of thoughts whenever we think of any finite object or a being. Such thoughts lead to other related thoughts thus multiplying in number and gaining momentum. To break this stream of thoughts, it is recommended to loudly say something of infinite nature, such as the name of lord (e.g. "Jai Shri Ram"). When we forcibly intercept the stream of materialist thoughts with a thought of infinite nature, we break the flow. The thought of an infinite nature has a unique property that it doesn't lead to another thought. Thus, chanting the name of lord halts the flow of thoughts. Repeating this chant a few times with small gaps will arrest the earlier thought flow for a longer time, during which we can gain control over our thinking and apply the mind towards a realistic goal. 

After arresting the thought flow through intervention of loud chanting (vaikhari vani) initially, we should repeat this process through silent / mental chanting (madhyama vani) which will have deeper impact on breaking our habit of unnecessary thinking. Slowly, but surely, this practice will help us regain control over our own minds and we will be able to use our minds to accomplish whatever we consciously want just as we use a gadget to perform an activity. We will be free of mental chattering. We will be able to maintain mental silence longer and at will.

Understanding Stress

 What is stress?

A state of unease. When you are not in your natural state - the state of perfect ease.

What causes stress?

First, let's understand where the stress is experienced. It's clearly experienced in the mind, not in the body though the body may show some symptoms of stress. Mind is the domain of only 'thoughts'. So, a thought must be the cause of stress. 

What type of thoughts causes stress?

A thought of rejecting what is in the present moment. When we don't accept whatever is presented to us in the present moment, we automatically entertain a thought of what should have been presented to us in that moment. We call this thought an expectation which is different from the reality of the moment. This thought (expectation) takes us away from our natural state of ease and we experience stress.

How can we de-stress?

We can de-stress by countering the thought of expectation with other thoughts challenging its validity. Did I have control over everything that were required to meet my expected result? Can I change the present result by rejecting it? Obviously, the answer to both these questions is NO. This mental process will prepare the mind to accept the 'reality' of the moment. With such acceptance, mind will return to its natural state of ease. Stress will disappear.

Can we live without any stress?

Indeed, we live better without any stress. Our performance improves when we do anything while being in the natural state, as we are able to commit 100% attention to the job at hand. We can apply ourselves better in shaping the future course of events to meet our goals.